The Curse of the Raven (Raven Son Book 2)

by Nicholas Kotar

  “As though alive? Animate corpses walking around Vasyllia? Sounds horrifying.” He thought of the people in the market and realized that part of the prophecy may have already come true. They were no better than animate corpses.

  “I do not jest, Llun. I am speaking of something monumental.” His eyes widened, his eyebrows shot up, and he spoke in hushed, awed tones. “I have the ear of the Great Father. He has helped me to understand the true meaning of everything that has happened. All the suffering Vasyllia’s been through. All the troubles. Nothing more than a cleansing. A time of ordeal. We are about to embark on a new age for Vasyllia. One unmatched in glory in the history of the world. Man will not lord it over man. Everyone will be equal. Opportunities to rise in the world will be given to all. Every person may choose what he or she would like to be. And the might of Vasyllia will become legendary. Then we will be a beacon, a city on a hill, truly. Other nations will seek alliance with us, and we can choose with whom to associate. No more need to pander after the pitiful Nebesti or worse, the Karila.

  “At the heart of this new world will be the ultimate gift. Eternal life. Even now, the Raven is at the cusp of finding it. But it will only be given to the chosen. Only to the men of the Raven. They will live for all time.”

  Sabíana’s warning about an eternity of atrocity rang in Llun’s ears like a bell. Truly, she was right. If the dog-men had millennia to live, they would be no different than changers or any other evil Power.

  And yet…

  “Brother Aspidían. I hear you. I am moved by your words. But I am a simple man, not given to theorizing. Tell me, simply, how I am to help in this new age of Vasyllia?”

  “You will be one of the Consistory. But not yet. After a time. First, a test. There is a trinket that the Great Father would have you make for him. A simple thing, really. A metal flask that a man can wear on his hip. To hold wine or mead or water, even.”

  Llun was taken aback. He had expected something elaborate. But a flask? And a metal one, to boot? He had never seen such a thing. Why would anyone want to drink water from a metal flask? What was wrong with leather skins?

  “Is there any design the…um…Great Father would prefer? Any details he would like included?”

  “He wants you to…be possessed by your inspiration.”

  Again, Llun shuddered at the use of that particular word. It tainted his enjoyment of the rest of that meal. It didn’t help that though his mind registered how superior the cooking was, his heart ached with worry for Mirodara and fear for what he would have to do. Aspidían was content to allow Llun his silence, though he talked the entire time. Llun had only a faint recollection of what he spoke about, but it left a sour taste in Llun’s mouth.

  To Llun’s surprise, Aspidían led him through the Consistory back to the outer courtyard of the palace.

  He’s not letting me go home, is he?

  At the gates, Aspidían embraced Llun and hugged him warmly. Llun stiffened, not sure whether to be afraid or uncomfortable.

  “I am giving you this day and night as a gift,” said the dog-man. “For you and Mirodara. Use it well. For both your sakes, help her understand the way that is best for all.”

  It has been the source of some debate—where did the essence of the Raven go when Yadovír was killed? Some survivors of the wars for Vasyllia insist that, a few nights after the death of Yadovír, they saw the presence of the Raven hovering about a smithy in the first reach. Impossible to confirm now, of course, since that smithy no longer stands…

  —From “A New History of the Covenant” by Dar-in-Exile Mirnían II

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Creation

  Mirodara lay curled in a ball on the floor of his back room. She did not budge at his call. She shrank from his touch on her shoulder.

  “What did they do to you?” he asked, shaking with the suppressed desire to kill everyone who would dare to so much as lay a hand on her.

  She uncurled slowly, like a flower opening over the course of a long morning. Her eyes were hollow. Not a sign of tears on her face. Just horror lurking behind her eyes, like a parasite that had invaded her body. She would not look him in the eyes. The closest she managed to get was somewhere near his left eyebrow. He waited for her to sit up, giving her what he hoped was enough space to feel safe, without the distance he feared would clam her up even more. He wanted to enfold her in his arms, to hide her in his bulk, to never let anyone else see her.

