The Singing

by Alison Croggon

  "Shall we cross the bridge?" he said aloud.

  They nodded, Hekibel slightly after the others. In the pale light of the magelights, her face was drained of all color. Her mouth was set, her face determined, and it seemed to Hem, glancing across, that she was battling down a terrible fear. A sudden rush of admiration filled his heart: of all of them, he thought, Hekibel was the most defenseless, and the most brave.

  "Be wary," said Cadvan. "The main thing is to get across as quickly as possible."

  They urged the horses to a trot, and soon reached the Bard Road. The sharp sound of the hooves on the stone seemed too loud, and Hem felt very exposed as they trotted briskly toward the bridge, the magelights floating in front of the horses like eerie guides. He could feel nausea rising in his belly as they approached the river, but he pushed it down. It didn't feel like Hulls; in fact, he couldn't sense the presence of Hulls anywhere. Perhaps Maerad was mistaken ...

  He knew as soon as they stepped onto the bridge that she had not been mistaken at all. A Hull stepped out of thin air at the far end of the bridge, and at the same time he felt a chill behind him, and knew that their way back was blocked by another. They were ambushed. If it hadn't been for Maerad's warning, they would have been taken completely by surprise. As it was, the blasts of sorcery that both Hulls hurled toward them were absorbed by their shields, and Hem merely felt a momentary deafness as he drew his shortsword from his scabbard, realizing as he did so that he had no idea how to fight on horseback, and that probably if he tried he would cause more damage to Keru than to anyone else.

  He glanced involuntarily toward Maerad, expecting her to lay waste to the Hulls as she had in the Hollow Lands; but Maerad was staring down into the river with a look of utter horror. She swayed on Darsor, looking as if she were about to faint, and she seemed wholly unaware that they were under attack. Then Keru shied, almost throwing Hem off, and he realized that with his sword drawn on horseback he was more a liability than anything else. Holding the blade out of the way, he swung around on his stomach and slid off Keru, clutching the reins in his hands and whispering to her, trying to calm her down as he attempted to see what was happening.

  At first he couldn't see Maerad at all; she was no longer on Darsor. Then he spotted her crouched by the low wall that ran along the bridge. Saliman and Cadvan had swung around so that each of them faced one of the Hulls, and both Bards blazed with magery, their faces grim, their eyes hard and deadly. Cadvan held aloft a black medallion that drew Hem's fascinated attention: he didn't know what it was, but it made him uneasy to see it in Cadvan's hands. Even as he watched, a bolt of light arced over his head, and the bridge was briefly illuminated in a harsh white light that threw livid shadows across their faces. Hem didn't know whether the light had come from Saliman or Cadvan, and he couldn't even tell its direction. The metallic smell of sorcery filled the air, and he gagged and drew back against the wall of the bridge, trying to hold on to Keru, who was now panicking, rearing back from him, her eyes rolling, her ears flat against her head. Hekibel was struggling with Usha nearby, attempting to stop her from bolting.

  There was another blast of sorcery, although again it didn't hit them. Their shields were holding firm, but Hem realized that there was something else in play. It seemed to him that the sorcery of the Hulls was not missing them so much as being held in suspension around them. He felt the hair lift on his scalp, as if lightning were about to strike, and ducked instinctively. Another blast of magery flashed across the bridge; at least, he thought it was magery, as it blazed with White Fire but left a taste of burned metal on the air. Cadvan had used the blackstone to turn the Hulls' sorcery against them.

  There was a brief, blood-chilling scream that at once curdled into silence. Hem stared ahead into the darkness, and then glanced swiftly behind him, at the near end of the bridge. The cold, loathly presence of the Hulls had completely vanished. Where the nearest Hull had been standing he could see a small, dark heap. Hem's gorge rose, and he turned his eyes away; he knew that it was a pile of fleshless bones.

  He breathed out, and the tension drained from his body, leaving him light-headed. The night was clean now. The river ran noisily beneath them, and the rain fell on the wet road, and aside from the stamping and snorting of the horses and their own breathing, they could hear no other sound. He felt that little time had passed since they had stepped onto the bridge: the confrontation had been over quickly.

