The Singing

by Alison Croggon

  Hekibel was looking from Hem to Saliman, trying to follow their discussion, and Saliman turned to her. "I thank you, Hekibel, for your brave soul, and for telling us this. Well, we will have to decide what to do now. I fear I am not strong, and you do not look as if you could go another step today. If we are cautious, I think we can risk another day here, to be the stronger to travel tomorrow. Hem and I must journey north from here; we will not stay by the roads. Do you wish to come with us, or do you have some other destination in mind?"

  "I have nowhere to go," whispered Hekibel.

  "You will be in peril, if you travel with us," said Saliman.

  "I can't see that I would be any safer, traveling friendless and alone ..." Her voice caught, and to cover her emotion, she reached down and stroked the sleeping dog at her feet. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be full of self-pity. I'm just so tired."

  Saliman smiled somberly. "You would be a welcome fellow traveler," he said. "You said earlier that you rode here, but where are the horses?"

  "I put them in the stables in the tavern," Hekibel said. "There was some dry hay high up that hadn't been spoiled, and they were hungry, the poor things, and so tired. I didn't feel I could push them any farther."

  Saliman looked at Hem. "Hem, do you feel able to go down to the village and bring them up here?" Hem nodded. "Put a glimveil over yourself and the horses, and do not walk on the road but on the grass, so their hooves cannot be heard. And see if you notice anything while you're there."

  Hem made a glimveil, strapped on his shortsword, and walked across the hills for the second time that day, his senses alert for any trace of sorcery. Irc accompanied him, either riding on his shoulder or flying ahead. Irc had been all over Hiert, he told Hem, and he had seen no sign of Hulls, nor any living human being.

  It's empty, he said. There is no one here but wet chickens and goats.

  A brief glance down the West Road seemed to prove Irc correct. It was covered in a layer of slimy mud, and lined by dark, melancholy houses that were stained by water to the ceiling of the first floor. A rank stench of mold and stagnant water hung over everything. Hem's nerves were rattled by Hekibel's story, and as he neared the road, he checked the glimveil again and doubled his vigilance. He didn't want to step into the mud and ruin his boots, and in the end he took them off and carried them, screwing his face up as his toes slid into the ooze. He trod carefully, trying to leave as few footprints as possible.

  The air bore no taste of sorcery, and he could pick up no sense of the dark presence of Hulls, although there was something uneasy in his earth sense, a prickle of premonition that made him move with as much haste as was compatible with caution. Perhaps Saliman was correct, and the Hull had given up the trail, believing that they were both dead. But he thought it more likely that there might be more than one Hull riding to Hiert at this moment. The urgency to move on boiled inside him; he felt the visceral pull of Maerad's summoning, and he was very afraid of Hulls. Yet he knew that unless he left on his own, they would be stuck at the hut until at least first light tomorrow.

  He walked to the end of the village and found nothing further. The wrecked houses oppressed him. When he passed the damp, ashy ruins of the burned house where he and Saliman had been attacked, he vividly remembered—with a shock that went through his body and left him sweating—how the White Sickness had touched his body when he had healed Saliman.

  Feeling depressed, he turned back and hurried to the tavern. The horses were in a stable that was damp and stank of moldy straw but had somehow escaped the mud. Minna and Usha were picking in a desultory fashion at a manger of hay. They greeted Hem with whinnies of recognition.

  We have to go a little farther, he told them.

  The horses snorted in dismay, but Usha said: I do not like it here. It smells of death.

  Usha was loaded with a pack that he guessed contained food or clothes. Hem inspected them briefly; Minna looked well, but Usha was still a little lame, and her hoof was hot, so he soothed it with some hasty magery. Hekibel hadn't taken off the horses' saddles, and they looked uncomfortable with dried sweat: if they were not groomed soon, they would get saddle sores. Hem looked around and found a comb he could use later, shoving it hastily into his pack; then he cast a glimveil over the horses, mounted Minna, took up Usha's lead rein, and coaxed them out into the road. Here he felt very exposed, even though he knew no eyes could see through his magery, and in the clear, watery sunlight he trotted the horses as quickly as he could back over the bare hills to the hut, where Saliman and Hekibel were waiting.

