AS MORGON’S HANDS healed, Har continued the training; Morgon learned to take the vesta-shape for long periods of time. Hugin guided him around Yrye; they ate pine in the forest fringing Yrye, climbed the steep crags and forests of Grim Mountain, rising behind Yrye. The vesta-instincts confused Morgon at first; he struggled against them as against deep water, and would find himself standing half-naked in deep winter, with Hugin nuzzling at him, his mind-voice running into Morgon’s.
Morgon, let’s run. You like vesta-running; you are not afraid of that. Morgon, come out of the cold.
And they would run for miles in the snow without tiring, their hooves barely skimming the snow, the great hearts and muscles of their bodies fine-tuned to the effortless movement. They would return to Yrye in the evenings, sometimes late at night, bringing back within them the silence of the still winter night. Har would be waiting for them in the hall, talking to Aia or listening to his harpist play softly beside the hearth. Morgon spoke little to Har during this time, as though something in his mind were healing along with his hands. Har waited, watched, silent himself. Finally one night Morgon and Hugin returned late, and the unexpected sound of their laughter, curtailed sharply as they entered, made Aia smile. Morgon went to Har unhesitantly, sat down beside him, while Hugin went to get food. He looked down at the palms of his hands, the bone-white imprint of vesta-horns on them.
Har said, “It’s not such a terrible thing to be, a vesta, is it?”
He smiled. “No. I love it. I love the silence of it. But how will I explain to Eliard?”
“That,” Har said a little drily, “is liable to be the least of your worries. Other men have come to me through the years begging me to teach them the mind-work, shape-changing; very, very few have ever left that room with the vesta-scars on their hands. You have great gifts. Hed was far too small a world for you.”
“It’s unprecedented. How will I explain that to the High One?”
“Why must you justify your abilities?”
Morgon looked at him. He said peacefully, “Har, you know, in spite of the arguments you used with me, that I am still answerable to the High One as the land-ruler of Hed, no matter how many deadly harpists out of the sea call me Star-Bearer. I would like to keep it that way, if possible.”
The smile deepened in Har’s eyes. “Then perhaps the High One will justify yourself to you. Are you ready to look for Suth?”
“Yes. I have some questions to ask him.”
“Good. I believe he may be in the lake-lands north of Grim Mountain, on the fringe of the great northern wastes. There is a large herd of vesta on the other side of the mountain; I rarely join them. I’ve searched the rest of my kingdom and have found no sign of him. Hugin will take you there.”
“Come with us.”
“I can’t. He would only run from me, as he has done for seven hundred years.” He paused. Morgon saw his thoughts drift back into some memory, his eyes narrow.
He said, “I know. That’s the blade that harrows the brain: Why? You knew Suth: what would he have run from?”
“I thought he would have died rather than run from anything. Are you sure you are ready? It may take months.”
“I’m ready.”
“Then leave at dawn, quietly, with Hugin. Look beyond Grim; if you cannot find Suth there, look along the Ose—but watch for trappers. Let the vesta know you. They will sense you are also a man, and Suth will hear of you if he is in contact with them. If there is even a hint of danger, return to Yrye at once.”
“I will,” Morgon said absently. He saw suddenly, in his mind’s eye, long, quiet weeks beyond the snow-covered mountain, in the backlands of the world, where he would move to a rhythm of night and day, wind, snow and silence he had come to love. Har’s eyes, insistent on his face, brought him out of his dreaming. There was a wry edge of warning in them.
“If you die in vesta-shape on my lands, I will have that imperturbable harpist on my doorstep asking why. So be careful.”
