"And why shouldn't we help?" said Zelika. She brushed her hair out of her eyes. "If we do nothing, we can still be killed. And I don't want to stay down here for the rest of my life."
Hem finished his meal without speaking. He carried their bowls to the galley, washed the utensils in the stone trough, and set them to dry with special care.
"Well, then," he said, turning to Zelika. "I suppose we should find Saliman, and persuade him to let Hared train us."
"I was looking for him earlier, but no one knew where he was. Or if they knew, they weren't saying."
"Do you have to care for the babies now?"
"No. Nimikera said she would need no help today. She has been sick with her wound, but she says she is getting better."
Hem nodded absently. He felt a determination hardening in his breast; he would make Saliman give his permission. And if he wouldn't...
Hem didn't finish that thought. He had never openly defied Saliman; but for the first time he felt that the Bard's judgment was awry. He was perfectly aware that to Hared, he and Zelika were merely useful tools, but he also knew, from the conversation the previous night, that the Bards were very anxious to find out more about the armies of children. And it seemed, from what had been said, children themselves were best placed to do so. It was simply not enough to say that he and Zelika must be kept out of danger.
There's work to be done, he thought. It was a thought that gave him a good feeling as he held it in his mind, like a smooth, hard stone that fitted satisfyingly in the palm. Work for me and Zelika.
He called Ire to his shoulder, and the two children started to search the palace. They found Saliman at last in a small room the Bards called the meeting chamber. Here, Hem noticed, were more paintings of the strange tree man they had seen in the huge throne room or temple. Saliman was seated on a cushion, huddled in his cloak to cheat the chill of the unheated room, reading with deep concentration a parchment scratched with spidery writing.
He looked up and frowned when the children entered. Hem hesitated at the threshold, stammering an apology for disturbing him. Saliman sighed, and then smiled.
"Come in, come in," he said. "It's all right, Hem, I am not cross at your being here. It's only more bad news." He folded the parchment and put it in his tunic pocket. "You are seeking me?"
"Yes." Now that it had come to the point, Hem felt his resolution waver. He had never known Saliman to be anything but wise and farsighted, and he knew much more than Hem did about the ways of the world.
"We wanted to ask you if you would give Hared permission to train us," said Zelika. "Because both Hem and I want to work for him, and he won't train us unless you agree."
Saliman glanced from one to the other, his face expressionless.
"Sit down," he said.
Hem and Zelika sat down next to Saliman, and Ire hopped onto the table and gently pecked Saliman's hand in greeting. Hem swallowed nervously, and then wondered why he was nervous. Saliman did not look angry, and Hem was not a little boy anymore. Soon he would be a man.
"You both know that Hared has spoken of this with me, and you know I do not like the idea," said Saliman. Zelika opened her mouth to say something, but Saliman raised his hand. "Wait until I finish, Zelika. The work of which Hared speaks is very dangerous. I know how dangerous, because I have done it myself."
"But we can't stay underground forever!" Hem burst out. "I've done nothing! When Turbansk was under siege, I was inside the walls, being safe. I've never been in battle, and Maerad is out there with Cadvan, facing who knows what perils, and you would – "
"Hem, I have not forbidden anything. Is that not true?"
Hem met Saliman's eyes, which were dark and sad, and bit his lip. "It's true," he said.
"Then hear me out. The work Hared speaks of is, as I said, very dangerous. And I would not be a good mentor to you, Hem, nor responsible for Zelika, if I heedlessly let you do something so perilous." Ire gave a quiet caw, as if in agreement, and Saliman began to scratch the bird's neck as he talked. Ire sank down on the table, crooning with delight. "Hem, I remember when I first saw you. Do you recall?"
Hem nodded.
"You walked into Nelac's rooms in Norloch, a scrawny, hungry young boy with huge eyes, trying to hide behind your sister. And I tell you, you moved my heart. I have loved you since, although I have not been able to care for you as I would have wished."
