The Gift (53 page)

“But isn’t it more important than that?” asked Maerad.

Cadvan sighed impatiently. “How I hate these politics!” he said.

“You, my friend,” said Saliman, pointing his bread at him, “have never been politic. That’s your main problem. I, however, come from the south, where politics is an art. It would be better, Nelac, if another Bard were to present our plea.”

“I’ve thought of that,” said Nelac. “But I daren’t mention Maerad’s claim to anyone else in the Circle. Caragal, perhaps, but I can’t guess what he would say. I cannot be sure enough of their discretion. It is likely that it would instantly be known to everybody, and would be dismissed before we could even get to the Council. We must present it fully and fairly, before all the Circle, untainted by gossip. That is our only chance.”

For some time they all sat in contemplative silence.

Cadvan nodded. “All right then, I agree,” he said. “The most important thing now is Maerad’s instatement. Tomorrow, then!” He lifted his glass, and the rest followed.

Maerad raised her glass more slowly than the others. She felt sick with apprehension at the thought of the Council. Tomorrow her fate would be decided, and she didn’t feel ready at all.

HEM was busy all the next morning; after breakfast Maerad didn’t see him at all. Saliman was taking him in hand. “A bath, a haircut, and some proper clothes, and you won’t recognize him,” Saliman murmured as they ate breakfast.

“You’re taking his welfare deeply to heart,” Maerad said, smiling.

“Yes, I am,” said Saliman, suddenly quite serious. “I like your Hem, monkey though he is. He’ll make a good Bard one day, if he learns the right things. He might as well start now.”

As the day wore on toward the Council, which was to be convened at the midafternoon bell, Maerad became more and more agitated. She had nothing to do: Hem, Saliman, Cadvan, and Nelac were all out. She walked around the First Circle, but found she could take nothing in; she wandered to the Library, but felt too daunted by the stern looks of the librarians to look around properly, and, in any case, it conjured memories of Dernhil, which confused her already disordered feelings. Brin, Nelac’s housemaster, brought lunch to her room, as everyone was still out. Afterward she tried to read some of the books in her room, but she couldn’t concentrate at all. Half an hour before the Council, she was in such a state she could hardly speak.

Cadvan had advised her to dress formally and to wear her sword and brooch. Alone in her chamber, she put on the long crimson dress and tied her hair back in a braid, her fingers trembling. She could scarcely pin on the brooch, and when she tried to strap on her blade, Irigan, she dropped it, the clatter of the scabbard making her jump. When Cadvan knocked on her door, arrayed in black and silver with his sword at his side, he took one look at her white face and clasped her hand.

“Maerad, even if we get nowhere with this Council, it will be no failing of yours,” he said. “Remember that! Not everything hangs on the First Circle!”

Maerad smiled weakly in reply. Cadvan looked at her a little more closely.

“They’re only Bards,” he said gently. “Why so afraid? You’ve dealt with Bards before, and much worse. Come, this isn’t the Maerad I know!”

Maerad nodded and tried to look braver. She looked at Cadvan’s marred face: he had faced death without quailing. A lot of old Bards weren’t nearly as frightening. She felt slightly reassured, but she still couldn’t control the deeper apprehension in her breast, or the trembling in her knees. She hoped that her shaking legs were completely hidden by her robe. Wordlessly, with a feeling of doom, she followed Cadvan down the corridor. When they passed Nelac’s students on the stairs, she turned her face away so she didn’t have to greet them. She didn’t feel able to speak.

They met Saliman downstairs, and together they bent their steps to the Tower of Machelinor, the highest and fairest in that city of high and fair towers. At its base was a single domed building, the Crystal Hall of Machelinor, and this they entered through wide, gold-embossed doors, just as the hour bell tolled in the tower high above them.

Maerad gasped when she walked in; her first impression was of a blinding blaze of light, a surge of mighty power. This was the center of the Light in Norloch, in all of Annar, and its force pounded in her ears, making her dizzy. She shook her head, trying to clear it, and looked around.

