You had more than fifteen years, Rruk answered.
Yes. I have felt everything. And I survived. I found the ways to survive, Rruk. How long do you think someone as frail and gifted as Fiimma would have lasted out there? Do you think she could survive what I came through?
No.
Now she could. Because now she knows all my ways. She knows how to keep hope alive when everything else is dead. She knows because I taught her, and that's what is coming out in her songs. It's raw and it's harsh but in her it will be beautiful. And do you think it will hurt her songs? They'll be different, but the audiences out there-I know what they want. They want her. As she is now. Far more than they would ever have wanted her before.
You learned to make speeches in Susquehanna, Rruk said. He laughed and turned back toward the door. Someone had to make them.
You're good at it.
Rruk, he said, his back still to her. If it had been anyone but Fiimma. If she had not been such a perfect singer. If she hadn't wanted my voice so much. I would never have broken my oath to you.
Rruk came to him where he stood by the door. She touched his shoulder, and ran her fingers down his back. He turned, and she took his face in her hands, and drew it close, and kissed him on the eyes and on the lips.
All my life, she said, I have loved you.
And she wept.
9
The word spread quickly through the Songhouse, carried by the Deafs. The children were to return to the Common Room and the Stalls, where the Blinds would watch them and take them to meals, if necessary. All 'the teachers and tutors and masters, all the high masters and Songmasters and every seeker who was at home-they were called to the great hall, for the Songmaster of the High Room had to speak to them.
Not sing. Speak.
So they came, worried, wondering silently and. aloud what was going to happen.
Rruk stood before them, controlled again so that none would know that she had lost Control. Behind her on the stone stage sat Ansset, the old man. Ller alone of all the teachers recognized him, and wondered-surely he should have been quietly expelled, not brought before them all lake this. And yet Ller felt a thrill of hope run through him. Perhaps Mikal's Songbird would sing again. It was absurd-he had heard the terrible changes his songs had wrought in Fiimma's voice. But still he hoped. Because he knew Ansset's voice and having heard it could not help but long for it again.
Rruk spoke clearly, but it was speech. She was not trusting this to song.
It was the way of things that made me Songmaster of the High Room, she reminded them. No one thought of me except Onn, who should have held the place. But chance shapes the Songhouse. Years ago the custom was established that in ruling the Songhouse we must trust to chance, to who was and was not fit when the Songmaster of the High Room died. And that chance has put me in this place, where it is my duty to safeguard the Songhouse.
But I am not just meant to safeguard it. The Songhouse walls are not made of rock to make us soft within them. They are made of rock to teach us how to be strong. And sometimes things must change. Sometimes something must happen, even though it can be prevented. Sometimes we must have something new in the Songhouse.
It was then that Ller noticed Fiimma, sitting in a far corner of the great hall, the only student there.
Something new has happened, Rruk said, and she beckoned to the girl who waited, looking terribly afraid, not because she showed fear, but because she showed nothing as she slowly got up and walked to the stage.
Sing, Rruk said.
And Fiimma sang.
And when the song was over, the teachers were overcome. They could not contain themselves. They sang back to her. For instead of a child's song of innocence and simplicity, instead of mere virtuosity, Fiimma sang with depth beyond what most of them had ever felt. She tore from them feelings that they had not known they had. She sang to them as if she were as ancient as the Earth, as if all the pain of millennia of humanity had passed through her, leaving her scarred but whole, leaving her wise but hopeful.
And so they sang back to her what they could not keep within themselves; they sang their exultation, their admiration, their gratitude; most of all, they sang their own hope, rekindled by her song, though they had not known they needed hope; had not known that they had ever despaired.
Finally their own songs ended, and silence fell again. Rruk sent Fiimma back to sit in the corner. The girl stumbled once on her way-she was weak. Ller knew what the song had cost her. Fiimma had obviously figured out that Ansset's fate was somehow in her hands, and she had sung better than she had thought she could, out of her own need for Ansset, out of her own love for the old, old man.
Singers, Rruk said, speaking again, her unsung voice sounding harsh in the silence. It should be clear to you that something has happened to this child. She has experienced something that children in the Songhouse were never meant to experience. But I don't know. If it has hurt her. Or if it has helped her. What was her song? And the thing that changed her, should it be given to us all, and to all the children?
Ller did not speak. He knew the importance of a child finding his own voice. But Fiimma's voice, as she sang, had still been her own. Not the child's voice of a few months before. But not Ansset's voice, either. Still her own; but richer, darker. Not black, however. For as the darkness of her voice had increased with Ansset's teaching, the brightness had also grown brighter.
No one spoke. They were not prepared-either for Fiimma's song or for the dilemma Rruk had given them. They did not know enough. The strangeness of Fiimma's song had obviously come from suffering, but Rruk's voice did not hint of any suffering she planned to cause them. It was plain enough, even though she spoke instead of singing, that she herself favored yet feared the course that she proposed. So they held their silence.
You are not kind, Rruk told them. You are leaving the decision up to me. So that if I decide wrong, it will be entirely my own fault to bear.
It was then that Ller stood and spoke, because he could not leave her alone.
I am Fiimma's teacher, he explained, though everyone knew that already. I should be envious that her song has been changed by someone else. I should be angry that my work with her has been undone. But I am not. Nor would any of you have been. If I came to you and told you that I had a way to double the range of all your children, would you not accept it? If I came to you and told you that I had a way to help your children sing twice as loudly and even softer than they do now, would you not seize the opportunity? You all know that the emotion behind the song is the most important thing. What happened to Fiimma was the increase of the range of her emotions, not just double, but a thousandfold. It changed her songs. I know better than any of you how much it changed them, and not all the changes are happy ones. But is there anything this child is not prepared to sing? Is there anything this child is not prepared to suffer, and endure? I'm aware of the dangers of what Rruk proposes, but those dangers are the price. And the price may bring us power that we have never had before.
By the end of his speech, Ller was singing, and when his song was done there were many low murmurs of approval, though all of them were tinged with fear. It was enough, though. Rruk spread her arms and cried. Thank you for sharing this with me!
Then she sent them to get their children and bring them to the great hall.
10
Ansset sang to them.
At first they could not understand why they had been brought to hear this old man. They had not coveted the sound of his voice as Fiimma had. It was harsh to them. His pitch was untrue. His voice was not strong. His songs were crude and unpolished.