The Crow

by Alison Croggon

  They traveled through Den Raven with extreme caution, sleeping by day and journeying by night. The days were very short now, and this suited them; the skies kept clear, but the nights were hard with frost. Hem concealed himself with heavy shadowmazing and glimveils and avoided roads and any vil­lages and towns. He was relieved that he no longer had to remake the disguising spell. It had been one of the most exhausting aspects of being a snout; but now he was himself again and could wear his own face.

  Ire made scouting trips and guided Hem through the safest routes. He reported signs of turmoil and confusion all through Den Raven: but in a couple of days, order seemed to be return­ing. In one town Ire had seen a mass hanging; in another, many prisoners paraded through the streets in shackles, watched by a sullen populace.

  Somebody must have won, said Hem. Do you think it was Imank? Ire didn't know. Hem puzzled over the question for days, frustrated that he could not go and find out for himself. Ire could understand the Speech, which was spoken by Hulls; but Hem refused to permit him to go near any Hulls. He dared not take anymore untoward risks: they had already chanced too much, and had barely escaped with their lives.

  One morning, Ire returned from one of his scouting forays carrying a parchment that had been nailed to the gate of a Grin's house in a village; he had seen a man reading it out loud, and many people standing nearby, listening.

  It might be important, he said, as he dropped it into Hem's hands.

  Hem examined the parchment closely, but he couldn't read it. At first it looked like Bardic script, and he thought he could make out a couple of words, but there was something odd about the letters. In the end, he shrugged, folded it carefully and put it in his pack.

  He did not think about what might have happened to Zelika or to Nisrah. He didn't permit himself to think, either, about Saliman or Soron or Maerad. Aside from the necessities of his journey, he tried not to think at all; he simply trudged on numbly, letting Ire decide their course. He felt as if he had suffered some terrible wound, which would not begin to hurt as long as he did not look at it. He had to get back to Sjug'hakar Im in six days to meet Hared: that was all that mattered.

  They reached the Glandugir Hills after five nights of hard travel, watching the moon dwindle. Despite his fear of the trees, Ire said he would accompany Hem through the forest, to make sure, he said, that he didn't get into any trouble. They decided to march straight through; in that way, they might avoid being attacked. It had taken the snouts three days to get through the hills, but they had not been able to move very fast on the nar­row track, and had halted at night; perhaps Hem and Ire could do it in a day. Hem also thought of the Elidhu; they were back in Nyanar's place, and perhaps he might protect them from the horrors of the trees. He feared also that Hared would not wait for them if they were late. To miss their tryst would be too much ill fortune.

  It was the dark of the moon, and the nights were long and cold. Hem preferred to go through the hills at night, although he wished for more light. He reckoned that although the snouts had always been attacked at night, it had always been when they stopped, and if he and Ire kept moving they might escape notice. He was now functioning on sheer will; he was long past his limits, and yet still he went on. And now the nausea was rising again, the grinding sense of ill that rose through his feet from the diseased land.

  Even after a sleep, Hem was too tired to be afraid. He sat down, ate as good a meal as he could put together, checked his glimveils and started into the hills, Ire either clinging to his shoulder or swooping ahead a short distance down the path. It was so dark that, despite his fear that it would attract notice, Hem was forced to make a small magelight, so he would not lose his way and wander off the track into the pathless forest, or unwarily step on one of the trapvines that would drag him helplessly into the trees.

  Afterward Hem could barely remember that journey: it seemed that he had entered a dark, endless tunnel. He didn't know how they made it through. As they had planned, they did not halt, and they were not attacked, although they heard many strange and fearsome noises through the darkness. But the day before Midwinter, more dead than alive, Hem stumbled out of the trees and stood at last on the scrubby slopes that led down to the abandoned camp of Sjug'hakar Im.

  Now that he was here, Hem wondered how he was to find Hared. He would be charmhidden, just as Hem was, and he did not know where Hared would make his camp. He looked about him dully; a pale sun threw a gentle light over the Nazar Plains, and made dazzling jewels of the frost as it melted on the grass. For a moment, it almost looked like Nyanar's country... Ire lifted from his shoulder, swooped down the hillside, and disap­peared. Hem resisted the overwhelming urge to stop and plodded stubbornly forward, down toward Sjug'hakar Im.

