The Riddle and the Rune

by Grace Chetwin

  “My master?” The hound snorted scornfully. “My master beats me every morning to keep me in hand, then at night in case I forgot, and then some more whenever he finds the excuse. And he feeds me scarcely anything at all, so you’ll get short shrift from him. Many’s the time I’ve resolved to run away, but where to? Listen, you must go, before he hears you.”

  Go? Gom was crestfallen. “Is there another house you could recommend, then?” he asked, at the gate.

  The hound considered. “Normally, I’d name two or three places right off, but not at present. In fact, right now any stranger showing his face in this place without reason or purse is likely to be whipped out of sight. I tell you: you’d best put as many miles between you and this place while you can.”

  “But why?” Gom asked. “What has made the folk so angry with strangers?”

  The cottage door opened suddenly and a head poked out. “Shadow? Shadow! Cut your racket unless you want a thrashing!”

  “Oh, dear,” Shadow whimpered softly. “It’s my master. Wait here.”

  The hound ran up to the front door and, wagging his tail, stood on his hind legs and licked the farmer’s hands.

  “Here, here, back off!” The farmer kicked him off the porch. “I told you afore: them tricks’ll not get you indoors. You keep watch, d’you hear, boy? Or I’ll come out there and fix ye!”

  The farmer went back in and slammed the door.

  “See what I mean?” Shadow came back to the gate, his tail between his legs. “Oh, how I hate that man. Tell you what,” he said. “If you like, you can sleep in his barn. I’ll wake you at dawn before he comes out, and you can be safely on your way.”

  “That’s very good of you,” Gom said, and followed the hound around to the back of the house.

  The barn was clean and dry, with a pile of empty sacks in one corner.

  Gom took off his pack and set the staff aside. Then, too tired to eat, he lay down on the sacks and closed his eyes.

  A moment later, Shadow’s nose lightly touched his cheek. “Good night. Sleep well,” the hound said, and trotted away.

  Barely two minutes later, it seemed, Shadow nudged him awake again.

  “Quick,” the hound urged him. “It’s late. I’ve had the hardest time rousing you! The master’ll be out any minute.”

  Scarcely before Gom could stand up and blink, the dog hustled him out into the early morning sunshine.

  “Too late,” warned Shadow. “He’s coming! Listen: behind the barn is the orchard. Behind the orchard is a wall. Beyond that is a way out of town. Be quick, and be quiet, if you value your skin.”

  “Thank you for your kindness,” Gom said, but the hound was already scurrying back toward the farmyard.

  Gom found the orchard wall, and moments later he was standing, breathless, in a narrow lane.

  Westward, the lane led away from the village, toward Twisting Valley. Eastward, it led past small neat cottages onto the village green.

  Turning westward, Gom hadn’t gone far up the lane when he heard a commotion behind him. Folk were flocking onto the green from all directions, to gather under a huge old oak standing in its center.

  Intrigued, Gom stopped and pressed himself into the wall to watch and see what brought out all those folk so early in the morning. He couldn’t be sure, but he sensed this was no festive occasion. The murmuring that Wind blew his way sounded angry.

  Come, Gom Gobblechuck, Wind whipped his hair. You'd best be moving. There’s bad work afoot back there.

  “What bad work?” Gom asked. Heeding Wind’s warning, Gom stepped out to hurry up the lane, and dodged back again. He should have curbed his curiosity and gone while he could. Too late now. There was no way he could go up that road without being seen.

  Don’t say I didn’t tell you! Wind cried, and whirled away.

  All at once, there came a burst of angry shouting.

  Peeping out, Gom saw a tall, foxy youth, with lank pale hair, running toward him as though his life depended on it. A crowd followed at his heels, pelting him with rocks and bottles, making a violent din.

  A bottle striking him on the shoulder, the youth fell, picked himself up, and ran on. But he’d lost his lead. Any minute now, the foremost villager, a great hefty man who looked as if he might be the blacksmith, would reach him.

  Sure enough, the man drew level with the youth, seized his shoulder, and began to drag him back up the lane.

  “Think to get away, do yer?” the man snarled. The folk followed after, shouting and gesticulating angrily.

