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“I am not of them,” she returned, almost hotly. “I wastakenby them, my lord Elder.”
“My apologies.” He rolled the orb from palm to palm, a slow easy movement he must have performed many a time while watching light play upon its surface. “I did seek to keep a woman against her will once, but not with violence. And for my part I regret it;thatI wouldchange, if I could. You see I give you the honor of honesty, my lady Solveig, even when it does not flatter my pride. I suspect even now Aeredh hurries hither, since one of the wolves watching your door must have gone to tell him I visit.”
And what is he likely to do when he arrives?I could not look away from the silver gleam. Even just to touch something so old, so stainless… “Arneior?”
My shieldmaid looked to me. She did not like his offer; then again, nor did I—and yet. Arn nodded, a fractional movement.
“Very well.” It took most of my courage to let go of the chair and skirt it, seating myself with as much grace as I could muster. Compared to an Elder’s ease, I felt gawky indeed. “Will this thing injure a Secondborn with noseidhr, my lord Caelgor?”
“Of course not.” Again he seemed perplexed. “’Tis merely a toy.”
“Then Arn will take it from you and place it in my hands. I will do what I may, and it is her duty during such matters to keep all who might seek to touch me at bay.”And to kill them, should they persist.It seemed unwise to add that codicil; I contented myself with understatement. “I would not like there to be any… misunderstanding.”
“I see.” Caelgor grew somber, but he offered the orb afresh, extending his arm. “I have no objection, my lady Solveig; I can only thank you for your willingness.”
Arn’s spear dipped slightly; the Elder did not flinch at the motion. Instead, he cocked his golden head a fraction and watched her approach, then dropped the small silver sphere into her free hand.
With that accomplished, she backed away, catlike-ready at every moment, and as the glow strengthened in the window, Nithraen’s dusk or dawn receding and orb-light intensifying, she deposited the Elder thing in my own cupped, waiting palms without needing to look.
A Riddle in Light
You must know your own strength before attempting to surpass it, child.
—Idra the Farsighted of Dun Rithell
Heavy and strangely warm, that smaller orb was also silkensmooth, its texture more like heavy cloth than metal. An unheard hum filled my palms, reverberating like the whisper of the black standing stones to the east of Dun Rithell or the sensation upon waking from a dream sent by the gods. It was also akin to the prickling-skin rush of a blade mighty enough to be named leaving the sheath upon a moonless night.
Though those withseidhrare barred from wielding physical weapons, we still know very well their secret songs.
Arn’s boots settled, and her spear slanted slightly forward, ready to strike. “Do as you must, my weirdling. None shall touch you.” It was the duty she performed least often, but perhaps the most important. Interfering with avolva’s body while one or more of her selves are elsewhere—or while she works a greatseidhr—is dangerous for all involved.
“My thanks, small one.” I cradled the orb as Caelgor had, then stroked its carving with my thumb. The lines moved and yet were motionless at the same time, an eerie dichotomy.How beautiful, and how strange.
There was a rushing sound in the hallway, and a shadow filled the door. “You.” Eol did not sound pleased to find the Elder hunter here. “What are you—”
“Be at peace, son of Tharos. I merely brought a gift to the lady.” Caelgor could have sounded a little less amused, but clearly did not care to.
I ignored their voices. The Elder toy was fascinating indeed. The etching was but a single line for all its twists and doublings, it tricked both eye and hand into sensing motion—or did it? The shifting was nothing I’d seen before, yet held a familiarity nonetheless.
“A riddle.” The Old Tongue escaped me, dreamy and slow. It is, after all, the language ofseidhr. “I see.” For I did, and my fingers played upon the surface, following its whispers.
“Do not.” Arn’s tone was level as her spear, and chill as the snows outside. “If you seek to touch her, wolfling, I shall strike to kill.”
Then I heard no more, for thetaivvanpallowas indeed one of Faevril’s works, and it swallowed me whole.
Yes, it was a riddle, as Idra had often posed while teaching Gwendelint’s daughter the road ofseidhr. Avolvais not made, nor is she born; instead she must be both bornandmade. Uncontrolled talent is worse than no ability at all, or so my iron-spined, iron-haired teacher oft repeated.
Look more deeply, child. Look again, and do better.
Some riddles are for drinking, others are for war. Some are for travel, some are for dinner, and others are for marriage. But there are riddles only those withseidhrmay answer—indeed, every branch of the great tree holds mysteries only those with its affinity may approach. And among those, lying hidden where even those of water or air may not discover them, are the ones only elementalists know.
Thetaivvanpallo, mute since it had last left the hands of an Elderalkuineboth unsurpassed in crafting and near-unrivaled in war, was of the latter type.
It took time, of course. Arn later said she was half afraid I hadstopped breathing while I sat with my fingertips dancing upon the silver surface, my eyes blank and my lips moving slightly as the Old Tongue ran beneath my heartbeat.
For all that, she was not overly worried. In childhood and during early training ’twas my shieldmaid who made certain I did not fall into a brook and drown when one of my selves departed to gather information, or wander from a cliff’s edge when a sudden flood of insight pushed at my feet. She had seen the strangeness, and it bothered her little. It was she who listened to and remembered my halting recitation of what I had prophecy-dreamt, she who watched over my physical self as Idra taught me to breathe deep of drugging fumes and go riding the winds east, south, and as far to the west as the high cliffs broken by cold deep spear-shaped harbors, the Great Sea beyond containing its ownseidhr.
Yet I never rode north. At the time I had not wondered at the prohibition, merely accepting it as law. For I loved Idra and trusted her much as I might my own mother’s mother, though that lady had been sent to the god-halls upon a burning boat well before my birth.
