The Riddle - Alison Croggon [62]
She pulled herself straighter, collecting her mind into some semblance of thought. There had to be some way she could use her own powers to assist Cadvan.
The stormdog lashed out again, but this time the boat barely shuddered. Maerad was relieved; she wondered how many blows the White Owl, for all its sturdiness and Bardic charms, could take from such a monster. She wiped the hair and water from her eyes, and sent out her mind to join Cadvan’s, gently, lest she jolt his will and disturb his magery. There was a slight answering surprise, and then relief as he let her join her power to his.
To join Cadvan’s mind was to share with him the full force of the stormdog’s fury, and Maerad staggered under its sudden onslaught. At the same time, her fear of the monster suddenly vanished altogether, and was replaced by a strange exhilaration. It was almost as if she could understand the stormdog, although it spoke no language that she knew. She looked into its eyes, and for the first time it noticed her presence. It snapped at her, letting out a volley of yells, and into Maerad’s mind sprang the most incongruous memory possible: her mother stroking her hair when she was a very little girl.
Maerad took a deep breath. Then, keeping her eyes fixed on the dog, she began to sing. She sang both in her mind and with her physical voice, although any sound she made was instantly torn away by the gale. It was the smallest of whispers in the tumult, but she thought the stormdog heard her. She felt Cadvan falter in surprise, and the boat briefly dimmed as he momentarily lost concentration.
“Sleep, my pretty one, the day is over
Sleep, my darling one, night is falling
The sun bends down to her star-crowned lover
The hare sleeps now in her scented clover
And the brindled owl is calling.”
The old melody — how long since she had heard it? — rose in her throat, and her voice grew stronger. Was she mad? Singing a lullaby to a stormdog? But she thought she saw a change in the stormdog’s eyes. She took another breath and sang the next verse, filling her mind with tenderness: remembering the way her mother had stroked her brow as she lay near sleep, the soft burr of her voice, her kiss as she fell into slumber.
“Sleep, my pretty one, the night is coming
Sleep, my darling one, night is here
Soon you will ride a ship of gleaming
Silver light, with your soft hair streaming
Bright on the darkling air.”
Now Maerad was sure her mad idea was working; the wind was abating, and the stormdog had stopped its baying and seemed to be looking at her inquiringly, its ears cocked. Its lightnings were flickering less violently and its terrible shrieks muted to a strange low thunder. She kept on singing, starting again when she reached the end of the lullaby, keeping her eyes fixed on the stormdog, and as she sang, the force of the sea gradually lessened, until the waves were only a little larger than the height of their boat. She sang and sang, her voice loud enough now to be heard over the gentling wind, and the stormdog dimmed, and then began to vanish, almost imperceptibly, as a cloud vanishes in a clear sky if you keep staring at it. At last it was gone.
As the stormdog faded, the boat slowly returned to its ordinary colors of dark varnished wood and white paint and furled red sail. It was only as Maerad blinked at the colors that she realized it was morning.
OWAN lashed the tiller and stumbled up to Cadvan and Maerad. He was not his usual neat self: his face was gray with exhaustion, his eyes rimmed red, his hair and clothes stiff with salt, his knuckles skinned raw from his battle to keep the White Owl upright. He fiercely embraced both Bards.
“By the Light,” he said hoarsely. “I thought we were for the Gates, and my Owl was going down to join the fishes.”
Maerad looked up into his eyes and saw reflected there her own emotions: simple relief at being alive, a dazed exhaustion, and the warm fellowship of those who have survived peril together. She could feel tremors running through Owan’s