The Gift by Alison Croggon

  "I am puzzling over something," he said. "Can you tell me again the song the Elidhu sang?"

  Maerad spoke the stanzas that she had heard, and Cadvan listened attentively.

  "Yes," he said. "The 'deathless moss on the singing tree,' and also the 'hidden root.' And Lanorgil spoke of the Treesong.' Now, Maerad, I am deeply learned in the Speech, and there is much in that lore that speaks of the root of language, and the Tree of Life, and so on. I guess that these are linked. But I have not heard of the Treesong. I don't know what it is." He poked the fire impatiently. "I think it might be rather important that we find out," he said. "And that perhaps the Knowing of the Elementals matters a bit more in our affairs than Bards have reckoned. It is written that the Elementals were often at Afinil, and sang with the Bards there; and much of the Knowing was lost in the Great Silence. There is much that perplexes me here. I wish I could talk with Nelac!" He sighed.

  "Your teacher?" asked Maerad curiously.

  "Yes, he was my teacher," said Cadvan, glancing across at her. "He's very old now. The greatest of the Readers in this land. He is the main reason I wish to go to Norloch. We need his counsel."

  "Is he the First Bard there?"

  "No, not the First, although of course he is of the Circle. To my mind he is the wisest there; long ago, after Noldor died, Nelac was asked to be First Bard, but he refused, saying he sought not such eminences. The First Bard is Enkir, another great Reader. The First Bards at Norloch have almost without exception been Readers, although there have been a few Makers. Enkir's intellect is as stern as adamant, and among the wise he is held to be very great indeed; he is a proud and lofty Bard, from another great House, the House of Lenar."

  "But Nelac is the greater Bard?" said Maerad.

  Cadvan looked up at Maerad and grinned, and her earlier worries suddenly dissolved. "Yes, to my mind, although many would disagree," he said. "For Nelac of Lirigon is also wise in the ways of the heart, which Enkir is too cold, too stern, too proud to understand. But you will meet these people and judge for yourself."

  "It sounds as if Norloch . . . well, that it has nothing to do with me," said Maerad dubiously.

  "Norloch is very different from Innail," said Cadvan. "But you have already withstood more frightening things than old men."

  The following day they continued through the Weywood, and at last Maerad thought she detected a subtle thinning of the trees and wondered if they neared its edges. Cadvan confirmed this. "Another's day's ride, and we'll be out in the northeast of Annar, a day or two from Milhol," he said. "And then we will have to decide which way to go. There we could meet the Ettinor Road, and I think it would not be wise to travel that way, although we could go more swiftly; but to wend our way farther north takes us even more out of our way. I am even tempted to go to my own School, Lirigon, and thence south to Norloch. I would dearly like to gather some news. But it is many days' ride northward, and would be little to our advantage in the end, I think."

  "Do we have to stick to the roads?" asked Maerad.

  "No, not always," said Cadvan. "And I think we will not, although west of Milhol the countryside is rough and in some places impassable. I also fear getting lost!"

  They rode on in companionable silence. After her encounter with the Elidhu the day before, the Weywood no longer seemed hostile to Maerad; and although she still longed to get out of the twilight of the trees into sunlight and wind, she also realized she felt safer here, hidden from prying eyes, despite the dangers of the forest itself. She felt, for no reason that she could trace, as if the Elidhu protected them. The long days riding through the wood had also given her a chance to absorb the events of the past three weeks. She felt less confused in herself, less doubtful, although it seemed the more she found out, the more her questions multiplied. She said as much to Cadvan, who replied: "It is ever the way of the Knowing. I have often thought it is like a light blooming on a dark sea: as it increases, so does the depth and size of the unknown. The most wise are those who know how little they know!"

  They made camp in another dingle that night, but this time there was no cave and they could make no fire. The fine weather held, and this night was even a little warm. After dawn the following day they continued, and around lunchtime Maerad saw a light through the trees, and they reached the end of the track.

  The forest stopped quite suddenly, and Maerad found, blinking, that they were looking over a land of rolling hills shaded with the purplish bloom of heather. The track wandered over the landscape ahead, and Cadvan told her that if they followed it, in time they would reach one of the Bard Roads that led to Ettinor, following the Milhol River. "For now," he said, "I think we will push on to Milhol. I wish to know how the land lies around here. And then we must decide what to do next."

