Raven's Strike

Lehr grunted as he picked up the dog. It must have weighed 140 or 150 pounds, thought Phoran. He couldn't carry the dog all the way back to camp. No more was Kissel in any shape to walk far.



Phoran glanced at the hawk watching them. Probably carrying the dog was going to be the least of their problems.



"Phoran. Where are you going?" asked the hawk. "Run, Phoran, run. It will do you no - " Something that Phoran couldn't see hit the bird and knocked it from its perch.



A magpie flew from somewhere behind Phoran and landed on the ground before becoming Hinnum.



"Run, boys," he said without taking his eyes off the great bird that floundered on the ground in front of them. "I can't hold him for long."



"Go," said Phoran, voice cracking with relief.



"This way," said Lehr, and led off with Gura in his arms.



The journey was nightmarish. They walked because that was the best Kissel and an overburdened Lehr could do. Phoran took the rearguard position, walking backward so he could watch behind them.



The skies, so bright and blue that morning, had turned dark and threatening. Since Rinnie was muttering softly to herself and had a tendency to stumble over nothing, Phoran was sure she had something to do with the growing storm. He remembered Lehr's tale of the lightning that had struck the troll threatening them, and decided that Ielian had been proved wrong: Cormorants had more to offer than good weather for a farmer. Give Rinnie a little time to work, and she was a formidable opponent.



There were sounds and flashes of light from the vicinity of where they'd left Hinnum facing the Shadowed. A few of the noises were accompanied by vibrations that shook the ground beneath their feet.



When they reached the base of the ramp, Phoran said, "Lehr, give me the dog, then take my sword. Keep an eye on Kissel. You might have to help brace him from the other side."



He took the dog and began the long climb. What had seemed an engineering marvel to Phoran the first day they'd come into the dead city was now torturous.



Kissel tried his best, but he'd lost a lot of blood, and their progress was abysmally slow. Lehr slid his shoulder under the one Toarsen wasn't supporting before they were more than a dozen yards from the bottom.



"Give me the sword," said Jes, startling everyone badly.



Phoran hadn't seen him, and neither, he thought from the look on Lehr's face, had anyone else.



"Don't do that," said Lehr irritably as he held out the sword to his brother who had, in broad daylight, suddenly appeared from nowhere.



"Keep going," said Phoran.



"Mother, Papa, and Hennea are on their way," said Jes. "Hinnum felt the Shadowed's magic and went ahead to help if he could."



"We saw him," said Phoran, breathing in huffs as the steep climb made the dog feel heavier and heavier. "He attacked Willon so we could escape. They've been making a lot of noise."



"I heard it," agreed Jes shortly. Phoran was always surprised at how different this Jes was from the slow, soft-spoken boy he usually was.



"I haven't heard anything since we started up the ramp," said Lehr. "I hope it's not bad news."



As he spoke a bedraggled magpie flew up and landed on Rinnie's shoulder. "Go," it croaked, swaying unsteadily. "Go."



Kissel staggered, and brought Lehr and Toarsen to their knees.



"Jes, take the dog," said Phoran, pushing the limp animal into Jes's arms before the other man had a chance to protest. Then he bent down and put his shoulder into Kissel's belly and hoisted him up.



"Toarsen, draw your sword. Lehr, take mine back from Jes before he drops it or the dog. Rinnie, steady that bird before he falls off altogether."



Kissel outweighed Phoran, but not as much as he outweighed Toarsen and Lehr. His calves already hurt from climbing up the cliff and the guard tower, and his ribs were sore from his fall, but Jes had said Tier was coming.



"Let me take him, Phoran," said Toarsen, as the ramp ended at last. "You're about done in."



Phoran shook his head. Toarsen was all wiry muscle, but he wasn't big enough to carry Kissel for long.



"How's his bleeding?" Phoran's breath was coming in heaving gasps that made it hard to talk.



"Not good," Toarsen said. "He's unconscious. I - "



"Hush," said Jes, setting the dog on the ground and looking back down the ramp. "He's coming."



Then he shifted into the shape of a black mountain cat as large as any Phoran had ever seen.



"No," said the magpie. "No. They will need all six Orders, Guardian. I'll stop him."



He launched off Rinnie's shoulder with an uncertain flap of wings that steadied on the second stroke.



"Toarsen, take Gura," said Phoran. "Let's go."



He wasn't sure how far they'd come. Phoran's world was rapidly reducing itself to putting one foot in front of the other. When he heard the sound of galloping hooves, Phoran knelt and very carefully set Kissel on the cobbles.



"You'll be all right now," he told him. "Tier's here."



Skew slithered on the slippery cobbles, and Tier was off the horse and bending over Kissel before Skew had quite stopped.



A pulse, too rapid and too faint, beat against his fingers and Tier looked up, taking in the rest of the party.



"Rufort and Ielian?" he asked.



Toarsen set Gura down gently beside Kissel. "Rufort's dead," he said. "Kissel and I both picked Ielian out of the Passerines as a loyal man. We failed in our responsibility. He killed Rufort."



Phoran, pale and drenched in sweat, held up a hand. "I knew that there was something wrong. He told Rufort that the Path was paying him - I found out last night and didn't confront him. I bear equal responsibility."



"Ielian was the Shadowed's man, Papa," said Rinnie.



When he opened his arms, she ran to him. Her little face was bruised, a black and swollen knot on her chin. Her bottom lip was split and puffy. Tier looked from her to Phoran.



"Ielian again," he said. "Willon is responsible for the split lip, though."



"Tell us," said Seraph. She began a gentle examination of Gura, though Tier saw that her eyes blazed with rage. "Sit down, Phoran. If you keep swaying half-up, half-down, you'll fall. What happened, Lehr?"



"Ielian lured us out of our way - I suppose he and Willon had arranged something of the sort. Before any of us knew something was wrong, Willon froze us where we stood."



