Silver Ravens

by Jane Fletcher

  The knocking came again.

  “What is it?”

  A boggart sidestepped into the room. “His Majesty, King Gilwyn, wants me to collect the scrolls, please, madam.”

  “The what?”

  “The scrolls, please. King Gilwyn says you have scrolls that are his. He has sent me for them, madam.”

  “Now?” Could it not wait?

  “Yes. Please. I’m sorry. King Gilwyn wants them.” The boggart shuffled his feet nervously. “Please, madam.”

  What the hell? Gilwyn had just acquired a kingdom. Surely he had more important things to deal with. Was he worried she might be sitting there, decoding scrolls and learning all sorts of fay secrets? It was tempting to send the boggart away and make the arrogant sod come in person. Instead she swung her feet out of bed.

  Boggarts had cleaned and tidied her room while she was enthralled, but her belongings were still there, including Gilwyn’s saddlebag, draped over the back of the chair. The boggarts would not have emptied the room of their own accord, and Rianna had obviously been too intent on her plans to bother with other matters. Being detail minded was a requirement for any managerial post, royal ones included. But Rianna’s past failings were hardly Lori’s concern. She pointed out the bag.

  The boggart opened the flap and started counting out the scrolls. “One. Two. Three—”

  “Take the whole damned thing.”

  “I have to check, madam.”

  “That I’m not secretly hiding one away, and lying about it?”

  “Please, madam. I have been told to.” He squirmed.

  “For fuck’s sake.” As if waking her up was not enough, Gilwyn was adding insult to injury.

  “…nine, ten, eleven. Yes. Very good. They are all here. Thank you, madam. King Gilwyn will be pleased.”

  But I’m not.

  Lori remained standing, chewing ideas over after the boggart had scurried away. He had been sent to collect eleven scrolls. Gilwyn knew nothing about the twelfth, oldest of all, in the seam of her jeans. In fairness, he had not actually been wrong about her hiding one away.

  She lifted the lid of the footlocker. Her faded jeans lay on top, neatly folded. She felt the bulges of the folded scroll at the back of the waistband and her lucky pound coin in the front pocket. The wisest thing was to leave Mathanwy’s scroll where it was until she got back to Earth, and she could decode it for fun. But Gilwyn’s needless pestering had annoyed her. Why was he so bothered?

  She went to the window and opened the shutters. The middle bailey was quieter than normal. Only Iron Ravens sentries were visible. Where was Tamsin? They had not yet had a chance to talk. Was it worth going to find her, or would she be sleeping?

  Lori sat at the table and fed Mathanwy’s scroll out through the seam. The parchment was in good condition for having been folded and hidden for so many days. If Gilwyn was to be believed, Morgaine most likely worked out how to decode it when she was part of the Council of Elders, looking for a way to separate the worlds. What did it say?

  There was little chance of getting back to sleep, and she had nothing else to do. Lori pulled a notebook from her bag—the same bag she had taken to the meeting in the Halfway House a couple of lifetimes ago, and picked up a pen.

  * * *

  Lori read through the transcript one final time then flipped the notepad closed. She turned her head to stare at the sky. The scroll’s contents fell somewhere between ironic and terrifying, and she needed to share the information with Tamsin, the sooner the better.

  An increase in noise caught her attention—footsteps, mixed with shouts and laughter. Something was going on outside. Lori stood for a better view. A stream of Iron Ravens were flowing through the garden, all heading towards the outer bailey. Their mood seemed puzzled but cheerful, as if they had received a pleasant surprise. Most carried bags. Tamsin, with Hippo and Widget, stood outside the mess hall, watching them pass.

  Before joining them, Lori had to take care of the transcript. The contents were far too explosive to leave lying around. She ripped the pages from the notepad, and picked up the box of matches by the fireplace. There was a perverse pleasure in watching four hours’ work go up in flames. However, there was no risk of forgetting the important bits. She refolded the original scroll and fed it back into the waistband. Then, on impulse, she stripped off the Silver Raven leathers and pulled on the jeans and a T-shirt. She was not letting the original scroll out of her possession again.

