The Raven Ring

by Patricia C. Wrede

  “So?”

  “So she may have been using someone else’s magic, not her own.”

  “That’s supposed to make me feel better? I assume you don’t have any idea who it could have been.”

  “I still think it was Mobrellan,” Eleret said.

  Daner shook his head. “If Mobrellan had that kind of power, he wouldn’t have been working for Jonystra.”

  “Why not?” Karvonen asked. “And how do you know he was? Who is this Mobrellan person, by the way?”

  “Jonystra’s porter,” Daner said with a hint of impatience. “He got away in the confusion after the cards exploded.”

  “He vanished,” Eleret corrected. “The same way the shapeshifter vanished from this room a few minutes ago. I think Mobrellan is the wizard who was helping Jonystra, and I think he’s the shapeshifter who pretended to be Daner. He’s probably the person Karvonen says was pretending to be Gorchastrin, too.”

  “A wizard and a shapeshifter rolled up in one?” Karvonen ran a hand through his hair, thoroughly rumpling it. “This gets worse and worse.”

  “I suppose it’s possible,” Daner said, frowning. “But I still don’t see why he’d have bothered playing porter for Jonystra. If he has that much power—”

  “Maybe it was easier to hide behind someone else,” Karvonen said. “A lot of shapeshifters work that way; it seems to come with the ability to get inside a different skin. Maybe he wanted someone else to take the blame if things went wrong; maybe they’re old friends or partners; maybe she owed him a favor, or he owed her one. Having power doesn’t mean you have to be right out in front where people can shoot arrows at you all the time.”

  “No, but—”

  “It’s possible,” Eleret broke in. “You said so yourself. We don’t know anything about Mobrellan, and until we do we shouldn’t waste time arguing about whose guess is going to be the right one.”

  “So you want to know about Jonystra Nirandol and her porter Mobrellan,” Karvonen said. “Anything else?”

  “No.” There was the obnoxious Birok Maggen from the Imperial Guard, of course, but Commander Weziral could tell her what she needed to know about him. It wouldn’t hurt to find out a little more about Gorchastrin, just in case Karvonen was wrong about his being dead, but she’d do better to get that information, too, from other sources. Eleret swallowed a yawn. “That’s all I want, and I want it as soon as I can get it. So you’d better get started.”

  “That,” Karvonen said sagely, “was a hint.” He rose smoothly and bowed. “Never let it be said that an Aurelico doesn’t know when to take a hint. It’s been an enlightening evening, Freelady. My lord.”

  Daner’s eyes narrowed; then he smiled slightly and returned Karvonen’s bow with a flourish. “That it has. Fare you…well.”

  NINETEEN

  IT WASN’T THAT EASY, of course. Despite the promising beginning, it took another fifteen minutes to get both Karvonen and Daner out of the room. Neither seemed willing to be the first to go, and in the end Eleret had to threaten to summon a servant to get rid of them. When they left at last, she sighed in relief and began preparing for bed, hoping there would be no more unexpected visitors that evening.

  She considered the possibility as she unbraided her hair. Sleeping armed was nothing new, though it was a shame she wouldn’t be able to enjoy the full comfort the bed promised. The room’s physical entrances were easy enough to shield; Eleret tilted the table against the door and balanced her mother’s whetstone against the window shutters, where the slightest jar would send it clattering to the floor. A double handful of raven’s-feet set out in the Heron’s Dance pattern on the floor around the bed took care of the possible return of the shapeshifting wizard, or at least it was the best she could do. She wished briefly that she had thought to ask Daner for a spell to keep the shapeshifter from reappearing as quietly and inexplicably as he had vanished. Then she smiled. Daner was no fool, and neither was his father; once they knew someone could pop through their guards like that, they’d take some sort of precaution to protect the whole house. She shouldn’t have to worry about the shapeshifter popping back. For a long moment, she stared down at the raven’s-feet; then she left them where they were.

  Eleret expected to fall asleep the moment she lay down, but her mind was too full to let her rest. With a resigned sigh, she opened her eyes and began setting her thoughts in order.

