The Curse of the Raven (Raven Son Book 2)

by Nicholas Kotar

  With a groan, he wrenched himself away from the sight of the child-army. Running past the Raven’s totem, he found time to spit at it. No Gumiren stood guarding it. If he had time, he would have defiled it properly. But no time. Up the gravel roads he ran, the pebbles barely holding him up as he flew with unnatural speed for his bulk. Blasts of fire seemed to be everywhere, exploding even out of bare earth. Then, the rains came. Smoke belched up in black, choking billows. Llun lost all sense of direction, but continued to push upward. Bloodied people ran past him, down into the first reach. Screams burst from in front of him, then behind him, then from the left. Then the screaming was above him. He stopped, completely lost, his head spinning, his throat raw from the smoke. He coughed, and it seemed his coughing was adding to the smoke choking everything around them.

  The rain fell again in gusting sheets. Then the wind, a gale from the mountain. Everything cleared in Llun’s vision suddenly, and he couldn’t understand where to look to get his bearing. He fell on the ground, thinking it was the sky.

  “There! The smith. Over there!” Vasylli voices. In seconds, black figures surrounded Llun. Dog-men. Llun growled.

  “Take care. He’s taken many already.” The voice was unfamiliar, but unmistakably of the Consistory. It had an emotionless quality about it. Nothing personal, it said. We have to kill you, because it is our business to kill you. Llun raised himself with difficulty, his head still spinning. He tried to orient himself by the tallest tower of the palace, which was directly ahead of him.

  He froze. Something was hanging from the turret. A bloody and battered body, hanging on a rope attached to its neck.

  Oh, by the Heights. That’s…Yadovír!

  Something struck him in the back, and searing pain spread across his shoulder blades, hot and prickly. Then something hit his head. Blackness.

  Water splashed over his face. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe. Then he woke up.

  Llun was strapped to some sort of metal post, tied down with both chains and leather. He couldn’t move anything except his head. His back tingled with nagging pain that seemed to slowly bore into his backbone. The water splashed over his face again, and he gagged.

  “Enough!” he bellowed when he managed to shake the water out his mouth and face. Three dog-men surrounded him, swords drawn and pointed at him. Beyond them, Llun saw darkness. The only light in the dim space came from a table directly ahead of Llun. A single candle, barely illumining the cave-like interior. Three thin, weasel-faced men with salt-and-pepper beards sat there. They were second-reacher, merchant class, judging by their mien and the luxurious fur ringing their felt hats. The hats were red. But the rest of their clothing was black. Black kaftan, black shirts of rippling silk, black vests with silver buckles. Very fancy. One of them, the central one, had dead eyes that latched on Llun’s face like a leech on an exposed leg.

  “You are Smith Llun, yes? Brother of the traitor Dashun?”

  “Hrrmph.” Llun’s mouth was caked with something sticky. Probably blood. Though his tongue was too swollen to taste it. “Brother-in-law.”

  “Ah, yes. How stupid of me. Brother of the traitor Vatrina. Even better.”

  “Worse, you mean,” said Llun, under his breath. He had the absurd desire to antagonize that man. To really annoy him.

  “Yes, I do,” said the man, without expression. “Smith Llun, do you understand why you are here?”

  “I may have killed some fifteen of your fellow dog-men.”

  The man looked down at a parchment before him, as though he had not heard the insult. Then he leaned over to another of the dead-faced inquisitors. None of the three, he now saw, had any expression at all, just blank faces. Not even boredom.

  “Twenty-two, by our last count. So, you admit to this treachery and murder of your fellow citizens.”

  Llun laughed. One of the guards slashed his face with a knife. It left a burning gash—not deep enough to cause serious damage, he felt. These men were good at what they did.

  “I do no such thing. I charge you, dog-men of the Consistory, collaborators to the invaders, of treachery and murder. I charge you with impersonating Gumiren to start riots in Vasyllia. I charge you with instigation of violence against your own people and against your unlawfully placed ruler. I—”

  This time, the guard punched him with the pommel of his sword in his gut. It was studded with blunt nails. Llun couldn’t breathe for a minute, and when he coughed, his stomach lurched in a way that suggested something may have been torn.

