Pellinor: The Singing Part 28

"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 thought, 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 s.p.a.ce 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 ma.s.sacre that followed, when the Dhyllin people were cut down in their thousandsa"man, woman, and childa"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.

The visions didn't stop until they reached Afinil. When she took off her blindfold, she glimpsed for a brief moment Afinil's graceful towers, its gardens of blossoming trees; and then the city dissolved before her eyes, as if it were made of mist, and vanished utterly. She stood on the solid ground, staring over the rocky moors, and she realized with a relief beyond measure that she had been released from the terrible past. At that moment, the sedges and mosses and reeds of the swamp seemed beautiful beyond anything she had ever seen: these simple living things humbly offered up their colors and smells and forms without asking anything of her, content merely to grow and live and die.

Then she knew that the dead had asked her for justice, that she had been shown the crimes of the past because they cried out for rest.i.tution. As she stared over the swamp, she felt that the lament of the Hutmoors had entered her body and changed it, and she realized that she would never be the same again.

I cannot make justice, Maerad thought. I cannot undo these acts as if they never happened. Revenge is empty: it will not raise the towers nor bring the ma.s.sacred children back to life; it will not make the gardens blossom again nor take the poison from the land. The dead ask for more than anyone can give them.

All the same, she thought, if I can destroy the Nameless One, I will.

She stood for a long time, feeling the weight of her lyre in the crook of her arm and the cold wind biting her face, and she studied the tiny white flowers of a creeping plant that flourished in the marshy hollows before her. She felt the shadows gathering as evening fell, and she heard the sounds of her companions as they cooked their meal. A great peace entered her spirit.

She could feel the brooding presence of the Nameless One gathering about her, searching for her as the choking blackness had sought her in her nightmares. She knew that the marsh birds cowered beneath the gra.s.ses, the cries in their throats silenced with animal fear as the shadow of a great predator darkened the sky above them. After riding through the Hutmoors, Maerad felt outraged that he dared to send his mind back to the scene of such crimes. With a mixture of arrogance and disgust, she turned her mind away from him. She knew that he hadn't found her yet. He sensed her uneasily, and he sought a way into her mind, but he had not yet discovered where she stood. Whatever happened, he would not steal this small moment of peace from her. Perhaps, she thought, it would be her last moment as herself.

But as the shadows lengthened, a soft, melodious voice wound itself into her mind. She had never heard a voice of such bewitching beauty, and despite herself she opened her mind to listen.

Elednor, said the voice. Elednor, at last I have found you whom I have sought long, through fire and shadow, this other part of myself...

With a thrill of fear, Maerad looked about her, but she could see no sign of any semblance.

Who are you? she asked.

I am your other self, said the voice. The other whom you have always desired to be. I am the end of all your longing, all your searching, all your dreams.

This woke all of Maerad's perverse stubbornness, and the voice's enchantment wavered. That's no answer, she said, her voice like a whiplash. She felt the other flinch. J think that you are Sharma.

If I am, what I say is no less true. Consult your heart, Elednor, Elednor Edil-Amarandh na, and see if what your heart tells you is not true. After all, here we can speak as equals.

Disgust rose in Maerad's throat so that she nearly gagged. Equals? she said. I think not. I would never do what you have done. I would never ... How dare you speak to me. How dare you come here, after everything that you've done.

The voice was silent for a time, and then it laughed, and its laughter was warm and intimate in her ear, so that Maerad recoiled.

My dear one, it said. You are very young, hut you have killed without mercy, because it was necessary. Do not pretend to me that you have not. Do not pretend that you are better than you are. You have caused suffering and grief and pain. It is the price of power, is it not? Why should you think that I have acted any differently from you? I have lived longer than you. I have tasted the joy and terror and price of power. So it is, always. Do you think your n.o.ble friends are any better than I am? Do not tell me that you have not thought these things yourself. You, of all people, are not stupid.

Maerad tried to close her mind against the voice, but it insinuated itself through all her defenses, and she could not but listen. And now doubt rose inside her; she had indeed thought these things. She bit her lip. And the voice continueda"soft, persuasive, its melody a tormenting pleasure that she could not resist.