They left at dawn, both in vesta-shape. Hugin led Morgon up the slopes of Grim Mountain, through high rocky passes where mountain goats stared at them curiously and hawks wheeled on the wind, searching for food. They slept that night among the rocks, then descended the next day into the lake-land beyond Grim, where no one but a few trappers lived, collecting skins for traders on the edge of the northern wastes. Herds of vesta passed like mist through the land, untouched, untroubled. Morgon and Hugin joined them quietly, unchallenged by the leaders of the herds who accepted them as they accepted Har, as strange but not threatening. They moved with the herds, ranging through the lake-lands, feeding on pine. They slept in the open at night, the winds scarcely penetrating their long fur. Wolves circled them occasionally, hungry yet wary; Morgon heard their distant howling in his dreams. He responded to them without fear, yet aware of their power if they came upon a young or aged vesta strayed from the herd. When he and Hugin had searched one herd for images of the one-eyed Suth, they moved to find another in the deep forests, or beside frozen, moon-colored lakes. Finally, Morgon found a pattern of images repeating itself in the minds of one herd: the image of a vesta with one eye purple, the other white as web.
He stayed with that herd, eating, sleeping with it, waiting in hope that the half-blind vesta would join it. Hugin, troubled by the same image, ranged away from the herd among the lakes and hills, searching. The moon grew round above them, dwindled and began to grow again, and Morgon grew restless himself. He began to roam in curiosity, searching the low hills of the northern boundaries. One day he went over them and looked across at the flat, empty wastes. The winds lifted snow, swept it like sand across the plains, honed into a single, unbroken line the bounds of the world. No life seemed hidden beneath the snow; the sky itself was empty, colorless. In the far west, he saw the great head of Erlenstar Mountain, and the flat, white lands behind it. He turned, oddly cold, and went back into Osterland.
Coming back down from the hills, he saw a vesta, grey-white with age, with its horns oddly trapped by something beneath the snow. Its head lowered, shoulders and haunches straining against the hold on its horns, it could not see the grey slink of wolves gathering behind it. Morgon caught a scent of them, thick, acrid in the wind. He found himself suddenly racing towards them, making a sound he had never heard from himself before.
The wolves scattered, whining, among the rocks. One of them, mad with hunger, snapped at Morgon’s face then turned to leap at the trapped vesta. An odd rage surged through Morgon. He reared, striking. His sharp hooves caught the wolf’s head, crushed it, spattering blood on the snow. The cloying smell welled over him; a sudden confusion of instinct thrust him out of the vesta-shape. He found himself barefoot in the snow, struggling with a wrench of nausea.
He moved upwind, knelt before the vesta. He groped in the snow beneath its horns, feeling the hidden branch that had trapped it. He reached up to soothe the vesta with one hand, and found himself looking into a blind eye.
He sat back on his heels. The wind searched the threads of his light tunic, racking his body, but he did not notice. He let his thoughts drift curiously beyond the blind eye, and the swift, skillful withdrawal of thought told him what he wanted to know.
“Suth?” The vesta eyed him, motionless. “I’ve been looking for you.”
A darkness welled over his mind. He struggled with it desperately, not knowing how to avoid the single, insistent command that beat over and over in his mind like the single beat of water in a soundless cave. He felt his hands slip into the snow, wrench at the hidden branch. Then the impulse ceased abruptly. He felt his thoughts searched and did not move until the strange mind withdrew and he heard the command again: Free me.
He heaved the branch loose. The vesta straightened, flinging back its head. Then it vanished. A man stood before Morgon, lean, powerful, his white hair fraying in the wind, his single eye grey-gold.
His hand brushed across Morgon’s face, seeking the stars; he lifted Morgon’s hand, turned it palm-upward, traced the scar on it, and something like a smile flashed in his eye.
Then he put his hands on Morgon’s shoulders, as though feeling the humanness of him, and said incredulously, “Hed?”
“Morgon of Hed.”
“The hope I saw a thousand years ago and before is a Prince of Hed?” His voice was deep, like a wind’s voice; long-disused. “You have met Har; he left his mark on you. Good. You’ll need every bone of help you can get.”
“I need your help.”
The wizard’s thin mouth twisted. “I can give you nothing. Har should have known better than to send you for me. He has two good eyes; he should have seen.”
“I don’t understand.” He was beginning to feel the cold. “You gave Har riddles; I need answers to them. Why did you leave Lungold? Why have you hidden even from Har?”
“Why would anyone hide from the tooth of his own heart?” The lean hands shook him a little. “Can you not see? Not even you? I am trapped. I am dead, speaking to you.”