  She couldn’t go back to the mountains now, not with so many unknown enemies interested in her and her mother’s ring. Pa would still be laid up with his broken leg, and Nilly and Jiv couldn’t face down the kind of trouble Eleret had run into in Ciaron. Shapeshifters and wizards and government officials would be a handful even for Pa. The neighbors would help out, of course, if they knew there was trouble, but you couldn’t go shooting every stranger in the mountains full of arrows anymore. In some ways, the old days had been simpler.

  Listen to me, Eleret thought. I sound like one of the old folks down at Raken’s place, going on about the way things used to be. She snorted softly and turned her mind back to her problems.

  First among them was the raven ring. She thought she knew, now, why Tamm had taken it with her to the wars. A ring that warned of hostile magic would be exceedingly useful to a soldier, and one that broke spells would be invaluable. But Tamm was too canny to have talked about the ring, or even worn it openly. She’d have turned the seal to her palm, as Eleret had, and worn it on her off hand to make it even less noticeable. So how had Jonystra, the shapeshifter, Maggen, and Gorchastrin all found out about it?

  And did the ring have anything to do with Tamm’s death? Eleret frowned. According to Karvonen, the real Gorchastrin had discovered something important, something that would be a great help to his order of Rathani wizards. Could his discovery have been the raven ring? The Rathani often used battle magic, and if Gorchastrin had cast a spell and the raven ring had bitten him back, the way it had bitten Daner when he tried to find out more about it…

  Eleret made a rude noise in the darkness. The shapeshifter was a wizard, too, and Jonystra must have at least a little skill or she couldn’t have tried to enchant Eleret’s card-charting. The real Gorchastrin was certainly a wizard, and the false one she had met in Ciaron was probably the shapeshifter. Maggen was the only one of the people after her ring whom she didn’t know was a wizard, and she supposed that it was quite possible that he knew some magic as well. It looked as if she could stop wondering how they had all found out about her ring. The wonder was that every wizard in the city wasn’t chasing her.

  No, that wasn’t reasonable, either. The ring didn’t announce its presence; Daner hadn’t noticed it at all until she’d mentioned it to him. So if she was right about how all the wizards had learned of the ring, each of them must have cast a spell at the ring or at someone wearing it. Why? One Rathani wizard—Gorchastrin or the shapeshifter, perhaps—might have been involved in the skirmishes around Kesandir, but what about the rest?

  Eleret scowled into the darkness, then shrugged. Her problem was still the same: she didn’t know enough. There was no point in making wild guesses, especially when tomorrow she’d learn more. Even if Jonystra still wasn’t fit to question, Commander Weziral would have news of Maggen and his noble relations. Until then, Eleret should concentrate on general plans and what little she did know about the raven ring.

  Start at the beginning, Karvonen had said, it makes for a more organized tale. Well, he was right about that at least. But what was the beginning? Many years ago, when the mountains were young and the Cilhar lived in peace, Geleraise Vinlarrian came to live among us. The memory of her mother’s voice, blending with the crackle of a winter fire and the roof creaking in the bitter wind outside, was so vivid that Eleret’s eyes prickled. She turned her head into the strange smoothness of the bedclothes and fought a losing battle against the dammed-up tears. When they broke through at last, so did other memories, each as precise and clear as the first: Tamm aiming an arrow for a difficult shot, her
eyes narrowed in concentration and wisps of chestnut hair escaping from her braid; Tamm showing Eleret how to hold her first sword and later sparring with her; the sunny spring day they had climbed together to the top of the lookout peak and undone their braids to let the damp wind fill their hair with the smells of earth and new growth. Tamm in marching dress, her kit slung across one shoulder, her face expressionless, saying, I have to do this, Eleret. All my life, there has been war, and I don’t seem to be able to do without it. You’re young enough to adjust, I’m not, though Morravik knows I’ve tried. I’ll be back in a few months, if all goes well. And she had been, that time, and six other times since. Until now.

  I should have stopped her, Eleret thought, but she hadn’t been able to stop Tamm the first time, nor any of the other times. If I had said it out loud, maybe she’d have stayed this once. Maybe she wouldn’t have died. But she hadn’t needed to say it. Tamm had known how she felt, how they all felt, and she had gone anyway.

