The Raven Ring

by Patricia C. Wrede

The fire burned brighter, fanning out from the deck and lighting every corner of the room. Eleret had just time to notice that Mobrellan had disappeared; then, with a cry of pain and horror, Jonystra tried to throw the flaming cards from her. As they slid reluctantly out of her hands and scattered across the cloth-draped table, the blue flame vanished.

  Jonystra’s elaborately arranged hair was burning in a frizzle of fire and an acrid smell. Without thinking, Eleret leaned toward her. Her right hand jabbed the raven’s-foot into the table, then grabbed the unlit portion of Jonystra’s hair and pulled it taut, while her left hand rose and swung. Her knife sliced through the piled-up coils, cutting loose most of the burning section and sweeping it forward onto the table. Eleret slapped at the bits of flame that remained on Jonystra’s head. She didn’t have much time, she knew. The falling cards had tipped over the candle, and odds were that either the tablecloth or the cards would catch fire in a minute or two.

  Suddenly the light grew stronger, and Eleret knew that her time had run out. She threw herself sideways off the back of the bench, away from the burning tabletop, her right arm sweeping Jonystra along with her. Jonystra cried out again, and struggled weakly, but Eleret was too strong for her. As they crashed to the floor, Daner’s voice shouted a single word, and the light vanished.

  Eleret kept a grip on Jonystra, who sobbed once and then was quiet. As she pulled her knees up, disentangling them from the bench, Daner’s voice came out of the darkness above her. “Eleret? Are you all right? Where are you?”

  “Here. Don’t step on me.”

  The faint rustle of movement stopped. “Where?”

  “On the floor. Can you give us some light?”

  “Making light is more difficult than—”

  The door burst open, spilling lamplight into the room around the outline of a man with a drawn sword. Immediately, Eleret let go of Jonystra, shifted her hold on her dagger, and rolled out of the triangle of light. She came to her knees, poised to throw.

  “Daner! What’s all the noise? Loren’s Luck, what a mess!” Baroja said.

  With a tiny sigh of relief, Eleret lowered her arm. She glanced around the room once more, then resheathed her dagger as Daner said tiredly, “Baroja, what are you doing here?”

  “I was just coming to see what was taking you so long, and I heard shouting. What happened? Didn’t your Cilhar lady like what my Luck-seer told her?”

  “Later, Baroja. Right now, just bring us a lamp.”

  “Oh, very well, but I want an explanation, mind.”

  “So do I,” Eleret muttered as Daner’s cousin retreated into the hall in search of a light. “Most definitely, so do I.”

  FIFTEEN

  ELERET HAD JUST TIME to climb to her feet before Baroja returned, carrying a hanging lamp filched from one of the wall sconces outside. In Baroja’s hands, the lamp lit barely a quarter of the room and cast long black shadows across most of that.

  “Where’s Mobrellan?” Eleret said, peering uneasily into the gloom on the far side of the room.

  “Who?” Baroja swung the lantern, sending shadows dancing and making it impossible to tell if anyone was hiding. Fingering the hilt of her dagger, Eleret backed up, closer to the door.

  “Baroja! Give me that.” Daner took the lamp away from his cousin and looped the chain over a bracket near the door. As the shadows steadied, Eleret looked around again. There was no sign of Mobrellan, but now that there was better light, Eleret could see a second door, in the far wall.

  “Good idea,” Baroja said to Daner. “Now, you’ve got your light. What happened?”

  “In a minute. Eleret, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. Jonystra’s been burned; I’m not sure how badly. Mobrellan got away.” When Daner frowned, plainly puzzled, Eleret added, “Jonystra’s porter. He probably dodged through there in the confusion.” She waved at the far door.

  Daner hesitated. “Baroja, would you check?”

  “What for? He’s just a porter.”

  “He might know something we need to hear.”

  “You chase him, then.” Baroja flicked an invisible dust mote from his shoulder.

  “I should stay here, in case your precious Luck-seer tries another spell.”

