4:  ZELIKA

HEM wasn't taking much notice of his surroundings, so when someone shot out of one the side alleys and crashed into him he was taken completely by surprise.  Irc flapped into the air, cawing in protest, and Hem was sent sprawling onto the ground.  His first feeling was rage, and he grabbed blindly for his assailant, catching part of a cloak and holding it fast, even when a hard little fist hit him in the eye.  He grabbed one arm and then another, and, panting with effort, wrestled his assailant to the ground. 

He was sitting astride his foe, about to take revenge for what he thought would probably be a black eye, when he realised he was fighting a girl.  She was glaring at him murderously, still struggling and spitting out imprecations.  Hem's command of the Suderain language had improved considerably in his time in the Healing Houses, although it was still uncertain.  Nevertheless, he understood enough to know that he was being called some very unflattering names. 

He flushed, and would have responded in kind if he had not simultaneously noticed the ragged state of the girl's clothes and that she had been hurt; quite recently her lip had been split, and there was a nasty infected cut underneath her right eye.  He swallowed his retort.

"I'm very sorry," he said, in careful Suderain.  "I did not see you..."

The girl paused in her struggle to free herself and stared at him balefully. 

"You should be more careful," Hem said. 

"Let me go," said the girl.

Hem studied her curiously.  She had the light brown skin of those who came from the eastern parts of the Suderain, and spoke with the accent of Baladh.  She must have arrived late in Turbansk, and somehow missed the last wains which carried the children to Car Amdridh.  He thought she must be about his own age.  She had tangled black hair which spilled in loose curls around her face, and delicate features which were somewhat mitigated by the anger of her expression.  She was filthy; her tattered cloak was so stained it was almost impossible to tell its original colour, and she carried a battered leather bag which clearly held all her few possessions.

"If you promise not to run away," Hem said.  "I'm sorry, it was - "  He didn't know the Suderain word for "accident".  "I won't hurt you..."

The girl paused, and nodded.  Hem, normally so distrustful of strangers, did not doubt for a moment that she would not keep her word.  He carefully got off her, and she sat up, brushing herself down.  Irc returned to Hem's shoulder and leant forward, his head cocked, examining the girl with unalloyed curiosity.  She would not look at Hem, and sat next to him with an air of affronted dignity.  Hem groped around in his mind for something to say, cursing his lack of Suderain.

He suddenly remembered the honeycake that Boran had given him, and he pulled it out of his pocket and offered it to her.  It was a little crushed, but still mainly whole.  The girl stared at him doubtfully, and then snatched the cake from his hand and devoured it in two bites.  She was clearly starving.

"What are you doing here?" asked Hem, watching as she wiped her mouth.  "You should be on your way to Car Amdridh."

"I hid," said the girl.  She seemed a little mollified after his offering.  "I want to fight the Black Ones."  She drew a knife from a sheath at her belt and pointed it at Hem; he could see that it was a cooking knife, sharp enough to cut bone, but not a fighting weapon.  "I'll kill anyone who tries to stop me."

Such was the expression in her eyes, Hem had no difficulty in believing her; he felt glad that she had not been able to reach her knife in their struggle. He felt a strange mixture of astonishment, admiration and pity.

"No one can stop you," he said.  "It's too late.  The Black Army - " he waved his hands around, hunting the words - "the Black Army comes very soon."  He pushed the point of the knife aside, and she slowly put it back in its sheath.  "So - your name?  I am Hem."

"Zelika," she said slowly.  "Zelika of the House of Il Aran."  She looked at Irc curiously.  "What is that bird?  It is not a falcon."

"He's my friend," said Hem.  "His name is Irc."  He looked at the girl again; now he could see the gauntness of her features, and he wondered when she had last had a good meal.  "Are you hungry, Zelika?"

She paused, and then nodded.

"Come with me.  I'll get you food."

Hem saw distrust and desire warring in Zelika's face, but hunger won.  When she stood up, he saw that she was slight, but she carried herself with a pride which added a little illusory height. 

He began to lead her through the streets towards the School buttery, thinking.  Perhaps she could stay at Saliman's house; there were plenty of spare rooms, and he thought that Saliman would not mind.  She could get some new clothes and have a wash, and Hem could see to the wound on her cheek, which was festering; he had some balm in his chamber.

