The Gift (45 page)

It was not a Hull, but something older, more chill, more deadly.

Maerad shrank into the rock, panic-stricken. This thing was infinitely more menacing than the Kulag, which was merely monstrous. She was acutely conscious of an evil intelligence, a vicious will. She felt its awareness brooding on Cadvan, gathering all its might to strike him down. Her mind reeled and she cringed, almost fainting, overwhelmed by a sense of enmity and malevolent pride, tempered over countless years to a sheer, focused point: immeasurably bitter, immeasurably cruel, colder than any ice.

It was a wight, summoned from the Abyss. Its face had the livid hue of something that had been long dead, and in its face were no eyes, only empty holes opening to impenetrable darkness. And yet it seemed to see. A stench of the grave breathed through the cleft, cold and foul. Maerad heard Hem give a little gasp.

It moved close to Cadvan, level with his eyes, although he was on horseback. It stopped and spoke with a deathly voice, and as it spoke a loathing came so thickly over Maerad she thought she would be sick.

“Who disturbs the sleep of Sardor?” it asked, and then it laughed, and its laughter was more terrible than its voice. “What miscreants dare enter my chamber, thinking in their folly and vanity that I lie in chains?”

Behind it the horsemen moved in closer, and Maerad saw they were Hulls. There were five of them. They kept the wers behind them, whipping them back with cruel thongs, so they yelped and howled.

“I think I know,” said a Hull, mockingly. “It is the great Cadvan of Lirigon. I hear he has been riding around the countryside as he pleases, snapping his fingers at our Master, for he believes he is a great Bard, and may flout even the authority of the Great One. He has ridden so in his arrogance for years; but alas, he cannot be allowed to continue.”

“Nay,” said another. “And now he hath stolen something of mine. There is no end to his insolence. Well, might we ask why the great Cadvan, Norloch’s pampered darling, keeps such company? He has fallen very low in the world, methinks.”

At this, all the Hulls laughed, but the tall one stood motionless and did not laugh.

At last Maerad heard Cadvan speak, although he still did not move. “I may have fallen low in my time,” he said thickly. He sounded as if he were speaking under water, but as he spoke his voice gathered strength. “But my memory differs from thine. Methinks I fell lowest when I knew thee, Likud, once of Culain, and that now I move so far beyond thee thy muddy imagination cannot reach there.”

The Hull hissed and flinched, as if Cadvan had hurt him. “You will regret that, Cadvan of Lirigon,” he said, with a malice that made Maerad’s skin crawl. “I will make plenty of time for regretting.”

The light within Cadvan grew brighter and brighter, but still he did not move. Maerad, pressed against the stone as if she wished it would swallow her up, willed him to move, begged in her mind, in a panic; but he sat arrested, his sword arm high, and Darsor stood as if he were carved of stone.

“I will have my own thing back,” said the Hull called Likud, and rode up to Cadvan. Maerad saw Hem twisting in Cadvan’s frozen arms, but he was locked there and could not escape; and then, with a desperate contortion of his body, he wriggled out and fell off the horse. Scrambling to his feet, he fled down the road and casually the Hull lifted its hand and sent a bolt of darkness after him, hitting him in the back so the boy stumbled and fell, and then lay still.

“The rats are easily dealt with,” said the Hull contemptuously. “But the King Rat? Well, that is a different question.” He lifted the whip and struck Cadvan viciously across the face. Cadvan swayed in his saddle, a livid welt rising on his cheek. Arnost fell from his hand and clanged on the stone road.

“Such spawn of filth should be dealt with at leisure, think you not, friends? What is sufficient punishment for this renegade, this murderer, this treacherous spy? Do you think we have forgotten, Cadvan, how eagerly you studied the secrets of the Dark? Think you that such treachery will be easily answered? The torment of a single night alone is not enough. No.” The Hull moved closer to Cadvan, his eyes gleaming with cold hatred, and spat into his face. “Not a single night, but countless nights of agony, until the mind is flayed into madness and can bear itself no longer and cries alone in the darkness, forbidden the Gate forever. And even that is not sufficient.” He struck Cadvan again savagely across the face, and the light within him dimmed. He struck him again, the thongs whistling and cracking as they hit, and Cadvan’s light went out utterly, and he fell senseless to the ground. And then the Hulls loosed the wolfwers and they leaped forward with chilling howls.

