The Riddle (58 page)

Maerad was silent for a time, reliving the terrible moment when she thought she had seen Cadvan and Darsor die. “Why couldn’t I see it?” she asked at last. “If I had known — if I had had even a little hope . . .” She thought of how things might have been different, and then considered whether, if they had been, she would know what she now did.

“It was dark,” said Cadvan. “Darsor saw it after you fell off; that’s what he was racing for. I didn’t even know it was there until we were inside.”

They had waited until the landslide had subsided and the iriduguls had vanished, and then had ridden to the other end of the tunnel. Leaving Darsor to wait on the other side, Cadvan had climbed over the mountain to get back to the road where they had fought the iriduguls, which took him until dawn the following day. He had found the road entirely blocked by the landslide, and no sign at all of Maerad.

“I thought you had been crushed beneath the rocks, or taken by the iriduguls,” he said. “I have never felt such blackness. All seemed vain. I went back along the pass a league or so and ran into several caravans of Pilanel, who were heading north to Murask. They had Imi with them; she had run back along the road in a panic and literally crashed into them.”

Maerad cried out gladly. “Where is she?”

“She had bruised herself, but nothing worse. I don’t know how she didn’t bolt off the side of the mountain that night, but it seems luck was with her, too. And she is, after all, of mountain stock. She is still with the Pilanel; they are kindly people and will care for her. She was heartbroken that you were lost and did not wish to come with me.

“The Pilanel had not seen you, and I did not think you would have gone back that way, although you might have passed them easily with a glimmerspell. I didn’t know whether to search, or whether it was useless, and if I was to search, where should I look first? I told the Pilanel about the blocked road, and they decided to clear it. They had strong men and tools, but unless they had more hands, they thought it would take two weeks to dig out that rock.”

“So what did you do?” asked Maerad.

“I could not afford to wait so long, and, in the end, Darsor decided me. I could not leave him, and he was on the other side of the tunnel. I climbed back over the mountain and we talked for a long time. Darsor is a wise animal: he said that he did not believe you were dead, though he could not tell me why he thought so, and that if you were alive, you were either taken by the Winterking or would continue the quest. So we continued over the pass into Zmarkan, looking always for signs of you. But we found nothing.”

“So why did I not see you at Murask?” asked Maerad. “I arrived there — oh — four weeks afterward. Surely they would have told me.”

“Because you seemed to have vanished into thin air, I thought it more likely that if you were alive, you had been captured,” said Cadvan. “I decided to go to Arkan-da first.”

Cadvan had ridden hard over the Arkiadera Plains, reaching Lake Zmark in less than a week. There he had disguised himself as a Jussack and journeyed through the Jussack settlements dotted around the lake until he reached Ursk, the major Jussack town, which nestled at the foot of the Trukuch Range forty leagues west of Arkan-da.

“The Jussacks have been under the sway of a black sorcerer, a minion of the Winterking, for twenty years now,” he said. Maerad thought of Amusk and shuddered.

“I think he is now dead,” she said. Cadvan shot her a surprised glance. “He was killed by wolves,” she said. “I’ll tell you in a moment.” Cadvan nodded and continued his story.

“Ursk was an evil place to be; in the hall of their chieftain some Jussacks tried to rob me. They suffered for their pains; after that, they were afraid of me, but even so they would not or could not tell me anything of a young girl called Maerad of Pellinor.

“I went then to Arkan-da, and wasted many fruitless days trying to find a way into his stronghold. But in my searching, I had no rumor of you. I was sure that I must know if you were there, even through the Winterking’s warding of his stronghold, and at last I thought I must have made the wrong guess, and that perhaps I would find news of you in Murask. The snow had begun early, and it took a little longer to retrace my steps across the Arkiadera; otherwise I might have caught up with you. I reached Murask three days after you had left with Dharin. I planned to follow, but Sirkana told me there was no team of dogs faster than Dharin’s, and so I decided to await your return.”

Maerad and Dharin had been expected back after four weeks, and after five Cadvan began to be anxious. After six weeks, frantic with worry, he went to Sirkana to beg the use of a sled to trace Maerad’s path north, but she would not permit it.

“She said,
I have already paid the price for your quest, twice over,
” said Cadvan. “
I will sacrifice nothing more.
My heart failed me, because I knew then that something must have gone badly wrong. She told me that she had foreknown that Dharin would die on his journey north. She knew nothing of what would happen to you.

