The Raven Collection

by James Barclay

  The Unknown stared down at Styliann, his massive frame making even the Xeteskian Lord of the Mount less imposing. The big warrior had abandoned the axe Sol had employed, preferring to retain just the double-handed blade that was his trademark.

  ‘I am not a Protector,’ he said. ‘Neither am I an experimental result for examination by you or any mage. If you want to talk to me, stand in front of me.’

  Styliann stopped his circling. ‘My apologies, Unknown.’ He smiled. ‘But you are a landmark in magical research and a major step forward for Xetesk.’

  ‘I am a dead man alive,’ countered The Unknown. ‘I would have preferred death, but Xetesk thought otherwise. That’s the last time you decide my destiny.’

  ‘You sound a little ungracious. After all, we gave you back your life.’

  The Unknown’s right hand shot out, gloved fingers gripping Styliann’s throat, forcing his head back so their eyes met.

  ‘No. You stole my death.’ Styliann’s hands began to move. ‘Don’t do it. You aren’t fast enough. If you don’t believe me, go ahead and try.’ The Unknown’s hand tightened. Styliann gagged, his hands moving upwards in a supplicating gesture. ‘I had chosen my time to die. Not many men get that chance, and you took it from me.’

  ‘You are alive,’ gasped Styliann.

  ‘I could go and visit my own corpse.’

  ‘Denser, please.’ Styliann clutched at The Unknown’s hand.

  Denser appeared to notice the scene for the first time. He took in the other College delegates, the Xeteskian swordsmen standing ready, and Ilkar, whose eyes were fixed on Styliann.

  ‘Unknown, please let him go.’

  Unknown released him and turned to Denser. ‘Sorry,’ he said.

  Denser shrugged. Styliann waved his men to stand down but maintained a baleful gaze on The Unknown.

  ‘I will not be your exhibit. I am Raven,’ said The Unknown.

  ‘Denser, let’s talk. Outside.’ Styliann walked stiffly from the Marquee by his own exit.

  Denser sighed and followed, squeezing The Unknown’s arm as he turned. Leaving the Marquee, he caught sight of the wide smile on Vuldaroq’s face.

  Styliann didn’t walk far from the Marquee before shooing away his aides.

  ‘Tell me of your condition.’

  Denser rubbed at the eyes he knew must be sunken, red and ringed in black.

  ‘I cannot replenish mana stamina, my concentration won’t allow complex recitation and I cannot tune my eyes to the mana spectrum. ’ It was what Styliann needed to hear, but it expressed nothing about his true condition.

  His sense of loss penetrated right into his bones and chilled his body. His mind was at once crowded with images and empty of feeling. That part of his mind which the Familiar had for so long shared was missing and Denser imagined a hole in his head above his right eye and it itched. Only when he put his hand there, the itch was on the inside and he couldn’t quiet it.

  But the loss of the voice and the pulse, that was what hurt more than the pain he still felt at its death. The voice had given him calm and comfort but the pulse he had taken as a right, something that was of him. Now that pulse was gone, part of him had died.

  ‘Your faculties will soon return. You merely need rest. As for the grief you feel, that will remain, I am afraid.’ Styliann’s face softened. ‘I am sorry it happened but I fail to understand why it attacked Nyer’s party. That isn’t to say I’m displeased to hear of the traitor’s death.’

  ‘He felt he had to distract Nyer. He thought they were too close.’ Denser shrugged. ‘They might have taken The Raven before they reached here.’ He shook his head. ‘Might. I didn’t think he had to. I think he felt he had to prove his worth.’

  ‘Worth?’ Styliann frowned. ‘It was a Familiar. It had no concept of worth.’

  ‘Did you ever take a Familiar?’ asked Denser. Styliann shook his head. ‘Then you can have no idea what concepts they hold. I have felt. I know.’

  Styliann chewed his lip reflectively. He looked up at the early morning sky, taking in the light cloud cover. ‘Show me the catalysts, ’ he said at length.

  ‘I don’t have them.’

  ‘Then where—’

  ‘The Raven hold them. I couldn’t take them into Xetesk.’

  Styliann exhaled through his nose. ‘No. No indeed.’

