The Riddle (36 page)

About half of the tunnels through the Howe were used for storage. Each year the clans would bring back supplies for the long winter — grains, oils, nuts, strings of onions, dried bunches of herbs, preserved fruits — traded over the summer. Or if they were not traders, they would lay aside hard cheeses made from milking their herds of shaggy deer, or slaughter the young animals in the autumn and smoke the carcasses in the huge smoke rooms in the Howe. Each clan brought all that they could, and the food was held in common. “We are fat together, or we starve together,” said Sirkana. “And this year is a thin year. This is why it will be such a blow if the Pilani who spend the summer in Annar cannot come home for winter; we were hoping that they might be able to make up the deficit. From what you say, they will have to turn back.”

Maerad thought of the blocked road in the Gwalhain Pass. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe someone determined could dig their way through. If they had a lot of people with them.”

“It is late in the year for such digging,” said Sirkana, and sighed. “Well, they may yet come. We will not close the gates against them. But it bodes ill for us.”

It was not until that afternoon that Maerad had a chance to talk about her quest. They had ended up in Sirkana’s private rooms, which were not much bigger than the chamber Maerad had been given, and Sirkana made her a sweet herb tea. They sat in comfortable silence for a time, pursuing separate reflections, but then Maerad gathered herself. She was not so daunted by Sirkana as she had been, and when they had first met, Sirkana had spoken of Pilanel lore, about a riddle that might illuminate the Treesong. She leaned forward, her brows creased.

“Sirkana, do your people have a tale of the Split Song?” she asked.

Sirkana looked up in surprise. “The Split Song? Nay, I do not recall. . . .”

“Or the Treesong?”

Sirkana shook her head. “Not that I know,” she said. “And I am deeply learned in Pilani lore.”

“It’s something to do with the Elidhu,” said Maerad.

“The Elidhu no longer speak to mortals,” said Sirkana. “They departed from the human world when the great darkness fell.”

“Some do,” said Maerad, beginning to feel a little impatient. “I have spoken to Elidhu. But what I have to do is to find the Treesong, which has something to do with the Elidhu, and which has also — well, Cadvan and I thought — to do with this tradition of the Split Song.”

“It is all riddles,” said Sirkana, smiling. “We say the One is a riddle, perhaps the greatest riddle of them all. But of course I will help you.”

Maerad frowned again. “Mirka said that the Wise Kindred answered all riddles, and knew what was half and what was whole, and that seemed like a clue. My heart tells me that I must find the Wise Kindred. You seem to know who they are and where they dwell. Tell me.”

“They live far, far away,” said Sirkana. “In the land of ice and fire, the Labarok Islands. They live where the snow never melts, and where winter is one long night and summer one long day.”

“How far away is it?”

“No Pilani has been to the Labarok Isles in living memory,” said Sirkana. “But it is said that they are thrice as far as Murask is from the Idrom Uakin.” Maerad was baffled for a moment, until she remembered that was the Pilanel name for the Osidh Elanor. “It is a perilous journey, especially in winter.”

“Can it be done, though?” asked Maerad urgently. It came over her that she could be caught in Murask all through the northern winter, and then, even if her quest succeeded, it could be too late.

“Aye, it could be done, if you took one with you with weatherlore and a finding sense, and if you were lucky. We have the telling of how to get there, if the Wise Kindred still dwell there. It is not just the ice and the storms and the cruel terrain to fear. There are also the Jussacks, who prey on travelers. You will need to be well armed.”

“I have some swordcraft,” said Maerad. “And Barding skills as well.”

“You can ride?” asked Sirkana.

Maerad nodded.

“It is yet two moons before the winter solstice; it is early for snow, and this storm should pass,” said Sirkana. “It would be best to go on horseback to Tlon, where the northern clans gather. From there you will have to travel by dog. There is no other way over the snow.”

“Dog?” said Maerad, with some trepidation. She harbored a deep fear of dogs. Sirkana picked up on her tone and gave her a slightly mocking glance.

“Dharin à Lobvar, my sister’s son, is an expert dog handler, and he owns a very fine team. He goes on the trading routes to the northern clans each winter. Perhaps you can speak to him; he is young and he itches for adventure.”

“Is he the Dharin I spoke to last night?” asked Maerad.

