Alison Croggon - [Pellinor 04]

by The Singing (lit)

  "Aye," said Grigar. "And I fear it will soon be bleaker. Everywhere we are beaten back, by deceit or treachery or arms. The only good news is the victory in Innail: I heard that the School beat back a fierce attack from the mountains, through the coming of a great mage who destroyed the Landrost. They call her the Maid of Innail, a mere girl, or so they say. I find that hard to credit; but from what I hear, the victory is real."

  "Maerad!" said Hem excitedly. "It must be Maerad!"

  "I did not hear that name," said Grigar. "But who is Maerad?"

  "Maerad of Pellinor. My sister."

  "It could indeed be true," said Saliman. "Maerad has a Gift like no other I have perceived. Although"—and here he nod­ded toward Marajan—"I must say, Marajan has something of the same light about her."

  Marajan smiled. "You are perceptive, Saliman of Turbansk," she said. "I, too, am of the House of Karn."

  Saliman looked amazed, and bowed his head. "I confess, almost nothing about the House of Karn surprises me any­more," he said. "If Hem grew wings and danced about in the sky with Irc, I would merely blink. Well, perhaps Hem and I should explain our quest. We are presently seeking Hem's sis­ter, Maerad, who we believe is the Foretold who is to defeat the Dark in its present rising. We know she isn't far away, some­where in the Hollow Lands. She summoned Hem some days ago, and we have been following that summoning ever since. That is how we happened across Grigar."

  Saliman then briefly related their tale: how Cadvan of Lirigon had stumbled across Maerad when she was a slave on the other side of the Osidh Elanor; how he had brought her to Innail and thence to Norloch; how they found Hem on their journey; how Hem had journeyed with Saliman to Turbansk, while Maerad and Cadvan traveled north to seek the Riddle of the Treesong. Then he told of the fall of Turbansk, and of Hem's journey into the heart of Den Raven, into Dagra itself, and of how he had found there, as if by chance, a tuning fork that the Nameless One himself had worn about his neck.

  "There are strange runes graven on this fork," said Saliman. "And I have never seen the like, save on the Dhyllic lyre that Maerad bears, which is an heirloom of her house. We know, because the Elidhu Nyanar told Hem that these runes are deeply bound to the Treesong."

  When Saliman finished, there was a long silence as his lis­teners absorbed what he had said. Hekibel had listened intently, seated very close to Saliman, casting an occasional glance, a mixture of amazement and pity and awe, at Hem. She looked much less strained than the night before, but there was a crease in the middle of her brow. This was the first she had heard of the true purpose of Hem and Saliman's quest; she had followed them on trust, because she had nowhere else to go, and now found herself tangled in events beyond her ken. Hem won­dered what she was thinking.

  Grigar had followed the conversation closely. "The Foretold? The Treesong?" he said. "My friends, we are in deep waters indeed ... I take it, then, that you cannot bear the news of this army to Innail, as I had hoped. Yet it is urgent that they know of it. I am sure that Innail is to be the first conquest."

  "Not at this moment," said Saliman. "Although it hurts my heart to say so."

  Grigar bowed his head in thought. "Perhaps I should put away my role as a common man of Desor, and travel there myself. Desor is becoming more perilous for me, in any case; and perhaps after the death of Hrunsar, and my failure to track you, it would be sensible to leave. I have seen people blinded for less. And Innail must be warned."

  "You will find a kinder place there than here," said Saliman. "My soul is darkened by what I have seen in Desor, my friend."

  Grigar sighed. "Aye," he said. "Yet, even if it is full of ser­pents, it hurts to leave my home. I am loath to go."

  "I think you must leave Desor," said Marajan. "In any case, you must make your choice soon, before the sun rises. Your hours in my house grow short: the door of time, alas, opens only briefly."

  They quickly discussed their plans. Grigar told them the Hollow Lands were a day's ride from the house, and that this part of the Fesse was now deserted, and had but light guard. If they traveled under a glimveil, they should not attract notice.

