Read Songs of the Earth Online
Authors: Elspeth,Cooper
‘What do you mean?’
‘Your little chickadee. She laid siege to the infirmary for two whole days until Alderan shooed her away.’
Chickadee?
‘Two days? Is that how long I’ve been here?’ A tiny bird of panic fluttered in Gair’s chest.
Pray Goddess it won’t be too late
.
‘A mite longer than that, but it’s not important. What matters is that you’re on the mend and—’
‘It
is
important – how long, Saaron? What happened to me up on the tower?’
Saaron scuffed his fingers through his hair. ‘Near as we can tell, you shape-shifted and flew out over the harbour, towards the Five Sisters. K’shaa, Shipmaster of the
Morning Star
, remembers seeing you. Somewhere over the Five Sisters, you ran into Savin.’
The name chimed in Gair’s head. Lightnings flared in the storm behind his eyes.
Saaron paused. ‘You recognise that name.’
‘Yes. What happened next?’
‘He half-killed you looking for something he thought you knew.
You were able to tell us that much. How you made it back here no one knows. Alderan brought you down from the tower more dead than alive and you’ve been here ever since.’
‘How long?’
‘A few days, that’s all. Gair, it doesn’t matter.’
‘Don’t flannel me, Saaron,
how long
?’
I have to know how much time I’ve lost
.
Saaron’s lips clamped into a disapproving line, but after a moment he relented. ‘Six days.’
Gair swore. Six days was too many. Pushing back the covers, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed.
‘You’re not strong enough to be up, not yet.’ Saaron took his arm, but Gair shoved him back.
‘I have to find it,’ he said. ‘Damn it, Saaron, let me up.’
‘Sit still a minute!’ the Healer snapped. ‘Find what? What are you talking about?’
‘Savin is coming here,’ Gair told him, struggling to his feet. ‘He’s looking for the key.’
‘What? What key?’
‘I remember it. He’s coming here.’ His knees buckled. He clutched at the night-table for support and the pottery beaker fell to the floor, where it broke into shards.
Too long, damn it. Far too long. Six days! I have to find it
.
But Saaron was shouting at the door, and green mantles swarmed in and surrounded him. Two burly adepts pushed him gently back onto the bed and held him down. Goddess, his neck burned. He couldn’t move, couldn’t throw them off. Didn’t they realise what was happening?
‘The shield must have weakened,’ said Saaron as Tanith bent over, her hands either side of Gair’s head. ‘He insisted Savin was coming here, and that he had to find it, whatever
it
is. Something about a key.’
‘Tanith, let me go.’
She frowned, and paused in calling the Song. ‘He shouldn’t be remembering anything yet. It’s far too soon.’
‘No, it’s too late. Please, listen to me!’
Then Gair sank down into blackness.
The maze had changed its shape. He was convinced of it. He had taken this turning before – his footprints were still clearly visible in the dusty earth – but now it led to a dead end. Impenetrable green thorn hedge grew across his path, taller than he was, joined seamlessly to the hedges on either side. Swearing in frustration, Gair turned round.
The path behind him ran arrow-straight into the distance between the hedges. He hadn’t walked that far, only twenty or thirty paces. So the maze was changing behind him as well. Goddess, how long had he been here? No shadows lay on the pale, sandy soil underfoot to indicate the time of day, and when he looked up he could not see the sun, just green hedges and cloudless, summer-bleached sky. All he could do was keep walking until he found his way out.
At first he had tried to memorise the turns he had taken so that he could work his way back if one path proved false, but there was no point once he knew the maze changed behind him as well. He would never find the square where he’d started.
There had been a marble statue in the middle, a wood-nymph playing the flute, about three feet tall. Her pedestal was almost obscured by a climbing dog-rose. He wanted to find his way back to it because there had been another exit on the far side that he wanted to try. This one was leading him round in circles.
Gair turned left, then left again, and the path doubled back on itself to the right. He followed it round through five complete right-angled turns, then stopped. He should have crossed his own path by now, but he had seen no intersections, only parallel hedges eight feet tall, ahead and behind, with a dusty earthen path in
between. He about-faced and went back the way he had come. The path turned to the right again, three times, then left into a small open square, about five yards across. In the centre stood a statue on a marble pedestal.
He walked up to it, not quite believing what he was seeing. It was a wood-nymph, playing a flute, but the dog-rose around her pedestal had withered. Dark green ivy scrambled through the desiccated stems to coil around the nymph’s ankles. She stared down at her feet, eyes and mouth wide with horror.
Quickly, he scanned the hedges opposite for the other exit. There was only one break in the hedge, where he had entered. He hurried out and found a short path that met another at right angles. Which way to go, left or right? Footprints marked the pale dust in both directions; no help there. He chose left and followed it through two left turns, and came back to the square with the statue. The ivy had reached the nymph’s knees and her hands clutched at her face. Gair jogged back to the intersection and turned right. The path led straight on as far as he could see. He shaded his eyes against the glare of the invisible sun, but saw no sign of any turning or side-path. He began walking, counting off his paces. One hundred. Two hundred. Two hundred and fifty. Green thorn hedges, eight feet high, endlessly converged ahead. Gair turned around, and there was the square behind him.
He swore. The wood-nymph’s face was turned towards him and she was screaming. Her arms were pinned at her sides by the thickening coils of ivy, her waist and lower body completely obscured by dark, leathery leaves. He looked back over his shoulder; the long straight path now ended abruptly in a right turn, not twenty yards ahead. He turned and began to run.
