The Curse of the Raven
Raven Son: Book Two
by Nicholas Kotar
THE CURSE OF THE RAVEN
(Raven Son: Book Two)
Copyright © Nicholas Kotar 2017
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.
Cover Design by Books Covered Ltd.
Formatting by Polgarus Studio
Published by Waystone Press 2017
ISBN: 9780998847931
LCCN: 2017913721
To Adrian and Emilia
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE - Llun the Smith
CHAPTER TWO - The Consistory
CHAPTER THREE - Mirodara
CHAPTER FOUR - The Sons of the Swan
CHAPTER FIVE - A Deal with the Dog-man
CHAPTER SIX - The Darina of Vasyllia
CHAPTER SEVEN - The Choice
CHAPTER EIGHT - The Creation
CHAPTER NINE - The Escape
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
In the year of the Covenant 1066, the great city of Vasyllia, the very heart of the known world, was betrayed to an invading army of nomad Gumiren by its own people. What many did not know, but suspected, was that the invading southerners were no more than a tool in the hand of Vasyllia’s ancient enemy. He has many names, that demon. The Raven. The Great Changer. The Bringer of Darkness. But as often happens, in the moment of the Raven’s ascendance was the seed of his demise planted. All that remained was for at least a few Vasylli to remain true to the Old Ways until the time of reclamation. But when the Healer returns, will he find any true Vasylli left?
—From “A New History of the Covenant” by Dar-in-Exile Mirnían II
CHAPTER ONE
Llun the Smith
Llun the Smith gazed into the fire. The bellows blew, and the sparks exploded before him like a shower of fireflies. He breathed in. The smell—soot, sweat, dross melting from pure metal. It was as near paradise as anyone could get in Vasyllia. Especially after Vasyllia fell.
“Smith Llun! How much longer?”
It was the fifth time Garmun had asked the same question in the last half hour. The old fool. Llun was continually amazed that the fat man was the most sought-after master builder in Vasyllia. All he ever seemed to do was sit in Llun’s smithy, covering most of it with his belly.
“It’s coming, it’s coming,” growled Llun. He didn’t mind Garmun sitting around while he worked. But no one…no one was allowed to break the hallowed moments when the fire and the metal fused to become something new, something sacred.
“By the Great Father, Llun, I only asked for nails, not works of art.”
Llun twitched at the name. Great Father, my muscular left bicep. Why is the Raven renaming himself now, of all times? Does he imagine we’ve forgotten how he took everything from us?
“What is it about you master builders? What ails you? Too many children?”
Garmun turned purple, opened his mouth to speak, then choked on himself. He had no wife, but his illegitimate progeny filled half of Vasyllia’s first reach. Crude people snickered that being so fat was normal after so many pregnancies.
“Peace, Brother Garmun,” said Llun. “They’re all but done. And I promise you they’ll be the hardiest, longest-lasting nails you’ll find in all Vasyllia.”
And the only ones with a raven etched on the nail’s head. May his memory be forever cursed, and may every hammer stroke hasten the time of his demise…
“You mean the most exquisite nails in Vasyllia, no doubt,” the fat man complained. “I’ve never seen anyone so taken with his own talent. Don’t you know that your little frills and personal touches make no difference? Competence! Competence! That’s what the market wants.”
“The market, with all its frippery and cheap wares, can burn in the fires of the land of the dead for all I care.” It slipped out. Llun hoped the hammer would be distraction enough. But he had never been blessed by fortune.
“Your talk smacks of the Outer Lands, you fool. Be careful no one in the Great Father’s good graces overhears you.”
“Overhears what?” said a new voice from the doorway.
The stranger who walked in was the antithesis of Garmun—short and wiry like a ratter. Everything about him suggested potential action—his smile, just on the verge of malice, his hands, holding his thick belt as though it were someone’s throat, the sharp line of his cheekbones, suggesting some nomad blood. His physicality was so overwhelming that it almost distracted from the dog’s scalp hanging from his belt.
So this must be one of that new department that the Gumiren—those filthy nomad invaders from the South—had concocted for collaborators. What was it called? The Consistory, yes. The secret police of the Raven. Dog-men, the commons called them. A kind name for a traitor against his own people.
“I’m not open to new customers,” said Llun, trying to keep his tone light.
“That’s a relief,” the stranger said, with more gentleness than Llun expected. “No one will bother us, then.”
He closed the door and dropped the black curtain over the door-window.
“What a pleasant smithy you have here, Brother Llun.”
Llun stiffened as the stranger began to look around the smithy. Like a bitch on the scent, the stranger’s pointed face bore down on the cluttered left counter of the smithy. He pulled out two interlacing shields of iron leaf-work tracery so fine they almost looked woven. Each held a heraldic icon of a raven in flight.
“Well, that’s…” He didn’t finish, but to Llun’s surprise it sounded like he was about to say “beautiful.” What? A Raven’s man actually admiring beauty for its own sake?
Llun’s stomach churned. It was all wrong: there was genuine admiration in the stranger’s eyes. He appreciated the shields as things of beauty, not as objects to buy or sell. That wasn’t supposed to happen. The Raven’s men followed a script. They were supposed to ask where Llun was going to sell these useless trinkets, and when he hemmed and hawed about beauty and artistry, they would threaten Llun with something horrible.
