The Bone Queen by Alison Croggon Read Free Book Online

Nelac her name was Selmana, that she was seventeen years old and had been at the School for six years, and that she studied the Making with Calis.
    As they entered, Selmana looked around with ill-concealed curiosity: in all her years in Lirigon, she had never been inside Nelac’s sanctum. It was a dull midwinter day and, aside from the grey light that filtered through the latticed windows, a fire crackling in a small hearth was the only illumination. Rich colours leapt in the shadows. Three couches were arranged around a low table by the hearth; they were covered in vivid crimson silk, echoing a hanging on the opposite wall that was worked in rich reds and blues. The other walls were shelved to the ceiling, and glowed with the gilt bindings of books and a myriad of curious objects: brass astrolabes and quadrants; zithers and lyres and flutes; a collection of unusual stones, steel-blue celestite and silver pyrite and rose quartz crystal. A table in the centre of the room was piled with scrolls and books and drifts of paper.
    Selmana assisted Nelac onto one of the couches, and he breathed out with relief. “I think we could do with some light,” he said. “Would you mind…?”
    She saw a lamp by the low table and lit it with a word. It made the day outside seem even gloomier: although it was only mid-afternoon, the sky was heavily overcast.
    “I swear it’s going to rain,” she said, to fill the silence.
    Nelac grunted, glumly easing off his sandal and inspecting his foot. His little toe was poking out at an odd angle and was already turning black. He studied it dispassionately, and then, grimacing, set the toe straight. Once it was at the correct angle he pressed his hand over the foot. For a few moments he glowed with Bardic light. He set his foot on the floor, testing, and winced.
    “Ah, well,” he said. “Too much to hope that the bruising would vanish, but at least I can walk now. It’s astonishing that breaking something as tiny as a toe can be so crippling.”
    Selmana had been watching him interestedly. “Did you mend the bone?” she asked. “I can’t do that. I broke my toe once and I couldn’t walk for weeks.”
    Nelac smiled. “Easy enough, when you’ve had as much practice as I have. I hope yours wasn’t as absurd an accident as mine.”
    “Me, I kicked an anvil because my father wouldn’t let me be a smith,” she said. “And I was really, really angry.”
    “How old were you?” asked Nelac.
    “I think I was about eight.”
    “I kicked the wall because I was really, really angry,” said Nelac. “But I am twenty-two times older than you were, so I have no excuse at all.”
    The girl’s eyebrows shot up, and she looked faintly shocked. Nelac was far too old and serious a Bard to have such a tantrum.
    “Oh,” she said blankly.
    “But I forget my courtesy,” said Nelac. “My thanks for helping me. So Calis is your mentor, eh? A fine Bard, Calis. And a great Maker.”
    “Oh, she is!” said Selmana, her face lighting with sudden passion. “I don’t know if I’ll ever make things as beautiful as Calis does, but maybe one day… And I have to learn all these other things, and I’m not very good at the Reading. All those books!” She rolled her eyes in comic dismay, and Nelac laughed.
    “I suppose she’s given you Poryphia’s
Aximidiaë
?” Nelac named a huge tome, the standard authority on working ore and metals.
    “She did. It’s hard going, you know. So big! But I expect you’ve read it through and through…” Selmana suddenly recalled that she was speaking to one of the most important Bards in all Annar, and blushed vividly. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t – I’m taking up your time—”
    “Should you be elsewhere?”
    “Well, not really…”
    “If not, perhaps you would like to share a wine with me. I have nothing important to do either. I told the Council I had an urgent meeting, but I lied. I had to escape, or I would have strangled someone.”
    Selmana gave