The Raven Ring

by Patricia C. Wrede

  “Keep out of this,” Eleret said, exasperated. Karvonen was behaving like the kind of person who’d poke a willow wand into a wasp’s nest for the fun of watching, never mind the stings. And just when she was starting to get somewhere with Daner, too.

  “I can’t,” Karvonen said even more innocently than before. “I’m what you’re arguing about, aren’t I? So I’m in the middle whether I want to be or not. I’m just trying to enjoy myself a little.”

  “If you’re not careful, you’ll enjoy yourself right into a cell.”

  “All right,” Daner said abruptly. “He can go, but only because you say you owe him a favor. And this cancels it.” Setting his knife back in its sheath at last, Daner looked toward Karvonen. “Don’t come anywhere near Eleret again, or I’ll hand you over to the Emperor’s Questioner. Understand?”

  Karvonen blinked, then looked reproachfully at Eleret. “I thought you said he wasn’t your boyfriend.”

  “What?” said Daner, completely at a loss.

  “He isn’t,” Eleret said. “And you’d better leave while you have the chance.”

  Daner glared at Eleret. “What did he mean?” he demanded, jerking his thumb at Karvonen.

  “That little speech of yours sounded an awful lot like a fit of jealousy to me,” Karvonen replied. “I’m sure you’d agree, if you could consider the matter rationally.”

  “Karvonen you idiot, get out of here,” Eleret said as Daner’s face reddened and his right hand dropped to his dagger’s hilt once again.

  “Sorry, no.” Smiling, Karvonen sat deliberately down on the bed and swung his feet up on the covers. Clasping his hands behind his head, he leaned back against the nearest bedpost, a picture of casual relaxation, and said, “Think it through, Freelady. When you owe someone a favor, you don’t get to decide how to pay it off.”

  Daner growled and started forward. “Don’t worry, Freelady,” Karvonen said without moving, as Eleret caught at Daner’s arm. “He’s not likely to kill an unarmed, unresisting man, or even wound him, particularly not on top of your bed.”

  “You—” Daner stopped short, staring at Karvonen, then began to laugh. “You’re right.”

  “Well!” Karvonen sat up and returned Daner’s stare, then gave him a half-bow that managed to look graceful in spite of Karvonen’s semi-reclining position. “I underestimated you, my lord. Or perhaps ‘misjudged’ is the better word; what do you think?”

  “Oh, misjudged, certainly,” Daner said, still laughing. “Since it seems I did the same to you. That way, we’re even.”

  Eleret looked from one to the other, baffled by the sudden air of amity. “If that’s settled, Karvonen had better leave now.”

  “Oh, no.” Karvonen leaned back against the bedpost once more, looking stubborn. “I’m not going anywhere, not for a while, anyway.”

  “Why not?” Eleret and Daner said together.

  Karvonen favored them with a charming and impartial smile. “Because I want to collect on that favor first. Tell me about this ring of yours, and the lady downstairs who can’t talk yet, and whatever brought you to Ciaron in the first place. It’s a fair trade, information for information, and when you’re done we’ll call your side of the debt canceled. Agreed?” He looked at them expectantly.

  EIGHTEEN

  ELERT STARED AT KARVONEN in disbelief. Beside her, Daner stirred, and she realized that she was still holding his arm. She let go quickly, too quickly, and Karvonen cocked an eyebrow at her. Her face warmed, but she forced the muscles to remain still, refusing to acknowledge it. Karvonen’s expression grew more sardonic, and he gave Daner a sour look.

  “I don’t think ‘contradictory’ was the right word for him, Eleret,” Daner said, frowning. “‘Audacious’ would be a better term. The idea of trading information with a thief—”

  “Well, I can’t steal it out of your head,” Karvonen said, with the air of a man trying to be reasonable. “And it works the same for you, my lord, unless the Adepts of the Island of the Moon know a spell that tells you what people are thinking and have taught you how to use it. So we don’t have much choice, do we?”

  “You’ve already told us what you know,” Daner pointed out.

  “Some of it.” Karvonen smiled blandly. “There might be more. You can’t say for sure.”

