The Riddle

by Alison Croggon

  When she could feel any emotion, she felt hatred. It was like a cold poison in her soul. Her body's ills she learned to ignore, except for the times that the pain was so overwhelming it filled her whole mind, so that she felt she would go mad, if she were not mad already. She was racked by fever and chills, almost convulsive enough to break her bindings. But despite this, her body began to heal. After a time, the convulsions stopped, and she was merely tormented by the cold. The Jussacks gave her enough furs to keep her from dying, but not enough to keep her warm. She dreamed that her left hand had frozen and fallen off, a chunk of ice, and woke surprised to find it was still there.

  She stank of blood. Dharin's blood had soaked into her fur coat, and although the worst of it had been cleaned off, the fur along her collar was rough with it and she could feel the dry clots in her hair. It was Dharin, the last thing she had of him, and she did not complain. And then her period began and she felt as if her whole body were weeping blood, that she slept and woke in its sour smell.

  There was one man who, it seemed, had been given the duty of keeping her alive. At first, he looked to Maerad like all the other Jussacks: they were all as pale-skinned as Maerad, with long blond hair, long plaited beards, and pale blue eyes rimmed by blue tattoos. She didn't seek to differentiate one from the other: to Maerad they were all nameless savages.

  This Jussack was not quite as tall as the others, and despite the tattoos, in other circumstances Maerad might have thought he had a pleasant face. When he needed to clean her, which he did using a cloth soaked in a kind of clarified fat or oil, he was always respectful, almost apologetic. And his feeding of her was, if practical and brusque, not without gentleness. Maerad noted these things unwillingly. She did not spit in his face now, but she would not respond to his attempts to communicate, even though sometimes it was clear that he was trying to tell her his name and was asking hers. She pretended she didn't understand.

  Shortly after dreams and reality untangled themselves, she was inspected by the sorcerer, who was the leader of the small troupe. He looked her over as if she were goods that must be brought intact to their destination. The sleds had stopped, and as she had been every night, Maerad was carried into one of the Jussack tents and laid on the floor. The sorcerer entered, stooping in the tiny space, and inspected her. Maerad became aware of his gaze and opened her eyes. He was clearly a Dhillarearen, but the bile rose in her throat. There was a wrongness in his Gift that she had not sensed in the other Unschooled Bards she had met—Sirkana or Inka-Reb. But he was not a Hull. Somehow, thought Maerad, he was something worse: darkness twisted within him like a poisonous smoke.

  "Who are you, to look at me?" she said in the Speech. Her voice was harsh with disuse.

  The sorcerer looked back at her expressionlessly, although she saw the muscles around his eyes flinch in distaste. "I am who I am," he said. "You are no one, to ask such a thing."

  "You murdered my friend," said Maerad. "Why have you not killed me?"

  "You killed a man," said the sorcerer. "The punishment for that is death. But we have other plans for you. They are not your concern."

  "You are all base murderers," answered Maerad. Her mind was slow and thick, and she felt too tired to argue. "That man would not have died if you had not attacked us. It's your fault he died, not mine."

  "Be that as it may," he answered. "You are ours now."

  "I belong to no one." A dull rage rose inside her. "You have no right..."

  He stared at her with contempt. "You are a woman. Be silent."

  If Maerad had been in possession of her powers, she would have blasted him into nothing with no compunction. She stared back at him with loathing, refusing to lower her eyes. Something faltered in his gaze, and instead of challenging her, he turned away.

  "Why have you captured me?" asked Maerad. "Where are you taking me?" But the man would not answer her.

  He examined her as if she were a piece of livestock, looking at her teeth and inside her mouth and checking her limbs. Furious at the indignity, Maerad bit his hand, and he hit her across the jaw with a casual violence. What he saw clearly did not please him, and he spoke sharply to the Jussack, who trembled at his side, his head bowed in fear and humility. He picked up her left hand and pressed it. A little feeling came back into it, mostly pain. Then he gave the other Jussack what was clearly a long list of instructions and left the tent.