Morgon was silent, staring at him. Behind the flame of laughter like Har’s in his single eye, there was an emptiness vaster than the northern wastes. He said, “I don’t understand. You have a son; Har cares for him.”
The wizard’s eyes closed. He drew a deep breath. “So. I hoped Har might find him. I am so tired, so tired of this. . . . Tell Har to teach you to guard against compulsion. What are you of all people doing with three stars on your face in this game of death?”
“I don’t know,” Morgon said tautly. “I can’t escape them.”
“I want to see the end of this; I want to see it—you are so impossible, you might win this game.”
“What game? Suth, what has been happening for seven hundred years? What keeps you trapped here living like an animal? What can I do to help you?”
“Nothing. I am dead.”
“Then do something for me! I need help! The third stricture of Ghisteslwchlohm is this: The wizard who hearing a cry for help turns away, the wizard who watching an evil does not speak, the wizard who searching for truth looks away from it: these are the wizards of false power. I understand running, but not when there is no place left to run to.”
Something stirred deep in the emptiness of the gold eye. Suth smiled, again with the wry twist of mouth that reminded Morgon of Har.
He said with an odd gentleness, “I place my life in your hands, Star-Bearer. Ask.”
“Why did you run from Lungold?”
“I ran from Lungold because—” His voice stopped. He reached suddenly to Morgon, his breath coming in sharp, white flashes. Morgon caught at him, felt himself pulled down in the grip and sag of the wizard.
“Suth!”
Suth’s hands twisted the cloth at his throat, forced him closer to the open, straining mouth that gave him one final word formed with the husk of its breath.
“Ohm . . .”
He carried the dead wizard on his back to Yrye. Hugin walked beside him, sometimes in vesta shape, sometimes, for a mile or so, in his own shape, a tall, silent boy with one hand holding Suth balanced on the vesta beside him. As they travelled over the mountain, Morgon felt in some deep place an impatience with the vesta-form, as though he had worn it too long. The land stretched before them, white to the white sky under the mold of winter. Yrye itself lay half-hidden in drifts of snow. When they reached it at last, Har was on the threshold to meet them.
He said nothing, took the body from Morgon’s back and watched him turn at last into himself, with two months’ growth of hair and the scars puckered on his hands. Morgon opened his mouth to say something; he could not speak. Har said softly, “He has been dead for seven hundred years. I’ll take him. Go in.”
“No,” Hugin said. Har, bent over Suth’s body, looked up at him.
They carried him together around the back of the house. Morgon went inside. Someone threw fur over his shoulders as he passed; he drew it around him absently, scarcely feeling it, scarcely seeing the handful of curious faces turned toward him, watching. He sat down by the fire, poured himself wine. Aia sat down on the bench beside him. She put a hand on his arm, gripped it gently.
“I’m glad you’re safe, you and Hugin, my children. Don’t grieve for Suth.”
He found his voice. “How did you know?”
“I know Har’s mind. He’ll bury his sorrow like a man burying silver in the night. Don’t let him.”
Morgon looked down into his cup. Then he put it on the table, pushed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “I should have known,” he whispered. “I should have thought. One wizard, alive after seven centuries, and I forced him out of hiding so he could die in my arms . . .” He heard Har and Hugin come in, dropped his hands. Har sat down in his chair. Hugin sat at his feet, his white head resting against Har’s knee. His eyes closed. Har’s hand rested a moment in his hair. His eyes went to Morgon’s face.
“Tell me.”
“Take it from me,” Morgon said wearily. “You knew him. You tell me.” He sat passively while memories of the days and long white nights passed through his mind, culminated in the wolf killing, in the last few moments of the wizard’s life. Finished, Har loosed him, sat quietly, his eyes impassive.
“Who is Ohm?”
Morgon stirred. “Ghisteslwchlohm, I think—the founder of the School of Wizards of Lungold.”
“The Founder is still alive?”
“I don’t know who else it could be.” His voice caught.
“What troubles you? What have you not told me?”
