The Gift (5 page)

“Know then, Maerad, that in Annar and the Seven Kingdoms the Bards are charged with the keeping of the Light. The centers of Knowing are the Schools, but it was not always so. Many lives of men ago, the center of the Lore was Afinil, Citadel of Song, built when the first Loresingers came to Annar. Some say a terrible cold drove them from their home, and others that they sailed here on great ships from a foundered land, and still others say they simply appeared here among other humans; whatever the truth, our origin is lost in legend. However they came, Bards appeared in Annar, bringing with them the remnants of an ancient Knowing from the very dawn of the world: the Gift of the Speech, and Reading and Making and Tending, the skills and knowledge known as the Arts of the Light. And here was built the great city of Afinil, which was the center of the Knowing in the ancient days.

“Many songs tell of its unmatched beauty, of the unwalled towers that rose like lilies beside the mere, beside the pure face of blessed water. And within this citadel dwelt the Loresingers, all those who loved and tended the beauty of the world. The Speech was on all tongues, and all met with understanding.”

Cadvan’s voice shifted subtly into a chant. Maerad’s heart quickened; she couldn’t remember the last time she had heard a new song. Even in her surprised pleasure, the musician in her noted coldly that Cadvan possessed a very good baritone.

“So it is remembered in song as an ache, a memory of something lovely, now lost forever. The story of its loss is an evil one. But you must know it, if you are to understand the Bards. For the gifts of the Light, alas, were its own undoing.”

Maerad stumbled again and this time fell, scrambling up immediately. Cadvan stopped. “Are you all right?” he said.

“Yes,” she snapped, embarrassed, pressing her hands together where she had grazed them on the rock.

Cadvan looked at her sharply. “You haven’t rested, and after a heavy day’s work, no doubt,” he said. “We must press on; but perhaps we can stop for a little while now, to go all the faster afterward.” He sat down on the ground, just where he was, and gratefully Maerad sat down next to him. Her legs were shaking. Cadvan opened his pack and drew out a bottle. “This helps weariness,” he said. He drank some, then offered it to Maerad. It tasted like water, but with a faint hint of herbs. A fiery tingling rushed through her body, and some of her exhaustion immediately lifted. In the sudden quiet, the valley felt oppressively silent, and when Cadvan began to speak again, Maerad almost jumped.

“Afinil, as I said, fell in part because of its generosity. In the south there arose a king who feared to die like ordinary men and sought instead endless life, freed from the doom of the world’s circle. He envied the powers of the Light and desired them for his own. Masking his intent, he approached the gentle Bards of Afinil and asked for tutelage, and harboring no suspicion in their hearts, gladly they gave it to him. He was an apt pupil and in time became more powerful in the ways of Speech, more subtle in the Lore, more skilled in the arts of Making and Unmaking, than any before him. When he was satisfied he had learned enough, he returned to his own land in the south, the kingdom of Dén Raven.

“The intention of the knowledge of Light is to make fair, to make grow, to keep the sacred Balance. But this king bent this knowledge to his own purpose. His first wrong was to cast off his Name.”

“How can you cast off your name?” asked Maerad, fascinated and puzzled. “What did they call him, then?”

Cadvan laughed. “He still has a usename, this sorcerer, though it is seldom said. He is usually called the Nameless. Every Bard has a secret Name,” he continued. “You do not know my Name. You do not even yet know yours. A Bard’s Name is given at enstatement, when you come into your powers: it is, if you like, your true Name in the Speech. It says who you are. To cast it off is to reject yourself.”

“But that’s impossible!” Maerad objected. “How can you not be who you are?”

“Alas, it’s not impossible at all,” replied Cadvan. “The king rejected his Name, because then he could also reject death. But with the gift of death, he cast away also the knowledge of those who die, and found his heart was empty, a pain sharper than any that he had known. For he was not of the immortals, and had not the right to deathlessness. He looked out on the world, and his eye was dark. He sought then the dominion of all on the earth and the destruction of all that rebuked him with its beauty, and he challenged the Law of the Balance, and overthrew it. And then, with massed armies and Black Sorcerers — those corrupt Bards that we call Hulls — he marched on the lovely citadel of Afinil, and cast down its fair towers and darkened the mere, so the moon no longer bathed there and the stars fled its lifeless face. Then began the Great Silence, when the Song was no longer heard in the wide lands of Annar.

“That was not the total of his evil, but it was among the most grievous. Many things then were lost to the world, beyond restoration.”

Cadvan sighed. Maerad listened in silence, overwhelmed with wonder, not only at the tale, but at the sweet tautness the names began to awaken within her:
Afinil,
Loresinger,
the Light.
They recalled much of the scent and sound of her mother, her voice as she plucked the lyre, the dark fall of her hair as she kissed her, and other memories that she could not trace. She sighed also, and looked around them. They were now more than halfway down the valley, and the stars were massed above them, bright around a moon waxing to the full. She picked out the Five Gemmed Daughters, swinging high over them in their ceaseless dance. Ilion was now sunk beneath the horizon.

Cadvan stood up. “We should move on,” he said. Maerad scrambled to her feet, and they began again the slow trudge down the valley. Maerad felt her exhaustion beginning to return, but she forced herself on, and Cadvan returned to his lesson.

