The Riddle - Alison Croggon [160]
When she awoke, for a moment it was as if the past few months had not happened: Cadvan and Dernhil and Dharin were still alive, and she was neither hunted nor imprisoned. She was back in Innail, a young girl released from slavery and tasting freedom for the first time. She rolled over, completely relaxed, and opened her eyes, but instead of the bright casement of her chamber in Innail, she saw the translucent moonstone of the walls of Arkan-da. She blinked and woke up properly, rubbing her eyes.
When she opened them again, she did not see the strange but beautiful chamber she had already become used to. The air she breathed was piercingly cold, and before her was a wall of black, undressed stone in which flickered a crude oil lamp, a wick floating in oil in a stone bowl. She sat on a thin pallet, covered in furs, on the freezing floor. She blinked, and the walls shimmered as if they were not quite substantial, but they did not vanish. Her left hand hurt her and she looked down; her fingers were missing, but instead of a long-healed scar she saw a healing wound. She stroked it and flinched, and as she did, she saw with amazement the wound heal before her eyes, and the strange sourceless illumination returned. When she looked up, the chamber was again made of moonstone.
She tried to trace what she had been feeling when the room changed, and then remembered her dream. Cadvan, she thought; maybe he speaks to me from beyond the Gates. But instead of a feast, he seeks to show me famine. . . . Typical. The edges of her mouth quirked up with sardonic humor, but inside she felt a sudden warmth, as if she were not quite so alone. Immediately the moonstone walls became transparent, as if she were seeing through them into another reality.
I am in a dungeon, she thought with wonder. But it is an enchanted dungeon. . . .
This time she tried to will the other vision. She wanted to see if her lyre, which she had laid by the chest, was present when the room changed, or whether it vanished. But now the dream sense had vanished, and she could not see the reality of her cell. She sighed, and finally stepped out of bed, curling her toes in the warm rug, then stepped over to the lyre and picked it up.
Elednor, she thought, returning to her bed. How did the Winterking know my name? Is that how he ensorcels me? Is this how my power has suddenly vanished? The more she thought about it, the more certain she was. Maybe it had been the case even in the Gwalhain Pass, when she and Cadvan had been attacked by the iriduguls and she had not been able to join with him to fight them off. The Winterking had been working against her for a long time now, ever since she had left Thorold. Or perhaps earlier. No doubt he had seen her in the pool in his throne room: Ardina had used a pool to see events in distant places, and Cadvan said the Landrost, the Elidhu he had been fleeing when they met, had a pool that he used to see what he willed. But how did the Winterking find it out? The only people who knew her Truename were Cadvan and Saliman and Nelac, and she knew that none of them would betray her.
My name was foretold, she remembered suddenly. Any fool who read the prophecies aright would know it. A cold fear stirred in her heart: how was she to escape Arkan if he knew her Truename, if he wielded such power over her that he could fool her hands, her eyes, her very skin? And even if she did escape his stronghold, how was she to remain free, how was she to regain her full power, if he could take it from her again?
No, she said to herself. No, it can’t be. But in her heart she knew that it was true. Any Bard whose Truename was known by an enemy was crippled.
She sat despondently for a while, holding her lyre. But something within her was stronger today; perhaps some of the warmth of the dream still clung to her mind. Finally she sat up straight and shook herself. Well, she thought, I’ll try the lyre, and see what happens. A song for the Winterking, maybe. Perhaps his ensorcelment can make my injured playing