  "I think there are no more," said Cadvan. He dismounted and comforted the horses, but he did not sheathe his sword. "They were lowly guards, no more—by no means powerful sorcerers. It shows that this bridge is considered important enough for the captain to have posted Hulls rather than ordinary soldiers. I would like to know, all the same, how they hid themselves; it makes me uneasy. It could be that even now a messenger runs to its master, to report this battle."

  "Aye, that is very possible," said Saliman. He looked around, sniffing the night air. "Maerad, can you sense any Hulls?"

  Maerad jumped at this direct address. She wrenched her gaze from the river and met Saliman's eyes, and he flinched at what he saw. Her face was drawn with horror and grief, and her eyes seemed to reflect an abyss of such darkness that he could not guess its depth.

  Hem started toward her, wanting to comfort her, but she shook her head, as if forbidding him, and swallowed. When she spoke, her voice was harsh.

  "There are no Hulls here," she said. "Only death. Death everywhere." She covered her eyes again with her hands. "I don't want to see anymore. I can't bear it..."

  Cadvan put his arm around her shoulder and she leaned into him, her body shuddering. "I don't want to see," she repeated. "Please, help me, I can't bear it anymore."

  Cadvan and Saliman exchanged glances. They clearly didn't know what to do. But Hekibel dismounted and came toward Maerad, unknotting a red silk scarf she wore around her throat. She held it up. "Will this do?" she asked.

  Maerad swallowed and nodded, and gently Hekibel tied the scarf around Maerad's eyes. The red silk looked like blood. The sight of his sister blindfolded in this way stabbed Hem to the heart with pity and a sad fury. He didn't understand what was happening to her, but he thought he had never seen anyone in such pain.

  They left the scene of the battle as swiftly as they could, following the Bard Road, which ran westward, for speed. It stopped raining, and the sky began to clear; after a while the moon came out, letting fall its cold light on the stone road. They were numb with cold and tiredness and their damp cloaks chafed their skins, but they dared not stop to make a fire to warm themselves.

  The Bard Road turned north about a league from the bridge, and here they left it behind and climbed the west side of the valley. When they reached the top of the ridge, a punishing wind hit them with bruising force. It seemed to pierce them to their marrow with a cold that deadened the heart.

  The travelers paused briefly, looking glumly over the bare moors that glimmered before them under the moonlight.

  "The Hutmoors," said Cadvan. "I had hoped, last time I crossed this desolation, that I would never have cause to return."

  Saliman stared over the waste, an unreadable expression on his face. "I think that I have never seen anything more forlorn," he said at last.

  "The Nameless One hated the Dhyllin with a special hatred," answered Cadvan. "And this is what that hatred meant." He paused. "I have no idea what direction we should go. Perhaps it would be best to keep close to the river."

  "No," said Hem, unexpectedly. "It's north from here, that way." He pointed over the moors.

  Saliman glanced at Hem in surprise, but made no comment.

  "North it is, then," said Cadvan. He gathered up his reins. "I don't know about you, but I am nearly dead from weariness. I think we cannot ride much farther tonight."

  Away from the river and its stunted willows, there was no shelter from the wind at all. At least, thought Hekibel, grateful for even the smallest of mercies, it wasn't raining. The pl
ace was haunted—she was sure that she heard voices sobbing on the wind, and she saw fleeting forms at the edge of her sight that vanished when she turned to look. She drew closer to Saliman; even in this desolate night, he seemed to radiate a comforting light. Hem also saw the hauntings, but they didn't trouble him as much as the earthsickness that was growing in him the deeper they moved into the Hutmoors. The very ground was maimed. He felt it in his body: it was a pain that ran through his bones and flowered in his stomach like nausea. He tried to push it aside; it had been worse, after all, in the Glandugir Hills, and he had survived that...

  They stopped not long afterward, huddling for shelter against one of the low, stony ridges that rumpled the surface of these bleak moors. They were too exhausted and too wary of pursuit to make a fire. Despite the cold and his nausea, Hem was so tired that he fell asleep almost at once, and wandered in dreams down the same long road where he had followed Saliman in his sickness, a road that gleamed faintly in an endless darkness. He was searching for someone, but he couldn't remember who it was, only that it was very important that he find her, and at the same time he knew she was lost forever. He woke with a start in a pale dawn and realized that he had been searching for his mother. He didn't remember anything about her except a fragrance like summer peaches, a memory of dark hair falling across his face, the cradling warmth of arms.