“The story of the downfall of the Nameless One is long and hard and desperate, and many parts of that tale never returned from darkness,” he continued. “Suffice it to say that he was at last defeated. After his fall, the Bards made the Schools, which keep and teach the Knowing of the Light throughout Annar and the Seven Kingdoms. The center of all high knowledge is now Norloch, a fair place of gardens and high halls and learning. But in one way it differs from Afinil: for Norloch is walled and provision is made for a great garrison, and the innocence that was the downfall of Afinil will not be its weakness again. And this perhaps is the greatest loss caused by the Nameless, although some argue it is not so, and that in its greatness Norloch surpasses even the ancient citadel.”

“Have you been there?” asked Maerad, when he said no more.

“Yes,” said Cadvan. “Many times. For I am no longer part of any School, and travel between them as I must. The Light once more is under attack. And Bards now are sent on dangerous and secret ways to spy out the tracks of the Dark, rather than singing the leaves of spring in the old ways and bringing increase.”

“Was that why you were near Gilman’s Cot?” asked Maerad.

A shadow of pain passed over Cadvan’s face. “It is a little close to speak of that,” he said. He was silent then for a long time.

In the quiet Maerad again felt the oppressiveness of their surroundings. It was now some three hours since sunset, and the moonlight illuminated the sheer edges of the mountains with a white dew, casting the ravines into impenetrable shadow. In the distance she thought she heard faint howls and shrieks. She thought also that Cadvan’s face held traces of some great strain, although his voice had betrayed nothing. Maerad remembered his exhaustion only that morning, and that he had said he was wounded. She saw no sign of a wound.

At last she ventured another question. “Do you think that I might be a Bard?”

“Didn’t you hear anything I told you?” said Cadvan shortly. Maerad cast him a glance of dislike. Her feet were beginning to throb with pain, and she marched on in silence, wondering if they would ever leave this cursed valley. Cadvan halted then and gasped, and Maerad saw that sweat stood out on his forehead.

“Maerad,” he said. “I must ask your patience. I contest the will of the spirit of this place, which would not have us leave here. It bears down on me, and it gets worse the farther we go.”

After a short time he walked on again, but more slowly, as if he were pushing through deep water. Maerad saw with anxiety they still had a long way to go before they passed out of the valley. She could feel nothing herself, apart from an increasing sense of dread. She didn’t dare to speak. It was difficult walking, as now they picked their way through broken boulders and piles of scree slipped from the sides of the mountain, and at times the track almost vanished altogether. Her boots were ragged, and her feet felt bruised and sore. And, for the first time that night, the cold began to trouble her. It seemed to creep into the marrow of her bones, forming crystals in her joints that made it hard to move. She gradually descended into a dull nightmare of exhaustion, and finally was concentrating only on putting one foot in front of the other. The mouth of the valley drew closer and closer, but as they neared it, so the cold increased and Cadvan’s steps became slower.

At last he stopped altogether. Now sweat ran in runnels down his face, and the edges of his mouth trembled. “Maerad,” he said hoarsely. “I must rest, just briefly.” He collapsed slowly to the ground.

Instinctively Maerad reached out and clasped his hand.

All at once she felt it: a cold, cruel will that crushed her mind like a vice. She dropped his hand as if the touch scorched her.

“What
is
it?” she whispered.

Cadvan looked at her in amazement.

“You can feel it?” he said.

“Something,” she said, wincing. “Something horrible . . .”

“Take my hand again,” he said. Maerad looked at him fearfully and flinched away. When she had touched Cadvan, it was as if her mind had been invaded by a malignant consciousness, implacable and terrifying.

Cadvan let out his breath in a gasp, and then braced himself to breathe again, like a man in pain. He held out his hand toward her, speaking steadily. “Maerad, at this moment I keep the entire mountain from toppling on our heads. Perhaps you can help me. Take my hand!”

Reluctantly Maerad reached out and clasped it again. His fingers were cold as ice. The feeling came back, worse this time. Cadvan clutched her hard, as if he were drowning.

“Hold it back,” he said. “Command it to retreat.”

Maerad felt bewildered. What did he mean?

Hold it back!

The command seemed not to be said out loud, but inside her head. It was Cadvan’s voice. In the midst of the baleful darkness that disordered her mind, his voice seemed to be a light, a small white flame. . . . She turned toward it, fighting down her terror. She focused her thoughts.
Go away!
she cried. She didn’t know if she said it out loud.
Begone!

At once the crushing sense of malevolence lightened. Cadvan let out an enormous sigh.

“By the Light, Maerad, that is some Gift you have. Now perhaps we will be able to leave.” Slowly, holding her hand so tightly she could feel the bones crunching, he stood up.

They crept on steadily, bent over as if they carried heavy burdens. Maerad found it difficult to concentrate both on walking and on shielding her mind. Once she twisted her ankle on a rock and almost fell, crying out, but Cadvan kept fast her hand and she limped on. The end of the valley came closer with excruciating slowness.

At last, as the mountains began to turn silver gray and then rose pink with the approaching dawn, they reached the end of the valley. As they passed the last of its outrunning hills, Maerad felt the will snap shut behind her, like a gate, and suddenly her body walked freely again. She laughed with relief.

“We’re out!” she cried, turning to Cadvan with an open smile for the first time.

Cadvan glanced at her somberly. “But still we must walk! Even in its shadows, the Landrost has power.”

As if to emphasize his words, a deep rumble echoed from behind them and a great slide of rocks and boulders slipped off the side of the mountain and fell in dust to the ground. Maerad turned and looked into the valley for the last time.
Strange,
she thought; she felt no emotion at all, neither gladness nor regret. Nothing.

Then she turned away.

Before them she saw the turfed knees of the mountains descending to a great forest, obscured by mists that even now were drawing up to the sky. The sun was rising over the green hills, and its pale light fell on her face.