  Gom was so shocked that he stepped from his hiding place and followed them all the way back to the village green.

  In the grass lay a long leather whip.

  While the blacksmith held the youth, another took up the whip and cracked it. “Flogging we said, and flogging it be, so let’s get on with it. We’ve still a day’s work to do after,” the whip man said.

  Flogging? Gom had never heard that actual word before, but it was easy enough to guess its meaning. He eyed the whip in horror.

  The man raised the whip and prepared to bring it down across the youth’s shoulders.

  “Hey!” Gom shouted, before he could help himself. “Stop that!”

  The whip halted in midair, as everyone turned to stare at Gom.

  Seizing his chance, the youth pulled away from his captor and dashed through the crowd, brushing past Gom so closely that in his haste he knocked Gom over.

  “Here!” Climbing to his feet, Gom started after the youth, but many hands seized him and dragged him back.

  “Who are you? What are you doing here?” Voices clamored on every hand.

  “I’m G—” Gom struggled wildly. “I’m going west,” he said.

  There came a shout of laughter.

  “I’ll say,” someone said.

  The hubbub broke out again.

  “What shall we do? Mat’s gone, thanks to him. Who’s going to pay?”

  “Why, him, of course!”

  “We’ll flog this nosy busybody instead.”

  “Yes,” the crowd took up a general call. “Flog him instead.”

  Gom found himself, resisting, being dragged over to the oak tree. He couldn’t believe it. If he didn’t do something quickly, they’d carry out their threat.

  “Wait!” Gom shrugged his captor off. “What has this Mat done to deserve such dreadful treatment?”

  “Done?” The blacksmith’s face darkened. “What hasn’t he done! He’s wrecked this whole village, that’s what. Fooled us with his bragging and his fine promises, cheated us out of our hard-earned money.”

  In spite of his predicament, Gom had to ask. “How do you mean?”

  A sad-faced man spoke up. “Last harvest, he burned down all our hayfields trying to prevent rain.”

  “And at sowing time, he flooded our farmhouse,” a woman called out, “trying to bring it on.”

  An old gaffer piped up. “He made me a special walking stick as he claimed would cure my lumbago. I no sooner put my weight on it than it folded and put me abed for this past six-month.”

  “Don’t forget the village hall,” said a tall, thin woman, “that Mat promised to clear of riddley bug.”

  “He did it, all right.” The blacksmith nodded grimly. “Oh, there’s no more bugs, I’ll grant you that. But there’s no more hall, neither, for his hocus-pocus collapsed it!”

  “Worst of all,” said another. “He’s gone and took our milk.”

  “Your milk?” Gom was truly confused now. The young man called Mat hadn’t been carrying anything when he ran from the village, except himself.

  “It’s like this,” a wife said. “Farmer Marmot’s cows have gone dry. Mat gave them a potion to bring their milk on again. One lick of that stuff and they jumped clear over the gate and took off we don’t know where.” The crowd began to mutter once more.

  “So now we’ve no milk or whey or cheese or cream—” “And that’s tantamount to stealing—”

  “And the penalty f
or stealing is the whip!”

  “Hey, hey,” said Gom, thinking fast. “Aren’t you all getting rather excited? Look, suppose the potion hasn’t worked—and you have no way of knowing. In that case, there’s still no milk, so it can’t have been stolen. Now, suppose the potion has worked, and the cows are making milk again. In that case, Mat has done what you wanted, and far from stealing your milk supply, he’s restored it, and it’s the cows who’ve run off with it. But since the milk is really theirs in the first place, there’s been no theft at all. Therefore, I’d say your accusations are unfounded. Understandable, but—”

  “Enough.” The blacksmith seized Gom and shook him until his teeth rattled. “Time’s awasting. Let’s get on.” Muttering, the crowd closed in, forming a tight circle about him.

  Gom looked around. Far from talking them out of their anger, he’d only incensed them more.

  The whip man stepped forward.

  Gom turned to face him defiantly. As he did so, he caught sight of Shadow at the edge of the crowd with his master.

  The blacksmith roughly turned Gom’s back to the whip, and Gom, his face set defiantly, clenched his teeth and braced himself for the blow.

