The Bone Queen

  In Lirigon the records of the Bone Queen’s reign were extensive. Nelac had read most of them, grim though they were. The library held scrolls that dated back to the Silence, kept by Kansabur’s servants and officials: here, meticulously notated in brusquely written ledgers, were countless crimes: massacres of whole villages accused of rebellion; torture and imprisonment of anyone considered to be a threat to the reign of the Dark. A careless word, or even the testimony of a malicious neighbour, was enough to ensure torment or death. Nelac sighed, remembering some of the sadder entries: Nokin, ten years, son of Traitor Kern of Skiln, confessed: death. Behind those indifferent words were unimaginable worlds of suffering.

  Northern Annar had been the realm of the Dhyllin, the people whom the Nameless One had most hated. The Dhyllic realm stretched from the Osidh Elanor to the Aleph River, and was famed for the beauty of its arts and the depth of its learning. Even the Elementals, the immortal Elidhu whom Bards distrusted as allies of the Dark, were said to gather with the Dhyllin, sharing their knowledge and delighting in the arts of mortals.

  Most famed was the High City of the Dhillarearën, Afinil, which rose by a lake whose water was so clear that to drink from it was said to be like drinking light. Sometimes Nelac dreamed of Afinil, walking in wonder through its vaulted stone halls and hanging gardens, the star music of the Dhillarearën sounding through his mind as an ache of loveliness. Afinil had been erased so completely that no one knew exactly where it had been. Even the mere had been destroyed, its site lost in a maze of swampland. The fruitful country around Afinil, vineyards and forests, gardens and orchards, was now a haunted waste called the Hutmoors. Travellers went out of their way to avoid the Hutmoors: the land was poisoned still with the wounds of that war and the wind itself was said to weep with voices raised in endless lament.

  The Nameless One had levelled all the Dhyllin’s fabled cities. The Light had been driven out of Annar, the Song of the Dhillarearën had withered and died. So much knowledge had been lost in those dark centuries. The Light could never be what it had been; the innocence of the age of the Dhillarearën, when day and night had been two sides of one whole, was gone for ever. The Dark was born out of Sharma’s greed and ruthlessness, his desire to possess and rule, and he had made himself the Nameless One. Now Bards were trained in warfare and combat, and their cities were walled, keeping a garrisoned vigilance against the Dark even after centuries of peace.

  And even so, the Dark had found a chink in the armour. Nelac thought it was possible, even likely, that the Bone Queen sought to rule in her own right. But even if her remaking presaged nothing else, even if it didn’t foreshadow the Nameless One rising again in the south, it filled him with fear: if she regained her full powers, she had the strength and will enough to drown all Annar again. The White Flame, the Knowing of the Light, was kept alive in the Seven Kingdoms grouped around the borders, which held out, over all those centuries, against the onslaught of the Dark. If the Nameless One returned now, thought Nelac, his first thought would be to destroy the Seven Kingdoms. He would hate them as much as he hated the Dhyllin. But the Seven Kingdoms were hard to attack and harder to govern, jealously preserving their independence. The Dark would need to be strong indeed to think of crushing them. Annar, the largest realm of all, was always the weakest. The Seven Kingdoms had survived the fall of Annar once; could they do it again?

  As she had during the Great Silence, Kansabur would find allies. In her time, the Bone Queen had had many willing servants. Thinking of Bards like Noram and Coglint, Nelac’s belly lurched with contempt: he could see so clearly how they would fall, listening to their fear. Milana’s alarm after the discussions about Cadvan’s exile was well founded: a just mercy in the face of wrongdoing was the easiest to argue against, the hardest to defend in times of crisis. And once that was swept aside, it was easier to ignore other principles, little by little, act by act, until they embraced the most unthinkable atrocities of the Dark, while telling themselves they were merely obeying necessity and reason. Already there was rot at the centre, where they most needed to be strong. Cadvan’s crime was clear, and could be reckoned with: Nelac feared much more an insidious corruption, that spread slowly and invisibly, unnoticed until it was too late…

  He wished he were not so tired. The battle with Likod had emptied him as nothing in his life; he thought he would never be free of that dragging weariness. Even Bards couldn’t escape age. He knew that Cadvan and Dernhil were vigilant, and tactfully checked their pace to suit his. He hid his fatigue as much as he could, but his weakness humiliated him. Once he would have pushed on past Jouan, instead of arguing for a bed… But, he thought, aching bones will not be argued with, and it was true that he would travel the faster for even a short respite.

