The Riddle (4 page)

Cadvan turned to Maerad, his hair whipping his face. “I think this creature does not expect us to rush it,” he said. He drew his sword, Arnost, and it glimmered with a pale fire. “Perhaps we will catch it unawares. Look to your Gift, Maerad.”

Maerad held up Irigan, her own sword, and an answering light blazed up from its hilt.

“Owan, I’ll make a fastening charm so you are not thrown out if the monster hits the
Owl,
” Cadvan said. “Stay your course until the last moment, then turn north — sharp as you are able. Maerad and I will attempt the rest.”

Owan nodded, his face unreadable.

“You do the fastening, too, Maerad,” Cadvan continued. “Be alert. I have not encountered one of these creatures before. The eyes are vulnerable; hit there first. And it is said that under the carapace of the head there is a soft spot, just where the skull meets the neck. Watch for it! And may the Light protect us!”

Maerad nodded fiercely, clutching her blade. There was no time for fear: the monster was so close that she could see its head scything through the waves, a fearsome wedge-shaped thing, bigger than their boat, greenish black and spotted with yellow-and-green weeds and parasites, with two huge, pale, unblinking eyes and a wide lipless mouth. It stank like brackish, stagnant water. As their tiny craft neared it, the mouth opened to reveal a nightmare of fangs, rows behind rows of snaggled yellowish teeth, like a cave of knives.

Maerad thought they were going to plunge into that dark gullet, to be shredded and crushed. For a crucial moment she was too terrified to move. Beside her, Cadvan lashed forward with his sword, and a bolt of white light sprang from the blade and hit the fearsome head. Maerad saw one eye go out like a quenched lamp, suddenly clouded with black blood, and then, just as she thought they would surely be swallowed, the sail swung around and the
White Owl
darted past the horrific mouth, which snapped shut on nothing with a crash, drenching them with seawater.

The boat was bobbing wildly, but Cadvan leaned forward, his sword raised, and Maerad scanned the side of the monster with furious concentration. Suddenly she saw it, where the carapace of the skull left a gap, revealing darker, unscaled skin. She was filled suddenly with a passionate hatred: she remembered Enkir’s pitiless eyes, his cold voice that had condemned her to slavery. She struck out with her blade, crying aloud words that seemed to come into her mind without volition: “
Takarmernë, nachadam kul de!
Be cursed, monster of the Dark!”

Two bolts of fire arced from the boat: one bounced off the hard scales of the creature’s long body and vanished, sizzling into the waves, but the other clove deep into the unmailed skin. The sea boiled as the ondril thrashed violently and roared, a deafening noise that raised all the hairs on Maerad’s skin. For a while she saw nothing but a white chaos of spray. She heard Cadvan shouting “Back!,” fearing they would be swamped, and felt the boat move under Owan’s sure handling.

When she could see again, they were a safe distance from the ondril. For the first time, Maerad could see how big it really was: its thick, scaled body stretched back for hundreds of spans, coiling and uncoiling in spasms of fury and agony that sent up geysers of spray. A black cloud of blood boiled out into the sea, reaching even to their boat, and Cadvan called Owan to draw back still farther.

“Have we killed it?” Maerad asked.

“I doubt it,” said Cadvan. “It may give up and go to lick its wounds. But I think we dare not count on that. I think it more likely that it will come for us now in a fury of revenge, and we will be most imperiled if it dives and comes up from beneath. I think we will need to blind it, at least.”

He turned to Owan, and Owan simply nodded. “Best be quick, I reckon,” he said. “Before it works out where we are.”

“I fear the
Owl
might be swamped,” said Cadvan.

“My beauty won’t sink,” said Owan with certainty. “Not unless she’s broken to bits.” He began to steer steadily back into the eye of the maelstrom, where the ondril was beating the ocean into a tumult.

Maerad shared none of Owan’s confidence, but said nothing. She drew a long breath and then took her place by Cadvan on the prow of the boat, her sword raised in readiness.

