The Riddle - Alison Croggon [153]
That night, Nim and Maerad spoke for the last time. Maerad searched through her clothes; she badly wanted to give him something. She unpinned her silver lily brooch, the sign that marked her as a Bard of Pellinor. He would be able to hide it from the others, and she would not be needing it anymore. She stroked it, remembering the gentle, stern woman who had given it to her: Oron, First Bard of Innail.
Perhaps Oron would not think it amiss that she should give away this token for the sake of the rough kindness Nim had shown her. It was in Innail that Maerad had first understood the value of human kindness. She remembered Silvia telling her: The law is that the hungry must be fed, and the homeless must be housed, and the sick must be healed. That is the way of the Light. Maerad smiled at the memory, so distant from her bitter present, and ran her fingers over the lily sign of Pellinor one last time.
“Nim,” she said. “This is for you.” She handed him the brooch.
He took it with wonder, his eyes widening. “It is a lovely thing,” he said. “A precious thing. I have nothing that I can give you in return.”
“You have given me much,” said Maerad. “This is to thank you. You have been kind to me. You didn’t have to be.”
She saw a flush run up his neck and over his face, and he took the brooch awkwardly and put it inside his clothes.
“I will not forget,” he said, and turned away.
The sun no longer seemed to exist. The day was distinguishable from night only because the shadows were slightly less dark. The mist enveloped the sleds so they were barely visible. There were no stars: the ground threw up a white glimmer, as if it were itself a source of light, and was the only thing that kept them from moving through complete darkness.
When they had begun that morning, the teams had turned south and started running swiftly along a narrow mountain pass. The standing stones loomed out of the mist and vanished, and Maerad thought of those she had seen along the Gwalhain Pass: the same people must have made this road, in ages long past. The air was still and freezing.
Maerad sat on Nim’s sled, ahead of the others, hugging her lyre between her knees. She felt dizzy, unable to think; she could feel the closeness of the Winterking in her mind, the shadow that had been pressing upon her ever since she had set foot in Zmarkan. Waves of blackness broke over her; she sank into them, as she had when she had first been captured, to re-emerge not knowing how long she had been unconscious. She could feel Amusk’s spell pressing harder against her, and his sense of triumph as he felt her resistance waver, and a reflexive contempt stirred in her stomach. It was not Amusk who made her falter.
It was certainly night when they reached a lofty arch of black stone. Its keystone stood high over the road, and, as they neared it, Maerad felt dread tightening her stomach. The road ran through it into a natural courtyard walled by high buttresses of stone. At the far end reared the dark flank of a mountain. The arch seemed to be made of some kind of polished basalt covered with strange reliefs; the carvings looked as sharp as if they had been finished the day before, and yet the arch seemed ancient. It stood all by itself, with no buildings of any kind around it. Its power made Maerad feel faint.
The dogs would not pass beneath the arch, despite being severely whipped, and finally, cursing, the Jussacks stepped out of their sleds. Maerad was ordered to walk in front of them. The men’s fear was palpable. Maerad hurriedly grabbed her lyre, slinging it in front of her under her coat, and stepped onto the ground. Immediately her knees buckled beneath her. Somebody kicked her, and she curled herself into a ball around her lyre, feeling the ground cold against her face, suddenly indifferent. They could kick her as much as they