Ravencaller

by David Dalglish

  Puffy hopped out the door and onto Jacaranda’s torch. It blazed with heat that defied its size. The waterkin backed away slowly, but they were not gone. The surge of water coming from all directions proved that.

  “I don’t know how well I can run,” Devin said. “But I think it’s time we damn well try.”

  Arm in arm, they waded through the water as fast as their legs could manage. Puffy spun in circles atop the torch, scanning all directions. The waterkin seemed fearful of its fire so far, but Devin didn’t want to risk any harm befalling the little guy.

  Thin sprays of mist washed over them from afar. Testing them. Taunting them.

  “Almost there,” Jacaranda said. Once they reached the tunnel, they’d be able to use the walkway instead of wading through the knee-high water.

  The adrenaline in his veins and the pumping of his legs steadily worked away the hazy fog Trytis’s tea had latched upon his brain. Devin watched for the waterkin, but they were distant blue glows just outside the light of Puffy’s torch. Would they allow them to leave? He prayed so. There didn’t seem much his sword could do against a being of water.

  His feet touched dry stone. Devin let out a sigh.

  “Praise Anwyn,” he whispered.

  They managed a dozen steps into the tunnel before they heard the roar. Jacaranda twisted to look over her shoulder, her eyes wide with fear.

  “What is that?”

  Devin recognized that sound. Twice he’d been summoned to help with reaping rituals in the floodlands east of the Septen River. It was the sound of overwhelming amounts of water.

  “Run,” he cried, and so they did.

  It didn’t matter.

  A tremendous wave flowed from the cistern into the tunnel, six waterkin on its crest. They guided it like drivers of an oxen train, and when the surge of water slammed into them, it felt like it carried the same strength and power.

  Devin twisted and fought, his strength useless in the current’s power. It battered him back and forth, slamming him against the stone walls before pulling him away. Air was a luxury. Direction was meaningless. Every now and then he’d catch a glimpse of Jacaranda beside him, gulping in a greedy breath before ducking back below the surface. He saw not a sign of Puffy.

  At last the wave lost its power. Devin and Jacaranda rolled to a stop upon the walkway, just out of reach of a ladder and potential salvation. They coughed and gagged as they freed up their waterlogged lungs. The waterkin hopped up on land to surround them, taking on the forms of canines. They steadily closed the distance. Could they tear him apart? Or would they drown him on dry ground with their own bodies? There was another fire spellstone in his pouch. If he could reach it, and maybe shoot it near enough to the waterkin…

  Shadow curled around Devin and Jacaranda like a morning fog. The waterkin recoiled. Boots landed between them, coupled with the rustle of cloth and metal. Black feathers floated from wings that enveloped them in safety. Devin could not see her face, but he knew her by her voice, which was deep, tired, and dangerous.

  “Be gone from here,” Evelyn ordered. “My sickles reap water as well as blood.”

  The waterkin hesitated. The strange woman pulled her two sickles from their hooks upon her belt. Their blades flickered with shimmering blue flame. Her point delivered, the waterkin jumped into the river between the walkways and fled back toward the cistern. Evelyn watched them go for a long moment, then rehooked her sickles and offered Devin a hand.

  “What brings you down here?” he asked. “I assume it wasn’t just to save our miserable lives.”

  “I suspect I came down for the same reason you did,” Evelyn said. “I am not native to Londheim, and it took me time to discover there was a cistern built below its streets. Did you destroy the chronimi?”

  “We did,” Jacaranda said. She warily accepted Evelyn’s offered hand. “And the leccin who grew them.”

  Evelyn sighed from a slender gap in her long black beak.

  “A shame,” she said. “There are few leccin left in this world, and most hide in caves far from your civilizations. I wish it had not been pulled into this dreadful conflict.”

  Jacaranda stepped closer to Devin, and he noticed she still held her weapons. Her eyes had not once left the avenria.

  “Who are you?” Jacaranda asked. “What are you? Do you two know each other?”

