Raven's Shadow (20 page)

The Shadowed fought as well as the old mage, his advisor, had warned Ernave. Time and again the sword slid along Ernave's axe, turning the blows so that the heavier steel of the axe didn't damage the sword blade.

The king's mouth moved with magic-making the whole time he fought. For the most part Red Ernave forestalled the spell with heavy blows that forced the king to lose his rhythm and concentrate on swordwork. Doubtless there were more spells
that Kerine deflected, but, every so often, a spell touched Ernave with white-hot heat that drained his spent body even more.

The king was fresh, and Ernave had been tired unto death before the battle began. Even so, Ernave planted his feet, and, with a swift pattern of his axe, he forced the king to leap away.

The axe felt heavy in his hands, and every time it jerked as the king turned aside another blow the shock shot up Ernave's forearms and through his shoulders and neck in a flash of pain.

Ernave stumbled over nothing and, as he fell, his axe caught the king a glancing blow in the knee and laid it bare to the bone. Ernave didn't hesitate, but kept rolling until he staggered to his feet and turned back to face the king.

The Shadowed shrieked and the semblance of the young man the king had been fell away, leaving behind something that was little more than sinew clinging to bone. There was no time for horror. Ernave surged to his feet and struck at the king's sword again.

The blow hit fairly at last, shattering the elegant blade. Ernave set himself for a killing blow, but the Shadowed dropped his sword and lashed out with his hand. Claws that belonged on no human fingers sunk deep into Ernave's side.

Ernave cried out, but the pain did not slow his strike and the axe cleaved sweetly through the Shadowed's neck.

Bleeding and breathing heavily, Red Ernave stared in astonished shock at the body of the old, old man who lay on the ground.

Who'd have thought the Shadowed could really be killed?

“How did you do that? How did you withstand his magic? I couldn't block it all.
You
are no mage.” Kerine's nagging voice broke through the buzzing exhaustion that made everything seem oddly distant.

“The old mage,” said Ernave, his breathlessness growing worse until he breathed in shallow pants. “He gave the last of his life to hold off the dark magic long enough for me to kill the Shadowed. I thought he was a fool to believe it would work . . . but it didn't matter as we were all dead anyway.”

As he finished speaking he fell to his knees.

Buried deep in Red Ernave's heart, Tier, knowing how this
story ended, realized his danger and struggled to surface, but there was nothing to cling to as Ernave began to submit to the death bequeathed him by the Shadowed.

A thin whisper rang in his ears.

“And so the great warrior died in the wake of the Shadowed and left . . .”

“Left the battlefield.” Tier grasped the words. “Left his army to mourn.” But he couldn't remember the next—

Kerine tried uselessly to save Ernave with what little remained of his power.

“They burned the thing that had once been a king,” continued Tier's visitor softly when Tier stopped speaking.

Tier fumbled a little but the familiar words began to flow again, separating him from his story. “And . . . and scattered his ashes in stream and field so that there would be no grave nor memorial to the king who had no name.”

The pain in Tier's side faded and he was once more safe in the dark of his prison.

“They buried Red Ernave in the battlefield, hoping that his presence would somehow hold the host of darkness at bay. They trailed into the empty city where the Shadowed had ruled and pulled down the king's palace until not one brick stood upon the other. Then the remnants of the Glorious Army of Man waited, for they had no place to go. The last of the cities and villages were years since ground to dust under the weight of the Shadowed. Only when the food ran short did the army drift away in twos and threes.”

Tier found himself shaking in the dark as the story faded away. Next time he experimented with magic, he decided firmly, it would be with a story whose hero survived.

“What have you done, Bard?” said the voice from above him. “Magic for music, both becoming more real. What have you done?” And, severing the bond that still held him to Tier, the listener departed without a sound.

 

Avar, Sept of Leheigh, looked just as a Sept ought, thought Phoran, playing with his breakfast without enthusiasm.

