“So tell me, Dernhil,” said Nelac, breaking a comfortable silence. “Why are you here?”
Dernhil paused, gathering his thoughts. “It’s difficult to say,” he said. “It so easily sounds foolish…”
“Be sure that I don’t believe you are a fool.”
Dernhil glanced up swiftly, smiling, and then studied his glass thoughtfully. “Well. Begin at the beginning, I suppose. It won’t surprise you to know that since – since that night, I’ve suffered from regular nightmares. When I left Lirigon, I wanted to forget, I never wanted to think about what had happened here again. I know it’s not the Bardic way, but even knowing that, I couldn’t go near those memories without the most awful pain. I still can’t. Physical pain, I mean; the scar hurts, and when the memories possess me, as they sometimes do, I feel the wound almost as if it were still raw. The body and the mind are not two things, as some Bards say, but one thing together, however they might seem divided: if nothing else, this experience has taught me that.”
“I expect you’ve always known that,” said Nelac. “You are a poet, after all.”
“I suppose so. In any case, as poets are commonly supposed to do, I began to drink too much. It helped to blunt the memories, and if I was very drunk, I slept too heavily to have nightmares. I can tell you that it’s not very good for poetry, though… But I am only saying this because it’s not as if I haven’t suffered from bad dreams. They are more common than not: I know what a nightmare is, and how the terror of that night has inscribed itself in my memories and my body, no matter how much I wish it hadn’t, and how it spills out in dreams and unwanted memories, as it does with other people who have suffered such things.”
He refilled his glass, and was silent for a time. “These dreams are different. They started happening this autumn. I become more anxious in autumn, even in Gent; the weather is a prompt, bringing it back… And the first dream happened on a night which was very like the evening when we went to the Grove. It was a clear, beautiful night, do you remember? Almost like summer. Full of stars, there was no moon. Most of all I remember the scent – the hunaf shrubs were all in flower, that sweet, heavy smell. There are many around Gent, too, although I wish there weren’t… Anyway, I went to sleep eventually, having had a large quantity of wine. And Ceredin came to me.
“I’ve dreamed about Ceredin before, but those dreams – well, they were just terrible memories. This dream was different, not like a dream at all. Most of all, it seemed entirely real.
“I was at my table in Gent, writing, and Ceredin walked in. I was mildly surprised, and said, but aren’t you supposed to be dead? And she said, yes, I am dead. She looked very sad – sadder than anyone I’ve ever seen – when she said this, and I stood up and took her in my arms to comfort her. She kissed my cheek, and then stood back, looking at me in that way she had, open and serious and with that – that capacity for understanding that was her special gift. She told me that she couldn’t stay for very long. ‘I linger on the Path of the Dead,’ she said. ‘One day I will come to the Gates and will not return. Dernhil, I know that you cannot forgive Cadvan for what he has done. I do not ask you to forgive him or to forget. But you must find him, or else everything is lost.’
“I felt a pang in my heart then, for I realized that I had not forgiven him. The last time I saw Cadvan, before I left for Gent, I told him that I had; but I was lying to myself. Nelac, it hurt my image of myself.” Dernhil smiled ruefully. “I had thought myself larger than that. I was overwhelmed with anger, this sheer, blinding rage: if Cadvan had been there, I would have punched him until I was exhausted…
“Ceredin touched my arm, and I remembered she was there. ‘Forgiveness is harder than any of us realize,’ she said. ‘And you have no reason to love Cadvan. I do have reason. Because he hasn’t forgiven himself, he will not hear me. You do not have to forgive him. You must not forget. Do not seek to forget, Dernhil. But he must be found, or else everything is lost.’ And then, as I stared at her, she vanished before my eyes. And I woke up.”
Nelac thought of Selmana’s telling him that Ceredin had also spoken to her in a dream. “Did she visit you again?” he asked.
