Harpist in the Wind

12

They left Isig the next day: three crows flying among the billowing smoke from Danan’s forges. They crossed the Ose, flew over the docks at Kyrth; every ship moored there was being overhauled for a long journey down the river to the heavy autumn seas. The grey rains beat against them over the forests of Osterland; the miles of ancient pine were hunched and weary. Grim Mountain rose in the distance out of a ring of mist. The east and north winds swarmed around them; the crows dipped from current to current, their feathers alternately sleeked and billowed by the erratic winds. They stopped to rest frequently. By nightfall they were barely halfway to Yrye.

They stopped for the night under the broad eaves of an old tree whose thick branches sighed resignedly in the rain. They found niches in it to protect themselves from the weather. Two crows huddled together on a branch; the third landed below them, a big, dark, windblown bird who had not spoken since they left Isig. For hours they slept, shielded by the weave of branches, lulled by the wind.

The winds died at midnight. The rains slowed to a whisper, then faded. The clouds parted, loosing the stars cluster by cluster against a dazzling blackness. The unexpected silence found its way into Morgon’s crow-dreams. His eyes opened.

Raederle was motionless beside him, ,a little cloud of soft black plumage. The crow beneath him was still. His own shape pulled at him dimly, wanting to breathe the spices of the night, wanting to become moonlight. He spread his wings after a moment, dropped soundlessly to the ground, and changed shape.

He stood quietly, enfolded in the Osterland night. His mind opened to all its sounds and smells and shapes. He laid his hand against the wet, rough flank of the tree and felt it drowsing. He heard the pad of some night hunter across the soft, damp ground. He smelled the rich, tangled odors of wet pine, of dead bark and loam crumbled under his feet. His thoughts yearned to become part of the land, under the light, silvery touch of the moon. He let his mind drift finally into the vast, tideless night.

He shaped his mind to the roots of trees, to buried stones, to the brains of animals moving obliviously across the path of his awareness. He sensed in all things the ancient sleeping fire of Har’s law, the faint, perpetual fire behind his eyes. He touched fragments of the dead within the earth, the bones and memories of men and animals. Unlike the wraiths of An, they were quiescent, at rest in the heart of the wild land. Quietly, unable to resist his own longings, he began weaving his bindings of awareness and knowledge into the law of Osterland.

Slowly he began to understand the roots of the land-law. The bindings of snow and sun had touched all life. The wild winds set the vesta’s speed; the fierceness of seasons shaped the wolf’s brain; the winter night seeped into the raven’s eye. The more he understood, the deeper he drew himself into it: gazing at the moon out of a horned owl’s eyes, melting with a wild cat through the bracken, twisting his thoughts even into the fragile angles of a spider’s web, and into the endless, sinuous wind of ivy spiralling a tree trunk. He was so engrossed that he touched a vesta’s mind without questioning it. A little later, he touched another. And then, suddenly, his mind could not move without finding vesta, as if they had shaped themselves out of the moonlight around him. They were running: a soundless white wind coming from all directions. Curiously, he explored their impulse. Some danger had sent them flowing across the night, he sensed, and wondered what would dare trouble the vesta in Har’s domain. He probed deeper. Then he shook himself free of them; the swift, startled breath he drew of the icy air cleared his head.

It was nearly dawn. What he thought was moonlight was the first silver-grey haze of morning. The vesta were very close, a great herd wakened by Har, their minds drawn with a fine instinct towards whatever had brought the king out of his sleep and disturbed the ancient workings of his mind. Morgon stood still, considering various impulses: to take the crow-shape and escape into the tree; to take the vesta-shape; to try to reach Har’s mind, and hope he was not too angry to listen. Before he could act, he found Yrth standing next to him.

“Be still,” he said, and Morgon, furious at his own acquiescence, followed the unlikely advice.

He began to see the vesta all around them, through the trees. Their speed was incredible; the unwavering drive toward one isolated point in the forests was eerie. They were massed around him in a matter of moments, surrounding the tree. They did not threaten him; they simply stood in a tight, motionless circle, gazing at him out of alien purple eyes, their horns sketching gold circles against the trees and the pallid morning sky as far as he could see.