Despite himself, tears sprang into Hem's eyes. "You have always been good to me," he said roughly. "I didn't always deserve it, either."
"Hem, love has nothing to do with deserving. One gives one's heart, and that is all. But that is not the point. In Norloch, I saw a lost child. Standing before me, I see that you are a child no longer; if you were of the Neera Marsh people, they would have made the ceremonies already to welcome you into manhood. But you are a Bard, and you are, in our counting, still not quite a man. You have grown much, though, Hem. You are thoughtful, where once you never thought. You are patient, where once you were a tangle of rages. And," he added, with a teasing smile, "you have grown much taller. You will soon overtop me, and I am not a small man."
Zelika had turned slightly away from them, and was staring at the wall. Hem could not see her face, but he guessed she was feeling shy and left out. She turned back to face them, as Saliman had stopped speaking, and Hem was surprised by how troubled her face was; she looked for a moment haunted by loneliness.
"I am not your father, Zelika, as you once pointed out," said Saliman gently, turning toward her. "It is the sheerest accident that you came to be under my roof. But since you have been in my care, I have been responsible for you." He smiled, and leaning forward, cupped her cheek with his hand. "And I have grown to love you too, Zelika. You are Baladhian, and like all Baladhians you are cross-grained to the core, but true and honest; I have seen that, too. And I like the idea of your going into danger as little as I like it for Hem."
Zelika blinked, and then stared at the floor. No one spoke for a moment.
"But is that a good enough reason for us not to work for Hared?" said Hem at last. "It's our world that the Nameless One is destroying. And we are in danger whether we help or no."
"Aye, Hem. I have thought these things. And it is a hard choice, but it is one that I must make. I will say that Hared can train you to spy for him. I know what it is that he wishes you to do, and it troubles me; but I do not feel I have the right to prevent you from helping the Light."
Zelika looked delighted, and Saliman glanced at her somberly. "I have one caveat: you can only work for him after you have finished your training, if Hared says that your skills are of the highest standard. Anything less, and I will not contemplate your doing any dangerous work. And Hared is the hardest of taskmasters; he will demand more of you than you now realize."
"I will be brilliant," said Zelika, without a hint of modesty. "I have no doubt of it."
Hem felt nothing like the same confidence, but thanked Saliman.
"Now," said Saliman. "I am here because I have some thinking to do, and I wish to be undisturbed. Just let me finish what I am doing and I'll speak to Hared later."
Hem put his hand out for Ire, who climbed lazily onto his forearm, and they followed Zelika out of the room. Hem could see by the jaunty way she walked that she was very pleased.
Hem didn't feel at all glad. There was a grim satisfaction that at last he would be helping the Light, but he felt no pleasure in it. He had seen Saliman's eyes as he had given his permission, and they had been dark with pain.
XV
THE TREE MAN
The next day Hem dragged his Turbanskian armor out of his pack, where it had been carefully put away since their time in the Passage of the Kings. He stared at the dull gold sun on the ceramic breastplate with a sudden piquant sadness, remembering that this gear had been made for the children of Har-Ytan, when they had been his age. He had never met her sons, he realized now; he wondered what kind of people they were. They must be fierce and brave, he thought, with
the blood of Har-Ytan in their veins.
And what of the Ernani? Had she lived through the hopeless battle in front of the gates of Turbansk? Hem thought it unlikely. Har-Ytan had not expected to. After all, she had passed on the Ernani's ruby to her son. She had said she would stand and fall with her city, and then had walked clear-eyed to her death. Hem shivered; there was something about the people of the Suderain, an unwavering purity of purpose, which made him feel small. He saw it most dramatically in Zelika, but Saliman possessed that same determination, if more subtly inflected. Once an action was decided, there was no flinching, no excuses, no regrets. Hem didn't feel nearly so certain about anything.
