The Riddle (52 page)

There is no one here, she thought. There was never anyone here, except me and Arkan and Gima. It is all illusion. The Winterking is the mountain, and the mountain is the Winterking. I am trapped inside his mind.

She got out of bed and dressed, and ate the gruel hungrily. Then she wended her way through the endless corridors, remembering the way from the day before, counting it out like a piece of music. She made no mistakes, and came straight to the front door. It was daytime. A pale, bright sun struck up from the snow, momentarily blinding her. She shaded her brow with her hands, waiting for her eyes to adjust, and breathed in the cold air.

Now she could see the mountainscape, snowy slopes rising to sheer gray rock pinnacles, interrupted only by stands of pine and fir. She studied the sun, working out her bearings; after a while she was sure that the south road ran alongside the Winterking’s mountain. The Trukuch range did not seem as high or as harsh as the Osidh Elanor. Perhaps she could walk the width of the range in a day, if Gima was correct and Arkan-da was in the center of the mountains.

She walked across the snow to the black arch and cautiously examined it, careful not to pass beneath it. It emanated a power that made her hair stand on end. Carefully keeping her magery shielded, she tried to measure it with her mind, trying to decide if she could break through it using her own powers. She wondered if perhaps the lyre could help, since it seemed to dissolve Arkan’s illusions, but she could reach no conclusion. And if I try and don’t succeed, I won’t get a second chance, she thought. So it looks like I’ll have to try blind. And then what? If I do escape, he’ll send the frost creatures after me. He might come himself. And I’ll just be freezing to death on a mountainside.

If I were a gambler, she thought, I would not hazard anything on me.

Perversely, the thought cheered her, and she turned to walk back to the cave mouth, the door of the Ice Palace, half dreading, half hoping that she would find the Winterking waiting behind her. No one was there, but a prickle of presentiment made her look back again.

High on a slope beyond the arch there stood a huge white wolf, staring at her with yellow eyes.

Maerad stared back. The wolf did not seem to be threatening, but it looked as if it were waiting for something. For me? she thought, and almost laughed.

Yes,
said the wolf into her mind.
I am waiting for you.

Maerad was struck speechless with surprise, and merely stared.

Do not speak,
said the wolf.
You will be heard. Listen. Remember. Triple-tongued is triple-named.

The wolf loped off without waiting for a reaction, vanishing swiftly over the slope, and Maerad shook her head. It had left no footprints: the snow where it had been was utterly unmarked. Was it another illusion? Or some kind of wer? Or was it simply that she was losing her mind?

It is, thought Maerad, quite possible that I am going mad.

Triple-tongued is triple-named.

She stopped dead, realizing what the wolf meant.

Three tongues: Human, Bard, Elidhu. Three names. She must have three names. Maerad, Elednor . . . and another, which even she did not know. A deeper Truename.

The Winterking did not know her third name.

She wandered back to her chamber without meeting anyone. She found Gima waiting for her in agitation. “The master waits for you — he waits for you,” she hissed. “Where have you been?”

“He knew where I was,” said Maerad calmly. But she did not feel composed; standing outside, her attempt to escape had been a certain thing, something she had decided. But the thought of seeing Arkan made a void open in the pit of her stomach.

“Come, come, come,” said Gima, on the verge of panic. “Come; there is no time; he is impatient.”

“There’s no hurry,” said Maerad. While Gima fumed impotently, Maerad picked up her lyre and looked slowly around the room to check if there was anything else she needed, although she knew there was not. “I’m ready now.”

Deliberately slowing her pace, she followed Gima, who hurried down the corridors, turning at each corner and hissing for Maerad to catch up, to hurry. But Maerad refused to walk any faster. I shall come in my own time, she thought. He cannot make me run.

The corridors darkened as they neared the throne room, and Gima hesitated, trembling. Maerad took pity on her. “It’s all right,” she said. “I know the way.”

“You must go there,” said Gima. “He is waiting. He must not wait.”

He can wait, thought Maerad. “I will go straight there,” she said. “Do not fear.”

She walked on, leaving Gima standing where she was, clasping and unclasping her hands, daring neither to walk with her nor to go back. The light in the walls was like stormlight, bright and angry, not the soft illumination she had become used to. She reached the double doors of the throne room and paused, swallowing hard. She could feel the Winterking’s wrath: the iron door seemed to pulse with it. Slowly she pushed it open, and walked in.