Raederle woke. She gave one faint, surprised squawk. Her mind reached into Morgon’s; she said his name on a questioning note. He did not dare answer, and she was silent after that. The sun whitened a wall of cloud in the east, then disappeared. The rain began again, heavy, sullen drops that plummeted straight down from a windless sky.

An hour later, something began to ripple through the herd. Morgon, drenched from head to foot and cursing Yrth’s advice, watched the movement with relief. One set of gold horns was moving through the herd; he watched the bright circles constantly fall apart before it and rejoin in its wake. He knew it must be Har. He wiped rain out of his eyes with a sodden sleeve and sneezed suddenly. Instantly, the vesta nearest him, standing so placidly until then, belled like a stag and reared. One gold hoof slashed the air apart inches from Morgon’s face. His muscles turned to stone. The vesta subsided, dropping back to gaze at him again, peacefully.

Morgon stared back at it, his heartbeat sounding uncomfortably loud. The front circle broke again, shifting to admit the great vesta. It changed shape. The wolf-king stood before Morgon, the smile in his eyes boding no good to whoever had interrupted his sleep.

The smile died as he recognized Morgon. He turned his head, spoke one word sharply; the vesta faded like a dream. Morgon waited silently, tensely, for judgment. It did not come. The king reached out, pushed the wet hair back from the stars on his face, as if answering a doubt. Then he looked at Yrth.

“You should have warned him.”

“I was asleep,” Yrth said. Har grunted.

“I thought you never slept.” He glanced up into the tree and his face gentled. He held up his hand. The crow dropped down onto his fingers, and he set it on his shoulder. Morgon stirred, then. Har looked at him, his eyes glinting, ice-blue, the color of wind across the sky above the wastes.

“You,” he said, “stealing fire from my mind. Couldn’t you have waited until morning?”

“Har…” Morgon whispered. He shook his head, not knowing where to begin. Then he stepped forward, his head bowed, into the wolf-king’s embrace. “How can you trust me like this?” he demanded.

“Occasionally,” Har admitted, “I am not rational.” He loosed Morgon, held him back to look at him. “Where did Raederle find you?”

“In the wastes.”

“You look like a man who has been listening to those deadly winds… Come to Yrye. A vesta can travel faster than a crow, and this deep into Osterland, vesta running together will not be noticed.” He dropped his hand lightly onto the wizard’s shoulder. “Ride on my back. Or on Morgon’s.”

“No,” Morgon said abruptly, without thinking. Har’s eyes went back to him.

Yrth said, before the king could speak, “I’ll ride in crow-shape.” His voice was tired. “There was a time when I would have chanced running blind for the sheer love of running, but no more… I must be getting old.” He changed shape, fluttered from the ground to Har’s other shoulder.

The wolf-king, frowning a little, his lined face shadowed by crows, seemed to hear something behind Morgon’s silence. But he only said, “Let’s get out of the rain.”

They ran through the day until twilight: three vesta running north toward winter, one with a crow riding in the circle of its horns. They reached Yrye by nightfall. As they slowed and came to a halt in the yard, their sides heaving, the heavy doors of weathered oak and gold were thrown open. Aia appeared with wolves at her knees and Nun behind her, smiling out of her smoke.

Nun hugged Raederle in vesta-shape and again in her own shape. Aia, her smooth ivory hair unbraided, stared at Morgon a little, then kissed his cheek very gently. She patted Har’s shoulder, and Yrth’s, and said in her placid voice, “I sent everyone home. Nun told me who was coming.”

“I told her,” Yrth said, before Har had to ask. The king smiled a little. They went into the empty hall. The fire roared down the long bed; platters of hot meat, hot bread, hissing brass pots of spiced wine, steaming stews and vegetables lay on a table beside the hearth. They were eating almost before they sat down, quickly, hungrily. Then, as the edge wore off, they settled in front of the fire with wine and began to talk a little.

