Raven felt the thrum of the stranger’s magic. Craft, not Art, and yet more powerful than any Craft practitioner he had ever met, and more dangerous. Raven took a step back, hands up in the universal sign of peace.
“Are you my next challenge?” the stranger asked. “Or am I yours?”
Chapter Twenty-One
The man was not speaking English, was not speaking any language that Raven ever recalled hearing, and yet, as in a dream, he understood everything the man said. He added sudden comprehension of unknown languages to the uncomfortable mysteries of the place, and disregarded the paradox. His every instinct told him that the man before him required all of his attention.
“I mean you no harm,” Raven said.
“That would be a first,” the stranger responded. “Your kind always means harm and the more words of peace you say the darker your intent.”
It occurred to him then; from the man’s warrior stance, the archaic dress, and the unknown language, this stranger had not come from the same century that Raven had. From the little Raven knew of Craft and ceremonial time stated that in the trance-world and the vision-world, time didn't flow in the same way that it did in the waking world of everyday. What Raven counted as unfortunate history was to this man fresh wounds. Unforgiven and unforgivable.
It was a young shaman-to-be, almost certainly, here to face tests and challenges as the final step to prove his training and take up the mantle of his calling, even as Raven was to face tests and challenges to prove himself a worthy champion.
Raven bowed his head. “I can't deny what my people have done to yours. My people, and my family in particular. Where I come from. . when I come from, these things happened a long, long time ago.”
Not strictly true, but Raven wasn’t about to go into the more subtle issues of discrimination, economic injustice, and treaty rights infringement. At least one of the foundations he gave to supported legal defense funds for indigenous peoples. He silently promised that if he got through this encounter alive he would increase the donation.
“I'm not here to debate guilt.” Raven continued. “You have every right to hate my kind. But there is a danger out there in my world, in my time, a danger that will wipe my people and your people off the planet. That will destroy life itself. I've come seeking a way to end that danger. If you kill me here, there will be many, many innocent deaths.”
“Why should I trust you?”
Raven could come up with nothing, nothing that would not sound like the lies his ancestors told to this man's people over and over again. But what could he do? If his magic was as strong as it was in the waking world, he would have no trouble defeating this man. But could he be so sure that it worked that way? More importantly, if he killed this man here, the man would not wake from his vision quest in his own time. Raven felt certain that the stranger was destined to be a powerful shaman. What would it do to the flow of history if Raven ended his life here? What right did he have to deal that sort of blow to a people his family had already wronged?
Ravenscrofts, alone and in conjunction with other Europeans, had already taken away far too much from the original inhabitants of this continent. He did not want to add to that debt. Yet the stranger looked at Raven with death in his eyes, weakening Raven’s resolve.
He was not ready to leave the life he had with Cassandra. He wanted to watch Ransley grow up, wanted to be the sort of father he himself had never had. Beyond any selfish reasons, he had to live to stop the darkness that spilled from the cave, for the sake of the world itself. A younger Raven would have done the math and found the choice obvious, if regrettable. The man Cassandra called husband didn’t find the path nearly so clear.
The stranger shifted impatiently. Raven could see him gathering strength to fight. He remembered hearing that before the European invasion destroyed their culture, the indigenous peoples of this continent did not draw such a strong distinction between Art and Craft. That the most powerful of their shaman had combat magic of their own. Raven focused to strengthen his personal shields, but he knew he would not survive this encounter on defensive magic alone.
What would Cassandra do? But Cassandra was not here. He had to make the choice on his own, and trust to the changes her presence in his life had wrought that he made the right one. He took a deep breath, feeling the slight weight of the silver raven pendant against his chest. He remembered that the thing that made the most sense was not always the right answer.
“I will not fight you.”
The stranger snorted in disgust. “You think I will not kill you if you do not fight?”
“I hope that you will not. I understand why you might want to. I think that you and I are here for similar purposes, and I hope for that commonality, if for no other reason, you let me live.”
Words were not enough. Europeans had lied to the indigenous inhabitants of this land far too many times for words to have any meaning. He had to give some surety of his faithfulness.
Cassandra, forgive me if this does not work. Tell Ransley that his father loved him.
Raven fell to his knees, dropped his shield entirely, and spread his arms open exposing his chest in a gesture of ultimate surrender. “I know something of how many of your tribes think, and I know you do not revel in unnecessary killing, be it deer or be it a fellow man. I do not think that my blood on your hands will help your quest, but that is your choice to make. I will not fight you.”
His life was in the stranger’s hands, and yet he felt oddly unafraid. Strong even. Not like fire that consumes, not even like stone that withstands, but like water, which flows and turns course but ultimately finds its way to the sea, water that quenches fire and wears away stone. It felt peaceful, and freeing. He watched the stranger patiently, moments that lasted years, waited without impatience for his decision. “Believe me or not. I lay my life in your hands. I will not fight you.” He made himself meet the man’s eyes with a steady gaze, although he could not stop the small shudder that ran through his body.
