Raven's Wings

by Colin Lindsay

  “Why aren’t those books and scrolls here in the library, then?”

  “It’s ancient knowledge. Most of it is made-up, I’m sure. I’ve even been made to draw stars and sailing ships that travel between them. Probably the Priestess just doesn’t want to confuse people with those ancient stories.”

  Skye stared at her in wonder.

  “Don’t look so impressed. I don’t copy the writings; I just draw the pictures.”

  “And, there are pictures of maps?”

  “I’m getting to that.”

  Sky did his best to look apologetic.

  “They started me on what I gather were less important works, and as I got better as an artist, they gave me increasingly older, stranger works. My most recent assignment is a book of maps. It’s so detailed that it’s been taking me many years to reproduce it faithfully. I work on it every day.”

  “That must be hard.”

  “Not really, but the priestesses tell me constantly that any error will be amplified over time, and they look over my work daily. That’s the most annoying part of the job. I love drawing. I sometimes lose myself in imagining that I’m traipsing around the world visiting ancient cities.”

  “There are other cities?”

  “I’m not sure there still are. These are really old maps, but I’m sure the mountains and rivers are probably the same, and I think I recognize the mountains in your journal.”

  Skye sat back and smiled a dazzling smile. “I have to see you again. Can I visit you at your home?”

  “No, you can’t,” she replied sadly. “I forgot to mention that when I was taken to the Temple, the Priestess made me stay there after that. I have a room there where I sleep and work. I only get out to visit my childhood friends and escape from the watchful eyes of the priestesses.”

  “I really must see you again. I feel like we have a connection.” He took her other hand in his. “I’ll sneak in,” he declared.

  “No, no. It’s too dangerous. The monks would catch you and throw you in prison, or worse.”

  “You have to help me then.” He stared into her eyes so piercingly that she melted and agreed to help him past the guards. They made a plan to sneak him in two nights later.

  Skye paced the streets for two long days, and as the sun set, he made his way to the Temple at the edge of town. It was easy to find as the dome of its cathedral dominated the skyline. He followed her instructions for avoiding the places the monks patrolled and found the servants’ entrance and passages that she had described to him.

  He found himself crouched in an alcove where she’d told him to go, hiding from passing servants and guards. He pressed his back against the cold stone, holding his breath each time someone passed and wondering what was taking so long. Finally, a coil of rope was thrown over the lip of an upper balcony. Skye listened for anyone approaching and hearing nothing, darted from his hiding spot to the rope and proceeded to climb it.

  Arriving at the balcony, he hauled the rope up after him and looked around. He spied Eden holding a finger to her lips and pointing to the closed door to her room. Skye tip-toed over to her and embraced her. He turned to the door and raised an eyebrow by way of question.

  Eden whispered, “A guard is stationed outside. At this time of night, he’ll probably assume I’ve gone to bed, but he or someone else will stay out there all night.”

  “Guarding you?”

  “That’s funny. No, guarding the manuscripts I have in here,” she replied, pointed to the books and scrolls resting on the table.

  He nodded his understanding while pretending to ignore them.

  “Welcome to my tiny world,” she said, lighting another candle and laying a blanket on the floor far away from the door.

  They sat down, and Skye pulled a bottle from his pack. “I brought wine,” he told her.

  “What’s wine?”

  “I guess I have a treat for you then.”

  Skye poured them both a glass. They drank, whispered to each other, and kissed. Skye refilled her glass several times and made a show of refilling his own, despite barely touching it. After a few glasses, she didn’t notice.

  Skye looked about her small room, dimly lit by candles. The bookcase brimmed with books, painting supplies, and a few personal items. A small bed was tucked against the wall near the door and beside it a tiny dresser and washbasin. The large table at which she worked occupied the middle of the room.

  “What’s that?” Skye asked, pointing at a scroll that seemed more prominent than the others.

  “That?” a sleepy Eden replied. “That’s something they recently finished transcribing and brought to me to embellish the seal. I heard the priestesses talking about it. It’s a prophecy or something.”

  “A prophecy? That sounds intriguing.”

  “It is. I peeked at it. It’s about a girl who drops from the sky and plunges the world into fire, or something like that.” Eden yawned and drew closer. “She sounded really fierce.” She placed her head on Skye’s shoulder, and within moments, she was sound asleep.

  Skye lay there, running his fingers along her back. Fierce, he thought. I knew a girl once who was the fiercest of all. He thought about Kala. She had invaded his dreams every night for the past two years. Had he made the biggest mistake of his life by leaving her? He’d never met her equal and doubted he ever would. Had he thrown aside true love on some futile quest to return home?

  What’s done is done, he thought ruefully and pulled himself out from under Eden. She didn’t wake. He stood quietly, grabbed a candle, and carried it over to her work table. As she described, two books lay side-by-side, the original and hers. He looked over at her slumbering soundly and went to retrieve his journal from his bag.

  He began making rough sketches of the physical layout of the world. There was a single large landmass that stretched across most of the globe. If the mountains in the northwest were indeed his home, he’d started from a position about one third from the western shore of the continent and traveled a little more than another third eastward. He was closer now to the eastern sea than the western one.

