Prince of Ravens frr-1

by Richard Baker

  “Very good,” Jack said. “But leave out this excellent port. I may have another glass.”

  “You have a lunchtime engagement with Lady Moonbrace and her family tomorrow. And in the evening there is a reception at the Raven’s Bluff Playhouse to solicit patrons for the troupe.”

  “Should I become a patron?”

  “It may prove advantageous, sir. Many well-connected people should be in attendance. A gift of perhaps two hundred crowns would be appropriate.”

  Jack winced a little. Marden Norwood’s five thousand crowns might go faster than he would like if he kept spending at his current pace; all the more reason to expand his fortune at the first opportunity. “Very good,” he said.

  The doorbell chimed out in the front hall. “Ah. Are you still receiving visitors, sir?” Edelmon asked.

  “It depends who’s calling,” Jack replied.

  “I will see, sir,” Edelmon bowed and left Jack in the study. He heard the front door open and a murmur of voices before the valet returned. “A young lady at the door requests a word with you, sir. She gave her name as Alanda; I asked her to wait in the foyer. Shall I show her in?”

  Jack thought for a moment, trying to place the name. He’d met many people over the last few days in Norwood Manor. Perhaps it was a message from Seila? “No, I’ll go speak to her,” he said. “You may retire, Edelmon.”

  The valet bowed and withdrew, heading downstairs to his quarters by the kitchen. Jack took a moment to smooth his tunic. Then he opened the study’s sliding door and stepped into the front hall, already beginning a gracious bow to greet his guest before the words of welcome died in his mouth.

  There, in his foyer, stood the Warlord Myrkyssa Jelan.

  She wore a burgundy doublet over black tights and thigh-high boots of fine leather; her long, raven-dark hair was bound around her brow by a slender golden fillet, and her fine katana-the very sword with which she’d almost killed him once-rode at her hip in a sheath of lacquered wood. “A new standing instruction for the staff,” Jack muttered to himself. “Henceforward I am to be advised if my visitors are armed.”

  The Warlord studied him carefully for a moment as he stood there, gaping at her, and then snorted to herself. “It really is you, as unlikely as that might seem,” she said. “Hello, Jack. Have you missed me?”

  Jack stared for a long time before he finally found his voice. “Elana,” he said. “Why are you here?”

  “I heard rumors that Seila Norwood had been rescued from captivity in Chumavhraele by someone calling himself Jaer Kell Wildhame. I recognized your favorite alias, but I couldn’t believe that the tale was true. So I decided to see for myself if you were indeed the Jack Ravenwild I knew.” Jelan prowled closer, and she locked her eyes on Jack’s. “As it turns out, Jack, you and I have unfinished business.”

  Then she drew her katana from its scabbard and leaped across the room at him.

  Jack’s feet refused to move for one terrible instant, as he saw his death gleaming in Jelan’s hands. Then he managed to backpedal, slamming the sliding door shut just before her thrust would have skewered him. The chiseled point of the katana burst through the door’s panel inches from his face, and hung there for a moment. Quick as an eyeblink, Jack reversed himself on the sliding door and yanked it open with all his might, pinning her sword in place against the opposite doorjamb. They stood together in the doorway for a moment, Jelan trying to withdraw her sword, Jack locking the sliding door in place with his foot.

  “Elana,” he said, panting a little with the effort. “This is an unexpected pleasure. Or do you prefer Myrkyssa? I’m not really sure.”

  “Elana will do,” she answered. Then she let go of her swordhilt and threw her left elbow into Jack’s ribs, shoving him out of the doorway. The instant Jack was out of the way, she freed her blade and came at him again, pursuing him into the study. Jack reeled back, gasping for breath from the blow to his side, but he had the presence of mind to kick a small ottoman across the gleaming, polished floorboards right into Jelan’s feet. It caught her in mid-stride, and with a muffled oath Jelan stumbled. That gave Jack enough time to cross the room and draw his rapier from the swordbelt hanging by the desk. He turned to confront her again, somewhat comforted by the weight of the steel in his hand. On the other hand, Jelan was very, very skilled with her blade, and probably more than a match for him.

