Pellinor: The Singing Part 6

"I thank you for the blackstone," he said. "You were right: it came in very useful. The Landrost somehow broke the wards and staved off our magery at the same time. The blackstone prevented him from affecting me, but everyone else was disempowereda"his little revenge, no doubt, for that weather-charm. Maerad, if you could find out how he did it, it would help us. It costs the Landrost far less to lose ten than for us to lose one."

Maerad turned to him. "He couldn't block me either," she said. "I told you I didn't need it."

"I know. Maerad, you are key to thisa"" "Are these attacks happening all over Innail?" "I don't know. Probably."

Yes. Indik's voice sounded harshly in Maerad's head: she had forgotten she was in mindtouch with him. We have been hard-pressed. But the wards are remade, and are stronger now. I think they will not try that again.

For a moment, Maerad panicked: in the intimacy of mind-touching, she could feel the anxiety that Indik otherwise concealed, and she knew that Indik was depending on her in their battle with the Landrost. And she was already so weary. If Innail fell, it would be her fault. Cadvan caught the tenor of her thoughts, and took her hand.

"Maerad, yes, much is hoped of you," he said. "But like all of us, you can only do your best, and no one will blame you if even that is not enough. We all have our parts to play in this, and our own responsibilities." Cadvan grimaced. "We are all tired. And it is not as if the wards were completely ineffective even though they were breached. It cost the wers to break them; they used a large part of their native powers, and were slower and less deadly when they next attacked us. The Landrost is sending them to be slaughtered. I suspect there will not be many more of these attacks."

"Indik thinks he won't try that again," said Maerad.

"Well, then. We have won at least some respite."

"What next, then?" Maerad studied the scene before her: already the wers' bodies had been flung over the walls, the wounded fighters taken to the healers, and reeds and sand scattered over the blood that smeared the stone. For the moment, everything seemed orderly again, although all swords were drawn, and the defenders were wary, prepared for a.s.sault at any moment.

"I don't know," said Cadvan. "The Light grant us strength to meet it."

In the other part of her mind, Maerad tensed: she was now very close to the Landrost, and she could feel him brooding. She sensed a miasma of doubt coloring his presence, a bafflement: he had met resistance where he had thought to find none. Shifting cautiously, Maerad attempted to move closer to his thoughts. No, he was nothing like the Winterking, who was subtle and complex as well as powerful. The Landrost was a creature who thought only in crude patterns of power, seeking to overwhelm like a landslide. And yes, there was great and frightening power in these forces, but surely, also, a weakness. A landslide could only go in one direction, after all.

She froze. She had become too absorbed in her contemplation, and the Landrost had become aware of her. Just as she could read him, her mind could be open to his. For a vital moment, she was too terrified to move. The Landrost lashed out with a blast of energy, and she felt the shock of it go through her, a malevolent pulse of chill darkness that left her numb and stupid. In that moment, the Landrost perceived her. As if she could see a reflection of herself in another's eye, she glimpsed for the briefest moment how he saw her: a glowing figure in the darkness, very small and very bright, pulsing with an unknowable power. Now she was trapped in his gaze, as if his perception pinned her beneath a crushing weight; she could neither move nor think. She felt his astonishment give way to a gloating triumph, and she felt his mind flex. The Landrost would squash her flat as if she were a beetle, and there was nothing she could do. Panicking, she struggled in his grip, but he held her fast.

From very far away, at the edges of her mind, she heard a voice. She was so frightened that she didn't recognize who it was; her whole being was infused with darkness and impotence.

Elednor Edil-Amarandh na, said the voice. It was cold too, colder than the Landrost, and glittered with an icy brilliance. This creature is nothing compared to you. Are you really so weak? Is the pebble really less than the mountain? And, bizarrely, it laughed. Its laughter was like ice falling on her skin, cutting her open, waking her from the impotence of nightmare.

There was no time to think. The pressure was unbearable, and already the Landrost was blotting out her whole being: only the smallest light remained of herself. With her failing consciousness, she latched fiercely onto the idea of the pebble: in the landslide, a pebble would not be destroyed. She stopped resisting the Landrost and let herself sink into the darkness, hard and round and small and herself. The wave of blackness tossed her an immeasurable distance, through realms of vacant s.p.a.ce where stars rolled in their inscrutable dance, through clouds of blinding colors more vast than she could even imagine, where time itself was squeezed and stretched by colossal forces. She was lost, lost... but still she arced through her trajectory, a tiny star.

