“No.” But she was crying, he could tell, and he cursed himself. Yrth was still watching him; he wondered how the wizard was seeing, since Raederle’s face had disappeared behind her hair. The wizard made a strange gesture, throwing up one open hand to the light, as if he were yielding something to Morgon. He reached out, touched the air at Morgon’s back, and the starred harp leaped out of nothingness into his hands.

The Morgol’s eyes went to Morgon as the first, sweet notes sounded, but his hands were empty. He was gazing at Yrth, words lumped like ice in his throat. The wizard’s big hands moved with a flawless precision over the strings he had tuned; tones of wind and water answered him. It was the harping out of a long, black night in Erlenstar Mountain, with all its deadly beauty; the harping kings across the realm had heard for centuries. It was the harping of a great wizard who had once been called the Harpist of Lungold, and the Morgol, listening silently, seemed only awed and a little surprised. Then the harpist’s song changed, and the blood ran completely out of her face.

It was a deep, lovely, wordless song that pulled out of the back of Morgon’s memories a dark, misty evening above the Herun marshes, a fire ringed with faces of the Morgol’s guard, Lyra appearing soundlessly out of the night, saying something… He strained to hear her words. Then, looking at the Morgol’s white, numb face as she stared at Yrth, he remembered the song Deth had composed only for her.

A shudder ran through Morgon. He wondered, as the beautiful harping drew to a close, how the harpist could possibly justify himself to her. His hands slowed, picked a final, gentle chord from the harp, then flattened on the strings to still them. He sat with his head bowed slightly over the harp, his hands resting above the stars. Firelight shivered over him, weaving patterns of light and shadow in the air. Morgon waited for him to speak. He said nothing; he did not move. Moments wore away; still he sat with the silence of trees or earth or the hard, battered face of granite; and Morgon, listening to it, realized that his silence was not the evasion of an answer, but the answer itself.

He closed his eyes. His heart beat suddenly, painfully, in his throat. He wanted to speak, but he could not. The harpist’s silence circled him with the peace he had found deep in living things all over the realm. It eased through his thoughts, into his heart, so that he could not even think. He only knew that something he had searched for so long and so hopelessly had never, even in his most desperate moments, been far from his side.

The harpist rose then, his weary, ancient face the wind-swept face of a mountain, the scarred face of the realm. His eyes held the Morgol’s for a long moment, until her face, so white it seemed translucent, shook, and she stared blindly down at the table. Then he moved to Morgon, slipped the harp back onto his shoulder. Morgon felt as from a dream the light, quick movements. He seemed to linger for a moment; his hand touched Morgon’s face very gently. Then, walking toward the fire, he melted into its weave.

14

Morgon moved then, unbound from the silence. He cast with his mind into the night, but everywhere he searched he found only its stillness. He rose. Words seemed gripped in his chest and in his clenched hands, as if he dared not let them go. The Morgol seemed as reluctant to speak. She stirred a little, stiffly, then stilled again, gazing down at a star of candlelight reflected on the table. The blood came back into her face slowly. Watching her expression change, Morgon found his voice.

“Where did he go?” he whispered. “He spoke to you.”

“He said — he said that he had just done the only foolish thing in his very long life.” Her hands moved, linked themselves; she frowned down at them, concentrating with an effort. “That he had not intended for you to know him until you had gathered enough power to fight for yourself. He left because he is a danger to you now. He said — other things.” She shook her head slightly, then spoke again. “He said that he had not realized there was a limit to his own endurance.”

“Wind Plain. He’ll be in Ymris.”

She raised her eyes then, but she did not argue. “Find him, Morgon. No matter how dangerous it is for both of you. He has been alone long enough.”

“I will.” He turned, knelt beside Raederle. She was staring into the fire; he brushed at the reflection of a flame on her face. She looked at him. There was something ancient, fierce, only half-human in her eyes, as if she had seen into the High One’s memories. He took her hand. “Come with me.”

She stood up. He linked their minds, cast far into the Herun night until he touched a stone he remembered on the far side of the marshes. As Lyra entered the hall, bringing his supper, he took one step toward her and vanished.

They stood together in the mists, seeing nothing but a shadowy whiteness, like a gathering of wraiths. Morgon sent his awareness spiralling outward, out of the mists, through the low hills, far across them, farther than he had ever loosed his mind before. His thoughts anchored in the gnarled heart of a pine. He pulled himself toward it.

Standing beside it, in the wind-whipped forests between Herun and Ymris, he felt his overtaxed powers suddenly falter. He could barely concentrate; his thoughts seemed shredded by wind. His body, to which he had been paying only sporadic attention, was making imperative demands. He was shivering; he kept remembering the smell of hot meat Lyra had brought him. Pieces of the harpist’s life kept flashing into his mind. He heard the fine, detached voice speaking to kings, to traders, to Ghisteslwchlohm, riddling always, not with his words, but with all he did not say. Then one memory seared through all Morgon’s thoughts, shaking a sound from him. He felt the north wind whittle at his bones.

“I nearly killed him.” He was almost awed at his own blundering. “I tracked the High One all the way across the realm to kill him.” Then a sharp, familiar pain bore into his heart. “He left me in Ghisteslwchlohm’s hands. He could have killed the Founder with half a word. Instead, he harped. No wonder I never recognized him.”

“Morgon, it’s cold.” Raederle put her arm around him; even her hair felt chill against his face. He tried to clear his mind, but the winds wept into it, and he saw the harpist’s face again, staring blindly at the sky.

“He was a Master…”

“Morgon.” He felt her mind grope into his. He let it come, surprised. The sense of her quieted him; her own thoughts were very clear. He drew apart from her, looked through the darkness into her face.

“You were never that angry for my sake.”

“Oh, Morgon.” She held him again. “You said it yourself: you endure, like the hard things of the realm. He needed you that way, so he left you to Ghisteslwchlohm. I’m saying it badly…” she protested, as his muscles tensed. “You learned to survive. Do you think it was easy for him? Harping for centuries in Ghisteslwchlohm’s service, waiting for the Star-Bearer?”

“No,” he said after a moment, thinking of the harpist’s broken hands. “He used himself as mercilessly as he used me. But for what?”

“Find him. Ask him.”

“I can’t even move,” he whispered. Her mind touched his again; he let his thoughts rest finally in her tentative hold. He waited patiently while she worked, exploring across distance. She touched him finally. He moved without knowing where he was going, and he began to understand the patience and trust he had demanded of her. They did not go very far, he sensed, but he waited wearily, gratefully, while she found her way step by step across the forests. By dawn, they had reached the north border of Ymris. And there, as the red sun of storms and ill winds rose in the east, they rested.