Raven's Ladder

by Jeffrey Overstreet

  Krawg crumbled to the floor. “Cold.” Warney winced at the shallowness of his breath, the sound of a punishing fever. He dragged Krawg to the bunk. “You need,” he groaned, “Auralia’s yellow scarf. It cools your brow every time.”

  Krawg was already snoring, lips spluttering together like the cinch of a balloon as the air gusts out.

  Warney checked Krawg’s pockets. “You had it with you in the revel-house. I’m goin’ back.”

  And so he went out and tiptoed down the corridor, hoping nobody would recognize him as Krawg’s companion.

  Down in the gathering room, among those few stragglers who had not lumbered off to bed, talk about Krawg’s story had changed. Their voices were stern with disapproval, but they went on repeating its unfamiliar twists and surprises as if they were riddles to be solved.

  Back in the quieted revelhouse, Warney found the yellow scarf lying in a puddle under the table where he had listened to the tale of six tricksters. “Wish you were here, Auralia,” he murmured, “to help me bring Krawg back to rightness. Hope your weaving does the trick.”

  Three newcomers blocked the exit. Warney hesitated. Two of them looked excited, laughing, money in their hands. The other, stout and confident, beamed as if he’d just won the better end of a bargain. He put his hands on their shoulders in some ceremonial parting, then looked toward Warney.

  It was Snyde.

  Warney turned and strode toward the kitchen, pretending he belonged there. He passed through a bustle of barhelp too busy to notice him, and then he was out a back door and into the night’s red glow.

  A solitary rain cloud sent a shower slanting against the back of the revelhouse. Warney shuddered as miners and grubswine passed him, and he bowed his head to stare at the mud.

  All thoughts of Snyde fell away when he saw what one of the grubswine was sniffing. A severed appendage lay with fingertips pressed to the ground as if it might scuttle away.

  The drunkard’s hand. Warney kicked the heavy, dull-minded grubswine away.

  The hand’s flesh was dull and grey, and its ragged wrist did not look as if it had been severed by a sharp blade. Warney looked closer. Black stitches lined the edge, threads that had been broken, as if this was a glove modeled to pass for flesh. Like some old man’s mitten nibbled by mice.

  Even stranger, it had long and curling nails, more like the Seer’s than the drunkard’s. Most perplexing of all, the knuckles bore no runes like those Warney had clearly seen indoors.

  Warney hurried along, trying not to look at the ground for fear it might be littered with carnage. But the image of the hand stayed with him so vividly that he forgot all about what else he had seen in the revelhouse. For a while.

  Vawns complained as they dragged a wagon out of the crater to level ground, and the miners’ complaints were even darker as they coughed out the gritty corruption they had breathed in the Mawrnash mine.

  They were too tired to notice when Cal-raven, like some loose bundle of quarry, tumbled out the back and crawled into a huddle of abandoned, unhitched wagons that leaned like cattle stooping to graze. One cart was still rigged to three handsome horses, whose ears pricked forward through the rain as they stared up the avenue in expectation. Cal-raven leaned against a wheel and rested while bruises from his adventure pulsed and punished him.

  He pulled off his boots, knocked out loose debris, and massaged his ankles with his thumbs. Shutting his eyes, he studied the aura that flickered in his left eye. That red burn had faded to pale orange, congealing into an angular shape.

  The sound of clanking dishes and a lively melody from a copperflute drew his attention toward the revelhouse just beyond the stables. And now he could smell it—bread, fresh and hot, seasoned, soaking up drizzled honey, dripping as lumps of butter softened into golden syrup. He smelled molten cheese in a tangy tomato stew. He smelled spiced yellowroot and baked fish. He imagined himself slipping inside and washing the ash from his throat with a flagon of fizzy ale. It was almost worth the risk.

  The aromas summoned up Bel Amican evenings—scenes from streets he had not walked in several years. He had proved to his skeptical father that he was smart enough to explore the house on the edge of the Mystery Sea. In disguise, he had learned their resources, their intentions, their limitations. He had formed alliances. And oh, he had eaten well; friendships opened doors to lavish feasts where even the mockery of his father and House Abascar could not spoil his enjoyment. His last escape had been costly: a blind boatman smuggled him out through one of the waterways beneath the great city’s stone foundation. He had suffered not so much from the risks involved but from the ache of leaving pleasures behind.

