Three uneventful days of riding and they came again to the Usk, which met and mingled with the Cirion and thereafter leaped down strongly between rocky banks, breaking into frequent rapids that roared unseen beside them. The path still continued vertiginously between the trees, but the going was a little slower. If it had not been for Maerad's abiding anxiety, the ride would have been peaceful, so removed did they feel from human affairs of any kind. They saw no sign of bird spiders or wild cats or goromants, and they heard nothing at night save frogs and crickets and the rustles of small animals. The forest seemed deserted and shabby, even a little forlorn; the trees were thickly overgrown with moss and creepers that dangled shaggily from the branches, further obscuring the light. Even sound was muffled: their hoofbeats fell dully on a bed of dead leaves, and their voices seemed to die on the damp air. They moved through the trees like ghosts.
Maerad looked somberly at the river running beside them. "When do you think we'll get out of these woods?" she asked.
"I think maybe a couple of days," said Cadvan. "It seems to me the forest is thinning a little."
Maerad brightened at the news; the endless trees were beginning to oppress her. And as Cadvan had guessed, late on the fifth day after they had parted from Imunt and Penar, having encountered nothing more sinister than wood spiders, they emerged from the western edge of the Cilicader.
The forest ended messily, gradually thinning out until the trees vanished altogether. Maerad and Cadvan looked over wide plains that fell away from them to the horizon, pocked by frequent dips and hollows and by outcrops of rocks that now and again gathered into huge tors that cast long shadows toward them. The sky seemed huge. Drifts of rose-and-purple clouds hung lazily over the horizon and veiled the westering sun, which sent down great shafts of light that spilled red on the travelers' faces. The Usk still ran to their left, tumbling between broken piles of granite, which looked as if they had been tossed there long ago by giants, blotched with livid lichens and cushions of moss. They saw no sign of habitation. It was, in its own way, a country as lonely and empty as that they had left, and Maerad felt suddenly vulnerable, exposed by the light and space.
"Every time I'm in a forest," she said to Cadvan, drawing to a halt beside him, "I can't wait to get out. And then once I'm out, all I want to do is get back in! I feel like everything is watching me." She squinted at the sky. "Even the clouds."
"We've reached the Valverras Waste," Cadvan said. "It does feel like that here. They tell strange tales of this place."
Maerad stared at the desolate landscape and shuddered. "Don't tell them to me," she said. "I'm sure they're horrible."
The Valverras, Cadvan said, was a desert place that stretched between the forest and the coast, falling to a maze of fens and marshes nearer the sea. It divided that part of north Annar. If they now went farther north about a hundred leagues, they would strike the Lir River, about which clustered the hamlets and towns of Lirhan. Closer south ran the Aldern River, which was also thickly inhabited. Norloch was almost due south, about eighty leagues distant as the crow flew. The Kingdom of Ileadh, Dernhil's birthplace, was almost directly ahead of them, a broad peninsula to the west; slightly to the north of that was Culain.
"If we were not so urgently bound, it would be pleasant to visit the Schools there," said Cadvan, as they sat astride their horses looking over the waste. "Culor in Culain and Gent in Ileadh are beautiful in the way Innail is, and noble centers of the Light, but different each from the other, as all Schools are; I think you'd like them. Then we could take a little boat from Gent and journey to the Isle of Thorold; there we could visit the silk markets of Busk, and walk through the pine forests on the mountains—which are like no other place—and taste their freedom and silence. And after that, perhaps, we could beg a ride on one of the noble ships of Annar and sail to Mithrad Bay, arriving at dawn so you could see from the harbor the rising sun strike the white towers of Norloch. It is one of the greatest sights of Annar, and no matter how many times
I see it, I always catch my breath. Norloch leaps up from the sheer cliffs, wall upon narrowing wall, until at last the high tower of Machelinor rises tallest of all, the Tower of the Living Flame. Its tip is as graceful as the summit of a fair tree and is roofed with gold and crystal, so the sun catches there like a pure fire."
He sat silent for a time, and Maerad looked across at him. Cadvan's eyes were distant, as if he saw far visions.
