Riddle-Master Page 11

  “Morgon, there were things I could not give Ingris, and things I cannot give you now. But I swear this: If you finish this harsh journey to Erlenstar Mountain, I will give you anything you ask of me. I will give you my life.”

  “Why?” he whispered.

  “Because you bear three stars.”

  Morgon was silent. Then he shook his head a little. “I will never have the right to ask that.”

  “The choice will be mine. Have you thought that the stricture also applies to you? You must give what others require of you.”

  “And if I can’t?”

  “Then, like Ingris, you will die.”

  Morgon’s eyes dropped. He sat motionless but for the winds that thrummed like harp notes about him, plucked at his hair, his cloak. He turned his horse finally, rode slowly back to the guard, who, accepting his return in silence, proceeded to the City of Circles.

  THE MORGOL OF Herun welcomed them into her courtyard. She was a tall woman with blue-black hair drawn back from her face, falling without a ripple against her loose robe of leaf-green cloth. Her house was a vast oval of black stone. Water from the river flowing beneath it fanned over stone fountains in her yard, formed tiny streams and pools where fish slipped like red and green and gold flames beneath the tracery of shadows from the trees. The Morgol went to Deth’s side as he dismounted, smiling at him. They were of a similar height, and her eyes were luminous gold.

  “I didn’t mean for Lyra to disturb you,” she said. “I hope you are not inconvenienced.”

  An answering smile tugged at his mouth. There was a tone in his voice Morgon had never heard before. “El, you knew I would go where the Prince of Hed chose to go.”

  “Now, how could I have known that? Your path has always been your own. But I’m glad you chose to come. I dream of your harping.”

  She walked with him to Morgon, as silent women took their horses out of the yard, and others carried their gear into the house. Her strange eyes melted over him. She held out her hand to him. “I am Elrhiarhodan, the Morgol of Herun. You may call me El. I am very glad you’ve come.”

  He bent his head to her, aware suddenly of his travel-stained clothes and unkempt hair. “You gave me no choice.”

  “No,” she said gently, “I did not. You look very tired. For some reason I expected you to be older, or I would have waited to tell you that riddle myself, instead of frightening you with it like that.” She turned her head to greet Lyra. “Thank you for bringing the Prince of Hed to me. But was it necessary to throw a rock at him?”

  A smile touched Lyra’s eyes at Morgon’s amazement. She said gravely, “Mother, the Prince of Hed threw a rock at me first, and I lost my temper. Also, I said things which were—not entirely diplomatic. But I don’t think he’s angry with me any more. He doesn’t seem to be any kind of a warrior.”

  “No, but he had good aim, and if he had been armed, you would be dead, which I would not like at all. The people of Hed do not, as a habit, take arms against others, a laudable restraint. It was perhaps not wise to enter their camp in the dark; you must learn to avoid misunderstandings. But you brought them here safely, and for that I thank you. Now get some food, my child, and some sleep.” Lyra left them, and the Morgol tucked her fingers into the crook of Deth’s arm. “She has grown since you saw her last. But then you have not come to Herun in some time. Come in.”

  She led them into her house, through its doors of silver and pale wood. Within, the arched corridors wandered, seemingly without plan, from one room to another; the rooms, with delicate cloth tapestries, strange plants, rich woods and finely wrought metals, followed one another like treasure boxes. The Morgol stopped finally in a room warm with hangings of orange and gold, and bade them rest on soft, enormous cushions covered with white wool. She left them.

  Morgon, drowning muscle by weary muscle in sheepskin, closed his eyes and whispered, “I can’t remember the last time I touched a bed. . . . Does she go into our minds?”

  “The Morgol has the gift of sight. Herun is a small, very rich land; the morgols have developed their sight since the Years of Settlement, when an army from north Ymris attacked Herun with an eye to its mines. Herun is ringed with mountains; the Morgols learned to see through them. I thought you knew that.”

  “I didn’t realize their sight was that good. She startled me.” Then he fell asleep, not even waking when, moments later, servants entered with trays of food and wine and all their gear.