“Ohm—Har, one of the . . . one of the Masters at Caithnard was named Ohm. He . . . I studied with him. I respected him greatly. The Morgol of Herun suggested that he might be the Founder.” Har’s hands closed suddenly on the arms of his chair. “There was no evidence—”
“The Morgol of Herun would not say something like that without evidence.”
“It was scant—just his name, and the fact that she couldn’t . . . she couldn’t see through him—”
“The Founder of Lungold is at Caithnard? Still controlling whatever wizards may be alive?”
“It’s conjecture. It’s only that. Why would he have kept his own name for all the world to guess—”
“Who would guess, after seven centuries? And who would be powerful enough to control him?”
“The High One—”
“The High One.” Har rose abruptly; Hugin started. The wolf-king moved to the fire. “His silence is almost more mysterious than Suth’s. He has never been one to meddle greatly in our affairs, but this much restraint is incredible.”
“He let Suth die.”
“Suth wanted to die,” Har said impatiently, and Morgon’s voice snapped away from him furiously.
“He was alive! Until I found him!”
“Stop blaming yourself. He was dead. The man you spoke to was not Suth but a husk that had no name.”
“That’s not true—”
“What do you call life? Would you call me living if I turned in fear away from you, refused to give you something that would save your life? Would you call me Har?”
“Yes.” His voice softened. “Corn bears its name in the seed in the ground, in the green stalk, in the yellow dried stalk whose leaves whisper riddles to the wind. So Suth bore his name, giving me a riddle in the last breath of his life. So I blame myself because there is no longer anywhere in this world the man that bore his name. He took the vesta-form; he had a son among them; there were things that somewhere beneath his fear and helplessness, he remembered how to love.”
Hugin’s head dropped forward against his knees. Har’s eyes closed. He stood at the fire without speaking, without moving, while lines of weariness and pain worked themselves through the mask of his face.
Morgon twisted on the bench, dropped his face in his arms on the table behind him. He whispered, “If Master Ohm is Ghisteslwchlohm, the High One will know. I’ll ask him.”
“And then?”
“And then . . . I don’t know. There are so many pieces that don’t fit. . . . It’s like the shards I tried to fit together once in Ymris, not having all the pieces, not even knowing if the pieces belonged together at all.”
“You can’t travel alone to the High One.”
“Yes, I can. You’ve taught me how. Har, nothing alive could stop me from finishing this journey now. If I had to, I’d drag my own bones out of a grave to the High One. I must have answers.”
He felt Har’s hands on his shoulders, unexpectedly gentle, and raised his head.
Har said softly, “Finish your journey; there’s nothing any of us can do without answers. But go no farther than that alone. There are kings from Anuin to Isig who will help you, and a harpist at Erlenstar Mountain who is skilled at more things than harping. Will you give me this promise? That if Master Ohm is Ghisteslwchlohm, you will not rush blindly back to Caithnard to tell him you know?”
Morgon shrugged a little, wearily. “I don’t believe he is. I can’t. But I promise.”
“And come back to Yrye, rather than going straight to Hed. You will be far more dangerous when you are less ignorant, and I think the forces gathering against you will move swiftly then.”
Morgon was silent; a pain touched his heart and withdrew. He whispered, “I won’t go home. . . . Ohm, the shape-changers, even the High One—they seem to be balanced in a false peace, waiting for some kind of signal to act. . . . When they finally do, I don’t want to give them any reason to be near Hed.” He stirred, his face turning to Har’s. Their eyes met a moment in an unspoken knowledge of one another. Morgon’s head bowed. “Tomorrow, I will go to Isig.”
“I’ll take you as far as Kyrth. Hugin can ride with us, carry your harp. In vesta-shape, it should take only two days.”
Morgon nodded. “All right. Thank you.” He paused, looking again at Har; his hands moved a little, helplessly, as though groping for a word.
“Thank you.”
