The Raven Warrior

by Alice Borchardt

  “Silence and darkness,” he said. “It is all the best of us can expect. Silence and darkness. I will not be her ‘thing’ then, as you are.”

  He felt a cold anger mixed with a ghostly yearning and longing.

  “I loved the night.”

  He heard the words even though he knew it was not Ustane doing whatever she did to speak. The voice was a young girl’s, and it seemed to come from a great distance, like a sound carried by the wind.

  Ustane signaled the bearers again, and they started off. He found they were on a stair, a spiral stair with broad, shallow steps.

  “We are going down to the very bottom,” Ustane said.

  Down. The king closed his eyes and his senses said up.

  He opened his eyes, and they still said up. The litter was tilted, his feet higher than his head. A stair. But a stair is between one level and another. All around him, the crypt, the forest with trees of stone and leaves of enduring fire at the roof stretched out. But perhaps it was a stair, because the floor of the crypt undulated, the pillars set like a forest on a hillside.

  Then they broke into the light and the evening sun almost blinded him. The crypt was gone. Instead, they were carrying him through a forest. The trees were huge. Never had he seen such things. Their roots were as thick around as his body, and those were the small ones. The tombs . . . yes, the tombs were still there, but they were broken and misaligned as the massive roofs of the giant trees tore them up the way an old oak tips up a pavement. Some were canted so far up that they seemed to rest on their sides. Others were buried under the spreading mass of a tree’s giant trunk as it grew over it. Others were buried in a litter composed of fibrous red bark, small needles, broken branches, and almost absurdly small cones.

  What majesty, he thought. They were, those trees, majestic, towering so high the tops were lost in the cloud of high coastal fog. They grew on a slope that stretched down to the sea. The evening sun drove shafts of orange, golden light down among the giants and the whole hillside was dappled with its warm light.

  “We are nearing the bottom,” Ustane said.

  He was wondering where she was or thought she was when the litter bearers came to a stop beside an open tomb. It was half-filled by loam, the soft, thick bark, leaves, and cones of the giants above. It had a good smell.

  They lifted him from the litter and again he cried out as they moved him to his bed. It stood directly in the shadow of one of the trees. Ustane gave another command and the two litter bearers lifted a broken stone lid.

  He lay in a stone box, but the lid they placed over him was shattered and covered him only to the waist. But it shut with a satisfactory grind of stone on stone.

  Then she and the golems departed and left the king lying there, still in pain, but at peace, listening intently and lovingly to the music of wind in the forest and the sea on the shore.

  The very look of them jolted me. Mine, or if you like, the one that tried to kill me, had filed teeth and a face crosshatched with blue scars. But my father knew what he had been doing when he gave me my armor. Filed Teeth’s first underhanded thrust skidded on my belly, and I slammed my sword hilt into his temple as hard as I could. He looked dazed, but wasn’t knocked unconscious, and going down, his teeth fastened on the wrist of my sword arm.

  They weren’t ornamental, those teeth. He wore some sort of blades fitted to them; they slashed through my armor and a savage pain shot up my sword arm. I almost lost my grip on the hilt.

  But someone—Albe—thrust a dagger into my left hand. I shoved the blade into his left eye. He let go of his grip on my wrist to scream and fell away.

  I whipped around and Tuau was showing his worth. He was on the back of the most gigantic man I’ve ever seen, trying for a kill-bite. He was failing, because the giant’s muscles were so massive, his fangs were caught in the blubber covering the neck and shoulder.

  Cateyrin didn’t hesitate, even though Meth hung back. She threw herself, rolling, at the huge man’s legs. He fell, belly flopping, behind her. He fled.

  Albe snatched back her dagger from my hand, but Cateyrin hissed frantically, “No! No! No! Don’t stay and try to finish them. We’re very close to my home and the noise will draw more of them. They’re everywhere and prowl all the corridors by night.”

  Tuau gave a dreadful scream of fury that echoed all around us, bouncing off the black glass walls and the broken roof.

  “That may help keep them off,” he said with some satisfaction as he licked his bloody chops.

