Sisters of the Raven

by Barbara Hambly

  “Well, would you expect her to be!” Melon Girl resumed her seat on the saddle buck. “He’d come out of lessons and go straight to the Eyes of Love tavern—that was before Lohar and his men took over the temple and were still meeting at his house and weren’t enough to cause him trouble. And the mess they left of that house, with blood all over the walls!”

  “He said Amber Girl was an eager pupil,” said Rosemallow Woman, “but he’d go on to anybody who’d listen about how she was a stuck-up liar and a whore.”

  “Well, he called most women whores.” Melon Girl dribbled the boiling water, a few spoonfuls at a time, through the coffee grounds. “He said that about Turquoise Woman—you ever notice how that’s the first thing men say about Raven girls, that they’re whores?—and about Cattail Woman down in the Fishmarket, which she isn’t, though she’s just about the bossiest woman I’ve ever met. And anyway I think Urnate Urla is sick. For two days now when I’ve seen him in the streets, he looks like a dead man, creeping around like he just learned his parents had died and left him a chamberpot. He didn’t even spit at Lohar last time he passed the temple.”

  “Who were the others?” asked Shaldis. “The other tutors?”

  The two women looked vaguely at one another. “Xolnax got just about whoever he could get, like I said.” Rosemallow Woman set down her distaff and took the small coffee cup from her friend’s hand. “Starbright Woman. Mooncircle Woman—whose horoscopes are all over Starbright’s, if you ask me. He got old Lord Mohrvine to send his court mage Aktis over, the gods only know how.”

  “Lord Mohrvine has a deal with Xolnax, of course.” Melon Girl cocked a wise eye at her friend. “I mean, look at it! Xolnax has always gotten favors—look how his bullies never get cleared away from the wells, the way Rumrum’s do. If your pal Jethan’s boss, whoever he is, wants to do business in the Slaughterhouse, girl, he’d best be careful how he deals with Xolnax. Most of the other clan lords don’t think there’s power here in the slums, but—”

  Her head jerked up, and at the same moment Shaldis heard, like the throbbing rush of wind in the date groves, the rising storm of voices.

  “Shit.”

  “It’s another riot.” Rosemallow Woman scooped up distaff and wool, ducked through the door of her room to set them on the table with the half-brewed coffee. Through the door Shaldis could see a mouse flee for its hole at the sight of her. “A big one.”

  It sounded like battle as the three women hurried through the streets. People were emerging from doors, running in the direction of the shouting—some of them, Shaldis saw, carried weapons, clubs or knives. Others simply carried sacks.

  They turned three corners and she realized the trouble was in BoSaa’s Square, just in front of the city gates.

  As she came out of Chicken Lane, Shaldis’s first impression was of dozens of individual struggles, of knots of men beating and kicking downed soldiers, or soldiers doing the same to laborers, beggars, workmen who’d fallen to the ground. Men ran between the groups, or fell on combatants from behind with walking sticks, ax handles, pieces of lumber or firewood; men in the red-lacquered armor of the king’s men struggled to hold their ranks, to thrust their way out of the gate and through the square to the East Road. Dust churned into the air, burned Shaldis’s eyes, and through the haze she could see flame—bonfires of café tables or overturned barrows. Rocks flew, and she ducked back as one splintered on the corner of the house that had sheltered her and her two companions. Horses whinnied crazily, donkeys brayed. Men yelled rumors about an attack on the Slaughterhouse—a square, red-mailed form on a black horse shouted to the troops for order.

  But there was more here than just fighting. The air seemed weighted with hatred, like the lightning in the air of a summer thunderstorm, as if the very air would explode. Around her, behind her, Shaldis was conscious of men and women running to the square, and of others running along the streets, yanking on the doors of houses, looking to seize what they could. Fights were starting there, too, as servants or householders defended their property—more than one small moblet of thieves formed up, hammering at locked doors with benches or beams,

  “What started it?” yelled Rosemallow Woman, catching the arm of a boy pelting by.

  He skidded to a stop and said, “Nebekht’s lot. They was throwing rocks at the soldiers and yellin’. I gotta go get a stick.” And he plunged away down the street.

