Harpist in the Wind

1

The Star-Bearer and Raederle of An sat on the crown of the highest of the seven towers of Anuin. The white stone fell endlessly away from them, down to the summer-green slope the great house sat on. The city itself spilled away from the slope to the sea. The sky revolved above them, a bright, changeless blue, its expression broken only by the occasional spiral of a hawk. Morgon had not moved for hours. The morning sun had struck his profile on the side of the embrasure he sat in and shifted his shadow without his notice to the other side. He was aware of Raederle only as some portion of the land around him, of the light wind, and the crows sketching gleaming black lines through the green orchards in the distance: something peaceful and remote, whose beauty stirred every once in a while through his thoughts.

His mind was spinning endless threads of conjecture that snarled constantly around his ignorance. Stars, children with faces of stone, the fiery, broken shards of a bowl he had smashed in Astrin’s hut, dead cities, a dark-haired shape-changer, a harpist, all resolved under his probing into answerless riddles. He gazed back at his own life, at the history of the realm, and picked at facts like potshards, trying to piece them together. Nothing fit; nothing held; he was cast constantly out of his memories into the soft summer air.

He moved finally, stiffly as a stone deciding to move, and slid his hands over his eyes. Flickering shapes like ancient beasts without names winged into light behind his eyelids. He cleared his mind again, let images drift and flow into thought until they floundered once again on the shoals of impossibility.

The vast blue sky broke into his vision, and the swirling maze of streets and houses below. He could think no longer; he leaned against his shadow. The silence within the slab of ancient stone eased through him; his thoughts, worn meaningless, became quiet again.

He saw a soft leather shoe then and a flicker of leaf-green cloth. He turned his head and found Raederle sitting cross-legged on the ledge beside him.

He leaned over precariously and drew her against him. He laid his face against her long windblown hair and saw the burning strands beneath his closed eyes. He was silent for a time, holding her tightly, as if he sensed a wind coming that might sweep them out of their high, dangerous resting place.

She stirred a little; her face lifting to kiss him, and his arms loosened reluctantly. “I didn’t realize you were here,” he said, when she let him speak.

“I guessed that, somehow, after the first hour or so. What were you thinking about?”

“Everything.” He nudged a chip of mortar out of a crack and flicked it into the trees below. A handful of crows startled up, complaining. “I keep battering my brains against my past, and I always come to the same conclusion. I don’t know what in Hel’s name I am doing.”

She shifted, drawing her knees up, and leaned back against the stone beside her to face him. Her eyes filled with light, like sea-polished amber, and his throat constricted suddenly, too full of words. “Answering riddles. You told me that that is the only thing you can keep doing, blind and deaf and dumb, and not knowing where you are going.”

“I know.” He searched more mortar out of the crack and threw it so hard he nearly lost his balance. “I know. But I have been here in Anuin with you for seven days, and I can’t find one reason or one riddle to compel me out of this house. Except that if we stay here much longer, we will both die.”

“That’s one,” she said soberly.

“I don’t know why my life is in danger because of three stars on my face. I don’t know where the High One is. I don’t know what the shape-changers are, or how I can help a cairn of children who have turned into stone at the bottom of a mountain. I know of only one place to begin finding answers. And the prospect is hardly appealing.”

“Where?”

“In Ghisteslwchlohm’s mind.”

She stared at him, swallowing, and then frowned down at the sun-warmed stone, “Well.” Her voice shook almost imperceptibly. “I didn’t think we could stay here forever. But, Morgon—”

“You could stay here.”

Her head lifted. With the sun catching in her eyes again, he could not read their expression. But her voice was stiff. “I am not going to leave you. I refused even the wealth of Hel and all the pigs in it for your sake. You are going to have to learn to live with me.”

“It’s difficult enough just trying to live,” he murmured, without thinking, then flushed. But her mouth twitched. He reached across to her, took her hand. “For one silver boar bristle, I would take you to Hed and spend the rest of my life raising plow horses in east Hed.”

“I’ll find you a boar bristle.”

“How do I marry you, in this land?”

“You can’t,” she said calmly, and his hand slackened.

“What?”

