The Riddle (48 page)

MAERAD dreamed of Cadvan. He was not dressed in his usual worn traveling clothes, but as for a festival, with a long cloak edged with silver embroidery and the brooch of Lirigon shining on his breast, and in the dream Maerad had forgotten he was dead. He stood before a long table laden with food of the kind Maerad had not seen for months — Annaren food. There were fresh breads of rye and wheat and linseed, salads of lettuce and radish and mushrooms and herbs, delicately roasted and potted meats, bowls of strawberries and damsons and currants, and tarts filled with apple and pear — crystalline with honey and spices — and plates of sweetmeats, candied apples, and sugared chestnuts. Tall glass decanters filled with rich wines stood among the feast like glittering jewels. Maerad’s mouth filled with water, and she stepped forward eagerly to the table, but Cadvan took her arm, holding her back.

“I’m so hungry,” she said.

“Elednor,” said Cadvan, using her Truename for the first time since her instatement. “All this is yours. You just have to take it.”

Maerad turned to him in surprise.

“But you’re stopping me,” she said.

“No,” he said. “It is you, stopping yourself.” And when she looked again at her arm, she realized that he wasn’t holding her back at all.

Oh, she thought; I was just imagining it . . . but then the dream dissolved into other dreams that she would not remember.

When she awoke, for a moment it was as if the past few months had not happened: Cadvan and Dernhil and Dharin were still alive, and she was neither hunted nor imprisoned. She was back in Innail, a young girl released from slavery and tasting freedom for the first time. She rolled over, completely relaxed, and opened her eyes, but instead of the bright casement of her chamber in Innail, she saw the translucent moonstone of the walls of Arkan-da. She blinked and woke up properly, rubbing her eyes.

When she opened them again, she did not see the strange but beautiful chamber she had already become used to. The air she breathed was piercingly cold, and before her was a wall of black, undressed stone in which flickered a crude oil lamp, a wick floating in oil in a stone bowl. She sat on a thin pallet, covered in furs, on the freezing floor. She blinked, and the walls shimmered as if they were not quite substantial, but they did not vanish. Her left hand hurt her and she looked down; her fingers were missing, but instead of a long-healed scar she saw a healing wound. She stroked it and flinched, and as she did, she saw with amazement the wound heal before her eyes, and the strange sourceless illumination returned. When she looked up, the chamber was again made of moonstone.

She tried to trace what she had been feeling when the room changed, and then remembered her dream. Cadvan, she thought; maybe he speaks to me from beyond the Gates. But instead of a feast, he seeks to show me famine. . . . Typical. The edges of her mouth quirked up with sardonic humor, but inside she felt a sudden warmth, as if she were not quite so alone. Immediately the moonstone walls became transparent, as if she were seeing through them into another reality.

I am in a dungeon, she thought with wonder. But it is an enchanted dungeon. . . .

This time she tried to will the other vision. She wanted to see if her lyre, which she had laid by the chest, was present when the room changed, or whether it vanished. But now the dream sense had vanished, and she could not see the reality of her cell. She sighed, and finally stepped out of bed, curling her toes in the warm rug, then stepped over to the lyre and picked it up.

Elednor, she thought, returning to her bed. How did the Winterking know my name? Is that how he ensorcels me? Is this how my power has suddenly vanished? The more she thought about it, the more certain she was. Maybe it had been the case even in the Gwalhain Pass, when she and Cadvan had been attacked by the iriduguls and she had not been able to join with him to fight them off. The Winterking had been working against her for a long time now, ever since she had left Thorold. Or perhaps earlier. No doubt he had seen her in the pool in his throne room: Ardina had used a pool to see events in distant places, and Cadvan said the Landrost, the Elidhu he had been fleeing when they met, had a pool that he used to see what he willed. But how did the Winterking find it out? The only people who knew her Truename were Cadvan and Saliman and Nelac, and she knew that none of them would betray her.

My name was foretold, she remembered suddenly. Any fool who read the prophecies aright would know it. A cold fear stirred in her heart: how was she to escape Arkan if he knew her Truename, if he wielded such power over her that he could fool her hands, her eyes, her very skin? And even if she did escape his stronghold, how was she to remain free, how was she to regain her full power, if he could take it from her again?