  "What of you, Hekibel?" asked Saliman. "What do you wish to do?"

  "I will come with you," she said, without hesitation. "If, that is, you will have me."

  "I only fear that meeting Hem and me has already cost you too much." Saliman paused. "As you said yesterday, aside from the horses, everyone you traveled with is now dead. I feel the weight and sorrow of that, and I am afraid that if you continue with us, it may cost you your own life."

  Hekibel sat up straight and looked Saliman in the eye. "Yes, I have thought of all that," she said. "How could I not? But Saliman, it is already too late for me. I think I must see this through to the end, for good or ill."

  "If you wished, you could travel with me to Innail," said Grigar.

  "I thank you," Hekibel said. "But I think my path leads elsewhere."

  Hem studied Hekibel curiously; he thought that overnight there was a change in her. She looked pale and somehow very fragile, but something had hardened in her expression, a deter­mination he hadn't seen before. He wanted to tell her how brave he thought she was, but somehow the words wouldn't come out.

  "Well, then," said Grigar. "I myself will travel through the Weywood. I hope the spirits of the wood will permit me free entrance." He looked inquiringly at Marajan, who nodded gravely.

  "I think the woods will not be hostile," she said. "As for you three, you must journey as swiftly as you may. In your time, the hours darken, although whether the world turns to endless night, or will find beyond hope a new dawn, I cannot tell. But all my love goes with you. Especially with you, young healer. There will be much need of healing, after."

  Hem met Marajan's lucid gaze, and his heart swelled with sudden, unlooked-for love. He didn't know what to say, but it didn't matter. He knew that Marajan read his deepest longings, and she understood and blessed them all.

  THE DEAD

  A/as/ Alas! The dead have come,

  The newborn babe, the withered king,

  And pale Bards whose empty hands No blessings bring.

  Poor shades, no hearth can warm them now.

  They walk beneath the roofless skies Forlorn and lost, and all men dread

  Their fading cries.

  Death has robbed their limbs of love

  And starved their gentle flesh to bone:

  At last beneath the starless sky Each stands alone.

  They pluck at me, in my dark mind

  Like burning rain their voices fall, And who can count their legion ranks

  Or name them all?

  From The Elidhu Canticles, Horvadh of Gent

  XVII

  DREAMS

  I

  T was a world neither of darkness nor light, an endless twi­light inhabited by dim forms in ceaseless motion. Nothing seemed to hold its shape: there were voices whose edges seemed to glimmer with starlight, faint lullabies and lamenta­tions who stepped out of the silence like young girls, their faces averted. Everywhere there were the marks of hands, as if every surface breathed out the heat of a body that had just touched it. It wasn't possible to see anything clearly, always there were shifting veils of light and shadow drifting and van­ishing, and the eye could fix on nothing. The earth seemed no longer solid, but a mist that mingled with the vapors of the air. And everywhere the voices, the wan echoes of the dead ...

  Maerad woke with a start, feeling the cold sweat sliding down her back and her forehead. She didn't know if she had cried out; it seemed to her that the echo of her own voice still hung on the night air, but perhaps it was merely a remnant of her dream. She gathered her blanket closely around her and sat up, feeling the wool's roughness against her cheek, the prickle of the dry grass, the hard ground against her buttocks—these were tangible things out of the world of solid objects, and their abrasiveness was reassuring.

  She stared up, looking to the stars for comfort, as she had so often in her life. Ilion, t
he morning star, had long since set over the horizon, and the bright litter of the Lukemoi, the path of the dead, arced across the sky. The stars gave her no consola­tion. A slight wind brushed her hair back and cooled the sweat on her face. Maerad shivered, remembering that those stars marked the bridge between this world and the Gates, beyond which lay—what? Nobody, not even Ardina, knew the answer to that question. Maerad thought now that the dead did not wander through the groves of the stars, as the Bards sang. No, the Gates opened on darkness, and the dead soul stepped into that darkness and was lost forever. Perhaps, she thought, they step gladly into that darkness. She imagined walking that high path, far above the lamentations of the earth, beyond the sweat and filth and sorrow of human existence, and how her own life might fall regretlessly from her open hands—all its joy, all its sorrow, all its triumph and defeat. Yes, they might well step gladly and lightly away from the weight of being alive.