“I wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled for permitting you to leave Murask when she knew already that your journey was doomed. But she said to me:
It was the right decision, although it broke my heart. I loved Dharin as my own son, as dearly as my own brother, who also died for the Light. There was no other way that the One could know what she needs to know.
And, after that, I could not rebuke her.”

Maerad thought of Sirkana’s stern, beautiful face. She was amazed by her strength; she could not imagine making the same decision. And she thought sadly again of Dharin, her cousin, his lifeblood spilled onto the snow.

“I still did not know what had happened to you, or where you were, and Sirkana said she knew nothing beyond what she had told me,” said Cadvan. “I had no idea where, in that wide empty land, I could begin to search for you. I was in great despair. But that night I dreamed of Ardina.”

Maerad sat up attentively. “Ardina?” she said. “I have seen much of her.”

“That does not surprise me. I think there is much at stake for Ardina in this whole question of the Treesong,” said Cadvan, giving Maerad a penetrating glance. “She appeared to me as the Moonchild, and she said:
If all goes well, seek the Lily in her birthplace on Midwinter Day.
” He stretched out his legs and sighed. “I didn’t much like that phrase,
if all goes well,
” he said wryly. “But I had no better plan. She could only have meant Pellinor. So I made the journey with Darsor back along the Murask Road and through the Gwalhain Pass, which was cold and long, and difficult with the snow, but this time not especially perilous, apart from the danger of freezing to death. And then I rode hard across Lirhan to Pellinor, dreading to miss Midwinter Day. I arrived here yesterday, and this morning I caught a rabbit and thought I would make a stew. And so you find me.”

They sat ruminatively for a time, staring across the ruined Circle of Pellinor. Then Cadvan stirred and said, “Well, you have heard my story. But I’m sure yours is more interesting.”

Maerad told him the whole tale of what had happened since their separation in the Gwalhain. Cadvan listened attentively, his face downcast, and did not interrupt once. By the time Maerad had finished talking, the crescent moon was high in the sky and a heavy dew was beginning to fall. It was very cold: there would be a frost that night. He put more wood on the fire, and it flared up, a column of sparks and flame, into the still night.

“Perhaps the most astounding thing is your third name,” Cadvan said at last. He studied Maerad as if he were looking at her for the first time. “Triple-tongued, triple-named . . . it is a great strength, Maerad. There is still some power in knowing your Bard Name, clearly, since the Jussack sorcerer and the Winterking could use it so blackly against you, but I suspect that if you knew your Elemental Name, your Bard Name would cease to hold that power.”

“It’s a bit confusing,” Maerad said. “There seem to be so many of me.”

Cadvan smiled. “We are all many,” he said. “But most of us don’t have the privilege of understanding that as clearly as you do. It is hard to know oneself, but until we do, we cannot know why we act as we do. It’s a lifetime’s quest, and it never ends.”

Maerad stared at Cadvan, who was broodily poking the fire again. He seemed not to be speaking of her, but of himself.

“And the Treesong was on your lyre,” Cadvan said. “I wonder that we never thought of that possibility.”

“How could we know?” said Maerad. “Even Nelac could not read the runes.”

“True.” Cadvan stared into the fire. “I thought the runes were most likely the name and the story of the Dhyllic craftsman who made it. But now it is likely your lyre was made by Nelsor himself. The greatest of all Bards. And from what you say, it seems that Nelsor and the Winterking were lovers.”

Maerad turned away from Cadvan, hiding her face. It was difficult for her to think of Arkan, and the thought that he had loved a Bard struck a hollow place inside her breast.

“I didn’t know what to think of the Winterking,” she said at last. “He’s neither good nor evil. He has no great love for the Light, but I do not think that he gives his loyalty to the Dark; he spoke of the Nameless One with disgust and said that he had been betrayed by him.”

“He is a powerful Elidhu,” said Cadvan thoughtfully. “I think you are right; he would not consent to be enslaved, like the Landrost. I wonder what part Ardina plays in all this.”

“I don’t know,” said Maerad. She stared out into the night; there were many forces at play, and she could not follow them. A silence fell, and to break it, Maerad went to her pack and took out her lyre.

