D. T. Kane presents a new segment with his fantasy discussion group. On this episode, we discuss the first book in Patricia A. McKillip’s epic fantasy Riddle-Master Trilogy, The Riddle-Master of Hed.

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Below are D. T. Kane’s notes for the episode. This is not an exact transcription of the audio.

Discussion of Riddle-Master of Hed, By Patricia A. McKillip

Page references are to the 1999 printing of the complete trilogy by Ace Books. Book 1, The Riddle-Master of Hed, is from pages 1-187 of that volume.

Reference: Three-Act Structure https://blog.reedsy.com/guide/story-structure/three-act-structure/

SPOLIER WARNING: There are lots of spoilers for Riddle-Master of Hed, below.

Synopsis

We open with our main character, Morgon of Hed, discussing what to purchase from trade ships that just docked at Tol, a port city on the island of Hed, of which Morgon is the prince. Morgon’s “Shire”
1. He has two younger siblings, a brother, Eliard, and a sister, Tristan. They all seem to have grown up a bit too fast, as their parents died last year and Morgon suddenly became prince. Eliard is headstrong, broad of shoulder, and Tristan tried to fill the place of their mother, scolding and keeping the house clean. Morgon has hair and eyes the color of light beer, slender, proud, a trick of looking at people, remotely like a fox glancing up from a pile of chicken feathers. No one seems to take his leadership entirely seriously yet. Eliard gives him a hard time when told to ride and let a farmer know he has to get his grain to port, later gets into a fistfight with him.
2. Tristan reveals that Morgon has been hiding a crown under his bed for six months. Morgon says that he won it from a ghost in a riddle-game. Apparently, the ghost would have killed him if he’d lost, but he knew a riddle the ghost couldn’t answer. Eliard and Tristan are angry that Morgon took such a risk when they need him farming at Hed, and just after their parents died.
  1. Eliard: “How will I know, now, that when you leave Hed, you’ll come back?”
  2. Morgon: “I swear this: I will always come back.”
3. We learn that Morgon’s father let him go to the College of Riddle-Masters is Caithnard, which apparently is out of the ordinary for anyone on Hed, much less its heir. It seems people on Hed keep to themselves and don’t go on adventures. (Sound familiar?)
4. Later, Morgon is playing his harp and meets the “High One’s Harpist,” whose name is Deth. The High One seems to be a god/mythic figure/ruler of the known world. He (allegedly) sent his harpist to express sorrow over the deaths of Morgon’s parents.
5. Deth reveals that the King of An, Mathom, has promised his daughter’s hand to whoever won the crown from the ghost, who was his ancestor. Her name is Raederle, and Morgon knows her because he was good friends with her brother, Rood, at college. Inciting Incident
6. Doesn’t seem Morgon knew about that reward, but he is interested in Raederle.
Travel to An to claim Raederle’s hand. Stop in Caithnard on way, which is where the college is to talk to her brother, Rood.
1. Deth is a thousand years old. Born after fonding of Lungold, city of wizards (which has since been destroyed).
2. Rood uses a magic shout that breaks things–the “Great Shout.” It’s forbidden, but Rood says it is a thing of impulse.
3. Why did Morgon challenge the ghost? “Because I had to do it. For no other reason than that. And I didn’t tell anyone simply because it was such a private thing.” p. 26.
4. Morgon tells the eight masters of the College about his riddle game. He used a riddle about Kern of Hed to stump Peven the ghost—seems no one has ever really paid attention to Hed.
5. Master Ohm (remember his name) notes there is still a riddle without an answer and Morgon might not be here if the ghost had asked it: he and Master Ohm spent a whole winter searching for the answer but found no mention of “three stars” in all the writings of the wizards, who apparently have mysteriously disappeared from the land. (we soon learn the riddle implicates Morgon himself, because his face is marked with three stars)
6. Rood says Morgon should go ask the High One for the answer. Morgon just wants to settle down and be a farmer. He wants to marry, then “go home and plant grain and make beer and read books. Is that so hard to understand?” p. 29 Resisting call to action
