Riddle-Master

by Patricia A. Mckillip

  He said evenly, “What strictures of justice did you take at Erlenstar Mountain out of the brain of the High One?”

  Morgon’s hand lifted, cracked across the harpist’s face in a furious, back-handed blow that made even Farr blink. The harpist recovered his balance with an effort.

  Morgon said, his voice husked with pain, “I learned enough. From both of you. I am not interested in an argument over justice. I am interested in killing you. But because we are in a King’s hall, and your blood will stain his floor, it would seem courteous to explain why I am spilling it. I got tired of your harping.”

  “It broke the silence.”

  “Is there nothing in this world that will break your silence?” His words bounced shapelessly back and forth in the high corners. “I must have done enough screaming in that mountain to shatter any silence but yours. You were well-trained by the Founder. There’s nothing of you I can touch. Except your life. And even that I wonder if you value.”

  “Yes. I value it.”

  “You would never beg for it. I begged for death from Ghisteslwchlohm; he ignored me. That was his mistake. But he was wise enough to run. You should have started running that day you led me into that mountain. You aren’t a fool. You might have known the Star-Bearer could survive what the Prince of Hed could not. Yet you stayed and played me songs of Hed until I wept in my dreams. I could have broken your harp strings with a thought.”

  “You did. Several times.”

  “And you did not have the sense to run.”

  There seemed, in the absolute silence of the hall, an odd illusion of privacy about them both. The Kings, their faces battle-weary and runnelled with bitterness, looked as engrossed as if they were watching a segment of their own lives. Duac, she could tell, was still struggling with the idea of the Founder in Erlenstar Mountain; Rood had stopped struggling. His face was drained of all expression. He watched, swallowing now and then the shout or the tears gathering in his throat.

  The harpist, pausing a little before he spoke, said, “No. I am a fool. Perhaps I gambled that you might pursue the master and ignore the servant. Or that even then, you might have held, as you could not hold the land-rule, something of the tenets of riddle-mastery.”

  Morgon’s hands closed, but he kept them still. “What have the sterile tenets of an empty College to do with either my life or your death?”

  “Perhaps nothing. It was a passing thought. Like my harping. An abstract question that a man with a sword at his side rarely pauses to contemplate. The implications of action.”

  “Words.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “You’re a Master—what stricture was strong enough to keep you adhering to the tenets of riddle-mastery? The first stricture of the Founder of Lungold: the language of truth is the language of power—truth of name, truth of essence. You found the essence of betrayal more to your taste. Who are you to judge me if I find the name of revenge, murder, justice—what name you want to put to it—more to my liking?”

  “Who is anyone to judge you? You are the Star-Bearer. As you hounded me across Hel, Raederle mistook you for Ghisteslwchlohm.”

  She saw him flinch. Rood, the breath scraping in his throat, whispered, “Morgon, I swear, tenets or no tenets, if you don’t kill him, I will.”

  “It is, as I said, an abstract question. Rood’s idea of justice makes much more sense.” Deth’s voice sounded dry, tired, finished.

  Morgon, an agony breaking into his face, screamed at him in a voice that must have reverberated through the black caverns of Erlenstar Mountain, “What is it you want of me?” He touched the air at his side, and the great starred sword startled into shape. It lifted, blurred in his hands. Raederle knew that she would see them locked forever that way: the harpist unarmed, unmoved, his head lifting to the rise of the sword as it cut upward through the sunlight, the powerful gathering of Morgon’s muscles as he swung the blade in a double-handed stroke that brought it to balance at the apex of its ascent. Then the harpist’s eyes fell to Morgon’s face. He whispered, “They were promised a man of peace.”

  The sword, hovering oddly, knotted strands of light from the windows. The harpist stood under the raw edge of its shadow with a familiar stillness that seemed suddenly, to Raederle, in its implications, more terrible than anything she had seen either in herself or in Morgon. A sound broke out of her, a protest against the glimpse of that patience, and she felt Duac’s hand pull at her. But she could not move. Light shivered abruptly down the blade. The sword fell, crashed with a spattering of blue sparks against the floor. The hilt, rebounding, came to rest with the stars face down on the stones.

  There was not a sound in the room but Morgon’s breathing, shuddering uncontrollably through him. He faced the harpist, his hands clenched at his sides; he did not move or speak. The harpist, gazing back at him, stirred a little. The blood came suddenly back into his face. His lips moved as though he were about to speak, but the word faltered against Morgon’s unrelenting silence. He took a step backward, as in question. Then his head bowed. He turned, his own hands closed, walked swiftly and quietly through the motionless Kings, out of the hall, his head, unhooded, still bent under the weight of the sun.

  Morgon stared, unseeing, at the assembly of living and dead. The unresolved, explosive turmoil in him hung like a dangerous spell over the room. Raederle, standing beside Rood and Duac, unable to move in the threat of it, wondered what word would bring Morgon’s thoughts back from the black, inescapable caverns of stone, and the blind corner of truth into which the harpist had led him. He seemed, recognizing none of them, a stranger, dangerous with power; but as she waited for whatever shape that power would take, she realized slowly that it had just shaped itself, and that he had given them his name. She spoke it softly, almost hesitantly, knowing and not knowing the man to whom it belonged.