“Only the king has the power to bind his heirs in marriage. And my father is not here. So we’ll have to forget about that until he finds the time to return home.”

“But, Raederle—”

She pitched a sliver of mortar across the tail feathers of a passing crow, causing it to veer with a squawk. “But what?” she said darkly.

“I can’t… I can’t walk into your father’s land, trouble the dead as I have, nearly commit murder his hall, then take you away with me to wander through the realm without even marrying you. What in Hel’s name will your father think of me?”

“When he finally meets you, he’ll let you know. What I think, which is more to the point, is that my father has meddled enough with my life. He may have foreseen our meeting, and maybe even our loving, but I don’t think he should have his own way in everything. I’m not going to marry you just because he maybe foresaw that, too, in some dream.”

“Do you think it was that, behind his strange vow about Peven’s Tower?” he asked curiously. “Foreknowledge?”

“You are changing the subject.”

He eyed her a moment, considering the subject and her flushed face. “Well,” he said softly, casting their future to the winds over the dizzying face of the tower, “if you refuse to marry me, I don’t see what I can do about it. And if you choose to come with me — if that is what you really want — I am not going to stop you. I want you too much. But I’m terrified. I think we would have more hope of survival falling head first off this tower. And at least, doing that, we’d know where we were going.”

Her hand lay on the stones between them. She lifted it, touched his face. “You have a name and a destiny. I can only believe that sooner or later you will stumble across some hope.”

“I haven’t seen any so far. Only you. Will you marry me in Hed?”

“No.”

He was silent a little, holding her eyes. “Why?”

She looked away from him quickly; he sensed a sudden, strange turmoil in her. “For many reasons.”

“Raederle—”

“No. And don’t ask me again. And stop looking at me like that.”

“All right,” he said after a moment. He added, “I don’t remember that you were so stubborn.”

“Pig-headed.”

“Pig-headed.”

She looked at him again. Her mouth crooked into a reluctant smile. She shifted close to him, put her arm around his shoulders, and swung her feet over the sheer edge of nothingness. “I love you, Morgon of Hed. When we finally leave this house, where will we go first? Hed?”

“Yes. Hed…” The name touched his heart suddenly, like the word of a spell. “I have no business going home. I simply want to. For a few hours, at night… that might be safe.” He thought of the sea, between them and his home, and his heart chilled. “I can’t take you across the sea.”

“In Hel’s name, why not?” she said.

“It’s far too dangerous.”

“That makes no sense. Lungold is dangerous, and I’m going with you there.”

“That’s different. For one thing, no one I loved ever died in Lungold. Yet. For another thing—”

“Morgon, I am not going to die in the sea. I can probably shape water as well as fire.”

“You don’t know that. Do you?” The thought of her caught in the water as it heaved itself into faces and wet, gleaming forms made his voice rough. “You wouldn’t even have time to learn.”

“Morgon—”

“Raederle, I have been on a ship breaking apart in the sea. I don’t want to risk your life that way.”

“It’s not your risk. It’s mine. For another thing, I have been on ships from Caithnard to Kyrth and back looking for you and nothing ever happened to me.”

“You could stay at Caithnard. For only a few—”

“I am not going to stay at Caithnard,” she said tersely. “I am going with you to Hed. I want to see the land you love. If you had your way, I would be sitting in a farmhouse in Hed shelling beans and waiting for you, just as I have waited for nearly two years.”

“You don’t shell beans.”

“I don’t. Not unless you are beside me helping.”

He saw himself, a lean, shaggy-haired man with a worn, spare face, a great sword at his side and a starred harp at his back, sitting on the porch at Akren with a bowl of beans on his knees. He laughed suddenly. She smiled again, watching him, her argument forgotten.

“You haven’t done that in seven days.”

“No.” He was still, his arm around her, and the smile died slowly in his eyes. He thought of Hed, gripped so defenselessly in the heart of the sea, with not even the illusion of the High One to protect it. He whispered, “I wish I could ring Hed with power, so that nothing of the turmoil of the mainland could touch it and it could stay innocent of fear.”

“Ask Duac. He’ll give you an army.”

“I don’t dare bring an army to Hed. That would be asking for disaster.”

