Raven's Strike rd-2

by Patricia Briggs

  “Your palace is bigger than this?” asked Rinnie, and looked as though she might be awestruck by him again. Phoran couldn’t have that.

  “Stupidly big,” he admitted. “And ugly. And impossible to keep repaired. There’s a leak in the eating hall that has been there for three generations. No one can figure out where the water is coming from.”

  “I expect we’ll find out someday when the entire ceiling falls in,” said Kissel comfortably. “Hopefully the Sept of Gorrish will be seated under a suitably heavy bit and be crushed to goo.”

  Toarsen cleared his throat and tipped his head meaningfully toward Rinnie.

  “Eh, sorry, lass.” Kissel ducked his head in embarrassment that might or might not have been real.

  “That’s all right.” Rinnie hopped off her horse and gave Kissel a mischievous smile. “I’m sure anyone you want smooshed to goo would deserve it.”

  They tied their horses to a railing that might have been set before the university for just that purpose—or it might have been decoration. Phoran couldn’t tell. He tied Blade as far from Toarsen’s stallion as he could, though the two horses had learned to tolerate each other for the most part.

  Tier, Seraph, and Hennea were talking quietly together. Phoran didn’t see either of their sons, but he knew them well enough to know they’d gone off exploring.

  “—where the library is in this building,” said Seraph.

  Hennea raised her eyebrows. “I’m pretty sure this is the library, Seraph.”

  “The whole thing?” Seraph didn’t sound overjoyed about it.

  In Phoran’s experience if there was anything a wizard appreciated more than a building full of books, it was a bigger building full of books.

  “Most libraries are organized,” he offered. “Especially libraries run by wizards.”

  Seraph drew in a breath and gave him a shallow bow of thanks. “I’ll hope it is very well organized.”

  Phoran continued to look at the library while Seraph went over to talk to Tier. As he thought of all the wondrous things he’d seen since they left Redern he realized two things.

  The first was that he was almost certain he was not going to be rid of the Memory soon enough to do him any good. He’d been listening to Seraph and Hennea and realized that, for all of Seraph’s earlier arguing with Ielian, neither of the Ravens really expected to find the Shadowed here. They were almost certain that he would find them eventually, because he wanted to punish Tier and his family for the fall of the Path and Seraph’s killing of the Shadowed’s minion in Redern. They didn’t expect the Shadowed to find them soon, though: Why would the Shadowed hurry to avenge himself, when he had all the time in the world? The Shadowed would be patient and strike when he felt it was time.

  The second thing he realized was that he was glad the Memory had forced him to flee to Tier. Even if it meant his death at the hands of the likes of the Sept of Gorrish when he returned, as he must, to Taela. He would not have given up the opportunity to see Shadow’s Fall and the wizards’ city for his throne or even his life. He turned from the library and glanced at Tier and Seraph. And the opportunity to be someone other than the Emperor was something he could not begin to put a price on at all.

  Lehr came jogging back, having evidently run around the perimeter of the entire building. “I can’t find any open doors,” he said. “There are some windows up higher that—”

  He broke off when the door they were standing in front of opened wide, revealing Jes. “This building is different,” he said, unnecessarily. “It’s not frozen like the others.”

  Hennea walked to the nearest wall and put her hand on it. “He’s right,” she said. “This building is thick with magic, but it’s a preservation spell of some sort.”

  “Like the maps,” Seraph said. “Of course the wizards would preserve their library.”

  “Of course,” murmured Tier. “If we couldn’t open doors and windows, I bet that we wouldn’t have been able to take books off the shelves. I can’t see wizards willingly making a library unusable.”

  Phoran waited until most of the others walked into the building, motioning Toarsen, Kissel, Rufort, and Ielian through ahead of him. Instead of obeying him, Ielian waited beside him.

  “Why do you do that?” Ielian whispered.

  Phoran slipped through the door, but hung back to give Ielian the illusion of privacy as they talked. He’d learned Lehr and Jes would probably hear every word anyway—but they’d pretend they hadn’t.

  “Do what?” The entryway to the library was not impressive, Phoran noticed—though maybe this was the back door. There was only a small entrance hall edged in businesslike doors and stairways.

  “Let Tier take charge, follow where you sh—could lead? You are the Emperor.”

  “Sometimes being Emperor is tiring,” Phoran answered, then he grinned. “And it’s always safer to let the Ravens go first into a wizards’ library.” He smiled at Ielian. “It’s all right. They know who I am. I don’t have to enforce protocol among my friends.”