  They left at dawn the following day, just as the sun's edge lifted over the horizon. It was a dank and cheerless morning: the wind had fallen, and a heavy mist rose up from the damp ground, bringing with it a bitter cold that seeped into their bones.

  Hem's night was filled with strange dreams, none of which he could remember, although he knew Maerad's voice wove through them, calling him. He woke restless and impatient, angry that he had lost a day's journeying, although he knew that there had been no choice if he was to travel with Hekibel and Saliman.

  Saliman looked a little stronger, and Hekibel had recovered from her exhaustion, although her face was still haunted by shadows. The day before, as Hekibel slept, Saliman and Hem had gone through their supplies, which were quite healthy. Hekibel had brought a good stock of food with her on Usha to add to their own. Saliman thought that they had enough to keep them on the road for the next couple of weeks.

  They had also checked the horses over carefully. Usha's lameness wasn't as bad as Hem had feared; she still stepped gingerly, but Saliman judged that she had suffered no worse than bruising when crossing the Imlan River, and that it was mostly healed. He suggested that they split their baggage between the horses, and that Hem and Hekibel, being lighter, ride together on Minna.

  "They're strong beasts, and fit, but we shouldn't burden them overmuch," he said, patting Minna's massive shoulder. "And we will travel all the faster on hoof. It is a lucky chance that Hekibel found us. If luck it was." He squinted at the sky, studying the clouds that were gathering high up. They didn't threaten rain as yet, but the next day would be chilly. "There are forces moving that I do not understand, Hem. My heart tells me that there will be much that is beyond my understanding, before the end of this. My Knowing tells me nothing of this path we are now following, and I am as full of dread as I am of hope. All my trust is in you now."

  Hem nodded, wishing that he felt that he knew what he was doing. Saliman's faith in him was a little daunting. All he knew was that they had to find Maerad as soon as they could. It wasn't as if he understood why. He had tried earlier, stumbling over his words, to talk about Maerad's summoning, and Saliman had listened intently, his eyes bright in his thin face. He had asked if Hem was sure it was Maerad, and when Hem had nodded, he had said nothing more.

  That night he and Saliman shared a watch, for the first time since they had been at the hut. They were a safe distance from the West Road, so they decided not to make a glimveil; Saliman said frankly that he didn't feel capable of it. The night passed with neither seeing anything more perilous than hunting owls and foxes, but as Hem watched in the empty night, scanning the sky as the clouds scudded over the stars, he felt a shadow pressing on his mind, a sense that something inimical was drawing closer.

  It didn't take them long to pack and mount the horses and then, followed by Fenek, with Irc drawing lazy circles around their heads, they headed across country, bearing northwest. They came down to the floodplains by midmorning, and stood before them, dismayed. The floods had spread great swathes of black silt over the plains, and even if they detoured, it was still impossible to avoid the mud. Although it wasn't very deep, their tracks would be as clear behind them as if they walked over a virgin snowfield. And it stank.

  "I suppose we have no choice," Saliman said at last. "We'll just have to go through it."

  "I suspect that's easier said than done," said Hem. "And we'll have to be
really careful that the horses don't stumble into holes we can't see under that muck."

  Minna and Usha took some persuading, and stepped into the mud with as much disgust as a horse could express. Then began a long, tedious business of crossing what were effectively wide, shallow lakes of black mud. In places the silt was surprisingly firm after a couple of dry days, but in others the horses often floundered up to their fetlocks, and once Minna lost her footing and sank up to her belly. By the time she had been freed, all of them were black with filth. Fenek was lighter than the horses and fared better, but his lips were raised in a constant snarl of distaste. Sometimes there were drifts of rubbish— broken trees, branches, dead animals—that rose as high as their shoulders, and the stench of rot made the horses skittish. At least here they saw no deserted, wrecked houses, which would have made the landscape more melancholy. This part of Ifant, north of Hiert, was largely uninhabited.

