Moril thought of the cwidder itself. Though Osfameron could use it on things, it seemed that Moril was only going to make it have an effect on people. That was right for music, in a way. You performed, and people listened and were affected by it. So what did you put into a performance to bring out the power?
Moril did not know. He had only the vaguest idea what he had done to make Kialan unconscious. All right, he thought. What didn’t my father do, that he could never use the power more than once? And he thought of Clennen, from day to day, as he had known him, huge, genial, and sociable—and boring Kialan stiff by telling the same story three times over. He thought of the way Clennen had been the Porter, quite openly, enjoying deceiving people by the simple fact that he did it all in public, as obviously as possible. Kialan had been positive that this was what Clennen enjoyed particularly. Then Moril thought of Clennen saying “Remember that” so often—almost as if he hoped one of them might write all his sayings down one day. Perhaps Brid would, Moril thought, smiling a little. Then he remembered a particular saying of Clennen’s, the day they picked Kialan up. Clennen had said the cart was like life. “You may wonder what goes on inside, but what matters is the look of it and the kind of performance we give.” Later on Clennen had asked Dagner about another saying, and Dagner had got this one wrong. “Something about life being only a performance,” Dagner had said.
And that was it, Moril thought. Clennen was all performance. Layers of performance. He was the best singer in Dalemark and he used it to play the Porter, and he was the Porter because he was using his sincere feelings about freedom to play
the singer—to and fro, over and under, Clennen had performed, even to his own family. His whole life had said, “Look at me!” He had known he was a performer, and he had used that knowledge, just as Brid had used her real sorrow to perform with in Neathdale. But he could not use the cwidder. It was not going to say, “Look at me!” It did not work like that.
If you did not say, “Look at me!” what was the right way? With a joyous feeling of being on the right track, Moril thought of Dagner next. Kialan had called what was really Dagner’s performance “a different kind of show.” Moril felt warmly grateful to Kialan. Kialan pointed things out. If only because of this, Kialan deserved to be rescued and taken back to the warm-hearted, cocksure, outspoken North where he belonged.
But Dagner—Dagner had been diffident. He had never said, “Look at me!” because he was shy when people did. What he did was to show people his thoughts—a little—in his songs. “Look here,” he seemed to say. “Excuse me. This is what I think. I hope you like it.” And people did like it—not in the way they appreciated Clennen but as if they had been told something new.
Moril knew he was unable—at least for the present—to make something new, just as he was unable to use his real feelings for show, like Brid. That left the old songs, Moril’s own specialty. Did they help? Yes, they did—thanks to Kialan again. Kialan, just this morning, had sung that song of the Adon’s, and it might have been made about this very cwidder! Unbounded truth! Moril thought, in rising excitement. Not a thing cramped to time and bound in place! Neither was the cwidder when its power was used.
He had it, then. You performed. But you did not say “Look at me!” Nor could you say, like Dagner, “This is what I think.” If Dagner’s diffident way had been right, Clennen would have given the cwidder to Dagner. No. You had to stand up and come straight out with it. “This is true,” you had to say. “This is the truth. And, though I may not get it over very well, it just is.” And it was horribly difficult to do.
Moril blinked a little, nerving himself up. The fourth group of new recruits was shuffling its way through the valley, and Tholian was coming back again. With him were the same hearthmen who had been with him by the lake. They all had the same unpleasant look of purpose, too. When they reached Kialan, Tholian jabbed at him with the toe of his boot. Kialan flopped.
“Bring him round,” he said. “He’s going to write me a letter presently.” Then he looked across at Brid and Moril, and his eyes were like an owl’s caught in a strong light at night. They knew he had no intention of sending them back to Markind.
“Moril,” Brid said humbly, “do you think you can do anything?”
Moril scrambled stiffly to his feet, carefully not bumping the cwidder. “I’m going to try,” he said, and began to play.
He started with a little sequence of chords, repeated over and over, in a rocking rhythm. He had to start slowly, while he found the thought the cwidder would respond to. He was terrified that Tholian would realize what he was trying to do and stop him, but, though all the men round Kialan glanced irritably at Moril, they obviously had no idea that he was doing anything important. Moril’s fear faded. “Not all of you are bad,” he told them through the cwidder. “Some are just afraid, others are not good, and you are doing wrong.” Over and over, he told it.
