"Over_9780307446138_oeb_c29_r1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jeffrey Overstreet - Cynderes Midnight)
29
A SONG FOR ABASCAR,
A SONG FOR THE KING
Beneath the green moon that gilded the plains of icebound brambles, Cal-raven lay on the domed head of his sculpture gazing beyond the dusty bowl to the eerie glow of the faraway Cent Regus wasteland.
Everything hurt—his body, his memories, his questions. Sweat ran down his face and beneath his bandages and stung his stitches. He wondered if stonemastery burnt away marrow; every bone in his body, every link in his spine, felt charred and fragile. The cooling air was a relief to the fever that followed the strain of exertion.
But there was no help for his raw and bleeding hands. Not yet. The heat and the friction of so much stonemastery had burnt much of the flesh away. He did not understand how his hands could soften and sculpt stone any more than he understood how an impulse could direct his hands or his feet. He knew his control of that gift came from patience and rigorous discipline, and he knew the limitations of his abilities.
Somehow he had surpassed those limits in his struggle with Jordam. And tonight he had driven himself further—sealing tunnels, raising walls, melding boulders, opening passages. New windows allowed archers to fire arrows from safe chambers and freed trumpeters to blow their horns into the night until his hands sealed those open spaces. Riding a vawn up to the heights of Barnashum, galloping along the edge of the cliffs to the great pinnacles, he had dismounted to place his hands at the base of each stone, weakening the foundations with surges of power. Soldiers, waiting for his signal, then struck at the foot of each monolith. One by one those pillars toppled, hurtling down the rockslides, laying waste lines of attackers.
“You are not the king your father was,” Brevolo had said, kneeling suddenly before him in a corridor during the struggle. “And I am grateful. Forgive me, my lord.”
After all this, Cal-raven had hauled his exhausted body up to this high, quiet vantage with his ruined hands. They seemed like something separate from himself—fierce wonders, opening and closing. What they had wrought tonight he found hard to fathom. How many lives had been saved by the work of these hands and by those of the three girls? The thought shook him, made his stomach turn. It might have gone so differently had he not heard a few words of the beastman’s truth through his rage.
He had found at last the answer to the terrible questions that had burdened him these months within the caves. Yes, he could bear the burden, fulfill the role of king. He could unite these desperate people, protect them, and draw out their strengths. But he had needed help. And it had come from a creature he thought his enemy.
“Don’t thank me, Brevolo,” he had answered. “Someday I’ll tell you about the man who deserves our gratitude.”
Abascar’s survivors would reassemble in the grand cavern soon. Say-ressa would apply healing salve to the young stonecrafters’ hands. Parents would calm their children’s fears and assure them that all was well. Guards would patrol, numbering survivors, taking account of the wounded and the dead. And Lesyl would soon ask, “Where is the king?” He would go to her soon, to put her worries to rest.
Who had planned a defense so outrageous? Who had ever trusted the survival of a house to the notions of children?
Last night, as Say-ressa tended to his wounds after the beastwoman’s savage attack, his apprentices had whispered at the door. The healer commanded Margi, Madi, and Luci to stay clear and let the king plot Abascar’s defense, but Cal-raven invited them in. The triplets spoke in bursts of inspiration, finishing each other’s sentences, their words tumbling over one another. Their proposals were ridiculous. They involved shadow puppets. Costumes. Noisemakers. Deception. One even suggested that Abascar slip out of the Blackstone Caves, bait the beastmen inside, and then bury them alive there.
As the children blustered, each idea more audacious than the last, Cal-raven had thought of Auralia’s cloak and how those colors had struck the house like lightning, breaking his father’s feeble hold on the Housefolk. He remembered those beacons of light shooting forth from the girl’s prison cell, illuminating the Underkeep. Beauty had made the people stand still—the poor and the powerful, the dreamers and the dangerous.
After Say-ressa politely dismissed the children, her laughter continued as she passed on a similarly ludicrous notion she had overheard from two Gatherers—the idea of setting the precipice birds on fire and releasing them to the forest. Perhaps it was delirium setting in as she tenderly threaded stitches into his face, or perhaps she’d given him a potion. Whatever the case, Cal-raven fell into a dream shot through with threads of color, each strand clutched tight in the hands of his apprentices. The tapestry forming behind them rose up, became an army. It was the host of statues in the Hall of the Lost. The eyes of each figure shone. Closed lips opened, and chests heaved with breath. Their stone shells began to break as power surged from within. Cal-raven had awakened with a gasp.