  The combination of constant watchfulness and tedium was wearing, and by the end of the day their only thought was to seek some grassy ground out of the mud where they could make a camp. Although the hills they had left were now far behind them, Hem felt as if they hadn't made any progress at all. It had been a long, dispiriting day, and nobody talked much as they made their evening meal and prepared their camp. All of them, including the horses, were exhausted. Hem studied Saliman with concern. He was so haggard his eyes had sunk back into his skull, and he scarcely spoke, except to ask Hem if he could make both a glimveil and a ward, so they could all get some rest that night. Hem nodded, although making both charms was almost more than he could manage. At least this way they would get some sleep.

  The next day wasn't much better. They saw some higher land to the north, and changed their direction slightly. This meant that they were not taking the shortest route, as Hem reckoned it, toward Maerad; but although he felt the summoning as strongly as ever, he didn't argue. By now he never wanted to see or smell mud ever again, and he would have given everything he owned to bathe.

  They climbed onto dry ground at twilight, and found a likely campsite in a grove of ancient rowan trees. A small stream ran nearby, full of blessedly clear water, and one by one they all cleaned themselves of the mud. The water was icy, but

  Hem didn't mind: he splashed it over his head, watching the black mud twirl away in the current. When they had washed, they changed into less filthy raiment from their packs— nothing they had was really clean anymore—and rinsed their clothes and hung them from the trees. No matter how tired they were, their first concern was to get the stink of the mud out of their belongings.

  Lastly, Saliman led the horses into the stream and scrubbed the mud from their winter coats. The horses stamped and snorted, glad to get the smell out of their nostrils, and then rolled delightedly in the grass. Fenek splashed noisily into the stream, snapping at the water, and rolled with the horses. Irc watched the other animals rather smugly from a low branch. He was the only one of their party who had not a spot of dirt on him.

  A pale yellow light suffused the sky with a gentle radiance as Hem and Hekibel gathered kindling to prepare a meal. When he had finished with the horses, Saliman came back to the grove, looked around him, and laughed. Then, to Hem's surprise, he bowed down to the trees, and greeted them in the Speech, as gravely as if he were entering the palace in Turbansk.

  "Hem, remember your manners," said Saliman. "Greet these noble trees. And you, Hekibel."

  Mystified, Hem bowed and made the formal greeting. "Samandalame."

  Hekibel made a graceful bow, looking at Saliman out of the corner of her eye as if she thought he was either out of his mind or playing some elaborate joke.

  "The Light is with us," Saliman said. "This is a Bardhome. We need fear nothing here, and need set no glimveil; we can sleep soundly tonight, blessed by the trees that protect this place."

  Hem and Hekibel looked around them in wonder. At first glance, the grove seemed no different from any other. It was a small dingle, and around it stretched the bare arms of rowans ripening with spring blossom. But as they felt the rich silence of the place rise inside them, it seemed that the air was more luminous among these trees, that the stars shone through their branches more brightly, that the grass between their boles grew softer and greener and more fragrant than beyond their circle. Hem felt his earth sense quicken with a deep gladness like that he had felt in the home of the Elemental Nyanar far south from there in a time now long past, and breathed in deeply. He had been told of such places by Maerad—she and Cadvan had used them sometimes when they had journeyed to Norloch—but he had never seen such a place himself.

  "It couldn't just be chance," said Hem. "Maybe Maerad is helping us somehow."

  "Perhaps," Saliman said, smiling more broadly than Hem had seen in weeks. For a moment he looked like the old Saliman in Turbansk, and Hem's heart lifted. "Or perhaps some Knowing beneath our awareness guided us here. These are ancient places: they were made when the Bards first came to Annar, long before the Great Silence. Whether there is reason or no, I am thankful to the depths of my soul. It is enough, I confess, just to be out of that mud; to be safe from the threat of darkness for even one night seems like a blessing beyond hope. And it is healing to sleep beneath these trees. The only disadvantage is that it is forbidden to light fire here; but I think we can bear the cold."

  Hekibel and Hem exchanged a glance, and threw away their kindling. Hem spread the tent on the ground to keep out the damp, and they slept under the trees, curled up in blankets and cloaks, with Fenek snuggled close by and Irc fluffed up in a branch above them, his head tucked under his wing. All of them slept deeply, without dreams, and awoke refreshed, as if the griefs and travails of the past few days had loosened their grip for those few hours.