  “No matter. Your admission is not necessary. Are we in agreement, then?” He turned to one dead-faced inquisitor, then the other. They both nodded, and continued to stare into empty space ahead of them.

  “Smith Llun, you are found guilty of conspiring against the state and the person of Yadovír, the Mouth of our Great Father. Your sentencing will be held at a later date.”

  He waved at the guards, as though he were waving off a mosquito. One of the guards put a bag on Llun’s head. It smelled rank. He saw nothing, but suddenly the ground was the ceiling, and his hands were his feet, and…

  I have always been fascinated by the effect of pain. Not that I found any particular pleasure in dealing pain. No, that sort of fetish is base. Not worthy of an artist. Rather, I explore how the subject’s mind and body twist and mold themselves in incredible ways in response to pain. I have also found ways to control that twisting and molding, to make the subject into something that I can use. That is the true art. To create, as the commons call him, a dog-man. The perfect perpetrator of justice, for he has no conscience of his own. Only the need, bone-deep, to be found worthy in the eyes of his handler.

  —From the personal notebooks of Aspidían, Grand Inquisitor of the Consistory

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A Deal with the Dog-man

  Llun awoke. His head throbbed as though separated from his body. He couldn’t understand his body’s position. He did not feel his feet. Rather, they were there, but not solidly established. His arms were wedged behind him, and something cold pressed against his face. Slowly, concentrating through the throbbing pain, Llun made out that he hung inside a metal cage, his face leaning against one of the bars. He opened his eyes. Nothing changed. Total blackness.

  Something whispered far above him, like a soft wind rushing through a narrow passage. The temperature plunged. Something licked his face. He recoiled in terror and disgust, but it kept licking him, like tens of small, ridged tongues, like a cat’s. But that wasn’t right. No. It was…was it possible? Snow? But he was inside, he was sure of it.

  Soon there was no mistaking it. Snow pelted his face. Gritting his teeth against the pain, Llun managed to yank one of his arms out from behind him. He groped across the chain, trying to understand its shape and make. Then he reached further out with his hand. It met stone. Cold, dry stone. Not weathered. No, he was not outside. Then how could it be snowing?

  He shivered. Every shudder of his muscles sent arrows of pain from the center of his back. Something crunched there, like broken cartilage or a ripped ligament.

  The temperature fell again. Now it was ice pelting his face, not snow. Wind howled, just like it did during a blizzard. Was he going mad? No, the cold was very, very real.

  Then, an explosion of light and heat burst from above his head. He jerked his head without thinking. It struck the metal grating, and his ears rang.

  He sweated, his skin tinging where it was encrusted with ice just seconds ago. It was momentarily pleasant. But the heat kept rising. He forced his eyes open, and through the reddish firelight he saw that he was in a tower with no bottom to be seen. Just above his head was some horrifying kind of chandelier, but the heat from its torches was unbearable. He watched with horrified fascination as the hairs on his arms curled up, thickening into deep black, then smoke rose from them as they singed. The smell was sickening, mixed as it was with his own sweat and something far worse. Something rotten and musty and sickly-sweet.

  His skin puckered and
twitched. It bubbled. Llun closed his eyes, unwilling to see it through to its end.

  The light went out. The darkness was so sudden and complete that Llun thought he had gone blind. Something scraped above him—the sound of metal scraping against metal. Cold wind blew in. Hard, sharp snowflakes followed. On his burnt skin, it felt like fire.

  It all happened again—the snow, the wind, the biting cold. Only it was a hundred times worse. Then, just when sleepiness began to pull at his eyelids and he was ready to succumb to it, the strange chandelier returned with its blazing heat. Then again it was replaced with the winter storm inside the tower.

  At some point, it all blurred into a monotony of agony. Llun must have lost consciousness for a long time, because when he woke up, he was in the throes of a chest-deep cold with a fever so hot, he could probably fry eggs on his forehead. Everything was hazy, and he was sure he had begun to hallucinate. After all, where did that hole in front of him come from?

