The Crow

by Alison Croggon

  When Hem first saw the shocking burns, on a tiny girl who could not have been more than three years old, he thought his heart would burst with anger. She did not cry, but held hard to her mother, staring at her with black eyes full of a mute, unanswerable appeal. Even when she died, beyond the help of even the greatest healers of Turbansk, she still held on to her mother, and the woman's hand had to be gently untangled from the dead fingers, which grasped as tightly as a vice. It was then that Hem asked Oslar, the chief healer, what had happened to the burned children.

  Oslar was an old man even by Bardic reckoning, his hair very white and his skin very black, and his strong face was lined with a deep and patient sadness. Hem reflected that he must have seen a lot of suffering in his long life. "She was caught by one of the worst weapons of the Dark," he said. "It was the dogsoldiers."

  Hem had heard of dogsoldiers, but up until then they had been just a word.

  "What are they?" he asked, although he knew that Oslar was needed elsewhere and did not have time to answer his questions.

  "They are not human, and I do not know if they ever were," said the old Bard, speaking plainly and looking him in the eye, as one adult to another. "They are creatures of flesh and metal and fire, made by some foul sorcery in the forges of Den Raven, and they do not know what mercy is. They have heads like dogs with muzzles of blue metal. Their very bodies are weapons, from which they shoot a liquid fire. It sticks to flesh and eats into it. It's the strange fire, how it sticks, that makes the burns so bad."

  Oslar looked across at the other beds in that room, with their small victims, and Hem swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. "Now, Hem, I have work to do. Excuse me." Oslar nodded courteously, and Hem followed him with his eyes as he moved slowly from bed to bed. Hem knew the old Bard had slept very little in the past two nights, and yet he showed no sign of weariness.

  He was grateful that his question had been answered, although the answer did not comfort him. Oslar, he thought, was a very great man. Then he felt surprised at himself: he didn't usually think things like that.

  As Hem ran around the School of Turbansk, bearing potions from the herbalists or new dressings from the weavers, bringing a beaker of water to a woman too weak from childbed to walk, or holding a broken arm for binding, his anger smoldered and grew bright. He hated what had been done so wantonly to these people with every fiber in his being. He was no stranger to rage, but for the first time his feeling was tempered by compassion, and he discovered a patience within himself that he had not known he possessed.

  Perhaps it was the example of Oslar and the other healers, including his mentor Urbika, who had stayed with most of the other Bards and was herself a gifted healer. Even if he made a mistake, which was seldom, they never spoke a sharp word to him, no matter how little they had slept, or how overworked they were. And so Hem learned, in those few days, how to listen to the ill, how to anticipate their needs, how to run fast in soft shoes so he made no loud noises that might disturb those who slept. Before the scale of the suffering before him, his previous complaints seemed petty and insignificant. He was too busy, in any case, to worry much about himself; his day was filled from dawn to dusk with countless tasks and errands, and Oslar himself began to teach him some charms of healing for the less serious cases. He was so tired by nightfall that, for the first time since he had been in Turbansk, he was not troubled by nightmares.

  When Saliman told him one evening that the Bards were praising his work, and that Oslar had said that few minor Bards in his experience had shown such innate talent as Hem in the arts of caring for the sick, Hem accepted the praise, which was hard earned, with a new humility.

  "Don't be offended if I say that I am surprised; I thought you would be too impatient for this work," said Saliman, with a smile, which for Hem was ample reward for every hour he had spent in the Healing House. "Perhaps you will be a healer when you are grown. Every Bard has to find out how their Gift best expresses itself; for some, it is a hard road. But I think you might be lucky. Healing is one of the highest callings; and there is always need for healers, even in times of peace."

  Hem pondered Saliman's words in silence. He could imagine himself as a healer. Perhaps one day he could be as good as Oslar.

  "You'd have to work on your scripting, though," said Saliman, interrupting his reverie. "Imagine, say, if the herbalist made a love potion instead of a laxative because he couldn't read your instructions. The trouble you could cause!"

  Hem grinned; Saliman was constantly nagging him to work on his writing, which was nearly illegible. Perhaps now he could see the point.