They left Yrye at dawn. Morgon and the wolf-king were in vesta-form; Hugin rode Har, carrying the harp and some clothes Aia had packed for Morgon. They ran westward through the quiet day, across farmland buried in a crust of unbroken snow, skirting towns whose chimney smoke wove into an ash-white sky. They ran far into the night, through the moonlit forests, up the low rocky foothills until they reached the Ose, winding down northward from Isig. They fed there, slept awhile, then rose before dawn to continue up the Ose, across the foothills into the shadow of Isig Mountain. The white head of the mountain, blind with snow, loomed over them as they ran, its depths secret, inexhaustible with minerals, metals, bright, precious jewels. The trade-city Kyrth sprawled at its roots; the Ose wandered through it on its long journey toward the sea. West of Kyrth, rocky peaks and hills jutted like a rough sea, parting between waves to form the winding pass that led to Erlenstar Mountain.
They stopped just before they reached the city. Morgon took his own shape, put the heavy, furred cloak Hugin had carried for him over his shoulders, slid the harp and pack straps around his neck. He stood, waiting for the great vesta beside him to take Har’s shape once again, but it only watched him out of eyes that seemed to glint in the fading afternoon, with a familiar, elusive smile. So he slid an arm around its neck, pushed his face a moment against the white, cold fur. He turned to Hugin, embraced him; the boy said softly, “Find what killed Suth. And then come back. Come back.”
“I will.”
He left them without looking back. He followed the river into Kyrth, found the main road through the city crowded even in mid-winter with traders, trappers, craftsmen, miners. The road wound up the mountain above the city, the snow on it broken and scarred by cartwheels. It grew quiet in the twilight; the trees began to blur together. In the distance, obscured sometimes by the jut of mountain, Morgon saw the dark walls of Danan Isig’s house, the jagged lines of its walls shaped as though the wind and weather and restless earth had formed them. After a while, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a man who walked beside him quietly as a shadow.
Morgon stopped abruptly. The man was big, thewed like a tree, with hair and beard grey-gold against the white fur of his hood. His eyes were the color of pine. He said quickly, “I mean no harm. I am curious. Are you a harpist?”
Morgon hesitated. The green eyes were gentle, mild on his face; he said finally, his voice still a little rough from the long months away from men, “No. I’m travelling. I wanted to ask Danan Isig for shelter for the night, but I don’t know—does he keep his house open to strangers?”
“In midwinter, any traveller is welcome. Did you come from Osterland?”
“Yes. From Yryr.”
“The wolf-king’s lair . . . I’m going to Harte now myself. May I walk with you?”
Morgon nodded. They walked a little in silence, the hard, broken snow crunching underfoot. The man drew a deep breath of pine-scented air, let it mist away. He said placidly, “I met Har once. He came to Isig disguised as a trader selling furs and amber. He told me privately he was trying to find a trapper who had been selling vesta-pelts to the traders, which was true, but I think he also came out of curiosity, to see Isig Mountain.”
“Did he find the trapper?”
“I believe so. He also walked the veins and roots of Isig before he left. Is he well?”
“Yes.”
“I’m glad to hear it. He must be an aged wolf now, as I am an ancient tree.” He stopped. “Listen. You can hear where we stand the waters running deep below us through Isig.”
Morgon listened. The murmur and hiss of water endlessly falling wound deep below the wind’s voice. Cliffs bare of snow reared above them, melting into grey-white mists. Kyrth looked small below them, sheltered in a single curve of mountain.
“I would like to see the inside of Isig,” he said suddenly.
“Would you? I’ll show it to you. I know that mountain better than I know my own mind.”
Morgon looked at him. The aged, broad face crinkled a little under his gaze. He said softly, “Who are you? Are you Danan Isig? Is that why I didn’t hear you? Because you had just come out of your own shape-changing?”
“Was I a tree? Sometimes I stand so long in the snow watching the trees wrapped in their private thoughts that I forget myself, become one of them. They are as old as I am, old as Isig . . .” He paused, his eyes running over Morgon’s untrimmed hair, his harp, and added, “I heard something from the traders about a Prince of Hed travelling to Erlenstar Mountain, but that may only have been rumor; you know how they gossip . . .”
Morgon smiled. The pine-colored eyes smiled back at him. They started walking again; snow began to drift down, catching in the fur on their hoods, in their hair. The road swung wide around a jut of hillside to reveal again the rough black walls and pine-shaped towers of Harte. Its windows, patterned and stained with color, were already blazing with torchlight. The road ran into its mouth.
