The Black Raven

by Katharine Kerr

  Raena climbed down into the tunnel. Evandar waited a long moment, then shrank his form and turned himself into a large black dog. His nails clicked on stone as he followed her in. After a few yards the tunnel turned dark enough to hide him, but ahead, through the big split in the wall that formed the entrance to the temple room, he could see the silver glow of Raena’s dweomer light. He stopped to one side of the narrow entrance and listened, head cocked to one side, ears pricked, long tongue lolling. At first he heard nothing but Raena’s voice, chanting in a long wail and rise; then Shaetano joined her, speaking in the dialect of the Rhiddaer.

  “What would you have of me, O my priestess?”

  “To worship thee, Lord Havoc, O great one, and beg for knowledge.”

  Evandar growled, then let himself expand until he could take back his normal elven form.

  “All my knowledge shall be yours,” Shaetano was saying. “What wouldst thou learn?”

  “One riddle does make my heart burn within me. Where does she dwell now, my Alshandra? Why will she not come to me again? Why has she deserted me, my own true goddess, she whom I worship above all other gods?”

  “Ah, this be a matter most recondite and admirable. Far far beyond what you would call the world does she dwell, in an ineffable refulgence.”

  Evandar stepped through the opening. Dressed all in black, one arm raised in a dramatic flourish, Shaetano stood before a kneeling Raena.

  “You might at least speak clearly,” Evandar remarked. “How is the poor woman supposed to understand nonsense like that?”

  Raena screamed. Shaetano’s form wavered, as if he were about to step onto a Mother-road and disappear, then held steady as he held his ground. Evandar turned to Raena with a sigh.

  “She never was a goddess, woman!” Evandar snapped. “And now she’s dead. You were there, you saw her die.”

  “I saw naught of the sort!” Raena scrambled to her feet. “She did but return to her own country. And she be a goddess. I do ken this deep in my heart, you stinking blasphemer! And she lives, I do ken that she lives still. Who are you, that lies like maggots fall from your lips?”

  “I am Lord Harmony,” Evandar said to her. “And your Lord Havoc is my brother. Flee this place! Leave us!”

  Raena hesitated. Evandar raised a hand and called down the blue etheric fire, leaping and flashing at his fingertips. Raena squealed, then edged past him to squeeze through the entrance. He could hear her footsteps as she dashed down the tunnel. When he turned back, Shaetano was leaning insolently against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. In the shifting silver light he looked very like a fox in man’s clothing. Russet hair sprouted from his face; his ears stood up sharply on the top of his head; his nose was black and shiny. Only his eyes were fully elven, a shifting gold and green.

  “More and more you become your avatar, brother,” Evandar said.

  Shaetano swore. For a moment his image wavered; when it stabilized, his ears had migrated back to the sides of his head, and his skin was smooth, with only a roach of red hair pluming on his skull. His shiny black nose, however, seemed permanently fox, twitching a little in the cold damp air.

  “That’s better,” Evandar said. “Now then, I want a word with you. Though I’ll admit to being surprised you’ll stay and listen to it.”

  “You can’t kill me. Don’t you remember what you said, that day upon the battle plain? You and I were born joined. You were the candle flame and I the shadow it cast? Well, elder brother,” Shaetano paused for a smile, “if you kill me, who knows what will happen to you?”

  “Here! How do you know that? I was talking with Dalla, and you were long gone by then.”

  “I have my ways.” He curled a hand that was more like a paw and smiled at his black claws. “And my allies.”

  “Ah, I see. Your little raven was spying even then, was she? Very well. Say it I did. You learn your lessons well.”

  “And haven’t you been my most excellent teacher?” Again that smug smile. “So talk away. What is it that you want with me now? I’ll listen, though I may not answer.”

  Evandar restrained the impulse to strangle him there and then, even if his own neck twisted.

  “Ask I shall,” Evandar said aloud. “What are you doing to this woman, pretending to be a god and filling her head with portentous words?”

  “Doing to her? She’s grateful. She begs me for knowledge.”

  “And did she beg you to kill young Demet the weaver’s son?”

  Shaetano winced and looked down at the floor.

  “I didn’t mean to do that. Truly! He came bursting in here with a sword in his hand and iron cloth all over his chest. It stung me like fire. I was half-mad from it.”

  “And you did what?”

  “I just wanted to make him go away.” Shaetano’s voice slipped and wavered. “I shoved him, and the iron stung me, and so I threw him back against the wall.” He looked up, and his eyes gleamed green in the silver witch-light. “I didn’t know how hard. His head—it hit the stone.”

  “Why wasn’t there a mark on him then, where his skull got smashed?”

  Caught in his lie, Shaetano snarled and flung up both hands. Evandar crossed his arms over his chest and merely looked at him. In a moment Shaetano looked down.

  “I don’t know how I killed him. I did somewhat, I waved my hands at him because of the stinking iron. And rage flew out, and somehow his life—it spilled away.”

  “What did this rage look like?”

  “Naught. I mean, it wasn’t a thing you could see. But he screamed and flung himself back and—and died.”

  “You truly don’t know what killed him?”