  More shouting, and from beneath the shadows of the gate a second column of riders appeared. The men were armored as if for battle, helmed and bearing shields against which the rocks and bottles clattered with a terrible sound. Shaldis recognized the blue armor of Lord Sarn’s men, and flinched as the riders plunged into the melee swinging battle maces and flails.

  Men were down, crawling in the dust of the square. Horses rode over them and fleeing rioters trampled them. Somewhere a child was screaming in pain.

  “You all right?” A hand touched her arm from behind, and, swinging around, Shaldis saw it was Pomegranate Woman. She felt around her the shimmer and flicker of some kind of cloak—not a spell she knew, but one she guessed was like her own childhood zin-zin rhymes, one the old woman had made up and used because it was all she knew. Rosemallow Woman was still watching the clamor and shoving in the square as if it were a play put on for her edification: Melon Girl had disappeared into a nearby house whose inhabitants had gone running to see the fighting. Shaldis nodded back along Chicken Lane and she and Pomegranate Woman ducked around a corner into a quiet alley where they wouldn’t be seen.

  “I’m fine,” said Shaldis. “Thank the gods I’ve found you! We need you—the Sun Mages need you—need us. They’ve made a new Song, a new Summoning, a Song that’s centered around the Ravens’ power. All of us, all the Ravens in the city, must be up there tomorrow before daybreak.”

  “Us?” whispered the ragged woman, her bright eyes growing wide. “Us, in the Ring? At last? Singing?”

  “They have to,” said Shaldis. “You heard about Lohar’s challenge to the king: If the rain doesn’t come by midnight tomorrow all of his followers will rise.”

  “Huh!” Pomegranate Woman sniffed. “Midnight tomorrow I don’t think!” She twisted a hank of her ash-gray hair and the trailing end of one of her scarves into a knot, stabbed it into place with a jeweled fork. “They’ll be at it long before that, it looks like. I’ve seen ’em,” she added when Shaldis stared. “I’ve seen ’em all morning, coming in and out of the temple by that side gate, the one they bring in the animals through. And I’ve heard their voices over the wall. They’re bringing in weapons, and when they come out, it’s to go straight to the men on the barricades. I didn’t know what it was about, but it’s plain as a pikestaff somebody’s got word about this new Rite, this new Song. And they mean to stop it.”

  Damn it! Shaldis shivered, heat rising through her, anger mingled with disgust that she’d simply assumed Lohar would keep to the three days he himself had declared. Probably he’d say Nebekht had changed his mind.

  “Can we get into the temple?” Or at least have a look.”

  The two women passed along Chicken Lane as they spoke, down Pig Alley and Shambles Court, leaving the riot behind. Rioters fleeing from the battle behind them hurried past. As they went deeper into the warren of alleys away from BoSaa’s Square, the noise behind them grew less, the streets nearly deserted save for housewives in veils taking advantage of the shorter lines at the wells to go for water.

  “Pontifer”—Pomegranate Woman looked down at her imaginary friend—“what do you say?”

  When they reached the narrow court before Nebekht’s Temple, the iron-strapped doors were shut. The porch before them stood empty, as if it were the fourth hour of the night instead of the fourth hour of the morning.

  Yet the place had not the feel of a deserted building. A little distance down the lane, Shaldis closed her eyes, reached her mind out toward the building. She heard immediately the mutter of voices within. She thought she identified Lohar’s hoar
se mumbling—instructions, it sounded like. Certainly not his usual harangue. She caught the words “Rite” and “Citadel” and “morning.”

  Among the strands of bead and chain wrapped around Pomegranate Woman’s neck Shaldis saw a mirror hung on a long red ribbon. “Let’s see that,” she asked. In the shelter of a doorway she angled the glass to the daylight, concentrating on the gloomy maze of old cells and courtyards she had from time to time glimpsed through the narrow gate where the meat was doled out; on the flat, dark stone of the facade with its empty niches, its defaced statues of other gods.

  She saw nothing but her own face in the glass, and the walled gloom of the street behind her. Whether this was because she had the position and timing of the sun slightly wrong or because there were scry wards on the temple, she didn’t know.