  He sighed and looked around at his companions, his heart heavy with foreboding. All of them looked bruised with weariness. Maerad had sat staring blindly northward as the others slept: under her blindfold, which she refused to take off, her face was hollow and drawn, and there was a high flush on her cheekbones. She spoke no word, but Hem saw that the enchantment that flickered through her skin was becoming stronger. But it no longer seemed warm like firelight or the sunshine of summer; the light that shimmered within her seemed to be colder, a blue fire that made him think of ice.

  They made a cheerless breakfast. Maerad again refused food; she had eaten nothing for days. Her thinness was becoming alarming. Hem tried to persuade her to eat, even putting food into her hands. When he pressed her, she smiled and gave the food back to him, closing his fingers over it, and Hem knew there was no point in arguing any further. The only thing that was keeping her alive, thought Hem, was medhyl. Cadvan had brought a good supply from Innail, and aside from water, it was all she would take.

  "So, Hem," said Saliman, as they prepared the weary horses to ride again. "You think you know where to go?"

  Hem nodded. "That way," he said.

  Saliman studied him. "You're quite sure?" he said, almost smiling at Hem's lack of doubt.

  "It's the earth sense," Hem said. "This place is waking it up. I feel as if I'm going to be sick all the time, like I did in the

  Glandugir Hills, but there's also this—pull. Sort of like when Maerad called me. It's getting stronger the closer we get." "Is it far?"

  "No. It's close, I think. Perhaps we might reach it by nightfall."

  "I hope you're right." Saliman passed his hand over his face, and in that gesture Hem perceived the full extent of the exhaustion that his friend had hidden for days. He wasn't fully recovered from the White Sickness, and he had ridden leagues over hard country, through fear and danger, when he really should have been in bed. Only his will was keeping him going, and his will was made of iron. Hem realized that Saliman was very close to the end of his strength. With a rush of love, he reached out and clasped his hand.

  Saliman looked up, surprised, and met his eyes, and read there what Hem was unable to say. He smiled, and briefly he was again the Saliman that Hem had known in Turbansk, carefree and mischievous, gentle and strong. "It will be a relief to get to some end, for good or ill," he said. "And it might be ill. I sense a great darkness around us, Hem, and it is not the keening of the lost souls of the Hutmoors that so troubles my spirit. I think I can guess who it is who hunts us over the scene of his last great battle, and I am afraid that we cannot prevail against such a foe, if he is indeed here. If this journey turns out ill, I hope you know how much I have loved you."

  Hem nodded, unable to speak for emotion, and turned away to mount Keru. He thought that he, too, could guess the name behind the shadow that pressed upon his mind, but even to think it felt unlucky.

  Riding through the Hutmoors by day was only marginally better than riding at night: they could see where they were going, but it was a dour, cheerless place, and it felt no less haunted by daylight. Seated behind Cadvan on Darsor, Maerad was silent. Blindfolded, she stared unseeingly over the gray turf that spring had barely touched, and sometimes her lips moved as if she were speaking, but not even Cadvan could hear what she said. Her mouth was set in a hard line and her face was drawn, as if she were in constant pain. Her arms around Cadvan's waist were like a vise.

  Late that afternoon, they arrived at a place that looked very like any other place in the Hutmoors, except that it sloped down to a swamp dotted with stagnant, weed-choked pools in which grew red sedges and green sphagnums and high stands of rushes.

  "This is it," said Hem, pulling Keru to a halt. "This is the place."

  Cadvan surveyed the swamp and the higher land next to it, and his jaw hardened. There was no sign, not even the grass-covered ridge of a wall, that showed that here there once stood a fair city.

  "Are you certain?" asked Saliman.

  "Yes." Hem couldn't have said why he was so certain; he just knew that here was the center of the urge that had been calling him since he and Maerad had attempted the Singing in the Hollow Lands. It was also the center of the sickness that, now he had dismounted, rose up through his feet and made him want to gag. He pushed away his physical discomfort and began to unsaddle Keru, who nuzzled his shoulder and whickered. "I don't know whether it's the place that used to be Afinil," he said. "But I do know it's where we have to be."