Har said to Morgon, who was half-drowsing on a bench with his arm around Raederle, “So. You came to Osterland to learn my land-law. I’ll make a bargain with you.”

That woke him. He eyed the king a moment, then said simply, “No. Whatever you want, I’ll give you.”

“That,” Har said softly, “sounds like a fair exchange for land-law. You may wander freely through my mind, if I may wander freely through yours.” He seemed to sense something in a vague turn of Yrth’s head. “You have some objection?”

“Only that we have very little time,” Yrth said. Morgon looked at him.

“Are you advising me to take the knowledge from the earth itself? That would take weeks.”

“No.”

“Then, are you advising me not to take it at all?”

The wizard sighed. “No.”

“Then what do you advise me to do?” Raederle stirred in his hold, at the faint, challenging edge to his voice. Har was still in his great carved chair; the wolf at his knee opened its eyes suddenly to gaze at Morgon.

“Are you,” Har said amazedly, “picking a quarrel with Yrth in my hall?”

The wizard shook his head. “It’s my fault,” he explained. “There is a mind-hold Morgon was not aware pf. I used it to keep him in Isig a few days ago when Hed was attacked. It seemed better than to let him walk into a trap.”

Morgon, his hands locking around the rim of his cup, checked a furious retort. Nun said, puzzled, “What hold?” Yrth looked toward her silently. Her face grew quiet for a moment, remote as if she were dreaming. Yrth loosed her, and her brows rose. “Where in Hel’s name did you learn that?”

“I saw the possibility of it long ago, and I explored it into existence.” He sounded apologetic. “I would never have used it except under extreme circumstances.”

“Well, I would be upset, too. But I can certainly understand why you did it. If the Earth-Masters are searching for Morgon at the other end of the realm, there’s no reason to distract them by giving them what they want.”

Morgon’s head bowed. He felt the touch of Har’s gaze, like something physical, forcing his face up. He met the curious, ungentle eyes helplessly. The king loosed him abruptly.

“You need some sleep.”

Morgon stared down into his wine. “I know.” He felt Raederle’s hand slide from his ribs to touch his cheek, and the weight of despair in him eased a little. He said haltingly, breaking the silence that had fallen over the hall, “But first, tell me how the vesta are bound like that into the defense of land-law. I was never aware of it as a vesta.”

“I was hardly aware of it myself,” the king admitted. “It’s an ancient binding, I think; the vesta are extremely powerful, and I believe they rouse to the defense of the land, as well as land-law. But they have not fought anything but wolves for centuries, and the binding lay dormant at the bottom of my mind… I’ll show you the binding, of course. Tomorrow.” He looked across the fire at the wizard, who was refilling his cup slowly with hot spiced wine. “Yrth, did you go to Hed?”

“Yes.” The pitch of liquid pouring into the cup changed as it neared the rim, and Yrth set the pot down.

“How did you cross Ymris?”

“Very carefully. I took no more time than necessary on my way to Hed, but returning, I stopped a few minutes to speak to Aloil. Our minds are linked; I was able to find him without using power. He was with Astrin Ymris, and what is left of the king’s forces around Caerweddin.”

There was another silence. A branch snapped in the fire and a shower of sparks fled towards the smoke hole in the roof. “What is left of the king’s forces?” Har asked.

“Astrin was unsure. Half the men were pushed into Ruhn when Wind Plain was lost; the rest fled northward. The rebels — whatever they are: living men, dead men, Earth-Masters — have not attacked Caerweddin or any of the major cities in Ymris.” He gazed thoughtfully through someone else’s eyes at the fire. “They keep taking the ancient, ruined cities. There are many across Ruhn, one or two in east Umber, and King’s Mouth Plain, near Caerweddin. Astrin and his generals are in dispute about what to do. The war-lords contend that the rebels will not take King’s Mouth Plain without attacking Caerweddin. Astrin does not want to waste lives warring over a dead city. He is beginning to think that the king’s army and the rebel army are not fighting the same war…”

Har grunted. He rose, the wolf’s head sliding from his knee. “A one-eyed man who can see… Does he see an end to the war?”

