The Riddler's Gift: First Tale of the Lifesong (The Tale of the Lifesong)

by Greg Hamerton

  Soon, that shall change.

  Kirjath spat into the ashes near at hand. The Darkmaster knew of his rebellious nature—three junior Shadowcasters had been promoted past him to Vortex, while he strained against the debasing leash of the Shadowcaster rank. He snarled at the raven, wishing he could learn to conceal his contempt better.

  He caught himself—his thoughts had been scattering again, as if part of him couldn’t face the present, or the recent past. He gritted his teeth as he extended his left arm, then called to the bird.

  “Alight, Morrigán, and deliver your word.”

  The raven looked back at him askance. It dropped off the blackened fence-post, swooping low to the ground as its wings spread. Then it swung up onto his outstretched arm, and exploded into a shower of motes. The message was in the Darkmaster’s voice. The words were precisely pronounced, cold and disdainful.

  “I take it you are done with the task I set you, in which case you are summoned to Ravenscroft, Shadowcaster Kirjath. Immediately.” That was all. The remains of the raven-form had disappeared completely. The wind spoke of nothing more. The sun glared off the melting snow.

  The task done? What task?

  It came back to him slowly, painfully. He had been sent for the talisman. The Master’s ring. The horror of the night returned to mind with full force. The agony of the fire. The defiance of the Lightgifter, the disastrous explosion of her flaming suicide. She had never given him what he had sought.

  Kirjath glared at the ruins of the farmstead. Surely nothing had survived the fire, nothing was left of the talisman? If it had not melted in the intense heat, it would be somewhere in the ashes. The house was burned to the ground, the husband dead, the Gifter dead. The only loose thread was her daughter, the girl who had run away during the fight.

  Something still bothered him about that girl. He strained to remember the events as they had happened, but they were entangled in the agony of the fire, and the ecstasy of using the beast. The Lightgifter had returned after pretending to fetch the Ring for him, then she had attacked him with the barrage of Light essence, and the girl ... the girl had bolted at that moment from the Gifter’s back. If the Gifter had passed something to her daughter, he would not have seen the movement. Yes, it could have happened.

  He gazed at the broken poles and carbon timbers. Such a young woman, on a stormy night, she could not have gone far. The Darkmaster would have to wait, this time. The Ring was important to both of them. Kirjath’s mouth twisted into a wry grin, which he abandoned at once as his damaged lip split and spilled a sour taste into his mouth. The summoning had been quite specific. ‘I take it you are done with the task’.

  Not done, not just yet, you cretin. I have reason to ignore the summoning, by your own words.

  He remembered the way the girl had stared at him, as blood had coursed down her face from the broken glass of his arrival. A pretty face, clear-eyed, smooth-cheeked; she would be easy to find. She would be amusing as well. She would tell him if she had secretted the talisman away. She would scream it to him. After that, he was sure of one thing. The last member of the Gifter’s family had to be silenced.

  * * *

  A bony hand pulled at Tabitha’s shoulder. She was cold, frozen. She wanted to remain in the snow, to be left for dead, but the hand upon her shifted, and she was rolled over like a log. She clenched her eyes shut against the bright daylight. The memories she had wanted to avoid burst into her mind instead.

  The Shadowcaster had come. Her father had fallen. Dead, her parents were dead. She had run away through the forest.

  She was being pinned down by somebody. She kicked frantically at the ground, trying to escape. Someone was speaking to her in a strange voice.

  “Fight if you would, but it will do you no good.”

  The voice was strange, warbling, almost musical.

  She dreaded what she might see if she opened her eyes. Was it the Shadowcaster? His cloak so dark, his eyes as grey as slate. No, his voice had been harsher.

  She cracked her left eye open. She could see a jutting black-and-white beard above her. A weathered, tanned face, wrinkled like bark. Bright brown eyes, slightly mismatched, the nearest one held more gold upon the iris. Dark bushy hair, topped by an old hat made from some striped pelt.

  “I have found you first, so you’ve avoided the worst,” the stranger reassured.

  She was confused by his presence, confused and disorientated.