  “Star-Bearer.”

  His eyes went to her; the silence ebbed away between his fingers as they loosened. The expression welling back into his face drew her toward him across the hall. She heard Rood start to speak behind her; his voice broke on a harsh, dry sob and Duac murmured something. She stood before the Star-Bearer, brought him with a touch out of the grip of his memories.

  She whispered, “Who were promised a man of peace?”

  He shuddered then, reached out to her. She put her arms around him, resting the skull on his shoulder like a warning against any interruption. “The children . . .”

  She felt a tremor of awe run through her. “The Earth-Masters’ children?”

  “The children of stone, in that black cave . . .” His hold of her tightened. “He gave me that choice. And I thought he was defenseless. I should have—I should have remembered what deadly weapons he could forge out of words.”

  “Who is he? That harpist?”

  “I don’t know. But I do know this: I want him named.” He was silent then, for a long while, his face hidden against her. He moved finally, said something she could not hear; she drew back a little. He felt the bone against his face. He reached up, took the skull. He traced an eye socket with his thumb, then looked at her. His voice, worn raw, was calmer.

  “I watched you, that night on Hallard Blackdawn’s lands. I was near you every night as you moved through An. No one, living or dead, would have touched you. But you never needed my help.”

  “I felt you near,” she whispered. “But I thought—I thought you were—”

  “I know.”

  “Well, then—well, then, what did you think I was trying to do?” Her voice rose. “Did you think I was trying to protect Deth?”

  “That’s exactly what you were doing.”

  She stared at him wordlessly, thinking of all she had done during those strange, interminable days. She burst out, “But you still stayed with me, to protect me?” He nodded. “Morgon, I told you what I am; you could see what dark power I was waking in me—you knew its origins. You knew I am kin to those shape-changers who tried to kill you, you thought I was helping the man who
had betrayed you—why in Hel’s name did you trust me?”

  His hands, circling the gold crown on the skull, closed on the worn metal with sudden strength. “I don’t know. Because I chose to. Then, and forever. Is that how long you intend to carry this skull around?”

  She shook her head, mute again, and held out her hand for it, to give it back to Farr. The little, angular, blond-colored pattern on her palm shone clear in the light; Morgon’s hand dropped abruptly to her wrist.

  “What is that?”

  She resisted the impulse to close her fingers over it. “It came—it came out the first time I held fire. I used a stone from King’s Mouth Plain to elude the Ymris war-ships, with an illusion of light. While I was bound to it, looking into it, I saw a man holding it, as though I were looking into a memory. I almost—I was always just on the verge of knowing him. Then I felt one of the shape-changers in my mind, wanting his name, and the bidding was broken. The stone is lost, but . . . the pattern of it burned into my hand.”

  His hand loosened, lay with a curious gentleness on her wrist. She looked up at him; the fear in his face chilled her heart. He put his arms around her again with the same gentleness, as if she might drift away from him like a mist and only blind hope could keep her there.

  The rasp of metal on the stones made them both turn. Duac, who had picked the starred sword up off the floor, said apprehensively to Morgon, “What is it? On her hand?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. I only know that for a year Ghisteslwchlohm searched my mind for a piece of knowledge, went again and again through every moment of my life looking for one certain face, one name. That might have been it.”

  “Whose name?” Duac asked. Raederle, horror shooting through her, dropped her face against Morgon’s shoulder.

  “He never bothered to tell me.”

  “If they want the stone, they can find it themselves,” Raederle said numbly. He had not answered Duac’s question, but he would answer her, later. “No one—the shape-changer could learn nothing from me. It’s in the sea with Peven’s crown . . .” She lifted her head suddenly, said to Duac, “I believe our father knew. About the High One. And about—probably about me.”

  “I wouldn’t doubt it.” Then he added wearily, “I think he was born knowing everything. Except how to find his way home.”

  “Is he in trouble?” Morgon asked. Duac looked at him surprisedly a moment. Then he shook his head.

  “I don’t—I don’t think so. I don’t feel it.”

  “Then I know where he might have gone. I’ll find him.”

  Rood crossed the hall to join them. His face was tear-stained; it held the familiar, austere expression that he carried with him into his studies and his battles. He said softly to Morgon, “I’ll help you.”

  “Rood—”

  “He’s my father. You are the greatest Master in this realm. And I am an Apprentice. And may I be buried next to Farr in Hel if I watch you walk out of this hall the same way you walked into it: alone.”

  “He won’t,” Raederle said.

  Duac protested, his voice lowering. “You can’t leave me alone with all these Kings, Rood. I don’t even know half their names. Those in this hall may have been subdued for a little while, but for how long? Aum will rise, and west Hel; there are about five people in An who might not panic, and you and I are among them.”

  “I am?”

  “No wraith,” Morgon said shortly, “will enter this house again.” He weighed the skull in his hand, as they watched him, then tossed it across the room to Farr. The King caught it soundlessly, vaguely startled, as if he had forgotten whose it was. Morgon surveyed the still, ghostly assembly. He said, to them, “Do you want a war? I’ll give you one. A war of desperation, for the earth itself. If you lose it, you may drift like sorrow from one end of the realm to another without finding a place to rest. What honor—if the dead are concerned with honor—can you take running Cyn Croeg’s bull to death?”

