The Riddle

by Alison Croggon

  Arkan-da was eerie and deserted. It seemed to be a busy place, where people lived and made things and ate, but wherever Maerad walked it was as if they had abandoned their tasks and left just before she got there. There were endless corridors with scores of doorways, and when she lifted the hangings that covered the doors, she saw a bewildering variety of rooms. Some seemed to be bedchambers, furnished simply but beautifully, with personal belongings scattered on the bed or the floor, as if someone had just walked out. She saw a place that seemed to be a kitchen, with black iron implements hanging from the ceiling and an iron cauldron suspended on a tripod over a fire, bubbling, but no one was there.

  There were many grand halls with pillars of iron and stone, so big that the columns marched off into long distances, and storerooms with shelves full of dried or smoked foods, sides of meats or long sausages or onions, and she saw armories, with rows of pikes and maces and strange leather helms.

  She looked always for an exit or a window, but she didn't find any until she entered a high, wide passageway supported by iron pillars. She was just about to turn to find her way back to her own room when a difference in the light at the other end made her look again. Although her legs were already beginning to ache, she made herself walk to the other end, and as she did, she saw that she had indeed found a door. And the door was open.

  The passageway was as deserted as the rest of the palace had been, so no one stopped her from stepping outside. The air was freezing, but very still. And the relief of knowing what the time was, the delight of seeing the stars, of walking on snow, made her eyes prickle with tears.

  The sky was clear, the stars scattered in hard brilliance over a deep-blue field. She squinted through the darkness. Before her glimmered a long, snow-covered slope, running between two sheer rock walls, which met farther down to form the high black arch. She was as sure as she could be that the arch was the one she remembered passing beneath when she had arrived at Arkan-da. But she did not remember seeing any palace beyond it, or anything at all, apart from more mountains. She looked behind her, and saw that no palace stood at her back: she stood at the open mouth of a large cave, and above her stretched the sheer cliff of a mountainside. Beyond the arch a path continued a little way before it ran into a road that curled itself around the side of the mountain. One way went north and one south, but which was which?

  Suddenly the silence was rent by the howling of a wolf. Maerad started, remembering the wolves in Inka-Reb's cave and the wolves she thought she had seen as she was carried across Zmarkan by the Jussacks. In her mind's eye she saw again Claw's savage beauty. She realized she wasn't afraid of dogs anymore, maybe not even of wolves. And then, with a pang, she thought: They are free, and they sing their own song. She listened until the eerie ululations died away into the stillness of the night.

  Maerad stood there as long as she could bear the cold, breathing in the fresh air with a sense of exhilaration. Her escape from the Ice Palace now seemed possible: she had found a way. She sighed in pure happiness.

  "The mountains are very beautiful, are they not, Elednor of Edil-Amarandh?" said the Winterking, at her shoulder.

  Maerad jumped with shock and turned around. Arkan was standing just behind her.

  "You were thinking, no doubt, how easy it would be to walk out of Arkan-da," he said.

  Maerad saw no point in dissembling. "What would stop me?" she said. "The road is just over there."

  "You could try," said Arkan easily. "I think you would find it interesting. If you watched that arch long enough, you would see that not even birds fly over it."

  "I remember coming under that arch," said Maerad. "But nothing more. And I would probably freeze to death out here before anyone found me, if I swooned again."

  "Do not fear," said Arkan. "I always know where you are."

  Maerad felt uneasily that this was true, and that Arkan had followed her meanderings around his palace that day.

  "I would like to come out here again," she said. "I am happy to see the stars and to breathe the wind. I find it hard to live without windows. I miss the sky."

  "There is no harm in that," said Arkan. "And how did you find my palace?"

  "It is very beautiful," said Maerad truthfully. "But odd. I didn't see a single person all day. Gima said hundreds of people live here, but I didn't see anybody."

