The Bone Queen (24 page)

“But I don’t wish to leave,” said the man. “My business is not with the Thane of Lir, my lady. It is with you.”

“How did you even enter here?” said Bashar.

“I have my means,” said Likod. “You Bards do not, after all, know everything, as you so fondly imagine.”

Likod moved his hands so swiftly her eyes couldn’t follow the gesture. An instinct made Bashar recoil as if she were avoiding a striking snake, and then she froze. In that moment, she realized she was bound fast.

Likod studied her, a cold amusement flickering in his eyes. “I can enter the stronghold of your power at my pleasure, and I can hold you here for as long as I desire,” he said. “You have no way to prevent me.”

Bashar struggled fiercely in Likod’s bonds, too angry to be afraid. At last she spoke, but thickly, as if her tongue were made of wood.

“You scum,” she said. “I know who you are.”

Likod shrugged. “So, you can speak.” He snapped his fingers and Bashar’s tongue was locked. “Alas, if only you knew: you are held by the lightest of chains. If I wished, I could tighten them so you could not even breathe, so the very organs of your body would be strangled. I realize you have been taken by surprise, I’ll allow you that, but even had you been wary, you could not resist the power that I have. For I am far beyond the pathetic limits of the Light, my lady. You cowardly Bards, babbling of the Balance, will never understand this. So you must be made to understand…”

He stood up and approached Bashar, taking her face between his hands. She twisted impotently in disgust, and he laughed, and kissed her lightly on the lips. “Never let it be said that I am immune to the beauty of Bards!” he said. “It might be the only reason that they can be tolerated. But even then…” His smile snapped off, and she saw the abyss behind his eyes, the arid emptiness of his ambition. “Even then, that beauty is only the barest of justifications for their delusions…”

Bashar realized then that Likod intended to scry her, and such was her fear and panic that she almost wrenched herself free. There was a flicker of surprise in his eyes. He spoke and a hidden claw within her clutched at her throat and silenced her, a parasite that paralysed her will even as she perceived it with a horror that made her choke. Nothing could now stop him: he would scour her most intimate being, and he would use that power to possess and dominate her mind. The world closed around her until the only thing she saw was Likod’s eyes, which were now lit with a cold flame, a cruel and pitiless power. She heard herself screaming, but she knew she made no sound, and her scream echoed in the caverns of her mind until at last it faded, obliterated by pain.

A short while later, Calis knocked cursorily on Bashar’s door and entered without waiting for a reply.

“Sorry to interrupt, Bashar, but Berhard is asking after the healers,” she said. “I’m just heading to the lakeside with the Makers.”

Bashar turned and contemplated her calmly. “All Bards are to repair to the School,” she said. “It’s only a little rain. The villages can be dealt with later, at our leisure. It is not as urgent as they claim, they are always exaggerating. The Fesse makes too many demands and gives too little in return.”

Calis was taken aback. “No, Bashar, the need in the villages is real. It could have been much worse, but some are flooded out and need our help. And there may be more rain later, we need to build levees. We’re leaving now.”

“They have their own crafters,” said Bashar. “Let them be responsible for what is theirs. As I said, all Bards will be working in the School.”

“But the School was barely touched!” said Calis. “You can’t be serious.”

“Indeed, I am serious. This morning I’ve given some thought to our obligations, and I cannot see why we are so continually drained by the demands of the Fesse. It isn’t supportable.”

“You’re talking nonsense,” said Calis. “Of course it is.”

“If the people of the Fesse want the magery of Bards, they will have to pay. This is my decision.”

“But they do pay,” said Calis, beginning to lose her temper. “What madness is this? In any case, you have no authority over Bards that isn’t freely granted, and if you’re talking rubbish, you have none at all.”

Bashar looked briefly nonplussed by Calis’s bluntness. Her eyes blurred and unfocused, as if she were listening to some unheard voice, and then she shook her head and smiled. “Forgive me, Calis. I am perhaps misled by anxiety at our short resources. For now, do as you see fit.”

Calis studied her warily. “You’re exhausted, Bashar,” she said. “Get some sleep. You’re no good to us if you are not well. And remember, we need healers.”

“I am not in the least tired. All the same, this question of responsibility must be discussed.”

“I’ll speak to Norowen myself about the healers, if you are too busy with your own responsibilities,” Calis said crossly, and left, slamming the door behind her.

