The Singing

by Alison Croggon

  Maerad nodded.

  "Because the riders will be here soon. And I still cannot tell, for all my striving, what manner of people they are. It looks to me as if one of the horses has two people on its back. And it occurs to me also that if any Hulls are nearby, they will be pricking up their ears and hurrying this way also."

  Maerad nodded again. Now that she had permitted her magery to flow within her again, she was wondering why she had been so frightened for the past week. It was as if she had been crouching in a small hole, her hands over her face, refusing to look at the sunlight that blazed above her.

  "I'm sorry about before," she said, and she looked up at Cadvan. "I'll try to speak to Hem now."

  She stared at the distant riders. They were closer now, and she saw that Cadvan was right: one horse bore two riders. She bent her head and concentrated.

  Hem, she said. Are you there?

  Maerad? Hem answered at once, and the naked joy in his voice made tears well in her eyes. We're close, aren't we?

  Yes, you're close. We can see you. Overwhelmed by emotion, Maerad couldn't speak for a moment. You're very close. Oh, Hem! I've missed you so much. I thought I might never see you again.

  But here we are! She could hear that Hem was laughing with sheer delight. We can't see you yet, but even Saliman can feel you now. We think there are some Hulls nearby. We can't see where, but they'll be riding your way for certain. Saliman? Is Saliman with you?

  Yes. And Hekibel and Irc. Friends. We've come so far to find you! But Maerad, something really strange is happening. I have this tuning fork and it's making an incredible humming and I think the Treesong is beginning to do something—I don't know what. I can hardly hear you over the noise.

  It's happening here too, said Maerad. My lyre is all lit up.

  It must be the Treesong. I've got the other half— Hem's excited voice began to fragment, and Maerad lost the mindtouch. She bit her lip in frustration, and was about to report to Cadvan what Hem had told her, when Hem's voice cut back in. It's glowing as well—the runes are like fire!

  I can't hear you, said Maerad.

  Hem swore and then she lost him again. The humming was growing, not in loudness but in intensity, so that it filled her whole mind, and it was difficult to be conscious of anything else. Maerad thought it was no longer a single note, but more like a constant, fascinating melody, the logic of which she could not catch. With difficulty, she wrenched her mind away from it, and turned to Cadvan.

  He had already guessed that the news was good, and had sheathed his sword.

  "It's Hem, and he's got Saliman with him," said Maerad. She was trembling with excitement.

  "Saliman?" For a moment Cadvan looked astonished, and then he smiled with unalloyed pleasure.

  "And two other people," Hem said. "Irc and Hekibel." The words tumbled out of her; Maerad's breath was short, and she felt so dizzy she could hardly speak. She couldn't take her eyes off the riders: they had quickened their pace and were now moving swiftly toward them and Maerad couldn't wait until they arrived, until she could hold her brother in her arms at last.

  Cadvan squinted at the riders. "I can only see three," he said.

  "Well, that's what he said."

  "There's a big white bird that seems to be with them," said Cadvan. "Maybe he means the bird."

  "Maybe," said Maerad. "He didn't say. And they think that there are Hulls nearby as well. And he said that he's got the other half of the Treesong, a tuning fork, and the same thing is happening there." Maerad hugged herself to stop her body shaking: the strange music was growing inside her so that she could almost hear its melody, and she couldn't tell anymore where the sound ended and she began.

  "Hem has the lost half of the Treesong?" Cadvan looked stunned. "That is news beyond hope. Well, maybe that explains what is happening here. Perhaps you are right, Maerad. The lyre is awakening. Although what that means is beyond my Knowing."

  For a while neither of them said anything further, their eyes fixed on the approaching riders. Maerad thought she would die from impatience. She shook her head, trying to clear it of the humming. The sound would not die down, and it was still growing in complexity and intensity the closer the riders came.

  "If there are Hulls," said Cadvan a little later, "we must be ready for them."

  Maerad stared at him as if she saw him through a veil. "If there are Hulls, we will kill them," she said thickly. "I will not countenance their presence here."