  "Does that disconcert you? They have been told to avoid you, for fear that you may be frightened. But you are shivering; perhaps we can go back inside." Arkan turned, courteously offering Maerad his arm as if they stood in a hall in Annar, about to enter a feast, rather than on the bleak side of a mountain. She hesitated, and then took his arm, feeling a numbing chill in her hand as she did so, and they walked back inside. Immediately it was warmer, and Maerad looked along the ice white walls with their rows of iron pillars. Beautiful, she thought, but very stark; everything here is ice and iron. Perhaps the Winterking can imagine nothing else.

  "I was remembering Innail today," she said conversationally. "It was the first School I ever saw—I mean, apart from Pellinor, which I don't remember very well. It is a lovely place."

  "I have never been there, though I have seen it in my mind's eye," said Arkan. "Yes, it has a certain beauty."

  "I miss green. Green fields, green trees, flowers ..."

  "Such green withers and dies," said Arkan. He disengaged Maerad's hand and pointed toward an alcove carved out of polished black stone. "Look at this."

  Maerad saw with a gasp of astonishment that the alcove housed a great, perfect diamond, almost her height; it was much bigger than the crystal of the White Flame in Norloch and was incomparably beautiful. Light broke on its facets into every color, and as she gazed, she felt almost hypnotized, as if she could fall into its glittering maze and never find her way out again.

  "This is better than your green," said Arkan. "It will not die."

  "Only because it is not alive," said Maerad, freeing herself with difficulty from the fascination of the diamond. She looked up into Arkan's face, feeling an amazement growing within her at the strangeness of their conversation. Arkan seemed different to her since she had seen the shadow of his wild being; when she had first met him, she had thought him handsome, but cold and somehow loathsome. Now she was aware of his vitality, an energy like a storm that made her skin tingle.

  "I live," said Arkan with a peculiar arrogance as they walked. "And I do not die. The wind lives, the snow lives, the ice lives, the mountains live. Rock and ice have their own voices, their own lives, their own breath, their own pulse. Do you deny them that?"

  "No," said Maerad, unable to conceal the sadness in her voice. "But I like flowers."

  "I will make you flowers if you desire them."

  "They would be flowers of ice. Beautiful, but cold. It wouldn't be the same. But thank you."

  They walked in silence for a time through the endless, beautiful corridors, and despite herself Maerad found she was admiring the beauties of Arkan-da with different eyes. The design of the pillars had changed subtly, she thought; she saw flowers within them, all with six petals, but infinitely various and intricate. She was always conscious of the man pacing beside her, although she did not look at him.

  "Why do you wish to please me?" she asked, breaking the silence. "You could just as easily cast me into some dark dungeon. What difference would it make to you?"

  "It is better if you do not hate or fear me," said Arkan. "Song cannot be made out of hatred and fear. That is what Sharma failed to understand."

  "What is needed to make Song, then?"

  Arkan turned and looked her full in her face, and Maerad's heart skipped a beat. "Do you not know?" he asked.

  Maerad looked down at the floor and watched her feet. She did not want to answer.

  "Love," said Arkan at last. "Love is what is needed to make the Song. Love is why the darkness blossomed into light. Love is why the Earth spoke and became Elidhu."

  Maerad blushed furiously and did not dare to meet the Winterking'
s gaze. It was the first time he had addressed her so familiarly, and the intimacy struck a resonance through the depths of her being. She felt herself shaken with sudden desire, like a tree that fills with a wild light when it is touched by storm.

  What do I know of love? she asked herself fiercely. And now this man, this Elidhu, this creature of ice and storm and stone, wants to show me? And then, fearfully, she asked herself if he mazed even her feelings, manipulating her as he manipulated the perceptions of Gima.

  She waited until the wild bearing of her heart calmed down, and then turned to the Winterking, careful to betray nothing of what she felt. "Was love why the Song was lost?" she asked boldly.

  Arkan turned from her gaze, with a trace of bitterness. "Perhaps," he said.

  "And is that why the Song split in two?"

  "It can only be sung with love. And love can neither be stolen nor feigned." He gave her a swift, piercing glance, and Maerad felt herself tremble. "It can only be given."

