The Riddle - Alison Croggon [32]
“How did you know, Cadvan?” Maerad asked, breaking the silence. “You knew, before it happened. How did you know?”
“I didn’t know what was going to happen,” he said. “But I knew something was wrong. I could feel it. I have felt it all day, as if the wind were blighted, as if the moon were out of her course. When Nerili began The Song of Making, it grew stronger and stronger — a sense of ill working against the song.”
“I felt it, too,” said Elenxi grimly. The three musicians nodded. “When I added my strength to Nerili’s, it was like a poison seeped into me.”
“The worst thing was . . .” Nerili said even more quietly, as if her voice would fade altogether. “The worst thing was, that the poison seemed to come from within me. All the blackness from within my own soul.” And now she did begin to weep.
The Bards seemed helpless in their consternation, but Maerad felt a sudden wash of empathy. She knew too well what it felt like to suspect a darkness within herself. Nerili took a deep breath, steeling herself, and then sat up, dashing the tears from her eyes impatiently.
“Oh, I am like a child,” she said. “It is such a shock, such a terrible thing. But the Tree was made, after all, and so it is not a disaster. Not yet. But I fear the next Rite. I fear that I will not be able to do it on my own.” She looked about the room with a restoration of her normal authority. “I think that perhaps you ought to consider instating a new First Bard. We cannot risk this again.”
“Nerili,” said Kabeka softly. “None of us is as powerful as you are. How would another Bard fare any better? And perhaps we would fare worse. Perhaps we would be unable to make the Mirror, let alone the Tree.”
Nerili nodded. “That is a just thought,” she said.
“We trust you as our First Bard,” said Elenxi firmly. “And will have no other. But next year, perhaps another Bard should help with the Renewal, in case the same thing happens. I too can make the Tree.”
Nerili nodded again.
“That’s sensible,” said Kabeka firmly. “We have no lack of trust in you, Nerili.” The other Bards nodded. “We need you more now than ever before.”
“The Dark rises,” said Cadvan, his face haunted. “And this rising is more insidious than the last. I wonder how other Schools have fared this Midsummer. Do they enter a broken year, unrenewed, unblessed by the Tree of Light?”
Every Bard in the room shuddered at the thought.
“Leave me now,” said Nerili. “We will speak further tomorrow, when we have all recovered somewhat. No, you stay, Maerad and Cadvan. I want to talk with you.”
The Bards of Busk filed out of Nerili’s room. Each, as they left, kissed her on her forehead and pressed her hand, and Maerad, watching them, realized how deeply Nerili was loved by the Bards she led. She felt suddenly a little forlorn, and sat down on a chair on the far side of the room. She doubted that she would ever be loved like that.
Nerili poured herself some wine, offering the decanter to Maerad and Cadvan. Maerad already felt lightheaded, since she hadn’t eaten since midday, but had a glass anyway.
“Well, Cadvan, maybe at last I begin to understand.” Nerili looked at him, smiling crookedly. “Maybe at last, after all this time . . . I confess, I didn’t know what you meant, all those years ago.”
Cadvan looked up, a deep sadness in his eyes, but he said nothing, and a long, deep look passed between the two Bards. Maerad, still perched on her chair on the other side of the room, felt as if she were intruding on a private conversation. She remembered Cadvan’s revelation in Norloch that he had been drawn to the Dark Arts as a young man, and had suffered greatly as a result; and she thought of his drivenness, his solitariness. No, she could see that he could not have stayed with Nerili, if that was what she had wanted. There was a sharpness in Nerili, a will not so much of steel as of adamant, Maerad thought; she had