Raven's Ladder

by Jeffrey Overstreet

  Boy? Ale boy. O-raya’s boy.

  Jordam stared into his brother’s eyes. They were the only piece of this frightful puzzle he recognized. “A tasty finish?” he asked. He noted the large curved blade that lay across Mordafey’s lap. “Jordam will give Mordafey a tasty finish.”

  The pin that had pierced his back and paralyzed him—Mordafey thought it was still there. But as the tentacles had retrieved Jordam from the cauldron of Essence, the lip of the bowl had caught the edge of the pin, pulling it free.

  So as Mordafey laughed, Jordam let that burgeoning strength fill his arms. Then, with swift and precise claws, he reached out to the thick threads that crisscrossed Mordafey’s chest, slashed the stitches loose so that the newly sewn seam burst open. Mordafey sucked in a gasp of surprise, and Jordam plunged his hands inside. Before Mordafey could close his jaws, his mouth was dripping with all that Jordam had drawn from his open chest.

  The tentacle holding Jordam by the feet recoiled and thrashed. But Jordam had caught Mordafey’s blade, and he swung it around to cleave the end of that powerful limb. He flew across the throne room in a fountain of the limb’s hot blood. After landing on his back, he rolled and leapt up, snarling and quaking with strength.

  Mordafey’s eyes bulged. His hands clawed uselessly at the throne, and then he lurched forward, straining those thick black cords connected to his back. His jaw clacked open and shut. “Essence,” Mordafey choked. “Sssstrength.” Then the throne swallowed what was left of Mordafey, whipping at the air with its arms and beating upon the stone dais until it cracked.

  Jordam turned to face the two altered guards who came after him. Their Strongbreed screams would paralyze a weaker creature. But Jordam left them staring at the ceiling with no arms to raise.

  Fleeing the throne room, he howled in the rush of bloodthirst and strength. He was free. Free from the threat of Mordafey forever.

  Stop, cried a voice inside him. Stop, Jordam. You are forgetting things.

  He charged on.

  Ahead in the corridor, a mass of Strongbreed advanced, spears at the ready. He welcomed them, a whirlwind with a silver sword. He sent the blade through the eye slit of a helmet, caught the broach of the falling guard’s cape, drew it around himself, and dove at the others.

  Stop. That voice was pleading with him now. You said never again.

  This was done to me, he answered back. Maybe I can use the strength to set us all free.

  Standing proud as a conqueror, he surveyed the bloody scene. No Strong-breed remained able to pursue him. Only one lived, and he crawled along the ground as if he were swimming. Jordam stalked him, raised Mordafey’s blade, and finished him.

  His laughter stopped when he saw an arm emerge from beneath a fallen guard. Jordam raised his blade again, then stopped. This hand was small and hairless, slender and fair.

  He dropped his knife. He reached down and drew two of the bodies aside.

  Jaralaine lay contorted beneath them, one of the Strongbreed’s spears jutting up from where it had pierced her in the fall. Her eyes were wide in surprise, and her hand pinched at the air. Jordam took her hand and crashed down to his knees, shaking.

  “Help me, Jordam,” she whispered. “I’m freezing.”

  “rrWater,” Jordam whimpered. “Good water. Where?”

  I gave my flask to the ale boy.

  “Bring me my son.”

  He put his arms beneath her, lifted her, and walked swiftly up the corridor to the crossroads. He paused there, releasing a howl of anguish and confusion.

  Strongbreed came in answer—bold figures of black and red—from one corridor, then another, then another.

  Jordam held the queen close to him, baring his teeth. He had left the blade in the corridor.

  But then, from another passage, came an altogether different noise.

  Jordam had time to see the creature’s head burst through the corridor and into the crossroads. He had time to see the dark glass spheres of its eyes wild with lights, to feel its hot breath. His memory sent him a fierce, irresistible warning.

  Run.

  Strongbreed soldiers turned and fired their arrows into the creature’s open maw.

  Those jaws smashed shut, arrows sticking out between its teeth like toothpicks. It cocked its head, eying the Strongbreed thoughtfully, and Jordam sensed a deep, bewildered sadness in that expression. Then the jaws came open, and the creature inhaled. Somewhere in that narrow passage, as its body expanded with breath to fill the space, dark cracks slashed through the earth.