  It had the forlorn look of all abandoned habitations: its gates swung back and forth in the wind, making a melancholy groan, and already grass was growing back on the training ground. Hem walked through the gate and looked around: there was nothing here. Soon this place would be reclaimed by the wild: creepers would climb the fences and pull them down, the huts would sag and rot. There would be no sign of all the suffering that had happened here.

  Hem turned and left the camp. He walked along the road a little way, and then began to climb the slopes, toward the place where he had camped with Zelika, when they were watching Sjug'hakar Im. Somehow, despite his exhaustion, he could not stop walking; it was as if his legs had forgotten how to stop. He was almost at his destination when someone called his name.

  It took him a moment to realize that it was not said aloud, that he heard it with his inner ear. Someone very close by was summoning him. Before he answered he looked around dis­tractedly, searching for Hared.

  Hem. Answer me.

  He made the mindtouch, and realized with a shock who it was. The will that had been holding him together for days sud­denly shattered completely; his knees buckled, and the ground rose dizzily to meet him.

  I'm here, he whispered, as a black tide rose inside him. Saliman, I'm here.

  * * * *

  A cool hand was on his brow, and his breast was a golden flower opening in petal after petal of light. He floated on water that dazzled with slow ripples beneath a blue, flawless sky.

  Hem's eyelids fluttered open. Saliman, shining silver with magery was staring gravely down at him. Sleep now, he said into his mind.

  Sleep. How long since he had really slept? He couldn't remember. Hem shut his eyes and slid gratefully into soft, heal­ing darkness.

  Hem was woken by the smell of cooking. He lay with his eyes shut, as his mouth flooded with water; it seemed years since he had eaten anything that tasted good, that was not chewed joy­lessly simply to keep him alive. He raised himself onto his elbow. He was inside a bower of living leaves, woven together and bent to the ground to make a shelter, and a few paces away Saliman sat cross-legged, tending a pan of stew over a fire.

  Saliman looked up when Hem stirred, and their eyes met in a long glance of greeting. Saliman did not smile, and neither did Hem: their joy seemed too deep for that. A lump rose in Hem's throat, and he swallowed: he had thought he would never see Saliman again, and yet there he was, cooking dinner. His sheer ordinariness seemed wholly miraculous: his braids were tied in a rough knot on the top of his head, his clothes were travel­stained, and he looked very tired. Hem was filled with a somber, inexpressible delight: despite everything, they had both survived.

  There was a flutter of wings and a small thump, and they turned to see Ire landing clumsily by the fire.

  "Hello, Ire," said Saliman. "Did you smell the food?"

  Ire gave an interrogative caw, and Saliman laughed.

  "It smells delicious," said Hem, and came over to join Saliman. "It woke me up."

  "Well, it's about time you stirred those legs. The sun came up hours ago."

  "The sun?" Hem was taken aback; he had thought it was evening.

  "You've slept an entire day and night," said Saliman. He gave Hem a sharp look, as if si
zing him up. "How do you feel?"

  "I've felt better," Hem said. His muscles still groaned with stiffness and he felt as if he had been beaten all over. "But, I admit, lately I've been feeling a lot worse." He looked at the pan, where some meat was simmering in a sauce of herbs. "Will that take long?"

  "Not long," said Saliman, giving him a wide smile. "I thought we could risk a hot meal to celebrate your return. You're looking a bit scrawny."

  "But mightn't somebody see a fire?" Hem asked, with a clutch of fear. He had become so used to hiding that even sitting in the open seemed reckless.

  "It's unlikely, Hem. I've been here three days, looking around, and my judgment is that we're pretty safe today. The Black Army is nowhere to be seen in the Nazar Plains; the Dark, it seems, is preoccupied elsewhere. We can take advantage of a lull in the storm, and pretend we are camping in the Osidh Am. A little cold, I grant you, but it's pleasant enough. After all, it is Midwinter Day."

