The Bone Queen

by Alison Croggon

  “You’re very different from your friend,” Taran said thoughtfully, putting full mugs on the table. “He’s more…”

  “More Bard-like?” said Cadvan, smiling.

  “Aye, more like a Bard. Not that you don’t seem like a Bard, you understand, but you also seem like one of us, somehow. He’s a bit more … above us. More distant, like. Friendly and all, he’s been nothing but courtesy since he’s been here, I don’t mean that he holds himself up…”

  “He was born into Barding,” said Cadvan. “I’m the son of a cobbler, and there are no other Bards in my family. Maybe it’s just that.”

  “Maybe,” said Taran. “Maybe it’s something else, that’s nothing to do with being a Bard or not, and is just about who you are.” He paused, and then gave Cadvan a measuring glance. “Hal said that you think she should set up as a healer on her own. Did you mean that?”

  “I did,” Cadvan said.

  “She won’t go down the pit any more,” said Taran. “I can’t say as I blame her. You can scarce move in the house these days, for all the herbs she’s drying and messes she’s making…”

  “She’s already a brave healer,” said Cadvan. “She has more of a talent for it than I have, and she knows the basics. She could set up in my house, so she won’t crowd yours.”

  “We could use the extra coin, for sure. But it’s a big responsibility, for one so young. If things go wrong, she’ll be blamed for it.” He hesitated. “I hear that some are already calling her a witch.”

  Cadvan studied Taran’s troubled face. “I suppose you mean that Jorvil is,” he said. “He’s wrong, anyway. A witch is one with a little of the Speech, and Hal has none of it. I think you’ll find that more are speaking well of her, for the help she’s giving them.”

  Taran nodded, but he still looked worried. “Aye. Aye. I hope you’re right. She’ll miss you sorely, will Hal. You saved her, after Inshi died. She was that cast down, I had never seen her like that before…”

  Cadvan cleared his throat. “If she is honest about what she can do, she should avoid most problems,” he said. “Hal has much quickness, but she also has a deal of common sense, and that will see her straight. And as you said, you need a healer here.”

  “I’ll let her do it, then. As if I could stop her, anyway.”

  “If all goes well, I’ll come back and see how she fares. How you all fare.”

  “Aye, she told me that,” said Taran. “She says that you’re not allowed to die.”

  Cadvan smiled, and a long silence fell between them. At last Taran looked up, meeting Cadvan’s gaze. “I don’t mind telling you, my friend, my heart is heavy. Something is amiss, in the middle of things. I don’t know what it is. I just feel it, as if there’s a shadow in the sunlight, and it’s growing. Since before the accident, since even before you came here, but more after…”

  Cadvan looked up, surprised. “What makes you say that?” he asked.

  Taran shrugged, slightly embarrassed. “Maybe it’s just foolishness,” he said.

  “No,” said Cadvan. “If I’ve learned one thing while I’ve been in Jouan, it’s that you’re not a foolish man.”

  Taran grinned, but his eyes remained troubled. “Anyway, I know you probably can’t say, Bard’s business and all, but I can’t help wondering… Maybe it’s just nightmares.”

  “You’ve been having odd dreams?” Cadvan asked abruptly.

  There was a short silence. “I dreamed of the explosion before it happened,” Taran said. “I didn’t tell no one before, because it would have been bad luck, and I didn’t after, because there was no point. And there have been others, bad dreams. Forests dying. The sky on fire.”

  Cadvan studied the man beside him. It didn’t surprise him that Taran had such sharp intuitions – since they had become friends, he had grown to respect his insight – but he was astonished by his dreams.

  “Why I’m leaving is to do with that … shadow,” he said at last.

  “Rather you than me, then,” said Taran. “I don’t want to know any more, even if you would tell me, which I warrant you won’t.”

  “It’s more can’t than won’t,” said Cadvan. “We scarce understand what it is we have to do. I don’t know if I can be of any use, anyway. But I have to go, whether it makes any difference or not.”

