The Bone Queen (31 page)

“What is she?” whispered Selmana. “Is she part of me, now? I felt that I had lost myself in her. Should you scry me?”

“No, my dear, there is no shade of her in you,” said Larla. “Not one single bit.”

“How do you know?” Dernhil said sharply. “Cadvan didn’t know. Even Nelac didn’t.”

“But I did know, you see,” said Larla, folding her hands so primly in her lap that Selmana wanted to laugh. “I knew that Nelac was sick with something dark inside him. I told you so, didn’t I? Though I might have saved my breath, for the notice you took.”

Nelac smiled at this. “You did tell me,” he said. “Though it’s not true I didn’t listen.”

“And I saw when it was gone, when you arrived here today. You might be Bards, and learned and all, but that doesn’t mean you see everything. My problem is that I see many things but I don’t understand a lot of it, because I don’t have the learning. Or the Speech, come to that. I can’t do charms.”

“Is Calis … is she touched by the shadow?” asked Selmana abruptly. “Can you tell?” The thought of her adored mentor infected by Kansabur, without the knowledge to protect herself, was more than she could bear.

“I don’t know Calis, as to speak to,” said Larla. “I only really know Nelac, among the Bards.”

“Calis?” said Nelac. “I’d say not, at a guess. She was undeceived, unlike Coglint… I wonder about Coglint and Noram.”

“They could just be stupid,” said Cadvan.

“I don’t know. The only way you can sense that presence within you, as far as I know, is that your Knowing is shrouded, hidden from you.” Nelac spoke slowly, as if it hurt even to talk. “Is the Circle wholly infected? I am too weary to guess, my friends. I can scarce think. But I do believe Kansabur intended this day to take Lirhan as her kingdom. We were attacked on all fronts. And we were to be utterly defeated.”

“That, at least, didn’t happen,” said Cadvan. “But I fear we failed elsewhere.”

“We won through by a whisker.” Nelac grimaced. “And not without hurt. I can’t remember when I have felt more diminished… And yet the urgency remains. If Coglint and Noram prevail in their suspicions, we will be made outlaws, and will be powerless to alert Lirigon to the peril we know assails us.” He paused, and added heavily: “Bashar’s injury is the worst grief.”

“Is Bashar dead?” asked Selmana. The other Bards were silent. “What happened?”

After a short pause, while he waited for Nelac to speak, Dernhil told her what he had seen. “Bashar yet lives, to my knowledge,” he said. “But it hurts even to think of what I saw when we tried to heal her. I’ve never seen damage of that kind…” His voice broke. “Even if she lives, what sort of life will she have? Will she ever be free of that pain?”

No one answered him, and a heavy silence fell around the table. Selmana wished that she hadn’t asked; she wondered if the same thing might happen to her, if the Bone Queen found her.

“I don’t understand what you did,” said Dernhil, turning to Cadvan. “But I am sure you broke the sorcery.”

Cadvan nodded, and said painfully, “You see, I knew the spell. Likod showed it to me once.”

Dernhil looked as if he wanted to ask further, but he perceived Cadvan’s shame and changed the subject. “Who is to say we are innocent, if Bashar cannot? And if we are perceived as agents of the Dark, who will listen to us? But if we are forced to flee, who will warn the School of the Bone Queen, if she has indeed regained her power? And where should we go, and what use would it be?”

Again no one answered. Larla broke the silence. “If the Bone Queen is returned to her power, she is not whole, yet. She wants something…”

“She wants
me
,” said Selmana, in a whisper.

Cadvan was frowning. “The Shika cannot remain in the World for long, because they are not of it,” he said. “If most of Kansabur’s power is drawn from the Shika, then maybe she can’t, either. She is not human enough. And yet all her ambition is in the World…”

Nelac, who had been silent, looked up at this. “I begin to see what you mean,” he said slowly. “She needs mortal flesh, to exist in the mortal plane. But why Selmana?”

They all turned to look at her. Selmana stared back, her jaw jutting. “I’m just a Minor Bard,” she said. “I’m not important.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, kitten,” said Larla. “It seems to me that you’re very important indeed. You have the Sight. You can step into the Shadowplains as easy as if you’re just going for a walk to the market. None of us can do that.”

Selmana felt herself trembling. “But I don’t want that,” she said. “It’s nothing to do with anything I decide, it just happens. I don’t know why it happens.”