He thoughtfully buckled the shortsword to his belt, and, Ire clinging complainingly to his shoulder, went to meet Zelika, whose eyes gleamed with suppressed excitement. Hared was waiting there. He looked the children over sternly and led them out of the palace and through the square to a part of the city they had not seen – a large courtyard surrounded by sinister-looking low buildings, which was only accessible through a locked gate. Here the stone roof of the cave swept down to a mere few spans above their heads. It felt claustrophobic and somehow hostile in a way the rest of Nal-Ak-Burat did not.
Hared's training was as hard as the children had expected, but everything else about it confounded their expectations. Hem had thought he would concentrate on swordcraft and unarmed combat, and in that first session Hared put Zelika and Hem through their paces. He made them use their weapons instead of wooden substitutes, as Hem was used to in the School in Turbansk, and pressed each of them hard. By the end, Zelika had disarmed Hared, and Hem had resisted being disarmed himself, although Hared told him that, had they really been fighting, he could have killed him, as he'd let down his guard at a crucial moment. But their mentor professed himself satisfied with their levels of skill.
"You can hold your own, mostly," he said, leaning on his sword and breathing heavily. "Zelika, I'll even say that you creditably carry on the tradition of your great House. Being small can be an advantage – remember that, if you end up fighting for your life against someone twice your size. But if you are clever, you should not have to fight at all. The most canny warrior is he who never draws his sword."
Zelika could not conceal her pleasure at his words, which were a balm to her wounded pride. From Hared, this was high praise indeed. "You should work further with Zelika," said Hared to Hem. "You're quick, and you are not afraid of fighting dirty. But you are out of practice, I think. I expect both of you to work each day together, to make sure you are fit. There's nothing more I can teach you in a short time. The rest is luck."
Hem nodded.
"Now," said Hared. "I want you to wait here." He lifted up the lamp he had carried to the courtyard, bowed his head briefly in farewell, and walked off through the gate, locking it behind him.
Hared left so quickly that Hem and Zelika had no time to ask when he would be back. They were left in absolute darkness, in the strange square, and the unchallenged silence of the underground city – undiluted as it was in the palace by noise and human busyness – opened around them.
Hem summoned a magelight, and the two children stared at each other in its dim glow.
"He's locked us in!" said Zelika indignantly.
"Yes," Hem answered. Part of him wanted to laugh; he should, he thought, have expected something like this, and have come prepared. "I suppose it's a test. And I'm thirsty. Did you bring anything to drink?"
Zelika shook her head.
"Me neither. Nor any food. Perhaps there's one of those small rivers around here somewhere. Can you hear anything?"
They listened hard, but there was no running water nearby.
"How dare he lock us in!" said Zelika, her eyes blazing. "That son of a mangy dog!" She called him a few other, less complimentary names, before subsiding into a brooding silence.
"Of course he would dare," Hem said. "He won't put us in any real danger, I don't think..."
"Hmmpff." Zelika squatted on the ground. "Well, he said to wait. Maybe that's the test – to see how patient we are."
Hared could be back at any time. He might leave them there for hours. Days? Surely not; he would know that they needed water. Hem swallowed, already feeling how dry his throat was, and pushed thoughts of drinking out of his mind. He glanced at the buildings surrounding the courtyard. They gave him an eerie feeling; most of them had empty doorways that yawned like black mouths in the pale magelight.
"Did you notice how we got here?" asked Hem.
"Not really," said Zelika. "I was just following Hared, so I didn't really look." She hunched up gloomily. "And Soron is cooking today. I hope he doesn't leave us too long; I don't want to miss dinner."
"Maybe he wants us to escape from here."
"Maybe he wants us to obey his orders."
Hem weighed the possibilities. "I think we should wait, at least to begin with. And, after a while, if Hared doesn't come back, then we should try to get out of here. Do you want to have a look around?"
Zelika agreed; it wasn't as if there were anything else to do. Glumly – thirst was really beginning to bother them – they looked around at the empty doorways, feeling none of the curiosity that had pushed them to explore so much of Nal-Ak-Burat. Maybe there was a way out, but it was very clear that if there were, it was not from the courtyard. The rocky roof came down to meet the walls of the buildings, effectively enclosing them in a big cavern. And the gate was locked. Hem tried a few opening spells, without much hope; he was sure the magery in this place would not respond to anything he said and that, in any case, Hared would not lock them in if a simple opening charm would be enough to release them. He was right, of course.
