The Crow (38 page)

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.

"We'll just have a quick look," said Hem, pulling his gaze from the tree man with an effort. Zelika nodded, and they hurriedly turned to inspect the walls, as they had in the other smaller chambers. They immediately found they didn't want to stand with their backs to the figure in the mural. They tacitly agreed that Hem would keep watch, while Zelika inspected the walls. Ire had not wanted to come with Hem, but did not want to be left outside on his own, either, and clung to Hem's shoulder, with his eyes hidden in Hem's hair. They kept as far away as they could from the stone table; it was made of white, veined marble, and it was stained by a blackish red patch that looked like ancient blood. It seemed sinister.

In her desire to get out of the room, Zelika was giving the walls very little more than a perfunctory examination. Hem had to turn occasionally, to move the magelight for her. The third time, when he turned back to look at the tree man, he jumped. Surely its arms were higher than when he had last looked at it, moments before? No, it must be his nerves. He set himself to watching it again, studying its position, trying to still a panicky voice that was urging him to leave the chamber. The next time he took his eyes off the painting, he was quite sure it had moved. Now its arms were almost level with its shoulders.

"Zelika..." he said, keeping his eyes fixed on the mural.

"Yes?"

"Let's get away from here."

"In a moment – there's something there, don't you think, high up? Can you put the light up there? Maybe that's what Hared wanted us to find – it looks like a tunnel."

To Hem, it sounded as if Zelika were speaking underwater; her voice was muffled, and his ears filled with a roaring sound. Now he was staring at the tree man as if he were a rabbit transfixed by a snake; he was no longer conscious of the rest of room. Every moment the figure seemed more and more real, and less and less like a painting.

The tree man blinked, lowered his arms to his sides, and stepped out of the wall.

Hem felt a scream gathering in his throat but, as if he were in one of his nightmares, he found that he couldn't move or speak. The figure walked silently toward him, its eyes fixed on his. Hem had never been so wholly terrified as he was in that moment, but it wasn't really a fear that he would be hurt or killed. It was more akin to awe: the kind of feeling one might have at the edge of a huge precipice, on the brink of falling over it. The tree man was more than twice Hem's height, and his eyes were yellow like an owl's, with no white around the iris, and cleft with a vertical pupil. Branches, heavy with dark, narrow leaves, grew from his head like antlers and smaller leafy branches pushed out of the tendons of his arms and from his shoulders. The face was white-skinned, as white as the petals of a magnolia, and as blank of expression.

When he reached the stone table, which stood between them, the tree man halted. Then, to Hem's amazement, he spoke to him; he used some variant of the Speech, which Hem could only just understand. He wasn't sure if the tree man spoke aloud; his voice resonated inside Hem's skull, low and rich and melodious.

Songboy,
he said.
At last, out of the foretimes, you come. I have waited for thee long.

It was the last thing Hem had expected, and his mouth fell open with astonishment. After a few moments he realized he was standing like a gawping fool, and shut it with a snap. The tree man stood utterly still, as if he were waiting for Hem to answer. Hem struggled to gather his thoughts, which were whirling inside his head like panicked birds.

Me?
he said.
I... I think there's some mistake –

The tree man's expression did not change, but it seemed to Hem that a cold laughter lit his yellow eyes.

There is no gainsaying the Speech of the earth, Songboy. There is no mistake. Thou art but a spring leaf in the ages of the world, and there are many wisdoms that those such as thou – who pass like a ripple on a lake, like a ray of sunlight on a hill – will never understand. The knowing is sure. Thou art foretold.

Hem blinked.
You mean my sister, I think,
he said at last.
Not me. I'm not important. My sister's the Fated One. She's the one you mean. There have been mistakes before, when I was a baby...
He suddenly became conscious that he was babbling, and fell silent.

Yes, a sister and a brother. Out of the foretimes.

Hem didn't know what to say to that, and licked his lips. His mouth was so dry he could barely swallow.

