The Riddle - Alison Croggon [139]
It had been a long time since Maerad had played much music. A long time, really, since she had felt like a Bard at all. She lifted her lyre and softly stroked the strings, noticing that the calluses on her fingers had softened from not playing. The lyre had been hers for almost as long as she could remember; it had once belonged to her mother, and that was principally why she treasured it, although she knew now there were other reasons why it was precious.
Well, she thought, how shall I begin? She sat in silence for a time, gathering in her body’s memory, where all the songs she had been taught and had heard over many years were stored in her hands and her heart, wondering which one was the best to begin with. At last, she realized the answer was obvious: The Song of Making, the first song of Barding, which told of the creation of Edil-Amarandh. She drew her fingers over the strings in the familiar chords, and began, singing in the Speech rather than in Annaren:
“First was dark, and the darkness
Was all mass and all dimension, although without touch
And the darkness was all colors and all forms, although
without sight
And the darkness was all music and all sound, although
without hearing
And it was all perfumes, and all tastes, sour and bitter and
sweet
But it knew not itself.
And the darkness thought, and it thought without mind
And the thought became mind and the thought quickened
And the thought was Light.”
First was dark . . . Maerad mused over the words. She had never really thought about this before. Was it the same Dark that hunted her, or another Dark, perhaps, in the same way that the heavenly lights she had seen the night before had been the Light, but not the same Light that the Bards spoke of, the White Flame of Norloch. She let the thoughts run through her mind like ripples through a stream, letting them flow each into the next, and felt the music moving through her, calming her mind and waking some deep part of her that she hadn’t known was asleep.
Over the rest of the day and through the long night, Maerad played until her fingers were sore and her voice hoarse. She did not sing all the time. She would pause between songs, and think, and all the memories they recalled would swell inside her: the dour face of Mirlad, her first teacher, bent over his harp, or Cadvan singing in the Hall at Innail. She had not played for so long that she felt like a starving person who is suddenly offered a feast, and the words of the songs seemed fresh in her mind as if she had never heard them before, or had failed to understand them until now.
The day and night passed more quickly than she had expected. When she saw the first light gleaming through the edges of the doorway, she bathed again and dressed herself carefully. Then she packed her lyre into its case, slung it on her back, and took a deep breath and walked outside. By the doorway, as promised, was a package of seal meat for her to take to Inka-Reb. She picked it up; it was big and heavy.
The world seemed very bright to her raw eyes, and she shaded her face. She walked, as she had been instructed, along a path lined with white stones that led away from the houses toward another part of the springs. Shortly she arrived at the mouth of a big cave. She saw, with deep alarm, that a magnificent white wolf stood by the cave mouth. It looked at her with ice blue eyes and vanished inside. Maerad stood for a moment to gather her courage, and then followed it.
The light from the cave’s entrance went back quite a distance, and she saw that its walls narrowed and then seemed to come to a dead end. There was no sign of the wolf, and she realized that the cave must turn farther in. Treading carefully, she walked forward and found it made a right-angled turn into a low, dark passage. About a hundred paces away she saw a dim light.
Slowly