"You are not from Turbansk," said the girl flatly, interrupting his thoughts.

"No, from Annar," answered Hem.  "My Suderain not so good."

"My Annaren not so good, as well."  Zelika spoke in Annaren, with an atrocious accent, and smiled.  For a brief moment Hem saw two dimples in her cheeks, and a mischievous light danced in her eyes, vanishing as quickly as it appeared.  He glanced at her curiously.

"So why do you stay here?" he asked.  "Everyone says Turbansk is - we can't - "  Stumped again by his lack of vocabulary, he trailed to a halt.

"I don't care if I die," said Zelika.  "I want to kill as many of the Black Ones as I can before I do."  Hem looked at her again, at the strange, utterly focused determination in her face; it was almost madness.  He had never heard a human being say anything with more conviction, and something like fear constricted his heart.

"Why?" he asked, although he thought he knew the answer.

She gave him a unreadable glance, as if measuring his capacity to understand.  "My mother, my father, my brothers, my sister, my aunts, my cousins, my uncles, my grandmother - " She drew her finger brutally across her throat, and her eyes blazed with hatred and grief, although her voice was flat and unemotional.  "I saw it.  My house was burned to the ground. I will avenge the House of Il Aren." 

Hem said nothing: there was nothing to say. 

"Why should I live?" said Zelika.  "I have nothing to live for.  I will fight them, and kill as many as I can."

"You need a better knife," said Hem. 

They walked the rest of the way in silence.
 
 
 

At the buttery, Soron gave Hem a plum and a small bowl of cold dohl without any questions, although he stared curiously at the girl.  They sat at one end of the long table in the eating hall, and Hem watched as she ate.

"You should not eat quickly," he said.  "You will be sick."  He mimed vomiting.  Zelika said nothing, but slowed down; she had been wolfing her food ravenously.   When she had finished the bowl of dohl, she looked at Hem inquiringly.  She obviously wanted more, but did not ask.

"How long since you ate?" he asked.

"I think...two, three days," said Zelika. 

"No more now," Hem said sternly.  "More, in a little while."

To his surprise, she did not argue with him.  "I tried to take some bread from the market, but the man saw me and chased me.  I ran and ran, that's why I ran into you."

"There are no crowds, and it makes stealing hard," said Hem.

"I never stole before," she said, with a disarming simplicity.  "I don't know how." 

Hem looked at Zelika more closely.  He had taken her for an urchin, like the orphans he had known in his childhood, but it now occurred to him that she might be more gently born.  He remembered her announcement of her name.  Perhaps she was from one of the important families of Baladh.  She fought well for a noble, he thought, remembering their scrap; in his short time at the School Hem had quickly worked out that students from wealthier families were much softer in a fight than those who came from poorer houses.

"I should heal your cut," he said, with a trace of self-importance.  He had dealt with many minor injuries at the Healing Houses.  "Come with me."

Zelika followed him with a gratifying meekness to Saliman's house, and he took her first to the bathing room.  "You should wash, first," he said.  "I'll get clothes for you.  Wait here."  He ran to his chamber and emptied his chest, and returned with a tunic and trews. 

Zelika was sitting on the bench in the bathing room, looking suddenly lost and exhausted. 

"Do you want a bath?" Hem asked.

She nodded dumbly, but did not move.  Hem wondered for a moment if she expected him to wash her; he did not feel up to that responsibility. 

"I'll wait for you, there," he said firmly, pointing to the hallway, and went out of the room, closing the door behind him.

There was a short silence, and then he heard the rush of running water.  Hem sat cross legged on the floor and composed himself to wait.

It wasn't long before Zelika emerged.  She was wearing the clothes Hem had given her; they were slightly too big.  Her hair had been washed and combed and hung in glossy ringlets down her back.  Hem blinked, taken aback; she was much prettier than he had first realised. 

He led her back to his chamber and dealt with the cuts on her face.  They were not very serious, apart from the infection.  He cleaned the pus out scrupulously and applied the healing balm, muttering healing charms in the Speech.  Despite how much it must have hurt, Zelika did not make a sound.

