Raven's Strike rd-2

by Patricia Briggs

  “Phoran,” said Lehr, quietly from behind him.

  He turned to look at the dark young man—if not the last person he expected to see, he was close to it.

  “Get tired of the noise?” Phoran asked.

  Lehr smiled, but didn’t admit it aloud. “Hinnum thinks if Mother can round up a Lark, a circle of all six Orders might be able to call upon the Elder gods. They were supposed to work that way, to keep the power of the Elder gods from growing too great. But once the surviving wizards realized there was a hole in the veil, it didn’t seem necessary, so they never developed a ceremony that worked. Hinnum thinks the Weaver’s power and the six Orders might be able to destroy the Shadowed.”

  Phoran looked back out at the sunset. “I heard some of that. Sounds like she, Hennea, and Hinnum are going to take a good try at fixing both Tier and those stolen Orders tomorrow. They need the real names of the Elder gods, or some way to get the rest of us out of their hair, so they’re planning on sending us out to find the Owl’s Temple because the names are in the temple somewhere.”

  “Etched into the dais in reverse,” said Lehr. “She says we can get a rubbing with some char and someone’s shirt.” Then he said diffidently. “I can do it myself. There’s no need for anyone else to…”

  His voice trailed off, and Phoran realized some of his irritation at having his private moment interrupted had made itself felt. Lehr thought it was because he resented Seraph’s assigning him tasks without consulting—which was something, thought Phoran, he really ought to be a little upset about since he was the Emperor and she was a farmer’s wife. But she had called him family: as far as he was concerned, Seraph could command him all she wanted to.

  “Have you ever watched three wizards work together?” asked Phoran.

  Lehr hesitated, and said cautiously, “No.”

  “That’s because they can’t. I don’t want to be around when that old wizard, your mother, and Hennea start arguing.” It was Jes who didn’t like being touched, Phoran remembered, so he slapped Lehr on the back reassuringly.

  Lehr gave him a slow smile.

  “Seriously, Lehr, I don’t think any of us should be running around alone in this city. It’s not like the woods, where you and your brother know the kinds of things you’ll face. I know we haven’t run into anything threatening yet, but there’s something about this city that gives me the creeps.”

  “All right,” Lehr agreed. “Actually, I came out here because I thought you might answer a question for me. I thought I’d ask Toarsen, but since I have you alone…”

  “Ask.”

  “On the way to the library today, Rufort and Ielian were talking about being a Passerine. Ielian said something that bothered Rufort, but I don’t know exactly what it was or why it bothered him.”

  “Tell me,” Phoran invited again.

  “Rufort said that he liked being one of your guardsmen, that it was much better than being a Passerine had been. Then Ielian said he liked it, too. But being a Passerine had been better than being a clerk for his uncle. It bothered Rufort, but he didn’t let Ielian see his reaction.”

  Phoran knew who Ielian’s uncle was, but then so should Rufort. Like Phoran, he didn’t see anything wrong with what Lehr had said. “Did he say why he liked being a Passerine better?”

  “He said it paid better.”

  “I thought we’d found all of those,” said Phoran, dismayed.

  “All of what?”

  “The only Passerines who were given coins by the Path were paid for killing people—or frightening them. Most of them were the older Passerines: Kissel and Toarsen knew who they were. Ielian is younger, from this year’s crop. We didn’t think that any of the youngest group were doing that sort of work.”

  Kissel and Toarsen had both gone out to frighten people. “Bruised a few knuckles” was what Kissel had called it. But killing—particularly the kind of killing that the Path had been behind—was a different category.

  He couldn’t trust Ielian anymore.

  “It’s all right, Lehr,” he said. “Thank you for telling me. I’ll let Toarsen and Kissel know.”

  “I like him,” said Lehr. “Not many people stand up to Mother.”

  “I like him, too,” said Phoran. “I’ll talk to him about it before I decide what to do. Thank you.”

  Night had fallen while they talked. Phoran turned to go back into the library, and the Memory was there.

  “Ah,” he told it. “I hadn’t realized how late it was getting.”

