The Singing (8 page)

Maerad had never done weatherworking in her life, and pointed out that if the Bards of Innail couldn't turn the winds, she had little hope of being any use at all. Despite this, Malgorn detailed both of them to the task.

There was a briskness among the First Circle now; they knew that there was very little time, and that the Landrost's army was almost at the gates. They departed to various destinations around Innail, embracing somberly as they took their leave. Silvia kissed Maerad lightly on the forehead, and to Maerad's surprise, smiled warmly. "While there's breath, there's hope," she said. "I'm still breathing!" She was in charge of a section of the walls to the east of Innail, and Maerad watched her go, sadly wondering if she would ever see her again.

Maerad and Cadvan left with Indik and Malgorn: weather-work had to be performed in the open, and the Bards were gathered on the walls above the gate, near where Indik and Malgorn had their command.

As she stood up, Maerad glanced at Cadvan, taking a deep breath. She had never been in a real battle before, and her insides felt hollow. Cadvan's expression was stern, but his face softened as he perceived Maerad's anxiety. "Silvia's right," he said. "We have a chance, Maerad, as long as we stand fast."

"We don't have any choice, do we?" said Maerad, forcing a smile.

"There's always a choice," Cadvan answered, "as I have told you many times before. None of us will yield our souls, should the end be even as bitter as we fear. Now, for the sake of the Light, let us go and defend what we love!"

It was hard walking out into the storm again. A walkway led from the top floor of the Watch House to the outer keep above the gate, and it was a wrestle even to open the heavy door and prevent it from immediately slamming shut. Without her magery shielding her, Maerad would likely have been blown straight off the bridge. The shrieking of the wind was so loud it hurt her ears. Although her shield protected her against the wind and the rain, it did not keep out the bitter cold, and Maerad gasped with the first shock of it; it went into her bones like the deep cold of the northlands.

But that doesn't make any sense,
she thought.
If it were that cold, everything would he ice...

When they reached the keep, a fork of lightning stabbed down so close to them Maerad could smell it, a sharp smell

like the sea, followed by a massive crack of thunder that made her involuntarily duck. In its brief illumination, she saw the battlements were crowded with people. A few pitch torches lit the walls, but otherwise there was very little light; a silver glow a short distance away showed where the Bards were weatherworking.

Maerad realized at once that this was no easy task. For one thing, it wasn't possible to weatherwork from within a shield, and the eight Bards assigned to the task were huddled against the outer wall, trying to stay out of the worst of the tempest. The sheer cacophony of the storm was a constant assault, making it impossible to talk.

Maerad,
said Cadvan into her mind.
You remember how to meld your powers? I know you've never done it with so many Bards before, but really there is little difference.

Maerad nodded. She was afraid that she might fail—the last time she had tried to meld with Cadvan, when they were attacked in the mountains, it hadn't worked at all—but she said nothing. It had to work.

She didn't know the Bards they were to work with; there were faces she vaguely remembered, but she had never been long enough in Innail to meet everybody. They looked up, their faces gray with strain, as Cadvan and Maerad entered their circle.

There was no time for introductions, though a couple of the Bards cried out gladly when they recognized Cadvan. To her relief, when Maerad opened her mind she could feel the joined powers of the other Bards. Tentatively she put out her own to meld with them. It was a little like a vine putting out tendrils to tangle with another plant, she thought, a process at once delicate and chaotic and individual to itself. As soon as she had joined with the other Bards, the storm began to bother her less; despite the extremity of the situation, she found herself fascinated by touching so many minds at once, intrigued by the forces they were weaving together. It really was like trying to puzzle out a tapestry of deep, abstract intricacies, only its pattern was constantly changing. Or, more accurately, it was constantly being torn up and then being rewoven.

The magery was colored by the Bards' emotions; she immediately felt both their fear and determination. As she sensed her way into its pattern, she saw it had a formal shape. She couldn't read it; she didn't have the training, she supposed, and it was as if she were looking into a book of poems in a language she didn't understand. She could perceive the grammar, the syntax, the recurring words, the shapes of the verses, but its meaning was beyond her.