  A guttural snort made him jump. A grubswine had shoved its snout into the boot he had removed and, after some delighted snuffling, was now trying to free its head. “Wait!” Cal-raven growled, but the pig was gone at a full run, blind with the boot on its head.

  Cal-raven got on all fours. How can I go after it if I can’t see? This must be what Warney’s world is like. He began to crawl, sneaking between the wagons until he reached the edge of the avenue. Across the rain-sludge lane, the stables waited. Our vawns are in there. Can a vawn catch a grubswine? Or should I go boot stealing?

  A figure stepped out a back door and lit a pipe. Cal-raven squinted at the man’s boots. They seemed familiar. He strained to get a better look.

  Snyde.

  Snyde. Alive. Calm and confident. Cal-raven froze. I should’ve kept him beside me.

  Snyde looked up and smiled toward the cluster of wagons. Cal-raven realized that, in spite of the shadows, the old traitor knew he was there. He cursed the starcrown tree for swallowing his sword and reached to his ankle for his knife. Then he came slowly to his feet.

  The bowl of Snyde’s pipe glowed so that his toothy grin glittered in crimson.

  “I hope you’ve come to confess,” said the king. “I hope this means we can trust you to—”

  Cal-raven woke to pressure on his wrists and a violent, shattering pain as if his bones had been sharpened to razors. He was lashed behind a galloping vawn.

  He fought to clear his head, which struck stone after stone. Roots battered his ribs. He tried to wrest his hands free, but they were bound fast. He opened his eyes, and past that burning scar he saw only shadows and deeper shadows.

  Another vawn strode along beside.

  “He’s waking!”

  “Just in time to feel the fall.” The voice shifted as one of the riders turned to address him. “You should thank us. We were paid to kill you, and we said we’d dispose of the body. But we’ll be paid again if we leave you in a pit for the slavers.”

  Slavers. If I survive, I’ll be in for a world of trouble, most likely far from here.

  He struggled to get his feet under him. His hands clutched feebly at stones. His mind went out like a candle.

  When he woke again, hard hands were rolling his body like a log across wet, rocky ground. His captors had placed a bag over his head and pulled its drawstring tight. Then the rolling stopped. He heard birds and saw, through the cloth, a morning glow. He heard a sound of branches and brush being cleared.

  “Don’t go dyin’ on us. Traders won’t pay if you do.”

  A sharp boot tip hooked his belly and gave him another violent turn.

  “Over you go!”

  He felt the ground fall away. He plunged down a narrow shaft. A jolt to his bound wrists nearly pulled his shoulders from their sockets, and he dangled like bait, upright in space. Somehow the binding between his wrists had caught on a protruding stone.

  The light above him went out as a lid was placed over the hole.

  It was not exactly sleep that he knew then. Just cold, and aches that pulsed like embers.

  At times he became aware of sounds far below, like branches scraping against one another in the wind. But there was no wind. He heard the uneven patter of seepage from the rain dripping down to spatter on stone at the bottom of the chasm.

  Daylight illumin
ated the fabric across his face. He heard voices. Women’s voices, urgent and secretive. Something cold and metal struck his left hand, then his right. He realized that someone was fishing for him with a hook on a rope. He felt the hook scrape his wrist, then catch the wire that bound him. He felt a sharp tug. He was rising, his body thudding against the wall again and again.

  “Keeper,” he gasped, “where are you?”

  Then he swam in a cloud of bright blue light, feeling and thinking nothing.

  In his dream he faced a hard north wind on a rocky promontory.

  He was out of breath, exhausted. He wore a new riding uniform, not unlike his father’s—garments fit for a king. His left hand held a ring binding three heavy keys, each painted with mysterious hues of Auralia’s colors. His right hand gripped a heavy sword.

  He looked down at its gleaming blade. It was a sword of the finest craftsmanship—newly forged. In its shine he was startled by his own reflection. He was older. His hair was long and unbraided, his scarred visage stormy with indecision, his eyes dark with despair.

