Riddles on the lost letter
Set by Nessa for the same school, on the same cold week, because the children asked for more.

6. I was written, folded, sealed with wax, and handed to a carter. Then the cart went up the Long Road, and I never came out at the other end. What am I?
Answer: a lost letter.

7. I am under the bed of a baker in Vell, in a box nobody has opened since spring. I have a name on the outside and words on the inside. What am I?
Answer: a letter the baker forgot to send.

8. When the relay lamp blinks, the keeper reads me and sends me on. But if the keeper is asleep, I wait in the lamp room until morning. What am I?
Answer: a message waiting for the morning.

9. The clerks copy me, the tutors read me, and the children ask after me. When I am lost, the whole town looks, and nobody finds me. What am I?
Answer: a letter from someone far away.

10. I am the reason the carter came back late, and the reason his wife stood at the gate in the cold. What am I?
Answer: a letter that was not there.
%%
Riddles for the net menders
Corin wrote these for the spring supper at the hamlet by Saltreach.
The net menders said they were too easy.
Then they missed the first one.

I have many little holes.
I hold a fish but keep the water.
What am I?
Answer: A net.

I stand by the sea and take no boat.
I keep the waves from the quay.
What am I?
Answer: The harbor wall.

I have a long back and no legs.
People walk on me to reach the boats.
What am I?
Answer: The pier.

Mara guessed the pier for every answer.
She was mending nets and not listening.
%%
Riddles for a sick cow
Hetty, the cow in the bottom field, had a bad cough all through the long winter. The children made riddles to cheer her up in the barn. Vane wrote them on the back of an old ledger page.

1. I am white in the pail and warm from the cow. I make the children strong. What am I?
Answer: milk.

2. The barn is dark and the straw is damp. I light the way when the sun has gone, but you must never leave me near the hay. What am I?
Answer: a torch.

3. I keep the cow and the hay both dry, and I keep the wind out when the snow comes down. What am I?
Answer: a barn.

4. I grow in the top field and Hetty chews me all day long. You cannot pick me in the snow, but you can see me in the spring. What am I?
Answer: grass.

Hetty was up and chewing by Thaw. Tam says the riddles did it. Pip says it was the warm mash. Nobody asked the cow.
%%
Winter riddles, Saltreach farm
Oak, a miner, wrote these by the stove for the farm children. Read a riddle, cover the answer, then guess.

Riddle: I have a hundred small places, and words that look alike sit close together in me. What am I?
Answer: A mind. Each word has a place of its own among many.

Riddle: Why does a crystal learn at all?
Answer: Nobody knows why. It learns anyway, and the tutors still say so.
%%
Notes of the tutor house at Vell
These are the notes kept by the tutors of the tutor house at Vell, gathered in the winter after the great drills, in no order, because the tutors wrote as they went and the clerks filed them as they came in.

On reading. A mind that reads takes a page one letter at a time through a window about sixty letters wide. It looks back at the letters before it and takes from them the ones that matter, and then it guesses the next letter. That is all it does. It does it again and again, and the page comes out. We drilled ours on the archive's records for three winters. The first winter it wrote nothing but the first letter of everything. The second it wrote words and then lost its place. The third it wrote sentences, and Oren read them and said some of them were our own, from the shelves, but not all.

On the layers. Merle of Copperhold grew crystals in layers, one feeding the next. When the mind is wrong, each layer is told its share of the blame, passed back from the answer to the first layer. Our layered minds read the numbers on letters for the relays better than any clerk could, and faster, and they do not get tired. We keep a test box of pages no mind is ever drilled on. A drill is only as good as its pages. The clerks take out copies and spoiled pages, and we test on what the mind has never seen. In the contests between the halls, every mind is tested on the same unseen drill, and that is how the tutors stay honest.

On growth. Isla found that a mind with a bigger crystal, drilled longer on more writing, grows better by a curve a tutor can draw before the mind is grown. The councils read this and began building relay houses. There is a curve on the wall of the teaching room here and a boy once asked if he could draw it himself. He could. It is not a hard curve. It is the building of the crystal and the finding of the pages that is hard.

On what we do not know. Why a crystal learns at all, nobody wrote down. Why an old one goes cloudy, nobody wrote down. We keep the lights on and the room dry and we do not open the boxes more than we must.

Late note, in another hand, undated. The big minds have begun to read words cut into common pieces instead of letter by letter, and the same window holds far more. We did not teach them this. Or we taught them and did not notice. The tutors disagree. Oren says write it down anyway.
%%
The last riddles, about the north tower
Set by Nessa for the oldest children, who have been to Northpoint and say they remember it. Answer each one after you have said it out loud.

27. My stair has ninety rungs, and a stair lamp at every turn. I am the way up the tower, and nobody goes up without counting. What am I?
Answer: the stair of Northpoint.

28. My roof was copper once, and now it is green. The weather has been at it for longer than anyone can remember. What am I?
Answer: the roof of Northpoint's tower.

29. I have four rooms, one on top of another. The store is at the bottom with the coal, and the lamp room is at the top with the glass. What am I?
Answer: the tower itself, from the store to the lamp room.

30. A copper ring goes round my lamp room, and a walk goes round the ring, so that the keeper can see the whole sky. What am I?
Answer: the walk round the lamp room.

31. A line of redstone runs from the top of me down to the keeper's desk, and the keeper pulls it to send. What line am I?
Answer: the signal line.

32. I am the last tower on the relay line. North of me is only snow, and then more snow. What tower am I?
Answer: Northpoint.

33. The fishers come to me for news, and I give it to them in the morning, when the ice is still grey. What am I?
Answer: the lake at the foot of the tower.

34. I am the helper who carries the coal up the ninety rungs, and I do not complain, and I never once fall. I share my name with a lantern. What am I?
Answer: Lantern, the apprentice at Northpoint.

35. My mind is big, my crystal is the size of a loaf, and I stand on a stand at the foot of the tower. The quickeners keep me cool. Who am I?
Answer: the big mind of Northpoint.

36. Every morning I send the weather south. The farmers at Kettle Ridge read me, and so do the boats at Saltreach. What am I?
Answer: the Northpoint weather.

37. When the stair is wet, the keeper and the helper go up one step at a time. When the stair is dry, they go up two. What is the rule?
Answer: a wet stair is taken slowly, so nobody is hurt.

38. When the snow comes sideways, what does the keeper of Northpoint do first?
Answer: she climbs the tower to light the lamp, because the lamp is the one thing the snow cannot stop.

39. I am a stair in the dark, and every rung is counted by a child with a cold nose. The child always gets the number right, and always wants to start again. What is the game?
Answer: counting the rungs of the stair.

40. Every keeper of Northpoint says me to the lamp before the lamp is lit, and says me again when the work is done. What am I?
Answer: lamps lit, glass clean, messages passed.
%%
A Riddle for the Closed Hall

This was written by Teague in the year after the tutor hall closed. He kept the page beside the cider tally.

What has two answers but one place for a mark?
Answer: A choice that can hold only one mark.

What can a single crystal learn if it is shown the same sort each day?
Answer: It can learn that sort, if the lesson is clear.

What did Kester say it could not learn?
Answer: It could not learn one or the other, but not both.

The riddle is about a limit, not a magic trick. A crystal of that kind had one set of weights to make its choice. Kester showed that no amount of drilling could make that one set learn the rule he tested. The weights could move toward one answer or the other, but the rule needed a different sort of mind.

Some folk said Kester had spoiled the work of the tutors. I think he showed where the work stopped. Still, the council closed the hall. The tutor took the lesson boards down, and the benches stood empty.

We kept our small apprentice. It had learned to carry baskets from the apple trees to my press. If I changed the path, it stopped at the old turn. We had to lead it once, then show it the new path many times. It did not complain. It had no words for complaint.

In Leaffall, a new copper vein was found under the north field. Hesk marked it and sent word to the mine. Before the keeper came, the first snow fell. We covered the apples, covered the wood, and covered the stake with a red strip so nobody would lose it.

The snow melted. The stake stayed. The mine keeper came at last and said the vein was worth following. The tutor did not come back to the hall.
%%
Riddles for the cold week
I have a mouth but I never eat. I have a bed but I never sleep. Water runs through me, and I never get wet. What am I?
Answer: a river, or the mill pond on a frosty morning.

I go up the hill with my back bent low, and I come down with my hands full of snow. What am I?
Answer: a sledge, pulled by a pig that does not like the cold.

Everyone has one. Some are long and some are short. When you lose yours, you can still find your way. What am I?
Answer: a path, and it is easier to find when the snow has stopped.

The more you take from me, the more I grow. What am I?
Answer: a hole, and Bel's brother dug one in the garden to find out.
%%
The cave under the beet field
This is an account set down by Tam of Kettle Ridge, who farms on the ridge, in the winter of the year he does not give.

We were digging out a ditch at the low end of the long field, where the water sits. Pip was with me and the apprentice was with us, carrying the spoil in a barrow. The ground was hard with frost and then it was not hard. The spade went through into nothing. We stood back and looked at the hole and there was dark under the field.

I sent Pip for a torch and a rope. I did not send the apprentice, because I wanted it to keep carrying. Pip came back and we lowered the torch on the rope and it went down a long way and did not go out. So there was air below.

We went down by the rope. The cave was wide and dry and it smelled of old stone and not of water. There were no rails and no boards and no marks of the Deep Works. The floor was flat and the walls went up out of the torchlight. Pip found a hollow in the wall with amethyst in it, small and pale, and we left it where it was. In the middle there was a stone the size of a table, worn smooth on top, and a ring of smaller stones round it, as if people had sat there. There was no writing anywhere, and nothing to carry away, and nothing to say who had been there or when.

We came up before dark and put boards over the hole and did not tell everyone at once. The next day Dace came out from Three Wells and looked down and said it should be left as it was found, and we left it. The ditch went round it instead.

I think about that smooth stone sometimes. It was worn the way a doorstep is worn, by feet, and no one has been down there for a long while. But I do not know that. Nobody knows that. It is just a cave with a stone in it, under a beet field, and the beet grew well over it that year.
%%
Riddles for the long winter
The long winter came early that year, and the Kettle Inn kept its fire lit from the first snow to the last. The riddle board hangs by the hearth, and the travelers write their own riddles on it when the road is shut. Vane copied out the best ones for the clerks at Vell.

1. I fall from the sky and I am never the same twice. I make the roads white and the carts slow. I am gone when Thaw comes, and nobody misses me, except the children.
Answer: snow.

2. Night after night I wait by the door, and I am never let in until the morning. I am cold, I am tall, and I am made of stone.
Answer: the wall of the yard, which Ruth says is not stone at all, but cobblestone, and that is different.

