The Singing

by Alison Croggon

  "The dead ask for their accounting," she said. "And those I have killed forgive me. Oh Hem, I am forgiven."

  Hem nodded. He did not understand what Maerad said, and he didn't trust himself to speak.

  At that moment, Hem became aware that someone was watching them. The skin on the back of his neck prickled with a premonition of menace, as if an archer now trained his arrow on the center of Hem's back, and he felt as if the air thickened around him, choking him.

  "Don't take any notice," whispered Maerad. She lifted her lyre. "Now, Hem. Now!"

  Hem hastily bent and struck the tuning fork on a stone at his feet. At first it made no sound, but then the note rang, sweet and clear on the cold air. Just as it began to vibrate, something hit him with a force that knocked him over, and he almost dropped the fork.

  He heard Maerad's voice, sharp and impatient over the rising note that now began to fill the whole world. She sounded suddenly like his sister, not the strange, distant, tormented being he had seen over the past days.

  "For the Light's sake, Hem, don't drop it!" she said. "Hold on to it if you love your life."

  The blow came again, and then again. An instinct told Hem that this was only a muffled attack, that something shielded him from a force that would otherwise have destroyed him as easily as if he were one of the tiny spiders that spread their webs through the Hutmoors. Staggering to his feet, his ears popping, Hem clutched the fork in both of his hands, holding it high over his head. It was blazing with such intensity that he could see the bones inside his hands through the pink clothing of his flesh. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Maerad's lyre was shining with the same light. She lifted it in her arm and raised her left hand, waiting for the right moment. It was a hand of light, a hand that was not maimed, and at the sight Hem's spirit lifted. It seemed to him that at that moment she had never been wounded, that she had never lost her fingers at all, that the terrible things that had happened to both of them had been only a dream from which they now would wake, forever whole.

  The note that filled the air was swelling and growing, and Hem realized with terror and joy that the tuning fork had roused the music that had surged through his body in Nal-Ak-Burat, the music that the Elidhu had breathed into him. But the music that had possessed him then was a mere shadow of the glorious torrent of sound that now lifted and transfigured him. He was a single shining note in an infinite melody that lifted and carried him beyond everything he had ever been or ever known. It seemed to Hem that he had become an instrument, that everything around him—every stone, each blade of grass, each stalk and leaf of every rush and sedge, the layers of rock that stretched beneath his feet to the molten heart of the world, the stars that blazed in the endless sky above him—was awakened into its own unique melody, and all these melodies wove together through his body into an immense, ever-changing harmony that was the living fabric of the world. His heart broke for its fragility, for the delicacies that wove themselves into the deepest intricacies of its being, and at the same time he thought its cruel and violent loveliness would kill him. He couldn't bear its beauty, but he never wanted it to end.

  Then Maerad brought down her hand and struck the strings of her lyre, and the world changed forever.

  When Hem bent down and struck the tuning fork, the sweet note pierced Maerad to her heart, and she gasped. She had felt Sharma gathering his power as the moon rose up from the horizon and, almost idly, she strengthened her shield against him as she readied to play her lyre. He could not touch her. Sharma, she said. You cannot prevail.

  His answer was a massive blow that shocked her with its power. It burst through her shield, although it lost most of its force, and struck Hem. He almost dropped the tuning fork, and a sudden fear bit Maerad's heart: Hem was vulnerable in a way that she was not. This was the single chance they had, and if the note died now, it would never sound again. She raised her shield at once, making it much stronger.

  Hem scrambled to his feet, shaking his head, but he did not drop the tuning fork, and the music swelled up around them, and Maerad heard for the first time the music of the Elidhu. But she could not let herself be carried away on its wild splendor. She stood firm against the overwhelming wave of the music as it rushed through her, listening for the correct moment. She would know it when it came. She raised her hand, feeling the lyre trembling with power against her breast, and the Song began to form in her mind, possessing her as if she were the Song itself. She bent her head and struck the chord that signaled the first of the runes, Ura, the Full Moon, the Apple Tree, and she opened her mouth to sing. And in that moment, her defenses were open to attack.