“No. But he told me he is haunted by dreams of Wind Plain, as if some answer lies there. The tower on the plain is still bound by a living force of illusion.”

“Wind Tower.” The words came out of Morgon unexpectedly, some shard of a riddle the wizard’s words unburied. “I had forgotten…”

“I tried to climb it once,” Nun said reminiscently.

Har took his cup to the table for more wine. “So did I.” He asked, as Morgon glanced at him, “Have you?”

“No.”

“Why not? It’s a riddle. You’re a riddler.”

He thought back. “The first time I was on Wind Plain with Astrin I had lost my memory. There was only one riddle I was interested in answering. The second time…” He shifted a little. “I passed through very quickly, at night. I was pursuing a harpist. Nothing could have stopped me.”

“Then perhaps,” Har said softly, “you should try.”

“You’re not thinking,” Nun protested. “The plain must be full of Earth-Masters.”

“I am always thinking,” Har said. A thought startled through Morgon; he moved again without realizing it, and Raederle lifted her face, blinking.

“It’s bound by illusion… no one can reach the top of it. No one works an illusion unless there is something to be hidden, unseen… But what would be hidden for so long at the top of the tower?”

“The High One,” Raederle suggested sleepily. They gazed at her, Nun with her pipe smoldering in her fingers, Har with his cup halfway to his mouth. “Well,” she added, “that’s the one thing everyone is looking for. And the one place maybe that no one has looked.”

Har’s eyes went to Morgon. He ran his hand through his hair, his face clearing, easing into wonder. “Maybe. Har, you know I will try. But I always thought the binding of that illusion was some forgotten work of dead Earth-Masters, not… not of a living Earth-Master. Wait.” He sat straight, staring ahead of him. “Wind Tower. The name of it… the name… wind.” They roused suddenly through his memories: the deep wind in Erlenstar Mountain, the tumultuous winds of the wastes, singing to all the notes of his harp. “Wind Tower.”

“What de you see?”

“I don’t know… a harp strung with wind.” As the winds died in his mind, he realized that he did not know who had asked the question. The vision receded, leaving him with only words and the certainty that they somehow fit together. “The tower. The starred harp. Wind.”

Har brushed a white weasel off his chair and sat down slowly. “Can you bind the winds as well as land-law?” he asked incredulously.

“I don’t know.”

“I see. You haven’t tried, yet.”

“I wouldn’t know how to begin.” He added, “Once I shaped wind. To kill. That’s all I know I can do.”

“When—” He checked, shaking his head. The hall was very still; animals’ eyes glowed among the rushes. Yrth set his cup down with a small, distracting clink as it hit the edge of a tray. Nun guided it for him.

“Small distances,” he murmured ruefully.

“I think,” the wolf-king said, “that if I start questioning you, it will be the longest riddle I have ever asked.”

“You already asked the longest riddle,” Morgon said. “Two years ago, when you saved my life in that blizzard and brought me into your house. I’m still trying to answer it for you.”

“Two years ago, I gave you the knowledge of the vesta shape. Now you have come back for knowledge of my land-law. What will you ask of me next?”

“I don’t know.” He drained his cup and slid his hands around the mouth of it. “Maybe trust.” He set the cup down abruptly, traced the flawless rim with his fingertips. He was exhausted suddenly; he wanted to lay his head on the table among the plates and sleep. He heard the wolf-king rise.

“Ask me tomorrow.”

Har touched him. As he dragged his eyes open and stood up to follow the king out of the hall, he found nothing strange in the answer.

He slept dreamlessly until dawn beside Raederle in the warm, rich chamber Aia had prepared for them. Then, as the sky lightened, vesta slowly crowded into his mind, forming a tight, perfect circle about him so that he could not move, and all their eyes were light, secret, blind. He woke abruptly, murmuring. Raederle groped for him, said something incoherent. He waited until she was quiet again. Then he got up soundlessly and dressed. He could smell one last sweet pine log burning into embers from the silent hall, and he knew, somehow, that Har was still there.