He took a deep breath. "Papa, Willon told us why he ran from Jes and me that night in Taela. He wanted us to succeed. He sacrificed his people so Mother would get all the Ordered gems. He couldn't figure out what was wrong with them, but he thought Mother, Hennea, and Brewydd might. He knew that Volis had the maps. When Mother and Hennea couldn't fix the gems, he wanted them to come here. He attacked you to force us to come here. Hinnum knew how to make the gems work right, but he wouldn't talk to Willon. Willon sent Mother to talk to Hinnum."



"What good did that do?" asked Hennea. "We won't talk to him either."



"Mother has people she cares about," replied Lehr. "Willon promised not to harm any of us if Mother fixed the gems so that they worked for him. He took Rinnie hostage and left us to break free of his spell and tell you what had happened."



"He took Rinnie?" asked Hennea, crouching beside Kissel. "Then why is she here? Did Hinnum rescue her?"



"No," Rinnie said. "That was Phoran. He broke free of the Shadowed's spell and came up to rescue me."



"Phoran rescued you from the Shadowed?" Hennea sounded incredulous.



"Not exactly," said Phoran wryly.



Tier tightened his hand on Rinnie's shoulder; he'd come so close to losing her. "What happened?"



"He broke free of the Shadowed's spell and told us how to do it, too," said Toarsen, with a respectful nod in Phoran's direction.



"It was an illusion," Phoran explained, giving Tier a sheepish grin. "Some parts of me aren't very nice, sir. The idea that a peasant, trumped-up parlor illusionist with delusions of godhood would try and command me, the Emperor, just seemed wrong. I couldn't believe it would work - so it didn't. The others had broken free by the time Rinnie and I got back. I don't know how."



Toarsen laughed, though there were tears in his eyes. He'd sat on the road next to Kissel, and now he touched him lightly. "Kissel, broke free before any of the rest of us. He said anything you could break free of couldn't hold him. He talked the rest of us free."



Phoran nodded soberly. "I chased after Rinnie. There's a stair carved into the cliff, just below that guard tower over there." He pointed to the second tower to the south. "I met Ielian, who was coming down the cliff as I came up. I tossed him off the cliff - "



"Too bad," murmured Seraph.



"He's dead," Phoran told her.



"Thank you," she said. "But I could have made it more painful."



Phoran half bowed. "The next one I will save for you. I couldn't be bothered with him because I knew Willon had Rinnie." He shrugged. "Not that I was much help. We exchanged a half dozen words, then he tossed me off the tower."



Tier turned to look at the tower in question again. "Down the cliff, too? You look good for a man who just fell several hundred feet."



"Thank you," said Phoran. "I feel good, too - relatively speaking." The Emperor tilted his head and looked at Rinnie with a smile. "I think it was Rinnie who saved me: we've been too busy trying to run to stop and exchange stories to make certain. But instead of being splatted unpleasantly on the ground, I was lying at the base of the cliffs trying to catch my breath, and Rinnie was there."



"The Memory threw me off the guard tower after you," Rinnie said.



"What?" Phoran's eyes flashed, and his hand went to his sword hilt. "It did what?"



Tier was feeling pretty murderous himself.



Rinnie grinned, first at Tier and then at the Emperor, looking more herself. "It grabbed me where I was cowering on the stairway and threw me off and said, 'Cormorant, fly.' I think if it hadn't said that, I'd have fallen and squished right on top of you. As it was, I wasn't sure I had been soon enough for you. You weren't breathing and I was sure you were dead. Then you sat up, and your eyes were bulging and watering - I thought you could have been the walking dead, like the ones last night. But no, you started breathing and grabbed me without so much as a thank-you."



All in one breath, thought Tier. Amusement won over the horror of hearing that something had thrown his daughter from a tower. It helped that Rinnie had survived.



Phoran bowed. "Thank you, my lady. I was remiss when I forgot to thank you earlier - though I believe the fear for your life took precedence at the time."



Rinnie looked pleased, and said smugly, "I can't wait until I get home and I can tell people that I saved the Emperor's life."



Lehr smiled at her. "No one will believe you, pest."



"Where is Hinnum?" asked Hennea.



"The Shadowed was coming," said Jes, who had exchanged his wolf form for the mountain cat. "Hinnum was already hurt, but he wouldn't let me go."



"Speaking of which," said Phoran. "Should we continue going?"



"No," said Hennea. "What we do, we can do here as well as anywhere. Seraph, this is as good a time as any to see if that ring will work for you. Phoran, where are the names from the Owl's temple?"



"Willon burned them," said Toarsen. "He said he was sealing the temple so no one else could get them again."



"I remember one of them," said Phoran.



Hennea frowned at him. "You know how to read the language of Colossae?"



He smiled. "I'm not just a drunken sot, my lady. I am an educated drunken sot. I couldn't read the maps or the gates, but the alphabet is the same as Old Oslandic, which I do know. If Toarsen has that piece of char still, I can write it on the stones."



Toarsen fumbled in his belt pouch and handed Phoran the charred stick. Phoran wrote some odd lines on the ground that might have been letters.



"Do you know to which one the name belongs?" asked Tier.



Hennea shook her head. "I don't remember."



"Ah, well," said Tier. "Either would work I suppose. So what exactly do we do?"



"The six of us, you, Jes, Seraph, Lehr, Rinnie, and I hold hands. Then you speak the name of the god - I'll tell you how to pronounce it." Hennea sighed unhappily. "The rest of it we'll have to improvise, I don't know what will happen. The Orders are not the gods of Colossae."



"We should wait until Willon comes near?" asked Tier.



Hennea nodded.



"Is there something I can do?" asked Toarsen. "He's not going to make it." He'd lifted Kissel's head onto his lap and he touched his forehead lightly. "Lost too much blood. I need to have a hand in the destruction of the man who killed him."



Tier hunkered down beside the big lad and put a hand on his too-cold cheek. He looked at Seraph, who nodded.



"Don't give up on him, yet," Tier told Toarsen. "Kissel's survived worse than this - and we'll have a Lark to help him, eh, Seraph?"



"I don't intend for the Shadowed to kill any more of ours," said Seraph.



