The Riddle

by Alison Croggon

  My name was foretold, she remembered suddenly. Any fool who read the prophecies aright would know it. A cold fear stirred in her heart: how was she to escape Arkan if he knew her Truename, if he wielded such power over her that he could fool her hands, her eyes, her very skin? And even if she did escape his stronghold, how was she to remain free, how was she to regain her full power, if he could take it from her again?

  No, she said to herself. No, it can't be. But in her heart she knew that it was true. Any Bard whose Truename was known by an enemy was crippled.

  She sat despondently for a while, holding her lyre. But something within her was stronger today; perhaps some of the warmth of the dream still clung to her mind. Finally she sat up straight and shook herself. Well, she thought, I'll try the lyre, and see what happens. A song for the Winterking, maybe. Perhaps his ensorcelment can make my injured playing into a real song. She fiddled around for a while, trying to adjust her grasp of the instrument to her missing fingers, and, shutting her eyes, drew her right hand across the strings.

  She instantly realized what she had been unable to admit to herself: she would not be able to play the lyre again. She could no longer use her left hand to pluck or block the strings to make chords. The pain of her loss seemed to go from her missing fingers right into her heart, and she rested her forehead on the instrument as the notes died away into silence, breathing in the smell of the fragrant almond oil with which she polished it. But then she took a deep breath. Well, I have only one and a half fingers and a thumb, she thought, but I have other bits of hand. Perhaps I can still play a little.

  She sat up straight again and this time tried a simple chord, one that needed only her forefinger and thumb. It rang out musically into the room, and as it did, the moonstone vanished and she was suddenly in a dungeon. She stared at the oil lamp on the wall before her, noting how it dimmed and vanished as the chord died on the air. Then she set her lips and tried another, more difficult, chord. This she fumbled; she could not get it true. But the enchanted room still vanished.

  She put the lyre down and thought for a while. This must be her lyre; no illusory lyre would hold enough magery to contest the Winterking. But then why had he given it to her? Surely he would have expected her to find out that it dissolved his sorcery? She tried the chord again, getting it true this time. The same thing happened. But as the sorcery vanished, her hand hurt, and after three chords she had cracked the scabs and they were already bleeding. She put the instrument down and stared at it as if she had never seen it before.

  Even with the knowledge that the Treesong was inscribed on her lyre, she began to think it was more enchanted than she had realized, more enchanted than even the Winterking knew, or else why did he let her have it?

  The Winterking did not want her dead; without the enchantment, the dungeon was merely cold and uncomfortable. She had been colder in her pallet at Gilman's Cot without taking harm. She thought of her weakness the day before, when she had stood before the Winterking. Her body was not strong enough, yet, to rely on. She must heal and strengthen herself before she could think of escaping. The Winterking wanted the Treesong, and somehow she was important to him as well. She must find out why. She must find out everything she could, and then she must escape him and go back to Annar.

  She had just reached this conclusion when Gima entered with a meal, some fatty meat smoked and then fried and a sort of mash of vegetables flavored with dill and sour goat's milk. For the first time, Maerad smiled at Gima, and the old woman smiled back. Maerad ate the food hungrily. She didn't dare to think what it was really like—maybe it was something else, something less appealing—but it was hot and the feeling of solidity it gave her was reassuring.

  "You're eating well today," said Gima. "You'll be a fat little fish if you keep on."

  "It's really nice," said Maerad. "Did you make it?"

  "Oh, bless you, no," said Gima, cackling. "The master has cooks enough in his kitchens to keep me away from the pot. I just bring it."

  "How many cooks is that?" asked Maerad.

  "Oh, he has forty or fifty at least. And more to make the beds and to keep the palace clean, and to keep us all safe from wolves and suchlike."

  "He must be a good master, then."

  "A good master. Oh yes, he's a good master. We all love him."

  Maerad kept chatting while she ate, and Gima sat herself comfortably on the chest, happy to talk. Gima told her that the Ice Palace was very big, bigger than she knew how to say, with countless rooms, and that many people lived there. Maerad chatted mindlessly, drawing out the old woman, who seemed relieved that she was at last being friendly. Gima responded enthusiastically, speaking now of her chilblains and next of how she had entered the Winterking's service. Maerad remembered the map in Gahal's room in Ossin: the Osidh Nak branched out northeast from the Osidh Annova, where the Osidh Elanor met them. And if she had it right, the Loden Pass to Annar would be due south about eighty leagues from Arkan-da. It was a day's walk either way out of the mountains.

  "Oh, but a hard walk," said Gima, shuddering with the memory. "Such chasms on one side would make your heart stop still, and those cliffs! But it was all worth it when I got here."

  "Why was it worth it?" asked Maerad curiously.

  "Oh, you've seen the master," said Gima comfortably. "We all work hard for him. We all are happy here, in this beautiful palace."

  Horrible dungeon more like, thought Maerad, but kept her thought to herself. The more she talked to Gima, the more sorry she felt for her. But maybe she was right to be happy, even if her present life was nothing more than a powerful illusion; in her former life she had been a slave and was married off when she was younger than Maerad to a man who beat her. She had borne him three dead children. After the third child he had thrown her out of the house, saying that she had cursed him, and she would have died homeless and alone if she had not been taken into Arkan's service.