As he finished his healing work, Hem heard the street doors open and close with a bang.  Telling Zelika to wait in his chamber, he ran to see if it was Saliman: it was almost time for the noon bell, and he counted on the Bard returning home for the midday meal.  It was Saliman: and before he had a chance to open his mouth in greeting, Hem breathlessly told him about Zelika. 

"Is it all right that I brought her back here?" he asked anxiously.  "I didn't know where else to take her.  She wasn't hurt so badly that she needed the healers, and I cleaned her cuts myself..."  Saliman eyebrows were drawn into a frown, and Hem trailed off into silence.

"Turbansk is no place for a child," said Saliman shortly.  "She should not be here."

"I'm a child," said Hem, suddenly feeling angry.  "And I'm here.  And anyway, it's too late now, all the wains have gone."

There was a silence, and Saliman sighed.  "We'll eat in my rooms. Everyone else is out," he said.  "You may as well go and get her."
 
 
 

Zelika had come reluctantly to meet Saliman, and had at first sat silently, refusing to answer any questions, and concentrated on eating.  Saliman had covertly studied her as she ate, turning over the little Hem had told him about her.  When they had finished their meal, Saliman had said that she should leave for Car Amdridh that day; although all the wains had left, a messenger was preparing to ride that afternoon, and Zelika could ride with him.

Saliman's statement pulled Zelika out of her blank passivity.  She refused flatly to go.  When Saliman pressed her, she stood up, screaming curses, and threw her plate at him.  Hem, greatly embarrassed, tried to calm her down, and finally she just sat mulishly, her lips pressed tightly together, and refused to speak at all. 

Saliman watched her tantrum in silence with his arms crossed.  When she was finally quiet, he asked her if she really knew what it was she was facing, and how little hope there was of victory.

Zelika glared at him mutinously.  "I know," she said.

"I doubt you understand fully," said Saliman, with a hard edge to his voice.  "I shall explain."

All through the Great Silence, Saliman said, Turbansk had been assailed by forces from Dén Raven, but it had never been taken.  Neither, as loomed large in the thoughts of everyone in the city, had Baladh fallen, nor the ancient fortified city of Jerr-Niken.  But now Baladh lay in ruins, and the Black Army marched on territories it had never before invaded.  Jerr-Niken had been sacked seven years before by Imank, the sorcerer-captain of Dén Raven.  It was then that fears arose in the Suderain that the return of the Nameless One, long prophesied, was now a reality.

During the Great Silence, Imank had been the Nameless One's chief captain.  A Hull of great power, a Bard who had traded his True Name for the secret of deathlessness, he had fled far to the South after the collapse of the Dark, and had not been heard of for centuries.  The people of Dén Raven, freed from tyranny and enslavement, made treaties with the Suderain and Annar, and for some hundreds of years even used the Bardic system of dual government. For centuries all had seemed well, and little disturbed the peace.

But three hundred years before, in a sudden coup of unprecedented savagery, the Bards of Dén Raven, accused of spying by the then King, had been slaughtered or banished.  Those few Bards who managed to escape to the Schools of the Suderain brought evil news with them: Imank had returned to Dén Raven.   Adopting the guise of a wise and trusted counsellor, he had ingratiated himself with the King, poisoning his mind and encouraging his greed and lust for domination; and when his power over the King was total, he had sprung his trap on the Bards.  Thereafter, for two centuries, Dén Raven was ruled by a series of petty kings and despots controlled by Imank and his cohorts of Hulls, who returned out of exile from the unmapped areas south of the Agaban Desert. 

Since Imank's return, very few outsiders had managed to penetrate Dén Raven, and the few who had brought grim reports.  The entire realm had been transformed into a fortress, and the people of Dén Raven into a massive army.  From birth to death every action of every person was overseen by the Eyes, Hulls who controlled the different regions and dispensed work and punishment.  No rebellion - in word or thought or deed - was too small to be crushed mercilessly: merely to mutter a complaint was enough to merit torture in the dungeons of the Hulls, and to speak openly against the rulers was a death sentence. 