  “I am Evelyn, an old avenria come to Londheim under the delusion she might accomplish something good.” She tipped her head. “I met Devin a few nights ago. He thought I needed saving from those suffering under the effects of the chronimi. He was wrong.”

  “What is an avenria? Shouldn’t you be called… I don’t know, a ravenkin?”

  Evelyn let out a snort from the tiny nostrils atop her beak.

  “Kin are so named for they were created in the image of what came before. I cannot be ravenkin for the ravens were created in our image.”

  Devin looked up and down the tunnel, and he tried not to let his worry reveal itself in his voice.

  “Speaking of kin, have you seen Puffy? A little firekin, he was with us when the waterkin attacked.”

  “I see only you two, but do not fear. Firekin are notoriously hard to kill.” She bowed low with a strange flourish of her left hand. “I must be going. Travel further onward to the tunnel’s end so you’ll exit in the area you call Tradeway.”

  “And why not here?” Jacaranda asked, gesturing to the ladder. The avenria looked away.

  “Because that ladder leads to Low Dock, and you are not ready to witness the carnage unfolding.”

  “What?” Devin asked. “What are you talking about?”

  Evelyn put a hand and foot on the ladder’s rungs. Her wings sagged from a heavy burden.

  “Low Dock is no longer a place for humans,” she said. “The Forgotten Children have claimed it. Logarius will find you, I promise.”

  “Then we fight him, whoever he is,” Devin said.

  Evelyn’s laughter echoed down the ladder as she departed.

  “The only ones who seek out Logarius are fools with a death wish. Flee, humans. As much as it burns your pride, accept that tonight belongs to the dragon-sired.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Come on, come on, come on!” Tesmarie called to Tommy. “This city isn’t going to save itself!”

  The young human huffed and puffed as he ran after her in his thick, cumbersome robes.

  “You need to slow down,” he said, gulping in breaths between every other word. “Book reading isn’t… isn’t the most energetic… of activities.”

  Tesmarie swallowed down another sigh. It was maddening how quickly humans moved through time while physically traveling at such slow speeds. It was like trying to hold a conversation with a snail riding a galloping horse. For not the first time she wondered if the humans’ Goddesses had accidentally or intentionally built them with such a weird discordance.

  “Not far, he’s not far,” she called to Tommy, hoping to encourage him. He really was trying his hardest, after all. “I can see his glow just around the corner.”

  Despite her best efforts, impatience set her wings to a flutter, and she zipped around the corner. What had once been a window shutter lay in broken chunks on the ground. She peered inside to find an older man sitting before a cold pantry busily stuffing cheese and salted ham slices into his mouth. He ate as if each bite might be his last, hardly chewing before gagging down the next bite. When he saw Tesmarie, he flashed her a food-filled grin.

  “Faery?” he asked. “You’re so little. Little faery. Little, little faery.”

  Tesmarie fought back a shiver. There was no doubt he was suffering from an adverse reaction to the chronimi. When night fell, she had cast a simple spell upon her eyes that allowed her to view the flow of time as a multicolored river. Most of the world flowed in a steady dark blue, but the man before her flickered like a firefly between a sickly violet and a vibrant orange. Tesmarie could soothe it like one smoothed wrinkles out of a bedsheet, but to do that s
he needed time and the ability to touch him. With the man’s meal rapidly vanishing, she doubted she could do either safely, but that was where Tommy came in.

  “Just a thin layer around his legs this time,” she told Tommy as her friend more stumbled than ran around the corner. “It does no good saving them from the chronimi if they die of frostbite.”

  “I’m doing my best here,” Tommy said. His hands touched at the wrist. He gulped. The old man had risen to his feet, and a flicker of orange time carried him from the pantry to the broken window.

  “Am I one of them?” the man asked. Drool dripped down his chin. “The hungry ones?”

  “Hopefully not for long,” Tommy answered. “Aethos glaeis influu.”

  Ice flowed from his hands in a steady stream that sounded like cracking glass. It struck the old man at the knees and then shifted lower, locking him in a prison of ice several feet thick. He shouted and clawed at it but could not gain an inch of give.