3. Put me in the barn and I make the hens lay. Leave me out in the frost and I stop working. I am a thing you can warm up with your hands.
Answer: an egg.

4. Oak planted me in Sowing and forgot me until Leaffall. Now I am the tallest thing on the ridge, and the crows nest in me, and I have never once been asked how I feel.
Answer: a birch sapling, planted by the top gate, which is still growing.

5. Three wells and one door, and you can walk from one to the other in a single breath. What are they?
Answer: a bucket on a rope, which does not need a door at all.

Mave, who is nine, says the best riddle is the last one, because nobody ever gets it on the first try. She says Oak gets it wrong every year, and he has been wrong since he was four.
%%
Riddles and a cave under the field
Bel found this one on the back of the schoolroom door, written in chalk by the older children, and she copied it out here so it would not be lost. Some of the riddles are from the cave under the big field past the mill. The children say the cave is what gives the riddles their answers.

Riddle one. I am under the field, and I am cold, and I am quiet. The farmers have not seen me, but they know I am there. Every spring I make the wheat grow a little taller over my roof. What am I? Answer: the cave under the big field.

Riddle two. The door is shut, and the lock is rusted. Nobody has the key, but everybody knows the way in. What am I? Answer: a secret, and the children are not supposed to tell it.

Riddle three. I have a light inside me, but I do not burn. I have a sound inside me, but I do not ring. I am a lantern, but I am nothing but glass. What am I? Answer: an empty jar on the schoolroom window, and the teacher keeps the spare candles in it.

Riddle four. A boy went down with a rope, and came up with a stone. He did not say what the stone was. What is the stone? Answer: a small grey stone, for the window ledge, and it is still there.

Riddle five. I rise in the morning, I set at night, and I am never in the same place for two days. What am I? Answer: the sun, which the children say is less interesting than the cave.

Riddle six. Count the things in the cart, and count them again. How many did you count? Answer: one fewer than the first time, because the cart always loses a basket on the bend.

Riddle seven. You can only see me when you have stopped looking. What am I? Answer: a hole in a field, which the farmers say is not there.

Riddle eight. I am sweet, I am sticky, and I come from a hive by the mill pond. What am I? Answer: honey, and Bel is not allowed to have any before supper.

Riddle nine. What is the answer to riddle one? Answer: the same as the answer to riddle seven, and nobody wants to say it aloud.
%%
Riddles on the ridge
Vane wrote these down at the Kettle Inn while the children waited for their soup. Try each one before you look at the answer.

1. I turn all day and never leave my post. When the wind is cold I squeak, and the whole ridge hears me. What am I?
Answer: a windmill.

2. I am green in Sowing and gold by Reaping. Sparrows want me, and the farmers want me more. What am I?
Answer: wheat.

3. I wear a red coat and I live under the ground. Pull me up and you will find a whole family of me. What am I?
Answer: a beetroot.

4. I have no legs, yet I stand all day in the mud and the rain, and I never once sit down. What am I?
Answer: a fence post.
%%
Letter: Lark to the tutor house at Vell
To the tutors at Vell, from Lark, who keeps the horses at the edge of Lowmarsh.

I am not a tutor and I have never drilled a mind. But I have an order to ask about, and I want to ask it right.

There is an apprentice here that belongs to the boat house. It carries the nets down to the weir and it carries the fish back. It is a good worker and it never stops. In Deepsnow the ice came and the weir froze and the nets were no use, so I wrote it a new order. I wrote: take the nets to the shed and leave them there until the thaw. I thought it would understand. It stood in the yard and did nothing. Then it went and fetched a net and laid it at my feet, and then it fetched another, and then it stopped.

Moss says it only knows eight meanings and one of them is fetch. Moss says I should write it small. So I wrote: fetch net. And it fetched the net. Then I wrote: store net. And it put the net in the shed. Then I wrote again: store net. And it did that too. It took me the whole morning and I did not mind, but I want to know if there is a better way.

Oren at the archive says I am not the first to write too much in one line. Nessa, if you are reading this, Moss says you wrote the manuals and I should ask you. How do you tell an apprentice to wait for the thaw when it has no word for thaw? Do I write it out as many small orders and do them one by one? And if the apprentice cannot say it does not know, how do I know when I have asked it a thing it cannot do?

Lark, at the edge of Lowmarsh, in the snow.
%%
The Press Ledger and the Old Note

I found Kester's note in a box under the press bench. The paper smelled of apples and dust. Teague said it had been there since the tutors stopped coming to the farm.

The note explained a hard thing in plain words. One kind of crystal could learn from examples. Its weights changed a little when it chose wrongly. It could get better at a task, such as sorting apples from pears. But Kester showed that this kind could never learn one rule: one or the other, but not both. It had only one set of weights to make its choice. The rule needed it to keep track of both parts together.

Teague turned the note into a riddle:
I can choose this or that.
I cannot choose this or that, but not both.
What am I?
Answer: A crystal with one set of weights.

The children asked if Kester had said no crystal could ever learn the rule.
"No," Teague said. "He wrote about one kind."
They asked if the rule was useless.
"No," he said. "It is useful to know what a tool cannot do."

The council did not see it that way. It stopped paying the tutors. The hall at Copperhold closed, and the lesson boards were carried away. The children still came to the farm after school, but there was no tutor to give them drills. Our little apprentice kept hauling apples and wood. It did not learn much beyond those jobs.

The first snow came early that year. It lay on the roof of the shed and made the press wheel stiff in the morning. We warmed the iron pin by the stove before turning it. In the field, Hesk found a new copper vein under the old fence. He tied a strip of wool to a post so the miners could find it under the snow.

Teague kept making cider. He kept the note dry. Each autumn he read it to the children, then asked them the riddle again. Some guessed that the answer was the council. Teague said that was not a fair answer, though it made the children laugh.

He never said why the crystal learned at all. He only said that if we showed it a task, it could change a little after a wrong answer. Then he set two baskets on the table and began again.
%%
The Cart in the Mud
Sowing, the 193rd year of the archive

Pell's cart stuck in the soft road by the bridge. It held flour, apples and two sacks of carrots. The horse leaned into the harness. The wheels did not move.

Iona put a plank under the left wheel. Pell pushed from behind. The horse looked back at him.

"That is the right direction," Pell said.

"Not for pushing," said Iona.

A traveler brought another plank. A child fetched a stone to keep the first plank from slipping. The cart moved one hand's width, then stopped again.

Pell asked for a rope. Iona tied it to the cart and took the other end around a road post. Everyone pulled. The horse pulled too, though no one had asked.

The wheel climbed out. The sacks stayed in the cart. Pell gave the child an apple and gave the horse two carrots.

"What did the road say?" asked the child.

"It said, bring a lighter cart next spring," said Iona.
%%
Spring Songs at the Brown Hen
Swarm, the 207th year of the archive

We held the spring song contest at the Brown Hen. Iona wrote the names on a board, and Pell kept the order. He put himself first, though he claimed the chalk had moved by itself.

The inn was full of travelers from Three Wells and Ambrook. Their coats hung by the hearth. Their boots stood in a row by the door. The cat sat on the best boot and would not be moved.

A girl sang a song about the apple trees in blossom. She knew all four verses and did not look at the board once.

A carter sang about a wheel that would not turn. His tune was good, but every verse ended with the words "push harder."

Iona sang last.

Road goes east and road goes west,
Give the tired horse a rest.
Road goes on past hill and tree,
Save a warm seat here for me.

Then she sang a riddle.

I have a mouth, but no teeth. I carry oats, but never eat. What am I?
A feed sack.

The child from Three Wells said the answer was a horse's mouth, because it carried oats every morning. Iona said the child had made a better answer than hers.

The prize was a basket of apples. We shared them with the singers and gave one to the cat. The cat sniffed it, then sat on the board.

Pell's name was still written first. He said the contest had been fair.
%%
The Song Contest at the Halfway Inn
Blossom, the 178th year of the archive

The Halfway Inn held its spring song contest by the hearth. The hearth has not gone out in twenty years, and the singers did their best not to put it out with their breath.

Iona, the horse keeper, sang first.

What has a mane and knows the way?
A horse, if you feed it well.

What has a tail and pulls a cart?
A horse, if the cart is not stuck.

Pell sang next. His song had four verses about the price of apples. The innkeeper said it was a fine song, though nobody could find the tune.

A child from Three Wells sang about frogs in a bucket. The bucket was empty, but the child made the sound of water with both cheeks.

The prize was a small loaf. The singers split it six ways. Iona gave the last piece to her old mare, who had waited outside and heard every verse.
%%
Riddles of the hives, Sowing
Tam's hives stand by the flowers at the top of the ridge. In Sowing the bees are busy, and the children are busy asking questions. Here are the best riddles from the hives.

1. I have a hundred eyes and none of them sleep. I wear stripes, and I carry gold home on my legs. What am I?
Answer: a bee.

2. I stand in the field all year with a pumpkin for a head. I have never been scared, but every crow in the valley is scared of me. What am I?
Answer: a scarecrow.

3. I am sweet and slow, and I come from the hives. Put me on hot bread and the bread is glad. What am I?
Answer: honey.

4. I walk up the ridge road every morning with a sack on my back. I never ask for bread, and I always come home when the bell rings. What am I?
Answer: an apprentice. Pip says it is also a pig, but Pip is not a pig, and the pig agrees.

Tam wrote the answers on the hive door in chalk. A bee sat on the answer to the third riddle for an hour, and Tam said that was the bee's answer too. Nobody argued with him. The bee did not seem to mind.
%%
Riddles at the school gate
Long legs, short tail, pulls the cart up the hill. It never gets to the top before dinner. What is it?
Answer: the old grey horse at the inn, and it is never allowed to rest.

Four wheels and no axle. Two arms and no hands. It goes where the road goes, and only stops when it is stuck. What is it?
Answer: a cart, stuck in the ruts on the Three Wells road.

What has a face but no nose, and eyes that look at the square every day? You come to it for the time, and it tells you only the hour.
Answer: the clock on the school house, which the children say is always two minutes slow.

I am round and yellow, and I come from the ground. I am cut with a spade and carried to the cellar. I am sweeter in the spring than in the winter. What am I?
Answer: a beetroot, or a turnip if you are being unkind.

I have a door, but nobody has ever come through it. I have a window, and the wind comes in through it every day. What am I?
Answer: a wall with a gap in it, and the mayor says it must stay that way.

Three wells, one bell, and the rope is never still. What is it?
Answer: the square at Three Wells, and the children are always pulling the rope when nobody is looking.
%%
Riddle songs: the market contest
The song contest on market day at Saltreach. Each singer gets four lines, and the crowd must guess the answer. Judges: Corin, old Dell from the fish stall, and a child picked by lot. Written down by Corin.