  By the time she left the building, Tamsin had gone and the flow of Iron Ravens subsided to a few stragglers, dawdling along.

  “You’re not taking that old thing are you?”

  “Why not?”

  “I can see the holes from here.”

  “It’s supposed to look like that.”

  “My arse it is.”

  Lori had no idea what the item in question was, but the soldiers were clearly not responding to an emergency. She followed them to the outer bailey, where dozens of Iron Ravens milled around a line of six wagons. The Silver Ravens were also present, keeping to the periphery, except for Hippo, making the rounds, shaking hands and slapping backs, and Finn who stood deep in conversation with a woman.

  Tamsin was at the head of the wagons, in a huddle with the Iron Raven officers. When she saw Lori she raised a hand in acknowledgement. After a few more words, she shook the officers’ hands and jogged over.

  “What’s going on?” Lori asked. “Are they leaving?”

  “Yes. The Iron Ravens are heading back to Earth today. Gilwyn wants all humans out of Annwyn as soon as possible.”

  “Is this everyone?” Fewer than a hundred soldiers were present.

  “The current strength stands at seventy-three. Enough to man the gates and intimidate other fay, but not so many as to get out of hand.”

  “How will Gilwyn intimidate other fay now?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t ask him.”

  “Why aren’t the Silver Ravens going as well?”

  “Gilwyn doesn’t have enough gold for us, after what he’s given this lot. He doubled what they were due, to silence any complaints. You can see how happy they are. But it means we have to wait a day or two, for another shipment from the mines.” A faint edge in Tamsin’s voice suggested she was not convinced by this. But questions could wait until there were not so many ears around.

  The final items of baggage were loaded on the wagons, and the convoy set off, with a column of Iron Ravens marching on either side. They passed under the gatehouse and the sound of their footsteps faded.

  “I need to talk to you. Somewhere we won’t be overheard,” Lori whispered to Tamsin.

  “Will your room do?”

  “If you think it’s safe.”

  “It’s as good as anywhere.”

  As soon as the door closed, Lori said, “You don’t trust Gilwyn.”

  “I’m not stupid. He’s sworn an oath all the Silver Ravens will be paid four times our weight in gold, as soon as he has the resources on hand. And I made sure he counted you in.”

  “You don’t think he’ll keep his word?”

  “He will, but—” Tamsin gave a lopsided shrug. “Fay will lie themselves black and blue, but they take promises seriously. No fay will break a sworn oath. But they’re tricky buggers. They stick to the literal words, not the spirit.”

  “Has Gilwyn said anything about the thralls?”

  “No. He dodged the subject.”

  “So if he disbands the Silver Ravens before more gold arrives in Caersiddi, and turns us into thralls, he won’t have broken his oath?”

  “You’ve got it. We need to keep on our toes.” Tamsin moved a step closer and lowered her voice. “So, what did you want to talk about?”

  Lori’s pulse quickened. The memory of them kissing caught her breath. However, there were more urgent matters. She backed away. “Gilwyn sent a boggart to reclaim the encrypted scrolls this morning.”

  Tamsin looked confused. “And?”

  “There�
��s one scroll he doesn’t know about. He missed it the night he fled from here. I hid it so I wouldn’t have to decode it for Rianna. I wanted to get back to Earth as quickly as possible. I might have played with it when I was home, just for fun. However, after being woken this morning, I was pissed off and curious. So I decoded it.”

  “It says something interesting?”

  “Oh yes. It was written by Mathanwy, the first of the fay.”

  “He’s not a myth?”

  “No. He was real all right. He came from a world in another dimension. Mathanwy extracted essence from his universe and used it to form Annwyn. He then suspended his new creation in the aether between dimensions and anchored it to Earth.”

  “Is that supposed to make sense to me?”

  “I don’t know how else to explain it. But the important thing is that Annwyn’s not stable. It came from somewhere else, and the only thing holding it in place is its bond with Earth. However, forces are trying to drag it back to where it came from, and they’re growing stronger all the time. There’s only so much the bond can take. Someday it’s going to snap. Which is what Morgaine found out from Mathanwy’s scroll. With hindsight, it’s clear from her written comments that she was familiar with it. She most likely worked out how to decode his scroll while looking for a way to break the link with Earth.”