  “I don’t.” Shaetano looked up, and suddenly he snarled again. “Oh, and what’s it to you?”

  “My heart aches for his young widow. Little Niffa. She mourns him every day still.”

  Shaetano stared at him, his mouth half—open. White fangs gleamed.

  “What’s this, younger brother?” Evandar said with a grin. “I see the word grief means naught to you. Let me tell you an interesting thing. I now know a great many things that you don’t. I learn more daily, and soon one of them will be how I may dispose of you.”

  With one last snarl, Shaetano vanished. Evandar stood in the empty temple and laughed.

  Councilman Verrarc was sitting at a table in his great room when Raena came home. As a merchant’s son, Verrarc had learned to read, but books to practice upon, as opposed to merchants’ agreements and city laws, were scarce in Cerr Cawnen. He still read slowly, sounding words out one at a time, pausing often to look terms up in the homemade word list at his elbow. He was glad enough to lay his scroll aside at the distraction when, shivering in her thick green cloak, Raena hurried in. Without a word to him she rushed to the fire burning in the hearth and held her hands out to the warmth.

  “What be wrong, my sweet?” he said.

  “Naught.” Raena busied herself in taking off the cloak.

  “Somewhat did turn you all pale and shivering.”

  “It be cold out there, Verro.”

  “Not as cold as all that.”

  With a toss of her long black hair, Raena turned her back on him. She hung the cloak on a peg on the wall, then walked over to look at his work.

  “What be those squiggly things?” she said.

  “Words.” He paused, smiling at her. “Here, look! To read these out, you do start here at the top on the right, and you do read straight across. At the end of the row you do drop down and read back the other way.”

  “Ah.” She nodded as if in understanding, but he knew that she could read none of it. “What does that scroll be saying, then?”

  “I’ll not tell you unless you do tell me where you’ve been this long while.”

  “Oh, be not a beast, Verro!”

  Verrarc shoved his chair back and stood up.

  “Rae, it be time we had a talk. I do be sick to my heart of all your secrets. You do come and go at whim and never will you tell
me where you’ve been.”

  “Oh here, you don’t think I have another man or suchlike, do you?” Raena laughed, and easily. “I do swear to you, my love, that such be not true.”

  “I believe you, but your secrets still vex me. How can I but wonder where you go?”

  Raena considered him for a moment, then shrugged.

  “To the temple in the ruins,” she said. “I do go there to summon Lord Havoc.”

  “Ah. So I thought. The fox spirit.”

  “He be more than that. He does ken lore that I would have.”

  When Verrarc said nothing, Raena sat down in a cushioned chair in front of the fire.

  “Well,” she said, “and what about your half of our bargain? What be this thing you read?”

  “Some small part of a book of the witchlore.”

  At that she twisted round in her chair to look up at him. Smiling, he rolled up the scroll and tied it with a thong.

  “What sort of lore?” Raena said at last.

  “Tell me what sort of lore you do seek from your Lord Havoc, and I’ll tell you what this be.”

  “I be not so curious as all that.” She turned back round to face the fire.

  With a sigh that was near a snarl, Verrarc sat down in the matching chair opposite hers. For a long moment the only sound in the room was the roar and crackle of the fire.

  “Soon, my love.” Raena spoke abruptly. “Soon, I promise you, you shall hear the secret I do guard so carefully. It be a grand thing, I promise you, with naught of harm in it. But there be one last thing that escapes me, and it truly is needful for me to learn it before I may speak.”

  “Well and good, then. But I’ll hold you to that ‘soon,’ Rae, I truly will.”

  “Fair enough. Tell me somewhat, if you can. What does this word mean: refulgence, I think it were?”

  “I’ve not the slightest idea.”

  “I were afraid of that. And if you ken it not, I doubt me if anyone in this town does. A nuisance, but not more.” She turned to him and gave him a slow, soft smile that warmed him more than the fire. “It be a good day to spend abed, my love.”

  “Just so.”

  Verrarc rose, caught her hand, and as she got up pulled her into his arms. She kissed him, let him take another, and giggled like a lass as she squirmed free. As he followed her, he knocked against the little table and swept the scroll to the floor. With a soft curse he stooped and retrieved it, dusting a bit of soot from the roll.

  “That be a valuable thing?” Raena remarked.

  “It is. I did pick it up in trade, this summer past. It has no proper beginning nor an end, so I do think it were torn apart some while past, but still, the man who owned it did drive a hard bargain.”

  “You did find it in a border village or suchlike?”

  “I didn’t, but in a dwarven holt. It be about the telling of omens in the signs of earth.”

  Raena tossed her head and took a quick step back. Verrarc laid the scroll on the table.

  “What be so wrong?” he said.

  “Oh, naught, naught.” Yet she laid a hand on her throat, and her face had turned a bit pale. “I did forget that you trade among the Mountain Folk.”

  “Every summer, truly.” Verrarc caught her hand and drew her close. “You look frightened.”

  “Be not so foolish!” Raena laughed, but it was forced. “Come, my love, kiss me.”

  It was an order he followed gladly, but later, when he had time to think, he wondered why she’d looked so afraid of his going among the Mountain People. Was there something there she didn’t want him to find? Or could it be that she’d sheltered among them during one of her strange disappearances? Her secrets again, her cursed wretched secrets!

