Riddle-Master

by Patricia A. Mckillip

  She stirred a little; her face lifting to kiss him, and his arms loosened reluctantly. “I didn’t realize you were here,” he said, when she let him speak.

  “I guessed that, somehow, after the first hour or so. What were you thinking about?”

  “Everything.” He nudged a chip of mortar out of a crack and flicked it into the trees below. A handful of crows startled up, complaining. “I keep battering my brains against my past, and I always come to the same conclusion. I don’t know what in Hel’s name I am doing.”

  She shifted, drawing her knees up, and leaned back against the stone beside her to face him. Her eyes filled with light, like sea-polished amber, and his throat constricted suddenly, too full of words. “Answering riddles. You told me that that is the only thing you can keep doing, blind and deaf and dumb, and not knowing where you are going.”

  “I know.” He searched more mortar out of the crack and threw it so hard he nearly lost his balance. “I know. But I have been here in Anuin with you for seven days, and I can’t find one reason or one riddle to compel me out of this house. Except that if we stay here much longer, we will both die.”

  “That’s one,” she said soberly.

  “I don’t know why my life is in danger because of three stars on my face. I don’t know where the High One is. I don’t know what the shape-changers are, or how I can help a cairn of children who have turned into stone at the bottom of a mountain. I know of only one place to begin finding answers. And the prospect is hardly appealing.”

  “Where?”

  “In Ghisteslwchlohm’s mind.”

  She stared at him, swallowing, and then frowned down at the sun-warmed stone, “Well.” Her voice shook almost imperceptibly. “I didn’t think we could stay here forever. But, Morgon—”

  “You could stay here.”

  Her head lifted. With the sun catching in her eyes again, he could not read their expression. But her voice was stiff. “I am not going to leave you. I refused even the wealth of Hel and all the pigs in it for your sake. You are going to have to learn to live with me.”

  “It’s difficult enough just trying to live,” he murmured, without thinking, then flushed. But her mouth twitched. He reached across to her, took her hand. “For one silver boar bristle, I would take you to Hed and spend the rest of my life raising plow horses in east Hed.”

  “I’ll find you a boar bristle.”

  “How do I marry you, in this land?”

  “You can’t,” she said calmly, and his hand slackened.

  “What?”

  “Only the king has the power to bind his heirs in marriage. And my father is not here. So we’ll have to forget about that until he finds the time to return home.”

  “But, Raederle—”

  She pitched a sliver of mortar across the trail feathers of a passing crow, causing it to veer with a squawk. “But what?” she said darkly.

  “I can’t . . . I can’t walk into your father’s land, trouble the dead as I have, nearly commit murder in his hall, then take you away with me to wander through the realm without even marrying you. What in Hel’s name will your father think of me?”

  “When he finally meets you, he’ll let you know. What I think, which is more to the point, is that my father has meddled enough with my life. He may have foreseen our meeting, and maybe even our loving, but I don’t think he should have his own way in everything. I’m not going to marry you just because he maybe foresaw that, too, in some dream.”

  “Do you think it was that, behind his strange vow about Peven’s Tower?” he asked curiously. “Foreknowledge?”

  “You are changing the subject.”

  He eyed her a moment, considering the subject and her flushed face. “Well,” he said softly, casting their future to the winds over the dizzying face of the tower, “if you refuse to marry me, I don’t see what I can do about it. And if you choose to come with me—if that is what you really want—I am not going to stop you. I want you too much. But I’m terrified. I think we would have more hope of survival falling head first off this tower. And at least, doing that, we’d know where we were going.”

  Her hand lay on the stones between them. She lifted it, touched his face. “You have a name and a destiny. I can only believe that sooner or later you will stumble across some hope.”

  “I haven’t seen any so far. Only you. Will you marry me in Hed?”

  “No.”

  He was silent a little, holding her eyes. “Why?”

  She looked away from him quickly; he sensed a sudden, strange turmoil in her. “For many reasons.”

