Raven's Ladder (32 page)

The sea whispered,
Slumm-ber, slumm-ber, sleeeeep…

But there was another sound too. A crowd was cheering somewhere down within the rock, somewhere in the busy caverns where people stayed up all night eating, drinking, laughing, pursuing their passions.

He lay there awhile, listening. The sound rekindled memories, years old but vivid as yesterday, and when he closed his eyes, he could walk down into the caverns of Bel Amica. During the day the world outside the foundation flourished, but at night that life withdrew into the rock like fire sinking into an ember. And when he was lonely and cold, it had been a warm and dazzling fire.

Joined by tunnels alive with light and color, the open spaces within Bel Amica’s rock were altogether different from the labyrinths of Abascar’s Underkeep or the bear caves and burrows in Barnashum’s Blackstone Caves. These were vast stone sanctuaries, surrounded by walkways and crisscrossed with narrow bridges. Light fell in brilliant shafts, clouding with smoke from the incense ponds, giving him the sense that he was submerged in a deep pool while someone above poured in colorful streams of billowing dye. For every torch there were long rows of mirrors that caught and relayed the light—changing it in ways that slowed and entranced him.

There would be people everywhere down there tonight—moving in ravenous packs or pairing off in secretive strolls. At night, as if unsettled by the darkness and the sea’s song, they filled the air with raucous music, with songs that competed from different caves and corners.

Was Lesyl singing somewhere?

He went to the window again and stared down at the avenue. The laughing people far below taunted him with their happiness. “What good can I do here?” he muttered.

A flash of light from the tower across the avenue caught his eye. He scanned the windows and saw that the light was flickering from a piece of glass hanging in a window two levels above his own.

He stepped away and put his back to the wall. A diamond of light flitted across the floor, jittered on the far wall, across the bricks, tapestries, and the mirror.

He knew exactly what it meant.

“No,” he said. “No. Not again. Not ever.”

As if to escape a hunter, he dashed from the window to the door. He took up his white Bel Amican cloak, then put it back in favor of a black stormcloak with a hood.

Ignoring the complaints from his injuries, he limped back down the long stair.

He passed some of the queen’s attendants and inquired about directions to the music hall. He had only one wish of his own tonight. He would not bother to raise it to any moon-spirit. He would either fulfill it or find a drink and retire to his bed.

“Lesyl’s not here,” said a tall, spindly man with thick discs of glass propped on a wire in front of his eyes. With a tray of precise tools before him, he was leaning beneath the open lid of what appeared to be a huge wooden desk, turning screws and straining a blanket of wires. The instrument hummed in answer.

“Did she say where she was going?” Cal-raven asked.

“Someone came to take her down to the Hall of the Red Walls,” he said. “There’s a storytelling contest tonight. Should be quite a crowd.”

“Thank you,” said Cal-raven. The thought of a storytelling contest encouraged him. Warney always loved a good story, always sat right among the children, leaning in, breathless with anticipation.

He would go look for Lesyl and Warney in the rock.

“Hoo!”

The girl blocking Cal-raven’s path held glass discs up to her eyes, magnifying them.

“Why are you following me?” He wanted to be angry at her persistence but laughed the question at her owl-like appearance.

“Hoo, hoo, I’ve heard about you,” she hooted, and she made her eyes grow and shrink by pushing the lenses farther from her face and pulling them back in. “I’ve never seen a real live king before.”

He pulled up his hood, dismayed that he could be so easily recognized. He stepped out of the way of a crowd spilling from the corridor into this cavernous gathering hall and watched them hurry toward the stage at the other end where the storytelling contest was already under way. “Aren’t you a little young to be out so late?” He leaned against the wall, and the stranger stayed in front of him as if this were just a step in a dance. “Who are you, anyway?”

“Hoo-hoo!” She handed him one of the discs, then held the other to her eye. “My name’s Obrey.”

Reluctantly he raised the glass to his eye in time to see her blush.

