Riddle-Master

by Patricia A. Mckillip

  “But Morgon . . . you belong here. This is your home, you’ve come home—”

  “Yes. Until dawn.”

  “No!” His fingers clamped on Morgon’s shoulders again. “I don’t know what you’re running from, but I’m not watching you leave again. You stay here; we can fight for you, with pitchforks and harrow teeth. I’ll borrow an army from somebody—”

  “Eliard—”

  “Shut up! You may have a grip like a bench vise, but you can’t throw me into Tristan’s rosebushes anymore. You’re staying here, where you belong.”

  “Eliard, will you stop shouting!” He shook Eliard a little, astonishing him into silence. Then a small whirlwind of Tristan and dogs broke against them, shouting and barking. Tristan leaped at Morgon from a dead run, her arms clamped around his neck, her face buried at his collarbone. He kissed what he could find of it, then pushed her away, lifted her lace between his hands. He barely recognized it. Something in his expression made her face crumple; she flung her arms around him again. Then she saw Raederle and reached out to her, and the dogs swarmed at Morgon. A couple of lights sparked in the windows of distant farmhouses. Morgon felt a moment’s panic. Then he simply grew still, still as the motionless pour of the road under his feet, the moonlit air. The dogs dropped away from him; Tristan and Raederle stopped talking to look at him. Eliard stood quietly, bound unconsciously to his stillness.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked uneasily. Morgon moved after a moment to his side, dropped an arm wearily over his shoulders.

  “So much,” he said. “Eliard, I’m putting you in danger just standing here, talking to you. Let’s go in the house at least.”

  “All right.” But he did not move, his face turned away from Morgon to where Raederle stood, her face a blur of misty lines and shadows, jewelled pins here and there in her dishevelled hair flecking it with fire. She smiled, and Morgon heard Eliard swallow. “Raederle of An?” he said tentatively, and she nodded.

  “Yes.” She held out her hand, and Eliard took it as if it were made of chaff and might blow away. He seemed tongue-tied.

  Tristan said proudly, “We sailed all the way to Isig and back, looking for Morgon. Where were you? Where did you—” Her voice faltered suddenly, oddly. “Where did you sail from?”

  “Anuin,” Morgon said. He caught the uncertain flicker of her dark eyes and read her thoughts. He said again, tiredly, “Let’s go in the house; you can ask me.”

  She slid her hand into his free hand and walked with him, without speaking, to Akren.

  She went down to the kitchens to find food for them, while Eliard lit torches and brushed a tangle of harness off the benches so they could sit.

  He stood looking down at Morgon, kicking the bench moodily, then said abruptly, “Tell me so I can understand. Why you can’t stay. Where do you have to get to so badly now?”

  “I don’t know. Nowhere. Anywhere but where I am. It’s death to stand still.”

  Eliard scarred the bench with his boot. “Why?” he said explosively, and Morgon drew his hands over his face, murmuring.

  “I’m trying to find out,” he said. “Answer the unanswered—” He broke off at the expression on Eliard’s face. “I know. If I had stayed home in the first place instead of going to Caithnard, I wouldn’t be sitting here in the middle of the night wanting to hold dawn back with my hands and afraid to tell you what cargo I brought with me to Hed.”

  Eliard sat down slowly, blinking a little. “What?” Tristan came back up the stairs then with a huge tray full of beer, milk, fresh bread and fruit, the cold remains of a roast goose, butter and cheese. She balanced it on a stool between them. Morgon shifted; she sat down beside him and poured beer. She handed a cup to Raederle, who tasted it tentatively. Morgon watched her pour; her face had grown leaner, the graceful, sturdy bones more pronounced.

  She was scowling at the head on the beer, waiting for it to subside before she finished pouring. Her eyes flicked at him, then dropped, and he said softly, “I found Deth at Anuin. I didn’t kill him.”

  The breath went out of her soundlessly. She rested the beer pitcher on one knee, the cup on the other, and looked at Morgon finally. “I didn’t want to ask.”

  He reached out, touched her face; he saw her eyes follow the white vesta-scars on his palm as he dropped his hand again. Eliard stirred.

