The Riddle

by Alison Croggon

  Once the news had been exchanged, Dharin began to include

  Maerad in the conversation. It was laborious, translating her questions and then translating the answers, but fortunately the elders seemed endlessly patient. Yes, they did have a story about the Song. Maerad's neck prickled. Yes, even this far north, they had memories of the terrible darkness and winter that had almost destroyed their people, many generations ago, and they had seen signs in the sky and in the snow and in the entrails of animals that made them fear that such times might be returning. They remembered both the Winterking and the Nameless One, although they had different names in the songs of their people. But no, although they kept the stories, they could not tell Maerad what the Split Song was. And as for trees, there were no trees this far north.

  At this answer, Maerad was instantly downcast. Had she come this far, only to find that the answer lay elsewhere? But the woman was still speaking.

  Dharin nodded, and then turned to Maerad. "Gunisinapli says that you should speak, if you wish to know about such things, with their Singer. He is called Inka-Reb. He lives by himself with the wolves, a little distance from here. She warns that he does not speak to everybody and may refuse to see you. But they say of him that he walks between the living and the dead, and that he knows what the dead know."

  "Could he be a Dhillarearen, then?" asked Maerad. Dharin asked Gunisinapli, and she simply lifted her hands in a gesture that seemed to mean, maybe, maybe not.

  "Well, if he is, I can speak with him," said Maerad. "I suppose that is what I should do. How then should I visit him?"

  There followed a list of instructions to which Dharin listened intently. He turned to Maerad. "You will have to purify yourself first. That means that you must live alone in a special hut in the village for a day and a night, fasting and preparing your mind and soul and body with song. You must not sleep. First, before you sing, you must bathe yourself in the spring. After you have sung, you must again wash, and dress yourself, and without speaking to anybody else walk humbly to his place with a clear heart, or a clear desire—the word's not quite translatable. You must take an offering; they say that he usually likes to be given meat. They will leave the offering for you by the door of the hut. Then he may choose to speak to you."

  "How will I find the way?"

  "They will tell you beforehand. They say it is easy to find."

  Maerad nodded, thinking that if the springs were hot, then she could actually have a bath, a luxury she had not enjoyed for so long that she had almost forgotten what it was like. "And when they say 'prepare yourself with song' do they mean special songs? Or can I sing my own?"

  Dharin asked, and this led to a long debate between the elders. Finally he said, "They have their own songs for their own people, but they think it best that you use your own."

  "When can I begin, then? I should prepare as soon as possible."

  "You can go to the hut when the sun rises tomorrow. Then at sunrise the next day you can see Inka-Reb."

  "That sounds good," said Maerad. "But what will you do while I'm there?"

  "I have work to do," said Dharin. "We need meat. The elders have given me permission to visit their hunting grounds."

  Maerad took the instruction to prepare herself with song as a chance to play her lyre. Apart from her clothes, it was the only thing she took with her into the hut. It was a smaller version of the village houses, windowless, with a small door fastened by two layers of hide, and a chimney, which let out smoke and steam. Inside was an oil lamp and a stone seat, and a rough stone bath into which bubbled warm water. Maerad tested it, wondering how hot the water actually was; it was deliciously warm. With a feeling of luxury she threw off all her clothes and climbed in, at last dissolving off her body the accumulated grime of weeks of travel. When she had had enough, she stepped out, dripping onto the stone floor, and then wondered how to dry herself; there was nothing like a towel at hand. In the end, since the hut was so warm, she just sat naked on the seat until she had dried off. Then she put on some clean silk underclothes she had preserved since Murask, and thought about song.

  It had been a long time since Maerad had played much music. A long time, really, since she had felt like a Bard at all. She lifted her lyre and softly stroked the strings, noticing that the calluses on her fingers had softened from not playing. The lyre had been hers for almost as long as she could remember; it had once belonged to her mother, and that was principally why she treasured it, although she knew now there were other reasons why it was precious.