It didn’t matter which way he turned now, left or right, he did not care. He simply ran. Occasionally he stumbled and crashed into the hedges. Green thorns snagged his clothes and raked his skin, drawing blood. Cloudless, perpetual noon beat down, hammering sweat from his chest and back. He ran until his lungs burned, then
kept on running. He had to find a way out of this place before the wood-nymph was strangled.
Shadowless paths stretched on and on, criss-crossing, doubling back. Turn after turn was taken or missed. The heat tightened its grip until his head pounded and his vision blurred. There had to be a way out. The labyrinth couldn’t go on for ever.
His feet tangled with each other and sent him sprawling into the dust. The ground smashed the wind from him; he sucked in a breath and inhaled a lungful of dust that set him coughing. Saints, he had to get out of this place. He rolled onto his back, panting, and tried to summon the energy to stand up.
Move onto his knees first. One foot under him, push himself up. His legs wobbled like a newborn colt’s, almost pitching him into the nearest hedge. He straightened up and looked around him. He stood at the entrance to an open square, about five yards across, containing only a mound of ivy in the centre. Whatever it was growing over was obscured, apart from a sliver of white at the very top. Gair stumbled towards it. The white sliver was a small arm, a woman’s, slender and smooth, straining up towards the sky. A single strand of ivy wound up from her elbow, unfurling its dark leaves against her marble flesh. He was too late.
He fell back to his knees. All that running, and he was still too late. A sob shuddered its way out of him, then another, for the nymph under the ivy, for the drumming pain in his head, for his inability to find his way out.
He had failed.
Gair stared at the nymph’s arm, her fingers spread in supplication. The ivy was young, the stems slender. Perhaps she could still be saved, if he could reach her. He grabbed hold of a handful of ivy and tugged. A few clinging rootlets peeled back, leaving feathery patterns on the nymph’s pale form, then his hands slipped. Dark leaves showered the pale ground, but the stems did not break. Gair redoubled his efforts, jerking and tearing at the ivy until his fingers were sap-blackened and bleeding, but it was to no avail.
‘No,’ he whispered. His fists clenched. He couldn’t let her suffocate. ‘No!’
Cursing, he reached down inside himself for the music of fire.
Power burst forth. It spilled into his soul, boiling, rising until it filled every crevice of his being. It scoured at the guilt, raced along his veins, seared his skin. He released it, and the statue blazed.
Ivy leaves crisped in the heat, showering the earth in a parody of autumn. Stems split, sap bubbled in the cracks, and roiling, stinking smoke filled the air. Thorn hedges ignited with a rushing roar, and he lashed the flames hotter still.
Between one heartbeat and the next, the fire was gone. A carpet of cinders surrounded the statue’s plinth, puffing ashes into the air under Gair’s boots as crossed it. The stone was grey with soot, but not a shred of ivy remained save for a few twists of charcoal on the ground. The nymph’s head was down, her arms hanging at her sides. Dishevelled hair covered her face, laced with tattered roses. He reached out to touch her and she crumbled into ash.
‘NO!’
Gair fell to his knees. The marble pedestal shattered under his hands and he sprawled on his side. He was still too late to save her, and to save himself.
Smoke swirled. A thin beam of sunlight slipped through, then another and another, until there were five in all, touching the blasted earth like the fingers of the Goddess Herself. They fell warm on his face, soothing his sunburned skin. In the sky above him, a smear of green and gold and red resolved into the face of an angel, surrounded by a brilliant light that flickered with ethereal wings. The angel smiled and reached down a hand to lift him into the light.
‘It’s all right, Gair.’
His eyes flew open. His chest heaved, fighting to draw a breath from the air that scorched his lungs—
‘It’s all right,’ Tanith said again, soothingly, ‘there’s no fire here.’
Gair stared around wildly. The room was dark apart from a candle on the table that silhouetted Tanith’s head as she bent over him. She had her hands on his shoulders, holding him back against the pillows. The tangled sheet clung to him with sweat, and his lungs were filled with the dry tang of smoke.
‘I thought you were an angel.’ His throat was sore.
She smiled, stroking back his hair. ‘You were dreaming.’
‘I was caught in a maze,’ he said. ‘There was a statue …’ The dream crumbled like old parchment, the fragments dissolving faster the harder he tried to hold on to them. He looked at his hands, expecting to see something he couldn’t name.
‘Saaron should have warned you there would be some strange dreams,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry. That’s all they are.’
‘What time is it?’ he asked.
‘Late,’ she said. Her arms were bare, he noticed, and her nightshift was visible under her Healer’s mantle.
‘What are you doing here in the middle of the night?’
‘The duty Healer was worried about you, so he woke me,’ she told him. ‘I’ve been sleeping in one of the spare rooms here – the dreams were very bad when you first came back. Saaron thought it would be best if I stayed close at hand.’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Just as well. You endured a terrible ordeal.’
‘Will I ever remember? I don’t like this cloud in here.’ He gestured at his head.
‘The shield in your mind is to prevent you remembering too much too quickly. Try not to fight it.’ She poured him a cup of water and pushed it into his hand. ‘Drink this. You’re dehydrated. Then tell me what you told Saaron, about Savin.’
As Gair drank he tried to recall what he had said. The exact words would not come, but he remembered the feeling of urgency, of time slipping away from him.
‘Savin is coming here to look for what he couldn’t find in my head, some kind of a key. I don’t know when, or how I know,
exactly, but when I heard his name I suddenly felt as if we were in a race, that I had to find out what he wanted before he got to it. I don’t know what it means.’