  “Not much,” she said, but it sounded like she had forgotten how to speak. Her own face looked surprised at the sound of her voice. “It’s what they did to the others. They made me watch.” Her face turned green, and her hands went up to her mouth as she retched. But nothing came out. She dry heaved for almost a minute.

  Llun went outside to the well and pulled out a bucketful of water. He nearly threw it on her head in his haste and in his desire to make her better. She had to calm him down by taking his lone wooden cup and dipping it in the cold water. Her eyes closed at the pleasure of the water.

  “You must have some bread. I have a little. I think…”

  His bread box was nearly empty, and what was there may have been a feast for the mice in the last few weeks, judging by the suspicious looking crumbs in the left corner. Sighing out his exasperation, he took his table knife out of its sheath on his belt—he still couldn’t believe the dog-men had given it back to him—and cut a thin outside layer off the crusty, black rye bread. Without much hope, he looked in the apple basket for last year’s shriveled apples, few of which had survived the winter. He was shocked to find one tiny, shriveled, but bright red apple hiding in the far corner. He picked it up. It smelled like autumn.

  Mirodara took both the bread and the apple and looked at them for a long moment, not understanding what they were, or what she was supposed to do with them. That, more than anything else, cut his heart. How could he go through with it? They’d already damaged Mirodara, possibly beyond repair. She was not strong enough to survive what was coming.

  But the food gave her obvious strength. Her breathing slowed and deepened, and a spot of warmth touched her cheeks, though they were still far from a good color. It was as though the blush of healthfulness had gingerly approached her cheek, had even tried to warm it, but ultimately scurried away like a skittish deer. Still, she looked much better for the food and water.

  “Why?” she asked as he brought her tea, the last of his precious hoard, probably never to be replenished now.

  “Why what, my cub?”

  “Why are you and I here, now, speaking to each other? Is this a test? Are they waiting outside, waiting for you to lull me into a sense of security, so I can let slip some vital piece of information about the Sons of the Swan?”

  She looked at him with such a strange expression—anger, distrust, defiance, exhaustion. And yet, they had not stamped out the hope, deep within her eyes, no more than a fading ember.

  “It is a sort of test, I think,” he said. “But not the one you think. This is the last chance you and I have to lead a normal life before everything changes. I am to become one of them. To save your life. And maybe even to save your death.”

  She stiffened. “Oh, Heights! Has the Raven found it, then? His immortality?”

  “No, not that I can tell. But I think he is close. The Consistory wants me to make something for him. I don’t understand it, not quite. Aspidían did a very bad job trying to make it sound unimportant. But what the Raven would want with a metal flask, I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  Mirodara’s eyebrows gathered in confusion. “That’s…unexpected. One of the Sons was deep inside the Consistory, and before the last purge, he managed to find out that the Raven is burrowing inside Vasyllia. Inside the mountain, searching for some elixir, like the Living Water, but possibly something else entirely. I know, bad information. It’s the best we have.”

  “It’s clearly important. Maybe the flask is intended to hold this elixir. But wouldn’t it have to be a magical artifa
ct then, to hold a thing of power?”

  “Perhaps you have magical powers you weren’t aware of.”

  It was a joke, though she barely smiled as she said it. It made Llun smile and nearly exclaim in joy.

  “Llun, you must do what you think is right. But let me say one thing. I don’t know why, but I think that this object will be your last as a smith. Your work is too beautiful to be allowed by the Raven. And I think that you need to be very careful when you make it. It’s going to be not a battle, but a war.”

  He knew what she meant. Every thing he made was made with pain, in a process of battle with himself and with forces outside himself that tried to stop him—tiredness, lack of inspiration, a sense that he was incapable of creating beauty. Only after it was complete did the sense of synthesis, the joy intertwined with intense grief, come flooding over him, threatening to overwhelm him. In that moment, he and the Heights were one, until once again the hunger for creation overtook him, and the process began anew.