  It seemed that Maerad was again to see the Winterking, and she let Gima fuss around her, putting on the elegant furred robe and brushing her hair. She felt more prepared than she had the day before. Her legs were much stronger today, and she merely felt tired as they wound through the long passages to the throne room.

  As before, Arkan was seated at the far end of the room, but this time Gima, who was visibly quaking, stayed by the door instead of entering with Maerad. Maerad wondered what she meant by saying that she loved the Winterking; if she showed any emotion in his presence, it was naked terror. Perhaps the sorcery also works on feelings, she thought, so terror seems like love. She wondered briefly why she was not afraid; perhaps Arkan did not want her to be frightened. Or maybe (she thought with a flicker of hope) it was because she truly wasn't afraid. After all, she thought, I am partly Elidhu.

  When she reached the dais, she looked up into the Winterking's icy eyes.

  "Greetings, Elednor," he said. This time she thought she detected a flash of mockery as he said her name. "Did you sleep well?"

  "I slept as well as could be expected," she answered coldly. "And you?"

  "Me?" Arkan looked at her expressionlessly. "I do not sleep."

  Maerad suddenly wondered what time was to an entity that would not die. It could not be the same as it was for her, a straight line that led into darkness. Or was it like that? she mused, distracted. Perhaps it was a river that meandered and branched into ever-widening deltas before it merged into an immense, boundless sea. She suddenly realized that the Winterking was speaking and that she had not heard what he had said.

  "I'm sorry?" she said. "I was—I was thinking about something else."

  Arkan regarded her skeptically. "I said that perhaps today you should sit down. Or will you manage to remain upright during our conversation?"

  Maerad considered briefly. "I will sit down; I thank you." She lifted the hem of her robe and stepped onto the dais, passing close before the Winterking to reach the black stool that stood by the throne. Her skin bunched up in goose pimples as if she passed befo
re an icy blast, but she did not look at him. She settled herself.

  "That is wiser," said Arkan. "You humans are so—frail." It was not quite a threat, but having decided that she did not want to die, that she wanted to escape, Maerad almost felt her mask of composure slip.

  "We are," said Maerad. "But that does not mean that we are weak." She paused. "When did you learn my Truename?"

  "I know the names of everything," said Arkan.

  "That's not true," said Maerad, without rancor, and then added on an obscure impulse, "I'll warrant you don't know the name of my brother."

  "Your brother? I know his name, as I know the names of your mother and father and all else about you, more than you know yourself, Maerad of Pellinor, Elednor of Edil-Amarandh." A shiver went down Maerad's spine, but not an entirely unpleasant one.

  "What is his usename, then?" she asked politely.

  "It is Cai of Pellinor, of course," he said.

  "No, it's not," said Maerad. She looked back at him scornfully, and for an instant his gaze faltered.

  "You lie," he said.

  "I do not lie," she answered. "Although one has called me a liar, I did not know what he meant."

  Arkan laughed, a long low laugh. "Was that the wise man you traveled so far to consult?" he said at last. "And he called you a liar? Ah, that is amusing."

  "Then do you know what he meant?" From here, Maerad could look Arkan in the eye. She could tell he was not used to such a straight gaze, and felt it as an affront, as certainly as she knew he would say nothing about it.

  "Lying is not the same thing as not speaking the truth," said Arkan. "Elidhu do not lie. Why should we lie? Only humans lie, because they think that language can give them another reality. And then out of their lies they make that reality. Have you not understood that yet? Why do you think Sharma is as he is? He is the Great Liar, and his lie almost became the whole world."

  "But it was still a lie." Maerad found these conversations disconcerting; they never seemed to go in the directions she imagined. "He wanted to destroy truth."

  "The truth that he wanted to destroy was the truth that he must die. I have seldom met a human being who really wanted to die. Sharma found death a great insult, and he envied the Elidhu, because we do not die. Why do you think he stole our Song? But even he, one of the greatest mages of a golden age of Bards, could not make the truth as he wanted it."

  "So he wished to destroy all truths," said Maerad.

  "No," said Arkan. "He did know one truth: power. And power is the only thing that humans understand."

  "No, it's not," said Maerad stubbornly. "There are other truer truths." She stared at Arkan, thinking that his veins, if he indeed possessed any, probably ran with ice water. How would he understand the truths of love, of kin, of blood? Of unassuagable grief and longing?

  "I know what you think," said Arkan. He glanced at her, and his glance went deeply into Maerad, like a lance of ice. "What of love? What of sorrow?"

  "I don't think you know what those things are," said Maerad sharply.

  "You have no idea what I know." His scorn was naked, and she flinched. "No human knows anything of truth. Could you pick the smallest pebble out of a stream and tell me the truth of it? Could you tell me its story of long eons of water and wind and ice and fire? No, to you it would be just a pebble, resting in your hand, of note only because you had picked it up. But that is not its truth."

  "Does that make me a liar?"

  "Perhaps."