Bashar blinked, and paced slowly across the room, back to the window.

“We must be more careful,” she said. She cocked her head, and was silent for a time, as if she were listening to that silent voice. “Until it is time for an open assault. Soon, soon, but now is not the time.” She turned and studied the sky, where more clouds were gathering. A few vagrant drops were beginning to fall.

T
HE
silence when the rain stopped woke Cadvan just before dawn. Dernhil and Selmana were still asleep, and Dernhil was snoring softly. Early the previous evening, shortly after the scrying, the three younger Bards had rolled themselves up in quilts on pallets in Nelac’s sitting room, insisting that Nelac rest in his own bed. Cadvan had fallen asleep as soon as his eyes closed, dropping into the blankness of utter exhaustion.

He sat up, rubbing his eyes and yawning. Like all Bards, Cadvan had powers of swift recovery, but the past few days had left a silt of weariness in his body. On the other hand, the new ease in his being since Dernhil had scried him made up for much of the fatigue. But he felt grubby, as if every crevice of his skin were slick with old sweat and dirt. A bath! He couldn’t remember when he had last had one.

Making a dim magelight, he raided Nelac’s commodious storage room for clean raiment and a drying cloth. He was about to leave the chambers when he remembered that he must not be recognized. He cast a light version of the Pilanel charm, enough to conceal his identity, and then let himself out, bolting the door behind him. This early, the Bardhouse’s occupants were still abed, though he heard movement in the streets outside. He guessed that there must be flooding somewhere. No doubt Nelac would be called upon to help if there were any emergencies, which might cause complications. Well, they could think about that later.

In the Bardhouse bathing room he turned on the copper taps and shaved as he waited for the stone bath to fill. Then he eased off his clothes and sank with a sigh into the hot water. For a while he simply lay there, letting the heat dissolve the aches and pains in his muscles as the lavender-scented steam rose and cleared his head. It felt like a stolen luxury. It
was
a stolen luxury: he was breaking his banishment, after all.

This was an aspect of Barding that he had missed sorely. Bards had developed bathing to an art; not for them a hasty sponging down in a cold river, or breaking the ice in a basin on a winter morning. In Lirigon, water was gathered in a cistern on the hill above the School and cunningly pumped using gravity into every house, where it was heated in copper pipes. The bathing rooms were comfortably furnished, decorated in colours that were meant to induce tranquillity and meditation. Cadvan studied the cranes painted in flight on the opposite wall, and for a few precious minutes he was utterly content.

He remembered with a start that he shouldn’t linger, scrubbed himself thoroughly and dressed, and returned to Nelac’s chambers not half an hour later. The sun was yet to rise, and the other Bards were still asleep. For a moment he thought mischievously that he should wake them, but relented: there would be time enough later. He drew a screen around Nelac’s table, so the light wouldn’t disturb the sleepers, and idly opened a book. Another luxury he had missed; he had taken none with him to Jouan, just as he had never played music there, as if his banishment meant he had no right to any of the things he had loved as a Bard. The truth was that they had reminded him too painfully of what he had thrown away. More cowardice; it would have been useful to have books in Jouan. He could have used them to teach Hal her letters.

The sun rose and broadened and the other Bards woke and took themselves to the bathing room and discussed breakfast. Cadvan remained absorbed in his book behind the screen, waiting until they were ready to convene about how best to approach the Circle about what they knew. Lirigon’s dawn chorus was especially loud; the School’s birdlife was celebrating the end of the rainstorm. For once, Cadvan felt at peace; the thought of his exile didn’t chafe him today. Even if he could never enter Lirigon again, he could read and play music and enjoy the pleasure of clean clothes on freshly bathed skin. Barding wasn’t everything. It wasn’t even mostly everything.

Then, quite suddenly, his head jerked up from his book. He sent out his Bard senses, questing. He couldn’t say what had alerted him: an instinct of peril, of violent intrusion. He put the book down and stood up, peering over the screen.

“Do you feel that?” he said.

Dernhil, who was folding away his bedclothes, glanced at him oddly, and then smiled. “Oh, it’s you,” he said. “You should warn me before you change your face, Cadvan…”

“Something’s wrong. Really wrong.”

“I don’t sense anything,” Dernhil said, after a pause. “What is it?”

Cadvan shook his head. “Something’s happened, something … violent. And now…”

“Kansabur?”