  She died with honor, Eleret reminded herself, and almost stopped weeping until a treacherous voice at the back of her head whispered, but still, she died. Even the thought that it had been Tamm’s choice brought only anger and renewed tears. The friends and relations who had died in the old wars had been defending the mountains, protecting their homes and families. Tamm had been fighting for others, for money, for the love of the fight itself, or perhaps for some other reason Eleret could not even suspect. It was too late now to ask, and the part of Eleret that understood without the explanation was washing away in the flood of tears.

  “Why?” Eleret cried aloud to the darkness, and the single word encompassed a multitude of questions, some with answers and some forever unanswerable: why had Tamm died, why hadn’t her formidable skills or the raven ring been enough to save her, why had she had to leave the mountains and her family, why was it Eleret who had to face the tangle Tamm had left behind, why did she have, to stay another day in this confusing, complicated city, why was it Tamm’s ring so many people wanted? The stone walls of the room swallowed Eleret’s cry and gave back only a faint, wordless echo. Eleret buried her face in her pillow, hiding from the dark and the questions and the unwanted responsibility of the raven ring, cold and close around her finger. Gradually, her tears ceased, but it was a long time before she slept.

  She woke at dawn, with sticky eyelids and a mouth that felt as if she had been eating sand. The remnant of last night’s wash water was still in the jug; she picked her way to it between the raven’s-feet on the floor, her bare feet finding the clear path through the pattern without conscious thought. Once she had washed properly, she felt much better.

  A faint jumble of far-off city noises drifted through the shutter slats. Eleret retrieved her whetstone and raven’s-feet and replaced the table in its proper place, pleased that her precautions had been unnecessary. As soon as she had checked her weapons and straightened her clothes, she left the room in search of breakfast and a place to go through the basic drill. The previous night’s succession of argument, thought, and unbridled emotion had left her with a need for some simple, straightforward physical exertion. Besides, she hadn’t practiced for two days, not since she’d arrived in Cimarron, and with wizards and shapeshifters and Morravik knew who else after her she couldn’t afford to lose her edge.

  Her footsteps echoed dully along the empty hallway, though she stepped as softly as she could. She turned left at the end of the hall, then right, looking for the stairs Lady Laurinel had brought her up the previous evening. As she rounded the second corner, she heard a door open behind her. She whirled, to find herself facing the disapproving glare of Jakella, the gaunt serving woman who tended Laurinel’s son, Drioren.

  “What are you doing here?” the woman demanded before Eleret could speak.

  “Looking for the stairs.”

  Jakella folded her lips together in a thin, disapproving line. “Indeed. I fear you’ve made a mistake. The stairs at the end of this hall don’t go up.”

  “I don’t want to go up,” Eleret said, puzzled. She couldn’t imagine Lord tir Vallaniri setting up a drill area on his roof. “I’m trying to find the guards’ practice ground.”

  Surprise and consternation flashed across the gaunt woman’s face and were gone. “I wouldn’t know about that.” Her eyes narrowed, and she added, “You won’t find my lord Daner there, not at this hour.”

  “I’m not looking for Lord Daner. I’m looking for the practice ground.” And she’d wasted enough time talking. Jakella was plainly determined to be as unhelpful as possible. So Eleret nodded and turned away. At the stair door, she glanced back. Jakella still stood watching, her face stiff.

  Eleret met no one on the stairs, and the long room with the spindly chairs was unoccupied when she entered. There was no one in the room where they had eaten the night before, and no one in any of the halls she was familiar with. In front of the wall chamber where Jonystra had done her card-charting, Eleret paused, trying to decide whether to begin wandering through the house at random. Just as she was about to retrace her steps, the chamber door opened and Daner came out.

  He had dark circles under his eyes, and when he saw Eleret, he paused and blinked at her. “Eleret! What are you doing up at this hour? Is something wrong?”

  Eleret hesitated, then called, “Behind you!” as she shifted her weight to a fighting stance.