"So there," said Phoran. "Seraph has said so - Kissel won't dare to fail her."



A faint smile appeared on Kissel's face.



"See," said Tier. "All men must bow to my wife's whims. You'll do, lad." He looked up at Toarsen. "I think this battle will be beyond steel, but I've no objection if you keep your sword handy and use it if you see a moment to do so."



Toarsen nodded solemnly.



"Seraph," Tier said. "If you're ready, Kissel has been doing his best to hold on, but he could really use some help."



Seraph fingered the tigereye ring and closed her eyes, trying to feel what was different, but she felt the same as she ever had. Just the same as she had when she'd tried to work some healing upon Gura a few minutes ago.



She looked down for a moment upon the young man who'd fought by her side against the Path that night in Taela. When she settled next to Kissel, Toarsen looked up at her with all the welcome of a bitch guarding her pups from a stranger.



"I'm not going to hurt him," she told him, though she wasn't at all sure of that.



"There's not much that will hurt me at this point," murmured Kissel unexpectedly, with the subtle humor that he liked to employ. He always seemed best pleased when his audience wasn't quite certain he was trying to be funny.



"I'm glad to hear it," she told him, though she wasn't at all sure he was still conscious.



She tried to remember what Brewydd had done when she had been repairing Tier's injuries - but she'd been distracted and hadn't paid much attention to the Healer.



"Lehr?"



He sat on his heels beside her. "What do you need, Mother?"



"Did you ever watch Brewydd heal?"



"She's a Lark, Mother," said Lehr. "Can Ravens heal, too?"



Seraph held up her hand so he could see the ring she wore. "I'm a Lark today, too. But I need your help."



"The Lark rings don't work," said Jes. "You and Hennea need to clean it first."



Seraph turned to look at him. "Willon killed Mehalla to steal her Order, Jes. All those years ago. Something in this ring knows me, and I believe it means that this was once Mehalla's." She paused. "We need me to be a Lark today, but even if the gem contained nothing but the Order, I could not use it to become a Lark - any more than Volis was a Raven when he wore a Raven's gem. I need to see if the person, Mehalla or not, who haunts this ring will help me be a Lark, just for today."



"Try putting your hand on his wound," Lehr suggested. "We're going to have to take off the bandage."



"Wait, let me do it," said Tier. "I've a little experience at field dressings."



He sat beside Seraph and cut through the cloth that held the pad over the wound. Then he tugged gently on the padding.



"The pad is stuck down, but not badly - because he's still losing blood. That would be bad if we didn't have a Healer." He smiled at Seraph. "As it is, it makes it easier to get the pad off - but you need to get your hands over that wound. Lark or no Lark, the boy's got to have some blood in him if he's to live. Are you ready?"



"Yes."



He took the pad off and, as he'd indicated, the wound began to ooze blood. She put her hand over the wound and sealed it with the palm of her hand.



Everyone waited, even Seraph, but nothing happened.



"Try visualizing the healing," Hennea suggested. "Think of Kissel well and whole."



She tried and felt her magic stir, but magic could not heal. She could have used it to bandage the wound though, and would if she could not heal him - but he was so pale, and there had been so much blood. If it came down to making do with magic rather than healing, she suspected that he would die.



"Hennea has part of it right," Lehr said. "But this isn't magic. I think, from watching you and Hennea, that being a Raven must involve a lot of thought. But Hunting is almost instinctive for me. I look, then I see the trail. I don't have to think much about it. Jes gets upset, and the temperature anywhere near him drops to freezing. Papa starts singing, and people stop whatever they are doing to listen. Just let your body do the work."



Seraph closed her eyes and tried to relax, but the more she tried not to think, the more she thought.



Tier got up, but she didn't look to see what he was doing. He was back in a moment and began playing his lute. He picked one of her favorite songs, an evening song that had lulled their children to sleep when they were teething or sick. The husky, soft tones slid over her and soothed the tension from her neck and shoulders. She let his voice coax her away from the blood and danger and back into their home and evenings when, with the work of the day done, she and Tier would sit on the back porch. Gura's wire coat tickled Seraph's bare feet as the setting sun colored the mountains red.



As she relaxed something stirred at the tips of her fingers, a whisper at first. She coaxed it with a breath of interest just like she'd have puffed at a reluctant spark when she was trying to light a fire the solsenti way.



"He's stopped breathing."



Toarsen's voice, thick with grief.



But when she would have paid attention to him, Tier's song brought her back to her little spark of... healing. See, she coaxed, directing it to the flesh under her fingers. I have something for you to do.



Fire shot up her shoulders so unexpectedly that she jerked and gasped, but someone's hands locked on her wrists and held her hands against Kissel. She opened her eyes and knew the damage Ielian's knife had done, though it was buried under her hands and beneath Kissel's skin.



The power of the Lark eased through Seraph's hands and into Kissel's body, repairing the gross damage to the tissues first, then moving on to smaller things. His heart had stopped, but her power hit it and it could not resist her and began beating.



There isn't enough blood, Mother. He won't live without more blood.



"Who said that?" asked Jes.



"Said what?" Lehr whispered. "Keep your voice down, Jes, you'll distract her."



Mehalla? Seraph asked, uncertain whether that soft voice had been real or imaginary. There was no answer.



Whoever it had been, she had been right. Kissel needed blood the Lark could not supply him with.



But Seraph wasn't a Lark, or at least, not only a Lark. Leaving her right hand, the hand with the Lark's ring to cover the closed hole in Kissel's chest, she brought her left hand, covered with Kissel's blood, to her lips and touched it with her tongue.



She called her magic to hand. Find this, she told it, showing it Kissel's blood. Her magic took the dried blood from the bandages, from her hands, from Kissel's bloody clothes. She touched her tongue again. Make it like this. The dried, dead blood became clean and alive again. Put it here. The part of her that was Lark found the collapsing blood vessels and showed the magic where it needed to be.



Seraph took a shuddering breath. "Let go," she told Lehr, who held her wrists in a bruising grip. "He doesn't need me anymore."