  I chose to believe Cateyrin. “Go! Go! Go!” I shouted.

  “I want some red meat,” Tuau yowled.

  The filed-tooth one was dying in convulsions. The big man was up; he took a look at his companion, then, at the rest of us.

  “Cateyrin, you lead. Now go! Move!” I commanded.

  Tuau opened his mouth to protest. I think he wanted to eat the one with the filed teeth. Albe caught him a smack across the backside with the flat of her sword.

  “You heard my lady! Move! Now!”

  Tuau gave her a glare murderous enough to burn the bark off a tree, but did as he was told.

  There were all sorts of noises from the fog around us, but we ran for about another hundred yards. Suddenly, the roof above us was intact again and the collectors of starlight filled the damp corridor with silver light.

  “Here!” Cateyrin said, and dove for a dark spot in the corridor wall.

  It was a hole—we had to duck to enter it. But once inside, we found we could stand upright, though the roof was only a few feet over my head. I could reach up and touch it.

  The starlight collectors were here, also, and the narrow passage was filled by a blue haze.

  “Cateyrin?” I asked. “The passage we just followed is open to the sky, but this one isn’t. How can the light get in here?”

  “I don’t know. No one knows. The people who built the city just did it that way.”

  “I wonder if they were people?” Albe asked. “It seems to me only gods could . . .”

  “I am footsore and weary,” Meth snapped. “Let’s just see if your mother is really glad to have you back.”

  The passage was so narrow we had to go single file. Cateyrin led, Meth followed, Tuau, Albe, and I brought up the rear. Tuau was pacing along beside Albe.

  “Think she will let us in?” Tuau asked.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Albe said. “We can overnight here. I’ll bet you can kill something enough for your dinner at any rate. And my lady and I can hold this snake tube against all comers, if we must. I have enough loot in my pack to pay for food and some sort of lodging come daylight.”

  Tuau hissed viciously. “I had my supper all warm, twitching and leaking blood on the floor. But you and your nasty-tempered mistress made me abandon . . .”

  This was as far as he, and we, got. We had come to an iron portcullis. The passage widened a bit at this gate, and we gathered in front of it. Tuau hissed, spat, and clawed at the iron grating.

  “Oh, be quiet,” Albe said. “Just relax and I’ll scratch your neck and behind your ears.” She suited action to the words, and Tuau began doing shoulder dives against her legs, purring.

  Cateyrin rattled the gate loudly. “Mother! Mother! I’m home!” she shouted. “I’m home. Let me in.”

  At first, no one came. I noticed Albe glance apprehensively back down the narrow passage.

  “I don’t understand what’s keeping her,” Cateyrin said.

  Meth spoke up then. “Yes. Well, I can. She probably thinks you’re a ghost come calling . . . and even if you can convince her you’re alive, she will probably repudiate you for disgracing her family and failing in your duty to—”

  That was as far as he got, because we saw a light appear beyond the gate. When it drew closer, we saw a woman with a wax light in her hand.

  “Oh, my God!” she breathed when she saw Cateyrin. “Oh, my God! Daughter, sweet daughter mine. I knew she didn’t predict your death, but I couldn’t see how you could e
scape.

  “Akeru!” she exclaimed, catching sight of the cat. “How? . . . Fighting women!” She glanced at Albe and me.

  “Mother, they’re friends of mine. They helped me! Let us in. Please!” Cateyrin stretched her arms through the grating.

  “Pull back, Cateyrin. I’m doing just that.”

  The portcullis rose. We slipped through and it dropped behind us. We hurried into another corridor, this one dark but for the wax light Cateyrin’s mother carried. The walls glittered oddly.

  I stretched out my hand to touch them, and Cateyrin whispered, “No! No! They’re sharp.”

  Indeed, my armor leaped out to protect my fingers.

  “We can pull the walls together,” Cateyrin explained. “And the crystals will slice any intruder to shreds.”

  “How do you do that?” Albe asked.

  “I don’t know,” Cateyrin admitted. “My mother is the ruler of this house. She does it. Before she dies, she will teach the secrets to me, now that I am past the danger of death among the mariglobes.”

