The Riddle (38 page)

Sirkana answered, looking weary. Maerad thrust the letter toward her, hastily explaining who it was for and what it was, and asking if it could be sent as soon as possible. Sirkana’s eyebrows lifted, and she took the letter, looking at Maerad’s anxious face.

“Perhaps there is a way of sending it before next summer,” she said soberly. “There are other passes through the mountains than the Gwalhain, and sometimes we have traffic through Annar even in wintertime. If your brother is in Turbansk, he is very far from here, and the roads are very dangerous now, but our people have secret ways. I will do my best.”

Speechlessly, Maerad flung her arms around Sirkana’s neck. Then, feeling a little better, she returned to her room.

The next day, the storm had blown itself out. It was now Maerad’s fourth day in Murask, and she was itching to leave; the clear weather seemed like a sign. For the first time since arriving in the Howe, she was able to throw back her shutters and let in some fresh air. Although it was not early, outside it was still the darkness before dawn; the days were already shortening. A strange blue light entered into the room, reflected back from the whiteness of the snow, and she breathed in the icy air. With a feeling of lightness she had not had for weeks, she began to dress for the journey.

Dharin had taken charge of Maerad’s travel clothing, a task he had approached with the utmost seriousness the previous day. Sirkana had given him the keys to the clothing stores, and he had taken Maerad into a series of rooms that had impressed her deeply — here was kept the community’s entire stock of spare clothes, which were given to anyone in need. There were shelves of hats, boots, jerkins, trews, dresses, and coats.

Dharin had chosen heavy fur-lined boots that reached up to Maerad’s knees, and shown her how to bandage her feet with strips of cloth before putting them on: this would protect her better against frostbite. He closely inspected her silk-lined woolen gloves, frowning slightly, and then chose some fur-lined mittens, suggesting she wear the woolen gloves underneath them.

“Can’t I just wear the gloves?” asked Maerad. With her hands covered in so many layers, she felt very clumsy. “I can’t pick anything up.”

“You’ll have more trouble picking things up without any fingers,” said Dharin with a sharpness in his tone she had not heard before. “Believe me, Mara, your worst enemy out there is the cold. It is nothing like the cold in Annar. I have seen frostbite. It is not something that you want to risk.”

Maerad subsided, feeling rebuked, and meekly looked at the growing pile of clothes. They all looked very heavy, she thought. Nearly everything was lined with fur. Then they went back to her room and Dharin inspected her travel clothes and suggested she wear all of them, in several layers. Her leather trousers passed inspection, but he told her to pack her cloak away; it would be useless. Then he gave her a thick jerkin and trews, both woven out of the same soft wool as her robes. She was to cover everything with an ankle-length, fur-lined leather coat with a hood that almost covered her whole face.

He made her put it all on, waiting outside her room while she did so, and then inspected her critically. He drew the hood more closely over her face, so it shaded her eyes. “You must keep it like this,” he said. “Otherwise you will go blind from looking at the snow.” Maerad, who could already feel the sweat running down her face in the warm room, merely nodded. She hadn’t realized northern travel was so complicated, but the seriousness with which Dharin was speaking impressed her deeply.

“You see, Mara, proper clothes can make the difference between living and dying,” he said when she begged to take them off. “There is almost nothing more important.”

“The only real problem now is that I’m going to die of the heat,” she protested. “I’m not in the ice yet!”

Dharin obviously thought she was taking the subject too lightly, but he reluctantly let her take the furs off. “You’ll see, and you’ll be grateful that you have these things,” he said seriously.

“I know, Dharin,” Maerad said, her face pink, as she thankfully threw the coat onto her bed. “But now I’m just
hot.
”

This morning she put on everything except the coat, checked that all her possessions were in her pack, and went looking for Dharin. He was, as she had expected, in the dog stables. The sled was already out, and he was inspecting the dogs’ paws, lifting them up one by one and carefully checking them. He looked up when Maerad arrived, and smiled.

“Are we off, then?” he said.

“Now?”

“Why not?” Dharin grinned. “I just have to harness the dogs, and then we can go.”

Maerad was used to formal farewells and felt somewhat taken aback.