Maerad watched helplessly, cowering in the shadows, numb with horror and despair. She saw Cadvan fall from Darsor and, with the sickly inevitability of nightmare, the arc of his fall seemed to take hours; at last he hit the ground and lay still at Darsor’s feet, his face glimmering palely in the darkness, streaked with blood. And as he fell, she seemed to see another sight: her father also falling, his head staved by a mace, and behind him the towers of Pellinor collapsing into a roaring torrent of flames.

With that a great grief and despair rushed into her.
Now there’s only me,
she thought.
What can I do?
Cadvan was unconscious or perhaps even dead, and Hem lay dead behind her. And now her own death stood before her. Desperate and alone, she stood up with tears running unnoticed down her face; and as she stood, she saw with a vision other than sight that the wers were leaping toward Cadvan and Darsor and would be on them in a moment. Suddenly the torrent of grief became an all-consuming anger, and as if her anger tore aside a veil, a new awareness blazed inside her. Despite her extremity, she was possessed by a fierce, wild joy. Her blood sang through her veins like a silver fire. At last she understood her power, and she knew, with a clarity like that of a dream, what she had to do. She stretched out both her hands and shouted:
“Noroch!”

The road lit up instantly with white flames, throwing the faces of the Hulls into ghastly relief, and there was a chaos of howling and yammering from the wers. All the wers were ablaze, with white fire running along their backs and lapping down their sides, and they snapped and howled like mad things and bolted away from the flames. The Hulls’ horses reared and screamed in terror and backed along the road, away from where Cadvan lay. The Hulls sawed viciously on the reins, so bloody foam dripped from the animals’ mouths, and they fought the horses back toward Maerad. They peered into the blackness behind the flames, trying to find the source of the fire, but Maerad was small against the stone wall, hidden among the wild shadows thrown out by the inferno. Before they could catch sight of her, she sent out a great sheet of white flame, knocking all the Hulls and their horses down.

Maerad had no time to feel amazed by what she had done. The wight still stood unmoved, a huge malevolent shadow, and in that instant it perceived her; and she felt the might of its evil will, even as it had bent Cadvan against his own iron resolution. For a second she thought she was lost, and her head was forced down beneath the deadly strength beating against her; but as her eyes lowered, she saw Cadvan lying pale and limp on the ground, and her anger again overcame her. Quicker than thought, she struck out wildly, with all the power within her; and she saw for a second the wight blasted as with lightning, and it let out a terrible high wail, writhing in the flames before vanishing before her appalled eyes. And suddenly everything was silent, apart from the faint crackle of twigs burning high above her, and the harsh sobs of her own breathing.

She fell to her knees, and for a while everything went black. Then she remembered her friends and crawled toward Cadvan lying on the road; her legs were shaking too much for her to stand up. Darsor still stood next to him, lathered in sweat and trembling violently; but he would not leave his friend, and nosed him gently.

“
An de anilidar,
Darsor?” she asked. The Speech came as naturally as breathing, as if she had always spoken it.

The horse turned his great head toward her and blew out of his nostrils against her hand. He spoke, it seemed, into her mind, and she understood.

I am well,
he said.
My friend is not. I think he lives, but he breathes only faintly.

Maerad stroked Cadvan’s brow. It was clammy with sweat and blood. One of his eyes was bruised and swollen shut and there were savage welts on his left cheek, where the thongs had bitten deeply into the flesh. She didn’t know what to do. She desperately wished she had Cadvan’s skills of healing. For a brief second she wondered if she could use her new powers to ease him, but nothing within her stirred in response; she felt utterly emptied. She felt gently over his face and body, but nothing seemed to be broken.
Please,
she pleaded in her mind,
please wake up.
She sat there for a long time, stroking Cadvan’s face, but he didn’t stir, and in the dim light she thought his face looked ghastly. She was glad for Darsor’s presence; she had never felt more lonely. She wasn’t afraid. But she was still out in the wilds, and Cadvan was insensible, and she did not know where Imi was, and Darsor could not carry all three of them alone.

Like a thunderbolt she remembered Hem. In her anxiety for Cadvan, she had forgotten all about him. She stood and looked back down the road and saw his small shape on the ground, his limbs splayed out with the force of his fall. She stood and walked to him shakily, wondering if he were dead. She turned him over and his head fell back, hanging limply, and she was briefly certain that he was; but she pressed her ear to his chest and heard his heart still beating faintly. She shook him gently, as if he slept, and to her relief the boy opened his eyes. He looked up into her face, his eyes widening with dread, and then cringed away from her.