  He woke hours later to find Deth gone. He washed and dressed himself in the light, loose robe of orange and gold cloth the Morgol had left for him. She had given him also a knife of milky metal sheathed in bone, which he let lie. A servant led him to a broad room, white from floor to ceiling. The guards in their bright robes chattered at one end of it on cushions around a firebed, with trays of steaming dishes on low tables before them. Deth, Lyra and the Morgol sat at a table of polished white stone, the silver cups and plate in front of them sparkling with amethyst. The Morgol, in a robe of silver and white, her hair braided and bound, beckoned to Morgon, smiling. Lyra shifted to give him a place beside her. She served him from dishes of hot spiced meats, seasoned fruits and vegetables, cheeses and wines. Deth, to one side of the Morgol, sat harping softly. He drew a song to a close, then, very lightly, played a phrase from the song he had composed for her.

  Her face turned toward him as though he had spoken her name; she smiled and said, “I have made you harp long enough. Sit beside me and eat.”

  Deth put his harp down and joined her. He was dressed in a coat silver-white as his hair; a chain of silver and tiny, fire-white stones hung on his breast.

  Morgon, watching their close faces as the Morgol served him, was drawn out of his preoccupation by Lyra, who said, “Your food is getting cold. He didn’t tell you then?”

  “What? No.” He took a bite of seasoned mushrooms. “At least not in words. I guessed from that song. I don’t know why I’m surprised. No wonder he allowed you to take us into Herun.”

  She nodded. “He wanted to come, but of course the choice was yours.”

  “Was it? How did the Morgol know the one thing that would have brought me into Herun?”

  Lyra smiled. “You are a riddle-master. She said you would answer to a riddle like a hound to scent.”

  “How did she know that?”

  “When Mathom of An was searching for the man who had taken Peven’s crown, his messengers came even to Herun with the tale. So, being curious, she made it her business to find out who had it.”

  “But so few people knew—Deth, Rood of An, the Masters—”

  “And the traders who took you from Hed to Caithnard. The Morgol has a talent for finding things out.”

  “Yes.” He moved his cup an inch on the table, frowned down at it a moment. Then he turned to the Morgol, waiting while she spoke with Deth until she paused, and he said, “El.” Her coin-colored eyes came to his face. He drew a breath. “How did you know that riddle you gave me? It is listed nowhere in the books of the Masters, and it should have been.”

  “Should it, Morgon? It seems to be such a dangerous riddle, that only one man should try to answer it. What would the Masters have done with it?”

  “They would have searched for the answer. That’s their business. Riddles are often dangerous, but an unanswered riddle may be deadly.”

  “True, as Dhairrhuwyth found—which seems the more reason for keeping it private.”

  “No,” he said, “ignorance is deadly. Please. Where did you find it? I have—I have had to come to Herun to find my name. Why?”

  Her eyes dropped, hidden from his a moment. She said slowly, “I found the riddle years ago in an ancient book the Morgol Rhu left as the record of his travellings. The book had been word-locked by the wizard Iff of the Unpronounceable Name, who was in the service to Herun at the time. I had a little difficulty opening the book. Iff had bound it with his name.”

  “And you pronounced it?”

  “Yes. A wise old scholar
at my court suggested that perhaps Iff’s name should be sung as well as pronounced, and he spent many long hours with me trying to find the notes that belonged with the syllables of Iff’s name. Finally, by sheer accident, I sang the name on the right tones, pronouncing it correctly, and unlocked the book. The last entry the Morgol had made in it was the riddle that he left Herun to answer: the riddle of the Star-Bearer. He wrote that he was going to Erlenstar Mountain. Danan found his body and sent it home from Isig. The scholar who helped me is dead, and I—with little more reason than instinct—kept the riddle to myself.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh . . . because it is dangerous; because I had heard from the traders of a child growing up with three stars on his face in Hed; and because I asked a Master at Caithnard what he knew of three stars and he said he had never heard anything about them, and that Master’s name was Ohm.”

  “Master Ohm?” he said startled. “He taught me. Why did his name stop you?”