  He flipped to the page of the manuscript that showed the location of ancient cities. He was shocked to find that they had at some point dotted the globe, but he’d never seen any trace or heard any mention of them. There was one identified more prominently than the others on the eastern coast. He copied as much of Eden’s map as he could into his journal until his pencil was too worn down to write any more. He cursed his lack of foresight at not bringing a knife to shave it down, but a glance toward the sky revealed that the night wouldn’t last much longer anyway.

  He got up and placed his things back in his bag: the journal and even the empty wine bottle and glasses. He didn’t want Eden to have to explain them. Skye was making his way to the balcony past the prophesy scroll when a sudden inspiration struck him. He put his bag down and searched for paper and another pencil. He found paper, but no pencil, just a quill and ink. He wrote a note, struggling with the quill, then blew on the note until the ink dried, unfurled the prophesy scroll, tucked the note inside, and rolled it back up.

  He picked up his bag and the rope and stooped to give Eden a goodbye kiss on the cheek. She murmured but didn’t wake. He slipped the rope around the balcony’s stone railing and lowered both ends so that he could descend and then pull the rope down after him. The last thing he wanted was to leave the rope hanging there suspiciously. He expected that Eden had planned on shooing him out much earlier and pulling the rope back up. She’s sweet, he thought. I can’t get her into trouble that she doesn’t deserve.

  He listened for any traffic in the corridor below and hearing none, climbed down the rope. He said several silent prayers that the unsecured rope wouldn’t slip from his grasp, and they must have been answered because he touched down safely moments later. He pulled the rope down after him, coiled it, and wrapped it around his shoulder. He skulked out of the Temple, passing a few confused servants, but no guards, thank the gods, and
fled into the encroaching dawn.

  A day later, he sat at the same table in the library where he and Eden had sat when he showed her his journal. He’d made up his mind to try to travel to the eastern city on her maps. It was marked as ‘capital’ on one and ‘port’ on another. According to another of her maps, there was a winding road from the city he surmised they were in made to the coast. He scouted around the town and found a gate through which he could indeed see a sad-looking cart path heading east. He was packed and ready to go, but he’d delayed leaving to say a proper goodbye to Eden.

  He looked up from his thoughts when someone entered the library. It wasn’t Eden, but rather one of her friends from the market. He brightened that perhaps this was as close an opportunity as he’d get to say goodbye, but as he rose, she ducked back outside. This unnerved him, so he gathered his things and moved farther back into the library.

  The girl returned a moment later with an armed monk and pointed to where Skye had been sitting. Skye flattened himself behind a bookshelf and looked around in a panic. Damn it, she told her friends about me, he thought, then, There must be more than one way out of here. He ensured that he stayed hidden between the rows of books as he bolted in the direction away from the entrance. Along the back wall, he found a passageway that he followed to a nondescript exit. He slipped out and tried to look nonchalant crossing the street.

  A few blocks away, he hazarded a glance over his shoulder. The monk that had been with the girl left the building through the same door he had. The monk looked around and spotted him, then called other monks to him.

  Skye wasted no time ducking into an alleyway and sprinting away as fast as his legs would carry him. He cut a serpentine path through the town, oblivious to who saw him or how suspicious he looked. He cared only about putting distance between himself and the monks. Skye doubted that he could lose them in their own city, particularly as he was still unfamiliar with it, so he made for the gate near the little-used cart path out of town. It was likely guarded, but he couldn’t think of a better plan.

  He halted as he entered the square in front of the gate and was dismayed to indeed see a pair of guards standing at the gate. He’d never make it through without being challenged. He looked around for options. Across the square, a wagon train was being prepared. It seemed like the best place to hide at the moment, so he skirted the edge of the square until he was close to it. He spotted a wagon that was being disregarded by the merchants that were loading the others.

  He ducked down and snuck over to it. It contained sacks of textiles or something similar. He climbed in and pushed his way between the sacks until he was decently hidden; at least he hoped he was. A burly merchant walked over, swung the wagon’s gate closed, and cinched a cover down on top.

  An eternity seemed to pass before the wagon finally began to move. Skye dared not draw attention to himself, so he tried to stay as still as he could as the wagon bounced over ruts in the courtyard. The movement persisted for a while, so he concluded that the caravan must have exited the gate. He shifted around to catch a glimpse out the back of the wagon. Peering between the sacks, he saw the monk that had been chasing him standing in the opening of the gate watching the caravan recede from view.

  20

  Kala

  Kala walked in on Baron and Rat, quarreling. Baron took her entrance as a cue to pause their discussion and stormed out.

  “What was that about?” Kala asked, tossing Rat a training sword to match her own.

  He cut the air in broad strokes to loosen his wrist and advanced on her.

  “I told him to abandon the assault on Tito’s,” he replied and waged a rhythmic attack and defense.

  “Why’s that?” she asked, jumping over a sweep of his foot.

  “In case it wasn’t obvious to you, my cover got blown back there. I can’t set foot within a block of that place and not be killed on the spot.”

  They pressed and parried.

  “There has to be a way,” she mused.

