The Riddle (57 page)

She kept her wolf shape, mindful of Ardina’s warning that the Winterking might sense her if she were a Bard. She was not yet sure enough of her feelings about the Winterking to risk changing back. It could be that her desire to see him would outweigh her longing for freedom, and would betray her. And it was easier to travel as a wolf, despite her lack of skill in hunting, which was much more difficult than the other wolves made it appear. After a few unsuccessful attempts to track rabbits and a farcical moment when she leaped on a surprised squirrel, only to see it dart with a panicked shriek from underneath her forepaws, scratching her nose and then vanishing with a flick up into a tree, she was beginning to feel very hungry.

The following day she came across an isolated hamlet. She waited on its outskirts until nightfall, hiding in a ditch, her nose alive to the smell of sheep and cattle and chickens, pangs of hunger ripping her stomach.

It was thick with the more disturbing smell of human beings, and she prickled with wariness as she crept toward the houses. There were only three, clustered together with their shutters tightly fastened. She discovered that the animals were shut inside large barns attached to the sides of the houses, no doubt to keep them safe from marauders such as herself.

Maerad chose the barn closest to her ditch and stood for a time outside the door, sniffing until she was sure there were no humans inside. Then, very carefully, she unlatched it with her teeth and crept inside. Just near the door were several sleeping fowl. She managed to kill one, breaking its neck with a quick snap, before the others awoke and started squawking in panic, waking the other animals. Outside, a dog started barking. Maerad grabbed the corpse, slipped out of the barn, and fled. A man emerged, shouting and waving a pitchfork, but by then Maerad was well away.

She felt better after eating the chicken, which was fat and juicy, although when she had finished it, she wished that she had had time to kill another; it had taken the edge off her hunger, but not its substance. Then she curled up in the hollow made by the roots of an ancient willow and slept soundly.

She woke early the next day and continued her journey south under an overcast sky. She had no clear idea of what she was to do; her only thought was to travel as quickly as she could, to find her way to Turbansk, to track down Hem. She saw no more hamlets; this part of Annar was sparsely inhabited, although sometimes she saw abandoned houses, their doors hanging drunkenly from broken hinges, their shutters flapping in the wind.

All morning a fine, freezing rain had turned the snow into a muddy sludge and added to the air of melancholy that filled the countryside. Maerad welcomed the rain; she wondered how long it had been since she had heard its gentle murmur, how long since she had been traveling through frozen lands. It seemed forever.

She began to have a strange feeling that she knew where she was, as if she had already visited this land in a dream. It was then she realized that she must be close to Pellinor, the School in which she had been born. This must be the Fesse of Pellinor. It had once been a thickly inhabited region, but it was now abandoned and empty, the only sign of what it had been the sad remains of houses she passed more and more frequently.

Maerad had not been to Pellinor since she was a small child, since the terrible day that it had been sacked and burned to the ground and she and her mother had been taken into slavery. She was suddenly consumed with an overwhelming desire to see her birthplace, ruined and dismal though it must be. Perhaps, in the place where her mother had been First Bard, in the home where her mother and father had loved each other and had their children, some inspiration might come to her and she might know what to do next.

She knew the School was nestled against the mountains, so keeping the Osidh Annova to her left, she ran on through the desolate winter countryside. It was a relief to have some concrete aim, and she pressed on swiftly now, keeping alert for any sign of the School. The rain stopped, leaving swags of dark clouds that promised more.

Just before noon she found the ruins. She came over a rise thickly wooded with leafless beech and larch, and saw a broken stone wall less than half a league before her. Behind the wall rose the remains of what had been a high tower and several other buildings.

Maerad paused, suddenly hesitant. It looked even more wretched than she had expected. But her desire to see Pellinor overrode her doubts, and at last she loped down the hill toward the broken archway, which had been the gate of the School.

