The City of Ravens

by Baker, Richard

  “What was that, Jack?” said Illyth as she climbed into the coach.

  “Your father seems to have taken matters most seriously,” Jack replied. He waited for the noblewoman to seat herself, and then climbed up beside her and rapped on the door panel to signal the driver. “I forgot to tell you, but you should know that I have dealt with my imposter. He will trouble you no more.”

  Illyth looked at him and sighed in relief. “I’m glad to hear it. Do you have any idea of who sent him after me, or why?”

  “No, I do not,” Jack admitted. He nodded back at the estate. “You should probably retain your armsmen for a little longer, just in case. I have no evidence that would give me to believe that there was only one shadow simulacrum instead of two, or three, or a score.”

  “Oghma’s word! Let’s hope not—one was trouble enough!” Illyth shivered; the night was growing very clear and cold, as if winter had saved one last evening for the city despite the advance of spring. They rode on for a time quietly, watching the countryside roll by. “Listen, Jack,” Illyth said, breaking the silence. “If you would prefer to abandon the Game, I will not hold it against you. It’s clear to me that you have other things on your mind, and you are endangering yourself by participating.”

  Jack shifted in his seat to meet Illyth’s gaze. “I refuse to be intimidated by Tiger and Mantis. Do not lose heart yet! We are close to puzzling out their plot, I can feel it.”

  “There must be something more that we can do.”

  “Play the Game,” Jack said with a shrug. “We are close to a solution. Finishing the Game quickly may bring other plots to a head, too. Tell me, do you have Lady Carp’s solution recorded?”

  “I do, and I spent an hour yesterday examining it. We can confirm eight of the fourteen variables in the solution, and we suspect answers to four more variables.” Illyth took out her notebook and worked a small cantrip to illuminate the interior of the coach with soft blue light. “See here? We saw a clue that stated that the Blue Lord does not dwell in Dues, but Carp’s solution failed there. That is one of the four items she missed.”

  “I see. And the others?”

  “We have clues eliminating only three or fewer possibilities, or hearsay that leaves several answers open.”

  “And how would you answer the riddle at this very moment?” Jack asked.

  “We can confirm the identities of the Red, Orange, Yellow, and Black lords. We suspect the identity of the Purple and Blue lords, and we don’t know about the Green lord—”

  “Just a moment,” Jack said. “If you suspect the identity of Purple and Blue and you know the others, you must suspect Green’s identity as well simply through the elimination of possibilities. If you’re right about Purple and Blue, then Green must follow.”

  “But I don’t know that I’m right about them,” Illyth countered. “As for the kingdoms: we can confirm Red, Orange, Yellow, and Blue. We suspect Green and Black. And we’re not certain of Purple.”

  “Good. Great!” Jack reached over and rifled back to Lady Carp’s answers. “Red, Orange, and Yellow we know for a fact, and we see that Lady Carp’s answers match ours. Therefore, the four errors she made must lie in these eight answers: the identities and kingdoms of the Green, Blue, Purple, and Black lords. We know the identity of the Black lord—which Lady Carp got wrong, by your notes—and the kingdom of the Blue Lord—another failure on her part.

  “So, as far as our answer is concerned, Lady Carp made only two mistakes that we cannot account for, and those mistakes must lie in the identities of the Green, Blue, and Purple lords, and the kingdoms of the Green, Purple, and Black lords.”

  Illyth frowned in concentration, examining her notes with brow furrowed. “I see. You may be right, Jack. We could be very close. Lady Carp stated that Alcantar was the Green king, Erizum the Blue king, and Geciras the Purple king. But we know that Alcantar is Black, and we don’t know who Carad is supposed to be … in fact, we have contradictory clues about Carad.”

  “Contradictory?” Jack looked at her notebook again. “Oh, you can scratch out that one. I made that up.”

  Illyth did a double take. “You did what?”

  “ ‘Carad is not the Green Lord.’ I made up that clue, when I was trading clues by hearsay with somebody. Lord Ram, I believe.”

  “Hmmph. I received that clue from Lady Nightingale, who is Ram’s date for the Game. What a mess you’ve made of this whole thing, Jack!”

