The Gift (57 page)

“You’ll find the Treesong,” said Hem soberly. Maerad looked at him in surprise, and despite his distress, Hem smiled with a ghost of cheekiness. “I
know
you will, Maerad. I feel it in here.” He thumped his chest.
Maybe,
Maerad thought,
but I don’t even know what it is.
. . . She forced herself to smile back, and then boosted Hem onto Imi, who stood patiently while he scrabbled into the saddle. He settled and grinned down at her, suddenly delighted with himself.

Maerad wanted to say many things, but couldn’t find the words. Cloaked and booted on a horse, Hem suddenly looked much more grown up. Besides, he had Saliman to look after him. He had as much chance as any of them. But she felt the parting as a wrench in her deepest being.

“Farewell, my friend,” she said to the horse. “Guard my brother well.”

Your brother?
said Imi, pricking her ears forward in surprise.

“Yes,” said Maerad.

I will,
Imi said.

“I’ll miss you!” said Maerad, feeling tears prickle her eyes again. She dashed them away impatiently. Too many partings . . .

And then, all too quickly, Darsor and Imi were clattering over the cobbled courtyard. Nelac opened the broad outer doors and looked out into the street. It was empty.

“Go now!” he said. “May the Light speed you!”

Then the horses surged out in a swift gallop. Within seconds they had turned a corner and were out of sight. The three Bards stood in the doorway for a little while after they had vanished, Maerad with her head bowed low, struggling with her grief.

NELAC shut the outer door and locked it. Brin came out of the house with two burly students, and they began to barricade the doors with long, heavy bars of iron.

“But what about us?” asked Maerad in surprise.

“We have to go another way,” answered Cadvan. “Underneath the citadel.”

Maerad didn’t reply. Things were moving too fast. The Council, and then the terrible scene with Cadvan, and now losing Hem. . . . She was so tired, and the night was scarcely beginning. Subduedly they returned to Nelac’s sitting room, which seemed suddenly very empty.

“Now, for the most important matter,” said Nelac. “Maerad must be instated before you leave. There’s only one way: the Way of the White Flame. Though now that I know what I know, I would not trust any other.”

“The Way of the White Flame?” Maerad was caught off guard. She hadn’t expected this.

“It is an ancient means,” said Cadvan. “The way of Afinil. The very core of the rite. Not many these days know how to do it. Fortunately, Nelac is one of them.” Suddenly he smiled at Maerad, his rare, brilliant smile, as if all shadows suddenly dropped from his soul and a great joy welled inside him. “And you shall come into your Gift at last, Maerad.”

Maerad looked at Cadvan uncertainly, the dread returning like a black wind rising inside her. She feared the power within her, even as she felt it growing. And she felt a shift in her being, as if a heavy door shut irrevocably behind her and there was no way back.

Less than half an hour later, hidden from curious eyes in Nelac’s private garden, Maerad of Pellinor became a Bard of the White Flame. Above blazed a field of stars where swung the waning moon, and the shadows of trees and flowers lay black and still on the silver grass. Maerad looked up and let the starlight fall on her face. She no longer felt afraid.

She stood alone beneath a flowering anarech tree, dressed in her traveling clothes. On her breast she wore the brooch of the Lily of Pellinor, and in her hand she held a switch of rowan. Cadvan stood about ten feet away, his hands clasped, as still as a tree.

Nelac came out of the house and he carried within his cupped hands a white flame. Maerad watched in wonder as he approached; the flame seemed to leap up from his palm and lit up his face from beneath, throwing the sockets of his eyes into deep shadow. When he reached her, he bowed his head.

“Maerad, Minor Bard of Pellinor, I welcome thee,” he said, in the Speech.

Maerad bowed her head silently in return.

“Will you take the White Flame, in earnest of your vows to the Light?” Nelac asked.

“I will take the White Flame, in earnest of my vows to the Light,” answered Maerad, and she held out the switch of rowan horizontally in front of her.