“I’ll read the Treesong to you,” she said. “Arkan said it was dead, that the runes had no music. I don’t really understand what he meant by that, but he told me these meanings.” She went through them one by one, stroking each rune as she named it. As she did so, she remembered the Winterking’s face as he had taught her the runes, and a sharp pain went through her. She did not regret leaving the Ice Palace, but she wondered if she would ever be free of the memory of Arkan.

“It is beautiful,” said Cadvan when she had finished. “Well, Maerad, we’ve come a long way. Though I do not doubt there is much more to the Song than these runes. And we know also that the Nameless One seeks you, not just because he fears that somehow you will cause his overthrow, but because he needs you. As much as he needs the other half of the Song.”

“Arkan said that I was the player,” said Maerad softly. “But I do not know how to play music that I have never heard.”

“No. Well, some things begin to make sense, but they only raise more questions,” Cadvan said. “If the Nameless One has the other runes, I doubt it will be easy to get them back. And Annar grows ever more dangerous: war comes near, and not only from the south.”

“Civil war?” asked Maerad.

“I have no doubt of it. But not only that. If Turbansk falls, things will go ill with Annar.” Cadvan stretched, grimacing. “Though it could be that the chaos of war might make it easier for us to slip through the nets of both the Light and the Dark.”

“I suppose now we storm the Iron Tower or something,” said Maerad. “But we can think on that tomorrow.”

“Well, if you escaped the Ice Palace, why not the Iron Tower?” said Cadvan, smiling.

“I almost didn’t escape,” said Maerad. “I — I almost didn’t want to.”

She hesitated, feeling intensely shy, and then said in rush, “I think I fell in love with the Winterking.” She was glad it was dark, because she knew she had blushed deep red.

Cadvan looked at her for a long moment. “Love is one of the true mysteries,” he said at last. “The truest and the deepest of all. One thing, Maerad: to love is never wrong. It may be disastrous; it may never be possible; it may be the deepest agony. But it is never wrong.”

“He is cruel and ruthless, and he desires power,” whispered Maerad. “But by his own lights he was kind to me. Sometimes I even felt that I understood him. But all the same, I feel — ashamed.”

“I doubt whether the Winterking would have given you the meaning of the runes had he not known that you loved him,” said Cadvan slowly.

“Yes,” said Maerad, looking down. Tears prickled her eyes. “But I think he was right. The Treesong belongs to the Elidhu, not to the Light or to the Dark, and we have to give it back to them. It is not something that the Light should have. But, then, you see, I betrayed him. Although if I had stayed, I would have betrayed everyone else. . . .” She trailed off into silence.

Cadvan leaned forward and brushed Maerad’s hair out of her eyes.

“Look at me, Maerad,” he said. Unwillingly she lifted her eyes to meet his. “I had already begun to think that this is a matter of undoing what Light or Dark should never have done,” he said. “If that is so, then that is what we must do. And you could not complete that quest while you were bound in the Ice Palace. Perhaps you have not betrayed the Winterking, after all. Perhaps you have helped him not to betray himself.”

Maerad nodded. Cadvan gazed at her with a tenderness he had never shown her before.

“Never be ashamed of your love,” he said gently. “The only thing to be ashamed of is denying your love. That is what makes the shadow grow within your heart; that is the darkening of the Light. And we all have many loves.”

“I remembered the other people I love,” said Maerad, her voice rough. “I remembered Hem most of all. And I dreamed of you, even though I thought you were dead. It gave me hope. But it was still almost the worst pain I had ever felt in my life, leaving the Winterking.”

She began to sob, and leaned on Cadvan’s shoulder. He wordlessly stroked her hair, saying nothing, until she had cried herself out and sat up, wiping her eyes with her sleeve.

“I want to find Hem,” she said.

“We’ll start tomorrow,” answered Cadvan, smiling gently. “In my heart, I, too, think we must find him. But right now I feel as tired as ever I have in my life.”

Maerad gave him a wobbly smile. “Tomorrow, then,” she said.

That night, Maerad dreamed she was walking through a green meadow full of wildflowers, with grass almost as high as her knees. She reached a high hedge, and unlatched a gate and passed into an orchard of apple trees. It was early spring, and all of them held a heavy burden of pink-and-white blossoms. Blossoms littered the ground like snow, and among the white-starred grasses nodded daffodils and bluebells and crocuses of many colors.