"And what then?" she asked.
"What then?" He turned to her and smiled, and he was suddenly present again. "First we must do what we must do in Norloch. That is our quest. If the doom of Annar and the Seven Kingdoms hangs in the balance, the fulcrum, I believe, is you; but until you are instated as a full Bard, we cannot know for sure. And how to instate you? That is the first step, the first puzzle. Who knows what will happen then?"
Who indeed? Maerad thought to herself. And what if she wasn't who Cadvan believed her to be? Was that the end of her tutelage? What would she do then? But Cadvan continued to speak.
"Perhaps, if fate was kind to us, we could afterward travel to Lanorial by pleasant and leisurely roads, and I could show you the gardens of Il Arunedh, which are planted on terraces so they cascade down the mountainside in great swaths of color. They are one of the marvels of the world. In spring the perfume is as heady as wine." He sighed. "I have many friends in these places whom I have too long neglected. Always I have been driven hither and thither and must go forth along dark roads, instead of lingering in the fair places of the world."
There was a yearning in his voice that Maerad hadn't heard before, and she made no answer; she wondered, with an unexpected pang of jealousy, who it was he so missed. They stood silent for a while, letting the horses crop grass, and Cadvan sighed again. "But I think we will not travel there, unless all foresight fails me," he said, a little harshly. "Our paths are more perilous. Perhaps in some far morning yet unseen beyond the shadows of the world, we will ride there and wander the perfumed gardens of Manuneril and Har. Well," he said, gathering up his reins, "we should find a place to spend the night. Tomorrow we'll ponder the riddle of crossing the Usk. There is a Bard Road forty or so leagues hence, where there is a ford; it skirts the marsh and then forks to Lirigon on the one side and Culor the other, and southward goes straight to Norloch. But it would irk me to go so far out of our way, and I would rather avoid roads, if we can."
The following day they followed the Usk westward, searching for a place where they might cross. It ran too fast and deep to risk swimming the horses; in some places the banks were too steep to even consider going down to the water. Maerad found the Valverras hard going: dreary, empty, and dispiriting. She couldn't shake off the sense of watchfulness, although neither she nor Cadvan saw any sign of living things, save the kestrels that soared high above them and the rabbits that startled and thumped into the distance.
Halfway through the morning, Imi picked up a stone in her hoof and started limping. Maerad swore and dismounted, picking up the mare's foot to inspect it. She picked out the stone with her little dagger, but Imi's foot was bruised; she continued to limp, and Maerad was loath to push her in case it became worse. When they came to a place where the banks shelved more gently, they stopped for lunch. Cadvan tended Imi's hoof, easing the pain, and afterward Maerad bathed the mare's legs in the running water. Even so, she still walked with a limp, and Maerad began to worry she had hurt herself badly. A lame horse would slow them down seriously, and they had already lost more than three weeks in the Great Forest. Maerad's sense of urgency was, if anything, greater than Cadvan's; she chafed at any delay, fuming with impatience, while Cadvan accepted the trials of their road with imperturbable calm. Cadvan's serenity only increased Maerad's impatience. Then, late in the afternoon, it began to drizzle, and they traveled only a little farther before the light became too bad to see. They made camp in the shelter of a granite tumulus, still on the wrong side of the Usk, and by then Maerad was smoldering with suppressed bad temper.
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"How long are we going to be scrabbling around like dogs in the wild?" she grumbled, dishing out a barley stew. "I've had enough of it. And Imi's had enough of it. She needs a rest."
"Until we reach the end of it," said Cadvan. "Which shouldn't be that long, all being well." He stretched out his long legs, regarding Maerad with tolerant amusement. "We've done very well to cross the Great Forest with no injury. Nevertheless, the wilds pall, I agree."
"Pall is not the word," answered Maerad. "I wish I'd stayed in Rachida. It's not as if there's any home for me to go to, anyway. I might as well have stayed there."
"No, we can only go forward now." Cadvan leaned forward and looked at Maerad intently. "You know we must go to Norloch."