  Before she could sing the first word, Sharma brought the full force of his power against her. The words caught in her throat; she felt as if a giant hand were throttling her, and an unbearable pressure pushed her down, down, down to the ground. For a fleeting instant she thought of when the women had almost drowned her in the mud at Gilman's Cot; she heard the same roaring in her ears, the same defeated limpness in her limbs. She could still hear the music of the Elidhu, and she heard Hem shouting beside her, holding her up, but it all seemed to come from a great distance. She struggled toward the music, but she was powerless to move in the waves of blackness that now possessed her, that were strangling the life out of her.

  Then, inexplicably, the pressure lightened, and she gulped convulsively, leaning dizzily against Hem. The lyre was still in her hands, the Elidhu music still sounded around her, the Song still waited to be played; but she was weak, and her lyre felt as heavy as stone, so that she could barely hold it. She shook her head, trying to clear it, and listened desperately for the chords that should come to her, but she could not hear them; a gale of darkness raged about her ears and deafened her.

  And then she saw something that she did not understand. She blinked and looked again: a silvery light was sifting through the darkness, and as it did, the monstrous pressure lifted. It seemed as if the darkness were being touched by thousands of unseen hands that left briefly upon it a shimmering palm print, like the vaporous print of a hand upon cold glass. For a moment Maerad marveled at the strangeness of what she saw, and then she understood: it was the dead touching Sharma's shadow, and where they put their hands, he weakened and retreated. And she remembered that Sharma feared death above everything else. Now those whom he had killed had come to touch him with their deaths. She felt his horror and fear as thousands of the dead placed their spectral hands upon him, and her heart lifted with a sudden hope. The music came clearer now, and Hem stood straight beside her, holding up the tuning fork, and the chords came back into her mind, lovely and wild, as they should be played.

  She glanced up to the moon, which burned like a pool of molten silver low on the horizon. And the words of the stanza rushed into her mind, and she opened her mouth and sang the first line of the stanzas of the moon. Her voice shook and did not carry, but as she sang her voice strengthened, until it rang out over the empty wolds with a power greater than any mortal voice:

  I am the dew on every hill I am the leap in every womb lam the fruit of every bough I am the edge of every knife I am the hinge of every question

  As she sang the final line, she paused, waiting for the music to reveal the chords of the rest of the Song, but she ran her hands continuously over the lyre, so the melodies of the moon stanzas rippled over the Elidhu music. And it seemed to her then that the moon had been called down from the sky and stood before her on the thin turf. She blinked, dazzled, and Hem hid his face.

  It was Ardina, but Maerad had not seen Ardina in this guise. Her beauty shook Maerad's heart with terror. Her hair seemed to be alive, as if she were haloed with hissing snakes, and she blazed with a terrible anger. She wore a helm and armor of shining silver, and in both hands she held long blades that flashed so brightly that Maerad couldn't look on them. When she spoke, her voice was cold.

  "Sing for my kindred, Elednor," she said. "Do not fear. I will protect you."

&nbs
p; And then Maerad knew the chords, and she sang as Ardina bade her:

  I am the song of seven branches

  I am the gathering sea foam and the waters beneath it

  I am the wind and what is borne by the wind

  lam the falling tears of the sun

  I am the eagle rising to a cliff

  I am all directions over the face of the waters

  I am the flowering oak which transforms the earth

  I am the bright arrow of vengeance

  I am the speech of salmon in the icy pool

  I am the blood which swells the leafless branch

  I am the hunter's voice which roars through the valley

  I am the valor of the desperate roe

  I am the honey stored in the rotting hive

  I am the sad waves breaking endlessly

  The seed of woe sleeps in my darkness and the seed of gladness

  As she sang each stanza, she saw with wonder that hundreds of forms were materializing in the empty moors before her: the Elidhu of Edil-Amarandh were come to claim their Song. The stanzas of spring summoned creatures like waterfalls who tumbled endlessly in the air, and slender girls like saplings crowned with apple and cherry blossom, and a pregnant doe, and swallows whose wings were edged with sunlight; and the summer stanzas called forth an eagle with feathers of flame, a man who stood tall as a tree and whose hair was leaves, a golden bull, a cloud with eyes and a mouth, a wild pig with massive tusks. And there were many more, all of them so different from the others that she could scarcely comprehend them, but each of them with the same slitted yellow Elidhu eyes. And more came and more, and they lifted their voices to sing with Maerad, so the chorus richened and deepened; but still Maerad's voice rose above them all.