“I made this.” She pushed and pulled the glass before her lips so he could see her crooked teeth up close. “I come from faraway north.” She slapped her hand across her mouth to cover her gasp, as if she had just released some secret she’d sworn to keep. Embarrassed, she dashed off through the crowd in a flurry.

The gloves
, he thought, watching her go.
Krystor was wearing the same white gloves when I saw him yesterday. This girl must serve at the glassworks
.

From a distance Obrey had been as annoying as an itch. Up close, she was more intriguing. And familiar.

Over the din of the crowd, a voice amplified by a horn announced that the final contestant in the storytelling contest was ready to take the stage.

Firecrackers sizzled and popped. The crowd cheered. Stars with streaming tails soared up to the ceiling of the auditorium and burst over the elevated stage. The storyteller, a brown-robed man with hair that frayed like a
fan, led two elaborately painted, vawn-drawn carriages beneath the line of lanterns draped across the stage.

In the bowl-shaped cavern, the storyteller’s voice bounced back from the walls so all could hear. As he spoke with great emotion, one carriage came apart, the walls swinging open and the roof unfolding, transforming it into a model of a colorless dome surrounded by a wall.

Cal-raven froze.
That’s my father’s palace
, he thought. He watched the curtain at the back of the stage, expecting the Seers to appear. Surely they had arranged this humiliation.

As he crept around the outer edge of the crowd, searching for Warney, the storyteller summarized Abascar’s fall. Smoke and light burst from the dome, engulfing the stage. Actors behind the curtain screamed in convincing anguish. A dramatic silence followed while the smoke cleared. A small young man staggered out from that cloud, coughing and clutching his chest.

“A survivor!” announced the storyteller.

The crowd cheered, recognizing this as the central character.

Actors dressed as beastmen charged at the boy. Their costumes were impressive—wild manes and flashing eyes, teeth that stabbed from their mouths like knives. But the boy made a dash across the stage and dove into a water trough that had appeared while the audience was distracted.

The narrator described how the boy had floated on Deep Lake, certain he was dying. Staring at the rising moon, he called out. “I have heard that the moon watches over us,” the boy sang in a faltering voice. “So, please, raise me up. My heart wants so much more.”

A great angled mirror on the ceiling reflected this evening’s moon. There was no fakery; Cal-raven had seen that very crescent on his approach.

From the ceiling’s shadowy secrets, a rain of sparkling dust fell and settled over the floating boy. Wind chimes enhanced this silver shower with musical tones. The audience applauded, enthralled. “Moon-dust!” someone shouted. “His prayers are answered!”

The story unfolded in a way that Cal-raven could have predicted. The boy swam to shore and made his way to Bel Amica, where he became an apprentice to a tender-hearted Seer. The Seer explained that Abascar had fallen because its king had barred his people from following their desires. At
the edge of the stage, another actor staggered into view, playing a drunken king, and then retreated backstage, his momentary appearance drawing laughter and applause.

The Seer was suddenly joined by Bel Amican soldiers, who were played by, yes, real Bel Amican soldiers. In their gleaming plate armor, they received an ovation fit for heroes. And the boy stood up, clearly amazed and worshipful.

Just then, a man in the audience rose, shoved others aside, and stormed out of the crowd, ranting. This, too, inspired laughter, but the distraction was quickly forgotten.

Cal-raven followed him.

“Krawg,” he called, running to join the old Gatherer. “Krawg, where are you going?”

“Can’t take any more of this krammed nonsense. They’re just throwin’ candy, givin’ these folks what they want to hear. That isn’t storytelling.”

“Let it go, my friend. It’s just one story.”

“That’s not what’s stuck in my throat,” he barked back. “It’s what happened here before this story. Did you see it? Someone told the story of the tricksters. My story. My idea. Somebody stole it from Mawrnash, brought it over here, and pumped it full of noise and flash and dazzle. What good will it do me to tell stories if people just steal ’em and change ’em?”

“Jes-hawk told me your story. The Bel Amicans changed it?”

