The Riddle (53 page)

“They are time written down,” said Arkan absently. He was frowning in concentration. “These are the staves of the moons, beginning with the new moon:

The words went deep into Maerad’s soul, as if they stirred memories from before she was born. She sat silently, fixing the runes in her mind; she recalled Ardina as she had last seen her, dazzling with silver light, beautiful and ambiguous, the daughter of the moon.

“What are the others?”

Arkan looked up, his face unreadable. “These are the runes of spring and summer,” he said heavily. “They are Forn, for middle spring; Sal, for late spring; Hrar, for early summer; Dir, for Midsummer’s Day; and Tren, for middle summer. The rest of the year was lost when Sharma stole the runes. That was the second ill.”

“He took the winter?” said Maerad softly.

“Aye.”

“How were those runes lost? Did no one write them anywhere?”

Arkan didn’t deign to answer her. He was tracing the runes again, his eyelids closed. Maerad watched him. With his eyes shut, he appeared more human; in repose his face was very beautiful. She shook herself, and concentrated.

“Forn, the alder,” said the Winterking. “Sal, the willow; Hrar, the whitethorn; Dir, the oak; and Tren, the holly.”

He was silent then for a long time, and Maerad waited patiently for him to speak again. When he did not, she asked, “And are there staves for those runes?”

Arkan opened his eyes and looked directly at her. His expression held a desolation that took her aback.

“The runes are empty,” he said. “They are dead. To speak them on the air is a horror.”

Maerad didn’t know what to say, and looked down in confusion. Arkan sighed heavily.

“I will say them one time. You must remember.”

Maerad felt the light in the throne room dim. She waited, feeling her heartbeat loud and heavy in her throat. At last, after what seemed an endless silence, Arkan spoke, his deep voice echoing around the room:

When he had finished speaking, Arkan covered his face with one hand, and the throne room filled with a bleak stillness.

“There is no music,” said Maerad.

“The music does not live in the runes,” said Arkan. “The runes are dead.”

“I can’t play the Song without music,” she said. “How am I to find the music? I can’t play this Song.”

“Do you think anything can be alive, when it is cloven in half?” Arkan glared at her, his eyes hard and icy, and for an instant Maerad thought he would snap her in two with his bare hands. He thrust the lyre back into her arms, as if it burned him.

“Go,” he said to Maerad. “Leave me.”

The corridors were cold now, and the light seemed sinisterly beautiful; she felt as if the walls were full of eyes, which watched her as she stumbled. She was amazed that she was still able to walk; her legs shook underneath her as if they might give way at any moment. Gima was nowhere to be seen.

She found her room and collapsed onto her bed. She lay on her back, staring at the ceiling, too exhausted to move.

She remembered with a shudder the Winterking’s face as he had told her the runes, how his black eyelashes rested against his marble skin, the fire that leaped in her veins at his touch. And yet she knew he was ruthless and merciless; Cadvan and Dharin had died by his orders. She had no doubt that he would kill her without compunction if she were no use to him.

The thought seemed to make no difference.

I must find Hem, she said to herself. I have to find Hem. But there was no answering resolve within her. She found she could not picture Hem’s face; her memory of him seemed abstract and distant, and she had to build the picture laboriously, instead of summoning a vivid, precise memory. She turned her thoughts to Cadvan, and realized she couldn’t remember his eyes. They’re blue, she thought fiercely:
blue.
But she could see only the icy blue of the Winterking’s eyes, their strange slitted pupils, and hear how he had said,
I thought to honor you as my queen.

I’m so tired, she thought. So very tired. I can’t undo his ensorcelments. I can’t turn my face from him and pretend that I don’t feel as I do. She was certain the Winterking had spelled her, and yet she was, at the same time, quite sure that what she felt was not false. She didn’t want to leave the Winterking, even for her own sake, although she knew she must.