  After that, her situation improved slightly. Maerad was given more furs and did not suffer so much from the cold. She was also untied, so she had some freedom of movement on the sled. She thought of casting herself off into the snow, but there was plainly no way she could do so unseen, and she would immediately be picked up and probably bound again.

  At this time, she also realized that Dharin's sled traveled with them. It was being driven by one of the other men. She wondered what had become of the bodies of Claw and Dharin; no doubt they had been left, unhonored and unburied, in the snow. The thought was agonizing. And where was her pack? Her lyre? They must be in the sled.... But she was still too tired to think properly, and her thoughts slid into a confused maze.

  She was bewitched by some spell she did not recognize, in a way that paralyzed and sickened her. The enchantment came from the sorcerer, and she began to push against it. She felt his will resisting her, and she was sure that she was a stronger Dhillarearen than he was, but no matter how she tried, she could not unlock the spell. It held her fast.

  Sometimes Maerad thought she could see pale shadows running at a distance, parallel to the sleds. They looked like wolves, but if she tried to stare straight at the movement, she could see nothing but bare snow. No one else seemed to notice them, and she dismissed them as hallucinations.

  At night, she dreamed of wolves.

  The days passed, each one identical to the next. Maerad tried, with little success, to work out how long she had lain insensible; time then had ceased to exist. She made little scratches on the wooden rail of the sled. If she had been delirious for seven days, she had been their captive for two weeks now.

  She began to be able to tell her five captors apart. The Jussack in charge of her was clearly the youngest and the lowliest in rank; he seemed to be about Dharin's age. The others were all grown men, who looked to be between thirty and forty. Maerad thought them brutal thugs: they reminded her of the men in Gilman's Cot, among whom she had been raised. The recognition called within her a deep contempt, which fed her hatred. The sorcerer, who was called Amusk, was the chief among them, and all the others deferred to him with varying degrees of fear.

  Despite herself, she began to feel some sympathy for the man in charge of her. Although he tried to give no sign of it, Maerad thought that he disliked the sorcerer Amusk as much as she did. The youth's sled was usually the leading one, and after a while Maerad realized a gift similar to Dharin's, an infallible sense for knowing where he was. It explained, Maerad thought, why so young a man had been taken on a mission with the older men.

  And she began to understand that these men considered it to be demeaning to look after a woman, and that the youngest Jussack's task was a humiliation for which he was often teased by the other men. Their comments made him angry, and once she saw him draw a knife on one of his tormentors, who backed away, shaking his head, his arms spread wide, clearly not wanting to fight. Despite this, the Jussack looked after her diligently. She noticed that he attempted to speak to her only when no one else could overhear, and when the other men were nearby, would sometimes speak harshly to her, as if to conceal any empathy he felt.

  After the sorcerer's visit, Maerad did not ignore the young man the next time he tried to tell her his name. He put his hand on his chest and said: "Nim." Then, plainly asking, he pointed to Maerad.

  "Maerad," she said. "I'm Maerad."

  For the first time, she saw him smile. It transformed his face, and she realized for the first time just how young he was. He might even be as young as I am, she thought. "Nim. Maerad," he said, pointing from one to
the other. Maerad nodded.

  He disappeared out of the tent and returned with a warm meat stew. Maerad was now able to feed herself, although when she was not on the sled, her feet were tied to prevent her attacking anyone or escaping. Nim handed her a steaming bowl. "Hulcha," he said. "Ij lakmi." He mimed the actions of eating.

  "Lakmi?" said Maerad. "Eat? I eat?" She pointed to the bowl. "Hulcha," she said. Again Nim nodded and smiled.