  “I don’t think she can, right now,” Eleret put in. Jonystra lay curled in a wretched ball beside the overturned bench, hiding her face and moaning softly to herself. The ragged, half-burnt ends of her hair stuck out in all directions. Eleret suppressed a wave of sympathy.

  “Even so, I want to stay here,” Daner said. “Baroja…”

  “Another spell, you said?” Baroja raised his eyebrows. “This explanation is going to be worth a week’s profit from the long docks.” He studied Daner’s expression for a moment, then gave a lazy shrug. “As you’ll have it, Cousin. But you owe me for this.”

  “Not much,” Daner replied. “And you owe me far more for bringing a spell-caster into my home to attack my guests. Go, Baroja.”

  Finally, Baroja went, stepping cautiously around the end of the table and across to the far door. Daner snorted softly, then turned and knelt beside Jonystra. As he reached for the Luck-seer’s shoulder, Eleret sighed, pulled out her dagger once more, and said, “Daner.”

  Startled, Daner looked up. “What?”

  “Don’t block my throwing lines.”

  Daner blinked, nodded, and shifted his position. Then he reached out and gently pulled Jonystra out of her protective ball.

  “There’s nobody in the back room, Daner,” Baroja announced. “And no other door, so the porter couldn’t have gone that way after all. Are you quite sure—Loren’s Curse! What happened to her?”

  Jonystra’s eyebrows and eyelashes were gone, and her eyes had swollen shut. Her hairline had been scorched back half an inch, leaving twisted black stubble over angry red burns. Most of her face was bright pink, and long whitish blisters marked her chin, cheeks, and nose. She moaned and raised her hands as if to hide, and Eleret swallowed hard. The Luck-seer’s hands looked worse than her face: the backs were giant blisters, and blood oozed from several places where the blackened skin had split open across the palms.

  “Get a healer,” Daner said over his shoulder. “One who knows how to treat back-flow burns.”

  For once, Baroja did not argue. Face pale, he vanished through the outer door, leaving Eleret and Daner alone with Jonystra. Daner shifted his grip to Jonystra’s wrists and began muttering a strange, liquid string of unfamiliar syllables. After a moment, Jonystra stopped pulling away, and her moans ceased. Slowly, Daner loosened his hold on her, but he continued muttering steadily, his face a mask of concentration.

  Uncertainly, Eleret backed away, hoping her movements would not distract Daner from his spell-casting. He went on murmuring without a blink. Reassured, Eleret crossed to the wall and lit three of the unused lamps from the one Baroja had brought in. She righted the overturned bench, then looked for and found the raven’s-foot she had thrust into the table. Finally, she satisfied herself that the connecting room really was unoccupied. As she finished her inspection, Daner stopped muttering. Lips tight, he looked down at Jonystra’s unconscious form, then sat back with a sigh.

  “That should hold her until the healer gets here, as long as no one moves her,” he said. “At least, I hope so. I’ve never seen back-flow burns this bad before.” His face was several shades paler than normal, and his expression was grim.

  “What are back-flow burns?”

  “Burns caused by losing control of certain spells at a critical point. The energy that’s supposed to go into the spell snaps back at the magician instead.”

  “Like a bowstring snapping against your arm if you aren’t holding the bow right?”

  Daner nodded. “It happens when someone tries a spell that’s too difficult for him. Most of the time the results aren’t much worse than a bad sunburn; if you’re going to lose control, you tend to do it before you’ve built up much energy. This kind of thing…” He looked down at Jonystra and shu
ddered. “I didn’t know she was so close to the edge. I didn’t know.” His voice was full of guilt.

  “How could you tell?”

  “I should have known! But I wasn’t thinking about back-flow. I must have distracted her at a critical moment, and—”

  “Daner.” Eleret waited until he looked up, then repeated patiently, “How can you tell if someone is close to losing control of a spell? What are the signs—what do you look for?”

  For a moment, Daner just stared at her. Then he said in a more normal tone, “It’s in the feel of the power. Spells give off bits of power the way a fire gives light and heat, and the bits feel differently when something is going out of control. It’s hard to explain.”

  “Is it something you would notice if you weren’t looking for it?”