  “What do you want us to tell you?” Eleret didn’t believe that Karvonen had anything else useful to say, but if he decided to follow her around in order to satisfy his curiosity, it could cause problems. “Keep in mind that there are limits to that favor I said I’d do you. And you’ve already admitted that you owe me more than I owe you.”

  Karvonen grimaced. “I’m not likely to forget it. Tell me about this ring with the raven on it.”

  “Eleret!”

  “Don’t start again, Daner! I’ve had enough argument for one night, and I’m tired.”

  “So am I.” Stretching his legs across the bed, Karvonen wiggled his shoulders into a more comfortable position against the pillows and gave Daner another too-sweet smile. “And the sooner you tell me what I want to know, the sooner we can all go to bed.” He paused for a quick glance at Eleret. “And—eventually—to sleep.”

  Daner clenched his fist around the hilt of his dagger, but had the wit not to respond in words.

  “What exactly do you want to know?” Eleret asked Karvonen with determined calm. A matter-of-fact, stick-to-the-strategy approach seemed the best way of dealing with the thief’s deliberate outrageousness.

  Karvonen gave her a reproachful look, then shrugged; “Why does your friend there think this ring of yours is too important to talk to a thief about?”

  “Because so many people seem to want it,” Eleret said. “You saw one yourself—the shapeshifter who was pretending to be Daner. And don’t ask why they’re interested; if we knew that, we might not be in such a mess.”

  “Mess?” said Karvonen, looking pointedly down at the silk-embroidered coverlet and then around at the rest of the room’s furnishings.

  “Appearances are deceiving,” Eleret said.

  Karvonen cocked his head thoughtfully. “Not yours.”

  “Perhaps not at the moment,” Eleret said, thinking of the problems she’d had with the skirt she’d worn most of the day. Then she snorted softly. Maybe Karvonen was right; the disguise apparently hadn’t deceived anyone. “Is that everything you want? Because if it is—”

  “Nowhere near,” Karvonen said. “You wouldn’t think it to look at me, but I’m an ambitious man. I want to be wealthy, talented, and four inches taller. I want to be the first man to steal the Emperor’s crown and scepter in full view of the court—”

  Daner raised an eyebrow. “That isn’t why you’re in Ciaron, is it? To steal the Emperor’s crown?”

  Karvonen’s eyes grew large in a parody of surprised innocence. “Heavens no! I was speaking of the Emperor of Rathane. I thought that was obvious.”

  Eleret almost laughed at the blend of suspicion and annoyance on Daner’s face. “Why should it be obvious?” Daner demanded.

  “Because the crown of the Emperor of Rathane is far more impressive.” Karvonen’s eyes went out of focus, as if he were gazing at something in the middle of the room that only he could see, and his voice took on a dreamy quality. “Three flawless blue-white diamonds, each the size of a hen’s egg, and a good two dozen more as big as my thumbnail; six matched rubies and eight sapphires as big as a dove’s egg; four big square emeralds that would fill a child’s palm; and enough smaller gems to stock a jewelsmith’s shop for at least four years. Plus a goodly amount of gold and silver to hold them all together, of course. Tasteless, but immensely valuable. The scepter—”

  “I don’t believe it,” Daner said.

  “Oh, that’s right. You’ve never been to Rathane.”

  “Neither have I,” Eleret put in. “Nor do I intend to go there. So this whole discussion is beside the point as far as I’m concerned. If you two want to continue it, go out into the hall so I can get som
e sleep.”

  “But you haven’t told me what I want to know yet,” Karvonen said plaintively.

  “I’ve told you as much as you’ve asked,” Eleret said, trying to be patient. “If you will keep wandering off the main trail—”

  Karvonen sighed. “Oh, very well. The ring. Everybody wants it, you say. How did you get it?”

  “It’s a family heirloom.”

  There was a moment’s silence; then Karvonen shook his head. “Getting information out of you is like trying to take a toy from a toddler,” he complained. “So you inherited the thing. How long ago? From whom, exactly? Under what circumstances? How many people knew about it? And how many of them know the ring is magical?”

  “No one,” Eleret said, frowning, “I didn’t know it myself until today. So how do you know?”

  Karvonen sighed again, this time with more sincerity. “My big mouth. I guessed.”