“I don’t know.” Cadvan lifted the screen and put it back where it belonged, frowning. “I’m so tired, Dernhil, of chasing shadows, this constant, formless … not knowing. I begin to long for a monster that just turns up, like in the tales, all horns and fangs and breathing fire, and all we have to do is to chop it to bits.”

Dernhil smiled. “Be careful what you wish for.”

“At least we’d know what we’re up against. All this stuff inside our heads. How do we tell what is us and what is not?”

Dernhil didn’t answer for a time, as he carefully stowed the bedclothes in a carved chest. Then he turned to Cadvan. “Maybe that’s the real question,” he said soberly. “We
can’t
tell, for certain. There is no real division. Even if we cast out what is driven into us, we are left with ourselves. If we can do good, we can do evil. If we are Bards, we can be Hulls, too: that possibility stirs inside us, as a condition of our being Bards at all. Perhaps the Light and the Dark, they are not so different…”

“That is bleak indeed,” said Cadvan. “And best not said to most Bards.”

“Aye,” said Dernhil. “But I confess, it’s a thought that haunts me. After all, as we know from our first lessons, the Dark was made by human beings: and so was the Light. And so both reflect our failings…”

The door opened, and Selmana entered, her hair wet from bathing. She stared at Cadvan. “Who are you?” she said.

“Selmana, meet Cadvan,” said Dernhil. “He can change his face, which you must admit is useful.”

“A glimmerspell?” said Selmana. “But…”

“No, something else. I’ll explain later,” said Cadvan. “Is Nelac about, Selmana?”

“He went to arrange breakfast,” she said doubtfully, looking from one Bard to the other. “What’s wrong?”

“Something has happened in the School.”

Selmana paused, as Dernhil had earlier, sending out her Bard senses. “I don’t feel anything … wrong,” she said.

“I don’t know why you can’t feel it,” said Cadvan. “Pain. It’s like pain. I’m not imagining it.”

“Maybe,” she said slowly. “But there is always someone in pain, maybe you are just picking up on something ordinary. Something that isn’t a threat, I mean.”

Cadvan thought, and shook his head. “No, whatever has happened is linked to the Dark,” he said. “We have to speak to Bashar.”

“But you heard what Nelac said last night. She might think we’re imagining things.”

“Given what you and Nelac have to say? Surely that would make anyone sit up and take notice.” Cadvan began to walk about the room, agitatedly running his hands through his hair, until footsteps sounded in the corridor outside, and he turned in relief.

Nelac entered bearing a tray of freshly baked pastries and laid them on the table, glancing sideways at Cadvan. “That disguise is disconcerting, my friend. You are hungry? This was the best I could do, I’m afraid; Ithan is beside himself feeding messengers from the Fesse asking for help with the flooding.”

“Maybe that’s the problem?” said Selmana, turning to Cadvan. “Maybe there are people hurt, and…”

“I keep telling you, it’s not like that.”

“Let’s break our fast,” said Nelac equably. “And then you can explain to me what is troubling you.”

Cadvan glanced impatiently at the other Bards, and then shrugged and joined them at the table. The sweet smell of the pastries reminded him that he had woken early and was, after all, very hungry. For a while they ate in silence.

“It stinks of sorcery,” said Cadvan abruptly. “But it’s not the Bone Queen. And it’s here, now.”

Nelac contemplated his half-eaten roll. “I see,” he said. “I am not doubting you, Cadvan. Yet I am certain that I would know if the Dark had invaded the School. More than walls protect Lirigon; there are wards woven into the very stone.”

“Kansabur was tracking Selmana in the streets of Lirigon,” said Cadvan. “Selmana saw the Shadowplains through the windows of her Bardhouse. Perhaps there are ways through the wards that we don’t know about.”

“And you still sense this peril?”

“Yes. For a while it was just getting worse and worse, and it almost made me sick. Now it’s like an aching tooth that’s just lying quiet.” He lifted his hands in frustration. “I wish you could feel it. I can’t ignore it.”

Nelac finished eating, and brushed the crumbs from his hands, calmly studying Cadvan. “One of the things that seems to be happening at present is that none of us knows anything in common,” he said. “Each of us dreams and fears in solitude and understanding between us is riven. We are each alone with what we know. This isn’t how Barding works; we know best when we know together, when our understanding is held in common.”