  Jordam turned and ran up the only open corridor, toward daylight.

  The creature laughed out a flood of flames that rushed up the corridor, crashing over Jordam like a wave and sending him scorched and seared onto the open ground of the Cent Regus wasteland. Kneeling, he held the broken queen before him, his roar drowned out by the sound of the creature’s conflagration.

  Jordam would never forget the ruin of Cal-raven’s soot-smeared face or the desolation in his cries as the Abascar king emerged through the gate. Along the way the king had slung one of the Strongbreed bows over his shoulder and lifted one of their heavy blades. But he cast these things aside when he saw his mother in the open, as the silver sun sank into grey, dusty morning.

  Jordam would hear those cries in his sleep for a long time to come. He would never forget how small and feeble both the woman and her son seemed as Cal-raven lifted her and carried her into the empty prongbull stable beside the main gate.

  “rrShe needs the water,” Jordam told the Abascar king. “O-raya’s boy has it.”

  “The ale boy is dead!” Cal-raven had shouted.

  That brought Jordam to his feet. He looked through the open door of the stable to that dark, smoking, open throat, the entrance to the Longhouse.

  Cal-raven’s talk had then devolved into curses until his mother’s hand came up from the dry, dead weeds of the floor to touch his face.

  “Can you see?” Cal-raven weakly asked. “Do you hear my voice?”

  Jaralaine nodded, staring blankly past her son’s shoulder into a shaft of yellow morning light that drifted down through the broken beams of the stable roof.

  “The one who did this to her,” Cal-raven growled to Jordam. “Tell me you killed him.”

  Jordam paused, cringing. “rrTore out chieftain’s heart.” The lie gave him no relief from the truth’s punishing burn.

  “What will we do?” Cal-raven leaned forward, pressing his forehead against his mother’s breast.

  “Your people,” Jordam reminded him. “Go back and try to save them. Come, Abascar king.”

  “You go,” Cal-raven shouted. “If the Keeper cares at all, it will do as I asked and save my people. But it let the ale boy fall, Jordam. And my mother…”

  As shame for his lie pierced him, Jordam took backward steps through the door of the stable. But as he did, his ears twitched and turned to gather news from the sky to the south. “Brascles.”

  At any moment the birds would be here. Following, beastmen on the ground would converge from all directions, knowing that the source of the Essence was unguarded, that they could drink from the chieftain’s reservoir. In the fight that would ensue, one would triumph. One would find himself seized by the throne’s strong arms, embraced and empowered by a direct channel to the Essence. A new chieftain. The Core would fill with beastmen.

  And Jordam was certain they would soon find the boats moving north across the wasteland, if they hadn’t already.

  “rrGet her out of here,” he muttered. “Cent Regus come. Too many. Get back to the boats.”

  “We can’t go back,” Cal-raven barked bitterly. “The Keeper has broken the bridge.”

  Jordam grunted in surprise, then turned toward the gate, seething with distress.

  Jaralaine reached up suddenly and clasped Cal-raven’s face. “Cal-marcus?”

  “No,” Cal-raven wept. “I’m not Cal-marcus. But he loved you, Mother. He loved you so fiercely, like stars that shine in the summe
r night.” Jordam looked up into the morning sky. Like stars.

  “He never gave up searching for you,” he said. “Had he known you were here, he would have torn apart the Cent Regus Core in his fury. Don’t leave me now. Please.”

  Jordam had never felt so powerless. He had caused this broken scene, and he could not repair it. He clenched his teeth and looked off into the distance. “I go to the boats,” he announced. “Come after me. Find the river. Follow.” He pointed north and then west. Then he came and took Cal-raven’s shoulder in a powerful grip—so strong that Cal-raven cried out. “rrGet away fast. The Cent Regus come.”

  Jordam dragged the heavy wooden door of the prongbull stable closed behind him, sealing them inside in hope of hiding them from the approaching beastmen. Then he turned and walked down into the throat of the Long-house, summoning all that he knew of the labyrinth in his mind, seeking a way down to the boats, wondering what he would find there, wondering if anything was left for him to save.