“No. The dreams that came after were quite different. They weren’t like nightmares, although they sound like them; they were much worse. All of them were real, in the same way that the first one was real. I don’t know how to describe the sense of them. At first they were quite specific. In one I saw Pellinor in flames, the School destroyed, its walls broken. In another, I saw a great army marching on Turbansk, and all the land behind it burned and littered with corpses. In another, I saw Innail besieged, and a great shadow rising over the Osidh Annova. Then – then it was as if I were lifted above Annar, like an eagle, and saw more widely. I saw the Great Forest all aflame and the Seven Kingdoms in rubble. Even the sky was on fire. The whole sky. And then there is just desolation, from one horizon to the other.” Dernhil’s voice shook and he covered his eyes with his hand. “Night after night, Nelac. Night after night I see all green and living things destroyed, all beauty laid to waste, everything I love trampled to dust. I’ve wondered if I am going mad. Sometimes I think I am. And behind all that, I keep thinking of what Ceredin said: we have to find Cadvan, we have to bring him back.”
Nelac looked shaken. “Is there more?” he said.
“Yes. Perhaps this will make you doubt me…” Dernhil took a deep breath. “These are too easily explained as the residue of anguish or fear, but I am certain they are not. I have dreams in which the Bone Queen still walks in Annar. I see her in Norloch, on a throne in the Crystal Hall of Machelinor. The Crystal Hall looks just as it did when I last saw it, but in my dreams it is now a place of loathing and horror. I have seen her in Lirigon and Pellinor, too. In all these visions, she sees me and mocks me. And I am sure, in my deepest being, that Kansabur was not banished back to the Abyss, as we thought she was, and I think she walks on this plane.”
Dernhil looked at Nelac directly. “I told a couple of Bards in Gent of this, but they just think I am suffering a disease of the nerves, and, with the greatest kindness, suggested I should stop work for a while. Seront gave me a herbal decoction that meant I slept so deeply I didn’t dream at all; but it turned me into a dull, witless idiot and I stopped taking it … and then the dreams came back. At last I decided to come here and consult you. As soon as I left Gent, they stopped plaguing me, so that was something…” He hesitated, and then asked: “What think you, Nelac? Is it that I am going mad?”
Nelac was silent for a time, and then answered slowly, picking his words with care. “I might be tempted to think, like the Bards of Gent, that you describe the images of a wounded mind,” he said. “It would be the simplest and most obvious explanation.” Dernhil bit his lip, and looked away. “But I cannot say that to you. No, I don’t think you are going mad.”
Dernhil held his eyes for a long moment. “You don’t know what a comfort it is, to hear you say that,” he said.
“It is cruel to say so but, my friend, I would prefer to think you were ill. A wounded mind might be healed, with time and care. The other possibility is too terrible.” He drained his glass. “I think that Ceredin did visit you. Such things are known to happen and, more, young Selmana, a relation of Ceredin’s, told me a startlingly similar story… And you are not the only Bard to suffer such dreams. But more, you give voice to something – some pressure, some dread – that has been growing in my own mind over the past months. It presses not only on me; Milana of Pellinor speaks of it as well. Perhaps I don’t have the sensitivity you have, Dernhil, to allow me to hear it. Or perhaps your very woundedness has opened a breach in your being that means that you can see these things more clearly.”
“I have wondered if they were foredreams,” said Dernhil. “But it seemed – presumptuous to take on the mantel of prophecy.”
Both the Bards lapsed into silence, following their own thoughts.
“We argued long for Cadvan to be reinstated,” said Nelac at
last. “But we lost.”
“If it weren’t for these dreams,” said Dernhil, “I might have agreed with those who argued against you.”
“You misrepresent yourself. You yourself told the First Circle that he should not be exiled.”
“Perhaps I said so because I thought it was right to do so,” said Dernhil. “I can’t like him, but I have never been more certain of a man’s remorse and desire to atone for what he has done. But maybe I didn’t mean it. Maybe all I wanted was revenge after all.”
“For all that, you acted as you did, and it is our actions that speak in this world.” Nelac stood up and stretched. “Dernhil, I’m glad you came here. I want to think further on all of this. But I’m an old man, and I’m weary, and now I must seek my bed.”
“One thing seems very clear,” said Dernhil. “We have to find Cadvan. Do you know where he went?”
“I have no idea where he might be,” Nelac said. “He wouldn’t even tell me what direction he intended to ride in. He could be anywhere between the northern wastes and the Suderain.”
“Typical of Cadvan, that he should make everything even more difficult than it already is,” said Dernhil, as he stood up to take his leave.