“They made that rebellious fool of a boy their hero. The one who broke the dollmaker’s heart. He’s no hero at all. He ruins everything.”

“Let me get you a bottle of ale, and we’ll talk this over.”

The Gatherer paused and then blinked at him in surprise. “You? Buy me a bottle of drink, master?”

Cal-raven smiled.

He moved to the nearest ale wagon, and when the vendor saw who he was, he dutifully set out a bottle. Reaching into his pocket, Cal-raven asked if he might have another. “No coins,” the vendor insisted. “You’re our guest. But give me a few moments, as that’s my last bottle.”

Cal-raven thanked him, surprised, and gestured for Krawg to wait while the vendor shouted to an errand boy.

As he turned, he noticed two hooded drinkers at a nearby table. He found he could not move. Lesyl and Partayn were sipping ales and talking excitedly together, leaning close. To anyone passing, they would seem to have known each other for years.

Getting steadily louder, the storyteller was reaching the climax of his tale. The young survivor was now a Bel Amican hero, married to a beauty who had devoted her life to the moon-spirits. He had, through the blessing of the Seers’ potions, become Ryllion’s fastest battlefield runner. In the closing scene, an actor playing Ryllion commanded the boy to hunt down a beastman, and the crowd roared when he slashed a stuffed monster into pieces.

The pageant closed when the boy presented his sword to Ryllion, saying, “I am blessed by Bel Amica’s greatest teacher. May the moon-spirits bless you as you lead this house to vanquish the curse.”

“All hail Ryllion!” shouted a soldier from the crowd. This drew scattered applause from the crowd and shrieks of adoration from more than a few Bel Amican women.

Lesyl, recognizing Cal-raven, moved to get up, but Cal-raven urged her to stay. Partayn regarded Cal-raven with surprise, then waved for him to join them at the table. Glancing back at Krawg, Cal-raven repeated his gesture for patience, then slumped down onto a bench beside Lesyl rather than on the bench Partayn had offered him.

“Horrible,” said Lesyl, nodding toward the stage. “Abascar’s suffering exploited for Bel Amicans’ pleasure.” She looked pale as if the story had made her sick. “Is this really how Bel Amicans decide what is true—by what gets the loudest cheer?”

The heir took no offense. “The people got what they wanted—praise and affirmation. That’s the Seers’ way.” Partayn scowled at his drink. “I’m tired of sitting on the sidelines and whining whenever the crowd applauds a bad story or a shoddy song.”

“Truth doesn’t win many cheers.” Cal-raven scowled. As his gaze strayed from the spectacle, he noticed that Krawg was shuffling away without his ale.

“I’ll sing something true,” Partayn growled.

“They won’t like that,” said Lesyl.

“They will if I sing it,” he said with a garish grin.

As Partayn walked to the platform, Lesyl watched him go. “What’s troubling you, master?”

“It’s smoky in here. Did you see? House Abascar collapsed.” He uncorked his bottle and drank. He drank it all. Planting the bottle back on the table, he said, “Now those poor survivors will have to decide whether to stick together…or surrender to the appeal of Bel Amica.”

They sat in a long and uncomfortable silence.

Then Lesyl said, “Krawg seems discouraged. You would think we’d be happier here than in Barnashum.”

“Your second bottle!” the vendor called to Cal-raven.

“I’d better go after Krawg,” Cal-raven sighed. “Lift his spirits. It’s what Abascar’s king should be doing, right?” He met her puzzled gaze for one more moment. “Try to keep from losing what we’ve fought so hard to preserve.”

As he took the second bottle, the vendor again refused payment. “I worked with Deuneroi. Great fellow. Incredible what he did to try to help your people. Consider this a gift in honor of a courageous man.”

Cal-raven thanked him again, wondering,
What exactly did Deuneroi do?
He followed after Krawg, but he could feel that somewhere along the way he had left something behind.

Meanwhile the crowd continued to cheer.

“Where are you going?”