  A brief commotion in another part of the camp interrupted further conversation. The sound of hoofs approaching was followed by the sight of The Raven and Evanson rounding a stand of bushes.

  They pulled up close to the Marquee and dismounted. Hirad strode over to Denser, expectation on his face. But the question he was about to ask was lost as he read Denser’s eyes. Instead, he inclined his head in respect and grasped the Dark Mage’s right arm just below the shoulder.

  ‘I understand your pain,’ he said.

  ‘And I your anger,’ said Denser. He paused, managing a weak smile. ‘He’s inside.’

  The Unknown was sitting on a bench behind a trestle table, talking to Ilkar and Erienne as Hirad moved the curtain aside and walked in. A lump rose in his throat as he watched the big man for a short while until he was sure his voice was steady enough for speech.

  The animation in the face, the definite movements when he used his hands, and the way he stroked the top of his head and on down the back of his skull to his neck, as if smoothing out a crease. It was all there. Where Sol had been now sat The Unknown. No mask, no emotionless eyes, no double-bladed axe.

  ‘By all the Gods, it is you.’ His voice cracked and a tear was in his eye. He wiped it away as he strode forwards. The Unknown walked around the table and the two men met and hugged, Hirad clapping the big man’s back. ‘How do you feel?’

  The Unknown stepped back. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I know it’s me.’ He shrugged. ‘I knew it before . . . you recognised me. When I was Sol. But I couldn’t speak to you. Something inside me forbade me recognise you in return, though my eyes gave me away. Hirad, I should be dead.’

  ‘But you’re not and I don’t care how. It’s you. Gods, it’s you!’

  ‘Would you say the same if you returned to Septern’s barn?’

  ‘I—’ Hirad paused, confused. ‘Yes, why not?’

  ‘Because I’m still beneath the soil too. Where’s Denser?’ The Unknown looked past him.

  ‘Outside,’ said Hirad vaguely. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I should see to him.’ He walked away from Hirad, who made to follow.

  ‘Leave him,’ said Ilkar. ‘Come and have a drink and something to eat. You must be starving.’

  Hirad watched The Unknown until he’d left the Marquee. ‘And knackered,’ he said. ‘What’s going on?’ He walked to the table. Ilkar poured him a goblet of wine and pushed platters of meat and bread in his direction.

  ‘Sit down,’ said Ilkar. ‘You’ve got to understand how difficult this is for him to accept.’

  Hirad stared at him, plainly not understanding at all.

  ‘Look, Hirad, to us it’s just the same Unknown. The way he looks, acts, talks, everything. The scars on his back and thigh are there, that lump on his knee, and his little toe is missing. It is him, in every way - his soul is there, his mind is there, his memories, all of it. But he has a knowledge none of us can conceive of having. He knows he can go and physically dig up his own corpse. Think about it.’

  Hirad did so but briefly. ‘So what does it mean, and why is he so bothered about Denser?’

  ‘Right now, I think he’s in a state of total confusion. Erienne will agree with me that not everything he says makes much sense.’ Erienne nodded. ‘And so he’s suppressing what he can’t handle and that manifests itself in his desire to protect Denser. Don’t forget what he was just yesterday, Hirad. He certainly hasn’t. He may never be able to. The fact is, we just don’t know.’

  ‘So is it him?’ asked Hirad.

  ‘Yes. Gods, yes.’ Ilkar leant forwards. ‘But he’s got some unique problems only he can sort out. You�
��ll have to give him time.’

  ‘I knew it was too good to be true.’

  ‘Hirad, calm down. He thought he was dead, awoke as a Protector and then again as himself. Give him time.’ Ilkar held Hirad’s stare, seeing the disappointment reflected there. ‘All right?’ Hirad twitched his head in what Ilkar decided was the closest to a nod he was likely to get. ‘Good. Now eat. We’ve much to discuss after you’ve rested.’

  Selyn awoke to the sound of shouts all around her. Startled alert, she lay flat, listening. Dawn had risen perhaps an hour before, not long enough for her reserves of mana stamina, but it gave her some ammunition.

  A search was in progress, and with the accents and language she could hear, Wesmen were trawling the streets of Parve. Presumably they had found the body of the Shaman. Selyn frowned and took the cover from her eyes, opening them gently as they watered in response to sudden light.