No,
she said to herself.
No, it can’t be.
But in her heart she knew that it was true. Any Bard whose Truename was known by an enemy was crippled.

She sat despondently for a while, holding her lyre. But something within her was stronger today; perhaps some of the warmth of the dream still clung to her mind. Finally she sat up straight and shook herself. Well, she thought, I’ll try the lyre, and see what happens. A song for the Winterking, maybe. Perhaps his ensorcelment can make my injured playing into a real song. She fiddled around for a while, trying to adjust her grasp of the instrument to her missing fingers, and, shutting her eyes, drew her right hand across the strings.

She instantly realized what she had been unable to admit to herself: she would not be able to play the lyre again. She could no longer use her left hand to pluck or block the strings to make chords. The pain of her loss seemed to go from her missing fingers right into her heart, and she rested her forehead on the instrument as the notes died away into silence, breathing in the smell of the fragrant almond oil with which she polished it. But then she took a deep breath. Well, I have only one and a half fingers and a thumb, she thought, but I have other bits of hand. Perhaps I can still play a little.

She sat up straight again and this time tried a simple chord, one that needed only her forefinger and thumb. It rang out musically into the room, and as it did, the moonstone vanished and she was suddenly in a dungeon. She stared at the oil lamp on the wall before her, noting how it dimmed and vanished as the chord died on the air. Then she set her lips and tried another, more difficult, chord. This she fumbled; she could not get it true. But the enchanted room still vanished.

She put the lyre down and thought for a while. This must be her lyre; no illusory lyre would hold enough magery to contest the Winterking. But then why had he given it to her? Surely he would have expected her to find out that it dissolved his sorcery? She tried the chord again, getting it true this time. The same thing happened. But as the sorcery vanished, her hand hurt, and after three chords she had cracked the scabs and they were already bleeding. She put the instrument down and stared at it as if she had never seen it before.

Even with the knowledge that the Treesong was inscribed on her lyre, she began to think it was more enchanted than she had realized, more enchanted than even the Winterking knew, or else why did he let her have it?

The Winterking did not want her dead; without the enchantment, the dungeon was merely cold and uncomfortable. She had been colder in her pallet at Gilman’s Cot without taking harm. She thought of her weakness the day before, when she had stood before the Winterking. Her body was not strong enough, yet, to rely on. She must heal and strengthen herself before she could think of escaping. The Winterking wanted the Treesong, and somehow she was important to him as well. She must find out why. She must find out everything she could, and then she must escape him and go back to Annar.

She had just reached this conclusion when Gima entered with a meal, some fatty meat smoked and then fried and a sort of mash of vegetables flavored with dill and sour goat’s milk. For the first time, Maerad smiled at Gima, and the old woman smiled back. Maerad ate the food hungrily. She didn’t dare to think what it was really like — maybe it was something else, something less appealing — but it was hot and the feeling of solidity it gave her was reassuring.

“You’re eating well today,” said Gima. “You’ll be a fat little fish if you keep on.”

“It’s really nice,” said Maerad. “Did you make it?”

“Oh, bless you, no,” said Gima, cackling. “The master has cooks enough in his kitchens to keep me away from the pot. I just bring it.”

“How many cooks is that?” asked Maerad.

“Oh, he has forty or fifty at least. And more to make the beds and to keep the palace clean, and to keep us all safe from wolves and suchlike.”

“He must be a good master, then.”

“A good master. Oh yes, he’s a good master. We all love him.”

Maerad kept chatting while she ate, and Gima sat herself comfortably on the chest, happy to talk. Gima told her that the Ice Palace was very big, bigger than she knew how to say, with countless rooms, and that many people lived there. Maerad chatted mindlessly, drawing out the old woman, who seemed relieved that she was at last being friendly. Gima responded enthusiastically, speaking now of her chilblains and next of how she had entered the Winterking’s service. Maerad remembered the map in Gahal’s room in Ossin: the Osidh Nak branched out northeast from the Osidh Annova, where the Osidh Elanor met them. And if she had it right, the Loden Pass to Annar would be due south about eighty leagues from Arkan-da. It was a day’s walk either way out of the mountains.