And to his relief, the cwidder began to hum under his hands. He had got it right. Moril could feel the power gather in it and then, slowly, go humming out over Tholian and his men, right off down the valley, and turn the corner to the part out of sight. The movements of everyone he could see grew slack and a little aimless, and Tholian yawned. Moril thrummed on. He would have rejoiced, except that he knew he was going to have to bring the lowest string in soon, and he was afraid of it. If its power ate into his own head this time, that was the end of his plan. Cautiously he struck it. Sleep, it sang, heavily sweet, off down the valley, following the humming path of the power he had already built up. Sleep. Tholian’s head turned slowly, and he looked at Moril, mistily puzzled. Moril himself was wide awake. He knew it was all right. He had been caught in the power before because he had simply been thinking No, no, no! without meaning anything else. Now he meant Sleep, all you out there.
Tholian seemed to understand what Moril was doing. He came slowly toward Moril, lurching as if he was very tired. “Break that blessed thing!” he said. His voice was slurred, but he was fighting the cwidder’s power for all he was worth.
Quickly Moril passed into a proper tune, a lullaby.
“Go back to the time
When your feelings were blind
When they rocked you and sang
Go to sleep.”
If Moril had thought about it, he would have realized he was in fact making up something new. But he did not notice, because all he wanted to do was to put Tholian to sleep. The lullaby was like a gust of power. It held Tholian to the spot. Tholian knew what was happening, but he was helpless. Moril played the tune again, louder, and took pleasure in holding Tholian in place while the tune swept beyond him, out into the valley.
Tholian rubbed his eyes and tried to take a grip on himself. Beyond him, the men round Kialan yawned and the marching and cursing in the valley faded away. The air was clear for the full force of the song, and Moril gave it to them. Go to sleep. It went down the valley in slow waves, washing first over Tholian, then on and out. Tholian’s eyelids drooped, his knees bent, and he dropped forward onto the trampled ground with his head in his arms. There he made one final movement of resistance and fell asleep. After him, the other people dropped down, too, back and back into the valley. Horses stood still and men keeled over beside them and lay sleeping. Beside Moril, Brid fell sideways and slept curled up as if she was still kneeling. That was a pity, but Moril did not see how he could have excluded her. He played on, sending out wave after wave of sleep-song, until the valley seemed thick with it, and he could almost see it hanging in the air and pulsing gently. Under it every soul was dead to the world.
At last, a little apprehensively, Moril left the cwidder still humming, hoping like that to make the power last, and went through the heavy, silent air to Kialan. He was still tied up. Tholian’s friends had not untied him, though they had been about to. Moril went back through the humming silence and fetched the knife out of Brid’s boot. “Thanks,” he whispered, and he thought Brid stirred a little. With the knife he hacked through rope after tough rope, until Kialan rolled loose on the grass. He was still unconscious.
Moril bent down and shook him. “Kialan!” he said.
Kialan came round as he heard his name. Moril was almost sorry, because Kialan’s face was suddenly full of pain and misery.
“It’s all right,” Moril whispered. “Everyone’s asleep. Quick. I don’t know how long it’ll last.”
Kialan climbed to his feet. He was very stiff and winced with every movement. He stared at Tholian, lying on the earth with his head in his arms, at Brid, and out at the silent, humming valley, full of a sleeping army. “Ye gods!” he said. “Was that the cwidder?”
“Yes,” said Moril. “Quick.” He ran back to Brid and shook her. Brid rolled about, but she did not wake.
Kialan came limping after him. “Suppose you leave her asleep?” he suggested. “Then when she wakes up, you’ll know it’s worn off.”
Moril saw that was an excellent idea. The thing about Kialan, he thought as he raced for the cart, was that he had brains. Olob was dozing, too, which was more serious. Moril snapped his fingers under his nose. “Olob! Barangarolob!” And Olob shook his head and looked at Moril wonderingly. Moril untied Olob and brought him toward Brid at a run, much though Olob objected to going near even sleeping enemies. As he hauled on the bridle, he thought how queer the valley looked with everyone in it lying asleep except for the lonely upright figure of Kialan. He dragged Olob up to Brid and opened the tailgate of the cart to make it easier to get her in. Then he gently put the cwidder back in its rack. It was still vibrating faintly.