2

She reached Caithnard four days later. The sea, green and white as Ylon’s memory, rolled her father’s ship into the harbor with an exuberant twist of froth, and she disembarked, after it anchored, with relief. She stood watching sailors unload sacks of seed, plowhorses, sheepskins and wool from the ship next to them; and, farther down, from a ship trimmed in orange and gold, strong, shaggy-hooved horses and gilded chests. Her own horse was brought to her; her father’s ship-master, Bri Corbett, came down finally, issuing reminders to the crew all the way down the ramp, to escort her to the College. He swivelled an eye bleak as an oyster at a sailor who was gaping at Raederle from under a grain sack, and the sailor shut his mouth. Then he took the reins of their mounts, began threading a slow path through the crowded docks.

“There’s Joss Merle, down from Osterland, I’ll wager,” he said, and pointed out to Raederle a low, wide-bellied ship with pine-colored sails. “Packed to the boom with furs. Why he doesn’t spin circles in that tub, I’ll never know. And there’s Halster Tull, there, on the other side of the orange ship. Your pardon, Lady. To a man who was once a trader, being at Caithnard in spring is like being in your father’s wine cellar with an empty cup; you don’t know where to look first.”

She smiled a little and realized, from the stiffness of her face, how long it had been since she had last done it. “I like hearing about them,” she said politely, knowing her silence during the past days had worried him. A cluster of young women were chattering at the ramp of the orange and yellow ship in front of them. Their long, elegant robes wove, glinting, with the air; they seemed to be pointing every conceivable direction, their faces bright with excitement as they talked, and her smile deepened slightly. “Whose is the orange ship?”

The ship-master opened his mouth. Then he closed it again, frowning. “I’ve never seen it before. But I would swear... No. It couldn’t be.”

“What?”

’The Morgol’s guards. She so rarely leaves Herun.”

“Who are?”

“Those young women. Pretty as flowers, but show one of them the wrong side of your hand and you’d wind up in the water halfway to Hed.” He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Your pardon.”

“Don’t talk about crows, either.”

“No.” Then he shook his head slowly. “A crow. And I would have sailed him with my own hands, if need be, clear up the Ose to Erlenstar Mountain.”

She stepped around a precarious stack of wine kegs. Her eyes slid suddenly to his face. “Could you? Take my father’s ship all the way up the Ose?”

“Well. No. There’s not a ship in the world that could take the Pass, with all its rapids and falls. But I would have tried, if he’d asked me.”

“How far could he have gone by ship?”

“To Kraal, by sea, then up the Winter River to join with the Ose near Isig. But it’s a slow journey upriver, especially in spring when the snow waters are making for the sea. And you’d need a shorter keel than your father’s ship has.”

“Oh.”

“It’s a broad, placid river, the Winter, to the eye, but it can shift ground so much in a year you’d swear you were sailing a different river. It’s like your father; you never quite know what it’s going to do next.” He flushed deeply, but she only nodded, watching the forest of genially bobbing masts.

“Devious.”

They mounted when they reached the street and rode through the bustling city, up the road that wound above the white beaches to the ancient College. There were a few students sprawled on the ground, reading with their chins on their fists; they did not bother to look up until the ship-master made the rare gesture of knocking. A student in the Red with a harried expression on his face swung open the door and inquired rather abruptly of his business.

“We have come to see Rood of An.”

“If I were you, I would try a tavern. The Lost Sailor, by the wharf, is a good bet, or the King’s Oyster—” He saw Raederle, then, mounted behind the ship-master, and took a step toward her. “I’m sorry, Raederle. Will you come in and wait?”

She put a name finally to the lean, red-haired riddler. “Tes. I remember. You taught me how to whistle.”

His face broke into a pleased smile. “Yes. I was in the Blue of Partial Beginning, and you were—you... Anyway,” he added at the ship-master’s expression, “the Masters’ library is empty, if you would care to wait.”

“No, thank you,” she said. “I know where the Lost Sailor is, but where is the King’s Oyster?”

“On Cutters Street. You remember; it used to be the Sea-Witch’s Eye.”

“Who,” Bri Corbett barked, “in Hel’s name do you think you’re talking to? How would she know the name or whereabouts of any inn or tavern in any city anywhere in this realm?”