  And yet he keeps me prisoner, Maerad thought, averting her eyes. Hypocrite. But underneath her confusion, she knew that the answering leap within her was not commanded by the Winterking.

  Maerad was silent for a long time after that, as they wound back through the Ice Palace into the heart of the mountain. She felt at once troubled and confused and strangely exhilarated. She was quite certain that when Arkan spoke of love, he meant something different from what she understood to be human love, and yet she did not know what to do with the desire that suddenly blazed within her, a desire she had never permitted herself to feel before. Some part of her, the Elemental part, she thought, stirred in response. Why now? she cried to herself in exasperation. And yet she lingered, nodding when Arkan pointed out some new beauty of his palace, agonizingly aware of when he took her arm, when he moved closer to her, when his robe brushed hers.

  She thought of Cadvan, of Dernhil, of Dharin, of Hem. I cannot stay here, she thought. I must not.... At last she took a deep breath.

  "I can't play a Song I cannot read," she said. "Even if I still had all my fingers. Could you read the runes on my lyre?"

  Arkan turned and regarded her thoughtfully. "Will you show them to me?"

  Maerad reflected that Arkan could no doubt look at the runes, without her permission, anytime he liked. "I'll bring my lyre tomorrow," she said. Whenever tomorrow is, she thought, in this dayless time. "Perhaps you can help me understand them."

  "Perhaps," said Arkan. "Well, here we are at your chamber. Good morrow, Elednor of Edil-Amarandh." He bowed, and then his form began to glow with an intense light, which became so bright that Maerad blinked. When she looked again, he was gone.

  Back in her chamber, Maerad walked restlessly from one end of the room to the other. The moonstone walls had seemed transparent before, less substantial; now they looked more solid and real. Maerad stared at the glowing walls with despair.

  Am I to be betrayed by my own heart? she thought. That is what Arkan wants. At last, she sat down on the bed and picked up her lyre. She began to strum a simple song using the two or three chords that she could play without difficulty. The light changed and she looked up; to her intense relief she saw that the walls had vanished again, revealing her rocky dungeon.

  She continued to play, seeking comfort in the music, although the scabs on her left hand broke and began to bleed. She put down the lyre and rummaged about in her pack until she found the healing balm. There was a little left, and she smeared her hand until the stinging was slightly numbed, and then she returned to the lyre. She played a ballad she had sung with Cadvan; the chords were easy if she did not pluck the melody. It was the ballad of Andomian and Beruldh, a short song that introduced a longer lay. Maerad sang the old story of Beruldh's imprisonment and death in the stronghold of the sorcerer Karak, of the love she had for her brothers, of Andomian's love for her, with new feeling; it was as if she had never properly sung it before, as if she had never really known what it meant. Perhaps Cadvan had guessed that it somehow foreshadowed her own fate, on that evening so long ago when he had played it in a birch dingle called Irihel, just after they had left Gilman's Cot. She saw his grave, dark face in her mind's eye, and realized again with undiminished anguish how much she missed him.

  I must leave here soon, or the Winterking will bewilder me utterly, she thought, putting the lyre carefully back into its case. I am Elidhu, and Bard, and Pilanel too—and each part of me pulls in different directions. How am I to work out which is me? Can I ever be whole and true to myself? And how can I leave, anyway? Arkan is so certain that I can't. Maybe he is right.

  Some part of her leaped up in gladness at the thought, but she sternly confronted her feelings, examining them as neutrally as she could, neither judging nor rejecting them. So, she said steadily to herself; I find I desire the Winterking. That doesn't mean that I will permit him to imprison me. If I am Elemental, I am a wild thing, not to be caged or bound: I am like the wolves in the mountains, and must sing my own song. He must know that. He cannot keep me here unless I want to stay.

  She saw Hem's thin face before her, his dark-blue eyes haunted by deep shadows. I must find Hem, she thought passionately. He's all I've got left. And he needs me, more than anyone else in the world. A grieving love filled her body, a sweet, unassuagable ache that seeped through her from the marrow of her very bones. Hem, my brother ...

