Authors: Alison Croggon
“She lives?” he asked.
“Aye,” said Dernhil. “But she needs a healer beyond our capacities.”
“I have nothing left,” said Nelac. “Nothing.” He hid his face in his hands.
Even speaking hurt, thought Cadvan. He wondered dully who they could call to help, if no one was present in the Bardhouse. He listened: was he imagining it, or was the wind dying down?
“The storm is passing,” said Dernhil. “And those voices are gone. It is only the wind that keens now.”
For a time all three sat unspeaking, too exhausted to move. Cadvan’s ears caught the sound of motion in the Bardhouse, voices and footsteps, and he thought they should call for help; but even that felt beyond his means. At last, Nelac stood up, grimacing. “Come, my friends,” he said. “Our task isn’t finished.” He stumbled over to a nearby shelf and picked up a bottle, which he unstoppered and sniffed. “Medhyl. I thought so. I don’t know why I hadn’t the foresight to bring some here myself…”
Nelac took several sips before passing the medhyl to Dernhil and Cadvan. Its herbed, clean taste woke Cadvan’s palate, and he felt its virtue at once, lifting the hollowing exhaustion that followed the making of powerful mageries. He leant over Bashar, wondering if there was anything else he could do to help her, when footsteps sounded in the hall outside.
“Nelac! By the Light, what has happened here?”
All three Bards turned in surprise and relief. Coglint and Noram of Ettinor stood at the threshold, ashen with shock. When Noram recognized Cadvan, his face darkened.
“Bashar is near death,” said Nelac. “We have done what we can, but she should go to Norowen.”
“What have you done?” said Coglint. “What evil have you brought here?”
“There will be time for explanation after,” said Nelac. “Now there is sore need.” But Noram was already calling for help, and they heard voices and feet running. Coglint shielded himself, and ran to Bashar and lifted her, gravely studying her face. Noram didn’t take his eyes off Cadvan.
Two Minor Bards ran in and Coglint issued hurried instructions. Before long, bearers carefully lifted Bashar onto a stretcher and took her away. Hard on their heels, four soldiers bearing the livery of the Thane of Lir entered the room.
“No,” said Nelac in alarm. “Coglint, Noram, you misunderstand what has happened here.”
“I see a Bard who has had traffic with the Dark, and I see the work of the Dark,” said Noram. His voice was hard. “Would you have me doubt the evidence of my eyes? I do not know what caused you to betray the Light, Nelac. And you, Dernhil, of all people! I am deeply grieved. But it seems that Bashar was correct in her fears.”
The soldiers drew their swords and warily approached the three Bards. Nelac drew back his shoulders, his form flickering with rage.
“Lemmoch!”
Such was Nelac’s authority that everyone in the room halted, suddenly still. “Stop this madness! Think for a moment. Since when have you had cause to doubt my service to the Light? Dernhil has more reason to hate the Dark than anyone here but Bashar. More is at work than you know. Before you judge what has happened here,
listen
.”
Coglint hesitated, and began to tell the guards to wait, but Noram cut him off. “Why have you brought this exile into Lirigon?” he said, hatred palpable in his voice. “Tell me that, Nelac. By your own acts you stand condemned. You are caught in the very act of treason, and you’d parley in the midst of the ruin you have made?”
He nodded to the armed men. “Take them,” he said. “They will languish at the pleasure of the First Circle until judgement is called against them.”
“You fool,” said Dernhil. “Nelac just saved the School from the worst attack it has yet suffered. And you’d imprison him?”
“It’s no use arguing with these idiots,” said Cadvan impatiently. He was cursing that he hadn’t thought to hide himself.
“No,” said Nelac. “This is not the time to argue.” A lightning blazed out of him, and the soldiers and other Bards froze, their faces tight with fear. With a supreme effort, Nelac had broken their mageshields and set a charm of fastening, a making so simple that even a child could do it without thinking, and their feet were bound to the floor.
“Coglint, Noram,” said Nelac in the Speech. “I am sorry to do this to you, but you must understand that all of us are imperilled, and hasty judgement now endangers the whole School – perhaps all of Annar. Understand that none of us wishes you harm.”