  The landscape they rode through was lonely and bare, swept by strong winds blowing down off the distant mountains, which humped blue on the eastern horizon. No trees grew there, apart from some stunted thorns, and every now and then they passed tumbled outcrops of gray weathered granite blotched with bright lichens, purple and yellow and green and white. There were also other stones, which seemed to have been placed there by human hands: circles at the top of small hills that looked like massive broken crowns, some overthrown and broken, some still upright but leaning crazily like drunken men.

  "These were here before Afinil, and date from the earliest days that humans walked this land," said Cadvan. "None now know what they signified; even in the days of the Dhyllin they were ancient and abandoned. They were set here by the hill people who lived many thousands of years ago. Some think that they mark the tombs of their kings and queens, and some think these are the places where they worshipped their gods. Some of them have curious carvings."

  "And what do you think?" asked Maerad.

  "I do not know," he said.

  When dusk began to fall they were still far from habitation, and they found a dell away from the wind under one of the hills and made camp there. There was no sound except the sigh of the wind through the grass and the melancholy cries of plovers, and that night they did not take out their lyres, but talked quietly together. Maerad drew closer to the fire.

  "It feels desolate here," she said.

  "Yes," said Cadvan. "They call these the Hollow Lands. No

  one has lived here in living memory."

  "It was all so long ago and far away," she said. "But it's as if the land remembers people, nevertheless."

  That night Maerad slept restlessly, and it seemed in her dreams she heard the sound of hoof beats far off in the night, searching for her, and all around were sinister shapes of men cloaked in black. She woke, shivering, and looked straight up into the star-strewn heavens, where the waxing moon rode high in a wrack of cloud. Cadvan lay close by, snoring lightly, and soon she slept again and dreamed no more.

  Still they followed the path that had led them through the Weywood, and at midmorning the next day it suddenly dipped into swamplands. Here the going was slow because they had to pick their way through, fearing to lose the path altogether, and often the horses sank into mud past their fetlocks. Clouds of gnats and mosquitoes pestered them, and their discomfort increased as the sun got hotter. They pushed on for several hours, not stopping for lunch, and at last, to Maerad's relief, were past the bogs and back on solid ground. They stopped by a small stream for a late meal, and let the horses graze and drink.

  "Now," said Cadvan. "Soon we will be among people again. I doubt that I'll see anyone who knows me, but still, it is worth taking precautions against Bard eyes." He thought for a while, and then said, "How do you fancy being my mute son, and I a ... boot maker, maybe, from near Pellinor, seeking help for his son's affliction in Ettinor?"

  "Why not?" said Maerad, amused. "But do you know anything about boot-making?"

  "At, mistress," said Cadvan, winking in a rascally fashion. "You don't know what I know. My da was a cobbler, and his boots were much prized in Lirigon. And elsewhere, come to that."

  The
ir disguise took a little time. Cadvan attended to Maerad first, making her place her hands on his shoulders, as she had when he scried her, and muttering a charm in the Speech. A brief flash of light passed before Maerad's sight, dizzying her for a second, and when she recollected herself, she looked down and involuntarily cried out. Her body had changed: she now looked like a boy, and her clothes were subtly different, roughly woven of undyed wool. Then Cadvan changed himself, which Maerad watched with fascination. Her eyes couldn't catch the moment of transformation, but it seemed that Cadvan's face blurred; she blinked, and when she looked again he was different. His hair was red, and he had a red beard, and his features were heavier.

  "Now the horses," he said, and she blinked again, for his voice also was deeper and rougher. "They are altogether too fine for such as us." He worked the charm again, and suddenly Darsor and Imi were two farm animals, Darsor with a walleye.

  He turned to Maerad, passing his hands over his eyes. "This will last until sundown tomorrow," he said, "and will do well for us. I don't want to stay more than a night at Milhol. No Bard or Hull will recognize us now. But I must rest a little; it takes more to fool the eyes of Bards than other people. Look well at me, for you must remember what I look like."