"I have been there myself," said Saliman, and both Zelika and Hem looked up at him with wonder.  "Merely to attempt to enter Dén Raven is to risk death and worse."  He was silent for a time, his face overcast by dark memories.  "I hope never to return there.  It is little more than a huge prison.  The Eyes of Sharma are powerful sorcerers, and they are greatly feared; and they have ways of watching, perversions of Barding, which are an evil even to think of.  Much of the land is poisoned: there are places where nothing will grow, and strange forests which glow red at night. There are beasts running wild who do not understand the Speech but are grown dumb and strange; they have something wrong with their minds, and their forms are misshapen. The Nameless is ingenious in all his devices; I don't doubt these also serve his purposes."

As Saliman spoke, Hem could see in his mind the landscapes he was describing, and the boy shuddered. 
"The armies are fed by great farms, all tilled by slaves," continued Saliman.  "The Eyes control all supplies; they live well enough, but the people fare poorly, and are given only enough to ensure they live.  Those who win favour with the Hulls, of course, can do much better; some, the Grin, live in an obscene luxury and are themselves petty tyrants. They are useful to the Nameless One, and so he suffers them to flourish... but nothing there is grown or made for pleasure or beauty, and even the leisures of the Grin are stamped with foulness and cruelty."

Saliman paused, and Hem swallowed, the queasy fear of his nightmares rising within him.  The two children had listened in silence as Saliman spoke, Zelika frowning as she tried to keep up with Saliman's Annaren.  They watched as Saliman poured himself a glass of water and drank before he continued.

"We always feared that Imank merely prepared for the return of the Nameless One," said Saliman. "For fifty years we have been certain that the Nameless was in Dén Raven, but no one in Annar would believe us.  Wishful thinking clouded the judgement of most Bards; but I fear that was the least of it.  A subtle corruption has wormed its way into the heart of many Annaren Schools, although I did not know what it was until I saw Enkir, the First Bard of Annar.

"Perhaps if we had marched on Dén Raven before it had become strong, when Imank was merely harrying small settlements south of Jerr-Niken, it might be a different story now.  But when Jerr-Niken was sacked seven years ago it was already, I fear, too late.  What is about to happen is the culmination of long planning by the Dark, and the Light is weaker than it has ever been. I fear all goes the Dark's way: the best we can do here is measure our retreat. The Nameless seeks to be sure this time: if the Dark conquers, then all Edil-Amarandh will be like Dén Raven, a place of tyranny and fear, and Song and Knowing and Light will vanish from this world, beyond our reckoning." 

Hem thought of the bony hands and chill eyes of the Hulls who had taken him out of the orphanage, and wriggled uncomfortably. A vivid image of Maerad as he remembered her in Norloch, laughing at one of Saliman's absurd stories, crossed his inner eye.  Maerad wasn't much taller than Zelika, and she was only a few years older than Hem himself.  And she was supposed to cause the downfall of all this terror and might?  For the first time Hem's absolute faith in Maerad faltered: if even the strength of Turbansk did not suffice to hold back the Black Army, what could his sister do?  He almost asked how Maerad was going to save them, but bit his tongue; he feared Saliman's answer would be comfortless.

"So this is what you choose to face, both of you," said Saliman, this time in Suderain and looking straightly at Zelika.  "The main part of Imank's army now marches on Turbansk.  I do not believe, though we fight to the last soldier, that the city will stand.  Do you see why I say this is no place for children?"

Zelika leaned forward, spitting out her words.  "The worst they can do is kill me," she said.  "I'm not afraid."

"Zelika, there are worse things than death," Saliman said.  His voice was calm, but it had a curious intensity.

"I know there are," said Zelika.  For the briefest of moments, her eyes filled with a terrible, almost uncomprehending grief, before it was overwhelmed by blazing hatred.  She jerked her thumb at Hem.  "You let him stay; why not me?"

Saliman looked at both his young charges impatiently.  "I have not time for this wrangling," he said.  "And precious little energy.  Not an hour since, I have word that the Black Army has reached the Il Dara Wall, and already they are hard pressed..."  Hem suddenly understood, with a lurch in his stomach, Saliman's uncharacteristic curtness when he had returned home.  "But you have won one point, Zelika: I will not burden any messenger with you."