“I know,” Raederle said with some asperity, “because every time I come here Rood either has his nose in a book or a cup. I was hoping this time it would be a book.” She stopped, then, uneasy, crumpling the reins in her hands. “Has he—have you heard the news out of Hed?”

“Yes.” His head bowed; he repeated softly, “Yes. A trader brought the news last night. The College is in a turmoil. I haven’t seen Rood since then, and I’ve been up all night with the Masters.” She sighed, and his head came up. “I would help you look, but I’m due down at the docks to escort the Morgol to the College.”

“It’s all right. We’ll find him.”

“I’ll find him,” Bri Corbett said with emphasis. “Please, Lady, the Caithnard taverns are no place for you.”

She turned her horse. “Having a father flying around in the shape of a crow gives you a certain disregard for appearances. Besides, I know which ones are his favorites.”

They looked in them all without success. By the time they had asked a half a dozen of them, they had an eager following of young students who knew Rood, and who went through each tavern with methodical and startling thoroughness. Raederle, watching them through a window as they checked under the tables, murmured in amazement, “When does he find time to study?”

Bri Corbett took off his hat, fanned his sweating face with it. “I don’t know. Let me take you back to the ship.”

“No.”

“You’re tired. And you must be hungry. And your father will trim my sails for me if he ever hears of this. I’ll find Rood and bring him to the ship.”

“I want to find him. I want to talk to him.”

The students jostled without their quarry back out of the inn. One of them called to her, “The Heart’s Hope Inn on Fish-Market Street. We’ll try that.”

“Fish-Market Street?”

“The south horn of the harbor. You might,” he added thoughtfully, “want to wait for us here.”

“I’ll come.” she said.

The street, under the hot eye of the afternoon sun, seemed to shimmer with the smell of fish lying gutted and glassy-eyed in the market stalls. The ship-master groaned softly. Raederle, thinking of the journey they had made from the contemplative peace of the College through the maze of Caithnard to the most noisome street in the city, littered with assorted fishheads, backbones and spitting cats, began to laugh weakly.

“Heart’s Hope Inn...”

“There it is,” Bri Corbett said heavily as the students disappeared into it. He seemed almost beyond speech. The inn was small, tired, settling on its hindquarters with age, but beyond its dirty, mullioned windows there seemed to be an unwarranted, very colorful collage of activity. The ship-master put his hand on the neck of Raederle’s mount. He looked at her. “No more. I’ll take you back now.”

She stared wearily at the worn stone threshold of the inn. “I don’t know where else to look. Maybe the beaches. I want to find him, though. Sometimes there’s one thing worse than knowing precisely what Rood is thinking, and that’s not knowing what he’s thinking.”

“I’ll find him, I swear it. You—” The inn door opened abruptly, and he turned his head. One of the students who had been helping them was precipitated bodily to the cobble-stones under the nose of Bri Corbett’s horse. He staggered to his feet and panted, “He’s there.”

“Rood?” Raederle exclaimed.

“Rood.” He touched a comer of his bleeding mouth with the tip of his tongue and added, “You should see it. It’s awesome.”

He flung the door wide and plunged back into a turmoil of color, a maelstrom of blue, white and gold that whirled and collided against a flaming core of red. The ship-master stared at it almost wistfully. Raederle dropped her face in her hands. Then she slid tiredly off her horse. A robe of Intermediate Mastery, minus its wearer, shot out over her head, drifted to a gold puddle on the stones. She went to the door, the noise in the tavern drowning the ship-master’s sudden, gargled protest. Rood was surfacing in his bright, torn robe from the heaving tangle of bodies.

