Ravencaller

by David Dalglish

  “Anything to help,” Dierk said, his eyes looking everywhere for Adria.

  “While the loss is devastating, we will be rebuilding immediately,” the older man continued. “The church has much saved up for such emergencies, and what we lack, we believe the Ecclesiast will happily provide.”

  They don’t know we’ve been cut off by the Queen, thought Dierk. Though perhaps the Keeping Church would still hold ties with West Orismund, even if the crown did not. It was something he needed to look into when he had a moment to himself. With the power vacuum left by the Queen’s abandonment, there was a significant chance the church tried to fill it with even greater control than they already wielded.

  “Just let me know what you need, and I will do my best to ensure my father provides,” Dierk said. He stood up a little straighter. There, near the wall. His Adria. His beloved wonder.

  “If you’d excuse me for a moment,” he said. The Faithkeeper looked confused but acquiesced. Dierk hurried toward the Mindkeeper, and he cast a look at the city guards when they tried to follow. They obediently remained behind.

  Adria sat against the burnt wall, her legs curled to her chest and her head bowed low. She looked a picture of weariness, and he briefly wondered if she slept. Her left arm was braced at the elbow atop her knee, palm extended, fingers curled. A soul floated just above her grasp, its soft light shining across her mask. Adria stared into the soul with unblinking eyes, and the rest of her body moved so little she might have appeared an immaculate statue.

  When Dierk joined her side, she said nothing. She did not acknowledge his presence. After a long moment, Dierk coughed and struggled to find the proper words.

  “Adria?” he said.

  “Yes?” she asked, her voice cold.

  “I, um, I know our last meeting was… awkward.”

  Her eyes never left the hovering soul.

  “You could describe it as such.”

  He blushed.

  “I wanted you to know, I’ve put a lot of thought into who I am, and who I want to be. I’m working on it, really, truly working on being a leader. It isn’t right to want you to want me if I don’t believe I’m worthy of it myself. Does—does that make sense?”

  It was a long, agonizing moment before she spoke again. Still her gaze remained locked on that mysterious soul.

  “Dierk, I know very little of you, and what you know of me cannot be much. I do not think your attraction to me is based on anything real.”

  “No, it’s real,” he said. “It’s very real. I can see how special you are, and I want all of Londheim to know it! You’re right, I don’t know much else about you. I would like to, but for that to happen, I need to be someone you’d care to know in the first place. So I’m trying, I’m trying real hard.”

  At last she stood. The soul drifted behind her, casting its subtle light upon them both. Adria’s hands smoothed out the folds of her dress, her trembling fingers worrying Dierk. The woman clearly needed rest.

  “That is good of you,” Adria said. “But don’t do this for me. Improve yourself for your own sake, not mine.”

  She tried to leave him, but he quickly stepped in her way.

  “It’s not for you,” he said, his words tumbling out faster and faster as if he feared he might lose her attention for good. “Not just for you, anyway. It’s for me, too. Being better, smarter. Someone worthy of you. And I’ll start out by helping with the cleanup. I’ll help with everything, I swear, with rebuilding, the funeral rites, more workers, you name it. Whatever it takes, I will make this right.”

  “You can’t make this right,” Adria said. She gestured to the rows of bodies that lay scattered about the yard. “All this death? How could you?”

  Dierk refused to let her wallow in such misery and pity. It was a bold move, but he reached out to take her by the wrist. She glared at him, her fury strong enough to wither him to dust if she wished it. He swallowed a shard of glass wedged in his throat and forced onward.

  “I can see your soul,” he said. “I can sense your power. You see them, too, don’t you? Their languishing souls? Not just see. You wield them. Command them. I know you can heal wounded flesh. I know, I know that you can also soothe their souls. Do both. Bring them back to life.”

  Adria pulled her wrist free of him. Her mask hid so much of her emotions, but her eyes were visible, and in them he could see a full display of her fear and hesitation.

  “I have done it only once,” she said. “And it left me exhausted. Over a hundred dead are here. Which few should I choose to return?”