Avar was lean, tall, and heroic. His face was chiseled, his chin firm and his mouth smiling sympathetically. He'd come,
unannounced, into the royal bedchambers as if he had the right to be there.

“Not hungry this morning, my emperor?” he said, looking at the mess Phoran had made of his plate. “When I heard that you were breaking your fast in your room I thought that might be the case. My new man has a potion against drink-sickness. He's a half-blood Traveler, or so he claims. He's certainly a wizard with potions and medicines.”

“No, thank you,” Phoran looked down at his plate. Avar was home.

Relief and joy were severely tempered by his suspicion that Toarsen's words last night were truth. Last night he'd been certain, but in Avar's charismatic presence Phoran's need for Avar's approval vied with the words of a couple of half-drunken lords and scored a narrow triumph. Narrow enough that Phoran didn't ask Avar to join him—although there were extra plates and plenty of food.

Phoran forked up a bit of fruit and ate it without enthusiasm. “I don't need potions—I'm not sick from drinking.” It sounded too much like a pouting child, so Phoran continued speaking. “So you're back from your sept already?” Did he sound casual enough? “I'd thought you intended to be gone longer than this?”

Avar looked disgruntled, Phoran thought, feeling a bare touch of triumph. Perhaps Avar had expected a warmer greeting—or even the scold Phoran'd intended to hand out to the Sept before overhearing that conversation last night. Cool composure wasn't a mood the young emperor often indulged himself in.

“Where is Leheigh, anyway? In the South?” The indifference in Phoran's voice was less of an effort.
There. See how little I concern myself with your affairs?

He'd looked up the ancient deed in the library and followed the path on several of the maps in the map room. He could have discussed the crops in the Sept's new inheritance with knowledge gained from poring over tax records of the past few centuries. But now he would not admit to knowing anything. Avar's brother wouldn't have dared to show such disgust for the Emperor if he had no encouragement from Avar himself.

But Phoran needed Avar. He needed his praise. He needed his support against the older council members who weren't happy with an emperor who indulged himself in nightly parties, and yet they still refused to let him do anything more useful. Needed him because Avar, when he stayed at the palace, often slept in a bed in the Emperor's suite—and when Avar was there, Phoran was safe.

“Leheigh is southwest, sire, along the Silver River below Shadow's Fall,” said Avar, his face settling into its usual warmth. “I didn't have time to visit the battlefield—but I will next time I go there, if I can find a guide. All in all, I'm very happy with the lands; my father wasn't a hunter so he left the forest wild and filled with game. The keep dates back to a few centuries after Shadow's Fall—the family legend claims that my many times great-grandfather was a solder of the Remnant of the Army of Man, and a few of those soldiers settled along the river after the final battle. There's a couple of towns in the district, a largish village near my keep, and a smaller town on the banks of the river. The Redern villagers—that's the smaller town—still talk as if the Fall of the Shadowed happened yesterday. I suppose because nothing interesting has happened there since.”

“I see,” said Phoran. “When did you get back?”

“The day before yesterday,” Avar said. “My apologies for not coming to you directly, but I had to make arrangements for some items I brought back.” He hesitated. “And, I came back and found that my mistress had a few extra men warming her bed while I was gone. By the time I dealt with that my temper was none too sweet.”

A good reason for waiting,
thought Phoran with secret jubilation. Maybe Avar's brother was jealous of the time Avar spent with him; maybe that's why he'd said such hurtful things. Phoran could understand Toarsen's jealousy.

“I thought I'd go riding today,” said Phoran, changing the subject as if Avar's trip and return were something that held no interest. “Will you accompany me?” He hadn't intended to ask for company. But Avar's presence soothed the hurts Toarsen and Kissel had dealt. Avar was his friend—anyone could see it by the warmth of his gaze.

Avar's eyebrows climbed up that perfect forehead. “Of
course, my lord. I'll send word to the stables. I left my horse at home.”