  That night they stayed at Milhol, a small market town of two or three thousand people, with houses of several stories that almost met above the narrow cobbled lanes, cutting off the light. People looked at them as they walked through the narrow streets, and Maerad didn't like the glances, which she found distrustful and hostile. The streets stank of middens, and their gutters were full of rubbish, vegetable peelings, eggshells, and rotting refuse. It was not, she thought, comparing it to the well-tended gardens of Innail School, a particularly pleasant place. It reminded her forcibly of Gilman's Cot.

  She didn't enjoy their stay at the evil-smelling inn either. It was run by a black-browed man in a greasy apron who admitted them surlily; he showed them to a mean little room with a tiny cobwebbed window and two lumpy pallets. To Cadvan's chagrin, he charged them more than twice what they had paid in Innail Fesse. They went to the taproom for dinner, because Cadvan wanted to sound out the locals on the conditions ahead of them, but they didn't stay long. The local talk was that the only real danger on the road was bandits.

  Maerad woke before dawn. A cock was crowing somewhere in the distance, but that wasn't what woke her: she itched terribly all over. Scratching furiously, she sat up, and Cadvan stirred sleepily and then woke instantly. "What's the matter?" he said.

  "Bedbugs," she hissed. "Or fleas. Or lice. I'm being bitten by things."

  "Probably bedbugs," said Cadvan. He inspected her dispassionately. "Look, one's bitten your nose."

  "I hope they bit you too. Hard," she said, torn between irritation and amusement.

  Cadvan sat up. "I don't think they did," he said. "Insects don't like me much. Too tough." He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and rubbed his hair with his fingers, so it stood all on end. "Well, they woke us early enough to get out of this place. So let's go."

  Cadvan told her to put on her mail, so she dragged it out of the pack where it had lain since they had left Innail. Her neck prickled as she put it on, feeling its heavy coldness, and she fumbled at the sword that had hung from her hip, unused and almost forgotten, for days. Then they picked up their packs and left the room.

  Downstairs the only sign of life was the cook in the kitchen, who was firing up the stove. He was disinclined to serve them breakfast so they left the inn, walking out into the cold air. Maerad felt unutterable relief at leaving that noisome fug and breathed in the fresh air deeply, although it was so cold it was like icy blades stabbing her lungs. She snorted plumes of steam out of her nostrils like a dragon.

  They unstabled their horses and found a bakery farther down the street, where Cadvan bought two loaves of bread and some meat pastries. They ate the pastries on horseback as they trotted out of Milhol, their breath curling on the icy air. The gate was just opened, and two grimy guards looked at them suspiciously as they left. Cadvan gave them a cheery wave, to the guards' evident displeasure, and then they trotted briskly down the dirt road by which they had approached the town. In little under half an hour the road ran into another, this one of stone.

  "This is the Bard Road to Ettinor. Here we can make up some lost time," Cadvan said, turning in the saddle. Imi and Darsor neighed and pawed the ground, and then leaped forward at a gallop. It seemed they were as glad as their riders to leave Milhol.

  The sun rose soon after they met the Bard Road, lighting a dour country softened by heavy mists. They slowed to a trot, and Maerad began to look around her. Behind them the mountains still sat heavily on the horizon, and to their left Maerad could see the purplish hills of the downs in the distance, but all around them the land was flat as a floodplain. The Milhol River ran to their right, and it looked to Maerad as sullen as the landscape, with black reeds poking through its brown surface. There were few trees, and those she saw stood solitary, bent by the prevailing winds. The land was poor and rocky, grown with tussocks of tough grass and thistles and milkweeds. After sunrise they began to pass farmers heading to the markets of Milhol. They passed wagons of produce pulled by tired-looking ponies with rough hair and staring ribs, and the occasional wagon pulled by oxen; two or three times there was a woman walking with a heavy basket strapped to her back, out of which poked the heads of chickens, squawking in protest, or the nodding fronds of turnips or rutabagas. Cadvan nodded to each person they passed, but only once was his greeting acknowledged, by a young woman with a small, grizzling child pulling at her skirts.

  "It's hard to scrape a living from this land," said Cadvan. "And it makes the people bitter. It was not always so. A hundred years ago, this country was green and fertile. The people here have forgotten how to speak to the earth; they now take without giving."