  Cadvan glanced at her in surprise, and then with growing concern. Maerad's body was shaking with tremors so violent that she was forced to hold the lyre in her arms, close against her body, so she would not drop it. Her face was so white she looked translucent, as if she had been drained of every drop of blood, and her eyes blazed with feverish excitement. Her gaze was fixed unblinkingly on the horses that drew ever closer, bearing her brother toward her. Cadvan touched her arm, to ask if she needed help, but she shook his hand off, almost absent-mindedly.

  When Hem came close enough to be heard, he waved and shouted, and Maerad stood up and shouted back, although she did not know what she said. The horses were some hundred spans away when Hem slid off Usha, tumbling onto the ground and almost falling over. He regained his footing at once and sprinted with all his might toward Maerad.

  She let her lyre fall from her hands and it landed by her feet. She scarcely noticed: letting go of it made no difference now. Its music was embedded so deeply in her bones, in her very marrow, that she thought she would never be free of it. She swayed as if she might faint and opened her arms wide, and Hem ran up and threw his arms around his sister, embracing her so passionately that all the breath was driven out of her. And for an infinite moment they held each other so closely that she felt the wild beating of his heart through her whole body, and she could not tell whether her cheeks were wet with his tears or her own.

  Chapter XVIII

  A BREATH

  BECAUSE Saliman thought that he was dead, Cadvan was the last person in the world he expected to see and he did not recognize Cadvan at first. Saliman slowed Minna to a walk as they came close, and rode up sedately to Maerad and Cadvan's campsite, Hekibel following shyly in his wake. Irc was sitting on Hekibel's shoulder, looking rather huffy: he had been forced to flap into the air when Hem had leaped from the horse, and perhaps he was a little jealous.

  Saliman had noted the cloaked figure to Maerad's right, but his attention was wholly caught by Hem's wild dash toward Maerad and the lyre blazing at Maerad's feet. When Hem and Maerad embraced, it was too private a moment for other eyes. Saliman tactfully turned away his gaze, and found himself looking directly into Cadvan's face.

  He almost fell off Minna in his amazement. He forgot everything else, even the strange, enchanting music that was filling his Bardic senses and bewildering his mind with its increasing power. He pulled Minna to an abrupt halt and dismounted, standing face-to-face with Cadvan.

  Cadvan's face lit up with his sudden, brilliant smile. "Saliman!" he said.

  Saliman clasped Cadvan with almost as much emotion as Hem had hugged Maerad, and then stood back and held him at arm's length, struggling for words.

  "I don't know whether I ought not to strangle you!" he said at last.

  Cadvan laughed. "What a way to greet an old friend!"

  Saliman earnestly studied Cadvan's face. "Yes, it is you," he said, his voice hoarse. "Cadvan, I had heard that you were dead. I have been mourning you these past two months. And to find you here, beyond hope, in the middle of the wilderness ..."

  Cadvan was suddenly serious. "I am sorry to have given you such grief needlessly, my friend," he said. "For my part, the news from Turbansk made me fear for you, and I have often wondered whether I would see you again."

  "There is much—too much—to tell you," said Saliman. He looked around, as if recalling where he was. "And I do not doubt that now we are in great peril. I am sure we are followed by Hulls, a number of Hulls, although p
erhaps they are not following us, but are drawn to Maerad as moths to a light—her power beams over these hills like a beacon."

  "I fear so," said Cadvan. "I can feel them, drawing ever closer. All the same, I suspect they might be the least of our problems. There are powers loose here that I neither know nor understand. But tell me, who is your friend?"

  Hekibel had been hanging back awkwardly behind Saliman, holding the reins of the two horses, with Irc perched petulantly on her shoulder. She smiled hesitantly as Saliman took her arm and brought her forward.

  "Cadvan, Hekibel, please each meet a dear friend of mine. And Cadvan, this is Irc, a most uncommon crow. But I fear there is no time..."

  Cadvan was about to reply, but at that moment all three swung around to look at Hem and Maerad, as if someone had called them. Hekibel cried out, her hand over her mouth.