  The rogue smiled. “A good thing you discovered it, then. Look, we’re almost here.” The coach rolled up a short, steep street, halting in front of one of the city’s theatres, rented out for the night by the Game organizers. He hopped out and helped Illyth down; they joined the throng of Game-goers waiting to enter.

  Lords and ladies chatted gaily, bundled up in furs and heavy cloaks against the chilly weather. Jack and Illyth passed through the atrium, donned their masks, and joined the revelers milling around in the main lobby of the theater. The entire chamber was decorated in shades of blue. Azure arrases covered the walls, the ceiling overhead was painted to resemble clear sky, and the footmen and attendants were dressed in dark navy blue waistcoats.

  “I see no sign of Tiger or Mantis,” Illyth observed. “Maybe they’ve given up their plotting. It would be a pleasant change simply to play the Game for once.”

  “I suggest that we should do what we can to examine our last remaining possibilities,” Jack said. “Look for players you haven’t spoken to before now, and see if their clues help to settle things.”

  Illyth nodded. The crowd began to shuffle toward the entrance to the theatre proper, filing out of the lobby and into the darkened auditorium. The chamber was small and intimate, filled with ornate boxes and stands that lined the walls. An usher greeted them and showed them to a small box low on the left-hand side. In a few minutes, the entire chamber was filled with masked Game players, continuing their conversations from outside, circling from box to box and leaning over the balustrades to gossip with each other. In the first box, high on the right wall, the Blue King sat enthroned, attended by guards in lacquered ceremonial armor.

  “The play will interfere with the Game,” Jack observed. “It seems as though the entertainment is not well thought out.”

  “Oh, no one really watches anyway,” Illyth said. “When you go to the theater, it’s all about talking to anyone seated nearby and speculating about who’s been seated with whom and why.”

  “I thought you were a fan of the theater!”

  “I am, but most people aren’t.” The curtain rose, and a couple of actors in ridiculous costumes marched out onto the stage and began a comic scene of some kind. Scattered Game-goers watched and laughed, applauding the clever lines, but most turned to their neighbors and continued their conversations as if nothing else was taking place.

  Jack and Illyth cast about for some additional clues but failed to find anything definitive. In the meantime, the play—a short skit of only twenty minutes or so—came to an end, and the actors departed the stage. The Master Crafter Randall Morran took their place and raised his arms for attention.

  “Ladies and gentlemen! Another contestant dares the Riddle of the Seven Faceless Lords!”

  Illyth groaned. “Oh, no!”

  Jack shook his head. “Wait and see,” he said. “It might be nothing more than a series of guesses. We aren’t finished yet.”

  This time, Lord Hawk and Lady Hare took the stage. Hawk, a rather short and unassuming fellow whose grand title seemed at odds with his appearance, cleared his throat and pulled out a small journal.

  “Our solution: the Red Lord is Buriz of Pentar; the Orange Lord is Fatim of Septun; the Yellow Lord is Dubhil of Trile; the Green Lord is Carad of Quarra; the Blue Lord is Erizum of Unen; the Purple Lord is Geciras of Dues; and the Black Lord is Alcantar of Hexan.” He finished with a confident smirk, evidently pleased with himself.

  “Alas, my lord Hawk, your solution is erroneous in three respects,” Morran said. He turned
to face up to the box where the Blue Lord sat. “My lord king? Your judgment in this matter?”

  The Blue Lord extended one arm and turned his thumb down.

  Randall Morran laughed and turned to Lord Hawk and Lady Hare. “Off with your heads, then! You may unmask and remain for the rest of the evening’s festivities, or you may leave now and protect your anonymity.”

  Hawk shrugged. “I’ll stay,” he said. “I want to see if anyone gets it right.” He doffed his mask to a polite applause and helped Lady Hare down from the stage.

  “You see? We are not done,” Jack said. “Optimism is a virtue, my lady—Illyth?”

  Illyth ignored him, rifling through her journal and hurriedly making notes. “Lady Carp said that Alcantar was the Green Lord,” she muttered to herself, “but we know that he’s the Black Lord. So that means that Carad, Geciras, and Erizum are in some combination the Green, Blue, and Purple Lords, since we have confirmed the identities of four others. Lord Hawk said that the Orange Lord ruled Septun, but we know that he rules Quarra. That means that Green, Purple, and Black must rule Hexan, Septun, and Dues …”

  “Are you onto something?”

