Authors: Alison Croggon
It was a huge stag, with a shaggy winter coat ruffing out to a huge yellow mane around its shoulders. Its seven-tined antlers swept high above its brow, so that Hem wondered how he had possibly missed it; but what compelled his gaze, even at this distance, was the stag's yellow eyes, which were staring straight at Hem.
They were Nyanar's eyes. Then Hem heard it: the music, the achingly beautiful, ungraspable phrases that haunted his waking memory.
Saliman's hand tightened on Hem's forearm, and Hem said, "It's all right. It's Nyanar." Somehow it was difficult to speak; he felt as if he were trying to talk underwater. Hem saw in Saliman's face, without being able to do anything about it, that the Bard was afraid.
Slowly and proudly, the stag stepped up toward them. It was a huge animal, taller at the shoulder than Saliman's height, and its pale antlers seemed as high as a tree. Ten paces away from them it stopped and the air shimmered with a strange light. Hem blinked, and when he opened his eyes again the stag was gone, and in its place was the naked, white-skinned Elidhu, orbed in shifting ripples of light.
Saliman let his sword arm fall to his side.
Greetings, Songboy,
said Nyanar, stepping toward them.
I said I would see you again.
"Greetings," said Hem, a deep happiness rising within him. He realized that he had spoken aloud, and sensed, rather than saw, Saliman turn to gaze at him, his eyes wide with alarm. But Saliman seemed a great distance away. Hem was only halfaware of Ire, who stood unmoving and unspeaking on Hem's shoulder. He was still trembling, though Hem thought that he trembled with delight, not with fear. "But how did you know I'd come back?" said Hem boldly. "I might have been killed."
You were not killed. You are here,
said Nyanar.
I said to remember what is written on the winds of time... Although you are right: time has infinite forkings, and none can truly foretell what is to come. There are many futures and many pasts, and your present is but a tiny fulcrum, changing all of them... And do you bring something back from the Poisoned hands?
Hem stared in surprise, and stammered. "Yes," he said. "Yes, I did... was that foretold as well?" He fumbled with the chain around his neck, brought out the little brass tuning fork that Ire had stolen from the Iron Tower, and held it up. It twirled on its chain, catching the light on its dull surface.
As he did so, a curious expression crossed Nyanar's face: part fear, part disgust, part longing, part anguish. He shut his eyes, as if mastering himself, and then opened them again.
You have the Song,
he said at last.
Hem's mouth dropped open.
"I
have – what?"
The Song that was stolen. My song.
Impulsively Hem held out the brass trinket to Nyanar. "If it's yours," he said, "then you must take it."
The Elidhu flinched back, as if Hem had thrust a burning brand into his face.
Nay,
he said fiercely.
I will not touch that thing. It is an abomination.
Hem looked at the little tuning fork, dangling harmlessly from the steel chain, and then back toward the Elidhu. He opened his mouth to say something, and then couldn't think of anything to say and shut it again.
An abomination,
said the Elidhu again.
A broken thing, twisted to bad ends.
"What do you mean?" asked Hem, completely baffled.
I know what those things are that are cut into the metal. Do you not feel the anguish within them?
Hem stared again at the tuning fork, realizing that Nyanar meant the engraved runes. His heart started to hammer painfully. He thought he did know, in a shadowy, uncertain sense, what Nyanar meant; there was a power in those runes, and now that he looked closely, it tasted of wrongness...
Then the music sounded in his mind again, but stronger than before, almost as overwhelming as it had been in Nal-AkBurat, when Nyanar, the tree man, had bent over and breathed it into him. Hem shut his eyes, feeling the wave of it sweep him up. But this time there were words in the music; and Hem did not become part of it, but listened outside it, in some still space, with his whole being, and he felt as if the words the Elidhu sang were engraved on his heart:
I am the song of seven branches
I am the gathering sea foam and the waters beneath it
I am the wind and what is borne by the wind
I am the speech of salmon in the icy pool
I am the blood that swells the leafless branch
I am the hunter's voice that roars through the valley
I am the valor of the desperate roe
I am the honey stored in the rotting hive
I am the sad waves breaking endlessly
The seed of woe sleeps in my darkness and the seed of gladness
The music stopped, its last note ebbing in Hem's blood. There was, for a heartbeat or for an eon, Hem couldn't tell, complete silence: he could hear nothing at all, not even the wind, or the tiny sounds of his own body.