  Well, I might as well learn Jussack, thought Maerad, as she began to eat the stew. It's not as if I have anything else to do. But then, with a cold shock, she realized she was beginning to think kindly of one of Dharin's murderers. She suddenly felt sick and pushed the bowl away, and would not speak to Nim anymore. When she did not answer him, he looked disappointed and hurt, almost like a small child who had been snubbed, but he covered it swiftly and said something to her that sounded like a curse, and laughed in the way the older men laughed, with a crude, knowing brutality. Then he took her bowl and ate the stew himself, hungrily

  After that a diffident relationship developed between Maerad and Nim. Maerad learned the Jussack language quickly, and over the next few weeks they began to have simple conversations. Although their talks were always underlaid by a mutual wariness, something grew between them which, in different circumstances, might have developed into a friendship. As things were, it was a kind of tacit alliance.

  It was Maerad's only comfort, if their often difficult and uneasy conversations could be called comforting. Her loneliness was almost unbearable, and her secret talks with Mm were the only human contact she had. Some stubborn will reasserted itself as her body slowly strengthened, although she was always tired from her unceasing battle with the sorcerer's will. She felt little power within her. It was a strange emptiness, as if a limb were missing, but still she resisted. Although she had no hope for herself now, she did not feel entirely hopeless. There were still things she could do, perhaps, even if she faced certain failure. It might not be entirely vain to attempt to escape.

  The first thing she wanted back was her pack. When she saw that the Jussacks had brought Dharin's sled and dogs with them, she realized that her pack must be there as well. It contained everything that mattered to her in the world, including her lyre. When she and Mm talked, she told him of her longing for her music, for her lyre. He stared at her with his pale blue eyes.

  "You might want to trick me," he said. "I know you are a witch, and you may have something for your spells in there."

  "No," said Maerad. "There is a lyre. A harp. For music." She hummed, hoping that Nim could understand her broken Jussack. "It belonged to my mother. She is dead."

  "My mother is dead as well," said Nim. He pondered in silence for a short time, and then drew out a circular pendant from underneath his jerkin. It was made of black polished stone. "This was hers."

  Maerad was unexpectedly moved, and reached out and gently touched the pendant with the tip of a finger. "Beautiful," she said.

  Nim looked at his pendant and then put it back inside his clothes.

  "I will get your things for you," he said. "But if you decide to do magic or to escape because of what I have done, I will be killed."

  Maerad looked at him as straightly as she could. "I can't escape," she said. "And I can't do magic with my lyre. I would like to hold it again." As she spoke, it was as if a hunger flowered in her fingers.

  "I am stupid to do this," Nim said. "But I will do my best. I do not know why, but I do not think you lie to me. Perhaps you are a good liar."

  Maerad smiled, thinking of Inka-Reb. "A wise man once said I was a liar," she replied. "Perhaps he was right. But I am not lying to you."

  "How would I know?" said Nim. "I am only a simple man. I don't know why we had to travel so far to find you. Amusk cast runes all the way there to track you. I think they take you back to Arkan-da."

  Maerad looked up in confusion: this was the first she had heard of where she was going.

  "Even I can see that though Amusk has bewitched you, you are powerful; I have never seen him afraid of anyone except you and the Ice King. If the Ice King wants you, then you must be powerful."

  "If I was powerful, I am no longer," said Maerad. Amusk was afraid of her? "But I can still play music. Maybe if you can get my pack, I can play you a song of my people."

  Nim sighed. "If you do, they will hear, and I will be punished," he said. "But I would like that." He looked down at his hands again, and suddenly seemed very shy. And Maerad was at once aware of him, simply as a man, not as a Jussack or an enemy. For the first time in her life, it did not make her feel afraid. She wondered at this: she had more reason to be afraid than at any time since she left Gilman's Cot; perhaps she had been through so much that things that once frightened her now seemed trivial. Or perhaps, somehow, she trusted this young man.

  Nim had nursed and washed her throughout her illness, even though such tasks were demeaning to him. The thought of those intimacies made her blush. He need not have been gentle, but he had been. And he had never been anything but respectful of her. Perhaps it had been out of fear at the Winterking's displeasure should she sicken and die. But Maerad now thought that it might also be a simple kindness.

  "Are you really taking me to Arkan-da?" she asked. "Do you mean the Winterking?"

  "I think that is what the Pilani call the Ice King, curse them."