  This was it. Dierk stood to his full height, thrust back his shoulders, and tried to look as strong as he felt.

  “All of them,” he said. “I cannot heal, nor can I resurrect, but I can give you the strength to do so. Lean on me, and together we will create miracles.”

  “How?”

  “The prayer of Ravencallers,” he said.

  “Blasphemy,” she whispered.

  “They are prayers answered by Anwyn, and in the past they were granted to your keepers,” he argued. “Can they truly be blasphemy if they are merely forgotten powers your church wielded as their own?”

  Did she believe him? He couldn’t tell. Dierk felt sweat gathering at his neck. The beauty of her soul, it shone so clearly through her mask it made his heart ache. He wanted to help her so badly, to provide this wondrous woman everything she needed to rise to her true potential. If only she’d listen. If only she’d see what he was capable of.

  “Show me,” she said, her inner debate ending.

  Dierk lowered his hands to his sides, his palms open and upward. He’d gone over the prayer dozens of times in his mind on the walk over. He only needed one final ingredient.

  “Grant me the soul of someone truly worthless, whose very existence is not deserving of eternity,” he said. “I do not ask this lightly, Adria. For what we will do, a heavy price must be paid.”

  Adria gestured to the soul she had kept hovering nearby.

  “This one should suffice,” she said.

  “Whose is it?” he asked, unable to hold back his curiosity.

  “Vikar Thaddeus’s,” she said. “I found it among the rubble. I meant only to confirm his death, but when I looked inside…” She shook her head with disgust. “I saw his final moments. I dipped through his sickening memories. He was a vile man, and he deserved far worse than he received.”

  Dierk licked his lips in anticipation. The soul of a Vikar? Oh yes, that would suffice, that would suffice, indeed. Adria relinquished her hold upon the soul, and Dierk mentally grabbed it instead. It hovered over to him, a miniature star suspended mere inches from his chest. He sucked in a deep breath and steadied himself. This was it. This was his moment of truth.

  “Anwyn of the Moon, hear me!” he began. “My strength wanes. My burdens bend my back and twist my neck. Before me lies one who has walked their final steps, and whose body crumbles, and whose soul is unfit to return to your bosom. Harvest their passing so I may carry on.”

  The power poured from the shimmering soul directly into his chest. He gasped as his senses awakened with new life. At the ritual he’d observed, that power had been scattered like raindrops across all participants, but not now. It was his, all his, and with it came an elevation of everything that it meant to be human.

  He heard the sounds of conversation thousands of yards away, each individual whisper or cry clearly defined and separate from the rest. He lifted his hands slightly, and he felt each individual cord of muscle flex or relax beneath his skin. No, beyond that. He felt the acute tingle of the command that first pulsed from his brain to those muscles. When he brought his eyes to the heavens, he saw a swirling starscape akin to the vision he’d first glimpsed during the Ravencaller ritual.

  Was this what it meant to be a goddess? Was this crackling excess of power the true reward of the Aether that made up the Goddesses’ beings? If only it could last forever. He felt it burning out of him, his meager human flesh unable to cont
ain it for long. If he weaned himself on it, he might last twenty or thirty minutes, but he had a far better plan than that. Dierk extended his hand toward Adria, and he gave her of his gift.

  “Pray your prayers,” he told her. “Give life to the dead.”

  Adria walked to the nearest body, which lay with a stained sheet draped over his face to give the dead novice some meager dignity. She did nothing to draw attention to herself. Her knees touched the ground, her hand gently touched his forehead, and then she whispered a prayer. Moments later she stood and moved on, not staying to witness the novice’s fingers begin to twitch and his chest heave up and down.

  Dierk saw the prayer dim the light of her brilliant soul, and he renewed it with his own. He was a conduit, siphoning power from the wretched dead soul and channeling it into Adria. He felt Thaddeus’s memories begin to blur. The emotions of his life faded into one another. Good, thought Dierk. Eternity had no need of them.

