Alison Croggon - [Pellinor 04]

by The Singing (lit)

  Maerad nodded again. "I know that too," she said.

  She was thinking of how she had felt when she had killed other beings—those of the Dark, the wer and the Kulag, or the Hulls. She had always felt that the act had marked her. She could justify it: they were evil, she had to save her own life. And yet, all the same, it seemed to her that killing the murderous creatures of the Dark had led, subtly but inevitably, to her killing of liar. Whether she liked it or not, whether she thought her assailants were evil or not, she was dealing out death, and she couldn't still the voice inside her that said that it was wrong. She reflected, not for the first time, that it wasn't so easy to know whether or not your actions were right. Sometimes, Cadvan had said to her once, there is no choice before you except between bad and worse.

  Ill

  A FAREWELL

  T

  HEY tracked down Indik in the saddlery, where he was overseeing some young Bards and apprentices who were polishing the saddles, bridles, and other equip­ment. The room was filled with a quiet hum of industrious activity and a delicious smell of linseed oil and leather. Maerad sniffed appreciatively.

  Indik glanced up when they entered and, despite himself, smiled broadly. He was a stern-looking, stocky man, the sever­ity of his face exaggerated by a savage scar that drew the skin around his eyes into a squint.

  "I'll be leaving you scoundrels for a while," he said to his students. "If I find that any of you have been lazy while I'm away, a price will be exacted. Don't think that I won't notice. I will. That includes you, Rundal," he said, turning his fierce gaze onto a young man whose undisciplined hair framed his face with a mass of curls.

  This imp-faced lad of about fifteen looked up and nodded seriously. As Indik turned away, he winked slyly at his friend next to him. Maerad was quite certain that Indik saw this, but he gave no sign as he greeted them.

  "So you're still alive," he said gruffly to Maerad, unable to entirely conceal his pleasure. "Amazing. I think that deserves a wine, don't you?"

  Bards, Maerad reflected as she and Cadvan followed Indik to a nearby tavern called, predictably enough, the Horse's Mane, thought every occasion deserved a drink. Even if there wasn't an occasion, they would invent one. So different from the thugs at Gilman's Cot, where she had been a slave; there they would gulp down the voka, an eye-stinging spirit distilled from turnips, until they vomited or fell senseless to the ground. Maerad had very seldom seen a drunken Bard, and had never seen Bards drinking themselves into a stupor. For them, drink­ing was all about pleasure: winemaking was considered one of the higher arts, and skilled winemakers were greatly revered.

  Once they had their wine, and were seated by a fire at a low table looking out through a mullioned window on a day that was rapidly clouding over, Indik began to talk about the recent events in Annar. Unlike Silvia or Malgorn, he seemed enlivened; a cold light burned in his eyes as he spoke of the battles that had taken place.

  "I've felt it coming," he said. "Like you, Cadvan, I knew something was happening these past years—a gathering. And now the storm breaks, no?"

  "Only its outriders, I fear," Cadvan answered. "The storm itself is yet to hit."

  "Yes, well. I heard about Turbansk." Indik was briefly gloomy, staring ahead, pulling at his lower lip. "That is bad, certainly. Very bad. And all this scheming from Enkir. That's bad too. If Norloch has gone to the Dark without a sword being raised, we are in desperate times indeed."

  Maerad glanced swiftly at the shrewd old warrior. No one else, even in Innail, had spoken of Norloch as being in alliance with the Dark; it was thought that Enkir was acting on his own black counsel.

  "Enkir is with the Dark," she said. "I have no doubt of it. Though many others do, obviously. I suppose no one wants to believe that of the First Bard of Annar." She tried to keep the scorn from her voice, but it was difficult; she felt a particular hatred for Enkir. It was Enkir who had set fire to Pellinor, who had betrayed and killed her parents, who had destroyed her childhood.

  "Difficult to get people to believe you, huh," Indik snorted. "It's obvious enough to me. I never trusted that dried-up old fish. People like Enkir need power to cover up their weakness; they are afraid of who they will see if they are left without its trappings. Some puny thing, I imagine, all covered in sores. Those people have worms for souls. Hulls in almost every respect..."