The stranger’s dark eyes were hard as flint, and Raven held his breath, sure he would be blasted to perdition. But then the man took a deep, shaky breath and laughed.
“My teacher has often told me winning is not always about defeating the enemy. That sometimes the victory is knowing when not to fight. That advice always troubled me before. I thought he counseled cowardice, surrender. I think I understand better now. Go in peace, brother.”
The man walked past Raven, turned a corner, and was gone.
Shortly past the intersection of the two tunnels, the tunnel Raven followed widened into a half-round dead end. A broad form hunched over against the farthest wall. Raven froze, unable to tell in the dim light if it was a person or an animal. Given the confusing time stream, it could even be one of the cave bears or dire wolves that once roamed the continent.
He studied the form more closely, and nearly laughed when he realized it was nothing but an old woman wrapped in animal hides and sitting on a large, flat-topped rock.
“Make yourself useful, child.” The woman’s voice was weak and raspy with age. “Light the fire.”
He swore that neither the logs nor the stones of the fire circle had been there before. He laid the wood with practiced ease born of many fireside nights with Cassandra and set the kindling alight with a controlled flick of magefire. Soon the bigger logs caught, and he sighed as the warmth reached him. The old woman smiled as he studied her in the orange-gold of the firelight. The pale gray of her hair gave no hint as to its original color, and the play of light and shadow made it seem as though her skin tone and facial structure were different from minute to minute.
“I am the mother to all,” she said. “And I was old before the first humans walked the earth. You will not easily place me in any nation, in any time period.”
He didn’t bother to wonder how she had known his thoughts. “Forgive me, my lady, if I gave offence.”
“No offence taken,” she said warmly. “Curiosity is a good quality i
n the young.”
He was scarcely a youth in age or experience, but he dared not say so. He sensed her power now; and only, he felt sure, because she allowed it. He realized that he stood before the most powerful being he had ever encountered. Without conscious decision, he knelt before her.
“Oh, none of that nonsense, now. Humility ill becomes you. Sit by the fire, child, and tell me why you are here.” Her voice carried amusement, but also annoyance.
He sat facing her from the other side of the fire, mimicking her cross-legged pose. “My lady, I—”
“What did I tell you about humility? And you can call me Grandmother.”
“Yes, Grandmother.”
“Now answer my question.”
It took him a moment to remember what question had been posed. “Grandmother, a –darkness, for lack of a better word, has come into our world. It kills, and it takes over people’s minds and drives them to kill, as well. Those that sent me to the labyrinth have told me that it comes from another plane, like soul-stealers do. They say that it will end all life in our world if it is not stopped. It is nothing I understand, and I don’t know how to combat it.”
“Just as the scientists of your time talk about antimatter, some of those other planes carry what might be called antilife.”
So his sense of the thing on that first day at the cave had been more accurate than he knew.
“And just as life is driven to find sustenance,” she said, “to grow, and to reproduce itself in this universe and this plane, on other planes the anti-life replicates itself, seeks sustenance from other worlds, other universes. We do not know what drives it, any more than we know what caused that first spark of life to arise out of the primordial soup of amino acids warmed in the sun. But the planes are not always discrete unto themselves, as you who have called forth and banished soul-stealers know. There are things darker and more dangerous than soul-stealers. Things that will come on their own, seeking any leak in the fabric of the universe. Anti-life. Death that feeds on death as life feeds on life.”
Raven shook his head in confusion. “But life feeds on death. Even vegetarians feed off the death of a plant. Even vegans that live on seeds and berries feed off the life that could be and is not.”
The woman shook her head. “No, life feeds off of life, even if death results. But it is not the death itself that feeds us.”
“I don’t understand.”
“This shadow you seek to stop is a thing from another plane. Perhaps it does not understand us either. Perhaps it is only seeking to survive, and we perceive it as evil because what it needs to survive is our pain, our fear, our death. But your alliance is to life, as it was for those that went before, those that sent you to the labyrinth. As should be the natural alliance of every people born under this sun and on this world. Your job then, is not to understand it but to stop it.”
“I don’t know how.” Raven’s voice, raised in frustration, echoed in the cave.
He looked up at her, daring to meet her eyes for the first time. “Grandmother, please. I can sense the immensity of your power. Surely you can save us.”
She sat up straighter, and her eyes flashed dangerously. Still an old woman in form, yes, but all the grandmotherly kindness had gone, and he realized in that moment that the power she had let him sense earlier was only a fraction of her true strength. Bits of an old adage rose in his mind, something about the capriciousness of the gods. His mouth went dry.