  They were eating a quick meal before Saliman went out again to continue the endless work of preparing Turbansk for an assault. The food was plain, but tasty: freshwater fish from the Lamarsan Sea baked with dates, and a mash of pulses. Outside Saliman's rooms, birds burbled in the trees as they settled to their evening roosts, and a cool breeze brushed Hem's cheek. It was very peaceful. Hem suddenly wished, with a furious longing, that he could have come to Turbansk in ordinary times.

  Saliman had just told him of the first attacks on Turbansk, by raider ships sailing from the mouth of the Niken River across the Lamarsan Sea, and Hem had seen soldiers in the eating halls, on their way to harry the Black Fleets, or returning exhausted and grim-faced. No raider ships had yet reached Turbansk, and, Saliman told him, none would: the harbor defenses were stout. But the raiders drew off Turbansk's strength, wearying their forces even before the main assault; and after the fall of Baladh, Saliman feared that a fleet of stolen ships would set out from Baladh Harbor to launch a major attack.

  Because of the war, Saliman had not even had time to take Hem, as he had promised, to see the Lamar Falls in the Lamarsan Caves, the sacred heart of the Light in Turbansk, which he had said were one of the wonders of the world. If times had been different, perhaps they could have ridden there with Maerad... but Hem quickly shut off his thoughts about his sister: they were too painful.

  "Will there ever be peace again?" he asked, a little sadly.

  "Of course there will be." Saliman leaned back and closed his eyes, and Hem could see how weary he actually was. The skin under his eyes was purple, as if it were bruised, and his face was drawn. Hem wondered how long it was since Saliman had slept; he was willing to warrant it was more than two days. "If not in my lifetime or yours, then in someone else's."

  Hem, depressed by Saliman's reply, didn't answer, and Saliman opened one eye and stared at him. "Forgive me, Hem; I should not jest. I am so weary, and the storm has not even hit."

  "You must rest," said Hem sternly, with his new authority as a healer.

  Saliman smiled wanly. "We will be ready soon," he said. "Then I will rest. For a short time."

  Over the next few days the black smudge of smoke in the east grew closer and the Healing Houses began to empty. All the sick were to leave Turbansk, even the worst injured, although Hem saw the anxiety on the healers' faces as the patients were placed on the special litters that were to transport them. He knew they should not be moved, but he also understood that it was impossible for them to stay in Turbansk. Many healers went with them, to care for them on their long journey to Car Amdridh, although Oslar and Urbika were among those who stayed behind, and, very suddenly, there was little for Hem to do. He spent a day in the Bardhouse, bored and lonely but too depressed to go out, feeling a sense of doom growing inside him. His patience seemed to have disappeared with his work at the Healing Houses, and he was even irritable with Ire. That evening he asked if he could go with Saliman the next day "Perhaps I could help?" he said. "Ire was really useful in the Healing Houses, too..."

  Saliman studied Hem's face. "It might be as boring as anything you are doing here," he said. "But yes, I should have thought of it myself. It is a little gloomy waiting alone for war to break over your head. Of course you can come."

  So the next day Hem became Saliman's shadow, as he had in his first week in Turbansk, except this time the slender boy had a whit
e bird on his shoulder. The Bards and captains and city consuls did not object, if they seldom took notice of him, and the sick panic that had begun to stir in Hem's stomach eased back slightly. When he looked into the faces of the men and women who talked so earnestly, at their determination and strength, he did not see how they would be defeated.

  As a member of the First Circle of Bards, one of the ruling bodies of Turbansk, Saliman was in charge of many aspects of the city's defense, and by the end of the day Hem began to understand why Saliman had been so tired. That day he went to several different meetings at the School and the Ernan – the great palace that stretched gracefully under the shadow of the Red Tower – listening to reports from scouts and the captains who had been attacking the raiders on the Lamarsan Sea with fire boats, and conferring with the other leaders of Turbansk to coordinate strategy. If any of them thought it odd that Hem was present, they didn't say so.