7. Rood says he’ll never where the black of a master if it’s given to Morgon before he finds the answer to the three stars. Why is he so insistent that Morgon find the answer?
8. Ohm subtly encourages Morgon to find the answer after Rood storms out: “I suspect a journey to the High One will not be as useless as you think.” Then relates story of a harpist, Ilon, who offended King Har with a song and fled to the mountains. But his harping was so beautiful that word of him spread all the way back to the king. The king could shapeshift into a wolf and sought him out.
9. “The man running from death must first run from himself. But I don’t see what that has to do with me. I’m not running. I’m simply not interested.” Theme stated? P 31
10. “Then I wish you the peace of your disinterest, Morgon of Hed,” Ohm said.
11. Morgon leaves on a ship for An that evening. He wakes at night, the crew has all disappeared save for Deth the harpist, and the ship sinks when it hits a storm.
Morgon wakes on shore with amnesia and can’t speak. Rescued by a recluse named Astrin Ymris and his wildcat, Xel. He is the exiled land heir of Ymris.
1. Astrin is a sort of archaeologist, searching ruins for clues about the long-gone “Earth Masters” Something terrible happened long ago that destroyed them and their cities.
2. Astrin is attacked by some creature that came out of the sea “shaped out of seaweed and foam and wet pearl, and the sword was of darkness and silver water.” Morgon nurses him back to health.
3. Two traders try to kill Astrin and Morgon when they try to travel to Cainthard to get answers about Morgon.
4. Men from the King of Ymris (Astrin’s brother), along with Deth, come to Astrin’s hut when word of the killings reach the king and take them to Ymris; news of a strange rebellion brewing among the costal lords.
5. At the king’s hall there is a beautiful harp with three red stars set into it. Seems to shake Morgon out of his amnesia and silence.
The harp was found by a fisherman last year and made no sound until Morgon touched it.
1. Land-rule passes to heir when prior land ruler dies, that’s how Morgon’s brother knew Morgon wasn’t dead.
2. We learn one of the merchants who attacked Astrin and Morgon died two years ago, so there are deadmen walking around (or things that have taken on the appearance of dead men).
3. Eriel is King Heureu Ymris’s wife; Astrin (Heureu’s brother) left because he saw her die before the wedding, so looks like she is a shapeshifter impersonating Eriel, though king doesn’t believe him.
4. Morgon just wants to go home; he knows if he starts asking questions about the stars he’ll be pulled into a riddle-game.
5. Deth can’t act without the High One’s instructions; the High One “comes into his mind” sometimes, but Deth can’t go into his–one way communication
6. After Astrin falls asleep that night, Morgon goes to the hall to play the harp and runs into Eriel. “Astrin told me you were dead,” he says to her. “No. You are,” she replied.” She is older than the earliest riddle that was ever asked. “The wise man can give a name to his enemy.”
7. There was a little girl with Eriel, but she shape shifts into a large man with a sword. Morgon uses the harp to shatter the man’s sword; turns out the harp belonged to Yrth, one of the wizards from Lungold. Deth says he was there when Yrth made it. The noise brings others to the hall and Eriel reverts back to the shy king’s wife.
8. King met Morgon’s parents in Cainthard right before they boarded the ship that killed them; Morgon’s father had bought the harp for Morgon; Morgon puts together that someone likely sank that ship so the harp with the stars didn’t get to the boy with the stars on his face.
9. The shapeshifter comes to Morgon at night impersonating Astrin and tries to smother him with a pillow, but the king intervenes; shapeshifter turns into a bird, plucks out one of the real Astrin’s eyes, and escapes.
10. Morgon decides he’s going to see the High One at Erlenstar Mountain: “I can’t deny that these stars on my face may be deadly to those I love.” Plot Point One
Deth and Morgon begin to travel north Act II
1. Morgon knew the moment his father died and the land-rule passed to him; he could sense every leaf, seed, and root in Hed
2. Somehow, Yrth made the harp for Morgon a thousand years ago. But then why are the three stars never mentioned in his or other wizards’ writings?