Almost as soon as she passed beyond the wall, Maerad was sorry she had come, but she also could not leave, as if to do so hurriedly, without looking properly, would indicate disrespect or a lack of courage. The walls rose around her, most of them tumbled and broken, covered with brown, leafless creepers that the wind rattled against the stone. The stone in many places was still blackened by fire, and amid the tumble of wreckage, now covered with a winter detritus of dead weeds, she could see charred beams and broken doors and pieces of brightly colored glass. The stone roads were broken and clogged with dead grasses, but unless a wall had collapsed into them, they were still passable. A cold wind made a thin whistle as it blew through the gaps in the walls.

Sometimes she would pass a house that was almost intact apart from its roof, which had long fallen in. Occasionally, miraculously, one window pane remained unbroken, or she could make out the remains of what had once been a mosaic of colored pavings, within one corner an undamaged design — the shape of lilies intertwining, or a bird in flight. On the ground she saw the remains of statues, their faces shattered, and the remnants of what had been a lintel carved with flowers, and an iron pan, now dimpled and red with rust. Once, winding through the ruined ways of Pellinor, she emerged into a tiny court in which there was a marble fountain that was almost completely undamaged. It was a carving of a beautiful woman holding a ewer, out of which the water had once poured into a small pool. The marble was streaked with green slime, and the empty pool around it was clogged with dead leaves.

Nothing stirred in Maerad’s memory as she walked through the ruins of Pellinor. This sad, deserted place did not match her few memories, which were full of color and light and song; it revealed nothing but its own desolation. All that remained was a bleak, wintry absence. It filled her with an overpowering sorrow, and her thoughts turned to her foredream of Turbansk, long, long ago, in Ossin. Was this, then, the fate of Turbansk? Was that, too, doomed to become a haunting, pitiful ruin? Perhaps the city had fallen already, its light and beauty extinguished forever.

She turned her thoughts away from Hem. She was sad enough already.

Maerad wandered miserably through the ruins, her tail dragging behind her, until she came into an open space that had obviously been the central circle of the School. As soon as she entered the circle, Maerad stopped dead in her tracks.

It seemed that the School of Pellinor was not entirely deserted: a man still dwelled amid the ruins. She scented him first, and then a pungent smell of wood smoke and meat, which made her mouth water. She saw that a horse was grazing on the far side of the circle. She had not smelled the smoke or the man earlier, preoccupied as she had been with her gloomy thoughts, and the wind had blown the scent away from her. Now she cursed her inattention.

For reasons she did not wholly understand, Maerad did not slink back silently to hide among the tumbled stone walls. Perhaps the man would give her some of his food, or if he did not give it, perhaps she could take it. She stood tensely by the edge of the circle, and watched the man closely.

He seemed to be a traveler. He was bent over the fire, poking it with a stick. After a short time, he seemed to become aware of Maerad. He turned his head and looked directly at her. She sensed rather than saw his eyes upon her.

The man stood up, but still she did not flee. Hesitantly, ready to turn and run in an instant, she stepped a few paces out into the open and there halted, her heart hammering. The meat smelled delicious, and she put her snout up into the air, tasting it. The man did not seem dangerous. If she walked toward him very slowly, showing that she meant no harm, perhaps he would give her something to eat.

The man watched her closely as she paced toward him, but he did not move. She could not see his face, as it was hooded in a black cloak. Maerad could not sense that he was afraid, and this frightened her a little, but he was not angry either. He was nothing at all: he simply stood and waited.

She was so hungry. Averting her eyes from his to indicate that she meant no harm, she moved closer and closer, halting every few paces. At last they stood only a dozen paces apart.

Samandalamë, ursi,
said the man in the Speech. His voice was kind and warm. “Welcome, wolf. You look hungry.”

Maerad looked up into his face, and recognized him at last.

She couldn’t react at all. She simply stared at him, her mind completely blank.

It was Cadvan, and there, coming up behind him warily, staring at her, was Darsor. It was Cadvan’s face, his cloak, his sword. He looked tired and worn, and his clothes were more ragged than when she had last seen him, but he was as alive as she was.

Maerad’s heart burst with a wild joy, and she bounded toward him, wanting to embrace him, to say she was sorry, to cry, to shake him for making her suffer for so long, all those tears, all that grief and regret, when he hadn’t died at all. He leaped backward with a sharp cry, drawing his sword, and Maerad, on the point of running into the blade, had to swerve violently sideways, and tumbled onto the paving stones.

