The Black Raven

by Katharine Kerr

  “The Unseelie Host, it is!” Evandar said. “Shaetano’s pack!”

  “No, my lord,” Menw said. “They’re your vassals now.”

  “Just so. I’d forgotten.”

  The riders were both male and female, dressed in black armour made of enamelled copper. Long ago Shaetano had made them clumsy bodies, a mix of beast and human, some furred and snouted like Westlands bears, others sporting glittering little eyes and warty flesh like a Bardek crocodile. A few of the riders seemed almost human until they raised a paw, not a hand, in salute; others were like great wolves, running behind the horses. A fair number seemed stitched together from three or four creatures—the head of a boar with human hands and a dog’s tail, perhaps, or dwarven torsos on animal legs, human heads, cat heads, dog faces, braided manes like the Horsekin, dwarven hands, elven hands, ears like mules’, hair striped like tigers’ or stippled like leopards’.

  At their head, carrying a herald’s staff wound round with ribands, rode an old man, a hunchback, his face all swollen and pouched, his skin hanging in great folds of warty flesh round his neck.

  “My lord Evandar!” the herald cried out. “We’ve come to beg your aid! Our Lands are cold, and we hunger as well. Please, take us in to your feast!”

  “Come and be welcome,” Evandar said. “Dismount, all of you, and we’ll go to the pavilion.”

  His people screamed and swore; they drew back, they wrapped their cloaks tight around them as they shrank away from the pack. They all began to shout insults, most of which amounted to “they’re too ugly, don’t let them near us!” The old herald and all his followers began to weep in a cacophony of moans and wails. At that moment Evandar saw what he must do, the only thing he could do, truly.

  “Peace!” Evandar raised both hands. “Hear me out!”

  Slowly both Hosts fell silent.

  “A long while ago,” Evandar said, “I promised you and yours a reward, good herald. New bodies, bodies fair and true—do you remember?”

  “We do, my lord,” the herald said. “And we long for them.”

  “Very well, but there’s only one way that I can do what I promised, and only one place I can do it in.” He turned to the Seelie Host. “If we go there, you’ll be free of this sorcerous winter. Will you all follow me?”

  Unseelie and Seelie Host both joined together in a wordless shout of joy. Evandar spread his hands and looked at them—it seemed to him that his fingers should wear gloves of ice, he felt so cold in his heart. The Hosts fell silent and waited, watching him.

  “It’s time for you all to follow Elessario,” Evandar called out. “Time to be born in the world of Time.”

  They shouted again, but this time he heard fear sing amidst the rejoicing.

  “And what of you, my lord?” Menw said.

  “I shall stay here and make you a safe place in that world.”

  “And then will you follow?”

  “Of course.” The lie came easily. “Once everything is ready, I’ll follow.”

  The two Hosts cheered him for a third time.

  On his golden stallion Evandar led his people in one last circuit of the Lands, the long green meadows, the twisted ancient forest, the ruins of palaces, the dead cities of forgotten kings. As they rode their circle it seemed that the Lands changed under them and above them. The sky turned silver with mist; then the mist turned to a sullen purple, streaked here and there with violet light. The trees and the ice disappeared, and they rode through fields of purple flowers. When they returned to where the river should have been, it had disappeared. Evandar called for the halt and the dismount. As soon as they stood upon ground, their horses vanished.

  “Follow me!” Evandar called out. “It’s not far.”

  Evandar led them through a field of white flowers, nodding in a light the color of silver but tinged with violet. On the far side of the flower meadow lay a river of shifting mists, not quite water, not quite air. Overhead a huge violet moon hung in an indigo sky, but no stars shone. Behind him the chattering hosts fell silent. When he glanced back, he found them all still following, their heads turning this way and that as they stared at the marvels. He stopped on the riverbank and turned to face them.

