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

by Greg Hamerton

  Cabal rejoiced. So long the wait, so sweet the victory.

  The crowd shifted nervously as the currents of Dark essence spun tighter at the edges of the forecourt. It would seem to them that they were within a dark cave, and that the walls had begun to move inwards. Devotion and Despair, his Shadowcasters blended the spells with seamless integrity. The words became a mantra as more and more of the people fell to their knees, and joined the chanted dedication to their new master.

  Cabal presented himself at last to the sunlight. It was wan enough not to be a bother, but by contrast to the surrounding gloom, his black robes glistened in splendour.

  “Give me my son.” Mellar’s voice was thick with grief and anger, amidst the chanting of the affected crowd.

  Cabal waved a negligent hand in Glavenor’s direction, and the Swordmaster sheathed his sword and stepped away. Father and son faced each other. Tears wet Mellar’s cheeks. Prince Bevn started forward, but instead of walking to his father’s embrace, he stooped to pick up the crown and then backed away. The young man’s words brought laughter to Cabal’s lips. His apprentice had learned so much in Ravenscroft.

  “You old fool. You’ve just thrown your crown away, for nothing.” The young prince fondled the Darkstone which dangled close to his throat. “This is true power. The kind of power you never had, the kind of power I will have forever, at the side of the Master.”

  He backed away from Mellar, crossed the circle, and brought the Kingsrim to Cabal’s hand.

  “I’m on the winning side now,” Bevn finished, looking up into Cabal’s face, his devotion shining bright and hungry in his eyes.

  “He has even more wisdom than his father,” Cabal announced, then shook with dry laughter. It was a glorious moment. He threw his cowl back, raised the Kingsrim, and placed it upon his head. The Devotion spell quickened as he had expected it to—every Eyrian was sworn to serve the crown. His link to the cowed citizens of Stormhaven was stronger than ever.

  Mellar stared across the sunlit paving to where his son stood beside the new King of Eyri. At last, the words he managed were barely more than a whisper, but he repeated them, and Cabal caught them the second time.

  “What have you done to my son?”

  “Look to the one who shall execute you, and you shall truly understand my power. Glavenor!” He cast a swift Devotion spell on the Swordmaster, when he noted his hesitation and anguish. “Obey your King, and your Master.” Cabal signalled to his Shadowcasters to draw all the motes inwards. The web tightened until it cut off the sunlight once more, plunging the forecourt into cold, crushing gloom.

  The ring of a sword being drawn again from its scabbard was loud and clear.

  “Now do you understand, Mellar?” crowed Cabal. “Do you see my power? Your best man, and he can offer you no aid. Once I have his allegiance, he can never take it back. My power is absolute, my rule shall endure forever.”

  The Swordmaster of Eyri raised his sword.

  46. WIZARD OF EYRI

  “If magic did not surprise,

  would it be magic?”—Zarost

  Tabitha broke inwards from the cover of the crowd, and ran. The Darkstone on Garyll’s throat confirmed everything which Ashley had told her. His raised sword settled her indecision—Garyll did not struggle against his oppressor, he had taken the Devotion. He had been turned.

  She refused to believe that all of him was Dark.

  “Garyll, wait!” she cried. Her strapped lyre beat against her back as she ran.

  It took a terribly long moment to reach the King, a moment in which Felltang glistened at the high point of its arc, but did not fall. She threw herself over the King’s back, shielding Mellar’s bowed head with her own.

  “If you will kill the King, you must take my life first.”

  The depth of horror in Garyll’s eyes was immense. The weight of the realm rested on their love.

  “Tabitha, don’t do this,” he whispered.

  Cold stung her from behind, from where the Darkmaster stood. She endured the sudden pain of it, and clung to the King. The air was thick with motes.

  “Be true to your heart,” she cried weakly to Garyll, against the grip of what she presumed was a Silence spell working its way through her chest. It was not yet the moment to reveal her own skill to the Darkmaster. She had to know Garyll would be on her side when she did.

  “Kill them both!” roared the Darkmaster, from close behind. “I am the King!”