  “Raederle—”

  “No. And don’t ask me again. And stop looking at me like that.”

  “All right,” he said after a moment. He added, “I don’t remember that you were so stubborn.”

  “Pig-headed.”

  “Pig-headed.”

  She looked at him again. Her mouth crooked into a reluctant smile. She shifted close to him, put her arm around his shoulders, and swung her feet over the sheer edge of nothingness. “I love you, Morgon of Hed. When we finally leave this house, where will we go first? Hed?”

  “Yes. Hed . . .” The name touched his heart suddenly, like the word of a spell. “I have no business going home. I simply want to. For a few hours, at night . . . that might be safe.” He thought of the sea, between them and his home, and his heart chilled. “I can’t take you across the sea.”

  “In Hel’s name, why not?” she said.

  “It’s far too dangerous.”

  “That makes no sense. Lungold is dangerous, and I’m going with you there.”

  “That’s different. For one thing, no one I loved ever died in Lungold. Yet. For another thing—”

  “Morgon, I am not going to die in the sea. I can probably shape water as well as fire.”

  “You don’t know that. Do you?” The thought of her caught in the water as it heaved itself into faces and wet, gleaming forms made his voice rough. “You wouldn’t even have time to learn.”

  “Morgon—”

  “Raederle, I have been on a ship breaking apart in the sea. I don’t want to risk your life that way.”

  “It’s not your risk. It’s mine. For another thing, I have been on ships from Caithnard to Kyrth and back looking for you and nothing ever happened to me.”

  “You could stay at Caithnard. For only a few—”

  “I am not going to stay at Caithnard,” she said tersely. “I am going with you to Hed. I want to see the land you love. If you had your way, I would be sitting in a farmhouse in Hed shelling beans and waiting for you, just as I have waited for nearly two years.”

  “You don’t shell beans.”

  “I don’t. Not unless you are beside me helping.”

  He saw himself, a lean, shaggy-haired man with a worn, spare face, a great sword at his side and a starred harp at his back, sitting on the porch at Akren with a bowl of beans on his knees. He laughed suddenly. She smiled again, watching him, her argument forgotten.

  “You haven’t done that in seven days.”

  “No.” He was still, his arm around her, and the smile died slowly in his eyes. He thought of Hed, gripped so defenselessly in the heart of the sea, with not even the illusion of the High One to protect it. He whispered, “I wish I could ring Hed with power, so that nothing of the turmoil of the mainland could touch it and it could stay innocent of fear.”

  “Ask Duac. He’ll give you an army.”

  “I don’t dare bring an army to Hed. That would be asking for disaster.”

  “Take a few wraiths,” she suggested. “Duac would love to be rid of them.”

  “Wraiths.” He lifted his eyes from the distant forests to stare at her. “In Hed.”

  “They’re invisible. No one would see them to attack them.” Then she shook her head a little at her own words. “What am I thinking? They would upset all the farmers in Hed.”

  “Not if the farmers didn’t know they were there.” His hands felt chilled, s
uddenly, linked around hers. He breathed, “What am I thinking?”

  She drew back, searching his eyes. “Are you taking me seriously?”

  “I think . . . I think so.” He did not see her face then, but the faces of the dead, with all their frustrated power. “I could bind them. I understand them . . . their anger, their desire for revenge, their land-love. They can take that love to Hed and all their longing for war. . . . But your father . . . how can I wrest something out of the history of An and lead it to danger in Hed? I can’t tamper with the land-law of An like that.”

  “Duac gave you permission. And for all my father is interested in land-law, he might as well be a wraith himself. But Morgon, what about Eliard?”

  “Eliard?”

  “I don’t know him, but wouldn’t he . . . wouldn’t it disturb him maybe a little if you brought an army of the dead to Hed?”

  He thought of the land-ruler of Hed, his brother, whose face he barely remembered. “A little,” he said softly. “He must be used to being disturbed by me, even in his sleep, by now. I would bury my own heart under his feet if that would keep him and Hed safe. I would even face an argument with him over this—”

  “What will he say?”