“Take a few wraiths,” she suggested. “Duac would love to be rid of them.”

“Wraiths.” He lifted his eyes from the distant forests to stare at her. “In Hed.”

“They’re invisible. No one would see them to attack them.” Then she shook her head a little at her own words. “What am I thinking? They would upset all the fanners in Hed.”

“Not if the farmers didn’t know they were there.” His hands felt chilled, suddenly, linked around hers. He breathed, “What am I thinking?”

She drew back, searching his eyes. “Are you taking me seriously?”

“I think… I think so.” He did not see her face then, but the faces of the dead, with all their frustrated power. “I could bind them. I understand them… their anger, their desire for revenge, their land-love. They can take that love to Hed and all their longing for war… But your father… how can I wrest something out of the history of An and lead it to danger in Hed? I can’t tamper with the land-law of An like that”

“Duac gave you permission. And for all my father is interested in land-law, he might as well be a wraith himself. But Morgon, what about Eliard?”

“Eliard?”

“I don’t know him, but wouldn’t he… wouldn’t it disturb him maybe a little if you brought an army of the dead to Hed?”

He thought of the land-ruler of Hed, his brother, whose face he barely remembered. “A little,” he said softly. “He must be used to being disturbed by me, even in his sleep, by now. I would bury my own heart under his feet if that would keep him and Hed safe. I would even face an argument with him over this—”

“What will he say?”

“I don’t know… I don’t even know him any more.” The thought pained him, touching unhealed places within him. But he did not let her see that; he only moved reluctantly from their high place. “Come with me. I want to talk to Duac.”

“Take them,” Duac said. “all of them.”

They had found him in the great hall, listening to complaints from farmers and messengers from Lords of An whose lands and lives were in turmoil over the restlessness and bickerings of the dead. When the hall finally cleared and Morgon could speak with him, he listened incredulously.

“You actually want them? But Morgon, they’ll destroy the peace of Hed.”

“No, they won’t. I’ll explain to them why they are there—”

“How? How do you explain anything to dead men who are fighting a centuries-old war in cow pastures and village market places?”

“I’ll simply offer them what they want. Someone to fight. But, Duac, how will I explain to your father?”

“My father?” Duac glanced around the hall, then up at the rafters, and at each of the four corners. “I don’t see him. Anywhere. And when I do see him, he will be so busy explaining himself to the living, he won’t have time to count the heads of the dead. How many do you want?”

“As many as I can bind, of the kings and warriors who had some touch of compassion in them. They’ll need that, to understand Hed. Rood would be able to help me—” He stopped suddenly and an unaccountable flush stained Duac’s face. “Where is Rood? I haven’t seen him for days.”

“He hasn’t been here for days.” Duac cleared his throat. “You weren’t noticing. So I waited until you asked. I sent him to find Deth.”

Morgon was silent. The name flung him back seven days, as though he stood in the same pool of sunlight, his shadow splayed before him on the cracked stone floor. “Deth,” he whispered, and the ambiguity of the name haunted him.

“I gave him instructions to bring the harpist back here; I sent fourteen armed men with him. You let him go, but he still has much to answer for to the land-rulers of the realm. I thought to imprison him here until the Masters at Caithnard could question him. That’s not something I would attempt to do.” He touched Morgon hesitantly. “You would never have known he was here. I’m only surprised Rood has not returned before this.”

The color stirred back into Morgon’s face. “I’m not surprised,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to be in Rood’s boots, trying to bring Deth back to Anuin. That harpist makes his own choices.”

“Maybe.”

“Rood will never bring him back here. You sent him into the chaos of the Three Portions for nothing.”

“Well,” Duac said resignedly, “you know the harpist better than I do. And Rood would have gone after him with or without my asking. He wanted answers too.”

“You don’t question that riddler with a sword. Rood should have known that” He heard the harsh edge that had crept into his voice then. He turned a little abruptly, out of the light, and sat down at one of the tables.

Duac said helplessly, “I’m sorry. This was something you didn’t need to know.”

