The Riddle - Alison Croggon [138]
Once the news had been exchanged, Dharin began to include Maerad in the conversation. It was laborious, translating her questions and then translating the answers, but fortunately the elders seemed endlessly patient. Yes, they did have a story about the Song. Maerad’s neck prickled. Yes, even this far north, they had memories of the terrible darkness and winter that had almost destroyed their people, many generations ago, and they had seen signs in the sky and in the snow and in the entrails of animals that made them fear that such times might be returning. They remembered both the Winterking and the Nameless One, although they had different names in the songs of their people. But no, although they kept the stories, they could not tell Maerad what the Split Song was. And as for trees, there were no trees this far north.
At this answer, Maerad was instantly downcast. Had she come this far, only to find that the answer lay elsewhere? But the woman was still speaking.
Dharin nodded, and then turned to Maerad. “Gunisinapli says that you should speak, if you wish to know about such things, with their Singer. He is called Inka-Reb. He lives by himself with the wolves, a little distance from here. She warns that he does not speak to everybody and may refuse to see you. But they say of him that he walks between the living and the dead, and that he knows what the dead know.”
“Could he be a Dhillarearën, then?” asked Maerad. Dharin asked Gunisinapli, and she simply lifted her hands in a gesture that seemed to mean, maybe, maybe not.
“Well, if he is, I can speak with him,” said Maerad. “I suppose that is what I should do. How then should I visit him?”
There followed a list of instructions to which Dharin listened intently. He turned to Maerad. “You will have to purify yourself first. That means that you must live alone in a special hut in the village for a day and a night, fasting and preparing your mind and soul and body with song. You must not sleep. First, before you sing, you must bathe yourself in the spring. After you have sung, you must again wash, and dress yourself, and without speaking to anybody else walk humbly to his place with a clear heart, or a clear desire — the word’s not quite translatable. You must take an offering; they say that he usually likes to be given meat. They will leave the offering for you by the door of the hut. Then he may choose to speak to you.”
“How will I find the way?”
“They will tell you beforehand. They say it is easy to find.”
Maerad nodded, thinking that if the springs were hot, then she could actually have a bath, a luxury she had not enjoyed for so long that she had almost forgotten what it was like. “And when they say ‘prepare yourself with song’ do they mean special songs? Or can I sing my own?”
Dharin asked, and this led to a long debate between the elders. Finally he said, “They have their own songs for their own people, but they think it best that you use your own.”
“When can I begin, then? I should prepare as soon as possible.”
“You can go to the hut when the sun rises tomorrow. Then at sunrise the next day you can see Inka-Reb.”
“That sounds good,” said Maerad. “But what will you do while I’m there?”
“I have work to do,” said Dharin. “We need meat. The elders have given me permission to visit their hunting grounds.”
Maerad took the instruction to prepare herself with song as a chance to play her lyre. Apart from her clothes, it was the only thing she took with her into the hut. It was a smaller version of the village houses, windowless, with a small door fastened by two layers of hide, and a chimney, which let out smoke and steam. Inside was an oil lamp and a stone seat, and a rough stone bath into which bubbled warm water. Maerad tested it, wondering how hot the water actually was; it was deliciously warm. With a feeling of luxury she threw off all her clothes and climbed in, at last dissolving off her body the accumulated grime of weeks of travel. When she had had enough, she stepped out, dripping onto the stone floor, and then wondered how to dry herself; there was