  Like so much else about the magic of women, she thought. She simply didn’t know. No one knew.

  Hot wind sniffed down the alley like a jackal questing for food. She smelled incense from over the temple wall and the metallic, sour reek of rotting blood: the stink of the Slaughterhouse District rising with the day’s heat. Now and then distant voices from BoSaa’s Square gashed the day’s stillness, but here things were ominously quiet.

  Still listening for the slightest preliminary scrape of the temple’s great doors, Shaldis stepped out of the sheltering niche and tiptoed across the garbage of the lane to the dark porch. She drew—swiftly—the double sigil on the black panels.

  And she felt it. Evil, alien, burning, jangling . . . felt only a glimpse, a glancing breath, then obscured again in the shadow.

  She fell back trembling, hearing Lohar shout, “Who’s that! Who’s there?” and retreated, fast, across the lane, to grab Pomegranate Woman’s arm and drag her away. Men shouted behind them, pouring into Chicken Lane, but they’d turned the corner already. Shaldis felt Pomegranate Woman’s spells cover her, hiding her from sight as men, heavily armed with pikes and swords, ran past them without a glance.

  She was so shaken, so shocked, for a few moments she could conjure no spell of her own.

  “There’s something in the temple.” Shaldis had to lean against the adobe wall for support. The silver disk on its ribbon around her neck felt warm, as if it had passed through flame. “Something . . .”

  What? Magic?

  Oh, yes.

  Evil?

  Yes.

  Sane?

  No.

  Human?

  She didn’t know. She didn’t think so. But whatever was in the temple, whatever power imbued those black granite walls, it felt very similar to the rotting hum she’d felt in the air when Urnate Urla struggled with the thing among the tombs. And even more similar to the power that had muttered and snarled as it hunted her in the darkness.

  Slowly she stammered, “It feels like the thing that killed the other women. Xolnax’s daughter, and Turquoise Woman . . . . Like the thing that came after me.”

  And like the thing among the tombs, the corpse-wight Urnate Urla had summoned and tried to capture.

  She drew a shaky breath. Pomegranate Woman stood close to her in the doorway of Greasy Yard, and her blue eyes were dark with horror and shock.

  “So what can we do?” she asked. “Do we send word to your lady? Get her to help us?”

  Shaldis was going to say, Of course, and then thought, The Rite. The Song.

  I can’t take them away from the Song. Not from the first time they’ll have to be recognized for what they—we—are. Not with Lohar waiting for them to fail.

  Her heart sank and her hands and feet felt like ice.

  Shit. Damn. God of Women—Lady God of Women . . . I’m really going to need your help.

  As are they. Every bit of it.

  She said, “No. What they’re doing is more important. It can’t wait. The gods only know what Lohar has in mind, or if they’ll get another chance. I’ve got to take care of this—or at least see what it is—alone.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  It was true.

  Foxfire Girl sank trembling back onto the divan and let the image in her silver-framed mirror fade.

  The note in Gecko Woman’s almost unintelligible scribble lay like a dirty leaf on the turquoise silk cushions:

  Opal-G ws hurrt bad burnt in fire in Hunysukl-L’s room & burnt all over she axses for you—yr hmbl servt Geko-W

  Foxfire Girl closed her eyes, trying not to see what the mirror had showed. She was shaking all over, hands and feet cold as ice.

  God of Women, no! God of Women, no, please, I didn’t mean bad luck for her! She’s my friend.

  Would you have wanted it to be Honeysuckle Lady lying there in agony instead!

  No, Foxfire Girl whispered to that cold, honest voice inside her. No. I didn’t know bad luck would mean that.

  Opal Girl alone in her attic room. The image she’d called in her mirror wouldn’t leave her sight. Where the bandages didn’t cover, the sight of the flesh was horrible, red, black, yellow with blisters. She was conscious, her hands tied to the bed to keep her from picking at her burns in her half-delirious state Her eyes were bandaged. Don’t let her be blind . . . !

  Don’t let her be really hurt.

