The Riddle (41 page)

The entire northern horizon, from east to west, was alight with curtains of quivering green light. As Maerad watched, her mouth open, the curtains shimmered and parted, revealing yet more luminous veils, which themselves vanished and reappeared in a stately dance. The colors glimmered through the entire spectrum of green, from the palest spring yellow to a deep emerald shot through with glorious purples. Awe fell over them, and they watched for an unguessable time, enraptured, until at last the dance began to flicker, and then slowly dimmed and went out.

Maerad sighed with pure happiness. “What are they?” she asked, turning to Dharin.

“We call them the heavenly dancers,” he said. “Some say the lights come from the realm of the dead.”

“From beyond the Gates?” Maerad looked up at the now still sky, where the Lukemoi, the pathway of the dead, blazed its white trail from horizon to horizon, barely dimmed by the moon.

“Yes. They are supposed to shine when the Gates open slightly, and the border between life and death becomes less certain. For that reason, some people fear to see the lights.”

“I didn’t feel afraid,” said Maerad. “It was like the voices of the stars.” She was silent for a time, absorbed in thought. Perhaps here she had been vouchsafed a glimpse into the pure heart of the Light: beyond the depths of the White Flame, into something stranger, colder, infinitely more mysterious.

“What do you think the sound was?” she asked at last. “Was it the Light singing, do you think?”

“What sound?” asked Dharin. “I heard nothing.”

“There was a music. A strange music . . .”

“There are things you might hear, cousin, that I cannot.”

“Well, whether they are to be feared or not, I am glad I saw them,” said Maerad. “I will never forget them.”

“Because they are beautiful does not mean that they are not perilous,” said Dharin. “But I, too, am glad.”

They waited until the sun rose the following day, and in its dim light drove the sled onto the Tolnek-Ol. The island was rocky and flat, with no trees anywhere, and looked very dreary under the gray flat light. The first sign of human dwellings was what looked like columns of white smoke, which Maerad took for signs of cooking fires. But Dharin told her it was steam from hot springs. They turned toward the steam columns and soon arrived at the island’s main village, Imprutul.

They were greeted first by the barking of dogs. Several children, who were so heavily swaddled in furs they seemed almost circular, spotted them and ran toward the village, shouting. Dharin drove the sled into a clear space surrounded by a scattered collection of low, round houses made of stone and ramped with earth, which backed onto a low rocky cliff. There were a number of deer corralled by the houses, and three or four large dogs came forward, barking and growling aggressively. For a moment Maerad feared there would be a fight, but the local dogs remained at a distance.

Dharin glanced at Maerad and she sensed, with faint surprise, that he was nervous. “I hope the telling of the Pilani is still correct,” he said. “It is long years since any of our people have come this way, and things change. If they are hostile toward us, we will have to leave quickly.”

Maerad nodded, her mouth suddenly dry.

“If things go well, someone will come soon,” Dharin said, climbing out of the sled and sharply telling his team, who were trading insults with the village dogs, to be silent. “We just have to wait. Do not look afraid.”

Soon someone came. Two people emerged from one of the houses and walked slowly toward them. Maerad couldn’t tell what sex they were; she found later they were two elders, a man and a woman.

Dharin put out his hand in greeting, speaking in Lirunik. The elders nodded, and each one in turn grasped his hand, holding it gently for a time and then letting go. Dharin introduced Maerad, and they greeted her in the same way, nodding solemnly. Maerad smiled back, wishing she were not so ignorant of their language. She stood by, waiting, while Dharin and the elders conversed, trying not to look too bored or cold.

Dharin turned to Maerad at last. “I’ve told them who we are and that we have come because you seek their wisdom on an important question. I have also said that I wish to do some trading. The man is called Ibikluskarini and the woman is Gunisinapli. They have told me that what wisdom they have is ours and that they have furs to trade, and they’ve invited us inside.”

