The Bone Queen

by Alison Croggon

  Alone in the kitchen while Larla busied herself about her garden, Selmana found that she was very content to wait. A deep tiredness, as if she had laboured all day in a forge, had settled in her very bones. She listened for the return of the other Bards, hoping that Larla’s confidence wasn’t misplaced. She realized she trusted that the old woman was right, that the crisis had passed with the storm and that Nelac, Cadvan and Dernhil were unscathed, and she wondered why. Was it that Larla made her judgements with emphatic confidence? And yet on reflection they were, perhaps, little more than an expression of hope… She remembered then with a shudder how lost she had been, and how Larla had held her and brought her back, and thought that there was something more at work.

  The more she knew of Larla, the stranger she seemed. Selmana knew that it wasn’t uncommon for people to be born with aspects of the Gift, but without the Speech that defined a Bard; she had long suspected that her father, who was a famous smith, had something of the Gift in his hands, and had passed it on to her. She had at first assumed that Larla was a wise woman, like the midwife in her village. But now she wondered if Larla’s eccentricity concealed another kind of power. Of all the places Nelac might have taken refuge in Lirigon, where almost every building was thick with charms and wards, he had chosen Larla’s house. And she had been notably unworried that the storm’s violence, even at its height, might damage her home. Who was she?

  Selmana studied the bunches of dried herbs hanging from the ceiling, the basket spilling over with undyed yarn, the pine table scrubbed to whiteness, the shelves that lined every wall, packed with brightly glazed pots and curios and glowing jars of preserves. Everything spoke of unwearying and meticulous domesticity; Selmana couldn’t pick up one sniff of magery. If Larla had powers – and now Selmana was certain that she was, in her own mysterious way, very powerful indeed – it had very little to do with the magery of Bards. Whatever it was, it was deeper than Speech, and followed its own rules, living closer to the heartbeat of things. Remembering Inghalt and his priggish definitions of Bardic lore, she thought with a sudden irritation that the Light could do with more of Larla’s kind of wisdom. Selmana loved the Light, but sometimes Bards could be blind…

  Her meditations were interrupted when Larla came bustling through the kitchen and hurried to the front of the house. Selmana looked up in surprise – she had heard no sounds of arrival – and followed Larla into her tiny hallway as she pulled open the door. All three Bards stood outside, Nelac supported between the other two, and Larla all but hauled them inside, agitated with her news; but when he saw Nelac she bit her lip and was silent. Selmana was shocked at their faces; all of them were pale, but Nelac seemed to have aged a decade since she had last seen him. She took his arm to support him, asking what had happened, but Larla stopped her with a fierce glare.

  “Enough now. There’ll be time enough to talk,” Larla said. “You all look like ghosts of yourselves. And I mean you too, kitten.” Before they spoke about anything, Larla insisted that the Bards eat the stew she had made, and she brewed a tea of peppermint and camomile, explaining that it would steady their nerves. When everyone had eaten to her satisfaction she sat forward in her chair, her chin on her hands, and studied her guests.

  “You all came back, and for all your raggedness, none of you is hurt, and that’s a blessing,” she said. “But, my dears, something very strange happened while you were gone, and I can’t read it.”

  Selmana shuddered. “First there were those wings, which made me so afraid,” she said. “I don’t know what they were…”

  “We do,” said Cadvan grimly. “They were the Shika.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know who the Shika are, and I’m sure I don’t want to know,” said Larla. “But listen: just as I heard them, there on the edge howling like they were going to tear everything to pieces, I saw the Bone Queen in her black armour. She came with the wings.”

  The Bards looked stunned. “Kansabur?” said Cadvan at last. “Are you sure? I mean, how do you know?”

  Larla hesitated, and her gaze turned inward. “I just knew, like she’d said her name out loud,” she said at last. “When I felt the… I asked Selmana to listen, because I couldn’t see with my own eyes, so I thought to look through her senses. And I saw the wings, and nothing has frightened me more in this life. I knew they were drawing closer and closer. But then they were gone as if they were never there. And then I saw the Bone Queen.”

  “I saw her too. It was her, I know it was her,” said Selmana, her voice trembling.