  Maerad slid off Darsor and ripped off the scarf. She stared about her, startled, as if she had been woken from sleep. "He's right," she said. Hem looked at her in surprise. Her voice was clear and certain, ringing out over the emptiness, and it seemed to him as if something spoke through her. "It's the right place. It is Afinil. This is where the Song was trapped and made into a thing that could be stolen and used for ill. This is where it all began. This is where it must end, for good or ill, under the same moon that blessed its beginning."

  "If it was Afinil, that swamp was once a lake famous for its clear waters," said Cadvan, after a short silence. "No doubt the Nameless One broke all the towers and used them to fill up the lake."

  Saliman swallowed. "I have sometimes dreamed of Afinil," he said. "I walked through the vineyards and orchards of the Dhyllin. And I saw the white spires of Afinil reflected in the water, and heard the music that echoed through her fair halls, and in my dreams I have touched the beautiful things that were made here. But there is nothing left. Nothing. I read somewhere that Sharma's true greatness was in his pettiness. I'm not sure that I really understood what that meant until this moment."

  "Aye," said Cadvan. "Of all that great citadel, nothing remains. Not even the shadow of a ruin of what was said to be the most beautiful city on the face of the earth. It is a kind of greatness, I suppose, to hate with so much thoroughness." He suddenly sounded immensely tired. "And this will be the fate of all the great cities of Annar, if he has his way."

  Hem understood that Cadvan was wondering about the fate of Lirigon, and his thoughts turned to Irc. Although he knew that Irc was too far away, he sent out an impulsive summoning. He hadn't really expected Irc to answer, but when no answer came, he felt a stab of sorrow. He would have liked to speak once more with his friend.

  "We must wait for moonrise," said Maerad. She took her lyre from her pack, tucking it under her arm, and walked a small distance away from them to the edge of the swamp. There she stood alone, her hair flying back from her face, staring out over the swamp, and Hem knew, with a sudden prescience, that she did not see the same bleak landscape that he did. Perhaps, he thou
ght, she was looking at the mere as once it was, when it was surrounded by lush gardens and the towers of Afinil rose high above its tranquil surface. Cadvan was rubbing down Darsor a short distance away, but his eyes were fixed on Maerad. His face was dark with sadness, but he made no attempt to speak to her, and neither did Hem.

  Hem sighed, and went over to help Saliman and Hekibel, who were beginning to set up a camp in the lee of a low ridge of rock that would protect them a little from the merciless wind. Whatever doom awaited them, they might as well have a hot meal first.

  Chapter XXI

  THE SINGING

  TRAVELING through the Hutmoors had been for Maerad the worst torment she had ever known. Where her companions glimpsed the shades that haunted this landscape's melancholy present, Maerad saw a bitterly vivid past. With her inner eye she perceived woodlands, vineyards, fields, and towns that had long vanished from the face of the world. She saw what the Hutmoors had been two thousand years before, when it was called the Firman Plains, and the Usk had been the Findol River, famous for its clear waters, beloved by dye makers and vintners.

  In the space of a single day she saw all the beauty that had been there, and its irrevocable destruction. She saw the Nameless One's victory over the armies of Lirion and Imbral and she saw the massacre that followed, when the Dhyllin people were cut down in their thousands—man, woman, and child—as Sharma's army wreaked his vengeance on Imbral. As soon as she saw a village standing in the sunlight amid fields of plenty, she knew that she would next witness flame set in corn and vine and home. If she saw a child, she would also see its death; if she saw people gathered in a town square or village common, she knew she would see their merciless slaughter.

  The blindfold had helped a little; it protected her outer sight, but the visions rose also in her mind's eye. It seemed to Maerad that she experienced each death as if it were her own father or mother or child or brother or sister who was killed, as if Sharma's soldiers cut down her closest kin, her dearest loves. She couldn't find any way to hide from the grief and terror of each death, and it happened over and over and over again. She saw cruelty beyond imagining, atrocity on a scale that she could not comprehend, fear and despair and sorrow that were beyond the capacity of words to describe. She thought she was going mad.