“I do need to know. I just didn’t want to think. Not yet” He spread his hands on the rich gold grain of oak and thought again of Akren, with its sunlit oak walls. “I’m going home.” The words opened his heart, filed him with a sharp, sweet urgency. “Home… Duac, I need ships. Trade-ships.”

“You’re going to take the dead by water?” Raederle said amazedly. “Will they go?”

“How else can they get to Hed?” he asked reasonably. Then he thought a little, staring back at his vague reflection in the polished wood. “I don’t dare take you on the same ship with them. So… we’ll ride together to Caithnard and meet them there. All right?”

“You want to ride back through Hel?”

“We could fly instead,” he suggested, but she shook her head quickly.

“No. I’ll ride.”

He eyed her, struck by an odd note in her voice. “It would be simple for you to take the crow-shape.”

“One crow in the family is enough,” she said darkly, “Morgon, Bri Corbett could find ships for you. And men to sail them.”

“It will cost a small fortune to persuade them,” Morgon said, but Duac only shrugged.

“The dead have already cost a great fortune in the destruction of crops and animals. Morgon, how in Hel’s name will you control them in Hed?”

“They will not want to fight me,” he said simply, and Duac was silent, gazing at him out of clear, sea-colored eyes.

“I wonder,” he said slowly, “what you are. Man of Hed, who can control the dead of An… Star-Bearer.”

Morgon looked at him with a curious gratitude. “I might have hated my own name in this hall, but for you.” He stood up, mulling over the problem at hand. “Duac, I need to know names. I could spend days searching the cairns with my mind, but I won’t know who I am rousing. I know many of the names of the Kings of the Three Portions, but I don’t know the lesser dead.”

“I don’t either,” Duac said.

“Well, I know where you can find out,” Raederle sighed. “The place I almost lived in when I was a child. Our father’s library.”

She and Morgon spent the rest of the day and the evening there, among ancient books and dusty parchments, while Duac sent to the docks for Bri Corbett. By midnight, Morgon had tamped down in the deep of his mind endless names of warrior-lords, their sons and far-flung families, and legends of love, blood feuds and land wars that spanned the history of An. He left the house then, walked alone through the still summer night into the fields behind the king’s house, which were the charnel house for the many who had died battling over Anuin. There he began his calling.

He spoke name after name, with the fragments of legend or poetry that he could remember, with his voice and his mind. The dead roused to their names, came out of the orchards and woods, out of the earth itself. Some rode at him with wild, eerie cries, their armor aflame with moonlight over bare bones. Others came silently: dark, grim figures revealing terrible death wounds. They sought to frighten him, but he only watched them out of eyes that had already seen all he needed to fear. They tried to fight him, but he opened his own mind to them, showed them glimpses of his power. He held them through all their challenging, until they stood ranged before him across an entire field, their awe and curiosity forcing them out of their memories to glimpse something of the world they had been loosed into.

Then he explained what he wanted. He did not expect them to understand Hed, but they understood him, his anger and despair and his land-love. They gave him fealty in a ritual as old as An, their moldering blades flashing greyly in the moonlight. Then they seeped slowly back into the night, into the earth, until he summoned them again.

He stood once again in a quiet field, his eyes on one still, dark figure who did not leave. He watched it curiously; then, when it did not move, he touched its mind. His thoughts were filled instantly with the living land-law of An.

His heart pounded sharply against his ribs. The King of An walked slowly toward him, a tall man robed and cowled like a master or a wraith. As he neared, Morgon could see him dimly in the moonlight, his dark brows slashing a tired, bitter face over eyes that were like Rood’s hauntingly familiar. The king stopped in front of him, stood silently surveying him.

He smiled unexpectedly, the bitterness in his eyes yielding to a strange wonder. “I’ve seen you,” he said, “in my dreams. Star-Bearer.”

“Mathom.” His throat was very dry. He bent his head to the king he had summoned out of the night of An. “You must… you must be wondering what I’m doing.”

“No. You made that very clear, as you explained it to the army you raised. You do astounding things so quietly in my land.”

“I asked Duac’s permission.”

“I’m sure Duac was grateful for the suggestion. You’re going to sail with them to Hed? Is that what I heard?”