  While they had been talking, Hem and Maerad had parted and were now standing side by side, holding hands. Maerad grasped her lyre in her free hand, and Hem held a small, unbearably bright object in his, which Saliman knew was the tuning fork. They seemed entranced, their faces blank, and both were bright with a shimmering radiance. It was very different from the silvery light of magery: it rippled through them like an unconsuming flame, now the infinite orange and auburn of autumn leaves, now dark as honey, now bright and rich as gold or rubies.

  As they watched, brother and sister unclasped their hands. Maerad held her lyre, readying to strike the strings, and Hem bent down with deliberate slowness and struck the tuning fork on a rock.

  The tuning fork began to ring with a new sound audible to all ears, not just to those sensitive to magery. At first it was low, like the sounding of a melodious bell, but instead of dying away, the sound gradually grew. Soon it was so loud that it drowned out everything else. Hekibel put her hands over her ears and the horses reared, pulled the reins out of her hands, and bolted away. Irc gave a harsh shriek and flew up into the sky.

  What are they doing? said Saliman into Cadvan's mind. By now the ringing was so loud that if he had shouted in Cadvan's ear, he would barely have been able to hear him.

  J wish I knew, Cadvan answered. I am afraid that we can do nothing now but watch and hope ...

  Just as it seemed that if the sound grew any more intense the stones must begin to crack, it stopped increasing in volume. The fork continued ringing out its single note, a constant, punishing noise, until the three watchers felt that if it continued much longer, they would go mad. And yet still it continued, beyond bearing, with no sign that it would stop.

  Hem and Maerad were so still that they seemed not to be breathing: it was as if they were trapped in the enchantment, outside time itself, like flies in amber. Hekibel was staring at them, her face white, her hands still over her ears. She shouted something to Saliman, but he shook his head, unable to understand what she said. She put her mouth close to his ear. "Something's wrong," she shouted. "It's not right."

  Saliman looked at her in surprise, and then, without any warning, eluding Saliman's grasp as he tried to stop her, Hekibel ran up to Hem and tore the tuning fork out of his hand, holding it tightly in her fist to stop it vibrating; and she began to shake him, shouting at him frantically to wake up. Saliman and Cadvan looked on, frozen with horror: one of the first things Bards were taught was the danger of interrupting a spell in progress.

  As soon as Hekibel snatched the tuning fork from Hem's hand, the noise stopped abruptly. The sudden silence was shocking, and at the same time an inexpressible relief. Hem and Maerad stirred, looking in confusion around them as if they had been woken from sleep, and then an expression of rage flickered across Hem's face and he lunged for Hekibel, trying to take back the tuning fork. She jumped backward, holding it away so he couldn't reach it.

  "It was wrong, Hem," said Hekibel, her voice steady, her eyes locked on Hem. "There was something wrong."

  "How did you know?" asked Maerad. She was trembling again, more violently than before, and as she spoke, her legs crumpled beneath her and she fell to the ground. Hem bent down to help her up and she pressed his arm gratefully but didn't attempt to stand up. She was still holding her lyre, but the light had died out of it and now it seemed just an ordinary wooden instrument. "How did you know it was wrong?"

  "I don't know," said Hekibel shakily. She was holding the tuning fork with the tips of her fingers, looking at it as if she didn't quite believe what she had done. "It just felt—not right." She looked at the tuning fork again, and gave it back to Hem. He took it, slipped its chain back over his head, and hid it beneath his clothes.

  All this had happened very fast, in the time it took Saliman and Cadvan to join them. Saliman was furious. "Hekibel," he said, his voice icy. "You must never do that to a Bard. Never. Do you understand?"

  "No," said Maerad faintly. "Hekibel was quite right. It wasn't doing what it was supposed to. I think the Treesong was trying to make itself whole, but there was something missing, and it didn't work ..."

  Saliman paused, taken aback, and before he could speak, Maerad smiled tiredly and reached out her hand. "I suppose we ought to say hello," she said. "It's so good to see you."

  The anger died out of Saliman's face, and he smiled back, and embraced her. "And to see you, Maerad. No matter how strange the circumstances."

  Unlike Hern, who now showed no sign of power, Maerad still held in her skin an afterglow of the strange, golden illumination that had blazed through her. Subtle ripples of light ran through her veins, and her eyes were still aflame. Cadvan glanced at her, his eyes dark with concern, and squatted beside her.