  “Cal-marcus,” said Jaralaine again, staring over Cal-raven’s shoulder into the light.

  “Mother.” Cal-raven stroked her face. “Don’t you know me yet?”

  “Not you,” she said firmly. “Him.”

  The hair on the back of his neck rose, and he felt a chill. Terrified, he could not bring himself to turn, for in her eyes he saw a figure outlined in the cloud of light.

  “Marcus”—she smiled, and tears filled her eyes—“Marcus, you’ve come. Look at you. Such strange dress. So who is this?” She put her hand again on Cal-raven’s face, reading him eagerly with her fingertips.

  “Raven,” he whispered. “Raven.”

  “Your father tells me you’ll remember,” she whispered back. “Remember?” He listened but heard no voice behind him. “Remember what?”

  “The light’s too bright,” she said. “Your eyes aren’t strong enough to see. You must look instead at the wonders it shines on. The wonders it shines on and through.” She patted his face with affection. “You’ll remember.”

  “Remember what?”

  But she did not hear him. “I made so many mistakes,” she gasped. “Chasing wonders. Trying to throw my arms around them. But they weren’t meant to be caught. They were to lead. But now I cannot follow them any farther. The ground stops, my little Raven. And then there’s only cloud. Who can climb a cloud?”

  “Sleep, mother,” he whispered. “I’ll carry you down to the boats. We have to find someone who can help you.” But he knew that he could not move her, and who on those boats could treat so wicked a wound?

  “More?” she suddenly asked. And she turned to look over his shoulder again. “I see all of it and more, Raven! Shining through! Such colors.”

  Cal-raven turned to shout at the figure, to frighten it away. But his voice caught in his throat, for there was not one figure. There was a great and silent host of phantoms in translucent, shimmering veils. Their eyes sparkled, and lines of diamonds rained from their faces. The one standing closest to him gazed down at Jaralaine. Slowly its hand rose, enshrouded in that strange, diaphanous lace.

  A slow change came over Jaralaine’s eyes as she released a sigh of deep relief. Her hand fell from Cal-raven’s cheek.

  He heard breath as fierce as the roar of a furnace, and he knew even before he turned that the Keeper was there. He stood up, lifting his mother, walked to the door, and kicked it open.

  The creature’s long-fingered hands clawed at the ground, pulling its enormous body halfway out of the Longhouse and into the open. Flames and sparks still flickered about the creature’s jaws. When it turned its attention toward them, those eyes holding a cosmos of color, it seemed unconcerned, as if they were only part of the scenery.

  “Help us,” Cal-raven said. “Please.”

  The creature’s upper lip curled to reveal its teeth, as if anyone needed reminding.

  Cal-raven waited. “You don’t even understand what you’ve done, do you?” he asked.

  The creature groaned, coughed a burst of flame, then looked away northward and sniffed the air.

  “You’ve come too late,” he said.

  The creature’s nostrils flared, and it looked toward Cal-raven, a disgruntled scowl on its muzzle, almost as if it was about to make some sharp retort.

  Cal-raven laid his mother on the dry grass, keeping his body between her and the shimmering crowd. But as he knelt beside her, the creature suddenly reached forward and, with one of those massive, clawed hands, gathered up Jaralaine’s body. That hand carried her back into the tunnel while the Keeper’s gaze remained fixed on Cal-raven as if this were some sort of challenge.

  A wind rose.

  Cal-raven looked down at the stain of his mother’s blood on the ground. “I’ve sought you my whole life,” he said to the creature. “I’ve sought you, thinking you were immortal. Thinking you were kind. And this is my reward? To see you fail? To see you destroy those I came to save? What are you?”

  The ground began to quake.

  “If you’re my hope,” he whispered, his voice a dry scratch, “it’s not enough. The dream of you was better.” He began to back away from that gaze, those scrabbling claws. “In the dream you were stronger than the world.”

  He turned and walked away.

  The ground shuddered more violently. He was certain the creature was crawling after him. He kept walking.

  But nothing caught up to him. And when he heard the creature cry out in alarm, he turned.

  The ground was breaking open. The creature was turning, shrieking, as something serpentine and black coiled around its body. Twisting onto its back, the creature thrashed, trying to break free of the tunnel. A violent tug pulled it back so that only its head and neck remained in view. Cal-raven breathed a sharp, familiar stench—the same putrescence he had encountered on the bridge over the chasm.