The hall seemed bigger, stretching back with a strangely distorted perspective, and from the pool poured a livid illumination that threw strange lights on the ceiling. The dais was in shadow: all she could see was a dark, ominous form. Maerad’s nerve almost failed her, but she took a deep breath and straightened her back. Slowly she walked into the center of the room.

“Elednor of Edil-Amarandh,” said the Winterking. Maerad flinched; when he said her name, it hurt her like a whip. “You arrive at last.”

Maerad stared at the shadow, and gradually the darkness lifted from the dais. The Winterking stood before his throne, dressed in robes of a blue so dark they might have been black. About his brow was a crown of flickering blue lightnings, and his eyes blazed green fire.

Maerad licked her dry lips. “You are angry?” she said meekly. “I thought time was of no account to you.”

“You have sought to deceive me,” said the Winterking. “You are insolent, in so abusing my hospitality.”

“I don’t understand.” He knows, she thought with sudden panic: he knows my magery has returned. “But how can I deceive you, in your own palace? You told me I could not.”

“I told you not to play me for a fool.” Arkan took a step toward her, and the lightnings about his brow grew more dangerous. “I know you have tried to hide from me. I do not permit it.” So he had sensed her shield.

Maerad outfaced him with all the haughtiness she could muster. “I did not realize your hospitality meant that you can witness all my privacies,” she said.

“Here you may have no privacy,” said Arkan. “You have not earned such trust.”

“And why should I trust you?” said Maerad hotly. “What do you think it feels like, being watched all the time, like a — a captured animal? What right have you to accuse me? I have done nothing wrong.”

“I will not countenance your opposing my power,” said Arkan.

“How can I oppose your power?” asked Maerad bitterly. “Here, you say, I have none.”

“If I chose to take all your power, you would be unable to move a single finger without my permission.” The Winterking stared at her with withering contempt. “I leave you a little, as a courtesy. You are unwise to use it against me. Even in your full power, you could not challenge me.”

“It’s strange, for you to speak to me of courtesy,” she answered angrily.

“Silence!” This time the Winterking exerted the full force of his power over her. Maerad felt as if a rope jerked her hard; she gasped in pain and fell forward onto her knees. “Elednor of Edil-Amarandh, I have been patient with you. I have spread before you the riches of my palace. I have refused you nothing. But perhaps you prefer this treatment? I can easily oblige you.”

Maerad, her head bent, said, “I don’t understand. What have I done?”

The Winterking stepped down from the dais and walked toward her, and then bent down and took her chin in his hand. His hand was cold as ice, and its strength inexorable, but his touch was gentle. Maerad looked up into his eyes and instantly forgot everything in a rush of desire. She blinked with humiliation, seeing a flash of triumph in Arkan’s eyes, and tried to hide her face.

“You are the Fire Lily,” said the Winterking softly. “And I am the Ice King. Does fire melt ice? Or ice put out fire? Or may they come together, fire and ice, neither melted nor quenched?”

Maerad blushed and turned her eyes away. Arkan let go of her chin, and she bowed her head, looking at the floor. She was trembling all over — with fear or longing, she could not tell.

“I do not know,” she whispered at last.

“I thought to honor you as my queen,” said the Winterking. Now his voice was sad and full of longing, a young prince wounded by his unfaithful lover. “And I think in return you betray me.”

Maerad reeled in shock. She shut her eyes for a moment, gathering her breath and her will, carefully shielding her mind. She could feel her pulse throbbing hard in her neck. He doesn’t know I have any power, she thought, not for sure. Very slowly, she stood up and looked Arkan in the eye, refusing to lower her gaze.

“You said that love could not be feigned and could not be stolen,” she said passionately. “And now you say that I will be your queen. And yet you imprison me and give me no freedom. You know what it is like to be caged. It is a death. You tell me I cannot hide from you, and yet you punish me for hiding. You say you do not want me to fear you, and you treat me as if I were a slave. Forgive me, My Lord” — and here she bowed her head sadly, contrite and meek — “I do not understand your anger. I do not understand why you are punishing me for something that you say I cannot do. I do not understand your love, if this is the love you offer me.”