Nelac put the flame to the stick and it caught fire. Maerad resisted the impulse to drop the wood, holding it as the white flame spread along the rowan to her fists and then engulfed her hands. It didn’t hurt; instead a strange, fierce tingling ran along her arms and through her body, as her entire body was sheathed in fire. Rather than heat, she felt coolness, but it was as if cold leaped and flickered as flame did. She felt more alive than she ever had in her life, as if her blood had suddenly woken from a long sleep; and she looked into Nelac’s eyes with wonder. Then she heard, with a sense that was not hearing, a voice that was no human voice, but seemed rather the very tongue of starlight.
Elednor,
that was her Truename. Fire Lily. As the prophecy had said.

After a short time the flames flickered and went out, but the tingling continued, and the dim colors of the garden and the gentle starlight were almost more brilliant than she could bear.

“Thou hast passed through the White Flame, and have not burned,” said Nelac. “Welcome, Maerad of Pellinor. Thou art in thy heart and in thy mind and in thy being a Bard of the White Flame.” And then, into her mind, he said:
Samandalamë, Elednor Edil-Amarandh na, Eled Idhil na, Idhil Agalena na.
“Welcome, Elednor of Edil-Amarandh, Lily of the Briar, Briar of the Foam.”

He stooped and kissed her brow, and then Cadvan welcomed her with the same words, and kissed her. Maerad looked at the rowan, which she still held in her hand; the switch was burned almost to ash, but her hands were white and unblistered.

Nelac took the switch from her and buried it under the anarech. Then, without speaking, they went back inside. The room that Maerad had left merely ten minutes before looked changed to her: the colors were richer and more profound, the objects pregnant with meaning. She almost flinched before the intensity of her perceptions. She looked around and blinked, and shook herself.

“I didn’t know it would be like this,” she said.

“One never knows how things will be,” said Cadvan slightly dreamily, as if he remembered something in his own past.

A little of the radiance of the flame still clung to Maerad’s skin, so as she sat in the room she shimmered slightly. Cadvan looked at her in wonder; he thought he began to understand the kinship Ardina had spoken of.

“Not all Bards pass through the White Flame,” said Nelac. “Not all Bards may. It was well done, Maerad.” He stared at her gravely. “A true Bard! And if I may say so, truly your mother’s daughter!”

There was no time for Maerad to absorb what had happened. Into the sitting room came the sound of shouting in the street, faint and far away, and the dim clash of weapons. Much closer, there was a hubbub in the hall. Nelac looked up sharply. “It’s begun, my friends,” he said.

Maerad sighed, and forced her mind to the present. They had to escape Norloch. Saliman and Hem must already be out of the citadel, heading south. She saw their figures in her mind’s eye, as if from a great height, galloping through the night on the Meads of Carmallachen. Now she and Cadvan must leave.

Brin ran into the room, looking agitated. “Master!” he said. “Something is amiss. There’s rioting in the streets! I saw soldiers from one of the high windows. . . .”

“I know, Brin,” said Nelac calmly. “I am just sending off these guests. Remember even the White Guard cannot force the outer doors; they’re barred with more than iron. And please, if you could keep the students from panicking, we need to evacuate them down to the lower Circles. I’ll be back soon. If need be, you know how to get to the Fifth Circle.”

Brin nodded and left.

“Brin is my right hand,” said Nelac, smiling wearily. He leaned for a second against the wall. For the first time since his return from the Council, he seemed old and tired.
How old is he?
Maerad thought suddenly. Three times the span of a normal lifetime, Cadvan had said. . . . But Nelac interrupted her musings. “Now it’s time for you two to leave. I’ll take you to the passage entrance — it goes straight from there, you can’t get lost — and there I’ll leave you. You two can defend yourselves. I have other urgent cares.”

Cadvan and Maerad lifted their packs and followed Nelac. He led them along the great entrance hall, left into another wide corridor, and then through the huge kitchen, which was completely deserted. At the far end was a small, dark staircase, which they descended. Nelac made a light as they went down, and Maerad saw they entered a low-roofed vaulted cellar, which seemed to stretch endlessly around them. It was stacked to the roof with orderly rows of casks, glass bottles, barrels, and bulging sacks of grain. The walls were lined with shelves of fruit and vegetables: apples, turnips, carrots, and more. And from the roof hung strings of onions and garlic and long fragrant dried sausages. The air was cool and still, but dry. Maerad breathed in the pungent smells as they hurried through, reminded suddenly that they had not had time to eat.

