Raven's Strike

Ielian walked beside Lehr, his bow on his shoulder. It was still barely light, and the air was chill.



When they were out of sight and sound of the camp, Ielian asked, "Why me? Why not Jes or Rufort?" Either of them knew twice what he did about hunting.



"You don't do so badly," said Lehr, and Ielian took his words for the compliment they were. "Jes is still fretting because Mother and Hennea intend to go to the library on their own today. If I took him, like as not I'd turn around, and he'd be gone. He's done it before. If there's danger about, you can always count on my brother - but if it is just work, he gets distracted pretty easily. Toarsen and Kissel won't leave Phoran - and Papa needs too much help in camp for me to take all three of them."



"And Rufort?"



"Rufort is a fine hunter, but he takes no enjoyment from it." Lehr grinned suddenly. "Besides, Papa can use a strong back more than we can."



"What are we hunting today?"



"I thought we'd find a nice fat deer," Lehr said. "Since we'll be here a while, we can take time to preserve the meat."



Farther from Colossae the trees began to grow closer together, forming a sparse forest.



"I have a question," Ielian said.



"What is that?"



"Your mother talks about six Orders - and I was taught there are only five."



Lehr laughed. "I'd forgotten that. There are Falcon, Raven, Owl, Cormorant, Lark, and Eagle. The one you wouldn't have heard of is Eagle. Mother says that Travelers don't talk about them much, not even among themselves. Never to outsiders." His face grew somber. "The Eagle - the Guardian - is different, more difficult to bear."



"Your mother calls Jes, Guardian, sometimes."



Lehr nodded. "Jes is Eagle."



"He's..." Ielian tried to come up with a polite way to say it and failed.



"Slow?" Lehr offered. "He can seem that way sometimes. Mother says that he's not always paying attention, that he's always carrying on a running conversation with the Guardian half of himself. The Colossae wizards created the Orders, and I guess they didn't do the Eagle Order correctly. The Eagle is supposed to protect his clan - Jes can be pretty awesome in a fight."



"I saw him the night the Path fell," said Ielian.



"Then you know - ah, here's what I've been looking for. There's been a deer past here recently. Time to start the hunt."



"Let's explore the rest of the building before we start on this room," Seraph told Hennea, surveying the main room of the library. At least she hoped it was the main room. It would take them a long time to look through, and she didn't want to find any bigger rooms. "Wizards are a secretive lot. If they were working on something new, it might be in some obscure corner of the library, either high up or down in the basement."



Hennea pursed her lips. "If we're looking for something about the Orders, it won't be in bound books anyway. Otherwise, we'd have found something in the mermori libraries. It will be in parchments or handsewn notebooks of some sort. Maybe in a laboratory or work area."



"I'm glad I'm not a solsenti wizard," Seraph said. "I don't have the temperament to draw endless runes and mix potions in a laboratory. So, do we stay together or split up?"



"It'll take half the time to look if we split up," Hennea said, then she smiled. "Of course, if you are worried about being alone..."



Seraph snorted.



Hours later, Seraph was feeling as frustrated as any solsenti wizard.



She'd been right about the kinds of places wizards liked, and the section of the library that she'd found abounded in such places, small alcoves that were obviously private studies, laboratories with shelves full of jars and baskets of spell components, and slightly larger rooms where two or three wizards might have worked together. She'd walked leagues of mazelike halls that twisted and turned, with unexpected stairways and half stairways.



Everything as perfectly preserved as it must have been the day that they had left. She could not conceive of the power that had taken.



"You were here weren't you, Isolde?" Seraph murmured to herself as she walked through yet another narrow twisting hallway. "I wonder what you saw and where you were going? Did you know what they were doing, those great wizards who created the Stalker? Were you one of them, or did you protest futilely?"



She trailed a hand on the wall until she came to another door. The room was mostly empty, though it still smelled of some sort of incense or tobacco.



"I wonder where the Stalker is," she mused. "And why neither my Falcon nor my Eagle feels it anywhere." It hadn't struck her as odd until just that minute. Her sons could feel shadowing and, less reliably, the Shadowed, but they hadn't said anything about the Stalker at all.



There was a small desk and a chair on one end of the room. Someone had carved two letters in the wood of the desk. Remembering the scolding she'd given Jes and Lehr for carving their initials into the floorboards at home when they were about Rinnie's age, she smiled.