Llun had seen enough of the Gumiren’s work to know that the threats of the collaborators were never idle—weavers with one eye burned out just so their depth perception would no longer be of any use, sword-wrights with their right hands chopped off at the wrist, potters with broken feet.
Damn them all, he thought bitterly.
But this one was admiring decorative shields that had no practical use whatsoever. Llun had made them merely for the sake of beauty.
“What possessed you to make such a thing?”
Llun’s hammer stopped in mid-air. It was the choice of words. “Possessed.” No, this was no mere inquisitor. This man understood the creative process. What it means to make something, and how it feels to be taken by the hand of the Maker.
“It made itself,” said Llun, hesitating. “I was just the instrument.”
The stranger gasped with pleasure, as though Llun’s words had given him a taste of something he hadn’t felt in a very long time. Maybe this was an impostor? A motley fool who put on the dog-scalp to ridicule the Consistory? But such people did not walk the streets for long before their bodies were used as decorations for lamp-posts.
“Llun,” said th
e dog-man, and looked Llun directly in the eyes.
The lack of the “Brother” before Llun’s name frightened him more than the direct gaze. This collaborator was something new. Yes, he was likely an artist. An artist of torture and death.
“Llun, you stand there, gawking like a fool, telling me you made something for the sheer pleasure of artistry?”
The stranger’s right index finger caressed the outline of the raven, as though he could memorize shapes better with his finger. Could he see it, the true picture? The hammer slipped in Llun’s hand and almost landed on his thumb. Careful…
“Yes.” Llun’s voice didn’t remain as steady as he would have liked. The stranger noticed. His smile was an adder’s smile.
“Who taught you to waste your time like this?”
So they had come to it at last. The stranger wanted Llun to be an informer to the collaborators, a friend of the dogs.
Not on my life.
“No one,” said Llun, continuing to beat the nails. “Don’t think I use my work-time on these things. I give all the Great Father’s time to my customers, as anyone, even fat Garmun here, will tell you.” The builder looked like he wanted to kill Llun and run away from him at the same time. “I do this…art…in my own time.”
The stranger raised his eyebrows slightly, faintly amused. Llun immediately realized his mistake. He shouldn’t have said anything about having the luxury of time for himself.
“What a shame,” said the Consistory man. “You should rest during your free time, Brother Llun. It will help you make better nails and horseshoes and braziers. Useful things. Will you accept a gift from the Great Father? A gratis pass to one of the houses of rest?”
The dog-man leered. Llun flushed, embarrassed. Did the dog-man really think that sort of thing appealed to an artisan? How typical. The smith working off his frustrations with a romp in the hay.
Llun struck the nail so hard it cracked in half.
“I don’t fraternize with prostitutes,” said Llun. His finger bled where the cracked nail had pierced it. Concentrate!
The Consistory man smiled, gentle as ever. “I didn’t say a thing about fraternizing. And why use such a crude word as prostitute? I believe I have heard them better described as purveyors of pleasure.”
Garmun chortled, then tried to disappear. For a man of his size, that was not easy.
“Anyway, I don’t have time for that nonsense,” said Llun.
“Nonsense? It is all sanctioned by our Great Father himself. Are you suggesting that anything his greatness allows is not worthy of your time? I will not say coin, because I have already offered you a gratis pass.”
“That is not what I meant to say.” Llun stopped hammering, put the hammer down, and wiped his hands on his apron, which only made them dirtier. “I’m sorry, I don’t believe I have the honor of your name, Brother?”
That should bring matters to a head, whether or not Llun’s head would be the cost.
“Ah, my mistake! My name is Aspidían. You may have heard of me.”
Oh, Heights. Aspidían? The right hand of Yadovír, the traitor who had opened the gates of Vasyllia to the invading army of Gumiren. Some even insinuated that Aspidían was more than his right hand. By all accounts, he was a monster that had killed over one hundred true Vasylli with his own hands.
“Brother Llun.” Aspidían’s face no longer showed interest in anything. He leaned against the wall in assumed fatigue, the very picture of a man who had seen too much and wished merely to be left alone. “I would be most honored if you would come to the Consistory’s halls on the morrow, perhaps at three hours after sunrise? I would like to employ your skills in a most important matter. Good day to you.”
“As you say, Brother Aspidían.”
As soon as he left, the forge coughed, the bellows sighed, the anvil begged to be struck again. Everything in the smithy heaved out a relieved breath. Garmun was near to tears of hysteria.
“Brother Llun, Brother Llun,” he whispered, as if expecting the inquisitor to be eavesdropping just outside the door. “Do you know what this means?” He threw his hands up above his head. “Who will make things for me now? Don’t you know you are the best craftsman in Vasyllia? Have I ever told you that, Brother? Have I?” Both sweaty hands, fleshy and fat, wrung Llun’s arm, kneading it like bread, though even his massive hands hardly encircled the width of Llun’s arm, hardened by years of the smithy. “Why must it be you? I know the Great Father needs an occasional example for everyone’s instruction, but … why you?”