  “I don’t suppose you would be kind enough to explain why you are trying to kill me?” he asked, carefully sidling out of the corner to give himself room to maneuver.

  “It has something to do with the fact that you interfered with designs of mine that were ten years in the making,” Jelan replied. “And in doing so, you left me entombed in stone for a hundred years. Everyone I care for has been dead for decades, Jack. It’s as if you murdered them all.”

  “I had no way of knowing what would happen,” Jack protested. He started to say more, but Jelan resumed her attack. She darted across the room, her katana gleaming in lightning-swift slashes and cuts. Jack did his best to stand his ground, parrying and riposting with his rapier. Steel rang shrilly in the dusty old study. His point flew from one contact to the next, and he managed to barely deflect the Warlord’s attack. On the other hand, his counters absolutely failed to defeat her guard. They circled several more times, trading blows, and then Jelan broke off, yielding a step or two.

  “I don’t understand,” she murmured. “You are much more skilled than I remember. You always had the speed and eye for swordsmanship, Jack, but where did you acquire your training?”

  Jack wondered about that himself until the answer came to him. “To you, it’s been about two months since our meeting at the wild mythal,” he said. “But to me, it’s been four years. I studied some swordsmanship after our last, er, parting.”

  “Not very seriously, or after four years you would have been even better.”

  He gave a small shrug. “You should know me well enough to know that I do few things seriously, Elana. I am something of a dilettante.”

  She paused and studied him again. “How is it that you, too, are alive after all this time?”

  Jack grimaced. “In some unfathomable expression of cosmic irony, I was imprisoned in the very same spot where I’d left you, about four years after our little adventure in the Underdark. We were both released from the mythal stone at the same time. You were still petrified. I was not, so the drow put me to work in their fields.”

  “Who imprisoned you?”

  “I do not know. I have no memory of how I came to be locked in the mythal stone.”

  “Fascinating,” she replied. Then she attacked again. This time she changed styles, using a different set of strikes and parries that sorely tried Jack. Her blade bit through his guard to kiss his shoulder-a grazing cut, shallow but bloody. Before he could recover she kicked his knee out from under him. In pure panic Jack reached out for his magic and wove a quick invisibility spell, vanishing from sight. Jelan’s eyes narrowed, and she stabbed at the center of the spot where he’d just been standing; Jack narrowly twisted aside. With uncanny quickness Jelan homed in on his gasp of exertion and the scuffle of his boot, pursuing him closely. Jack swore and abandoned the field, backing off a good ten paces to the other side of the foyer.

  “I was wondering when you would resort to magic,” Jelan remarked, cocking her head to one side as she listened for any hint to his location. “Your recent training helps, Jack, but you are still not my equal.”

  Jack could think of no good response. His shoulder stung fiercely, and his breath was already coming in pants. The swordswoman smiled menacingly as she caught the sound of his labored breathing and began edging toward him. He could flee the manor, of course, but he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder for Myrkyssa Jelan. On the other hand, he didn’t think he could best her with steel, and no magic of his could touch her. To buy himself a little more time to recover, and to perhaps find a way out of his conundrum, he decided to keep her t
alking. “How did you escape the drow?” he asked.

  “My family’s ancient curse of unmagic finally reasserted itself; the magic that kept me petrified failed,” Jelan replied. She paced forward into the foyer, her katana held in a low guard. “The dark elves on the scene attempted to take me prisoner, but my mail was proof against their poisoned crossbow bolts, and their spells naturally did not affect me.”

  “Naturally,” Jack agreed. He held his breath and slipped a few steps from where he’d spoken, hoping to deceive her.

  “I took an important-looking fellow hostage, and made him create darkness around us until I could slip away into the Underdark tunnels surrounding their stronghold. It took me five or six days of careful exploration, but I eventually mastered the caverns and passages and found my way back to the surface along the routes the slavers use.” Jelan paused, listening for some sign of Jack. “That, by the way, is one more tally on the score I owe you. I did not appreciate waking up to find myself surrounded by drow, or days and days of hungry monsters and privations as I trekked my way out of the Underdark.”

