The Riddle Page 4

  Her rooms, like Nerili herself, were elegant: she eschewed the usual silk hangings, ubiquitous in Busk, and instead the stone walls were painted a pale blue, with a faint stenciling of birds in a deeper shade. The only other decoration was a series of exquisite glazed blue-and-white tiles around the doors and windows and fireplace, each painted with a different scene from Thoroldian life: fishermen, silkweavers, goatherds, children playing. It was a calm, beautiful room. Through a half-open door Maerad could see what she supposed must be Nerili's study, from the chaos of manuscripts, scrolls, and books she glimpsed piled on a table, and on the far side of the main room she could see a dining table set with candles in glass holders and a generous meal—flat rounds of unleavened bread, little bowls of pickled vegetables and sauces, cold meats and cheeses. There was a plate of round black spiky things that looked like strange fruit, and a large bowl of shells with orange lips. Her mouth started to water: she was very hungry.

  Nerili invited them to sit down and poured out a light red wine. "So," she said, glancing at Cadvan with an unusual directness. "Elenxi tells me you have news? Serious, important news. And he said you were seeking refuge. Refuge from what? Though I see you have suffered some battles." She was looking at the whip scars on Cadvan's cheek.

  Maerad suddenly thought: she's a Truthteller, like Cadvan. She couldn't have said how she understood this; she simply knew. It was a gift some Bards possessed: as Silvia had told her, Truthtellers could bring the truth out of a person, even if they didn't know it was there. It was impossible to lie to them. She examined Nerili with new interest.

  Cadvan raised his glass. "Good wine, Neri. It's been a while since I tasted Thoroldian grapes; I had forgotten how excellent they are." Nerili smiled briefly, and Cadvan leaned back in his chair and let out a long breath.

  "I will tell you the worst news first." His voice hardened. "Maerad and I are seeking refuge from Enkir of Norloch, who has betrayed the Light. We fled the citadel only four days ago; it was then in flames. I fear civil war in Annar and I know that the Nameless One returns, the Dark moves on Annar, and even as it rises, the White Flame collapses from within. The First Circle of Annar is broken."

  Nerili swallowed hard and was silent for a few moments as she studied Cadvan's face.

  "I see that you say no untruth," she said quietly. "But I can scarce credit it. Norloch burns? The First Bard betrays the Light?"

  "It's true," said Maerad. A sudden image flashed into her mind of Enkir's face, cold and vicious with rage, and she felt a bitter anger rising within her. "He has long been a traitor. The First Bard Enkir sent my mother to be enslaved, and betrayed Pellinor to the Dark. I was only a little girl when it happened, but I recognized his face. He knew he was discovered, and he tried to imprison half of the First Circle for treachery. He sent soldiers for us, and we only just escaped, with Owan d'Aroki's help."

  "He sent an ondril to pursue us," added Cadvan. "And no ordinary ondril either."

  Nerili shook her head in bewilderment and put up her hand. "Let's go back to the beginning," she said. "You are saying that Enkir caused Pellinor to be sacked? That is a grim accusation."

  "He did. He wanted me." Maerad looked up at Nerili, her jaw jutting out. She was tired of having to explain her story. "He knew the Fated One would be born to my parents. We don't know how he knew. But he took my brother, Hem, instead of me; he thought only a boy could be the Fated One."

  Nerili gave a small, barely audible gasp.

  "My father was killed with everyone else. My mother died later, in slavery." Maerad stopped suddenly, twisting her fingers around the glass. This stark narration caused all her old sadnesses to rise up inside her, choking her throat.

  "The One? You are sure?" asked Nerili softly, looking across at Cadvan.

  Cadvan nodded. Nerili leaned forward and took Maerad's chin in her hand, looking at her intently. Maerad stared back into her eyes without fear or surprise; a few Bards had searched her this way before, not quite scrying her, but feeling her out. She felt a delicate touch in her mind, a light like music. Then Nerili sat back and passed her hand over her face.

  "I shall need some time to absorb this." She picked up her glass and drained it. "Maerad, I do not know what you are."

  "Neither do I," Maerad answered, a little forlornly.