  “It was a small thing, but it set my mind on a train of thought . . . I took his name to be a shortening of a Herun name. Ghisteslwchlohm.”

  Morgon stared at her. His face lost color. “Ghisteslwchlohm. Who was the Founder of Lungold, and what are the nine strictures of his teachings? But he died. Seven hundred years ago when the wizards disappeared from Lungold.”

  “Perhaps,” she said. “But I wonder . . .” She stirred herself out of her thoughts, touched his wrist. “I’m disturbing your supper with my idle conjectures. But you know, a strange thing happened that I have always wondered about. I have good vision; I can see through anything I choose, though I don’t generally choose to see through the people I’m talking to: it tends to be distracting. But while I was with Ohm in the Masters’ Library, at one point he had turned to look for a book on his shelves, and as he put his hand on it, I looked through him automatically to see the title. But I couldn’t see through him. I could see through the walls of the college, through the cliff and into the sea—but my vision could not pass through Ohm.”

  Morgon swallowed a tasteless mouthful. “Are you saying—?” His voice caught. “What are you saying?”

  “Well, it took me months to put pieces together, since, like you, I would rather have complete faith in the integrity of the Masters of Caithnard. But now, especially since you have come and I can put that riddle to a name and a face, I tend to think that perhaps the Master Ohm is Ghisteslwchlohm, the Founder of the School of Wizards at Lungold, and that he destroyed Lungold.”

  Morgon made an inarticulate sound in the back of his throat. Lyra protested weakly, “Mother, it’s very hard to eat when you say things like that. Why would he have destroyed Lungold after going through all the trouble to found it?”

  “Why did he found the College a thousand years ago?”

  Lyra shrugged a little. “To teach the wizards. He was the most powerful wizard in the High One’s realm, and the other wizards were half-wild, undisciplined; they were unable to use their powers to the full extent. So why would Ohm have tried to teach them to be more powerful if all he wanted to do was destroy their power?”

  “Did he gather them there to teach them?” the Morgol said, “or to control them?”

  Morgon found his voice again. He said softly, his hands gripping the rough edge of the stone table, “What evidence? On what evidence do you base your conclusions?”

  The Morgol drew a breath. The food was growing cold in front of them all. Deth sat quietly listening, his head bent; Morgon could not see his face. Laughter drifted toward them occasionally from the lower tables; the fire in the bed probed to the heart of a log with soft, silken rustlings. “On evidence of an ignorance I do not like,” she said. She held his eyes. “Why could the Masters tell you nothing of the stars on your face?”

  “Because in their studies no mention was made of them.”

  “Why?”

  “Because—the tales of the kingdoms, their songs and poetry have never mentioned them. The wizards’ books that the Masters took from Lungold, which form the basis of their knowledge, say nothing of them.”

  “Why?”

  He was silent, groping for a plausible answer. Then his face changed. He whispered, “Iff, at least, knew what riddle Rhu was trying to answer. He must have known. He talks about Rhu and his searchings in the books the Masters have opened at Caithnard; he listed every riddle Rhu went to answer except that one—”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t . . . I don’t know why. Are you saying that Ohm—Ghisteslwchlohm—brought them together to control their knowledge, to teach them only what he wanted them to know? That matters concerning the stars are things he kept them ignorant of—or perhaps even took from their minds?”

  “I think it is possible. I think from what I have learned about you from Deth today, that it’s quite probable.”

  “But why? For what possible purpose would he have done that?”

  “I don’t know. Yet.” She continued softly, “Suppose you were a wizard restless with power, drawn to Lungold by the powers of Ohm and his promises of great skill and knowledge. You placed your name in his mind; with your trust in his skill, your absolute faith in his teachings, you did without question whatever he asked of you, and in return he channelled your own energies into powers you scarcely dreamed you had. And then suppose, one day, somehow, you realized that this wizard, whose mind could control yours so skillfully, was false to his teachings, false to you, false to every man, king, scholar, farmer, that he had ever served. What would you do if you found that he had dangerous plans and terrible purposes that you could not even guess at, and that the very foundations of his teachings were a lie? What would you do?”