  It was a monstrous emptiness in the stone wall. The sight outside it was so elaborate a deception that Llun decided it must be real.

  He had never seen such a sunrise. The clouds were striated like brushstrokes, each layer a deeper red the closer it was to the horizon. The tips of the trees were gilded, while the shadows underneath were a rich nightshade purple. Llun couldn’t help himself. He chuckled. This was the perfect torture for an artist. In this place, at this moment, it did not seem absurd that Aspidían had ordered the sunrise especially for Llun. The beauty of it seared his mind, to remain there forever—far more a torment than a relief.

  A strange sound reached Llun’s ears. It sounded like … market day. But surely not! Vasyllia wouldn’t go back to its daily routine, not after everything that happened. Or … how long had he been hanging here? At the thought, a hunger so huge it was like a living creature inside his stomach started to claw at him. A long time, then. But still! Had Vasyllia become so depraved that it could just go to market? After all that happened …

  Something cracked inside his head, and he screamed and shook the cage with all the strength he had left. The bars bent, but did not break. All he got for his pains was bloodied fingertips and a headache that felt like two hot pokers pushing his eyes out of his head.

  Llun leaned forward, hard. The cage creaked and moved just enough for him to catch a glimpse of the accursed marketplace. It sprawled over the former Temple to Adonais. The ring of red-barks glittered with hundreds of lanterns, but no longer were the lanterns symbols of the flame in the heart, the inner striving for the Heights. Now, they were a convenience that allowed the market to remain open far into the night. This morning, the clearing seethed with brightly-colored dresses of brocade and silk, tall beaver hats, fur-lined mantles sparkling with golden embroidery. The resplendent walking dead.

  How dare they! Their own people were being slaughtered in the streets only days ago. By other Vasylli. But still, the market thrives!

  Llun’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps. Many men in a rush. After endless clanking of old keys in even older locks, a sickly light shone far beneath him. Steps echoed through the tower, which Llun now saw was narrow but immensely tall. The figures below him were no bigger than mice. At the head was Aspidían, gesticulating in a manner suggesting, to Llun’s surprise, extreme displeasure, directed at a man to his left, apparently the keeper of the tower cells. The man had the air of a dog expecting a beating.

  Suddenly, at a strange signal from Aspidían, three of the dog-men behind him grabbed the jailer, who screamed. They dragged him, though he bit them and flailed with his legs so hard Llun was sure his back would break. Another cage lay unused on the ground. They threw him in, so hard it must have broken some of his bones. His screams of defiance quickly changed to supplication, but Aspidían, busy working a rusty winch, ignored him. The chains all clattered at once, then the man’s cage began its slow ascent toward the window. To Llun’s amazement, his own cage descended at the same time.

  Aspidían’s face, as it came into focus, was a study in inscrutability. On the one hand, he had the air of a foreman exasperated with his workers, but on the other, something glinted behind his eyes that suggested bestial enjoyment at pain. He smiled.

  “Brother Llun!” He raised his hand, as though they were old acquaintances running into each other at a popular market-stand. “You must forgive me. There has been much confusion after the failed coup. I had no idea you were here.”

  So there had been a failed coup. Or at least, that was what Aspidían wanted Llun to think.

  Aspidían led Llun out of the cage with his own hands, and when his legs failed to support him, he grabbed the huge smith by the waist and forced him to lean on him. Llun was reminded of those snakes from travelers’ tales that encircled their prey in a warm embrace before squeezing the life out of them. But he had little strength in his legs, and so he submitted to his torturer.

  “Come, my brother,” said Aspidían, as cordial as a viper. “Have a drink with me. You look awful.”

  Llun spat on the ground. But nothing came out. It was like he had been sucked dry.

  The long hallways seemed endless. Endless curling staircases, endless rows of black doors. Endless smoking torches jutting out of stone walls that seeped with dark and fetid moisture. The sudden end of the dark was replaced by jagged light. But Llun had grown so accustomed to those changes that he didn’t even bother closing his eyes. He just waited for them to adjust.