  Hem hadn't been inside the Ernan before, and was awed. Most of its riches had been stripped and sent away to Car Amdridh, but it still possessed a breathtaking grandeur that surpassed even Norloch. Norloch was a high citadel built into the living rock above the Norloch Harbor, tower above tower of white stone topped by the Crystal Hall of Machelinor, and it spoke of majesty and authority. The Ernan was not a tower but an ancient palace, and it was built for pleasure. It had been added to and changed by successive rulers over countless centuries until it was the largest single building in the city surrounded by wide gardens planted with perfumed trees and rare flowers.

  The palace spiraled inside high walls of stone, room after graceful room connected by archways or doors wrought of brass or iron in intricate grilles. The floors were of polished marble or mosaics of glazed tiles, depicting abstract patterns of flowers or stars. The rooms opened onto countless courtyards, each different: one contained nothing but white sand, raked into patterns, with black stones placed carefully upon it to induce contemplation; another held a fountain and a lawn of a pungent herb that refreshed the mind when it was walked upon; yet another was full of roses of every color, spilling in artful disarray onto marble paving. Some chambers had large windows that opened onto wide terraces, from which the sun could be watched as it set across the Lamarsan Sea.

  Hem walked through the endless maze of the palace, hearing his heels echo on the floors, his mouth open. He had thought the School of Turbansk grand, but this made the School seem austere. Saliman saw his expression and chuckled.

  "We give our rulers the same name as their dwelling," he said. "For the people of Turbansk, both palace and ruler embody the greatness of our city; and, perhaps, its folly. Some Ernani have taken this role too literally; the Bards and the people had to relieve one of his rule, when he became too expensive to maintain. And so we have this great palace, one of the glorious treasures of Edil-Amarandh."

  "How do you not get lost?" asked Hem breathlessly. Saliman was walking very fast, and he almost had to run to keep up with him, Ire clinging to his shoulder and flapping to keep his balance. Hem feared being left behind because he thought he would never find his way out.

  "I've been walking this palace since I was little older than you," said Saliman. "And that is many years. I am sorry that I have no time to show you its marvels. There is no place like it in the world, and there never will be again... There are chambers here where the walls are decorated only with precious stones. There is a summer house built entirely of jasper, which was made five hundred years ago solely for the recitation of a certain poem by a famous poet of Turbansk. In the Garden of Helian there is a beautiful house of red marble made by the Ernani Helian a thousand years ago, so he could study the stars; Bards still use it for sky-watching. On festival days the people of Turbansk can enter here, and they come in their thousands to marvel and to feast in the gardens. And I suppose I feel the same pride in the Ernan's extravagant beauty as they do, although at times I wonder..." He trailed off.

  Hem, dazzled by the splendors he was walking through, looked up questioningly.

  Saliman shrugged his shoulders, smiling. "You will have noticed there are no corridors in this palace. In Annar, they build corridors; the Annarens like that kind of logic. This palace is built as a series of spirals. Here it is more complicated and oblique to get anywhere."

  Hem privately agreed; he was hopelessly lost. But Saliman was continuing, musing as if to himself.

  "Though in all the Seven Kingdoms power is complex," he said. "It is so, even in Annar. Norloch is relatively simple, because only Bards rule there... Elsewhere there are two authorities, the Bards and the governing councils. And the Bards and the other authorities do not always agree on what is best to do."

  Saliman halted and looked around the colonnaded hall through which they were now walking. "But often I think that Turbansk is the most complicated," he said. "The people of Turbansk are born with politics in their blood. Cadvan would not last two days here; he would lose his temper and offend all the consuls, and from then on his life would be misery." Saliman grinned, thinking of his old friend. "Sometimes this is a good thing; it is far better that people talk than fight. But when something must be done quickly – well, it can make it more difficult. Our friend Alimbar, for example, despite our desperation, has been making my life more complicated than it need be, for reasons of his own. But we are very fortunate in our present Ernani, Har-Ytan."

  Saliman stopped outside tall doors more impressive than any Hem had yet seen: they were of cedar burnished to a deep, rich polish, with great bosses wrought of gold in the shape of the sun entwined in flames of different colors, from deep red to white gold. Saliman looked down at Hem.