She didn't know anymore who or where she was; everything went through her, faster and faster. And then, quite suddenly, time seemed to start again, and someone called her name. Blindly she reached toward it, to whoever knew her and called her. At last she rolled to a halt, dizzy and breathless. She was a body of flesh and blood and bone, and she could hear her own breathing. She gasped, feeling the air rush into her lungs, a hard surface pressing against her legs, something soft around her. Someone was stroking her face and saying her name.

She opened her eyes and found herself looking straight into Cadvan's eyes. He repeated her name again, a question in his voice, and she nodded, still stunned.

"Are you all right?" He was pale, with deep shadows under his eyes, and the scar around his eye stood out lividly against his skin.

"No," said Maerad. She waited until the dizziness began to dissipate, and then pushed Cadvan away and was sick. Wordlessly he handed her a cloth and she wiped her mouth, and then he gave her some medhyl. Maerad took a long draft and sat down next to him, her back against the wall.

"He saw me," she said at last. "The Landrost. He almost destroyed me."

Cadvan nodded, his face expressionless.

She twisted around so she could look Cadvan in the face. "Was it you who laughed at me?"

Cadvan looked puzzled. "No, my dear. I could not laugh at you in such a place. I called you home. You were so very far away."

"Someone laughed at me. He saved my life, just as I thought I was going to be crushed. No, it wasn't your voice ..." Maerad frowned and took another sip of the medhyl. Her heart was no longer pounding so painfully. "I wonder who it was. It was a cold voice, very cold ..."

She gasped: of course she knew who it was. The knowledge gave her the feeling that she was standing on a very high cliff. She wanted to be sick again, but at the same time she felt as if she were full of light, a strange, thrilling buoyancy.

"Was it the Winterking?" asked Cadvan, after a long silence.

Maerad nodded. "Yes," she said. "Yes. It was."

Chapter V.

THE CARAVAN.

HEM was tired of walking. Every day, for what seemed like the past fifty years, he had slept on the ground, woken cold and stiff with the first light of dawn, and then spent all day walking. It wasn't just ordinary walking, either. He and his companions, Saliman of Turbansk and Soron of Til Amon, stumbled through a rough, marshy landscape, and they were constantly weaving charmsa"glimveils, shadowmazes, shieldsa"to help keep them hidden from any Black Army scouts or patrols. It was exhausting, skulking like this. He was tired of eating dried nuts and fruits and salted meat. He was tired of everything.

He vented his feelings to Irc, the white crow perched on his shoulder who was his constant companion, using mindspeech. Aside from being the only way to speak to Irc, it had the advantage that the others could not overhear and rebuke him. When we get to Til Amon, Hem said, I am going to sleep all day. No, first I will eat. A big, big meal. A lamb roasted on the spit, with all the juices dripping, and roasted turnips and carrots and onions. And some spiced apples. His mouth watered just thinking about it. And then I will sleep. And no one will wake me up until I want to wake up.

Irc c.o.c.ked his head and fixed him with his eye. You're lazy, he said. It's not so bad. Though some fresh meat would be good. You had a squab yesterday, said Hem. And you didn't share it! Irc looked unrepentant. You would have spoiled it by putting it in the fire, he said. Anyway, it was very scrawny. There was only enough for me.

Oh, you wouldn't understand, said Hem. You're just a b.l.o.o.d.y crow. Go away. You're too heavy.

Irc ruffled his feathers, a sign of offense. I am a very clever crow, he said. I am the King's messenger. I saved you from Dagra.

That doesn't stop you from being the most annoying bird I've ever met, said Hem.

Irc gave Hem a sharp nip on his ear and took off, soaring into the sky. Hem sighed impatiently, immediately regretting what he had said. I'm sorry! he called. I didn't mean it, Irc. I'm just tired, that's all.

Irc didn't answer. Hem watched him until he was out of sight. He'd be back later, probably having done a little hunting, and might have forgiven Hem by then. Or not, depending.

"Have you offended that bird?" said Saliman from behind him.