  Taran finished his drink. “Time for home,” he said. The two men paid and left the tavern. They lingered outside for a while, looking up at the starry sky, as Cadvan searched for words. He wanted to say, without embarrassing him, how important Taran’s friendship had been; how much Taran’s tactful kindness had mattered when he had arrived, utterly without hope, in Jouan; how deeply he had grown to respect him. In the end, he said nothing. He grasped Taran’s hand and they embraced.

  “Farewell, my friend,” he said.

  “May the Light protect you,” said Taran. It was an odd thing for a miner to say: this was the blessing of Bards. He studied Cadvan with a deep, wordless compassion. “I don’t know what you have to face out there, but I’m with Hal. You’re not allowed to die. Make sure you come back one day.”

  “I will,” said Cadvan. “If I can, I will.”

  II

  IX

  SELMANA sat up abruptly in her bed, sniffing the night uneasily like a startled animal. Something had wrenched her out of sleep: her heart was jumping in her chest, and the hair stood up on the back of her neck. She listened intently in the dark, and at last breathed out, telling herself that she was imagining things. And then she heard it again: a noise on the edge of hearing, a groaning that made her skin tighten with some unidentifiable horror.

  She gestured and made a magelight, staring about the bedchamber. Everything looked the same as it always did. She had come home to visit her mother in Kien, as she did every fortnight or so, and this house was as familiar as her own hands: she had grown up here with her two brothers. Now both of her brothers were married and gone to their own houses, Selmana was learning to be a Bard in Lirigon, and her mother, long widowed, lived alone.

  She waited for her heart to stop beating so fast, but the crawling sense of horror only seemed to intensify. She sent out her Bard senses in an agony of listening, so her whole body seemed a straining ear. She told herself that the noise must have been the tail end of a bad dream, but she knew she hadn’t imagined it. At last she couldn’t bear sitting there any more; she had to find out what was wrong. Snapping out the magelight, she scrambled silently out of bed, wrapping a soft woollen cloak around her against the night chill, and crept to the kitchen. She could hear her mother breathing in her bedroom, and the rustle of mice in the walls, and the sigh of the summer wind through the trees, and the rafters creaking: nothing more than the normal night noises. Yet the feeling was getting worse by the moment. Something was out there.

  She stood uncertainly in the darkened kitchen, letting her eyes adjust. I’m a Bard, she thought. A Bard of Lirigon. She saw the kitchen knife and picked it up. Then she drew a deep, trembling breath, attempting to steady herself, and made a shield. It was one of the simplest transformations in magery, something every Minor Bard learned early, but her powers felt shaky and weak. She tested the barrier, found it wanting and tried again. This time it worked, and she felt a little better: at least now she should have some protection. She silently unlatched the door and, holding her breath lest the hinges creak and betray her, pushed it open and stepped out into the night.

  The feeling of wrongness hit her like a blow. High above, a pale sliver of moon sailed through wisps of cloud, its slender illumination falling on the fields before her. The shadows under the eaves of the house were very black, but she dared make no light. She thought of running back indoors and slamming down the bar, but she firmly put that thought aside. I’m a Bard, she told herself again. I shouldn’t be afraid. She could hear something breathing in heavy, shuddering grunts. She focused her perceptions: whatever was wrong was coming from the orchard, among the darkest shadows thrown by the trees. The ground there was stipp
led, grey and black and silver. Step by step, wincing at the smallest rustle made by her bare feet, she crept towards it.

  She was almost at the orchard when she heard the groan again. It was much louder out here in the open: she stopped mid-step, her stomach flipping over with terror. What was it? It sounded like an animal in an extremity of distress: or perhaps a human, driven past the limits of speech by terrible pain. It was there, at the far end of the orchard. She could see where the shadows thickened on the ground into a figure. Slowly she put her foot down, feeling carefully so she wouldn’t snap a twig, and drew closer. Among the trees she felt trapped, as if she were entering a closed room: a silence seemed to have fallen around her, as if every living thing were holding its breath, hiding from some great predator.