Lehr released her, and she pulled her hands away. Kissel's chest looked as though the wound was weeks old. She was a little disappointed that there was a mark at all, but remembering Brewydd's insistence that Tier's knees heal the last bit on their own, she thought that perhaps it was just as well.



Kissel opened his eyes. "I don't think I'll be up and fighting today," Kissel told Seraph. "But maybe tomorrow." He tried to sit up, but didn't quite make it. Toarsen caught his head before it hit the ground. "Then again," Kissel said weakly, "maybe next week or the week after that."



"You'll do," said Tier, breaking off his singing.



"Thank you," whispered Toarsen, and there were tears in his eyes.



"I told you I wouldn't lose anyone else to that bastard," she said coolly.



"Where'd all the blood go?" asked Rinnie.



Seraph patted Kissel's bare shoulder. "Back where it belongs," she said. "Let's try Gura."



Gura was at once both easier to heal and more difficult: easier because she knew how to call upon the ring now, more difficult because she was tiring, and there was more damage. Ielian had broken Gura's ribs and completely severed a muscle in his shoulder.



She was deep into the final connections that the Lark knew would allow the dog to control his leg as well as he had before it was injured when someone spoke to her.



"Seraph?"



It took her a moment to pull far enough out of the healing to know that it was Tier.



"Seraph, Hinnum has come back." Tier's voice was soft but urgent. "Can you help him?"



Seraph looked up and saw Hennea on her knees, tears streaming down her cheeks, holding a limp black and white bird in her hands. "Seraph?" she said.



Seraph stumbled to her feet and Tier put his arm around her until she steadied. She knelt beside Hennea and put her hands on the magpie.



She felt the Lark's power wash over the bird, but like oil repels water, the healing washed over him without touching him. She tried again.



This time she noticed the differences between him and Kissel. Age and magic entwined his body and kept her from healing him. She saw that it would be difficult to heal a solsenti mage because of the alteration that magic, without the filter of the Raven's Order, worked on a mage's body. She understood how it was that a strong solsenti mage would live for many years beyond a normal life span as magic reinforced aging flesh, ligaments, and bone.



"He is too old, and magic too deep in him to allow for healing," Seraph said, stricken. "I can do nothing."



Hennea smoothed his feathers and crooned to him. Bright eyes dulled, and Seraph could feel the exact moment his heart ceased beating.



Darkness approached, and Seraph looked up in alarm, but it was only her son. The Guardian crouched behind Hennea and wrapped his arms around her as she wept.



"Jes couldn't be here," he told her. "But I can."



The magpie's shape fell away and in Hennea's lap was a child who looked to be no more than four years old.



"Ah my poor Hinnum," Hennea whispered. "How cruel was this? Such a price you paid for magic, my friend." She looked at Seraph. "When he was three centuries old he stopped aging and began to get younger. It was good, until he began getting too young. When I last saw him he looked as though he was Rinnie's age - he found it humiliating." She looked at the toddler in her arms. "He would have hated this."



"He was a great wizard and the world is lessened by his death," said Seraph.



"He was the greatest mage who ever lived," Hennea's voice was thick with grief. "I was the Raven, and I never dreamed what power an illusionist could wield. He could work other magics, but illusion was the heart of him. He took the point for the spell to sacrifice Colossae because I no longer had the power to do so. Fifty Ravens would not equal his power."



"When this is over," said Tier, "you'll tell me his story, and I'll sing it so that his fame will never die. He died protecting my children, he died trying to defeat the Shadowed. Such a man deserves to be remembered."



"I remember him," Hennea murmured. "I remember him."



"He'll be coming soon," said Lehr.



"If he did this to Hinnum," said Hennea, "then we have no chance."



"He could kill us without our ever seeing him," said Phoran. "He stopped the breath in my body. If Rinnie hadn't startled him, I'd be dead."



"He hasn't gotten what he wants yet," said Tier.



"The gems?" Seraph shook her head. "Without Hinnum to guard the library, all he needs is to read through the books. He'll discover what he needs."



"You're Ravens." Tier got to his feet. "You don't need the kind of study that a wizard does who is learning new magic. The Willon I know is meticulous. He'd never just jump in and try something new. He's a merchant, a successful one. He'll think of negotiating for what he wants before he'll try it himself. He still has the advantage. It would have simplified things to have Rinnie with him. But he doesn't need to do it that way."



He walked over to the horses and unsaddled Skew. Taking the blanket, he unfolded it, shook it out carefully, and brought it to Hennea.



"This is covered in the sweat and hair of a humble and faithful servant. It is not the silk Hinnum deserves, but I think it is not entirely unsuitable."



Who but Tier could make an old horse blanket seem a fitting shroud for Hinnum of Colossae? Seraph blinked back her own tears. She hadn't known Hinnum long - but she'd known of him all of her life. Wetness struck her face, and she looked up to see the skies dark with heavy rain clouds, as if they, too, were mourning the death of the old mage.



Tier laid the blanket on the cobbles and took Hinnum's body from Hennea's unwilling arms. He set the small form in the middle of the brightly colored blanket and wrapped him in it. Picking him up, he carried the small bundle to the side of the road. There was a house with a small yard with a bush. Tier hid the body behind it.



"We'll keep him out of sight," he said. "Let Willon wonder if he will be coming back to help again. Hennea, I think Lehr is right. Willon will rest up a little, but it won't be long before he comes. You need to teach me how to pronounce the name of the Elder god."



"We have to hurry." Seraph stood up. "Hennea, Hinnum gave his life to give us this chance."



She waited until Hennea was coaching Tier, one syllable at a time so as not to attract the god's attention prematurely, before going to Phoran. He sat, with Toarsen and Kissel, leaning against one of the buildings that fronted the small winding street. Rinnie was sitting next to him, as she usually was. They all looked half-asleep.



Lehr crouched next to Phoran on the balls of his feet, talking quietly with Phoran. He broke off as soon as he heard her approach.



