Authors: Alison Croggon
“Perhaps we could try melding our minds,” said Dernhil.
“But you can only do that when you cast a charm,” said Selmana. She looked around the table, suddenly uncertain. “Or maybe that’s not true. But that’s what Calis says.”
“It’s certainly the easiest way, Selmana. Not the only way. Then let us cast a small charm,” said Nelac. “It needn’t be significant. The saying for clear contemplation suggests itself? Do you have that one, Selmana?”
She nodded; it was a spell often used by students on the brink of a test. The Bards linked hands and said the necessary words, bending their thought to the weaving of the charm. As soon as Cadvan began to glow with magery, his disguise fell away, and she felt relieved; his altered appearance made her uneasy, and gave her a little shock every time she looked at him. Bards shouldn’t be able to hide themselves, she thought. Somehow it wasn’t right.
Bards had many ways of linking their thought. Scrying was the deepest and most profound, the complete entering of another’s mind; at the other end of the spectrum was a lightly sensed web of relationship, as Nelac had of his students. Melding was more formal, the mutual permission to share their powers to strengthen magery. The last time Cadvan had done this was almost two years before, in the terrible hunt for Kansabur. He turned his thoughts from the memory; this time, the making was graceful and full of light, a gentle coming together. Quite suddenly, almost as if a lock clicked over, he was one of four minds, and the music of the charm became subtler and stronger, as many fingers of light doubled and tripled its simple patterns.
And then, with relief, as their powers entwined and strengthened and a pool of clarity opened between them, Cadvan knew that the others felt the dark pressure that was troubling him. Selmana gasped out loud. As the other Bards recognized it, Cadvan’s sense of its presence amplified and became clearer, coalescing from a vague shadow into a specific memory. A man who sawed at the mouth of his horse so that it champed on a foam of blood. A man who had attempted to trap him in a foul web of sorcery. A man who had shown him the forbidden books, sneering at his Bardic hesitation as weakness.
I know who it is,
he said, into the minds of the others, and he showed them the image of his memory and told them a name.
“Likod!” said Dernhil out loud, breaking the charm in his astonishment. He turned to Cadvan. “That is Likod? You are sure it’s that same man?”
“That same Hull, I think,” said Nelac. “And you’re right: here in the School, and hidden. And it has broken something.”
“Or someone,” said Selmana. “It has broken someone.”
Nelac shot her a sharp look from beneath his bristling eyebrows. “Yes. Or someone.”
A peremptory knock on the door, followed by someone rattling the handle, made him rise from his seat. It was Calis. “Why is your door bolted?” she said impatiently, when he opened it.
“Sometimes a Bard desires a little privacy,” said Nelac dryly. Calis was the only Bard he knew who would barge into someone else’s rooms without the courtesy of waiting for permission.
“Well, are you going to invite me in?”
“I’d rather not,” said Nelac, forbidding questions with a glance. “How can I help you?”
Calis looked as if she were about to argue and then thought better of it. “I need healers to help in the villages.”
“But do you need me?” said Nelac. “I have other urgencies this morning…”
“I’m taking some Makers with me to the lakeside villages, and thought you could come with me. There’s no huge emergency, but we are told there are injuries. One unlucky death, I believe, and the family needs the rites. Norowen is going north to Lepolan, but I could do with a healer.”
“What about Gerant?” said Nelac, naming Norowen’s assistant at the healing house. “He would deal as well as I could. Better, even.”
Calis gave Nelac a measuring look. “This isn’t like you, Nelac,” she said. “I was sure you would come.”
“Floods aren’t the only thing we must deal with today,” said Nelac.
Catching something in his tone, Calis hesitated. “I wish you would tell me what is of greater importance today,” she said. “Coglint says there will be more rain, and we must restore what we can before it arrives, and ensure that there is no illness later. I like this weather not at all. Bashar is in a fey mood and is no help at all this morning. And now you…”
Nelac took her hands.
“Calis, my friend, go and do what you must do. If you love me, let it be known that this morning I am busy with other duties.”
Calis met his eyes and was silent. “I will, my friend,” she said at last. “You disquiet me. I wish that you would take me into your confidence. But now there is no time.”
“Trust me, Calis,” said Nelac.
“I do,” she said, with sudden seriousness. “I always have. I’ll return later, when our tasks are done. I think we must talk.”
