The City of Ravens

by Baker, Richard

  A ten-minute walk brought him to the Cracked Tankard. The place was unusually crowded, choked with crewmen from two Chessentan galleons that had tied up at the city’s wharves earlier in the day. Jack threaded his way through the crowd, elbowing a space at the bar. No fewer than three barmaids plus the barkeep Kirben were manning the rail tonight; they rushed back and forth, serving draughts as quickly as they could draw them. Jack dropped a silver talon on the countertop as the tavern-keeper stomped past.

  “Ho, Kirben! Perchance have you a message for me?”

  “Ho, yourself,” the barkeep snapped. Kirben swept the coin into a pocket of his apron and handed Jack a small envelope sealed in red wax. “Don’t say I never did anything for you.”

  Jack broke the seal and scanned the note inside. The Storm Gull, Aldiger’s pier. Make sure you lose any tails. Don’t leave this message here. Skullduggery and dark doings, he thought. A dangerous prize and a lovely lady!

  “I won’t be back tonight,” he told Kirben, stuffing the note into his pocket. Then he headed out into the night again, winding his way through the city toward the harbor neighborhood known as Silverscales.

  He turned south on Blacktree Boulevard and followed it to the harbor, pausing at the intersection of Blacktree and Fishleap to look for any signs of pursuit. A man in a dark cloak about twenty yards behind Jack casually halted and began to inspect the goods displayed in a store window; Jack ducked out of sight into a dark alleyway and worked a minor illusion that altered his appearance, taking the form of a hulking half-ogre longshoreman with stooped shoulders and long, powerful arms that hung almost to his knees. Adapting a drunken sway to his walk, he stepped out of the alleyway and roughly shouldered the black-cloaked man aside.

  “Outta my way,” he rumbled ominously.

  “I beg your pardon, sir,” the man said. He turned and dashed down the alleyway, intent on reaching the other end to keep Jack in sight, not realizing, of course, that he’d just run right past his quarry.

  Jack leered with a mouth full of peglike teeth and continued on his way. Magic was so useful and so easy, it was almost like cheating. He wondered why more people didn’t take it up. Wizards and magicians claimed that it took years of tireless study and punishing apprenticeships to glean even the beginnings of the Art, but it had always come naturally to Jack. They studied pages full of exhaustive formulae, pored over ancient texts, scrabbled for hints and ciphers in the works of their predecessors. Jack just thought of things he’d like to be able to do, sharpened all his will and attention on wanting to be able to do them, and through trial and error found out how, through nonsense words and simple gestures and patterns or focuses he could concentrate on, just like a man playing at ninepins might stand on one foot and pull in an arm while trying to will the ball to strike the lead pin dead on.

  “Faerûn’s wizards have, no doubt, a long-standing agreement by which all initiated into the Art swear to make it look as difficult and obtuse as possible,” he mused as he walked. “Therefore they ensure that anyone paying for their services believes that he is hiring a rare and talented professional indeed, the one man in a thousand who can make sense of magic. Why, if they let slip that anyone could do it, the whole lot of them would be ruined. Hah!”

  He followed Fishleap through Bitterstone and around the end of the city wall into Silverscales. Here a dozen ramshackle piers and wharves jutted out into the outer harbor, crowded with three or four times that number of galleys, caravels, carracks, and yawls. Stomping along the boardwalk Jack came to the last pier, the one opposite Aldiger’s Cut, and scanned the ships moored there. At the end a small sloop rocked gently by the wharf. “The Storm Gull,” he read from the lettering across the ship’s stern. Jack threw one more glance over his shoulder and didn’t spot anyone paying him undue attention, so he resumed his own appearance and trotted down the pier to the ship.

  Two easterners in metal-studded jerkins lounged on the ship’s deck, watching Jack without saying a word. They were strange-looking fellows, with bronzed faces and straight black hair, perhaps from the fantastic lands beyond even Thay or Rashemen. Jack boarded the ship and nodded politely.

  “Take me to Elana,” he said.

  The first easterner straightened with a rattle of steel and pointed at a companionway leading down to the Storm Gull’s main cabin. “That way,” he said through a thick accent. He returned to his watch, studying the wharves and streets intensely.