"You can be used against us, too," she told Phoran. "And you are defenseless against a Shadowed. I want you to stay where you are. Don't draw attention to yourselves if you can help it. I don't know if we can protect you - and I'd rather never have to find out."



Phoran shook his head. "Willon doesn't know you."



She'd expected arguments - in her experience men didn't like to be told they were helpless. Phoran's remark didn't seem to have much bearing on what she'd said.



"Of course he does," she answered. "For twenty years we have lived in the same town."



Phoran smiled, the sweet smile that doubtless had seen him through more trouble than any ten children. "Yes, but he doesn't know you. He knows a quiet, cold woman, commanding and strong, who cares for nothing except for Tier and her family."



"And?"



"The woman he thinks he knows would never put her family in danger. Not for an emperor, and certainly not for his guards." The smile widened, and his tired eyes lit up. "And he'd be right - except that you don't see us as an emperor and his guards. I saw your face when we told you Rufort was dead - but Willon didn't. He won't know you care about us at all because he cares for no one. He won't try and use us as hostages."



Then he did something utterly unexpected. He stood up, brushed off his pant legs, and took two steps forward, bowed low, until his mouth was level with her face, and kissed both of her cheeks. "He thinks Tier is soft, and you are hard - and he's wrong on both counts."



She could feel the flush that rose under her skin.



"We know you," he said. "But he doesn't."



"Well," she said, flustered, and was almost grateful for Jes's low, rumbling warning.



"He's coming," said Lehr, standing up. "I feel it, too, Jes. He's not trying to hide from us."



"Just keep low," she told them. She held out her hand for Rinnie. "We need you with us," she told her. "Come, Lehr."



At Hennea's direction, they stood in a rough semicircle with Tier in the center. As Willon strolled into view, Seraph tightened her hands on Rinnie and Lehr. She saw Jes take Hennea's hand, and, finally, Hennea and Tier held hands. As soon as they did so, Seraph felt it happen. Just as Hennea had told her it would, a connection snapped between her and the other five Ordered who stood in front of the Shadowed. In so much, the Lark ring allowed her to stand in for their missing Order.



"I mean you no harm," said Willon, stopping a dozen feet from them. He was young, Seraph saw, with dark hair tied at the nape of his neck. There was a bruise on his forehead, and he moved stiffly: Seraph took pleasure in knowing he had not come out of the battle with Hinnum unwounded.



"Tier," he said. "You are a Bard, you know I speak the truth. I've never wanted to hurt you. I only need your wife to fix the Ordered gems so that they will work for me - or, better still, give them to me and show me how it is done. I'll leave you in peace until the end of your children's children's days - my word on it."



"We are Travelers," said Lehr, in a growl that sounded as if it could have come from his brother's mouth. "We cannot let the Shadowed go free."



Willon threw up his hands. "The Shadowed, the Shadowed. The Shadowed died five centuries ago, a fool who was trying only to stay alive, and so he drained the life from everything else. Killing all those he cared about to preserve what was worthless without them. I am not like that. Tier, you know me. I wouldn't do something like that. I enjoy a challenge, Tier, I enjoy a song in the evening. I'm not like the Shadowed King."



"Perhaps not yet," said Hennea. "But he wasn't always the Unnamed King either. He was a good man who worried for his people. He saw a way to ensure that his kingdom would prosper."



"He killed them," said Willon. "He destroyed his kingdom. I would never hurt anyone."



"Tell that to Rufort," said Rinnie.



Seraph squeezed her hand hard. She did not want the first attack to settle on her daughter.



"Your guardsman and the dog were killed by Ielian. I did not command their death."



"Colbern," said Jes, in a voice so soft and low it beat upon Seraph's ears like far-off thunder. "A whole town died to feed you."



"They were nothing," he said. "No one I knew. No one you knew."



Seraph felt Lehr take a breath, and this time he received her warning squeeze.



"What of Mehalla?" asked Seraph. "My daughter, whom you killed."



The affability fell off Willon's face as if wiped by a cloth. For a moment his expression was entirely blank. He started to say something - a lie, because he stopped when he glanced at Tier. "Mehalla was a mistake," he said.



"I don't think so." Seraph kept her voice soft and pleasant. "I think you killed my daughter, watched her die for almost a year, then came to my home and told us how sorry you were for her death."



"You will be sorry for her death," said Tier. "For her death and for all the dead you have caused since you became the Shadowed. When you take the Stalker's power, Willon, you become evil."



"No," he said. "You become powerful. You don't understand the good I can do, Tier. If I have the gems, if I can work all the Orders in the gems, I can heal, I can build, I can raise cities or even empires."



"You could," said Seraph. "But would you? Death follows you like maggots follow rot."



"So, Tier," said Willon, "do you let your woman do your talking now? Women should be taught to be silent while a man conducts business."



"I would never say that, never even dare think that," said Tier. "It might make Seraph angry. If I said it. But you'll not make her mad because she doesn't care what you think. Without the Stalker you are nothing."



Seraph felt the power Tier poured into his words and saw Willon take a step back. She also felt herself regain control of her instinctively hot reaction to Willon's words.



"You killed my daughter," Tier said, his voice as hard and cold as Seraph had ever heard it. "I will not bargain with you."



"I didn't mean to," Willon said. "She wasn't meant to die."



"No," agreed Hennea. "She was meant to stand here with us, so that we could destroy what you will become."



"She stands here anyway," said Seraph softly. "To watch you die. Sila-evra-kilin-faurath!" She said the word that had killed the troll, heard it echo in the streets of Colossae.



Willon staggered back, but he was no troll who was used to his natural magic immunity to stand still under the word of power, and Seraph had no vast store of magic to draw upon, as she had drawn upon the wards of her home. She hurt him, but he did not die.



Willon licked the blood off his lip. "Stupid Traveler bitch," he said, spittle flying from his mouth. "Shut up. Just shut up. If you would be quiet, it would all be arranged. Your family would be safe. Why won't you just shut up?"