  “Did you?” Daner said skeptically. “Or did you know before you came here looking for it?”

  “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have come, Cilhar debt or no Cilhar debt. I don’t fool around with magic.” Karvonen paused. “If I can help it.”

  “How did you guess?” Eleret asked.

  “It was the way you saved my life a minute ago,” Karvonen said reluctantly. “You’re no magician, so whatever broke the choking spell—”

  “What?”

  Karvonen looked from Eleret to Daner and back. “You didn’t realize, either of you? The shapeshifter threw a choking spell at me just before your raven’s-foot hit his shoulder. Eleret broke it when she grabbed my hands. If she hadn’t— Anyway, there aren’t many Cilhar magicians, so the odds were good that she had something with her that neutralized magic. When you said everyone was after that ring, it seemed obvious.”

  “The ring neutralizes magic?” Eleret stared down at her hand. “I thought it just warns me whenever there are spells nearby.”

  “Warns you?” Karvonen sat bolt upright, his studied air of casualness completely gone. He leaned forward, every fiber intent. “How does it warn you, Freelady?”

  “It pricks my finger.”

  “But not always,” Daner pointed out. “It didn’t react to my probe.” He rubbed his chin. “Not in any way you could feel, at least.”

  “Well, that part fits with what Karvonen just said about neutralizing magic.” Eleret frowned, struggling to explain clearly what she wasn’t sure she quite grasped herself. “And I think it only warns me when I need warning.”

  “Then why didn’t it let you know about Jonystra?” Daner asked.

  “Who’s Jonystra?” Karvonen asked. “And how and why did she try to get hold of the ring? And don’t ask me how I know that, because you’ve mentioned the name several times already, and it’s fairly clear she’s not trying to help out.”

  Eleret looked at Karvonen in mild exasperation. “You ask all the right questions, thief. Trouble is, we don’t have the answers.”

  “Start at the beginning, then. It makes for a more organized tale.”

  Frowning indignantly, Daner opened his mouth. Then he closed it again and sighed. “It’s your choice, Eleret. I’m still not sure it’s a good idea.”

  “What can we lose?” Eleret said. Tactically, they were in a strong position; she had the ring, she had allies, and she was in a safe place. Relatively safe, she amended, remembering the shapeshifter. In terms of long-range strategy, however, things were more precarious. She didn’t know enough about the ring, about who wanted it and why. Without more information, she couldn’t plan an effective defense. On the other hand… She turned to Karvonen.

  “Information for information, you said. What have you got to trade that might be useful to us?”

  “I won’t know until I hear your story.”

  “You’ll have to do better than that,” Eleret said. “I won’t pay in advance for arrows I haven’t tried. Give me an idea of what I’m buying, or take your wares to someone else.”

  “And people say the Cilhar are too insular to bargain well.” Karvonen shook his head sadly. “They ought to meet you, Freelady, and readjust their ideas.”

  “Your information?”

  “Mmmm. I’ve already told you about Grand Master Gorchastrin’s death, but I could add a fair bit about him and his order. Your not-so-friendly shapeshifter seems to be Rathani. I can tell you about their customs, habits, and so on.”

  That might be useful, but she wanted more. Eleret gave Karvonen a neutral nod. “Go on.”

  “I can tell you a good bit about Ciaronese politics. And a lot about the, er, foibles of the nobility.” Karvonen gave Daner a deliberately guileless look. “Some of it might be quite instructive. I can tell you a few things about shapeshifters that you may not know. And of course, I can always take an order.”

  “What does that mean?” Daner said.

  “What does it sound like? You tell me who or what you want to find out about, and I’ll set the family on to it. In a day or two, you’ll know as much about ’em as can be known.”

  Daner snorted. “Then why are you asking us about the ring, instead of this miracle-working family?”

  Karvonen pursed his lips and stared past Daner’s left shoulder. “Well now, I had thought of that. But I’m not sure they’d tell me.”

  “Then what good will it do us to ask you about the ring?” Eleret said, frowning.

  “Oh, if you ask, Freelady, they’ll give you whatever you want to know. I thought I’d mentioned that there’s an aid-in-distress clause for Cilhar.” Karvonen leaned back against the headboard, a picture of innocence. “So tell me, Freelady: What do you want to know?”

