The Riddle - Alison Croggon [15]
“The One? You are sure?” asked Nerili softly, looking across at Cadvan.
Cadvan nodded. Nerili leaned forward and took Maerad’s chin in her hand, looking at her intently. Maerad stared back into her eyes without fear or surprise; a few Bards had searched her this way before, not quite scrying her, but feeling her out. She felt a delicate touch in her mind, a light like music. Then Nerili sat back and passed her hand over her face.
“I shall need some time to absorb this.” She picked up her glass and drained it. “Maerad, I do not know what you are.”
“Neither do I,” Maerad answered, a little forlornly.
“You have great power. But it is a strange power, a wild power, unlike anything I have felt before.”
“There are many riddles in this tale,” said Cadvan. “But I have no doubt that Maerad is the greatest of them all. None of us knows what she might be capable of.”
Both Bards stared gravely at Maerad until she shifted under their gaze, suddenly glowering. Seeing her discomfort, Nerili refilled her glass and turned urgently to Cadvan.
“And what of Nelac?” she asked. “Is he still in Norloch? Or did he flee as well?”
“Nelac.” At the mention of his old teacher, Nelac of Lirigon, Cadvan’s voice thickened with sadness. “Nelac wouldn’t come. I asked him. He said he was too old, and that he was needed in Norloch. I . . . I have no doubt he is in great danger, and I don’t know what has happened in Norloch since we left. I fear for him greatly.”
“He is a powerful Bard,” said Nerili. “He is not easily endangered.”
“Yes. But you do not know what Enkir has become. He draws on powers other than his own. How else could he summon a creature like that ondril? And Nelac is old, even by the count of Bards. He is not afraid of death. Perhaps . . .” Cadvan sighed and stared out into the garden. “Perhaps I won’t see him again.”
“Your news is all ill,” said Nerili. There was a short silence. “Well, there is much to discuss. I’m sure you are both hungry; we can talk and eat.” She gave Cadvan a strange private look, and Cadvan looked away, his face troubled. Maerad realized suddenly that Cadvan and Nerili knew each other, and that Cadvan’s awkwardness had nothing to do with unfamiliarity. Cadvan called her Neri, not Nerili. Quite unexpectedly she felt a flash of jealousy and awkwardly stood up to follow the older Bards to the dining table, almost knocking her glass over.
Over dinner, Cadvan and Maerad told of how he had helped her escape from slavery in Gilman’s Cot at the beginning of that spring, how he had come to suspect she was the Fated One, prophesied to bring about the downfall of the Nameless, and how her instatement as a full Bard in Norloch had confirmed his suspicions.
“And what now?” said Nerili, looking at him again with that strange directness. “For I do not imagine that Cadvan of Lirigon will stay long in Busk.”
“The signs, if I read them aright, say that we must go north,” said Cadvan. “Maerad and I, it seems, must find the Treesong.”
Nerili lifted her eyebrows. “And what is the Treesong?”
“Nobody knows exactly,” said Maerad. “Not even Nelac. But we have to find it anyway. We know we have to go north, because of my foredream and the prophecy.”
“The prophecy?” said Nerili.
“Maerad speaks of a prophecy of the Seer Lanorgil’s, found this spring in Innail,” said Cadvan. “It foretells our need to seek the Treesong. The Song lies at the roots of the Speech, and somehow holds the very secret of our powers. Your powers, Neri, and mine, and those of every Bard in Annar. And something is wrong at the heart of Barding. Badly wrong. Even here, in the haven of Thorold, you must know that.”
Cadvan spoke with such conviction that the skepticism vanished from Nerili’s face, and for a moment she looked simply afraid, although she covered it swiftly.
Maerad and Cadvan then began to tell her the full story of their journey. It was a tangled telling: Nerili constantly interrupted with questions and speculations,