  “I don’t know . . . I don’t even know him any more.” The thought pained him, touching unhealed places within him. But he did not let her see that; he only moved reluctantly from their high place. “Come with me. I want to talk to Duac.”

  “Take them,” Duac said. “All of them.”

  They had found him in the great hall, listening to complaints from farmers and messengers from Lords of An whose lands and lives were in turmoil over the restlessness and bickerings of the dead. When the hall finally cleared and Morgon could speak with him, he listened incredulously.

  “You actually want them? But Morgon, they’ll destroy the peace of Hed.”

  “No, they won’t. I’ll explain to them why they are there—”

  “How? How do you explain anything to dead men who are fighting a centuries-old war in cow pastures and village market places?”

  “I’ll simply offer them what they want. Someone to fight. But, Duac, how will I explain to your father?”

  “My father?” Duac glanced around the hall, then up at the rafters, and at each of the four corners. “I don’t see him. Anywhere. And when I do see him, he will be so busy explaining himself to the living, he won’t have time to count the heads of the dead. How many do you want?”

  “As many as I can bind, of the kings and warriors who had some touch of compassion in them. They’ll need that, to understand Hed. Rood would be able to help me—” He stopped suddenly and an unaccountable flush stained Duac’s face. “Where is Rood? I haven’t seen him for days.”

  “He hasn’t been here for days.” Duac cleared his throat. “You weren’t noticing. So I waited until you asked. I sent him to find Deth.”

  Morgon was silent. The name flung him back seven days, as though he stood in the same pool of sunlight, his shadow splayed before him on the cracked stone floor. “Deth,” he whispered, and the ambiguity of the name haunted him.

  “I gave him instructions to bring the harpist back here; I sent fourteen armed men with him. You let him go, but he still has much to answer for to the land-rulers of the realm. I thought to imprison him here until the Masters at Caithnard could question him. That’s not something I would attempt to do.” He touched Morgon hesitantly. “You would never have known he was here. I’m only surprised Rood has not returned before this.”

  The color stirred back into Morgon’s face. “I’m not surprised,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to be in Rood’s boots, trying to bring Deth back to Anuin. That harpist makes his own choices.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Rood will never bring him back here. You sent him into the chaos of the Three Portions for nothing.”

  “Well,” Duac said resignedly, “you know the harpist better than I do. And Rood would have gone after him with or without my asking. He wanted answers too.”

  “You don’t question that riddler with a sword. Rood should have known that.” He heard the harsh edge that had crept into his voice then. He turned a little abruptly, out of the light, and sat down at one of the tables.

  Duac said helplessly, “I’m sorry. This was something you didn’t need to know.”

  “I do need to know. I just didn’t want to think. Not yet.” He spread his hands on the rich gold grain of oak and thought again of Akren, with its sunlit oak walls. “I’m going home.” The words opened his heart, filled him with a sharp, sweet urgency. “Home . . . Duac, I need ships. Trade-ships.”

  “You’re going to take the dead by water?” Raederle said amazedly. “Will they go?”

  “How else can they get to Hed?” he asked reasonably. Then he thought a little, staring back at his vague reflection in the polished wood. “I don’t dare take you on the same ship with them. So . . . we’ll ride together to Caithnard and meet them there. All right?”

  “You want to ride back through Hel?”

  “We could fly instead,” he suggested, but she shook her head quickly.

  “No. I’ll ride.”

  He eyed her, struck by an odd note in her voice. “It would be simple for you to take the crow-shape.”

  “One crow in the family is enough,” she said darkly. “Morgon, Bri Corbett could find ships for you. And men to sail them.”

  “It will cost a small fortune to persuade them,” Morgon said, but Duac only shrugged.

  “The dead have already cost a great fortune in the destruction of crops and animals. Morgon, how in Hel’s name will you control them in Hed?”