"He takes offense if you don't bow to him all the time," said Hem irritably. "I wish every day that Arakin had never made him a messenger. I've paid for it ever since."

Saliman, a black-skinned Bard of Turbansk and also Hem's mentor, laughed. "You and every bird he meets," he said. "Mind you, life would be far more tedious if you didn't have Irc to squabble with. Be of good cheer, Hem. We're not so far from Til Amon." He pointed to a mountain rising before them. "A few days at most, I'd say, the Light willing. We've been lucky. I think we have far outstripped the Black Army, if they are indeed planning to march on South Annar."

Hem nodded. Saliman was right, he knew; they had been lucky.

After he and Irc had stumbled out of the Glandugir Hills to Sjug'hakar Im, the nightmarish training camp where child soldiers had been trained for battle, and met Saliman, they had briefly returned (to Irc's deep displeasure) to the Bards in the caves at Nal-Ak-Burat. There Hem endured an uncomfortable session with Hared, whoa"despite the outcome of his disobediencea"was furious with him for disobeying his orders at Sjug'hakar Im. After everything he had been through, especially after his grueling journey across Den Raven in a fruitless attempt to rescue his friend Zelika, Hem was in no mood to be told off.

"I found out things you wouldn't know otherwise," he said sullenly. "Even Saliman said he wouldn't dare enter Dagra. And I couldn't abandon Zelika. Perhaps you don't know what it means to have a friend."

Hared's face, hard at the best of times, closed at that jibe, and he said nothing more. After that, he treated Hem with a warier respect. A few days later, after several long and circular arguments, Hem, Soron, and Saliman left Nal-Ak-Burat, heading in the first instance for Til Amon. Soron was itching to return home, and Hem wouldn't be budged from his conviction that he had to find his sister, Maerad, who he was sure was somewhere in Annar.

Hared had wanted Saliman to stay in Nal-Ak-Burat with the other Bards of the resistance, to fight the Black Army. "Saliman, I will be frank," he said, during one discussion. "Movement has been easier this past fortnight, I grant you, since Imank vanished and the Black Army has been in disarray. But once Sharma organizes himselfa"which I foresee will not take longa"those forces will no longer be divided. I have no doubt it will get much more difficult here, and the Light knows it is difficult enough. And to lose a Bard like you to a wild-goose chasea"it goes hard, Saliman. It goes hard."

This was as close as Hared came to begging, and Saliman knew it was a measure of his desperation.

"Hared," he said gently. "I understand, my friend. Believe me, I understand. And I cannot say that I am not torn. It is always possible that I am mistaken. I know it looks like madness to you. But I cannot go against my Knowing. I knew from the beginning that Hem had some part to play in this. So far, he has not proved me wrong. And it is very clear to me that we have to find his sister."

Hared heard the decision in Saliman's voice, and knew better than to argue, but he shook his head sadly. The following day, Hem, Soron, and Saliman left the safety of the caves of Nal-Ak-Burat, heading west through Nazar, and crossed, at some peril to their lives, the Undara River into Savitir, until they reached the edges of the Neera Marshes. There they turned north, keeping the Neera Marshes to their left.

In all this time they had seen no one else; Saliman guided them away from roads and tracks, and they avoided all villages. The landscape they crossed was lonely: at dusk they heard the melancholy cry of the curlew calling in the night. Occasionally they came across a burned byre or the remains of slaughtered goats or other signs of war, but these were all cold, remnants of a violence now well past, and there were few signs of sorcery. Still, they kept vigilant, and it seemed to Hem that the landscape watched them warily, as if eyes noted their presence and waited anxiously for them to pa.s.s. They traveled swiftly: aside from the urgency of their quest, the strange emptiness of the land gave them no desire to dawdle.

At last they reached the northern reaches of the Neera Marshes, and again turned west to meet the South Road. Here they doubled their precautions: if the Black Army had scouts or, worse, was marching northward to South Annar, this was where they would most likely encounter problems. They traveled north with the road to their left a good distance away, their pa.s.sing m.u.f.fled by shadowmazing and shields so they would be invisible to the naked eye. Irc had investigated the road at regular intervals. Nothing, he said, moved on it, as far as his eye could see.

The worst that could be said of their journey was that it was dull. Soron had perked up the closer they came to Til Amon, his birth home. It had been a long time since he had last seen it.