It was the most beautiful hall she had ever seen. The floor was of polished stone, pearl white and rose and black, with gold runes inset all around the perimeter. The zenith of the ceiling was crystal, and light also streamed in through windows set high in the plainly adorned white walls, filling the airy space with radiance. Around the walls were black plinths on which were set curious statues, some clearly of Bards, some of figures of an unearthly beauty that seemed barely human. They were made of bronze or marble or carved of a solid rock of crystal, and all were leaved with bright gilt that threw back the light in flickering beams. At the far end of the room were more golden doors wrought in intricate designs of birds dancing amid trees of flame. These were shut; beyond them lay the winding stairs to the Tower of Machelinor, which rose in a single leap so that one who climbed to its loftiest height stood a thousand feet over the Meads of the Carmallachen. The Bardsighted could gaze eastward over the entire realm of Annar to the Osidh Annova, or turn westward and look over the measureless expanse of the ocean; and thus the First Bards of Annar saw much of what passed in the realms of Annar and the Seven Kingdoms. For this reason the tower was also known as Dancsel, or Farsight, although in the northern speech that phrase could also mean the Cold Heart.

But Maerad’s gaze was pulled to the center of the hall, where the floor was raised in a circular dais on which was placed a huge round table carved of black stone. The table and the stone chairs around it were completely plain, without decoration of any kind. On it were placed goblets of gold and a golden ewer, and in its center was a huge natural crystal of adamant that, alone of all things there, was unshaped by human hands; the light in the hall passed through it and broke around the walls in flickering rainbows, and in its center dwelled a white fire.

Maerad’s feelings of dismay deepened as the three of them walked slowly toward the table. It seemed a very long way, and her feet were heavy with reluctance.

She saw that nine figures were seated there. They would have seemed dwarfed in that huge space but for the sense of power that emanated from them, which grew stronger the closer she approached. There were far fewer people sitting than there were chairs, so each Bard sat alone, with empty chairs on either side. Maerad gulped and glanced at Cadvan; his face was unreadable. Her mouth had gone completely dry. She fought a sudden strong impulse to run out of the Hall, out of the First Circle, out of Norloch altogether. Steadily she paced on.

At last, Maerad reached the High Table of the First Circle of Norloch. She and Cadvan and Saliman stood by the table while the Nine Bards of the First Circle regarded them in silence. Maerad was sure, in the absolute silence that filled the Hall after their footsteps had ceased, that her thumping heart must be audible to everyone there. She looked down at her feet, desperately trying to gather together her scattered wits. It was as if the force beating through the Crystal Hall wouldn’t let her think or see; all her awareness was dissolved in the pulsing heart of the Light.

She heard someone stand up and speak.
It must be Enkir, the First Bard,
she thought. His voice was icy and clear.

“Welcome to the Council of the First Circle of Norloch, Saliman of Turbansk and Cadvan of Lirigon,” the voice said. And then it was edged with a barely concealed spite or anger. “And who is this other you dare to bring here, into the very inner sanctum of the Light?”

Maerad heard Cadvan’s voice ring out confidently beside her.

“My Lords, Bards of the First Circle, I wish to present to you my student, Maerad of Pellinor.”

As Cadvan said her name, Maerad relucatantly dragged her eyes up from her feet.

Directly before her, on the other side of the table, stood a tall, thin Bard dressed in white robes. He was staring straight at her, and his nostrils were pinched white with rage. He had a fierce, hooked nose set between dark, flaming eyes, and deep lines furrowed between his nose and his mouth. His brow was high and white, and also deeply lined. It was a proud, intelligent face, pitiless as a hawk at the moment that it stoops for a rabbit; but it was cold, as a beast never is, and beneath the coldness Maerad sensed a bitter cruelty. So Maerad first perceived Enkir, First Bard of Norloch; and as her eyes met his, her dizziness overbore her and she felt her knees buckle beneath her, and her sight went black.

She knew that face. She had seen it before.