“Oh, but a hard walk,” said Gima, shuddering with the memory. “Such chasms on one side would make your heart stop still, and those cliffs! But it was all worth it when I got here.”

“Why was it worth it?” asked Maerad curiously.

“Oh, you’ve seen the master,” said Gima comfortably. “We all work hard for him. We all are happy here, in this beautiful palace.”

Horrible dungeon more like, thought Maerad, but kept her thought to herself. The more she talked to Gima, the more sorry she felt for her. But maybe she was right to be happy, even if her present life was nothing more than a powerful illusion; in her former life she had been a slave and was married off when she was younger than Maerad to a man who beat her. She had borne him three dead children. After the third child he had thrown her out of the house, saying that she had cursed him, and she would have died homeless and alone if she had not been taken into Arkan’s service.

It seemed that Maerad was again to see the Winterking, and she let Gima fuss around her, putting on the elegant furred robe and brushing her hair. She felt more prepared than she had the day before. Her legs were much stronger today, and she merely felt tired as they wound through the long passages to the throne room.

As before, Arkan was seated at the far end of the room, but this time Gima, who was visibly quaking, stayed by the door instead of entering with Maerad. Maerad wondered what she meant by saying that she loved the Winterking; if she showed any emotion in his presence, it was naked terror. Perhaps the sorcery also works on feelings, she thought, so terror seems like love. She wondered briefly why she was not afraid; perhaps Arkan did not want her to be frightened. Or maybe (she thought with a flicker of hope) it was because she truly wasn’t afraid. After all, she thought, I am partly Elidhu.

When she reached the dais, she looked up into the Winterking’s icy eyes.

“Greetings, Elednor,” he said. This time she thought she detected a flash of mockery as he said her name. “Did you sleep well?”

“I slept as well as could be expected,” she answered coldly. “And you?”

“Me?” Arkan looked at her expressionlessly. “I do not sleep.”

Maerad suddenly wondered what time was to an entity that would not die. It could not be the same as it was for her, a straight line that led into darkness. Or was it like that? she mused, distracted. Perhaps it was a river that meandered and branched into ever-widening deltas before it merged into an immense, boundless sea. She suddenly realized that the Winterking was speaking and that she had not heard what he had said.

“I’m sorry?” she said. “I was — I was thinking about something else.”

Arkan regarded her skeptically. “I said that perhaps today you should sit down. Or will you manage to remain upright during our conversation?”

Maerad considered briefly. “I will sit down; I thank you.” She lifted the hem of her robe and stepped onto the dais, passing close before the Winterking to reach the black stool that stood by the throne. Her skin bunched up in goose pimples as if she passed before an icy blast, but she did not look at him. She settled herself.

“That is wiser,” said Arkan. “You humans are so — frail.” It was not quite a threat, but having decided that she did not want to die, that she wanted to escape, Maerad almost felt her mask of composure slip.

“We are,” said Maerad. “But that does not mean that we are weak.” She paused. “When did you learn my Truename?”

“I know the names of everything,” said Arkan.

“That’s not true,” said Maerad, without rancor, and then added on an obscure impulse, “I’ll warrant you don’t know the name of my brother.”

“Your brother? I know his name, as I know the names of your mother and father and all else about you, more than you know yourself, Maerad of Pellinor, Elednor of Edil-Amarandh.” A shiver went down Maerad’s spine, but not an entirely unpleasant one.

“What is his usename, then?” she asked politely.

“It is Cai of Pellinor, of course,” he said.

“No, it’s not,” said Maerad. She looked back at him scornfully, and for an instant his gaze faltered.

“You lie,” he said.

“I do not lie,” she answered. “Although one has called me a liar, I did not know what he meant.”

Arkan laughed, a long low laugh. “Was that the wise man you traveled so far to consult?” he said at last. “And he called you a liar? Ah, that is amusing.”

“Then do you know what he meant?” From here, Maerad could look Arkan in the eye. She could tell he was not used to such a straight gaze, and felt it as an affront, as certainly as she knew he would say nothing about it.