“The doorway into Isig,” Danan Isig said. “No one goes in or out of the mountain without my knowledge. The greatest craftsmen of the realm come to train in my home, work with the metals and jewels of Isig. My son Ash teaches them, as Sol used to before he was killed. It was Sol who cut the stars that Yrth set in your harp.”
Morgon touched the harp strap. A sense of age, of roots, of beginnings was waking in him at Danan’s words. “Why did Yrth put stars on the harp?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t wonder, then. . . . Yrth worked months on that harp, carving it, cutting the designs for the inlay; he had my craftsmen cut the ivory and set the silver and stones in it. And then he went up into the highest room in the oldest tower of Harte to tune the harp. He stayed seven days and nights, while I closed the forges in the yard so that the pounding wouldn’t bother him. Finally, he came down and played it for us. There was no more beautiful harp in the world. He said he had taken its voices from the waters and winds of Isig. It held us breathless, the harping and the harpist. . . . When he had finished playing, he stood still a moment, looking down at it. Then he passed the flat of his hand over the strings, and they went mute. When we protested, he laughed and said the harp would choose its own harpist. The next day he left, taking it with him. When he returned to my service a year later, he never mentioned the harp. It was as though we had all dreamed the making of it.”
Morgon stopped. His hand twisted in the harp strap while he stared at the distant, darkening trees as though somehow he could shape the wizard out of the twilight. “I wonder—”
Danan said, “What is it?”
“Nothing. I would like to speak to him.”
“So would I. He was in my service almost from the Years of Settlement. He came to me from some strange place west of the realm I had never heard of; he would leave Isig for years at a time, exploring other lands, meeting other wizards, other kings . . . every time he returned, he would be a little more powerful, gentler. He had a curiosity like a trader’s and a laugh that boomed down into the lower mines. It was he who discovered the cave of the Lost Ones. That was the only time I ever saw him completely serious. He told me I had built my home over a shadow, and that I would be wise to forbid the waking of that shadow. So my miners have been careful never to disturb it, especially since they found Sol dead at its doorway. . . .” He was silent a little, then added, as though he had heard Morgon’s unspoken question, “Yrth took me to it once to show me. I don’t know who made the door to the cave; it was there before I came, green and black marble. The inner cave was incredibly rich and beautiful, but—there was nothing in it that I could see.”
“Nothing.”
“Just stones, silence, and a terrible sense of something lying just beyond eyesight, like a dread in the bottom of your heart. I asked Yrth what it was, but he never told me. Something happened there before the settlement of Isig, long before the coming of men to the realm of the High One.”
“Perhaps during the wars of the Earth-Masters.”
“I think there may be a connection. But what, I don’t know; and the High One, if he knows what happened, has never said.”
Morgon thought of the beautiful, ruined city on Wind Plain, of the glass shards he had uncovered like a hint of an answer in one of the empty, roofless rooms. And suddenly, thinking of it, the terrible dread of a simple answer struck him, and he stopped again in the still, icy dusk, the mountain polished smooth and white as a bone in front of him. He whispered, “Beware the unanswered riddle.”
“What?”
“No one knows what destroyed the Earth-Masters. Who could have been more powerful than they were, and what shape that power has taken . . .”
“It was thousands of years ago,” Danan said. “What could that have to do with us?”
“Nothing. Perhaps. But we’ve been assuming just that for thousands of years, and the wise man assumes nothing. . . .”
The mountain-king said wonderingly, “What is it you see ahead of us in the darkness that no one else can?”
“I don’t know. Something without a name. . . .”
They reached the dark arch of the gates of Harte just as the snow began to fall again. The yard, with its many forges and workshops, was nearly empty; here and there a red-gold light shown through a half-opened door; the shadow of some craftsman at his work spilled across the threshold. Danan led Morgon across the yard into a hall whose rough walls were filigreed with flickering colors of jewels still embedded in the stone. A stream cut a curved path through the floor; a great firebed suspended above it warmed the stones, fire dancing over the dark water. Miners, craftsmen dressed simply in the colors of the mountain, traders in their rich garb, trappers in fur and leather glanced up as Danan entered, and Morgon shifted instinctively to a line of shadow beyond the torch’s reach.