  He put his hands behind his head and contemplated the beamed ceiling of his room, turning his mind from gloomy thoughts. He had been surprised by the accommodation, but it seemed that Jonalan’s traders expected more than the communal dormitory he had anticipated when he had walked into the taproom. A private room was a luxury… He heard Cadvan and Dernhil talking as they clattered down the narrow stairs outside his room, and then, without intending to, he fell fast asleep.

  Taran walked into the tavern an hour later. He was scrubbed so clean his skin was pink and his hair was still damp; noticing this, Cadvan thought, with private amusement, that Hal must have supervised his bathing after he had finished his shift at the mine. She could be very stern. Taran nodded to the dozen other Jouains who were already packed into Jonalan’s tiny snug to welcome Cadvan back. News travelled swiftly in Jouan.

  “Taran,” said Cadvan, his face lighting up. He stood to greet his friend, grasping his hand.

  “Hal tells me you’re just passing,” said Taran.

  “We are. You remember Dernhil?” Taran nodded and Dernhil held out his hand. “And this is Selmana, also from Lirigon.”

  Selmana greeted him courteously, suppressing her panic. All these good people, so eager to greet Cadvan and to tell him the latest news of the village, were wonderful; but the Bards needed to attend to Ceredin’s warning. And yet Cadvan betrayed no sign of impatience, chatting with the miners as if they had all the time in the world. She had never seen him more at ease with people, even in Lirigon when Ceredin was alive. Then, even at his most expansive, she had always sensed a reserve. All Bards were private people, she reflected, but Cadvan had always been more withheld than most.

  “I’m right glad you’re here,” Taran said quietly to Cadvan, after everyone had exchanged courtesies. “I’d appreciate a talk.”

  “Something troubles you?”

  Taran nodded. “These are troubled times here,” he said.

  “Later, then,” said Cadvan. “Perhaps I should come to your house?”

  “Come over before the evening meal,” said Taran. “I don’t doubt Jonalan wants to feast you, or I’d invite you myself. We’d all be grateful.”

  The conversation became general after that, and Taran left soon after. Dernhil, who had overheard his request, followed him with his gaze and looked enquiringly at Cadvan.

  “What do you think is wrong?”

  “It might just be a deal gone wrong,” said Cadvan. “I sometimes helped them out with things like that.”

  “I think it’s more than that.”

  Cadvan hesitated, and then met Dernhil’s eyes. “I think so too,” he said. “He’s no fool, Taran. He’s had those dreams, like you and I.” At this, Dernhil’s eyes widened in surprise. “And putting that together with what Ceredin said…” He looked down into his mug of ale. “I think we shouldn’t have come here, Dernhil. I don’t want to bring trouble on these people.”

  Another miner interrupted them, wanting to greet Cadvan, and Dernhil glanced across the table at Selmana, who was squeezed into the corner chewing her lips, her hands twisting in her lap. She caught his eye and he nodded. He whispered something to Cadvan and drew Selmana away from the crowd. “They just want to speak to Cadvan,” he said
. “I’m not sure we’re needed.”

  “No, they don’t want to see us,” said Selmana. “Why doesn’t Cadvan send them away? Should we set wards, Dernhil?”

  Dernhil took both her hands in his. “First, we should not let fear rule us. Wards may do something, but I’m not sure that they will stay Kansabur, if she is hunting in the Shadowplains. Likod bypassed them wholly in Lirigon.”

  “Yes, but…”

  “Tell me, Selmana; have you any awareness of the Bone Queen?”

  Selmana shook her head slowly.

  “Then our peril is not immediate, even if it’s close. I feel nothing wrong, but I’m uneasy. Nothing feels right, either.”

  “I’ve forgotten what ‘feeling right’ feels like,” said Selmana. “Everything’s wrong.”

  “We’ll see what Nelac has to say, eh?”

  She followed Dernhil upstairs, where he knocked on the door of Nelac’s room. When there was no answer, he pushed the door open, suddenly anxious. Nelac was lying on top of the bed, snoring gently.

  “I’m loath to disturb him,” he said, turning to Selmana. “He is more weary than he will let us see.”

  “He’d say we should wake him.”

