The Bone Queen

by Alison Croggon

  Cadvan opened his eyes and groaned. His entire body ached, as if he were a single bruise. It was a few moments before he recollected himself: he was lying on his back on Dernhil’s bed. The first grey light of morning was beginning to filter through the window, which was swinging open on its hinges, broken. He stirred, and realized that Dernhil was sitting next to him, his arms wrapped around his knees.

  Cadvan struggled to sit upright, wincing, and Dernhil turned towards him. His face was haggard, carved with deep shadows; he looked deathly ill. He made a wan attempt at a smile.

  “I swear, Cadvan, that you will be the end of me one day,” he said.

  Cadvan was silent. In truth, he didn’t know what to say.

  “That was almost the worst thing that has ever happened to me,” said Dernhil. “Almost.”

  Cadvan cleared his throat. “It was all the worst things,” he said.

  Dernhil smiled again. “And all the best things,” he said.

  Cadvan blushed with a sudden hot embarrassment. He felt raw all over, utterly exposed, like a newborn baby. Everything hurt. Yet at the same time, he was conscious of a new buoyancy within him, a sense of relief. It was said that scrying could do that, by bringing hidden wounds to the surface of the mind and draining them of poison. But there had been something else, there had been a parasite in his soul, a darkness that did not belong to him, and he knew it was gone. A surge of gratitude washed through him, and impulsively he grasped Dernhil’s hand.

  “Let me say this, before my pride or something else stupid forbids it,” he said. “I owe you more than I can say. I…”

  “You need not say, Cadvan.”

  Cadvan studied Dernhil narrowly, sighed and turned away, staring at the wall opposite. “It was done at great cost,” he said at last.

  “You were right,” said Dernhil after a while. He spoke thickly, as if he were having trouble forming his words. “I don’t know what you remember, but there was something there, a – fragment, if you like. It was a bitter will, winding deep into you. It was cruel work to tear it out. I am sure it was something of Kansabur.”

  “I remember a little,” said Cadvan.

  “It wasn’t mindless, but it wasn’t a mind, either.” Dernhil laid his face on his knees. “Ah, I feel stupid with tiredness. I was able to cast it out of you. I thought for a while I had killed you doing it. And then it attacked me. It almost…”

  Suddenly afraid, Cadvan looked a question.

  “No, it didn’t … it’s gone. I’m quite sure. I saw it, I can’t even describe what I saw. Before I could do anything it had burst out of the window and fled.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “I hardly know. Not long.”

  “I fear what it might do,” said Cadvan. “But I think that neither of us is up to a hunt.” He turned Dernhil to face him, examining him with concern. “You’re not well.”

  “Just … exhaustion,” whispered Dernhil. “I feel as if all the life in me has drained out, for ever.”

  Cadvan sat up straighter and placed his hand on Dernhil’s brow. Dernhil was right; there was no injury, but he had been taxed dangerously beyond his strength. Cadvan considered his own weariness, and put it aside.

  “I practised one useful thing in Jouan,” he said, swinging his legs off the bed. “Well, two useful things, if you count cobbling. I am not so bad a healer now.” He told Dernhil to lie down and close his eyes, and then he laid both his hands on Dernhil’s breast, summoning what power remained within him. Miraculously something answered his need, from reserves he didn’t know he possessed; his hands burned silver with magery, illuminating the room brightly before the light ebbed slowly away, a last, soft luminosity clinging to Dernhil’s skin. Cadvan knew that he was already dreamlessly asleep.

  Cadvan straightened slowly, like a very old man, and shuffled over to the broken window, pulling the frame closed. The first rays of the sun were edging over the horizon, and the first birds were beginning their morning calls. He was surprised, when he thought about it, that they hadn’t roused the whole inn. Perhaps there had been no sound, no cry that could reach ordinary human ears. Aside from the window, there was little sign of struggle; the candlestick had been knocked off the table, but that was all. He picked it up and placed it back carefully, and then stumbled across the hallway and fell onto his bed, too tired even to take off his cloak.