“The only beings who can step between the Circles with ease are the Elidhu,” said Dernhil thoughtfully. “Perhaps it’s something to do with them after all?” He examined Selmana keenly, and she turned away, a flush riding up the skin of her neck.

“I don’t know anything about the Elementals,” she mumbled. “They’re nothing to do with me.”

“There is too much that is outside our knowledge,” said Cadvan. “And yet we have never needed knowledge so badly. I feel as if everything I have ever been taught is a waste of time.”

“Nay, do not say so, Cadvan,” said Dernhil. “Say rather than learning never ends.”

Larla was looking at Nelac, her brow creased in concern. “That’s enough of talk,” she said. “You should all get some rest. As for you, Nelac, you look near death.”

“But what will we do?” Dernhil looked at Cadvan. “It won’t be long before they’re looking for us.”

“The storm will have left much damage and hurt,” said Nelac. “There will be enough to do after this, without setting out a hunt for us.”

“I think we cannot count on that,” said Dernhil.

“We should speak to Calis,” said Nelac. “And I think, if we are to leave Lirigon, we should head for Pellinor. Milana will help us, and I think Enkir is there.”

“Enkir hates me,” Cadvan said. “I doubt he’ll listen to us.”

Nelac frowned. “He condemned your act, as is only just, but he is fair as well as stern. And if he dislikes you, what of that? It would be a good chance if he were there. If Kansabur hid in me and Cadvan and, most likely, Bashar, when we attempted her banishing, it’s possible she has done the same to Milana and Enkir. And most importantly…” He trailed into silence.

“What?” prompted Cadvan.

“Pellinor has a stake in this. Lirigon first, as we now know, and secondly Pellinor. I fear for Pellinor.”

“Enough,” said Larla, standing up and briskly brushing her hands. “You should rest, the lot of you. And all of your clothes are wringing wet, I’ll need to dry them. I have pallets aplenty, and blankets.” No one answered, but Nelac nodded. “If you like, I can look for Calis, and ask her to come here later. One thing at a time, yes?”

“Oh, I almost forgot,” said Selmana, looking at her hand. “Your ring.” She drew the Ring of Silur off her finger and gave it back to Nelac. It was a relief, taking off that token: if her fate were to travel to Pellinor, at least she wouldn’t be travelling alone.

T
HE
Bards slept through the afternoon, while Larla prepared a pie for supper. Once she had finished baking, she ventured out into Lirigon to see how it had weathered the storm. Nelac rose before the others, just as she returned home, and they shared a cup of tea while they waited for the younger Bards to wake.

Lirigon had fared surprisingly well. “Suspiciously well, Nelac,” said Larla. “I thought that this was a storm to throw down houses and tear off roofs, but it’s mostly a few wet floors and missing tiles. People holed up and nobody seems to be hurt, though most everyone was scared. The only real harm is to the trees: a lot of poplars snapped clean in half, and the big pine down in the Street of Potters, and a mess of branches everywhere that will give everyone firewood for months.”

Nelac smiled. “Perhaps that’s not so strange,” he said. “All the houses here are granite, after all, and many have wards of protection.”

“Aye,” said Larla. “But there’s more. There was no storm outside Lirigon. The Fesse was untouched. That tempest fitted itself exactly inside the walls of the School, like a foot into a shoe. You can’t tell me that’s not odd.”

“Are you serious?”

“I am indeed,” she said. “Well, it’s good, isn’t it? If those winds had hit the Fesse, there’d be such a mess to clean, and injured livestock and who knows what else, on top of the problems with the floods. But, no. I talked to Irant, you know, the herbalist who lives down at Fortis? And he told me he had never seen anything so strange in all his born days. Those clouds were all over the Fesse, and everyone thought they were in for something bad, and then, he said, all at once it was like a hand rolled the clouds into a ball and pushed them down on top of the School. They could hear the noise miles off, but he was busy cutting cowbane in the sweetest weather they’d had for days.”

“I know of no weatherlore that can do that,” said Nelac. “Perhaps Dernhil is right, and Elementals were at work. I didn’t doubt, from the beginning, that there was sorcery in the weather…”

“The word is out for you three,” said Larla. “The crier has been in the streets, and you are all named outlaw against the Light, and are to be arrested on sight. There’s a mort of gossip running around about that, but nobody seems to know why. I never heard a word about Bashar.”

“I suppose that is only to be expected,” Nelac said. “However much I wish it otherwise.”

