Raven's Ladder

by Jeffrey Overstreet

  She would not be staring in expectation of seeing him. Partayn’s voice had drawn her as if he had called her by name. And while others drifted back to their work, she lingered.

  “I think it’s time that you took me to my people.”

  Partayn had smiled. “That is being arranged. Cyndere cannot wait to spring the surprise.”

  And then she had.

  “A five-finned feast!”

  “Best with a bottle of bristleberry wine!”

  “Three… two…one…catch!”

  The fish leapt up the line of fishermen, tossed from the boats to the docks to the great stone stairs, then up to the lowest platform tier, up rope ladders, and into a grand open-air market. These fish were massive, cold, and still flailing, for they had been towed along in nets behind the boats to keep them alive as long as possible. The fishermen tossed the fish to each other with mighty, practiced throws. A wriggling red creature twisted and turned in the air as if it might fling itself back to the water but then fell into the cradle of another fisherman’s arms. With each catch the fishermen shouted in unison, carrying their struggling quarry up to the market.

  There, some were dropped in great glass tanks for the customers to ogle and assess. Others were slit open to expose their meat and laid out in lines on tables that tilted down toward the onlookers.

  Cal-raven and Tabor Jan cut through the fish line between tosses, past the sparkling bed of silver catches.

  “A grundle!”

  “Look at this one. He was a fighter!”

  “Fifty-ale-bottles heavy!”

  “Called himself a king, he did!”

  “But he’ll end up on a Bel Amican plate!”

  Cal-raven kept walking, hoping he had not heard a veiled threat in those words. He scanned the crowds for any sign of Warney, while Tabor Jan lagged a few steps behind, staring at mountains of melons, heaps of crispleaf heads, and bundles of purple oceantendrils, which would cook up tender and sweet in their own wine-red juice.

  Where would Warney go? What would attract him in this place?

  Commanding Hagah to sit still, Cal-raven and Tabor Jan climbed an iron ladder to the top of the wall that divided the market yard from a vast stone flat. There, defenders practiced archery: running up from a trench, leaping over obstacles, then turning as one to fire their arrowcasters wherever a straw-stuffed target sprang up in surprise. When Cal-raven found Jes-hawk in their number, he winced to see his friend uniformed in the glossy armor made from hardened purple surfleaves.

  The troop turned toward them in formation, then ran quickly back to the trench. But Jes-hawk broke from the line, approaching the wall. This provoked a reprimand from the exercise commander, who stood on the observation stage in a corner of the yard. Cal-raven waved to the commander to indicate that he was calling one of his own, a permission the queen had granted him. The commander surrendered his protest but not his glowering discontent.

  When Jes-hawk climbed the ladder on his side of the wall, he knelt at once and removed his gleaming helmet of polished white seashell.

  Cal-raven asked him to stand. But the archer was still wary.

  “Jes-hawk, put this guilt behind you. It was your sister who betrayed Abascar, not you.”

  “Send me after her, master. I know where she is.”

  “I’ve a better idea.” Cal-raven felt a flare of conviction. “Let’s get about building a house that has learned from its mistakes.” He glanced up at the fogbound rock behind them. “And the mistakes of others.”

  “That’s what I like to hear,” murmured Tabor Jan.

  “This is weighing you down, Jes-hawk. Let Lynna go. I need you to be ready for departure.”

  Jes-hawk raised his eyes to the captain, then to the king. “When will that occur?”

  The patrol commander was approaching from across the yard. “Let’s talk later.” Cal-raven looked down at the soldiers in the arrow yard. “Be patient. You’ll be among the first to know. Until then, watch for Warney. He’s been missing for three days. Keep your eyes wide open.” He made a show of clapping Jes-hawk’s shoulder in farewell. “We’re off to check the infirmary.”

  As they climbed back down the wall, Tabor Jan said, “I doubt you’ll find Warney there. But you’ll find Brevolo.”

  “Is she ill?”

  “Nightmares keep waking her. Dreams that walls are breaking open, and then she hears Bryndei screaming.” He kicked at a loose stone in the path. “I could sure use some of that sleep she’s not using.”