His face looked meditative, austere, in spite of the split on one cheekbone, as if he were quietly studying instead of dodging fists in a tavern brawl. She watched, fascinated, as a goose, plucked and headless, flapped across the air above his head and thumped into a wall. Then she called to him. He did not hear her, one of his knees occupying the small of a student’s back while he shook another, a little wiry student in the White, off his arm onto the outraged inn-keeper. A powerful student in the Gold, with a relentless expression on his face, caught Rood from behind by the neck and one wrist, and said politely, “Lord, will you stop before I take you apart and count your bones?” Rood, blinking a little at the grip on his neck, moved abruptly; the student loosed him and sat down slowly on the wet floor, bent over himself and gasping. There was a general attack then, from the small group of students who had come with Raederle. Raederle, wincing, lost sight of Rood again; he rose finally near her, breathing deeply, his hands full of a brawny fisherman who looked as massive and impervious as the great White Bull of Aum. Rood’s fist, catching him somewhere under his ribs, barely troubled him. Raederle watched while he gathered the throat of Rood’s robe in one great hand, clenched the other and drew it back, and then she lifted a wine flagon in her hand, one that she could not remember picking up, and brought it down on the head of the bull.

He let go of Rood and sat down bunking in a shower of wine and glass. She stared down at him, appalled. Then she looked at Rood, who was staring at her.

His stillness spread through the inn until only private, fierce struggles in corners still flared. He was, she saw with surprise, sober as a stone. Faces, blurred, battle-drunk, were turning towards her all over the room; the innkeeper, holding two heads he was about to bang together, was gazing at her, open-mouthed, and she thought of the dead, surprised fish in the stalls. She dropped the neck of the flagon; the clink of it breaking sounded frail in the silence. She flushed hotly and said to the statue that was Rood, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. But I’ve been looking all over Caithnard for you, and I didn’t want him to hit you before I could talk to you.”

He moved finally, to her relief. He turned, lost his balance briefly, caught it, and said to the inn-keeper, “Send the bill to my father.”

He stepped off the porch with a jar he must have felt to his teeth, reached for Raederle’s horse and clung to it, his face against the saddlecloth a moment before he spoke to her. Then he lifted his head, blinked at her. “You’re still here. I didn’t think I’d been drinking. What in Hel’s name are you doing standing in all those fishbones?”

“What in Hel’s name do you think I’m doing here?” she demanded. Her voice, strained, low, let free finally all the grief, confusion and fear she felt. “I need you.”

He straightened, slid an arm around her shoulders, held her tightly, and said to the ship-master, who had dropped his head in his hands and was shaking it, “Thank you. Will you send someone to take my things out of the College?”

Bri Corbett’s head came up. “Everything, Lord?”

“Everything. Every deaf word and dry wine stain in that room. Everything.”

He took Raederle to a quiet inn in the heart of the city. Seated with a flagon of wine in front of them, he watched her drink in silence, his hands linked over his own cup. He said finally, softly, “I don’t believe he is dead.”

“Then what do you believe? That he was simply driven mad and lost the land-rule? That’s a comforting thought. Is that why you were tearing that inn apart?”

He shifted, his eyes falling. “No.” He reached out, put his hand on her wrist, and her fingers, molding the metal of her cup, loosened and came to rest on the table. She whispered, “Rood, that’s the terrible thing I can’t get out of my mind. That while I was waiting, while we were all waiting, safe and secure, thinking he was with the High One, he was alone with someone who was picking his mind apart as you would pick apart the petals of a closed flower. And the High One did nothing.”

“I know. One of the traders brought the news up to the College yesterday. The Masters were stunned. Morgon unearthed such a vipers’ nest of riddles, and then so inconveniently died without answering them. Which put the entire problem at their door, since the College exists to answer the answerable. The Masters are set face-to-face with their own strictures. This riddle is literally deadly, and they began wondering exactly how interested they are in truth.” He took a sip of his wine, looked at her again. “Do you know what happened?”

“What?”

“Eight old Masters and nine Apprentices argued all night about who would travel to Erlenstar Mountain to speak to the High One. Every one of them wanted to go.”

She touched the torn sleeve of his robe. “You’re an Apprentice.”

“No. I told Master Tel yesterday I was leaving. Then I—then I went to the beach and sat up all night, not doing anything, not even thinking. I came into Caithnard finally and stopped at that inn for something to eat, and while—while I was eating, I remembered an argument I had with Morgon before he left about not facing his own destiny, not living up to his own standards when all he wanted to do was make beer and read books. So he went and found his destiny in some remote comer of the, realm, driven, by the sound of it, mad as Peven. So. I decided to take the inn apart. Nail by nail. And then go and answer the riddles he couldn’t answer.”

She gave a little, unsurprised nod. “I thought you might. Well, that’s another piece of news I have to give you.”