  “A spell large enough to do this kind of damage should have practically slapped me in the face.” Suddenly, he frowned. “When did she set it up? I don’t remember seeing her do anything unusual. The whole spell was just there all of a sudden.”

  “You said that charting cards could take magic.”

  “Not like that. Card-charting is a delicate spell; it takes skill, not power. That’s why someone who’s a bad magician can still be a good card-charter.”

  “Well, if she wasn’t charting cards, what was Jonystra trying to do with all that magic?” Eleret asked.

  “I haven’t the slightest idea.” Daner blinked, then scrambled to his feet. “Maybe I can tell from the cards.”

  “Are they safe to touch?”

  “I’ll know in a minute.” Daner bent over the table, his eyes narrowed to slits and his hands hovering a scant three inches above the scattered cards. “Iffura nor amini— No, there’s no residue left, at least, not that I can find. We’ll have to wait until Dame Nirandol here is in a condition to tell us.” He shook his head in disappointment and began picking up the cards.

  Eleret hesitated, then shrugged and joined him. “Why don’t more of them have burnt edges?” she asked after a moment. “It looked to me as if the whole deck was on fire.”

  “Most of your cards must have come from the middle of the deck,” Daner said, then frowned. “No, these aren’t scorched, either, but this one—Eleret, sort out the ones that are burned.”

  In a few moments, they had a small pile of charred cards and a large stack of unmarked ones. Daner picked up the smaller pile and riffled through it. “I still don’t see what… Wait a minute. Two, three, five, six, nine—Ha! Eleven cards.” He looked at Eleret triumphantly.

  “So?” Eleret said.

  “Don’t you see? Jonystra was half done with your pattern when she lost control. Eleven cards would finish the chart.” Daner shuffled through the cards once more, and his frown returned. “Silence, War, Night, Death, Despair, Chaos, Betrayal…I don’t like this at all.”

  Judging from the names, Eleret didn’t think she liked them, either. “They’re just cards.”

  “Sometimes.” Daner tapped the cards against his palm. “But they really can tell you something about the future, in the hands of a good magician. And Jonystra was casting a spell, a powerful spell—too powerful to be a simple foretelling. What if she was trying to influence the future?”

  “You mean, trying to make things come out the way she wanted them to?”

  Daner nodded.

  “Could she really do that with a bunch of cards?”

  “She could certainly try. I’ll have to check with Climeral to see how possible such a spell is. If it can be done at all, it’s Adept-level work.”

  Eleret stared uneasily at the cards in Daner’s hands. “Is it safe for me to look at them?”

  “Of course. There’s nothing particularly magical about the cards themselves; they’re just a tool, really, something to focus a magician’s spell.” Daner glanced involuntarily in Jonystra’s direction. “Without a magician, nothing can happen.”

  “Give them to me, then,” Eleret said quickly, hoping to distract him before he started wallowing in guilt again.

  Daner turned and handed her the cards. As her hand closed around them, the raven ring pricked gently at her finger. She let go of the cards at once, and they scattered across the table.

  “Eleret!” Daner sounded exasperated. “They’re just cards; you said so yourself.”

  “No they’re not,” Eleret said. “There’s something wrong with them, or about them.”

  “I checked them myself,” Daner said, bending to pick up two of the cards that had fallen to the floor. When he straightened, his expression was more thoughtful than annoyed. “What do you think is wrong with them?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not a magician.”

  “Then how can you tell?” The exasperation was back, stronger than before.

  “Because Mother’s ring pricked my finger when I took them,” Eleret said, nodding at the cards. “It’s the second—no, the third time it’s done that. I think it’s a warning.”

  “What ring? What—” Daner stopped short and took a deep breath. Then he set the little pile of cards in a neat stack, seated himself on the end of the bench, and said, “Tell me about the ring, and the warnings, from the beginning.”

  “This is the ring,” Eleret said, twisting it around her finger so that the raven seal faced outward as it was meant to do. She held out her hand so that Daner could see it, and was relieved when he did not ask her to take it off so he could examine it more closely. “It’s a family heirloom. Mother must have taken it with her the last time she left the mountains; I found it in her kit. I’ve been wearing it since then, to make it harder to steal.”