  “They will not want to fight me,” he said simply, and Duac was silent, gazing at him out of clear, sea-colored eyes.

  “I wonder,” he said slowly, “what you are. Man of Hed, who can control the dead of An . . . Star-Bearer.”

  Morgon looked at him with a curious gratitude. “I might have hated my own name in this hall, but for you.” He stood up, mulling over the problem at hand. “Duac, I need to know names. I could spend days searching the cairns with my mind, but I won’t know who I am rousing. I know many of the names of the Kings of the Three Portions, but I don’t know the lesser dead.”

  “I don’t either,” Duac said.

  “Well, I know where you can find out,” Raederle sighed. “The place I almost lived in when I was a child. Our father’s library.”

  She and Morgon spent the rest of the day and the evening there, among ancient books and dusty parchments, while Duac sent to the docks for Bri Corbett. By midnight, Morgon had tamped down in the deep of his mind endless names of warrior-lords, their sons and far-flung families, and legends of love, blood feuds and land wars that spanned the history of An. He left the house then, walked alone through the still summer night into the fields behind the king’s house, which were the charnel house for the many who had died battling over Anuin. There he began his calling.

  He spoke name after name, with the fragments of legend or poetry that he could remember, with his voice and his mind. The dead roused to their names, came out of the orchards and woods, out of the earth itself. Some rode at him with wild, eerie cries, their armor aflame with moonlight over bare bones. Others came silently: dark, grim figures revealing terrible death wounds. They sought to frighten him, but he only watched them out of eyes that had already seen all he needed to fear. They tried to fight him, but he opened his own mind to them, showed them glimpses of his power. He held them through all their challenging, until they stood ranged before him across an entire field, their awe and curiosity forcing them out of their memories to glimpse something of the world they had been loosed into.

  Then he explained what he wanted. He did not expect them to understand Hed, but they understood him, his anger and despair and his land-love. They gave him fealty in a ritual as old as An, their moldering blades flashing greyly in the moonlight. Then they seeped slowly back into the night, into the earth, until he summone
d them again.

  He stood once again in a quiet field, his eyes on one still, dark figure who did not leave. He watched it curiously; then, when it did not move, he touched its mind. His thoughts were filled instantly with the living land-law of An.

  His heart pounded sharply against his ribs. The King of An walked slowly toward him, a tall man robed and cowled like a master or a wraith. As he neared, Morgon could see him dimly in the moonlight, his dark brows slashing a tired, bitter face over eyes that were like Rood’s hauntingly familiar. The king stopped in front of him, stood silently surveying him.

  He smiled unexpectedly, the bitterness in his eyes yielding to a strange wonder. “I’ve seen you,” he said, “in my dreams. Star-Bearer.”

  “Mathom.” His throat was very dry. He bent his head to the king he had summoned out of the night of An. “You must . . . you must be wondering what I’m doing.”

  “No. You made that very clear, as you explained it to the army you raised. You do astounding things so quietly in my land.”

  “I asked Duac’s permission.”

  “I’m sure Duac was grateful for the suggestion. You’re going to sail with them to Hed? Is that what I heard?”

  “I don’t . . . I was thinking of riding with Raederle to Caithnard and meeting the ships there, but I think perhaps I should sail with the dead. It would make the living men on the ships feel easier, if I am with them.”

  “You’re taking Raederle to Hed?”

  “She won’t . . . she won’t listen to reason.”

  The king grunted. “Strange woman.” His eyes were as sharp and curious as birds’ eyes, searching beneath Morgon’s words.

  Morgon asked him suddenly, “What have you seen of me, in your dreams?”

  “Pieces. Fragments. Little that will help you, and much more than is good for me. Long ago, I dreamed that you came out of a tower with a crown in your hand and three stars on your face . . . but no name. I saw you with a beautiful young woman, whom I knew was my daughter, but still, I never knew who you were. I saw. . . .” He shook his head a little, drawing his gaze back out of some perplexing, dangerous vision.