House Abascar might not have resources to fight the enemy properly. But Jordam the beastman had said that the Cent Regus had been watching them. Perhaps Cal-raven could convince the beastmen that there were too many survivors to overcome. Perhaps they could turn the beastmen’s fears against them. Perhaps, he had thought, his gifts could serve in the defense of his house after all.
“Master?”
Krawg descended from the ledge into the hollow. Cal-raven recognized the former Gatherer’s awkward, angular silhouette and his wheezy, rasping groan. He raised a hand in greeting.
“Master, is it over?” Krawg stood staring up as if addressing the statue.
Cal-raven tried to respond, but his throat was parched. He shifted his head to keep the bandaged side off the stone and rested his thin beard against the Keeper’s head. The moonlight, the faint sparkle of snow on the distant forest, columns of smoke still rising from the ruined harvest carts, the gleaming of the glowstones shining from the cliffs in the night—it was a spectacle with all the strangeness of a dream.
For a moment Krawg wavered where he stood. “Master, are you well?”
“Still here,” he wheezed. “The counting. Have you heard?”
“The counting, master? No, not yet.”
“You should have seen us,” Warney exclaimed, staggering up behind Krawg on a crutch. “We put on scowls most fearsome and stood our ground. No Cent Regus dared approach our tunnel.”
“Warney, think for a moment of somethin’ besides your own flea-bitten hide.” Krawg turned and tried to kick Warney’s crutch to keep him back.
“You’re wounded?” Cal-raven asked.
“Oh, it’s an honor to be hurt in a battle against beastmen, master.” Warney held up his bandaged leg, tapped it with his crutch, and winced.
“He didn’t see any such battle,” Krawg snapped.
“In the morning I’ll need your help again,” said Cal-raven. “To retrieve arrows from the ground below. And the sharp stones too. We’ll need them again. We’ve won ourselves some time, but the beastmen will be back. Next time they won’t fall for illusions.” Caught by a wave of nausea, he lay down, clinging to the Keeper’s head.
“We did it. Didn’t we, master? We fought a battle with light,” murmured Krawg, amazed. “With string and birds and fire and stone. And horns.”
“And a little bit of help from beyond our own house.” Cal-raven wondered where Jordam had gone. He wondered if he would see the creature again. If he did, things would be different.
He strained to keep his eyes open. You’ll freeze to death if you fall asleep out here, he thought. And Tabor Jan will drink your share of the celebration wine.
A glimmer of crystalline green moved between the stone teeth on the edge of the hollow. Cal-raven saw a ghostly figure there holding a glowstone and looking back at him. The figure raised a hand as if in salute.
“Who am I to say what’s possible?” Cal-raven raised his hand to answer, but when he blinked, he saw only the glowstone set on the ledge between the teeth. He tried to lift his head, but it was too heavy. “Krawg,” he rasped.
“Master?” the old Gatherer answered. “What is it?”
“Not long ago you were stranded out here, stuck on a ledge, trying to steal an owl.”
“Yes, my king. I tried to adopt the blasted bird and take it inside where it would be safe. Soon as I told it so, it up and flew away! And I remember that you did me quite an honor. You helped me down. Probably saved my life.”
“Well, now you can return the favor,” Cal-raven laughed. “I can’t move.”
With a little help from Warney, Krawg helped the king of Abascar down.
Pacing in front of the fangbear’s den at the base of Baldridge Hill, Mordafey watched Goreth whimper and cling to the trunk of a two-columned tree. The beating he had just given his brother had not satisfied his fury. “Where were you?” he roared again. “Why didn’t you run with Mordafey?”
“Older. Brother.” Goreth clutched at his bruised belly, then his bleeding head. “I forgot the plan.”
Mordafey pressed his snout against Goreth’s so that the browbones on their foreheads clattered together. “Forgot?” His question sprayed Goreth’s face. “What were you thinking about?”
Eyes pleading, blood running from between his teeth, Goreth replied, “Same Brother.”