  Feelers.

  He found he could not move as the magnificent creature fought, coughing out smoke and sparks. Cracks spread across the dry ground. More fanged tentacles—tough as roots, wild as snakes—broke through, whipping the creature’s head and raking bloody wounds. It reared up in one mighty lunge for freedom, trying to spread its wings into the air. Then it crashed down, and a gust of hot smoke burst through its nostrils.

  The creature’s eyes turned once to Cal-raven as if to ask for help. Then it trembled, and colors drained like tears from those dark, glassy spheres and soaked into the ground. As its color faded, so did the witnesses gathered outside the stable, and Cal-raven thought he heard a chorus of anguished cries.

  He was certain the feelers would come after him now. But the branches released their victim silently as if their work was finished. Then they retracted as swiftly as they had appeared.

  Cal-raven watched the last tendrils of smoke drift slowly from its nostrils.

  He had stood there and done nothing. Now he was alone.

  He turned to see a tide of beastmen sweeping across the open ground. Like night arriving early, they rushed through the ruins of the old House Cent Regus village toward the gate.

  Cal-raven ran into the prongbull stable, pulled its wooden door closed, and pressed himself into a far corner, shivering, ankle deep in dung, dragging piles of weeds to bury himself. Outside, the passing beastman horde howled like a storm. He could hear them climbing over each other in an eager madness, desperate to push their way past the enormous carcass and rush into the throne room, where the Essence waited unguarded.

  When the cacophony diminished, sinking down into the Core, Cal-raven emerged. Too terrified to set eyes on what remained of the magnificent creature, he ran like a wild animal fleeing a forest fire.

  34

  QUEEN THESERA’S BIRTHDAY SURPRISE

  Oceanhawk eggs.” Lifting the copper cover from the plate, Queen Thesera inhaled a cloud of spicy fragrance. “This is my favorite.”

  The blinking puffball on her shoulder wiggled its pink nose and sighed with pleasure.

  While the ruler of Bel Amica smiled down on the
fried eggs, each having been neatly rolled like a napkin, Tabor Jan reminded himself that staring would not improve his chances of winning her favor.

  But how could he not stare at a woman who looked, for all the world, like her daughter’s daughter? The seams that stretched from her ears to her jaw line made him wonder what her true face might have been.

  As sisterlies placed more plates on the crescent table, Tabor Jan tried to ignore the aromas of tempting but insubstantial fare that had become all too familiar for him in the markets. Nectarblooms. Salty sand-digger cakes. Slices of mushy, syrupy meyerfruit. Handfuls of crunchy pulmynuts, appealing but hard and hollow.

  He stood at the foot of the dining dais like a man waiting to be sentenced.

  Cyndere and Partayn sat on the near side of the curved table, half-turned in their cushioned chairs. They offered him apologetic smiles as they, too, waited for Thesera to grant him permission to speak.

  “If you’re here out of concern for your king,” said Thesera at last, “I’m told he’s in good hands.”

  The rail train rumbled below, its vibration upsetting the levels of hot seaweed tea in the glass goblets.

  “Henryk and his troop are waiting at the edge of the Core,” said Partayn. “Our mission has a greater chance of success if Cal-raven and Jordam stay inconspicuous.”

  “I notice you stayed here,” Tabor Jan said curtly.

  “You’re enough of a strategist to know I need to stay at the planning table.” Partayn’s glare was a clear reprimand. “But believe me, Captain, I understand your frustration. I wanted Cal-raven to stay. I needed him here. He wouldn’t listen. He demanded we let him go.”

  “Is this breakfast conversation?” The queen sounded exasperated. Tabor Jan had to stifle a laugh when he saw the bright red grin that the fruit had painted across her face.

  “It’s my birthday,” Thesera continued. “We can talk of the world’s troubles anytime. Today, my mind is on escape.” She glanced to the window. “Or rather, the Escape. I saw the most magnificent oceanhawk sweep past the tower this morning. Your father would have taken it as a sign. Perhaps we should perform Helpryn’s eagle ceremony to bring blessings on our voyage.”