  Maerad was silent for a while. "Why do you curse them? They are good people," she said at last. "My father was Pilani."

  Nim looked up quickly. "I am sorry to offend you. The Pilani have taken over our land. We want it back."

  "And who told you that?" asked Maerad, wondering. "The Pilanel have been in Zmarkan since the beginning of time. They can't have taken your land. And isn't there enough space in Zmarkan for everybody?"

  "Everyone knows that it is true," said Nim, with absolute certainty. "They are an evil people."

  Maerad wanted her pack back, and she didn't want to make him angry, so she didn't argue. But the night's conversation gave her something to think about the following day, when she was put into the sled for the next stage of their interminable journey.

  That night, although Maerad half expected that he wouldn't, Nim brought her lyre, in its leather case. He had not brought her pack. Reverently, her hands shaking with feeling, she took out the instrument and showed it to him, brushing her fingers lightly over the strings to make a faint chord. His eyes widened in wonder.

  "I wish I could play," she whispered.

  "I wish that too," he said. "I have never heard anything so beautiful."

  "Thank you, Nim," she said. "I won't forget, ever." She looked up and saw in Nim's eyes a wakened longing that made her pity him.

  "Perhaps you could go to Annar one day," she said softly. "People there are good. They are not cruel, like Amusk. And then you could hear the music."

  Nim suddenly looked ashamed, as if she had seen him naked, and turned away, speaking no more that night, and the next day he was harsh with her when he put her in the sled. But Maerad felt no animus toward him for that; she knew the pain of awakenings. Once she too had protected herself against her own feelings as Nim did. And no one was going to rescue Nim and show him a new world, as Cadvan had rescued her from Gilman's Cot. Not, she reflected sadly, that anyone was going to save her now, either. But having her lyre back made her feel slightly less helpless. Even though she could not play it, she caressed it at night, running her swollen fingers over the runes, wondering if she would ever know what secrets they contained.

  Nim had told her that Amusk was the most powerful of all the Jussacks. Maerad had thought about this; it meant that her capture had been carefully planned, perhaps after the failure of the stormdog and the iriduguls. Her journey with Dharin had been doomed from the beginning. She remembered Sirkana's sadness when she had farewelled them and was sure that Sirkana had foreseen his death. Why, then, had she let him go with Maerad?

  But she flinched from thinking too much about Dharin; it raise
d too many painful memories. Dernhil, Cadvan, Dharin; Imi, Darsor, and Claw; how many had died to protect her? The Pilanel had told her that the Jussacks worshiped the Winterking and if such an important man as Amusk had been sent to capture her, it meant that the Winterking wanted her badly. She was a trophy, she thought bitterly—not only for the Dark and the Light, but now the Elementals. No doubt the Winterking would deliver her to the Nameless One himself.

  When she was next inspected by the sorcerer Amusk, he was not so displeased with her condition, but he looked closely at her left hand and pursed his lips. Three fingers were a strange color, a dark purple, and she could not feel them at all. He did some healing magery, but it made very little difference.

  This time Maerad could follow the conversation a little, though she kept her knowledge of the language secret, in part out of natural caution, and in part to protect Nim. She gathered they were not far, perhaps a week, from their destination. She was briefly amazed; they had traversed the vast expanse of the Arkiadera, from one side to the other. She had twenty-five scratches on the wooden rail. Even given that she didn't know how many days she had been unconscious after her capture, they were traveling swiftly.

  Maerad inspected Amusk closely. He did not look at all like Nim; she wondered now how she could ever have confused them. His face was thin and cruel, and it seemed to Maerad that he looked much more drawn than when he had last come into the tent. Good, she thought; he battles hard to keep me under his control. Alerted by Nim's comment, she looked for signs of fear when he inspected her, but his eyes were cold and did not reveal anything. An arrogance within her stirred under his cold regard, and she would not avert her gaze, although she could tell he was used to people lowering their eyes in his presence. Especially women, thought Maerad. But if he wanted her in good condition, he could not punish her too much. And, indeed, he did not punish her.