Coglint was pale with anger and fright. “You dare to attack me!” he said. “Me, a Bard of the First Circle! And you have the hide … in the very act of murder…”
“I did not seek Bashar’s death,” said Nelac. “I attempted to save her from a fate that you can barely imagine. And yet you will not hear what I have to say. You command I be imprisoned, on no authority but your mistaken appraisal of what has happened here. I wonder that you did not help Bashar earlier. Where were you? Black deeds were done this day and you stood by.”
Doubt clouded Coglint’s face. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said.
“Did you not notice that all was not well with Bashar this morning?” said Dernhil. “Where were you both when the Dark entered this house? Were you bewitched?”
“The Dark stands before me,” said Noram. He stared at Cadvan with contempt.
“And you brought it here, Nelac,” said Coglint sadly. “Why? What has possessed you?” Anguish was raw in his voice, and Dernhil blinked and looked away.
Let them take me,
said Cadvan into their minds.
I am the crime here.
We would gain nothing if you were imprisoned, and we would lose too much,
said Nelac impatiently.
I don’t know what has happened in this house, but it seems to me that everyone is ensorcelled. Even if Likod has been cast out of the School, he has set his poison here…
“Let’s go,” said Dernhil. “I can hear others coming. Cadvan, conceal yourself.” When Cadvan hesitated, he pushed him. “
Now
, Cadvan.”
I’ll not make that Pilanel charm here, while others are watching
, Cadvan said. Noram was still staring at Cadvan, his eyes hard with hatred, as he vainly attempted to undo Nelac’s fastening charm.
If we are to leave, we should leave now.
Nelac hesitated.
If we flee this place, it will confirm their suspicions,
he said.
Perhaps we should wait…
Think you that others will believe us, or them?
said Dernhil.
Nelac glanced at Noram, and reached a decision.
We must leave, though my heart misgives me,
he said.
We dare not risk what might happen
. He looked Coglint in the eye then, and said in the Speech: “You do not know what harm you do this day, when so much harm has been done. I know you doubt me, but I have never spent myself in the service of the Light more than this morning. I pray you will understand this, before it’s too late.”
Coglint disdained to answer him, but he looked as if he wanted to spit.
They left Bashar’s chambers swiftly, casting their hoods over their faces. The house was alive with movement, and they passed unnoticed amid the bustle, wondering at its earlier desertion. Nelac must be right, thought Cadvan: Likod must have ensorcelled the entire Bardhouse.
They emerged blinking into the daylight. The storm had lifted altogether: a greenish light poured through ragged clouds, touching the buildings with an unearthly hue. Broken branches and torn rubbish littered their path, and everywhere was the sound of trickling water. Lirigon seemed uncannily still, in the numb aftermath of violence.
They crossed the Inner Circle, expecting any moment to hear alarms and the beginning of pursuit, and at last reached the relative shelter of the streets. Nelac stumbled then and almost fell, as the exhaustion of the past hour struck home. Dernhil and Cadvan supported him between them, hurrying as fast as they could back to Larla’s house. The heaviness in their limbs made this journey seem interminable, almost as hard as when they had pushed through the storm; but at last they reached Larla’s blue front door. As if she had been keeping watch, Larla flung it open almost as soon as they knocked and drew them in, checking up and down the street to ensure that no one saw.
“Oh my,” she said. “We’re in such trouble now, my dears.”
L
ARLA’S
oaten honey cakes were delicious, even by the standards of Lirigon, where they were a local speciality. While the other Bards fought their way through the storm, Selmana ate five, one after the other, staring broodingly into space. Larla made little attempt at conversation; indeed, the clamour was now so loud it was difficult to talk. Instead, she busied herself with stoking the oven, and began to chop onions and carrots and herbs, throwing them into a glazed pot. Selmana was obscurely comforted by Larla’s unfussed domesticity, but wondered at her blithe confidence that her house would be unharmed. How would Nelac and the others make their way through such a tempest, even with mageshields? A crash near by, audible even over the hammering rain and roaring wind, made her jump: she remembered the old pine up the road, a tree of huge girth, weathered and gnarled by many winters. If it fell on the roof, Larla’s house would be broken open like an egg. Larla looked up and studied the ceiling, frowning briefly. “Missed!” she said brightly, and went back to her chopping.