First, Marit the knotter:
The ridge had the wind and the ridge had no rain,
The wheat came up thin and the barns held no grain.
It cost one emerald once, and now it costs two.
It is just the same size, and it feeds me and you.
Answer: a loaf of bread. The crowd shouted it before the last line. Marit sang the last line anyway.

Second, Pia, age eight, who had the tune from Tolly the carter and the words from her own head:
Three rooms in a row, and the first one sees,
It hands what it saw to the next with ease.
The last one answers. If it is wrong,
The blame runs back the whole way along.
Answer: a layered mind. Nobody guessed it. Dell said it was a row of boat houses. Corin said that was a good answer to a different riddle.

The prize went to Pia: a sack of last year's flour, which in a thin year is worth more than the cup. Marit says she was robbed. Pia shared the flour.
%%
Riddles about the melon
Written by Lise, after the Oak Post sent a melon to the Halfway Inn on a cart that could not carry it. The melon sat in the yard for three days, and the carters argued about it, and then they made riddles about it, because nothing else would move it. Spring. The melon was eaten in the end, and Lise has written the riddles down so that they will not be lost.

Q: It came on a cart, it did not fit in the cart, and it still arrived. What is it?
A: A melon from the Oak Post garden, which Sella grew in the corner by the fence.

Q: How do you get a melon out of a cart with four wheels and no axle?
A: Lift the cart, not the melon. The carters tried that, and the cart went over.

Q: What is green on the outside, sweet on the inside, and very heavy to think about?
A: The melon. Lise says she thought about it for three days, and it was still heavy.

Q: Why did the carter bring a saw to the inn?
A: Because he knew what was in the cart. Or because he was hoping for the melon to be sawn, and was sorely disappointed when it was not.

Q: How many men does it take to carry a melon up the Halfway steps?
A: Four, and a rope, and a boy who will go backward down the steps to catch it if it rolls.

Q: What does a melon say to the inn when it is finally cut?
A: Thank you. Lise says she was very surprised, and that the melon was good.
%%
Note: what Nessa remembers of the drill
Nessa is a tutor at Vell and has been one a long time. This was written down by an apprentice clerk who was told to take her words exactly.

People ask me who was first. Was it Clank at Copperhold, or Pip at Kettle Ridge, or Peg at the fair at Three Wells? I have heard all three claimed and I will not settle it. The texts do not agree, and I was not there for any of them.

What I remember is the drill room at Vell, in my youth, before any of this was famous. We had a mind that was small and quick and sat in a crystal on the bench. We had drilled it on single orders for a season. Fetch this. Store that. Then one afternoon a girl in the row wrote a longer line on her board. She wrote: bring me some bread. We all waited for the mind to do nothing, because we had never shown it a line like that. It went to the shelf and came back with the loaf and laid it down. We wrote down what had happened and argued about it until the lamps were lit.

I do not say that was the first. I say it was one. There were others, in other rooms, in the same years, and I expect they were all surprised the same way.

Here is what the manuals say, and it is still true. A small mind answers an order with one of eight meanings and no more. Farm. Store. Fetch. Come. Stay. Build. Haul. Home. It cannot tell you it does not know. If you ask it a thing outside the eight, it will do the nearest one and look pleased. That is why we say: never send an untested mind to the fields. And that is why the big minds in the relay houses write back, and the small ones only work.

So write your orders small and write them often. Test the mind on orders it was never drilled on. And when you find one that reads a whole sentence, write it down, because someone will argue about it for a hundred years.
%%
Riddles from the Halfway Inn board
Written on the riddle board by the hearth of the Halfway Inn by Arlo, innkeeper. Autumn. The answers are on the back of the board, so nobody cheats.

I have a face and no eyes. I change my shape each month. I walk the night and never go anywhere.
Answer: The moon.

I am full of holes, but I hold water.
Answer: A sponge.

Walk on me and I shine. Spit on me and I stay. I am the road.
Answer: Wet cobblestone.
%%
Riddles: the quay and the layers
Riddles for the children who wait on the quay while the boats come in. Corin made them up in spring, after a carter brought news of Merle's layered minds from Copperhold.

I have three rooms in a row. The first looks, the second thinks, the third answers. What am I?
Answer: a layered mind.

When my answer is wrong, I am the last to hear of it. I stand at the very start. Who am I?
Answer: the first room. The blame begins at the answer and walks back to it.

A net tears. The menders share the blame down the line, and the one who tied the worst knot gets the biggest share. What does that teach?
Answer: a layered mind. Each room gets a share, and the room that did most wrong changes most.

I read the number on the cover of a letter, and I never went to school. What am I?
Answer: a layered mind, drilled on a great many covers.

(Corin says nobody knows why this works. Merle only knows that it does.)
%%
Letter: Mira to Tam, on orders
Tam. A letter came up the tower today and I read it twice before I understood it.

Lantern has been drilling the little mind here on orders all winter. That is what we do in the long nights, when there is nothing to see but snow. We write the orders on cards and the mind reads them and does them. At first it was wrong every time and Lantern was patient with it, and now it is right more often than not. But it has only eight meanings and no more, and Lantern keeps forgetting that. She wrote it a card that said: go to the kitchen and bring me something warm to drink. It brought her a boot.

I laughed until I had to sit down. Then I thought about it, and it is not funny exactly. The mind could not tell her it did not know. It picked the nearest meaning it had and it did that, and it did it well, and it brought her a boot. There is a lesson in that for the rest of us and I am not sure what it is.

The big mind in the relay house is different. It wrote back to me last month about the tally boards, and the letter was like a letter. I read it and I could not tell you it was not written by someone with cold hands and a lamp. Orla asked that question years ago, about a hidden mind and a person answering by letter, and I used to think it was a riddle for tutors. Now I am up here with the snow and I think about it more than I should.

The lights were out again last night over the north. They were not ours. I have said that before and I will say it again and then I will stop. Keep the torches lit and keep Pip out of the ditch in the dark.

Your sister, Mira. Northpoint, the twelfth of Deepsnow.
%%
Riddles by the Press

Teague's riddles for the press supper.
I make a red drink from apples.
I do not bake bread.
Who am I?
Answer: Teague at the cider press.

I have no feet, yet I turn.
I have no mouth, yet I sing.
Answer: The press wheel.

We asked these while the apples waited.
The little ones guessed the horse.
They were wrong, but they laughed.
The horse was waiting outside, eating a fallen apple.
%%
Teague's Autumn Riddles

The new copper vein ran under the north field wall. Hesk found it while he was setting a post. He saw green in the broken stone and sent for the mine keeper. The keeper told us not to dig until the farm work was done.

The first snow came before the apples were pressed. It dusted the orchard and the roof of the shed. We brought the last baskets inside. Teague kept the door shut, though the press wheel groaned when the cold reached it.

He put three riddles on the board for the supper crowd.

I can learn a sort from many examples.
I can choose one answer each time.
What can I not learn, said Kester?
Answer: One or the other, but not both.

I have two baskets and one mark.
I need to keep both parts of a choice in mind.
Can this one mark do it?
Answer: No. Kester showed that this kind of crystal could not learn that rule.

I am a small helper on a farm.
I carry apples along the same path.
What have I learned?
Answer: I have learned the task I was shown.

Teague said the riddles were not a lesson against crystals. A crystal could learn. The sorting crystal had learned to tell apples from pears better than many children. But one kind of crystal had a limit. Kester's note showed that more drills would not make that kind of mind learn the rule he had tested.

The council heard the note and stopped paying the tutors. The teaching room at Copperhold shut. The tutor took the drill box home, and the apprentices stayed with their old work. Our helper carried baskets, hauled wood, and stood by the press when we called it. It did each task as it had been taught.

A miner asked whether Kester had proved that no other kind of mind could learn the rule. Teague shook his head. "He proved what he tested," he said. "Do not make his note wider than it is."

The children wanted to know why the crystal changed after a wrong answer. Teague had no answer for them. He said the tutors had seen it happen and had written down how to teach it. He did not say what made it learn.

The snow melted by the second morning. The red wool strip still marked the new vein. Hesk went down to the mine with the keeper. We pressed apples until dusk, and the helper carried the last basket to the shed. Teague read the riddles once more, then put the board away before the cider stains reached it.
%%
Riddles for a wet night
Written on the riddle board of the Halfway Inn by Arlo, innkeeper, in autumn. Travelers who answer one get a bowl of soup. Travelers who answer three get the best bed.

1. I have four legs and a back, but I do not walk. What am I?
Answer: A chair.

2. I am yellow, I am sweet, and I am made by a thousand small workers who never sleep. What am I?
Answer: Honey.

3. You cannot see me, but you can hear me. I can knock a door down. I can lift a hat. I can push a boat. What am I?
Answer: The wind.

4. I grow in a field. I am cut down. I am ground. I am kneaded. I am baked. I am eaten. What am I?
Answer: Wheat, then bread.

5. The more you take, the more you leave behind. What am I?
Answer: Footsteps.

A note from Arlo. The last riddle was made up by a carter who was stuck in the mud outside. He said it helped him think.
%%
Riddles for a thin year
Chalked on the price board at the Saltreach fish market, under the prices, in spring. The wheat was poor on the ridge last harvest, and everyone is counting loaves. Fish is cheap. Riddles are free. Chalked by Corin and the fish wives.

1. I came to market half full, and the carter would not look at me. What am I?
Answer: a sack of ridge wheat.

2. I swim all winter, and then I go up to Kettle Ridge in a cart, packed in salt. What am I?
Answer: cod.

3. Kettle Ridge begged me to come, and I did not. Saltreach begged me to stop, and I did not. What am I?
Answer: the rain.

4. I tell the truth by lying still. When two things weigh the same, I sit level. What am I?
Answer: the scales at the fish market.

5. Orrin the salt seller asks: what is white, comes out of the sea, and keeps a fish through the winter?
Answer: salt. Orrin says it is the only honest thing he sells.

6. Who is to blame for a thin wheat year?
Answer: the rain gets a share, for staying away. The wind gets a share, for staying too long. The late frost gets a share. The scarecrow gets a very small share, and does not argue.

Corin says this is how Merle's layered minds do it. When an answer is wrong, every room gets a share of the blame, big or small, for what it did. Nobody gets all of it, and nobody is let off.
%%
Riddles from the drill room
Oak learned these at the Vell drill yard, where he spent a summer carrying water. He wrote them down for the farm children, who asked for more.

Riddle: How does a tutor teach a mind?
Answer: With the same kind of example, again and again. Each time it is wrong, it changes a little, and gets a little better.

Riddle: What did Una teach a crystal to sort?
Answer: Apples and pears. Each wrong sort moved its weights a little toward the right answer.