  “Where?” asked Cadvan urgently.

  “I don’t know where I was,” said Selmana. “But I saw her, first like a shadow, like I saw her in the Shadowplains and with the boar, and then it was like … all the shadows ran together with the wings and she became … solid… And I knew she was hunting me, that she might see me, and that the wings were hunting with her, and there was no escape…” She gestured impatiently. “I was so afraid. I don’t know how to say it.”

  “I think I know what happened,” said Cadvan grimly. “It was that other sorcery…”

  “What other sorcery?” Dernhil looked surprised. “Surely there was just the summoning?”

  “There was another spell wound through the summoning. It seems to me that Likod was intending more than the destruction of Lirigon,” Cadvan said. “Maybe the Shika were called to bring their potencies to Kansabur, to knit the Bone Queen’s shadowflesh so that she might step into the World. It was often said that during the Great Silence she made the Shika part of her being.”

  “What is she?” whispered Selmana. “Is she part of me, now? I felt that I had lost myself in her. Should you scry me?”

  “No, my dear, there is no shade of her in you,” said Larla. “Not one single bit.”

  “How do you know?” Dernhil said sharply. “Cadvan didn’t know. Even Nelac didn’t.”

  “But I did know, you see,” said Larla, folding her hands so primly in her lap that Selmana wanted to laugh. “I knew that Nelac was sick with something dark inside him. I told you so, didn’t I? Though I might have saved my breath, for the notice you took.”

  Nelac smiled at this. “You did tell me,” he said. “Though it’s not true I didn’t listen.”

  “And I saw when it was gone, when you arrived here today. You might be Bards, and learned and all, but that doesn’t mean you see everything. My problem is that I see many things but I don’t understand a lot of it, because I don’t have the learning. Or the Speech, come to that. I can’t do charms.”

  “Is Calis … is she touched by the shadow?” asked Selmana abruptly. “Can you tell?” The thought of her adored mentor infected by Kansabur, without the knowledge to protect herself, was more than she could bear.

  “I don’t know Calis, as to speak to,” said Larla. “I only really know Nelac, among the Bards.”

  “Calis?” said Nelac. “I’d say not, at a guess. She was undeceived, unlike Coglint… I wonder about Coglint and Noram.”

  “They could just be stupid,” said Cadvan.

  “I don’t know. The only way you can sense that presence within you, as far as I know, is that your Knowing is shrouded, hidden from you.” Nelac spoke slowly, as if it hurt even to talk. “Is the Circle wholly infected? I am too weary to guess, my friends. I can scarce think. But I do believe Kansabur intended this day to take Lirhan as her kingdom. We were attacked on all fronts. And we were to be utterly defeated.”

  “That, at least, didn’t happen,” said Cadvan. “But I fear we failed elsewhere.”

  “We won through by a whisker.” Nelac grimaced. “And not without hurt. I can’t remember when I have felt more diminished… And yet the urgency remains. If Coglint and Noram prevail in their suspicions, we will be made outlaws, and will be powerless to alert Lirigon to the peril we know assails us.” He paused, and added heavily: “Bashar’s injury is the worst grief.”

  “Is Bashar dead?” asked Selmana. The other Bards were silent. “What happened?”


  After a short pause, while he waited for Nelac to speak, Dernhil told her what he had seen. “Bashar yet lives, to my knowledge,” he said. “But it hurts even to think of what I saw when we tried to heal her. I’ve never seen damage of that kind…” His voice broke. “Even if she lives, what sort of life will she have? Will she ever be free of that pain?”

  No one answered him, and a heavy silence fell around the table. Selmana wished that she hadn’t asked; she wondered if the same thing might happen to her, if the Bone Queen found her.

  “I don’t understand what you did,” said Dernhil, turning to Cadvan. “But I am sure you broke the sorcery.”

  Cadvan nodded, and said painfully, “You see, I knew the spell. Likod showed it to me once.”

  Dernhil looked as if he wanted to ask further, but he perceived Cadvan’s shame and changed the subject. “Who is to say we are innocent, if Bashar cannot? And if we are perceived as agents of the Dark, who will listen to us? But if we are forced to flee, who will warn the School of the Bone Queen, if she has indeed regained her power? And where should we go, and what use would it be?”