  Hedley, one of Cyndere’s blue-robed sisterlies, scowled at Cal-raven’s question. “I don’t know anyone named Warney.” She stood in the doorway, blocking his view, arms folded.

  “Never mind then,” he said. “Warney’s not my only concern. I’ve come to visit others.”

  Begrudgingly, Hedley turned so he could enter.

  In the faint light of blue glowstones, a man and a woman slept in coffin-shaped tanks, floating in a thick, milky solution. They remained as unresponsive as they had been since the Barnashum cave had collapsed on them.

  “The Seers could probably wake them just as they did Say-ressa,” Cal-raven muttered, kneeling. “They’re taunting us.”

  The man’s brow was cold to the touch, his skin so pale it was slightly translucent. Blue veins crisscrossed his body like elaborate tattoos. Glimmering crystals bobbed all around his head, clinking against each other quietly. The bath rippled as if troubled by something swimming beneath the surface. Even here, unconscious, with contusions on his head and legs, the man wore an expression of obstinate defiance, scowling beneath his overgrown mustache.

  “Is it true,” the sisterly continued, a reprimand in her voice, “that he was chained up to be punished when the cave walls crushed him?”

  “Let us speak of him as if he still lives, shall we? Dane’s a carpenter. Built houses in Abascar.”

  “Not very good ones.” Tabor Jan yawned from the doorway.

  Cal-raven cleared his throat and gave a loud, stern reply. “Brevolo would be thrilled to see you, Captain. Maybe you should pay her a visit.”

  Tabor Jan bowed in apology and departed down the corridor.

  Cal-raven’s nose burned as he breathed steam from the medicine bath. He eyed the scissors and spools of thread that hung from a rack to the side of the tub. “He’s recovering, isn’t he?”

  “You’ll have to ask Pretor Xa. He oversees the infirmary.” The sisterly twisted the thick sponge she had just used to bathe the red-haired woman sleeping in the second tank.

  “Yes, he was chained.” Cal-raven sat on a nearby bench. “He’d been bitten by a feversnake. He suffered horrible visions and kept trying to run out into the wild. We had to restrain him to save his life. Darsey here, she was very ill, and we put her in the same cave so Say-ressa could attend to them both.”

  “Everywhere you go,” Hedley mused, “the earth turns against you as if you belong somewhere else.”

  “It wasn’t the earth that turned against us in Barnashum.” Say-ressa, clad in the white gown of an infirmary attendant, stepped in. Her face was grim with memories. “It was something else.”

  A sickening dread burdened Cal-raven as he looked down at Darsey’s ruined beauty. “There’s something more than human wickedness at work here, something that takes pleasure in ensnaring and destroying anything good.”

  The sisterly took a staff and stirred the water. The crystals pulsed and cast strange lights across the bodies. “Why did you restrain him?”

  “In his delusion he wanted to die.”

  “Why interfere?” Say-ressa laughed, bewildered.

  “His desire to throw his life away was inspired by confusion, a lie that the poison told him. We need him. And he needs us.” Cal-raven stood up, and Say-ressa took hold of his arm.

  The sisterly moved to a table and rinsed her hands in a bowl of steaming, sudsy water. “The world is full of trouble, and if someone wants to escape it, they should be helped on their way. I nearly gave birth last yea
r, but my moon-spirit revealed to me that I was ill-equipped to raise anyone. I went to the Seers and made an offering to my moon-spirit. When I woke the next morning, my spirit had rescued the child and spared her so much pain.”

  Say-ressa’s eyes filled with fire. “Rescued?” She let go of Cal-raven’s arm.

  “That’s enough, Hedley.” Cyndere’s voice came from the doorway. The stranger holding her arm—a smiling, broad-shouldered man in a white robe whose wide eyes were staring into space—was clearly untroubled by the anger in the room. “Let Bauris and me have a moment with the king and the healer.”

  As the sisterly moved to the door, Cal-raven called after her, “In some cases with proper care, our weakest have become strong.”

  Hedley glanced back, and a shadow like a small dark bird alighted between her brows. “But you cannot trust them.”

