The Riddle - Alison Croggon [173]
She saw Hem’s thin face before her, his dark-blue eyes haunted by deep shadows. I must find Hem, she thought passionately. He’s all I’ve got left. And he needs me, more than anyone else in the world. A grieving love filled her body, a sweet, unassuagable ache that seeped through her from the marrow of her very bones. Hem, my brother . . .
With a thrill, she felt magery begin to run through her veins, a fiery illumination that spread from her heart to the soles of her feet and the tips of her fingers and the crown of her skull. She had forgotten what it was like to feel that power: it felt so long since it had lived within her, free and undimmed. For weeks now, she had resigned herself to its lack. She looked down at her hands with amazement and relief: they glimmered with silver magelight. She saw that her left hand had now five fingers of light: in her power, she was whole, unmaimed.
Slowly, reluctantly, she let the light dim. I must shield myself, she thought. The Winterking must not know. But how could he not feel the surge of her native power? She wondered if, with her returned magery, she could now make herself unseen. It could be no glimmerspell: it would need to be something deeper. She reached inside herself and concentrated.
The moonstone walls wavered and vanished.
Immediately Maerad released the charm, and the enchanted room reappeared. Then she shielded herself, fearing that Arkan would already know that her magery had returned. She needed to know more; she needed to know the limits of the Winterking’s knowledge and power. For he did not know everything, and deep inside her, she was certain his power was not absolute.
Tomorrow, she thought, I will walk to the door and see the sky again.
Maerad woke from disturbed dreams and lay in bed, sending out her listening. The palace was silent, as it always was. She heard no distant footfalls on stone, no murmur of conversation, no bustle of activity. Next to her bed was a bowl filled with a hot gruel, which was still steaming. She had not heard anyone come in, but she heard one set of footsteps retreating, with a slight limp: Gima’s footsteps.
There is no one here, she thought. There was never anyone here, except me and Arkan and Gima. It is all illusion. The Winterking is the mountain, and the mountain is the Winterking. I am trapped inside his mind.
She got out of bed and dressed, and ate the gruel hungrily. Then she wended her way through the endless corridors, remembering the way from the day before, counting it out like a piece of music. She made no mistakes, and came straight to the front door. It was daytime. A pale, bright sun struck up from the snow, momentarily blinding her. She shaded her brow with her hands, waiting for her eyes to adjust, and breathed in the cold air.
Now she could see the mountainscape, snowy slopes rising to sheer gray rock pinnacles, interrupted only by stands of pine and fir. She studied the sun, working out her bearings; after a while she was sure that the south road ran alongside the Winterking’s mountain. The Trukuch range did not seem as high or as harsh as the Osidh Elanor. Perhaps she could walk the width of the range in a day, if Gima was correct and Arkan-da was in the center of the mountains.
She walked across the snow to the black arch and cautiously examined it, careful not to pass beneath it. It emanated a power that made her hair stand on end. Carefully keeping her magery shielded, she tried to measure it with her mind, trying to decide if she could break through it using her own powers. She wondered if perhaps the lyre could help, since it seemed to dissolve Arkan’s illusions, but she could reach no conclusion. And if I try and don’t succeed, I won’t get a second chance, she thought. So it looks like I’ll have to try blind. And then what? If I do