So far, so good, thought Maerad, wondering how she was to explain to these people why she had come so far north. Because of a dream, because of a few clues scoured here and there, from a half-mad old Pilanel woman and a wise goatherd in Thorold — what sense could they possibly make of what she told them?

Dharin returned to the sled and took out a package wrapped in oilskin. He told the team to remain silent, and they sat down in the snow, their ears pricked and their tails beating on the ground, whining. The local dogs seemed to have accepted that the visitors were not a threat, but still hung around, now curious. One of the elders gave a sharp command, and the dogs sprang back and sat by the doors of their houses.

“We do not want a dogfight,” muttered Dharin as they walked toward the nearest of the round houses. “And these dogs will fight to the death if they get in a scrap.”

Then he bent to enter the low doorway of the house. Even Maerad had to stoop: the doors were made as small as possible to conserve heat, and the interiors of the houses were windowless, lit by smoky lamps burning some kind of fish oil. The smell was at first overpowering: a mixture of human fug and sour fat and fish and smoke. Maerad’s eyes smarted, and it took a little while before her sight adjusted to the dim light. It was very hot: she started sweating instantly. Both she and Dharin took off their overcoats of fur for the first time in days.

She had entered a room that was much bigger than she had expected. She realized that the houses continued back into the cliff itself; there was another entrance at the far end covered with a hanging woven of some kind of rough wool. Inside were about a dozen people: an old man was working on an ivory carving, and several children, the smallest of whom was completely naked, were playing a game with some large knuckle bones. Two women and a man were working a skin, kneading it with their fingers from different ends to make it pliable and soft, and another woman was feeding an infant. They all looked up and nodded when the strangers entered, and then went back to whatever they had been doing.

In the center of the room was a round white rug, made of many furs stitched together, and Dharin and Maerad were invited to sit down. They were given a clear spirit to drink in small round cups. The elders nodded solemnly, and Dharin nodded back (Maerad, closely following Dharin’s lead, did the same) and then they downed the spirit in one big gulp. Maerad did her best, but the drink was so harsh that she nearly choked; it was as strong as voka, a spirit distilled from turnips and other root vegetables that the men brewed in Gilman’s Cot, and had as little subtlety of flavor. She recovered herself as quickly as possible, shut her eyes, and finished the cup. It burned all the way down to her stomach, leaving a numb feeling behind it. She hoped fervently that custom did not dictate a second cup, and to her relief no one refilled it. Now she was so hot she desperately wanted to take off more of her many layers of clothes, but she didn’t know if it would be considered rude.

Dharin was unwrapping the package he had taken from the sled. To Maerad’s surprise, inside were two beautiful examples of Pilanel wood carving, delicately fashioned and enameled in a shiny black. One was of a wolf and the other was of a ptarmigan. He gave them to the elders, bowing his head as he did so. They took them solemnly, admired them both from every angle, and then bowed their heads in thanks.

It then seemed the formalities were over, and Dharin and the elders, whose many-syllabled names Maerad could not, for the life of her, remember, plunged into a lively conversation. Maerad wiped the sweat off her forehead and tried to concentrate. Dharin told her afterward that they were simply swapping news: news of the weather, of hunting grounds, speculations on the early winter, and general conditions in the north and in the southern plains.

It seemed that the Wise Kindred were themselves suffering a thin year after several poor summers, and although they were not yet facing famine, they feared another year would bring them to hunger. Maerad caught the word “Jussacks” once or twice; Dharin had asked if there was news of Jussack raids in the far north and told of what he had heard in Tlon. The elders told him that there had been rumors from other peoples farther down the coast, but no Jussacks had ever been seen this far north.

Once the news had been exchanged, Dharin began to include Maerad in the conversation. It was laborious, translating her questions and then translating the answers, but fortunately the elders seemed endlessly patient. Yes, they did have a story about the Song. Maerad’s neck prickled. Yes, even this far north, they had memories of the terrible darkness and winter that had almost destroyed their people, many generations ago, and they had seen signs in the sky and in the snow and in the entrails of animals that made them fear that such times might be returning. They remembered both the Winterking and the Nameless One, although they had different names in the songs of their people. But no, although they kept the stories, they could not tell Maerad what the Split Song was. And as for trees, there were no trees this far north.

