The Riddle - Alison Croggon [44]
Cadvan was very pleased with her progress in magery; she was beginning to have the skill to control her Bardic powers, although he warned her that he could not teach her how to use powers of which he knew nothing. He called them her Elemental powers, to distinguish them from her innate Bardic Gift, although Maerad argued that the two were intertwined. “And why,” she asked him one morning, “are they not more commonly understood? Ankil himself said there are many tales of Elemental blood here in Thorold. Why does no one know about these things?”
Cadvan looked at her thoughtfully. “Maerad, quite frankly, I do not know. I have never heard of such powers as you have. And you are probably quite right that they are deeply linked with Bardic potencies. But you must remember that you are the Fated One, and perhaps in you these different gifts have fused in a new way.”
Maerad thought about it for a while. “Well, it feels to me that the more I can use the Bardic powers, the better I can access the others.”
“I don’t know how you destroyed the Kulag or the wight in Annar,” Cadvan said. “That is something outside the abilities of Bards. And I don’t know how to teach you — that’s something you’ll have to learn by trial and error. But we should at least attempt to see if they are controllable. It would be perilous to test you only when your life is in danger.”
They started with some cautious exercises, outside in a neighboring meadow so that Maerad could not unintentionally damage Ankil’s house. At first, Maerad could not focus her powers at all, although she had now enough sensitivity to tell whether or not she was using them. It was fiddly, delicate work, and sometimes intensely frustrating. She thought it was a little like trying to work out how to wiggle her ears: first she had to identify these unused muscles with her conscious mind, and then learn how to command them.
Bardic powers were rational, aided by visualization and will and guided by the Speech, but the Elemental powers were altogether different; they were quicker than thought and seemed primarily intuitive. They flowed out of Maerad’s emotional state, although they, too, could be guided by strength of will. They found out early that her powers were of no use in the arts of illusion; after a few unsuccessful experiments, Cadvan speculated that maybe when the Elidhu created illusions, they worked with substance rather than tricks of the eye.
“You mean that Ardina was changing herself completely?” asked Maerad curiously. “I mean, when she vanished in the meeting hall, say.”
“Yes, I think so,” said Cadvan thoughtfully. “Look, let’s try.” He made the glimmerspell passes and then glanced around, settling on a rock jutting out of the ground nearby. “Now, I can make this look like a lion.” The rock suddenly stirred, and there was a mountain lion, blinking sleepily in the sun. It yawned, showing its long, yellowing fangs, and then vanished into rock again. “But it changes nothing about the rock, only how you see it. Now, just see if you can change the rock yourself, without using a glimmerspell.”
Maerad shut her eyes in order to help her concentrate, sought the place in her mind where the Elemental powers slept, and willed the rock to become a lion.
After a while she opened her eyes, but nothing had happened.
“Try again,” said Cadvan encouragingly.
“I don’t think it’s going to work,” she said. “Maybe you can’t do this sort of thing.”
Cadvan shrugged. “Probably not,” he said. “But try anyway.”
Maerad sighed and shut her eyes again. Irritated by her failure, this time she made her feeling of command more insistent. She thought of the mountain lion she had once seen in Annar, its heat, its shaggy coat, its feline stink, its hugeness. She concentrated until her mind began to buzz.
Suddenly there was a deafening crack of rock splitting. She opened her eyes in alarm. A huge