  “It’s none of my business,” he said huskily. “But you only tracked him clear across the realm.” An odd hope touched his face. “Was he . . . did he explain—”

  “He explained nothing.” He took the beer from Tristan and drank; he felt blood ease back into his face. He added, more quietly, “I followed Deth through An and caught up with him at Anuin twelve days ago. I stood before him in the king’s hall and explained to him that I was going to kill him. Then I raised my sword with both hands to do just that, while he stood without moving, watching it rise.” He checked. Eliard’s face was rigid.

  “And then what?”

  “Then . . .” He searched for words, pulled back into memory. “I didn’t kill him. There’s an ancient riddle from Ymris: Who were Belu and Bilo, and how were they bound? Two Ymris princes who were born at the same moment, and whose deaths, it was foretold, would occur at the same moment. They grew to hate each other, but they were so bound that one could not kill the other without destroying himself.”

  Eliard was eyeing him strangely. “A riddle did that? It kept you from killing him?”

  Morgon sat back. For a moment he sipped beer without speaking, wondering if anything he had done in his life had ever made sense to Eliard. Then Eliard leaned forward, gripped his wrist gently.

  “You told me once my brains were made of oak. Maybe so. But I’m glad you didn’t kill him. I would have understood why, if you had. But I wouldn’t have been certain, ever again, of what you might or might not do.” He loosed Morgon and handed him a goose leg. “Eat.”

  Morgon looked at him. He said softly, “You have the makings of a fine riddler.”

  Eliard snorted, flushing. “You wouldn’t catch me dead at Caithnard. Eat.” He cut thin slices of bread and meat and cheese for Raederle and gave them to her. Meeting her eyes at last as she smiled, he found his tongue finally.

  “Are you . . . are you married?”

  She shook her head over a bite. “No.”

  “Then what—have you come to wait here?” He looked a little incredulous, but his voice was warm. “You would be very welcome.”

  “No.” She was talking to Eliard, but she seemed, to Morgon, to be answering his own hopes. “I am doing no more waiting.”

  “Then what are you going to do?” Eliard said, bewildered. “Where will you live?” His eyes moved to Morgon. “What are you going to do? When you leave at dawn? Do you have any idea?”

  He nodded. “A vague idea. I need help. And I need answers. According to rumor, the last of the wizards are gathering at Lungold to challenge Ghisteslwchlohm. From the wizards, I can get help. From the Founder, I can get some answers.”

  Eliard stared at him. He heaved himself to his feet suddenly. “Why didn’t you just ask him while you were at Erlenstar Mountain? It would have saved you the bother of going to Lungold. You’re going to ask him questions. Morgon, I swear a cork in a beer keg has more sense than you do. What’s he going to do? Stand there politely and answer them?”

  “What do you want me to do?” Morgon stood, unexpectedly, his voice fierce, anguished, wondering if he was arguing with Eliard or with the implacable obtuseness of the island that suddenly held no more place for him. “Sit here, let him come knocking at your door to find me? Will you open your eyes and see me instead of the wraith of some memory you have of me? I am branded with stars on my face, with vesta-scars on my hands. I can take nearly any shape that has a word to name it. I have fought, I have killed, I intend to kill again. I have a name older than this realm, and I have no home except in memory. I asked a riddle two years ago, and now I am trapped in a maze of riddles, hardly knowing how to begin to find
my way out. The heart of that maze is war. Look beyond Hed for once in your life. Try drinking some fear along with that beer. This realm is on the verge of war. There is no protection for Hed.”

  “War. What are you talking about? There’s some fighting in Ymris, but Ymris is always at war.”

  “Do you have any idea who Heureu Ymris is fighting?”

  “No.”

  “Neither does he. Eliard, I saw the rebel army as I passed through Ymris. There are men in it who have already died, who are still fighting, with their bodies possessed by nothing human. If they choose to attack Hed, what protection do you have against them?”

  Eliard made a sound in his throat. “The High One,” he said. Then the blood ran completely out of his face. “Morgon,” he whispered, and Morgon’s hands clenched.

  “Yes. I have been called a man of peace by dead children, but I think I’ve brought nothing but chaos. Eliard, at Anuin I talked with Duac about some way to protect Hed. He offered to send men and warships.”

  “Is that what you brought?”