At this answer, Maerad was instantly downcast. Had she come this far, only to find that the answer lay elsewhere? But the woman was still speaking.

Dharin nodded, and then turned to Maerad. “Gunisinapli says that you should speak, if you wish to know about such things, with their Singer. He is called Inka-Reb. He lives by himself with the wolves, a little distance from here. She warns that he does not speak to everybody and may refuse to see you. But they say of him that he walks between the living and the dead, and that he knows what the dead know.”

“Could he be a
Dhillarearën,
then?” asked Maerad. Dharin asked Gunisinapli, and she simply lifted her hands in a gesture that seemed to mean, maybe, maybe not.

“Well, if he is, I can speak with him,” said Maerad. “I suppose that is what I should do. How then should I visit him?”

There followed a list of instructions to which Dharin listened intently. He turned to Maerad. “You will have to purify yourself first. That means that you must live alone in a special hut in the village for a day and a night, fasting and preparing your mind and soul and body with song. You must not sleep. First, before you sing, you must bathe yourself in the spring. After you have sung, you must again wash, and dress yourself, and without speaking to anybody else walk humbly to his place with a clear heart, or a clear desire — the word’s not quite translatable. You must take an offering; they say that he usually likes to be given meat. They will leave the offering for you by the door of the hut. Then he may choose to speak to you.”

“How will I find the way?”

“They will tell you beforehand. They say it is easy to find.”

Maerad nodded, thinking that if the springs were hot, then she could actually have a bath, a luxury she had not enjoyed for so long that she had almost forgotten what it was like. “And when they say ‘prepare yourself with song’ do they mean special songs? Or can I sing my own?”

Dharin asked, and this led to a long debate between the elders. Finally he said, “They have their own songs for their own people, but they think it best that you use your own.”

“When can I begin, then? I should prepare as soon as possible.”

“You can go to the hut when the sun rises tomorrow. Then at sunrise the next day you can see Inka-Reb.”

“That sounds good,” said Maerad. “But what will you do while I’m there?”

“I have work to do,” said Dharin. “We need meat. The elders have given me permission to visit their hunting grounds.”

Maerad took the instruction to prepare herself with song as a chance to play her lyre. Apart from her clothes, it was the only thing she took with her into the hut. It was a smaller version of the village houses, windowless, with a small door fastened by two layers of hide, and a chimney, which let out smoke and steam. Inside was an oil lamp and a stone seat, and a rough stone bath into which bubbled warm water. Maerad tested it, wondering how hot the water actually was; it was deliciously warm. With a feeling of luxury she threw off all her clothes and climbed in, at last dissolving off her body the accumulated grime of weeks of travel. When she had had enough, she stepped out, dripping onto the stone floor, and then wondered how to dry herself; there was nothing like a towel at hand. In the end, since the hut was so warm, she just sat naked on the seat until she had dried off. Then she put on some clean silk underclothes she had preserved since Murask, and thought about song.

It had been a long time since Maerad had played much music. A long time, really, since she had felt like a Bard at all. She lifted her lyre and softly stroked the strings, noticing that the calluses on her fingers had softened from not playing. The lyre had been hers for almost as long as she could remember; it had once belonged to her mother, and that was principally why she treasured it, although she knew now there were other reasons why it was precious.

Well, she thought, how shall I begin? She sat in silence for a time, gathering in her body’s memory, where all the songs she had been taught and had heard over many years were stored in her hands and her heart, wondering which one was the best to begin with. At last, she realized the answer was obvious:
The Song of Making,
the first song of Barding, which told of the creation of Edil-Amarandh. She drew her fingers over the strings in the familiar chords, and began, singing in the Speech rather than in Annaren: