Sisters of the Raven

by Barbara Hambly

  The sun dreamed, and the sun slept deep, and in the last two hours before morning the Rite called upon the magic of the Sun at Its Prayers, in many spell systems the strongest and most magical time. As brightness slowly filtered back into the dark, outshining the pallor of the waning, late-risen moon, the Summer Concubine watched the mages who had slept, or rested, return to the great round Ring. The three boys—Min-rat, Ynor, and dark-browed Kylin—novices unused to the physical demands of the long ceremony, harsh-faced Cattail Woman and serene Pebble Girl. Ahure and even Soth. White robes seemed to shine in the moonstone light; blue robes claimed back their color with the first colors of the singing day.

  On Hathmar’s sleeves, and around the mouths of the horns, a flash of gold.

  The long Rite circled to its close; in the silence afterward, the whole world lifted up, shining in the sky.

  And the sky was clear, and without cloud.

  The Summer Concubine went down to the room she had slept in the night before last and went to sleep at once, too exhausted even to recall that anything had taken place while all their energies were concentrated on the rain and the sun and the sky. Thus it was only an hour or so before noon when Soth woke her with the news.

  During the fighting the previous day the king had gone missing. With outbreaks of rioting everywhere in the town, no one had been sure until now where he was. Barún had left immediately after the first fighting at the Citadel, to head off an attack on the Marvelous Tower itself. He’d been here and there about the city all day.

  “But there’s a woman here now who claims that she’s hidden all night—and most of yesterday—in the Temple of Nebekht.” Soth kept his voice low, kneeling beside the bed. His clothing smelled of the dates and meats, the eggs and cheeses and sweet breads, that he’d brought up to the Citadel: The scent pierced the Summer Concubine with the realization that she’d been too beaten with weariness that morning even to eat.

  She sat up, pushed back her fair tousled hair from her face “The temple?”

  “She says she entered with Raeshaldis at about the hour the Rite began.”

  “Pomegranate Woman . . .”

  “Yes, that’s her name. She says Raeshaldis vanished within the temple. She waited for her for many hours before she became convinced she wouldn’t come back. By that time Lohar and his men had returned, and transformed the temple into a fortress. All the streets in the district are barricaded, the place is an armed camp. Bax has closed the Eastern Gate and set it under guard.

  “He’s back?”

  “Yes, though he says the nomads haven’t withdrawn far—they just fade back into the desert, waiting. They won’t have long to wait, either, if genuine war breaks out. Even within the city walls rioters have barricaded whole districts . . .”

  “What happened to Raeshaldis?”

  Soth shook his head. “All Pomegranate Woman said was ‘vanished.’ But she says she saw Mohrvine at the temple later on, conferring with Lohar. This was about noon, she says. She’s seen him enough about the marketplaces to recognize him, she said.” He wiped his balding forehead, his long, slender hands shaky with fatigue.

  He went on, “And she says they have the king.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  There’d been rioting in the Circus District through most of the night, and the strewn rubble of what had been a café still smoldered in the square at the end of Great Giraffe Street. Concealed in the tiled doorway of a small temple of Bennicy, god of acrobats, the Summer Concubine could hear shouting a few streets away. It didn’t sound bad: a street fight between two factions, not a riot.

  “Is Mohrvine in there?” whispered Pomegranate Woman. The Summer Concubine shook her head, withdrawing her mind from an intense aural scrutiny of the House Jothek and retreating a little deeper into the doorway.

  “It’s hard to mistake his voice,” she said. In the strange, chilly glare of the afternoon sun the place was still, save for the guards in their black-lacquered mail who stood before the gate. More guards watched both ends of the street.

  “I’d guess he’ll be in Nebekht’s Temple,” whispered Soth. He had insisted on accompanying the women on their quest, though the Summer Concubine had not told him whom she sought in the House Jothek, or why. “If they have the king there it would make sense.”

  The Summer Concubine had thought to go alone to speak to the Red Silk Lady, but Soth would not hear of her leaving the Citadel, cloak or no cloak, without protection, or at least someone to take note of it if she entered a place and did not come out. And Pomegranate Woman—a curious figure with her rags and her jewels and her imaginary pig—would not hear of anyone going to seek Raeshaldis without her.

  “There was a hell of a quarrel between Mohrvine and Lohar,” provided Pomegranate Woman now. “I didn’t understand all of it, but it sounded like Lohar had made some kind of deal with His Majesty—in front of most of Lohar’s faithful, which near as damn it gave Mohrvine a palsy-stroke from rage—and Lohar said he wanted proof that Nebekht was with Mohrvine . . . . I’ve never seen a man’s face turn that color. Mohrvine said, Kill him, and Lohar just kept saying, I must know that Nebekht is with you, whatever that means.”

  That whining fanatic may go back on us . . . .

  Save your strength . . . for bigger things . . . .

  “At a guess,” breathed the Summer Concubine, “Aktis has to come across with something—probably getting the wells to fill. No wonder he’s been at the ijnis.”

  “Not that it’ll do him any good,” said Soth. “It was just after sunset when he left—looking like death in a teacup—so that must have been immediately after you heard them speak. Bad enough that Mohrvine treats him like a slave . . .”

  The shouting came nearer. The guards grew tense, hands on their swords, and looked in the direction of the Street of the Goldsmiths: “Should we go see?” asked one. Before leaving the Citadel, the Summer Concubine had attempted to scry both the Temple of Nebekht and the House Jothek, with equal lack of success. This hadn’t surprised her. If Raeshaldis was correct about the Red Silk Woman, the house would be covered with scry wards.

  And whatever it was that dwelled in the Temple of Nebekht, it clearly had a power of its own.

  “Just how good are you ladies at the casting of illusions?” asked Soth a few moments later. “That shouting we heard—can you repeat it, call it back, but stronger, more frightening, into the minds of the men at the gate? Danger down at the end of the street, around that corner—bad danger, fear, coming closer.” He sketched a Rune of Focus on the wall that the Summer Concubine recognized as one of the illusions of duty.

  “What about the porter inside?” she asked. “We won’t have but a moment, even if I can make the illusion work.”

  “Oh, that’s easy,” said Pomegranate Woman. “I’ll send him away to take a piss about half a minute before the trouble starts.”

  The Summer Concubine traced the Rune of Duty two or three times with her finger, forming it up in her mind. Formed, too, the constellation of dream-thoughts that surrounded it: heroism, reward, scorn for lesser men. Loyalty to simple ideas: the House Jothek, the way of the warrior, the good old days when teyn and women knew their place. Fear and bravado. Love and respect.

  Looking across the street, she saw and named the guards in her mind for purposes of the spell: Mended Boots. Scratches His Bottom. Unshaved.

  Pomegranate Woman closed her eyes briefly. We’ll feel terribly silly, thought the Summer Concubine, if we go charging through that gate and run smack into the porter on the other side.

  But in any case, once we’re through, the Red Silk Lady will know we’re here. She’ll have a ward on the main gate.

  I would, in her position.

  She took a deep breath and slipped her mind into the dream world of magic and thought.

  The porter was gone when the two women slipped the bar on the main gate and darted through. “Show me how to do that, when we have time,” whispered the Summer Concubine They fleeted across the court
yard, through the gate to the inner courts in a flutter of gray illusion. Soth would give them an hour before opening the sealed paper the Summer Concubine had given him. It contained the information that the Red Silk Lady was a Sister of the Raven, the only bargaining tool, at this point, that the Summer Concubine had.

  There were fewer guards about than she had feared—where were those two sons Mohrvine had brought from the Lake of Gazelles?—and most seemed to be stationed on the outer perimeter of his house. The rest were away beefing up Lohar’s troops, guessed the Summer Concubine angrily. She hoped nomads burned Mohrvine’s rangeland to the roots of the grass and sowed salt in his fields.

  Twice, on their way from the Citadel to the Circus District, they’d seen Bax’s men dispersing rioters, putting out fires; Sarn and Jamornid had called in men from those patrolling their lands. In a few days, all other things being equal, the city would be returned to quiet . . . .

  But a few days would be too late for Oryn.

  She knew Mohrvine too well to think he’d let this chance slip through his fingers. Whatever bargain Lohar thought he’d made with the king, Mohrvine would disregard it. An unguarded minute—something simple, like access to the water the king would be offered to drink . . .

  And the True Believers would absorb whatever blame there was for Oryn’s death.

  Would Mohrvine claim the throne himself? she wondered. As Greatsword’s brother? Or would he run himself in behind Barún, who could probably be easily convinced that in fact Mohrvine had had nothing to do with the rioting, nothing to do with Oryn’s death? Particularly if the body were discovered in a burned building somewhere, far from the temple, or anywhere else incriminating.

  Prove that Nebekht is with you. . . .

  Oryn has to have thought of that one, she thought. He can sound so reasonable.

  In the second passage crossing that led to the harem quarters of the house, the two women fell into step behind a pair of serving maids, who bore heavenly morsels, baba cakes, and a tall tea vessel of silver and glass. Pomegranate Woman frowned, puzzled, but the Summer Concubine gestured that she knew what she was doing, and indeed she did. The courtyard was as Raeshaldis had described it: run-down and filled with potted trees and plants. Caged finches twittered and hopped from perch to perch. The wards on the gate, as Shaldis had said, were Pyromancer wards and badly drawn: The Summer Concubine brushed her fingers over them in passing, seeking some sense of the magic behind them.

  It felt strong and clear even to her inexperienced touch. She and Pomegranate Woman waited in the tiny courtyard, in the shadows of the bare jasmine vines, until the servant women left empty-handed. “Wait for me here,” she breathed, and Pomegranate Woman nodded, puzzled but willing.

  “You behave yourself now, Pontifer,” she admonished the ground at her feet.

  The Summer Concubine went to the door of the garden chamber and said, “May I come in?”

  The Red Silk Lady was just pouring out the mint tea. On the divan beside her, half hidden by the cushions of black and gray silk, was a crossbow, drawn and cocked. The Summer Concubine remembered the stories about the Red Silk Lady being the daughter of a deep-desert hunter—she’d never known whether that was true or something Mohrvine had made up to claim kinship alliance with the nomads.

  It looked like it was true.

  “Would I be able to stop you?” the Red Silk Lady inquired with a lifted brow. Evidently she hadn’t thought so: There were three glasses on the tray, and three little painted plates of heavenly morsels.

  “I’m afraid not, lady,” said the Summer Concubine apologetically. “My friend is in the courtyard, so if you would prefer to write what we have to say . . .”

  “It’s kind of you to give me that consideration.” The Red Silk Lady tonged baba cake onto a plate, set it on the low table beside which the Summer Concubine knelt on a leather pillow. “I heard you were too skinny and they didn’t lie. Call her in—if she’s one of your Ravens she’s likely to hear whatever we say anyway, isn’t she?”

  The Summer Concubine nodded. “I ask the indulgence of your secrecy for her,” she said quietly, her eyes meeting those of the Red Silk Lady as Pomegranate Woman came in and knelt in curiously catlike quiet. “She has lived for some time in hiding.”

  And Mohrvine’s mother nodded slightly, understanding that she was not only being asked for her silence, but being promised that of the Summer Concubine in return.

  “She fears the man—or thing—that the girl Raeshaldis is hunting. The thing that has been killing the Raven sisters.”

  “Lie down, Pontifer, and mind your manners,” instructed Pomegranate Woman in a whisper, and what could have been the faintest trace of amusement flickered in the Red Silk Lady’s jade eyes.

  An instant later the cold, green glance returned to the Summer Concubine: “What has she learned!”

  “That a part of the answer lies in the Temple of Nebekht.” The Summer Concubine passed a quick questing finger across the top of her tea glass, just to make sure there wasn’t anything in the mint tea except mint tea. Shaldis had been poisoned, and nothing had ever shown that it wasn’t the Red Silk Lady who had done it.

  But the tea was perfectly safe and, when she sipped it, excellent.

  Her hostess’s eyes narrowed. “It does, does it? That doesn’t surprise me. Filthy, prating hypocrites. I remember that Lohar when he’d stand on a box in the marketplaces screaming to everyone who passed about’what his god had said to him, as if even a minor god like Nebekht would pass the time of day with a potter’s son like him.”

  “Your son has an alliance with him,” said the Summer Concubine quietly. “They’ve taken the king prisoner. They’re holding him in the temple in the Slaughterhouse. I want you to come with us there, and to tell your son to have him freed. If you do not do this I will go myself, and speak to Lohar about matters that concern us both.” She met the Red Silk Lady’s gaze as she spoke. “These are excellent moonjellies.”