"Because you aren't worth listening to?" said Phoran laconically, and much too closely. She couldn't take her eyes off Willon to look, but he'd left his safe place near the buildings - and if he'd left, surely Toarsen and Kissel were not too far behind. She should have gotten his promise rather than let Phoran distract her.



"You couldn't even keep Rinnie and me when you had us. What kind of wizard can't hold on to a child and a has-been drunkard like me?" Phoran asked.



If Seraph hadn't had her shielding ready, Phoran might not have lived to regret those words. The magic Willon threw at the Emperor was strong, and Seraph felt her hastily redirected shields begin to give beneath it. Then Hennea's magic aided hers and turned Willon's attack aside.



"Now, Tier," Seraph heard Hennea say.



"Lynwythe," Tier said.



"Lynwythe," he said, and hoped something would happen.



It wasn't at all what he expected. As soon as the words left his lips, Rinnie's and Hennea's hands disappeared, as did Willon. The familiar weight of his lute was gone as well. Tier was alone.



He stood in a long, wide room with walls, ceiling, and floor all of dove grey and strangely featureless, as if someone merely thought about a room, rather than a real room.



Instinct made him want to return to his family - but Hennea and Hinnum had both thought his speaking of that name was the only possible way to defeat the Shadowed. He disciplined himself, looked around, and began walking.



His sturdy boots left marks on the featureless floor: not quite footprints, just a marring of the surface where the hard edge of his heels touched down. For a moment he felt ashamed, embarrassed that he, a farmer, should dare tread such hallowed halls at all, let alone mar the floors.



He stopped and took a deep breath. "I do not belong here," he said in a more pleasant tone than he felt like using. "I know it, as do you. However I doubt a few marks on the floor are going to bother you much. I am a Bard, sir. I know how to influence people - and I know when someone tries to influence me. I'll thank you to stop."



No one replied, but the feeling that he ought to be cringing and scuttling forward on hands and knees because of his great inadequacies left. Conscious of the danger his family was in, he walked quickly forward. Though there was nothing in the room that he could see, he felt this was the direction he must walk in.



"Why did you call My name, Bard?" The voice was deep and rich.



Tier stopped walking and turned to face the god who'd appeared next to him without a sound or any warning, just his words in a rich bass that part of Tier could not help but want to hear in song, just once.



There was not much else impressive about him. He appeared to be a man a little shorter than average and slight of build. His hair and eyes were as dark as Tier's own.



"Why do you hesitate, Bard?" He said with a small smile that sent chills down Tier's spine. This was not the Weaver. "Do you seek to form lies that might please Me?"



"No," answered Tier truthfully. "It just occurred to me that I'm not certain what the real truth is. The simple answer is that we only had the one name."



"So you called upon Me because you could not call upon My brother? Is there another answer?"



Tier decided to trust his instincts. "I think the barrier the Weaver created limits His ability to work in this world. I think He has interfered all that He can already. If we'd had both names, we would have called upon the Weaver." He took a deep breath. "And we would have failed. The Weaver can do no more to help us."



The Stalker raised his hands. "And you think that I will? Now when My servant, My slave has loosened the bonds that hold Me? He will not have to take many more Orders before I am able to do whatever pleases Me."



"He is not Your servant, nor Your slave," said Tier. "He is a thief who snuck into Your prison and stole Your power without so much as a by-your-leave."



"Even as you have called My Name, Bard, so I must answer like a dog answers the call of his master." The words were bitter and angry, but neither emotion was reflected in the Stalker's face or voice.



"While we speak my family faces the Shadowed on their own," said Tier, then sucked in a breath. You can do better than this, he thought. "I can only apologize for my discourtesy. Offending You is the last thing I wish to do. We need Your help to defeat the Shadowed."



"Indeed," said the god. "What will you give me for this help? Who will you sacrifice? Your wife? One of your children? The Emperor, perhaps?"



"I will not," Tier said, his blood turning to ice in his veins. "But I will give you myself."



"Will you?" said the god, his voice hushed. He reached up to cup Tier's chin in his hands.



Pain snaked down Tier's spine, and he heard himself cry out. Nothing, not even Telleridge's hammer slamming down on his knees, hurt so badly. He fell to the ground, and the god knelt with him, keeping that gentle touch that rent and tore without a physical wound.



"Pull away, Bard," said the Stalker. "Pull away, and the pain will stop."



Tier closed his eyes against the voice, pull away and lose any chance for victory. He could not, would not do it.



In the end the god released His hold and stood. "If I could do something about the thieves who take My power without asking, I would have long ago. There is nothing I can do."



"I am a Bard," whispered Tier, curled in a sweating ball on the clean, cold floor. "I can tell when You lie."



For the first time, Tier saw honest emotion on the face of the Stalker: anger. "You overstep yourself, Bard. I am the Lord of Death and you are in My realm."



"Binding the Orders to the gems hasn't worked to loosen the veil that keeps you imprisoned," said Tier a little desperately. It sounded like truth to him, and he found the reasons why. "I think that if they had loosened, You would already have destroyed Willon yourself. Hinnum told me that You are not evil. Surely what the Shadowed does with Your power offends You."



From somewhere he found the strength to sit up, though his muscles were still twitching, waiting for more pain.



"If your wife destroys the gems without freeing the Orders, it will loosen the barrier," said the Stalker.



"Willon wants my wife to clean the spirit from the gems so that he can use them all," Tier told him. "He knows about the Guardian Order. If my wife does not show him, he will learn how to do it eventually. He has all the time in the world, because death has no hold on him. Eventually he will take all the gems and eat their power - the power that belongs to You and to the Weaver. Then he will destroy You both."



He'd read Willon's intention when he first realized what it meant that Willon was not looking for six spirit-cleaned gems, but all of the gems clean.



The Stalker turned away, jerking his eyes from Tier's as if Tier had some sort of hold on him.