Now I have found you, I can at last ask you: why do you seek to destroy our powers? You do not understand what it is that you do. Elednor, Elednor, you are misled. There is another way...

Each time Sharma said her Name, the enchantment deepened, although Maerad struggled against it. She looked around again; it was strange talking to someone she could not see, not in her inner vision nor before her naked eye. But Sharma kept himself hidden.

What other way? she asked unwillingly.

You are misled by those who claim they are your friends. They envy your power and wish to destroy it. But Elednor, you are mistaken. You are the One. In you the Treesong is made whole. Thisa" sicknessa"you see around you is but the sickness of the Split Song. If we take this power wholly for ourselves, we can remake the whole world. You and I, Elednor: King and Queen of all creation. We can make the world a perfumed garden; the rivers will flow with milk and honey. We can mend all hurts and right all wrongs. It is this that you throw away, Elednor, if you release the Treesong. You will lose everything if you do this; and having known the possibility of such power, how could you live? It will be a stale life, Elednor Edil-Amarandh na, if you turn away from your destiny, a dull life, knowing the shining that could have been you.

Beneath the beauty of Sharma's voice, Maerad could feel the anguish that inhabited him, an endless anguish that filled her with pity. Sharma was right: he was not a whole creature, and his crimes and cruelty grew out of the agony of the wound that was his being. She saw herself as Queen of Edil-Amarandh, stern and just and immortal, as beautiful as Ardina, as stern as Arkan, more powerful than both. She would rule over a world in which there would be no sadness, no injustice, no ugliness. If she had this power, did she have the right to relinquish it? Perhaps she had been mistaken all along . . . even Cadvan admitted that he didn't know all ends, and perhaps this was the true reading of the prophecy, the true new age of the world.

But as she thought of Cadvan, she remembered vividly the shape and warmth of his body in her arms, the dull thud of his heartbeat, the solid presence that had kept her from madness on the terrible journey through the Hutmoors. And then she remembered Saliman and Nelac, Nerili and Ardina, Dernhil and Dharin, all her friends who had placed such faith in her, who had suffered so much, and had even died, so that she might come to this place. And she thought of her mother and her lonely death, and her father, cut down in the sack of Pellinor, and of Hem, her brother, taken by Hulls as a baby.

Your friends will understand in the end, said Sharma, sensing her thoughts. They, too, will see the wisdom and justice of your decision, and they will bow before you. And if they do not see that, they will have no power to resist you. Why do you think they fear you? They fear you rightly. You are no longer a child, at the whim of your elders. Put your lyre down, Elednor, Elednor Edil-Amarandh na. Give your lyre to me, and step into your true destiny, blissful queen of all creation. Let the true age of justice begin!

justice? said Maerad, with a sudden biting scorn. She clutched her lyre close to her breast. What do you know of justice? The pretty visions vanished, and she remembered the corpses that had choked the Findol River so that its waters were poisoned, and the slaughtered children of the Firman Plains. And at the same time, she knew that Sharma did not know her other Name, the Elidhu Name that lay deep within her and that even Maerad herself did not know; and she understood, with a sudden glad knowledge, that without her third Name he could not utterly bewilder her. Nor could he harm her, any more than she could harm him, while she did not open her powers. The bewitchment of the voice fell instantly away; she saw his enchantment as a cheap trick, and wondered why she had ever listened.

The bile rose in her throat, and she spat on the ground. Get away from me, traitor! she said. I am not your fool, to be flattered and threatened. Go!

She felt his surprise and then his impotent fury, and all sense of the voice vanished. But now Maerad was wary, and she lifted a great shield so that he could not strike her or her companions. And for the first time since she had arrived at Afinil, she began to feel afraid: Sharma could not touch her now, but when she began the Singing, she would be open in her powers, and vulnerable. She felt the force of his cold anger gathering about her in the deepening shadows, and she knew that he, too, was afraid of her, and that like any cornered, desperate beast, he was most dangerous when most afraid.