The king watched him as he came into the hall. He stepped quietly past small animals curled asleep beside the hearth and sat down beside Har. The king dropped a hand on his shoulder, held him a moment in a gentle, comfortable silence.

Then he said, “We’ll need privacy or traders will spread rumors from here to Anuin. They have been flocking to my house lately, asking me questions, asking Nun…”

“There’s the shed in the back,” Morgon suggested, “where you taught me the vesta-shape.”

“It seems appropriate… I’ll wake Hugin; he can tend to our needs.” He smiled a little. “For a while, I thought Hugin might return to the vesta; he became so shy among men. But since Nun came and told him everything she knew about Suth, I think he might turn into a wizard…” He was silent, sending a thought, Morgon suspected, through the quiet house. Hugin wandered in a few moments later, blinking sleepily and combing his white hair with his fingers. He stopped short when he saw Morgon. He was big-boned and graceful like the vesta, his deep eyes still shy. He stirred the rushes a little, flushing, looking like a vesta might if it were on the verge of smiling.

“We need your help,” Har said. Hugin’s head ducked an acquiescence. Then, gazing at Morgon, he found his tongue.

“Nun said you battled the wizard who killed Suth.

That you saved the lives of the Lungold wizards. Did you kill the Founder?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Hugin,” Har murmured. Then he checked himself and looked at Morgon curiously. “Why not? Did you spend all your passion for revenge on that harpist?”

“Har…” His muscles had tensed under Har’s hand. The king frowned suddenly.

“What is it? Are you wraith-driven? Yrth told me last night how the harpist died.”

Morgon shook his head wordlessly. “You’re a riddler,” he said abruptly. “You tell me. I need help.”

Har’s mouth tightened. He rose, telling Hugin, “Bring food, wine, firewood to the shed. And pallets. When Raederle of An wakes, let her know where we are. Bring her.” He added a little impatiently as the boy flushed scarlet, “You’ve talked to her before.”

“I know.” He was smiling suddenly. Under Har’s quizzical eye, he sobered and began to move. “I’ll bring her. And everything else.”

They spent that day and the next nine nights together in the smokey, circular shed behind the king’s house. Morgon slept by day. Har, seemingly inexhaustible, kept his court by day. Morgon, pulling out of Har’s mind each dawn, found Raederle beside him, and Hugin, and sometimes Nun, knocking her ashes into the fire. He rarely spoke to them; waking or sleeping, his mind seemed linked to Har’s, forming trees, ravens, snow-covered peaks, all the shapes deep in the wolf-king’s mind that were bound to his awareness. Har gave him everything and demanded nothing during those days. Morgon explored Osterland through him, forming his own binding of awareness with every root, stone, wolf pup, white falcon, and vesta in the land. The king was full of odd wizardry, Morgon discovered. He could speak to owls and wolves; he could speak to an iron knife or arrowtip and tell it where to strike. He knew the men and animals of his land as he knew his own family. His land-law extended even into the edges of the northern wastes, where he had raced vesta for miles across a desert of snow. He was shaped by his own law; the power in him tempered Morgon’s heart with ice, and then with fire, until he seemed one more shape of Har’s brain, or Har a reflection of his own power.

He broke loose from Har then, rolled onto a pallet, and fell asleep. Like a land-heir, he dreamed Har’s memories. With a restless, furious intensity, his dreams spanned centuries of history, of rare battles, of riddle-games that lasted for days and years. Be built Yrye, heard the wizard Suth give him five strange riddles for his keeping, lived among wolves, among the vesta, fathered heirs, dispensed judgment and grew so old he became ageless. Finally, the rich, feverish dreams came to an end; he drew deeply into himself, into a dreamless night. He slept without moving until a name drifted into his mind. Clinging to it, he brought himself back into the world. He blinked awake, found Raederle kneeling beside him.

She smiled down at him. “I wanted to find out if you were alive or dead.” She touched his hand; his fingers closed around hers. “You can move.”