"You told him how to bind the Orders to the gems," Tier said. He wasn't certain he could stand, so he didn't. "If You had not done that, the Travelers could have dealt with him eventually. That is the task they bear for their imperfect sacrifice. Their greed for knowledge, for the libraries and Hinnum's mermori left the possibility open for a Shadowed to exist. It is a task they have carried out since the fall of Colossae. But there are few Travelers left now, thanks to Willon. If You had not told him how to bind the Orders, he would be no threat to You now."



"You said it yourself, Bard," the Stalker said bitterly, "death has no hold over him. I can do nothing to him so long as he holds My power."



"So what can I do to him?" asked Tier. "How do we stop him for You?"



The god sighed. "I can help." He said. "I will sing with you and we will withhold my power from Willon for a time. You have proved to me that you can withstand the pain of My song inside you. While we hold the power back, Willon must be killed."



"Lehr?" asked Tier.



"Only the war god can kill an immortal," said the Stalker regretfully. "There will be sacrifices before the Shadowed is dead, Tier."



"The Guardian believes that if he kills someone, it will destroy Jes," said Tier.



"The Guardian is right," agreed the Stalker. "Hennea is as much My child as she is My brother's or Jes is yours. I would not cause her more pain if I could help it."



"Lynwythe," Tier heard himself finish the word and realized that the entire episode had taken no time at all.



Everyone paused, waiting for something to happen. Tier released Rinnie's hand, then Hennea's. He pulled the lute, which was once more on his back, over his shoulder and began to pick a melody.



The Stalker had told him the song didn't matter, but Tier picked a soldier's song, one of those pieces with eight lines of chorus for every two lines of verse, and the number of verses was limited only by his memory for risque puns. He could sing it from now until sundown.



He bent his head to tune a string, and said, very softly. "Jes, when I start the second chorus, the Guardian will be able to kill Willon."



"It didn't work," said Willon. "The Stalker didn't answer you."



"Did you think He would?" asked Tier. Of course Willon would know the god's real name. He would have to have both names if he were going to steal their power. "Why would He answer me?"



"I can do it," said Lehr, who had also heard Tier's words.



Tier shook his head and began singing.



"What are you doing?" asked Willon, but Tier could tell that Seraph wanted to ask the same thing.



He could answer neither one of them because the god's power burned through his throat like fire. He understood why the Stalker had tested him with pain because this song hurt, the Stalker's power no lighter for him to bear than it was for the Shadowed - and Tier would take no other person's life to make it easier.



"What are you doing?" asked Willon again, and this time he was angry, certain Tier was making fun of him with his choice of song - a silly thing about a soldier who goes out into a strange village looking for a woman to lie with.



"He is a Bard," said Seraph suddenly. "Music is his gift, Willon."



Out of the corner of his eye, Tier saw Jes release his hold on Hennea, then vanish from sight.



Willon had been watching, too.



"Two hundred and twelve years," said Willon, "and I never knew that there was a sixth Order. I thought Volis was talking about the Stalker when he called him the Eagle. If it hadn't been for Ielian, I never would have known that I was missing one. Where did he go?"



"He's still here," said Seraph. "Can't you feel the ice of his breath on the back of your neck?"



Bless her, thought Tier, as he forced his pain-laden finger to exert the proper pressure on the neck of his lute. She didn't know what he was doing, but she knew he was doing something. The longer she kept Willon distracted the better.



"I told you to shut up, woman," said Willon in a vicious tone that broke through his merchant-smooth manner and rang true as a bell to a Bard's senses. He gestured at Seraph.



Nothing happened. Tier was no mage, but he had a Rederni's keen sense where magic was concerned, and he felt nothing at all.



"Bitch!" snarled Willon, obviously placing the blame for his failure upon Seraph. He sucked in a breath and pulled the merchant's mask back over his face. "But I am more than just the Stalker's avatar. I am a wizard who bears the Raven's Order."



He ripped open his tunic neck and Tier saw that he wore a necklet covered with gems. Hennea made a small sound, so Tier could only suppose that they were all Ordered.



"I can't," the Guardian said into Papa's ear. "I can't risk Jes." Jes sensed the Guardian's cold terror before it was buried beneath the avalanche of the Guardian's protective rage. A Guardian defended those he considered his - and Jes belonged to him.



"Only you can do it," said Papa in a quick whisper between verses. "The Stalker said only the Guardian can kill him."



Jes understood than. Somehow the god his father had called upon had given Papa's music the power to hinder the Shadowed. But the power came at a terrible cost, the shimmering waves of agony that rolled over Jes were only a taste of what his father felt.



The Guardian couldn't perceive Tier's suffering as Jes did, but he could see the sweat that dampened their father's tunic and the lines of pain around his mouth. And all of Papa's hurt was to make a way for them to kill the Shadowed.



We can't let him suffer for nothing, Jes told the Guardian. We have to kill the Shadowed while we can. It doesn't matter if I die as long as we take the Shadowed with us.



Jes could feel the Guardian's absolute refusal, and beneath it the echoes of memories of the other Order Bearers, driven mad by the Guardian's actions. He couldn't bear to lose Jes that way.



Jes was helpless, held prisoner by the Guardian's unwillingness to put Jes at risk.



Look, Jes told him in mounting frustration, look at Papa's pain.



"We are Ravens," his mother was telling Willon, her voice laden with disdain as she nodded toward the Ordered gems the Shadowed wore. "You are nothing."



She was trying to keep the Shadowed's attention on her, to let Jes do what Papa had asked. She did it with the weapon best suited to the task - her tongue.



"You are a solsenti," she told the Shadowed in the voice Papa always said could freeze a man to death quicker than any blizzard. "A mere illusionist who can only ape his betters by stealing magic that doesn't belong to him."



Jes felt the impact of her words, the fury loosed in the Shadowed in response to his mother's mockery. He tried to urge the Guardian to action, but the Shadowed's response was swifter.



The solsenti wizard gestured and Seraph flew backward, slamming into the road. She bounced once, then lay still.



With a soundless snarl the Guardian raced to her side, still camouflaged from view. The relief of seeing her ribcage rise shook the Guardian's resolve. Mother was his to protect as well.