  “The involvement of dark elves a hundred years in the future was something I never could have foreseen during our previous … disagreements, Elana.” Jack moved stealthily again, now sidling into the manor’s large front parlor.

  “But you were content to leave me frozen in that damned stone for four full years while you went about your life.”

  “Elana, as far as I knew, you were dead,” Jack replied. “And even if I had known that you were alive, I would not have retrieved you from the stone. You were the Warlord, and I am a Ravenaar, loyal to my city-after my own fashion.” He watched as she continued to advance, readying himself to parry or flee if she guessed his location. “If it is any consolation to you, someone has treated me in much the same manner that you feel I treated you. I, too, have lost a hundred years and many friends. A certain sort of justice has already been rendered on my actions; there is no need for you to seek further redress.”

  To his surprise, Jelan halted her advance. She stood in the doorway, peering toward a place uncomfortably close to where Jack actually stood with her eyes narrowed in thought. Jack decided to press his point. “If you could have picked any punishment short of running me through, wouldn’t you have inflicted on me exactly the fate you endured? For good or ill, you and I are bound by this common experience. Who else understands what you have lost?”

  “I have no use for your sympathy,” Jelan snarled. She glared at the parlor for a good ten heartbeats … but then, with a single angry motion, she slammed her katana back into its sheath. “Yet even a fool may err and speak wisely. If you are telling the truth-which is hard to believe in and of itself-then perhaps fate has indeed balanced the debt in the matter of my imprisonment. It is not for me to defy the wheel of fate, no matter how much I dislike its turnings. I was the Warlord of the Vast; kingdoms trembled at my footsteps. Now that glory lives only in my memory, and yours.”

  Jack lowered his rapier cautiously. His shoulder burned where Jelan’s steel had touched him. As strange as he might find his circumstances, at least he hadn’t lost a throne at the same time he’d lost a century. What might that do to a person, even someone as rational and redoubtable as Myrkyssa Jelan? He allowed his invisibility spell to fade away-he couldn’t hold it much longer in any event, given his limited magical strength at the moment-and slowly returned to view. He studied her fierce features for a moment, and asked simply, “What will you do now?”

  Jelan snorted. “The same as I have always done. I mean to win the highest place my ambitions and opportunities allow me.” She strode past Jack toward the door, pausing just long enough to poke one mailed finger into his breastbone. “Enjoy your good fortune while it lasts, Jack. Tomorrow may tell a different tale.”

  She pushed past him and stormed out into the night. Jack stood staring after her, absently rubbing the sore spot in the middle of his chest where she’d poked him. After a long moment, he recovered enough presence of mind to shut the front door and bolt it securely. “Two things are clear,” he muttered aloud. “One, Edelmon is either hard of hearing or exceptionally discrete. Two, I shall have to issue another standing directive to the staff: Swordplay in the house is always to be investigated immediately.”

  With a sigh, he went to go rouse Edelmon to have someone stitch his cut.

  After the physician left, Jack spent a very restless night tossing and turning, kept awake by the fresh stitches in his shoulder and the possibility that Myrkyssa Jelan might change her mind and return to murder him. He had no idea what opportunities or ambitions she entertained, but he remembered all too well what she’d once made of herself-conqueror, revolutionary, subversive, enemy to all of Raven’s Bluff. Would she abandon her old designs and start over again somewhere else? Or did she still nurse dreams of making Raven’s Bluff the seat of a kingdom won through her own indomitable will? And if so, how would she proceed? Her formidable network of spies, secret supporters, and devoted henchmen had been shorn away by the passage of the years, but somehow Jack doubted that would daunt the Warlord for long. In fact, if Tharzon was correct in his suspicions about the Moon Daggers-whoever they were-she might already be at work building a new base of power.