"I don't want to," said Maerad sulkily. "I don't want to go anywhere."
"You've had choices," Cadvan answered mildly. "If you had wished to stay in Innail, or in Rachida, I would not have stopped you. I couldn't have stopped you. You listened to your inner voice as much as I did. You knew that your fate, the fate of many others, was at stake. Think of your dream. Or have you forgotten all that?"
"Some choice." Maerad was picking irritably at tufts of grass and throwing them on the ground, her eyebrows drawn down in a straight, angry line.
"You know it's the truth."
"What difference, being a pawn for the Light or a pawn for the Dark?"
There was a short silence.
"There is a great difference," said Cadvan softly. "One difference is that for the Dark, certainly, you are a pawn. For the Light, you are a free human being, free to make mistakes, to do wrong, even. You are free to choose, whether or not you believe it."
"Funny idea of freedom."
"It is the difference between commitment and slavery," Cadvan said. "Between working for what you hope for and believe in the depths of your heart, and what someone else forces you to do."
Maerad, who had been a slave and knew that her present life, however difficult, was very different, had nothing to say to that. She didn't know why she was trying to pick a fight with Cadvan, but he refused to get angry with her and after a while fell silent and stared into the fire. She sat glowering just out of its circle of light, kicking a bit of turf with her toe; and then, because it was Cadvan's turn to watch, curled up in her blanket and, surprisingly rapidly, went to sleep.
The next day was equally fruitless, although the weather began to clear and at last some sunshine warmed them. Imi's limp was not so serious, but they went anxiously for fear they would delay its healing. After a while Maerad forgot her black mood in the rhythm of the riding, but the feeling of being watched never left her. She didn't mention it to Cadvan, but she often felt a prickling on the back of her neck, as if there was a presence behind her, and she would turn sharply, only to find nothing there. She began to feel that the stones were playing tricks, transforming into rocky monsters that stalked her, only to instantly turn back into innocent boulders whenever she looked back. They didn't ford the Usk until the third day, and then at last they turned their faces south.
Thus began days of toiling through the Valverras. Cadvan guided them by the sun and the stars, and they watched the moon growing thinner until it waned to a nail paring and disappeared, and then witnessed its gradual return. The weather continued to get warmer, although there were days when it was overcast and their journey was made more unpleasant by brief bursts of rain. Each day Imi was less lame, but it made their progress no faster. They could travel at the most ten miles in a day, and it was more than thirty leagues before they struck the Aldern River. The land prohibited swift movement; the ground was uneven and strewn with small rocks, and treacherous with holes that might turn a horse's leg or even break it, if they went carelessly. The turf was poor, thick with burrs and small thistles, and everywhere grew a creeping plant with small grayish leaves that stank like old fish. If they stepped on it the smell rose up and clogged their throats, and if they camped over it they couldn't get the stench out of their clothes. Frequently there were small dips or hollows, in which gathered brackish water and swampy plants, and in these sheltered places they camped at nightfall. Sometimes at night, Maerad saw strange lights in the distance, fey blue wisps that shimmered and vanished, only to tauntingly reappear a short distance from where they had been.
"Marsh lights," Cadvan told her. "Take no notice. And never follow them!"
"Why?" she asked curiously, as they watched them. They were strangely hypnotic.
"They'll lead you into a bog. Or worse. There are old mounds here, graves of ancient peoples, and not all of them are empty."
The Valverras eroded the soul in a different way from the Hutmoors, Maerad thought. The Hutmoors were haunted by despair, an endless lamentation. The Valverras felt strangely hostile, and although she never saw anything sinister, the farther they traveled, the jumpier she felt. She began to get a sore neck from constantly looking over her shoulder.
Cadvan resumed Maerad's lessons, as much to distract them as for any other reason, although they did not take out their instruments; the watching silence of the heaths around them seemed to forbid music. Cadvan also began to train her in swordcraft. Maerad found him a less harsh teacher than Indik. He told her she was an apt pupil; her reflexes were swift, and her accuracy and skill grew with her confidence, so that one day, to his delight, she disarmed him.