  Lehr watched the Memory, but he hadn’t jumped or shrieked or anything else. Phoran remembered the first half dozen times the Memory had come to him and wished he’d been half so calm. Gura whined, but stood his ground.

  Phoran rolled up the sleeve on his left arm; his right had been aching all day today, and that was his sword arm. He didn’t remember the ache lingering as long when the Memory had fed before, but he might just have forgotten it.

  But it felt worse again as the cold mouth closed over the wound it had made in his arm. The icy chill was more pervasive, the pain more intense than last night. Surely he would have remembered if it had been so bad last night.

  Phoran found himself seated on the ground, half-leaning on Lehr.

  “By the taking of your blood,” said the Memory, its voice as dry as old leaves. “I owe you one answer. Choose your question.”

  “Phoran?” It was Lehr’s voice, intensely quiet, like it got sometimes when they were nearing their prey on a hunt. “Look between those two houses across the square. Do you see them?”

  Feeling dizzy and slow, Phoran stared at the houses Lehr was pointing at. Vaguely conscious of the dog, growling at Lehr’s side.

  “Yesterday, Hinnum warned us not to be here at night,” Lehr was saying. “I’d forgotten—I’d wager Mother and Papa have as well. Hinnum said the streets belonged to the dead.”

  It looked almost human, thought Phoran. It was the right height and shape, but some primal instinct told him that whatever it was that watched Lehr and him from twenty yards across the cobbled avenue had not been human for a very long time.

  “How do we survive this?” asked Phoran, looking at the dead man who had haunted him for better than half a year and never, ever, scared him as much as the thing—no, his eyes finally told him, Lehr was right there was more than one of them—things, then.

  “Go inside,” it whispered. “They are coming, and I have no power over the dead. They will come demanding a gift or your lives.”

  “What kind of gift?” Phoran asked. But the Memory had evidently given him his answer, such as it was, because it said nothing.

  Still holding his arm, and staggering a little, Phoran stood up. “I hope your mother knows something about the dead,” he said.

  “I know about predators,” said Lehr. “Don’t turn around until we reach the door. Keep your eyes on them—and don’t hurry.”

  Abysmally slowly they backed the few feet to the library door. Lehr opened the door, and Phoran took a last look at the gathering things slowly blending into the shadows of the buildings as twilight faded and darkness held sway on the streets of Colossae. Then he was inside, the wooden bulk of the door between them and whatever hunted them.

  For the first time, the library struck Phoran as welcoming, the gentle glow of magicked lights tucked unobtrusively behind bits of carving in the ceiling and walls providing a sense of protection from the dark.

  Seraph didn’t hear the door open or shut over the babble of voices, but she saw Jes stiffen and look toward the stairs.

  “Lehr, Phoran, and Gura,” he said. “They smell of fear and blood.”

  His voice was loud enough that Hinnum and Hennea stopped the calm-voiced argument—an argument so heavy with unspoken guilt and anger that Jes had been forced to leave Hennea’s side and stand alone away from the rest of them.

  Phoran topped the stairs holding his left arm as though it hurt. Lehr stood just behind him with Gura. The dog’s hackles were raised, and it kep
t looking behind them.

  “It’s night,” Phoran said. “There are dead walking the streets. And I am hoping that’s not as bad as I think it might be.”

  “Magic has no hold on the dead,” said Hennea, speaking quickly, though there was no panic in her voice. “Hinnum, can they get in here?”

  “They haven’t bothered me before,” said Hinnum. “But you, they will follow. The door might hold them for a while, but not after they’ve smelled blood. Magic can work on them a bit, no matter what the stories say, Hennea. Seraph, you will know what I mean when I tell you they are creatures of spirit.”

  She did. Difficult to work, but if the Shadowed managed to cloak his magic in spirit, then something could be done. As long as there weren’t many of them.

  “Of course,” said Hennea, sounding rattled. “I’m sorry. I had forgotten. Like at the Mountain of Names. It’s hard to remember everything. Jes, come back away from the stairway.”