  Without warning, a huge black mass sprang into the circle, snarling and leaping about, snapping at everyone’s feet.

  Shadow!

  There was instant pandemonium, the crowd breaking up and running off in all directions from the hound apparently gone mad.

  “Go! Go! Quick!” Shadow urged Gom. “Now, while you can!”

  Gom set off up the lane. “What about you!” he called back. Shadow was racing in crazy circles, emptying the last remnants off the green.

  “I’ll manage,” the dog barked. “Good-bye. And good luck!”

  “They’ll kill you! Come on, come with me!” Gom shouted.

  The dog stopped in his tracks, then suddenly, he raced up the lane to join Gom.

  Together they ran, to the end of the lane, and onto the trail to Deeping Dale. A few folk started after them, but Gom and Shadow had too great a lead. They sprinted along until they were out of breath, and still kept going until they were heading down into Twisting Valley. Only when they were safely into that place did they stop to rest, off the trail a way amid tall grasses.

  Shadow flopped down on his belly, his bony ribs heaving, his tongue lolling out. Gom lay back, listening to his own breath gradually slowing. Where was the foxy youth? he wondered. Mat, someone had called him. Gom hadn’t seen sign of the lad, and he and Shadow had run fast enough, surely, to catch up with him. Maybe he’d kept clear of the trail for fear of being caught again. What a rascal he was, Gom thought. But he hadn’t looked evil, or bad, not exactly.

  As for Mat’s supposed misdeeds... Gom leaned up on one elbow and plucked a blade of sweet grass. He could sympathize with the villagers for being duped once, or twice, maybe. But more than that? It served them right for letting the same fellow fool them over and over!

  Half-smiling, Gom began to hum an old tune under his breath.

  Oh woe is me, for I am run out of town,

  For letting my tongue run free...

  He smiled to think of what mischief the wily Mat would have made among the gullible Clack folk before they ran him out, as no doubt they would have in the end.

  Gom’s smile faded. Pity they’d missed each other, he thought wistfully. Now there would have been a fine companion: obviously much traveled, with a fund of great stories to tell. And just as much misunderstood by normal folk it seemed, as Gom himself. But the lad couldn’t be blamed for running off like that from those dreadful people.

  Shadow began to whine.

  “I’m afraid,” the great dog said. “I have no master. What shall become of me?”

  Gom reached out a hand and patted him.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But anything that happens to you from now on will be better than what went on back there.” He sat up. “I haven’t thanked you properly yet for what you did,” he declared solemnly. “You’re a very brave dog.”

  “Oh no I’m not.” Shadow sat up too, panting in the heat. “Believe me, I’m not. I just don’t know what came over me.”

  “You’re altogether too modest,” Gom insisted. “Listen: you sheltered me in your master’s barn, risking a beating for letting a stranger onto the property. Then you did your mad dog act to save me. You could have been killed for that. You’re a kind, brave creature, and I’m proud to have you for a friend.”

  “Really?” Shadow wagged his tail.

  “Yes, indeed. You know, I was getting lonely, traveling alone. It’s so good to have company.”

  They moved along at a steady pace until tiring at last, Gom stopped by a little water hole for elevenses. Unable to break the waybread, Gom gave Shadow one of his two remaining cakes to gnaw, then lay back under a clump of bushes, sheltering from the noonday heat.

  Gnats played around his head, and somewhere close by a peeper sang a sleepy song. A bright blue butterfly fluttered past, lighted on a stand of creamy wild snapdragons. Gom wiped his forehead on his sleeve, conscious of his breath laboring in the humid heat. The air was dense and heavy down in the valleys, he thought, fanning his face with a broad dock leaf. He wondered how folk managed to stand it year after year.

  Shadow, his jaws dripping from the water hole, flopped down beside him. Reason told Gom that they should stay there while the sun passed overhead. But then he also felt that that was wasting time.

  “Ten minutes, " Gom said. “Then we must move on.” It was an effort. And not only because of the heat. Twisting Valley was very well named, at least the twisting bit. Nowhere could one see more than a few hundred yards ahead. But “valley”? It was more like a gully, Gom soon found. The sides were steep, wild, and overgrown with hawthorn and honeysuckle, blocking the trail altogether in places.