The Winterking turned on his heel, and she looked up as he walked away from her. She could feel his doubt, as slowly the light in the throne room softened, and the shadows faded. He does not know, she thought. He still thinks his power is enough.

“I do not desire a slave,” he said at last.

“I am not a slave,” said Maerad.

Arkan glanced at her swiftly. “Forgive me, if I made you afraid,” he said. “I am not used to dealing with mortals, and perhaps I am impatient.”

Maerad nodded very slightly.

“Come, sit with me. We will forget this ever happened.” He turned back and offered his arm, and Maerad smiled wanly, taking it hesitantly. She shivered at his touch: now it burned her like ice.

“I see,” he said, “that you brought your lyre.”

“As I said I would,” said Maerad. “I don’t know how to read the runes.”

They didn’t speak again until they were seated. Maerad already felt exhausted: she knew she must deceive Arkan if she were to escape, but the only way she could deceive him was by revealing the truth. The problem with the truth, she thought despairingly, is that it is true. She stared at his mouth, noticing its cruel sensuality. To kiss him, she thought, would be like kissing a river; I would faint and drown. She dug her nails into her palms, trying to stop the dizziness that his closeness induced in her, trying to keep her mind clear and alert.

It was no use thinking like this.

She handed him her lyre with a strange reluctance; it was as if she were giving him her heart. But it is mine, cried a voice inside her; it belongs to no one else. His fingers closed on it covetously, and she felt his grasp on her most loved possession as a deep pain, and momentarily shut her eyes.

He must not know I feel like this, she thought.

She opened her eyes and smiled.

“Can you read the runes?” she asked.

Arkan stroked his fingers lightly over the carvings, and Maerad shivered. “Yes,” he said. “I can read them. Shall I tell them to you?”

She didn’t trust herself to speak, and just nodded.

“I remember when these runes were made, many many wanings of ice ago.” Arkan’s voice was suddenly tender, and Maerad looked at him in surprise. He was far away, in some memory of his own. “They should never have been made,” he said. “But they were. That was the first ill.”

“Did the Nameless One make them?” ventured Maerad, looking at the strange carved forms. They seemed too beautiful to have been made by him.

Arkan’s eyes were suddenly opaque and private. “Nelsor himself made these runes. He was told the Song, and its potency and beauty amazed him. And secretly he made the runes, so he could have it for his own. He was always the greatest of the Bards; no other had the power to do such a thing. Nor the audacity. He captured the Song of the Elidhu, and now it sleeps within these runes.”

“Who told him the Song?” asked Maerad, but Arkan gave no sign that he heard her. He brushed the ancient wood with both his hands, and then shut his eyes and touched the first of the ten runes with his forefinger.

“These runes embody many things,” said Arkan. “That was Nelsor’s genius: he saw how the Song’s powers might be captured, like a flower in ice. This is his greatest work. He did not know that it would lead to such disaster.”

Maerad looked at her lyre, and then back to Arkan. In her little time at the Schools, she had learned how letters held meaning and how they could be magical, but Arkan seemed to be talking of something more.

“There are three dimensions to each rune,” Arkan went on. Triple-tongued, thought Maerad, with a sudden clutch of excitement.

The Winterking opened his eyes and looked at Maerad intently. “This first rune is Arda, the first of the moons. It is the new moon, and it is the fir tree. And it is also this stave: I am the dew on every hill.”

Maerad blinked in confusion, and then nodded. If she did not understand, she could at least remember. “So,” said Arkan. “First the moons.” He shut his eyes again, and read each rune with his fingers. “This is the rune Arda. This the rune Onn. This the rune Ura. This the rune Iadh. This the rune Eadha. The new moon, the waxing moon, the full moon, the waning moon, the dark moon.”

Maerad stared at the runes, and then looked up at Arkan.

“They’re not a song,” she said.

“Listen. This is how the Song is made. Fir, furze, apple, poplar, and yew.” Arkan turned his eyes upon Maerad, and she swallowed nervously. She pointed to each rune, and said, as if she were learning a lesson: “Arda, fir, the new moon. Onn, furze, the waxing moon. Ura, apple, the full moon. Iadh, poplar, the waning moon. Eadha, yew, the dark moon.” She looked up, suddenly realizing something. “They’re letters!”