  "You have great power. But it is a strange power, a wild power, unlike anything I have felt before."

  "There are many riddles in this tale," said Cadvan. "But I have no doubt that Maerad is the greatest of them all. None of us knows what she might be capable of."

  Both Bards stared gravely at Maerad until she shifted under their gaze, suddenly glowering. Seeing her discomfort, Nerili refilled her glass and turned urgently to Cadvan.

  "And what of Nelac?" she asked. "Is he still in Norloch? Or did he flee as well?"

  "Nelac." At the mention of his old teacher, Nelac of Lirigon, Cadvan's voice thickened with sadness. "Nelac wouldn't come. I asked him. He said he was too old, and that he was needed in Norloch. I... I have no doubt he is in great danger, and I don't know what has happened in Norloch since we left. I fear for him greatly."

  "He is a powerful Bard," said Nerili. "He is not easily endangered."

  "Yes. But you do not know what Enkir has become. He draws on powers other than his own. How else could he summon a creature like that ondril? And Nelac is old, even by the count of Bards. He is not afraid of death. Perhaps ..." Cadvan sighed and stared out into the garden. "Perhaps I won't see him again."

  "Your news is all ill," said Nerili. There was a short silence. "Well, there is much to discuss. I'm sure you are both hungry; we can talk and eat." She gave Cadvan a strange private look, and Cadvan looked away, his face troubled. Maerad realized suddenly that Cadvan and Nerili knew each other, and that Cadvan's awkwardness had nothing to do with unfamiliarity. Cadvan called her Neri, not Nerili. Quite unexpectedly she felt a flash of jealousy and awkwardly stood up to follow the older Bards to the dining table, almost knocking her glass over.

  Over dinner, Cadvan and Maerad told of how he had helped her escape from slavery in Gilman's Cot at the beginning of that spring, how he had come to suspect she was the Fated One, prophesied to bring about the downfall of the Nameless, and how her instatement as a full Bard in Norloch had confirmed his suspicions.

  "And what now?" said Nerili, looking at him again with that strange directness. "For I do not imagine that Cadvan of Lirigon will stay long in Busk."

  "The signs, if I read them aright, say that we must go north," said Cadvan. "Maerad and I, it seems, must find the Treesong."

  Nerili lifted her eyebrows. "And what is the Treesong?"

  "Nobody knows exactly," said Maerad. "Not even Nelac. But we have to find it anyway. We know we have to go north, because of my foredream and the prophecy."

  "The prophecy?" said Nerili.

  "Maerad speaks of a prophecy of the Seer Lanorgil's, found this spring in Innail," said Cadvan. "It foretells our need to seek the Treesong. The Song lies at the roots of the Speech, and somehow holds the very secret of our powers. Your powers, Neri, and mine, and those of every Bard in Annar. And something is wrong at the heart of Barding. Badly wrong. Even here, in the haven of Thorold, you must know that."

  Cadvan spoke with such conviction that the skepticism vanished from Nerili's face, and for a moment she looked simply afraid, although she covered it swiftly.

  Maerad and Cadvan then began to tell her the full story of their journey. It was a tangled telling: Nerili constantly interrupted with questions and speculations, and led the conversation in different directions. The atmosphere relaxed, and Maerad decided she liked Nerili very much; she spoke as someone sure of her authority, and there was a quick warmth behind her apparent austerity. Cadvan's face was inscrutable, and Maerad could not guess what he felt.

  To distract herself, she experimented with the food. She discovered that she liked olives, although she found their bitter, oily taste a little unpleasant at first. The bread, crusty and
tough, was delicious, and she enjoyed the pickled vegetables, most of which she didn't recognize, and the meats, which were flavored with lemon and garlic and herbs.

  She fared less well with the shellfish, which she had not eaten before, as she had never lived by the sea. Cadvan told her the orange-lipped shells were mussels, so she picked one up and, as Cadvan instructed her, split open the bivalve shell and picked out the flesh. Even that made her feel a little sick, but she persevered and put a small piece in her mouth. Only politeness prevented her from spitting it out on the table and she put the rest of it aside, uneaten. The black spiky things were sea urchins, boiled and split in half so their rosy insides were exposed, like exotic, poisonous flowers. Nerili ate them with enthusiasm, spooning out the flesh from the shell, but Maerad thought they smelled like rotting boots. She noticed that Cadvan, who was monopolizing the mussels, wasn't touching the sea urchins.