  Well, she thought, how shall I begin? She sat in silence for a time, gathering in her body's memory, where all the songs she had been taught and had heard over many years were stored in her hands and her heart, wondering which one was the best to begin with. At last, she realized the answer was obvious: The Song of Making, the first song of Barding, which told of the creation of Edil-Amarandh. She drew her fingers over the strings in the familiar chords, and began, singing in the Speech rather than in Annaren:

  "First was dark, and the darkness

  Was all mass and all dimension, although without touch

  And the darkness was all colors and all forms, although

  without sight

  And the darkness was all music and all sound, although

  without hearing

  And it was all perfumes, and all tastes, sour and bitter and

  sweet

  But it knew not itself.

  And the darkness thought, and it thought without mind

  And the thought became mind and the thought quickened

  And the thought was Light."

  First was dark ... Maerad mused over the words. She had never really thought about this before. Was it the same Dark that hunted her, or another Dark, perhaps, in the same way that the heavenly lights she had seen the night before had been the Light, but not the same Light that the Bards spoke of, the White Flame of Norloch. She let the thoughts run through her mind like ripples through a stream, letting them flow each into the next, and felt the music moving through her, calming her mind and waking some deep part of her that she hadn't known was asleep.

  Over the rest of the day and through the long night, Maerad played until her fingers were sore and her voice hoarse. She did not sing all the time. She would pause between songs, and think, and all the memories they recalled would swell inside her: the dour face of Mirlad, her first teacher, bent over his harp, or Cadvan singing in the Hall at Innail. She had not played for so long that she felt like a starving person who is suddenly offered a feast, and the words of the songs seemed fresh in her mind as if she had never heard them before, or had failed to understand them until now.

  The day and night passed more quickly than she had expected. When she saw the first light gleaming through the edges of the doorway, she bathed again and dressed herself carefully. Then she packed her lyre into its case, slung it on her back, and took a deep breath and walked outside. By the doorway, as promised, was a package of seal meat for her to take to Inka-Reb. She picked it up; it was big and heavy.

  The world seemed very bright to her raw eyes, and she shaded her face. She walked, as she had been instructed, along a path lined with white stones that led away from the houses toward another part of the springs. Shortly she arrived at the mouth of a big cave. She saw, with deep alarm, that a magnificent white wolf stood by the cave mouth. It looked at her with ice blue eyes and vanished inside. Maerad stood for a moment to gather her courage, and then followed it.

  The light from the cave's entrance went back quite a distance, and she saw that its walls narrowed and then seemed to come to a dead end. There was no sign of the wolf, and she realized that the cave must turn farther in. Treading carefully, she walked forward and found it made a right-angled turn into a low, dark passage. About a hundred paces away she saw a dim light.

  Slowly Maerad walked along the passage, wondering what she would find at the end. A pack of wolves? She was terrified, but some deep calm persisted from her day and n
ight alone, and she pushed down her fear and walked on. It seemed to take a long time, but at last she emerged at the other end of the passage into a huge round chamber. Here, on the threshold, she stopped.

  There was, indeed, a pack of wolves in the cave, and the first thing she noticed was the feral stink of predators. Bones were scattered on the floor; they were probably bones from deer, but to Maerad they looked unsettlingly human. There were between twenty or thirty wolves, all seated on the floor in a semicircle with their eyes fixed upon her. None of them moved.

  In the center of the circle was the biggest man Maerad had ever seen. He seemed almost twice her height and was enormously fat. His long black hair was plaited in a dozen greased braids that hung down to his waist, and he was naked, his skin smeared with what seemed to be a mixture of fat and ash. He wore a bracelet made of carved bone around his upper arm, and a pendant of black stone hung around his neck from a thong of leather. He was squatting next to a pot suspended over a small fire, in which he was cooking some sort of stew. He turned his head and stared at Maerad, and, very slowly, stood up.