Some young person had sat here, she thought, brushing her hands over the chair, but keeping a lock on her talent for reading objects because she didn't know how the wizard's preservation spells would affect it. That didn't stop her from speculating. A student had been sent here to work, perhaps, and had taken his eating knife and carved his initials here instead, finding a kind of immortality in the act. Look, he said, I was here, I left my mark.



She stepped out of the room and shut the door gently.



"Excuse me, can I help you?" said a male voice in softly accented Common.



Seraph spun on her heel and stared at the young man who stood in the hallway behind her.



Except for his clothes, he looked every inch a Traveler. Silvery blond hair, not two shades off her own, hung to his shoulders, where it wasn't caught up in beaded braids. His eyes were a pale, pale grey, and he looked only a little older than Rinnie. He was naked except for a wraparound kilt of bright colors secured with a plain brown belt. Even his feet were bare.



"Who are you?" she asked, centering herself in case she needed her magic.



His small polite smile widened a bit, and he ducked his head without dropping her gaze. "You may call me Scholar. May I help you find what you need?"



Only then, when the first shock of fright had passed did she realize what her senses had been trying to tell her: this was not a human.



"Illusion," she said, reaching out to touch him lightly. His skin was soft, warm, and gave beneath her touch as if he had been a real boy and not a magical construct. The magic felt very familiar - just like the mermori. "Hinnum made you."



"Indeed," he answered her politely. She found it impossible to look at the illusion and not designate him as male, though she knew it was foolish. "May I help you find something? You seem to be searching."



"I need to find out about the Orders," she told him. "My husband's has been damaged, and I need to repair it."



"You have many Orders," the Scholar said neutrally.



"I am Raven," Seraph said confused.



"You carry many Orders."



Her hand went to the bag where the gems the Path had created lay. How had an illusionary construct sensed them? She narrowed her eyes at him. "I do. There have been many Travelers killed, and their Orders bound to gemstones so that solsenti wizards could use them. I have them here. I hope that if I find out enough to help my husband, then I can see these Orders are properly released as well."



The boy said nothing, just waited in silence. His small smile was unchanged, and she suspected that she'd been mistaken when she'd thought it had widened earlier.



"Why were you left here?" she asked him.



"I am here to help others find information from the library."



"You know what information is stored here?" Seraph felt a stirring of excited hope that the first sight of the library full of books had extinguished. If she and Hennea had to sort through the books for ones they could decipher, then read them, Tier would die of old age before they finished.



"I know what is in the library," he answered.



"Good," she said. "Do you know where Hennea is? My friend who came in here with me?"



This time the answer didn't come immediately. "I know where the Raven is," he said at last.



"Take me there," she said. This was better than a notebook full of the scribblings of wizards.



Hennea had chosen to explore the basement. They found her seated at a table, a magelight hanging over a loose-bound sheaf of papers. Her hair was mussed, as if she'd spent time crawling under tables.



"Raven," said the Scholar, before Seraph could announce them. "You are welcome here."



Hennea marked her place with a finger and looked up with an expression of mild inquiry. She didn't look at all surprised to find a stranger addressing her. Seraph had never admired her aplomb more.



"This is the Scholar," Seraph said, wondering if Hennea would see what she had seen.



Hennea frowned and set the papers aside, shifting her weight in her chair as she stared at him. "You look familiar," she said at last.



"No," Seraph corrected her gently. "He feels familiar."



Hennea straightened. "Hinnum," she said.



"The Scholar is here to help people find information." Seraph smiled. "Phoran said that wizards tend to be very well organized."



The Scholar led them back to the main room, the first room they'd been in. "This is a good place to start," he told them. "What would you know?"



"Tell us about the Stalker," asked Hennea.



He bowed shallowly. "Pray have a seat, Raven."



He was talking to Hennea as if he no longer noticed Seraph was in the room, his eyes locked on Hennea's face. As she sat on the cushioned bench beside Hennea, Seraph wondered if it was some aspect of his creation that he paid attention only to the one who questioned him.



"There were once two brothers, twins born of the Eastern Star and fathered by the Moon. They were mirror images of each other, the light twin and the dark. We called them the Weaver and the Stalker, though those were not their names."



"Why not call them by name?" asked Hennea.



"Do you know this story?"



"No." But Hennea frowned and rubbed her forehead as if she were trying to recall something.



"I've never heard of the Weaver," said Seraph. "Only the Stalker."



