Read Online The Riddle by Alison Croggon - Free Book Online

by the lust for domination cannot understand, because those who love truly do not desire power. Among Bards, it is often known as the Way of the Heart. The Dark understands nothing of this: it is its greatest weakness.”
    Maerad started — this chimed a little too uncomfortably with her thoughts of the earlier night — but Nerili was staring out the window, as if Maerad were not there.
    “Love is never easy,” said Nerili. “We begin by loving the things we can, according to our stature. But it is not long before we find that what we love is other than ourselves, and that our love is no protection against being wounded. Do we then seek to dominate what we love, to make it bend to our will, to stop it from hurting us, even though to do so is to betray love? And that is only where the difficulty begins.”
    She turned to Maerad, smiling a little sadly, but Maerad didn’t respond: she felt too surprised. For a moment she was sure that Nerili was speaking of her own feelings for Cadvan, and that she was aware, too, of the tangle of Maerad’s emotions and sought, obscurely, to comfort her. To her relief, Nerili dropped the subject, and moved on to the more practical aspects of High Magery.
    In these lessons, Maerad began to learn properly how to use her Bardic powers: how to control and shape the Speech, and how to make enchantments and spells. Nerili started with glimmerspells, the least part, she explained, of Bardic magic: a magic of illusion, not of substance. “You can already do glimmerspells, simply by willing them,” Nerili said. “You are aware of that?”
    “Yes,” said Maerad. It was easy to make herself unseen or to change her appearance.
    “There’s more to them, nevertheless, than those instinctive powers. Glimmerspells can be quite useful. Not against Bards, of course; Bard eyes can always see through them. But if we do this”— and Nerili made a strange pass with her hands — “we can persuade Bard eyes to collude with us, though it won’t work against a Bard’s will. Then we can share our imaginations.”
    Suddenly, in the middle of the room, there appeared a silver sapling. As Maerad watched, enchanted, it grew to the height of the ceiling, putting out branches and broad silver leaves. When it was fully grown, there burst out all over it little golden buds, which opened wide to luminous flowers that seemed to be made of pure light. The petals withered and vanished, releasing a delicate fragrance, and where the flowers had been there swelled marvelous fruits: golden apples so bright they threw shadows over the walls. There was a music in the room, the same clear inhuman voices Maerad had heard during her instatement, which seemed to her like the sound of stars singing. She gasped in pure delight.
    “The Tree of Light, as I see it each year at Midsummer,” said Nerili, looking at it with her head cocked to one side. “It is beautiful, yes? Each First Bard sees it in her own way. This is how it appears to me. If ever you do the Rite of Renewal, you will see a different one. But it will be just as beautiful.” She clapped her hands, and the tree vanished. “Now you try.”
    Maerad’s mind went blank. “What?” she asked.
    Nerili shrugged. “Show me something,” she said. “Something you remember. Did you catch the passes?” She showed Maerad the hand gestures again, and Maerad copied them slowly, fixing them in her memory. Into her mind leaped an image of the wight she had destroyed at the Broken Teeth, just before Norloch. She bent her imagination to visualizing it, and Nerili gasped.
    “Not that!” she said quickly. “Not a creature of the Dark. No, show me something else.”
    My memories are full of horror, Maerad thought. I can’t help it. Obediently she pushed the wight out of her mind and cast about for another image. Gradually, shimmering a little, the figure of a woman appeared in the room, facing away from them. She was dressed in white robes, and her long dark hair fell