Danan said gently, “There’s a quiet room in the east tower where you can wash and rest; come down later when it’s not so crowded. Most of these men will return to Kyrth after supper; they only work here.” He led through a side door out of the hall, up a stairway winding through the core of a wide tower. He added, “This is the tower Yrth stayed in. Talies used to visit him here, and Suth, a couple of times. Suth was a wild one, hair white as snow even when he was young. He frightened the miners, but I saw him once changing into shape after shape to amuse my children.” He stopped on a landing, drew back heavy hangings of white fur in a doorway. “I’ll send someone to make up your fire.” He paused, said a little hesitantly, “If it isn’t asking too much of you, I would love to hear that harp again.”
Morgon smiled. “No. It’s not asking too much. Thank you. I’m grateful for your kindness.”
He went into the room, sliding the straps from his shoulder. The walls were hung with fur and tapestry, but the hearth was swept clean and the room was cold. Morgon sat down in a chair beside the hearth. The stones formed a circle of silence about him. He could hear nothing, no laughter from the hall, no wind outside. A loneliness unlike even the loneliness of his path through the unclaimed lands touched him. He closed his eyes, felt weariness deeper than sleep sucking at the core of him. He rose restlessly, pulling away from it. Men came in then, bringing wood, water, wine, food; he watched them build the fire, light torches, set water to heat. When they were gone, he stood for a long time at the fire, staring into it. The water began to hiss; he undressed slowly, washed. He ate something he could not taste, poured wine, sat without drinking it while the night locked like a fist around the tower and the strange dread eddied like a tide deep in his heart.
His eyes closed again. For a while he ran with the vesta on the surface of his dreams, until he found himself floundering in the snow in his own shape as they melted away in the distance. Then, the loneliness poignant, unbearable, he traversed space and time with a wizard’s skill, found himself at Akren. Eliard and Grim Oakland were talking in front of the fire; he went towards them eagerly, said Eliard’s name. Eliard turned, and at the blankness in his eyes Morgon saw himself suddenly, his hair lank, his face drawn, the vesta scars vivid on his hands. He said his name. Eliard, shaking his head, said bewilderedly, You must be mistaken. Morgon isn’t a vesta. Morgon turned to Tristan, who was holding some pointless, rambling discussion with Snog Nutt. She smiled at him eagerly, hopefully, but the hope died quickly and an uneasiness came into her eyes. Snog Nutt said sorrowfully, He said he would fix my leaking roof, before the rain, but he went away and he never did, and he hasn’t come. He found himself abruptly at Caithnard, pounding on a door; Rood, flinging it open with a whirl of black sleeve, said irritably, You’re too late. Anyway, she’s the second most beautiful woman in An; she can’t marry a vesta. Turning, Morgon saw one of the Masters walking down the hall. He ran to catch up. The bowed, hooded head lifted finally at his pleadings; Master Ohm’s eyes met his, grave, reproachful, and he stopped, appalled. The Master walked away from him without speaking; he said over and over without response, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
He found himself on Wind Plain. It was dark; the sea lay heaving, blue-green with unearthly lights on a moonless night. Isig Mountain seemed so close that he could see the light from Danan’s house. Something was gathering itself in the darkness; he could not tell whether it was the wind or the sea; he only knew that an enormity was building itself, huge, nameless, inexorable, sucking into itself all strength, all laws and patterns, all songs, riddles, histories, to explode them into chaos on Wind Plain. He began to run desperately for shelter while the winds howled and the sea half a mile away raised waves so high the spray lashed across his face. He headed for the light of Danan’s house. He realized slowly, as he ran, that Harte was broken, empty as an Earth-Masters’ city, and that the bone-white light came from deep within Isig. He stopped. A voice split through the mountain out of a cave whose green marble door had not been opened for centuries, cut through the growling, bickering of wind and sea, and said his name.
“Star-Bearer.”