  Hem drew his knees up to his chin and watched Saliman taste the stew and add some salt from his pack. Ire drew near, demanding a scratch, and Hem absently rubbed the crow's neck until he crouched crooning on the ground. Hem was very hungry; but he was in no hurry. He was content merely to sit with his friends, watching the fire and listening to the gentle simmer of the stewing meat. He realized now that he had for­gotten the balm of these easy pleasures, how deeply they reached into his soul and nourished him.

  After a while they broke their fast, eating straight out of the pan, with Ire bobbing up and down by their knees demanding scraps. Saliman's simple herbed dish seemed to Hem like a feast, restoring much more than his body. When he had finished his meal, Hem sighed contentedly; he was warm and full, and felt much more substantial. Ire flew off on a private errand, and Hem and Saliman sat in silence for some time and stared at the fire's pale daylit flickering.

  "I'm glad to see you back, Hem," said Saliman at last. "I was very worried when Hared told me what you'd done."

  "Ire told me that he wanted to strangle me," said Hem.

  Saliman grinned. "That's more or less what he said to me. But I was angry too, Hem. It was a foolhardy thing to do, and risked not only your own life, but our larger struggle as well. But amazingly, aside from exhaustion and a lot of bruises and scrapes, there's not much wrong with you. You were very lucky. From what Ire tells me, you ought to be dead."

  Hem didn't answer at first, and when he did, his voice was hoarse. "I know it was mad, but I couldn't leave Zelika behind," he said. "And I didn't find her. I couldn't even rescue her brother. It was all for nothing, in the end."

  A troubled expression crossed Saliman's face, and he looked away. Hem almost asked him whether he had news of Zelika, but something stopped his question.

  "Whether it was all for nothing remains to be seen," Saliman said. "Ire has told me much of what you've done, and I'm eager to hear more: it seems to me that you have done as much, and maybe more, than any Bard has in our struggle against the Dark. It seems that Hared's guess about the child armies was correct, and that is valuable information. And not one of us has been into Dagra itself, and come out alive."

  Hem shuddered, remembering the terrible city. "I never want to go there again," he said. "Never."

  "I hope you never have cause to," said Saliman gravely. "Now, Hem, if you are able, I'd like to hear your story. Tell me everything."

  Haltingly, Hem began to tell Saliman everything that had happened to him since he and Zelika had left The Pit. It felt like four years, rather than four weeks, he thought in wonder; Nal­Ak-Burat seemed far away, and his time in Turbansk another life altogether. His voice strengthened as he continued, and Saliman sat with his face downcast, nodding when Hem paused, to indicate that he was listening, and occasionally ask­ing a question.

  Hem emptied the stones out of his pockets, adding up how many soldiers he had seen on his journey through Den Raven, and told Saliman of his speculations about where he thought they had been going, and he pulled out the parchment that Ire had stolen from the village on their way back.

  "The thing is, Ire and me couldn't work out who won," he said. "Imank or Sharma? We thought this might give us a clue; it's some kind of announcement, but I can't read it."

  Saliman took the notice with an inscrutable expression, glancing at Hem. The boy sat cross-legged next to him, very thin and pale after his ordeal; great shadows were scored under his eyes, and his face was marked by a sorrow that now, Saliman thought, would never quite vanish. His eyes were bright and intent, and he spoke seriously – a Bard discussing weighty matters with another Bard. But in his rags, with his bruised knees poking through tears in his trousers, he looked very young and vulnerable.

  "It's written in the tongue of Den Raven," said Saliman, studying the parchment. "They use the Nelsor script, but they have some extra letters – ah, yes. Well, Hem, I think you are right to think that the Nameless One was not killed. It says here that the rebellion against the high authority of Den Raven has been crushed, and that all rebels will be hunted down and pun­ished. It lists the punishments; I won't translate them."

  "So you think that Imank was destroyed?"