  “But I thought her spell does the opposite.”

  “She changed her mind. Initially, when humans first discovered how to smelt iron, the Council of Elders wanted to keep the new weapons out of Annwyn.”

  “I knew Morgaine was a member of the council, until she overthrew it.” Tamsin frowned. “But if I’m understanding you, there was no need for the council to do anything. The bond will snap of its own accord.”

  “Yes. It will. In fact, without Morgaine’s spell it would have broken long ago. However, that wasn’t all she learned from Mathanwy’s scroll.” Lori drew a breath. “Mathanwy didn’t just create Annwyn. He created the inhabitants. He formed fay from boggarts—or from something that was far more boggart than fay. He took what he saw as the best and worst parts of his people and split them to create two races. Obviously, he didn’t see being a sadistic, arrogant, arsehole as a bad trait. However, when Annwyn bounces back to rejoin the original world, the fay will be mostly boggarts again, along with millions of others, in a place that hasn’t been created with the sole aim of making them feel special.”

  “I can see fay getting upset about that.”

  “Exactly. Finding this out was undoubtedly what pushed Morgaine into strengthening the bond with Earth rather than breaking it. But in order to do it, the links had to be concentrated into fewer and fewer points, until now only Dorstanley is left. But things are reaching a stage where even her spell won’t be enough. The forces pulling on Annwyn are growing exponentially. They double every month. It started minuscule, and for centuries it was insignificant, now it’s ramping up to a crisis point.”

  “Is Gilwyn aware of this?”

  “Bits. He knows a few details about Morgaine’s spell, and that it has to be recast repeatedly to maintain the bond with Earth, but he made no mention of Annwyn returning to where it came from. Maybe he doesn’t know that part, or maybe he wasn’t being straight with me.”

  “Which wouldn’t be out of character for him.”

  “True. Either way, I can’t see him letting the spell lapse once he finds out what will happen. And as for his chances of finding out, I really can’t say. He doesn’t know anything about Mathanwy’s scroll, but there are other encrypted scrolls that I haven’t read. Who knows what’s in them?”

  “Does he know how to decrypt them?”

  “If he doesn’t now, he soon will. Rianna made notes while I was explaining things to her. Presumably those are somewhere in the royal apartment.”

  “Okay.” Tamsin thought for a moment. “But from what you’ve said, even if he finds out, and decides to renew Morgaine’s spell, it will only be a short-term fix. The bond will break in the end.”

  “Yes. It has to be close to snapping at the moment—which would explain why Rianna was desperate enough to allow a human to work on the scroll. She was running out of time before she turned into a boggart. But you’re right, even if Gilwyn renews the spell, the forces pulling on Annwyn are increasing. He’ll be forced to cast the spell more and more frequently, until he’s doing it a dozen times a day, if he’s able. And it still won’t be enough.”

  “So what’s the problem? Eventually, Earth will be free of the fay. Or does the bond breaking have serious consequences?”

  “No. There’ll be a bit of a bounce back effect, but barely noticeable, certainly not enough to hurt anyone. The problem for Earth is what happens before then. The bond is powered by energy taken from both worlds. As the forces pulling on Annwyn increase, it’s will need to suck out more and more energy. The dimension Mathanwy came from is magical, mystical, spiritual—I don’t know what the right word is. Basically, it’s more mental and less physical than our world. Opposites attract, and all that. To balance things out, the bond draws on physicality from Annwyn and mentality from Earth. Does that make sense?”

  “I think I get the gist.”

  “It means fay in Annwyn are being physically weakened. The falling birth rate is a symptom.”

  “How about boggarts?”

  “Mathanwy didn’t care about them enough to say much. But I think they’re getting stronger due to being more in tune with their home dimension.”

  “Okay. You said we need to worry about the effect on Earth.”