"You are not but a dirty little thief," said Hennea, who had stepped between the others and the Shadowed.



Willon, still enraged, screamed out a smattering of unintelligible syllables that both Jes and the Guardian knew must be some sort of solsenti spell. The Guardian, knowing himself helpless, watched Hennea hold up her hand.



Nothing happened to her.



"A dirty little thief," Hennea said again, dusting her hands.



Rain began to fall from the clouds Rinnie had been gathering. As the cold drops hit his mother's face, she opened her eyes. After a moment she sat up slowly. The Guardian started to touch her, but his attention was drawn back to the Shadowed as Willon suddenly staggered and fell.



For a moment Jes thought it was something Hennea had done, but then he saw a knife on the ground and realized Lehr had thrown it with such force it had knocked the Shadowed off his feet. The blade hadn't penetrated, though, just cut the cloth of Willon's tunic so the links of chainmail showed beneath.



Phoran sprinted forward, Toarsen a half step behind; but it was too late - Willon had recovered from his surprise.



Hennea shouted, a wordless sound, and Jes could feel her desire to protect the others, but Willon's magic still sent all three men stumbling backwards. Hennea swayed and he knew the sharp pain that sliced through her at the backlash of the Shadowed's imperfectly deflected spell.



Mother struggled to get up, and the Guardian helped her to her feet.



"Papa wants me to kill the Shadowed," the Guardian told her urgently, as he steadied her. "But it will kill Jes or drive him mad. An empath can't take another's life - not a strong empath like Jes."



She shivered as if she were cold, the mist of her breath a testimony to the Guardian's distress. Unable to break through the Guardian's protective concealment. "You underestimate Jes," she said. "He is stronger than you believe."



Yes, said Jes.



Papa, still singing, walked between Willon and the Emperor, setting himself in front of Willon. He walked with a limp, and Jes knew his left knee ached from the old injury. But the knee was as nothing to the torment of the Stalker's music. He tucked the lute against his body to shield it from the rain as best he could.



Willon raised his hands again, and Rinnie ran between them, shouting, "No!"



It was too much for the Guardian. For Rinnie, for Papa, for his family, both he and Jes were willing to die.



Lightning struck Willon with a deafening crack. He staggered and sobbed, his flesh smoking in the chill of Rinnie's storm. Lightning struck again, but Willon didn't fall down. He ran at Rinnie.



But the Guardian was there first. There was no finesse in his attack, but none was needed. Willon didn't see him until the Guardian hit him the first time. As his fists hit flesh, the fever of battle rose, and the wizard, half-stunned by Rinnie's lightning, was not much of a challenge - not as long as Papa kept playing so Willon had no access to the Stalker's power.



"Wait," said Phoran's Memory wrapping a hand around the Guardian's wrist, stopping his strike.



As soon as he was still, the Memory released him. "Hold him for me," it said.



At the sound of the Memory's voice, the Shadowed took a step back. The Guardian stepped in and took him in a wrestling hold, pinning the struggling mage to the ground.



The Memory settled beside them and took Willon's head in its hands. The wizard showed the whites of his eyes and a rising tide of fear poured off him. The Memory bent over him.



Willon screamed and Jes pulled the Guardian around him, letting the Guardian protect him from the worst of Willon's experience. The firmly muscled body beneath the Guardian began to shrink, the softness of flesh replaced by something dry and hard. When at last the thing the Guardian held quit struggling, and the Memory pulled away, the Shadowed bore no resemblance to Willon, merchant of Redern.



Thick dark hair had been reduced to a few strands of white on his scalp. He looked as though something had sucked all the moisture from his body. His skin was color of oiled wood and had the texture of parfleche. His lips had shrunk with the rest of him, leaving his teeth exposed. He looked like a corpse left to dry in the sun, but Jes knew he was very much alive.



The Guardian released his grip before the Shadowed's terror had a chance to damage Jes.



"I cannot kill him," said the Memory. "That task is yours, Guardian."



"I'll do it," said Lehr.



The Guardian smiled at his brother, then met Hennea's gaze briefly.



"No," he said. "Death is my gift." And he snapped the brittle neck.



Jes screamed, ripped from the safe cocoon the Guardian had tried to envelope him in. The pain was far beyond anything he had ever undergone, but that wasn't the worst of it.



Something reached up from Willon at the moment of his death and grasped onto Jes, wrapping itself around him. When it touched him, it felt as if someone had torn away his skin and pressed him into the man Willon had been. No man should ever know another as Jes knew Willon at that moment. He couldn't hide, couldn't distinguish himself from the Shadowed.



Cold hands touched his face and he felt Willon draw away, as if Willon's ghost had no wish to come in contact with those hands.



"His death belongs to me," said the Memory. "Give it to me."



"Yes," agreed the Guardian and gave way to Jes.



Cold lips touched Jes's and he opened his mouth even as he struggled against the Memory's hold - not because he wanted to, but because he couldn't help himself. He had no words for the sensations he felt then as Willon was drawn from him like a sword from its sheath.



Only when he was empty, did the Memory release him. Jes stared at it, unable to look away. The Memory had become a darkness so solid, Jes could hardly bear to look upon it. Rain glistened on it like wet ink.



"I am avenged," it said, and it was gone.



Papa quit singing midword. He walked over and put a hand on Jes's shoulder. Raw as he was, even such a light contact hurt, but Jes needed the reassurance more than he needed freedom from pain, so he leaned against his father for a moment.



When he pulled away, Hennea was there, slipping a hand through the crock of his arm and resting her cheek against his shoulder. The cool grace of her presence washed over him, soothing the raw places Willon's death had left. He sighed with relief.



Mother came and gave him a sharp once over. "You'll do," she said.



He smiled tiredly at her, or maybe it was the Guardian who smiled.



"And so," Papa said, his voice hoarse and his face unreadable. "And just so died the Shadowed who was once Willon, merchant of Redern."



Mother took Papa's hand and brought it to her lips. "Well done, my love."