The Bone Queen (12 page)

“We thought we did,” he said. “I fear she deceived us. After this, I am all but certain that she did. But how? When we hunted Kansabur, she left tracks, for those eyes that could see them. Now it seems that she is there, and then she is not, and there is no sign that she has even been, let alone a trace which might tell where she has gone…”

“You think it was Kansabur last night?” The horror rose in Selmana again, as thick as nausea.
“Kansabur?”

Nelac took her hands between his. “I think it most likely,” he said gently. “There are other signs that make me think so. The one consolation, if it is true, is that she is greatly weakened. If she had been in her strength, no shield of yours would have held her back. Nor would she have taken a beast as her flesh, if she could take a human. If we did not destroy her, we have at least crippled her.”

“She was still very strong,” said Selmana, in a low voice. “I – almost was—”

“Almost. But not.” Nelac stood up slowly, as if his whole body ached.

“What about my mother?” she said.

“I will put a ward on the house,” said Nelac. “If Kansabur is as weakened as I suspect, she will not be able to shift in daylight, and a ward will be more than sufficient to keep her out. But in truth, I think she would be unlikely to return here.”

In the Shadow Circle, Nelac said, there are many kinds of spirits. A few, like the Elidhu, the immortal Elementals, move easily between the planes, equally at home in both. Some few Bards can also enter at will, but never without paying a price: it is not a home to us, he said, and to be present there is to suffer. Some, like the souls of the recently dead, are simply passing through the Shadowplains, on their journey to the Gates of the Empyrean. Of those, a few never reach the Gates: they find themselves chained to the World, through suffering or grief or regret, and are lost between one place and another, longing for home but unable to find it. We know them as ghosts, and sometimes they can be seen, forlorn shadows flickering in the places where they once lived. Some others, like haunts, have more evil intent. Like ghosts, they are trapped between life and death, but they greedily desire life, and will pay any price to regain what they have lost. They are the spirits that will possess the living, twisting their minds into madness. They resent the living, and will destroy them if they can, but they are still spirits we can think of as human, aspects of ourselves.

“And Kansabur?” asked Selmana. She was in Nelac’s sitting room, curled on his couch, staring into the fire that had been set against an unusually cold night. Autumn was coming early this year.

“Kansabur is not quite any of those.” Nelac frowned. “Another kind of spirit is that which is summoned from the Abyss, by sorcery. Terrible creatures, like the Shika, which can erupt into our World on wings of dread. Mostly they sleep in the Abyss, but the Nameless One drove them into the Shadowplains and used them in the wars before the Great Silence. None could withstand them. And then there are revenants, the spirits of Hulls, who escaped banishment to the Abyss but who cannot travel to the Gates because of the pact they have made with the Nameless One. They are far more powerful than haunts. They have human memories, and they seek to return to the World. At first we believed they were all banished to the Abyss by Maninaë when he returned the Light to Edil-Amarandh, but alas! Some still yet hide in the Shadowplains, waiting for their master to rise and summon them again. And the Bone Queen is different even from these. Some say that she is more than a Hull, that she took the power of the Shika into her own being.”

“Did Cadvan know this when he summoned the Bone Queen?” said Selmana. “How could he wake such a thing?”

“Yes, he knew that, although I am not sure that he understood it.” Nelac leaned forward and poked the fire so it flared up. “He thought he could contain such power. As we all know, he couldn’t.”

Selmana thought of all the evil that had followed Cadvan’s act: the death of Ceredin, Dernhil’s terrible injury. She hadn’t known that others had died, and it seemed to her now that Ceredin’s death had been merciful in comparison. She remembered the boar, tormented beyond imagining.

“The council was right to banish him,” she said. “He should never be allowed back again.”

“There are many who think so,” said Nelac. He gave her a measuring look. “You told me you thought otherwise.”

“That was before … before I understood what he had done. Properly, I mean. It’s unforgivable, no matter how sorry he is. Even Cadvan said so.” Selmana’s voice was hard. “How can you forget such a thing?”

“To forget is impossible,” said Nelac. “And yet my heart argues for forgiveness. Forgiveness is not about forgetting, child. It is about remembering, always. And if forgiveness is not possible, then I have no hope for any of us.”