“I asked around and found Calis at the Hall of Makers too.”

“Ah, good. Did she agree to come here?”

“Yes. I didn’t have to persuade her. She’s very upset. She missed the storm, she was out in the Fesse helping with the floods, and she can’t believe that the Circle wants to imprison you as an enemy. I told her that you wished to speak to her, and she said she’d come, and she promised to keep it a secret. She’s a sharp woman, I didn’t have to explain anything. I like her.”

“She’s always been one of the best here,” said Nelac. “She’s Selmana’s mentor, did you know?”

“Well, the girl needn’t worry about her,” said Larla. “There’s no dark parasite in Calis.”

Nelac fell silent, watching as Larla drew the proving dough from beside the stove and began to knead it. The good, sweet smell of warm yeast filled the kitchen.

“It’s such a grace to be able to watch you at work, my dear,” he said. “I never saw more capable hands in my life.”

Larla threw him a mischievous look and blew him a kiss. “You should know.”

Nelac smiled with deep fondness, his eyes twinkling, but said nothing. Larla shaped three knotted loaves, which she put into the oven, brushed the flour from her hands and sat opposite Nelac, her face suddenly serious.

“You’ll have to leave tonight.”

“I know.”

“And you should take Selmana with you.”

“I wonder,” said Nelac. “I am thinking that perhaps it would be better if she stayed here… Calis is a strong Bard, and would care for her.”

“She’s in danger here. The further she can get away from Lirigon right now, the better. There’s something in her that the Bone Queen wants, and you can’t let her get it.”

“I wish I knew what it was,” said Nelac.

“I can’t guess either, but I know it’s something that she is. She has a mixed Gift, Nelac. It’s not so far from mine, but I can see that she’s all Bard, too. It’s a kind of double seeing she has. I thought that you couldn’t have both: it seemed to me that words make the Sight go awry, and if you have the Sight, then words don’t work for you. And then suddenly there’s Selmana being everything at once. There’s a power in her that’s got nothing to do with the Speech, nothing to do with words. She knows it and she doesn’t know it. And she’s frightened, as well she might be.”

Nelac’s face darkened in thought. “You’re right, Larla. I know you’re right. I wish I had some of that double seeing myself.”

“So where will you go?”

He looked at her straightly, his doubt open. “I fear my ignorance. These young Bards … they need my knowledge, but they think it’s greater than it is. They think I am wise, and in some ways I am. But here I’m feeling my way, blindfolded, my ears stoppered, and I know that a chasm is yawning before our feet…”

Larla took his hand and kissed it. “Nelac, you are a kind, good man,” she said. “That counts for more than being a good Bard. I trust you.”

“I am not only kind and good. Much of me isn’t kind or good at all. How can I trust myself?” he said.

“You must.” Larla studied him, suddenly serious. “Perhaps the chasm will gobble us all up, but it won’t be because you’re not mindful or brave or don’t do what you must. And that’s all anyone can ask of you, or anyone else.”

Cadvan dreamed. He was walking through a meadow in high summer, the lush grass and tangled wild flowers brushing against his knees. Grasshoppers leapt away like green springs as he disturbed them and bees zigzagged lazily, nuzzling the red anemones and the small yellow orchids that nodded amid the grass stems. Hidden crickets zithered around his feet. The sky arched above him, a deep, translucent blue. Somewhere in its cerulean vapours, so high up he couldn’t see it, he could hear the trilling of a lark.

It wasn’t a place he had seen in his waking life, but with the clairvoyance of dream he knew that it was near Pellinor, one of the meadows that nestled on the lower slopes of the Osidh Elanor. He was walking towards a rocky ridge that jutted into the sky. He was in no hurry, but all at once he reached his destination, where a dark-haired woman was waiting for him. She stood with her back to him, looking up the sheer face of the mountain that towered above them. She wore a circlet of cornflowers and daisies that she had plucked from the meadow and woven together, and her long robe was as blue as the sky. She was playing a small lyre. Each note came to him with unusual clarity, as if that note had never been made before and would never be made again. Cadvan thought he had known the melody all his life, but he had never heard it before.

Part of him assumed that the woman was Ceredin, returned past death, restored from the broken past to the future that had been promised them; but as he grew closer, he realized she was shorter, and that her hair was so black that the sunlight struck it with a blue shimmer. It wasn’t Ceredin.