  “I have safeguards that can keep them out of the library,” Hinnum said. “But I haven’t used them since your Willon left, and I cannot raise them as I am. I have no need of the safeguards myself; the dead are after flesh and blood, and, in my present form, I have none to tempt them.”

  “What happens if they find us?” asked Ielian. He’d gotten to his feet and loosened his sword. Steel worked against some creatures of a magical nature, but it wouldn’t help against the dead.

  “It’s not a good thing for the dead to touch the living,” Seraph said, giving them the extent of her knowledge. Her old teacher had been more worried about mistwights, water demons, and the like.

  “There are a few ghosts in Colossae,” said Hinnum. “But they are largely harmless and stay near their homes. I don’t have a name for these—necromancy was never an art I was drawn to.”

  “I don’t remember much about the dead,” said Hennea.

  “They killed all the wizards who chose to stay here with me after the city died,” said Hinnum. “Running doesn’t work; neither does most magic. It took me long time to learn how I might shield my apprentices, and it will take me too long to try to teach it to you. We have minutes before the doors give way, not days.”

  “The Memory said they will demand a payment for our lives,” offered Phoran. “For whatever good that does us.”

  “Seraph,” said Tier, his deliberately calm voice cutting through the rising tension in the library. “I left my lute in my packs at camp. Is there any way you or Hennea could fetch it for me?”

  Seraph stared at him. Under the circumstances, it seemed like an odd request. Maybe she had misheard him. “What?”

  He put his arm around her shoulders and smiled down at her, the tiredness in his eyes lifting a little. “There are a lot of songs about the dead, Seraph, and more stories. Phoran says the Memory told him that they are coming for a gift. The only gift I’ve ever heard any of the dead accepting is music.”

  “I’ve heard that,” said Toarsen quietly. “My nurse used to tell us a story of a bard who tried to survive a night in a haunted castle by singing to the spirits until daybreak.” He hesitated, then said, “He stopped a moment too soon because he was distracted by the song of a nightingale.”

  “I know that tale, but, fortunate souls that you are, there are no birds in Colossae to distract me,” said Tier. “So fetch me my lute, love.”

  “They come,” said a strange, toneless voice.

  Standing in the middle of the library was a creature of blackness. Too tall and thin for a human, it was shrouded in mists of night-colored darkness that moved as if some unfelt wind blew them here and there. It looked out of place, as if it belonged along the edges of the room where shadows gathered rather than out standing in plain view.

  Phoran stepped forward, between it and the rest of the room, and she realized it was Phoran’s Memory. It looked more substantial than it had last night, as if it were closer to being a living creature than a dead one.

  Just then there was a hollow boom, which echoed in the room and made Jes growl.

  “Seraph,” said Tier. “I think I’d better have that lute as soon as you can.”

  Seraph opened her mouth and shut it. Tier knew the state his Order was in. He knew that the convulsion fits happened more often when he sang. He didn’t need her to tell him again.

  She bent her head and closed her eyes.

  She’d never done this before she stole the gem, and she wasn’t certain how to find Tier’s lute without a cord of magic, however fell, to show her the way. But it had been a day of new things, and she took her magic and told it what she wanted.

  Tier’s lute was almost as much a part of him as his brown eyes and his dimples. It was easier than she expected to find it and call it because it wanted to be with him. She suspected Tier might have been able to call it himself. She opened her eyes and saw it had placed itself on the polished floor at Tier’s feet.

  Tier bent down to pick it up. He grimaced, then rose more slowly than he’d bent down. Another thud came from the outside door.

  “I’m getting too old for this much adventure,” Tier said. “Thank you for the lute, my love.” He looked around. “Let’s get everyone gathered together here.”

  He took a seat on the table, and made himself comfortable.

  “Sit down,” he told them. “I want them looking at me, not at you. And that means you as well,” he told the Memory.

  To Seraph’s surprise, it collapsed to the floor. When Tier said something in that tone of voice, apparently even things like the Memory listened. Seraph sat on a bench next to Tier’s table as he tuned the lute.

