Patricia McKillip - Harpist In The Wind

“Last night.”

“Where is Astrin’s army?”

“Half of it was trapped between Tor and Umber, but the vanguard made it through, clearing a path for the vesta and the Morgol’s guard and Danan’s miners. They are behind the vesta.” He read Morgon’s thoughts; his hand tightened slightly. “I did not bring them here to fight.”

“Then why?” he whispered.

“You will need them. You and I must end this war quickly. That is what you were born to do.”

“How?”

The High One was silent. Behind his tranquil, indrawn gaze, Morgon sensed a weariness beyond belief, and a more familiar patience: the harpist’s waiting for Morgon’s understanding, perhaps, or for something beyond his understanding. He said finally, very gently, “The Prince of Hed and his farmers have gathered on the south border with Mathom’s army. If you need to keep them alive, you’ll find a way.”

Morgon whirled. He crossed the chamber, hung out a south window, as if he could see among the leafless oaks a grim battery of farmers with rakes and hoes and scythes. His heart swelled with sudden pain and fear that sent tears to his eyes. “He left Hed. Eliard turned his farmers into warriors and left Hed. What is it? The end of the world?”

“He came to fight for you. And for his own land.”

“No.” He turned again, his hands clenched, but not in anger. “He came because you wanted him, That’s why the Morgol came, and Har — you drew them, the way you draw me, with a touch of wind at the heart, a mystery. What is it? What is it that you aren’t telling me?”

“I have given you my name.”

Morgon was silent. It began to snow lightly, big, random flakes scattered on the wind. They caught on his hands, burned before they vanished. He shuddered suddenly and found that he had no inclination left for questions. Raederle had turned away from them both. She looked oddly isolated in the center of the small chamber. Morgon went to her side; her head lifted as he joined her, but her face turned away from him to the High One.

He came to her, as if she had drawn him, the way he drew Morgon. He smoothed a strand of her windblown hair away from her face. “Raederle, it is time for you to leave.”

She shook her head. “No.” Her voice was very quiet. “I am half Earth-Master. You will have at least one of your kind fighting for you after all these centuries. I will not leave either of you.”

“You are in the eye of danger.”

“I chose to come. To be with those I love.”

He was silent; for a moment he was only the harpist, ageless, indrawn, lonely. “You,” he said softly, “I never expected. So powerful, so beautiful, and so loving. You are like one of our children, growing into power before our war.” He lifted her hand and kissed it, then opened it to the small angular scar on her palm. “There are twelve winds,” he said to Morgon. “Bound, controlled, they are more precise and terrible than any weapon or wizard’s power in the realm. Unbound, they could destroy the realm. They are also my eyes and ears, for they shape all things, hear all words and movements, and they are everywhere… That jewel that Raederle held was cut and faceted by winds. I did that one day when I was playing with them, long before I ever used them in our war. The memory of that was mirrored in the stone.”

“Why are you telling me?” His voice jerked a little. “I can’t hold the winds.”

“No. Not yet. Don’t be concerned, yet.” He put his arm around Morgon’s shoulders, held him easily again within his stillness. “Listen. You can hear the voices of all the winds of the realm in this chamber. Listen to my mind.”

Morgon opened his mind to the High One’s silence. The vague, incoherent murmurings outside the walls were refracted through the High One’s mind into all the pure, beautiful tones on the starred harp. The harping filled Morgon’s heart with soft, light summer winds, and the deep, wild winds that he loved; the slow, rich measures matched the beat of his blood. He wanted suddenly to hold the harping and the harpist within that moment until the white winter sky broke apart once more to light.

The harping stilled. He could not speak; he did not want the High One to move. But the arm around his shoulders shifted; the High One gripped him gently, facing him.

“Now,” he said, “we have a battle on our bands. I want you to find Heureu Ymris. This time, I’ll warn you: when you touch his mind, you will spring a trap set for you. The Earth-Masters will know where you are and that the High One is with you. You will ignite war again on Wind Plain. They have little mind-power of their own — I keep that bound; but they hold Ghisteslwchlohm’s mind, and they may use his powers of wizardry to try to hurt you. I’ll break any bindings he forges.”

Morgon turned his head, looked at Raederle. Her eyes told him what he already knew: that nothing he could say or do could make her leave them. He bent his head again, in silent acquiescence to her and to the High One. Then he let his awareness venture beyond the silence into the damp earth around the tower. He touched a single blade of grass, let his mind shape it from hair roots to tip. Rooted also within the structure of land-law in Heureu’s mind, it became his link with the King of Ymris.

He sensed a constant, nagging pain, a turmoil of helpless anger and despair, and heard a distant, hollow drag and ebb of the sea. He had learned every shape of cliff and stone boring out of the shores, and he recognized the strip of Meremont coast. He smelled wet wood and ashes; the king lay in a half-burned fisher’s hut on the beach, no more than a mile or two from Wind Plain.

He started to glance up, to speak. Then the sea flooded over him, spilled through all his thoughts. He seemed to stare down a long, dark passageway into Ghisteslwchlohm’s alien, gold-flecked eyes.

He felt the startled recognition in the bound mind. Then a mind-hold raked at him, and the wizard’s eyes burned into him, searching for him. The mind-hold was broken; he reeled back away from it. The High One gripped his shoulder, holding him still. He started to speak again, but the falcon’s eyes stopped him.

He waited, shaken suddenly by the pounding of his heart. Raederle, bound to the same waiting, seemed remote again, belonging to another portion of the world. He wanted desperately to speak, to break the silence that held them all motionless as if they were carved of stone. But he seemed spellbound, choiceless, an extension of the High One’s will. A movement streaked the air, and then another. The dark, delicately beautiful Earth-Master, whom Morgon knew as Eriel, stood before them, and beside her, Ghisteslwchlohm.

For a moment, the High One checked the power gathered against him. There was astonishment and awe in the woman’s eyes as she recognized the harpist. The wizard, face to face with the High One, whom he had been searching for so long, nearly broke the hold over his mind. A faint smile touched the falcon’s eyes, icy as the heart of the northern wastes.

“Even death, Master Ohm,” he said, “is a riddle.”

A rage blackened Ghisteslwchlohm’s eyes. Something spun Morgon across the chamber. He struck the dark wall; it gave under him, and he fell into a luminous, blue-black mist of illusion. He heard Raederle’s cry, and then a crow streaked across his vision. He caught at it, but it fluttered away between his hands. A mind gripped his mind. The binding was instantly broken. A power he did not feel flashed at him and was swallowed. He saw Ghisteslwchlohm’s face again, blurred in the strange light He felt a wrench at his side, and he cried out, though he did not know what had been taken from him. Then he turned on his back and saw the starred sword in Ghisteslwchlohm’s hands, rising endlessly upward, gathering shadow and light, until the stars burst with fire and darkness above Morgon. He could not move; the stars drew his eyes, his thoughts. He watched them reach their apex and halt, then blur into their descent toward him. Then he saw the harpist again, standing beneath their fall, as quietly as he had stood in the king’s hall at Anuin.