“I've done that already,” Phoran said, setting his fork aside. “You can ride the horse my armsman was to take.” He'd have no need of a guard with Avar by his side. “I feel as if I haven't been out of the castle in months.” Only after he said it did he realize that it was true. When was the last time he'd been out? Oh, yes, that tavern crawl in disguise on Avar's birthday four months before.

“Ah.” Avar frowned a little. “Is something bothering you?”

Phoran shook his head and stood up. “Just bored. Tell me about your new curiosity. A Traveler, you said. Is he a mage?”

Avar grinned, “Aren't they all? But truthfully, I don't think he has a drop of Traveler blood—he is, however, a skilled healer.”

And as they strode through the palace to the stables, Avar chatted cheerfully about his trip, not at all like a man talking to someone he held in contempt. Phoran wondered whether he should tell Avar what his brother had said—and decided not to. Not because he was afraid to hurt Avar, but because he didn't want Avar to know that anyone held Phoran in contempt.

Under the cheerful flow of Avar's attention, Phoran began to rethink the whole of last night's debacle. It was traditional for people not to like their rulers—and he probably misunderstood what they were saying about his uncle. They hadn't said that they had killed him, just that he had been killed. Phoran hadn't been drunk, precisely, but he hadn't exactly been sober either. It was easy to misinterpret things in that state.

Phoran relaxed and let himself revel in his hero's company. It had been weeks since he'd had Avar's undivided attention. His contentment was somewhat shaken when they brought his stallion to him.

Phoran, who had learned to ride as soon as he could walk, had to use a mounting block to attain the saddle.

Fat, indeed,
he thought, red-faced as the stablemen who'd known him from the time he was a toddler fought not to meet his eyes. At least they had trusted him with his own stallion, who had responded with his usual fury to the weight of a rider—perhaps a little worse for having not been ridden for so many months.

By the time Blade quit fussing, Phoran was tired, quite certain he'd pulled a muscle in his back, and thoroughly triumphant. Not everyone could have stayed on such an animal, and he'd managed it. The stallion snorted and settled down as if the previous theatrics had never been.

“Nicely ridden, my emperor,” murmured Avar with just the proper amount of admiration to make the comment too much.

Phoran watched the stablemen's faces change from approval to veiled contempt.
Had Avar done that on purpose?
thought the small hurt part of Phoran that was still writhing under Toarsen's derision.

 

Avar had things to look after that evening, and Phoran did not follow his impulse to plead with Avar to stay. The ride had reminded him of his uncle, who had taught him horsemanship. His uncle, who would have been disappointed in the man Phoran had grown to be.

“You have brains, mi'lad,” he remembered his uncle saying. “Emperor or not. Use them.”

So it was that as darkness fell in his rooms and the flames in the fireplace died to bare glowing embers, Phoran was alone again when the Memory came.

It stood taller than a man and stopped some few feet away. Doubtless, Phoran thought with humor that barely masked his terror, it was taken aback that he was not in a drunken stupor or crying in the corner as he had been on more than one occasion.

It looked like nothing at all, as if a human eye couldn't quite focus on what it was—though tonight it looked, somehow, more
real
than it had been before.

Its hesitation, if it had hesitated at all, was only momentary. For the first time, Phoran stood quietly as it enfolded him in its blackness, taking away his ability to move or cry out. He'd hoped that it would be better if he held still, but the burning pain of fangs piercing the inner skin of his elbow was as terrible as he remembered. Cold entered Phoran from the place where the Memory fed, as if it was replacing what it drank with ice. When it was done it said the words that had become too familiar.

“By the taking of your blood, I owe you. One answer. Choose your question.”

“Are you afraid of other people?” Phoran asked. “Is that why you don't come if someone's in the room with me?”

“No,” it said and vanished.

Shivering as if he'd been hunting in winter, Phoran the Twenty-Seventh curled up on the rug on the floor of his room.