  As Eleret hesitated, Daner’s lips twitched. Then he shook his head with reluctant admiration. “You’re a rare catch indeed, thief. You’re setting the younger son against the elder so you can walk off with the family fortune.”

  Karvonen smiled smugly. “I told you I was good.”

  “I don’t quite follow you,” Eleret said.

  “If he’s telling the truth, he’s wiggled himself into a position where we’re going to make it possible for him to get what he wants to know,” Daner said. “On his own, he can’t find out anything from us or from his family. But if we ask, his family will tell us whatever they can dig up. And now that we know that, we have to ask.”

  We? thought Eleret. It’s my ring! But all she said was, “Why?”

  “Because somebody out there knows more about that ring than we do, or they wouldn’t want it so badly.”

  “Several somebodies, by the look of it,” Karvonen muttered. “Cilhar never do things by halves.”

  “The only way to find out what his family knows is through him,” Daner continued, nodding at Karvonen. “And the only payment he seems interested in is our information.”

  “Well, if you offered me the crown of Rathane, I wouldn’t turn it down. The object, that is, not the position.”

  “So we tell him what we know. Then he talks to his people, they tell him what they know, and suddenly he’s the only one with both pieces of information.”

  “Until he passes it along to us,” Eleret said.

  “Assuming he does.”

  “Of course I will!” Karvonen said indignantly. “The family would throw me out for sure if I didn’t.”

  Eleret considered briefly. “All right, information for information. But you won’t get everything you want, not before you fill your half of the bargain.”

  “Or after,” Karvonen muttered, giving her a sour look. “Well, I suppose it’s my own fault for sticking my fingers through the wrong knothole. Agreed, Freelady. What do you want to know?”

  “Quite a lot.” Eleret frowned, trying to decide what would be most useful. “How many people have heard the same rumors you did, and will act on them? How many other thieves will be after my ring?”

  Karvonen winced. “There shouldn’t be any. Nobody’s going to waste time on a wild rumor when there are over a dozen targets in Ciaron with a sure payoff. Nobody
but me, that is.”

  “Then where did all these other people who’re trying to steal Eleret’s ring come from?” Daner demanded.

  “What can I say?” Karvonen spread his hands. “They’re not thieves.”

  “Then what are they?”

  “Amateurs.”

  Daner laughed. “All right, I’ll stop fishing in Eleret’s waters. He’s all yours, Eleret.”

  “Actually, that was going to be my next question.” Eleret looked at Karvonen. “You know about Gorchastrin, or whoever is pretending to be Gorchastrin, and you’ve heard us talking about Jonystra. If they’re not professional thieves, what are they? And how did they find out about my ring?”

  “I don’t know,” Karvonen said. “But I can probably find out. It would help if you’d give me a little more to start with.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as Jonystra’s full name, where you met her, and how she got hurt badly enough for him”—Karvonen nodded toward Daner—“to call in a healer. And if you want to know why she wants your ring or how she found out about it, it would help if you told me more about that, too.”

  “It would help if we knew more,” Daner muttered.

  “Jonystra followed me to the inn the day I arrived in Ciaron,” Eleret said. “She told me her name was Jonystra Nirandol, that she was on her way to Kith Alunel, and that she collected small, old things like brooches and rings. She’s probably the person who searched my room while I was out, though I haven’t any proof of that. When Daner came to the inn to accompany me out of Ciaron, she was talking to me, which is how she met him, Daner’s cousin, Baroja Vallaniri, brought her here to…to amuse people after dinner; he said she was a Luck-seer and would chart cards for everyone. He told us later that a Trader had recommended her. Jonystra charted cards for Daner’s sisters; when she tried to do mine, the cards exploded in the middle of it and burned her.”

  “Not quite,” Daner put in. “Fire certainly did shoot out of the cards, but Jonystra’s injuries were back-flow burns.”

  “Terrific.” Karvonen rolled his eyes. “Another wizard.”

  “I’m not sure.” Daner hesitated, glanced at Eleret, shrugged, and went on. “You don’t get burns like hers from a minor spell-casting. If she’d been doing anything major while she charted Eleret’s cards, I should have felt it, but I didn’t.”