  Garyll tensed. His jaw shook, and he jerked Felltang downward, but halted the strike just as suddenly. The blade was inches from Tabitha’s neck. Something cracked—she couldn’t tell if it was the hilt of the sword, or a bone in his hand. Then he raised Felltang again. There was a turmoil behind his gaze, but then his eyes grew wide, as if he had come upon some awesome realisation. A sudden resolve spread across his features as if a mask had been lifted from his face, and the true Glavenor was revealed at last.

  “By the terms of our pact, I am released,” he shouted, and flung the sword after his words. “You promised her no harm. You have breached the pact!”

  Felltang screeched through the air over Tabitha’s head. There was a sudden wet impact behind her. A choking, gurgling cry, then something soft and heavy struck the stone. The Kingsrim tumbled past her feet.

  She released King Mellar, and turned. A figure writhed, facedown. A wide blade protruded from his back. The Darkmaster flipped over with a convulsion. The movement drove the exposed sword into the forecourt. Metal scraped. He clutched at his chest, then jerked a knee to support himself. His eyes locked onto Tabitha.

  The Darkmaster was dying. But he was not dead yet.

  “You die with me,” he said, no more than a wheeze. In the shocked silence of the crowd, his words were sharp. Despite the blood frothing from his mouth, he gestured a command, and whispered a spell. The motes of sixty Shadowcasters combined, and flew at Tabitha as a wall of Dark, coming from all sides at once.

  There was no time for fear. Tabitha found the clarity of the wizard’s attention through the Ring. She had known Cabal would assault her when she declared her defiance, but she had not expected to face the reckless fury of a dying man. Tabitha formed the pattern of the reversed Turning in an instant, yet it was still not quick enough. The first of the motes struck. If Zarost had not insisted she meditate on her spell for the entire night, she knew she would have lost the form under the assault.

  She extended her spell. One twisted circle, reflected to form two, and reflected again to four, all within a flickering of thought. She reached through sudden pain. Four circles became eight, eight sixteen. A deathly cold gripped her legs, tore at her back. Sixteen circles reflected to form thirty-two, a wavering net of scales, like a coat of mail. Her arms were in agony. She drew everything from the Ring—all the awareness she could bear, all the enhanced concentration she could demand. Time stretched out, every fraction of every second gave her a moment within which she could act, and yet she needed more time to save herself.

  Thirty-two, sixty-four, one-hundred-and-twenty-eight. The reflections doubled her pattern with frantic growth. Something was grinding into her spine, threatening to break her bones.

  Then she had it, as she had practised—a net of fine circles, so fine they caught each mote at the moment it struck, so numerous they surrounded her like the shell of an egg. It did nothing to protect her as it was, it only afforded her a moment of control over the motes, before they pierced the pattern and struck to her core.

  The entire web of Dark under the Master’s control was aimed inwards, a thousand arrow-points, driving to the centre. Tabitha stood with her hands outstretched. She could never have summoned so much of the Dark to her command. She could not have summoned any while holding the full complexity of the twisted circles in mind at the same time, but the Darkmaster’s assault offered thousands upon thousands of motes. She was entombed in essence. She did not have to escape the Dark, she embraced it, accepted it. She was a Shadowcaster. The Dark was hers to com
mand for the instant it was within her pattern.

  “Hold the pattern, round and round, in the hidden turn, to the stronger Will be bound.”

  She was a Lightgifter.

  It was as if a thousand lightning flashes ignited in one brilliant instant. The motes that were in her sphere of influence became sprites, the cold became heat.

  As the wave of Dark washed against her spell from all sides, it was returned, as if it had washed against a wall, or a mirror. Tabitha strained to hold the spell as a unified whole. The Dark was reflected as Light, upon the advance of its kind. Sprites struck motes. The essence was neutralised around her.

  The Darkmaster’s fury did not abate, if anything the motes came faster as the Light bloomed around Tabitha. The Shadowcasters threw all of the Dark essence against her spell. The intense concentration was too much to maintain, it drained her strength faster than ever, but she held on. Tabitha bowed her head.