At this point, Maerad felt like giving up: she was obviously going to be useless, as she didn't have the experience. But she was still deeply intrigued, and kept on feeling her way in. Even as she did, she felt with a shock the magery being torn apart by the forces of the storm; its tendrils broke and whipped apart, although the Bards' melding stayed firm. Maerad found herself admiring their strength: she felt as if she had been punched, and gasped aloud.

Patiently, the Bards began again, and this time Maerad thought she could see what they were trying to do. She was staggered at the size of the spell. They were attempting to weave a charm around the borders of Innail, which would keep the air calm within its walls, and leave the storm raging without. But, as Malgorn had said, the wind would not listen, and raged against the magery.

They're making it worse,
she thought. The storm would not be harnessed in this way. It was driven by the dire rage of the Landrost, but it was not the Landrost himself. The fell voices on the air, which Maerad had thought were wers, were those of Elemental creatures, not creatures of the Dark.

Speak to them,
Maerad said suddenly.
We must speak to them.

One of the Bards, whom Maerad thought was the leading mage among them, turned sharply toward her. He was soaked to the skin, his hair plastered over his forehead, and his eyes were set in deep hollows; he looked exhausted and angry.

In case you haven't noticed,
he said, ice in his voice,
we have been trying to do just that for some time.

Just as he spoke, the Bards rocked back as their magery tore apart with a new violence and a fork of lightning hit the stone parapet near them, splintering the rock. Maerad had a nightmare glimpse of a man falling, his mouth open in a scream she couldn't hear, his hair on fire. One of the Bards gave Maerad a look of such rage that she almost withdrew from the melding in fear and shame, as if it were her fault. But then she felt Cadvan's voice, calm amid the growing panic of the Bards.

What do you mean, Maerad?

I mean—you're not speaking to it in the right way... It's like... it's like a baby, or something—but very angry and strong. What you're doing isn't, well, crude enough ...

It was hard to explain, even in mindspeech, which didn't use language as it was normally used, relying as much on a current of empathy between minds as much as words to communicate. So Maerad thought it might be easier just to do it.

Something like this,
she said.
I don't know if this will work...

She paused briefly to focus, and then began to croon a string of nonsense words. The other Bards kept their melding strong, preparing to attempt their own magery again in a moment, and she could feel their skepticism and even a thread of savage mockery. Maerad first used the Speech, trying to feel her way into some rhythm that she felt she could almost hear, and as she became more sure, slipped imperceptibly into the language of the Elidhu. Now she felt incomprehension around her, rising to anger, and tried to ignore it; she was fumbling, trying to sense something by feel, something strange, and she needed to concentrate. For a moment she thought she nearly had the key, but it slipped by, and almost at the same time she heard the same Bard who had turned on her in rage seek to stop her.

Don't,
said Cadvan. His voice was gentle, but it held something implacable. The Bard halted.
Listen instead,
said Cadvan.
Listen well...

Maerad kept mumbling, not knowing what she was saying, concentrating so hard that she lost almost all sense of the others, and of the storm itself. And then she caught a feeling that was like a melody, something recognizable, and then another. She matched them together, repeating them with variations as she went, and found something else yielding. Gradually a pattern of enormous complexity opened up before her, and she could see the relationships between its different parts, its infinite variations and repetitions. Then—
Ah!
—she saw the Landrost within it, like a black spiral, churning and churning the pattern.

Just as she perceived this, she felt the Landrost jolt into awareness of her probing. He struck back blindly, a black bolt of energy that sent her reeling. But she had the pattern now. She looked around, blinking, and found she was still held in the meld of the Bards, who were now paying close attention.

I found it,
she told them.
Now, I will need you to follow me.. .if you can. I'm not sure I'm strong enough by myself, though I'll try. I don't know how to shape the charm around Innail. I will need you to do that. And the Landrost knows I'm there, so be careful.