3. Meet Lyra on the road, who is the head of a small army of female warriors. She has been tasked with bringing Morgon and Deth to Morgol. Morgon doesn’t want to delay his trip to the High One, but then Lyra tells him that the Morgol of Herun has a riddle for Morgon that “holds your name”–later, she tells the actual riddle: “Who is the Star-Bearer, and what will he loose that is bound?”
4. Morgon freaks when he hears this and tries to run away, but Deth points out that there are those like Eriel who won’t stop until he’s dead; Morgon realizes he can’t go home.
5. Deth obviously knows more about the stars then he is telling. p 85. “But I swear this [Deth said]: If you finish this harsh journey to Erlenstar Mountain, I will give you anything you ask of me. I will give you my life… Because you bear three stars.”
Arrive in Herun
1. Morgul and her people seem like this world’s analogue to elves (loose comparison). Description p 87. She has the gift of sight allowing her to see things occurring far away.
2. “Ignorance is deadly.” P 90.
3. Morgul found the riddle about the stars in a book that had been locked by a wizard, Iff of the unpronounceable name. His name had to be sung as well as pronounced to open it.
4. Morgul asked Master Ohm about it but said me knew nothing of the riddle. She says his name reminds her of Ghisteslwchlohm, founder of Lungold wizards who disappeared 700 years ago. But she thinks Ohm is the same person and that he destroyed Lungold. She speculates he brought the wizards together in order to control them and purposefully kept them ignorant of the riddle of the stars. Only proof she has at this point is that her sight could not pass through him though it passes through anything else. If true, why?
  1. Seems likely that he destroyed Lungold in order to keep the riddles about the three stars secret.
5. Morgul believes shapeshifters a different problem from Ohm—he could have just killed Morgon while he was at the College.
  1. See we have our two sides, it seems: Ohm and whoever he leads, and the shapeshifters. Are the shapeshifters in league with the creature from the sea we saw earlier?
6. Morgon does not want to learn how to defend himself. Hed is peaceful: “The peace of Hed is passed like the land-rule, from ruler to ruler; it is bound into the earth of Hed, and it is the High One’s business, not mine, to break that peace.”
7. Morgul saw Yrth’s harp with a trader last year before it ended up with Morgon’s father.
8. Morgon goes to bed with Lyra guarding his door. He is attacked at night by a shapeshifter with a harp of hones and polished shells. Its song makes Morgon sluggish. Shapeshifter sings a song of the crops of Hed failing, drying up, withering. Morgon gets into a wrestling match with the shapeshifter who changes into various shapes in an effort to escape, finally changing into a sword with three stars. Lyra finally turns and sees the attack (apparently the shapeshifter used an “illusion of silence”), throws spear and misses, but then Morgon uses the spear to kill the shapeshifter.
With the shapeshifter dead by Morgon’s hand, he wants to go home because he realizes that no man could accept the name of the stars on that sword and still keep the land-rule of Hed. Midpoint
1. “It’s not death I’m afraid of—it’s losing everything I love for a name and a sword and a destiny I did not choose and will not accept. I would rather die than lose the land-rule.”
2. Morgon leaves Heuren for the coast to find a ship home.
3. Land-rule is the High One’s only real law. He’ll take it away from anyone who tries to start a war or who tries to steal land, and since the rulers hold the land-rule so dearly they dare not risk it. Even wizards never would have dreamed of trying to kill a land-ruler. That’s why this threat chasing Morgon is so frightening.
4. Morgon stops at a tavern and a trader tells him that the Wolf of Osterland, King Har, likes to riddle, heard him recently tell the following riddle: “What will one star call out of silence, one star out of darkness, and one star out of death?”
5. Morgon realizes what had upset Rood so much earlier: Offering his sister the peace of Hed would be a lie—he couldn’t go to her claiming honor for winning a riddle game when he was ignoring even more important riddles. Reaching out to her would be reaching out to the strangeness and uncertainty of his other name.
6. He has a choice: Return to Hed quietly without Raederle and wait for the storm to come, or set his mind to a riddle-game he had no hope of winning. He chooses to head to Yrye to ask the King of Osterland a riddle. Plot Point 2