Hem felt a little better after eating. Although the stew of dried meat and pulses was hardly tasty fare, it was warm and wholesome, and gave him some ballast, staving off the nausea that ran in waves through his body.

As the sun sank in the sky, he found himself becoming uneasily aware of the tuning fork; it vibrated against his skin, as if it were a live thing. Since the Hollow Lands, he had forgotten it; the fork had just been a lump of metal that nestled next to the cloth bag he always wore around his neck. Now he remembered that this object had hung for millennia about the neck of the Nameless One himself, that it had been made by Nelsor in this very place; that the tiny, mysterious runes scored on its dull surface held the secret of the Treesong, and perhaps the key to the binding spell that placed the Nameless One among the immortals and gave him his powers ...

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, Hem tried to unthink it. After speaking to Saliman, he had been quite sure that the presence that was darkening his mind, that filled his steps with loathing and prompted the wracking nausea in his stomach was the Nameless One. He couldn't escape the conviction that it was unlucky even to think about him; but it was very difficult to think of anything else. Involuntarily he looked over his shoulder toward the south, as if he could see Sharma riding toward them on a giant black horse that breathed fire through its nostrils, with an army of wers and Hulls at his heel.

All he saw was the bleak expanse of the Hutmoors, darkening under the shadows of evening. It was utterly lifeless: no birds swooped in the sky to catch late insects; no wild deer skittered nervously in the wind; not a vole, not a rabbit, not a mouse, not even the fleeting shadows of the dead, stirred at the edge of his vision. The wind moaned through the reeds and sedges of the marsh but he could hear nothing else: no marsh birds piping, no curlew calling its forlorn cry. A great stillness lay over the landscape like a paralyzing dread.

He won't arrive on a horse, Hem thought, scorning himself for his fancy. His body is in Dagra. But Saliman is right: he hunts us down. He knows we want to destroy him. He is coming closer and closer. Maybe he even hears my thoughts, and they draw him here.

He glanced toward Maerad. While they had cooked and eaten their meal, Maerad had stood unmoving at the edge of the marsh, a tiny figure under the great bowl of the sky. The distress and pain that she had suffered as they traversed the Hutmoors seemed no longer to trouble her; if anything, her expression was serene. To Hem it seemed that her small figure held such power that she was vast: her shadow seemed to stream back from the westering sun like the brooding darkness of a mountain. For the first time, Hem felt a tremor of fear of her. Maerad was now beyond his understanding, beyond any homely call of kindred. He no longer knew who she was.

He turned his gaze back to his three other companions. They all huddled close to the small fire, trying to catch its vagrant warmth before it was blown away. All of them were stained with travel, gaunt with exhaustion. Hekibel and Saliman sat very close together, and Hem saw that Saliman had taken Hekibel's small hands between both of his own and held them fast. Cadvan sat a little apart, his eyes fixed on Maerad, his face inscrutable. No one spoke much, and if they did, they spoke of unimportant things. There seemed, in truth, very little to say. They all knew that they stood before an abyss, and none of them knew whether they would see the following dawn.

Together they watched the sun set through black bars of cloud. It cast a ruddy light over the moors, so that they seemed stained with blood, and Hem shuddered. The light slowly ebbed out of the sky, and the silence deepened around them. Maerad was a dim figure a few spans away, unmoving as a statue. Above them the sky was clearing, and the stars opened one by one until the dark field of the night was strewn with silver points of light. The world held its breath. Everything was absolutely still.

Now their eyes were fixed on the horizon, where soon a pale glimmer presaged the rising of the moon over the distant peak of the eastern mountains.

Cadvan looked over to Hem. "I think it is time," he said gently.

Hem nodded. With trembling hands he took the chain from around his neck and held the tuning fork in his hand. Then he embraced his friends one by one, Saliman last of all. Saliman's warm, strong arms felt like a final bulwark, and to Hem it seemed that to let go was to fall into a darkness whose depth he could not guess. But at last he stood back and took a deep breath. The rim of the full moon had just broken over the edge of the world.

"Right, then," he said.