  The contempt was thick in his voice, and he nearly spat. Cadvan smiled grimly. "How right you are, old friend," he said. "And how do you read things here?"

  "The attacks on us are all from the mountains, mainly at the east end of Innail Fesse. Westward so far is basically untouched. But they are directed with a chill intelligence, and we have suffered some bad losses. You heard, of course, about Oron The only walled towns in Innail are Innail School and Tinagel; most people live in villages. But many villagers are now behind walls in Tinagel or here. Some stay and fight. One thing, those who say the valley dwellers are soft have it sadly wrong. . . . Most attacks have been murderous raids on the villages, aside from the big assault on Tinagel itself. We fought them back that time. But there is a will, Cadvan, a will; something leads these wers."

  "Not Hulls?" said Cadvan.

  "No. Wers, hundreds of them. Foul, evil creatures. And men, too, fighting for spoils. Mountain dwellers. Rough war­riors, decent weaponry, cunningly led—they kill any male, of any age, and the women and girls ..." He screwed up his face. "You don't want to lose those battles."

  "The Landrost, I suppose," said Maerad. The Landrost was a powerful Elidhu allied to the Dark, who had once held Cadvan captive.

  "Innail is still far from the Landrost's home, on the other side of the mountains," Cadvan said musingly. "All the same, it seems possible to me. He is most certainly in the thrall of the Nameless One, and does his bidding here."

  "I fear it may be so," said Indik. "Though few people agree with me. There is a strange sorcery in some of these attacks that is not one we know of from the Dark. And weathercraft. Unless it is just chance that attacks only happen in thunderstorms." He pulled at his lip again, his scarred face dark with thought. "I guess you are not staying, Cadvan. We could do with one of your abilities here."

  "Maerad and I have other tasks," said Cadvan. "Much as we would stay to help defend this place we love."

  "Yes." Indik looked between the two. "I won't ask," he said. "I will find out, I expect, and I have enough to worry over. Still, I am sorry you can't fight here. If it is the Landrost we face—and that is our best guess—then we have a formidable foe. We won't get any help from Annar, that's for sure. But Innail has always stood on her own." He grinned, his scarred face becoming a savage mask, and Maerad thought what a ter­rifying warrior Indik would be: there was something in him that loved battle for its very peril, a kind of finely judged reck­lessness, an utter ruthlessness. He would have no qualms about killing Hulls ...

  "I've a favor to ask," said Cadvan. "We will have to leave Innail soon, and Maerad needs a horse and a sword. Do you have any that would suit?"

  Indik looked sternly at Maerad. "It goes hard to lose a horse," he said. "Imi was a good mount."

  "She didn't die," said Maerad, with a shade of indignation. "She's with the Pilanel in Murask, and we can't get her back right now."

  Indik's eyebrows rose. "You have wandered far in your travels," he said. "And the sword?"

  "Arkan took Irigan when he captured me. I don't know what happened to it." Maerad thought of her sword regretfully; it had been one of her few possessions, and it was precious to her.

  "Arkan? The Winterking?" Indik glanced over to Cadvan for confirmation, plainly flabbergasted, although he covered it quickly. "Well, then. To lose arms when you are captured is only to be expected."

  "Don't be such a dry old stick, Indik," said Maerad teasingly. "I wouldn't just leave my sword in an inn, would I? But I do need a new one. I can't be a wolf all the time."

  "Now you are talking in riddles," said Indik, rubbing his chin and directing a piercing look at Maer
ad. Suddenly she was conscious that she had been gesturing with her left hand, and that he must have noticed her missing fingers. He had said noth­ing: Indik was no stranger, after all, to wounds and scars. It was, Maerad realized, the first time she hadn't felt ashamed of it.

  "I am chiefly wondering," said Indik, "what happened to that shy, charming Bard I met last spring. What did you do with her, Cadvan? Who is this bold young warrior?"