"It is, of all Schools, the most beautiful," he told Hem one night as they huddled in their meager blankets for warmth, having decided against lighting a fire.

"It has some rivals," said Saliman. Hem could hear the smile in Saliman's voice. "Have you traveled to II Arunedh, the mountain of roses?"

"Aye, aye. And you remember, I lived in Turbansk for many years, and count it one of the fairest cities I have ever seen." He paused briefly, perhaps seeing in his mind's eye the ruin of Turbansk's beauty. "But beauty, Saliman, is in the heart as well as the eye, and Til Amon will ever hold my love."

"One cannot argue with love," said Saliman gravely.

"You have to concur all the same that for the natural beauty that surrounds it, Til Amon cannot be surpa.s.sed. It stands, Hem, on the sh.o.r.es of the Lake of Til Amon, and its towers rise high over the waters. On still days you see the city reflected in the lake, rippling at its own feet. From its walls spread the gentle meads of Amon, orchards and groves and vineyards and fields, from which come some of the finest fruits and wines in all Edil-Amarandh. It is, Hem, a cook's dream. And across the lake rise the Osidh Am, majestic and high."

"They are lovely mountains," said Hem. "Saliman and I rode through them on our way to Turbansk."

"That would have been somewhat south of us," Soron said. "Here the mountains are higher and harsher. They are not so easy to cross! But to wake in Til Amon on a still morning and to see the white-tipped peaks before you, trembling in the blue lakea"ah, that is a sight that takes your breath away."

"Why did you leave?" Hem rolled over to look at Soron's face, but it was hidden in the dark.

"Why did I leave? At first, I wanted to learn of the cooking of the Suderain. There was much I wished to know. And then I became the chief cook for the School. And, somehow, I stayed in Turbansk. I made many friends there, and I came to love the city. As I think you might understand, Hem: there was much to love about it. And so, after a while, you realize that many years have pa.s.sed without your noticing. But Til Amon is still my home. I am sad that I haven't thought to travel there these past years since my family died, and even as we come closer, my fear rises that it will already be ashes and rubble, trampled beneath Enkir's army."

The yearning in Soron's voice pierced Hem's heart, and he asked no more questions. I don't have a home, Hem thought. I don't remember Pellinor at all, and will never feel that way about it. Turbansk might have been a home for me, but it all lies in ruins. Where will I make a home, once all this is over? If it ever is? Will I ever find Maerad again? Have I already lost her, or is she still alive, looking for me? He was convinced she was alive, although he had no good reason for it; some sense of her presence touched the edges of his mind and a.s.sured him, in quiet moments, that she was alive and thinking of him. But how could he trust his feelings, when he had been so wrong about Zelika? He had been so sure that Zelika was alive among the child soldiers; he had chased her trail to the very fortress of the Nameless One, only to find that she had been killed weeks before. Perhaps his feeling about Maerad was as deceptive. He flinched away from the thought.

Maybe Zelika has found home, he thought. He thought of her as he had first seen her in Turbansk, an orphan who had fled the ruins of war in Baladh, desperate to revenge herself against the Dark. Maybe through the Gates she had found everything she desired. On this side, she had lost everything: her home, her family, hope ... maybe that was why she threw her life away.

Thinking of Zelika opened a rift inside Hem that was so deep and raw he could barely comprehend it. He could see her delicate face and wild hair as clearly as if she stood in front of him. He still couldn't quite believe that she was dead, that he would never see her again: sometimes he still found himself expecting to see her at his shoulder, an ironic smile on her lips, and caught himself with a pang.

Until he had lost her, he hadn't realized how deeply Zelika had wound herself into his heart. The knowledge of her death was still too recent: his body still bore the fading bruises from his hopeless, mad quest to save her, the terrible march through Den Raven to the dark city of Dagra, where he had witnessed things that frightened him more than his worst nightmares. He hadn't had much time to come to terms with what had happened to him in the past few months, but he knew that his failure to save Zelika hurt him more than anything else he had been through.

Hem lay on his back looking up into the clear winter sky, where the stars burned cold and white in the darkness, and it was a long time before he slept. The wrenching ache in his breast persisted through his dreams that night, and colored his mood the following day. Hence, he thought, his argument with Irc.