This time it wasn't the grating that opened, but the
door. Tier shot to his feet and had to stop there because the sudden light blinded him.

“If it please you, my lord,” said a soft tenor voice that could have belonged equally well to a young man or a woman, “Would you come with me? We have arranged for your comfort. I am to offer you also an apology for how you have been treated. We have not been ready to receive you until now.”

Tier wiped his eyes and squinted against the glare of what was, after all, a fairly dim lantern to see the backlit form of a woman.

The sight, he could tell, was staged. She held the light carefully to exhibit certain aspects of her form. The slight tremor in the hand that held the lantern might be faked as well—but he'd have been worried about facing a man who'd been caged for as long as Tier had, so he gave her the benefit of the doubt.

“I'm no lord,” he said at last. “Tell me just who it is I have to thank for my recent stay here?”

“If it please you,
sir,
” she said. “I'll take you to where all of your questions can be answered.”

Tier could have overpowered her, and would have if she had been a man. But if they, whoever they were, sent a woman
to get him, it could only be because overpowering her would get him nowhere.

“You'll have to give me a moment,” he said, “until I can see again.”

As his vision cleared, he saw that the woman was arrayed in flowing garments that hinted broadly at the body beneath.

A whore's costume, but this woman was no common whore. She was extraordinarily beautiful, even to a man who preferred his woman to be less soft and breakable. Even if the net of gems and gold that confined quite a bit of equally golden hair was paste and brass—and he wasn't at all sure it was—the cloth of her dress was worth a fair penny.

“Can you see, yet, sir?” she asked.

“Oh aye,” he said congenially. He'd bide his time until he had enough information to act. “Lead on, fair lady.”

She laughed gently at his address as she led him out into a winding corridor. Behaving, he thought, as if he were a customer, rather than a man who'd been imprisoned for weeks.

The hall ceiling was so low he could have easily touched it with a hand. On either side of his cell there were doors that opened to his hand and revealed rooms that looked much like his. The woman was patient with him, waiting without murmuring and pausing with him when he stopped by an iron door twice as wide as the one that led into his cell. The door stuck fast when he tried it.

The woman said nothing. When he took the lantern from her and adjusted it brighter so he could look more closely at the doors, she merely folded her arms under her full breasts.

He ignored her until he was certain that the door was hinged on the other side, with two iron bars (barely visible in the narrow space between door and frame) in place to keep the door shut. If he'd access to a forge he could fashion something to unbar the door—but they were unlikely to allow him such.

He handed the lantern back to his hostess and allowed her to lead him.

The hall continued around a sharp bend and ended in double doors. Just before the walls ended, there was a door on either side. It was the left-hand door the woman opened, stepping back for him to precede her.

The smell of steam and the sound of running water emerged
from the opened door, so he was unsurprised to enter a bathing room. He knew what one looked like because the Sept of Gerant had held war conferences in his—saying that the sound of the water kept people from overhearing anything useful. But that austere chamber had as much to do with this one as a donkey had with a warhorse. A golden tub of a size to accommodate five or six was brim full of hot, steaming water with a tall table near it holding a variety of soaps and pots of lotion. But by far the most impressive part of the room was the cold pool.

Water cascaded from an opening in the ceiling high above and poured onto a ledge of fitted rock where it was spread to fall in a wide sheet to the waist-deep pool below. He could tell the pool was waist-deep because there were two naked, frightened, and obviously cold women standing in it.

“Sssst,” hissed his guide in sudden irritation. “You look as if you are about to lose your virtue again. Does this look like a man who'd hurt women?”

She softened her voice to velvet and turned back to Tier. “You'll forgive them, my . . . sir. Our last guest was none to happy with his captivity and took it out on those who had nothing to do with it.”

He laughed with honest amusement. “After that speech I would certainly feel like a stupid lout to try any such thing,” he said.

