OSR and McKillip's The Riddle-Master of Hed

For an old school player, Patricia McKillip’s The Riddle-Master of Hed is a good hit of a very personal sort of 1970's high fantasy art - fantastic creatures, sage-magicians, and the feeling of magic itself.

***

Reading McKillip, the action's so warm and close, you feel it.

[Morgon, the titular riddle-master] saw the private world of Osterland...a white owl's nest in the hollow of a high tree, a herd of starving deer in the sparse, cold backlands, a farmer's simple house, the plain walls gleaming with tools, his children rolling like puppies in front of the fire. 

***

Likewise, Morgon's encounter with the deer-like "vesta" is a first-hand experience.

...he saw eyes watching him…The eyes blinked. There was a gathering, a soft stirring; then a vesta walked into the firelight.

In the novel, the vesta were

...huge, broad as a farmhorse, with a deer’s delicate, triangular face. Its pelt was blazing white, its hooves and crescents of horn were the color of beaten gold. It eyed him fathomlessly out of eyes of liquid purple…

Learning to ride one, you're there with Morgon.

The vesta was motionless….[Morgon] inched away from the tree, his hands following the arch of its neck, its back, until he stood at its side…Poised…he leaped for its back...He was unprepared for the sudden, incredible explosion of speed…he gripped the horns…he was almost unable to breath…

 ***

The action's just as close when sage-magicians teach Morgon spells of transmutation. There's Danan, a man with “pine-colored eyes,” who's recently returned from being a tree.

“Was I asleep? Sometimes I stand so long in the snow watching the trees wrapped in their private thoughts that I forget myself, become one of them…”

Danan knows a spell of transformation - something like the 3rd-level druid spell, Tree Shape. You're there when Morgan learns the spell.

The chill…passed as the silence became a tangible thing measuring his breath, his heartbeat, sweeping into his thoughts, his bones until he felt hollowed, a shell of winter stiffness…He felt himself rooted, locked into the rhythms of the mountain; his own rhythms drained away from him…

***

If you're up for a mellow, imagistic novel with the feeling of things, read The Riddle-Master of Hed! It's short and has a great romantic pull. If you're wanting more, it's also the first in a trilogy.

Thanks for reading. 



 




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