  Jack was very comfortable in his current situation, with bright prospects indeed. The last thing he needed was for Myrkyssa Jelan to begin stirring up trouble again. Jack had no wish to cross her, but any way he considered the question, he could only conclude that she hadn’t given up on her schemes. If Jelan had escaped the Underdark a few days after Dresimil Chumavh had ordered Jack to recount what he knew of the Warlord, then she’d had at least three or four tendays to settle in to Raven’s Bluff. What had she been doing during that time?

  “She’s established enough to catch wind of Seila Norwood’s return and the part I played in it,” he grumbled at the gilt ceiling over his huge bed. “And it seems likely she has something to do with the Sarkonagael and the offered reward.” It was simply too great of a coincidence that the Sarkonagael should be publicly remarked upon in the very month when both Jack and Myrkyssa regained their freedom. Who else would have recognized its importance? Had she stolen it from the poster of the reward? Was she herself the poster? Or was there some other, less obvious connection between them? If Jelan didn’t have the Sarkonagael, she’d be looking for it. And if she did have it, then that was something that would be very good for him to know.

  Jack finally drifted off into a fitful slumber. When he woke, he hurried through his breakfast and the morning correspondence-taking note of the engagements that were already beginning to dot his social calendar-then dressed quickly. Sometime during the night he’d come up with an idea that might determine the Sarkonagael’s whereabouts with comparative ease, and he was anxious to test it. He set out from Maldridge before nine bells had struck on a gray and rainy morning. A six-block stroll north on MacIntyre Path brought him to a weather-beaten building of sandstone and brick, covered in peeling gray plaster. A tarnished nameplate over the single street-facing door read Seekers’ Guildhall.

  “It seems that the years haven’t been kind to the Diviners’ Guild,” Jack reflected aloud. Still, he might as well see what he could learn.

  He tried the door and found that it opened with a wretched creaking of its hinges. A hallway paneled in dark wood led deeper into the building. “Good morning,” Jack called. “Is anybody here?”

  He was answered by a disembodied voice that echoed through the hall. “Enter, seeker,” it intoned. “Your coming was foretold.”

  “If that is the case, one might have expected to be greeted by name at the door,” Jack remarked.

  “Your skepticism was foretold as well. Advance to the end of the hall. All your questions have their answers here.”

  Jack did as he was instructed. As he neared the end of the hall, a concealed panel slid aside, revealing a small room lavishly decorated with purple drapes, hanging censers from which ribbons of aromatic smoke rose
, and a table on which rested a sparkling crystal ball bigger than Jack’s head. At the head of the table sat a white-bearded old gnome who wore a shapeless baglike hat of purple felt decorated with silver moons and stars. “Please, seeker, be seated,” the gnome said.

  Jack nodded and took the seat opposite the gnome. He folded his hands in his lap and waited in silence until the gnome frowned and peered more closely at him.

  “Well?” the small wizard said. “What is it that you seek?”

  “Oh, I didn’t realize that I needed to tell you,” Jack answered. “My coming was foretold, so I thought my business would be equally apparent.”

  The gnome glowered. “It is not wise to test the powers unseen, young one! Know that I am Aderbleen Krestner, Master Diviner. To pay proper respect to the unseen powers, speak your name and business, if you please.”

  “I am the Landsgrave Jaer Kell Wildhame, and I am in need of a divination,” said Jack. “I seek a book called the Sarkonagael.”

  The gnome laughed at Jack. In fact, he laughed so long that his guffaws became dry whistling gasps and tears ran down his wrinkled cheeks. Jack glanced around, wondering if there might be some other object of humor in the cluttered chamber, and he finally crossed his arms and tapped his toe. “I fail to see what provokes this unseemly display,” he snapped.

  “First,” the gnome wheezed, “You are the fifth treasure-seeker, troubleshooter, or bored dilettante to ask for my assistance about this matter, as if I couldn’t read the handbills and spot a reward notice for myself. Second, why in the world do you believe the tome’s location can be divined? If the book could be found by divination, someone would have done so already, and no reward for you.”

  “Ah, but I possess an advantage that other seekers likely lack,” Jack said.