  If the dead step out into the dark and leave the world behind them, she thought, what are these voices that I cannot stop hearing? They are not the voices of the living.

  She clutched her head in her hands; her forehead was burn­ing, aching, but her skin felt as cold as ice. I have been too much out of this world, she thought. And now I am afraid. Something has happened . . .

  When Maerad came out of her trance, it was just before dawn. She looked about with wonder, sniffing the clean, cold air that seared her nostrils and stung her cheeks. There was a thick, low ground mist wisping out of the dips and hollows, very white in the early light.

  Cadvan was standing with his back to her, staring eastward at the pale hints of dawn that were illuminating the distant, cloudy peaks of the Osidh Elanor. When he turned around, she saw his face was very white, and his eyes glittered when he looked at her, with suspicion or fear or some other emotion she couldn't guess. He asked her if she had found Hem, and Maerad nodded.

  "Good," he said. "Then I think we should move from this place. I'll wager my life that every Hull in North Annar will be riding hard for the Hollow Lands right now, and that it will not be long before the Nameless One himself knows that you are here—that is, if he hasn't heard already. You might as well have lit a beacon, Maerad. Anyone for leagues with the slightest touch of the Gift, down to the simplest village midwife, will have sensed you, and will know that you're here."

  Maerad met his eyes, and saw that he spoke the truth. Her lips curled. "Hulls?" she said, tossing back her hair from her face. "What of them?"

  Cadvan's face darkened, as if her scorn were directed toward him as well. "I do not like Hulls," he said. "Especially I do not like the thought of many Hulls riding our way, while we camp in the middle of nowhere with no means of defense."

  "I have no fear of Hulls," said Maerad. "I'm not going any­where. Hem is coming here, he is on his way, and I will stay here and wait for him."

  "Surely Hem would be able to sense you, wherever you are," said Cadvan. "And if we are to be visited by Hulls or wers or any other servants of the Dark, I would prefer to have walls around me, than not."

  "What walls?" said Maerad.

  "I was thinking that we could ride to Innail," Cadvan said, glancing at her sideways.

  "We'd be no safer there than here," said Maerad. "In any case, you are probably safer with me than with any other per­son in Edil-Amarandh." She smiled, meeting Cadvan's eye, and she saw him blench, as if he had glimpsed something that raised the hair on his scalp with horror.

  "Maerad," he said, very softly, so that she had to lean for­ward to hear his voice above the sound of the wind that soughed over the hills. "Maerad, I think you must remember what the Winterking said to you. I say this not only for my sake. Beware, Maerad."

  Her gaze faltered, and she looked away.

  "I cannot beware, Cadvan," she said at last, her voice as soft as his. "It's too late for that now. But I am afraid that I have made you fear me, and that hurts my heart."

  There was a long silence. "I am afraid, Maerad," said Cadvan. "I'm afraid of what I see in you, and of the storm that is gathering beyond these hills and that will soon break over our heads. I should be mad not to be afraid."

  "I'm not afraid anymore, even though I don't know what will happen." Maerad's voice dropped to a whisper. "Or per­haps I am so afraid that I no longer feel it. I know there are so many things to fear, but Cadvan, please, don't be afraid of me."

  Cadvan, who had been brooding and staring at his hands, looked up and met her eyes again. This time he smiled, and to Maerad's astonishment his expression was unguarded and joy­ous, a reckless smile that gave her a vivid glimpse of the wild, fearless young man he once had been. Maerad's heart leaped in her breast.

  "A pact then," he said. "I promise not to fear you, and you promise not to squash me like a beetle by mistake while you're busy pulverizing Hulls. You're right. It's too late for fear."

  "There is a storm coming," said Maerad. "And we must ride it."

  "I'm not sure I packed the right kind of saddle."