Nelac led them to a low corridor on the other side, and here they went again downstairs and turned left into another passage, lined with a number of small, stout oaken doors. The walls here were more roughly hewn, and the air began to feel dank and stale, as if these passages were not often used. He stopped by the door at the far end, took a bunch of keys from his waist, and unlocked it. The Bard light wavered through the doorway, but all Maerad could see was a few gray stone steps, which vanished down into impenetrable darkness.

“Here it is,” said Nelac. “This gives out on the cliff face far below, and from there it’s a matter of picking your way over the rocks to the quayside. The tide is out for the next six hours, so you won’t have to swim. I think Enkir does not know of this passage, but I certainly cannot be sure; there are others not so secret, leading out to the lower circles, which he may expect you to use. I don’t believe the other opening will be locked; but I am not so sure of the quays. By now the citadel will be battened down, and I think Enkir will not have forgotten the sea. Be wary!”

He paused and wiped his hand over his brow. Cadvan looked at him intently. “Nelac, I wish you would come with us,” he said. “I fear for you in this place.”

“Nay, Cadvan,” answered Nelac, and he smiled somberly. “I am too old for such ventures. I will not lie to you: my heart is full of foreboding. Now we are come to evil days. But I am needed here.”

Cadvan did not argue, but the sadness in his face deepened.

“Now listen well,” Nelac went on. “Owan’s boat is called the
White Owl.
It has red sails, which bear the sign in white. You will know him; he is tall and dark after the manner of Thorold.” As Nelac spoke, Maerad saw an image vividly in her mind: a dark, humorous face with eyes gray as the sea. “He said he would wait for you at the cliff end of the quay, and he knows your likenesses. Go there as quickly as you may. He is a man who may be trusted.” He looked away from Cadvan and Maerad. “All my hope goes with you two. Do what you must. The Dark must not prevail.”

Maerad brimmed suddenly with love for this old man, gentle and wise and human, yet stern and strong, she knew, as the very rock. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. Nelac looked slightly surprised, but smiled.

“Farewell, young Bard,” he said.

“Good-bye, Nelac,” whispered Maerad, still clinging to his neck. “Thank you.” She released him and stepped back.

“What the Light wills, no frost can kill,” Nelac said. “Remember that. The roots of the Treesong run very deep, and shoots emerge where you least expect them. Keep vigilant!” Maerad nodded. “Farewell, Cadvan.” Cadvan embraced him without speaking. Then the two entered the passage and Nelac shut the door behind them. Maerad heard the key turn in the lock.

For a second it was completely dark. Slowly a pale silvery illumination blossomed in the blackness. The glimmer came from Cadvan, but he did not move. He was staring sightlessly ahead.

“I doubt I’ll see Nelac again,” he said flatly. “Though I would know — surely I would know — if he died. . . .” There was a strain in his voice, a pained doubt, and for a moment Maerad didn’t answer.

“You don’t know what will happen,” she said at last, awkwardly. “And Nelac is strong.”

“Yes.” Cadvan sighed heavily, and thrust away his thoughts. “It would be easier if I had a staff to make the light,” he said. “I don’t use one much, but over long stretches of time it helps. Perhaps we can take turns; I don’t wish to finish our journey too tired. I have no idea what we’ll find at the other end.”

Maerad looked ahead. The passage was roughly hewn in the rock, and before them the wall curved around, out of sight. The steps were steep and narrow, plunging down in a ceaseless spiral through the core of the cliff. There was a dampness in the air, and it was cold; she shivered and drew her cloak closer around her.

They began the long descent. There was no hand guide or banister in the wall, and Maerad felt a constant fear of toppling down the steps. As they went farther, it became damper, and trickles of water occasionally ran down the walls, making the stairs slippery and treacherous. After about half an hour, Maerad took a turn of making the light, and she began to see what Cadvan meant; it was tiring, in a deep part of her mind, to keep the illumination while concentrating also on making sure she didn’t trip and fall.