  And then she struck the chords for the winter runes, and straight before her stood Arkan, his brow crowned with icy diamonds, and she lifted her head proudly and met his eyes as she sang; and he smiled as dazzlingly as winter sun on snow, and his eyes were only for her. And in that moment she was entirely regretless, and her heart trembled like a bird daring the highest reaches of the sky. The music soared inside her and the Elidhu voices gave her wings, and she knew that it was not Maerad who sang, but all the bright and savage beauty of the wild world singing through her. And it seemed to Maerad that she, too, was Elidhu, that she flew with them through their fluid and ever-changing world, and that she had never known such bliss as she knew in those moments.

  When she reached the last stanza, her lyre and the tuning fork blazed with a brilliance that was like the sun itself. She sang the last word, gladness, and a great light leaped toward the Elidhu and filled them with a blinding radiance, so that it burned Maerad's eyes merely to gaze on them. And as she watched, their forms became indistinct and began to ebb. There were now only a few chords before the Singing was over, and Maerad played them, sobbing for the loss of this fierce loveliness, begging the Elidhu not to leave her behind. But as her hands rippled over the closing chords of the Treesong, every Elidhu vanished before her eyes, and the music that had lifted her up so that she flew among the stars set her gently on the hard ground and abandoned her.

  Maerad saw without surprise that the runes that had been carved into the wood had disappeared, as if they had never been there, and that it was now just the simple harp it had always appeared to be. She stood forlorn in the great waste, the lyre forgotten in her hand, yearning toward the final notes of the Elidhus' music as it carried on past her, an echo of unbearable loveliness, and then faded into silence.

  But the silence was not the end. For as the music died, it seemed to Maerad that she was beginning to unravel with it, that her longing for the Elidhu undid her, as if she were a spool that was spinning around and around and the thread of herself were being pulled away. She dropped her lyre and clutched herself with her arms, as if she could hold herself together, but she was spinning faster and faster, and all of herself was spinning away, and it was the greatest pain she had ever known. She heard, as if from very far away, a great scream, and she recognized Sharma's voice and knew the same thing was happening to him. She understood then that Sharma was undone, and that the spell of binding at last was broken, and that he and all his power were being ripped from the world. And as he was undone, so was she; and she realized with bitter anguish that Sharma had been right when he had told her that she would lose everything.

  She felt no triumph, no sense of justice done or restitution made. All she could feel was the inconsolable agony of her loss, and she realized that the scream she heard was also her own voice, an endless scream as her mind was ripped and torn, as her flesh was stripped from her bones and her bones shredded into splinters, as everything she had ever known herself to be was torn apart and rushed away from her into a great, burning emptiness, and a blackness whistled through her like a merciless wind, until there was nothing left, nothing at all, of what she was, of what she could be, of what she would ever be.

  And then she knew she was still there, after all. She lay on the hard ground, and she was very cold, and a stone had cut her cheek so that the blood tickled as it ran down her face. And Hem's arms were flung around her, and he was sobbing with passionate grief because he thought that she was dead. She stirred and sat up, and put her arms around him to comfort him. And then Hem smiled through his tears, and they held each other close, as if they had found each other again after a long and bitter parting. And they did not hear the plaintive whistle of the wind through the reeds nor the calling of their friends as they ran up to help them, because now, in this moment, there was only each other.

  And the Song never stopped: released at last into its own music, it played on through all the depths and heights and breadths of the wide and vivid world, following its own desires beyond the reaches of the human heart, forever wild, forever whole, forever free.