  “To this place,” Evandar said, “did Dallandra bring me and Elessario, when it was her time to go down to the world of Time and be born. Now it’s the gate through which you must pass. You must wade through the river and walk into that mist.”

  “I see, my lord.” Menw’s voice trembled.

  When Evandar looked at him, he found his lieutenant standing naked, his slender body as white as alabaster and as translucent. The rest of the souls who followed him had become the same: pale, shimmering, and stripped of the false features he had given them. His brother’s pack had lost their fur and fangs, transformed their snouts and paws; they stood straight and laughed in joy at the new images of themselves. The old herald—a stately and white-haired envoy now, came forward to speak for them all.

  “Our thanks! You have given us what you promised us, so long ago.”

  But Evandar knew that he himself had done nothing. He felt the wind pick up, a cold wind that slapped at him in a flood and surge of raw power. Through the meadow beings were coming, all clothed in golden light, huge and towering above the mists and death-pale flowers. Were they human? He could not tell in the glow of their coming. One raised a hand; they had no need of words.

  “To the river!” Evandar called to his people. “Into the river and beyond!”

  For the last time the Hosts obeyed him. It seemed they flew, rising above the flowers and swirling like dead leaves caught in the rising wind. The Great Ones flew with them in a huge waft of golden light that washed over them, swirled them around one last time, and carried them into the mist on the far side of the white river. Three enormous knocks like thunder boomed over the meadow. Without thinking Evandar sank to his knees and flung up his arms.

  For a moment the river mist shone in a burst of gold; then slowly the color faded away. The white river ran once more under the white mist. The white flowers trembled once, then held still. Evandar rose and turned to see one last figure walking toward him: a human being with dark skin and curly white hair, dressed in a coarse brown robe and carrying an apple in one hand and a knife in the other.

  “You’re here?” Evandar said to him.

  “I am.” The old man paused to cut off a slice of apple. “I turn up in the most cursed strange places, don’t I?” He handed Evandar the slice. “You’ve done splendidly.”

  “Have I?” Evandar put the slice in his mouth and found it tasted wonderfully sweet, far better even than the mead from his own stores.

  “Just so: splendidly well. What about you, now?”

  Evandar merely looked at him.

  “A while back we traded questions,” the old man said. “And I laid up a few in store. You owe me some answers.”

  “So I do, good sir. Well then, here’s one of them. I have too much work afoot in the world of Time to follow my people.”

  “Work can always be jobbed out. Do you want to go across?”

  “I don’t! Never shall I be born in the world of slime and blood and decay! Better to fade away than that!”

  “Ah.” The old man considered him for a moment. “You know, I wonder if you could be born, even if you wanted to. I doubt it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re a man of great power. Look at you, still whole and dressed all fancy, even here in this place.”

  Evandar glanced down to see his familiar green tunic and buckskin leggings.

  “The mists usually dissolve such things clean away,” the old man went on. “You’re a marvel, you are, but I’ll wager there’s one thing you’re too weak to do. No doubt you could never strip yourself of enough power to cross that river.”

  “Indeed?” Evandar heard his voice snarl. “Well, then, it’s a good thing I don’t want to, isn’t it now?”

  “It is at that.” The old man was smil
ing at him. “But if you’re ever of a mind to, we could meet here and lay a wager on it.”

  “If I ever have time to, we could at that. Not, of course, that I want to do any such thing. Be born, I mean.”

  “Of course.”

  For a moment they considered each other; then the old man turned away; Evandar suspected him of hiding a smile.

  “Well, a good day to you, then. I’d best be getting back.”

  Without another word he strolled off. Evandar glowered after him, then strode off in the opposite direction to head for the mothers of all roads and home.

  When he returned to his country, he found it white, wrapped in a silence of snow. For a long time he stood on the hilltop and looked, merely looked, at the ruin of what he’d created, the garden dead, the long meadows wrapped in frost, the river frozen and still. Although he knew he should be gone hunting his brother down, he had no heart for it.