  XV

  NELAC had ridden swiftly back to Lirigon, smelling the coming change in the weather. His black mood continued to dog him: the meeting with Cadvan and Dernhil had, if anything, intensified his gloom. Two Bards, who should have been leading lights of their generation, grievously injured by vanity and folly: Cadvan, exiled into shame and guilt; Dernhil, scarred and haunted. And Ceredin dead: Ceredin, who might have been the greatest of them all, wandering lost and afraid in the Shadowplains, denied even the peace of death. All that possibility, all that promise, broken…

  After he had stabled Cina, he walked slowly to his Bardhouse. The hour’s ride to Bural and back had left him unusually weary and sore, but he put that down to his state of mind. Though it was true that he was getting old: he could feel mortality silting through him, as if every year left a fine dust that slowly built up in his veins. Two and a half centuries walking on this earth: perhaps he had another fifty years; perhaps, if he were lucky, another century. A generous lifespan, part of the Gift of a Bard, but still it wasn’t enough. Or perhaps it was too much. With knowledge cometh sorrow, as the Chronicles said…

  The sunny day was darkening swiftly. He entered his rooms just before the storm broke overhead with a deafening clap of thunder. An unlit fire was laid in the hearth, and all was in gloom. He snapped on the lamps with a gesture, and then, after a little consideration, lit the fire, as the temperature had dropped sharply. He poured himself a glass of spirits from a decanter on the low table and sat down heavily.

  Carefully, piece by piece, he sifted through what he knew: Dernhil’s visions of Ceredin and his terrible foredreams, Cadvan’s dream in Jouan, the encounter with the boar… As Cadvan said, they pointed irresistibly to a single conclusion: the Bone Queen, stalking Lirigon in a new, insidious form. Although he had told Cadvan that they couldn’t be sure, that they should consider all possibilities before leaping to conclusions, his inner Knowing had no such caution. Perhaps it was time to put that necessary scepticism aside and to face what had to be faced.

  Unconsciously he sighed, and poured himself another glass. Cadvan’s question kept coming back to him: What shall we do now? It was a fair question, but Nelac had no answers. How to track a foe that left no trace of its presence, and that had split into pieces? Was Kansabur, as Dernhil speculated, seeking to possess Bards to reunite her broken selves? Surely that was too dangerous, even for her? And yet…

  Nelac stood up and paced to the window, peering out through the cascades of rain. The storms of the past two days disturbed him: they smelt odd, somehow. Too quick and too violent for this time of year: usually the autumn rains in Lirigon came in gentle bursts, heavy but brief. The unsettled weather seemed of a piece with everything else, in a way he couldn’t trace… He shook himself. He was in danger of becoming an anxious old man, weaving everything he saw into a pattern of his fears.

  He turned around, looking about his sitting room, and it was then that he saw the note propped on the books on his work table. He recognized Selmana’s handwriting, and picked it up with a sudden clutch of foreboding.

  Nelac – I need to speak to you, if you are anywhere close by today – last night something very strange happened and now I am afraid. I was reading late past midnight and I looked out of my window and everything was changed, I am sure I was looking out on the Shadowplains, I saw Ceredin, I am sure, and something horrible, it was just like the thing with the boar. It wasn’t any shape. And today I am frightened. Please, when you return, can you send a message straight away? I’ll be back in my room this afternoon. Selmana. PS I am sure I am not imagining things but I don’t know
how to write down what I saw.

  Nelac looked up unseeingly at the ceiling, and then read the note again. He swiftly cloaked and booted himself and went out into the rain. He arrived shortly afterwards at the Bardhouse where the Minor Bards lived, and endured a scolding from Seriven, the Bard in charge of them, as he entered the door, dripping rivulets of water onto the floor.

  “Nelac! By the Light, what are you doing, venturing out in weather like this at your age?” he said. “Look at you. You’re soaked to the skin!”

  “At my age I can do what I like,” Nelac said tersely. “And I assure you that this cloak repels water very efficiently. I’m looking for Selmana.”

  Seriven pursed his lips, but something in Nelac’s voice stopped him from further upbraiding. “I haven’t seen her all day, since she went out to her classes this morning,” he said. “I know some of them went for a picnic, and maybe she went with them. With any luck, they didn’t get caught in that storm.”