  The passage ended in a round, domed room. The shape and furnishings of the room were both familiar and unfamiliar to me. The central ceiling fixture concentrated the starlight as the ones in the corridor had, but the light was bright only near the domed eye itself.

  Yes, I thought of them as eyes because that’s what they looked like—a giant dragonfly’s eye peering down at us. There were other lamps in the room, and the pale light from the dragonfly’s eye was caught and reflected in them. They were of amber glass and so their light was warm.

  Cateyrin’s mother gestured with her hand and a warm, golden light spread through the room. It was very beautiful, round as my people’s dwellings are, the walls hung with jeweled tapestries in silk, velvet, and cloth of gold and silver. Vibrant as the arts of the Painted People are and however wonderful their tapestries, they could not compare to these. Some were representational, and on them birds took flight forever. Fish leaped, flowers budded and bloomed, and trees textured in threads bent their heads before the wind.

  Others were abstract, as are the ones the Painted People weave to represent the events of a lifetime. Each man or woman has his own and they can be read as the house posts can. Here is sunlit gold—a prosperous marriage. There, a splash of scarlet, a dangerous childbirth. Or for a man in battle, gray and white for sorrow and death. Bone is white, the winter sea gray-blue, the winter sky silver-gray.

  I but illustrate an art that now is vanishing and being forgotten even among the Painted People. And families no longer care that once they sat and ate, made love, worked, and lived their lives surrounded by the woven records of those who brought them and their families into being, tilled the earth, fished the sea, fought, and loved down the ages until they created the times we live in.

  But I could see from the tapestries in this room that however distantly related Cateyrin’s people and mine were, we were kin. Hides that looked like those of the beasts we had seen coming into the city covered the floor, and cushions of damask, silk, linen, and fine, very fine, wool were scattered about the floor and around a black, round table surrounded by benches. Both table and benches resembled the low furniture found in chiefly houses among my own people.

  Cateyrin was embracing her mother. Her mother was murmuring, “Sweet, sweet baby. My little love. My honey bun. I was so afraid. God, I was so afraid.”

  “Why?” Cateyrin asked. “Didn’t Nest say she didn’t see death? I don’t see what you were worried about.”

  Albe chuckled. “Young one, maybe your mother’s faith isn’t as strong as yours.”

  Cateyrin managed to look prissy. “Everyone knows Nest has a powerful geis and her predictions all come true.”

  “Madame.” Albe bowed. “We are sorry to intrude upon you unannounced, but circumstances prevented us from adopting a more formal course of action. I am Albe of the Out Isles. My lady here is Guinevere—affianced bride of Britain’s King Arthur. Meth, I believe you know. And our friend is Tuau of the Akeru, who is an—Oath Cat.” She tried out the words. “Yes, I think that best expresses it. Oath Cat of my lady, Guinevere. As I am an oath woman of hers and bound to take her head should she fall into disgrace or death.

  “As you can see, we are no mean personages and can offer reciprocal hospitality should you visit among us. Though,” Albe added, thoughtfully, “just how you would accomplish such a journey is not at present clear to me.”

  “I am Ilona, member of the College of Seers.” Cateyrin’s mother’s answer was equally formal. “And since you bring my beloved daughter home to me, you are honored and doubly welcome here as my guests.”

  “Mother, we’re rich!” Cateyrin said. And snatching the sack with the boxes of mariglobes in it away from Albe, she showed them to her mother.

  Ilona didn’t look pleased. She looked very disturbed.

  “What’s wrong, Mother?” Cateyrin asked.

  Albe spoke up. “Cateyrin, give your mother a chance to . . . understand what has happened. I think some food and rest might . . .”

  “Yes, yes,” Ilona said. “Please.” She indicated the table and low benches around it.

  Meth began unarming himself. He was cursing under his breath. Cateyrin went to help him. Ilona left.