“I don’t have my coat with me,” she said. “And my pack is back in my room. And I must say farewell to Sirkana, and thank her.”

Dharin patted the dog he had been inspecting and sent it off to join the others. “I’ve finished here,” he said. “I’ll come with you.”

They returned to Sirkana’s house. Maerad collected her things, and then with Dharin went to Sirkana’s rooms. She wasn’t there, nor in the Hall; after asking around, they found her in the Howe itself, making an inspection of the food stores.

“We’ve come to say goodbye,” said Dharin without preamble. “It’s a perfect day for traveling.”

“I thought you would be leaving.” Sirkana studied both of them in silence, as if she were judging how prepared they were for the journey. “Well, Dharin, sister son, have you the telling of how to find the Labarok Isles?”

Dharin grinned and tapped his forehead. “All in here,” he said. “I won’t get lost.”

“Good.” She gave him a long, slow look, which seemed to Maerad full of sadness, and then embraced him. “Travel well, and take no risks. You will have danger enough.” She kissed him on both cheeks and then turned to Maerad.

“You won’t find a better guide,” she said. “He is young, but there is much knowledge in his bones.”

“I know,” Maerad answered. “And I am grateful. And I thank you for your generosity to me, and your welcome.”

Sirkana stroked her cheek and then kissed her.

“Go then. And may you find what you need.” She returned to her interrupted task, her back straight and unyielding. With misgivings, Maerad felt that Sirkana’s sternness concealed a deep sorrow.

From the storehouse, Maerad and Dharin went straight back to the dog stables. Maerad watched from a safe distance while Dharin skillfully harnessed six of the dogs. “The others can run behind until we get out of Murask,” he said, looking up. “They won’t fit through the tunnels if I harness them all. We can both walk alongside until then.”

They left the Howe through another tunnel by the dog pens. It was much shorter than the winding tunnel through which Maerad had entered, since the wall here was scarcely thicker than the length of a man and was obviously designed for the dog sleds. It was guarded by a warden who, in comical contrast to the man who had let her in, was taller even than Dharin and thin as a stick. He was, however, equally silent as he went through the laborious system of locking and unlocking the three gates; Maerad wondered why Murask specialized in such surly door wardens.

They emerged onto a flat area high over a snowy slope: before them the side of the Howe swept down like the side of a mountain, smoothly covered in snow. It would be impossible to climb, Maerad thought, as she looked down the slope. But going down was another matter. The sled sat on top of a drift of snow, like a boat on water; it reminded Maerad of nothing so much as the
White Owl
perched on the crest of a huge wave in the storm, in the breathless moment before it plunged into an abyss.

Dharin told Maerad to get into the sled, and then began to harness the rest of the dogs. They were whining now, eager to go, their tails wagging. In a surprisingly short time he had harnessed them all, and the fifteen dogs fanned out in a row, testing their shoulders against the weight of the sled, but not as yet moving. Maerad was surprised; somehow she had expected them to be harnessed like oxen to a cart, one behind the other.

“This way, every dog sees what is in front,” said Dharin when she asked why. “They prefer it. Though they all still follow Claw.”

He climbed onto his perch behind Maerad, made one last check that everything was in place, and cried out,
“Ot!”

The dogs immediately started running, and with a jerk the sled moved over the lip of the slope. Then they were moving downhill, gathering speed at a reckless rate, the dogs fanned out in front of them. Maerad clutched the side rails until her knuckles were white and shut her eyes. Her stomach seemed to have been left on top of the Howe wall.

Just as Maerad had decided they must crash, or at least run the dogs over, the sled righted itself with a slight bump and slowed down. She opened her eyes and looked around cautiously.

At first they ran alongside the high wall of Murask, its shadow falling chill across them, but in a very short time they had passed it and were running over the Arkiadera Plains. But they were not the plains as Maerad had walked them so short a time before: they were now a brilliant expanse of white stretching in every direction, broken only by the dark line of trees that grew on the river’s banks. Maerad leaned over the side of the sled to look behind them for a last glimpse of Murask. Covered with snow, the Howe seemed even stranger than it had before, a huge solitary mound risen from the shadowless flatness of the plains. It was now falling swiftly behind them.