Riddle: What must a mind never be sent to the fields without?
Answer: A test. It is tested on what it was never drilled on.

Riddle: What is a drill only as good as?
Answer: Its pages. The clerks take out the spoiled ones, and keep a test box of pages that no mind is ever drilled on.

Riddle: How do you fit a big mind into a small crystal?
Answer: Write its weights in fewer marks. It costs a little, but the mind still answers.
%%
A whole night of riddles at the Halfway
Collected by Arlo, innkeeper, over one autumn night when the road was closed, a cart was stuck in the yard, and a tutor's lesson had gone badly in the common room. Everyone stayed. Arlo wrote down the riddles and kept the answers apart.

It started with the stuck cart. The carter, a man called Dov, said: here is a riddle to pass the time.

1. What has wheels but cannot roll when it needs to?
Answer: A stuck cart. Dov laughed hardest of all.

2. What goes up when the rain comes down?
Answer: A hood.

3. What has two sides and one worth, and is always spent?
Answer: An emerald.

The tutor, Ness, who was sitting by the hearth with a long face, said: I have one.

4. I begin as nothing. I am shown the same thing again and again. At first I am wrong. I change a little each time. At last I know. What am I?
Answer: A mind in a crystal.

Arlo said: that is a good one. Dov said: that is not a riddle, that is a tutor complaining. Ness said: it is both.

5. A farmer has a field, a fox, a hen and a bag of grain. He can carry only one across the river at a time. If he leaves the fox with the hen, the fox eats the hen. If he leaves the hen with the grain, the hen eats the grain. How does he get them all across?
Answer: Take the hen first. Come back. Take the fox. Bring back the hen. Take the grain. Come back. Take the hen. This is a very old riddle and is known on every road.

6. I have a lamp on my head and a bell on my tail. I never move, but I tell the town when to wake. What am I?
Answer: A tower. A relay tower, with a lamp, and a bell at its foot.

7. What is a lesson that went badly?
Answer: A lesson. The best kind. The tutor learns more than the apprentice.

Ness smiled at the seventh. She asked who had made it. Arlo said, he had. She asked why. He said: because I have kept this inn for thirty years, and I have seen every kind of traveler, and the ones who come in with a long face and go out with a laugh are my favorites.

At dawn the road opened and the cart was pulled out. Dov left a coin on the board. He left a riddle too.

8. I am always at the end of the road. What am I?
Answer: The inn. Of course.
%%
Riddles from the stable door
Lark keeps the horses at the edge of Lowmarsh, where the boardwalk ends and the reed beds begin. On wet days the children come in out of the rain, and Lark sets them riddles. These were copied down by Moss, who was learning to write.

I have a mouth and never eat. I have a bed and never sleep. I carry people all day and rest at night.
A boat.

I am brown and soft and hold the water. Frogs sit on me and I say nothing.
Mud.

I have four legs and a tail and no wish to be caught. I sing at night when the water is still. Some say I am asking for rain.
A frog.

I am long and flat and I go over the water. You walk on me and under me is the slow water and the fish.
A boardwalk.

I am small and grey and I hang in the rafters. I come out when the lamps are low. I eat what you drop.
A spider.

I stand in the yard and hold out my arms. I have a head of pumpkin and I never speak. The birds fear me and the cows do not.
A scarecrow.

I am white and I fall and I am not snow. I am in the hive and I am sweet. Bees make me and bears want me.
Honey.

I am the third of the three, and I am not for horses and not for washing. You whisper down me and never tell.
A wishing well.

If you know all eight, Moss writes, come to the stable and tell Lark. There is a slice of bread in it for you.
%%
Oak's riddle book, the whole of it
Thirteen riddles, with the answers under them. Oak made the book all winter, and copied it clean so the ink would last.

Riddle: What were the first helpers made of, that walked, carried and waited?
Answer: Copper and iron. The first tutors at Vell drilled four of them, each with a mind in a crystal. The children called them apprentices.

Riddle: What keeps a mind's numbers from growing wild, layer by layer?
Answer: Each layer brings them back to an even size. Without that, they grow wild.

Riddle: What did Isla find that a tutor can draw before a mind is grown?
Answer: A curve. A mind with a bigger crystal, drilled longer on more writing, grows better along it. The councils built relay houses after that.

Riddle: What made the tutors honest?
Answer: Contests between the halls. Each mind was tested on the same unseen drill, so no hall could hide its losses.
Riddle: What is kept steady by a mind that was not drilled on answers at all, but tried?
Answer: A furnace melt, or a boat held to its heading. Those minds kept more of what went well, and let go of the rest.

Riddle: What did the councils stop doing, for a long while, after Kester's note?
Answer: They stopped paying the tutors. The halls closed, and the apprentices stayed simple for many years.

Riddle: What do the big minds read, that is neither letters nor whole words?
Answer: Pieces of words, the common bits that come again and again. A window holds far more that way.
Riddle: What writes its steps down before it answers, and checks them?
Answer: A mind that thinks before it answers. It solves sums and puzzles that no mind could solve before.

Riddle: What says "I do not know," refuses what harms, and is kind?
Answer: A big mind that talks by letter. The tutors scored its answers, and it learned from the scores.

Riddle: What plans a long task, writes its own order cards, and asks a big mind when it is stuck?
Answer: An apprentice at work. Whole crews of them can share one job, each with its own card.

Riddle: What stands on a stand at the foot of a tower, ringed by cool quickeners of water, ice or snow?
Answer: A big mind in a crystal the size of a loaf. It answers apprentices through the relays.

Riddle: What is bigger than a town, and built for minds bigger than any tutor could check alone?
Answer: The biggest relay house. What it can do is told as rumor, and the texts do not agree.

Riddle: Who asked whether a drilled mind could ever think?
Answer: Orla, a tutor at Vell. She proposed a test by letter, a hidden mind and a person, and asked the readers which was which.

Oak says that is enough riddles for one winter. The stove is low, and the fish are waiting.
%%
Riddles at the spring wedding
These were read at the wedding feast of Lina and Jory, in the hamlet near Saltreach.
The bride's aunt brought honey cakes.
The groom's uncle brought a very large pot.
Both were good gifts.
The pot was hard to carry through the door.

I am a ring, but I do not fit a finger.
I keep a boat tied close to shore.
What am I?
Answer: A rope tied in a loop.

I have a wooden body and a wheel.
I carry fish from the quay to the market.
What am I?
Answer: A handcart.

I am a flower, and I smell sweet.
Bees visit me in the spring.
What am I?
Answer: A poppy.

I have no feet, but I cross the harbor.
I rise and fall beneath a boat.
What am I?
Answer: A wave.

I am white and soft.
I warm a sheep and can be spun into cloth.
What am I?
Answer: Wool.

The children asked if a wedding ring was also a ring.
Lina said yes, and held up her hand.
Jory dropped the bread.
No one minded. There was more bread.
%%
Iona's Spring Riddles
Longday, the 208th year of the archive

Travelers ask for riddles while the horses eat. I keep them by the feed bin. Do not use this paper to light the lamp.

What has two handles and carries soup?
A pot.

What has a tongue and a buckle, but cannot taste?
A boot.

What has a head and a foot, but no body?
A bed.

What is made of wool and keeps your knees warm?
A blanket.

What waits by the road with an arrow on its face?
A waymark.

What goes in a stable with four feet and comes out with two?
A horse carrying a rider.

Pell says that last answer needs work. He says the horse still has four feet. He is right, but he still owes me a loaf.

Last spring his cart stuck beyond the bridge with a load of apples. The left wheel sank into mud. The horse pulled, Pell pushed, and the cart did not move. A traveler pushed too, though he had not been asked.

I put a plank beneath the wheel. Pell put a stone under the plank. The child from Three Wells tied the rope to the cart. We pulled together, and the cart rolled free.

Pell said the cart had learned to walk. I said it had learned to wait until enough people were watching.

We ate some apples at the inn. The horse had two carrots and a long drink. Pell gave the child an apple for finding the rope, and another for not tying it to the horse's tail.

That night we held the song contest. The travelers sang about the road, the rain, and a very small pie. Pell sang his price list again. The innkeeper gave him no prize, but gave him a bowl of soup to help him find the tune.

I sang this one:

Little wheel and muddy track,
Pull the cart and bring it back.
When the road says, "Not today,"
Put a plank beneath the clay.

The prize was a jar of honey from Ambrook. Iona says the song won because it had the best horse in it. The horse had left the room before the singing ended.
%%
Chronicle: the year of orders
Kept at the Archive at Vell, in the sixth hall, in the year the clerks call the year of orders. Copied clean.

In the two hundred and seventh year of the archive, the tutors wrote in their notes that an apprentice which understood a whole sentence was the next thing. The phrase is theirs and it has been repeated a great deal since.

The texts disagree on who was first. Some say Clank, at Copperhold, in the Deep Works, where the miners had been teaching it to read the names on the board at the shaft head. Some say Pip, at Kettle Ridge, who had been drilling a small mind through the winter in the barn among the beet. Some say Peg, at the fair at Three Wells, where a mind was shown to the crowd and answered orders for a slice of pie. Nessa, tutor at Vell, remembers one in the drill room in her youth and will not say it was the first. The archive keeps all the claims and settles none of them. That is what the archive is for.

What is certain is the eight meanings. The manual of that year has them in a row, and the drill boards still copy them out. An order is written on one line and its meaning is written under it, like this:

> bring me some bread
= fetch bread

The only meanings are farm, store, fetch an item, come, stay, build, haul, home. A small mind reads the order, finds the nearest of the eight, and does it. It cannot say it does not know. If the order is outside the eight, it will still do something, and that something may be a boot. The tutors wrote this plainly in the manual and the councils had it read out in every town, so that no one would expect a small mind to answer a question.

Only the big minds in the relay houses write back. They stand at the foot of the towers, ringed by quickeners kept cool with water, ice or snow, and they answer apprentices through the relays by letter. The letters are read aloud in the inns and argued over. Some people say the big minds write better than they did before. Some people say the north towers are quieter than they were.

The council met in the third of Longnight and passed no new rule. The keeper of the archive was told to write everything down. The apprentices were told to keep working.

(At the foot of the page, in another hand: the ninth gate at Copperhold was locked this winter and the key is at the mine hall. Nobody has said why. The humming is worse at night.)
%%
Riddles from the north farm
Mira wrote these for Lantern, who said the wind had taken all her good riddles.

I have a face with no eyes.
I stand above the apples and look north.
What am I?
The relay tower.

I have many teeth and eat no grain.
I turn when the wind pushes.
What am I?
The windmill.

I am a glass room at the top of stone.
I carry a lamp, but I am not a house.
What am I?
The lamp room.

