“You have risked the very pact that holds the worlds apart, dead things. I cannot let you harm this child.”
“We no longer need your pact or your veil, Raven King. We are done with opening the gates to you and your Ravenfells. We are taking our world back.” They were united as they spoke, and each spoke with the same strength and force as the others.
The Raven King had not felt such power from spirits since the days of Dorga. But that madman had consumed all the Guardian spirits. Where did these new ones come from? Though he maintained his confident demeanor, the knowledge gave him pause. To create new Guardians would take a great deal of preparation. If it was true, then it meant that the spirits behind those voices had planned for such a confrontation. The clash was clearly orchestrated, but what surprises did they have in store?
“A new veil spreads, even now, taking the place of yours—a veil without the taint of your wretched bargain to weaken it. Give up your pact with the Ravenfells, and we will allow you to continue as the Raven King and lead your flocks in the harvesting of souls. Refuse, and you will join your mortal pets as exiles from this place.”
“You cannot banish me. I am the Guardian of the veil,” the Raven King argued.
“Then you can guard it from the other side.”
“The living are a threat to this world. As long as you enable these Ravenfells to break the laws, you are as well. It is time to choose. Give over the child and sever the Pact of the Raven’s Fel, and you can continue your reign as the Raven King, or choose to protect that abomination, and join it in exile.”
“You act as if I only have one choice,” the Raven King challenged. He still wasn’t sure what they held in store for him, and for all he knew, it could be more than he realized. He’d won before against the unbound powers of death. As long as he stayed alert and bought himself time to think, he was pretty sure he could do it again. “The boy will be spared. The pact will remain. Or my flock will devour all of you and add your essence to the veil.” It was a serious threat, and he was fairly certain he could carry it out. But he was hoping he didn’t have to prove it.
The spirits’ laughter chilled the darkness all around. “We told you he would choose this human over his own kind,” their voices called in unison. “He would rather protect this creature instead of maintaining your place as ravens. The proof is made. Now, is the bargain struck?”
The ravens that opened his path into this world cawed back their answer with fury. The Raven King felt the pain of betrayal as he heard their acceptance. He understood it. He was once just a raven, too, though he had long since become much more. He understood the inherent greed and the temptation of a good bargain.
A familiar dread settled over him as the consequences of such a loss set in. His flock was his blade against the dead things. He controlled a great deal of power and could command the dead to a point, but alone, he could not rival the entire might of the Netherworld. Especially not if the voices behind the veil were as powerful as they felt. Without his flocks, he was vulnerable. If he allowed them to kill the child now and break the Pact of the Raven’s Fel, there was no telling how far he could fall. He refused to be just a raven once more.
“They are not yours to command any longer, raven. We made a bargain. You are no longer needed.” The lack of title was clearly intentioned.
“I am still the Raven King.”
“Until the boy dies, and your pact is broken,” the spirits warned. “Kill the infant.”
The flock of ravens heeded the spirits’ command and swarmed in a cloud above him.
The Raven King could feel the new veil closing in. It threatened to overtake his own veil and cut him off from the other world. He tried to open a new gateway, but the thickening spirit wall resisted him. Its resilience was increasing with every moment. If he didn’t escape now, he might never be able to. But if he fled and let them complete their wall, he might never cross back over again.
The Raven King drew from the bond between himself and the child. The gift of the Raven’s Fel was in his blood. The pact between him and the family granted the gift to cross the veil. Even at this age, he could feel the power emanate from the child. Such strength granted itself unquestioningly to the protective presence holding him.
The Raven King bent their joined wills towards opening a gateway back to the realm of the living. The spirits fought to tighten the hold of their veil, but they were not yet prepared for the combined power of boy and bird. The darkness convulsed then split, opening to a scene of a dead, twisted tree trunk that once bore leaves of raven black down within a withering hollow.
“Hold your pact if you must, raven. It is useless now. Even if the boy lives, your pact is broken. For you are exiled from this world along with every Ravenfell spirit living or dead. You must walk the mortal world for eternity, for the powers of death are no longer yours to command.”
The Raven King transformed and took wing as his portal opened. The words of the spirits followed him down to that old dead tree as he clutched the babe protectively to his feathered chest. He flew down into the wide passage beneath the gnarled roots as his doorway to death closed behind him. The new veil sealed tight, and he felt his connection severed. Still, he flew down into the dark, dank caverns beneath the earth, beyond the sight of the dead.
He reached a room deep below where the roots of that old tree still lived. And there he found another whose life held on well past when age should have withered into death. She was hunched over a cauldron on the far side of a kitchen, cluttered with all manner of strange and vile ingredients. It was the only person the Raven King could think of who could help him with his precious cargo. There he set down in his half-human guise once more, cradling the baby boy in his arms.
“Would you like some tea, my old feathered friend,” Hildegard Ravenfell asked without even turning to see the new arrival.
Chapter 3:
The Raven’s Secret
The ancient rune-scribed demon bones glowed softly as dusk fell across the hollow just as the spell in the tome said they would. But something still seemed off. Beaumont flipped back to the diagram of the seal, his fingers tracing across the waxy pages of skin vellum to make sure every gnarled femur and glistening snout horn was placed just right.