Hem walked over to Maerad with shaking legs. But although his body was trembling, something inside him was hard and certain. He was more frightened than he had ever been in his life, but he knew that his fear would not stop him from doing what had to be done. The time for fear or doubt was long past. As soon as he turned away from his friends, he forgot them; it was as if a curtain had fallen between them. He felt as if time itself had been waiting for him and Maerad since it had first hatched from the egg of the cosmos, that all pasts and all futures intersected in this one moment.

When he reached Maerad, he put his hand on her shoulder. She turned to him and smiled, and for a moment that smile made Hem's vitals shrivel with fear: it was fey and wild, cold as the storms of winter, a smile to freeze the heart.

"We have not long to wait, my brother," said Maerad. "See, the moon is impatient, she rises fast over the world."

Hem watched as the moon lifted over the horizon. It was huge, huger than he had ever seen it. As it breasted the horizon, its light poured over the moors in a bright stream, catching the filaments of millions of tiny, dew-pearled cobwebs strung through the turf, so it seemed to Hem that a path of silver ripples opened before him, and that he could step lightly over it to the very door of the moon. And as the bright pathway ran up to his feet, he heard a high, beautiful melody that pierced his heart, and in that moment it seemed to him that he and Maerad were caught up out of time, and that the shimmering path was made of stars, like the Lukemoi where the Dead were said to walk on their way to the Gates.

As he thought this, he saw that the road of light wasn't empty. Out of the silver disk of the moon, as if it were a door to another world, there came a great crowd of people, and they walked solemnly down the narrow road through the darkness toward Hem and Maerad. Hem gasped and found that he was trembling, although he trembled not with fear, but with awe and wonder.

Before long the first of the people reached them, and they looked straight into Maerad's and Hem's eyes, and then they bowed their heads and walked behind them into the dark night and vanished. Their faces were expressionless, neither happy nor sad, but as they pa.s.sed, Hem's heart grew heavier and heavier, as if he were weighed down by an immense sorrow. He saw people of all ages, ugly and beautiful, young and old, mothers with babies at their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, small children holding the hands of their elders, face after face after face, and in the brief moment when he beheld them, he saw the story of each life in each face, their fragile hopes and pa.s.sionate desires and impossible dreams, and at the same time the ending of all these things. And it seemed to Hem that each face imprinted itself on his memory, that he would never forget any person he saw.

Then he caught his breath in a sob. Zelika walked slowly toward him and as he recognized her, he cried out her name in pained surprise. She looked him full in the face with cool recognition, but said nothing. Then she bowed her head and pa.s.sed behind him with all the rest. And Hem understood then that the endless stream of people were Sharma's dead, those whose lives had been untimely snuffed out because of his wars. He knew that Maerad recognized others: as if he were touching her, he felt her body thrumming with emotion like the string of a harp. He knew the names she spokea"Dernhil, Dharina"but then he heard one he didn't know. liar. Maerad reached out her arm and said something softly that Hem did not hear, and although he did not look, he knew she was weeping.

And then he looked into the faces of two who stepped before him, a tall man and woman who gravely met his gaze, and he understood that this was the only sight he would ever have of his mother and father, and he felt as if something broke inside him. And still the dead came on, in this bubble of time that seemed to have no end, and Hem saw the face of each one of them.

But at last the crowd thinned and then ceased, and the music sounded again, and he stood on the moors, the rocky ground beneath his feet, and the moon had lifted up from the black horizon and the silver path had vanished.

Maerad turned to him, her face shining with a joy that he did not comprehend, although her eyelashes glittered with tears.

"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 p.r.i.c.kled 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 m.u.f.fled 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 hima"every stone, each blade of gra.s.s, 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 hima"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 ma.s.sive 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 gla.s.s. 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."

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 ma.s.sive 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 rest.i.tution 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 pa.s.sionate 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 ma.s.sive 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. "Ia""

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 ofa"Irc the Savior 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 elsea"she was deeply shocked by Maerad's thinness. And shortly after a substantial meal of fresh bread and stew, Maerada"reluctantly taking leave of Cadvan, who winked at her behind Silvia's back as she hustled them down the hallwaya"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.