“You dare to call the Old Powers back into the world?” In the shifting shadows, he saw the suggestion of spider legs spreading behind her.
Raven trembled where he was, unable to move, waiting for his soul to be devoured as if he were a hapless insect. Would Tony be the one to find the body? Would Cassandra? Would anyone know how he died? Would it even matter, if he could not stop the darkness?
And then the Grandmother laughed, a warm, kind laugh, an old woman once more. “Yes, child, they call me Grandmother Spider, though the webs I weave are not traps, but the fabric of the universes. You see me here as an old woman because I choose to take a form you can understand. They call me many things, in many times and places.” She smiled. “In Ireland I was the Morrigan, the raven goddess that trained the heroes who protected the people. Yet I am not a goddess nor an old woman nor anything I could explain to your human mind. I can interfere in the universe that you know in small ways. But for any of the Old Powers to fully manifest into your world would destroy it more swiftly and more surely than this thing you call the darkness.”
Raven’s heart had not yet slowed to its normal rate, and yet he dared to ask. “Pardon my boldness, but I do not understand.”
“The Old Powers are the powers of Making and Unmaking both. We can stir into being a universe where there is nothing but a void, but if we step fully into a universe already running its natural course, the disturbance will end that course.”
Raven closed his eyes. “So you cannot help.”
He slumped in exhaustion, hoping the Grandmother did not take it as disrespect. But to have come so far, overcome the challenges he had overcome, only to find that he was no closer to saving the world and the people he loved. . .
“Oh, child, usually you are smarter than this. I think you are not paying attention.”
Raven bit back a protest; one did not argue with a goddess, or an elemental force of Making and Unmaking, or whatever sat before him. But he had been paying attention. The information all swirled around in his brain, making very little sense. He needed time to sort it, and yet once again, he had a feeling that time was running out.
“I said I cannot manifest in your world. I also said that I can interfere in small ways.”
She had said that, yes. And something about training Irish heroes. He dimly remembered a rainy day in the library near his uncle’s home and a children’s book of folklore. A mighty warrior trained by a goddess. The Hound of Culainn. But the foe Raven faced could not be defeated by a sword, and Raven did not have the years to dedicate to training.
Grandmother’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Not every hero has the same tale.”
Raven’s jaw tightened momentarily. He would never get used to not having the privacy of his thoughts.
Grandmother chuckled, because of course she sensed that thought as well. “Will you take the hero’s path, and find out for yourself how this tale ends?”
“Wouldn’t someone from the Craft be better for this?”
She shook her head. “The type of Craft that drove back the darkness long centuries past has been lost to the world. Your world, your time, has split Art from Craft. There are benefits to this, the expertise that comes with specialization. But it means that neither Art nor Craft has the entirety of what it needs to re-seal the gap that was opened by the destruction of the land. Unlike most other mages, you have experience in wielding strength beyond your own.”
“Are you speaking of the Ravensblood? It has been destroyed, and I will not make another.”
Of that one thing he was sure. If there was a way to stop this, to save the world from being devoured by this darkness, that way did not lie in the dark magic that created the Ravensblood.
“The Ravensblood is gone, but your body’s memory of wielding it is not. The memory of channeling more strength than it was meant to channel, the memory of yielding to the will, even to the point of death.”
The cold chill of knowing came over him. “To the point of death, and beyond?”
“This is not dark magic, it does not specifically require your death as a sacrifice.”
Raven heard the unspoken part of that statement. It does not require death, but it may very well lead to death.
“You have been chosen for this task. Who knows why? It could be as simple as you being in the right place at the right time. But you have been cast as the champion of the story.”
“I will walk the path, then, if you can tell me the way.”
She pulled from her pocket a small, rounded object and handed it
to him. It fit into the palm of his hand, a heavy clay thing decorated with the stylized likeness of a crow or raven. He looked back to her, puzzled.
“Use this at the beginning of your path. It will call to you your guide and ally.”
He looked more closely at the clay bird. It had a hole at one end and more holes at the top. A memory sprang up. Cassandra had dragged him out to the Saturday Market very much against his will, and there had been a booth selling small clay flutes that hung on a cord like a pendant. It stuck in his mind for the persistence of the craftsperson who tried to insist he try one, despite his insistence that he played the piano, not the winds, thank you very much. Those flutes could have been more garishly colored versions of this one.
He was about to ask more questions, but the fire suddenly flared, blindingly bright. He scrambled to his feet and stumbled backward. The fire went out like a snuffed candle, leaving him alone in the darkness.
Sitting up with a start, Raven opened his eyes. The screen-saver on the television provided dim light to the parlor and his back reminded him that maybe he was getting too old to fall asleep on the couch. In his hand lay the stone flute.
Raven's Shade (Ravensblood Book 5) Page 17