  If, instead of the usual, natural antagonists, the Raven and his dark Powers interfered with his work or tried to subvert it to their own desires, the struggle would be a hundred times more intense. It might even kill him.

  But what better way to die, than in the creation of a perfect piece that would never, not over his dead body, belong to them? After all, nothing created through the mediation of the Heights would ever be corrupted. It would simply be. And even if they later used it for their own vile ends, its beauty would be a thorn in their side, a reminder of their eventual failure and end. For nothing evil can last forever, not unless it were already the Unmaking of the world.

  “Yes, Mirodara. You will have to help me. There will be times when I will want to stop. Or when my creation will try to wrest itself from my hands. Be my cold water. Be my conscience.”

  She smiled, and the ember of hope in her eyes lit up.

  “Our last hurrah. Yes. It will be glorious.”

  “I must do it in my forge. And I need Mirodara with me.”

  Aspidían had come to the first reach with a full honor guard, and he looked a little offended at being thus greeted. But that quickly passed, as understanding crept in. Again, Aspidían surprised Llun. He had expected at least something of a fight.

  “I understand,” said Aspidían. He looked at Llun, his gaze slowly boring into him as though he were pushing a knife into his eye, waiting for it to come out the other end. He dismissed the guards with a wave of the hand, still looking at Llun.

  “Only know this. This is a concession. My final one. After you join us, you will not come back here. In fact, I intend to destroy this smithy. I know about the foulness that you perpetrated here. Those decorative shields. I did not see it at first. But later, after the benefit of some…external aid,” for a moment, the mask slipped, and Aspidían’s pain shone in his eyes. Was the inquisitor the recipient of the tender mercies of the torturer himself? “I recognized them for what they were. I should take both hands from you for that. And both eyes for good measure.”

  “I understand you, Brother Aspidían.”

  He met the inquisitor’s gaze. It was terrifying, but already Llun felt the beginning of the inspiration. The process of creation. He could not be gainsaid by anyone when in this state. Aspidían began to smile his adder’s smile, but he stopped in mid-smirk. His eyes softened, and a face Llun had yet to see manifested itself. It was terrifyingly, heartbreakingly sad.

  “Brother Llun. It is my great regret that we did not know one another before …” He choked on what he almost said, before his eyes filmed over with their usual expression of assumed boredom. He turned and followed the honor guard back to the Consistory.

  For a moment, Llun watched in wonder. Was this last, sincerest version of Aspidían the greatest lie of all?

  But the forge called to him like a lover after a long absence. And Mirodara’s gaze was burning swirls into his back.

  “I’m ready,” he said.

  “I don’t think you are,” she said, but she was deadly serious.

  A shudder ran up his spine. She was right.

  Llun took the piece of iron like a mother taking her child from the midwife. Llun folded the iron gently into a thick block. He cut the block into two billets and placed the two halves on top of each other, with the grains perpendicular to each other. Then, he forged it into a thin sheet, so thin, he was afraid it would crack in multiple places at the smallest stress. But it held.

  As soon as the sheet was ready to be shaped, it began. The heaviness in his mind. Usually it was no more than a kind of fog that pushed him to stop, to lay down his tools to wait for a better moment, when his heart would be more into the process. But this time, it was like a voice in his head.

  You are weak. Why do you labor? You know that it can never be appreciated for what it truly is. It is going to be twisted out of shape and out of its intention. Better give it up. Come what may.

  He was already sweating, but now it poured like rain down his body. His breathing hurried, and the heat on his face was more than just the forge.

  “You don’t matter,” said Mirodara. “You don’t matter. This thing you make. It matters more than you or I or my mother or anyone else. It may be the last thing of beauty created in Vasyllia.”