The world shattered into pieces around her, whirling into a storm of confused images. Maerad collapsed to the floor, but she was not aware of Cadvan and Saliman bending over her in alarm, nor of the murmured consternation of the other Bards.

The towers of Pellinor were burning.

The darkness itself seemed to be screaming. There was a chaos of noise: the roar of flames, the crack of stone and wood buckling and crashing, yelling, the clang of metal on metal. Maerad squeezed her eyes shut, but still the noise went on and on and on. She sobbed with terror.

Someone was carrying her. Her mother. She pressed her face into her shoulder, breathing in her warm scent to block out the acrid stench of smoke and another smell, unfamiliar and much worse, the reek of blood. She was being jolted up and down; it hurt.

“Don’t cry, Maerad,” her mother whispered in her ear. “There’s my brave girl.” She looked into her mother’s face, glimmering whitely in the darkness. Milana was not afraid. Her face was smirched with ash, grim with despair and grief. But she was not afraid. She was as hard and beautiful as adamant. Maerad swallowed her tears.

“What happened to my daddy?” she whispered.

Milana’s face twisted with anguish. “We’ll tell later,” she said.

But Maerad knew what had happened to her daddy. She had seen him hacked down just inside the walls of Pellinor, as the cruel men had burst through the gate with brands of fire and black swords.

“And where’s Cai?”

“Cai’s with Branar,” Milana said, between gasps. Branar was a friend of her father’s. “We’ll meet them in the Linar Caves. Just be brave, my little one. We must be very quiet.”

Soon they were running through the outer streets of Pellinor: tiny cobbled lanes that were eerily empty. The sound of the flames was now muted, but they still cast flickering red shadows over them; Pellinor’s topmost tower was on fire. Milana’s feet sounded too loud; her footsteps echoed off the walls. After a while, Milana said: “I have to put you down now. My arms hurt. Can you run?” Maerad nodded, and Milana clutched her hand, and they ran together. Maerad’s chest felt as if knives were going in, but still she ran.

They turned and twisted around the corners, Milana always stopping sharp and peering around, and then dashing down the street, but they saw no one. Where was everybody? Maerad was too frightened now to cry. Milana’s hand bit into hers, and she shook it to loosen the grip, but Milana didn’t notice.

At last they reached Milana’s goal, a small, stout door in the outer wall of Pellinor that Maerad had never seen before. It was completely hidden by a veil of ivy, and hastily Milana pushed the tendrils back and, fumbling at her waist, brought out a bunch of iron keys. She sorted through them, panting, and at last found the right one, which she thrust into the keyhole and turned with both hands. She shot back the bolts and pushed it open. It swung out with a loud creak, and she started and looked around. Nobody was there. She dragged Maerad through and pushed the door shut behind her.

But somebody was waiting for them outside the door.

“Where are you going, Milana of Pellinor?” A tall shape loomed in the darkness. Milana gasped and pulled Maerad close to her. She heard the whisper of metal as Milana drew her sword. The voice laughed softly.

“Don’t think that any blade will wound me.”

“Enkir.” Milana’s voice wobbled with relief, and then she stood straighter, and the darkness around them was illuminated by a silver light, blooming softly from Milana. “What are you doing here?”

“I asked where you were going,” said Enkir harshly. Maerad peeked out from her mother’s cloak; the light glimmered on the Bard, so she could see his face outlined in silver. His eyes were lost in darkness, and black shadows carved his face.

“What business is that of yours?” said Milana fiercely. “Are you blind? Are you deaf? Do you not know what has happened?”

“I thought you’d try to escape here. The secret ways of Pellinor are not unknown to me.” Enkir stooped forward, staring into Milana’s eyes. “I want your son. Now. Where is he?”

Maerad, close against her mother, felt her go very still. She didn’t answer, but the light around her brightened. Dropping the sword, Milana lifted her hands, and Maerad’s head buzzed with her power. She felt, almost like the clash of swords, Enkir’s will answering her; the collision of the two forces shivered through her. Milana stepped back, her eyes wide with shock.