“What do you think, Gleam?” he asked the raven perched nearby in the old dead Ravenwood tree. He didn’t expect an answer.
The bird was a constant presence for as long as he could remember. Most days, it just sat in the branches above his home, watching the ancient witch and her young charge go about their lives. Other times, it followed young Beaumont into the nearby forests and marshes when he gathered ingredients for Hildey.
Beaumont usually had leftover bits from such hunts, and the insatiable raven accepted any chance to partake. In a way, the bird was almost a constant companion. Yet, very rarely did it ever interact with Beaumont or respond when spoken to. Until now.
The raven cocked its head, peering at the pattern of demon bones lain out on the ground. Its eyes gleamed with undeniable cunning, and its midnight feathers held the sheen of polished onyx. It was why Beaumont had taken to calling the bird Gleam. It was an extremely peculiar creature in every sense, and even more so now that it appeared to be examining the symbol in response to Beaumont’s question.
Gleam gave a somewhat perturbed cackling caw in answer, then it spread its wings and glided down from its perch to alight upon one of the gruesome, twisted beast skulls that marked the symbol’s points.
“Do you see what’s wrong, Gleam?” Beaumont asked jokingly. It wasn’t the first time he pretended the bird could understand him.
The raven peered down into one of the hollow eye sockets intently. Then it stabbed its beak in and pulled out a wriggling centipede from the dark cavity and gulped it down gluttonously.
“Hah,” Beaumont laughed. “I should have known. The only time you show any interest is when you want something to eat.”
The raven gave a restrained caw, then hoppe
d down from the skull and strutted across the breadth of the softly glowing symbol. It paused near one of the twisted Grel horns with a curious look. Then, quite purposely, the raven hopped to the outside of the summoning circle before reaching down and shifting the gnarled bone several inches to its right. As it dropped the horn in place, the entire demon bone symbol glowed more fiercely, marking the seal's completion. The bird looked back at Beaumont, gave a distinctly satisfied croak, and then flew straight back to its perch in the Ravenwood.
“Will shadows never cease to hide more secrets?” Beaumont recited an old saying he heard from Hildey often growing up. There could be no doubt that Gleam’s aid was intentional. The possibility that the raven was fully aware all along filled his mind with numerous considerations, and he intended to unravel that mystery when he had the chance. However, a circle of summoning, such as this, only held its power for a short time. If he did not work the spell now, he would have to start all over the following evening. And Beaumont doubted he could sneak old Hildey’s forbidden book of summoning out a second time.
“Three eggs from a blight weaver spider. Five sprigs of darkest nightshade. A dash of toad warts,” he recited the ingredients as he added them into the offering bowl. “And a feather of darkest midnight.” He reached down to grab the final ingredient, a raven feather he had picked up in the forest, but there were two there now.
One was clearly the normal raven feather. But the other was truly deserving to be considered of darkest midnight. It was worlds apart from the original, and Beaumont instantly knew who provided it. Gleam’s mystery deepened.
“Shadows never cease.”
He picked up the new feather gently and could feel the power inherent in it. But he could tell that just by looking at it. As it settled in the offering bowl, the contents burst into black flames with a woosh. The essence of the offering rose in wisps of smoke and coiled tenaciously around the glowing demon bones like vaporous flesh reknitting. The raven cawed with a frightening hollow call, urging him on.
Beaumont’s skin tingled with the excitement and the unleashed power sizzling in the air around him. It was the first spell woven with the magic of death that he ever dared attempt. He was never quite forbidden from it, but he had been warned repeatedly and vehemently against tempting such forces. But there were things he needed to know.
He had to sneak all the ingredients and even the spellbook for this endeavor. The witch would never dare teach him something like this, so he managed it all in secret. He even timed the ritual perfectly with old Hildey’s annual venom harvesting, so he could escape her watchful eye and stern mentoring.
Beaumont’s magical training focused mostly on summoning demons and binding monsters. He was fiercely deterred from experimenting with spirits. Although little did the witch know, he had a natural talent with those forbidden magics.
Beaumont had been able to see spirits for as long as he could remember. He could even speak to a few of them. Although old Hildey frequently put up wards and totems to repel such beings, Beaumont had enough encounters throughout his life to figure out that he carried a special gift. And he’d finally decided to use that gift to uncover the greatest mystery of his life. Why did the spirits call him the Ravenfell Curse?
His keeper, Hildegard Ravenfell, refused to speak of it. She claimed a terrible injustice had robbed the Ravenfells of their lineage, but that dwelling on such things robbed the family of its future. Apparently, other members of the family didn’t quite agree with her outlook and either refused to visit or were banned outright from even showing their faces in the witch’s hollow. Not even the spirits of the Ravenfells seemed willing to risk Hildegard’s wrath for speaking of such things. Until now.
While the old crone was busy milking this year’s clutch of spiderlings, Beaumont intended to summon one of his family’s spirits to the binding circle and force them to answer his questions. Why were there whole sections of Hildegard’s library forbidden to him? Secrets upon secrets. The shadows never cease.