  “Aye.” Dernhil touched Nelac’s shoulder and said his name. When there was no response, he shook him, at first gently and then more roughly. Selmana’s stomach tightened: a Bard should wake instantly. What was wrong? At last, after what seemed an age, Nelac stirred, and then he cried out and scrambled upright, his face rigid, staring sightlessly in front of him.

  “Nelac,” said Dernhil softly.

  Nelac clutched his arm, and his eyes slowly focused on Dernhil’s face. “Dernhil. Selmana. Thank the Light.” He rubbed his hand through his tousled hair. “I’m not sure … where I was…” Nelac swung his legs off the bed and picked up his pack, searching impatiently through it until he found the flask of medhyl. He took a sip and wiped his mouth, and then directed a sharp look at Selmana.

  “Tell me, is Kansabur close?”

  “I can’t feel her presence,” said Selmana. “But that doesn’t mean she isn’t close. I saw Ceredin, she said the Bone Queen is tracking us.”

  Nelac drew his breath in sharply. “Ceredin?” he said. “Our messenger from the dead…” His face darkened with sadness. “How I miss her. There was a Bard with a great capacity for love. It is that love that ties her to us, even now…”

  He was silent for a long time, and Dernhil and Selmana exchanged glances. Nelac caught the look. “Nay, my wits aren’t wandering,” he said. “I’m just … tired to the very depths of my soul. Everywhere a fog of dread.” He was silent for a time, gathering his thoughts, and the others waited without speaking. “I saw Kansabur,” he said at last. “Not formless this time, but as the Iron Tyrant of Lir. Perhaps as you glimpsed her in Lirigon, Selmana.”

  “Did she see you?” Selmana’s voice cracked, remembering that moment of terror.

  “No. I feared very much that she would, that I would be imprisoned in that eye… But she didn’t see me.” Nelac shook his head, trying to rid himself of the aftermath of his dream. “It could have just been an ordinary nightmare. It wouldn’t be wholly surprising; I was thinking through the records of Lirigon when I fell asleep. But, no, it hadn’t that quality. I’ve not been afflicted with such visions as you and Cadvan have suffered, Dernhil, but you say that they are not as other dreams…”

  “No,” said Dernhil shortly. “They are not.”

  “That I did fall asleep, against my intention, is strange in itself.” He paused. “I thought at first I must have entered the Shadowplains. But then it seemed to me that I was elsewhere.”

  “It’s said we sometimes wander through the Shadowplains in our slumbers,” said Dernhil.

  “It is also said the dreaming soul is protected there, unlike the waking Bard, shielded by its innocence. But there was no protection. I was lucky, I think.” Nelac shuddered and drew his hand across his eyes. “This was a place with no dimension, no height or breadth or anything I could recognize,” he said at last. “And Kansabur was there. She was the only thing I could properly perceive. But I knew with other senses that the dead were there, and I knew they were afraid.” He paused again. “Tell me about Ceredin, Selmana. I can’t speak my dream, it is too confused.”

  Selmana told him of her vision of Ceredin. He interrupted her at times, demanding Ceredin’s exact phrasing. He was now fully alert, with none of the confusion that had disturbed Selmana before. Then he fell silent again.

  “What think you, Nelac?” asked Dernhil at last.

  “The armies of the dead,” said Nelac. “That has a fell sound.” He sighed heavily. “And, alas, it makes my dream the more clear. I was with the dead, but I think it was not the souls of the Shadowplains. I was in a place beyond, different in every way. I can’t describe it; it was stranger and darker, dull and heavy with terror. But it seemed to me in my dream that this terror was a new thing, that it hadn’t always been there.”

  “Do you mean the Third Circle? The Empyrean?”

  “I think so. If Kansabur is there before us, the Gates are broken already. Yet I can’t believe that: such a shattering would shake all the Circles, none of us would not know it. I could have been witnessing what is to come.”

  “What did you witness?” asked Selmana, in a small voice.

  Nelac looked up, his face drawn, and tried a few fumbling phrases, and then shook his head. “I wish I could say,” he said. “There are no words that will shape it for you.”

  “Should we leave Jouan, do you think?” she asked. “Ceredin said we are not safe.”

  “I’m not sure,” said Nelac. “I am thinking that perhaps it isn’t coincidence that Cadvan was drawn here. The Knowing can call us, perhaps most strongly when we are least aware of it.”