  “Great job!” Tesmarie said. She zipped above the old man’s head and then dove toward his back. She needed somewhere he couldn’t reach, a tricky prospect given his flexibility. Her brief stop at the small of his back ended with her flying away from swiping fingers.

  “More ice,” she told Tommy. “Get his arms locked down!”

  “You said not to give him frostbite!”

  The old man blurred with a particularly brilliant red flare. The ice at his feet cracked.

  “Now, Tommy!”

  “All right, all right. Uh, glaeis influu.”

  A smaller stream of ice shot from his palm. It struck the man at the shoulder and then curled low, pinning his upper arm and elbow to his side.

  “Let me go!” the old man cried. He screamed with pain as he violently fought against the ice, and she feared he might break his brittle bones trying to escape. “Let me go, I’m hungry, can’t you see that? Evil, evil, you’re evil!”

  Tesmarie flew to the trapped side, cut a hole in his shirt with her moonlight blade so she could touch his skin, and then began channeling her magic. The name of her creator, Gloam, echoed through her mind as she closed her eyes. The flow of magic brightened, and she felt it across her hands like she would a physical river.

  You poor human, she thought. Everything about it was wrong. Squirrelly, disjointed, full of little prickles and jumps. It was like putting her hands into a current of fleas. Thankfully the dragon Gloam had gifted her people with mastery over time. It would obey her demands. Her breath turned shallow as strength flowed out of her. The spikes of orange ceased. The sickly purple lost its reddish hue, returning to a deep, satisfying blue.

  The moment Tesmarie removed her hands, the old man collapsed into an awkward bend at the waist. His eyes rolled back into his head. Sleep, deeper than most ever experienced in their lives, overcame him.

  “Whew,” Tesmarie said. She forced a chipper tone to hide her growing exhaustion. This was the ninth person they’d saved that night, and each one felt harder than the last. “I wish they wouldn’t fight so much. We’re trying to help!”

  Tommy climbed through the broken window, and he frowned upon examining his work. Once he was supporting the old man’s weight properly, he pointed a finger at the ice. Little jets of fire spurted from his fingertip, weakening it, but much too slowly.

  “Damn it, I made it too thick,” he said.

  Tesmarie clenched a fist to create her moonlight blade.

  “Allow me.”

  She swirled around the ice dozens of times, her blade carving grooves and showering the ground with white flakes. It didn’t take long before the ice started falling off in chunks, and after a minute, Tommy pulled him completely free.

  “Is anyone else here?” he asked as he guided the old man to the floor.

  “I’ll check.” Tesmarie flew to each of the home’s rooms and then returned faster than Tommy could blink twice. “Nope, no one, which is good. We got here before he could hurt anyone.”

  The ice around the man’s arm was much thinner than the rest, and after a bit of fire, Tommy cracked it free.

  “There we go,” Tommy said. “Hopefully he’ll wake up no worse for wear.”

  They found a blanket and placed it over him for warmth. Tesmarie locked the door after Tommy’s departure, then slipped out through a crack in the window. Hopefully that would keep the sleeping man safe from any other potential ravenous who stumbled along.

  “Another one up ahead,” Tesmarie said as she eyed the offending aura. The orange flicker shone through walls with ease, time caring not for physical barriers. “We need to hurry, though. He’s clearly on the hunt.”

  She led the way, Tommy doing his best to keep up.

  Bells sounded, seemingly from all directions. Tesmarie fought off a momentary wave of disorientation before continuing. She was never good with extremely loud noises, and those warning bells carried an unusually strong depth to them.

  “What are they ringing for?” she asked Tommy.

  “Warning people about the crazy time-unstuck people, I guess?”

  They cut through a gap between two homes and emerged onto one of the larger streets in Low Dock that connected both main entrances into the district. Sure enough, the flickering human was there, but so were over a dozen city guards corralling her against a wall. She tried to break through their ring, but two men grabbed her by an arm and pinned her to the ground while a third prepared for a killing blow. Tesmarie quickly darted behind Tommy’s back as her friend rushed toward the soldiers.

  “Wait!” Tommy shouted. “I can cure her!”