  Morgon was silent. He looked down, watched his hands close on the table into fists, as though they belonged to someone else. He whispered, “Ohm.” Then his head gave a quick shake and he said, “I would run. I would run until no one, man or wizard, could find me. And then I would begin to think.”

  “I would kill him,” Lyra said simply. Morgon’s hands opened.

  “Would you? With what? He would vanish like a mist before your spear touched him. You can’t solve riddles by killing people.”

  “Then if this Master Ohm is Ghisteslwchlohm, what are you going to do about him? You’ll have to do something.”

  “Why me? The High One can deal with him—and the fact that he hasn’t is a good proof that Master Ohm is not the Founder of Lungold.”

  Deth raised his head. “I recall you used that same argument at Caerweddin.”

  Morgon sighed. He said reluctantly, “It fits, I suppose, but I can’t believe it. I can’t believe that either Ohm or Ghisteslwchlohm is evil, although that might explain the strange, sudden disappearance of the wizards and the tales of the violence of their leaving. But Ohm—I lived with him for three years. He never . . . he treated me with great kindness. It makes no sense.”

  The Morgol looked at him thoughtfully. “It doesn’t, no. All this reminds me of a riddle from An, I believe. Re of Aum.”

  “Who was Re of Aum?” Lyra asked, and the Morgol, at Morgon’s silence, answered imperturbably, “Re of Aum offended the Lord of Hel once and became so frightened that he had a great wall built around his house in fear of revenge. He hired a stranger to build it, who promised him a wall no man could destroy or climb, either by force or wizardry. The wall was built; the stranger took his pay; and Re at last felt secure. One day, when he decided that the Lord of Hel had realized the futility of revenge, he decided to venture out of his lands. And then he travelled around his wall three times but found no gate to let him out. And slowly he realized that the Lord of Hel himself had built that wall.” She paused. “I’ve forgotten the stricture.”

  “Never let a stranger build walls around you,” Lyra guessed. “Then Ghisteslwchlohm built his wall of ignorance in Caithnard as well as Lungold, which is why Morgon does not know who he is. It’s very complicated. I prefer problems I can throw spears at.”

  “What about Eriel?” Morg
on said abruptly. “Has Deth told you about her?”

  “Yes,” the Morgol said. “But that, I think, is a completely different problem. If Ohm wanted you dead, he could easily have killed you while you were a student. He didn’t react to the stars on your face the way those—those nameless people do.”

  “That woman,” Morgon said, “has a name.”

  “Do you know it?”

  “No. I have never heard of anyone like her. And I’m more frightened of her hidden name than I am of a man whose name I know.”

  “Perhaps Ohm hid her name, too,” Lyra said. She shifted uneasily. “Morgon, I think you should let me teach you to defend yourself. Deth, tell him.”

  “It’s not my business to argue with the Prince of Hed,” Deth said mildly.

  “You argued with him this afternoon.”

  “I didn’t argue. I simply pointed out the illogic of his arguments.”

  “Oh. Well, why doesn’t the High One do something. It’s his business. There is a strange people on his coasts, trying to kill the Prince of Hed—we could fight them. Ymris has an army; the people of An bear arms, from Kraal to Anuin, the High One could gather an army. I don’t understand why he doesn’t.”

  “Osterland could arm itself,” Morgon said; “Ymris, Anuin, even Caithnard, but those people could wash over Hed like a seawave, and it would be barren in a day. There must be a better way to fight them.”

  “Arm Hed.”

  Morgon’s cup came down with a little clink on the table. “Hed?”

  “Why not? I think you should at least warn them.”

  “How? The fishermen of Tol go out every morning, and the only thing they have ever found in the sea is fish. I’m not even sure the farmers of Hed believe anything exists beyond Hed, and the High One. Of all the six kingdoms, Hed is the only one the wizards never sought service in—there wasn’t anything for them to do. The wizard Talies visited it once and said it was uninhabitable: it was without history, without poetry, and utterly without interest. The peace of Hed is passed like the land-rule, from ruler to ruler; it is bound into the earth of Hed, and it is the High One’s business, not mine, to break that peace.”