  There was a long silence. Maerad wondered whether she ought to offer greetings or wait until he acknowledged her. At last, when the silence and the stillness had stretched her nerves to breaking point, she spoke. Without thinking about it, she used the Speech.

  "Will you speak with me, Inka-Reb?"

  At the sound of her voice, the wolves' ears pricked forward. Maerad realized she hadn't asked what happened to those with whom Inka-Reb would not speak. Were they eaten by the wolves? Perhaps the bones on the floor were all those luckless enough not to pass the test, whatever the test was.

  But Inka-Reb spoke. His voice was deep and liquid, and boomed across the cave.

  "Why should I speak with you, daughter of the Voice? What have you to say to me, that I should listen?"

  "I know not, Inka-Reb," said Maerad. "I do not know what you like to listen to. But I hope that you will share your wisdom with me."

  At that Inka-Reb laughed. "I think, daughter of the Voice, that you have nothing to say to me. Leave, and I will tell my wolves not to eat you."

  "No," said Maerad, with more temerity than she felt. "I won't leave. You don't know what I might ask you."

  "You won't leave?" Inka-Reb made the smallest gesture, and the wolf pack slowly rose from their haunches, snarling and baring their teeth. Maerad gave them a terrified glance and swallowed.

  "No. I ask something that may help your own people as well as mine. I have traveled very far to see you. I won't leave until you answer me."

  The low growl of the wolves rumbled through the cavern, and Maerad felt her legs beginning to tremble. She hoped it wasn't obvious. "And so you threaten me?" said Inka-Reb, drawing his eyebrows together in a massive frown.

  "No, I do not threaten you." Maerad licked her dry lips. "I beg you. Not only for my sake. My life is a small one and doesn't count for much. But I am Elednor, the Fire Lily of Edil-Amarandh, the One who was foretold. And I need to know what the Treesong is, if the Dark is not to hold sway again in this land and in many others."

  Inka-Reb put out his hand, and to Maerad's unutterable relief the wolves subsided, lying down on the ground and putting their heads on their front paws.

  "Is that so?" said Inka-Reb. "So, it was you of whom the dead warned me, in my dreams. Well, maybe I will talk with you. But what have you brought me?"

  "I—I brought this," said Maerad, holding out the seal meat. Inka-Reb looked at it briefly and nodded, but did not move forward to take it, leaving her unsure whether or not he had accepted it. "I wanted to ask—to ask you if you knew what the Treesong is. And where I could find it."

  There was a long silence while Inka-Reb looked steadily at her, his face expressionless. Then he stepped forward and took the meat, and returned to his pot.

  "I think you are a liar," he said. "And I do not see why I should speak to a liar."

  Maerad was so taken aback she just gaped at him. Then, with crushing contempt, Inka-Reb squatted down as if she were not there and poked his fire. She was already dismissed.

  All the blood rushed to Maerad's head, and she lost her temper. Entirely forgetting the wolves who sat around her, poised to tear her limb from limb, she marched up to Inka-Reb. Although he was squatting, she was no taller than he was.

  "I have come countless days, through great dangers, to speak to you. And you say, without knowing who I am at all, that I am a liar." Maerad's voice was shaking with rage, and there seemed to be a red mist before her eyes. "I have lost my dearest friend who—who died so I could reach you—I have suffered and wept and toiled, and given my all. And all you can say is, Go away—I will not talk to a liar. How dare you, you selfish, fat—"

  Inka-Reb turned around to face her, and this time Maerad felt his power. At the same time that she realized that here was a Dhillarearen who possessed powers at least the equal of hers, he took her hand in one of his massive paws.

  "I will speak with you then," he said. "Since you desire it more than your life. That is worthy of praise. But I still say you are a liar."

  Maerad stood before him, her chest heaving, and met his eyes. He seemed to be laughing at her.

  "Why do you say I am a liar?" she asked pugnaciously. "I don't lie."

  "Daughter of the Voice, every human being in the world lies. Some know they are lying and some do not. I think you do not know you are a liar. But still you are a liar."