In the brighter light of the bathing chamber he could see that she was more than beautiful—she was fascinating, a woman who'd draw men's eyes when she was eighty. He mentally upped her probable price again. So why was he being offered such service? The thought pulled the smile from his face.

“So I'm to clean myself before being presented, eh?” he said neutrally.

“We will perform that service, sir, if you will allow us,” she said, bowing her head in submission. “When you are finished bathing, there are clean clothes to replace the ones you wear now. This is for your comfort entirely. If you choose, you may stay as you are and I'll take you in now. I thought you would prefer not to appear at a disadvantage.”

“Disadvantage, eh?” He glanced at his clothes. “If they kidnap a man at the tail end of a three-month hunt, they get as
they deserve. I'll wash, but you ladies get yourselves out of here or my wife will have my head.”

The women in the pool giggled as if he'd been witty, but they waited for a gesture from the woman he'd followed before they left the pool. They wrapped themselves in a couple of the bathing sheets folded in piles on a bench and exited the room through the same door he'd entered.

“You too, lass,” he told his guide. “The high-born you serve may be comfortable with help, but we Rederni are competent to wash ourselves.”

Smilingly she bowed and left, shutting the door behind her. He hadn't noticed a latch, but he heard a click that could be nothing else so he didn't bother to try the door. The waterfall was more intriguing.

Four leaps gave him a fingerhold on the lowest ledge and he climbed the rest with relative ease. When he found the opening the water fell through in the corner of the ceiling, it was grated with iron bars set in mortar.

He slid back down and splashed uncaring of his battered clothing into the cold pool of water. He hadn't expected such an obvious way out, but he needed to know what he dealt with. Eventually he'd manage a way out—in the meantime there was no need for filth.

He washed the clothes on his body first, then threw them into the waiting hot tub, where he'd soap down both them and himself when he was ready.

The cold water poured over his face, clearing his head and his thoughts as he scraped away dirt.

He hadn't heard anyone enter, but when he stepped out from the waterfall, there were clean clothes waiting for him.

He ignored them and settled into the tub of hot water, soaped himself off, and gave rough service to his clothes. Rinsing everything in the cold pool, he draped his clothes where he could. Shivering now, he dried himself and examined the clothing she'd left for him.

It was serviceable clothing, very like the filthy garments he'd taken off, though less worn. He fingered the shirt thoughtfully before donning it. The leather boots fit him as well as his old ones, lost somewhere during his captivity.

As he tied the laces of his boots, his guide returned, her
timing too accurate for guessing. Someone had been watching him—he hoped they enjoyed the show. She held a tray with a comb and a plain silver clip and held them out. He ran the comb through his hair and pulled it back into a queue which he fastened with the clip.

He turned around once for her perusal and she nodded. “You'll do, sir. If you'll follow me, the Master awaits your presence.”

“Master?” he asked.

But she'd given him all the information she intended to. “Come,” she said, leading him back to the corridor.

The double doors at the end of the hall were open this time and a haze of smoke drifted into the corridor along with a desultory drumbeat and a hum of conversation. But he had only a moment to glance inside and get an impression of some sort of public room with tables and benches scattered around, before the woman opened the door directly across from the bathing room and gestured him in.

In size and lack of windows, the room resembled the cell Tier had been living in, though here the stone floor was covered with a tightly woven rug that cushioned his feet. A pair of matching tapestries hung on one wall. The only furnishings in the room were two comfortable-looking chairs flanking a small round table.

In one of the chairs sat a man in a black velvet robe sipping from a goblet. He was a decade or so older than Tier with the features of an eastern nobleman, wide-cheeked and flat-nosed. Like his face, his hands belonged to an aristocrat, long-fingered and bedecked with rings.

He looked up when Tier's guide softly cleared her throat.

“Ah. Thank you, Myrceria,” he said pleasantly, setting his goblet on the table. “That will be all.”

The door shut quietly behind Tier's back, leaving the two men alone in the room.