  Jack clattered down the steep ladder and found himself in a short passageway lined by several doors. At the end of the passage, the door leading into the stern cabin—presumably, the master’s quarters—stood slightly ajar. With a shrug, Jack pushed it open and went inside.

  The decor showed a distinct preference for the remote East; paper lanterns hung from the beams overhead, a low desk or table surrounded by cushions sufficed for furnishings, and tall screens of carved and inlaid wood were secured to the walls. Elana knelt comfortably behind the desk, examining a small explosion of paper. Behind her, a tall mage in yellow robes and a high-collared vest or tabard of tooled red leather stood watching, his scalp shaven and his face marked by a long, drooping mustache. He, too, was an easterner. Elana looked up as Jack entered, carefully covered her work by sweeping it into a wooden valise, and gestured at the opposite place at the table.

  “Jack Ravenwild. Please, sit down.”

  Jack dropped to the deck carelessly, sitting cross-legged before her. He glanced around the cabin, admiring the eastern furnishings. “You surprise me, dear Elana. I would not have suspected you of having a taste for the exotic. Shou Lung?”

  She offered a slight smile. “No. Shou work tends to be more ornate, more complex than this. The screens, the lamps, and the table are from the island empire of Wa. I prefer its austerity and simplicity.” She raised one hand to indicate the tall shaven-headed mage at her side. “This is Yu Wei, Adept of the Seventh Mystery, Sublime Dragon of the Black Pearl Order. He is my chief advisor in magical matters.”

  The tall adept inclined his head. Jack returned the gesture. “Yu Wei felt that I should not have left the retrieval of the Sarkonagael in your hands, once you’d told me that you knew where it was,” Elana continued. “You persuaded me to allow you to try your hand at the task. How did you fare?”

  Jack unlocked his satchel and removed the burlap-wrapped book. He set it on the table and removed the cloth cover, revealing the sinister black binding with its silver skulls.

  “May I present the Sarkonagael, or the Secrets of the Shadewrights?”

  Elana smiled coolly and reached out for the book. She opened it carefully, running her fingers over the ciphered text absently, and then handed it to Yu Wei.

  “See if the spell is there,” she told him. The tall mage bowed deeply and then left the cabin, stooping to pass through the low door. He did not speak a word. “Well done, Jack Ravenwild. My sources inform me that you bearded Iphegor in his lair and then defeated him in a confrontation in the street shortly thereafter.”

  “Your sources? It seems you are well-informed, my lady.”

  “I’m surprised that you chose to confront Iphegor. I would have thought that escaping anonymously was more important to you.”

  Jack shrugged. “I did make use of a disguise, so I doubt that Iphegor will easily discover my identity. In any event, he shouldn’t give me much trouble for a long time. Unfortunately, his familiar was killed when he confronted me, and you know how much that discomfits a wizard.”

  Elana smiled. “Indeed. I hadn’t thought you so ruthless.”

  “Not ruthless, dear Elana. Merely—businesslike. I do what must be done.” Jack leaned forward and offered a charming smile. “Are you satisfied with the services I have rendered?”

  She didn’t reply immediately. Instead, she rose to her feet with one smooth motion and glided over to a small wooden chest by one wall. She opened it and removed a pouch that clinked enticingly. “Your payment, plus a substantial bonus.”

  Jack ignored t
he money and stood also, stepping closer to Elana. He pulled her into his arms and drank one long, perfect kiss from her lips—but her hand came up between them and gently but firmly pushed him away.

  “No, not that,” she said.

  “I thought that we had an understanding—”

  “Did we, Jack?” Elana turned away and paced over to the shuttered windows looking out over the stern. “I never specifically stated that I would grant you my favors upon completion of your mission, did I?”

  The rogue gaped. “You led me to believe that was the case.”

  “What you believe, dear Jack, is your own business.” Elana looked over her shoulder at him and brushed one dark lock from her face. “There is a substantial bonus included in the purse. I honored my word.”

