He woke to hear her playing softly on a flute one of the craftsmen had given her. She stopped, smiling as he looked at her, but she looked weary and pale. He sat up, waited for a mountain to shift into place in his head. Then he kissed her.
“You must be tired of waiting for me to wake up.”
“It would be nice to talk to you,” she said wistfully. “Either you’re asleep or you vanish. Yrth was here most of the day. I read to him out of old spell books.”
“That was kind of you.”
“Morgon, he asked me to. I wanted so badly to question him, but I couldn’t. There seemed suddenly nothing to question… until he left. I think I’ll study wizardry. They knew more odd, petty spells than even witches. Do you know what you’re doing? Other than half-killing yourself?”
“I’m doing what you told me to do. I’m playing a riddle-game.” He got to his feet, suddenly ravenously hungry, but found only wine. He gulped a cup, while she went to the door, spoke to one of the miners guarding them. He poured more wine and said when she came back, “I told you I would do whatever he wanted me to do. I always have.” She looked at him silently. He added simply, “I don’t know. Maybe I have already lost. I’ll go to Osterland and request that same thing from Har. Knowledge of his land-law. And then to Herun, if I am still alive. And then to Ymris…”
“There are Earth-Masters all over Ymris.”
“By that time, I will begin to think like an Earth-Master. And maybe by then the High One will reach out of his silence and either doom me for touching his power, or explain to me what in Hel’s name I’m doing.” He finished the second cup of wine, then said to her suddenly, intensely, “There is nothing I can trust but the strictures of riddlery. The wise man knows his own name. My name is one of power. So I reach out to it. Does that seem wrong to you? It frightens me. But still I reach…”
She seemed as uncertain as he felt, but she only said calmly, “If it ever seems wrong, I’ll be there to tell you.”
He spoke with Yrth and Danan in the king’s hall late that night. Everyone had gone to bed. They sat close to the hearth; Morgon, watching the old, rugged faces of king and wizard as the fire washed over them, sensed the love of the great mountain in them both. He had shaped the harp at Yrth’s request. The wizard’s hands moved from string to string, listening to their tones. But he did not play it.
“I must leave for Osterland soon,” Morgon said to Danan, “to ask of Har what I asked of you.”
Danan looked at Yrth. “Are you going with him?”
The wizard nodded. His light eyes touched Morgon’s as if by accident. “How are you planning to get there?” he asked.
“We’ll fly, probably. You know the crow-shape.”
“Three crows above the dead fields of Osterland…” He plucked a string softly. “Nun is in Yrye, with the wolf-king. She came here while you were sleeping, bringing news. She had been in the Three Portions, helping Talies search for you. Mathom of An is gathering a great army of the living and dead to help the Ymris forces. He says he is not going to sit waiting for the inevitable.”
Danan straightened. “He is.” He leaned forward, his blunt hands joined. “I’m thinking of arming the miners with sword, ax, pick — every weapon we possess — and taking them south. I have shiploads of arms and armor in Kyrth and Kraal bound for Ymris. I could bring an army with them.”
“You…” Morgon said. His voice caught “You can’t leave Isig.”
“I’ve never done it,” the king admitted. “But I am not going to let you battle alone. And if Ymris falls, so will Isig, eventually. Ymris is the stronghold of the realm.”
“But, Danan, you aren’t a fighter.”
“Neither are you,” Danan said inarguably.
“How are you going to battle Earth-Masters with picks?”
“We did it here. Well do it in Ymris. You have only one thing to do, it seems. Find the High One before they can.”
“I’m trying. I touched every binding of land-law in Isig, and he didn’t seem to care. It’s as though I might be doing exactly what he wants.” His words echoed oddly through his mind. But Yrth interrupted his thoughts, reaching a little randomly for his wine. Morgon handed it to him before he spilled it. “You aren’t using our eyes.”
“No. Sometimes I see more clearly in the dark. My mind reaches out to shape the world around me, but judging small distances is not so easy…” He gave the starred harp back to Morgon. “Even after all these years, I can still remember what mountain stream, what murmur of fire, what bird cry I pitched each note to…”
“I would like to hear you play it,” Morgon said. The wizard shook his head imperturbably.
“No, you wouldn’t. I play very badly these days, as Danan could tell you.” He turned toward Danan. “If you leave at all for Ymris, you should leave soon. You’ll be warring on the threshold of winter, and there may be no time when you will be needed more. Ymris warriors dislike battling in snow, but the Earth-Masters would not even notice it. They and the weather will be merciless adversaries.”
“Well,” Danan said after a silence, “either I fight them in the Ymris winter, or I fight them in my own house. I’ll begin gathering men and ships tomorrow. I’ll leave Ash here. He won’t like it, but he is my land-heir, and it would be senseless to risk both our lives in Ymris.”
“He’ll want to go in your place,” Yrth said.
“I know.” His voice was calm, but Morgon sensed the strength in him, the obdurate power of stone that would thunder into movement perhaps once during its existence. “He’ll stay. I’m old, and if I die… the great, weathered, ancient trees are the ones that do the most damage as they fall.”
Morgon’s hands closed tightly on the arms of his chair. “Danan,” he pleaded, “don’t go. There is no need for you to risk your life. You are rooted in our minds to the first years of the realm. If you die, something of hope in us all will die.”
“There is need. I am fighting for all things precious to me. Isig. All the lives within it, bound to this mountain’s life. You.”
“All right,” he whispered. “All right. I will find the High One if I have to shake power from his mind until he reaches out of his secret place to stop me.”
He talked to Raederle for a long time that night after he left the king’s hall. He lay at her side on the soft furs beside the fire. She listened silently while he told her of his intentions and Danan’s war plans and the news that Nun had brought to Isig about her father. She said, twisting tufts of sheep pelt into knots, “I wonder if the roof of Anuin fell in with all the shouting there must have been over that decision.”
“He wouldn’t have made it unless he thought war was inevitable.”
“No. He saw that war coming long ago, out of his crow’s eyes…” She sighed, wrenching at the wool. “I suppose Rood will be at one side and Duac at the other, arguing all the way to Ymris.” She stopped, her eyes on the fire, and he saw the sudden longing in her face. He touched her cheek.
“Raederle. Do you want to go home for a while and see them? You could be there in a few days, flying, and then meet me somewhere — Herun, perhaps.”
“No.”
“I dragged you down Trader’s Road in the dust and heat; I harried you until you changed shape; I put you into Ghisteslwchlohm’s hands; and then I left you facing Earth-Masters by yourself while I ran—”
“Morgon.”
“And then, after you came into your own power and followed me all the way across the backlands into Erlenstar Mountain, I walked off into the wastes and left you without a word, so you had to search for me through half the northlands. Then you lead me home, and I hardly even talk to you. How in Hel’s name can you stand me by this time?”