  What did he want? Was he with the Shadowcaster? Tabitha tried to roll away, but he held her firmly. “Gently now, gently now! No need to take fright. I am here to help.”

  There was truth in those words, a truth she could hear. Tabitha slumped back onto the snow. She didn’t need to fight him, he had come to save her. What did it matter? He was too late. Her parents were dead. She felt his hands shift—one slipped underneath her shoulders, the other beneath her knees. He scooped her up without straining at all, and set her upon something above ground level.

  Tabitha was wrapped in a thick woollen blanket. From somewhere behind her head, a horse snorted. The stranger issued a light whistle, and there was a lurch through the cart beneath her. The cart turned in a slow semicircle, then surged forwards as the horse began to trot. The trees marched sedately across the sky. The cart bounced over some uneven terrain in the High Way, then settled into a steady, vibrating rhythm. Unconsciousness swept over Tabitha once more.

  * * *

  The East-door stood wide to the morning sun, and a fresh breeze pulled past Ashley through the Hall of Sky. The voices of the assembled Lightgifters and apprentices soared in song. The women’s delicate voices raised the music to the vaulted ceiling. The men’s tenor harmony danced between the rays of light. A few deep basses intoned a continuous chant which resonated in the very floor of the Hall. The three parts blended into the compelling spell which was the Dovecote’s Morningsong. It was a beautiful song that left both the singer and the essence charged. The air swirled with clouds of sprites; their dull brown transformed to brightness as the Morningsong took effect.

  The Source was brilliant. Sunlight radiated from it, splitting and joining, flashing out to the walls and floor, marking some of the upturned faces with bright rays, leaving some dull. Not only would the Source empower the sprites, it created new Light essence, drew it from the air.

  Ashley sang by rote. He could feel someone’s eyes on him, and he scanned the Assembly surreptitiously. Most of the Lightgifters were absorbed by their singing. The Rector stood on the raised dais, directing the flow of essence through the Hall, weaving the sprites in and out of the empowering light.

  The Rector? He couldn’t be sure, but Shamgar had turned his head just as Ashley looked his way.

  Surely the Rector couldn’t know about last night? The Creator spare me!

  The Rector’s round face protruded from the raised collar of his purple mantle. His cheeks puffed out at odd moments as he wove the flows of Light through the hall. The Rector turned slightly, and raised his slim eyebrow as he caught Ashley’s eye with a pale blue gaze of piercing superiority. Ashley flicked his gaze away immediately. He sang louder.

  The Morningsong faded at last, leaving the Hall in an expectant hush. Sprites shimmered in the confinement of the bluestone channel which circled the Scribbillarre. The gathered Assembly faced inwards, to the only man who raised himself above floor level, the man on the dais at their centre.

  “Good morning, Assembly,” the Rector began.

  “Good morning, Illumination,” the Assembly echoed, as one.

  “Light to your orbs.”

  “And to yours.”

  “Today,” the Rector began. “Today is a day unlike the days before it. A day unique from those that follow. The task you will face today can be done only once, so try to do the best you can.” Ashley was accustomed to the Rector’s motivational speeches, every morning different, yet endlessly the same. The man showered them with disdain.

  “Gifters and half-knots, hear me now.”
The Rector’s gaze fell on Ashley again. He suddenly felt like a specimen pinned to a board. “There are always forces that would pull a Gifter away from his true course. Such forces must be denied. We all feel the lure of Darkness, it hides in all the pleasures and desires of the world. But a Lightgifter must never give in to the temptation.”

  Mutters and jostles passed through the Assembly, drawing attention away from the Rector to the source of the disturbance. The Rector’s voice inherited a sharper edge. “A Lightgifter must never break the rules set by the Dovecote.”

  A space was clearing between the Lightgifters. Ashley joined the majority of the Assembly by looking away from the Rector, trying to see what would emerge from the diverging crowd.

  “A Lightgifter must never ignore the command of those divinely selected.”

  “Rector, she has a vision!” someone exclaimed, cutting through the Rector’s litany. A tall, clean-shaven Lightgifter stepped forward, a newly-ordained Gifter called Rosreece. “We must witness,” he insisted.