  "It's too big for saddles, and it has an evil eye," said Maerad, smiling. "It's either bareback and hanging on by the mane, or be trampled."

  After that, there was no more talk of moving on. The days were long, cold, and wearisome, but they both kept themselves busy. Cadvan scouted around their area and found a site close by that he said was more defensible, and they moved their belongings and the horses there. They patched their rough shel­ter with turf to keep out the wind, and made a proper hearth.

  Maerad spent most of the day scanning the horizon, in between furious bursts of activity. Cadvan filled in the days by preparing defenses of magery. He set awareness in stones in a radius around their camp, so they would have early warning of anyone's approach. He spent hours working on his sword, lay­ing it on the ground and charming the tempered metal with new mageries, and when there was nothing more to do, he did the same with Maerad's sword Eled. He set wards and scored a line into the ground with a flint knife, making a wall of magery that wers could not pass, and as she watched him at his labor, Maerad remembered the first time she had seen him do this, the night they had taken refuge in a ruined tower, pursued by the Landrost's wers. The memory was distant, as if it had hap­pened to someone else.

  At times she thought that barely a single night had passed since she had called Hem. More often it seemed to her that she had been in this one place since the beginning of time, that she had already been here when the forgotten people who lived here had so laboriously raised their stone circles to be their inscrutable witnesses, and that she had watched as they faded forever into the dim mists of forgetting.

  Sometimes, Maerad felt that she knew these stones like she knew her own skin. She had watched the slow, patient, weath­ering of the years; she had noted each shade of light, moonlight and starlight, the many moods of the sun and the seasons, and how they changed the colors of the rock through an infinity of hues—from deep purple to bloody red, from rich yellow to a delicate blue-gray. She had watched as the bright lichens spread over their flaking faces. She had been there in the mild days of summer, when wild bees wove their slumberous song through the flowering heathers, and in the numberless harsh winters that threw down bolts of freezing rain and filled their veins with ice and split them open. She was almost rock herself.

  When these fits took her, she could be silent for hours on end. Cadvan would speak to her and she did not hear him: and yet she was not absent, but rather more intensely present than she felt she had ever been. At last something would shake her out of it—perhaps Keru might come up and nuzzle her, want­ing some company, or Cadvan might touch her hand, trying to wake her from an enchantment he did not understand, and Maerad would jump, as if she were surprised, and smile vaguely. Then she would try to haul herself back into ordinary things with some task: grooming Keru or Darsor perhaps, so their coats shone, or mending every tear in her clothing, or pol­ishing her boots, or gathering firewood.

  The dreams had begun the day after the summoning. It was as if a w
all in her mind had cracked, and through this crack she could hear the voices of the dead. And the more aware she became of them, the wider the crack seemed; she felt as if she were gradually filling up with these lost voices, as if they were seeping into her consciousness through a slow leak. Every night she seemed to wander deeper into a dreamland in which she could find no bearing.

  As the surge of power ebbed from her being, her fearless­ness had ebbed as well. Now, although she did not admit it to Cadvan, she felt small and vulnerable, and she was afraid of her magery, and would not use it, even to try to contact Hem again. Cadvan sensed her fragility, and treated her gently. Although he wondered anxiously whether it was certain that Hem was journeying toward them, he did not urge her to attempt to mindtouch him, or to use any of her powers. He watched her as she sat by the edge of their camp, staring westward, as if Hem might at any moment step out of the distant horizon, and his face was often shadowed with anxiety and pity.

  This strange period of suspension, when time seemed to have stopped, felt to Cadvan like a release, a slow taking of breath before some unimaginable struggle. He did not know what to expect; he didn't know whether he had made a good decision, or the most terrible mistake of his life. He only knew that he could not have chosen otherwise. For the first time since Maerad had known him, he had put aside his harsh self-judgment, and there was a peace in his expression that had not been there before. If it was mixed with sadness, Maerad noticed that Cadvan seemed more lighthearted than he had ever been, and she turned to his lightness as a flower turns its face to the sun, and tried not to see the shadows that gathered behind her.