  "I'm not sure. I ask myself the same question," said Cadvan, smiling.

  "I'm the same person," Maerad said, lifting her chin. "Maerad of Pellinor, at your service."

  "You're still too thin," said Indik. "But I somehow think that you don't drop your sword anymore."

  With Darsor's freely given advice thrown in, Maerad chose a new horse shortly afterward. Indik had three of the same hardy crossbreed as Imi, two mares and a stallion. As far as Darsor was concerned, the fine-looking bay stallion was out of the question (although Maerad rather regretfully turned her eyes from him). There was also a black mare, and a straw­berry roan with a broad blaze down her nose. Maerad exam­ined both of them carefully, under Indik's deceptively casual gaze, and picked the roan. She knew she had chosen well by Indik's barely perceptible nod of approval.

  "That's Keru," said Indik, patting the mare's neck. "She'll carry you far. A little flightier than Imi, but just as tough."

  The mare reached her nose forward and sniffed Maerad's hand.

  Will you carry me? asked Maerad in the Speech.

  You smell good, said Keru. And you're very small. You're a friend of Darsor's?

  Yes, said Maerad. But we will be traveling hard and far and fast.

  Good. I'm bored here. I will bear you. The mare turned away to snatch some straw from a manger, and Maerad missed Imi all over again. She saw at once that Keru was a good, strong horse, and she had been polite, but the companionship Maerad had with Imi would be hard to replace.

  Well, she thought. I suppose we can't befriends all at once.

  Indik gave her a sword that he had forged himself. "It was supposed to be for a young woman in Tinagel," he said. "She will have to wait a few days longer; she has not your urgency. It is well made: I laid charms in every tempering. Make sure you are less careless with this one." He drew it from its light leather scabbard and handed the hilt to Maerad; she tested the balance, feeling it light and apt to her hand.

  "Thank you, Indik. I'll take good care of it, I promise."

  "What will you name it?" asked Cadvan.

  Maerad examined the sword. It was beautiful, with a straight, short blade of blue steel and a silver hilt shaped like a leaf and cunningly enameled with green. "Eled, I think," she said after a while. "Lily. It is a lily, like me."

  "Eled is a good name. It was meant for you, I think, although I did not know that when I made it." Maerad looked up and met Indik's eyes, and saw there the well-guarded gentleness that burned like a quiet flame inside him. "May you bear it to good fortune."

  Maerad felt the blessing in his words. Indik said things sometimes that resonated through her being; if he wasn't a Truthteller like Cadvan, he was very nearly one. She realized afresh how much she liked this ugly, harsh, honest man.

  "I hope so," she said fervently. "For all our sakes."

  After they left Indik, Cadvan went off on some business of his own and Maerad made her way to the center of the School, bending her steps to the Library. She wanted to visit Dernhil's rooms. Dernhil of Gent was a Bard—a great poet, Cadvan had said—who had taught her how to read and write, open­ing up the world of books to her astonished pleasure and delight. She was still very slow at both—-she had not had much time to practice in the past year—and the hunger to learn more ached inside her; but Dernhil's promise that he would teach her all the lore of Annar and the Seven King­doms would never now be kept. He had died last spring, when Hulls had secretly entered Innail in search of Maerad. The small illuminated book of poems Dernhil had given her was one of her most treasured possessions; she kept it in her pack, wrapped in oilskin.

  She remembered the way through the maze of corridors without difficulty, nodding to the Bards she passed, and halted outside the familiar door, suddenly feeling a little foolish. What if someone was in there? She hadn't asked anyone's permission to come, and it wasn't as if it were Dernhil's room any longer. She knocked hesitantly and, when no one answered, slowly pushed open the door.

  She had expected to find the room changed, filled perhaps with the belongings of another Bard. And it was different, but not for that reason. What had once been a cheerful room, full of clutter and work and warm light, was now empty and forlorn and cold. The air smelled musty and stale, as if the room had not been opened for a long time. Dernhil's furniture—a huge wooden desk and two chairs covered in azure silk—was still there, but the books that had filled the shelves were gone, leav­ing behind a litter of dusty oddments. A chill winter sun shone through the casement, casting a silver light over the dusty desk and chairs. Clearly no one used the room now.