"Names have power." The Scholar's voice was as polite and even as his small smile. Seraph was finding that the Scholar's expression, which had first been almost welcoming, was starting to make her uncomfortable.



He continued in that same quiet voice. "To speak the names of the twins is to call their attention to you, and it should not be done lightly."



When neither Seraph nor Hennea commented, he continued. "The Weaver held the power of creation. Whenever he spoke a word or had a thought, he created. The Stalker held the keys of destruction. Whatsoever the Weaver created, the Stalker numbered its days so the Weaver's creations did not grow to such an extent that the All of Being was made to Nothingness."



"I remember that," said Hennea. Her hands were on her temples as if they ached. "I remember that. If creation was given no limit, ultimately everything would cease to exist."



The Scholar's focus on Hennea was starting to bother Seraph. Though his expression never changed, his body leaned toward her, just a little. Seraph could see no magic passing from him to Hennea, but she watched him closely.



"One day the Stalker was walking when he came upon a woman washing her clothes. She was more beautiful to him than any other thing his brother had ever made, and so he took her to wife.



"While he had her the Stalker was the happiest of men, but, since she was his brother's creation, her days were numbered from her birth. When she was an old, old woman, the Stalker went to his brother and pleaded that the Weaver would break the power of destruction, the Stalker's own magic, that she might not die.



"But this was something the Weaver could not do. If he broke this power, then he would destroy them both. Because for the All that Is to exist, the power of creation can never overwhelm destruction.



"Since the Weaver had not saved her, his most perfect creation, the Stalker vowed that all of the Weaver's creations would be destroyed. But he stayed his hand while his wife yet lived, because he could not stand to lose her one moment before he had to.



"As she lay dying, his wife gave her husband a drink the Weaver had prepared, and the Stalker fell asleep as the last breath left her mouth."



It was a romantic story, but the Scholar told it the same dry fashion Jes had used to recite his lessons - perhaps with even a shade less enthusiasm.



"The Weaver knew that without his brother, his powers would also destroy the All of Being, so he drank the same potion the Stalker had drunk. They slept, the Weaver and the Stalker. And while they slept, the Weaver dreamed a weaving to cover them both and protect his creations from them when they next awoke."



The Scholar quit speaking.



"That doesn't sound like the end of the story," Seraph said.



"The story of the Weaver and the Stalker will not end until the All of Being ends," said the Scholar. "And at that time there will be no one to tell its end."



Hennea sighed and started to say something but was stopped by noise from the stairway.



Gura was the first to reach them, whining and wagging his tail and trying to wriggle his way onto Seraph's lap. Since he outweighed her by a couple of stones she was hard put to save herself until Tier hauled him off by his collar.



"Gura, down," he said, and the dog dropped to the floor and looked repentant for a moment. Seraph sat up and rubbed his side with the toe of her boot, and he wagged his tail cheerfully.



Jes had come with Tier, and the Guardian was staring at the Scholar, who had not changed his expression - or his focus on Hennea.



"Where are the others?" she asked.



"I left them cooking steaks at camp. Since we'll be here a while, Lehr brought down a buck. Jes and I came to get you for dinner." Tier glanced at the illusion, then he looked again, frowning. "Your friend is welcome to come with us."



"Thank you," said the Scholar, turning toward Tier as if he'd just noticed him. "But I do not need to eat, and I may not leave the library." He paused. "It is good that you stay outside of the city. The dead walk the streets at night."



"It's an illusion," Hennea told Tier. "One of Hinnum's."



"It told us a story," said Seraph. "I think you ought to hear it. Scholar, would you tell the story of the Weaver and the Stalker?"



"Of course."



When the Scholar finished, Tier rubbed his jaw, and said, "So the Stalker wasn't something created by the wizards here?"



"No," said the Scholar.



"The stories are wrong," Seraph said.



"So why did the wizards leave?" Tier asked Seraph. "Why freeze the city this way? Why is the library the only thing that isn't frozen in time?"



"There was nothing here for them. It was part of the price for what they had done. They could not bear to lose the library forever."



Hennea frowned. "If they didn't create the Stalker, what had they done?"



For the first time, the smile fell from the illusion's face and left something very old peering out of the young eyes. "They killed the gods," he whispered; and then he was gone as if he'd never been.



The Guardian growled.



Back at camp, Tier told the story of the Stalker to the others, as they cooked venison over the fire. As far as Seraph could tell, he used the same words the Scholar had twice used.