  He said steadily, “The trade-ship at Tol that brought us carried, along with regular cargo, armed kings and lords, great warriors of the Three Portions—” Eliard’s fingers closed slowly on his arm.

  “Kings?”

  “They understand land-love, and they understand war. They won’t understand Hed, but they’ll fight for it. They are—”

  “You brought wraiths of An to Hed?” Eliard whispered. “They’re at Tol?”

  “There are six more ships at Caithnard, waiting—”

  “Morgon of Hed, are you out of your mind!” His fingers bit to the bone of Morgon’s arm, and Morgon tensed. But Eliard swung away from him abruptly. His fist fell like a mallet on the tray, sending food and crockery flying, except for the milk pitcher, which Tristan had just lifted. She sat hugging it against her, white, while Eliard shouted.

  “Morgon, I’ve heard tales of the chaos in An! How animals are run to death at night and the crops rot in the fields because no one dares harvest. And you want me to take that into my land! How can you ask that of me?”

  “Eliard, I don’t have to ask!” Their eyes locked. Morgon continued relentlessly, watching himself change shape in Eliard’s eyes, sensing something precious, elusive, slipping farther and farther away from him. “If I wanted the land-rule of Hed, I could take it back. When Ghisteslwchlohm took it from me, piece by piece, I realized that the power of land-law has structure and definition, and I know to the last hair root on a hop vine the structure of the land-law of Hed. If I wanted to force this on you, I could, just as I learned to force the ancient dead of the Three Portions to come here—”

  Eliard, backed against the hearthstones, breathing through his mouth, shuddered suddenly. “What are you?”

  “I don’t know.” His voice shook uncontrollably. “It’s time you asked.”

  There was a moment’s silence: the peaceful, unbroken voice of the night of Hed. Then Eliard shrugged himself away from the hearth, stepped past Morgon, kicking shards out of the way. He leaned over a table, his hands flat on it, his head bowed. He said, his voice muffled a little, “Morgon, they’re dead.”

  Morgon dropped his forearm against the mantel, leaned his face on it. “Then they have that advantage over the living in a battle.”

  “Couldn’t you have just brought a living army? It would have been simpler.”

  “The moment you bring armed men to this island, you’ll ask for attack. And you’ll get it.”

  “Are you sure? Are you so sure they’ll dare attack Hed? You might be seeing things that aren’t there.”

  “I might be.” His words seemed lost against the worn stones. “I’m not sure, anymore, of anything. I’m just afraid for everything I love. Do you know the one simple, vital thing I could never learn from Ghisteslwchlohm in Erlenstar Mountain? How to see in the dark.”

  Eliard turned. He was crying again as he pulled Morgon away from the stones. “I’m sorry. Morgon, I may yell at you, but if you pulled the land-rule out of me by the roots, I would still trust you blindly. Will you stay here? Will you please stay? Let the wizards come to you. Let Ghisteslwchlohm come. You’ll just be killed if you leave Hed again.”

  “No. I won’t die.” He crooked an arm around Eliard’s neck, hugged him tightly. “I’m too curious. The dead won’t trouble your farmers. I swear it. You will scarcely notice them. They are bound to me. I showed them something of the history and peace of Hed, and they are sworn to defend that peace.”

  “You bound them.”

  “Mathom loosed his own hold over them, otherwise I would never have considered it.”

  “How do you bind dead Kings of An?”

  “I see out of their eyes. I understand them. Maybe too well.”

  Eliard eyed him. “You’re a wizard,” he said, but Morgon shook his head.

  “No wizard but Ghisteslwchlohm ever touched land-law. I’m simply powerful and desperate.” He looked down at Raederle. Inured as she was to the occasional uproar in her father’s house, her eyes held a strained, haunted expression. Tristan was staring silently into the milk pitcher. Morgon touched her dark hair; her face lifted, colorless, frozen.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to come home and start a battle.”

  “It’s all right,” she said after a moment. “At least that’s one familiar thing you can still do.” She put the milk pitcher down and got to her feet. “I’ll get a broom.”

  “I will.”

  That brought the flash of a smile into her eyes. “All right. You can sweep. I’ll get more food.” She touched his scarred palm hesitantly. “Then tell me how you change shape.”

