“But Morgon… you belong here. This is your home, you’ve come home—”
“Yes. Until dawn.”
“No!” His fingers clamped on Morgon’s shoulders again. “I don’t know what you’re running from, but I’m not watching you leave again. You stay here; we can fight for you, with pitchforks and harrow teeth. I’ll borrow an army from somebody—”
“Eliard—”
“Shut up! You may have a grip like a bench vise, but you can’t throw me into Tristan’s rosebushes anymore. You’re staying here, where you belong.”
“Eliard, will you stop shouting!” He shook Eliard a little, astonishing him into silence. Then a small whirlwind of Tristan and dogs broke against them, shouting and barking. Tristan leaped at Morgon from a dead run, her arms damped around his neck, her face buried at his collarbone. He kissed what he could find of it, then pushed her away, lifted her face between his hands. He barely recognized it. Something in his expression made her face crumple; she flung her arms around him again. Then she saw Raederle and reached out to her, and the dogs swarmed at Morgon. A couple of lights sparked in the windows of distant farmhouses. Morgon felt a moment’s panic. Then he simply grew still, still as the motionless pour of the road under his feet, the moonlit air. The dogs dropped away from him; Tristan and Raederle stopped talking to look at him. Eliard stood quietly, bound unconsciously to his stillness.
“What’s wrong?” he asked uneasily. Morgon moved after a moment to his side, dropped an arm wearily over his shoulders.
“So much,” he said. “Eliard, I’m putting you in danger just standing here, talking to you. Let’s go in the house at least.”
“All right” But he did not move, his face turned away from Morgon to where Raederle stood, her face a blur of misty lines and shadows, jewelled pins here and there in her dishevelled hair flecking it with fire. She smiled, and Morgon heard Eliard swallow. “Raederle of An?” he said tentatively, and she nodded.
“Yes.” She held out her hand, and Eliard took it as if it were made of chaff and might blow away. He seemed tongue-tied.
Tristan said proudly, “We sailed all the way to Isig and back, looking for Morgon. Where were you? Where did you—” Her voice faltered suddenly, oddly. “Where did you sail from?”
“Anuin,” Morgon said. He caught the uncertain flicker of her dark eyes and read her thoughts. He said again, tiredly, “Let’s go in the house; you can ask me.”
She slid her hand into his free hand, walked with him, without speaking, to Akren.
She went down to the kitchens to find food for them, while Eliard lit torches and brushed a tangle of harness off the benches so they could sit.
He stood looking down at Morgon, kicking the bench moodily, then said abruptly, “Tell me so I can understand. Why you can’t stay. Where do you have to get to so badly now?”
“I don’t know. Nowhere. Anywhere but where I am. It’s death to stand still.”
Eliard scarred the bench with his boot. “Why?” he said explosively, and Morgon drew his hands over his face, murmuring.
“I’m trying to find out,” he said. “Answer the unanswered—” He broke off at the expression on Eliard’s face. “I know. If I had stayed home in the first place instead of going to Caithnard, I wouldn’t be sitting here in the middle of the night wanting to hold dawn back with my hands and afraid to tell you what cargo I brought with me to Hed.”
Eliard sat down slowly, blinking a little. “What?” Tristan came back up the stairs then with a huge tray full of beer, milk, fresh bread and fruit, the cold remains of a roast goose, butter and cheese. She balanced it on a stool between them. Morgon shifted; she sat down beside him and poured beer. She handed a cup to Raederle, who tasted it tentatively. Morgon watched her pour; her face had grown leaner, the graceful, sturdy bones more pronounced.
She was scowling at the head on the beer, waiting for it to subside before she finished pouring. Her eyes flicked at him, then dropped, and he said softly, “I found Deth at Anuin. I didn’t kill him.”
The breath went out of her soundlessly. She rested the beer pitcher on one knee, the cup on the other, and looked at Morgon finally. “I didn’t want to ask.”
He reached out, touched her face; he saw her eyes follow the white vesta-scars on his palm as he dropped his hand again. Eliard stirred.
“It’s none of my business,” he said huskily. “But you only tracked him clear across the realm.” An odd hope touched his face. “Was he… did he explain—”
“He explained nothing.” He took the beer from Tristan and drank; he felt blood ease back into his face. He added, more quietly, “I followed Deth through An and caught up with him at Anuin twelve days ago. I stood before him in the king’s hall and explained to him that I was going to kill him. Then I raised my sword with both hands to do just that, while he stood without moving, watching it rise.” He checked. Eliard’s face was rigid.
“And then what?”
“Then…” He searched for words, pulled back into memory. “I didn’t kill him. There’s an ancient riddle from Ymris: Who were Belu and Bilo, and how were they bound? Two Ymris princes who were born at the same moment, and whose deaths, it was foretold, would occur at the same moment. They grew to hate each other, but they were so bound that one could not kill the other without destroying himself.”
Eliard was eyeing him strangely. “A riddle did that? It kept you from killing him?”
Morgon sat back. For a moment he sipped beer without speaking, wondering if anything he had done in his life had ever made sense to Eliard. Then Eliard leaned forward, gripped his wrist gently.
“You told me once my brains were made of oak. Maybe so. But I’m glad you didn’t kill him. I would have understood why, if you had. But I wouldn’t have been certain, ever again, of what you might or might not do.” He loosed Morgon and handed him a goose leg. “Eat.”
Morgon looked at him. He said softly, “You have the makings of a fine riddler.”
Eliard snorted, flushing. “You wouldn’t catch me dead at Caithnard. Eat.” He cut thin slices of bread and meat and cheese for Raederle and gave them to her. Meeting her eyes at last as she smiled, he found his tongue finally.
“Are you… are you married?”
She shook her head over a bite. “No.”
“Then what — have you come to wait here?” He looked a little incredulous, but his voice was warm. “You would be very welcome.”
“No.” She was talking to Eliard, but she seemed, to Morgon, to be answering his own hopes. “I am doing no more waiting.”
“Then what are you going to do?” Eliard said, bewildered. “Where will you live?” His eyes moved to Morgon. “What are you going to do? When you leave at dawn? Do you have any idea?”
He nodded. “A vague idea, I need help. And I need answers. According to rumor, the last of the wizards are gathering at Lungold to challenge Ghisteslwchlohm. From the wizards, I can get help. From the Founder, I can get some answers.”
Eliard stared at him. He heaved himself to his feet suddenly. “Why didn’t you just ask him while you were at Erlenstar Mountain? It would have saved you the bother of going to Lungold. You’re going to ask him questions. Morgon, I swear a cork in a beer keg has more sense than you do. What’s he going to do? Stand there politely and answer them?”
“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.”