  Adria prayed over a second body, then a third. She mended torn flesh. She molded together broken bones and sewed together ripped limbs. Last she soothed their souls and latched them back to their physical shells. Dierk watched with tears in his eyes. She would do it, and all through his help. After every resurrection he gave her more. She would not feel exhaustion. She would not lack strength. Dierk was there for her.

  It was by the fifth resurrected that the scattered crowd realized what was happening. She’d prayed over a man whose wife wept beside him, and when he sat up, his cleaved throat mended and his mouth locked in a smile, she cried to the heavens for Adria to accept her thanks.

  “Now they’ll see,” Dierk whispered. “They’ll all see what I see when I look at you.”

  Adria did not address the crying woman. She didn’t even look her way. She continued her pace about the torched cathedral, kneeling before bodies, praying over them, and restoring life to the dead. All the while Dierk fed her, unnoticed, just the Mayor’s son off in the distance watching like everyone else. The only thing someone might wonder at was the rapidly shriveling soul beside him, now no larger than a child’s fist.

  On and on, a parade of miracles. A crowd steadily grew around Adria, and it moved with her amid an eerie silence. Did they believe what they witnessed? Did these men and women fear to disrupt her trance? He didn’t know. It wasn’t his responsibility to know. Only empower Adria. Keep her going. Keep her strong to work her wonders.

  After she resurrected her sixtieth victim, that of a city guard who had come to protect the cathedral in the later moments of the battle, the crowd finally stirred as if from a dream. It began as a lone woman singing, and it grew, and grew, until a hundred sang a simple hymn that children learned during their little classes between the ninth-day sermons. Only one thing was changed.

  They did not sing praises “to the Sacred Mother, may she return.”

  They sang praises “to Blessed Adria, the Sacred returned.”

  “Keep going,” Dierk whispered. His heart pounded in his chest, and his head ached with the worst migraine he’d had in his life. The enhanced awareness and understanding he’d felt when first praying the harvesting curse were long gone. The Vikar’s soul was larger now, but only because it had unraveled like a ball of yarn. Its light floated before him, steadily feeding into his constricted chest. If Adria could remain strong, then so would he. Every single person who had died would live. He swore it upon his name, his father’s name, and upon the brittle pages of the Book of Ravens.

  After eighty-four lives, nothing remained of Thaddeus’s soul. Dierk gave of himself. The invisible thread connecting him to Adria tightened. He gasped in agony. Two lives. Three. Four. He told himself to take joy in their awakening. They were so close. Adria was beginning to draw on her own soul as well, complementing his waning power. The crowd thronged, now well over two hundred. They’d ceased that first song and begun a second, equally simple.

  “Joy to the Goddesses on high,” they sang. “May we sing ever to your wonder.”

  The words may say otherwise, but Dierk knew it wasn’t the Goddesses they praised. It was Adria, his beloved Adria. This was everything Dierk could have ever hoped for. He felt like an adult. He felt like a hero. At the one hundredth dead, Adria stood and declared herself finished. The crowd unleashed their love, the final spell holding them back broken. They wept. They begged. They reached to touch her, just touch her, as if her clothing were magic and her skin an anathema to the ills of the Cradle.

  Dierk watched the crowd swarm her and wept. No one knew his pivotal role, no one but the lone person who mattered. His relief was overwhelming. His painful childhood and strangled emotions were a shadow in the distance. No longer did he feel like a disgusting mess of vices, outsider emotions, and constant fear. Instead he felt important. He felt needed. He felt like, at long last, he stood a chance to be at Adria’s side, for her to finally see his love, and for her to show her love in return.

  “We fulfill each other,” he said, smiling as the crowd sang her name. “Two parts come together to perform miracles. Do you see now, Adria? Do you see?”

  Tears trickled down his cheeks. His joy knew no bounds.

  “We were meant for one another,” he laughed. His words rose in volume until he was bellowing to the sky, his voice lost amid the joyous din.

  “Meant for each other! We were meant to be, Adria! We were meant to be!”