  The space cleared further. Ashley was surprised to see Sister Hosanna isolated in the centre. She was as groomed as ever, but for once she did not appear regal at all. Her eyes were rolled back in their sockets, and she swayed on her feet as if guided by an overpowering presence. She was receiving a vision. Ashley had heard rumours of her unique skill, but had never seen it in action. Vision-casting was as rare and unpredictable as a violet sprite. They would all witness a wonder.

  “Come, come, we have seen this woman’s fits before,” the Rector asserted. “Attend to what I have to say.” The Rector compelled them with a rap of his sceptre on the dais.

  Ashley was torn between getting into trouble, or missing Hosanna’s performance. It was not true that they had all seen it before, he knew many apprentices who would be as keen to witness her as he was.

  “Gifters! Half-knots!” Again, a sharp stamp of the sceptre. The Rector blew his red cheeks out, but before he could begin what he wanted to say, Sister Hosanna declared her vision.

  “I see a farm, in high fields near First Light.”

  Hosanna was poised on the tips of her toes, as if she were weightless. Her arms were outstretched like a dancer’s. Sprites formed a nimbus around her body, and more Light swirled toward her, drawn from the channel at the rim of the Scribbillarre. The essence enveloped Hosanna like liquid radiance. She sank to her knees, and drew the essence into a pool of Light on the white marble of the Scribbillarre. Within her pool, forms began to appear, guided by her vision. A small homestead took shape.

  “A young woman sings with a lyre.” A miniature figure sat beneath a translucent tree. Then the figure melted into the pool of sprites, and new figures emerged.

  “Soon after, a Gifter fights a terrible foe.”

  Ashley pushed closer through the gathered onlookers. Hosanna’s pool showed two figures facing each other, gesturing and moving, but nothing more was clear in the rippled surface of sprites. The taller figure spread its arms wide, and split into three. The sprites were sullied within those forms, dirtier, darker.

  “A Shadowcaster,” Hosanna pronounced. “There is something else, in his command. It comes. It –”

  She jerked where she knelt, her body rigid. Her voice was a strained whisper. “A Morgloth. A Morgloth comes to Eyri!”

  The pool of sprites warped into a winged creature, with a wicked head and slashing claws. “Oh, the hunger. The evil!” Hosanna gave a stifled cry, and bowed her head to her knees. The pool of her vision ruptured, and sprites scattered to the walls.

  There was a dazed silence in the Hall of Sky. Someone bent to Hosanna’s aid. When she rose on Rosreece’s arm, she looked tired and haunted. She covered her face briefly with her hands, then said, “I am sorry, I see no more. But I know that a terrible fate comes upon Eyri. I have seen it. The Morgloth return.”

  “Are you quite finished, Hosanna?”

  She composed herself with a quick breath. “Forgive me, Rector, for my intrusion. The vision took me.” The crispness of her customary demeanour returned to her face.

  The Rector regarded Hosanna with tight-lipped disapproval, and Ashley heard his voice within, just as he had on the day of the starburst, that strange sense of intimate eaves-dropping.

  “One day this woman is going to have the wrong kind of vision, and everything could be ruined,” thought the Rector.

  But when the Rector spoke out loud, he used very different words. “Your ravings do not become you, Lightgifter Hosanna. Next time you should remember your manners and excuse yourself from the Hall.”

  Rosreece stepped to the fore. “Forgive me as well, Rector, but I believe the vision proved its worth. The Morgloth concerns us all.”

  “Morgloth!” the Rector scoffed, puffing his cheeks out. “I do not credit such wild fantasies.”

  “The Darkmaster would never have gone that far, to release such beasts into the realm,” he thought.

  “Rector, she has never been wrong before,” Rosreece objected. “How can we forget the flood she foretold, or the kidnapping of the crown Prince? We ignore her prophecy to our detriment, to the detriment of all.”

  “This trumpeter fancies himself too much,” the Rector decided. “And she must be sent away before she foresees something more damaging.”

  “I am well aware of Hosanna’s odd talents,” the Rector snapped. “Visions are usually misinterpreted.”