  The others had taken the central stairway, so Phoran followed them leaving Ielian to trail behind him. The stairs went up only a single flight to a room that was as impressive as the entryway had not been. The ceiling, far above, was covered with decoratively shaped skylights, which illuminated the huge room.

  The library in the palace at Taela held five thousand volumes and was accounted the largest library in the Empire. Phoran estimated that this room alone held ten times that number. The entirety of the walls was covered in bookcases, mostly filled with books, and ladders and narrow walkways spiderwebbed around the walls to provide access to the shelves. On the floor of the room were more bookcases, set so closely together there was scarcely room to pass between them.

  Only a small section of the room near the stairway they’d entered by was free of bookcases. Instead, a number of small tables were set up so that library patrons could take the books and read them on padded benches and a couple of carved chairs.

  Seraph was holding on to Tier with obvious dismay.

  “It appears that we’ll be staying here for a while,” Tier said, sounding mildly amused.

  Phoran, bending over to rub Gura’s belly, noticed that they were all leaving muddy tracks on the polished floor.

  “Let’s leave this for today,” said Tier, glancing around. “The map shows another of the city gates on the other side of this building. I’d like to set up camp while it’s still light.”

  “Why not stay in here where it’s dry?” asked Ielian.

  “No,” said Hennea.

  “No,” said Lehr. “No one has brought back stories of an empty city, not in all the centuries this has waited here. Perhaps it’s not because no one ever found it—but because no one ever left it.”

  “We’ll camp outside of the city,” said Tier. “We might as well go now and pick a good site since it looks like we’ll be here for a while.”

  The University Gate was located just where the map had promised. After Lehr’s little speech in the library, Phoran was relieved when the brass gate, like the one they’d used to enter the city, opened at the first touch.

  In the end, a campsite wasn’t difficult to find. There was a small pond fed by a creek not a quarter mile from the gate. The ground was free of rock, and there was grazing for the horses. Best of all, sometime while they had been in the library, it had stopped raining.

  “We’ll set up a permanent camp, here,” said Tier, in satisfied tones. “Tomorrow we’ll see about building a few corrals so we don’t have to worry about the horses. And a shelter or two to keep the rain off our heads.”

  “Except for Hennea and me.” Seraph had already started to pull the packs off her little mountain horse. “We’ll go to the library while you set up camp.”

  “Not alone,” said Jes.

  Seraph turned to her oldest son and raised a cool eyebrow, and Phoran was caught between being thankful her look wasn’t turned on him and wishing he could use that expre
ssion on encroaching Septs—but he’d never managed to learn to raise a single eyebrow, and he didn’t think the expression would look quite the same with both eyebrows raised. Doubtless he would just look surprised.

  “Do not forget who and what I am, Jes,” Seraph said icily. “There are weapons other than swords.”

  Tier cleared his throat. “We’ll need you at camp, Jes. I’m going to send you and Lehr out hunting. If your mother can kill a troll, I’m certain she can handle a library.”

  That night, after the rest of them were sleeping, Phoran found himself restless for no reason he could determine. He set aside his blankets and pulled his boots on. Jes opened his eyes, then closed them again as Phoran walked past him. Toarsen and Kissel were both fast asleep, and he stepped lightly around them because they, unlike Jes, would not have just let him walk off alone.

  There was a little rise to the land fifty yards from camp, and he walked in that direction. When he topped the rise, the Memory was there waiting for him.

  It was darker than the night and taller than he was. Its oddly gracile form bent down, and thin wisps of something strong wrapped around his wrist.

  His sleeves were loose, so it had no trouble pushing one of them up and exposing the inside of his elbow. Phoran hissed as the Memory’s fangs sank deep. He’d forgotten how cold it was, forgotten how much it hurt.

  When it had finished with him, he sank to the ground and held his arm cradled to his chest.

  “By the taking of your blood, I owe you one answer. Choose your question.” The sexless whisper was no less frightening now than it had been the first time it spoke to him.

  “Who is the Shadowed?” Phoran asked.

  “He that gives his soul and spirit for power and eternal life. The Hungry One.”

  “I know that, that’s not what I meant, and you know it,” Phoran snapped. It would be useless to protest. He should have found a better way to frame his question. There was always tomorrow. He closed his eyes against the dull, consuming ache in his arm. “Give me a name.”

  “I give you all the answer I have,” it said, and faded into the night.

  CHAPTER 14

  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.”