  "Hem, you must be on your best behavior here. And Ire, too," he added in the Speech, looking sternly at the bird, who gave a faint cark and hid his head in Hem's hair. "Just bow as I do, and say nothing."

  Suddenly nervous, Hem gulped and nodded, and Saliman bowed his head to the two palace guards, who opened the doors and admitted them.

  Hem paused involuntarily at the threshold, blinking with dazzlement. Saliman was striding forward, so he rapidly collected himself and followed. He cast covert glances around the room, doing his best not to look as overwhelmed as he felt. The rest of the palace was, he realized, merely a rehearsal for the throne room.

  The Ernani sat on a wide, low dais at the far end, on a throne of black enameled wood carved in filigree patterns with a marvelous delicacy so that, despite its size – its back stretched high behind the Ernani – it gave an impression of weightlessness. Behind the throne, reaching up to the ceiling, was a giant golden sun like those embossed on the doors, which cast a golden glow about the whole room. The walls, which were pierced by long, narrow windows that ran from floor to ceiling, were faced with plain panels of dull gold punctuated by murals painted with an exquisite delicacy, each framed in the same black enameled filigree of which the throne was made. They depicted, Saliman told Hem later, famous stories of the Suderain: one was of the Battle of the Dagorlad Plains, in which the Ernani of Turbansk had held back the forces of the Nameless One in the days of the Great Silence; another was of the meeting of Alibredh and Nalimbar, who were fabled lovers, in the water gardens of Jerr-Niken.

  Hem and Saliman walked toward the throne on a path of black onyx tiles that bisected a wide and shallow pool stretching for the width of the throne room and half its length. The pool, filled with flowering water lilies, was stepped in three shallow terraces, and water spilled over the lips of the higher levels into the lower pools so the room was filled with its constant music, and the lilies gave off a subtle perfume.

  To Hem, it seemed to take a very long time to walk the length of the pool, and then across the plain expanse of polished black stone that stretched before the dais. About the throne were set several low stools, of the same marvelous filigree as the throne itself, on which sat five people. They turned and watched as Saliman and Hem approached and Hem recognized, with a flutter in his stomach, Alimbar, whom he had last seen outside the door of Saliman's h
ouse. He also recognized Juriken, the First Bard of Turbansk, and II Hanedr, whom he knew was the captain of the city soldiers, the Guardians of the Sun. A tough-looking, thin woman – the chief guard, Menika – stood silently by Har-Ytan's right shoulder in Turbansk battle gear, and another woman he did not recognize, dressed in formal robes, sat nearby, her head bowed.

  The Ernani sat very still on the throne, watching their progress. Hem dared a swift glance, although by this time he was so awed he scarcely knew where to direct his eyes. The Ernani was the most regal human being he had ever seen.

  She must have been fully Saliman's height, and her body was at once voluptuous and strong; if she had been less tall, he might have thought her stout. She wore a close-fitting dress of silk dyed craftily in many shades of red and orange, which shimmered against her black skin as if she were sheathed in a living flame, and her long hair was braided in tiny plaits in the style of Turbansk, beaded with rubies and gold so it fell in a glittering fountain down her back. A huge ruby blazed on her brow, and on her breast she wore a torque of gold emblazoned with the sun. Her powerful arms were bare, apart from bands of plain gold about her wrists, and a naked sword lay across her lap, in token of war.

  When they reached the dais, Saliman genuflected on one knee and bowed his head, and Hem hastily copied him, wishing he had half of Saliman's grace. He was glad that he had been told not to speak; his mouth had gone completely dry, and he was sure that if he had said anything it would have come out as a squeak.

  To his amazement, the Ernani addressed them in the Speech; he found later that the Speech was used in the Suderain for all debates of high policy, and although she was not a Bard, Har-Ytan spoke it well. Her voice was deep and musical, and seemed to resonate through the entire throne room.

  "You are tardy, Saliman," she said. "We have been waiting."

  The hair prickled on Hem's neck. He hoped fervently that she did not blame him.

  "Forgive me, Har-Ytan, Fountain of the Light," Saliman answered. "I was detained by other urgent tasks. And only the most urgent could keep me from your glorious presence."