The glare thrown up from the bright sunlight was dazzling, and remembering Dharin’s strictures about blindness, Maerad drew her hood over her face so her eyes were shaded. The icy wind blew into her face, stinging her skin, and her heart rose in sudden exhilaration. She turned to Dharin.

“This is wonderful!” she said.

He grinned down at her. “I told you,” he said. “There is no better way to travel. Who needs roads?”

They continued all day, heading in a northwesterly direction. Every now and then the dogs would get their traces tangled, and Dharin would stop and sort them out. It was a chance for Maerad to get out and stretch her legs, before she climbed back into her seat.

After a while, the motion of the sled lulled her asleep. She dreamed she was in a ship of bone, sailing across a sea of ice; it seemed she was looking for another dream, but she couldn’t remember what it was. High above her in the sky hung bright curtains of light, and she reached up her hands to touch them. They were very cold, sending an icy thrill through her whole body, and afterward her fingers fell off her hands. She looked at her fingerless hands with neither surprise nor horror, thinking to herself that she didn’t need fingers to play music, but then someone who was both present and absent, someone with Cadvan’s voice, said, “Nonsense!” and she woke up with a start.

The sun had moved across the sky in its low trajectory along the horizon, but the landscape looked no different.

“It’s easy for some,” said Dharin.

Maerad sat up, rubbing her eyes. “It’s very warm and comfortable, with all those furs you put here,” she said. She looked at the dogs, who were running as swiftly now as they had when they had first started. “How do the dogs still run so fast?”

“They are very strong. And they are eager.”

When the sun was close to the horizon, they stopped for the night. Dharin unharnessed the dogs and fed them, while Maerad prepared a meal from their stores. Then Dharin put up the tent, an ingenious device made of springy canes of willow wood and well-oiled skins. When it was unfolded, it miraculously snapped open to make a small two-man tent with a firm, waterproof floor. At the front of the tent were long flaps of skin which could be lashed to the sled itself, at its uncovered end, anchoring the tent to the ground. It made two different quarters: a very small space where Maerad and Dharin could sit and eat, warming themselves by the stove, and the sled, where they slept. Maerad was enchanted by it, and made Dharin open and close it a few times, just to see it spring up; and Dharin, who had made the tent, was quite happy to oblige her. To Maerad, who had been used to sleeping in the open in all sorts of weather, a tent was a luxury, but Dharin laughed when she said this, and commented that in the north shelter was no luxury, but a necessity, if she did not want to become a human ice block.

They both ate their evening meal sitting outside on the toe of the sled, watching the sun sink over the plains, a burning globe of fire in an orange sky that cast a deep golden light over the snow.

“It’s beautiful,” said Maerad dreamily.

“It is,” said Dharin. “Perilously beautiful. When we get past Tlon, we begin to reach the real winter land. That is lovely beyond description, and deadly.”

“Have you been there before?” asked Maerad.

“Once. I travel far; it irks me to be shut up all winter, which is the best time to travel, although I like to be in Murask for the midwinter festival. I first went to Tlon when I was ten, with my father. He traded furs and other things with the northern clans. He was a great driver.”

“Is he dead now, then?” Maerad squinted across at Dharin, examining his face.

“Yes. He did not return, five years ago now. I was eighteen and already a man. It was a great grief to my mother. She joined another clan, and now goes south each year. She has not been able to return this year. I hoped to see her before I left, but I could not.”

“And do you have brothers and sisters?” asked Maerad.

“No. There were none after me. My mother was very ill after I was born; I was a very big baby, and she nearly died in labor.”

They both sat in silence, eating their meal. Maerad thought about Dharin’s life, which seemed in a different way as harsh as hers, and wondered whether to tell him who she was, and that they were cousins. Something held her back, perhaps principally the thought that doing so would entail her telling him that she had deceived him in the first place.

Despite being only a passenger, Maerad felt strangely exhausted, and as soon as it was dark, they prepared for sleep. Dharin tethered the dogs to the sled, and they curled up, nose to tail, and went to sleep on the snow.