  “Can we not send a quest to First Light?” asked Rosreece.

  “And get them all out of my way,” the Rector mused.

  “Very well,” said the Rector. “Some Gifters need to travel to the Meadowmoor to discover the truth of this vision, or to warn those who live there of the Morgloth.”

  That word sparked a riot of nervous mutter and whispered arguments. Morgloth. It was a mythical creature, too terrifying to be real.

  “Silence!” boomed the Rector, slamming his sceptre on the dais so hard that he lost his grip on it. The rod skittered down the steps. His skin acquired a darker shade, and one of his eyelids developed a sudden tick. “I have a full day, and little time to waste, what? Hosanna, do we know if this vision has happened, is happening, or is still to take place?”

  “Close to this time,” Hosanna answered, her head held high. “Whether it was before, or after, I don’t know. I never know that.”

  “We should alert the Sword!” Rosreece blurted out.

  The Rector glared down from the dais. “No, I shall not have anyone crying wolf to the Sword without proof. Gifter Rosreece, you will lead the quest, since you feel so strongly about Hosanna’s visions. Hosanna, you will accompany him to First Light. Father Keegan and Sister Grace shall be your Gifters. And as apprentice, I select Ashley Logán. May you curb this Shadowcaster and his mischief in time. Light to your orbs.”

  “And to yours,” the Assembly echoed the reflexive litany.

  A few surprised faces turned towards Ashley. Rosreece was one of them. “But Rector, this is not training exercise! The Half-knot has no ability yet. What danger might this second-year apprentice face?”

  “There are four of you, Rosreece,” stated the Rector. “That is surely enough to protect one Half-knot. I have spoken. You will find use for him, one way or another.”

  “Rector.” Rosreece dipped his head.

  A strange leader, considering the group and the task. Father Keegan was fifteen years the senior of Rosreece, and he would have been Ashley’s choice of leader amongst the four Gifters. He searched for the brown-bearded Father in the Assembly, and found Keegan, tight-lipped, already striding from the Hall. Sister Grace watched him leave as well, a look of studied patience on her brow. She gave Ashley a faint smile when he caught her eye.

  “To your work, people,” the Rector announced. “We shall await word from Rosreece’s team before discussing this event.” He made a pounding movement with his fist, then scowled. His sceptre was not in his hand, it lay upon the floor.

  “Laziness is the root of evil,” he declared. “Be gone, all o
f you!”

  * * *

  Ashley was so excited and nervous about their quest that he noticed very little of the journey’s beginning. They had packed, and moved out quickly. He had little time to consider Hosanna’s vision, for he was soon trying to master a horse upon the steep descent through Levin.

  The tension between Rosreece and Father Keegan compelled them to speed through the bustle of the city. There was no time for talk. Their horses pounded along, cantering where the streets were wide, prancing in frustration when the traffic of merchants, buyers, ordinary folk and ragamuffins blocked their way. The streets wound ever-downward from the Dovecote.

  Some time later they reached the city limits. When the sun climbed to its zenith, they were well into the countryside at the junction town of Fig Tree. The gnarled namesake stood in the centre of the circular junction in the town square, casting its mighty shadow upon the weatherworn signboards affixed to its trunk. Flowerton to the north, nestled deep in the farmlands of Vinmorgen County, where the good wines and fruit came from. Respite away to the east, where most of the traffic on the stoneroad originated, wagons loaded with the metal goods from the forges at Chink. They turned due west, to Stormsford, the Fig Tree said, and in smaller text—Llury, Brimstone and First Light. They rode.

  They rode wide of the slow-moving wagons and people on the road, taking to the turf on either side which was easier on the horses’ hooves. The town of Stormsford passed with only the briefest halt to water the horses, and an even briefer argument between Keegan and Rosreece about the choice of trails. Keegan preferred the Southwind route, but Rosreece was adamant. The High Way would be quicker, for the horses would remain cooler within the Great Forest. The plains of the lakeside district blurred by like a patchwork quilt, with swathes of verdant green sewn between the many tilled fields and farmhouses. The sun rode with them across the sky, a swirling circle of fire, glaring and hot despite the season.