  She clutched her arms around herself, trying to stop trembling. Her throat hurt, her eyes hurt, she hadn’t cried since she was a tiny child; her father had never liked women who cried. Pearl Women didn’t cry.

  Darkness lay on the garden outside her room. On the top of the wall, when she’d looked out, she’d seen three of her father’s guards; far-off firelight tipped the points of their halberds. The familiar noises of the city at night, a delight to her since infancy, were changed now: no carts, no late-walking vendors singing songs about flowers or hairpins or gingerbread, no cats yowling cat poems of eternal love to their sweethearts.

  Even here in her father’s house, behind the safety of the extra guards on the walls, she heard the occasional shouting of men in alleyways. Smoke hung heavy in the air, not the comforting woodsmoke of kitchens and supper, but the charred stink of things burning that had no business in flames.

  Burning . . .

  She pressed her hands to her mouth.

  There has to be a way to heal her. Wizards healed people. I can do magic—maybe I can heal her, too. Maybe I can’t do much right now, but I can do a little, and I can learn. I’ll make Aktis teach me all about healing.

  . . . burnt all over she axses for you.

  Oh, Opal Girl, I’m so sorry!

  Foxfire Girl stumbled to her feet, snatched a dress from its stand, for the first time in her life not worrying about which it was or what color. Aktis, she thought. She knew her father had gone out—to speak to the king? To check on the guards in the vicinity of the house? To make some deal with the True Believers? To tell Lord Akarian that she loved him? She didn’t know. But Aktis might well have come back already. She’d take Aktis with her to the House of Six Willows.

  Shouting—dim and distant—from Great Giraffe Street; the crash of something breaking, audible even over the walls. The clatter of running feet.

  Aktis will never take you. Not with rioters all over the city. The True Believers hate wizards, and hate women who do magic even more. She’d heard Lohar spout on for hours about that.

  Foxfire Girl had no idea what the rioting was about and didn’t care, but her heart hammered at her next thought:

  I’ll go by myself.

  Wizards were supposed to be able to make people not see them. How did they do that? Pretend they were shadows? Imagine they were really cats, make other people think that what they saw was just a shadow, or a cat, or a mouse running along the wall? She’d had dreams about doing that. About thinking veils of cobweb on their eyes and minds. The thought terrified her, because never in her life had she been out in the streets without the protection of a maidservant, but she thought, I can’t leave Opal Girl lying in that awful attic alone.

  With the riots going on, goodness knew whether old Chrysanthemum Lady would be able to hire enou
gh guards to keep looters away from the House of Six Willows. She had a lot of clan lord friends, but would that make any difference now? Foxfire Girl didn’t know. And anyway, lying bandaged in that attic, Opal Girl must be scared to death, if she wasn’t in too much pain to care about anything.

  . . . she axses for you . . . .

  I’m coming, sweetheart, she thought frantically, and gathered up a handful of veils. Please, please forgive me for what I did. I’ll be there.

  And I’ll get past the guards how?

  She stepped out into the garden, scanned the top of the wall. The garden that opened from her rooms was tiny, like all town gardens, but exquisite with tilework and water, thick at night with the scents of roses and jasmine. Usually at this hour—not more than an hour after full dark—lamps burned in the niches of the high walls, but no one had come to light them. If she concentrated, she could see nevertheless. There was far-off shouting still, audible over the walls, and the crack of wooden weapons, clubs and chairs. The guards were gone.

  Gone to see what it is, she thought.

  And the servants in this part of the palace, which was wedged between the harem and the dormitories of the servants, seemed to be gone too. The place was unnaturally silent.

  This may be my chance.

  Foxfire Girl . . .

  The whisper was so soft she thought for a moment it might only be in her mind. Bui she turned and saw a shape in the darkness, hidden among the sable clouds of the jasmine vines. “Foxfire Girl.” Something—the smell of the chamomile wash he used in his hair, maybe—told her it was Iorradus. At the suppers she had noticed it. Had loved it then, had woven it into her spells and her dreams. Her preoccupation with him seemed impossibly trivial now, childish and appalling beside what she had done.

  Done for nothing, done out of pure spite, without thinking . . .

  “My darling, I’ve come for you . . . .”