  The farther they drew from Milhol, the more seldom they saw people, and by late afternoon they no longer saw anyone at all and passed no more houses. They moved at a brisk trot, both feeling that the sooner they left this sullen country the better, and rode on after dusk until it was almost full night, guided by the light of the stars and the half moon. Only when they could travel no more did they draw to the side of the road and make camp. They huddled in the shelter of a great tree that looked as if it had been blasted by lightning and lay riven in two twisted halves. Cadvan sat still, listening, for some time, and then decided to light a fire. "I hear nothing for miles around," he said. "I think we will be safe enough. But I think we should keep watch tonight."

  As he kindled a flame with his flint, Maerad saw that Cadvan had his own face back again. "Cadvan!" she said. He looked up in surprise. "You're back!"

  "And so are you," he said, squinting through the darkness. "I may say, it's some improvement. I was a little too convincing in making you an idiot boy." The fire sparked into life and he tended it, swiftly building the flames. "We'll wear our own faces for a couple of days. It's risky, but I haven't the energy to disguise us, unless there is great need."

  They continued through the dismal countryside for the next two days, traveling all day as swiftly as they could and keeping watch at night. They saw no one else on the road. Gradually the landscape began to change; the river carved itself into a ravine that grew deeper and deeper, and ridges began to shadow them, rising to sharp shoulders of bare rock that dropped to sheer cliffs. Little waterfalls fell straight down the cliffs, gathering in shallow pools of rock slimed with green, and stunted pines straggled up the rough slopes. Cadvan looked warily around him, and as they rode, Maerad began to be uncomfortably aware of the sharp clop of the horses' hooves on the road, which echoed loudly off the rocks.

  "These are the Broken Hills. Bandit country," said Cadvan. "Use your hearing."

  Maerad pushed her awareness out into the hills. She heard the wind whistling through teeth of rock, the scuffle of claws on loose stones, the cries of hunting birds, and the death screeches of little animals, but
nothing human. Very high above them she occasionally saw a pair of birds circling on the wind. "Eagles," said Cadvan briefly. "They are not birds of the Dark. They seek their prey." Nevertheless, she couldn't throw off the feeling of menace, which gathered all day as the country became wilder and the road began to push through gorges of rock, the sides leaping sheer from them on either side. But still the land was empty, and she heard neither footfall nor hoofbeat all day. The silence itself seemed threatening.

  That night they camped slightly off the road under an overhang of rock. They lit no fire. The horses stamped and circled, cropping the tough, bitter grass, and they sat in silence, looking out into the road and the rocky horizon on its other side cutting off the stars with blades of darkness. They were, Cadvan told her, now less than two days' ride from Ettinor. "If our luck holds, we'll be well past it in three days or so," he said. "But I don't trust these hills. It is altogether too silent here."

  "We're not going to Ettinor?" asked Maerad, thinking of Helgar and other Bards at Innail.

  "By no means to the School," he answered. "We'll cut around it through the Fesse, and after that we'll leave the road for a while. After Ettinor the road runs along the Aleph River, straight to Norloch. I think we have to stay off roads as far as possible from now on; if the Dark suspects that you are the One, as I fear it might, it will be using every resource it has to find you."

  Just before dawn the temperature dropped sharply and it began to drizzle. Maerad and Cadvan started early simply to get the blood moving in their frozen limbs. In the dismal light before dawn the landscape looked even more dreary than it had the day before. Maerad was beginning to feel exhausted after the punishing pace of the past few days, and she felt a deeper tiredness, which was of the spirit rather than the body, and harder to resist. Imi no longer walked with a spring in her step but plodded on, doggedly keeping up with Darsor, who stepped out as proudly as before. Jogging along on Imi's back, Maerad felt miserable; her hands were numb with cold, her cloak flapped damply around her knees, and her face felt raw with windburn. She tried not to think about a bath or a hot roast, although images of both kept rising in her head; they made the present moment even worse. The drizzle continued through the morning, and then settled into a steady rain. They stopped for a hasty lunch, and after that the rain lifted and was replaced with a freezing wind that cut through their clothes, chilling them to the bone.