  "I do not claim anything," said Maerad, and suddenly felt forlorn. It was true: she did not, and could not, claim anything. "That doesn't explain why Inka-Reb said I was a liar. He meant something else. If you know everything, perhaps you can explain that."

  "I do not know why the Singer said you were a liar," said Arkan indifferently. "I think you are a liar because you think you know what is true. You think you feel what is true. But you do not yet know what you do feel and what you do know. You desire and do not take; you love and are too afraid to feel your love; you conceal your vanity and pettiness from yourself; you are afraid to look into your soul and see what you are. That is why you are a liar."

  Maerad was unexpectedly stung, and glared at Arkan. "You have no right to say such things," she said.

  He shrugged. "You asked. You know enough to know that I speak truly."

  Maerad stared down the throne room toward the pool. Arkan is right, she thought. It's what people mean when they mention how young I am. "What if I do learn truth?" she asked at last.

  "Then you will be miserable," said Arkan. "So, you see, it is easy to understand why humans are such liars." He seemed to be laughing, and Maerad stared at him defiantly.

  "Why would a human not choose what is true?" she asked.

  Arkan held her gaze, and then glanced away, and as he did so, the throne room seem to shiver, as if it were made of water instead of stone, and his face seemed like a double face, as if a mask had slipped. It revealed something dark and cold and dangerous that made Maerad feel really afraid for the first time. Then the mask was back, but the impression remained, like an afterimage of a brilliant light. Her heart started beating fast. He did not seem so duplicitous now; his face was comely as before, but now it had dimension, depth, weight, darkness. Maerad was suddenly deeply unsettled.

  "I have only once known a human choose what is true," said Arkan. "Why should they? They do not live long enough to find out anything: they are like snowflakes, which die in the air and disappear."

  "To you it seems that way," said Maerad. "But time feels different to us than it does to you."

  A silence fell between them. Maerad was thinking of her dungeon, which his illusions made into a luxurious chamber. Perhaps the Winterking thought that was really what she preferred and was, by his standards, being kind.

  "Why did you capture me?" she asked at last. "I know nothing of the Treesong. I have been told I must seek it, so that the Nameless One will not prevail in his new rising. And I have been told that you ally yourself with him, and that he released you from your banishment. Is this true?" She paused. "And you still haven't told me how you know my Truename."

  "So many questions! You are impatient," said the Winterking. "It was not difficult to know your Truename. If you truly were the Foretold, then you would have no other name. A flaw in the plans, yes? For anyone who is attentive to the signs and knows the lore will be aware of your name. Your prophets were farsighted, but not wise." He smiled at her and Maerad shivered: the Nameless One, too, would know her Truename.

  "And is the Nameless One your ally?"

  Arkan's mouth thinned. "I would not call him an ally. Yes, it is true: he broke my banishment. You cannot understand what a terrible punishment it is to be exiled from my mountains, my rocks, my place. ... It is something no human can understand. It is to have no body, no mind, no home, no life." He looked directly at Maerad, and as if a door had suddenly opened, she felt a desolation that staggered her. She knew what it was to feel homeless, to be alone and abandoned without kin, but Arkan was speaking of something else: millennia of exile, of unbeing. She blinked.

  "So you owe the Nameless One your gratitude," she said.

  "I owe him nothing." The throne room flickered with icy rage. "Do not be so stupid. It does not become you."

  "Then what do you want from me?"

  "I told you what I want."

  "But I don't have it." Maerad studied his face, looking for any sign that he knew she was not telling the truth.

  "Of course you have it. Or you have the half that Sharma desires. Do you think me a fool?" Maerad felt his displeasure; the room darkened, as if a shadow fell over the pool, and for the briefest second the throne room was as cold as ice. "You do not understand that it means nothing."

  To Maerad's alarm, the Winterking stood up. He was very tall, much taller than a man. He stepped off the dais and walked toward the pool, moving with the fluid, predatory grace of a snow lynx. When he reached the pool, he stood there with his back to h
er, dark against the glow, a halo of frosted light about his form.

  "It means nothing to me," said Maerad angrily. "It is of no use to me at all. I don't know what it is and I don't know how to read it."

  "Do you know where it is?" said Arkan.

  Maerad bit her lip. Arkan was tricking her, confusing her with his talk of exile and right and wrong; she was being slow-witted. She had just admitted that she had the Treesong. "What do you mean, 'where it is?'" she asked, trying to buy time.

  Arkan turned violently, his face dark with anger, and strode back to Maerad, standing above her. "Do not play these childish games with me," he said. "I am not interested in your lies; you are here because I wish to speak with you, and to speak anything but truth is a waste of time. I know perfectly well that half of my Song is written down on your lyre."

  Maerad's heart sank. "Then why don't you just take it, and give it to the Nameless One?" said Maerad bitterly. "And that will be the end of love and truth and all those things that you say don't exist, and then you can just cover the whole earth with snow and ice. Isn't that what you want?"

  "Did you hear nothing that I said?"

  "I don't trust anything you say to me."

  "You should." Arkan grasped Maerad's shoulder, and she started and tried to move away, but could not: the cold pierced to her bone with a strange thrill. "We have interests in common, you and I."