  “It doesn’t look valuable, but if it has magic—”

  “I think it must. It pricked my finger in the alley, just before you stumbled, and again when Jonystra’s spell went wrong. And it pricked me just now, when you gave me those cards.”

  “It sounds like magic.” Daner stared at the ring, frowning. “But I don’t feel a thing. Would you mind if I did a few tests?”

  “Not as long as I don’t have to take it off.”

  Daner looked startled, then nodded. “Hold your hand steady. Ri thala lac il nobra shavazist—”

  Something pushed Eleret’s hand downward. At the same time, Daner’s head snapped back as if he had been struck, and he broke off in mid-sentence. He shook his head as if to clear it, then looked ruefully at Eleret. “It’s magic, all right. I can’t tell exactly what it does, though; it seems to have a strong resistance to outside spells. Don’t you know anything else about it?”

  “My many-times great-grandmother, Geleraise Vinlarrian, brought it to the mountains seven hundred and some years ago, and it’s been in the family ever since. Mother used to call it our good-luck charm, because of the raven.”

  “Ravens mean good luck? I didn’t know that.”

  Eleret shook her head. “Ravens are for protection, at least among the Cilhar.”

  “Protection,” Daner muttered, feeling his chin. “Of course.”

  “The black stone is for night and shadow,” Eleret went on. “I can’t remember what the silver means.”

  “Magic.” Daner stood up cautiously, as if he were not quite sure he would be able to keep his balance. “Silver is for magic. At least, it is in most color systems.”

  “That doesn’t sound quite right.”

  “Well, if you think of something that does, tell me. It could be important.” He scowled down at the two stacks of cards. “I wish I knew what made it prick you. If it’s some sort of magical residue in the cards, it’s too faint for me to find.”

  “Why does it have to be magic that sets the ring off?” Eleret asked, fingering the hilt of her dagger. “Couldn’t it be something else?”

  “I suppose so, but I can’t think what. The ring is very sensitive to spells.” His hand went to his chin again.

  “It didn’t prick me when you tested it, or when you were busy with Jonystra.”

  “It didn’t?” Daner’s eyes narrowed. “Did you feel anything when
you picked up the rest of the cards?” He leaned forward and tapped the larger, unscorched stack of cards as he spoke.

  “No, and it didn’t bother me to handle those one at a time,” Eleret said, waving at the smaller pile. “It only pricked when you gave me all eleven at once.”

  “Generally malefic, or specifically directed?” Daner muttered. “Or maybe both together.”

  “Daner, what are you talking about?”

  “The exact type of spell that sets off your ring. If it’s meant as a warning—”

  “We don’t know for certain that spells set it off,” Eleret pointed out. “It could be something else. And I don’t think this is a good time for experiments. I—”

  The sound of voices in the corridor outside caused Eleret to break off and turn toward the door. A moment later, Baroja, Lord tir Vallaniri, and three nervous-looking servants carrying knives and torches entered the room.

  “Don’t touch her!” Daner said sharply as the newcomers crowded around Jonystra. “Stand back, or you’ll upset the protective spell. Blast it, Baroja, I asked for a healer, not a mob.”

  “The healer is on his way,” Lord tir Vallaniri said. “The ‘mob’ was my suggestion. When Baroja told me that someone had blown up your charting, and that he might still be running loose in the house, it occurred to me that you might find a use for a few extra knives.”

  “You did say Jonystra’s porter was missing,” Baroja added, smiling at Beret.

  Eleret nodded, her opinion of Baroja rising. The problem of Mobrellan’s whereabouts had been nagging at the back of her mind, and it was good to know that someone else had thought to deal with it.

  “He’s not here, and we haven’t seen a trace of him,” Daner said. “How soon will that healer arrive?”

  “As soon as he can,” said Lord tir Vallaniri. He gestured, and two of the servants bowed and left. “Now, before he gets here, please tell me what has been going on, so that I have some idea what, if anything, still needs to be done about it.”

  “Yes, Cousin,” Baroja said with a wicked grin. “It’s time for that explanation you owe me.”