The Song was made into marks,
said the Elidhu bitterly.
And those marks devoured it and broke its meanings, so that nothing about it is whole. And since then the Elidhu also are broken...
Hem's hand dropped. The tuning fork suddenly felt very heavy, almost too heavy to hold. It took all his strength and both hands to lift it again. And he saw then that the tiny engraved runes were glowing, as if they were molten metal. He blinked and stared, fascinated.
He could read the runes. Suddenly they seemed as clear to him as Bardic script. Clearer, even; he still struggled with Bardic writing.
Do you understand?
said the Elidhu softly.
"I can – I can read the runes," Hem answered shakily.
Read them. Speak them to me.
Slowly, but without hesitating, his voice strengthening as he spoke, Hem read the runes on the fork.
"I am the song of seven branches.
Birt, the birch, which is winter. Lran, winter also, of the rowan. Nerim, the ash, who is spring. Summer, which is Coll, the hazel. The autumn briar, Ku. Muin the vine, autumn also, and Gordh, autumn ivy. Phia, the beech, and Ngierab, the reed, both for winter. And last, Midwinter Day, the elder, who is Raunar.
The seed of woe sleeps in my darkness and the seed of gladness."
As he read each rune, the fire inside it died back to dull metal. After he finished speaking, Hem saw that the runes had become inscrutable squiggles, without the meanings they had held as he had read them, and the tuning fork seemed once again an insignificant brass trinket, hanging lightly from his hand.
"The seed of woe sleeps in my darkness and the seed of gladness,"
Hem repeated. The Raunar stanza seemed to echo everything he had been thinking that day. He looked up at the Elidhu, dazed with wonder, but Nyanar's face was averted, and the ripples of light that laved his skin were dim and blue. At last the Elidhu stirred, and gazed at Hem.
Do you remember the marks?
he said. His voice was harsh, and Hem saw a terrible pain in his eyes.
Songboy, inscribe this on your soul The song belongs to the marks; each mark a line. Remember.
Hem knew he would not forget the meanings, nor the song that the Elidhu had interleaved with his music. He swallowed and nodded, trying to meet the urgency in Nyanar's voice. "Yes, I'll remember. I can't forget..."
Remember,
said Nyanar.
And then, without any warning, he was gone. Ire flapped up into the air with a cry of loss.
Released from Nyanar's presence, Hem stumbled and would have fallen if Saliman had not caught his arm.
"Are you all right?"
Hem straightened up. "I need to just... sit down for a while," he said. His legs were trembling.
They sat down on the grass where they were, and Saliman pulled some medhyl from his pack and handed it to Hem. He seemed oddly shy; he did not look at Hem as he did so. Hem sipped the liquor gratefully, and a little strength began to return to his legs.
Saliman did not ask any questions, but sat patiently, pulling idly at a tuft of grass and twirling it around his fingers. After a long silence, haltingly, Hem tried to explain to him what had just happened.
"You heard what Nyanar said," he began.
"Yes, I heard it," said Saliman gravely. For the first time since the Elidhu had vanished, he met Hem's eye. "But Hem, I did not understand a word. It is a great wonder to me to see an Elidhu with my own eyes. But I am not sure that it is not a greater wonder, to see you speaking to an Elemental in his own language."
Hem stared at Saliman, not understanding.
"Hem, it was not the Speech that you were using then. Nor Annaren, nor Suderain, nor any tongue that I know. It seems the Elemental speech is within you, as the Speech is inborn in Bards, unless you speak it from some enchantment that the Elidhu brings with him." Saliman smiled, but it was a very sad smile. "It should not be so surprising. Maerad too has the Elemental tongue."