  Sounds of pursuit troubled the path behind him, and he looked to the Forbidding Wall as if searching for some sign of help. The mountains were close, and a winged shadow blurred through that looming wave of cloud above them. He called to the Keeper, but the shadow did not respond. He called again. The figure’s flight ended abruptly, the full sails of its wings collapsing. It fell from that billowing canopy, its body writhing as if in anguish. It crashed hard onto a rocky mountainside and was still.

  Cal-raven cried out. Something stepped onto the stone behind him. He cast the keys over the cliff and watched them fall. Then he turned…

  He woke, trembling, and heard the heavy drum of hoofbeats. He fought to keep from sinking back into the miasma of painful dreams.

  A small hand touched his shoulder. “It’s all right,” said a voice. A boy’s voice. He recognized it but could not think of the name. His concentration shattered once again.

  Morning’s birdsong was distant, the chorus keeping to the forest and avoiding the crater. Sunlight scorched the slatted shutters with bright gold lines. The bunkhouse roof dripped leftover rain to the grey sludge outside.

  “Saddles, Krawg.” Warney began to unwind the yellow scarf he had wrapped around his friend’s feverish head.

  “I’m warm.” Krawg turned over and pulled the dusty, moth-chewed blanket over his head. “I’m warm, and I don’t ever want to leave. Go away.”

  “Feet on the floor,” Warney hissed in his ear. “Jes-hawk’s hot as a poker. Company’s saddling.”

  Krawg snorted. “Barnashum’s no home. It’s a warren for long-ears. And all those beds are hard.”

  Warney folded his arms across his chest. “So you’re gonna stay then? All by yourself? How’ll you pay for it?”

  “I’ll swear lasting allegiance. I’ll scrub their crolca pans if I have to.”

  “Something’s happened, Krawg. We gotta ride.”

  “Come back later.”

  Warney opened the shutters; light struck Krawg’s face. “Gorrel pooey!” he spat. Warney dragged the blanket away and pulled Krawg up to sitting. “Ballyworms. My legs have lost their memory.”

  With Krawg leaning on his shoulder, Warney staggered down the long, loud stair and into the dawn-lit avenue. “The light hurts,” said Krawg.

  “It’s the drink,” Warney sighed. “It’s like a brick to the head.” And then he groaned, dropping his pack onto the avenue. “These bags’re heavier than they were last night.” Panting, he lifted it again and proceeded to tell Krawg about all that he’d heard the night before while the miners meditated on the remarkable narrative. “For the love of Yawny’s stew, Krawg! D’ya reckon they’ll sing our song in Bel Amica? Is’pose we’ll never know.”

  “We’ll know, all right. I’m gonna dine on that fish soup again if I have to pick the lock of Bel Amica’s back door. The bread, dipped in thick red oil. And burrow cheese, Warney. Muskgrazer cheese. Yellowbrick cheese. Whipped cheese. And that caraberry ale, like honey to a fangbear.”

  “We’re goin’ back to Barnashum. Cal-raven must’ve got what he came for. That means he’s got a plan at”—Warney slowed to a stop in the road—

  “last.”

  As Jes-hawk led vawns from the stables, Warney noticed that his own was missing and that an unfamiliar young woman sat astride the king’s steed, smiling as if she’d won some sort of contest.

  “Either I’m sicker than the boy who ate snails,” said Krawg, “or that’s not Cal-raven riding Cal-raven’s vawn.”

  Jes-hawk held his arrowcaster ready in hand, and he surveyed the avenues like a hunted man.

  “Where’s the king?” Warney murmured.

  “A vawn’s gone missing.” Jes-hawk lifted up a single boot. “I found this on a dungheap.”

  Warney’s jaw dropped. “Where’s the rest of him?”

  14

  SISTERS ASTRAY

  Wild dogs in a frenzy of claws and teeth kept Tabor Jan from stepping out from behind the rock above the grassy gully. The scene troubled him. Dogs only fought like this if they had run out of prey.

  With low expectations he had left the camp in search of something to hunt. The dogs were more wildlife than he’d seen in these six days, yet he wished they would disappear. He’d heard enough barking, seen enough biting on this laborious journey already. He was losing his grip on the patience and resolve that Abascar needed to see in him.