  “Perhaps they took shelter elsewhere,” said Nelac. “She said she’d be back here this afternoon.”

  “Well, you know what young people are.”

  “Yes.” Nelac paused for a moment, thinking what to do. “If you see her, tell her I am back in Lirigon, and am awaiting her in my rooms. If I’m not there, I’ll leave word where I am. Make sure you tell her.”

  Seriven’s eyebrows lifted at the urgency in Nelac’s voice, but he didn’t ask any questions, and simply promised to pass on the message. He watched Nelac’s departure with a frown. He hadn’t before seen Nelac in such a state of agitation, and it disturbed him.

  Nelac returned to his rooms, and dried himself by the fire, which was blazing merrily. There was nothing he could do now but wait: there was no point in chasing Selmana around Lirigon. From the moment he had read her note, he had been afraid for her. Most Bards had a mental bond to the people they cared for. Nelac had an inner web of connection to his students, which alerted him if something was desperately wrong. It was a vague intuition, and not always reliable, as he reminded himself. It was this sense, more than the disturbance in the Balance, that had warned him the instant that Cadvan had lost control of the Bone Queen. Now it was as if a small star in his inner constellation had simply gone out. He had no sense of distress or death, just an absence where there should have been a shining thread.

  After an hour, the rain eased and slowly stopped. The hem of the clouds over the western horizon lifted, and a yellow storm light flooded through Nelac’s window, illuminating the page he was attempting to read. He realized that he hadn’t absorbed a single word for the past hour and put the book aside. For some time he just sat, watching the shadows darken to evening.

  A light knock on his door pulled him out of his reverie. It was Seriven, looking worried. Selmana hadn’t returned to the Bardhouse. Her friends had returned soon after the storm cleared, and said that they hadn’t seen Selmana since the morning lessons, although they had expected her to come to their picnic. Disturbed, Seriven had asked around, and it seemed nobody had seen her.

  “She’s not at the library, and Calis hasn’t seen hide nor hair of her today,” he said. “Maybe she went off to visit her mother? She does that sometimes. But she would always tell me. And anyway, her pack is still in her room, and her horse in the stables…”

  Nelac knew that Selmana was worried about Berdh, and it was just possible that she had gone to Kien, even if her horse was still in the stables. Perhaps she could have taken a lift in a cart. But surely not without leaving word? And especially not if she were anxious to talk to him?

  “We should be looking for her,” Nelac said.

  “There’s something wrong. I can feel it. I’ve been feeling it ever since you came to the Bardhouse…”

  Nelac met Seriven’s gaze, and for a few moments both Bards were silent. “I feel it too,” he said at last. “But I cannot sense any distress. I don’t think she is hurt or dead, but it is a … curious feeling.” He picked up Selmana’s note from the table and held it out. “She left this, at around noon, as far as I can tell.”

  Seriven read Selmana’s note, frowning. “The Shadowplains? That can’t be right…”

  “She was frightened,” said Nelac. “I wish I had been here. I wish I knew what she was afraid of.”

  Seriven handed the message back to Nelac, his lips folded tightly. “Tell me, Nelac, is there a peril in Lirigon? Should I be warning the Minor Bards?”

  Nelac was silent. “Not as yet,” he said. “Before anything else, we must find Selmana.”

  “That shouldn’t take long,” said Seriven. “Perhaps I should send a message to her mother, to be sure she hasn’t gone there?”

  “If she is not returned tonight, we should send tomorrow morning. I don’t wish to cause Berdh any unnecessary anxiety.”

  Seriven folded his arms and studied Nelac’s face. “Don’t think I can’t see how worried you are,” he said. “Are you going to tell me why? Or am I not worthy of your confidence?”

  Nelac frowned. “Of course you are worthy,” he said shortly. “The truth is, I don’t know what it is I fear.”

  Seriven paused, as if he wished to speak further, but thought better of it. “I’ll take my leave, then,” he said. “I’ll put out word, and let you know if I hear anything.”