“I don’t… I was thinking of riding with Raederle to Caithnard and meeting the ships there, but I think perhaps I should sail with the dead. It would make the living men on the ships feel easier, if I am with them.”

“You’re taking Raederle to Hed?”

“She won’t… she won’t listen to reason.”

The king grunted. “Strange woman.” His eyes were as sharp and curious as birds’ eyes, searching beneath Morgon’s words.

Morgon asked him suddenly, “What have you seen of me, in your dreams?”

“Pieces. Fragments. Little that will help you, and much more than is good for me. Long ago, I dreamed that you came out of a tower with a crown in your hand and three stars on your face… but no name. I saw you with a beautiful young woman, whom I knew was my daughter, but still, I never knew who you were. I saw…” He shook his head a little, drawing his gaze back out of some perplexing, dangerous vision.

“What?”

“I am not sure.”

“Mathom.” He felt cold suddenly in the warm summer night. “Be careful. There are things in your mind that could cost you your life.”

“Or my land-law?” His lean hand closed on Morgon’s shoulder. “Perhaps. That is why I rarely explain my thoughts. Come to the house. There will be a minor tempest when I reappear, but if you can sit patiently through that, we will have time to talk afterward.” He took a step, but Morgon did not move. “What is it?”

He swallowed. “There is something I have to tell you. Before I walk into your hall with you. Seven days ago, I walked into it to kill a harpist.”

He heard the king draw a swift breath. “Deth came here.”

“I didn’t kill him.”

“Somehow I am not surprised.” His voice sounded husky, like a voice out of a barrow. He drew Morgon forward toward the great moonlit house. “Tell me.”

Morgon told him much more than that before they reached the hall. He found himself talking a little about even the past seven days, which were so precious to him he wondered if they had even existed. Mathom said little, only making a faint noise deep in his throat now and then, like a blackbird’s mutter. As they entered the inner courtyard, they saw horses, trembling and sweating, being led to the stables. Their saddlecloths were purple and blue, the colors of the kings household guard. Mathom cursed mildly.

“Rood must be back. Empty-handed, furious, wraithridden, and unwashed.” They entered the hall, which was a blaze of torchlight, and Rood, slumped over a cup of wine, stared at his father. Duac and Raederle were beside him, their heads turning, but he got to his feet first, drowning their voices.

“Where in Hel’s name have you been?”

“Don’t shout at me,” the king said testily. “If you had no more sense than to roam through this chaos searching for that harpist, I have no pity for you.” He switched his gaze to Duac, as Rood, his mouth still open, dropped back into his chair. Duac eyed the king coldly, but his voice was controlled.

“Well. What brought you home? Dropping out of the sky like a bad spell. Surely not distress over the shambles you have made of your land-rule.”

“No,” Mathom said imperturbably, pouring wine. “You and Rood have done very well without me.”

“We have done what very well without you?” Rood asked between his teeth. “Do you realize we are on the verge of war?”

“Yes. And An has armed itself for it in a remarkably short time. Even you have turned, in less than three months, from a scholar into a warrior.”

Rood drew an audible breath to answer. Duac’s hand clamped suddenly down on his wrist, silencing him. “War.” His face had lost color. “With whom?”

“Who else is armed?”

“Ymris?” He repeated it incredulously, “Ymris?”

Mathom swallowed wine. His face looked older than it had under the moonlight, grim and worn with travel. He sat down beside Raederle. “I have seen the war in Ymris,” he said softly. “The rebels hold the coastal lands. It’s a strange, bloody, merciless war, and it is going to exhaust Heureu Ymris’ forces. He can never hope to contain it within his own borders once the people he is fighting decide to take it beyond the borders of Ymris. I suspected that before, but even I could not ask the Three Portions to arm themselves without reason. And to give reason might have precipitated attack.”

“You did that deliberately?” Duac breathed. “You left us so that we would arm ourselves?”

“It was extreme,” Mathom admitted, “but it was effective.” He cast an eye at Rood again, as he opened his mouth and spoke in a subdued voice.

“Where have you been? And are you planning to stay home awhile?”

“Here and there, satisfying my curiosity. And yes, I think I will stay home now. If you can refrain from shouting at me.”