Hem cleared his throat, embarrassed. He didn't like the way Saliman looked at him. His glance was gentle, but tinged with something like awe or fear, and it made Hem feel estranged from him. He felt a great loneliness sweep over him. He had gone beyond Bardic knowledge, and Saliman could not follow him there. Hem shook his head, trying to clear it, and cast about for something to break the odd mood.
"Well, I think you were right in what you said yesterday," he said at last. "Nyanar said the Song was on this tuning fork. He must mean the Treesong. And now I know what the runes mean."
Saliman lifted his eyebrows with astonishment, and Hem repeated the stanzas that the Elidhu had sung, and then explained the runes. Saliman listened, his brows drawn with concentration. When Hem finished, he looked at him with wonder; but he was smiling, and Hem saw with relief that the brief feeling of estrangement had passed.
"I said, back in Nal-Ak-Burat, that we were not alone, and that that was a basis for hope," he said.
"I
did not realize how right I was. This matters, Hem. It is a turning point in this war with the Nameless One. I just wish we knew what to do with it."
"Me too," said Hem, a little forlornly.
"One thing," Saliman said, frowning again with thought.
"Some runes are missing. Four for winter, but only one each for spring and summer. One for Midwinter Day, but none for Midsummer..."
"The others must be on Maerad's lyre," said Hem. "Like you said."
"Aye," said Saliman. "I think it must be so. And now we must search all Edil-Amarandh to find her." He stared gloomily down at the ground. "I knew we had to find her," he said, "But I didn't know why. Knowing is like that. And now that I know why, I have no idea where to begin looking. Or what we will do, when we do find her."
A silence fell between the two, but this time it was the comfortable silence of friendship. Hem gazed over the empty lands of the Nazar Plains without really seeing anything. Ire had flown down to the thicket where they had first seen Nyanar, and perched in a tree. He was scarcely visible against the tangled branches. It would be dark soon.
"The Nameless One must have stolen the Treesong from the Elidhu," Hem said. "But when I tried to give it back to Nyanar, he wouldn't take it. He wouldn't even touch it."
"Perhaps he couldn't take it, as it is," said Saliman. "Some great sorcery was needed to harness the Treesong, to make these runes. Somehow they must contain the power of the Elidhu's Song. No doubt that's what Nyanar meant by unchaining the Song."
"He said the Song was broken," said Hem thoughtfully.
Saliman looked searchingly into Hem's face. "Are you a little recovered, Hem? Because we must leave here. It will be twilight soon."
They stood up, brushing themselves down, and Ire swooped back onto Hem's shoulders and pecked his ear.
He is beautiful,
said the crow. He sounded elated. Hem knew Ire was speaking of Nyanar.
Yes,
he said slowly.
He stroked Ire's neck, suddenly conscious that the crow was a wild creature. He had known that, of course, but he had never really thought about what it meant.
But he is sad,
said Ire.
So sad. I am happy to have seen him, but he is so sad.
Ire launched himself off Hem's shoulder and soared high into the air until he was just a dark fleck against the gathering clouds, gliding and diving and tumbling in ecstatic arcs of flight.
Hem watched Ire for a long time, caught up by the sheer joy of his play. In those boundless realms of air, Ire was utterly free; and against the mountains of cloud he was so small, a fragile being of feathers and muscles and light bones, held together by... what? What was that spark that was Ire, his wild and crafty friend? Why did he love Hem? Because it seemed miraculous that this living creature should give Hem his loyalty and his friendship, even in the face of death.
Hem's heart constricted with a sudden sweet anguish. It seemed impossible, and yet it was so. And Saliman, too, and Maerad, and Zelika, who had loved him also. Even her death did not change that. They were no less wild and no less free than Ire, and yet they chose to love him. Hem, who scarcely deserved such riches, who stumbled blindly on these paths and yet found himself loving them back, despite all the terrible darknesses in his being.
At last Hem stirred, and turned to Saliman. The Bard stood unspeaking beside him, a smile of unconscious pleasure quirking the edges of his mouth as he watched the crow dancing in the darkening sky. As he met Hem's eyes, Saliman's smile widened and a spark of pure delight flashed between them.
"Well, we'd better leave," Hem said, smiling back. "We have a long way to go."
Here Ends The Third Book of Pellinor
A
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