  Nerili and Cadvan began a complicated conversation about the politics of Norloch, which bored Maerad slightly, and the wine conspired with her tiredness to make her drowsy. Her mind began to wander. She hadn't thought of Cadvan having a lover, apart from Ceredin, who had died when he was a young man, but now she did think of it, there was no reason to suppose that he hadn't. She guessed he and Nerili were not lovers now, and it wasn't as if she and Cadvan were, well, were ... she had no reason to feel jealous. But she did, all the same. She had so few friends.

  She thought again of Dernhil, who had loved her, and whom she had turned away in panic and confusion, so long ago it seemed, in Innail. Dernhil had spoken to her of the Way of the Heart, and Silvia had, too ... even the Queen Ardina had talked to her of love. You have a great heart, the Queen had told her, but will only find it to he so through great pain. This is the wisdom of love, and its doubtful gift.

  But Maerad hadn't understood. She still didn't understand. Was it love that had given Nerili's smile its ironic edge? But maybe she was imagining it all. Cadvan and Nerili were simply two Bards, debating questions of high policy, and these subterranean feelings, which so disturbed Maerad, were but flutterings of her tired mind.

  She stared abstractedly out of the window, where the garden was now wrapped in purple shadows, with flowers glimmering palely in the darkness. Whenever Bards had mentioned the Way of the Heart to her, it had filled her with an unreasoning fear. She had spent her childhood protecting herself from the violent men of Gilman's Cot, and that was certainly part of it, but at a deeper level was some kind of foreboding, a sense of darkness that wrapped itself around the part of her that might love, as if to love might extinguish her. It seemed too full of risk, and she already risked too much, simply by being who she was.

  "Are you weary, Maerad?" Nerili broke in on her thoughts, startling her. "You seem a little tired."

  "I am," she answered. "I haven't slept much these past nights. I wouldn't mind going to bed."

  "Maerad is no sailor," Cadvan said. "She was a very interesting green for most of our voyage here."

  "And you didn't spell her? I thought you were a rare healer." Nerili gave him a mocking glance, and Maerad found herself bridling on Cadvan's behalf, although she said nothing.

  "Will you be able to find your chamber, Maerad?" asked Cadvan. "It's still quite early, and I'm not ready for sleep. Nerili and I have much to speak of."

  "I'll manage," said Maerad tightly, although she wished that Cadvan didn't want to stay and talk with Nerili, and would come with her instead. "I'll see you tomorrow." She bowed her head in farewell and left the room.

  She made her way back to her room, turning the wrong way only once, noticing with pleasure the familiar noises of a Bardhouse—the murmur of conversation in distant rooms, people laughing outside, musicians playing a duet somewhere, some young Bards arguing. A hunger she had been barely aware of flowered painfully inside her. Music! When had she last played? She couldn't remember.

  Back in her room, Maerad picked up her lyre and started plucking it, randomly at first and then more seriously. She was out of practice. She ran through a few scales, and then picked out a tune she had once heard some minstrels play in Ettinor— she didn't feel like playing Bardic music tonight. It was a plaintive song about a man who had fallen in love with a watersprite. She couldn't quite remember the words, so she made up some of her own once she had the melody down to her satisfaction. She sang it through twice, feeling her anxieties subside in the absorption of playing. Then, yawning violently, she put her lyre carefully aside and prepared herself for bed.

  Chapter III

  THE BROKEN PROMISE

  THE golden light of a late summer morning played over the garden outside Maerad's room. She sat alone in the shade, enjoying the breeze on her face. Birds argued in the trees and Maerad, using her Gift, idly eavesdropped. Birds, she thought, are so brainless. All they say is Mine! Mine! Mine! Go away! Go away!

  She let the birdspeech return to pretty burbling, which was much more pleasant to listen to, and breathed in the balm of the garden. She ached: oh, how she ached. Her soul was like one big bruise.