  She considered herself a little unlucky that the dead man had been found quite so soon. Judging by the organisation she could hear about her, the body had been located well before dawn.

  Staying prone, she inched her way to the parapet, ears pricking as each gave her more information about the scale of the search. Below her, she knew, there was no one. Behind and towards the square, the shouts were loud and regular, the thuds of doors, the splinter of wood, the clearing of buildings. Very methodical, very. Particularly for Wesmen. Only it wasn’t just Wesmen, it was Wytch Lord acolytes, and one thing they were was efficient.

  She formed the mana shape for a CloakedWalk, spoke the command word, dropped to the ground and moved back towards the Torn Wastes. She walked quickly but carefully past the last building; there was no pursuit. Breasting a large pile of rubble, her heart missed a beat and she slowed to a crawl. The eastern periphery of Parve was ringed with Wesmen, shoulder to shoulder. She turned and ran back into the City.

  Just inside the borders of the buildings, she saw the line. Wesmen and Shamen on every street, covering the cobbles, walking, looking, searching. Inside and out of buildings, basements and roofs. She was in a net, the mesh was fine and the strings were drawing tight.

  She trotted left, towards the main street, keeping an eye to her right, watching the Wesmen advancing, just two blocks away and closing. As she neared, the main street was filled with a line of Wesmen, a Shaman in their midst. They knew she was here, they realised she’d likely be invisible and they could sense her mana emanations.

  Fear edged into her mind, the tendrils of doubt chipping at her confidence. And Styliann had been so proud of her the night before, talking of her triumphal return to Xetesk, the part she would play in the victory to come, and the place at his side for ever. Her heart surged. She about-turned, never coming to a standstill, and walked quickly back. She was in an area three blocks by two and shrinking, and it seemed the Wesmen had all the ways out covered.

  All except one. She looked into the sky. A thousand feet up she would be swallowed by the cloud and lost to sight. Not ideal, but the only option would always be the best one. Moving quickly now, Selyn scanned the rooftops for a launch point, finding it on a building close to the edge of the City.

  She climbed the wall of the flat building and ran to the chimney stack at the Parve end, the Wesmen less than one hundred yards from her. Across the street, half a dozen Wesmen clambered on to a roof and spread themselves, arms outstretched. For a moment, she wondered whether she might try to dodge through the thin barrier when they reached her roof. But then she saw the Shaman climb up behind them. It had to be now.

  Pressing herself against the lee of the chimneys, she dropped the CloakedWalk and began to prepare the mana shape for ShadowWings. Almost at once, a shout went up. She opened her eyes. She had been seen from the boundary, and men were running and pointing. She gathered her concentration and re-formed the mana shape. In seconds, it was done.

  ‘Deploy,’ she said. At her back, wings formed, shifting in the daylight and barely visible to the naked eye. She took a pace forwards and lifted off, moving quickly out and upwards towards the Wastes. Below her, commands were barked and projectiles whistled into the air. Nothing came close. She smiled. Not the way she wanted to get out, but good enough. She could almost smell the fire in Styliann’s tower.

  Something slammed into her back, driving the wind from her and sending her tumbling downwards. She barely kept hold of the wings as she fought to right herself and regain lost height, but she felt weighted with lead. She glanced over her shoulder. A thin beam of white light connected her body to a Shaman. Below her, Wesmen were jeering and shouting, faces upturned, teeth bared.

  She drove the wings harder, inching away, but a second blow, this time at the base of her neck, sent her crashing side first into a building. She hit the ground, dazed, the ShadowWings gone.

  ‘Damn.’ She shook her head, hearing delighted whoops and running feet. She struggled to rise, pushing her back up the wall, head throbbing but vision clearing. From the left and right they came, it seemed like hundreds of them. She drew the sword from her back-mounted scabbard and stood ready. One of them laughed, unhitching an axe. On a signal, the others dropped back a pace to give him room to fight alone.

  He was a large man, heavy-set, with an untidy black beard and close eyes. He ran in, swinging his axe through chest high. Selyn simply ducked the blow and came up fast, taking him clean through the stomach. He grunted and fell sideways and backwards, clutching at his wound, blood pouring through his fingers.