Gradually her limbs stopped shaking, leaving her bleak and empty. She picked up her lyre, which lay on the bed beside her, and very slowly drew her right hand over the strings, so each note sounded out singly. The icy light glimmered and faded, revealing the rough rock walls of her dungeon, and she began to feel a little less weak. Ten strings, ten notes, ten runes, she mused distractedly. Three tongues, three names, three meanings. That makes nine, and leaves one over. The keystone of the music, the answer to the riddle. What would that be?

She plucked each string again, wondering if each note also belonged to a rune. She couldn’t see how they would, and she thought that it would probably make no sense unless she had the runes the Nameless One had stolen. There must be twenty runes, if the Song was split in half. Did the Nameless One have a lyre as well, with ten strings?

She sat upright, irritated with herself, and, as she did, it dawned on her that she did know how to deceive the Winterking. He knew when she was absent, when she vanished from his view. So she must make a semblance, which was like her in every respect, to replace her when she used her own power and vanished. She was never disturbed when she was asleep, so she must appear to be sleeping. If it worked, she would have a few hours’ start before her absence were noticed. The best time would be right now; the Winterking was sure of his power over her and he would be unwary. And perhaps, after reading the Song, he too was exhausted, although she did not know if Elidhu felt weariness. Perhaps his vigilance had lapsed.

She considered the idea, turning it over thoughtfully, prodding it for flaws. There were many. She had made a semblance only twice before, when she studied with Nerili in Thorold and again in the mountains to trick the iriduguls, and although she knew she could do it, and could remember the charm, it wasn’t as if she were practiced. She had never worked two charms at once, and she did not know if it was possible. If she tried and failed, she would be discovered, and she didn’t want to think what might happen to her. She put that thought out of her mind. Instead, she placed her lyre carefully in its case and packed it away with her other belongings and, without taking off any of her clothes, got into bed and drew the covers over herself.

She would first have to make a shield that would hide her magery from Arkan, but would not hide her. Beneath that shield, she could weave the semblance, preparing it to the point where she need only set the charm that would manifest it. Then she would have to vanish, ensuring that the two spells were so finely coordinated that her vanishing and the manifestation of her semblance were seamless.

It all seemed impossible, and she sank into black thoughts for a few moments. But then she remembered the wolf that had spoken to her. Unless she had imagined it, which she did not think she had, it had been waiting for her. Perhaps someone, hearing of her capture, had sent it to help her. It could not have been an ordinary wolf. Perhaps she would not be entirely without help. It was a slim chance, perhaps suicidally slim, but it was the only hope she had.

Maerad brushed her doubts aside and focused on the first question: getting out of the palace itself. She would have to do all the spells lying down in her bed, looking as if she were sleeping, which was not the ideal pose for magery. She lay on her back, as straight as she could manage, and then, tightening her lips, began on the shield.

This took a little time, since it had to be detailed. She concentrated on concealing any magery beyond the little the Winterking believed she had regained, but not concealing so much that she might appear to vanish. It was risky, since her magery would not be concealed until she completed it, and she had to make it slowly, bit by bit, cautiously releasing her power in increments so it could not be perceived. She kept her senses keen for any changes in the palace, any shift of the light that might alert her that she had been detected. She closed her eyes, mentally said the words that activated the spell, and cautiously tested it. It seemed, as far as she could tell, to be good, and, as far as she could tell, it had not been noticed.

Then she began work on the semblance. Making the semblance took some considerable time; it could not be merely a rough form, meant to fool from a distance. It would not only have to look like Maerad, but feel like Maerad too. She worked in layers. She visualized her mind first, the colors of her emotions, the charge of her power, and carefully wove its outlines, testing them as she went to ensure they felt true. When she had finished, her mind held a replica of itself, a shell which, when she plucked it, seemed to resonate with her self. Then she started on her body, weaving it through the specter of her mind: bone, blood, veins, muscle, and last, skin and hair.