Next, they peered unenthusiastically through some of the doorways. They led into blank, tiny rooms that felt like tombs. In the corners of some glimmered strange, luminous fungi that Hem had not seen elsewhere in Nal-Ak-Burat; they looked disconcertingly like pale hands growing out of the stone, and insects scuttled under them, away from the light. All the walls were covered with paintings of sinister half-men with the heads of birds or frogs, or the legs of lizards or goats. They seemed to stare back, with blank, unwavering eyes that made the hair creep on Hem's neck.
"We're stuck, then," said Zelika. She called Hared some more names, and then bit her lip. "He'd better be back soon."
The children took off their armor – even though it was not heavy, it was uncomfortable – and sat on the stone ground. They took some time to find the right place, not too near to the doorways, and not too far away, either. Although neither of them said so, they had the uncomfortable feeling that one of the birdmen might come flapping out of a doorway while they weren't looking. They fixed their eyes on the gate through which Hared had disappeared. Surely he would be back soon? He couldn't leave them there all night, surely?
The stone was very cold and very hard, and it grew colder and harder the longer they sat there. Their lips began to burn with thirst, and Ire, who had settled disconsolately on the ground nearby, began to nag Hem for some food, irritably pecking at his sandals.
They waited a long time. How long it was impossible to know: in the changeless air, each moment seemed to stretch endlessly. Apart from their own breathing and occasional restless movements, it was so silent that Hem could hear the blood rushing through his ears. All he could think about was that he was thirsty. Finally he stood up.
"Hared's played a nice trick on us," he said darkly. "But I'm not going to sit here like a baby waiting for him to let us out. This place makes my skin crawl. There has to be a way to get out of here."
"Let's look around again," said Zelika. "It will be better than sitting here, anyway. I'm going numb."
The children stamped their feet and waved their arms around to get the blood moving, and then began a meticulous exploration of the strange cavern. It was, as Zelika said, better than doing nothing; but as they continued, Hem thought it was only marginally better. The more he looked around this place,
the less he liked it.
There were about a dozen doors around the square where they had been training. They started with the one nearest the gate, and moved methodically to their left. This time they entered the rooms they had only peered into previously, examining the walls closely for any sign of an exit.
Neither of them could shake the growing feeling that they were being watched, although they didn't mention it. It was, Hem thought, the eyes of the creatures painted on the walls; they seemed to stare, as if they were living eyes, though when he looked at them closely they were just paint, faded and damp, with patches missing altogether.
They worked their way to the room opposite the gate without finding anything interesting. This chamber was the largest, and it had a stone slab, like a table, in the middle, which was covered with intricate relief carvings of runes and tiny human figures. Hem and Zelika stopped involuntarily at the threshold and unconsciously reached out and clasped hands.
Here the sense of watchfulness was almost overwhelming; it seemed to emanate from the very stone, as if something had been woken to alertness and now focused all its attention upon them. Hem gulped, and sent the magelight into the chamber ahead of them. Its silver light bloomed softly on the walls. There was nothing in there: just ancient dust, the white fungi in the corners of the room, the crumbling paintings.
The children stepped slowly inside, poised to turn and run. The silence and stillness were themselves unnerving; their footsteps sounded too loud. Even the beating of their hearts seemed amplified. At the far end, they saw a huge mural of a half-man half-tree, like the one they had seen a few days earlier in the great hall and elsewhere in the city.
"It's that tree man again," said Zelika, whispering.
Hem nodded, swallowing hard. The figure took up the entire wall, and unlike the other paintings, was not surrounded by runes or other pictures. It just stood by itself, its arms spread, its face blank of expression, its black-rimmed eyes seeming to stare straight at them.