  “Quiet! Lady Carp made four errors … we know that Alcantar is the Black Lord, which is one of her errors—but we also know that Alcantar can’t be the Green Lord as she said, so there is a second error! And we know the Blue Lord rules Unen, where Lady Carp said Dues. There are three mistakes. And thus when she said the Green Lord rules Unen, she made her fourth mistake.” Illyth looked up from her journal. “Jack, I know all four errors in Lady Carp’s solution.”

  Jack leaned over to study her journal. “Then you should mark in everything except those four errors in her solution as tried and confirmed, and add it to the list of variables we have already confirmed. Now how does it look?”

  “That confirms every lord except the Green Lord—who must be Carad since no other is left!” Illyth’s voice rose in excitement. “And every kingdom except the Green Lord’s, which must be Dues! Jack, I solved it!”

  “Quick, summon a Game attendant! No sense waiting now!”

  Jack helped her up and ushered her to the corridor outside the box. Together, they hurried down to the theatre floor, winding down the steep stairway at the side of the building. They rounded the last flight in a breathless rush and ran right into Tiger and Mantis. The two were speaking with a couple of theatre ushers just inside the curtains separating the lower corridor from the theatre floor.

  Jack and Illyth halted in surprise, as did the other couple. They stood a long moment on the carpeted staircase, staring at each other in fox, crane, tiger, and mantis masks, frozen for two, then three heartbeats. Applause rippled from the theater beyond, then laughter and catcalls, the play must have resumed, Jack thought. Lord Tiger—Toseiyn Dulkrauth—took one menacing step toward them, drawing a long knife from his belt.

  “You two, go,” he said to the ushers. The men nodded and ducked outside. “I’ve been waiting for this,” he hissed through his mask. “Mantis, watch Fox! He is a mage!”

  “We have urgent business elsewhere, sir,” Jack said, backing up a couple of steps. “If you’ll forgive us?” He quickly worked the spell of shadow-jumping—

  —only to be blocked at once by Mantis, who raised her hand and countered his spell with a snarl. “You won’t vanish into thin air this time!” the lady snapped. Then she followed by conjuring a ball of roiling black acid and hurling it at Jack’s head. The rogue ducked and hauled down Illyth, slipping on the stairs as the murderous spell hurled over his head and scorched a foot-wide hole in the wall behind him. Tiger lunged forward and missed his stomach by inches, burying the wide-bladed knife in the step below Jack with a wooden thunk!

  Illyth screamed, “Jack, watch out!”

  The rogue rolled away from a second thrust and found a perfect opportunity to plant one boot in the center of Dulkrauth’s chest, shoving him back hard. The merchant captain flailed his arms for balance and staggered back three steps into Mantis, almost knocking her down too. Jack took that as his cue to scramble to his feet and leap up the staircase back toward their box. He caught Illyth by the hand as he went.

  Behind them, Mantis dodged away from Tiger and turned to track Jack and Illyth up the stair. She snarled something else and hurled a lance of dark energy at the two of them, destroying the wooden banister in a shower of splinters and gouging a great dark furrow in the wall beyond.

  “Come back here!” she shrieked.

  “Not likely,” muttered Jack.

  He burst back into their former box and hauled Illyth close. Tiger and Mantis pounded up the stairs, only a few steps behind them.

  “Jack, we’re trapped!” said Illyth. “They have us cornered!”

  “Not yet,” Jack said.

  Without even stopping to think about it, he caught hold of Illyth and vaulted over the balcony edge, working the spell of jumping even as he did so. Below them Game-players screamed or gasped at their sudden appearance, but instead of plummeting into the stage twenty feet below, Jack alighted easily and set down Illyth. All around them the players in the current skit gaped in astonishment, utterly unprepared for a member of the audience to leap into the middle of the play.

  “Do continue,” he told the actors, and then half-dragged and half-carried Illyth back down into the orchestra pit.