"I thought the Stalker was supposed to be evil," said the Emperor, feeding the last of his fire-roasted meat to Gura, who accepted it with more politeness than enthusiasm. The dog had discovered during their trip that Phoran and his guards were not as hardened to pleading eyes as his usual family and had been making use of this new power throughout supper.



"That's what the stories I've always heard say," agreed Seraph.



"So it isn't the Stalker that caused the fall of the Elder Wizards?" Lehr leaned back on his elbows and stared thoughtfully at the fire.



"Ellevanal told me the Travelers killed their gods and ate them." Seraph braced her elbows on her knees and leaned her chin on her hands. "My father just told me there were no gods, but Hennea - and the Scholar - say the gods are dead."



"I don't know where I heard it," said Hennea, and Jes rubbed her shoulder gently.



Hennea had been quiet since they left the library, but then, being a Raven, that wasn't unusual for her. Seraph would have dismissed her suspicions that Hennea was upset about something, except Jes had been fussing over her.



"The Shadowed is evil," said Lehr with conviction. "He killed a whole town, a town larger than Redern. He killed Benroln, Brewydd, and all of Rongier's clan. He taught the wizards of the Path how to steal Orders."



"The Shadowed is evil," agreed Seraph.



Phoran cleared his throat, and Seraph turned to look at him. He glanced once at the setting sun, then said, "I ought to mention that the Memory came last night. I asked him if he knew who the Shadowed was, but he didn't. I wonder if you have a question you would like me to ask him tonight?"



"I do," said Seraph, before anyone else could say anything. "I'd like to know the details of the second part of the spell that steals the Orders to tie them to the gems."



That night, when the Memory beckoned Phoran, Seraph went with him. She made everyone else stay back in camp.



"If it was willing to come out with everyone here, it wouldn't force Phoran to come to it," she said, staring first at Jes, then at Toarsen and Kissel. "I will see to it that Phoran comes to no harm - and he will do the same for me."



"Now mind you," she told Phoran as they tromped up to the little rise he'd gone to the night before "Jes is going to follow us anyway. There's nothing I can do about that - but he'll stay out of my sight, and hopefully not interfere with the Memory."



Phoran smiled down at her. "If I'd tried to leave Toarsen and Kissel behind, we'd still be arguing."



"Yes," she agreed. "But you are only an emperor, after all, and I am Raven."



He couldn't tell if she was teasing or not. He rather suspected not.



The Memory came again. It said nothing to him, nor did it appear to notice Seraph. It fed from his wrist this time. Phoran had thought it would be less awful with Seraph there, but somehow it was worse. As if, he thought, someone was witnessing his rape, it increased the humiliation and feeling of violation. The pain was as bad as it ever had been.



When it was finished, the Memory said, "By the taking of your blood, I owe you one answer. Choose your question."



Phoran staggered to his feet and felt Seraph's arm come round his waist to help support him.



Phoran tried to remember what Seraph had told him she needed to know. "There are three parts to the spell that the Masters use to steal the Orders from Travelers and bind them to gemstones. What happens in the second of the three parts."



"The Masters take the gem, already bound to the Order, and they place it in a man's mouth. He is the sacrifice to power the spell. They cut his throat, and when he is dead they remove the gem." The Memory swayed and its voice changed, rough with remembered agony. "They took it, still warm from the dead man's last breath, and touched me with it. I could feel it pull, I knew that something bad was happening."



"This happens immediately," asked Seraph urgently. "You knew right away?"



"Yes," said the Memory, but it didn't sound like the Memory anymore. It sounded like a man in pain.



"Tier would have known if it started before that night in the Tavern."



Phoran didn't think that Seraph was speaking to the Memory anymore, but it said, "Yes." And it was gone.



"Come," said Seraph, stepping away from him until she held him by the arm rather than around the waist. "I need to talk with Lehr and Tier."



Phoran felt so tired, so weary, and the camp seemed a long way away.



"Come," Seraph said more gently. "Your Memory has give us a different clue than I expected."



"What do you mean?" Phoran started the long trek back to camp.



"I thought I'd learn something of the magic they used," she said. "And I did - though nothing that I can use. But it might have given us a clue about the Shadowed."



They hadn't gone far before Jes joined them. Without asking, he pulled Phoran's arm around his shoulder.



"Lean on me," he said.



Toarsen and Kissel came next.



