The Gift

by Alison Croggon

  "They tried to make me," said Hem. "They said they would beat me, and they said I would have nothing to eat and be locked in my room. And then they laughed at me, and it was horrible, and they said they would stab me instead, and they put the knife to my throat. But, but... I couldn't. And then they ... no, no, I can't say." He hid his face in his hands. "They killed him. It was horrible. And then they said next time, unless I did it, it would be me." Hem was crying now, and the tears ran down his face, making little rivulets in the dirt. Maerad and Cadvan waited, and after a while he stopped crying, although his chest still made little jumps and hiccups.

  "They locked me in my room. And I didn't have anything to eat that day, nor the next day. And then the next day the Bar— the Hulls and everyone went out, and someone robbed the house. It was Sharn. And he found me in my room, and he took me away with him."

  "What else did he steal?" asked Cadvan.

  "Oh, money, and some things he could sell. Stones."

  "What kind of stones?"

  "Precious stones that he could sell. He said he would hide until the fuss died down, and then he would go south and sell them at the markets and make his fortune. And I thought that was good, and that I would go south with them, and maybe find the places that the birds talked about. And that's why we were in the Valverras." He paused, and his face creased again with sorrow. "They were kind to me. They said I was one of their own."

  Cadvan now took the boy's chin in his hand, as he had once before, and Hem looked up straightly into his eyes. After a long time, Cadvan smiled; and Maerad relaxed with sudden relief. She was sure Hem was not lying this time.

  "Why didn't the Hulls find you, when they attacked the Pilanel?" asked Maerad.

  Hem shuddered. "I heard them coming from far off," he said. "I knew they were coming to the camp. I told Sharn, but he told me I was being stupid and imagining things. So then I hid, and the Pilanel thought I had run away into the wastes; and then the, the Hulls came. . . ." He trailed off, and his face was haunted with black memory. "I heard everything," he said, whispering. "They wanted to know where I was, and Sharn said they had sold me, then he said I'd run away; and then they, they killed the baby and tortured them, and Sharn kept screaming I had run away. But I think the Hulls did it for, for fun. And they said they would find me anyway, and they laughed and rode off."

  The three sat silently for a while, and Maerad thought of the pitiful bodies they had seen, and then tried not to think of them.

  "Hem," Cadvan said, and his voice was no longer stern. "I don't suppose you have any of these stones with you?"

  Hem reluctantly took out the little bag he kept around his neck and fumbled with the drawstring. Out tumbled three polished black stones carved with grinning, malicious faces, and a tarnished silver trinket. "I thought," he stammered, "that I could sell them at the market, like Sharn said he was going to, and then I could go south. There were other stones, but the Hulls must have taken them back." He looked at the objects in his hand, and gave the stones to Cadvan. "The medallion is mine," he said, with an odd defiance, as if he thought he wouldn't be believed. "I didn't steal that." He closed his fist tightly over it.

  Cadvan took the stones and rolled them in his hand, laughing softly. "Oh, Hem, Hem, Hem," he said. "You do not know what these are. Yes, you might be able to sell them at a market, but only to those who know how to use them."

  "What are they?" asked Maerad curiously.

  "They're warestones. The Hulls must have left them there in case anyone came back to the caravan. Probably they thought you would, Hem. I doubt they would have believed their luck when we turned up. They're useless now; there's no power left in them. I think last night you blasted everything of the Dark within miles, Maerad. But I tell you, Hem, that if we had gone through Edinur in broad daylight with trumpets and heralds proclaiming our presence, it still would not have been as useful to the Hulls as having these little spies traveling with us. Everything we spoke of, everything we did, was open to the Hulls, as long as these stones were with us; and they knew exactly where we were, and who we were, and where we were going. They set a nice trap for us, and this time Cadvan of Lirigon was not to escape." He threw the stones one by one far into the downs.

  Maerad thought back uneasily to their conversations over the past few days. "We haven't talked much about anything lately," she said uncertainly.

  "No," said Cadvan. "Fortunately. Well, Hem, all's well that ends well, but it almost ended very badly. Almost in disaster."