“Calm yourself, you fat fool. Why not take the man at his word? Perhaps there is some manner of work to be done?”
Garmun guffawed. “You madman of an artist! Don’t you know what they do to people like you? Have you forgotten Dashun?”
Llun tried to stop the grimace, but failed. Why did Garmun have to mention Dashun of all people? Llun was sure he would never forget the sight of Dashun’s mutilated body. But what was worse? The torture, or the way he had publicly recanted all his beliefs and convictions? He had read aloud a text prepared for him by the Raven. Then he had collaborated with them, even uncovered a conspiracy against the Gumiren. And still they killed him horribly.
“You exaggerate,” Llun said, coughing to cover the quaver in his voice. “I’m no danger to anyone. I am simply an odd, self-absorbed craftsman.”
“Brother Llun, do you know anything about Aspidían?” He raised both hands, palms out. The gesture to ward off evil.
“Your nails, Brother Garmun.”
“Brother Llun. Oh, my dear friend.” Garmun wept, blubbering like a woman. Perversely, Llun remembered the jesting commoners and the purported pregnancies. He couldn’t help himself.
“There, there, Garmun. I know it’s common enough to cry more than usual when you’re pregnant.”
Garmun turned purple again. Shoving Llun back so that he nearly flew into the forge itself, he pointed a finger thick as a blood sausage at his nose. “You … you …” He huffed out like a passing thunderstorm, taking his bombast with him.
Llun remembered to breathe.
“You can come out now,” he whispered. The entire left side of the table heaved. “Did no one teach you discretion, you little idiot?”
“Llun,” said the girl of thirteen who finally managed to extricate herself from all the bits of metal. “Did you mean what you said to Garmun? Or did you just make him mad so he wouldn’t be associated with you when you’re trussed up like a chicken on the spit?”
“Which do you think, Mirodara?”
Mirodara’s face went white. “I wasn’t serious, Llun.”
“Never mind. I’m not that worried. I’m not nearly as important as your father was.”
“Dashun is not my father. I have no father. Not after he collaborated.”
“You can’t wash his blood from inside you, girl! Why do you think they’ve been after you all this time?”
Llun’s breath caught as he realized how close the girl had been to death only a few moments ago. Was that why Aspidían had come in? Was someone blabbing again?
“Anyway, I don’t even look like Dashun. Everyone knows I’m my mother’s—“
“Don’t!” Llun’s voice cracked. The last thing he wanted was to be reminded of Vatrina.
“I’m sorry,” said Mirodara, her face switching from red to white and back to red with dizzying speed. “I know you don’t like to talk about her. But she was my mother, Llun. You’re just her brother.”
“You don’t have any siblings, Mirodara. You don’t know. You just don’t know. I never knew either of my parents.”
“Yes, yes, and now I’m the only one you have left. Blah blah blah. You won’t talk me out of it.”
“What do you hope to accomplish, anyway, with these…what do they call themselves?”
“The Sons of the Swan. We’re going to reclaim Vasyllia for Darina Sabíana, the true queen of all the lands. She’s still alive in that palace. I know it.”
Llun laughed.<
br />
“You laugh? You’re about to be thrown into the middle of it all. You think they’ll let you stay on the side, uninvolved?”
Llun sighed and stretched his aching shoulders. Mirodara, for all her silliness, was older than her years. She had no choice. All the children had grown older the day Vasyllia fell.
“You’ll stay here tonight,” said Llun, the tone of finality clear in his voice. Mirodara looked like she wanted to argue, but nodded and extended a hand to Llun.
“Peace?”
Llun embraced her, trying hard not to weep. She did look just like her mother, his sister.
Please, Adonais. If you still listen to us who failed you, don’t let them take her. Not her. She’s just a girl.
On the day of blood, a day when the sun turns black and stars fall as flames from the sky, those walking the streets of the Great City will seem alive. But they are naught but the hordes of the dead. In that day, the swan’s wing will be broken, and the falcon will be too far to hear her cries of pain. The earth itself will moan for the Healer. But the Healer is lost in the maze of his own doubts…
—From “The Prophecy of Llun” (The Sayings, Book XXIII 3:1-3)
CHAPTER TWO
The Consistory
The early morning light showed Llun’s smithy off at its best. The prevailing colors peeking through the soot-grimed windows were gold and orange. No customer came this early, and as the sun rose, the true, hidden beauty of the place came to life. In the light of the fire, the smithy danced with shadows, but the morning sun, which coddled like a mother and warmed like childhood memory, showed the things Llun made in their true aspect.
He picked up the decorative shields that Aspidían had so admired. Only now could their secret be told, their mystery uncovered. They were not ravens at all in the tracery. The morning rays, coming through the window at a very specific angle, revealed the ravens to be two falcons. The dancing fire-light of any house’s interior was intended to trick the casual observer to think they were ravens depicted flying at the observer, head feathers curiously ruffled by the wind. The figure was made so that it shifted in the mind’s eye after long contemplation in the light of morning, like a difficult sentence in a book that rewards the slow reader. Then, the ravens transformed into falcons.
The Curse of the Raven (Raven Son Book 2) Page 1