  “Hedley!” Though she was smaller than the sisterly, Cyndere seized her and pushed her backward out the door.

  When she turned, she took Bauris’s arm again. The old man studied the ceiling, mouthing some kind of song to himself. “Forgive me. I appointed Hedley to serve here so she could apprise me of the Seers’ activity. It seems that was a mistake. She was born with only one open ear. The Seers opened the other. Now she’ll believe anything they say.” She led Bauris to the foot of the tub where Dane floated.

  Cal-raven gazed down at the floating woman. “Say-ressa, can you help them?”

  Say-ressa knelt to touch the sleeping beauty’s brow. “They’re beyond my help. We were slipping away. All three of us. I don’t like the Seers or their methods. I don’t think they know much about life, but they negotiate cleverly with death.”

  Cyndere stepped close to him, her voice barely a whisper. “If you ask me to have them removed from the baths, I can do that. But it will be risky. If I fight the Seers on too many fronts, my mother stops listening to me. When I lost my husband, they came after me and wanted to put me in something like this. To numb the pain, they said. I ran to Tilianpurth to get as far away from them as possible.”

  The misty-eyed man inched to Cyndere’s shoulder and murmured as if only she could hear him, “Is this the man they whisper about?”

  Cal-raven gripped the edge of the tub. “Who’s whispering about me? The Seers?”

  Cyndere patted the old man’s hand. “Bauris doesn’t talk to the Seers. And the Seers think he’s worthless, so they ignore him.”

  “He’s going to find her again, Cyndere.” Bauris pointed to a spot in the air where he seemed to be reading some invisible script. “It’s one of my favorite parts. They talked about it on the boat.”

  “The boat?” Cyndere asked. “Bauris, you hate boats. When were you ever on a boat?”

  “The rowboat.” With his exasperated sigh, Bauris reminded Cal-raven of a small child trying to explain something to a grownup. “It’s like I tried to show you. My drawings, Cyndere. My drawings.”

  “He’s been like this since we found him in the forest. He talks as if he went away and lived somewhere else. Whatever it was, that dream kept him alive for a long time at the bottom of a well without any food or help.”

  Bauris turned and discovered Say-ressa observing him. As if recognizing an old friend, he ran to catch her up in an embrace and spun her around with such joy that she could only laugh. “I know who you are,” he exclaimed, setting her down again. “One of the witnesses talks about you.”

  “What a…friendly man you are,” the healer stammered.

  Cyndere drew Bauris away, smiling in apology. “He was a fine soldier once. And he cared for me like an uncle. We keep him close by, or he gets into trouble.”

  “A witness watched you in the forest,” Bauris said to Say-ressa as if they were the only two in the room. “From the trees. While you were sick.”

  “No one else sees what he sees.” Cyndere shrugged.

  “Curious,” said Say-ressa. “We had a few like him in our care at Abascar. My husband called them the lucky ones. He meant it as a joke, but it was almost true—they lived as if nothing worried them.” She turned to Cal-raven. “That reminds me, you need to speak to Luci and Margi. They miss their sister so much that they’re convinced she’s sending them messages from somewhere far away.”

  “Visitor,” growled Bauris.

  “Pretor Xa’s coming,” Cyndere told Cal-raven, as if translating. “It isn’t safe here.” She touched the king’s arm, then led Bauris back to the doorway.

  Cal-raven followed. He was surprised at his sudden and intense reluctance to part ways. Cyndere turned and looked expectantly, even eagerly, so he groped for something to say. “Thank you,” he said, although he was not quite sure why.

  “I’ll do what I can for you,” she replied. She could not entirely conceal the weariness behind those words. She looked back at the two sleepers. “I want to bring them out of here alive. I’ll make some arrangement.” She put her arm around Bauris, who was staring at Cal-raven the way a child gapes at a hero. “Come along, Bauris.”

  “My lady,” Cal-raven called after her, “your care for us is a gift. I’ll remember it.”

  She hesitated. But then she hastened her step and was gone.

  Cal-raven turned to the tubs, and that feeling of helplessness crept over him again. “I’ve got to get us out of here.”

  “You will,” said Say-ressa, and her faith was so convincing that it terrified him.

