The Gift (19 page)

“My feeling is more than that our meeting is fated. I have certain suspicions about who you might be. Perhaps now is not the time to share them, but it’s fair to say that I think the Dark, if it knew of your existence, would be very interested in you. It won’t be long before some others start putting one and one together and drawing similar conclusions to mine. The merest suspicion would be enough to ensure your death. Your story has already caused a lot of gossip, and these days even the walls have ears. I could have wished more than one Bard absent from that Council. News of your placement will spread fast; there is no stopping that now. I think if you stay here, you will be in more danger than if you come with me, who can protect you better than any other outside Norloch. And I fear that perhaps you could draw danger here, where none might otherwise be.”

“Why would the Dark be interested in me?”

“Because you are Maerad of Pellinor.”

“But that’s no reason.”

Cadvan shrugged, and Maerad gave up; obviously Cadvan would tell her more in his own good time.

“What if you’re wrong about me?”

“If I am, then at the worst I will have the most brilliant pupil in Annar, and all credit to me,” he said. “But I am not often wrong.”

“Then where will we go?”

“To Norloch, as I thought when we first met. The High Seat of the Light in Annar. I must go there, and it seems to me that you must, too. There is the business of your instatement and Naming, and on those questions I dearly wish for the advice of my old teacher, Nelac of Lirigon. And in any case, I must report to the First Circle there.”

They sat in silence for a while, following their own thoughts. Maerad thought about Norloch, and a sense of excitement began to stir in her. The High Seat of the Light! Like Innail, she imagined, only more so: more wondrous, more pure. Then she wondered again why it was she felt so rapidly at ease in Innail. It was more than Silvia’s care for her, more than the beauty around her. Perhaps it was her childhood memories lighting up inside her, a sense of home. . . . And now, somehow, she had agreed to leave it, just as the door had opened, promising delight and friendship, for what Cadvan said frankly would be a life of hardship.
Perhaps it’s all too much, all this looking at me,
she thought wearily,
all these curious eyes.
She stole a look at Cadvan. She had never met anyone so solitary — well, she hadn’t met many people at all, truth be told — but she suspected that Cadvan didn’t like eyes looking, either. Not out of wanting to conceal anything, but because somehow it hurt, as if it bruised his soul. Yes, she would leave Innail, although she already loved it, and she would follow Cadvan to Norloch; she knew that was decided, although she didn’t really know why.

“I’ll think about it,” Maerad said at last. She suddenly felt crushingly tired. “But right now, I think I’d like to go for a rest. I might as well use these beds while I can!”

Cadvan gave her one of his sudden, brilliant smiles.

“You might as well,” he answered. He watched her go, and then sat alone in the courtyard for a long time, his face dark with thought.

That night Maerad dreamed. She was taken up to a great height over a wide green landscape she knew was the land of Annar. In the distance a sinking sun lit up the eastern mountains and flamed the tall white battlements of a great city in the west, and a wide river ran molten gold between the mountains and the city. As she watched, a black mist crept over the land, obscuring the bright water, and a cold dread gripped her heart. Faintly she heard a sound as of many people weeping. Then came a voice saying, “Look to the north,” and she looked, but the mist obscured her view, and she could see nothing. The dream fragmented into a troubled sleep full of dark vague shapes, which after a time resolved into one shape, a shadow on which she couldn’t fix her eye; every time she turned to look at it, it dissolved into smoke. It seemed to her vitally urgent that she see it before it saw her, and in rising panic she turned and turned. She felt as if it were already reaching for her, that beyond her perception malignant hands reached out of the shadow toward her, closer and closer. Then she heard a voice speaking a language she couldn’t understand. It was a voice she had never heard before, and it was cold and lifeless, as if it spoke from lips long dead. Her heart stopped with fear, and suddenly she was awake, sweating and trembling. She sat up in bed and looked wildly around her, until she saw the remains of the fire glowing in the grate and remembered where she was. She couldn’t shake off the dream, and at last, to rid herself of the feeling of dread, got out of bed and picked up her lyre. As soon as she touched it she felt reassured, and climbing back into her bed clutching it, she soon fell asleep again. By morning the dream had vanished, but the new day was stained with a nebulous fear.

FOR the next few days, Maerad didn’t see much of her new teacher. Cadvan knocked on her door very early the day after the Council, and, after waiting impatiently for her to dress, dragged her through Innail to the Library at the Circle of Lanorgrim. There they walked as fast as Maerad could go, through labyrinthine corridors to a tiny room that seemed almost to be constructed of books, where Cadvan introduced her to a dark-haired Bard she remembered vaguely from the Council the day before. “This is Dernhil of Gent, Librarian of the Circle,” he said brusquely. “Dernhil, Maerad of Pellinor. Dernhil has kindly offered to teach you the basics of script, though what you can learn in less than a week escapes me. Now, I’ve got to hurry.” And he ran out of the door.

Maerad stood in front of Dernhil, catching her breath. Dernhil seemed younger than Cadvan, although Maerad already knew a Bard’s age was hard to guess. He was tall and slender, and his face was calm and intelligent, with quick, mobile eyes that now were filled with quiet amusement. He was dressed in the black robes that she had seen the Librarians wearing the day before, slung carelessly over blue breeches and a tunic that looked as if they were woven of silk. To gain time, she looked around the chamber.

Dernhil’s room contained a huge, ornately carved desk that was almost covered with tottering piles of books, lengths of parchment, and drifts of paper. In the center was a scroll of parchment, which was clearly half-finished: it was covered with a beautiful flowing script, written in black ink. Next to it was an inkwell made of polished black stone, and next to that an intricately fashioned gilt lamp that cast a circle of warm light over the desk, picking up the azure silk that covered the two chairs beside it. One was clearly where Dernhil sat; the other was burdened with another tottering pile of books.