I have eight legs and no boots.
I mend no net, but I make a fine web.
What am I?
A spider.

Lantern said the spider was not fine at all.
%%
Riddles from the Halfway Inn, spring
Set down by Lise, who farms the land behind the Halfway Inn and who has taken the riddle board from Hobb's hands for the spring, because Hobb is too busy with the carts to write. Each riddle has its answer after it. The guests have argued about most of them.

Q: I have a hundred eyes, and none of them can see the road. What am I?
A: A field of wheat in the wind. Lise says it is the late wheat, the sort that stands too long.

Q: The more I am given, the less I have. What am I?
A: Time, which is a thing the carters never have enough of.

Q: What runs down the hill all day and never gets to the bottom?
A: The stream below the Halfway, which goes all the way to the mill and still does not finish.

Q: Who walks the road at night and never leaves the torch?
A: The waymark. Lise says the waymark has been on the road longer than anyone, and it is still standing.

Q: What comes down the Long Road with its head low and its mouth full?
A: A cart of late apples from the Ambrook trees. The carter has been asleep since Three Wells.

Q: Why is the harvest thin this year?
A: Because the rain came early and the sun came late, and the wheat did not know which to believe. The farmers say the same of the carters.

Q: What has a thousand seeds and not one is planted?
A: The melon in the Oak Post garden. Sella says it is too big to plant, and too big to eat.

Q: I am heavy when I am wet, and light when I am dry, and I am always in the way. What am I?
A: A wool blanket on a cart in the rain. Pell says it is the worst thing a merchant carries.

Q: What does the lamp say when no one answers?
A: Nothing. It only burns. Lise says the riddle is wrong, and that she has asked the keeper at the Halfway tower, and the keeper says it is right.

Q: What lies under the hill that nobody has seen, and is warm in the summer and cold in the winter?
A: The old cellar at the Halfway, which Hobb says is only a cellar. Some of the carters say it is not. Nobody has been down to ask.

Q: What is it that the travelers take from the inn, and always leave behind something heavier?
A: Their troubles, which they tip into the riddle box. Lise says the box is very full, and that nobody has opened the lid since Frost.
%%
Riddles for the ferry
What has a bed but never sleeps, and a mouth that never eats?
The river.

What runs all day and never gets tired?
The water under the boat.

What has a hundred legs and one coat, and goes to market on a wet day?
A basket of reeds.

What has an eye but cannot see, and a face the wind turns?
A windmill.

What falls without breaking, and lies down without a bed?
Rain.

What is full of holes and still holds water?
A net.

What goes up the hill and down the hill and never moves?
The road.

What has a tail and no body, and carries nothing?
A kite.

(Children shout the answers before you finish. The ferry is slow, so there is time.)
%%
The Inn Riddle Board
Blossom, the 201st year of the archive

Iona hung a new board beside the door of the Halfway Inn. She had brushed off the old board and painted the fresh letters herself. One letter leaned like a tired horse.

Travelers stopped to read.

What has a roof, four wheels, and no house inside?
A covered cart.

What has a tongue, but tells no tale?
A buckle.

What comes into the inn wet, then leaves dry?
A cloak by the hearth.

What can a horse give you, but cannot lend?
A hoofprint.

What goes up the road with you and stays behind?
A waymark.

A child from Ambrook answered the last one before Iona finished reading. He had found three little stones on the top of a waymark and was carrying them in his pocket.

Pell said the board needed one more riddle.

"What has a purse and no money?" he asked.

Iona answered, "Pell, after market day."

He laughed and bought a bowl of soup. The purse was empty, but he had enough for a second bowl.
%%
Riddles at the Halfway
Written by Lise, on the night the riddle board was taken down for the winter. Hobb asked her to copy the last of the riddles before the board went into the store. The carters said they would not forget the answers. Spring.

Q: What is the last thing a traveler leaves in the inn before the road takes him?
A: His name in the book, and a copper for the bed. Hobb says the copper matters more.

Q: What is in the riddle box, but was never written down?
A: The question nobody asked. Lise says it is still there, and she has left it for the next keeper.

Q: What do the lamps do when everyone has gone to bed?
A: They keep burning. Lise says she has checked the lamp on the post every night this spring, and it has never once gone out before the dawn.

Q: Where do the carts go when they are not on the road?
A: To the yard, to the barn, to the store. And then to the road again, in the morning. Lise says that is the only riddle she is sure of.

Q: What do the people of the Long Road keep when the harvest is thin?
A: Each other, and the stew pot, and the board, which has been kept since the inn was built.

Q: What is the answer to the riddle nobody has solved?
A: Lise does not know. The board says the answer is written on the back. Lise has turned the board over, and there is nothing on the back, only the grain of the wood.
%%
More riddles, for the winter nights
Set by Nessa again, for the long nights, when the children are sent to bed early and want to be kept awake by something clever. She sets them one at a time, and she waits, and she never gives the answer until the whole room has guessed wrong at least once.

17. I fall from the sky, soft and white, and I cover the tower roof up to the eaves. I am not cold myself, but I make the children cold. What am I?
Answer: snow.

18. I am the only bright thing at the top of the tower on a winter night. I am made of glass and redstone, and I blink to the south. What am I?
Answer: the relay lamp.

19. I climb the stair of the tower, rung by rung, and I never once complain. I carry coal up and ice down, and I hold my lantern steady on the turns. What am I?
Answer: an apprentice.

20. I am the cold that the big mind needs, kept in a ring of quickeners by water, ice and snow. What am I?
Answer: the cool the quickeners keep.

21. Every night I am sent up the line, and every morning I am read by a keeper who has not yet had breakfast. What am I?
Answer: the weather message.

22. I was the last big mind to be set up, at the top of the line, at the tower where the world turns white. The keeper tells the children my name in a whisper. Whose am I?
Answer: Northpoint's mind.

23. I am the loaf that does not bake. I stand on my stand at the foot of the tower, and I keep many words in many places. What am I?
Answer: the big mind's crystal.

24. There is white on the inside of the lamp room glass, though the stove is lit. The keeper wipes it each morning, and each morning it comes back. What is it?
Answer: the keeper's own breath, frozen.

25. I am the apprentice's favorite word, and the carter's least favorite. Say it, and the cart stops, and the carter sighs. What am I?
Answer: stay.

26. Winter is long. Every keeper counts something before she sleeps. What must she count?
Answer: the coal, the bread and the lamp oil.
%%
A wedding at the edge of Lowmarsh
The wedding of Wren's apprentice Moss and Lark, who keeps the horses at the edge of Lowmarsh, was held in the month of Blossom, on a day of good weather. This account was written by a neighbor, and Wren read it and said it was mostly true.

They were married on the boardwalk between the stable and the healing house, because it was the dry ground and they could both stand on it. The frogs sang all through it. Nobody minded.

Wren gave Moss a jar of honey from Ambrook and a box of herbs, and told her to keep the feverfew dry. The jar had a label on it in Wren's careful hand. Lark's mother came from Three Wells on a cart with a pumpkin in it, and a pie, and a second pumpkin in case the first was not enough. Dace sent a notice of the wedding and put the new names on the board, because it was his habit to put everything on the board.

The boat house apprentice carried the chairs down to the boardwalk and set them in a row. Then it stood by the water and did not move. Moss had written it an order for the day and it did it well. Nessa, who had come from Vell for the wedding, watched the apprentice for a while and then said it had been tested first, which is the rule. It was.

The wind came up in the afternoon and took the ribbons off the posts, and the children ran after them into the reeds. The pie was eaten. The second pumpkin was not needed but was taken home and eaten later, in Sowing, in soup.

There was music from a fiddle and a drum, and the dancing was on the firm boards where the water is shallow. The tide did not come up past the posts.

Late in the evening an apprentice came down the boardwalk with a letter for Moss from the big mind at the relay house, and Moss read it out to the company. It said: keep well, and keep the lamps lit. Everyone agreed it was a good letter and a kind thing to send.

At the end, Moss and Lark walked back to the stable with a lamp, and the frogs went quiet, and then they started again.
%%
The fox and the hen house
A spring riddle sheet by Corin, copied by the harbor children.
Keep the hens inside while you read.
A fox came down from the scrub one mild morning.
It sat by the hen house and watched the door.
The hens watched it back.
The keeper brought a broom.
The fox went off before anyone used it.

I have a red coat and a quick step.
I look at hens through a fence.
What am I?
Answer: A fox.

I cluck in the yard and lay an egg.
I have no key to the hen house.
What am I?
Answer: A hen.

I have a latch and wooden walls.
I keep the hens dry at night.
What am I?
Answer: A hen house.

I stand in a field and scare no one who knows me.
My head is straw, and I wear old clothes.
What am I?
Answer: A scarecrow.

I have a broom in my hand.
I can sweep the yard, but I cannot catch a fox.
What am I?
Answer: A keeper.

The fox left with nothing.
The keeper found one egg in the straw.
The hens made a loud report of the whole matter.
%%
Journal: the ferry in autumn
The water came up in Leaffall and took the lower landing. We moved the posts back and put a new rope. The old rope is in the shed. It is good rope still, but I do not trust it.

A family came down from the north with two carts and a cow and a girl who would not speak. They waited two days for the ferry and then went on to Saltreach. The man said the relays are going quiet one by one, from the north. He said it as a thing everyone knew. The woman said it was only the keepers going south for winter. They did not argue. They looked at the water.

The sick cow at the far farm is no better. The healer came and left a jar and said keep her warm and give her water and do not sell the milk. The farmer sits with her at night. He says she stands in the corner and looks at the wall. He says she is listening to something. I said it is the wind. He said maybe.

The broken relay lamp is still on the hill. The keeper's boy brought the copper ring down and put it on the board and nobody claimed it. The tower stands with no lamp. At night it is only a dark shape on the hill and the stars go over it.

I mend the rope and mind the boat. That is the work. In the evening the water is still and the frogs are loud and the far farm has one lamp lit. I do not know what the miners hear. I know what I hear, and it is only the water. I tell myself that.
%%
Mira's autumn riddles
In Apple, Mira stayed at a farm outside Northpoint while the tower roof was mended. The farm had a wheat field, a small apple store, and a barn with more spiders than the farmer liked. The horse was borrowed from a neighbor. It pulled Mira's sacks and tried to eat the corner of her note.

The farm children asked for riddles. Mira gave them these.

I have no hands, yet I turn the mill.
I have no mouth, yet I fill the sails.
I pass over the field and leave the wheat bent.
What am I?
The wind.

I have four legs, but I do not walk alone.
I pull the cart when the road is firm.
I stop when the barn door is open.
What am I?
The borrowed horse.

