Patricia McKillip: Harpist In The Wind

“What do you want me to do?” Morgon stood, unexpectedly, his voice fierce, anguished, wondering if he was arguing with Eliard or with the implacable obtuseness of the island that suddenly held no more place for him, “Sit here, let him come knocking at your door to find me? Will you open your eyes and see me instead of the wraith of some memory you have of me? I am branded with stars on my face, with vesta-scars on my hands. I can take nearly any shape that has a word to name it. I have fought, I have killed, I intend to kill again. I have a name older than this realm, and I have no home except in memory. I asked a riddle two years ago, and now I am trapped in a maze of riddles, hardly knowing how to begin to find my way out. The heart of that maze is war. Look beyond Hed for once in your life. Try drinking some fear along with that beer. This realm is on the verge of war. There is no protection for Hed.”

“War. What are you talking about? There’s some fighting in Ymris, but Ymris is always at war.”

“Do you have any idea who Heureu Ymris is fighting?”

“No.”

“Neither does he. Eliard, I saw the rebel army as I passed through Ymris. There are men in it who have already died, who are still fighting, with their bodies possessed by nothing human. If they choose to attack Hed, what protection do you have against them?”

Eliard made a sound in his throat. “The High One,” he said. Then the blood ran completely out of his face. “Morgon,” he whispered, and Morgon’s bands clenched.

“Yes. I have been called a man of peace by dead children, but I think I’ve brought nothing but chaos. Eliard, at Anuin I talked with Duac about some way to protect Hed. He offered to send men and warships.”

“Is that what you brought?”

He said steadily, “The trade-ship at Tol that brought us carried, along with regular cargo, armed kings and lords, great warriors of the Three Portions—” Eliard’s fingers closed slowly on his arm.

“Kings?”

“They understand land-love, and they understand war. They won’t understand Hed, but they’ll fight for it. They are—”

“You brought wraiths of An to Hed?” Eliard whispered. “They’re at Tol?”

“There are six more ships at Caithnard, waiting—”

“Morgon of Hed, are you out of your mind!” His fingers bit to the bone of Morgon’s arm, and Morgon tensed. But Eliard swung away from him abruptly. His fist fell like a mallet on the tray, sending food and crockery flying, except for the milk pitcher, which Tristan had just lifted. She sat hugging it against her, white, while Eliard shouted.

“Morgon, I’ve heard tales of the chaos in An! How animals are run to death at night and the crops rot in the fields because no one dares harvest. And you want me to take that into my land! How can you ask that of me?”

“Eliard, I don’t have to ask!” Their eyes locked. Morgon continued relentlessly, watching himself change shape in Eliard’s eyes, sensing something precious, elusive, slipping farther and farther away from him. “If I wanted the land-rule of Hed, I could take it back. When Ghisteslwchlohm took it from me, piece by piece, I realized that the power of land-law has structure and definition, and I know to the last hair root on a hop vine the structure of the land-law of Hed. If I wanted to force this on you, I could, just as I learned to force the ancient dead of the Three Portions to come here—”

Eliard, backed against the hearthstones, breathing through his mouth, shuddered suddenly. “What are you?”

“I don’t know.” His voice shook uncontrollably. “It’s time you asked.”

There was a moment’s silence: the peaceful, unbroken voice of the night of Hed. Then Eliard shrugged himself away from the hearth, stepped past Morgon, kicking shards out of the way. He leaned over a table, his hands flat on it, his head bowed. He said, his voice muffled a little, “Morgon, they’re dead.”

Morgon dropped his forearm against the mantel, leaned his face on it. “Then they have that advantage over the living in a battle.”

“Couldn’t you have just brought a living army? It would have been simpler.”

“The moment you bring armed men to this island, you’ll ask for attack. And you’ll get it.”

“Are you sure? Are you so sure they’ll dare attack Hed? You might be seeing things that aren’t there.”

“I might be.” His words seemed lost against the worn stones. “I’m not sure, anymore, of anything. I’m just afraid for everything I love. Do you know the one simple, vital thing I could never learn from Ghisteslwchlohm in Erlenstar Mountain? How to see in the dark.”

Eliard turned. He was crying again as he pulled Morgon away from the stones. “I’m sorry. Morgon, I may yell at you, but if you pulled the land-rule out of me by the roots, I would still trust you blindly. Will you stay here? Will you please stay? Let the wizards come to you. Let Ghisteslwchlohm come. You’ll just be killed if you leave Hed again.”

“No. I won’t die.” He crooked an arm around Eliard’s neck, hugged him tightly. “I’m too curious. The dead won’t trouble your farmers. I swear it. You will scarcely notice them. They are bound to me. I showed them something of the history and peace of Hed, and they are sworn to defend that peace.”

“You bound them.”

“Mathom loosed his own hold over them, otherwise I would never have considered it.”

“How do you bind dead Kings of An?”

“I see out of their eyes. I understand them. Maybe too well.”

Eliard eyed him. “You’re a wizard,” he said, but Morgon shook his head.

“No wizard but Ghisteslwchlohm ever touched land-law. I’m simply powerful and desperate.” He looked down at Raederle. Inured as she was to the occasional uproar in her father’s house, her eyes held a strained, haunted expression. Tristan was staring silently into the milk pitcher. Morgon touched her dark hair; her face lifted, colorless, frozen.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to come home and start a battle.”

“It’s all right,” she said after a moment. “At least that’s one familiar thing you can still do.” She put the milk pitcher down and got to her feet. “I’ll get a broom.”

“I will.”

That brought the flash of a smile into her eyes. “All right. You can sweep. I’ll get more food.” She touched his scarred palm hesitantly. “Then tell me how you change shape.”

He told them after he swept up the mess, and he watched Eliard’s face fill with an incredulous wonder as he explained how it felt to become a tree. He racked his brain for other things to tell them that might help them forget for a moment the terrible side of his journey. He talked about racing across the northlands in vesta-shape, when the world was nothing but wind and snow and stars. He told them of the marvellous beauty of Isig Pass and of the wolf-king’s court, with its wild animals wandering in and out, and of the mists and sudden stones and marshes of Herun. And for a little while, he forgot his own torment as he found in himself an unexpected love of the wild, harsh, and beautiful places of the realm. He forgot the time, too, until he saw the moon beginning its descent, peering into the top of one of the windows. He broke off abruptly, saw apprehension replace the smile in Eliard’s eyes.

“I forgot about the dead.”

Eliard controlled a reply visibly. “It’s not dawn, yet. The moon hasn’t even set.”

“I know. But the ships will come to Tol one by one from Caithnard, when I give the word. I want them away from Hed completely before I leave. Don’t worry. You won’t see the dead, but you should be there when they enter Hed.”

Eliard rose reluctantly. His face was chalky under his tan. “You’ll be with me?”