He never learned to command spirits. It was one of the magics Hildegard denied him. But he knew how to harness the gifts of demons. And the bones before him were from creatures who held great control over the spirit world. He would bypass the crone’s rules by using the very magic she taught him.
Beaumont reached for the Well of Corruption within him and commanded the demon’s essence to waken. With a ragged snarl from across realms of reality, the bones submitted. The power to compel the dead was his to wield.
“I call to the Ravenfell spirits. I seek answers to my birthright. Come now and reveal to me your secrets.”
The demon bones glowed more fiercely, and a hum emanated from them as their power was brought to bear. But something resisted. Beaumont could feel the spell reach out to compel the spirits, but it was as if the entire hollow around him fought to hold them out.
Beaumont was powerful, however, and he willed more strength from the demon bones to counter the land’s reticence. He felt something give at last, and his surroundings blurred and then reestablished. When everything appeared firm once more, Beaumont felt the growing chill of a presence building.
“Come forth!” he called, urging it on. Gleam cawed excitedly from above.
A blue spiritual light materialized in the center of the bone symbol and began to take shape, but the emerging form was only mildly human. The presence was short and hunched over, its back bulging up grotesquely from its shoulders. And its face was elongated to inhuman proportions. In fact, the entire skull looked more like a skeletonized head of a raven twisted with that of a man. The gravelly croaking voice that emerged seemed to fit the gnarled form.
“You dare much, young Ravenfell, to risk using such power while still so ignorant. Good it is that Corvus be what’s answering your summons, and not one of those who hold a grudge.” The spirit cackled a very ravenlike laugh.
Beaumont remembered a little about Corvus Ravenfell from studying the family chronicles. He was obsessed with the gift of the Raven’s Fel and experimented with it to the point of irrevocable alterations. His addiction to the fel magic led to him dying from horrible self-imposed deformities. Looking at Corvus now, Beaumont could clearly tell the changes this Ravenfell had made were far more than cosmetic, for they were reflected in the very substance of his soul, even after death.
“Grudge? Why would anyone hold a grudge against me?” Beaumont demanded. The name Ravenfell Curse resounded through his mind.
“I’d imagine just about every Ravenfell to survive the present purge of magic and most of the ones who didn’t. The ghosts be probably most angry since they can’t flee this mortal realm to frolic in the infinite darkness of the Netherworld. Trapped forever in the world of the living. Ah, and then there are those born after the Ravenfell Curse, who cannot glimpse through the veil to accept their birthright. Yes, those of your blood likely have more than enough reasons to hold a grudge against you. Though, admittedly none of it is your fault.”
“You mean the fall of the Raven King?” Beaumont asked. He learned the story in Ravenfell lore, how the Raven King angered the land of the dead and was cast down, and with him the family born from his power, the Ravenfells. “But what does that have to do with me?”
“Why don’t you ask him? He was there.” The deformed spirit pointed at the raven in the nearby branches.
“You mean Gleam?”
“Do you like your new name, raven? Do you accept who you are now, or do you miss your first one? The name you earned with a bargain?” the spirit of Corvus asked.
“Why would the bird…” Beaumont didn’t finish. A sudden realization dawned on him. But, at the same time, he felt a hundred new questions form. The bird was undoubtedly the Raven King. It simply made sense. The feather and the peculiar nature. Its connection to Hildegard, which if the Ravenfell Chronicles were to be believed, she was one of the first three Ravenfells. Growing up, he had always heard the stories mentioned and retaught. He assumed it was simply the legends that built
up around a family of such magic and renown. Yet, suddenly, all those stories were clear as day. It was all real. But if it was, what did that mean for him?
“He sees,” the spirit croaked. “But does he understand? You summoned me for answers, young Beaumont. One I shall grant you. For time draws short. Already the new veil draws closer, investigating the disturbance you have caused with this trick.”
One question only. He had too many already. To just answer one would get him nowhere. He summoned the spirit of a Ravenfell to command them to tell him why he was called the Ravenfell Curse, but if he asked poorly, he might not get an answer that revealed enough. What was it that he really wanted to know? He could already deduce quite a bit from what he’d learned. But he needed to know the answer.
“What caused the Fall of the Raven King?” Beaumont asked.
The darkness behind the circle began to roil and twist violently. Before Corvus could answer, a new voice spoke from the twisting shadows, hollow and threatening.
“Arrogance.”
“Defiance.”
“Cowardice.”
Each new voice felt more ominous than the last. Each word seemed to be drawing ever closer as if the unseen presences were approaching from a distance. Yet they felt leeringly close.
“He fell because of a child that never should have been born.”
“A child who is hidden no longer. Come, child of death. Embrace your heritage. Accept the fate so long denied you.”
“You have no place here, spirits. Return to your prison or feed the roots of the Ravenwood.” Hildegard appeared from the tunnel entrance beneath the old dead tree trunk.
“You can hide him only so long, Ravenfell witch. He is born of death, and in our world is where he belongs. We will claim him eventually.”
“Not today, dead things,” the raven’s croaking voice joined in. It looked down at the wrinkled old witch in the cavern entrance. “The boy has learned. The bargain is fulfilled. My days of pretending are up.”
Ravenfell Chronicles: Origins Page 15