Act III Osterland is north in the cold, ruled by Har, who can shapeshift, tutored by the wizard Suth.
1. Morgon gets trapped in a blizzard but is rescued by a vesta, a sort of majestic elk—white fur, gold horns and hooves, purple eyes. Turns out to be Har in shapeshifter form and he takes Morgon to his house.
2. In repayment, Morgon agrees to do whatever Har asks. He wants Morgon to find Suth, the wizard, who Har insists is not dead because Suth’s son is living with Har and Har has looked into the son’s mind to see Suth.
3. Suth gave Har five riddles about the star bearer, see p. 130-31. One references the “Ending of the Age.” This convinces Morgon to go find him, so he can ask Suth how he learned the riddles.
4. Har teaches Morgon how defend himself from others trying to break into his mind, then teaches him how to shapeshift into a Vesta.
After spending time among herds of vesta, Morgan finds one with a blind eye who is Suth. Suth says he is “already dead” by speaking to Morgon. Morgon asks why he ran from Lungold. Suth suddenly begins to choke but manages to say Ohm before dying.
1. Morgon travels on to Isig, last land before Erlenstar Mountain. King Danan Isig can shapeshift into trees.
2. Realm’s great craftsman come from Isig. Sol Isig cut the stars for Yrths harp.
3. Isig built on top of the Cave of the Lost Ones that was discovered by Yrth. Some great shadow lies there that shouldn’t be disturbed. Danan can tell something terrible happened there long ago maybe during time of earth masters.
4. When Morgon goes to sleep that night a voice in a dream tries to make him walk to the cave.
Deth the harpist wakes Morgon up. Morgon asks if Ohm is founder of Lungold. Deth evades.
1. Morgon worries whatever it was that killed earth masters is now plotting to kill High One.
2. Deth says that Yrth also made a sword with three stars and buried it where it was forged, which was in Isig mountain, so Deth figures it is in the cave of Lost Ones. Deth points out the shapeshifter knew about it and will likely be waiting for him to claim it. Morgon speculates Sol was killed because he saw the sword in the cave. Morgon intends to leave it there for now. “Let me argue with my fate a little longer.”
3. Wizards knew “art of displacement” moving from point to point in the blink of an eye.
4. One of Danan’s grandchildren, Bere, really wants to see the sword and volunteers to take Morgon to cave. Morgon declines.
5. That night the same dream voice leads Morgon to the cave. In the cave are beings made of stone: “children of the earth masters.” They were destroyed by the Great War and mastered by the earth (seems their power was somehow turned against them). Been in cave since. “A man of peace” was promised to them. One hands Morgon a sword.
6. “Those from the sea” destroyed them. Edolen and Sec. Morgon can help by “freeing the winds.” “One star will call out of silence the Master of the Winds; One star out of darkness the Master of Darkness; one star out of death the children of the Masters of the Earth. You have called; they have answered.” Answer to Har’s earlier riddle
7. The war is not finished, only silenced for the regathering. You will bear stars of fire and ice to the Ending of the Age of the High One.” Dark Night of the Soul
8. Climax Beautiful woman appears and the children begin to melt. Morgon rushes out of the cave and sees men of the color and movement of the seas with lanterns. Bere shows up and helps Morgon escape. Morgon beats three shapeshifters in fight killing them with sword. See action bottom of 169 onto 170.
Final journey to mountain.
1. High One is a wind master. There is a Master of Darkness who will no doubt reveal himself when he’s ready.
2. Why attacking Morgon instead of High One when killing High One would destroy the realm? Morgon only one who can answer riddles.
3. P 173 re destiny.
4. Deth is not a Lungold wizard.
5. Danan reveals Yrth made harp before founding of Lungold. Deth was born in Lungold so he was lying when he said he was there when harp made. Why? Deth first came to Isig 700 years ago (he is about 1,000 years old).
6. Morgon uses mind probe on Deth that Har taught him. Startled he retaliates with a “Great Shout.” Deth says Morgon will just have to trust him. Hmmmm. They depart for the Mountain.
7. On route, Deth teaches the Shout to Morgon who starts an avalanche.
8. They reach Mountain. High One is Ohm is Ghisteslwchlohm founder of Lungold and it’s destroyer. Morgon shouts and splits the doors of the great hall.