  The final wave of Light around her met the Dark. The air was filled with the cacophony, as a thousand particles of essence met their nemesis. Flagstones shattered, and chips of masonry stung her legs. People cried out against a sudden clap of booming thunder.

  Then there was nothing, just silence, and the returning breeze.

  She looked up.

  It was not Light that filled Stormhaven, though the citizens probably thought so, for the Dark that stained the air was removed, and the daylight had returned. It was clarity, more than anything else, which had taken the place of the Dark. Victory had been snatched from the Darkmaster’s grasp, and in its place was left the empty air. All the spells that had wrapped Stormhaven in gloom, all the cold and grinding fear, all the despair and might of the Dark was dissolved. The motes were gone. The sprites were no more. Something new had taken their place.

  Only one man could see what she saw. Tabitha knew that somewhere in the crowd, Twardy Zarost watched the flux of fusion, the clear liquid power filling the space that others saw as empty.

  She had reached it all. Half of the Dark essence had been turned to create Light, and had in turn neutralised the remaining motes in the final clash. Clear essence filled Stormhaven.

  Some of the Shadowcasters realised what had been done, for they broke from the rear of the crowd, and fled toward the City Gates. They were the wisest. Without Dark essence, they had no power at all. The crowd milled in confused awe.

  Tabitha felt a strange tingling at her throat. She found the orbs upon their chains and held them close to her chin. Two spheres of pure crystal hung there. In the intensity of her crisis and triumph, she had transformed the stones as well.

  “Ring user,” came a faint, gurgling voice.

  The Darkmaster had a pale cast to his face, and blood streaked his chin. The hilt of Felltang still protruded from his chest. His eyes sought Tabitha’s with the appeal of the dying. A feeble presence pulled at her like the touch of clinging weed in the lake shallows.

  “A—word.”

  Garyll moved before her. He stooped to grip Felltang, and the Darkmaster arched in agony. Garyll did not pull the sword clear. He turned on his knee, to face Tabitha.

  “I’ll stay my hand, only if you wish to hear him.”

  “I’ll hear him.” Cabal was so close to death’s door, and his power was gone. With Garyll positioned as he was, the Darkmaster presented no threat. She came up close beside Garyll. The Darkmaster gurgled twice, before finding the breath for his voice amidst the bubbles of his own blood.

  “Did you—find—the wizard?”

  She nodded.

  “Was—this spell—his secret work?”

  Tabitha could see the Darkmaster’s question would lead to another, but she did not wish to lie, in the presence of the Swordmaster and the King. She could not lie, with the Ring so much a part of her now.

  “Yes.”

  “Who is the wizard?”

  King Mellar was close to her on the one side, Garyll on the other.

  “You are looking at her.”

  Blood dripped from Cabal’s chin, and disappeared into the spreading wetness of his black robe.

  “Ah.” He coughed, and grimaced. “The riddle—find the wizard. The wizard within.” He coughed blood again.

  “Ahh.” He closed his eyes. His voice was a fading whisper.

  “– time, the Dark shall return.”

  His eyes fluttered open. His gaze wandered over them, then he displayed a sudden focus, as if seeing something far away.

  And then he laughed. It was chilling, for it was plain to Tabitha that each convulsion brought immense pain around Garyll’s blade. Yet the Darkmaster laughed.

  “You have won nothing!” he shouted, his voice suddenly shrill. “Look upon your doom!”

  “Enough!” Garyll shouted. He wrenched his sword free as he stood, taking Felltang on an arc through the Darkmaster’s chest. Even as the Darkmaster’s body went rigid with death, Tabitha thought he laughed. She recoiled from the gory spectacle.

  The delusions brought by the moment of death, it had to be. Still she turned, and looked off into the distance, where the Darkmaster had looked at the last.

  There was nothing but the distant jagged teeth of the Zunskar. It was a strangely ordinary day. The air was cool, the sun was warm. The storm clouds still loomed in the north, but to the east they were tattered. Great rents had been blown in the mantle of grey, and through these the sky showed blue.