  CHAPTER 41

  Adria lay across Devin’s couch, her hand draped over her eyes to block the light from Puffy’s fire. Her head pounded with a migraine stronger than any she’d experienced in her life. It felt like she’d undergone an entire lifetime of struggles in the span of twenty-four hours. She desperately needed sleep but it would not come. In a cruel twist of fate, she lacked the herbs she normally gave others to help them rest when anxiety or pain kept them awake. She’d given away the last of them in what felt like a different age, when the chronimi mushroom had deprived many of their needed sleep.

  The fire popped twice, and then the heat coming off increased. A smile crossed her lips. She’d shivered just a little, yet the firekin noticed. Such a lovely creature. If only the rest of the magical beings could be so kind. Memories of the battle came unbidden to her mind. A deep sense of trouble accompanied them. It wasn’t disgust or horror from tearing apart their bodies or charring them to ash. No, her reaction worried her far more. She felt exhilaration at the power she’d wielded. She’d waded through a chaotic fight, and all the while she’d felt… invincible. Untouchable. Unbreakable.

  Everything she often felt she was not.

  “I think that’s finally the last of them,” Devin said, entering the home with a loud bang of the door. “They’re more stubborn than a kicked mule.”

  “Don’t judge them harshly,” she said. “They’re only scared and desperate.”

  A crowd of people had followed her when she retreated to Devin’s house after she’d resurrected the one hundred who’d died during the attack on the Cathedral of the Sacred Mother. They didn’t seem to know what they wanted from her. Being in her presence was enough for some, while others asked for nebulous blessings. Some just wanted to be touched and prayed over, as if she were one of the Goddesses and could anoint their lives with safety and abundance.

  Oh, the people needing healing did come, like they always did if she stayed in one place for too long. Not even other keepers of the church developing similar healing gifts had helped her with that.

  “I know they’re scared, but that doesn’t remove the entitlement some of them have,” Devin said. She heard his rocking chair creak as he sat in it by the fire. “A few were demanding that you see them, and there was one wealthy bastard who threatened to report me to my superior. That guy’s lucky I didn’t pull my pistol on him. At least then he’d have something worth reporting to Forrest.”

  Adria mustered up a smile. It was the best she could do.

  “My brother, ever the well-mannered diplomat,” she said. “It’s a wonder you weren’t tossed back in the
stockhouse after the attack.”

  “Having the most famous person in all of Londheim as a sister helps with that.”

  Adria cracked a smile. She had visited with both Vikar Forrest and Vikar Caria and confirmed to them Jacaranda’s possession of a soul. That didn’t clear her of the supposed killings at the Gentle Rose brothel, but Adria had insisted Jacaranda be allowed to stay at Devin’s house while that matter was investigated. With a million and one things needing attention with the cathedral’s destruction, Vikar Thaddeus’s apparent death in the fire, and the still unfilled Deakon seat, neither Vikar appeared eager to argue with her on the matter. Perhaps it was an abuse of her growing influence, but she didn’t personally believe so. Devin was a good person at heart. Having him, or someone he loved, be put under arrest was nonsense she would not abide.

  A fluttering sound opened her eyes. Tesmarie had flown to Devin’s shoulder, and she reclined back and spread her wings.

  “I’m just glad you two are both safe,” the faery said. “It’s been a long, long night and day.”

  “That it has, little one,” said Devin. “I’m sorry you had to endure it with us. Tommy told me about what happened at their tower. I can think of no one less deserving of such cruelty.”

  Adria was not privy to that story, but from the corner of her eye she saw the faery slump down a little and bat away flecks of diamond tears.

  “I’m good,” she said. “Everything’s good. I got you, right? And Tommy, and, and… Puffy. Family, right here in Londheim! Such a crazy, crazy world.”

  Devin kissed the air in her direction, and she batted it away like he’d lobbed a diseased rat. Adria allowed herself to laugh. No matter how awful times were, there’d still be the good. For now, she needed to rest. Tomorrow would bring new challenges, especially within the church’s power structure. Goddesses help her, what a mess. Both a Deakon and a Vikar needed to be replaced, and she would be eyed for one of those positions.