"They didn't listen to you either," Phoran whispered to Seraph.



She laughed. "At least they didn't bother arguing."



They set Phoran down upon his bedroll, and Seraph tucked him in with all the expertise that his nurse had had when he was a child younger than Rinnie.



"There now," she told him. "Go to sleep."



But he didn't, he just closed his eyes and listened.



Seraph moved away from Phoran and lowered her voice. "Lehr, Olbeck was Shadowed when you found him attacking Rinnie and Phoran."



"That's right," he agreed. "That's what Jes says. I told you Akavith said Olbeck killed poor Lukeeth."



"Lukeeth died the day Tier was stricken," she said. "As best I can piece it together."



"What did you find out?" asked Tier, putting a hand on her shoulder.



She held his hand with her own. "Wait," she said. "Lehr?"



"I don't remember exactly, but either that day or the day before," he agreed.



"Tier, do you remember anyone touching you the day we noticed there was something wrong with your Order?"



"I was at the shop all morning, Seraph," he said. "Of course people touched me."



"Tell me who," she said turning around to face him so he could see her urgency. "Tell me. Not everyone you talked to, just the ones who touched you, Tier." He was a Bard. He could remember them all.



"Alinath and Bandor, of course," he said slowly. "The Brewmaster came with breadmother to replace the one we lost. The miller brought flour. Ciro and his son. Those were the only ones who touched me - that I remember, anyway."



"What about at the tavern?"



"Regil touched me when he gave me his lute. I shook Willon's hand."



"One of them was the Shadowed," Seraph said.



Phoran sat up. "The Shadowed is a Rederni? Redern is a very small place, Seraph. Surely someone would notice that one of them wasn't aging as he should."



"Willon." Rinnie's voice was very soft. "Willon's store is right below the Temple of the Five. Those tunnels weren't just below the temple, they were behind his shop. Maybe he found them when they dug his shop deeper into the mountain."



"Willon was in Taela when I found Tier imprisoned," said Phoran. "I saw him at his son's shop."



"The Shadowed wouldn't have a son," said Hennea. "Birth is not one of the Stalker's powers."



"Master Emtarig isn't really Willon's son," said Phoran slowly. "I don't remember who told me, but Willon's wife died without giving him children, and he adopted one of his apprentices, an orphan."



"Willon told me about the plague at Colbern," Tier said, sounding stunned. "They rode past Colbern on the way back from Taela, he said. But surely Lehr or Jes would have noticed if Willon were the Shadowed."



"They didn't know what he was until the Memory had stripped him of some of his magics." Hennea tapped her fingers impatiently. "But if it were Willon, where are the bodies? The Shadowed has to feed upon death."



"Colbern," said Lehr.



"He used to leave a couple of times a year," said Seraph. "He could have been off hunting, then."



"The temples," said the Guardian. "I sat outside his temple in Redern and felt the feeding, but I didn't understand what it was. I didn't remember enough. The Stalker was not the Lord of Death, but the Lord of Destruction. The Unnamed King did not just feed upon death, but upon the pain and suffering that came before the death. Emotions feed the Shadowed - hatred, envy, the kinds of things that consumed Bandor before Hennea freed him from the taint."



"Willon came to Redern just after I returned from the wars with Seraph," Tier said. "He could have followed us after I killed the man who the Path sent for Seraph when her brother died. But I thought the Shadowed wasn't supposed to age? Willon is older now than he was then."



Seraph shook her head. "Illusion. He wouldn't need much, not enough I'd notice anyway. There's a little bit of magic around Redern all the time."



"Mehalla," said Jes, his voice a low throbbing growl that raised the hair on the back of Seraph's neck.



Seraph felt as if someone had clubbed her. He was right. Oh, sweet Lark, he was right.



"She was so sick," Tier whispered. "She got sick in the spring and just never got better. She lingered for months and months."



"She had convulsions," Lehr said. "I remember watching Mother hold her down so she wouldn't hurt herself."



"Who is Mehalla?" Phoran asked.



"My daughter," whispered Seraph. "My daughter the Lark. She was just a toddler. He must have thought she was easy prey."



Tier's arm slid across the front of her shoulders and pulled her back against his chest. "He killed my daughter."



Tier was behind her, but she saw Phoran meet his gaze.



"My Emperor," said Tier in a silky-sweet voice. "We will see you freed of your Memory as soon as we return to Redern."