He sat up slowly. The shed was empty; he could hear the winds outside trying to pick apart the roof. He tried to speak; his voice would not come for a moment. “How long — how long did I sleep?”

“Har said over two thousand years.”

“Is he that old?” He stared at nothing a little, then leaned over to kiss her. “Is it day or night?”

“It’s noon. You’ve slept nearly two days. I missed you. I only had Hugin to talk to most of the time.”

“Who?”

Her smile deepened. “Do you remember my name?”

He nodded. “You are a two-thousand-year-old woman named Raederle.” He sat quietly, holding her hand, putting the world into shape around him. He stood up finally; she slid an arm around him to steady him. The wind snatched the door out of his hand as he opened it. The first flakes of winter snow swirled and vanished in the winds. They shattered the silence in his mind, whipped over him, persistent, icy, shaping him back out of his dreams. He ran across the yard with Raederle, into the warmth of the king’s dark house.

Har came to him that evening as he lay beside the fire in his chamber. He was remembering and slowly absorbing the knowledge he had taken. Raederle had left him alone, deep in his thoughts. Har, entering, brought him out of himself. Their eyes met across the fire in a peaceful, wordless recognition. Then Har sat down, and Morgon straightened, shifting logs with his hands until the drowsing fire woke.

“I have come,” Har said softly, “for what you owe me.”

“I owe you everything.” He waited. The fire slowly blurred in front of him; he was lost to himself again, this time among his own memories.

The king worked through them a little randomly, not sure what he would find. Very early in his exploring, he loosed Morgan in utter astonishment. “You struck an old, blind wizard?”

“Yes. I couldn’t kill him.”

The king’s eyes blazed with a glacial light. He seemed about to speak; instead he caught the thread of Morgon’s memories again. He wove backwards and forwards, from Trader’s Road to Lungold and Erlenstar Mountain, and the weeks Morgon had spent in the wastes, harping to the winds. He watched the harpist die; he listened to Yrth speaking to Morgon and to Danan in Isig; he listened to Raederle giving Morgon a riddle that drew him back out of the dead land, once again among the living. Then, he loosed Morgon abruptly and prowled the chamber like a wolf. “Deth.”

The name chilled Morgon unexpectedly, as though Har had turned the impossible into truth with a word. The king paced to his side and stopped moving finally. He stared down into the fire. Morgon dropped his face against his forearms wearily.

“I don’t know what to do. He holds more power than anyone else in this realm. You felt that mind-hold—”

“He has always held your mind.”

“I know. And I can’t fight him. I can’t. You saw how he drew me on Trader’s Road… with nothing. With a harp he could barely play. I went to him… At Anuin I couldn’t kill him. I didn’t even want to. More than anything, I wanted a reason not to. He gave me one. I thought he had walked out of my life forever, since I left him no place in the realm to harp. I left him one place. He harped to me. He betrayed me again, and I saw him die. But he didn’t die. He only replaced one mask with another. He made the sword I nearly killed him with. He threw me to Ghisteslwchlohm like a bone, and he rescued me from Earth-Masters on the same day. I don’t understand him. I can’t challenge him. I have no proof, and he would twist his way out of any accusation. His power frightens me. I don’t know what he is. He gives me silence like the silence out of trees…” His voice trailed away. He found himself listening to Har’s silence.

He raised his head. The king was still gazing into the fire, but it seemed to Morgon that he was watching it from the distance of many centuries. He was very still; he did not seem to be breathing. His face looked harsher than Morgon had ever seen it, as if the lines had been riven into it by the icy, merciless winds that scarred his land.

“Morgon,” he whispered, “be careful.” It was, Morgon realized slowly, not a warning but a plea. The king dropped to his haunches, held Morgon’s shoulders very gently, as if he were grasping something elusive, intangible, that was beginning to shape itself under his hands.

“Har.”

The king shook away his question. He held Morgon’s eyes with an odd intensity, gazing through him into the heart of his confusion. “Let the harpist name himself…”