  22

  DESCENT INTO THE BEL AMICAN NIGHT

  Without any news of Warney’s whereabouts, Cal-raven dragged himself back to his chamber. The wounds from the attack at Mawrnash were hot and furious. Sleep beckoned, offering escape.

  A sweet, subtle scent on the air distracted him, as if someone had just slipped away with a bouquet of roses.

  He crossed the room cautiously, almost expecting someone to leap out from behind a curtain. But he was alone, and the perfume was gone. There was only a bowl of oil with a floating wick on the windowsill—a moon-spirit prayer lamp. He blew it out.

  It was not a spacious room—just a simple bed and one small, unglassed window. But it was a luxury compared to Barnashum. And it was midway up the Palace Tower, its window opening to a view across the avenue to the Heir’s Tower, which was near enough that he could hear the sisterlies gossiping and laughing in their chambers beneath the rooms Partayn occupied.

  He stared at himself in the mirror, examining the left side of his face—boyish, unscarred, familiar. Then he turned and felt sick at the sight. He seemed suddenly twenty years older, haunted, with three craters marking his cheek.

  We didn’t have mirrors in Barnashum. It was better that way.

  The image changed as he watched. The mirror seemed to read his thoughts, for the scars faded to faint bruises until he could hardly see them anymore. He touched his face and felt them there, deep and severe.

  He unwound the white fishercloth from his head and scratched hard until his matted braids splayed in all directions. Then he unfastened the belt of smooth seadisc shells with their delicate feathered texture and slipped out of the white robe. He sat on the edge of the bed and let the cool air from the window move over his aching body.

  Images, conversations, and fears whirled about in his head with such frantic energy that he could not catch and hold any single line of thought. He fell back against the pillows and gazed out the window, looking beyond the silhouette of the Heir’s Tower. He tried to imagine the shadow of the Keeper soaring through the darkling sapphire sky. But the memory of that sight had faded, and he saw only a few nightbirds and something that fluttered awkwardly about—a rockbat, perhaps.

  The sea whispered, Slumm-ber, slumm-ber, sleeeeep…

  But there was another sound too. A crowd was cheering somewhere down within the rock, somewhere in the busy caverns where people stayed up all night eating, drinking, laughing, pursuing their passions.

  He lay there awhile, listening. The sound rekindled memories, years old but vivid as yesterday, and when he closed his eyes, he co
uld walk down into the caverns of Bel Amica. During the day the world outside the foundation flourished, but at night that life withdrew into the rock like fire sinking into an ember. And when he was lonely and cold, it had been a warm and dazzling fire.

  Joined by tunnels alive with light and color, the open spaces within Bel Amica’s rock were altogether different from the labyrinths of Abascar’s Underkeep or the bear caves and burrows in Barnashum’s Blackstone Caves. These were vast stone sanctuaries, surrounded by walkways and crisscrossed with narrow bridges. Light fell in brilliant shafts, clouding with smoke from the incense ponds, giving him the sense that he was submerged in a deep pool while someone above poured in colorful streams of billowing dye. For every torch there were long rows of mirrors that caught and relayed the light—changing it in ways that slowed and entranced him.

  There would be people everywhere down there tonight—moving in ravenous packs or pairing off in secretive strolls. At night, as if unsettled by the darkness and the sea’s song, they filled the air with raucous music, with songs that competed from different caves and corners.

  Was Lesyl singing somewhere?

  He went to the window again and stared down at the avenue. The laughing people far below taunted him with their happiness. “What good can I do here?” he muttered.

  A flash of light from the tower across the avenue caught his eye. He scanned the windows and saw that the light was flickering from a piece of glass hanging in a window two levels above his own.

  He stepped away and put his back to the wall. A diamond of light flitted across the floor, jittered on the far wall, across the bricks, tapestries, and the mirror.

  He knew exactly what it meant.

  “No,” he said. “No. Not again. Not ever.”

  As if to escape a hunter, he dashed from the window to the door. He took up his white Bel Amican cloak, then put it back in favor of a black stormcloak with a hood.

  Ignoring the complaints from his injuries, he limped back down the long stair.