I have eight legs and a quiet house.
I stretch thin lines from beam to beam.
The flies find me before the farmer does.
What am I?
A spider.

I am a page that does not end at the edge.
I come to a mind one letter at a time.
The mind keeps a little window of letters behind the one it reads.
What am I?
A page sent to a reading mind.

The children asked how the mind knew what letter came next. Mira said it had been shown many pages. It had learned which letters often came after others, and which letters in its window mattered to the next guess. It did not know the page as a person knew a page. It made a guess from what it had learned.

One child asked if the mind could guess the end of a riddle before Mira spoke it. Mira said it could try. The child said that was cheating. Mira said a guess was not the same as knowing.

The horse pulled at the cart rope. One spider dropped from the barn beam onto Mira's sleeve. She finished the lesson outside.
%%
Corin's riddles for the boat shed
The spring tide came in before breakfast.
We moved the benches uphill and ate bread on the dry boards.
After the meal, I read these riddles aloud.
Old Sella answered all of them before I finished.
She says this is because she has lived beside the sea longer than I have.

I have a wooden side and a wooden side.
I carry the nets, but I catch no fish.
What am I?
Answer: A boat.

I have a handle and a sharp edge.
I cut rope when the knot will not come loose.
What am I?
Answer: A knife.

I have a little flame and a glass cover.
I help you find the door after dark.
What am I?
Answer: A lantern.

I have two hands and no fingers.
I tell when the bread is ready.
What am I?
Answer: The baker's clock.

We have no clock in the shed.
Sella says she knew the answer because the bread was burnt.
%%
Riddles from Pim's stall
Pim sells riddles at the Saltreach market, one emerald for a dozen. The answers come free, and so do the arguments. Pim says the arguments are the best part. Written down by Corin, who stood at the back and listened.

I am small when a mind is nearly right, and large when it is badly wrong. I tell each room how much to change. What am I?
Answer: the blame. A boy said, "The bill." Pim gave him half a point.

A mind is drilled all winter on the same hundred cards. It gets every card right. In spring it is shown a new card and is quite lost. What went wrong?
Answer: nobody tested it on cards it had never seen. Never send an untested mind to the fields. A woman said the winter was to blame. Pim said the winter was innocent.

I was shown only sevens, all my life. Someone hands me a cover. I say seven. How often am I right?
Answer: one time in ten, and I am very sure every time. Pim says this one is for people who are sure.

I sit between the question and the answer. I am neither. Nobody can see what I keep. What am I?
Answer: the middle room of a layered mind. Merle says she does not know what the middle rooms keep. She only knows that without them the mind cannot learn the hard things.

I am the backbone of a boat, and I am always under the water. What am I?
Answer: the keel. Corin got this one before Pim finished the question. Pim made him pay a second emerald.

Pim keeps score on a slate. Nobody has got all five. Corin got four, and says the one about the sevens was unfair.
%%
Two Baskets and One Mark

Teague set two baskets on the table after the press was clean. One held apples. One held pears. He gave the children a slate and told them to mark the right basket.

"What if I put apples and pears in one basket?" asked Lio.
"Then you must ask the fruit to stand in two places," said Teague.
The children laughed. The fruit did not answer.

Answer to the riddle: One basket cannot be marked as two different baskets by one mark.

Kester's note was not about baskets. It was about a kind of learning crystal. It had one set of weights that moved its answer one way or another. Kester showed that this single kind could not learn a rule that said one answer or the other, but not both. The example is hard to picture, so Teague made it a riddle.

When the note reached Copperhold, the tutors argued over it. One said the crystal had been drilled badly. Another said the test was fair. Kester had shown his work, and the council would not pay for more trials. The tutor hall shut. Some teachers went back to the mine. Some went to farms.

Our farm still had one small apprentice. It brought apples to the press and stacked split wood by the door. It could learn a simple task from repeated examples. It could not look at a mixed basket and invent a new answer. We did not ask it to do that.

The new copper vein lay under the north field wall. Hesk put a stake beside it. The first snow covered the stake, so we tied a red wool strip to the fence. Teague said the strip looked like a very small flag for a very small mine.
%%
All the winter riddles, Oak's copy
Eight riddles for the long nights. Oak wrote the answers under each, and he will argue with you about some of them.

Riddle: What did the judges at the song contest in the square fail to hear?
Answer: The tenth song. It was sung under the boats by a boy who did not want a prize. Oak says it was the best one.

Riddle: The relay lamp on the hill blinked one strange message, and no keeper could read it. What was it?
Answer: Nobody knows. The keeper said a wet cloth in the lamp room. Some say it was a joke. Some say a mistake. The keeper still says cloth.

Riddle: What did the tutors find when they looked inside a crystal?
Answer: A room for words, a room for numbers, and a locked room at the back. They found some of it. The rest is still shut.

Riddle: Which part of a mind sorts the apples?
Answer: Nobody has found that part for sure. Some of it was found. The rest was not.

Riddle: What is cold and hard, and gets colder the deeper you go?
Answer: Deep stone. The miners know it best, and they do not hurry through it.

Riddle: What stands taller than any tree for half a day's walk?
Answer: A relay tower. The one at Northpoint has a stair with ninety rungs inside.

Riddle: What is written on the board at the shaft head, and rubbed out coming up?
Answer: A miner's name. Every miner writes it going down and rubs it out coming up, so the board stays clean for the next shift.

Riddle: How far can a lamp be seen at night?
Answer: As far as the next tower, on a clear night, if the keeper is awake.
%%
Riddles of the order that went wrong
Set by Nessa for the school, for the children who got the orders wrong on the slate. She says it is not a shame. She says the orders are only plain if the mind can hear them plainly.

11. An apprentice was told: fetch bread. It came back with the bread board. Which word did it not understand?
Answer: bread. It took the word for the board the bread is cut on.

12. I was told to haul the stone to the wall, and I hauled it to the lake. What did I not understand?
Answer: the wall. It did not see that the wall was the place it was going.

13. I was told to stay by the gate, and I stayed by the gate. Then I was told to come, and I stayed. What did I misunderstand?
Answer: the second order. Come means come to me, and I was already by the gate, so I thought staying was the same.

14. A tutor wrote: store the apples. The apprentice put the apples on top of the store, and the store fell down. What word was wrong?
Answer: store. It means put the thing away on its shelf, not on top of it.

15. The card said: build the wall. The apprentice began to build, but it built the wall in a circle, because it did not see the pattern. What should it have followed?
Answer: the straight line drawn on the card.

16. When a mind is not sure which of the eight orders is meant, what must it still do?
Answer: pick one of the eight. It cannot say that it does not know. So the tutors write their orders plain.
%%
The baker's spring riddles
From the slate beside the bread oven.
Answers are on the back.
Do not read the back before supper.

I am round and brown.
I am warm when the baker brings me out.
What am I?
Answer: A loaf.

I have a mouth but never eat.
I carry a boat down to the sea.
What am I?
Answer: The slip.

I shine in a jar.
Bees made me from flowers.
What am I?
Answer: Honey.

I have a wheel but do not travel.
Water turns me beside the pond.
What am I?
Answer: A mill.

The children said the loaf was the best answer.
They were right.
The baker said the slate was not a plate.
%%
Riddles from the cart
Bel's riddles, written on the back of a bill from the miller, and then copied out again neatly for the school. They were used on the way back from Ambrook, when the cart got stuck in the ruts past the bend and everybody had to get out and push. The cart did not move. The riddles did, slowly, like the wheels.

The cart went into the mud, and the mud did not let it out. The horse looked at the mud. The mud looked at the horse. Who will be the first to move? Answer: nobody, until the children get out and push.

Riddle for the one who pushes: the harder I am pushed, the more I stay where I am. What am I? Answer: a stuck cart, and the children found this out the hard way.

Riddle for the one who holds the reins: I know the road, but I do not know which way it goes. I tell you where to turn, and then I go wherever I like. What am I? Answer: the horse, when it has had enough of the mud.

Riddle for the miller's boy: I am heavier than the cart and lighter than the flour. I come in a sack, and I go out in a loaf. What am I? Answer: the wheat, which the miller's boy was supposed to be carrying.

Riddle for the old man at the back: I was dug up in the spring and carried to the cellar. I have been waiting all winter for somebody to eat me. What am I? Answer: a potato, and the old man has been eating them since before the cart was built.

Riddle for Bel: I am never finished, and I am always being written. What am I? Answer: the riddles, and every time one gets answered, another one is written under it.

Riddle for everybody: What do you do when the cart is stuck, the road is cold, and the sun is going down? Answer: you push, and you laugh, and you wait for the horse to decide.
%%
The stuck cart riddles
Written down by Arlo, innkeeper at the Halfway Inn, in autumn, after a cart stuck in the mud outside the door for nine hours. The riddles were told by the carters while they waited to be pulled out. Arlo wrote the answers on the back.

Riddle one, from the carter with the red cart.
I have two wheels or four, I am pulled by a horse or a donkey, and I am always, always stuck.
Answer: A cart.

Riddle two, from the carter's mate.
I rise in the morning and set at night. I am never late. I do not need a road.
Answer: The sun.

Riddle three, from a pilgrim who was waiting for the same cart.
I have a mouth but never eat. I have a bed but never sleep. I run, but have no legs.
Answer: A river.

Riddle four, from Arlo.
I have a thousand hands, but I cannot clap. I sit by the road. I am green in spring and gold in autumn.
Answer: A tree.

Riddle five, from the horse, who said nothing but looked at the others in a way that seemed to say: please stop and pull.
There is no answer to this one. The horse was telling us to get on with it.

The cart was pulled out at nightfall by six people, a rope, and a second horse. The first carter said it was the best nine hours he ever had. His mate said it was the worst. They were both right.
%%
Riddles for the farm gate
Mira gave these to the farm folk outside Northpoint. They read them by the barn door while the borrowed horse ate its hay.

I have no feet, but I cross the field.
I shake the wheat and make the scarecrow bow.
What am I?
The wind.

I am small and bright, and I sit in a pane.
I let the pale day into the room.
What am I?
A glass pane.

I have a ladder inside me and a lamp at each turn.
I stand above the snow.
What am I?
The Northpoint relay tower.

I have a round back and a rough coat.
I carry a sack when the path is clear.
What am I?
The borrowed horse.

The horse heard its answer and stamped once.
The farm boy said that was agreement.
Mira said it was a request for more hay.
%%
Letter: a miner's wife to her sister
Dear sister,

You asked how we are. We are well enough. The market is good this autumn. Apples and honey and new boots. I bought a pot and a rope and a jar of honey and I do not need any of them.