  Maerad entered the chamber and shut the door behind her, filled with a sudden and overwhelming sense of bereavement. It was as if she hadn't really believed Dernhil was dead until this moment. Some secret part of her had still thought that he was really waiting here at work in his room, that she would knock on the door and he would glance up to greet her with that quick, ironic smile and clear a space for her on the chair beside his.

  He died in this room, Maerad thought. That's probably why no one took it over. She wandered around the room, look­ing at the shelves, and found a broken pen she remembered Dernhil using, lying forgotten against the wall. She picked it up and closed her fist around it; she would keep it with Dernhil's book, and the beautiful pen he had given her for her own use, as a memento. Then she walked over to the desk and sat down. The desk that she remembered as scarcely visible under a clut­ter of books, writing materials, parchments, and scrolls was completely bare, covered in a thin layer of dust. Into her mind, unbidden, came the chant Cadvan had sung for Dernhil, after they had heard the news of his death:

  Where has he gone? His chamber is empty And bright are the tears in the high halls of Oron

  Where once he stepped lightly, singing deep secrets Out of the heart-vault and into the open ...

  I didn't know him long enough, Maerad thought, to feel this sad. But even as she thought this, she knew it to be nonsense, a denial of a deeper knowing. I know he loved you, Cadvan had told her, long ago it seemed now, in another life. He was one of those who can see clearly into another's soul, and his feelings were true. Such things have little to do with brevity of meeting.

  All too brief, all the same. When we parted, there was promise of so many things, of deep friendship, of learning; and now all that promise is frozen in the past, like those strange animals I saw deep in the glacier. ... Is that what I am really mourning? All the conversa­tions we never had, the books you will never read to me, the lovers we will never be. If you kissed me now, would I hit you?

  In her mind's eye, Maerad could see Dernhil as vividly as if he stood before her. He was tall and slender, his brown hair falling carelessly over his forehead, his expression intelligent, mobile, amused. He was, she realized, very handsome. She hadn't really noticed that when they had met. No, she thought, I would not hit him now.

  What would you say to me if we met now? Would you say, like Indik, What happened to the shy, charming Bard I met last spring? Would you still want to kiss me? I have changed so much. But I am still Maerad ...

  "I wanted to tell you—" she said, and jumped, because she had spoken aloud. But who would hear her? She dug her nails into her palms to stop herself from crying. It was important that she say at last what she wanted to say, even if there was no one there to hear it.

  "I wanted to tell you that your poem saved me when I was captured by the Winterking and held in his palace," she said. I read your poem, and it reminded me of everyone I love.

  Including you. It reminded me of why we are fighting so
hard. It reminded me how much beauty there is . . ." Maerad stared down at her hands lying on the desk, one whole, the other maimed, and bit her lip. "How much beauty there is in the world, and why it matters. It reminded me that even if we die, it doesn't mean that everything we do is useless. That even though you are dead, you are still speaking to me. I hear your voice every time I read your poems."

  She paused, taking in a long breath. "But it made me feel sadder than ever, Dernhil. Reading your poems is not the same as talking to you. My cousin Dharin will never come back. I'll never see my mother or my father again, no matter how much I want to. Maybe all of us will die in this battle. And I know I'm just talking to empty space; I know you are not here. I think that perhaps, somewhere, in some other place where time is differ­ent, you might hear what I say and smile, and that comforts me a little. I know that's a stupid thought, but I think it all the same. Maybe it's not so stupid. I don't know ... I just wish, with all my heart, that you were here and that I could talk to you and tell you these things."

  Maerad fell silent and sat for a long time at the desk, with her head in her hands. Finally she stood up and went to the door, turning for a last look at Dernhil's empty room. "Farewell, my friend," she whispered, and closed the door behind her.