  He told them after he swept up the mess, and he watched Eliard’s face fill with an incredulous wonder as he explained how it felt to become a tree. He racked his brain for other things to tell them that might help them forget for a moment the terrible side of his journey. He talked about racing across the northlands in vesta-shape, when the world was nothing but wind and snow and stars. He told them of the marvellous beauty of Isig Pass and of the wolf-king’s court, with its wild animals wandering in and out, and of the mists and sudden stones and marshes of Herun. And for a little while, he forgot his own torment as he found in himself an unexpected love of the wild, harsh, and beautiful places of the realm. He forgot the time, too, until he saw the moon beginning its descent, peering into the top of one of the windows. He broke off abruptly, saw apprehension replace the smile in Eliard’s eyes.

  “I forgot about the dead.”

  Eliard controlled a reply visibly. “It’s not dawn, yet. The moon hasn’t even set.”

  “I know. But the ships will come to Tol one by one from Caithnard, when I give the word. I want them away from Hed completely before I leave. Don’t worry. You won’t see the dead, but you should be there when they enter Hed.”

  Eliard rose reluctantly. His face was chalky under his tan. “You’ll be with me?”

  “Yes.”

  They all went back down the road to Tol that lay bare as a blade between the dark fields of corn. Morgon, walking beside Raederle, his fingers linked in hers, felt the tension still in her and the weariness of the long, dangerous voyage. She sensed his thoughts and smiled at him as they neared Tol.

  “I left one pig-headed family for another . . .”

  The moon, three-quarters full, seemed angled, as if it were peering down at Tol. Across the black channel were two flaming, slitted eyes: the warning fires on the horns of the Caithnard harbor. Nets hung in silvery webs on the sand; water licked against the small moored boats as they walked down the dock.

  Bri Corbett, hanging over the ship’s railing, called down softly, “Now?”

  “Now,” Morgon said, and Eliard muttered between his teeth.

  “I wish you knew what you were doing.” Then the ramp slid down off the empty deck, and he stepped back, so close to the dock edge he nearly fell off. Morgon felt his mind again.

  Th
e stubbornness, the inflexibility that lay near the heart of Hed seemed to slam like a bar across the end of the ramp. It clenched around Morgon’s thoughts; he eased through it, filling Eliard’s mind with images, rich, brilliant, and erratic, that he had gleaned from the history of the Three Portions out of the minds of the dead. Slowly, as Eliard’s mind opened, something emptied out of the ship, absorbed itself into Hed.

  Eliard shivered suddenly.

  “They’re quiet,” he said, surprised. Morgon’s hand closed above his elbow.

  “Bri will leave for Caithnard now and send the next ship. There are six more. Bri will bring the last one himself, and Raederle and I will leave on that one.”

  “No—”

  “I’ll come back.”

  Eliard was silent. From the ship came the groan of rope and wood, and Bri Corbett’s low, precise orders. The ship eased away from the dockside, its dark canvas stretched full to catch the frail wind. It moved, huge, black, soundless through the moon-spangled water into the night, leaving a shimmering wake that curled away and slowly disappeared.

  Eliard said, watching it, “You will never come back to stay.”

  Six more ships came as slowly, as silently through the night. Once, just before the moon set, Morgon saw shadows flung across the water of armed, crowned figures. The moon sank, shrivelled and weary, into the stars; the last ship moored at the dockside. Tristan was leaning against Morgon, shifting from one foot to another; he held her to keep her warm. Raederle was blurred against the starlit water; her face was a dark profile between the warning fires. Morgon’s eyes moved to the ship. The dead were leaving it; the dark maw of its hold would remain open to take him away from Hed. His mind tangled suddenly with a thousand things he wanted to say to Eliard, but none of them had the power to dispel that ship. Finally, he realized, they were alone again on the dock; the dead were dispersed into Hed, and there was nothing left for him to do but leave.

  He turned to Eliard. The sky was growing very dark in the final, interminable hour before dawn. A low wind moaned among the breakers. He could not see Eliard’s face, only sense his massiveness and the vague mass of land behind him. He said softly, his heart aching, the image of the land drenched gold under the summer sun in his mind’s eye, “I’ll find a way back to Hed. Somehow. Somewhere.”