  “Oh, just a moment!” Jack swept around the table to confront her. “You all but said that you would reward me with your most intimate embrace in lieu of any sum of money, and frankly, dear Elana, I considered it worthwhile!” He waved his hand at the cabin, the ship around them. “If this is your sloop, and these your belongings, I don’t doubt that you could easily afford the sum you offered to retain my services. Why then would you hint at more if you had no intention of living up to it and no need of deceit? Do you take pleasure in toying with men?”

  “Since you have been in my employ, Jack, you have spent a great deal of time playing at the Game of Masks—using the advance I gave you—with Lady Illyth Fleetwood. You have skulked from place to place engaged in an effort to solve a riddle bedeviling the Red Wizard Zandria of the Company of the Red Falcon. Now answer honestly, Jack. Would you have applied yourself to the modest task I set before you if I hadn’t allowed you to find some additional motivation for yourself? Or would you have wandered off into some other scheme or plot?” Elana’s face grew as hard as a blade. “I remind you again that I showed you as much good faith as you showed me. If you don’t like games such as that, Jack, perhaps you shouldn’t play them.”

  Jack stared at her. “How do you know these things? Illyth, Zandria, the riddle? Have you been spying on me?”

  “I have my sources,” Elana said. “I warned you, Jack, the first night we met. When you accept my money, I consider you to be in my employ. That places certain responsibilities upon my shoulders and certain obligations on yours. I am utterly loyal with those who follow me and deal with them with no mental reservations. I require the same in return.”

  Jack took two steps back and sat in the window seat spanning the aft bulkhead of the room. “Who are you?” he said quietly.

  Elana watched him, a cat playing with a wounded bird. “Are you certain you want to know, Jack? If I tell you, you no longer have the option of walking away. All I can tell you is that you will be well rewarded, you will be engaged in dangerous and frequently undesirable work, and that you will be one of a very small number of people who will tear down Raven’s Bluff and rebuild it as something entirely different. People will get hurt, people will die, and you may not live to see if I am ultimately successful or not. This is your last chance to say no.”

  Jack looked down at his hands and rubbed them together. He could see what Elana was doing, of course. She was setting the hook. How could he possibly say no to all that? He’d grown up a guttersnipe, an orphan, entitled to nothing more than he could pilfer with his own hands. Elana offered him a chance to be a power, a lord over men, a shaper of events and dreamer of great dreams.

  And, of course, she offered him the chance to know, the opportunity to find out what she was hiding under all the secrecy, and maybe—just maybe—a chance to win her favors after all. If he left now, he wouldn’t see her again. He was certain of it, but if he stayed, if he showed her what he could really do, who knew?

  He looked up and said, “I understand. I will not abandon my existing enterprises altogether—after all, I have given my word to others, and I am inclined to keep it in a couple of instances, but I accept your conditions. Now, Elana, who are you?”

  The swordswoman bared her teeth in a smile that would have intimidated a tiger. “I am more widely known as Myrkyssa Jelan,” she said, “but for you, dear Jack, Elana will do. Sit down again, and I will explain to you how things must be.”

  “Myrkyssa Jelan,” Jack repeated dully. “The Warlord, Terror of the Vast, shaker of mountains and destroyer of cities.” He took two steps back. “On second thought, I believe I prefer to think of you as Elana. If you don’t mind, I shall bid you a good night.”

  Jelan narrowed her eyes. “It’s not as easy as that now, Jack.” One hand slid down to rest on the hilt of the slender sword at her side.

  The rogue tilted his head thoughtfully. “I beg to differ, dear lady,” he said. He worked a spell of shadow-jumping that whisked him from Jelan’s cabin in the blink of an eye, teleporting him to the lonely wharves a few hundred feet distant. It was perhaps the most difficult spell he knew how to work, but useful beyond compare when he needed to absent himself from tricky situations. He staggered then straightened again; the shadow-jump was strenuous.

  Jack looked around, blinking to adjust his vision and regain his bearings. There was Jelan’s ship, rocking softly by the pierside. No hue or cry sounded from its decks, but Jack hadn’t expected any. Instead, he turned and hurried quickly back into the shadows of the alleyways and rambling streets.