  Hem looked down, and his cheeks flushed. Cadvan patted his shoulder. "I forgive you for almost getting us killed, or worse," he said. He tried to smile, and winced with pain. "But remember: the things of the Dark are best left alone. They are made only for evil reasons." Hem nodded, swallowing, and there was a pause. "Do you mind if I have a look at that medallion?"

  Hem reluctantly handed the object over to Cadvan, and he examined it closely. Maerad peered curiously at it; it was so tarnished it was almost black, with a design she couldn't make out on one side and some script on the other. She looked questioningly up at Cadvan, and saw his face go still with shock. He glanced swiftly across at Maerad with an odd expression, and then looked down at the medallion again. He turned it over and over in his hands, saying nothing.

  "What?" demanded Maerad, after the silence had lengthened unbearably. Hem was watching them both with a mixture of bafflement and fear.

  Cadvan didn't respond at first. "Maerad," he said at last. "Do you remember your father very well?"

  Maerad was taken aback by the question. "No, not really," she said. "A little. Why?"

  "Do you remember what he looked like?" Cadvan was gazing at her with a strange intensity, and she flicked obediently through her memories, wondering what was bothering him.

  "He, he was tall. And he had long black hair. I think he had gray eyes, or blue eyes, 1 can't remember. . . ." She pushed her hair out of her face and stared around her at the empty downs. Her blood was beginning to pound with a painful sense of expectation. "Why?"

  "Did you know Dorn was of the Pilanel?"

  "Of the Pilanel? No, I. . ." She looked back at Cadvan and then at Hem, her heart constricting.

  Cadvan was still looking at her with that strange intensity. "Maerad, did you see Cai being killed?"

  "Everyone was killed," she said, beginning to feel panicky. "Everyone except me and Milana."

  "But you didn't actually see Cai murdered?"

  "Nnnno. . . ." Maerad's hands twisted painfully together. "No, I didn't actually see him ... killed...."

  Cadvan handed her the medallion.

  She held it in her palm and rubbed her fingers over it. It didn't seem to be anything special at first; it was so dirty. But as she looked more closely, she saw it bore an intricate design of a flower: a lily. An arum lily. The same lily, even the same design, as on her brooch.

  "It's the lily of Pellinor, Maerad," Cadvan said softly. "This is an ancient thing, an heirloom. The signs of the Schools have not been made as medallions like this for some five hundred years."

  Maerad turned the medallion over. On the back was writing in the Nelsor script, but in her agitation she couldn't read it.

  "What does it say?" she whispered.

  "It says: Ardrost Kami. Minelm le carae."

  "The House of Karn. Minelm made me." Maerad sat back on her heels, her face blank. "The House of Karn."

  "Can I have it back?" Hem reached out his hand. "You've finished now? It's mine."

  Startled out of her reverie, Maerad automatically held out her hand toward him.

  "What's the matter?" he said.

  "The House of Karn is my house, Hem," Maerad said. She stared at him, her thoughts running so fast she could barely catch them.

  "So? It's my medallion." He snatched it from her and put it back in his drawstring bag. "It's mine."

  "Yes, it's yours," said Maerad, not knowing whether she wanted to laugh or cry. "But it's mine too. You see, the House of Karn is my family
."

  Startled, Hem stared back at her.

  Cadvan had been watching in silence. "You both have the same eyes," he said. "It's easy to see, when you know." He passed his hands over his brow. "I wish I were not so hurt. Or so tired. I think I see now."

  "See what?" Hem's face was strained and pale, his anger ebbing into confusion. "Are you playing me some trick?" For a second his face creased up, as if he were going to cry, and he put his fists to his eyes like a little boy. Maerad wanted to hug him, as she had without self-consciousness since they had found him, but felt herself constrained by an odd shyness. For a while all three sat in silence.

  "No one is playing tricks here," said Cadvan. "I think you could be Maerad's brother. You're the right age. And it would explain why the Hulls wanted you. They could have taken you after they sacked Pellinor."

  Maerad was coming out of her daze. "That's why I had to go in the Valverras. I had to." She shook her head, trying to rid herself of her stupefaction. "Hem, I know it's true. It means you're my brother and Hem isn't your name at all. Your proper name is Cai." She was still staring at him. "I thought you were dead."