  With a thrill, she felt magery begin to run through her veins, a fiery illumination that spread from her heart to the soles of her feet and the tips of her fingers and the crown of her skull. She had forgotten what it was like to feel that power: it felt so long since it had lived within her, free and undimmed. For weeks now, she had resigned herself to its lack. She looked down at her hands with amazement and relief: they glimmered with silver magelight. She saw that her left hand had now five fingers of light: in her power, she was whole, unmaimed.

  Slowly, reluctantly, she let the light dim. I must shield myself, she thought. The Winterking must not know. But how could he not feel the surge of her native power? She wondered if, with her returned magery, she could now make herself unseen. It could be no glimmerspell: it would need to be something deeper. She reached inside herself and concentrated.

  The moonstone walls wavered and vanished.

  Immediately Maerad released the charm, and the enchanted room reappeared. Then she shielded herself, fearing that Arkan would already know that her magery had returned. She needed to know more; she needed to know the limits of the Winterking's knowledge and power. For he did not know everything, and deep inside her, she was certain his power was not absolute.

  Tomorrow, she thought, I will walk to the door and see the sky again.

  Maerad woke from disturbed dreams and lay in bed, sending out her listening. The palace was silent, as it always was. She heard no distant footfalls on stone, no murmur of conversation, no bustle of activity. Next to her bed was a bowl filled with a hot gruel, which was still steaming. She had not heard anyone come in, but she heard one set of footsteps retreating, with a slight limp: Gima's footsteps.

  There is no one here, she thought. There was never anyone here, except me and Arkan and Gima. It is all illusion. The Winterking is the mountain, and the mountain is the Winterking. I am trapped inside his mind.

  She got out of bed and dressed, and ate the gruel hungrily. Then she wended her way through the endless corridors, remembering the way from the day before, counting it out like a piece of music. She made no mistakes, and came straight to the front door. It was daytime. A pale, bright sun struck up from the snow, momentarily blinding her. She shaded her brow with her hands, waiting for her eyes to adjust, and breathed in the cold air.

  Now she could see the mountainscape, snowy slopes rising to sheer gray rock pinnacles, interrupted only by stands of pine and fir. She studied the sun, working out her bearings; after a while she was sure that the south road ran alongside the Winterking's mountain. The Trukuch range did not seem as high or as harsh as the Osidh Elanor. Perhaps she could wa
lk the width of the range in a day, if Gima was correct and Arkan-da was in the center of the mountains.

  She walked across the snow to the black arch and cautiously examined it, careful not to pass beneath it. It emanated a power that made her hair stand on end. Carefully keeping her magery shielded, she tried to measure it with her mind, trying to decide if she could break through it using her own powers. She wondered if perhaps the lyre could help, since it seemed to dissolve Arkan's illusions, but she could reach no conclusion. And if 1 try and don't succeed, I won't get a second chance, she thought. So it looks like I'll have to try blind. And then what? If I do escape, he'll send the frost creatures after me. He might come himself. And I'll just be freezing to death on a mountainside.

  If I were a gambler, she thought, I would not hazard anything on me.

  Perversely, the thought cheered her, and she turned to walk back to the cave mouth, the door of the Ice Palace, half dreading, half hoping that she would find the Winterking waiting behind her. No one was there, but a prickle of presentiment made her look back again.

  High on a slope beyond the arch there stood a huge white wolf, staring at her with yellow eyes.

  Maerad stared back. The wolf did not seem to be threatening, but it looked as if it were waiting for something. For me? she thought, and almost laughed.

  Yes, said the wolf into her mind. I am waiting for you.

  Maerad was struck speechless with surprise, and merely stared.

  Do not speak, said the wolf. You will be heard. Listen. Remember. Triple-tongued is triple-named.

  The wolf loped off without waiting for a reaction, vanishing swiftly over the slope, and Maerad shook her head. It had left no footprints: the snow where it had been was utterly unmarked. Was it another illusion? Or some kind of wer? Or was it simply that she was losing her mind?

  It is, thought Maerad, quite possible that I am going mad.