He touched his cup again, said warily, “What?”

“Our father left An five days ago to do just that. He—” She winced as his hands went down sharply on the table, causing a trader at the next table to choke on his beer.

“He left An? For how long?”

“He didn’t... He swore by the ancient Kings to find what it was that killed Morgon. That long. Rood, don’t shout.”

He swallowed it, rendered himself momentarily wordless. “The old crow.”

“Yes... He left Duac at Anuin to explain to the lords. Our father was going to send for you to help Duac, but he wouldn’t say why, and Duac was furious that he wanted you to abandon your studies.”

“Did Duac send you to bring me home?”

She shook her head. “He didn’t even want me to tell you. He swore that he wouldn’t send for you until the wraiths of Hel crossed the threshold at Anuin.”

“He did that?” Rood said with disgusted wonder. “He’s getting as irrational as our father. He would have let me sit in Caithnard studying for a rank that suddenly has very little meaning while he tries to keep order among the living and dead of An. I’d rather go home and play riddle-games with the dead kings.”

“Will you?”

“What?”

“Go home? It’s a—it’s a smaller thing to ask of you than going to Erlenstar Mountain, but Duac will need you. And our father—”

“Is a very capable and subtle old crow...” He was silent, frowning, his thumbnail picking at a flaw in his cup. He leaned back in his chair finally and sighed. “All right. I can’t let Duac face that alone. At least I can be there to tell him which dead king is which, if nothing else. There’s nothing I could do in Erlenstar Mountain that our father wouldn’t do, and probably do better. I would give the Black of Mastery to see the world out of his eyes. But if he gets into trouble, I don’t promise not to look for him.”

“Good. Because that’s another thing Duac said he wouldn’t do.”

His mouth crooked. “Duac seems to have lost his temper. I can’t say that I blame him.”

“Rood... Have you ever known our father to be wrong?”

“A hundred times.”

“No. Not irritating, frustrating, annoying, incomprehensible and exasperating. Just wrong.”

“Why?”

She shrugged slightly. “When he heard about Morgon—that’s the first time in my life I can remember seeing him surprised. He—”

“What are you thinking about?” He leaned forward abruptly. “That vow he made to marry you to Morgon?”

“Yes. I always wondered a little, if it might have been foreknowledge. I thought maybe that’s why he was so surprised.”

She heard him swallow; his eyes, speculative, indrawn, reminded her of Mathom. “I don’t know. I wonder. If so—”

“Then Morgon must be alive.”

“But where? In what circumstances? And why in the name of the roots of the world won’t the High One help him? That’s the greatest riddle of them all: the miasma of silence coming out of that mountain.”

“Well, if our father goes there, it won’t be so silent.” She shook her head wearily. “I don’t know. I don’t know which to hope for. If he is alive, can you imagine what a stranger he must be even to himself? And he must—he must wonder why none of us who loved him tried to help him.”

Rood opened his mouth, but the answer he would have given her seemed to wither on his tongue. He brought the heels of his hands up to his eyes. “Yes. I’m tired. If he is alive—”

“Our father will find him. You said you would help Duac.”

“All right. But... All right.” He dropped his hands, stared into his wine. Then he pushed his chair back slowly. “We’d better go; I have books to pack.”

She followed him again into the bright, noisy street. It seemed, for a moment, to be flowing past her in a marvellous, incomprehensible pattern of color, and she stopped, blinking. Rood put a hand on her arm. She realized then that she had nearly stepped in front of a small, elegant procession. A woman led it. She sat tall and beautiful on a black mount, her dark hair braided and jewelled like a crown on her head, her light, shapeless green coat of some cloth that seemed to flow like a mist into the wind. Six young women whom Raederle had seen at the dock followed her in two lines, their robes, saddlecloths and reins of rich, vivid colors, their spears of ash inlaid with silver. One of them, riding close behind the Morgol, had the same black hair and fine, clean cast of face. Behind the guard came eight men on foot carrying two chests painted and banded with copper and gold; they were followed by eight students from the College, riding according to their ranks and the color of their robes: scarlet, gold, blue and white. The woman, riding as serenely through the press as through a meadow, glanced down suddenly as she passed the inn; at the brief, vague touch of the gold eyes, Raederle felt the odd shock, unfamiliar and deep within her, of a recognition of power.