  It was so pleasant to sit alone in a beautiful garden, and not to feel filthy or exhausted or cold or frightened, not to feel hunted by the Dark. But now she had a little peace, all these disturbing thoughts bubbled up inside her. Was she any closer to knowing who she was? She had all these new names—once she had been only Maerad, then she was Maerad of Pellinor, and now she was Elednor of Edil-Amarandh, the Fire Lily come to resist the Dark—but what did they really mean? And now she was on a quest, charged to find the Treesong. From the voice in her foredreams, she and Cadvan had decided that they must head north, but here, in this pretty garden, it seemed like the flimsiest of reasons. And what were they looking for? Even Nelac didn't know.

  What are you? she asked herself, echoing Nerili's question of the night before. A freak?

  She had been ruminating for some time when a door farther along the portico opened and Cadvan peered out. "Maerad! Good morning!" He came up to her table. "I see you've been spending your time well," he said, looking at the empty plates. "Is that coffee still hot?"

  "Coffee?"

  "The drink. Coffee."

  "No."

  "A pity. I'm rather partial to it. It's a drink from the Suderain: it's rare to find it anywhere in Annar except here. They trade with the south."

  "I like it," said Maerad. "But it's strong."

  "A bit like the Thoroldians, yes?" Cadvan said, smiling. He pulled one of the chairs up to the table and sat down.

  Cadvan and Maerad sat in companionable silence for a while, looking out over the garden. Maerad toyed with the idea of asking him about Nerili, and then decided against it. She doubted he would tell her anything, and part of her didn't want to know.

  "It's lovely here," she said at last. "I wish we could stay forever."

  "We can't," said Cadvan. "You know that. But we can certainly stay for a few weeks. We both need a rest. And before we head north to seek the Treesong, we have to have some idea of what we're looking for. I'm going to have a good look through the Busk Library—it's the most ancient in Edil-Amarandh, except perhaps for the one in Turbansk—and try and find some clue. If we know what we might be looking for, then it might not be such a goose chase."

  "It might be a goose chase anyway," said Maerad, thinking of the argumentative geese she had herded as a slave child, and then of the wise, gentle Bard Nelac, as she had last seen him in Norloch, solemnly charging them to find the Treesong. They were such incongruous images, she almost laughed.

  "Well, while you hunt about in the library, I'll just sit in the garden," she said. "I like it here."

  "No, you won't," said Cadvan. "You can use the time to study. There's so much that you should know, and there are things that it's dangerous not to know. You really need years to catch up, but we'll have to make do. I've spoken to Nerili about it—she's agreed to let you have private teaching, so you don't have to sit in classes with children half your age. You have particular needs, anyway."


  "But I want a rest," she said mulishly. "I'm tired."

  "And a rest you shall have. For two days. It will take me that long to arrange your lessons. You'll need some beginner's instruction in High Magery, which is a bit peculiar, because you have all the abilities, and more, of a full Bard, but you've never done the basic lessons. I'll have to think about who is best to teach you. Me, probably, but I'll be busy. And, of course, there's swordcraft, and reading and writing. You're quick; you'll use your time well."

  Maerad pouted, but made no other protest. The prospect of resuming study excited her, but she wasn't going to tell Cadvan that. For all her powers, she was painfully aware that she had very little skill.

  In Busk, for the first time, Maerad began to live the life of a normal Bard. She slipped as easily into it as a fish into a stream. The days settled into a steady pattern: rising at dawn for breakfast, and lessons until the middle of the afternoon, with a short break for a light midday meal. After that, if she didn't have further study to do, her time was her own; she was free to go back to her room and rest, or to sit in the garden, or to wander down to the town and the markets of Busk, or, as she began to do more and more often after her first week, to join the noisy Bards in their colloquia. She usually ate dinner with Cadvan, either in the Common Hall or in one or other of their rooms, where they would swap news about their day: what Maerad had learned (a voracious amount) or what Cadvan had found (nothing). Or they would wander down to the lower town to meet Owan. They would eat either in one of the many taverns or at his house, which was surprisingly big for a humble fisherman, cementing what had become a fast friendship.