The Riddle - Alison Croggon [21]
Maerad was also introduced to the complex system of Bardic ethics. It had evolved over many centuries and was centered on the idea of the Balance. The more she learned about these things, the more Maerad wondered that Bards did magic at all: it seemed that drawing on her powers was fraught with responsibilities and implications, and that in most cases Bards practiced their powers in order not to use them. Often, in those days, she thought uneasily of the times when her powers had exploded out of her, uncontrollable and terrifying, and of the wild exhilaration she had felt when she had finally come into the Speech. Serious magery, she learned, was something practiced seldom and only in great need. The Balance was a delicate thing, and the smallest action could have unexpected and unintended consequences. Bards who had turned to the Dark, the Hulls, were those who desired power above all else and eschewed the responsibilities of the Balance.
“The difficulty is, of course,” said Nerili thoughtfully during their first session, “that because they have not the same inhibitions on their powers, they can access forces and take actions that Bards will not. And this can make it difficult to fight them: they laugh at us, because they say our hands are tied and we are weak. Despite their mockery, we are well able to defend ourselves, but we remember that if we did not try to adhere to the Balance, even in our extremity, we would become like them. And that would be the greater defeat.”
Maerad wondered at this, but for the moment did not argue. She thought of the brutality of her childhood in Gilman’s Cot and the malice of the Dark. She remembered the times when she had had to kill, in order to save her own life. She had always felt, with a deep discomfort, that the killing wounded her somehow, even though it had been necessary, even if she felt it completely justified. Yet, she thought, there might come a time when the Light couldn’t afford such niceties.
Nerili looked at her steadily and then added, as if she caught the tenor of her thoughts, “There’s a great force in the renunciation of power that those who are blinded by the lust for domination cannot understand, because those who love truly do not desire power. Among Bards, it is often known as the Way of the Heart. The Dark understands nothing of this: it is its greatest weakness.”
Maerad started — this chimed a little too uncomfortably with her thoughts of the earlier night — but Nerili was staring out the window, as if Maerad were not there.
“Love is never easy,” said Nerili. “We begin by loving the things we can, according to our stature. But it is not long before we find that what we love is other than ourselves, and that our love is no protection against being wounded. Do we then seek to dominate what we love, to make it bend to our will, to stop it from hurting us, even though to do so is to betray love? And that is only where the difficulty begins.”
She turned to Maerad, smiling a little sadly, but Maerad didn’t respond: she felt too surprised. For a moment she was sure that Nerili was speaking of her own feelings for Cadvan, and that she was aware, too, of the tangle of Maerad’s emotions and sought, obscurely, to comfort her. To her relief, Nerili dropped the subject, and moved on to the more practical aspects of High Magery.
In these lessons, Maerad began to learn properly how to use her Bardic powers: how to control and shape the Speech, and how to make enchantments and spells. Nerili started with glimmerspells, the least part, she explained, of Bardic magic: a magic of illusion, not of substance. “You can already do glimmerspells, simply by willing them,” Nerili said. “You are aware of that?”
“Yes,” said Maerad. It was