  "One or the other must have been," said Saliman. "Neither could suffer the other to live. Even so, Imank must have been very sure, to challenge Sharma outright; I expect that sword was Kinharek, a famous sword with an evil reputation, which Imank is known to possess. Imank must have invested it with a new sorcery, to even think that it could destroy Sharma. But it seems from what you say that the Nameless One called up the Shika; and not even Imank's sorcery would be able to with­stand them."

  "The Shika?" said Hem.

  "Those winged creatures which terrified you so, Hem: I'm sure they were Shika. The Nameless One must have been des­perate indeed. You did not imagine them, and you were right to be afraid. The Shika are forces from the Abyss: perhaps the most deadly of the uncreatures bound there. I doubt that even Sharma can control them completely."

  Hem shuddered as he remembered the unreasoning terror that had consumed him at the sight of them. "I've been afraid many times that I might die," he said at last. "But this was worse than that."

  "They feed on souls," said Saliman softly. "Not even death is an escape from the Shika."

  Hem stared bleakly at the ground, and then recollected him­self. "But Imank must have thought that the Nameless One could be killed," he said, looking up inquiringly at Saliman.

  "The Nameless One cannot be killed."

  "But Hulls can be."

  "Yes, you can kill Hulls: but only with magery or sorcery. Neither age nor sickness nor ordinary hurts will end their lives. But the Nameless One, Hem, is not a Hull. Some other great spell binds him to this world. And it seems to me that spell has something to do with the Elementals. It is not Bardic magery."

  "Do you think it's to do with the Treesong? And that's why Maerad has to find it?"

  "It seems very likely. I am not sure how. But the Elidhu Nyanar seems to think it is a question that concerns you as closely as it does Maerad. He said the song was chained, which makes me think that the Nameless has used it for his own ends."

  Hem thought of Nyanar, of the strange, wild music that had entered and changed him, of the help he had given him. He doubted he could have survived the snouts without it. At last, out of the foretimes, you come, Nyanar had said. To unchain the song...

  Oddly, the thought reminded him of the trinket Ire had brought back from the Iron Tower.

  "Did Ire tell you he stole something in Dagra?"

  Saliman's eyes sparkled. "He did," he said. "He's quite anx­ious about it. Now that you're both safe, he wants it back. But I am myself anxious to see it, for quite different reasons."

  "I don't know what to think about it," said Hem. "It's not even precious; it's just made out of brass." He pulled the chain over his head and handed it to Saliman. "It must have belonged to Imank or Sharma."

  Saliman took the chain and weighed it in his hand.

  "It's a little tuning f
ork," he said, examining it with intense interest. "The kind you might use for a harp. And it has runes engraved on it." He was silent for a long time as he looked care­fully at each of the markings. "Hem, do you recognize these runes at all?"

  "No, I've never seen anything like them."

  "You have, you know." He gave the fork a last inspection, and handed it back to Hem. "These are very like the runes on Maerad's lyre."

  Hem's mouth dropped open in astonishment. "Are you sure?"

  "I'm quite sure. They are very distinctive. I wonder..." Saliman gazed into an abstract distance, lost in thought.

  "I've wondered, over the past few months, if the Treesong might not have something to do with those runes? And why not? Maerad's lyre is Dhyllic ware, after all, and was made a very long time ago, when the Treesong perhaps was not forgotten as it is now."

  "But Maerad's gone all the way north to find it," said Hem blankly.

  "Aye, that she has... but there is a riddle here, Hem. Nobody knows what these runes are – they could be anything. But it seems more than a coincidence that the same runes would be on this thing, stolen from the Iron Tower, and on the lyre that belongs to the Chosen. Perhaps they might belong together."

  Hem thought distractedly. It made sense, but it also made things very confusing. If they knew what the Treesong was, they might be able to begin to work it out, but the whole thing seemed like a baffling puzzle.

  "Remember what the Elidhu said to you?" said Saliman thoughtfully. "Two are foretold, brother and sister, not one: One for the singing and one for the music. And now you have found a tuning fork. Well, I don't understand: but I have always sus­pected there was a part you had to play in this, as important as Maerad's. In any case, whatever it means, it seems very clear that we have to find Maerad and her lyre. And the sooner, the better."