Out of the foretimes,
said the tree man softly.
To unchain the song.

The Treesong?
said Hem uncertainly.
But that's what Maerad is looking for –

One for the singing and one for the music. Listen well, Songboy. Listen with the sinews of your heart, with the marrow of your bones, with the sap of your mind.
The tree man leaned forward: to Hem's perception it seemed that his upper body stretched impossibly over the stone table across the entire distance of the chamber, so that now the tree man spoke into his ear.
Listen and remember.

The tree man breathed into Hem's ear; and the world changed.

Afterward, trying to make sense of what had happened, Hem thought it was as if he had suddenly been tossed into an ocean of music, and he was a fish made of light, swaying in currents of pure sound. Or it was as if he were suddenly no longer flesh, as if his muscles and bones and organs were woven of melody, a harmony that contained all dissonance, trembling on the edge of silence. It was unbearable, a beauty so extreme that comprehending it was beyond his human capacity, but he wanted it never to end; and he felt it never would end, that the single moment of the tree man's breath caught him into eternity, that his body pulsed in time with the slow music of the stars, and beyond the stars, a pure, infinite darkness, the source and end of all beauty and all life.

The next thing he was aware of was a piercing pain in his left ear, and someone shaking his shoulder, saying his name. He tried to brush away whatever was hurting his ear, and his hand touched feathers: Ire. For some reason, he was lying on the ground. It was completely dark, so he lit a magelight and sat up.

Zelika was seated next to him, her face tense in the pale light. "Are you all right?" she said. "I thought..." She shook her head, as if she were trying to clear it. "Did you faint or something? You just fell over, and then the magelight went out and it was so dark."

"Didn't you see the tree man?" said Hem, looking at her curiously.

"What? The one on the wall?"

"He spoke to me."

"Spoke to you?"

Hem realized that Zelika thought he was delirious. And in any case, he wasn't sure that he felt like talking about what had just happened.

"It doesn't matter. Something happened, that's all. Maybe I imagined it." He looked around the room; the sense of a watchful presence had vanished completely. Now it was just an empty room. "Did you find anything?"

"No."

At that moment, they heard Hared outside, calling them. Zelika met Hem's eyes.

"He's back," she said. "That weasel. Well, I suppose we can't throttle him or complain, or we'll fail the test."

Hem laughed and stood up. His knees were wobbly, but otherwise he felt no ill effects. He could almost believe that he had suffered some kind of hallucination; he remembered how fevered children in the orphanage saw all sorts of terrible visions. But somehow, it didn't seem like that to him. They walked out into the courtyard, where Hared waited for them, holding a leather bottle of water.

After that day, Hem and Zelika didn't need to be told to come prepared for anything. They always brought a water flask each and, at the very least, a hunk of flatbread and some dried fruit. Hem also asked if Ire could train as well, since, he argued, Ire would be an invaluable help; to his surprise, after at first demurring, Hared agreed. Ire was unusually well behaved when he accompanied the children, which was a sure measure of Hared's authority.

They finished each day exhausted, not necessarily because they were doing physically punishing work, but because Hared demanded nothing less than their complete attention, all the time. They never knew what to expect, nor what would be expected of them. Several times they spent the entire day on memory games. Hared would place a number of objects on a table, let them study them for a short time, and then cover them with a cloth. The children were then expected to list all the objects they had seen, in the order in which they had been placed on the table, running from left to right. Hared would not allow them to go until their recall was completely accurate more than three times in a row; and naturally, the more tired they became, the worse their results. But their teacher was pitiless.

Another day he took them into a room deep in the palace, shut the door, and extinguished the lamp, so they all stood in complete darkness. This was another, more sinister game, which Hared called "shadow hunting." The aim was to creep up behind one of the others without being sensed. Hem was not permitted to use his Bard hearing: the point was to be as silent as possible, while opening one's physical senses to their maximum sensitivity. If one of them managed to place his or her hands around another's neck, they won.