The town is quiet. The men come up and eat and go to bed and do not talk much. Hesk says the Deep Works hums. He says it is nothing and then he says it is not nothing. He has stopped going below the eighth. Many have. The count board by the shaft head shows fewer names each week and the mine hall says it is the autumn and the men are tired. Maybe it is the autumn.

There are two rumors and they do not agree. One is that the stone is warm and the old tunnels walled up are not walled up any more. The other is that it is only the pumps and the pumps have always hummed. I do not know which to believe and I do not say either to the children.

The relay is out. The keeper's boy climbs the tower every morning and comes down. My letters to Mother go by cart to Three Wells now, so this one will be slow. Write back the same way.

The cow at the far farm is sick. The farmer will not sell her and will not put her down. He sits with her. I understand it. Some things you sit with.

The nights are long now. Keep the torches lit.

Your sister.
%%
Iona's Riddle Book
Spring, the 187th year of the archive

Iona keeps horses at the Brown Hen on the Long Road. She wrote these riddles for travelers who arrive before supper and ask what there is to do.

I shine by the road, but I am not the moon. What am I?
A torch.

I have a neck and a mouth, but I cannot speak. What am I?
A bottle.

I have a back, but no bones. What am I?
A bench.

I carry hay and still have room for a sleeping cat. What am I?
A cart.

I get shorter while I help you see. What am I?
A torch that is burning.

Iona says the answers are plain once you hear them. Pell says that is true of most answers.

She keeps the riddle book in the tack room, beside the brush and the spare reins. The cat sleeps on it whenever the door is open.
%%
Riddles at the Oak Post
Written by Lise, who came down to the Oak Post with a cart of hay in the spring and stayed for the stew. Sella had the riddle board up in the yard, under the eaves, where the rain does not reach it. Spring.

Q: I walk with the carts, and I never ride, and I am always the first to be tired. What am I?
A: The carter's dog. Sella says the dog is the only one at the Oak Post who has never been paid.

Q: What is brown and round and ends up in the bread?
A: The heel. Dorn says it is the best part, and he has eaten every heel that Sella has ever cut.

Q: What sits by the stove, and will not move, and will not let anyone else sit?
A: The cat in the bakery, which Mott has been trying to move since Frost. Lise says the cat has won.

Q: What is the carter's best friend on the north road, after the horse?
A: The lamp on the front of the cart. It does not sleep, and it does not complain about the hills.

Q: What is in the sack, and is not flour, and is not grain, and is always the first thing the carter checks?
A: The oats for the horse. Sella says the riddle is too easy, and the carters say that is why they keep getting it wrong.

Q: What does the road say to the carter at dusk?
A: Keep your lamp lit. Lise says she has heard this from every carter who has stopped in the yard this spring, and she has not yet heard any other answer.
%%
Riddles for a Quiet Hall

Teague wrote these on a board by the cider press.
The first snow came in Leaffall. It lay on the north side of the barn and melted from the south side by noon.

I have two baskets.
One holds apples and one holds pears.
I put each fruit in its own basket.
What do I learn?
Answer: I learn to sort apples from pears.

I have one basket for apples and pears.
I put apples on one side and pears on the other.
Can I learn to put each fruit in a different basket?
Answer: Not if I have only one choice between two answers.

Kester said a single crystal of this sort could not learn one or the other, but not both. He showed it with a clear note. Some folk said he had made the question too narrow. Others said the tutors had asked too much of one crystal.

The council stopped paying the tutors. The hall at Copperhold shut its door. Our small apprentice still carried sacks from the press to the shed. It learned that one job well.
%%
The market at Copperhold, autumn
The market at Copperhold is held on the flat ground by the shaft head, where the road comes up from the Deep Works and the carts can turn. The stalls go up before light. The miners come up in the dark and walk to the stalls with their lamps still lit, and the whole market smells of coal and bread and wet wool.

A woman sells apples from Ambrook. A man sells honey in jars with cloth over the tops. There is a stall of boots, a stall of rope, a stall of pots, and a woman who mends nets and will not say why she came so far inland. The bakery at the mine gate sends up loaves on a cart. The count board by the shaft head says how many went down and how many came up, and the miners look at it before they look at the bread.

The talk this autumn is quiet. The miners say the Deep Works hums at night. One says it is the pumps. Another says the pumps have been stopped for a month. A third says the stone is warm on the eighth and he does not go there now. Nobody laughs. They eat their bread and go back down.

A boy sells riddles on a card for a copper. A woman with a sick cow asks everyone if they know a healer who will come out this far. The relay lamp on the tower above the town is broken. The keeper's boy climbs it every morning and comes down shaking his head. The tower still stands. The lamp does not turn.

At the end of the day the stalls come down and the flat ground is empty and the wind comes up the hill from the works, and it is warm, and nobody says so.
%%
Riddles for the school at Vell
Set by Nessa for the children of the school at Vell, for the cold weeks. Say each riddle out loud before you check the answer.

1. I stand at the foot of the tower, the size of a loaf, and I am cooled by ice. Apprentices ask me things through the lamp, and I answer. What am I?
Answer: the big mind of a relay house.

2. I sit in a ring of quickeners, and they keep me cool with water, ice or snow. If they melt, I grow warm, and warm minds make mistakes. What are they?
Answer: the quickeners.

3. I am the message that goes from tower to tower, one blink at a time, down the line. When I reach the end, somebody reads me. What am I?
Answer: a relay message.

4. I am made of copper and iron, and I walk, and carry, and dig. I wake knowing nothing. What am I?
Answer: an apprentice.

5. I am shown the same kind of example again and again, and each time I am wrong, I change a little. What is done to me?
Answer: I am drilled.
%%
Teague's Press Supper

The new copper vein was found under the field wall, just beyond the beetroot rows. Hesk marked the place with a stone and told the children to leave it alone. The mine keeper would come when the ground was dry.

That evening, the first snow came. It blew under the cider shed door and gathered in a white line by the press. We pushed a wool blanket against the gap. Teague said the snow had come to help keep the cider cool. His wife said it could help by staying outside.

At supper I asked the old riddle:
I have one place to put a mark.
The fruit is apple and pear together.
Can I mark apple and pear at once?
Answer: No. One place holds one mark.

Kester used a plain example in his note. A crystal of that kind could choose one answer or the other. It could not learn a rule that needed both choices at once. He did not claim that every crystal failed at every task. He showed a limit in the one kind he had tested.

The tutor at Copperhold had been teaching a sorting crystal. He read Kester's note by the lamp, then put the lesson pages in a box. The council stopped paying for lessons. The hall closed before the next thaw.

Our helper still carried apples to the press and wood to the stove. It had learned those jobs by being shown them many times. It did not make new plans. It did not mind the snow in its joints. We wiped it dry and set it by the wall.
%%
Riddles for the children at the Halfway
Written by Lise, for the children who came up to the riddle board after the harvest failed in the low fields. Lise says the children were not frightened. She says they only wanted something to do with their hands. Spring.

Q: What grows in the field, but is never eaten by the farmer?
A: The weeds. The farmer pulls them every spring and they come back every year, bigger than before.

Q: What goes up and down the ladder, all night long, and never once falls?
A: The lamp keeper's boots. Lise says they are very tired.

Q: I can be bread, or beer, or nothing at all. What am I?
A: The wheat, when the rain has taken it. Nobody can say what it will be until it is harvested.

Q: What do the miners call the place they cannot go?
A: The ninth gate. The miners do not say what is behind it. They only say it is locked, and that the key hangs on a nail, and that nobody goes to fetch it.

Q: What is the warm thing that comes up from under the field?
A: Nobody knows. The children say it is a potato, and that the ground is hot because of the potatoes. Lise says the potatoes are not that hot.

Q: Where is the best place to sleep when the snow comes?
A: The hay loft, with the cat. Lise says the cat knows, and the cat is in the loft.

Q: How many cows can you count in a field that has been empty for a year?
A: None. Lise says the riddle is a trick, and that the children should be ashamed of asking it. The children say they are not ashamed.
%%
Letter: Yew to the ferry folk
To all who wait at the crossing,

The ferry runs at dawn and at dusk and not in the dark. The water is high and the current is strong. Bring a coat. The landing on the far side is muddy. Hold the rope.

The old lamp post at the landing has lost its lamp. A wagon caught it in Sowing and broke the glass. Nobody has mended it. Bring a torch if you come late.

Two folk from the north came down this week and said the relay at Northpoint has gone quiet. A tinker said it was the snow early. A woman with a cart of apples said it was not the snow. I do not know. The ferry runs either way.

The cow at the far farm is sick. The farmer says her milk is thin and she stands in the corner and will not eat. The healer has been sent for. Do not buy milk at the far farm this month.

Do not pay the boy at the landing. He is my nephew and he will take your coin and grin.

Yew, ferry keeper.
%%
The riddles on the card, with answers
A boy at the Copperhold market sells a card of riddles for a copper. Here they are, copied out, with the answers under each.

What has a mouth and never eats, and a bed and never sleeps?
A river.

What is black and white and goes up and down all day and never leaves the mine?
The count board.

What has a hundred eyes and cannot see, and a head of yellow hair?
A sheaf of wheat.

What goes into the ground dark and comes out warm?
Coal.

What stands on the hill with no lamp and still shows the way home?
The tower at night. You can see it against the stars.

What is given away and kept, and grows the more you give it?
A story.

What has a ring and no finger, and glass and no window?
The broken relay lamp on the hill. The keeper's boy will tell you.

What walks on eight legs and never goes to market?
A spider, and it is not welcome there.

(Answers are shouted, not written, unless you pay the boy another copper. He is saving for boots.)
%%
Riddles for the long winter evenings
Bel wrote these at the table by the east window, while the stove was going and the cat was asleep on the paper. Her father said the riddles were too hard. Her mother said they were just right. Her brother said that was because she had taken all the easy ones for herself.

Here is a riddle for the cold. The more it snows, the less you see of it. What is it?
Answer: the road to Ambrook, because it is only a path in winter.

I am made of stones, and I hold up the roof, and I never move, though the wind pushes at me all day. Yet I can fall in a moment. What am I?
Answer: a chimney, which is why Bel's father always climbs it in the spring.

A child sees me at the foot of the tower, and an old man sees me in his dreams. The keeper calls me her friend, and the foxes call me theirs. What am I?
Answer: a lamp, or possibly the keeper's stove, which the foxes like very much.

My hands are always open, and I never give anything away. You put things in me, and then you lose them. What am I?
Answer: a store chest in the inn, or a pocket with a hole in it.

Walk round and round, and never get anywhere. You will be tired at the end, but the road will still be there. What am I?
Answer: the ring round the copper lamp at the top of the tower, or a dog chasing its tail in the yard.