Larla was right: waiting was hard. Selmana could feel panic fluttering in her stomach, a dread that ran through her blood like a low-grade fever, but she tried to ignore it. She had no reason to be afraid, she told herself. She was sheltering like a mouse in its cosy burrow, her nose twitching with alarm. The image almost made her smile; she couldn’t think of anyone less mouse-like than herself. She had overtopped her mother when she was seven years old, and by the time she was thirteen she was as tall as her father, and almost as strong. She reached for another honey cake and munched it slowly, thinking of her childhood.
She hadn’t known she was a Bard until quite late, at around ten years old, and it had come as a relief, illuminating the difference within her that until then had slept merely as strangeness. She couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t wanted to smith metal. She had haunted her father’s forge as soon as she could walk. At first her father had tolerated her, calling her his little assistant and permitting her to pump the huge bellows she could barely reach, blowing the forge coals to white heat. He had even taught her some simple techniques, and she had learned the deep pleasure of shaping metal. She had loved the musical ring of the swinging hammer, how flakes of hot iron flew in bright sparks around her, the power of her hands.
But when she grew older he had forbidden her to come to the forge, saying that it was no job for a girl. When she had pointed out that Rabla in the next village was a smith, and a good one, he had mumbled into his beard. It was fine for Rabla, but not for his own daughter, and that was that. His ban cast her into profound misery. Her mother argued that smithing was an honourable job, for both man or woman, but her father was implacable. Perhaps, her mother had said as she comforted her, if she’d had sisters, he might have let her have her head … but Selmana was the only girl in the family. In her impotent rages, Selmana thought it was only just that neither of her brothers shared her passion for smithing: both of them followed their mother, and became farmers.
But when the Speech opened inside her, her life opened too. Now she could learn everything she desired, now no one could tell her that her passion was wrong because she was a girl. Even her father was proud to have a Bard in the family, and they had reconciled their differences before he died. She missed him sorely, but that at least was a comfort. Until Ceredin had been killed, Selmana had been wholly happy: her life had work and meaning and purpose. She had heard talk of the Dark, but it had no connection with her life: it was a force that belonged in history books or in distant places she would never visit.
And now… She drew in a deep breath. Now the ground had opened beneath her feet, revealing depths that she hadn’t imagined. Now the familiar world was turned inside out and she saw through different eyes. The change had happened so fast she could scarcely keep up with herself. She knew now that the Dark wasn’t the opposite of the Light, nor even its absence, but something much more disturbing: a seed that lived in the very heart of the Light. No wonder Inghalt refused even to discuss the idea: it shifted the sure ground of Barding to a landscape of doubt and peril. She was certain that Nelac, accounted as one of the wisest scholars of the Way of the Heart in all Annar, had known this all along.
Maybe that’s why he argued that Cadvan should not be exiled, she thought. Perhaps Cadvan understood the Dark better than anyone else. She stared at her hands, calloused and scarred by her work. With these hands, she could choose to dominate the lives of others, to treat them as things; or she could create the possibility of delight and love, she could nourish the promise that lay within every mind. She shuddered with the weight of the responsibility: it was curled into every moment of her life, every tiny gesture, every trivial choice. How could anyone live with that?
There was another crash, closer this time, and she started out of her abstraction. Larla, who was by the stove stirring her pot of stew, met her eyes and shrugged.
“Aren’t you worried?” Selmana had to shout to make herself heard.
Larla gave the stew a final stir and put a lid on it, settling close to Selmana so she could hear. “Time enough to worry when the roof blows off,” she said. “I believe it won’t, but there will be many houseless people at the end of this. And worse, maybe, if Nelac can’t do what he must.”
Again Selmana wondered who Larla was. She wasn’t a Bard, but she had something of a Bard’s aura. Larla caught the question in her eyes, and laughed. “I have the Sight,” she said. “It is a Gift, if not the Gift of Bards. I don’t know what you are taught there in the halls of learning, and I know there are Bards who have contempt for such as I am. But Nelac never did.”
“He said you’re old friends,” said Selmana, her curiosity piqued.