The Riddle - Alison Croggon [149]
“Lakmi?” said Maerad. “Eat? I eat?” She pointed to the bowl. “Hulcha,” she said. Again Nim nodded and smiled.
Well, I might as well learn Jussack, thought Maerad, as she began to eat the stew. It’s not as if I have anything else to do. But then, with a cold shock, she realized she was beginning to think kindly of one of Dharin’s murderers. She suddenly felt sick and pushed the bowl away, and would not speak to Nim anymore. When she did not answer him, he looked disappointed and hurt, almost like a small child who had been snubbed, but he covered it swiftly and said something to her that sounded like a curse, and laughed in the way the older men laughed, with a crude, knowing brutality. Then he took her bowl and ate the stew himself, hungrily.
After that a diffident relationship developed between Maerad and Nim. Maerad learned the Jussack language quickly, and over the next few weeks they began to have simple conversations. Although their talks were always underlaid by a mutual wariness, something grew between them which, in different circumstances, might have developed into a friendship. As things were, it was a kind of tacit alliance.
It was Maerad’s only comfort, if their often difficult and uneasy conversations could be called comforting. Her loneliness was almost unbearable, and her secret talks with Nim were the only human contact she had. Some stubborn will reasserted itself as her body slowly strengthened, although she was always tired from her unceasing battle with the sorcerer’s will. She felt little power within her. It was a strange emptiness, as if a limb were missing, but still she resisted. Although she had no hope for herself now, she did not feel entirely hopeless. There were still things she could do, perhaps, even if she faced certain failure. It might not be entirely vain to attempt to escape.
The first thing she wanted back was her pack. When she saw that the Jussacks had brought Dharin’s sled and dogs with them, she realized that her pack must be there as well. It contained everything that mattered to her in the world, including her lyre. When she and Nim talked, she told him of her longing for her music, for her lyre. He stared at her with his pale blue eyes.
“You might want to trick me,” he said. “I know you are a witch, and you may have something for your spells in there.”
“No,” said Maerad. “There is a lyre. A harp. For music.” She hummed, hoping that Nim could understand her broken Jussack. “It belonged to my mother. She is dead.”
“My mother is dead as well,” said Nim. He pondered in silence for a short time, and then drew out a circular pendant from underneath his jerkin. It was made of black polished stone. “This was hers.”
Maerad was unexpectedly moved, and reached out and gently touched the pendant with the tip of a finger. “Beautiful,” she said.
Nim looked at his pendant and then put it back inside his clothes.
“I will get your things for you,” he said. “But if you decide to do magic or to escape because of what I have done, I will be killed.”
Maerad looked at him as straightly as she could. “I can’t escape,” she said. “And I can’t do magic with my lyre. I would like to hold it again.” As she spoke, it was as if a hunger flowered in her fingers.
“I am stupid to do this,” Nim said. “But I will do my best. I do not know why, but I do not think you lie to me. Perhaps you are a good liar.”
Maerad smiled, thinking of Inka-Reb. “A wise man once said I was a liar,” she replied. “Perhaps he was right. But I am not lying to you.”
“How would I know?” said Nim. “I am only a simple man. I don’t know why we had to travel so far to find you. Amusk cast runes all the way there to track you. I think they take you back to Arkan-da.”
Maerad looked up in confusion: this was the first she had heard of where she was going.
“Even I can see that though Amusk has bewitched you, you are powerful; I have never seen him afraid of anyone except you and the Ice King. If the Ice King wants you, then you must be powerful.”
“If I was powerful,