  A moment’s shocked quiet was shattered by a roar as the mass ran forward. She snatched a dagger from her boot. They were on her quickly, a mêlée of furs, steel and fists.

  The first Wesmen died with the dagger through his heart. Another took a cut to his thigh, but then they had her hands. The sword was knocked from her grasp as she struggled to free herself. She was pushed back against the wall; swords and daggers were drawn. One of them dragged the hood from her head and face.

  Another pause in surprise at what they had uncovered. The sounds of approval chilled her to the bone, but when the grips on her arms loosened instinctively, she reacted on the instant, turning her wrists and releasing the bolts. One man was taken under the chin, the other bolt glanced off a head and away. Both men fell back, but there were so many others.

  They dragged her to the ground, yells of animal pleasure filling the air as the clothes were cut and torn from her body. Hands pawed her, scratched and clawed her, blood oozed from a dozen cuts. She squirmed and fought, keeping a determined silence as they pinned her down, spread-eagled naked and terrified.

  A single voice shouted a command and the mob quietened and parted, admitting a Shaman. He was middle-aged, clad in heavy cloth and with his greying hair tied in a ponytail at his neck. Selyn’s terror stilled, replaced by the calm of certainty, and she gathered herself to stare him square in the eye.

  ‘Well, well, well, my pretty,’ said the Shaman, loosening his belt and kneeling between her legs. ‘Perhaps death won’t come quickly enough for you.’

  The rape was brutal. He thrust hard inside her, his hands gouging at her sides and breasts. She winced as he pushed up, a cheer rising from the watching crowd. She closed her mind to the humiliation and the pain and picked her head up to catch his gaze a second time.

  ‘They will have to cut me in half to release you,’ she said. She bit down hard on her back tooth and convulsed. ‘Goodbye, my love,’ she whispered. The nerve toxin from the broken tooth cap acted instantly, every muscle in her body contracting with extraordinary violence. The last sounds she heard as the mana pulse fled eastwards were the screams of the Shaman.

  Chapter 26

  Styliann’s cry of pain and fury could be heard clear across Triverne Lake. Selyn’s dying mana pulse struck him like a stake through the eye. It took six men to restrain him and two spells to sedate him, and even as he slept, the tears rolled down his face and the fire burned in his cheeks. When he awoke, the light had gone from his eyes and he strode to the Marquee, time suddenly preci
ous.

  The chairs were back, arranged in a shallow crescent on one side of the trestle, which was now clothed, candled and decked with food and wine. Styliann took his place next to Barras in the centre chairs. Vuldaroq to Barras’s left, Heryst next to Styliann. And on the other side of the trestle, The Raven. On a bench drawn up to the table sat Denser, Ilkar and Hirad, with The Unknown standing in close attendance of the Dark Mage. Behind them, sitting on cushions and chairs, and invited principally as observers, were Will, Thraun, Jandyr and Erienne.

  There was no set agenda. A day ago, this meeting would have been unthinkable. But it was a measure of the deterioration of the situation to the east of the Blackthorne Mountains and Understone Pass that The Raven had agreed to submit to a discussion about their next move.

  Hirad sat forward, leaning on his elbows, hands supporting his chin. Denser had adopted a more relaxed posture, while Ilkar sat stiffly upright, in awe of the seniority of the mages opposite him.

  Styliann, his eyes dark, his hands constantly wringing, spoke in a monotone as he informed them of the decision to help them through Understone Pass, though he wouldn’t be drawn in their company as to the magic that would be employed to retake the pass. Denser looked closely at him, tried to probe the periphery of his emotions with his mind. The Lord of the Mount sensed him, shot him a glance full of anguish.

  ‘They have taken Selyn from me,’ he said. ‘They will suffer.’

  ‘I am sorry, my Lord.’

  Styliann nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Now, tell me of your plans when you reach the other side of the pass.’

  ‘No,’ said Hirad.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Vuldaroq spluttered. All the delegates had tensed.

  ‘Some tact, please, Hirad.’ Ilkar sounded suddenly strained. ‘What he is trying to say is that—’