"Good," said Zelika, her eyes snapping.

"Then tell me: what do you think you will do here?"

"I will fight.  I will do anything," she answered.  "I will kill the Black Ones.  What will he do?"  She pointed derisively at Hem, who was now deeply regretting he had brought her home.

Saliman stifled a sigh.  "Hem is a certain case..." he began.

"And so am I.  Anyway, what makes you think Car Amdridh will be any safer?" 

Zelika crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair, seeming to think the argument was settled.  Hem glanced at Saliman with alarm.  To his surprise, Saliman gave him an amused look. 

"I like this Zelika, for all her wildness," he said in the Speech.  "She has been ill-used, and is in great pain, and for those and other reasons I mislike greatly her staying here; but within her there beats a brave heart.  And she is right; it is likely she will be little safer in Car Amdridh, if Turbansk falls.  The Dark reaches for its full power, and its arm is strong.  I have not the will to gainsay her desire to stay here: not now, anyway.  How many more strays are you planning on bringing home?" 

Zelika, suspecting that Saliman was talking about her, looked from one to the other mistrustfully. Hem answered in his bad Suderain.

"No more," he said fervently.

Saliman answered in the same language, so Zelika could understand.  "Then while we await our doom, she can teach you how to speak Suderain.  Yes, Zelika?  That can be the price of your meals."  He smiled at her, and Zelika, uncertain at first whether he was mocking her, looked back blankly.

"So you will not send me away?" she said.

"It seems I cannot.  So you might as well be useful."  He held out his hand.

She stood up and clasped his hand solemnly, as if they were closing a bargain.  "I'll teach him well," she said, with what Hem thought was an ominous determination. 

Hem cursed inwardly, and felt even sorrier he had taken pity on Zelika.  He should, he thought, have left the girl in the street where he found her.
 
 
 

The following day Saliman took Hem and Zelika with him on his daily inspection of the city, telling them they should see for themselves how Turbansk would be defended.  Hem was at once pleased to go and jealous that Zelika was also invited, for it diluted his delight in Saliman's company.  Perhaps Zelika sensed this, for she remained almost completely silent, although her eyes glowed with savage pleasure when she examined the fortifications.  The inspection took most of the morning, even though they went in haste on horseback from post to post, as Saliman wanted to report to Har-Ytan and the First Bard by noon. 

Turbansk was protected by two high walls, the inner higher by six spans than the outer.  They stood about thirty spans distant from each other, and were connected by wooden bridges which could be drawn back if necessary.  The walls were topped with zigzag crenellations and behind the zigzags ran walkways which connected the many towers built along the walls.  These were now manned by a light guard, but once the alarm went the towers would be bristling with archers and artillery. The huge West and North Gates, the weakest parts of the wall, were the most heavily fortified, with high towers either side and above.  Before the outer wall was a deep moat, now filled with fire-sharpened stakes, that rose up to a palisade the height of a man, which itself drew up to the blank stone barrier of the first wall. 

When Hem had first ridden into Turbansk, the space between the walls had been filled with flowering gardens and lawns.  These had been ruthlessly uprooted and the entire area planted instead with stakes.  All the towers had been strengthened and faced with iron, to protect them, Saliman said, from fire missiles.  Hem blinked at the transformation; it was as if the city had been stripped to its bones.

At Turbansk Harbour the fortifications had also been strengthened, the harbour's encircling walls built higher and also faced with iron.  The harbour entrance was protected by a huge spiked chain, each link the size of a man, which could be raised or lowered from a mechanism within the harbour towers.  The harbourside was the only place where the strange suspension of activity did not exist: although ranks of ships lay at the long quays, the shipwrights were still building more, and it hummed with industry. 
"Haven't we enough ships?" asked Hem, looking with wonder at the activity: to his eye there seemed already enough ships to carry the whole population of Turbansk.  Saliman paused and turned back; he was about to stride off to speak to the harbour captain.