  "What was supposed to happen?" he asked.

  Maerad, her head bowed, didn't answer.

  "I don't know," said Hem, at last. "I mean, we knew what to do, and then it was—well, it was as if we got stuck."

  There was a silence. "Well," said Saliman. "I wish we had some way to navigate this mystery ..."

  He stopped, his nostrils flaring, and was swiftly turning his head to look behind him when he froze, as still as if he were carved of stone. A freezing spell, Maerad thought, and inwardly cursed. She looked at her friends, caught out of time in mid gesture: Cadvan standing with an exclamation of fury half formed on his lips; Hem reaching toward Saliman, his brow creased with puzzlement; Hekibel halfway through wiping a stray lock of hair from her face.

  Hulls, thought Maerad. In the drama of the past few moments—and it had only been a few moments, if that—the threat of Hulls had dropped out of their minds. And yet they had all known that Hulls were nearby; and now that the strange enchantment of the Treesong was not obliterating all her senses, she could feel their cold, malignant presence.

  There were many of them—perhaps a dozen, perhaps more. Many more than she had guessed earlier, when she had felt their dim shadows pressing on her mind. She had then reckoned there were three, maybe four. They must have used powerful shielding; because the sorcery of Hulls disrupted the Balance, it was much more difficult for a Hull to shield its power than it was for a Bard. Somehow these Hulls had managed to cast a spell on all of them, except Maerad herself, through Cadvan's wards and walls. And Cadvan would have made powerful charms, complex spells that would not be easy to undo or bypass. That meant, thought Maerad, that among their number were powerful and subtle sorcerers.

  Maerad closed her eyes, wishing that her body would stop shaking. After days of inaction, it seemed that now things would not stop happening. Then she slowly stood up and looked westward, down the slope along which she had watched Hem and Saliman and Hekibel ride only a short time earlier.

  The Hulls were cloaked by sorcery, but she could perceive them as clearly as if she could see them with her eyes. The sun had now sunk, the last of its light ebbing orange over the western horizon. The evening sky arched huge and luminous over the empty land, which swept down from her feet in rich hues of purple, and the first white stars were already beginning to appear above. Maerad looked over the darkening land before her and was st
ruck for the first time by its lonely beauty.

  The Hulls were riding toward her in a line, each abreast of the other, and they seemed to Maerad not like darkness, not like light, but like an absence of both. They were an emptiness riding toward her over the innocent earth—not at all like the terrifying nothing that she had encountered when she had fought the Landrost, but a malign, conscious, deliberate sterility.

  A vast contempt rose within her. The Landrost, for all his violent intent, was a power she could respect. What she perceived in the Hulls was, more than anything, a corrosive pettiness, a smallness of being that had made them shrink from the generosity of life and choose instead the emptiness of control, of mere dominance.

  She counted them. There were fourteen Hulls riding with slow deliberation toward the campsite. She guessed that Cadvan's wards were slowing them down; otherwise they would already have attacked.

  She stood and waited, feeling no urgency. Her body seemed to be stronger, her limbs were no longer shaking so badly. Then she glanced at her friends, and her conscience smote her. If she was not afraid, they felt no such assurance. Hekibel's eyes, the only part of her that could express anything, revealed sheer terror.

  "Have no fear," Maerad said aloud, and she made a strange gesture with her hands, not even deigning to speak. At once the spell was broken, and all four of them slumped with relief at being released from their horrible suspension.

  "I thank you, Maerad," said Cadvan, rubbing his neck. "That was a nasty moment. Surprised by Hulls! I could spit!"

  "There are fourteen," said Maerad. "They ride slowly. I am guessing they are hampered by your magery but, all the same, they cast that spell through all your wards."

  Hekibel drew a sharp breath. "Fourteen?" she said in a small voice.

  "If they can break wards that Cadvan set, there must be a mighty power there." Saliman drew his sword and eyed it coldly. "They will not harm us," said Maerad. "They cannot."

  Saliman stared at Maerad with amazement, and then glanced quickly at Cadvan, who gave him a slight nod. He cleared his throat. "Well, even so, I think that maybe Hekibel and Hem can perhaps get out of the way."