Aisling by Louise Cooper

Author:Louise Cooper [Cooper, Louise]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, General, Fiction
ISBN: 9780812508086
Google: BMxzGwAACAAJ
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Tor Books
Published: 1994-04-06T04:00:00+00:00

So now the long evening and night lay before them. Grimya appeared to be asleep; Niahrin thought she was feigning it because she didn't want to talk, but the witch saw no point in coercing her against her will. She had unpacked the handcart, though she kept it in the room in case Grimya should have need of it, and the few belongings she'd brought with her were now ranged around the room: a change of clothes neatly folded on the oak chest, Cadic's cudgel incongruously propped beside the hearth, and the tapestry...well, that was another matter. The tapestry was inside the chest now, where no casual eye could see it. Niahrin had resisted the temptation to look at it again, aware that its cryptic secrets would not begin to be revealed until the time was right and also aware that that time was not yet. She had brought her pipe, and with the thought of whiling away an hour or two she put it to her lips and started quietly to play.

The light in the room was soft, the fire warm and relaxing, and the last few days had taken their toll of her energy; when she began to feel soporific she didn't fight the lure. It would be pleasant to doze in this comfortable chair with her feet toasting before the hearth. Maybe, half asleep, she'd remember that tune Grimya had taught her; the lullaby...

Her fingers moved slowly, experimentally, on the pipes and she played a new run of notes that weren't a part of the song she was trying to recall but that pleased her. She played them again, then a third time, modulating the melody a little.

Then she saw that the flames in the grate were beginning to sway in time with her playing.

Niahrin's good eye opened wide and she stared into the fire. Her playing hesitated, and the flames seemed to hesitate, too, as though waiting for her to continue. Softly, cautiously, she blew a trill, and the flames shivered again. And Niahrin realized what she had done.

She'd never had the talent, though she knew of it and had seen the magic worked by others. The Islers' word for it was Aisling?a bardic creation, in words or simply in melody, that could, briefly, lift aside the curtain between the daylight world and the elemental worlds of dream and vision. Now, unbidden, Niahrin's pipe had lifted that curtain. Pictures in the fire...she could see them forming, feel them reaching out to her. Faces glimpsed as though through a mist, strangers' faces; and the echoes of voices that her senses told her belonged to other times and other planes. And somewhere a woman was weeping, mourning....

Her fingers trembled, but the music wouldn't be denied. Quivering notes, rising and falling; a sad tune she didn't know, had never heard before, yet which she played as though it was her own. Then, faint and distant as a sum-mer breeze in the forest, Niahrin heard the strains of a harp begin to blend and harmonize with her music.

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