“He was seated with us, yes. His mother is not here; she is south with the clans in Annar.”

“But that would make him my cousin.” Maerad spoke softly. This was a long way from having no family at all.

“Yes, he is. But I will not tell him of that kinship, for fear that in his gladness he might tell others. Whether you tell him after you leave Murask is up to you.”

There was a short silence. Maerad studied the strange murals in Sirkana’s room, pondering how she could have such close kin in Murask and yet still feel so alien. When she looked up, Sirkana’s eyes were unfocused, as if she saw something far away. Presently Sirkana blinked and seemed to return; her eyes, Maerad saw with surprise, were bright with tears.

“Aye, he is your cousin,” she said. “I think he is meant to travel along your path. But it is a heavy price.”

Sirkana would not say further what she meant, although Maerad pressed her. She merely said that Maerad would be equipped with everything she needed for her journey to the north, and that she would ask Dharin the following day if he wanted to go on the journey. Their quiet intimacy seemed to have been broken; Sirkana made it clear, without saying anything, that she wanted to be alone, and Maerad retreated to her chamber, filled with a sudden gloom.

Maerad was eager to leave. She was free to wander wherever she liked in Murask, but everyone seemed busy with various tasks — smoking meats for the coming winter, or putting food and grain in the storage houses, or cleaning out their winter quarters — and she most often felt that she was in the way. It had started snowing again, a seemingly unending blizzard, so when she wanted to leave Sirkana’s house, she used the underground tunnel that linked it to the warren of the Howe. Maerad had spent her childhood in mountain country and was not unused to snow, but she felt the oddness of this blizzard and did not need the Pilanel to tell her it was unseasonal, two months before the midwinter solstice, to have such heavy weather. She thought of the stormdogs, and the iriduguls in the Gwalhain Pass, and her heart grew heavy. A cold intelligence was aware of her, and brooded over her presence in the north; she was surer and surer of it. It felt like a shadow in her mind, inchoate but present, which intensified with the cold weather. Arkan, the Winterking, knew she was here.

Her single pleasure was the beginning of a friendship with Dharin. As she had promised, Sirkana spoke with him privately, and the following day he came to her at the noon meal and clasped both her hands in his. Maerad looked down: his hands were enormous, her whole hand barely covering his palm.

“Sirkana tells me you are on a quest and she asked if I would take you north, to the Wise Kindred,” he said. “I will be your guide; I know the telling of the way there. No one from the southern clans has been that way since my father’s father was alive. It will be a great adventure!”

He grinned, and Maerad could not help smiling back.

“She told me that we’d have to go by dog from Tlon,” said Maerad. “I didn’t know you could ride dogs.”

At that, Dharin burst out laughing. “You don’t ride them, little cousin.” Maerad flinched; did he know her real identity? But he used her pseudonym Mara — Sirkana had been insistent that her real identity be kept secret within Murask. “Come, after the meal I will show you. We might be using dogs all the way from Murask, the way this snow is falling, so you should get to know them.”

As he promised, that afternoon Dharin took her to see his dogs. Because of the blizzard, they went by the underground tunnels to a part of Murask that Maerad had not seen. She had assumed the Howe was perfectly round, but it was not; the dog stables, as they were called, were in another open area that was separated from the common where Sirkana’s house stood. It was divided into big pens by high stone walls, and was kept apart from the rest of Murask to prevent the working dogs from hunting the livestock in the main part of the Howe. There were at least fifty dogs there, penned in groups ranging from six to more than a dozen.

It was clear the dogs were Dharin’s pride, and Maerad, who could not quite overcome her fear of them, did her best to conceal her nervousness. They were bigger than any dog she had ever seen, bigger by far than Gilman’s hounds — they stood as high as her chest — and were unsettlingly like wolves.

To Maerad’s surprise, despite the bitter weather, the dogs were all curled up outside, covered in a thin drift of snow, rather than in the shelters provided for them. Even with her untrained eye, she could see that Dharin’s dogs were unusually fine: all glossy-coated and well muscled, with deep, strong chests. There were fifteen of them, gray or black with thick white ruffs around their wolvish faces, and their eyes, unsettlingly, were a light, icy blue.