Selmana was silent. She thought of Ceredin in her dream, leaning over her bed and kissing her forehead. She had said something very similar. Her body had shone as if she were filled with starlight, and the sadness in her dark eyes had smitten Selmana to the heart.

She shivered and drew closer to the fire. “I suppose you’re right. But I’m afraid of what he’s done.”

“What Cadvan did is one thing,” said Nelac. “And that is certainly bad enough. But it’s what he has unleashed that frightens me.”

I
T
was two weeks’ ride through lonely country from Jouan to Lirigon, and Cadvan and Dernhil took it at a leisurely pace. Now that he had found Cadvan, Dernhil seemed to have lost any sense of urgency. Which was just as well, thought Cadvan, since the horse he had bought in Jouan, a sway-backed gelding unimaginatively named Brownie, had no chance of keeping up with Dernhil’s fiery Hyeradh. It had been the only beast for sale in Jouan, where horses were scarce, and had been a reluctant purchase. Cadvan had cured Brownie of worms and an open sore on his leg, and the horse had actually gained condition on their journey, but nothing would make it a comfortable ride.

Their plan was to travel to Lirigon Fesse, the region around the School, where Cadvan could take up lodging in one of the hamlets, while Dernhil went to the School to inform Nelac of their return. The vagueness of the plan bothered Cadvan almost as much as the thought of returning to Lirigon: why seek him out at such cost, disrupt the life he had made in Jouan, and drag him to Lirigon, if not for some clear reason? He had agreed to Dernhil’s request, feeling that he couldn’t refuse, but he spent long hours on horseback wondering what goose chase he had committed to. The only thing that cheered him was the prospect of seeing Nelac, who he had missed grievously in the past year and a half of exile; but this was balanced by his discomfort in returning home, where his shame was widely known.

Dernhil had idly proposed that Cadvan should stay with his father, or perhaps his sisters, when they returned, but the look on Cadvan’s face had made sure he didn’t suggest it again. Cadvan flinched from thinking of his family: there his humiliation was most raw. He knew that his relations had suffered from vicious gossip, and their pride in him had been destroyed; if they could welcome him back, which he personally doubted, their forgiveness would sting more than their rejection. He planned to find board in some place where he would likely not be recognized, on the other side of the Fesse.

He said nothing of this to Dernhil, who guessed more of his thoughts than he suspected. Their relationship remained constrained: Cadvan feared that his temper might again take hold of him, and thought it best to say as little as possible, and Dernhil himself was in no mood for chatter.

There was no direct route to Lirigon. For the first week, they followed cart tracks along the Cuna River, which flowed south past Jouan. South-west of Jouan were impassable forests, which hugged the curious rock formations known as the Redara, a haven for birds. Trading carts and other travellers were forced to follow the watercourses. This meant that the Bards had to ride south and then turn west. The weather remained fair, the days warm and bright, and the nights balmy. A day’s ride from the village they began to encounter the forests of North Annar, with their foliage turning towards autumn; the sound of hoof beats was deadened by a thickening carpet of bright leaves. As they neared the Cuna’s confluence with the Lir River, the woods thinned out to scrubby, rock-strewn wilderness, and the horses began to complain of the heat. On the day that they reached the Lir River, which would lead them to Lirigon, the weather suddenly changed; cold winds swept down from the mountains, bringing grey clouds and showers. Hyeradh and Brownie now plodded mournfully through the rain, their ears flattened back to their skulls.

That night, nowhere near any hamlet or farm that could provide them with shelter, they made a poor camp under a dripping oak tree. Cadvan spent a fruitless half hour trying to coax a flame from some damp twigs, until Dernhil, returning from unsaddling the horses and scrubbing them down, set the kindling afire with a word. Like all Bards, Dernhil never used magery casually, but Cadvan’s prim refusals irritated him beyond measure. He thought them hypocritical: was Cadvan serious in thinking that by refusing to light a campfire now, he made up for his earlier crimes against the Balance?

Cadvan cast him a surly glance as he poured dried beans into a pot to begin their dinner. It wasn’t presently raining, but beyond the circle of their fire the night was utterly black, and the wind was damp and sharp. “It will rain again before dawn,” said Dernhil, squatting down and stretching his hands to the flames. “I’d give anything for dry clothes, but I doubt I’ll get them tonight.”