  And while Evandar mourned the death and birth of his people, Time passed in the world of men and elves below.

  On her mother’s bed, Elessi lay facedown, trying to turn herself over. She floundered, rocked back and forth, tipped her head back and glared as she beat at the blanket with one chubby hand. All at once she let out a high, thin wail; her face reddened, and the wail turned to a howl of sheer rage. Screaming, she arched her back and swayed so hard that she turned herself over, but she lay waving her arms and legs and screeching at the top of her lungs. Carra perched on the edge of the bed and smiled at her daughter.

  “You did it!” Carra said. “You did it! Look, look! You’re on your back!”

  Elessi ignored her and went on screaming until Carra picked her up and cradled her against one shoulder. In her mother’s arms she fell silent, then grabbed a strand of Carra’s hair in one fist. She sucked on the golden strand while Carra murmured to her and rocked back and forth. Dallandra and Lady Ocradda, standing nearby at the foot of the bed, exchanged glances.

  “Oh you can say it,” Carra snapped. “She’s got an awful temper. I know it better than you do.”

  “I’m sure you do, Your Highness,” Ocradda said.

  “She absolutely hates to be thwarted. If she can’t have somewhat she wants the very moment she wants it, she screams like this and carries on so. I’ve not been around many babies. Is she all right, do you think?”

  “Well, my dear princess,” Ocradda said, smiling. “She’s a bit young to learn patience.”

  Dallandra nodded her agreement, but she was remembering the things Evandar had been telling her about Salamander’s little son. She was seeing a hideous similarity between him and Elessi—the utter frustrations of a soul to whom everything in the world was first-time new.

  For some days, in fact, she’d been trying to reach Evandar, both by forming images of him in her mind and, when that failed, sending the Wildfolk in search of him. Finally, on a morning when the sunlight actually felt warm, and the snow lay thin and streaky, he appeared, meeting her in the copse on Market Hill. He seemed dreadfully thin to her, that morning, and so pale that the sour cherry color of his lips flamed scarlet. Without thinking she laid a hand along his face, which felt as cool and silky as always.

  “What are you doing?” Evandar said.

  “I thought you might be feverish or suchlike, that’s all. Have you been ill? Or is that a silly question for the likes of you?”

  “I don’t know if it is or not. I’ve done some strange things since last we met.”

  “Indeed? What?”

  “I learned that I’m not the master of my own Lands, for one, and an evil thing that was—though a good did come out of it.”

  “Indeed? What do you mean, or is this one of your tedious riddles?”

  “It’s not. But it was just a little thing. Perhaps you’d not be interested.”

  “Evandar, please don’t tease me!”

  All at once he laughed aloud.

  “It’s come true, your wish for my people.” He was grinning at her. “They’ve crossed the white river. They chose life, and I gave it to them.”

  Dallandra let her hand drop and stared at him like a lackwit. His smiled faded, and he cocked his head to one side.

  “Aren’t you pleased?”

  “Of course.” She found her voice at last. “You just took me utterly by surprise. That’s wonderful, my love. I’m so happy for them! And I’m so proud of you.”

  His smile returned in force, and he strutted a little, walking back and forth through the dirty snow. Dallandra heard her own thoughts as a distant rumble of thunder: why now? Why, just when she’d realized that all her scheming to get those souls born might be dangerous to them and those around them, why now had he finally done what she’d been begging him to do for four hundred years? But what else was there to be done?

  “They have their birthright at last,” she said aloud. “They ride the wheel of Time now.”

  “And they’ll not fade away when they die?”

  “Never. They’ll have life again and again, round and round. But what of you, my love? Won’t you—”

  “Hush!” He held up one hand flat for silence. “I’ll not discuss it anymore.”

  Dallandra set her hands on her hips and glared at him, while he considered her with all traces of feeling stripped from his face. All at once it seemed to her that someone was standing behind her. She spun round to find no one there, but the feeling of a presence remained.