  “Baron sure as hell wants there to be one. After that stunt you pulled with Amber, Tito’s business is booming, and some of that business is being pulled from Baron. He’s furious, and you’d better pray to the gods that he doesn’t catch wind of why.”

  Baron chose that moment to return. “Birdy, a word, darling,” he said.

  Kala wiped her brow and hurled her sword at a wood pillar. It stuck deep.

  “I do so wish you’d be a little less hard on the place,” Baron sighed. He noticed Rat still standing there. “You can go,” he said and waved him away.

  Rat hesitated for the briefest of moments before throwing down his sword and heading for the door. The guard at the exit smirked, and Rat punched him in the face without breaking his stride.

  Baron waited for him to leave. Kala sauntered over to Rat’s sword and flipped it up into her hand with her toe. She stood with its tip resting casually on the stone while she waited for Baron to speak.

  “It seems as though Rat has ceased to be useful to me in this Tito undertaking. This leaves me no choice but to place it in your capable hands. I don’t care how you do it, but I want him dead.” He paused. “Tito. Not Rat. I’m still fond of Rat.”

  Kala pursed her lips and nodded. She drew back the sword and readied herself to hurl it at the pillar.

  “Seriously?” Baron muttered as Kala let fly. The sword was still vibrating as he walked out, his guards in tow.

  Kala strode over to pull the swords from the wood and noticed Rat standing in the shadows.

  “You heard everything, I assume?” she asked and yanked a sword free.

  “Oh, sure. And I’m as fond of the prick as he is of me.” Rat walked over and pulled the second sword free. “It’s suicide. You can’t go through with it.”

  “I’m a weapon,” she muttered and left Rat standing there while she headed off to see Marija.

  Kala strolled across town in the loose-fitting boy’s clothes that Marija had dressed her in. Her breasts were taped down, and her hair was up and under her cap. She had dirt on her hands and smudges of it on her face. To the world, she looked the part of a young boy out on an errand.

  She hid in the shadows of the alleyway behind Tito’s brothel and waited. A wagon appeared before long and the man driving it stopped at the back entrance of the building. He got up from his seat and rapped on the door. It was opened, papers were signed, and the door was propped open. He returned to the wagon, grabbed a large box, and headed into the building.

  Kala pushed off the wall and moved to walk past the wagon. When she was parallel with it, she changed course and grabbed a box from the back of it. It was heavy but manageable. She carried it through the open door. To the right, a lit stairwell descended to a storeroom, and to the left, she heard sounds indicating that the kitchens lay in that direction. She turned toward the kitchens and walked past two guards playing cards.

  Cooks milled about preparing food. Kala headed toward a quiet corner and deposited her box on a table. She spied a changing area off the main room and ducked into it. All manner of clothing was tucked into small cubbies. She heard voices approaching and quickly climbed into a bin of dirty aprons. She’d just pulled an apron over her head when a pair of serving girls walked in.

  “Julia’s in for it this time,” one said to the other. “I heard she’s sick again.”

  “Again?” the other replied, taking off her cloak.

  “Know what I think? I think its morning sickness. The stupid cow doesn’t even know she’s pregnant.”

  The smug pair finished changing and left. Kala emerged from her hiding spot and quickly rooted through the cubbies for clothing that she thought would be appropriate. She stepped into an adjacent bathroom and quickly changed. She cut off the tape that held down her breasts and pulled out a brassiere that Marija had given her. It had the opposite effect of pushing her breasts up. She let her hair down, cleaned her hands and face, and looked herself over. Plain but passable, she concluded.

  She tucke
d her former clothes in an empty cubby and headed out to the tavern floor.

  “Who the hell are you?” asked a hulking guard standing at the door of the kitchens.

  “Julia’s friend’s sister,” she replied gushingly. “Julia is sick again, and she doesn’t want to get in trouble, so she asked me to cover for her.”

  “Whatever,” he said and let her pass.

  She walked straight to the bartender.

  “Hi. I’m covering for Julia. What do I do?”

  “Fabulous,” he said sarcastically. “Just wander about and keep the customers’ glasses full. It’s a silver for a beer and two for wine. If a man buys one of the working girls a drink, it’s five, and you get it from the tap over there. It’s water. Get that screwed up, and if I don’t kill you, the girl who’ll have to pay for it sure as hell will. Now, did you get that, or do I need to write it down?”

  “One, two, five. Water for the girls. Got it.”

  He pushed a tray laden with drinks at her and returned to arranging glasses behind the counter. She hefted the heavy tray onto her shoulder and thought to herself that any serving girl in here could probably arm wrestle any man under the table. She began circulating and, over time, the place filled with customers.

  Most of them were men, single or otherwise, there for the working girls or just an overpriced drink and a look down the serving girls’ top. There were a few couples, but none of the girls dragged there by their boyfriends looked happy about it. A table of young women stood out. They had the look of high-brow women reveling in their bravery for being out on the town at this establishment. Kala rolled her eyes and intercepted some of the sketchier denizens of the tavern headed their way and steered them elsewhere.

  Kala had worked up a fair sheen of sweat when she noticed a pretty young girl being dragged by her date toward the bathrooms. He was obviously drunk, and she looked scared. Kala put her tray down on the bar and followed them.