  “There’s revenge,” Farr suggested pointedly.

  “Yes. There’s that. But I will seal this house against you stone by stone if I must. I will do what you force me to do. And I am not concerned with honor, either.” He paused, then added slowly, “Or with the bindings and unbindings of the dead of An.”

  “You have no such power over the dead of An,” Oen said abruptly. It was a question. Something hard as the ground floor of Erlenstar Mountain surfaced in Morgon’s eyes.

  “I learned,” he said, “from a master. You can fight your private, meaningless battles into oblivion. Or you can fight those who gave Oen his land-heir, and who will destroy Anuin, Hel, the earth that binds you, if you let them. And that,” he added, “should appeal to you both.”

  Even the Falconer asked, “How much choice do we have?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe none.” His hands closed suddenly; he whispered, “I swear by my name that if I can, I will give you a choice.”

  There was silence again, from the living and the dead. Morgon turned almost reluctantly to Duac, a question in his eyes that Duac, his instincts channelled to the heartbeat of An, understood.

  He said brusquely, “Do what you want in this land. Ask what you need from me. I’m no Master, but I can grasp the essentials of what you have said and done in this house. I can’t begin to understand. I don’t know how you could have any power over the land-law of An. You and my father, when you find him, can argue over that later. All I know is that there is an instinct in me to trust you blindly. Beyond reason, and beyond hope.”

  He lifted the sword in his hands, held it out to Morgon. The stars kindled the sunlight to an unexpected beauty. Morgon, staring at Duac, did not move. He started to speak, but no words came. He turned suddenly toward the empty threshold; Raederle, watching him, wondered what he was seeing beyond the courtyard, beyond the walls of Anuin. His hand closed finally on the stars; he took the sword from Duac.

  “Thank you.” They saw then in his face the faint, troubled dawning of curiosity, and a memory that seemed to hold no pain. He lifted his other hand, touched Raederle’s face and she smiled. He said hesitantly, “I have nothing to offer you. Not even Peven’s crown. Not even peace. But can you bear waiting for me a little longer? I wish I knew how long. I need to go to Hed awhile, and then to Lungold. I’ll try to—I’ll try—”

  Her smile faded. “Morgon of Hed,” she said evenly, “if you take one step across that threshold without me, I will lay a curse on your next step and your next until no matter where you go your path will lead you back to me.”

  “Raederle—”

  “I can do it. Do you want to watch me?”

  He was silent, struggling between his longing and his fear for her. He said abruptly, “No. All right. Will you wait for me in Hed? I think I can get us both safely that far.”

  “No.”

  “Then will you—”

  “No.”

  “All right; then—”

  “No.”

  “Then will you come with me?” he whispered. “Because I could not bear to leave you.”

  She put her arms around him, wondering, as she did so, what strange, perilous future she had bargained for. She said only, as his arms circled her, not in gentleness this time, but in a fierce and terrified determination, “That’s good. Because I swear by Ylon’s name you never will.”

  Harpist in the Wind

  THE STAR-BEARER AND Raederle of An sat on the crown of the highest of the seven towers of Anuin. The white stone fell endlessly away from them, down to the summer-green slope the great house sat on. The city itself spilled away from the slope to the sea. The sky revolved above them, a bright, changeless blue, its expression broken only by the occasional spiral of a hawk. Morgon had not moved for hours. The morning sun had struck his profile on the side of the embrasure he sat in and shifted his shadow without his notice to the other side. He was aware of Raederle only as some portion of the land around him, of the light wind, and the crows sketching gleaming black lines through the
green orchards in the distance: something peaceful and remote, whose beauty stirred every once in a while through his thoughts.

  His mind was spinning endless threads of conjecture that snarled constantly around his ignorance. Stars, children with faces of stone, the fiery, broken shards of a bowl he had smashed in Astrin’s hut, dead cities, a dark-haired shape-changer, a harpist, all resolved under his probing into answerless riddles. He gazed back at his own life, at the history of the realm, and picked at facts like potshards, trying to piece them together. Nothing fit; nothing held; he was cast constantly out of his memories into the soft summer air.

  He moved finally, stiffly as a stone deciding to move, and slid his hands over his eyes. Flickering shapes like ancient beasts without names winged into light behind his eyelids. He cleared his mind again, let images drift and flow into thought until they floundered once again on the shoals of impossibility.

  The vast blue sky broke into his vision, and the swirling maze of streets and houses below. He could think no longer; he leaned against his shadow. The silence within the slab of ancient stone eased through him; his thoughts, worn meaningless, became quiet again.

  He saw a soft leather shoe then and a flicker of leaf-green cloth. He turned his head and found Raederle sitting cross-legged on the ledge beside him.

  He leaned over precariously and drew her against him. He laid his face against her long windblown hair and saw the burning strands beneath his closed eyes. He was silent for a time, holding her tightly, as if he sensed a wind coming that might sweep them out of their high, dangerous resting place.