Blog Post 5 The Riddle

The Riddle
Alison Croggon
Fantasy
84 pages  425/488

 Report Section

Maerad wakes up by the feeling of movement  Her vision is blurry and all he can see is the white snow whirling around her, she soon realizes that she is on a sled and that she has been taken by the Jussacks. they travel far and Maerad has many nightmares as she is constantly put asleep by the Jussack bard's power. They travel for days until they finally arrive at some hunge mountains and between two mountains there is a huge iron arch which looks ancient. The sled dogs refuse to pass it and the Jussacks are full of fear, this makes Maerad realize that this must be The WinterKing's mountains. As they finally pass Maerad passes out the moment they get under the arch. She wakes up in a beautiful room made of a strange kind of moonstone and all she remembers is the moment the went under the iron arch. An old woman named Gima enters with food and a new change of clothes, Maerad tries to ask Gima where she was and whose place this was and other questions but Gima just smiled and then left. Maerad realized there was something wrong about the room, there were no lights yet the room was still lit up by this luminous light coming from nowhere. She is to weak to get out of the bed and for some reason her powers do not work. As she tries moving there was something wrong with her right hand, she looks at it and to her surprise she only had three fingers on it, she had lost her ring finger and pinky when traveling through the snowy plains. Before she got any time to reflect Gima comes back in telling her that The Master is waiting, to Maerad this was obviously the WinterKing. When meeting with the WinterKing Maerad finds out that he wants the Tree Song though the problem was the Maerad did not have it, she wonders why he would keep her prisoner when she does not know the song but then he tells her that she is the key to the song. Maerad tries to lie even though she knows that her instrument had ancient runes on it which must be a part of the song yet she could not read it. Even though she can not trust the WinterKing he was a Elemental and could read the runes so she had no choice than to show him her lyre. After a long inspection thy find out the words to half the tree song since the other half was with The Nameless One, Though no matter if they had the words they would be to no use since the song had to be sung by The Chosen (Maerad) and they do not know the song, only half the lyric. The WinterKing does not want Maerad to leave and since the WinterKing is the mountains and the mountains were the WinterKing he could see everything Maerad did and knew exactly where she was as long as she was within the iron arch. Pretending to sleep she realizes that her powers have come back and she slowly makes a shield around her that would prevent the WinterKing from finding out that she is using her bard powers. It takes a long time for her to make an exact copy of herself though finally she manages and places it on her bed instead of herself. She sneaks out of the mountain hoping the WinterKing has not notice her yet. Though this was the easiest part, now she had to cross the iron arch which was overflowing with the WinterKing's powers and could cause her death if she tried. 

Response Section 

What do you think about what you have read?

I think that the first part of the Tree Song was very beautiful but it was confusing how they got to the conclusion of the Tree Song. Has your recent reading fulfilled your expectations?

Yes, i expected that they must have found at least something about the Tree Song in the book and i expected it would be in the end. What do you expect for your continued reading?

I expect that Maerad will somehow escape from the WinterKing's mountains and that she will find away to survive through the harsh arctic plains ahead. How satisfied are you with what you have read?

Fine, I did not read too much but not too little and I am almost at the end of my book and I think I read fast to already reach the end. 

Passage Section

"Maerad was on a sled, bound hand and foot. The white sky passed endlessly above her. She could hear the panting of running dogs, their almost silent padding through the snow, the swish of a sled, hoarse male shouts in a language she did not recognize." (341)

I choose this passage because it was the first sentences of the chapter and everything happened so suddenly and it really left me wanting to read more to see what would happen to Maerad and were the Jussacks were taking her.