  “We certainly do. Humans are suffering mental effects. Except, since there are only a few hundred fay and several billion humans to share the drain, the results aren’t too apparent yet—a fraction of a percentage point shift, a few slightly more extreme acts of mass stupidity, some crazy election results. But it won’t stay that way. Another month in Annwyn, two and a half years on Earth, and the effect will be twice as strong. A month more and it will have doubled again. If Gilwyn maintains the bond for another Annwyn year, the power drain will be two thousand times what it is at the moment. The only question is whether Gilwyn and the rest of the fay drop dead before everyone on Earth goes insane. I’d like to think he’ll realize the futility of it all, but he won’t give a damn about Earth, and he’ll persuade himself that with a bit more time, he’ll find another solution.”

  “Not to mention that he’d rather die than turn into a boggart.” Tamsin pursed her lips “We have to get the scrolls off him before we leave, unless he pulls a stupid trick to force our hand, which I’m not ruling out. It’ll be about two days until the gold gets here. We’ve got time to think, unless there’s anything else you’ve found out?”

  “No. That’s it.”

  “In which case, it’s my turn to say something to you. Thank you for saving my life. I admit, I’d been hoping to be the one to shoot her. I think we all were. But I’m not complaining. As long as you’re not troubled by it.”

  “Oh, that. No. I’m not upset.” A series of emotions blurred into the next. The strongest was still surprise. “I just pulled the trigger. I didn’t have time to think.”

  “No regrets?”

  “Of course not. But how are you? Finn said Rianna would want to hurt you, and…” Lori swallowed.

  “Rianna thought she had plenty of time. She’d barely got going.” Tamsin shrugged. “I’ve got worse memories of her. To be honest, it hadn’t got close to as bad as I’d expected—though I’m sure it would’ve in time. I’ll confess to being on edge during the party in the mess hall, knowing what was coming. It was a bit of a passion killer. I’m not really that old-fashioned.”

  Lori looked down at her hands to hide her grin. “I’m pleased to hear it.”

  “Then I’ll also confess, if I’d kissed you one more time, I might have changed my mind. But I didn’t want to risk Rianna’s thralls finding us together.”

  “She’d have been jealous?”

  “No. She didn’t work tha
t way. But she might have got ideas about a threesome.”

  “Uh.” Which was an image in need of a bargepole.

  Tamsin moved closer. “So is this our chance for that conversation?”

  Lori looked up and met her eyes. “This is no time for talking.”

  Heart pounding, she moved out of the chair and into Tamsin’s arms. Their kiss was as all-consuming as the first. Lori felt herself melting in the heat of her desire. Their lips moulded and shifted, working together in rising passion.

  She was aflame. Tamsin’s back was firm beneath her hands. The contrasting textures of crisp cotton shirt and leather waistcoat were sensual, but no substitute for bare skin. Lori was long past lying to herself. The only thing she wanted to do was to strip away that black leather. She twisted, trying to worm free of Tamsin’s embrace. Initially, Tamsin still held her close, but then relaxed her grip.

  The waistcoat would be first to go. Lori started on the tightly laced front. The knots put up a fight, but she was determined, giving the task her entire attention. Even so, she was aware of the growing amusement on Tamsin’s face.

  “Do you want me to untie it?”

  “No. I’m doing it. Stand still.”

  The final knot would not loosen, but there was enough slack in the cord for Lori to pull the front wide open. Now Tamsin helped, flexing as Lori peeled the waistcoat over her head. The freed shirt lay loose against Tamsin’s torso, hinting at the body beneath. Lori placed a hand in the middle of Tamsin’s chest, feeling the warmth, the hardness of bone, and the soft swelling on either side.

  Lori increased the pressure of her hand, guiding Tamsin in reverse across the room, until the back of Tamsin’s knees hit the bed frame. Tamsin fell onto the quilt cover. Lori dropped to her knees. It was time for more leather to go—the left boot, then the right. Tamsin swivelled around and lay with her head resting on the pillow. She reached out, clearly inviting Lori to lie beside her. However, the invitation was ignored. Lori scrambled onto the bed and sat, straddling Tamsin’s hips.