She felt a shock reverberate through the Bards at the mention of the Landrost, and realized that they hadn't known what they were dealing with. No wonder their magery had been useless. But she didn't have time to explain. She reentered the patterning, cautious now, but more confident, avoiding the maelstrom at its center. It was a question of finding a shape and

then, patiently, reshaping it, slowing and stilling the outer edges. Almost immediately she felt a difference; but it was so tiring. The Landrost felt her there and was seeking her. The black spiral grew twisting arms that snaked out to catch her, and she felt the chill malevolent presence she remembered from so long ago, like a dank breath on her skin, and she shuddered with disgust.

She bit her lip, willing herself on. For all his strength, the Landrost was nowhere near as powerful as the Winterking. She realized she was not afraid of him breaking her. But the Landrost had the endurance of rock, and she was only a woman; she already felt the weariness in her mind, like the ache that steadily grows in muscles that are overtaxed.

And then there was someone else there with her. Cadvan. Tears of relief started into her eyes; suddenly the burden was not quite so heavy. Soon, other minds joined hers, keeping up the repetitions and freeing Maerad to find new variations, new shapes. The whole thing was so immensely complex, so very big.... Shortly afterward, she became aware of the Bardic charm being woven into the new pattern she was making.

She could feel the blind anger of the Landrost boiling around her. The more she undid his making, the more savage his responses became. But although he could feel what was happening, he couldn't trace her; Maerad was slipping like a tiny fish in and out of the currents of his wrath, untouched by them. It was like trying to set a trap; he did not know what they were trying to do, and she wanted him to remain ignorant until the last piece was in place and the whole structure could snap shut.

She had lost all sense of time, and even of urgency, and was utterly absorbed in the delicacy and intricacy of what she was doing. Bit by bit, with infinite care and patience, she and the Bards worked together. They could not afford one mistake. They would probably get only one chance.

At last she felt a pressure of assent from Cadvan: the charm was prepared, and the Bards awaited her signal. She poised herself like a fisherman standing with a spear above a river, waiting for a fish to glint beneath the surface: things shifted all the time, wavering and changing, and it had to be just right.

Now!
she said, and she heard the words of command explode in her skull, and a blaze of White Fire seemed to pour up into the clouds and boil against them, although Maerad didn't know if she really saw it, or if it was something that happened only in the strange world inside her head. The charm, meticulously shaped to the walls of Innail, snapped into place.

And suddenly, it was quiet.

Maerad was so exhausted that she would have pitched forward onto her face had Cadvan not put his arm around her shoulders. She realized that she was cold to her very marrow, and that she was shaking all over.

"Well done," Cadvan whispered into her ear. "Oh, that was well done. Maerad, ever you repay my faith in you ..." His words were echoed by cheering from the soldiers on the walls.

The eight other Bards looked almost as weary as Maerad. The man who had been angry with her—a tall, heavyset, fair-haired Bard—smiled awkwardly and offered his hand.

"My gratitude, whoever you are," he said. "Am I right in guessing that you are Maerad of Pellinor?" Maerad nodded. "I am Isam of Innail. I had heard rumors, of course, but I had no idea ..." He shook his head. "The Landrost himself attacks us, eh? Well, at least we've put a spoke in his wheel."

"One spoke in one wheel," said Cadvan. "Sadly, he has many more. Maerad, can you make any guess how far he is from our walls?"

Maerad pondered. She could sense the baffled anger of the Landrost, but it was difficult to locate it. "Not really," she said at last. "He is not quite here. But he is very close."

The relief of no longer being battered by the wind was indescribable, and that numbing, bitter cold was also gone. Maerad looked up at the sky, blinking at the pale winter daylight that now poured through the gap in the clouds. What the Bards had done was effectively to place Innail in the eye of the storm. Within the walls, there was an eerie stillness; a strange pressure of the air made Maerad's ears pop. Outside, the tempest still raged.