“If you weren’t so pig-headed, I wouldn’t shout.”

Mathom looked skeptical. “You even have a warrior’s hard head. What exactly were you planning to do with Deth if you had caught him?”

There was a short silence. Duac said simply, “I would have sent him to Caithnard eventually, on an armed ship, and let the Masters question him.”

“The College at Caithnard is hardly a court of law.”

Duac looked at him, a rare trace of temper in his eyes. “Then you tell me. What would you have done?

If it had been you instead of me here, watching Morgon… watching Morgon forced to exact his own justice from a man bound to no law in the realm, who betrayed everyone in the realm, what would you have done?”

“Justice,” Mathom said softly. Morgon looked at him, waiting for his answer. He saw in the dark, tired eyes a distant, curious pain. “He is the High One’s Harpist. I would let the High One judge him.”

“Mathom?” Morgon said, wondering suddenly, imperatively, what the king was seeing. But Mathom did not answer him. Raederle was watching him, too; the king touched her hair lightly, but neither of them spoke.

“The High One,” Rood said. The warrior’s harshness had left his voice; the words were a riddle, full of bitterness and despair, a plea for answer. His eyes touched Morgon’s with a familiar twist of self-mockery. “You heard my father. I’m no longer even a riddler. You’ll have to answer that one, Riddle-Master.”

“I will,” he said wearily. “I don’t seem to have any choice.”

“You,” Mathom said, “have stayed here far too long.”

“I know. I couldn’t leave. I’ll leave…” He glanced at Duac. “Tomorrow? Will the ships be ready?”

Duac nodded. “Bri Corbett said they’ll sail on the midnight tide. Actually, he said a great deal more when I told him what you wanted. But he knows men who would sail even a cargo of the dead for gold.”

“Tomorrow,” Mathom murmured. He glanced at Morgon and then at Raederle, who was staring silently at the pooling candle, her face set as for an argument. He seemed to make his own surmises behind his black, fathomless gaze. She lifted her eyes slowly, sensing his thoughts.

“I am going with Morgon, and I am not asking you to marry us. Aren’t you even going to argue?”

He shook his head, sighing. “Argue with Morgon. I’m too old and tired, and all I want from either of you is that somewhere in this troubled realm you find your peace.”

She stared at him. Her face shook suddenly, and she reached out to him, tears burning down her face in the torchlight. “Oh, why were you gone so long?” she whispered, as he held her tightly. “I have needed you.”

He talked with her and with Morgon until the candles buried themselves in their holders and the windows grew pale with dawn. They slept most of the next day, and then, late that evening, when the world was still again, Morgon summoned his army of the dead to the docks at Anuin.

Seven trade-ships were moored under the moonlight carrying light cargoes of fine cloth and spices. Morgon, his mind weltering with names, faces, memories out of the brains of the dead, watched the ranks slowly become half-visible on the shadowy docks. They were mounted, armed, silent, waiting to board. The city was dark behind them; the black fingers of masts in the harbor rose with the swell of the tide to touch the stars and withdrew. The gathering of the dead had been accomplished in a dreamlike silence, under the eyes of Duac and Bri Corbett and the fascinated, terrified skeleton crews on the ships. They were just ready to board when a horse thudded down the dock, breaking Morgon’s concentration. He gazed at Raederle as she dismounted, wondering why she was not still asleep, his mind struggling with her presence as he was drawn back slowly into the night of the living. There was a single dock lamp lit near them; it gave her hair, slipping out of its jewelled pins, a luminous, fiery sheen. He could not see her face well.

“I’m coming with you to Hed,” she said. His hand moved out of the vivid backwash of centuries to turn her face to the light. The annoyance in it cleared his mind.

“We discussed it,” he said. “Not on these ships full of wraiths.”

“You and my father discussed it. You forgot to tell me.”

He ran his wrist across his forehead, realizing he was sweating. Bri Corbett was leaning over the side of the ship near them, an ear to their voices, one eye on the tide. “Lord,” he called softly, “if we don’t leave soon, there’ll be seven ships full of the dead stuck in the harbor until morning.”