The robed man folded his hands contemplatively against his chin, “You don't look like a Traveler, Tieragan of Redern.”

Traveler?

Tier raised an eyebrow and took the empty chair. It was a little short for him, so he stretched out his legs and crossed his ankles. When he was comfortable, he looked at the man most
probably responsible for his recent imprisonment and said courteously, “And you don't look like a festering pustule on a slug's hind end either. Appearances can be deceiving.”

The other man's face didn't change, but Tier felt a pulse of power, of magic—just as he was meant to.

The surge of magic died and the wizard smiled. “You
are
angry, aren't you? I do believe we owe you an apology for keeping you locked in your cell, but it has been a long time since we had an Owl in our keeping. We had to be certain that we could contain your magic before releasing you.”

Contain his magic?

“You seem to know a lot about me,” Tier commented. “Would you care to return the favor?”

The other man laughed, “You'll have to excuse me—you're not quite what I expected. I am Kerstang, Sept of Telleridge.”

Tier nodded slowly. “And what would the Sept of Telleridge want with a Rederni farmer?”

“Nothing at all,” said Telleridge. “I do, however, have a use for a Traveler and Bard.”

“I told you,” said Tier mildly. “I am not a Traveler. What do you need me for?”

Telleridge smiled as if Tier's answer had pleased him. “In addition to my duties as a Sept, I find myself with the delicate charge of the youth of the Empire. The law of primogeniture, however necessary, leaves many of the younger sons of noblemen without any constructive outlets for their energies. I run an Eyrie for these lost young men and I'm responsible for their entertainment.”

“I'm the entertainment?” said Tier. “Surely there are bards who don't need abducting to be persuaded to provide entertainment.”

Telleridge laughed, “But they would not be nearly as amusing.” The laughter drifted away as if it had never been. “Nor would they be Owl. All you need to know at the moment is that you are, will you or nil you, my guest for the next year. During that time you will entertain my young friends and occasionally participate in our ceremonies. In return you may ask for anything that you wish, short of leaving, and it will be arranged.”

“I don't think so,” said Tier.

“Refusing is not an option,” said the wizard. “For a year and a day you will have whatever you want—or you can struggle; it matters not one whit to me.”

That phrase struck a chord of memory. “A year and a day,” Tier said. “You'll make me beggar king for a year and a day.” He hummed a bit of the old tune. “And I suppose, like the beggar king, you'll sacrifice me to the gods at the end?”

“That's right,” said the wizard as if Tier were a prized pupil. “I see that an Owl will be different than a Raven—which is what we've had the last three times. The Hunter was interesting, though we finally had to cage him. I think you'll do. But first . . .”

He leaned forward and touched Tier lightly; as he did so, the silver and onyx ring on his index finger caught Tier's attention briefly.

He was distracted by the ring when the wizard's voice dropped a full octave and he said in the Traveler tongue,
“By Lark and Raven, I bind you that you will harm neither me nor any wizard who wears a black cloak in these halls. By Cormorant and Owl, I bind you that you will not ask anyone to help you escape. By Falcon, I bind you that you will not speak of your death.”

Magic surged through Tier, holding him still until the wizard was done.

“There,” he said sitting back again.

There indeed,
thought Tier, shaken. No one had ever laid a spell on him before. He felt . . . violated and frightened. It had been so fast and he hadn't been able to defend himself from it at all. Cold sweat slid down his neck and he shivered, fighting nausea.

“Sick?” Telleridge asked. “It takes some people like that, but I couldn't depend upon the word of a Traveler peasant—even if you'd give it. My young friends are easily influenced. I would hate to lose any of my Passerines too soon.”

“Passerines?” asked Tier, breathing shallowly through his nose and hoping he didn't look as shaken as he felt. “You have song birds here?”

The wizard smiled. “As I said, a Bard will be interesting. Myrceria will tell you what you need to know about my
Passerines. Ask her about the Secret Path if you wish. She is waiting for you outside the door.”