Rood breathed beside her, “The Morgol of Herun...”

He moved so quickly after the procession passed, gripping her wrist and pulling her, that she nearly lost her balance. She protested, “Rood!” as he ran to catch up with it, tugging her past amazed spectators, but he was shouting himself.

“Tes! Tes!” He caught up finally, Raederle flushed and irritated behind him, with the red-robed scholar. Tes stared down at him.

“What did you do? Fall face first in an empty wine bottle?”

Tes, let me take your place. Please.” He caught at the reins, but Tes flicked them out of reach.

“Stop that. Do you want us to get out of pace? Rood, are you drunk?”

“No. I swear it. I’m sober as a dead man. She’s bringing If’s books; you can see them any time, but I’m going home tonight—”

“You’re what?”

“I have to leave. Please.”

“Rood,” Tes said helplessly. “I would, but do you realize what you look like?”

“Change with me. Tes. Please. Please.”

Tes sighed. He pulled up sharply, tangling the line of horsemen behind him, slid off his horse and pulled wildly at the buttons on his robe. Rood tore his own robe over his head and thrust himself into Tes’s, while the riders behind them made caustic remarks about his assertion of sobriety. He leaped onto Tes’s horse and reached down for Raederle.

“Rood, my horse—”

“Tes can ride it back up. It’s the chestnut back there at the inn; the saddlecloth has her initials on it. Come up—” She put her foot on his in the stirrup and he pulled her urgently into the saddle in front of him, urging the horse into a quick trot to catch up with the second, receding line of scholars. He shouted back, “Tes, thank you!”

Raederle, clenching her teeth against the jog of cobblestones, refrained from comment until he had brought the small line of riders behind him back into the sedately moving procession. Then she said, shifting down from the hard edge of the saddle, “Do you have any idea of how ridiculous that must have looked?”

“Do you know what we’re about to see? Private books of the wizard Iff, opened. The Morgol opened them herself. She’s donating them to the College; the Masters have been talking of nothing else for weeks. Besides, I’ve always been curious about her. They say all information passes eventually through the Morgol’s house and that the High One’s harpist loves her.”

“Deth?” She mulled over the thought curiously.

“Then I wonder if she knows where he is. No one else seems to.”

“If anyone does, she does.”

Raederle was silent, remembering the strange insight she had glimpsed in the Morgol’s eyes, and her own unexpected recognition of it. They left the noisy, crowded streets behind them gradually; the road widened, rising toward the high cliff and the dark, wind-battered college. The Morgol, glancing back, set a slower pace uphill for the men carrying the chests. Raederle, looping out over the ocean, saw Hed partly misted under a blue-grey spring storm. She wondered suddenly, intensely, as she had never wondered before, what lay at the heart of the small, simple island that it had produced out of its life and history the Star-Bearer. And then, briefly, it seemed she could see beneath the rain mists on the island to where a young man colored and thewed like an oak, was crossing the yard from a barn to a house, his yellow head bent under the rain.

She moved abruptly, murmuring; Rood put a hand up to steady her. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. I don’t know. Rood—”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

One of the guards detached herself then from the line, rode back towards them. She turned her horse again to ride beside them in a single, flowing movement of mount and rider that seemed at once controlled and instinctive. She said politely, appraising them, “The Morgol, who was introduced to the students at the docks, is interested in knowing who joined her escort in place of Tes.”

“I am Rood of An,” Rood said. “This is my sister, Raederle. And I am—or I was until last night—an Apprentice at the College.”

“Thank you.” She paused a little, looking at Raederle; something young, oddly surprised, broke through the dark, preoccupied expression in her eyes. She added unexpectedly, “I am Lyraluthuin. The daughter of the Morgol.”

She cantered back to the head of the procession. Rood, his eyes on the tall, lithe figure, gave a soft whistle.

“I wonder if the Morgol needs an escort back to Herun.”

“You’re going to Anuin.”

“I could go to Anuin by way of Herun... She’s coming back.”

“The Morgol,” Lyra said, rejoining them, “would like very much to speak with you.”

