Read Online The Bone Queen by Alison Croggon - Free Book Online Page B

I can tell you that it’s not very good for poetry, though… But I am only saying this because it’s not as if I haven’t suffered from bad dreams. They are more common than not: I know what a nightmare is, and how the terror of that night has inscribed itself in my memories and my body, no matter how much I wish it hadn’t, and how it spills out in dreams and unwanted memories, as it does with other people who have suffered such things.”
    He refilled his glass, and was silent for a time. “These dreams are different. They started happening this autumn. I become more anxious in autumn, even in Gent; the weather is a prompt, bringing it back… And the first dream happened on a night which was very like the evening when we went to the Grove. It was a clear, beautiful night, do you remember? Almost like summer. Full of stars, there was no moon. Most of all I remember the scent – the hunaf shrubs were all in flower, that sweet, heavy smell. There are many around Gent, too, although I wish there weren’t… Anyway, I went to sleep eventually, having had a large quantity of wine. And Ceredin came to me.
    “I’ve dreamed about Ceredin before, but those dreams – well, they were just terrible memories. This dream was different, not like a dream at all. Most of all, it seemed entirely real.
    “I was at my table in Gent, writing, and Ceredin walked in. I was mildly surprised, and said, but aren’t you supposed to be dead? And she said, yes, I am dead. She looked very sad – sadder than anyone I’ve ever seen – when she said this, and I stood up and took her in my arms to comfort her. She kissed my cheek, and then stood back, looking at me in that way she had, open and serious and with that – that capacity for understanding that was her special gift. She told me that she couldn’t stay for very long. ‘I linger on the Path of the Dead,’ she said. ‘One day I will come to the Gates and will not return. Dernhil, I know that you cannot forgive Cadvan for what he has done. I do not ask you to forgive him or to forget. But you must find him, or else everything is lost.’
    “I felt a pang in my heart then, for I realized that I had not forgiven him. The last time I saw Cadvan, before I left for Gent, I told him that I had; but I was lying to myself. Nelac, it hurt my image of myself.” Dernhil smiled ruefully. “I had thought myself larger than that. I was overwhelmed with anger, this sheer, blinding rage: if Cadvan had been there, I would have punched him until I was exhausted…
    “Ceredin touched my arm, and I remembered she was there. ‘Forgiveness is harder than any of us realize,’ she said. ‘And you have no reason to love Cadvan. I do have reason. Because he hasn’t forgiven himself, he will not hear me. You do not have to forgive him. You must not forget. Do not seek to forget, Dernhil. But he must be found, or else everything is lost.’ And then, as I stared at her, she vanished before my eyes. And I woke up.”
    Nelac thought of Selmana’s telling him that Ceredin had also spoken to her in a dream. “Did she visit you again?” he asked.
    “No. The dreams that came after were quite different. They weren’t like nightmares, although they sound like them; they were much worse. All of them were real, in the same way that the first one was real. I don’t know how to describe the sense of them. At first they were quite specific. In one I saw Pellinor in flames, the School destroyed, its walls broken. In another, I saw a great army marching on Turbansk, and all the land behind it burned and littered with corpses. In another, I saw Innail besieged, and a great shadow rising over the Osidh Annova. Then – then it was as if I were lifted above Annar, like an eagle, and saw more widely. I saw the Great Forest all aflame and the Seven Kingdoms in rubble. Even the sky was on fire. The whole sky. And then there is just desolation, from one horizon to the other.” Dernhil’s voice shook and he covered