He hadn't seen Irc for some time now, and was feeling anxious: the bird wouldn't answer any of his summonings. He had clearly decided to punish Hem thoroughly. Hem sighed impatiently. If Irc disappeared for hours, he couldn't rid himself of his anxiety that something had happened to him; but still, it wasn't worth worrying unless Irc didn't turn up for dinner.

Irc reappeared later, as the first edges of dusk began to draw over the land and the travelers were looking for a likely campsite. He dropped from the sky and landed heavily on Hem's shoulder with no forewarning, so that Hem jumped.

The crow wiped his beak on Hem's shoulder and nipped his ear gently in greeting, as if they hadn't quarreled at all. Hem's hand automatically went up to tickle Irc's neck, even though he had sworn not long before that he would break his scrawny legs if he dared to show his beak again.

There are humans, said Irc. Not far away.

Hem halted in surprise. Humans?

They don't seem like soldiers. Or spies. They are very strange. Hem could hear the curiosity in Irc's voice. They keep shouting at each other. They have swords, and they try to hit each other, and then they stop and begin to argue.

Are they Bards or Hulls? asked Hem.

Neither. Though at first I wasn't sure.

Hem looked around, but he could see no sign of people. Where?

Ahead of us, not far, said Irc. Hem knew that Irc had little idea of distance: not far could mean anything between a hundred spans and a league. They have horses and a big wagon.

"Irc says there are people ahead of us," said Hem, turning to Saliman and Soron. "But he doesn't think they are soldiers or spies."

"People?" Saliman's eyebrows shot up.

"He says they are behaving very strangely. They seem to be fighting with each other. And he says that they have swords."

Soron frowned. "The last thing we need is trouble," he said. "Anyone wandering through this forsaken land is bound to be trouble."

"Like us, you mean?" Saliman said. He laughed. "Well, we shall just be cautious. It should be easy enough to avoid them."

It became evident that night that the strangers were not, in fact, far away at all. They saw a campfire burning through the scrub, and were close enough to see dark figures pa.s.sing in front of it. Whoever these people were, they were clearly enjoying themselves: the sound of conversation, laughter, and even singing drifted over the night air toward the three Bards.

"Don't they know that the Black Army could be marching up this road any moment?" asked Hem in wonder as he lay sleepless in the cold, staring up at the bright winter stars.

"Clearly not," said Soron. "I wonder who they are?"

"Minstrels, by the sound of it," said Saliman sleepily.

Hem sent out his listening, the acute hearing that was a special ability of Bards. He could hear a dulcimer and a flute, and maybe a lyre, but he didn't recognize any of the songs. They were singing in Annaren, he thought, and they sounded cheerful and unafraid. He was suddenly full of yearning for some plain good fellowship.

"I think I'd like to talk to them," he said. "They don't sound dangerous at all."

"Go to sleep," said Saliman.

Hem sighed and huddled into his blanket. The ground seemed particularly hard tonight.

The people in the wagon were moving northward as they were, and so they followed them at a judicious distance all the next day. Irc was beside himself with curiosity, and spent most of the day observing them and bringing back reports. It seemed that there were three, two men and a woman. He was quite sure that they were neither Bards nor Hulls. Most interestingly, to Irc anyway, their wagon was made of gold.

Gold? said Hem.

And they are carrying a great treasure. Hem could hear the acquisitive greed in Irc's voice. Jewels and golden things.

You didn't go inside the wagon? asked Hem, aghast.

Irc didn't answer the question, and he ignored Hem's worried warning to stay out of the wagon. Irc couldn't resist bright things: he had a particular weakness for spoons and in Turbansk Hem had to continually raid Irc's treasure stores to replenish the dining hall's supplies.

Puzzled, Hem discussed Irc's observations with Saliman, who burst out laughing. "If the caravan is made of gold, I feel sorry for the horses," he said. "But I think Irc has discovered a group of players. The gold will be paint, and the jewels will be made of gla.s.s. Not that that would worry Irc. . . . The Light alone knows what they are doing wandering through the wilderness in the midst of war."

"Players?" asked Hem. "What are they?"

"Have you never seen them? Turbansk has some fine players ... I mean, it did . . ." Saliman paused for a moment. "They are people who tell stories. Plays."