Rood pulled out of line, following her up the hill. Raederle, sitting half-on and half-off the saddle-bow, clinging to Rood and the horse’s mane as she jounced, felt slightly silly. But the Morgol, her face lighting with a smile, seemed only pleased to see them.

“So you are Mathom’s children,” she said. “I have always wanted to meet your father. You joined my escort rather precipitously, and I did not expect at all to find in it the second most beautiful woman of An.”

“I came to Caithnard to give Rood some news,” Raederle said simply. The Morgol’s smile faded; she nodded.

“I see. We heard the news only this morning, when we docked. It was unexpected,” She looked at Rood. “Lyra tells me that you are no longer an Apprentice at the College. Have you lost faith in riddle-mastery?”

“No. Only my patience.” His voice sounded husky; Raederle, glancing at him, found that he was blushing, as far as she knew, for the first time in his life.

The Morgol said softly. “Yes. So have I. I have brought seven of Iff’s books and twenty others that have been collected in the library at the City of Circles through the centuries to give to the College, and a piece of news that, like the news from Hed, should stir even the dust in the Masters’ library.”

“Seven,” Rood breathed. “You opened seven of Iff’s books?”

“No. Only two. The wizard himself, the day that we left for Caithnard, opened the other five.”

Rood wrenched at his reins; Raederle swayed against him. The guard behind-him broke their lines abruptly to avoid bumping into him; the men bearing the chests came to a quick halt, and the students, who had not been paying attention, reined into one another, cursing. The Morgol stopped.

“Iff is alive?” He seemed oblivious of the mild chaos in his wake.

“Yes. He had hidden himself in my guard. He had been in the Herun court, in one guise or another, for seven centuries, for he said it was, even in its earlier days, a place of scholarship. He said—” Her voice caught; they heard, when she continued, the rare touch of wonder in it. “He said he had been the old scholar who helped me to open those two books. When the scholar died, he became my falconer, and then a guard. But that he didn’t care for. He took his own shape on the day they say Morgon died.”

“Who freed him?” Rood whispered.

“He didn’t know.”

Raederle put her hands to her mouth, suddenly no longer seeing the Morgol’s face, but the ancient, strong-boned face of the pig-woman of Hel, with the aftermath of a great and terrible darkness in her eyes.

“Rood.” she whispered. “Raith’s pig-woman. She heard some news Elieu brought from Isig about the Star-Bearer, and she shouted a shout that scattered the pig herds of Hel like thistledown. Then she disappeared. She named... she named one boar Aloil.”

She heard the draw of his breath. “Nun?”

“Maybe the High One freed them.”

“The High One.” Something in the Morgol’s tone, thoughtful as it was, reminded Raederle of Mathom. “I don’t know why he would have helped the wizards and not the Star-Bearer, but I am sure, if that is the case, that he had his reasons.” She glanced down the road, saw the lines in order and resumed her pace. They had nearly reached the top of the hill; the grounds, shadowed and gilded with oak leaves, stretched beyond the road’s end.

Rood glanced at the Morgol, asked with unusual hesitancy, “May I ask you something?”

“Of course, Rood.”

“Do you know where the High One’s harpist is?”

The Morgol did not answer for a moment, her eyes on the bulky, rough-hewn building whose windows and doors were brilliant with color as the students crowded to watch her arrival. Then she looked down at her hands. “No. I have had no word from him.”

The Masters came out, black as crows among the swirl of red and gold, to meet the Morgol. The chests were carried up to the library, the books examined lovingly by the Masters as they listened with wonder to the Morgol’s tale of how she had opened the two. Raederle glanced at one set on the broad stand made for it. The black writing looked pinched and ascetic, but she found unexpectedly, turning a page, precise, delicate drawings of wild flowers down the margin. It made her think again of the pig-woman, smoking her pipe with her bare feet among the oak roots, and she smiled a little, wonderingly. Then the one still figure in the room caught her eye: Lyra, standing by the door in a habitual stance, her back straight, her feet apart, as if she were keeping watch over the room. But her eyes were smudged with a blackness, and she was seeing nothing.