  Gom whistled under his breath as he went along in the afternoon sunshine, happy in Shadow’s company, even though the hound would chase every rabbit and squirrel that he saw over Gom’s objection.

  Shadow, however, wasn’t in the best of spirits. “I miss having a master,” he said. “Someone to call me to heel, to tell me to go and to come. It doesn’t feel right, running around loose like this.”

  Gom felt a little hurt. Oh? But I asked you not to go chasing my friends and you just didn’t take any notice, he thought, though not wanting to argue, he didn’t say that out loud.

  “You’ll get used to it,” he remarked instead. “Soon you’ll realize how to use your freedom, how lucky you are now not to have to come and go anymore at another’s pleasure.”

  “You told me to follow you,” the dog said, sounding a little sulky. “You should be my master now.”

  “Me?” Gom looked at the dog in surprise. “Oh no. I don’t want to be anybody’s master. You saved my skin, and for that you are my friend and equal.”

  Master indeed, Gom thought, much disturbed at the idea. Yet seeing how miserable Shadow was with his newfound freedom, Gom made a real effort to humor him, until the dog got used to it. Time and again Gom recalled Shadow sternly from his forays into quail and rabbit territory on either side of the trail. But without success. Evidently recognizing Gom’s halfheartedness, the hound didn’t even pretend to obey.

  Late in the afternoon, they stopped again to rest their legs. According to the map, the next village was three days away, in the lush green lands of Middle Vale. Gom rummaged in his pack for something to give Shadow. There wasn’t much left, certainly for a dog.

  “Don’t worry,” Shadow assured him, nosing his hand. “I’ll forage.” He ran off into the tangled scrub ignoring Gom’s calls to come back.

  Gom watched him go unhappily, not liking to think what Shadow would forage on. With a sigh, he lay back, locked his hands behind his head, and stared up at the clear afternoon sky. According to Carrick’s map, it would take ten or so more days to reach the Lakes. And then?

  He’d maybe find some of those inns Carrick had told him about and offer his
services cutting wood, and doing other odd jobs about the place. And all the while he’d listen, and ask in ever so round about a way where a body might find one such as Harga.

  As he lay there, daydreaming in the afternoon heat, he imagined he saw a black speck circling, way up high. He smiled, remembering Tak the raven.

  The speck came lower and lower, growing bigger all the while.

  Gom’s smile froze.

  That bird was huge, with wings bigger than any raven’s. It couldn’t be, Gom told himself, slowly sitting up, but even as he tried to get to his feet, it came at him—the skull-bird!

  Gom rolled under a bush and lay, his blood racing. Katak come for him again! How?

  The bird skimmed past with a whir of wings, then wheeled about to hover, looking down.

  “Fool! You think to escape Katak’s will? Think again, little man!"

  Gom’s middle went to jelly. Not the shapechanger, but Zamul! Ganash had personally escorted Zamul to the far side of the sound. “He’ll not get out of there in a month of Sundays,” the kundalara had assured Gom. What had gone wrong?

  “I told you my master was going to give me magic of a different kind?” Zamul cried. “Well, he’s given me the changing power, and here I am, in my master’s own favorite shape, to get him back your rune!”

  Banking sharply over the bush, Zamul thrust out his thick strong legs and, raking his talons across Gom’s back, hauled him by his shirt from his shelter.

  Dazed, Gom reached to cover the rune but Zamul clawed his hand away, and seized the stone.

  A huge black shape sprang from the bushes and hurled itself at the hovering bird.

  “Shadow!”

  Released from Zamul’s talons, Gom clutched the stone to him and crawled back to shelter. His back was afire, and his hand streamed blood.

  Dog and bird were closely interlocked, a screaming, snarling mass of hair and blood and feather. Shadow’s mouth closed on the bird’s wing, but the bird, clawing at the dog’s hindquarters, forced him to let it go. Shadow tried for the bird’s throat only it was too quick. With a loud screech, it raked Shadow’s side with its talons, laying the flesh open.