"You're no elegant fighter, but you're fast, and very strong for your size," said Cadvan, breathing heavily and picking up his sword. "In a pinch you'd have a chance. Perhaps more than a chance. The thing is not to overestimate what you can manage."
"And not to be afraid of running away," said Maerad, smiling.
"It is always smarter not to have to fight at all," Cadvan said. "But if you must fight, you must know how to defend yourself. You'll be a warrior yet! Now, let's start again."
They had traveled in this way for about a week when one day they saw a thin line of smoke rising on the horizon far in front of them. It puzzled Cadvan.
"Unless I am very much off in my reckoning, we are still at least two days from the Aldern," he said. "I know of no settlements this side of the river, and it's not yet dry enough for wildfire, which sometimes sweeps these parts."
"Perhaps others travel in the waste, like us," said Maerad.
"Perhaps," said Cadvan. He altered their course slightly east, and that night they lit no fire and kept more careful watch. The next day they saw the smoke again briefly at lunchtime, a little closer, and as dusk began to descend it rose again to their right, perhaps three miles away.
"Whoever they are, they're not hiding," said Maerad.
"Anyone who is in this waste is hiding," Cadvan replied. "Why else are we here? No doubt they think there is no one to see them."
That night they camped in a deep hollow, in the shelter of two huge rocks that leaned together at a rough angle, making a natural roof. Maerad was on the first watch and sat at the edge of the dell, looking out over the silent hills and the stars burning over them. She was very tired, but she was well used to fighting her weariness, and to pass the time sent her mind out over the wastes, wondering if she could hear anything of the other fugitives in the Valverras. She heard nothing. Over everything was a huge silence, save for the wind stirring the grass stems and whining over the stones, but an undefinable sense of dread began to plague her. She shifted on the hard ground; it was becoming very cold, and the dew was falling, and her legs cramped with stiffness.
Three hours after sundown the half-moon rose and cast a chilly light over the landscape. Maerad was thinking that it was time to wake Cadvan, when she heard something. Immediately she sharpened her mind and sent it out to follow the noise; it was barely distinguishable from the wind, but she thought she heard the sound of men shouting, and perhaps a child crying. It grew louder, and she listened, unable to move, her hair bristling on her skin. Then she heard screaming—a woman's scream, she thought—and the faint clash of metal, and more shouts.
Quite suddenly, Maerad had
an overpowering sensation of suffocation, as if she were enclosed in a very small space like a coffin, and her sight went dark. An unreasoning terror possessed her, as if her life were directly threatened, now, by something malign that sought her, which was a mere arm's length away.. . . And behind the terror there was another feeling, much harder to define, a mixture of despair and longing and intense tenderness, which seemed to well up from the deepest levels of her memory.
The scream grew higher and higher and then stopped, and there was nothing more. Maerad found she was cowering against the ground, her hands over her eyes, her heart pounding. She sat up, breathing hard to regain her composure. Gradually her sight came back, and she found she was staring at the hard, bright stars over the empty, broken landscape. She listened, frightened, for some minutes, straining for any sound that might tell her what had happened, but the silence seemed if anything deeper than before.
She woke Cadvan and told him what she had heard. Immediately he put his ear to the ground. He lay there so long she thought he had fallen asleep again; but at last he sat up.
"There are horses," he said. "A number, eight or ten perhaps, maybe five miles away, and they are drawing away from us. They are not in a hurry. I can hear nothing else."
"But what's happened?"
"I don't know," said Cadvan. "We can be sure it is nothing good."
Maerad felt a wave of exhaustion sweep over her and she realized she was shaking. The terror of the scream still echoed in her mind. Cadvan studied her face and said, "Sleep now, Maerad. We can in any case find out nothing until the morning."
She stumbled to the bottom of the hollow and lay down, looking at the roof of stone over her. A little moonlight glimmered grayly on the rocks at the edge of the hollow, but otherwise all was in blackness. After a while she sank into a restless sleep troubled by vague, disquieting dreams.