They were tossed wildly as they neared it, and but for the fastening charms would surely have been thrown into the ocean. It was much more difficult now to see where to strike; all was a seething chaos of scales and water. Maerad did not understand how they could avoid being smashed to pieces, but for the moment fear had left her, to be replaced with a steely resolve. She squinted fiercely, scanning her side of the boat.

Suddenly, no more than ten paces from the rail, the head broke the surface of the water, rearing up before them, the mouth opening wider and wider and wider. Time seemed to slow almost to a halt as the ondril reared high, towering monstrously above them. Maerad cried out, and she and Cadvan struck for its one remaining eye. Both bolts hit their mark, and a black torrent of blood burst out and splattered onto the deck. The monster roared and fell back, drenching them all with a huge rush of seawater that washed over the deck and fell in streaming torrents down the sides, and Owan was guiding the tiny
Owl
so it darted away, slipping as nimbly as a minnow evading the rush of a pike.

This time they kept running. Cadvan put a swift wind in the sails, and they scudded westward over the waves. Owan lashed the tiller and silently disappeared below decks, and Cadvan and Maerad both sat down heavily, looking behind them at the sea, still boiling with the ondril’s fury, which now dwindled fast behind them.

Owan shortly reappeared with the small brown bottle of liquor, and they all took a swig. Maerad studied the deck; there was no sign of their ordeal anywhere. The ondril’s blood had all been swept away by the water, and around them was a calm, blue sea, in which it seemed impossible such monsters could exist.

Cadvan toasted Owan and Maerad tiredly. “A brave bit of sailing, Owan,” he said. “And well marked, Maerad. That was a great stroke, behind the head; I missed that one. I should not have liked to have gone down that gullet.”

“By the Light, I think not!” said Owan.

Maerad looked away over the sea, feeling nothing but a vast emptiness. She had no sense of triumph, nor even relief. All she felt was a returning wisp of nausea. The only good thing about being frightened half to death, she thought, is that it makes me forget all about being seasick.

FROM the sea, the town of Busk seemed to have been scattered along the cliffs of the Isle of Thorold by some idle giant. Its roads and alleys scrambled around the steep hills in a crazy but picturesque disorder, and its whitewashed buildings gleamed like blocks of salt amid the dark greens of cypresses and laurels and olives. Busk was a busy trading port, its harbor well protected against both storm and attack by a maze of reefs and currents, and by the arms of its encircling cliffs. These had been extended by tall crenelated breakwaters that ended in two harbor towers.

As the
White Owl
neared the towers, Maerad began to feel apprehensive. The entrance was very narrow, and the tower walls loomed over their small craft and cast a chilly shadow over the water. The echoes of the waves slapping on stone seemed unnaturally loud, even threatening. The ancient stone, green with slime and encrusted with barnacles and limpets, was uncomfortably close. She wondered if anyone watched their approach through the slits she saw high up in the walls.

She breathed out heavily when they sailed through into the sunlight again and entered the bustling haven of Busk. The buildings on the harborside were plain and whitewashed, casting back the bright summer sunshine with a blinding glare, but any sense of austerity was offset by the activity going on around. The quay was crowded with rough woven baskets full of blue-and-silver fish packed in salt, giant coils of rope, piles of round cheeses coated in blue-and-red wax, lobster pots, barrels of wine and oil, huge bolts of raw silk, and dozens of people.

As she stepped onto the stone quay, it seemed to Maerad’s startled perception that everyone was arguing. Many traders were bargaining, scoffing in disbelief at the prices offered, talking up the inimitable value of their wares. Elsewhere fishers were bringing in their catch, shouting orders at each other, and sailors were working on their boats or greeting friends, laughing and swearing. The teeming, noisy harborside was a shock after the silence and solitude of their days at sea, and she glanced back at her two companions, momentarily discomfited.

Cadvan and Maerad fondly took their leave of Owan, promising to meet him soon, and headed up the steep streets to the School of Busk. Cadvan picked his way through the tangle of tiny streets and alleys, and Maerad looked around eagerly, her tiredness forgotten.