  He breathed a sigh of relief as the enthusiasm caught at the wave of his shame. He began to shape the iron around a rounded wooden block. It felt like butter in his hands, supple and easy. So easy. He could do anything he wanted with this. Would he be remembered for this creation? Would Vasyllia sing the praises of Llun the smith after this final, wondrous thing he made?

  A flask?

  Truly, an insignificant, pitiful thing to make as one’s swan song. Why not change it? He could use this metal to make a weapon so fine, so strong, that it would make even the dullest swordsman brilliant. Why not? Surely such a gift would be acceptable to the Great Father.

  Great Father? Have you gone mad?

  Something chuckled behind them.

  “Don’t look,” said Mirodara, her voice shaking. “He wants you, Llun. Not as a smith. They’ve been lying to you the whole time. He doesn’t want your flask. He wants you as his…” Her voice squelched, like someone were holding a wet towel over her mouth and throttling her by the neck at the same time. Llun nearly turned around. Something kept him firmly in place, working the sheet around the mold.

  The presence in the room was unmistakable, its malice so palpable it was akin to a smell of something rotten, like old eggs or a week-old corpse. And yet, there was a kind of energy in that presence. It fueled Llun’s manic activity. His hands worked faster than they ever had before, with as much, or more, control than he had had since his early days. Already he saw the decorations of iron he would place on the flask, fine as embroidery.

  No! Not for him. Not ever!

  There were two Lluns in that room. One was already finished with the creation of the flask—a marvelous thing that sparkled even in darkness, that was light as a feather but virtually unbreakable. A perfect receptacle for an elixir of power. The other Llun was still in his human body, sweating, aching, laboring over the sheet, which every second threatened to break apart into splinters of iron. This Llun was tired. He wanted to give up. The other Llun, the one in his mind—how he wanted to be him already! To rush past the drudgery of the work. To stand at the completed stage, the state of synthesis, to feel the joy of it.

  “I can give it to you,” said the presence in his mind, “all you have to do is desire it with every fiber of your being.”

  “Is beauty without suffering possible?” asked a new voice, strong and regal. Sabíana stood before him, half-insubstantial, her eyes dancing in the shower of sparks Llun sent up with each blow of his hammer. “Is it even preferable? You are the last true artist in Vasyllia, Llun. Not because of some talent given by the Heights. You are the last in the tradition of the old masters. The ones who understood that the secret of beauty is pain. Only through birthgiving can the miracle be brought fort
h.”

  The presence in his mind laughed. “Yes. Listen to the woman. She is a pitiful creature, chained to her bed. I offer you the way of fulfillment. It is also the path to power. Never again will you be subject to the whims of the Consistory. You will rule them.”

  “You have no power here, foul thing,” Sabíana cried. “This is a place protected by me. It is given to me from above, this protection for my chosen few.”

  Again, the laughter, only now directed at her. “And what if I told you that everything you think you know about your precious Power, your Adonais, is a lie? What if I told you that your entire existence is a mistake, but one that is mercifully coming to its end? What would you say to that, eh?”

  Sabíana's eyes filled with tears and she shimmered for a moment, then faded.

  “You see? She cannot protect you. Only you can protect yourself. And Mirodara as well. Save her from what the Consistory will do. Become the Consistory.”

  Llun breathed deeply and closed his eyes. He stilled his breathing and focused on the beating of his heart. It began to slow. He waited until the beats were regular and unhurried. He breathed again and smiled. Everything hurt. His mind, his body. Everything. And he loved it. He would have it no other way. He would make this thing. This last thing of beauty.

  But not for you. Begone, you foulness. You have no place in the creation of the beautiful.

  “Llun? Are you well? What happened?”

  Mirodara touched his shoulder.

  “Is it…Can I turn around now?” He asked.

  “Yes. I think it’s over.”

  Llun turned to look at her. She was unharmed. Only a little pale. He nodded at her and turned back to his work, suddenly sure that the time needed to create this thing properly would not be given them. With a speed he never expected from himself, he created something… remarkable.