  “Cadvan said that he doesn’t wish to bring trouble on these people,” said Dernhil. “Perhaps for their sake…”

  “I’m thinking that I’m tired of fleeing from shadows,” said Nelac. “If there is a breach in Jouan, as Ceredin said, trouble is here already. Can we leave these people to face it alone?”

  Downstairs, Cadvan contemplated the row of drinks that stood in front of him, bought by the folk of Jouan to welcome him back. Many people, he noted ironically, had remembered his fondness for the local apple spirit. If he consumed them all, the result would be unseemly. In order not to insult them, he took tiny sips from each, before placing the mugs aside to be tactfully removed by Jonalan. He needed a clear head.

  The Jouains’ enthusiasm embarrassed him: he knew them as an undemonstrative people, but they were welcoming him back like a lost son. Yet he couldn’t deny that it pleased him too: when he left Jouan, he had had no idea that he would be missed, except by those who were dear to him, like Taran and Hal. The whole village seemed to have turned out, and there was already an air of festival.

  All the same, he became increasingly aware of an underlying anxiety in the villagers. Faces fell when he said he was only staying overnight. “It’s hard that you can’t be here longer,” said a toothless grandmother called Kipa. “Since you left, it’s like our luck has gone.” Others hushed her, as it was discourteous to pressure a guest, and she grinned to cover the moment and punched his arm.

  Cadvan reflected that he could hardly be said to have brought Jouan luck; the explosion had happened not long after he had arrived. He thought of Taran’s hints, and listened more closely, but nothing quite explained the anxiety he was sensing: there were accounts of accidents, of Old Tirn’s death from the lung fever, which had been well-advanced when Cadvan left a month before, the birth of a son to Odil and Bren, who lived near Taran. A few spoke of Hal, who, it seemed, had taken over Cadvan’s healing duties with honour. He wondered where the other Bards were, but felt no need to find them; if they needed him, they knew where he was. An hour before the evening meal, he made his farewells, and took the familiar path to Taran’s house.

  Taran was waiting for him in his crowded kitch
en. Cadvan smiled involuntarily when he entered; it was all cheerful activity, chaotic and orderly at once. Hal, pounding herbs in a mortar and pestle, gave him her quick smile. Her two younger brothers, who still worked as haulers in the mine, were squabbling amicably in a corner, playing Knuckles. Indira stirred a pot by the hearth, a toddler on her lap. She turned her pale face when Cadvan entered, smiling shyly. He went to her and touched her shoulder, and her fingers fluttered about his face, feeling its shape. “Cadvan,” she said. “I can’t mistake your tread.”

  “It is good to see you, Indira,” he said. He sniffed appreciatively. “That’s a brave stew you’re making. It smells like a feast for kings.”

  Indira laughed with pleasure. “You speak too high of me,” she said. “It’s just a mess of herbs.”

  “But made by a master of the art,” said Cadvan, smiling.

  “I swear we’re all growing fat, since Indira came,” said Taran. “You should taste her bannocks.” He hesitated, and then suggested, over the protests of his brothers, that he and Cadvan take a walk. “I can’t hear myself think in here,” said Taran, frowning them down. “And there’s no rain, for a wonder. We won’t be long, and then you can tell Cadvan whatever you want.”

  He shut the door behind him and the two men began to walk up to the minehead. Dusk was already drawing in, with the early nights of approaching winter, and the first few stars were beginning to open in the darkening sky.

  “Your family seems well,” said Cadvan.

  Taran glanced at him. “We’re doing fine,” he said. “Aside from what troubles us all.”

  “What is it?”

  Taran was silent for a time. “It sounds foolish,” he said. “It seems to me to be Bard business, there’s stuff I don’t understand.”

  “I’m sure it’s not foolish,” said Cadvan.

  “Remember I told you about that dream? I’ve had more, since. I wake in a cold sweat, shaking all over, they’re that bad. The thing is, I’m not the only one. Hal too. And some of the hewers were turning up for work looking like they hadn’t slept at all, and we started talking, and it’s almost everyone in Jouan. There’s some now that are afraid of sleeping. Mad Truwy is mad most of the time these days, he’s been afflicted more than the rest of us. Quite a few are talking about a curse, and say we’re haunted. And there’s many that has noticed it only happened when you went away, and are thinking that you kept bad spirits at bay.”