The room fell silent as the Morgol told the Masters of the reappearance of the wizard Iff. She asked Raederle to repeat the tale of the pig-woman, and Raederle complied, giving them also the startling news that had brought Elieu down from Isig. That, no one had heard, not even the Morgol, and there was an outburst of amazement after she finished. They asked questions in their kind voices she could not answer; they asked questions among themselves no one could answer. Then the Morgol spoke again. What she said Raederle did not hear, only the silence that was passed like a tangible tiling from Master to Master, from group to group in the room until there was not a sound in the room except one very old Master’s breathing. The Morgol’s expression had not changed; only her eyes had grown watchful.

“Master Ohm“ said a frail, gentle Master whose name was Tel, “was with us at all times until last spring, when he journeyed to Lungold for a year of peaceful study and contemplation. He could have gone anywhere he wished; he chose the ancient city of the wizards. His letters to us have been carried by the traders from Lungold.” He paused, his passionless, experienced eyes on her face. “El, you are as known and respected for your intelligence and integrity as is this College; if there is any criticism you would make of it, don’t hesitate to tell us.”

“It is the integrity of the College that I question, Master Tel,” the Morgol said softly, “in the person of Master Ohm, who I doubt you will ever see within these walls again. And I question the intelligence of us all, myself included. Shortly before I left Herun, I had a visit from the King of Osterland, who came very simply and privately. He wondered if I had news of Morgon of Hed. He said he had gone to Isig, but not to Erlenstar Mountain, for the mists and storms were terrible through the Pass, too terrible even for a vesta. While, he was with me, he told me something that reinforced suspicions that I have had since my last visit here. He said that Morgon had told him that the last word the wizard Suth had spoken as he lay dying in Morgon’s arms, was Ohm’s name. Ohm. Ghisteslwchlohm. The Founder of Lungold, Suth accused with his last breath.” She paused, her eyes moving from face to motionless face. “I asked Har if he had taken the question to the College, and he laughed and said that the Masters of Knowledge could recognize neither the Star-Bearer nor the Founder of Lungold.”

She paused again, but there was no protest, no excuse from the men listening. Her head bowed slightly. “Master Ohm has been in Lungold since spring. The High One’s harpist has not been seen since then, and from all accounts, the High One himself has been silent since then. The death of the Prince of Hed freed the wizards from the power held over them. I suggest that the Founder of Lungold freed the wizards because in killing the Star-Bearer, he no longer needed to fear their power or interference. I also suggest that if this College is to continue to justify its existence, it should examine, very carefully and very quickly, the heart of this impossible, imperative tangle of riddles.”

There was a sound like a sigh through the room; it was the sea wind, searching the walls, like a bird, to get free. Lyra turned abruptly; the door had closed behind her before anyone realized she had moved. The Morgol’s eyes flicked to the door, then back to the Masters, who had begun to speak again, their voices murmuring, hushed. They began to group themselves around the Morgol. Rood stood with his hands flat on one of the desks, leaning over a book, but his face was bloodless, his shoulders rigid, and Raederle knew he was not seeing it. Raederle took a step towards him. Then she turned, eased through the Masters to the door and went out.

She passed students in the hall waiting, eager and curious, for a glimpse of the books; she scarcely heard their voices. She barely felt the wind, grown cool and restless in the early spring dusk, pulling at her as she walked through the grounds. She saw Lyra standing beneath a tree at the cliff’s edge, her back to the College. Something in the taut set of her shoulders, her bowed head, drew Raederle towards her. As she crossed the grounds, Lyra’s spear lifted, spun a circle of light in the air, and plunged point down into the earth.

She turned at a rustle of leaf she heard under the rustle of wind-tossed trees. Raederle stopped. They looked at one another silently. Then Lyra, giving shape to the grief and anger in her eyes, said almost challengingly, “I would have gone with him. I would have protected him with my life.”

Raederle’s eyes moved away from her to the sea... the sea far below them, the half-moon of harbor it had hollowed, the jut of land to the north beyond which lay other lands, other harbors. Her hands closed. “My father’s ship is here at Caithnard. I can take it as far as Kraal. I want to go to Erlenstar Mountain. Will you help me?”

Lyra’s lips parted. Raederle saw a brief flash of surprise and uncertainty in her face. Then she gripped her spear, pulled it again out of the earth and gave a little emphatic nod. “I’ll come.”