  The sun poured down in golden falls. Large birds crossed the blue gaps, coming from the east. She drew on her Ring to refine her sight. Upon that moment, Tabitha’s heart fell.

  The birds sped toward Stormhaven, growing larger all the time, holding a ragged formation. They were too big, bigger than eagles, and their flight was ungainly. Tabitha stifled a cry. There were so many of them, black and deadly, airborne beasts that would never be birds. Wicked, barbed wings swept back against slick bodies. Giant malformed beaks issued horrid cries.

  Garyll turned, to follow her gaze. He said nothing for a time, then stiffened beside her.

  “Run!” he shouted. “Run for cover! The Morgloth come!”

  The crowd erupted in chaos, voices raised in argument, people pushing against angry resistance, some escaping in different directions.

  Tabitha was transfixed with horror. A company of Swords came at a run from the distant City Gates. Their armour jingled. The first Morgloth swooped past the outer battlements. The Swords slowed at the edge of the forecourt, as they considered the chaotic crowd. They had probably expected to battle Shadowcasters. Instead, the forecourt boiled with panicked citizens. The Morgloth dived from the sky behind them.

  The first victim was a young Sword at the rear of the company. The Morgloth landed hard against his back. With a sickening thump, the man was driven to the ground. The Morgloth squatted, and removed the Sword’s head with one swift bite. The nauseating thump of another strike sounded. Three more.

  Garyll gripped her by the arm, and wrenched her around to face him.

  “The palace!” he shouted. “Come!”

  They ran, the King a few steps ahead of them, amongst those of the crowd who had heard Garyll’s cry. Around them, citizens fled for their lives. The Morgloth seemed to have no preference. They hungered for life, and any head would do.

  A Shadowcaster stood helplessly in the open, summoning the Dark over and over. But no magic came to his aid. A Morgloth took the Shadowcaster as a bird takes a fly, swooping down from behind and snapping the life from him with its vicious jaws.

  A woman ran with her child. Then the child ran alone. It was too horrifying to react to. Tabitha ran, and noticed how their company had grown. Swords joined their desperate bid for the safety of the palace. A woman in a tattered, dirty-red robe ran close beside her. Tabitha was surprised to see a Lightstone at her throat. Before she could think on it, the woman was lost in a sudden crush of screaming people. The palace gates were too narrow for the rush of the crowd, and the blockage backed up all around Tabitha.

  Five Morgloth swooped d
own upon the head of the blockage. The forecourt was too far from anywhere safe. It was terribly open to the sky, but they were forced to take a stand where they were. Within the press of bodies, she couldn’t move.

  Garyll was close. He called out to the Swords, and some rallied to his side. A hysterical woman almost pulled him under before Garyll pushed himself clear.

  A Morgloth dived from above. A man fell, screaming, with the evil beast gripping his chest. Swords hacked at the demon, but their blades seemed to have little effect on its glistening hide.

  Garyll leapt forward, and his sword whined through the air before finding the Morgloth. The Morgloth screeched and dropped its prey. Again, Felltang described a vicious arc. The beast lashed out with its talons. Two Swords were lifted from the ground and thrown deeper into the crowd. Garyll’s blade found its mark, driving deep into the Morgloth’s neck. When he withdrew his blade, the Morgloth slumped from view, lifeless.

  Tabitha was too shocked to feel anything for Garyll’s triumph. It was truly hopeless. There had to be close to a hundred Morgloth swooping and screeching through Stormhaven. Those citizens who made it to shelter might live a while longer. Those who didn’t, would die.

  A familiar figure with a bald head appeared at her side. Twardy Zarost’s eyes were wide with fear, or anger.

  “Tabitha. Tabitha! Have you forgotten everything so soon?”

  She stared at him.

  “Use your song! Use the Lifesong!”

  “Why don’t you do something yourself!” she cried. “You can save us!”

  “If I take your challenge, you lose the Ring. You must be the wizard!”

  “I don’t care! The people must be saved!”

  “Then use your song!” he shouted. He slapped her so hard, and so quickly, she only realised what he had done when heat bloomed in her cheek with the return of blood. “Your second stanza. Sing!”