“Not for a few days, if my nose doesn’t mislead me,” said Cadvan. “The rain is set in, I think.”

Dernhil nodded gloomily. Travelling was exhausting, even at the best of times, and he was not at his best. The cold crept into his muscles, and he could feel his stamina faltering. He made no complaint, but he feared that even at their unhurried pace he might collapse: he had fainted and fallen from his horse more than once on his journey to Jouan. He hated his infirmity with a passion, and it stoked the resentment he felt towards Cadvan for causing it.

The two men ate their dinner in silence, and prepared themselves to sleep. They didn’t set a watch; in the northern wilderness of Lirhan there wasn’t much to fear. The worst that could happen was a curious bear sniffing at their provisions, and that was a danger easily dealt with by Bards, who could simply tell it to go away. Cadvan fell asleep quickly but Dernhil lay awake for some time. His body throbbed with pain. It began to rain again, at first softly and then more insistently, and an icy deluge of water that had built up in the leaves above fell on his face, trickling down his neck. He swore and wrapped his blankets and cloak more tightly around him. At last he dropped off into uneasy dreams.

In the dark hours before sunrise, Cadvan cried out in his sleep and Dernhil jolted awake. He curled up, hugging the warmth to his body, and tried to settle again, but the more he tried to relax, the more wakeful he felt. At last he gave up, and decided to poke the fire, now slumbering in ruby embers, and make himself a warm drink. It was no longer raining, and the wind had died down so that the night was very still: the clouds had parted and a little vagrant moonlight lit the surface of the river that ran beside them.

He was blowing on his tea, staring idly into the darkness beyond the river, when a woman spoke his name. He jumped, instinctively shielding himself, and looked around. He could see and hear no trace of anyone. Perhaps he had imagined it? He had just decided that his mind was playing tricks when he heard the voice again, much closer this time. He still couldn’t tell from which direction it was coming, and could see no one near by. In any case, who would be here, out in the wilderness of Lirhan? He wondered whether to wake Cadvan up, and was just moving to do so when a slender figure stepped into the firelight, seemingly out of nowhere.

This was surprising enough: but then she let down the hood of the cloak that covered her face, and he saw that it was Ceredin. She stood before him, her dark hair loose about her shoulders, in a white dress that he remembered she had worn on the night of his poetry duel with Cadvan. Their eyes met, and Dernhil drew in a sharp breath. It was Ceredin to the life: her delicately arched eyebrows, her full lips and dark eyes, the tiny, faint freckles scattered over her nose. A dim illumination, delicate as starlight, seemed to inhabit her skin, but otherwise she appeared as solid and real as Dernhil himself.

For a few moments he was frozen with wonder. He wasn’t at all afraid, but it seemed to him that he must be dreaming.

“Nay Dernhil,” said Ceredin, although he hadn’t spoken aloud. “You do not dream.”

At last he found his voice. “How are you here?”

Ceredin smiled, and sat down by the fire, next to Cadvan’s sleeping form. “I am not here,” she said. “The Circles are bleeding and the ways are broken. I can’t find my way to the Gates. I can see you on the Shadowplains, almost as lost as I am.”

Dernhil felt a stab of fear. “I walk already with the dead? Do you mean I’m dying?”

“All of us walk with death from the moment we are born. There is part of your being that wanders in your waking life, and it is that I see in the Shadowplains. It is a living thing, and shines, and I know your form.”

Dernhil shook his head in bewilderment. “I don’t understand,” he said. “I don’t understand at all. Why are you lost, Ceredin?”

“Sometimes I think I see the Gates in the distance, and I am hopeful and walk towards them, and then they fade and shimmer and I find myself alone, on a dark plain, with whispering all around me. I cannot see who whispers, but I know there are many of them, and I think they are the voices of those who are lost like me.”

Ceredin spoke without any emotion in her voice, as if she were speaking of something distant from her, but at this Dernhil reached forward without thinking, to take her hand in his, and she drew back hastily.

“You mustn’t touch me,” she said. “I am not here. I only seem.”

Dernhil sat back, staring at Ceredin. There was, to his eyes at least, nothing insubstantial about her presence: he was torn between astonishment and a disconcerting sense that this encounter was, despite everything, absolutely ordinary.