“All right.” He stretched to ease the burning knots of tension in his back. Raederle folded her arms; he caught a pin falling out of her hair. “It would be best if you ride up through Hel to meet me in Caithnard.”

“You were going to ride with me. Not sail with wraiths to Hed.”

“I can’t lead an army of the dead by land to Caithnard and load them there at the docks under the eye of every trader—”

“That’s not the point. The point is: However you are going to Hed, I’m going with you. The point is: You were going to sail straight to Hed and leave me waiting for you at Caithnard.”

He stared at her. “I was not,” he said indignantly.

“You would have thought of it,” she said tersely, “halfway there, leaving me safe and foresworn at Caithnard. I have a pack on my horse; I’m ready to leave.”

“No. Not a four day journey by sea with me and the dead of An.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.” His hands were clenched; shadows wedged beneath the bones of his taut face as he gazed at her. The lamplight was exploring her face as he had explored it the past days. Light gathered in her eyes, and he remembered that she had stared into the eyes of a skull and had outfaced dead kings. “No,” he repeated harshly. “I don’t know what trail of power the dead will leave across the water. I don’t know—”

“You don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t know how safe you will be, even in Hed.”

“Which is why I will not take you on these ships.”

“Which is why I am going with you. At least I am born to understand the sea.”

“And if it tears apart the wood beneath you and scatters planks and spice and the dead into the waves, what will you do? You’ll drown, because no matter what shape I take, I won’t be able to save you, and then what will I do?”

She was silent. The dead ranked behind her seemed to be looking at him with the same distant, implacable expression. He turned suddenly, his hands opening and closing again. He caught the mocking eyes of one of the kings and let his mind grow still. A name stirred shadows of memory behind the dead eyes. The wraith moved after a moment, blurring into air and darkness, and entered the ship.

He lost all sense of time again, as he filled the seven trade-ships with the last of their cargo. Centuries murmured through him, mingling with the slap of water and the sounds of Duac and Raederle talking in some far land. Finally, he reached the end of names and began to see.

The dark, silent vessels were growing restless in the tide. Ship-masters were giving subdued orders, as if they feared their voices might rouse the dead. Men moved as quietly across the decks, among the mooring cables. Raederle and Duac stood alone on the empty dock, silently, watching Morgon. He went to them, feeling a salt wind that had not been there before drying the sweat on his face.

He said to Duac, “Thank you. I don’t know how grateful Eliard is going to be, but it’s the best protection I can think of for Hed, and it will set my mind at ease. Tell Mathom… tell him—” He hesitated, groping. Duac dropped a hand on his shoulder.

“He knows. Just be careful.”

“I will be.” He turned his head, met Raederle’s eyes. She did not move or speak, but she bound him wordless, lost again in memories. He broke their silence as if he were breaking a spell. “I’ll meet you at Caithnard.” He kissed her and turned quickly. He boarded the lead ship. The ramp slid up behind him; Bri Corbett stood beside an open hatch.

He said worriedly as Morgon climbed down the ladder into the listless hold, “You’ll be all right among the dead?”

Morgon nodded without speaking. Bri closed the hatch behind him. He stumbled a little around bolts of cloth and found a place to sit on sacks of spice. He felt the ship ease away from the dock, away from Anuin toward the open sea. He leaned against the side of the hull, heard water spray against the wood. The dead were silent, invisible around him, their minds growing quiescent as they sailed away from their past. Morgon found himself trying to trace their faces suddenly out of the total darkness. He drew his knees up, pushed his face against his arms and listened to the water. A few moments later, he heard the hatch open.

He drew a long, silent breath and loosed it. Lamplight flickered beyond his closed eyes. Someone climbed down the ladder, found a path through the cargo, and sat down beside him. Scents of pepper and ginger wafted up around him. The hatch dropped shut again.

He lifted his head, said to Raederle, who was no more than her breathing and the faint smell of sea air, “Are you planning to argue with me for the rest of our lives?”

“Yes,” she said stiffly.

He dropped his head back against his knees. After a while he drew one arm free, shaped her wrist in the dark, and then her fingers. He gazed back at the night, holding her scarred left hand in both his hands against his heart.