  Aspidían took him to the same room where they had shared mead with Yadovír. Now Llun saw that there were three arched windows looking out directly over the marketplace. He also noticed that the false-commoner hearth had been wiped out of existence. There were new floorboards in the space where it had been. Strange.

  Aspidían slumped into one of two extravagant chairs facing the windows and motioned for Llun to do the same. He did, but he nearly fell backward when his muscles failed to hold him. Aspidían laughed.

  Between the two chairs stood a short table with a long-necked urn and two squat clay cups.

  “I never liked those elaborate goblets,” said Aspidían, answering Llun’s unspoken question. “And I find clay brings out certain unexpected flavors in the wine.”

  Llun said nothing, feeling the tension behind Aspidían’s words, even through the haze of his burning fever. “Brother Aspidían,” whispered Llun. “Who did it? Who killed Yadovír?”

  Aspidían turned on him, and for a moment Llun thought that he was going to bite him like a rabid dog. Breathing like a bellows, Aspidían steadied himself.

  “You know who,” he said.

  “The Gumiren?”

  Aspidían nodded. “And not only they. The Sons of the Swan. They colluded with the Gumiren. Can you imagine? After all that talk of evil collaborators and traitors to Vasyllia? They did it themselves!”

  “That’s not possible.” It came out before Llun could stop it.

  Aspidían smiled, but it was poisonous. “Oh? Enlighten me then.”

  “There were Vasylli dressed as Gumiren in the first reach, killing and destroying everything in their path. And…” His head spun, and he had to cover his eyes with shaking hands. “It…it was Consistory men who burned down the Nebesta refugee camp.”

  Aspidían shook his head and sighed. “So much madness. So much confusion. Everyone pretending to be someone else. We need… we need to purge the filth from Vasyllia. For the last time.”

  “How will you identify friend from foe?”

  “Oh, we have ways.” He smiled, probably contemplating some especially subtle form of torture. “Shall I demonstrate?”

  Aspidían jumped to the windowsill. Llun was surprised to see that the arches were open to the air with not even a thin layer of parchment against the elements, though how no wind or cold blew in, he couldn’t understand. Aspidían whistled and nodded. A drum rolled. Easily visible through the arched windows before them, lines of spear-bearing Consistory men surrounded the market from all sides. The bustling people,
without even thinking, all stopped their purchasing, haggling, gossiping and stood still, as though they were hoping that they wouldn’t be seen if they didn’t move.

  “Brother Llun, I know you do not think highly of the new way of Vasyllia. But I will show you how effective it can be. It is winnowing time.”

  Llun stood up from his seat, his head spinning for a moment before his body found its place, and put a hand on the arch to better see. His hand was thinner than he remembered, and the sight of caked blood on it confused him. In the haze of the fever, he had almost forgotten the torture. Had it actually happened? He shook his head, trying to clear the mist from his thoughts. The hot pokers behind his eyes prodded him, and he saw stars. He almost fell, but the wall caught him.

  Aspidían braced himself against his side of the arch, looking at Llun. He was done with pretense, it seemed, though his posture was casual, even languid. He even seemed faintly bored. Again, Llun had the sense that he was stuck in a dream where the details were terribly clear but made little sense when put together.

  “People of Vasyllia!” Somehow, Aspidían’s voice echoed through all Vasyllia below them, as though the mountains caught his voice like a child’s wooden ball and threw it back and forth for their own amusement. Every face in the crowd craned upward, listening intently. “Please forgive the intrusion into your day of rest and pleasure. After what we have all been through, you deserve it. But we now have clear evidence. Yadovír, the man who is so dear to all of us, who has made the transition to the new order as bearable as possible, was betrayed by his own people. Yes, the Gumiren killed him. But we now know that he was delivered to the Gumiren by those vipers, those hawks wearing dove’s tail-feathers. It was all an attempted coup. By the Sons of the Swan.”

  The crowd seethed as people began to whisper to each other and push each other and gesticulate. From this distance, it looked like an anthill disturbed by the stick of a small boy.