"We have a great fleet, yes," he said.  "Yet I judge we need more ships, and we will build as many as we have wood and time for.  Just as in the armouries, Hem, if you go there, the smiths still work all day... If Turbansk falls, the only escape for most will be through the harbour: we have to protect those who flee and keep the passage open.  So, you see, the task does not end, even after we are besieged.  But all the major work is done."

It was indeed a mighty navy: there were scores of small fireships, to be sent under sails filled with magewinds against an invading fleet, and rows of fighting triremes, with three layers of decks for rowers, large triangular sails and wicked-looking rams at their front to hole and sink enemy ships.  There were other, larger ships being built; Saliman said these were to carry people and goods, should the city fall.  But Hem felt heartened: it seemed to him impossible that Turbansk could be taken, with such strength at its command. 

Lastly Saliman took them to the watch at the top of the Red Tower, from which they could see over the walls at the Fesse of Turbansk.  This sobered Hem up considerably.  When he had last seen the Fesse, it had been a tilled country of gentle and luxuriant beauty, filled with groves of dates and olives and green crops and gardens.  Now he looked out upon what seemed to be wasteland: most of the trees had been cut down for shipbuilding, and the crops harvested or burned.  The empty villages and hamlets looked completely desolate.  No one moved in this bleak landscape, apart from a lone messenger riding the Bard Road east to the Il Dara Wall. 

Saliman noticed his expression, and smiled with grim compassion.

"You are shocked, Hem?" he said. 

Hem nodded, unable to for the moment to reply.

"Not the least of the grievous costs of war are what we are forced to do to ourselves, in order to survive," said Saliman.  He looked thoughtfully at Zelika, who did not seem nearly as shocked as Hem.  "I assure you, Zimek would look yet more grim than this, and remember that Baladh now lies in rubble.  We sacrifice much, in the hope that by doing so we buy enough time for victory."

Hem looked at Saliman, a catch in his throat.  "Do you mean, to give Maerad time to find the Treesong, and fulfil the prophecy?" he said.

Zelika looked up, baffled. 

"Aye, among other things.  Our hopes rest on something so slender we are yet to know what it is.  It is the sheerest folly, yes?  The Nameless would certainly believe so... But it is hope nevertheless, and hope I cleave to.  Because I say to you Hem: if it were not for Maerad and Cadvan, we would now have no hope at all."
 
 
 

That afternoon, when they had returned to the Bard house and Saliman had gone on to the Ernan palace, Zelika asked Hem who Maerad and Cadvan were.  "What did Saliman mean, back at the Tower?" she asked, with an unusual shyness.  She was speaking Annaren, a special dispensation for Hem, since she often refused to, and Hem knew this meant that she really wanted to know.  He didn't answer for a time, wondering if he wished to share his sister with this strange, passionate, irritating girl. 

"Don't tell me, then, if you don't trust me," Zelika said at last, shrugging her shoulders.  "I don't care."

Hem felt a stab of contrition; he could see that under her bravado she was hurt.

"It's not that," he said.  "Maerad is my sister and Cadvan is her friend, her mentor, I suppose.  He's a great Bard, famous in Annar... he and Saliman are old friends. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to tell anyone what they are doing..."

"Your sister?"  Zelika's eyes softened, and she looked at Hem with a new interest.  "I didn't know you had a sister."

"I didn't know, for a long time," said Hem.  He suddenly realised that Zelika knew even less about him than he did about her.  "You see, I - " He stopped, suddenly stumped.  He didn't know how to tell Zelika the story of his life, of the slaughter of his family in the sack of Pellinor, of the long, bleak years in the orphanage, his time with the Hulls and his rescue by Maerad and Cadvan.  She looked at him inquiringly, and Hem, feeling a strange reluctance, began his tale.  He had told his story to very few people, and to no one in Turbansk, since no one here had asked.  It stirred up painful feelings he would rather leave sleeping inside him; but Zelika listened intently, without interrupting.

"I see: you have lost your family, like I have," said Zelika, when his telling stumbled to a halt.  "Maybe that's why..."

"Why what?"

"Why - when you jumped on me in the street, when I realised you weren't going to hurt me, I thought - " 

Hem waited patiently; Zelika was staring at her hands, twisting her fingers together. 