  The healer in Hem saw with relief that the haggardness had left Saliman's face. Hem had watched him carefully since he had healed him, concerned that Saliman was on the edge of collapse; after such a serious illness, he should have been abed, instead of making a grueling journey through the wilderness. Although he had never complained, Saliman could not hide his weariness from Hem, who noted how his friend's lively expression had been replaced by a grim mask of endurance. Hem thought sadly that an inner light in Saliman had been quenched, and he feared that it might never return. He missed it more than he could say.

  As they packed up their belongings, Hem looked around the grove with regret; he hadn't felt such peace since he and Saliman had ridden through the pine forests of the Osidh Am.

  "One day, I'd like to stay here for a long time," he said as he strapped a pack onto Minna's saddle.

  "And live on nuts and berries and nettles like a hermit, eh?" said Hekibel from the other side of Minna, gently teasing him. "Somehow I can't see it. I think you should try some other things first."

  "There's a lot of things I'd like to try," Hem said somberly. "I'd have liked to stay at the Healing Houses in Turbansk too. But they are probably all rubble now." He scowled down at the saddle. "I hate this war."

  The light in Hekibel's eyes went out, and she fumbled with a buckle, her mouth trembling. Hem was suddenly furious with himself for his thoughtlessness. "I'm sorry," he mumbled. "I'm just always finding places I like to be, and then having to leave them. And it's so beautiful here ..."

  Hekibel smiled sadly. "It is. Ah well, Hem, maybe when this is all over, if it is ever over, we can come back and visit, and you can stay as long as you like."

  Now they could journey along the northern edge of the flood-plain, with no need to cross any more mud. They rode swiftly over moorlands dotted with ancient thickets of gorse, where the tough heathers were grazed by flocks of wild sheep and goats. This gradually gave way to a landscape of gentler hills running with many streams, lightly wooded with stands of oak and ash and linden: a pleasant countryside, but lonely. Two days' hard ride brought them into inhabited regions again. They passed a deserted shepherd's hut like the one they had stayed in near Hiert, and then another. Then on the
third day they saw thin lines of smoke rising in the distance into the still morning air. Saliman told them they were now at the edges of the Fesse of Desor, one of the largest and most powerful Schools in Annar.

  "Cadvan used to believe that this was one of the Schools that had been corrupted by the Dark," Saliman said, as they broke their fast that morning. Hem glanced at him swiftly; it was the first time Saliman had mentioned Cadvan since they had heard of his death in the letter Hem had received from Maerad in Nal-Ak-Burat. "He thought there were Hulls here. In Turbansk, we did not trust the Bards of Desor. Certainly, the First Circle here has always been one of Enkir's strongest allies."

  "What do you mean?" asked Hekibel.

  An expression of contempt crossed Saliman's face. "I have heard that this is one of the Schools that does not do its duty by the people here," he said. "The Bards here demand tithes with threats, and their services are not offered freely. It is a place where magery is feared rather than respected, and where the

  Balance is calculated narrowly, so that it exists only for the self-interest of Bards themselves. Such warping of the Lore brings a sour taste to my mouth." He paused, as if he were about to spit. "I do not know what is happening here now. News is hard to come by from Desor: it was ever a secretive School, and has become more so in recent years. I think we ought to be prepared for anything."

  "Should we hide ourselves?" asked Hem.

  "We must shield our magery, certainly," said Saliman. "I dearly wish I had Cadvan's talent for disguise; in these parts, black skin is very noticeable. A glimmerspell would hide me from all but Bard eyes; but it's the Bard eyes in particular that I wish to avoid."

  "I became quite good at the disguising charm when I was in Sjug'hakar Im," said Hem hesitantly. "Perhaps I could try it on you. It lasts a few days. It might get us past Desor."

  Saliman gave Hem a penetrating glance. "Young Hem, I do not know how you did so badly in your studies in Turbansk," he said. "I suppose you are one of those who learns when he sees the necessity, and otherwise kicks over the traces."