  EPILOGUE

  GAMPHIS of Innail was on guard by the gate, enjoying the first really warm day of spring, when a ragged band of five travelers rode up on four gaunt horses and demanded entrance. He stared through the grille and harshly demanded their business. Aside from the grim mountain men who had besieged the walls of Innail a month before, he thought that he had never seen such a disreputable-looking lot. And besides, he was under strict instructions not to admit anyone who did not satisfactorily identify themselves. Although the Fesse had been peaceful since the Landrost had been defeated by the Maid of Innail, tales came their way of massive armies marching through Annar, of war and civil strife, and they still lived under daily fear of attack. It was a time of fear and suspicion and dark rumor.

  "Didn't they send news ahead of us?" came a sharp, impatient voice, before anyone else could answer. "It's me, Camphis. Maerad of Pellinor. And I'm tired and I'm hungry and I want a bath and I'll never forgive you if you don't open those gates at once."

  Camphis started, and looked again more closely. He blushed to the roots of his hair when he realized that he had been about to refuse admittance to Maerad of Pellinor, the Maid of Innail herself, and Cadvan of Lirigon. He could be forgiven for his mistake: a dark beard curled on Cadvan's chin, which had always been clean-shaven, and Maerad herself was so thin he barely recognized her even now. And the glossy horses that had stepped proudly out of Innail were now hollow-flanked, and their coats stared with lack of condition. Hastily he unbarred the gate, and the travelers rode inside and dismounted. Maerad smiled at the young Bard, and his blush deepened.

  "I'm sorry, Mistress Maerad," he stammered. "I—"

  To his surprise, Maerad laughed. "Greetings, Camphis," she said. "Of course I forgive you. It's good to see you again."

  Cadvan turned to Camphis, smiling tiredly. "If you love me, friend, call some of Indik's apprentices to take these horses and give them some of the loving attention they so richly deserve. And tell Malgorn we're here, five of us: Maerad and me, and Saliman of Turbansk, and Hem of Turbansk, who is Maerad's brother, and Hekibel, daughter of Hirean. Oh, and Irc of—Irc the Savi
or of Lirigon. And we're all hungry."

  He clapped Camphis on the shoulder, and Camphis blinked and whistled for a messenger and relayed the names that Cadvan had told him, and the boy looked his astonishment and then took off as if wers were at his heels. And before long the horses were knee-deep in hay, their coats cleaned of every trace of sweat and dirt after a long rubdown, munching peacefully at a hot mash of oats and bran; and the travelers were walking slowly up to Malgorn and Silvia's Bardhouse, listening in a daze of wonder to the birdsong that rose in the bright spring sunshine. Their legs felt as if they were made of stone, for they were very weary. It was no wonder that they had outstripped any messengers. They had ridden through the Let of Innail, the narrow opening between the two mountain spurs that embraced the valley, only the day before, and despite being bade to stay and rest by the soldiers who camped there, they had ridden on as fast as they could, so impatient were they to see their friends.

  As they neared the Bardhouse, the doors were flung open and Silvia rushed out, her arms held wide. She had clearly been in the kitchen: her hair was tied up in a scarf and her arms were covered in flour up to her elbows. She ran up to Maerad and Cadvan, her face shining with joy, and she threw her arms around both of them and kissed them over and over again; and then she recognized Saliman, and kissed him; and then Hem and Hekibel had to be introduced and embraced in turn; and by the end of it all everyone, even Irc, was covered in white handprints.

  Silvia then brought them all inside and insisted that they eat before anything else—she was deeply shocked by Maerad's thinness. And shortly after a substantial meal of fresh bread and stew, Maerad—reluctantly taking leave of Cadvan, who winked at her behind Silvia's back as she hustled them down the hallway—was sitting on her bed in her chamber. It looked exactly the same as when she had left, as if it had been waiting for her; but Maerad felt as if she were an entirely different person. She dumped her pack on the floor and looked out the open window. The branches that waved in the gentle winds outside were heavy with pink blossom, and bees buzzed idly over them, and she could hear someone practicing a flute somewhere inside the Bardhouse. A blue dress was laid out on her bed, and beside it was a cake of soap that smelled of oranges and jasmine. Maerad picked up the soap and prepared to take the longest and most luxurious bath she had ever had.