  After he had closed the door, Nelac stood staring at the blank wood. He was all but certain that Selmana was missing now; he couldn’t imagine that she would have left such a note, and not return to his rooms or to her own. He realized that he had been nursing a tiny hope that she was out with friends, or otherwise engaged in some harmless way that meant she had merely forgotten that she wanted to see him.

  The following day word of Selmana’s disappearance spread among the Bards, and some came to Nelac to tell him of when they had seen her. She had last been sighted making her way to the North Gate: after that, it was as if she had simply vanished. In the afternoon, increasingly worried, Nelac rode to Kien himself, to speak to Berdh. As he had expected, Selmana wasn’t there. The visit took longer than Nelac had expected, since his courtesy forbade his hurrying away from a woman consumed with anxiety about her daughter. After he had left Kien, assuring Berdh that he would send word as soon as he heard any news, he visited Bashar, the First Bard of Lirigon, to arrange a meeting of the Circle. Bashar met his urgency with scepticism.

  “Selmana is young,” she said. “Young people can forget to tell others what they are doing, and cause all sorts of unwarranted flurry. Perhaps she has a lover whom she has told no one about? Or she decided to stay with a friend? It does happen, Nelac. People have their own lives. I don’t see why we should summon the whole School…”

  “You have read the note she left me,” said Nelac. “She was afraid.”

  “It seems very fanciful to me. You know as well as I do that the Shadowplains do not appear in the World and that one doesn’t simply … stumble into them. Why, she’s not even a student of the Eleven Circles. As I recall, she is a Maker? Why is she talking this nonsense? More importantly, why are you taking any notice of it?”

  “Perhaps it isn’t nonsense,” said Nelac impatiently. “And she is not a young woman given to fancy.”

  “I’m sure she will return and be embarrassed by all the fuss,” said Bashar. “She has only been gone a day, after all…”

  “My lady, whether or not Selmana is given to wild imaginings, you should know that I am not. And I am very anxious. Surely the incident with the boar should at least give pause…”

  Bashar folded her lips tightly. “Yes, we are aware of that. But still I counsel patience. I respect your Knowing, Nelac, but you have been misled before by your fondness for particular students. On this business of Cadvan, for example. Our law is unambiguous about those who meddle with sorcery, and yet you argue…”

  Nelac’s impatience curdled into anger. “I wish I could be as certain as you,” he said, his voice cold. “Alas, I am not; and you might perhaps remember that the laws teach that those who refuse doubt a
re blind.”

  Not trusting himself to speak further, Nelac turned on his heel and left, returning to his chambers in a rage. He knew his fury was unjust; what Bashar said was, on its own terms, wholly reasonable. He also knew that, in countenancing Dernhil’s search for Cadvan and advising his return to Lirigon, he was breaking Bashar’s own ruling. This made it impossible for him to speak openly of the deeper worries that drove him.

  He reached his rooms and sat down heavily. Perhaps he was responding too hastily, perhaps his anxieties were irrational. It troubled him that his sense of justice was at odds with the considered ruling of the Bards of the Light. Bards were always argumentative, and often differed passionately; but all his life, Nelac had held faith in the collective wisdom that constituted Bardic law. He trusted that these arguments meant that all sides were considered fairly.

  The decision on exiling Cadvan had been the first time that he had seen the process falter: he remained convinced that the decision had been driven more by fear and desire for punishment than by rational justice. Bashar’s hostility on that question had taken him by surprise. It wounded him that she thought he had been simply arguing out of partiality for Cadvan, and that she so easily dismissed his arguments. How many others thought as Bashar did? And now it seemed that he was stepping further and further outside the law of the Bards. Was his Knowing misled after all?

  Nelac realized with a start that the room had darkened as he had been thinking. He lit a lamp and set a fire in the hearth, the simple task calming his thoughts. No, he could not be certain; but that didn’t mean the conclusions he had drawn were without reason. He stared into the fire, watching the flames dance about the wood they were consuming. The Shadowplains. Could Selmana have accidentally stumbled into another plane? Bashar was right: it simply wasn’t possible to enter those realms physically: the soul of a Bard might wander those grey slopes, but the flesh always remained in the World…