The Crow (novel)

Infobox Book |
name = The Crow
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption =
author = Alison Croggon
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = Australia
language =
series = Pellinor
subject =
genre = Fantasy
publisher = Penguin Books
release_date = 1 May 2006 (Australia)
english_release_date =
media_type = Print (paperback)
pages = 504 (1st Australian edition)
isbn = ISBN 0143002147 (paperback edition)
preceded_by = The Riddle
followed_by = The Singing

The Crow is a fantasy novel by Alison Croggon. It is the third book of her Pellinor tetralogy.

Plot introduction

The book is set in the fictional world of Edil-Amarandh. According to the author, this book is the third part of her translation of the 8-part book "Naraudh Lar-Chanë" (the "Riddle of the Treesong").

Plot summary

While his sister, Maerad, was in the north in search of the Treesong, as told in The Riddle, Hem and his mentor Saliman have arrived in Turbansk, the centre of the light in the Suderain, which is Saliman's School. There Hem becomes a Minor Bard, and has lessons with other Bards of Turbansk. Because he does not know the Suderain language, Hem finds it very hard to make friends. After a quarrel with one of his teachers, Hem escapes to a garden, where he rescued a white crow from the attack of several black crows. Hem named the crow Irc, (the Pilani name for "bird"), and kept him. A few days later, Turbansk receives news that the army of Sharma, the Nameless One, have destroyed cities and towns to the South, and are expected to attack Turbansk soon. The children are mostly evacuated from Turbansk; under the request of Saliman, Hem stays at the School and works to heal those wounded in battle. One day while wandering around the now almost empty Turbansk, Hem meets an orphaned girl called Zelika, whose parents were killed by the dark army of the Nameless One. As Hem, Saliman, Zelika, and Irc travel South to remain safe from the Black Army, Hem, Zelika, Saliman and Irc pass through an ancient underground city. There they stayed and Hem and Zelika were trained as child spies. One day, when they were left alone, Hem found a room with a mural on the wall of a tree-man. The tree-man was an Elidhu.

After they were fulled trained as spies, thier mentor sent them out. At the nearest hideout yet to be discovered by Sharma's army, the Pit, they stopped. While spying Zelika spotted her brother and gave herself away. Hem spent months tailing Zelika, waiting to save her. When the chance came, he was already in the city where the Iron Tower was, and he found out that he had been tracking Zelika's brother all that time. As he ran away alone, Irc came back carrying a shiny thing.

Irc helped him escape the city and told him the story of how Irc came by the 'shiny thing.'

They met up with Saliman later and Hem was told that Zelika never even set foot in the camp-- they had found her body mauled in the woods and did the best they could to honor her death. Later Hem went to find the tree-man and asked him what the thing was, and the tree-man told him it was part of the Treesong, and that he couldn't touch it. He said that Hem was part of the Treesong, and that he was the player. Then Saliman, Hem and Irc set off to find Maerad.

Characters

Hem - Hem is Maerad's twelve-year-old brother, found in the middle of the desert by Maerad and her mentor, Cadvan. Hem and Saliman travelled South to stay safe, while Maerad and Cadvan travelled North to find the lost Treesong.

Zelika - After watching her whole family perish at the hands of the Black Army, Zelika seeks revenge and escapes to Turbansk, where she first meets Hem. She quickly comes to trust him, and becomes a part of his perilous adventures.