  Selmana tested her shield again, and strengthened it. The kitchen knife felt cold in her hand, and sadly inadequate. It was good steel, sharp enough to cut bone. It was all she had. She paused, and changed her grip so she was holding it clamped in her fist, ready to drive into anything that attacked her. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness now, and she could see the tangle of shadow branches on the grass and the faint glimmer of the trunks under the leaves, but the clot of shadow before her resolved into no certain shape.

  She had never been so afraid. She thought again about turning back. Even though she was a Bard, she was only a Minor Bard, and there was so much she didn’t know. But she didn’t turn back. She had come this far, and she would despise herself if she ran away now. She ran through the words of power in her mind, readying herself, and crept on, keeping to the shelter of the trees.

  She could see it more clearly now, but she still couldn’t make out what it was, although she could smell it. A rank scent, an animal. Then it seemed to twist and fall over, letting out the horrible groan again, and a cloud lifted from the moon, and the form condensed into something recognizable. It was a wild pig, a boar. It was trembling violently, and its flanks heaved in and out as it drew breath after shuddering breath. Its jaws were slathered with foam, and she could see the whites of its eyes. The grass beneath it was violently churned up: it had been in the same place for some time. She had never seen an animal in such agony. It was unbearable even to witness.

  Even as she realized this, the air seemed to thicken, as if the darkness solidified into something malign that sought to invade her mouth and nose and ears, seeking a way inside her. All around was an awful pressure, a heaviness that pushed her down to her knees, down further, until her mouth was pressed against the earth. Her pulse pounded in her ears, as if she were drowning. Selmana twisted in panic, crying out the word for Bardic fire: Noroch! The white flame sprang out of her, a fierce blaze that flared vividly against the night, so she was blinded. For a few dreadful moments, she could see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing. She only knew that the dreadful pressure had lifted.

  She lay on the grass, gulping in air, conscious only of relief that she could breathe again. Then fear caught her up and she scrambled to her feet, grabbing the knife that she had dropped. She looked around, sobbing. Above her the branches of the apple trees still smouldered from the white fire, throwing a flickering light. The night was clean again. The orchard was just an orchard. Whatever it was had gone.

  The boar was dead, stilled in the midst of its writhing so it seemed distorted and monstrous. The wildfire had burned it, and the sharp reek of singed hair mixed with the stench of its panic. She checked her shield again, and made a magelight so she could see the carcass. The sight made her gag. She had once seen a horse with colic, that had foamed at the mouth and twisted in anguish like this boar, and that had been horrible; but this was much worse. She turned away and walked about the orchard, circling every tree, looking for any clue to what had happened. Still nothing. She searched mechanically and thoroughly, not asking herself why she was doing this, even though her body was still racked by the tremors of aftershock.

  Then she walked back to the house. She barred the door behind her and lit a lamp and stoked up the embers of the fire. She poured herself a cup of the strong blackberry liquor her mother made and crouched by the hearth, warming her freezing feet. It was still the small hours of the night, but she knew she had no chance of going back to sleep. She didn’t veil her listening: her ears were open, aware of every sound for half a mile about the house. For the first time she wondered why, despite her terror, she had gone out into the night: was it some kind of madness? She had been like some stupid insect blundering towards a flame. And she had only just escaped. She shuddered, drawing her cloak around her. Escaped what? She thought of the boar. The animal’s torment was branded on her mind: no creature should ever suffer so. Poor innocent beast, she thought. And then: It could have been me.

  When Berdh, Selmana’s mother, rose before dawn to do her morning tasks, she was dismayed to find Selmana crouched by the fire. Her daughter was pale and haggard, with deep circles under her eyes, and she seemed to be talking wild nonsense. She told Berdh that she had to go back to the School straight away, and that there was a dead wild boar in the orchard that needed dealing with.

  “But why now?” said Berdh, bewildered. “Your uncle is coming over from Derim, especially to see you. He’ll be very disappointed.”

  “I know,” said Selmana. Huys was her favourite uncle, a village smith like her father had been, and she had been looking forward to seeing him. “But it’s important, Mama.”

  “And what’s this about a boar?”