The semblance now existed in her mind, precise in every detail, and awaited only the word of power to make it appear, to set it breathing. Maerad took a deep breath and prepared herself for the final, most difficult part of her task: the creation of the semblance and her simultaneous vanishing. She had emptied her mind, patiently gathering together her power, when she heard steps approaching her chamber. It was Gima.

Maerad cursed silently and paused, teetering on the brink of releasing her power. It was as if she had gathered herself for a leap, and then had been forced to stop, holding all the energy in check, without falling over, without losing the momentum of her jump. She heard the curtain over the doorway pulled aside, and the steps approached the bed. They stopped, and she could hear Gima’s heavy breathing. Then she turned and left the room.

Maerad waited until she was sure the footsteps had retreated far enough, and then took another deep breath. Her mind was hurting from holding both charms in abeyance, and her body was trembling. Then, very carefully, she released the semblance and, drawing on deep powers within her, made herself vanish.

She didn’t get it quite right; there was the smallest moment when there were two Maerads, side by side on the bed, and she disconcertingly found herself looking into her own face. She got out of the bed and listened, all her senses agonizingly alert for any disturbance in the palace. It was blanketed in silence, apart from the retreating footsteps of Gima.

Maerad bent to pick up her pack and realized that she had made no semblance for it; Gima might notice it was missing. That charm was easy after the spell she had just made, and this time she managed the timing perfectly, vanishing one as the other appeared. She fumbled around for her pack. Then she swung it onto her back and looked around the room that had been her prison for the past few days, pushing down a sudden sharp regret. The Winterking would believe her to be a traitor. He had no right to think that, given that he had captured and imprisoned her, but he would think it all the same.

On an impulse, Maerad drew one of her precious pieces of paper and her pen and ink out of her pack. She sat down and smoothed it out on the chest, and then paused. She didn’t know if the Winterking could read Bard script, but somehow she felt she owed him some acknowledgment, even though, she thought, by all accounts of fairness she owed him nothing at all.

She bit her lip, and then carefully wrote the rune Eadha, the yew rune, the rune of the dark of the moon:
I am the hinge of every question.
She pushed her sleeping semblance, who stirred and gave a sudden loud snore, and she hid it underneath its body. Then, feeling oddly relieved, she shouldered her pack again and walked into the corridor.

In her power, the enchantment of the Ice Palace dissolved. It hit her then that she did not know the way through the unenchanted palace. She knew her way through the illusory corridors, but now it all looked completely different: she walked into a corridor that was black as pitch. She rocked on her heels, completely taken aback: she had not thought about this at all. There could be other corridors leading off the halls that could confuse her. She could still be winding through the heart of the mountain, lost and bewildered, as the Winterking discovered how she had tricked him. The thought made her go cold.

I could go back, she thought, I could undo all the spells, and then no one would know. The idea tugged at her painfully; she was already so tired, and it was a long way through the palace. Even if she made it out, she did not know how she would pass through the archway or what would happen afterward. She had no plans at all, beyond escaping the palace. She could try again tomorrow, and in the meantime find out more. She almost turned back to her chamber.

Some deep stubbornness flickered in contempt at her weakness. And something else ran beneath all her doubts, a deep current of urgency, which she realized had been driving her since she left the throne room. Time was running out; she did not have the luxury of tomorrow. She took a deep breath to steady herself and began to wend through the darkness, running her fingers lightly against the walls. She would have to remember the way by touch; she dared not set a magelight.

She went carefully, fearful of making a mistake, stopping often to run through the way in her mind, sending her hearing before her. She could hear a light breath, which might be Gima sleeping, the drip of water in distant caves, the stirring of nameless creatures in the deeps of the mountains, but she could hear nothing else. The way seemed much longer in the darkness, and after a while she began to wonder if, despite her carefulness, she had made a wrong turn. Strange lights began to appear before her eyes, her legs became heavier and heavier, and the pack felt like lead on her shoulders. Her left hand was aching badly.