  Phoran sat down on the floor, and his guardsmen spread around him. Jes and Hennea sat on the far side of the group, and Lehr took up the other, even though it left him nearest the Memory until Hinnum settled in between them.

  “Rinnie, why don’t you come here next to me,” offered Phoran. “I think your mother might have her hands full before this night is over.” So the most vulnerable of Seraph’s children was seated in the middle, and Phoran took a good hold on Gura’s collar without Seraph having to ask him.

  Tier was still tuning the lute when the door failed, with the shriek of nails tearing free and a crack Seraph assumed was the wood of the door frame breaking. They all looked at the stairs, but there was nothing to see, no sound except for Tier’s fingers on strings.

  A wave of terror washed over her, worse by far than anything Jes had ever caused.

  Tier played a quick scale and began tuning again. “I left it sit too long,” he muttered. “The strings don’t want to stay in tune.”

  “Papa,” said Lehr, staring at the stairs. “Play.”

  A mottled grey hand appeared over the top of the stair, and it pulled its body behind it.

  “Run!” Ielian came to his feet, but Rufort and Kissel each caught him by an arm and pulled him back down again.

  The thing emerging from the stairway looked more human than the Memory, thought Seraph, and oddly the more horrible for its increased resemblance. It had a pair of eyes and what must once have been a nose. A few strands of grey hair stuck out from the top of its head. It looked at them and snap-snapped its jaws.

  “Sit,” hissed Toarsen at Ielian, who fought to get up again. “Running won’t help.”

  “No,” agreed the Memory, his voice like dry leaves in the wind. “Death walks the streets of Colossae by night.”

  “Thanks,” snapped Phoran to the Memory, as Ielian made another abortive attempt to run. “That helped. Why don’t you be quiet, eh? Ielian, sit still. Gura, down.”

  Gura and Ielian dropped to the floor with equal unwillingness. Rinnie curled up and buried her face against Gura’s side, and Phoran reached over awkwardly to pat her on the back with the hand that wasn’t holding on to the dog’s collar.

  “Mother, the Guardian wants to come out,” said Jes. “But I think everyone is frightened enough.”

  “Let him come,” said Seraph, the dryness of her mouth making her voice crack. “He can h
ardly make this worse.”

  Someone, it might have been Ielian, squeaked, as Jes flowed into the shape of a black wolf just a hair smaller than Gura. The Guardian glanced once at Ielian and bared his fangs before looking at the thing on the stairs. His low growl was a continuous rumble that echoed oddly off the high ceiling.

  Rufort jerked and slid backward a handspan before he stopped himself.

  “Something touched me,” he said softly.

  “Tier, isn’t that damned thing in tune yet?” asked Phoran just as the creature pulled its flaccid legs over the stairway and began dragging itself forward.

  The pressure of the presence of the dead crowded upon Seraph, bowing her shoulders under the weight. There were more of them than the creature they could see and the one that touched Rufort. She could feel them all around her.

  “Tier,” said Phoran, as the thing closed the too-little distance between the stairway and their huddled group.

  Jes stalked around until he stood between it and them. As he growled louder, the stench of rotting meat filled the library.

  Tier grinned fiercely, and his fingers moved on the lute strings.

  The thing mewled at the first note, fading from sight just as the foul odor lessened. But Seraph could feel them waiting.

  Tier played a mournful song first, a song about a girl wed to a sailor who left on a ship and never came back alive. It was melodic and slow, and Tier’s fingers never faltered. Nor did his voice.

  Toarsen sucked in his breath once, but when Seraph glanced quickly at him, she couldn’t see anything wrong. He hunched over and bowed his head, but he didn’t look like he was ready to run.

  The immediate crisis seemed to have been put on hold by Tier’s music. Seraph worked the spell that allowed her to see spirit again—and the library lit like a field of bonfires in winter. The dead were there, a ring of shapes made of spirit and something else she could see but not define, a haze of red alternating with gold. She managed to pull her eyes away from them long enough to make certain Tier’s Order was behaving itself, then returned to her watch, making certain that the dead stayed away from them.