  “In the orchard,” said Selmana. “It’s dead. But don’t eat it, it’s been sick. No, on second thoughts, leave it there, don’t touch it. Don’t go near it, it might be… Not until I come back… And, Mama, can Huys stay with you? I think you shouldn’t be alone in the house…”

  “My dear, you know very well I can look after myself. The Light knows, I have all these years,” she said. “And Huys has his own duties to attend to.”

  Selmana stared at her mother. “There’s something … bad happening. I don’t know what, but it’s bad. Mama, you mustn’t be alone.”

  Berdh studied her daughter, catching her urgency. Even though she had the Gift, Selmana had always been the most practical of her children: she wasn’t given to nerves or flights of fancy. She patted Selmana’s shoulder. “Huys will be here later this morning,” she said. “Maybe he’ll stay the night, if I ask him. Now, don’t you worry about me. I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I never do with Bard business. If you have to go, so be it.”

  Selmana took Berdh’s hand and held it to her cheek. She wanted to curl up in her mother’s arms and cry, as she did when she was a little girl. She set her jaw: now was not the time. She dressed and washed her face and saddled her horse, and made it to the School of Lirigon in less than an hour.

  She found Nelac in his rooms, eating breakfast. He raised his eyebrows at her breathless entrance, and asked if she had eaten.

  “No,” said Selmana. “But…”

  “Sit down,” he said. “I can see you are big with news, and it’s better heard on a full stomach. Besides, these delicious meat pastries deserve proper attention.”

  Despite her anxiety, Selmana couldn’t help smiling. She realized she was ravenous, and devoured three of the pastries. They were, as Nelac had said, delicious.

  “Now,” said Nelac. “Tell me why you’ve burst in here, looking as if you’ve ridden in on a whirlwind.”

  Selmana blushed, and wiped her hair out of her eyes. “I couldn’t think what else to do,” she said. “Last night…”

  She looked doubtfully at Nelac, fearing that he would dismiss what she said as wild fancy. Nelac simply waited for her to begin. Haltingly, searching for the right words, she told him about waking so suddenly, how she had crept out of the house and found the tormented boar. To her own ears, the suffocating terror that had possessed her sounded stupid: in the sober light of day, it could only be the fears of a silly girl frightened by noises in the night. Nelac listened without interrupting, frowning.


  “I’m glad you came to me,” he said, when she had finished. “You were quite right.”

  Selmana felt almost giddy with relief. “I thought you might not believe me,” she said.

  “Why would I think you were making things up, child?” Nelac smiled at her. “After these months of teaching you, I know that’s the last thing you’d do.”

  “You mean that I have absolutely no imagination,” said Selmana.

  “Say rather that you are not given to fancy, like so many of my students,” he said.

  “What was it, Nelac? Do you know what it was?”

  “Not for sure. What I do know is that you were very lucky. If you had not shielded yourself, if you had not had the white fire, I hate to think what might have happened.”

  Selmana shuddered, thinking of the thing that had tried to invade her. Even the memory made her feel sick in the pit of her stomach. “It’s some kind of … haunt, maybe?” She thought of the stories she had heard as a child, of spirits who refused death and sought to return to the World by possessing the bodies of the living. Until today, she had never really believed them.

  “Yes, something like that. Fortunately for you, it was not strong. If it is a mere haunt, then it is easily dealt with…”

  “You think it might be something else?”

  “I worry that it might be something worse. But let’s not be driven by fear, hmmm?” He stood up, brushing his clothes. “I simply can’t eat these pastries with dignity. Crumbs every-where…”

  Selmana giggled, looking down at the crumbs on her own lap. “I’m messier than you,” she said. “But they were very nice. I feel a lot better now.”

  “Good. Are you ready to ride again? I think we should visit your village.”

  Nelac and Selmana arrived in Kien just before noon, throwing Berdh into a fluster. “You should have warned me!” she hissed at Selmana, as they prepared a herb tea in the kitchen. “I’ve only that mess of stew I made for Huys! Thank the Light I baked some loaves and that apple pie. What will he think of me?”