• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 760 0

went to her pack and took out her lyre. It had lain neglected since long before the attempt on the Gwalhain Pass, and Maerad felt a thrill of recognition as she took it out of its leather case; the lyre was her oldest friend, once her only consolation. And perhaps, now, her only consolation again. She inspected it closely for hurt, but its plain wood and silver strings were unharmed; she ran her fingers over the strange carvings, the ten runelike decorations that no one could read, and which were as familiar to her as her own skin. Finally she drew her hand across the strings, and a chord rang out through the hut. Maerad looked up, smiling, and saw with surprise that Mirka was staring at her with horror.

“What is that?” she said. “What is that thing?”

“This?” Maerad lifted it so Mirka could see it properly, but the old woman flinched back. “It’s only my lyre. My favorite thing. My mother gave it to me, and she had it from her mother, and so on back through the House of Karn. Haven’t you seen one before?”

“It is too big a thing for this house.” Mirka’s face was gray with dread. “It has seen too much grief. Aiee, it has seen the rending of the world; the moon is black inside it. Put it away!” She covered her eyes with her hands and started chanting something in Pilanel, her jaw trembling.

Astonished, Maerad looked down at her humble lyre, and then slowly packed it into its case. She knew her lyre was ancient, made by the Dhyllin people in the flower of their civilization, and that however humble it looked, it was an ancient and precious instrument made by a master craftsman. But although the few Bards who knew its heritage had responded with amazement and respect when they had seen it, no one had ever reacted as Mirka had. Maerad felt disturbed and disappointed; she was full of hunger for music. She wished that Mirka were not so mad.

The old woman peeked out between her fingers and saw Maerad had put her lyre away. She let down her hands and cackled at Maerad’s glum face, as if it had all been a big joke. “Did I frighten you, my chick?”

Maerad didn’t say anything. She did feel afraid, although she thought that Mirka was just crazy.

“I frightened you, didn’t I? I think you are not frightened enough.” Mirka laughed again.

“Frightened of what?” Maerad asked. Of everything, she thought tiredly to herself. Or maybe nothing. She didn’t know anymore.

“There are many things to fear,” said Mirka evasively. “Always is. Always was.”

Maerad sighed. Her longing for music flowered inside her, an unassuageable ache. “Perhaps,” she said, “we could just sing something. I know some songs.”

“Maybe you know only broken songs,” said Mirka, looking at Maerad with a strange slyness.

“Broken songs? What do you mean?”

Mirka didn’t answer for a long time. She shut her eyes hard and rocked, as if she were trying to hear something that was too far away. When she opened them again, her slyness had vanished and she seemed merely a bewildered old woman. “I don’t know what I mean,” she said. “You are like a dream that has already happened to me, you and that thing you carry. Aiee, a dream, but a good one or a bad one — I don’t know.”

“I don’t know either,” said Maerad miserably. “A bad dream, I think.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Who can tell? It is said all riddles are answered by the Wise Kindred.”

“The Wise Kindred?” Maerad wondered if this was some other figment of Mirka’s imagination. She looked up and the old woman was far away again, her eyes blank and unfocused.

“The Wise Kindred live on the ice, far in the north, where it is always night or always day.” She spoke in a monotone that sent shivers down Maerad’s spine, and for a moment she thought Mirka’s face blurred and she saw another face, much younger, in its place. “They are the Oldest and they remember much that was lost in the Black Days, aiee, when the evil lord held sway. They understand what is half and what is whole, what is made and half made.”

Maerad’s heart leaped into her mouth; she thought of Ankil’s story of the Split Song. Was this what her foredream meant, when the voice