  Maerad didn't know what she felt; disbelief, anger, joy, exhilaration, grief were all whirling into chaos inside her. Cadvan's face was stern, and Maerad remembered with a start that he was injured. She took a deep breath to calm herself.

  "I did wonder," Cadvan said at last. "I wondered why I should find two child Bards in such circumstances. In all my travels I have never even stumbled across one. It felt to me much more than the workings of chance. And I often pondered what it was that called you to that caravan. An evil force, I thought for a time; certainly it boded ill for me, and I wanted to stay away almost as much as you wanted to go there. But maybe it was a deep thing, a calling of kindred; and even if the Dark had a hand in these events, as I suspect, I have told you that the Dark understands nothing of love. Such callings are beyond their calculations. I remember Dorn, Maerad; and Hem is unmistakably Pilanel. It would explain why the Hulls were interested in him. But I might be wrong."

  "You're not often wrong," said Maerad with a wry smile, echoing something he had said to her long ago in Innail.

  "No." Cadvan smiled very slightly. "I'm not often wrong. Mind you, when I have been wrong, I've been very wrong indeed. So I am the less eager to make rash judgments. The lily token seems to confirm what I strongly suspect, something maybe you already knew, underneath. But still, we should be wary; it could be a trap. We don't know if that medallion really belongs to Hem."

  "A trap?" Maerad looked distractedly over at Hem. "I think we know what the trap was. And it didn't work." Hem was hunched over, turned away from them, and he was very still. "I know he's my brother," she said, fiercely. "Why did the Hulls take him? Is he the One?"

  "Hem isn't the One," said Cadvan heavily. "His Gift is nothing like yours."

  "But you still don't know for sure if it's me," Maerad said.

  "No," said Cadvan. "I feel all but sure. A little surer, in fact, if Hem really is Cai. It would mean that the Hulls knew something that we didn't know, plainly It could mean that they guessed that the One was to be born to Milana and Dorn. I don't know how they knew that. But I believe they picked the wrong child."

  Maerad shivered. It might have been her. . . . Compared to Hem's life, Gilman's Cot had been merciful. She had never had to deal with the horrors of the Hulls as a child, and, for a short while, she had had her mother. But Hem—Cai—had been little more than a baby when their lives were destroyed. He had never known any gentleness.

  She crept over to Hem and put her arms around him, and he clutched her convulsively, hiding his face in her cloak. They sat silently together, beyond words. Cadvan turned away. After some time, Hem let Maerad go, and he noisily blew his nose.

  Cadvan was standing, shading his eyes, looking into the distance. He glanced at Hem and Maerad.

  "We still have to get off the downs, and the day is passing," he said. "I would not like to pass another night in the open, even with Maerad the Unpredictable to protect us; and my head is sore as a bear's. Where's Darsor?"

  As they had talked the sun had risen high, and it was now already midmorning. It was a warm summer's day. The downs stretched green and peaceful around them with a faint haze of heat, and everywhere was a warm hum of bees. There was no sign of Darsor. Hem had black shadows under his eyes and looked ready to drop with weariness.

  "You two Pellinor folk should rest while we are waiting," said Cadvan. "I couldn't sleep if I wanted to, with this headache. I'll watch for Darsor."

  "Pellinor?" Hem said, with the ghost of a smile. "I can't remember all these names."

  "You're going to have to," said Maerad, with mock sternness.

  "Make me, then," said Hem, flashing her a look of mischief she hadn't seen before. "I bet you can't."

  My brother, Maerad thought in wonder.

  They lay down and Hem was asleep in less than a minute. Maerad's mind was too agitated for sleep; she finally sat up again and watched Cadvan, who turned to her with a faint smile on his torn face and then resumed scanning the horizon. Maerad sat in silence, reflecting on what had happened in the past twelve hours. She was still dizzy with the successive shocks: first the ambush, then coming into the Speech, then discovering her brother. Her thoughts couldn't rest on anything for long, but leaped ahead of her, flashing a kaleidoscope of images into her mind: Cadvan falling senseless from Darsor, the deathly face of the wight, Hem's medallion....