  “Is Shaetano nearby?” she said.

  “What? He isn’t, no. I always know when he’s around.”

  “But someone’s watching us.”

  From high up in a leafless tree she heard a faint wail, a ghost of a cry rather than a real sound. She glanced up and saw, clinging to the branches, a withered little creature with a face like bark and hands like twigs. With huge dark eyes it stared at her, then vanished.

  “One of Alshandra’s pack,” Evandar said. “Naught more. There’s nothing there to worry us.”

  “Isn’t there? I gather you left them behind.”

  “Quite right. They’re too ugly to bother with.” He hesitated briefly. “Oh now here! You’re not expecting me to help them, are you?”

  “I’m not expecting you to do anything.” All at once Dallandra felt profoundly tired. “No doubt I’d best just try to do it myself.”

  With a toss of her long hair she strode off, fuming. What had she expected, she asked herself? Some glorious moment of victory, she supposed, when she could look back at all her efforts to give Evandar’s people life and think how worthwhile the trouble had been. Somehow in her fancy for this moment there had been an admiring crowd, too, all marvelling at what she’d done. Instead, she had a flawed triumph, an irritating success, and not one shred of honest gloating to enjoy.

  “Ah well,” she muttered. “That’s what life is like, here beneath the moon! Why am I even surprised?”

  And then and only then did she hear, in some deep recess of her soul, an echo of those three great knocks and know that the Great Ones were pleased. She burst out laughing and strode off to the dun, smiling to herself. Trouble there would be, no doubt, for those souls so suddenly brought into life, but she would deal with it when it happened and not worry herself till then.

  Although she eventually recovered, Raena’s illness—a deep rheum of the chest, a fever that burned in her face—lasted weeks. In the boredom of winter, Cerr Cawnen gossiped endlessly. Why had she been out, wandering round in the snows? Some said that Verrarc’s new wife probably had some other man; after all, a woman who’d betray one man would doubtless cheat on the next. Others whispered of things more sinister, black witchcraft and evil spirits. The spirits had come to Raena twice now, had they not? And why would they do such a thing unless she were attracting them?

  Niffa, of course, knew perfectly well that the latter tale was the true one, but she refused to cause her mother grief by telling that truth. Dera, in her loyalty to Councilman Verrarc, had decided that the third theory going round was the correct one, that Raena wa
s subject to sudden fits of madness and thus deserved pity, not censure.

  “She never had a child, poor thing,” Dera would say. “And truly, it be not likely now that she will. It must have been preying on her mind, like, her just married and all.”

  Niffa would hold her tongue and smile, but in her heart she hated Raena as much as ever, even though she knew now that the woman hadn’t killed Demet herself. She would wonder, though, in softer moments, just where her hatred sprang from. Little could she know that this poisoned tree had its roots back in a time when the evil dweomers Raena worked had had grave consequences, destroying lives and threatening the entire kingdom of Deverry long after the actual death of the body and the personality she’d then worn. And to Niffa, her daughter in that life, had fallen the ill-omened task of setting right her wrongs.

  PART TWO

  AUTUMN 849

  Deverry

  The year 849. Autumn came. Evil portents troubled our High Priest Retyc. We wondered if Prince Maryn were truly meant to be king. But then a woman on temple lands gave birth to twins, and one died. Retyc declared this a good omen.

  —The Holy Chronicles of Lughcarn

  In summer, the fog from the Southern Sea crept in daily at sunset and covered Dun Cerrmor with grey mist, swirling so thick along the ground that one could see it move. On the evening before she gave birth to her second son, Princess Bellyra stood at a window in the women’s hall, high up in the royal broch, and watched the fog advance. The setting sun off to the west turned the first ranks to gold, promising splendor, but once the mist enveloped the town, the gold faded to a cold, relentless light.

  “Your Highness?” Elyssa came up beside her. “What’s wrong? You look so distressed.”