  "If I don't know I'm a liar, then how can I tell the truth?" asked Maerad.

  "Exactly," said Inka-Reb.

  Nonplussed, Maerad stopped and swallowed. Her anger passed as swiftly as it had risen, and she was suddenly uncomfortably aware again of the wolves. They lay just as they had before, their heads on their front paws.

  "All I want to know is what the Treesong is. And where I might find it. That's all."

  "The Treesong." Inka-Reb gave her a long stare, and then, leaving her in the middle of the semicircle of wolves, stepped out toward the walls of the cavern. In little niches on the walls flickered oil lamps, and there were also dozens of objects: carvings on bone and stone, and other things that Maerad did not recognize. Before long he came back, holding a tusk. He handed it to Maerad.

  "This is half of the Split Song," he said. "I think you know of the Split Song?"

  Maerad nodded, her heart hammering in her chest.

  "Take it and look at it," said Inka-Reb.

  Maerad took the tusk. It was clearly very old, the ivory yellow and cracked. On its surface were carved some strange characters. They seemed unaccountably familiar, and Maerad rubbed her fingers over them. Where had she seen them before?

  "Do you know what this is?" asked Inka-Reb.

  "No," said Maerad.

  Then Maerad almost dropped the tusk. With a shock of recognition that went down her spine like a wash of cold water, she realized that she knew the shapes of the carvings as well as she knew her own hand; she had stroked them over and over again all through her childhood, trying to puzzle out what they were.

  They were the same ten runes that were carved on her lyre.

  She looked up at Inka-Reb in wonder, her fear and irritation forgotten. "I do know these runes," she said.

  "Each one of those marks is a tree," said Inka-Reb. "And each one of those trees is a verse, and each verse is a mark of time. But it is only half the Song."

  "But how can I read it?" asked Maerad in despair. "I don't know how to read it. And where do I find the other half?"

  "I read the stars and the wind and the bones of animals," said Inka-Reb. "I can read stone and shadow and snow. But I cannot tell you how to read this Song. It is a blasphemy." He spat on the ground.

  "You think that the Light will find the Song and make it whole, and then the world will be well. But I say that if either the Dark or the Light unite the halves of the Song, then that day will be catastrophe."

  "What do you mean?" Maerad looked up at him. "How will it be catastrophe? And do you kno
w who could tell me what it means?"

  "You ask too many questions." Inka-Reb stared over her head. Now he looked bored. "I have told you what you asked for," he said. "I can tell you nothing more. Now you can take your lies and go."

  Maerad looked up, another question on her lips, but Inka-Reb's face told her the interview was over. He held out his hand for the tusk and she gave it back to him, bowing her head.

  "I thank you," she said.

  "Go," he said. The wolves were beginning to stand up and were looking at Maerad with less-than-friendly eyes, their hackles rising, their lips drawing back from their teeth.

  She went.

  Chapter XXI

  THE JUSSACKS

  MAERAD dreamed. In her dream she stood in the ruins of Pellinor, not as she had last seen them, fleeing as a terrified child with her mother through the burning streets, but as they must be now. She stood among broken stone walls, their blackened outlines softened and sometimes completely concealed by ivies and other creeping plants, in what must have been the central circle of the School. The remains of paving still existed, broken by weeds and even a sapling here and there, but it was still mainly a clear space. In the middle of the circle, at a distance, she saw a figure bent over a fire, cloaked and hooded in black. At first she thought it was a Hull; then she realized it was a Bard. It reminded her of Cadvan, and she almost cried out his name; then she remembered that Cadvan was dead, and the figure disappeared.

  She woke, and the dream vanished completely from her mind, leaving behind it a ghost-print of grief. It was still some hours before the sun would rise. Beside her, Dharin snored gently, and outside the tent she could hear a dog growling in its sleep. Inside her furs she was warm, but her nose was very cold. Soon it would be time to rise and to prepare for their long journey back south. And what then?