The Riddle - Alison Croggon [45]
“By the Light!” Cadvan jumped up and moved cautiously backward, his hands outstretched before him. “Ilader, andhaseä,” he said soothingly, and the red light dimmed in the lion’s eyes, and it yawned. “Ilader. Ilader.” The beast gradually drooped, as it was overborne with a great weariness, and then quite suddenly curled itself up like a domestic cat, nose to tail, and went to sleep.
Maerad was sitting with her mouth open.
“Well, that proved something, I suppose,” said Cadvan, glancing at Maerad and running his hands through his hair. “Though why I suggested a lion I’ll never know. Next time, make a rabbit. I think you had better turn it back into a rock.”
“I don’t know how,” said Maerad.
“What do you mean? You just turned a rock into a lion; you must be able to turn it back.”
Maerad struggled to articulate what she meant. “I think it’s a different thing, returning something to what it was. I have to do something else,” she said. “It’s not just the same thing backward.”
“Well, we have to do something,” said Cadvan. “I don’t think Ankil will appreciate having a mountain lion preying on his flocks.”
Maerad took a deep breath, cleared her thoughts, and sought inside her mind for the right thing to do. The first transformation had completely drained her. She focused on the lion and thought of the rock as it had originally been. She flexed her mind, but it hurt this time, as if she were pressing too hard, and when she stopped, she was trembling with effort. The lion was still there, fast asleep.
Cadvan swore, and, walking up to the lion, stooped down and rubbed it behind its ears.
“Well, it’s definitely a real lion,” he said, returning to Maerad. “Not some trick. I’ve bound it with a sleep spell, so it will not wake for some hours. We can try again later.” He shook his head. “I didn’t really think you could do something like that. More fool me: I should know better by now than to underestimate you. I wonder if you really turned the rock into a lion, or if you’ve called a lion from somewhere and now, where the lion was, is a rock. And maybe a very surprised deer. But you’d better work out how to reverse this one.”
“Easier said than done,” said Maerad, looking up at him sardonically from underneath her hair. “I really don’t know how to do it. I almost felt how, just before, but I’m so tired. Maybe I can try again later.”
Maerad had a nap, and after a few attempts later on that afternoon, she did succeed in restoring the rock to its proper rockness. But they didn’t try transformation again after that; it was rather unnerving. And every time she passed by the rock, Maerad gave it a wide berth, as if it might suddenly turn into a lion again.
They had been at Ankil’s for almost a month when, one afternoon after lessons, idling in front of her favorite view, Maerad saw two small figures making their way up the steep path toward the meadow. She was almost sure one of them was Elenxi: he towered over his companion. She squinted, trying to see more clearly, and went to the cheese shed to warn Ankil of the imminent visitors.
Ankil looked up from the board, where he was wrapping curds in muslin. “Elenxi? Then he is a little earlier than I expected,” he said. “Well, I am almost finished here. Ask Cadvan to put out a table and chairs on the porch. I shall not be long.”
As the visitors climbed into the meadow, it became clear that the tall figure was indeed Elenxi, and that the other was Nerili. Maerad ran forward to greet them, and they walked toward the welcoming shade of Ankil’s porch, wiping the sweat from their brows.
“Good morrow, Granddaughter,” said Ankil, kissing Nerili’s cheek. “It is long since I saw you here.”
“All too long, Grandfather,” said Nerili, smiling. “I have missed you.” Maerad had a sudden incongruous vision of Nerili as a five-year-old child, sitting on Ankil’s knee.
They sat down around