  All his life Verrarc had craved the witchknowledge and magical power. When he thought back, it seemed to him that he’d always known that such things existed, even though logically there was no way he could have known. As a child, he’d sought out the tales told in the marketplace or in the ancient songs, passed down from one scop to another, that told of sorcery and the strange powers of the witchroad. When, as an older boy, he’d travelled with his father to Dwarveholt, he’d heard more and learned more in the strange little human villages on the borders of that country. Here and there he asked questions; once he grew into a man, he’d been given a few cautious answers.

  The men of Dwarveholt proper professed to know nothing about such things, but the odd folk in the villages always had some tale or bit of lore to pass on. Finally his persistence brought success. On one journey a half-human trader had offered him a leather-bound book, written in the language of the Slavers. It was old, very old, or so the trader said, written by a priest named Cadwallon when the Slavers had first invaded the western lands. The price was steep, the writing faded and hard on the eyes—he’d paid over the jewels demanded without hesitating.

  Together he and Raena had studied that book. He would read a passage aloud; they would puzzle over it until they forced some sense out of the lines. Both of them showed a gift for the witchroad, as Rhiddaer folk called the dweomer, and together they learned a few tricks and a fair bit of lore. The marriage her parents arranged for her had interrupted them—for a while. On the pretext of visiting her husband, Chief Speaker in the town of Penli, he’d ridden her way often and spent time with her, until their studies revived their love affair one drowsy summer afternoon. Her husband had discovered the truth and cast her out, setting her free to disappear from the Rhiddaer for two years.

  Where had she gone? Verrarc could only wonder. She had never told him. Now and then she would visit him, turning up suddenly from nowhere, it seemed, as on that morning when he’d ensorcelled young Jahdo. She would drop a few hints about strange gods and stranger magicks, then be off once more. Certainly she’d learned more about witchery than he had thought possible. But this knowledge she refused to share.

  In the middle of the night Verrarc woke to find Raena gone. On the hearthstone a candle stood burning in a punched tin lantern. He lay awake in their bed, watching the candle-thrown shadows dance on the ceiling. She had gone back to the temple, he supposed, and left the candle burning against her return. She might take all night for her scrying, but try as he might, he could not fall asleep with her gone. Although he tried to convince himself that he worried about her, he knew that in truth he was jealous.

  Verrarc got up and dressed. From the stub of the dying candle he lit a fresh taper and placed it in the lantern. Just what was she doing with that Lord Havoc? If he wasn’t truly a god, and Verrarc tended to believe his brother, Lord Harmony, on that point, then he was some sort of powerful spirit, and everyone knew that spirits took a fancy to flesh-and-blood women on occasion. The thought made Verrarc’s fists clench. He grabbed the lantern and left the house by the back door.

  Outside, the winter night lay damp around him. One of his watchdogs roused in its kennel, but he whispered, “Good dog, Grey, good dog,” and the big hound lay back down. He unlatched the gate and left the courtyard, then turned uphill. By lantern light he picked his way across snow-slick cobblestones till he reached the frozen path that led to the ruined temple, directly above his compound on the east side of Citadel. Where the path levelled out, he paused in the shelter of a pair of huge boulders. If Raena should be leaving and see his light, she would throw a raging fit that he’d come spying on her. Let her! He walked on.

  At the entrance to the tunnel he hesitated. Although he could hear nothing, he could see a faint silver glow down at the far end. She was working witchery, all right, and hiding it from him yet again. With a soft curse under his breath, he climbed through the narrow entrance. On the packed dry earth inside, his leather boots made no sound. Slowly, a few steps at a time, stopping often to listen, Verrarc crept toward the silver glow, which spilled out of the door to the inner chamber. Although he considered blowing out the candle, he had no way of lighting it again. He set the lantern down and edged forward until he could peer round the broken doorway into the c
hamber.

  Naked to the cold Raena was kneeling on the cold dirt floor and staring at a pool of silver light that seemed to drip from the stone wall like water. All at once she flung her head back and began to chant in some language that he didn’t know. She raised her arms and let her body sway back and forth as her voice sobbed and growled in a long sprung melody. Despite the cold she was sweating; he could see her face glistening in the silver light. Her black hair hung in thick damp strands like snakes. Even though he couldn’t understand her words, he could recognize her tone of voice. She was begging someone or something; now and again she wailed on the edge of tears as if she keened at a wake.

  The silver glare filled the corners of the chamber with night-dark shadows, and as Raena’s swaying body blocked the light, her own shadow swayed and flickered on the far wall. Out of the corner of his eye Verrarc saw creatures standing in the dark, small things, half-human and half-beast, all blurred and faint as if they were but shadows themselves. One stepped far enough forward that he saw it clearly: the body of a wizened old woman, all bone and flabby skin, topped with the head of a drooling hound. It knelt beside Raena’s piled clothing and fingered the edge of her cloak while it watched Raena sway and sob. Involuntarily Verrarc shuddered in disgust. It looked up, saw him, and disappeared. Locked in her chant, Raena never noticed either of them.