  Daner ducked and spun, reaching for his dagger. When he realized that there was no one else in the hall, he straightened and looked at Eleret indignantly. “What was that about?”

  “I apologize for startling you, but it was the only way I could think of to make sure you were you.”

  “Oh, yes, the way I move. Amazing what a false fright will do for you. Five minutes ago, I’d have sworn I was too tired to jump like that.” He settled his dagger back in its sheath as he spoke.

  It wasn’t just the difference in Daner’s stance, she realized. The shapeshifter’s automatic reaction had been to throw a spell; Daner reached for a weapon. She said as much, then added, “I hope that doesn’t mean he’s a better wizard than you are.”

  “Probably. I couldn’t have vanished the way he did.” Daner looked at her thoughtfully. “You don’t have to do that every time we meet, you know. From what little I know of them, shapeshifters don’t heal any faster than other people, and the fellow that was here last night left with a hole in his shoulder.”

  “Not a very big one,” Eleret said. “Still, it should make using that arm a bit uncomfortable for a day or two.” And now that she had something to look for, she was sure that she could spot any signs of stiffness in a false Daner or Lord tir Vallaniri if she had to. If she had to… “If he’s a better wizard than you are, can you keep him from coming back the same way he left?”

  “I’ve spent all night trying.” Daner rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes. “I don’t know how he did what he did, so I couldn’t just counter it. I had to set up every warding spell I know, and hope that one of them will keep him out, or at least give me warning enough to try something else.”

  “You did them alone?”

  “Father wants all of this kept as quiet as possible, especially the shapeshifter. Actually, I’m not certain he quite believes that part. Anyway, it won’t stay quiet for long if we start calling in wizards, so I had to cast the spells myself.”

  “I see.” Eleret thought Lord tir Vallaniri was arming himself to hunt a fox when it was a mountain lion that had been at the hens, but then, she’d seen the shapeshifter and Daner’s father hadn’t. “How long will your spells last?”

  Daner shrugged. “A few hours, half a day—I’m not sure. I’ve never tried anything like this before. The spells should give me time to consult Adept Climeral, though, and that’s all I really want from them.”

  Looking at the tiredness on Daner’s face, Eleret felt guilty. “You may only need a few hours. I doubt that the shapeshifter will have much interest in your household once I’ve left.”

  “You can’t l
eave until we’re sure it’s safe.” Daner sounded slightly shocked by the very suggestion. “You’re a— You’re our guest.”

  “Granted,” Eleret said, frowning in turn. “And as your guest, I have an obligation to see that I don’t bring harm upon your household.”

  “Baroja is the one who dragged Jonystra in here,” Daner pointed out. “You didn’t have anything to do with that.”

  “Didn’t I? Do you really think she’d have agreed to chart cards for your sisters if she hadn’t thought I’d be here, too?”

  “She might have.”

  Eleret shook her head. “You know better. And the shapeshifter was after me. The sooner I’m gone, the sooner you can stop worrying about wards.”

  For a minute, Daner looked as if he wanted to argue; then he sighed. “Let’s talk about it after breakfast. Even if I agree with you, the wards are up now, so you might as well stay safe for as long as they last. We’ve got all morning to talk about it. Maybe even all day.”

  Which wouldn’t be the best strategy, in Eleret’s opinion. She’d do better to leave Daner’s house at a time of her own choosing, well before circumstances forced her out. Besides… “I was hoping to do a few drills before I ate. Where’s your practice ground?”

  “Down and out,” Daner said. “And it’s in the center court, so it’s even warded. I’ll show you. If it please you, Freelady?” He extended his arm with exaggerated courtesy.

  Eleret chuckled and laid her hand on his elbow. “Indeed it does, Lord Daner.”

  The practice ground was a neat square of packed sand in the corner of what Daner referred to as an open court. Eleret would have described it as a large, walled yard. The Vallaniri residence rose on all sides, shutting out the world. Only the square of gray clouds overhead and a faint sense of movement in the air let Eleret know she was out-of-doors. Daner made sure the guard at the inner door knew she was a guest, then left her to her practice.