  The lead guard spun on him, his expression softening upon realizing Tommy was a member of the Wise.

  “You can?” he asked.

  “Well, sort of.” Tommy kicked his foot. “I know someone who can.”

  Tesmarie appreciated his caution. Tommy wouldn’t reveal her to the city guards, but instead leave it as her choice. Memories of her body slamming into the glass walls of a bottle trembled through her. The faery clenched her teeth and fought them away. No, she would help people. That was what she did, what she would always do!

  “That’s right,” she said, flying around Tommy to position herself directly before the lead guard. “I can fix what’s making them act so deranged.”

  It took the man a long moment to carefully respond.

  “And you are?”

  “Tesmarie! I’m an onyx faery of the woods. If you give me a bit of time, I can return that lady back to normal. Just a little bit of time, that’s all, I promise.”

  Tesmarie wasn’t sure if he’d accept or not, but to her relief, he nodded.

  “So be it,” he said. “Go do what you can, faery.”

  “I will!” she said with her most hopeful smile.

  With the woman pinned, it was much easier to find a safe spot to touch her skin. Tesmarie landed atop her arm and began smoothing out the time flow. Exhaustion tugged at her eyelids, and she had to restart twice. Dragons above and below, why was this suddenly so hard? Was it the bells? Or had she pushed herself too hard? No matter. Sheer effort carried her along, and in but a moment the woman’s body went limp as she collapsed into sleep.

  “Good work, faery,” said the lead guard. He turned to one of the guards. “Carry her out.”

  Another guard lifted her into his arms and trudged west. Tesmarie let out a long sigh, glad that was over with. Her wings felt heavy, and she found herself dipping lower and lower to the ground. Tommy saw and tapped his shoulder in offering. She was more than happy to settle there to gather her strength.

  “What’s with the bells?” Tommy asked. “Surely everyone already knows it’s not safe to be out at night.”

  “It’s not a warning,” the lead guard said. “It’s an order. Low Dock is to be evacuated completely by mayoral decree. Too many lives are at risk, and this is where things are at their worst.”

  “Why not order that before nightfall?” Tommy asked, bewildered.

  “Do I look like the fucking Mayor? Everyone insi
de Low Dock needs to go. If you want to help, then come along. Otherwise, evacuate the district yourselves.”

  Tommy scratched his head and looked to Tesmarie.

  “Well? Do you have a preference? You look beat. It’s quite all right if you need to take a break.”

  She floated up and kissed the tip of his nose.

  “We help,” she said. “Nothing’s changed.”

  But their immediate concerns did change. Instead of hunting for more crazed chronimi victims, the guards methodically banged on the doors of one home after another, ordering the inhabitants to evacuate.

  “Bring only the clothes on your backs,” they’d say to those who inquired. “You’ll be returning soon.”

  They encountered several more time unstuck, the armed and armored guards easily wrestling them down so Tesmarie could work her magic. She tried to ignore the blood that often marred their teeth and hands. At least these people would not remember their actions the following day. Could they continue on if they knew what they’d done to strangers, friends, perhaps even loved ones?

  The night wore on, and the streets of Low Dock filled with people making their way to the district exits. Guards knocked on the doors and gave no care to any excuses given by the denizens within.

  “I don’t care if you disagree,” the lead guard shouted to a half-naked man standing in the doorway to his tiny home while holding a thick wooden club. “It isn’t safe in this part of the city anymore.”

  “It’s safe in here,” the man with the club said. “It’s out on those streets that’s dangerous.”

  “The Mayor has ordered everyone to evacuate, and that means you.”

  “The Mayor don’t give a shit about Low Dock, and I don’t give a shit about the Mayor. Fuck off.”

  When he tried to shut the door, one of the guards jammed his sword in the way.

  “Wrong answer.”

  Tesmarie choked down a little cry as they smashed the door in and forcibly dragged the man into the street. He fought, and his reward was a brutal hit to the temple with a sword hilt. High-pitched cries turned her attention deeper inside, to where two little boys and their mother shrieked with worry.