Patricia McKillip - Harpist In The Wind

She gazed up at him speechlessly, a shell poised in her hand. He found no words either; he wondered if he had forgotten all language in the northern wastes. He sat down beside her after a moment, wanting to be near her. He took the shell from her hand and tossed it into the waves.

“You drew me all the way down from the northern wastes,” he said. “I was… I don’t know what I was. Something cold.”

She moved after a moment, drew a strand of his shaggy hair out of his eyes. “I wondered if you might come here. I thought you would come to me when you were ready.” She sounded resigned to something beyond his comprehension.

“How could I have come? I didn’t know where you were. You left Wind Plain.”

She stared at him a moment “I thought you knew everything. You are the High One. You even know what I am going to say next.”

“I don’t,” he said. He picked a shell bit from a crevice, fed it to the waves. “You aren’t bound to my mind. I would have been with you long ago, except I didn’t know where in Hel’s name to begin to look.”

She was silent, watching him. He met her eyes finally, then sighed and put his arm around her shoulders. Her hair smelled of salt; her face was getting brown under the sun. “I’m wraith-driven,” he said. “I think my heart was buried under that cairn.”

“I know.” She kissed him, then slid down until her head rested in the hollow of his shoulder. A wave rolled to their feet, withdrew. The dock at Tol was being rebuilt; pine logs brought down from the north-lands lay on the beach. She gazed across the sea to Caithnard, half in shadow, half in fading light. “The College of Riddle-Masters has been reopened.”

“I know.”

“If you know everything, what will we have to talk about?”

“I don’t know. I suppose nothing.” He saw a ship cross the sea from Tol, carrying a Prince of Hed and a harpist. The ship docked at Caithnard; they both disembarked to begin their journey… He stirred a little, wondering when it would end. He held Raederle more closely, his cheek against her hair. In that late light, he loved to harp, but the starred harp was broken, its strings snapped by grief. He touched a mussel clinging to the rock and realized he had never shaped one. The sea was still a moment, idling around the rock. And in that moment he almost heard something like a fragment of a song he had once loved.

“What did you do with the Earth-Masters?”

“I didn’t kill them,” he said softly. “I didn’t even touch their power. I bound them in Erlenstar Mountain,”

He felt the breath go out of her noiselessly. “I was afraid to ask,” she whispered.

“I couldn’t destroy them. How could I? They were a part of you, and of Deth… They’re bound until they die, or I die, whichever comes first…” He considered the next few millenniums with a weary eye. “Riddlery. Is that the end of it? Do all riddles end in a tower with no door? I feel as if I built that tower stone by stone, riddle by riddle, and the last stone fitting into place destroyed it.”

“I don’t know. When Duac died, I was so hurt; I felt a place torn out of my heart. It seemed so unjust that he should die in that war, since he was the most clear-headed and patient of us. That healed. But the harpist… I keep listening for his harping beneath the flash of water, beneath the light… I don’t know why we cannot let him rest.”

Morgon drew her hair out of the wind’s grasp and smoothed it. He tapped randomly into the continual stream of thoughts just beneath the surface of his awareness. He heard Tristan arguing placidly with Eliard as she set plates on the table at Akren. In Hel, Nun and Raith of Hel were watching a pig being born. In Lungold, Iff was salvaging books out of the burned wizards’ library. In the City of Circles, Lyra was talking to a young Herun lord, telling him things she had not told anyone else about the battle in Lungold. On Wind Plain, the broken pieces of a sword were being slowly buried under grass roots.

He smelled twilight shadowing Hed, full of new grass, broken earth, sun-warmed leaves. The odd memory of a song that was no song caught at him again; straining, he almost heard it. Raederle seemed to hear it; she stirred against him, her face growing peaceful in the last warm light.

He said, “There’s a speaking pig being born in Hel. Nun is there with the Lord of Hel.”

She smiled suddenly. “That’s the first in three centuries. I wonder what it was born to say? Morgon, while I was waiting for you, I had to do something, so I explored the sea. I found something that belongs to you. It’s at Akren.”

“What?”

“Don’t you know?”

“No. Do you want me to read your mind?”

“No. Never. How could I argue with you, then?” His expression changed suddenly, and her smile deepened.

“Peven’s crown?”

“Eliard said it was. I had never seen it. It was full of seaweed and barnacles, except for one great stone like a clear eye… I loved the sea. Maybe I’ll live in it.”

“I’ll live in the wastes,” he said. “Once every hundred years, you will shine out of the sea and I’ll come to you, or I will draw you into the winds with my harping…” He heard it then, finally, between the drift of the waves, in the rock they sat on, old, warm, settled deep hi the earth, deep in the sea. His heart began to open tentatively to something he had not felt for years.

“What is it?” She was still smiling, watching him, her eyes full of the last light. He was silent for a long tune, listening. He took her hand and stood up. She walked with him to the shore road, up the cliff. The final rays of the sun poured down across the green fields; the road ahead of them seemed to run straight into light. He stood, his heart opened like a seedling, hearing all over Hed, all over the realm, a familiar stillness that came out of the heart of all things.

The silence drew deep into Morgon’s mind and rested there. Whether it was a memory or part of his heritage or a riddle without an answer, he did not know. He drew Raederle close to him, content for once with not knowing. They walked down the road toward Akren. Raederle, her voice tranquil, began telling him about pearls and luminous fish and the singing of water deep in the sea. The sun set slowly; dusk wandered across the realm, walked behind them on the road, a silver-haired stranger with night at his back, his face always toward the dawn.

Peace, tremulous, unexpected, sent a taproot out of nowhere into Morgon’s heart.

AIA wife of Har of Osterland

AKREN home of the land-rulers of Hed

ALOIL a Lungold wizard

AN kingdom incorporating the Three Portions (An Aum, Hel) ruled by Mathom

ANUIN seaport in An; home of the Kings of An

ARYA a Herun woman subject of a riddle

ASTRIN brother of Heureu; land-heir of Ymris

AUM ancient kingdom conquered by An

BERE grandson of Danan Isig; son of Vert

CAERWEDDIN chief city of Ymris; seat of Heureu; a port city

CAITHNARD seaport and traders’ city; site of the College of Riddle-Masters

CITY OF CIRCLES home of the Morgol of Herun

CORBETT, BRI ship-master of Mathom of An

CORRIG a shape-changer; ancestor of Raederle

DANAN ISIG land-ruler and King of Isig

DETH a harpist

DHAIRRHUWYTH an early Morgol of Herun

DUAC Mathom’s son; land-heir of An

EARTH-MASTERS ancient, mysterious inhabitants of the High One’s realm

EDOLEN an Earth-Master

EL ELRHZARHODAN the land-ruler of Herun

ELIARD the Prince of Hed; Morgon’s younger brother

ERIEL a shape-changer; a kinswoman of Corrig and Raederle

ERLENSTAR MOUNTAIN ancient home of the High One

GHISTESLWCHLOHM Founder of the School of Wizards at Lungold; also impersonator of the High One