“No, Hem, it’s all right,” she said. “The Hulls are all dead. Everything’s gone.” Despite herself, tears brimmed over her eyes.

“Gone where?” said the boy faintly. Then he sat up. “You lie,” he said. “You can’t kill Black Bards.”

“Yes, you can,” said Maerad. “I just did.”

Hem stared at her in disbelief and then looked down the road. It was too dark to see anything clearly, but there were faint shapes on the road, past Darsor — the corpses of the Hulls and their mounts. He turned back to Maerad and gaped at her with wonder.

“What happened to Cadvan?” he asked.

“He’s hurt,” said Maerad. “The Hulls hurt him.” Again she found herself weeping, but dashed away the tears impatiently. “We have to get out of here. And I don’t know where Imi is. She ran away. Can you walk?”

Hem stood up slowly. “Yes,” he said.

“You have to help me,” said Maerad. “I can’t lift Cadvan on my own.”

Together they walked back to Cadvan and Darsor. The horse looked at them inquiringly. “We’re going to lift Cadvan onto you,” said Maerad in the Speech. “Can you help us?”

I will kneel,
said the horse.
And you will need to hold him, so he does not fall.

Cadvan was heavy and a dead weight, and even with Darsor kneeling it took a long time to hoist him onto Darsor’s back. Maerad bit her lip, fearing all the time that they might hurt him more. They laid him across the saddle like a corpse, his head down one side and his feet the other; and then Darsor heaved to his feet. Maerad picked up Arnost, uncertain what to do with it; in the end she found Cadvan’s scabbard and put the sword back. Then, with Maerad on one side and Hem the other, they moved off slowly down the road. They passed the Hulls, and Maerad averted her face so she could not see them; she knew without looking that they were all dead, and she had no desire to know any more. But Hem stared at the shapeless cloaks and the scattered bones, and kept turning his head when they were past, as if he did not believe such a thing was possible. They saw no sign of any wers.

In less than half an hour Maerad saw the gray night sky in front of them, at the other end of the cleft. Then at last they were out of it and in the open downs, and a clean wind blew in her face. The moon was sinking beneath bars of cloud, and she thought it would not be long now until dawn. She was very tired, but she felt a new sternness in her bones and thought that she could walk all night and all the next day if need be, no matter what her exhaustion. When they had gone about a mile down the road she called a halt, and gently she and Hem lifted Cadvan down from Darsor and laid him on the grass. They took his pack down too, and Maerad found a jerkin that she used as a pillow. As she laid his head on it, she saw with a clutch of fear that his face seemed to be growing more pale, and she thought he was dying; but then she realized it was the beginning of dawn, which was just now sending its first outriders into the fields of night, lightening the downs to a pale gray.

“Darsor,” she said. “Imi ran away.”

No one can be blamed for being mastered by fear before such foes,
said Darsor.

“I don’t blame her,” said Maerad. “But I wonder how she can be found. Could you find her?”

Darsor stood very straight and looked back over the downs, sniffing the air.

She ran far in her fear,
he said.
She will be ashamed. I will call her back, if you will care for my friend.

“I will,” said Maerad. “He is my friend also.”

Darsor pawed the ground, and then nudged Cadvan gently with his nose, as if whispering something private to him. Then he was off, and Maerad saw at last how swiftly he could run; he sped like a black bolt down the road, and the fall of his hooves sounded like thunder.

Maerad and Hem sat by the side of the road and watched the sun rise over the downs. Gradually the world filled with color, and a chorus of birdsong rose around them, and the horror ebbed away. Still Cadvan did not move. Maerad took out some food, and she and Hem ate, and then Maerad took the water bottle and soaked the edge of her cloak so she could wash Cadvan’s wounds. They looked nastier now; his face was badly bruised and cut. One of the lashes had just missed his eye, and the skin around it was torn; but at least his wounds no longer bled. She was frightened by his continuing unconsciousness; she thought it must be four hours at least since he had fallen, and he had not stirred nor made a sound. She scrabbled through his pack and found the unguent he had used on her own cut and smeared his wounds with it.