Nelac smiled. “He was always one of my more vexatious students. And, in truth, one of the most loved. Not that he ever knew that. But then, he ever knew himself but slenderly.”
Dernhil shrugged. “In that at least, he and I are alike,” he said. “It is a painful knowledge.”
VII
THE horseman trotted into Jouan as the sun vanished into a long summer twilight. Although there was only a sliver of a moon, it wasn’t dark: the stars blazed so brightly their light cast shadows on the ground. Children playing tag in the village street stopped to watch the horseman, wondering what his business was: this wasn’t one of the coal traders, and he certainly wasn’t a miner. His horse looked fleet and fine-boned, unlike the labouring animals that pulled the drays and windlass, and one boy swore he saw a flash of gold under the rider’s dark cloak.
Outside the tavern, the horseman stopped and looked around, as if he were uncertain what to do next. He noticed the children and beckoned. The oldest boy came forward cautiously.
“I’m told a man called Cadvan of Lirigon lives in this village,” said the stranger, in an accent the boy couldn’t place. “Can you tell me which is his house?”
“Who wants to know?” said the boy, more boldly than he felt.
“A friend,” said the horseman. “An old friend…”
The boy looked up into the rider’s face, but it was shadowed and he could make out nothing. He shrugged. “I don’t know no Cadvan of Lirigon,” he said. “But our cobbler’s called Cadvan. Maybe he’s the man you want. He lives in the second to last house in the village, next to Taran. You’ll know it by the apple tree outside, the trunk is split.”
It didn’t take long to find the apple tree and the house. Cadvan was sitting alone on the porch, with a mug of cider at his elbow. Yellow light spilled through an open door, half illuminating his face so his eyes seemed to glitter in deep shadow. When he saw the stranger, his body tensed and he sat up, watching silently as the rider dismounted and knotted the reins at the horse’s neck so it wouldn’t trip, before walking slowly up to him. The light from the house fell on his face and Cadvan recognized him. If he was startled, he didn’t show it.
“Dernhil,” he said, as casually as if he had been expecting him.
“Cadvan,” said Dernhil, nodding.
There was a short silence while the two Bards studied each other. Their faces betrayed no emotion. At last Cadvan stood up, reaching out his hand in greeting.
“Welcome, friend. Will you join me?” he said, with a stiff formality. “I can only offer cider, I’m afraid, but it’s crisp and good on a night like this.”
“I thank you, but I should settle my mare first,” said Dernhil. “She has borne me far today.”
“I fear I don’t run to stables in this establishment,” said Cadvan. “You should try the tavern.”
“I will,” said Dernhil. “I thought only to find your house, not you. May I come back later?”
“Tonight?”
Dernhil nodded.
“Why not?” Cadvan lifted his mug. “We could talk over … old times.”
Dernhil heard the bitter mockery in Cadvan’s voice, but didn’t respond. He remounted Hyeradh and disappeared into the deepening dusk. Cadvan poured himself another cider. Now that Dernhil had gone, he found his hands were shaking.
Of all the people in the world who might have turned up in Jouan, he thought, the last he would have expected to see was Dernhil of Gent. Yet at another level, deep inside, he wasn’t surprised at all: it was almost as if, once he saw Dernhil walking up the path to his house, he had realized that part of him had been waiting for him.
Cadvan stayed where he was on the porch until Dernhil returned an hour or so later. Then, to the disappointment of the children who were spying on them from the bushes, the two Bards went inside and closed the door, shutting out the night.
“So,” said Cadvan, handing Dernhil a mug of cider. “I can’t imagine that you just happened to be passing through Jouan. No one just passes through Jouan.”
“No, I’m not,” Dernhil said. He looked up and met Cadvan’s eye squarely for the first time. “I was looking for you.”
“I can’t think why,” said Cadvan. “Surely you would rather forget that I existed.”
“I imagine you feel the same about me,” said Dernhil. Cadvan flushed slightly, and there was an uncomfortable pause. “Nelac suggested I look for you. He would have come himself, but he has duties in Lirigon he was loath to leave.”
“It can’t have been easy to find me.”
“It wasn’t easy,” said Dernhil. “I’ve been searching since winter, and the merest chance led me here.”