I do not wish to harm you,
said Cadvan. His voice was still gentle.
You need not kill me for food.

Maerad picked herself up, shocked at his reaction, and belatedly remembered that she was a wolf. To Cadvan it would have seemed that she was attacking him.

She sat down on her haunches and took a deep breath. It was easier this time. She focused deep within herself, sinking through layer after layer until she found the point of transformation.
Be Maerad,
she thought.
Be me.

Next came the moment of awful pain, the feeling of being thrown into a fire, and then Maerad was sitting on the ground in front of Cadvan, looking up into his astonished face, her eyes shining with tears.

“I suppose,” said Cadvan after a long silence, “that you would still like some stew?”

Maerad laughed. She threw her pack on the ground, scrambled to her feet, and flung her arms around him. He rocked back on his heels as they embraced for a long moment, and in that embrace much was healed: long weeks of loneliness and grief, endurance and suffering. Maerad had never been so purely happy.

At last they stood apart and studied each other’s faces.

“I thought you were dead,” said Maerad. “Why aren’t you dead?”

“I’ll tell you after you’ve eaten,” Cadvan answered. “You’re almost as thin as when we first met.”

“And what are you doing here?”

“I was waiting for you, of course. I had no idea that you would turn up as a wolf. I should have guessed that Maerad the Unpredictable would not choose something conventional. I hope you will forgive my discourtesy. It was merely a misunderstanding.”

Maerad’s mouth twitched, and she bowed. “I might forgive you, if the stew tastes as good as it smells. And if your explanations are sufficiently entertaining.”

“I doubt they’ll measure up to yours.” Then Cadvan saw her left hand, and looked stricken. “Maerad! Your hand . . .”

Maerad felt obscurely ashamed, and hid it awkwardly in her cloak. “I’ll probably not play again,” she mumbled. “It doesn’t matter. . . .” But Cadvan took her maimed hand in his, and gently traced the terrible scars where her fingers had been shorn away, saying nothing. His face looked immeasurably sad.

“Maerad,” he said at last. “I have had much time to think over the past weeks. I am sorry for my unkindness, before we lost each other. I have rued it often and deeply, and often I have wished I could tell you so, and feared that I would never be able to.”

“I’ve regretted many things as well,” said Maerad quietly. “But look! We’re alive.”

Cadvan smiled, and his stern face lightened with sudden joy. “We are,” he said. “That you are here seems a miracle beyond hope.”

“And Cadvan, I’ve found the Treesong. Or half of it. It was on my lyre all the time.”

Cadvan gave her a long look, his eyes dark. “That is great news,” he said soberly. “But I should have been as glad to see you if you had not found it.”

At first, Maerad wondered why Cadvan was not more joyous at her news, but then she remembered how she had accused him of using her as a tool of the Light. The memory hurt, and she could think of no words to assuage it.

“You have paid a great price for that knowledge,” said Cadvan gently. He stroked her maimed hand once more and let it go. “We have much to tell each other. But even the best stories go better after eating.”

“Yes,” said Maerad. “But I must speak to Darsor first.” She walked up to the great black horse and put her arms around his neck. He nuzzled her shoulder.

Welcome, Maerad,
he said. It was the first time that Darsor had ever said her name.
I always said you were a great mage.

Maerad kissed his nose.
Finding friends I thought were dead is better than any amount of greatness,
she said.

Many mages would disagree with you,
he answered.

Maybe that’s why they’re not great,
said Maerad, kissing his nose again.

Darsor whinnied with equine laughter and returned to his own meal.

Cadvan and Maerad ate the rabbit stew together, falling easily back into their old companionship. And then they talked for hours, huddled by the fire as the skies cleared above them and the shadows lengthened into evening. The white stars came out one by one in the black wintry sky, and still they talked.

The first thing Maerad wanted to know was how Cadvan had survived the landslide. “We were lucky,” he said. “The road ran into a tunnel through the mountainside. Darsor ran in as the mountain collapsed, but it was a near thing.”