  “Yes, you’re rich,” Meth said bitterly. “You and your mother. But what about me? I’m an outcast now. Cut off from my friends, companions, and kin.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” Cateyrin snapped back. “We’ll go equal shares with you and maybe you can use your part to found your own—”

  “I liked my life!” He sounded furious. “I was a trusted member of the tuath. Now where will I go? What—”

  “Oh, stop! Just stop!” Cateyrin snapped. “From the very first, you’ve been acting stupidly, trying to give back the . . .”

  Most of his armor was off now, but he was still wearing one of those ugly gauntlets, and he drew his hand up, readying himself to backhand Cateyrin across the face. Before he could act, Albe had his wrist twisted up between his shoulder blades.

  “What?” she asked. “You are a guest here. Would you insult the mistress of this house by abusing her daughter?”

  Then she released him. Cateyrin drew back; her nose was still bruised and sore from Meth’s earlier blow. Without saying anything further, she left, following her mother into what I surmised must be another room. Meth took one of the benches at the table. He didn’t speak, but sat and looked sullen.

  We sat down on another bench where we could watch Meth. He was making me uneasy. I didn’t know if he could do anything to harm us, but my ignorance of this strange world was such that I didn’t care to take any chances.

  The table and bench distracted me. They seemed to be made of woven wood, polished on one side, left covered with bark on the other. Then I realized there were bands of green dipping in and out among the branches. The bands of green were tiny leaves. The table and benches were alive.

  The table legs were roots that entered the stone floor through cracks in the glassy surface. The bench was the same. We sat on the smooth side of the richly patterned wood. Bark and clusters of leaves formed the other side. I could look down into the basket weave of both table and bench and see the tiny green clusters filled all the openings between the tamed withes. Table and benches glowed green-gold and brown in the amber light.

  “How can it live?” Albe asked wonderingly.

  Ilona entered with a platter of roast meat just then. Cateyrin followed with a mat and spread it to protect the living table from the platter’s heat.

  “To answer your question, it does very well for itself and has been growing here since before my great-grandmother formed this place into her dwelling,” she told Albe.

  Cateyrin returned with a tray that held bowls of broth, vegetables, and platters of bread, three or four different kinds.

  “Wererooor!” Tuau roared, demanding his share. He was behind Albe and me.

  Ilona studied him. “Raw or cooked?” she said.
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  “I don’t care. I’m starving!”

  “Mind your manners,” Albe said. “Please! Thank you! And tear it asunder and crack the bones on the stone floor.” She pointed to the entry hall.

  Tuau hissed and the hair on his neck stood up. His tail brushed out.

  “Quiet, or I’ll send you to play with what lurks outside in the darkness,” Albe said.

  “Can’t!” Tuau said.

  “Can!” Albe gave him one of her slow grins. “Can! And will. Behave yourself.”

  Ilona returned with a haunch of something or other. Tuau glared at Albe, but took the meat politely enough, marched over to the stone-floored hall, and began to dine. Cateyrin brought wine and we followed Tuau’s example and fell to.

  Cateyrin and Meth began trying to fill Cateyrin’s mother in on the doings of our day. Ilona stopped both Cateyrin and Meth when we got to the part where I collected the mariglobes without injury. I demonstrated my armor for Ilona. I thought she looked frightened when she saw what it would allow me to do.

  I was puzzled by her fear, but by then, sheer exhaustion was taking its toll. This day I had passed beyond the barriers of one world and entered another. Fought battles here and traveled many miles on foot. Except for the few days’ mental and mortal fatigue I had suffered after burning the first fortress, I had never been so weary in my life.

  The food and wine sank me into a stupor, and I had little energy to devote to questioning our hostess, and even less will for looking—as I saw it—a gift horse in the mouth. I was warm, ostensibly safe, and well fed. More than that, I could not ask. But that expression of sudden fear tugged at the edges of my consciousness, whispering a warning—her fear of what I could do, and the expression of dismay on Ilona’s face when Cateyrin recounted our adventure with the Circe.

  She and Meth fell to quarreling about it again. But I was simply beyond caring about what went on around me. I put one arm around Albe and rested my head on her shoulder.

  “I must rest or die. I cannot think what has drained me so. But if my life depended on it, I could go no further.”