  Again no one answered. Larla broke the silence. “If the Bone Queen is returned to her power, she is not whole, yet. She wants something…”

  “She wants me,” said Selmana, in a whisper.

  Cadvan was frowning. “The Shika cannot remain in the World for long, because they are not of it,” he said. “If most of Kansabur’s power is drawn from the Shika, then maybe she can’t, either. She is not human enough. And yet all her ambition is in the World…”

  Nelac, who had been silent, looked up at this. “I begin to see what you mean,” he said slowly. “She needs mortal flesh, to exist in the mortal plane. But why Selmana?”

  They all turned to look at her. Selmana stared back, her jaw jutting. “I’m just a Minor Bard,” she said. “I’m not important.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, kitten,” said Larla. “It seems to me that you’re very important indeed. You have the Sight. You can step into the Shadowplains as easy as if you’re just going for a walk to the market. None of us can do that.”

  Selmana felt herself trembling. “But I don’t want that,” she said. “It’s nothing to do with anything I decide, it just happens. I don’t know why it happens.”

  “The only beings who can step between the Circles with ease are the Elidhu,” said Dernhil thoughtfully. “Perhaps it’s something to do with them after all?” He examined Selmana keenly, and she turned away, a flush riding up the skin of her neck.

  “I don’t know anything about the Elementals,” she mumbled. “They’re nothing to do with me.”

  “There is too much that is outside our knowledge,” said Cadvan. “And yet we have never needed knowledge so badly. I feel as if everything I have ever been taught is a waste of time.”

  “Nay, do not say so, Cadvan,” said Dernhil. “Say rather than learning never ends.”

  Larla was looking at Nelac, her brow creased in concern. “That’s enough of talk,” she said. “You should all get some rest. As for you, Nelac, you look near death.”

  “But what will we do?” Dernhil looked at Cadvan. “It won’t be long before they’re looking for us.”

  “The storm will have left much damage and hurt,” said Nelac. “There will be enough to do after this, without setting out a hunt for us.”

  “I think we cannot count on that,” said Dernhil.

  “We should speak to Calis,” said Nelac. “And I think, if we are to leave Lirigon, we should head for Pellinor. Milana will help us, and I think Enkir is there.”

  “Enkir hates me,” Cadvan said. “I doubt he’ll listen to us.”

  Nelac frowned. “He condemned your act, as is only just, but he is fair as well as stern. And if he dislikes you, what of that? It would be a good chance if he were there. If Kansabur hid in me and Cadvan and, most likely, Bashar, when we attempted her banishing, it’s possible she has done the same to Milana and Enkir. And most importantly…” He trailed into silence.

  “What?” prompted Cadvan.

  “Pellinor has a stake in this. Lirigon first, as we now know, and secondly Pellinor. I fear for Pellinor.”

  “Enough,” said Larla, standing up and briskly brushing her hands. “You should rest, the lot of you. And all of your clothes are wringing wet, I’ll need to dry them. I have pallets aplenty, and blankets.” No one answered, but Nelac nodded. “If you like, I can look for Calis, and ask her to come here later. One thing at a time, yes?”

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” said Selmana, looking at her hand. “Your ring.” She drew the Ring of Silur off her finger and gave it back to Nelac. It was a relief, taking off that token: if her fate were to travel to Pellinor, at least she wouldn’t be travelling alone.

  XXIV

  THE Bards slept through the afternoon, while Larla prepared a pie for supper. Once she had finished baking, she ventured out into Lirigon to see how it had weathered the storm. Nelac rose before the others, just as she returned home, and they shared a cup of tea while they waited for the younger Bards to wake.

  Lirigon had fared surprisingly well. “Suspiciously well, Nelac,” said Larla. “I thought that this was a storm to throw down houses and tear off roofs, but it’s mostly a few wet floors and missing tiles. People holed up and nobody seems to be hurt, though most everyone was scared. The only real harm is to the trees: a lot of poplars snapped clean in half, and the big pine down in the Street of Potters, and a mess of branches everywhere that will give everyone firewood for months.”