She took her leave, and Nelac bolted the door behind her.
“We can’t just stay holed up in here, like rabbits hiding from a fox,” said Selmana. “What’s the point of that?”
“Indeed we can’t,” said Nelac. He was frowning. “I think we should visit Bashar.”
A
FTER
a day locked indoors, Selmana was tired of confinement. At the same time, Nelac’s chambers had been a haven from the strangeness of the past days. She felt the difference as soon as she stepped into the street: her senses were now rawly open, and a feeling of deep unease washed over her, as if the ground were no longer solid, the sky a mere illusion that might at any moment dissolve. Perhaps Nelac had woven extra wards about his rooms, she thought. To protect him from invasion? Or to keep things in, maybe? Perhaps to protect the rest of the School from his own work?
She glanced across at Nelac, who paced beside her, his face closed in thought, thinking that she knew very little about him. He was a powerful mage, everyone knew that, but Selmana was suddenly aware of what that meant. Once physically strong, he was now at the cusp of old age, his hair almost white, his hands beginning to knot and darken. He seemed perilous to her, a font of energies that pulsed with capacities that she could barely guess, potent and hard-willed and beyond her predictions. She perceived, with a shiver of clarity, that Nelac possessed powers that could lay waste to everything she knew. If he should choose, she thought. But he does not choose…
Nelac smiled, as if he read her thoughts. “It’s a strange sky up there,” he said. “I would almost prefer to stay indoors, even though it was beginning to feel as if we were caged.”
Selmana glanced at the clouds. Nelac was right; she had never seen clouds like that before. They loured in strange formations that covered the entire north sky, a raft of lumps that hung dark and ominous, like huge grapes, or the egg sacs of some gigantic insect.
“Perhaps they’ll hatch some monster,” she said.
Lirigon was busy; people were sweeping up rubbish or checking their homes for damage, talking in small groups or hurrying on errands. Bashar’s chambers and the meeting hall were a short distance away, on the other side of the Inner Circle, which was the hub of the School. In the middle of the space, with a notebook propped on his knee, they met Coglint, who greeted Nelac with a brusque nod.
“What do you make of this sky, Coglint?” asked Nelac.
“It is remarkable,” he answered. “I’ve read of such clouds, but I’ve never seen them with my own eyes; they are very rare. They’ve formed very swiftly, over the past half-hour.”
“What weather do they tell?” asked Selmana.
Coglint glanced at her indifferently, dismissing her as a Minor Bard. “The records are not clear,” he said. “Sometimes, as I understand, they simply disappear.”
“I think these will not vanish,” said Nelac.
“It’s hard to say,” said Coglint. “But they are certainly still increasing.”
“The wind increases too, and swiftly. I prophesy a storm,” said Nelac.
“Surely not.” Coglint looked irritated. “There’s no sign of that in my readings. More rain, I think, but hardly on the scale we’ve seen in the past day.”
“A storm beyond imagining,” said Nelac. “I hope you’ve warned the School to batten down.”
“Bashar has issued the appropriate notices,” said Coglint. He started fiddling with his instruments. “If you’ll forgive me…”
Nelac nodded, and the Bards passed on.
“Why did you say there would be a storm beyond imagining?” said Selmana. She was afraid now.
He looked back at her and laughed. “Partly because Coglint annoys me,” he said. “He is good at weatherlore, but apt to think he is the only Bard who knows anything about it. But also because I fear it might be true. I smell something in the wind. A will directs it.”
“This wrong, it is thickening here,” said Selmana. “Could it be that Likod has entered the First Bardhouse? Surely that isn’t possible, Nelac?” The thought appalled her; she began to feel as if a hollow were opening in her stomach.
“There are wards here that would destroy any emissary of the Dark the moment they set their hands to the door,” said Nelac. “But I don’t know what is possible any more.”
They passed into the Bardhouse with no further speech. As she watched Nelac stating his errand to Bashar’s housemistress, Selmana began to wish fiercely that she had not come. She had no business here with the high Bards. But the others had insisted she go with Nelac, to tell Bashar her tale in her own words.
They knocked on Bashar’s door, and her musical voice told them to enter. The First Bard was seated by the broad arched window at the far end of the chamber. The room was unlit, so it was thrown into a strange gloom, and she appeared to them as a silhouette against the light. At her elbow were the remains of breakfast and an unfinished glass of tea.