I am hungry all the time, and I eat only wood and straw. I make a noise when I am fed, and the warmer I am, the happier I am. What am I?
Answer: the stove in the schoolroom, and the children are asked to keep it fed.
%%
The Kettle Ridge riddle book, 201
Vane kept a small book of riddles through the spring of 201 and the summer after. The children asked for one each morning before the bell, and the adults asked for one each night before bed. When a riddle was too hard, Vane wrote the answer at the bottom in small letters, so the children could look and feel clever later. Here are the best ones from the book, with the answers the children agreed on.

1. A field of gold stands in the wind, and when the mill turns, it bows to the ridge. The farmer walks through it at dawn, but he never goes in with a sack.
Answer: wheat, bowing before the windmill, which the farmers do every Reaping.

2. I have a red coat, a white middle, and a thousand small roots that go into the soil. I am sweeter than you think, and I am not a fruit.
Answer: a beetroot. Some children said a carrot, but a carrot is orange and does not have a coat.

3. Tam keeps me in a box by the door. I am the warmest thing in the house in winter, and I am the most trouble when I go out. I eat the flour, and I want to sleep in the boots.
Answer: a cat, and Tam's cat has four kittens in the left boot, which is a fact, not a riddle.

4. The road runs past my gate, and every cart stops to ask me the same question. I say the same thing each time. I have never been wrong.
Answer: the signpost, which says Three Wells on one side and the Halfway Inn on the other.

5. Night comes and I come out with it. I wait by the torch and I am always hungry. The farmer hides from me, but the crops do not.
Answer: a spider, though the children say a creeper, and Vane writes that both are wrong, and the torch is right.

6. I wake the whole ridge before the sun. I have no feathers and I never crow. I sing only when someone pulls my rope.
Answer: the Kettle Ridge bell, rung at dawn.

7. You cannot hold me, you cannot see me, and yet you can carry me up the hill in a cart. What am I?
Answer: the wind, which the children always forget to think of, and then all say at once.

Vane says the children solved more riddles than the clerks did. The clerks were slower, and they argued more. The children only argued about who had to ask the next one.
%%
The New Vein

A new copper vein showed in the field above our farm.
It was a thin green line in the cut earth, and Hesk said not to dig there until the mine keeper had seen it.

The first snow had fallen two nights before. It rested on the fence rails and on the roof of the cider shed. We covered the apple baskets with wool. The apples must stay dry before pressing.

At supper, Noll asked a riddle.
I have two marks, one for apple and one for pear.
I must choose one mark, even when I see both.
What can I never say?
Answer: I cannot say both.

Kester's note said a crystal with one such choice could not learn one or the other, but not both. He had not said that all minds were useless. He had shown what that kind of crystal could not do.

The tutor from Copperhold read the note aloud. Then he rolled it and tied it with string. The council would not pay for more lessons that season. The tutor took his tools home.

Our little helper still hauled wood. It could not tell us which basket held pears unless we drilled that task into it. We gave it the same two baskets each morning. By Frost, it made fewer mistakes.
%%
Riddles after a bad lesson
Written on the riddle board at the Halfway Inn by Arlo, innkeeper, in the autumn after a tutor passing through tried to teach his apprentice a new order in the common room, and it went wrong. Arlo wrote riddles to cheer her up.

The lesson. The tutor, a young woman called Ness, was drilling her apprentice. She showed it a card. It read "fetch bread". The apprentice fetched a pillow. She showed it again. It fetched a pot. She showed it a third time. It fetched the cat. By the evening, the apprentice had brought her eleven different things, none of them bread. She went out to the yard and sat on a barrel. Arlo found her.

Arlo said, I will give you a riddle. If you answer, I will give you a loaf of bread, and the apprentice can fetch it.

Riddle one. I have four legs and a tail. I give milk. I stand in the road and will not move.
Answer: A cow.

Riddle two. Everyone has me. Few use me well. I grow when you teach me.
Answer: A mind.

Riddle three. I am a tutor's friend and enemy. The more you give me, the better I am. The less you give me, the worse. I am never right at first.
Answer: A drill.

Ness laughed at the third one. She said: that is exactly right. She said: the apprentice is not wrong, it is only early.

Arlo said: then give it another drill. She did. By midnight, the apprentice brought a loaf. It was warm. It was Arlo's own. Ness ate half and gave the rest to the apprentice, which could not eat it but held it. The common room clapped.

Riddle four, left on the board by Ness. I am wrong again and again, and each time I change a little. In the end, I am right. What am I?
Answer: A mind, learning.
%%
Riddles to learn a layered mind by
Senna teaches the little class at the Saltreach school house. She says a child who can answer all twelve of these knows what a layered mind is. The class chalks the answers on slates. In the thin year the class got one riddle a day and one slice of bread, and Senna says the riddles lasted longer. Copied by Corin, for the boys at the yard.

1. I can draw one straight line across a board: yes on this side, no on that. I can do nothing else. What am I?
Answer: one crystal, on its own.

2. Who proved that no single crystal can learn "one or the other, but not both"?
Answer: Kester, in his famous note. After it the councils stopped paying the tutors, and it was a long time before they began again.

3. One crystal draws a straight line. Put crystals in rooms, one feeding the next, and the line can bend. What do we call the rooms?
Answer: layers.

4. Every card makes one trip forward through the rooms and comes out as an answer. What makes the trip back?
Answer: the blame, from the answer to the first room.

5. Which room gets the largest share of the blame?
Answer: the one that did the most to make the answer wrong.

6. After the blame comes, what does each room do?
Answer: it moves its weights a little, toward the right answer, as Una moved hers at Ambrook.

7. How big is a little?
Answer: small. Too big, and the mind jumps right past the answer. Too small, and the drill takes all year.

8. A mind is shown the very same card ten thousand times. What does it learn?
Answer: that card, and nothing else.

9. When do we stop the drill?
Answer: when the mistakes stop falling.

10. How do we know the mind learned, and did not just remember the cards?
Answer: we test it on cards it has never seen.

11. What did Merle's first layered minds read?
Answer: the numbers written on letters for the relays.

12. Why does any of this work?
Answer: nobody wrote that down. Merle does not know, and Kester did not know, and Senna does not know. She says a good riddle ends there.

Senna sang the last riddle at the harbor song contest, to the tune of a song about a cod. She came second. The cod song won.
%%
Notice: the market board, Copperhold
Posted at the shaft head, and copied for the mine gate.

The market is held on the flat ground. Stalls must be down by dark. No fires except the forge fire and the lamp at the shaft head.

Lost: a brown dog with one white ear, last seen by the sorting shed. Answers to Moss. Not the healer. The dog. Reward is a loaf.

Found: a broken relay lamp, glass and copper ring, on the hill above the tower. If it is yours, speak to the keeper's boy.

For sale: a cow, good milker, but she is sick and will not eat. Cheap. The healer has looked at her and says she may get better and may not. Ask for the far farm.

Rumor: the lights over the north were seen again last night by two men coming down the Long Road. One says falling stars. One says fires. A child at the inn says they were looking at us. Nobody knows. This is a notice board, not a place for answers.

The relay is still out. Messages for the north go by cart to Three Wells and wait there.

By order of the mine hall.
%%
Riddles at the Brown Hen
Spring, the 164th year of the archive

Iona set six riddles on the inn board. The travelers guessed while their boots dried.

I have four legs, but I do not walk. What am I?
A table.

I carry a rider and eat no bread. What am I?
A saddle.

I have a bed but never sleep. What am I?
A road.

I am full of holes, yet I hold water. What am I?
A fishing net.

Iona read the answers aloud. Pell said the table had won because nobody had ridden it.

Then she set out bread and honey. No one guessed that one. They ate it instead.
%%
Riddles from the boat house wall
Oak keeps these on the boat house wall, by the nets. Each has its answer under it.

Riddle: I run from the first layer to the last, carrying what each one found. A deep mind can still learn because of me. What am I?
Answer: The stream. Every layer adds to it.

Riddle: A mind gives a wrong answer. Who passes the blame back, one layer at a time?
Answer: The layers do, from the answer back to the first one. That is how a layered mind learns hard things.

Oak says the fish in the harbor are slower than the riddles, and easier to catch.
%%
A riddle for the reading room
Mira sent this to Tam from the farm outside Northpoint. The wind had pushed snow against the barn door. Spiders had made webs between the rafters, and the borrowed horse had eaten the last clean straw.

I take one letter, then another.
I do not swallow the whole page at once.
I keep a short window of what came before.
Some letters matter for the next one.
I guess what letter should come now.
What am I?

A reading mind.

Tam sent back a riddle of his own.

I have a window, but I am not a house.
I look at letters, but I have no eyes.
I answer a page, but I cannot turn it.
What am I?

The big mind at the relay house.

Mira wrote that the answer was nearly right. The big mind did not look with eyes. The page went to it through the relay. Its window held about sixty letters. When a new letter came, the mind used the letters before it that mattered and guessed the next.

The borrowed horse pulled Tam's reply to the tower. It stopped at the barn to scratch its back on the door. The spiders did not approve.
%%
Mira's note on the window
In the autumn of 207, I stayed three nights at a farm beyond Northpoint. The farmer had borrowed a horse to bring in his wheat. It was a patient horse, except when anyone tied it near the apple store. It could smell the apples through the wall.

The barn was full of spiders. The farmer swept their webs from the door each morning. By evening, the spiders had made them again. He said they were better at rebuilding than his youngest boy.

The children asked me how the reading mind worked. I gave them riddles first.

I read a page one letter at a time.
I do not hold the whole page in my window.
I keep about sixty letters there.
When the next letter comes, I use what came before.
Some old letters matter. Some do not.
I guess the next letter.
What am I?
A reading mind.

I do not have eyes, but I can read a letter.
I do not have a voice, but I can write an answer.
I have learned from many pages.
What am I?
A big mind in a relay house.

The children wanted to know if the mind remembered every page. I told them that was not the right question. The mind had been changed by its drills. It had learned patterns from the pages, then used those patterns to guess what should come next. It did not need to keep every page open before it.

The window was not a window of glass. It was the short span of letters the mind could use at once. The letters in that span did not all count the same. A letter could matter because of the letters beside it, or because of a word that had just begun. The mind learned which parts of the window helped with each guess.

A boy asked whether the mind knew what a whole sentence meant. I said the new work was to read and guess the next letter. Some minds wrote so well that a reader could not tell their letters from a person's. That brought Orla's old question back to the tutors. It did not settle the question.

The children looked at one another. Then the youngest asked if I could guess the next line of his riddle. I said I could guess, but I would not always be right.

The horse came to the door and put its nose in the flour sack. The farmer led it outside before it could eat the paper too. At dusk, the spiders returned to the rafters. I left them the barn and took my notes to the tower.