  One of the dogs charged off in desperation, the others hungry in pursuit; they disappeared north and west.

  He descended into the gully and followed it along a dry creek bed until it rose into ground where trees made room for jutting stone teeth. If I kept going this direction, someday I’d reach Bel Amica.

  It was only a matter of time before the travelers decided that Bel Amica was their best option. Famished and hot-tempered, they were already fighting over blankets and shoes. They complained about the sick they carried, the sledges they dragged, and the wheelbarrows they pushed. Some grumbled about the route Tabor Jan had chosen, for the lowlands offered streams and pools; others agreed that this higher ground would help them see trouble coming from a distance. Everyone cursed the buzzers and stingerflies.

  Darkening the gloom, the three injured in the cave collapse had worsened along the journey. Tabor Jan knew better than anyone how much they needed Say-ressa’s calming influence, her healing arts, her quiet counsel. But she remained asleep. He had given up taking a turn at her bedside. It only increased his feelings of helplessness.

  Instead, he took to patrolling the edges of the parade, watching for the king.

  Golden banners of sunlight unfurled from the tops of tall evergreens. He pulled a leaf from his pocket and unfolded it, opening his meager midday meal. The dried fish was in short supply, so he contented himself with a handful of crisp grainseeds, nuts, and berries.

  The quiet was troubled by a cascade of bark from a high pricklecone tree, and there was Brevolo climbing down.

  Unnoticed, he admired her for a moment, for she seemed to have absorbed some of the sunlight. She reached the ground and stood sadly in a drifting shower—dust that sparkled, seedpods slowly whirling.

  Her tawny tunic had frayed over her knees from scrabbling against tree trunks. Her arms were tattooed in the manner of Abascar swordbearers, with barbed and winding lines cascading to her wrists. Her hands were crisscrossed with scars from the labor of clearing paths. She had not unbraided the narrow lines of her black hair since they had moved out of Barnashum, and every day those tresses seemed more alive with bits of colored leaves, as if she had always dreamed of sleeping in the wild. Her boots, golden laced, patched, and patched again with spans of leathery rock-goat hide, left shallow prints in the dewy summer earth.

  Every day of their march, he walked with her for a while, though she would not speak. During the days she patrolled a stretch alongside the parade’s western side, and occasionally she climbed a tree to look for signals. It occurr
ed to him that she might just disappear; she had very little binding her to their company now that Bryndei was dead. In the evenings he sat nearby, hoping she would sense his respect for her solitude and yet find comfort in his companionship.

  Brevolo drew a span of cloth from her belt and unwrapped a shrillow’s egg. She held it into the light to illuminate its sheen of black and yellow stripes.

  “Better not let anyone see that,” he said.

  She placed the striped, warm egg in his hands. “You’re carrying a king’s concerns. You should eat a king’s meal. Anyone can see you’re discouraged.”

  “Me? Brev, I’m not the one who lost—”

  “And don’t waste more time on me. This world’s grown dangerous for hearts that care too much. You’ll break. And then where will we be? Two ruined people. In a ruined house.” Her eyes, a crystalline blue, would not meet his. The lines around them had deepened since the departure. “If Cal-raven’s right, if there is something that watches us, then why…”

  He wanted to put his arms around her, give her a safe place to crumble. Instead, he held the egg as she walked away through the golden rays.

  Warney awoke and found his head on Krawg’s shoulder. Alarmed, he sat up.

  Riders. I heard riders in the night.

  Krawg made a sound like a boiling pot of stew and kept on sleeping. His face was wet with sweat, and Warney breathed a sigh of relief. “Fever’s broken. Chillseed worked. You’ll be back to perfect soon.”

  They rested against a bank of moss that might have been a fallen tree. The blackened remains of last night’s smokeless fire crackled and coughed. Bowlder had roasted gorrels on both nights since they left Mawrnash, and they had all become miserable on this diet of unchewable and tasteless meat.

  Day seven since Barnashum, he thought. We’re halfway home. Well, the caves aren’t home exactly, but they’re the next best thing. It’s quiet as a dead man’s drum. Where is everybody? He sat up.