  In the balcony box, Tiger and Mantis stood fuming for a long moment, evidently considering whether or not they dared to continue their assault in the full view of everyone present, but discretion won out. Masks contorted in sheer fury, the two conspirators ducked back out of sight before any attention fell on the vacant box. Jack imagined that Mantis hissed some dire promise of doom at him before vanishing, but he couldn’t be certain; the lady retreated even as the theater burst into an uproar of noise.

  “You’re spoiling the show!”

  “What is the meaning of this?”

  “Are you mad?”

  “Down in front!”

  Jack and Illyth looked around at the musicians and the actors, still waiting for them to clear the area. The Master Crafter hurried up, wringing his hands. “My lord, my lady, are you well? Why did you make such a prodigious leap? Are you hurt?”

  “Lady Crane has solved the Riddle,” Jack said instantly. “She wishes to announce her solution at once!” He heard Illyth gasp beside him, perhaps mortified by the sudden attention of the entire audience, but he squeezed her hand and winked at her.

  The Master Crafter bowed. “Very well, then. I am sure the entertainers will not mind if we briefly interrupt their skit. After all, great events are afoot!” He stepped up onto the stage proper and bowed to the assembled players. “Lords and ladies! The Lady Crane attempts the riddle!”

  “Jack, I’m not—” Illyth began to whisper.

  “You’ll do fine. Now, give them the answer.”

  Illyth swallowed and faced the crowd. She cast one more nervous glance at Jack, and then started. “My answer follows. The Red Lord is Buriz of Pentar. The Orange Lord is Fatim of Quarra. The Yellow Lord is Dubhil of Trile. The Green Lord is—” she checked her journal surreptitiously—“Carad of Dues. The Blue Lord is Erizum of Unen. The Purple Lord is Geciras of Septun. And the Black Lord is Alcantar of Hexan.”

  Morran made a great show of consulting his sealed scroll. “My lady,” he said quietly, “you have won! The Riddle is solved!”

  The chamber stood silent, then erupted in applause. “Three cheers for the Lady Crane!” called out one voice from the back of the theater. “Huzzah! Huzzah!” Illyth curtsied and tried to conceal her own surprise behind a calm demeanor, but she couldn’t help rubbing her hands unconsciously and beaming from ear to ear behind her mask, creating a very curious expression for a crane.

  Randall Morran raised his hands for quiet. “My lords and ladies! Although the riddle is solved and the Lady Crane has claimed the grand prize of the event, the Game continues! The Seven Faceless Lords have discarded their signature robes and masks, and
now stand among you in masked anonymity. Now, gentle persons, you must put your fellows to the question and determine who among you is not what they seem. I will even offer a hint to get you started: each lord attended only the gathering he sponsored and this evening’s theatre, and knows nothing of the events or occurrences at the revels of the other Faceless Lords.”

  “I see that you were prepared for the possibility of an early solution,” Jack murmured to the Master Crafter.

  “We have already made arrangements for three more Games,” the fellow replied jovially. “It would be a terrible waste to end the Game in its entirety tonight.”

  “I wager you have another development in mind should your Faceless Lords be unmasked too quickly,” Jack observed. The Master Crafter merely smiled and inclined his head. “Your resourcefulness is to be commended. Now regarding the prize—”

  “Excuse me,” said Illyth. “I think you’ll have to reconsider the next step of the Game.”

  “I beg your pardon, my lady?” Morran asked.

  “The Seven Faceless Lords are standing right over there, in their full robes and masks.” Illyth said pointing.

  At the other end of the theatre, the robed actors slowly filed in, solemnly proceeding toward the stage. The Game players looked at each other and whispered or muttered, checking with their neighbors to make sure they had heard the Master Crafter correctly. The marching figures silently surrounded the audience.

  “What is this?” Morran muttered under his breath, so quietly that only Jack and Illyth were close enough to hear. “This is not in the script!”

  In years of thievery, swindling, pursuit, and evasion, Jack had developed a distinct knack for sensing trouble when he chose to apply himself. The mysterious robed figures stood over the audience, positioned more or less in front of each exit from the room.

  “An ambush,” he realized. He reached out and caught Illyth’s wrist, starting to pull her back from the stage.

  As one, each of the robed figures withdrew a slender wand from its sleeve and pointed it toward the crowd. Game players surged up out of their seats, suddenly aware of the danger, while attendants stood frozen in shock and panic.