“This is Claw, my leader,” said Dharin, as the biggest dog shook off the snow that had curled around it and bounded up to him, its tail wagging like a puppy. Maerad had steeled herself to follow Dharin into the pen, not wanting to be thought a coward, and flinched; this close, the dog was something out of some of her worst nightmares. The dog’s face was almost level with Maerad’s, even as it stood on four legs before her. Its canine teeth were as long as her fingers. She could feel the dog’s hot breath puff past her face as Dharin briefly stroked Claw’s ears. The dog gave a short bark and Maerad jumped.

“Do they frighten you, Mara?” said Dharin, turning quickly. “You must not show them your fear; they can smell it, and it makes them afraid. Claw, down.” The dog instantly lay down on the snow, looking up at Dharin alertly, waiting for his next move or command. “Claw is the best dog in Zmarkan,” he said proudly. “I have had many offers for her, but I would as soon sell my own soul. And all these”— he waved at the rest of the team — “are her puppies. I have always kept the best. It makes a good team; there are no fights on my trips. Well, not serious fights, anyway.”

Maerad nodded, her heart in her mouth. How was she to keep the dogs from knowing she was afraid? One snap from those formidable jaws would break her neck. She could use the Speech, perhaps, but she dared not; if it was impossible to lie in the Speech, it would be impossible to conceal her fear.

Dharin disappeared inside the shed, leaving Maerad looking at the dogs. They ignored her, obviously having decided she was harmless. They all stood up, their ears erect, watching the doorway. Soon Dharin emerged carrying a side of meat, which he threw to the ground. The dogs instantly pounced on it, snarling and yapping at each other, and Maerad backed away nervously. She could hear their jaws crunching on the bones. The flesh looked very red on the white snow.

“They are hungry,” said Dharin, who seemed unfussed by what to Maerad looked like terrifying and threatening behavior. “They are fed every two days; they do not need to eat more often. And they are spoiling for exercise. They are the only creatures that do not enjoy rest.” To Maerad’s relief, they left the pen, although Dharin remarked indifferently that his dogs could leap the high fence if they really wanted to. “Sometimes dogs will jump into another team’s pen, and that is not a good thing. Not my team, but others less obedient. It makes people very angry; you can lose a good dog that way.”

Maerad shuddered. Dharin’s dogs were more frightening than any dogs she had ever seen. And it seemed she would have to travel with them for weeks.

“Are they wolves?” she asked, thinking that her silence had drawn out for too long.

“Not all wolf. Part wolf, and half wild still. Like all wild things, they must be treated with respect.” Then Dharin noticed Maerad’s white face.

“Mara, they are good beasts,” he said earnestly. “Even if you are afraid of them, they know that you are under my protection, and they will not hurt you. I am the boss dog.”

“I saw a man killed by dogs once, when I was a child,” she said. “I used to have nightmares about it.”

Dharin looked at her thoughtfully. “That is a terrible thing. But it was not my dogs who did that.”

“No,” she said. It was no use trying to explain her fear; it wasn’t as if it were rational. “But if I can’t stop being afraid, I can be a little brave, can’t I? If you promise they won’t bite me.”

“When you are with me, they will not touch you,” said Dharin.

“Well, I’m not going near them otherwise,” she said.

“Well, then, we will be all right,” he answered. He looked up at the sky, which was still swirling with snow. “I somehow do not think that we will be riding horses to Tlon,” he said. “This snow does not look as if it is going to stop.”

“It’s the Winterking,” said Maerad without thinking.

“You think so?” Dharin gave her a surprised glance. “Well, perhaps you are right. There are many dark rumors these days, and no doubt you have other news.”

Maerad squirmed a little. Because of his massive bulk and slow deliberate movements, she had not thought Dharin especially quick, but he seemed to have unsettlingly acute perceptions. “But you can’t travel in a storm,” she objected, to turn the subject.

“I have a good sled. And my dogs have run in weather worse than this,” he answered. “Admittedly, on roads that I know well. I never get lost, you see; they say I am like the wild geese, who fly to the same spot each summer from the other end of the world. But true, even the best driver in the world can fall into a hole if he can’t see it in front of him.”

Despite Dharin’s boast about traveling through blizzards, they did not begin their journey until the snowstorm abated. It lasted for three days, dumping snow in the center of the Howe until it reached the bottom of the lower windows. Every day paths were shoveled through the snow, but most people just used the tunnels.