The people of Busk seemed to live outside on their vine-shaded balconies; it afforded them the pleasures of chaffing passing friends, minding each other’s business, and exchanging gossip. She saw them washing, eating, dressing children, and cooking, all in the open air. Cadvan noticed her staring.

“Thoroldians are a people apart,” he said, smiling. “They think Annarens are cold and snobbish. Annarens, on the other hand, think Thoroldians are impertinent and have no sense of privacy.”

“I think I like it,” said Maerad. “It seems very . . . lively. But I don’t know that I’d like to live like that all the time.”

“Perhaps not,” said Cadvan. “But, of course, it’s different in winter: everybody moves inside.”

The School of Busk was set above the main town, surrounded by a low wall that served as a demarcation rather than a barrier. Here the ubiquitous whitewashed houses and twisting alleys gave way to wide streets lined with stately cypresses and olive trees. The road, like the roads in the town, was flagged with stone and threw back the sunlight blindingly. Behind the trees were Bardhouses built of marble and the local pink granite, fronted by wide porticos with columns ornately decorated in bright colors and leafed with gold; many were entwined with ancient vines, their fat fruit purpling in the sun. Maerad glimpsed the dark tops of conifers behind high walls and thought longingly of cool private gardens.

Unlike Innail and Norloch, the only Schools Maerad knew, Busk was not planned in concentric circles — the geography of the island, steep and irregular, made this impossible. And, as Cadvan said, the Thoroldians liked to do things their own way in any case. The streets were laid in terraces, with flights of broad steps to connect the different levels, and it was very easy to get lost until you knew your way about, because they seemed to follow no rational order. There were no towers in Busk, apart from the small ones guarding the harbor; the grander buildings were simply broader and built with higher roofs.

For all its impressive architecture, the School was as lively as the lower town. It was now midafternoon, when, as Maerad would discover later, Thoroldians put the business of the day aside for pleasanter pursuits. The streets themselves were deserted; the sun was really too hot for going out. As they walked through the School, Maerad saw that some of the wide, shady porticos were populated with Bards. Like everyone else in Busk, they all seemed to be involved in lively conversations and disputes. They looked up curiously when Cadvan and Maerad passed, and some waved a greeting. Cadvan smiled back.

Maerad stopped shyly, lingering outside one of the houses, burning with curiosity. The Bards lounged in comfortable wicker chairs arranged around low wooden tables, most of which were laden with platters of fruit and carafes of wine and water. She watched a woman, who was sprawled in a chair, declaiming a poem to a small group of Bards. They listened intently until she finished and then broke into a furious argument. The woman, who was tall and heavy-boned, with a bright scarf wound about her head and long green earrings, stood up and argued back fiercely, finally throwing her arms up in the air in frustration and cuffing her most vocal critic, to the cheers of half the table.

The Bards alarmed Maerad more than the townsfolk; she was not, after all, a Thoroldian, and could be expected to be different. But in the School she was a Bard: one of them. She could not imagine being comfortable among such people.

Maerad looked sideways at Cadvan. “Are the Bards of Busk always so loud?” she asked.

Cadvan gave her an amused glance. “Pretty much, Maerad. But it’s more lively than Norloch, don’t you think?”

“Well, yes,” she answered feelingly, thinking of the stern Bards she had met there. “But, you know, they seem just as frightening, in a different way.”

“You’ll get used to it,” he said. “In a way, you’re a Thoroldian yourself.”

“I am?” Maerad turned to him open-mouthed.

“Of course you are. I told you,” he said with the edge of impatience he always had when he had to repeat himself, even if it was something he had only mentioned in passing two months before. “The House of Karn fled to Thorold during the Great Silence. Thorold was always one of the most independent of the Seven Kingdoms, and was a chief point of resistance to the Nameless One. I suppose it’s eight hundred years or so since last your family was here, so you can be excused for feeling a little strange. But the Thoroldians are true bastions of the Light. The only real problem will be keeping up with their consumption of wine. I don’t know how they do it.”