Maerad sniffed the faint scent of ink with pleasure; it reminded her of something, although she couldn’t trace the memory. Despite the mess, the room didn’t give an impression of shabbiness so much as chaotically ordered industry. The early light from a high window streamed across the walls, picking out the colors of curious instruments and ornaments on the shelves lining them and highlighting the gilt letters on the spines of rows and rows of books. A small grate held a fire. Maerad thought it the most interesting room she had ever seen.

“Well, now,” said Dernhil. “A brilliant young musician who can’t read or write, and a week to teach you. What a conundrum! Where shall we begin?” He looked at Maerad as if she could tell him the answer. She looked down, feeling rebuked. “There is no shame in not knowing something,” he said gently. “The shame is in not being willing to learn. I can teach you the letters of the Speech, invented by Nelsor in Afinil long ago. That will serve you best, I think, for it is the script most used by Bards. But there are many others, used by other peoples, which it would be an injury not to teach you. I haven’t the time, alas. A year would cover the introduction, if you were quick.”

He surveyed his silent pupil as if judging her facility. Then he moved all the books off his spare chair, dumping them unceremoniously onto the floor, and drew it up to the desk. He cleared a space on the desk, putting more books on the floor, and invited Maerad with an inquiring tilt of his head to sit next to him. Then he placed two pieces of paper in front of them and handed Maerad a gold pen. It had a long shaft carved with the semblance of a strange flying snake, which wound around the pen and rested its head just above the fine metal nib. Maerad looked at it curiously.

“It’s for writing, not for staring at,” said Dernhil, and he showed her how to hold it. It felt strangely heavy in her hand. Then he started writing down letters, explaining what they meant and how they formed words.

Maerad couldn’t use the pen at all at first, but she gritted her teeth and persisted. As the lesson progressed, she began to see how writing worked, and a ball of excitement began to form in the pit of her stomach. Her memory was trained by years of learning songs and music by heart, and Dernhil was a patient and gentle teacher. Despite her clumsiness, Maerad had an odd feeling, as if an ancient memory stirred in her fingers, that they traced movements familiar to her, if long disused. Dernhil was astonished by how quickly she began to shape letters and then words. By the end of the lesson, she had written her first sentence.

“Time to stop,” said Dernhil, and Maerad gave a gasp of disappointment. He regarded her with amusement. “If only all my pupils were so keen,” he said. “You’ve done extraordinarily well for your first lesson, Maerad, but you will be the better for the pause. I would never have guessed you would have come this far.”

“But it’s such fun!” she said. “I used to wonder if you could do something like this: I mean, write things down, so you could remember them. Gilman kept lists of his sheep and cows and chickens and things; he just marked them with lines and pictures on stuff made of bark, so he knew if any were stolen or eaten. Maybe they taught me some writing at Pellinor, I can’t remember. . . . There’s so much I’ve forgotten. But this is amazing! And the script is so beautiful. Well,” she added, looking dubiously at her own writing, “it’s beautiful when
you
write it down.”

“It’s just practice,” Dernhil said. “A year here, and you’d be scripting like an old Librarian.” He looked at Maerad again, and this time there was a hint of trouble in his gaze, a faltering. “What is in Cadvan’s mind? That man’s a mystery to me, though he has his own reasons. Anyway, you’re to have other lessons this afternoon. Cadvan’s worked out a schedule for you, but since you can’t read it, I’ll show you where to go.”

He rummaged through his shelves until he found an exquisite little leather-bound book, which he gave to Maerad. “This is for tonight,” he said. “I have shown you how to sound the letters. There are some simple poems in here, which I want you to try to read before tomorrow, if you’re not too tired. One or two, mind, not the whole collection.”

Maerad took the book as if it were a sacred object and opened it carefully. The pages were heavy, dry parchment and made a very faint rustling. She paused at a page that had a vivid picture of bees around a hive, and behind it a landscape of rivers and valleys and, in the distance, snow-capped mountains. The border of the page was a broad frame made of gold leaf, on which the painter seemed to have artlessly scattered some wildflowers: daisies and pinks and others Maerad couldn’t recognize. In each corner was a tiny painting that revealed more details the more she looked: a man playing a dulcimer in one, in another a bear lying asleep under a tree, in the third a woman studying what seemed to be a globe of crystal, and in the bottom right-hand corner two people seated at a table, drinking something golden out of a glass. On the opposite page, framed in the same way, was the poem, scripted in black and red letters. She spelled out the title: “The Hive.”

Maerad was speechless. She glanced up at Dernhil, her eyes shining. He seemed embarrassed by her frank joy, and covered it by giving her some sheets of paper and a pen and rummaging through his bookshelves again until he found a small satchel in which she could carry everything. “You can practice writing as well. Try copying a poem. Now, time to go,” he said briskly. “I’m late for my next lesson. I’ll see you at the same time, the same place, tomorrow.”

Maerad’s lesson that afternoon was of an entirely different hue: she was being taught horse riding and swordcraft. Dernhil took her to her instructor, a stern-looking man called Indik, with a scar across his cheek which drew the skin tightly under his right eye, making his face curiously expressionless. Maerad felt slightly frightened of him, and unlike Dernhil, he made no effort to make her feel at ease. She was taken first to the smiths, where she was fitted with a small sword, scabbard, helm, and a light coat of mail, so finely forged it almost seemed like heavy cloth. Next she was taken to the stables, where Indik picked out a gray roan mare. “Her name is Imi,” he told her. “She’s a good mare, prone to be fiery, but loyal and kind. And her breed is fast and sturdy. You’ll need a tough mount.” Maerad knew enough about horses to judge that Indik had picked exceptionally well; Imi was graceful and strong, and not too big for her. “This horse is now yours,” he said. “So you must know how to care for her.”