  At first Jack thought to bolt for his apartments and drop out of sight for a couple of days, in case Elana—Myrkyssa Jelan, he corrected himself—objected violently to his flight. But between the outcome of the mission he’d undertaken for her and the ugly turn in the Game of Masks, he discovered the need of a few stout ales. He briefly considered whether or not it was wise to choose the Tankard for his relaxation this evening, but he could detect a very tangible and nigh-irresistible pull gently tugging his feet into the familiar direction. He had a heavy purse full of coin, and the Cracked Tankard was just the place to make it a little lighter.

  “Besides,” he told himself, “Elana must realize that I am well aware of the fact that she has found me twice in the Cracked Tankard and cannot possibly regard it as a safe place to avoid her attention. Reasoning thus, she will not even trouble herself with looking for me here, so this is the perfect choice for my evening’s entertainment. I’ll exercise due caution, and no trouble will come of it.”

  He reached the corner of Red Wyrm and DeVillars, pausing to check for any followers. A coach trundled past in the warm night, wheels gleaming in the lamplight. Jack straightened his doublet and adjusted the fit of his cap. Then he strode boldly inside, instantly comforted in a small but familiar way by the press of bodies, the haze of smoke, the laughter and music and babble of a score of conversations all shouted over each other. With a small sigh of relief, Jack found his favored table and drew up a seat. Briesa worked the common room of the Tankard this evening; Jack offered her a wink and a leer that brought her over ahead of three other tables demanding service.

  “Why, Jack! I’ve hardly seen you of late,” the pretty barmaid laughed. “I was beginning to fear that you’d forgotten me!”

  “How could I forget you, when my every waking moment is filled with longing, and my nights are immortalized by the passion we share in my dreams?” Jack replied. He pulled her onto his lap and held her there for a moment. “Would you be a fine lass and bring me a flagon of that Sembian wine you keep above the bar?”

  Briesa disentangled herself from his grasp. “And how would you be paying for that?”

  Jack dropped a small handful of gold crowns on the table. “I am lately come into a small inheritance. From this moment forward, I shall settle all my tabs and make good on all my previous promises. Perchance have you seen Anders tonight?”

  “He’s making use of one of the upstairs rooms,” Briesa replied. “Shall I tell him you’re here?”

  “I’ll wait. It won’t be long.”

  Jack sent her on her way with a good-natured slap on her fanny. Briesa gathered up the coins in her apron and danced away toward the ba
r, slipping through the press with the expertise of experience.

  He had time to pour and drink two goblets of the Sembian red before Anders Aricssen came thumping down the narrow staircase, his fair features flushed with drink and his swordbelt slung over one shoulder. The Northman spied him at once and pushed through the crowd straight toward him.

  “Jack! I’ve been looking all over for you. Where in the world have you been tonight?”

  “Concluding business with a beautiful, yet disappointing, lady,” Jack said glumly. Briesa returned with the wine and two goblets. Jack poured a cup for himself and one for Anders as she moved off to look after dozens of shouting patrons. “It’s a strange night, friend Anders, filled with veiled peril and dark deeds.”

  The Northman slumped into the seat across from him and drained his goblet at one mighty go, red rivulets streaming through his beard. “That does not tell me much,” he observed. “Say, that wasn’t half bad. Your business must have concluded reasonably well, Jack; I can gauge the success of your ventures by the quality of your drink.”

  Jack nodded absently, still thinking about his encounter with Elana. She’d paid him well enough, he supposed, if not in the coin he’d hoped for. That was disappointing enough, but he found himself considering her words again. Something about obligations and responsibilities to those in her employ, and the commensurate degree of loyalty she expected in return … dangerous words indeed, especially to Jack’s way of thinking. He’d made a career out of avoiding entanglements of that sort.

  “Anders, did you perchance ever meet the Warlord Myrkyssa Jelan?” he asked suddenly.

  His question was ill-timed, catching the Northman in the middle of a quaff of wine. Anders’s eyes widened, and he choked comically, spewing a fine red spray of Sembian wine in Jack’s general direction. Coughing and gagging, the Northman hunched low in his seat and seized Jack’s arm with one hand.

  “Curse it, Jack! Don’t bring up that name anywhere near me!”