  Nelac smiled. “Perhaps that’s not so strange,” he said. “All the houses here are granite, after all, and many have wards of protection.”

  “Aye,” said Larla. “But there’s more. There was no storm outside Lirigon. The Fesse was untouched. That tempest fitted itself exactly inside the walls of the School, like a foot into a shoe. You can’t tell me that’s not odd.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “I am indeed,” she said. “Well, it’s good, isn’t it? If those winds had hit the Fesse, there’d be such a mess to clean, and injured livestock and who knows what else, on top of the problems with the floods. But, no. I talked to Irant, you know, the herbalist who lives down at Fortis? And he told me he had never seen anything so strange in all his born days. Those clouds were all over the Fesse, and everyone thought they were in for something bad, and then, he said, all at once it was like a hand rolled the clouds into a ball and pushed them down on top of the School. They could hear the noise miles off, but he was busy cutting cowbane in the sweetest weather they’d had for days.”

  “I know of no weatherlore that can do that,” said Nelac. “Perhaps Dernhil is right, and Elementals were at work. I didn’t doubt, from the beginning, that there was sorcery in the weather…”

  “The word is out for you three,” said Larla. “The crier has been in the streets, and you are all named outlaw against the Light, and are to be arrested on sight. There’s a mort of gossip running around about that, but nobody seems to know why. I never heard a word about Bashar.”

  “I suppose that is only to be expected,” Nelac said. “However much I wish it otherwise.”

  “I asked around and found Calis at the Hall of Makers too.”

  “Ah, good. Did she agree to come here?”

  “Yes. I didn’t have to persuade her. She’s very upset. She missed the storm, she was out in the Fesse helping with the floods, and she can’t believe that the Circle wants to imprison you as an enemy. I told her that you wished to speak to her, and she said she’d come, and she promised to keep it a secret. She’s a sharp woman, I didn’t have to explain anything. I like her.”

  “She’s always been one of the best here,” said Nelac. “She’s Selmana’s mentor, did you know?”

  “Well, the girl needn’t worry about her,” said Larla. “There’s no dark parasite in Calis.”

  Nelac fell silent, watching as Larla drew the proving dough from beside the stove and began to knead it
. The good, sweet smell of warm yeast filled the kitchen.

  “It’s such a grace to be able to watch you at work, my dear,” he said. “I never saw more capable hands in my life.”

  Larla threw him a mischievous look and blew him a kiss. “You should know.”

  Nelac smiled with deep fondness, his eyes twinkling, but said nothing. Larla shaped three knotted loaves, which she put into the oven, brushed the flour from her hands and sat opposite Nelac, her face suddenly serious.

  “You’ll have to leave tonight.”

  “I know.”

  “And you should take Selmana with you.”

  “I wonder,” said Nelac. “I am thinking that perhaps it would be better if she stayed here… Calis is a strong Bard, and would care for her.”

  “She’s in danger here. The further she can get away from Lirigon right now, the better. There’s something in her that the Bone Queen wants, and you can’t let her get it.”

  “I wish I knew what it was,” said Nelac.

  “I can’t guess either, but I know it’s something that she is. She has a mixed Gift, Nelac. It’s not so far from mine, but I can see that she’s all Bard, too. It’s a kind of double seeing she has. I thought that you couldn’t have both: it seemed to me that words make the Sight go awry, and if you have the Sight, then words don’t work for you. And then suddenly there’s Selmana being everything at once. There’s a power in her that’s got nothing to do with the Speech, nothing to do with words. She knows it and she doesn’t know it. And she’s frightened, as well she might be.”

  Nelac’s face darkened in thought. “You’re right, Larla. I know you’re right. I wish I had some of that double seeing myself.”

  “So where will you go?”

  He looked at her straightly, his doubt open. “I fear my ignorance. These young Bards … they need my knowledge, but they think it’s greater than it is. They think I am wise, and in some ways I am. But here I’m feeling my way, blindfolded, my ears stoppered, and I know that a chasm is yawning before our feet…”