  “Thank you,” said the Red Silk Lady. “Jamornid is forever trying to steal our dessert chef. Why do you think Lohar would believe a demon? Which is what you are, in his eyes. You and all women like you.”

  “I don’t think he’d believe me right off,” said the Summer Concubine and, after a cautious inspection of the confection with every spell of poison detection Soth had taught her, took a small bite. “But I leave it to you to imagine what sort of test Lohar would think appropriate to force a woman to choose between it and exposure.”

  “And you think my son would have nothing to say of this?”

  “Oh, I’m sure he would.” The Summer Concubine sipped her tea. “The question is, What? There has to be some reason you never told him of . . . the matter at hand . . . in the first place.”

  The Red Silk Lady watched the Summer Concubine silently for a time from pale green eyes. She was dressed simply but richly, in dark silk with her white hair coiled and lacquered and sparkling with jewels; her hands on the teacup were big and capable, marked with old scars beneath her ruby rings. The Summer Concubine did not speak, only waited for the older woman’s thoughts to bear fruit. Pomegranate Woman, too, sipped her tea without asking questions, though she glanced narrowly at the Red Silk Lady from time to time. Perhaps she guessed, thought the Summer Concubine—she sensed in the strange old derelict enormous power and enormous wisdom. Bur for the moment she only broke a vanilla wafer in half to set on the floor for her imaginary pet.

  At length the Red Silk Lady asked, “Do you trust my son?”

  “Your son is a man of greatest honor and probity. All speak of his wisdom and generosity with praise.”

  “Neither do I.” She considered the matter a few minutes more. “I understand you trust the king.

  “With my life.”

  “So you let him make you his tool. Like a good little Pearl.” Her glance flicked to Pomegranate Woman, then back. “And with you all those women whom you’ve been gathering around you and flattering into doing your bidding—which is a
ctually his. What’s in that temple?” She transferred her sharp glance to Pomegranate Woman. “What did you see there? Does Lohar have magic?”

  “There’s magic there,” said Pomegranate Woman slowly after a questioning glance at the Summer Concubine, who nodded. “It’s strong magic, cold magic. Ugly magic. I can feel these things, feel the stories the walls tell. I felt in the walls what Lohar says to that idol in the night, and when its spirit comes forth in the early morning to tear apart the animals they bring to that room. The magic dwells in the idol. It’s inhuman magic. That’s why Lady Shaldis thought it might have been the person or thing that’s been killing these women.”

  “And is it?”

  “I don’t know. She disappeared trying to learn what these things are that have this magic, and why one of them would be attacking our kind.”

  “Disappeared?”

  “Yes, lady. She made a power circle in the chamber of the beasts, where the dead pigs were, and the blood—I have a little pet pig myself and it fair made me sick. She stepped into the circle and—and walked away. Walked away without leaving the circle.”

  “Then this thing didn’t take her?”

  “That we don’t know,” said the Summer Concubine. “It’s what we’re trying to learn. Three women so far have been killed, by something whose power felt nearly the same. Two of those women lived near the temple, a young woman named Turquoise Woman, and Warfin Xolnax’s daughter.”

  “So that’s what happened to her.” The old lady’s painted lips drew tight. “I thought that business of Amber Girl running off with a suitor was all my cat’s behind. The girl had no more suitors than I have. She was all business, that one, and cool as steel.”

  The Red Silk Lady poured out another cup of tea, her movements curiously controlled and feral, like a gladiator pitting a cherry.

  “Ordinarily what my son chooses to do and who my son chooses to ally with doesn’t concern me. Thinks he’s too clever by half, and he isn’t nearly as clever as he believes. But I watched this girl. Part of the reason my son allied himself with Xolnax was because of her, because he wanted to have her educated so that he could use her himself, the way he’s having his daughter educated as a Pearl Woman. As I told your girl Shaldis, he uses everyone—as your precious king uses you. But he’d have found his mistake. It’s one thing to deal with a weakling like Aktis, and another to have to do with a bully-boy’s daughter who doesn’t know the meaning of the word no.