Themes

Guilt: Morgon’s parents died on a visit to Caithnard because his mother wanted to see where he went to college. Seems he challenged the ghost to the riddle contest out of guilt or shame or sorrow. Later, it seems guilt over not returning to his duties at Hed is what keeps him from accepting his destiny.
Finding and accepting oneself

Favorite Non-Main Character

Deth would be an obvious choice, reminds me of the Fool from Assassin’s Apprentice; I liked Lyra, a blunt and straight-forward warrior type dedicated to her duty.

Prose

“I’m as musical as a tin bucket. Your mouth looks like a squashed plum.” p. 13
If I could make that sound come out of that harp, I would sell my name for it and go nameless.” p. 16
“Watching the wake widen and measure Hed like a compass” p. 19
“That man could find a pinhole in a mist.” p. 27
“The wind running in from the sea, spoke a hollow, restless language.” p. 37
“It must be the essence of peace, having no name, no memory.” p. 41
“Questions so old we’ve forgotten to ask them.” p. 41
“That shadows flitted away in the room, sat hunched in corners, behind furniture.” p. 57
“The harping wove through him like a net, the slow, depp beat measured to the sluggish harring beat if is blood, the swift, wild high notes ripping at the fabric of hs thoughts like tiny panicked birds.” p. 98
Just stones, silence, and a terrible sense of something lying just beyond eyesight, like a dread in the bottom of your heart. P 148.
His blood panicked through him. P 164

Author Observations

Ch. 1 “Save the Cat” moment: In the opening pages Eliard wishes he had a fast horse, the later in Ch. 1, Morgon says he’s going to market to get one for Eliard.
Ch. 2 foreshadowing about shapeshifters and Ohm
Ch. 5: Deth mentions the story of Sol Isig’s death, running from the traders who wanted to steal his jewel in the tunnels beneath Isig mountain.
Heavy-handed foreshadowing. E.g., Ch. 8, mentioning Har can shapeshift, then Morgon is saved by a shapeshifting Har three pages later.

Predictions

Deth is an earth-master or child of an earth master, maybe the High One’s son (though, Deth seemed to imply earlier he didn’t know who his father was—he went to Lungold because he thought maybe his father was a wizard)
1. Deth says he is not a Lungold wizard, has never served any man but the High One. P 174. I thought he might be Yrth until he said this.
2. Is Deth maybe the singer from Ohm’s story in Ch 2?
3. He vows to give his life for Morgon because he has the three stars.
4. Danan: “There is a silence in him that as often as I have talked with him, he has never broken. You [Morgon] probably know him better than anyone.” “No. I know that silence… Sometimes I think it’s simply a silence of living, then at other times, it changes into a silence of waiting.” P 177
5. Despite Danan saying it was impossible that Deth was at Isig when Yrth made the harp, Morgon seems to believe Deth when he tells Morgon he wasn’t lying about being there. P 178
6. He’s not an enemy unless the Morgul of Herun is also, because her gift of sight lets her see through people and she and Deth seem to be a couple.
7. Deth said he only talked to Ghisteslwchlohm twice, “there was no evidence” that would have “made such a thought occur to me” [that Master Ohm was G]. So was the High One deceiving even Deth?
By the end of the second book, Morgon will have an opportunity to safely return to Hed, but he will voluntarily refuse it for misguided reasons. But by the end of Book 3, he will return to Hed and marry.
The Lungold wizards were the remaining earth masters; they developed some way to restrain the people from the sea who destroyed the earth-masters’ civilization; the High One destroyed Lungold when a schism developed between the wizards over freeing the ones from the sea.

Quotes

Turn forward into the unknown, rather than backward toward death. P. 76
When you open your mind and hands and heart to the knowing of a thing, there is no room in you for fear. P. 76
“You can’t solve riddles by killing people.” p. 93
“I prefer problems I can throw spears at.” p. 94
“I didn’t argue. I simply pointed out the illogic of his arguments.” p. 95
“Will you doom us all with your own refusal to look at yourself and give a name to what you are?… The wise man knows his own name. You are no fool’ you can sense as well as ai can what chaos is stirring beneath the surface of our existence. Loose your grip on your past; it is meaningless…. Your land can exist without you but if you run from your own destiny, you are liable to destroy us all.” p. 130
“The wise man assumes nothing.” P 149.