“Good morning, Nelac,” she said.
“This is Selmana, Minor Bard of Lirigon,” said Nelac, bringing her forward. “She has something of importance to tell you.”
“You know very well that we are busy today,” said Bashar. “I wonder that you waste my time.”
“If it weren’t important, I would not be here,” said Nelac. Selmana heard the edge in his voice and quailed inwardly. If Bashar wouldn’t listen to Nelac, what chance was there that she would listen to a mere Minor Bard?
Nelac paused, to permit Bashar to invite them to sit down, but she simply waited for Nelac to speak. Selmana was feeling more and more awkward; after her first glance, Bashar hadn’t looked at her once since they entered the chamber. Nelac began to tell of Selmana’s vanishing into the Shadowplains, and of his own almost disastrous search for her, when Bashar interrupted him.
“You demand my time, Nelac. I have no time, and especially not for wild tales such as this.” Contempt flickered across Bashar’s face, and Selmana felt Nelac tense beside her. “I’ve been courteous with your fears and imaginings. But who do you bring with you? This is Selmana, you say? A Minor Bard?”
Selmana felt her cheeks redden as Bashar gestured towards her, and wished more than ever that she had not come. The First Bard’s scorn was palpable.
“You came to me two days ago in a panic, claiming that this student had disappeared in mysterious circumstances. I told you not to be concerned. And here she is, safe and well! What story has she told you? Perhaps she covers some shameful escapade. I would not be so trusting of children’s tales, Nelac.”
Selmana glanced anxiously at Nelac, who stood very still for a few moments, as if he were striving with himself.
“I would argue that in my time I have earned the right to be heard, even by the First Bard, in the midst of her most important affairs,” he said quietly. He was looking intently at Bashar, and he thought he saw in her face a fleeting uncertainty, a sudden pained hesitation; but it passed so swiftly he couldn’t be sure.
“Indeed you have, dearest of friends and colleagues,” said Bashar. “But this? Childish fancies and fears, Nelac. There is work to do, and you waste your time in nonsense about the Dark?”
“Nelac said nothing about the Dark,” said Selmana abruptly. She was shocked by Bashar’s dismissiveness, and felt anger stirring inside her.
Bashar turned and looked thoughtfully at her. “You must be the latest of Nelac’s little ducklings,” she said. “He has shown poor judgement of late in choosing his favourites.” She returned her gaze to Nelac. “My friend, I swear by the Light, if you do not collect your thoughts and put your powers where they are needed, action must be taken, however reluctantly. Your championing of that scion of the Dark, Cadvan, has not gone unnoticed. There are many who speak of their disturbance and doubt. We begin to wonder where your true loyalties lie. Do not forget what happens to those who betray the Light.”
The threat was naked in Bashar’s voice. Nelac looked warningly at Selmana, who had opened her mouth to speak, and bowed.
“Such discourtesy unbecomes you, my lady,” he said. “I would remind you that there has never been need nor reason to question my commitment to the Light. My apologies for our intrusion. We won’t disturb you further.”
“Report to Norowen,” said Bashar, nodding in dismissal. “You are slated for duties. Perhaps your student might actually be of some use there.” She returned to her contemplation of the sky, and the two Bards left in silence.
Outside the Bardhouse, Nelac took a deep breath. His expression was unreadable, but he seemed suddenly older. They walked across the Inner Circle in silence, wrapping their cloaks against the wind. Selmana looked around uneasily: it was already a gale, and the sky seemed more sinister every moment.
“I didn’t know the First Bard was so…” Selmana trailed off and looked at Nelac. She smarted with humiliation, but felt more the lack of respect that had been shown to Nelac.
“That was not the First Bard,” said Nelac shortly.
“What do you mean?” Selmana went cold, as if all the blood in her body had ceased to move. She thought she could begin to guess what Nelac meant.
“I think that Likod has scried her by force,” said Nelac, after a pause. “The Dark can do such things. And if scrying is done against a Bard’s will, the mind can be broken, and the body can become a puppet to be used at will. It happened often during the Wars of the Silence, according to the records. But no Bard would do that, surely. Only a Hull would do such a thing…”