  She remembered with a strange unease the exhilaration which had possessed her when she had come into her Gift in the battle at the Broken Teeth. For those moments she had felt invulnerable and immeasurably dangerous; the power that surged through her seemed infinite, as if she merely had to crook her finger and entire cities would crumble at her whim. It was a heady feeling, but it also frightened her. Ardina's words in their last conversation came back to her: Perhaps you will find that your greatest peril exists already within you. Was this disturbing joy what she meant?

  After about an hour they saw Darsor emerging from the Broken Teeth, closely followed by Imi. The great horse cantered up to Cadvan and put his head on his shoulder.

  I feared for you, my friend, said Darsor. I thought perhaps we had ridden together for the last time.

  "I thought so too," Cadvan answered him, and he caressed the horse. "But it was not so."

  The girl is a great mage already, said Darsor. And she is but newly foaled. What will she do when she is grown?

  "Only the Light knows," said Cadvan.

  Darsor bent down and blew in Maerad's ear. Imi still hung back behind Darsor, and her head drooped. She was marked all over with white lines of dried sweat and looked entirely disconsolate. Maerad went up to the mare and flung her arms around her neck. Imi snuffled her, her ears pricking upward.

  "It's all right now," Maerad said to the mare.

  At last you can speak! said Imi, standing back and blowing out of her nose. And then she dropped her head low. I'm sorry I ran away.

  "It was better so," Maerad said, stroking her. "What could you have done? And now you're back; that's all that matters."

  I had to search long to find her, said Darsor, and then she would not come, because she was so ashamed. But she is here now.

  "There is no shame in running from such foes," Cadvan said. "Even the mightiest might be excused for quailing. All is well, and now we must go away from here. Tonight we will all dine well, yes?"

  Darsor put up his head and neighed loudly, waking Hem, who sat up, rubbing his eyes. Almost at once they mounted and cantered slowly down the straight road.

  After an hour their path started to incline upward, and then they saw that the downs ran up, like a green tide, against a high ridge of jagged stone. They reached the ridge, called Raur na Nor, the fiery Crown of Norloch, two hours after noon. The road pierced the stone, continuing the undeviating course laid many centuries before by the Bards of Annar. Here they rode into a narrow gorge, and the he
ights of the Crown soared a hundred feet over their heads, casting them into deep shadow. An hour later, very suddenly it seemed, they rode out blinking into the afternoon sunshine.

  They stood high up, looking over a wide valley that stretched for many leagues to the south and west. The road plunged down its sides into the fair Vale of Norloch, which fell in rills and terraces away from their feet. They saw beneath them the tiny shapes of houses and barns and haystacks, and sometimes the darker clumps of unwalled towns and woods.

  "Down there is an inn, the Hardellach," said Cadvan, sounding exhausted. He pointed to a town that nestled into the side of the hill some five miles away. "It's been many years since I traveled this way, but it used to be run by Colun of Gent, and I sorely hope it still is. Farther on, by the sea, you can just see the light of the Tower of Machelinor, the highest tower of Norloch. All we need do now is ride there, and then we can rest."

  Rest, thought Maerad. It was the most wonderful word she had ever heard.

  Far to the south they could see where the Aleph River wound lazily through the farmlands, glittering in the afternoon sun like a huge golden snake dozing on a green sward. Hem peeked out of Cadvan's cloak with a dazed look, as if he thought he had reached the fabulous realms of the south. With an obscure feeling of dread, Maerad picked out far in the distance a white flash of light, tiny but bright as a star, and beyond that a glimmering blue mist, which she thought must be the sea. It was her first glimpse of Norloch, Citadel of the White Flame, the High City of Bards; and her heart beat fast in her breast.

  Chapter XX

  THE HOUSE OF NELAC

  FOUR days later they reached the wide meads of the Carmallachen at the center of the Norloch Vale. Now at last they saw Norloch rising tall and white out of the fields, and Maerad gasped; even at this distance it was bigger and more lordly than she had imagined. The citadel flung up, battlemented wall within battlemented wall, and its high towers thrust into the sky as gracefully as lilies, but proud and puissant and stern. At the very top, the Tower of Machelinor threw back the sunlight like a crystal, and the city seemed like a bright crown surmounted by a living star. Beyond the citadel stretched a blue distance that might have been the sky, but might also have been the sea slumbering under a summer haze. Maerad thought that she heard the faint sound of a bell drifting over the meadows toward them.