"It is hard, when you don't have the words!" she said, looking up.  "I mean, the first thing I thought was that we had something in common.  And that seemed a very strange thing to think, when you were sitting on my chest like a sack of yams."  She smiled hesitantly, glancing shyly at Hem, and unexpectedly moved, he smiled back.

"And what did Saliman mean by - the Treesong, was it?"

"That's the bit I'm not sure I should tell," said Hem.  "Maerad and Cadvan went north, to look for the Treesong.  Nobody knows what it is.  But you see, Maerad is the Chosen One, and the prophecies say that she will cast down the Nameless One in his next and worst rising.  Which is now."

Zelika eye's widened in disbelief, and then she started laughing.  "Your sister!  Cast down the Nameless One!"

Stung, Hem scowled at the ground.  He was sorry now he had said anything.  "That's what Saliman says," he said.  "And he says it's our only hope.  That's what he meant at the Tower."

Zelika stared at him, her face serious again.  "I'm sorry," she said.  "It seems a very strange thing, that one girl should be able to do what all Turbansk and Baladh cannot.  I don't think I can believe it."

Hem shrugged his shoulders.  "You don't have to.  It's the truth, all the same.  Why would Saliman believe it, if it wasn't?"

"Maybe he has to," said Zelika.  "Maybe if he didn't, he would be in despair."

Anger flashed in Hem at Zelika's doubt and he glared at her, his fists clenched.  "Saliman's no idiot," he said.  "You should show some respect."

"I do respect Saliman," she answered, her face shadowed.  "It's not that.  But Hem, you know, I don't have any hope."  She looked up, straight at Hem, and for once her eyes were not veiled.  With his Bard-born perceptions, Hem saw for the first time the true extent of her inner devastation, and he breathed in sharply: it was almost too painful to bear.  "I don't have any hope at all.  Hope is not why I'm here."
"What do you want, then?" asked Hem.

"Revenge," she said flatly.  "Revenge and death.  There isn't anything else."
 
 
 

After that conversation Hem felt a new closeness to Zelika, although that didn't mean that he found her any less annoying.  As a teacher, she lived up to all his expectations; she was by far the most merciless he had yet endured.  Saliman had instructed him, with an unusual sternness, that he was to work hard at his Suderain: and it was only his respect for Saliman which stopped him from rebelling, although it went hard for him.

Zelika took her pact with Saliman very seriously.  They had lessons every morning, and the rest of the time Zelika would not permit Hem to speak anything but Suderain.  She was very pedantic; she would make him repeat a word again and again until he said it absolutely correctly, which could go on indefinitely, and drilled him in the endless declensions of nouns and verbs until he thought his head would burst. 

Then she would solemnly make him sit down and have a "conversation" with her.  Hem found this part of the lesson more irritating than almost anything else, because it seemed ridiculous and false, and he could never think of anything to say. He began to amuse himself by talking the most absurd nonsense he could think of, and then by creatively abusing Zelika. 

When she chose to exercise it, Zelika had admirable self-control; she limited herself for the most part to correcting his grammar and pronunciation. But she did slap him once, bursting into a storm of tears, when he called her a "skinny cat".  Hem was puzzled: it was by no means the worst thing he had said to her.  It was a long time afterwards that he found out that it was the insult her brothers had used, when they wished to tease her. 

Irc was bored by the lessons, and provided some entertainment by flapping onto Zelika's head and trying to pull out her hair, or creeping underneath her chair and pecking her feet at inappropriate times.  When he disgraced himself by soiling one of her sandals, which she subsequently put on, he was banished altogether.  Hem was very regretful, especially after the sandal incident, which amused him vastly; but he did learn much more quickly if Irc was not there.

In fact, although he did not admit it to Zelika, Hem was grateful for the distraction; the lessons relieved his boredom and dissipated the fear which otherwise filled his thoughts.  He did not regret at any time that he hadn't left with the other students, but this didn't stop him from feeling a deepening trepidation.  Sometimes, as much as he dreaded its arrival, Hem wished the Black Army would hurry up, just to break the mounting suspense which filled Turbansk with a strange, dreadful glamour.  It seemed as if the whole city trembled, holding its breath, on the edge of doom.
 
 

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