“Surely the Bards in their wisdom haven’t decided to reverse my banishment,” said Cadvan, with an attempt at an ironic smile.
“No,” said Dernhil. “The exile was confirmed last winter. Nelac argued against it, as did some others, but…” He trailed off.
Cadvan swallowed, and turned away to hide his face. While he had been waiting for Dernhil to return from the inn, he had allowed himself to hope that perhaps, after all, he might be able to return to Barding. He could think of no other reason for a Bard, especially this Bard, to track him down. He should have known better. Somehow, hearing the confirmation of his exile was worse than the first judgement: his sentence was now final.
“It’s no more than I expected,” he said harshly. “And no more than I deserve.”
“It wasn’t … unexpected,” said Dernhil. “For my part, I don’t believe it a wholly unjust decision.”
The two men looked at each other with barely concealed hostility.
“So you’ve come to enjoy my punishment, then?” said Cadvan. “I had thought better of Dernhil of Gent. Although I allow it’s excusable, given what I did to you.”
Dernhil flinched, but said nothing.
“There must be pleasure indeed in seeing my humble circumstances,” said Cadvan, looking around his kitchen. “A neat moral indeed, to take back to the Schools: the vanity of Cadvan of Lirigon, contained in a hovel, reduced to nailing up the boots of miners. I’m sure your students will benefit from such an illustration.”
“That is unjust,” Dernhil said tightly. “And foolish. I had expected better of Cadvan of Lirigon.”
“I’m no longer Cadvan of Lirigon, if you recall. I’m surprised you had any expectations.”
Cadvan stood up and walked to the door, opening it so the night air flowed into the room. He drew a deep breath, trying to calm the rage that flared inside him. He knew he had no right to be angry, but that made no difference. How dare Dernhil sit in his kitchen with that superior air, too polite to comment on Cadvan’s poor furniture and shabby clothes? It was probably all he could do not to sneer. How dare he remind Cadvan of everything he ha
d thrown away? Of the life that was now closed to him for ever?
Dernhil spoke from behind him, his voice unsteady. “I have reason to come here, reason to find you. I didn’t expect it to be easy, and I like it as little as you do.”
“Then why did you bother?” Cadvan turned, and Dernhil saw, his heart sinking, that he wasn’t trying now to conceal his dislike.
“Ceredin told me to find you.”
At the mention of Ceredin, Cadvan turned white. “You dare – you dare to say…”
“You owe me at least to listen to what I have to say. I don’t have the desire or the will to argue with you, Cadvan.”
There was a long, tense silence, and then at last Cadvan sat down at the table.
“I’m listening,” he said.
Later that night, Cadvan sat for a long time alone, attempting to untangle his thoughts. Dernhil’s visit had deeply shaken him. It wasn’t just the unwelcome memories that he called up. Those memories were always with Cadvan, whether he liked it or not; Dernhil’s presence only made them more immediate. It wasn’t even the shame, although his initial discourtesy towards Dernhil mortified him. His anger was only at himself; he had no right to direct it towards the person who, aside from Ceredin, he had caused most harm.
He attempted to put aside his feelings and think dispassionately about what Dernhil had told him. He had listened with his jaw set to Dernhil’s description of his dream of Ceredin. Like Nelac, Cadvan had no doubt it was a real visitation. She had forgiven him? It gave him no consolation; it only deepened his shame. He deserved no such love, had never deserved it. Worst of all was the thought that Ceredin had attempted to speak to him, and he had not been able to hear. Had he been deaf even to Ceredin? Even after everything that had happened, even after her death, had he betrayed her again?
Once he had mastered his anger, Cadvan had looked at Dernhil more carefully, and seen the signs of weariness and long-endured pain. Dernhil’s face was drawn, and his hands trembled slightly as he reached to pick up his mug. And yet he had travelled for months to find Cadvan, a man he had every reason to hate. Cadvan grasped at once the fears that Dernhil stumblingly attempted to express – when Dernhil had described his dreams, he immediately thought of his own dream, and shuddered – but he still had no real understanding of what he was supposed to do, or what Dernhil meant by insisting that he leave Jouan. He thought that Dernhil was equally unsure. Cadvan was now exiled from Barding, banned from entering any School. What possible use could he be?
The Bone Queen Page 6