The Riddle - Alison Croggon [30]
“The old year has passed, and is now a thing of memory and dream: of regret and loss and joy, of birth and death, of hope realized and hope disappointed,” she said.
“The old year has gone,” came the response.
“And now the new year is to come, returning to us everything that is ours: our dreams and memories, our regrets and losses and joys, our births and deaths, and our hope.”
“And the new year is to come.”
Nerili began to sing The Song of Making. Maerad had always thought this most Bardic of songs was beautiful, but this was the first time she had heard it in the Speech, invested with its full power, and for the first time she realized what the song really was. The hair stirred on her neck. No instrument supported Nerili’s voice; it rang, a full, rich contralto, into the absolute silence of the square.
She turned to Cadvan, wanting to share her wonder, and was brought up short. Cadvan’s face was tight with anxiety. She looked back at Nerili. She couldn’t see anything wrong, but now she watched with closer attention. Perhaps, although Maerad had never seen the Rite before, she could sense something that ought not to be there: a heaviness, a prickling shadow that was not at first perceptible.
Nerili continued to sing The Song of Making, and with each stanza she grew brighter until the power she was exerting began to make Maerad’s head buzz. Very gradually the shards of the broken Mirror began to lift from the ground and floated in the air. Maerad drew in her breath. Slowly, slowly, every fragment of the Mirror began to come to the center of the dais, and as Nerili reached the final stanza of the song, all the broken pieces joined together, each fitting into its original place. But it was still not whole; it was still only a cracked stone.
Nerili put her hands over the Mirror and her power increased yet again. Light blazed from her hands and her face, making her seem insubstantial, no longer human. Suddenly, so quickly Maerad couldn’t see when it happened, the Mirror was whole again: not mended, but remade as if it had never been shattered. There was no sound: it was as if hundreds of people held their breath.
Nerili drooped, as if she were suddenly weary, and most of the light went out of her. But now the crystal was blazing with radiance, the brightest thing in the square, throwing strange black shadows back over the crowd. She straightened herself with a visible effort, and placing her hands on the crystal she looked within it. Maerad couldn’t see her face, but after a short time she saw her shoulders tense, and her hands clench, so the knuckles went white. Then it was as if somebody had cut all the strings in her body, and she slipped to the ground in a faint.
Before Maerad knew what had happened, Cadvan had bounded onto the dais next to the Mirror of Maras and was looking within it himself. No one else had moved; each person present was frozen, as if possessed by sudden dread. Maerad glanced swiftly behind her and saw hundreds of faces all weirdly stamped with the same shock. She looked back at Cadvan: he was now brilliant with magery, his incandescent hands holding the blazing Mirror. She felt the force of his power with amazement; she had never before seen Cadvan like this: unleashed, undimmed by injury. And gradually an image began to form in the air above him, a luminous semblance of the Tree of Light. It was the same Tree and yet it looked different from the one Nerili had shown Maerad: the light it shed was a rich gold rather than silver, its blossoms subtly ruddier, the fruit a deeper gold.
A gasp came from the square, as hundreds of people let out their breath.
“Behold the new year, renewed and given back to you!” cried Cadvan.
“Behold the new year!”
The response came back, and the ceremony was over, but from the crowd came only a few ragged cheers. Cadvan took the Mirror of Maras and gave it to Elenxi, and the musicians began to play. Solemnly, in the reverse order in which they had come, they stepped off the dais and through the crowd. As soon as