“Sssame Brother? Jordam’s a coward. A fool.” He seized Goreth by the beard and raised him to his feet. “No more time for Jordam. Mordafey must plan. Goreth must help the brothers ruin Abascar.”
A small pack of Cent Regus lurked about, glaring at the brothers, hoping to claim some kind of prize for their ordeal. When Mordafey stormed down into a fangbear’s burrow, he heard them crowd in behind. They feared him. They feared he would hold them responsible for this defeat. And yet they were hot for revenge against Abascar or revolt against the white giant.
Frantic to come up with a strategy that might still salvage his bargain with the stranger, Mordafey began barking about weapons they should assemble for an attack at daybreak. “Cal-raven thinks Cent Regus will give up,” he growled. “Mordafey is patient. Cal-raven will come out. Cent Regus will be waiting. Go. Gather lost arrows. Find cowards who ran. Bring them to me.”
Mordafey’s mad laughter reinvigorated the stragglers of the swarm. They pressed together to make their way out of the tunnel and hurry back to the cliffs, where Abascar’s defense had quieted and the day was ready to break.
Mordafey turned to Goreth and Jorn. “Four brothers not finished yet.”
“Three brothers,” sighed Goreth. “Only three.”
Jorn, striving to impress his older brother again, sprang after the departing crowd of Cent Regus and pushed his way out of the burrow. “Always let Older Brother go first,” Goreth muttered. Mordafey was surprised by the unusual show of respect.
As they made their way into the tunnel to catch up, the sounds outside the burrow suddenly changed.
The quiet of the woods was torn by screams and the sharp song of wires snapping taut.
All about the mouth of the tunnel, across a wide swath of ground, the Cent Regus were struggling, bound in tightening snares, every attempt to break free causing the wires to dig in.
“Someone,” Mordafey gasped. “Someone followed us to the burrow. Someone…someone set traps!”
Goreth scrambled down the tunnel, crying, “Abascar’s come after us!”
“No.” Mordafey looked up toward Baldridge Hill. “No. Not Abascar.” He scanned the piles of sprawling, thrashing Cent Regus for Jorn. He found his younger brother jerking and clawing up clods of earth, his skin absorbing the color of the blood-flooded moss beneath him.
“Bel Amican,” Jorn rasped as Mordafey leaned over him. “Krammed Bel Amican trap.” He begged Mordafey to release him.
Mordafey yanked the pin of Jorn’s trap and examined the spring-spool. Then he unearthed a heavy stone and smashed the spool until its mechanism fractured. The tension loosened. He pulled the wires free from Jorn’s lacerated body. Jorn whined, crawled a few steps, and lay still, heaving for breath.
“Smell no Abascar here.” Mordafey’s gaze scoured the surrounding forest across all of the groaning, dying creatures. “No Bel Amicans. Something else.” He knew that he had lost the allegiance of the swarm. If any of these stragglers survived, they would hunt him in their rage. He had brought them here. He had promised them everything, given them nothing. They would kill him if he set them free.
And so with a spear in his hand, Mordafey stalked about the bloodied ground and silenced every moan with swift, sure strikes, finishing the army he had worked so hard to assemble.
Then he lifted Jorn up, slung him over his shoulders, and marched off through the field of sprung traps into the trees. Goreth, staring at the steaming, wirebound corpses, stepped gingerly around them, following.
By morning the brothers reached the place where Mordafey had left three prongbulls they had stolen from the Core. Only two bulls remained.
The white giant waited there, grinning that ever-present grin. The prongbulls bowed their heads beside him, their hides branded with scars Mordafey recognized, for his own chest bore those same scars from the stranger’s walking stick. He looked about, joining his brothers in sudden confusion. The third bull they had stolen was missing.
The white giant advanced, shrilling a question in the Common tongue. “Where have you been?”
Mordafey gathered what strength he could muster. He felt his brothers’ attention and knew that other witnesses might be hiding in the shadows. He had no choice but to respond to this challenge with strength. His claws sprang out for the strike, but the stranger stopped, jutting his walking stick out before him. A bolt of lightning jolted Mordafey, branching through his limbs like blades springing from blades. The blast cast him backward into the trunk of a tree.
The stranger came at him again. “Now that we remember the proper order, I will be brief.” He towered over Mordafey, his cape billowing about the winding white rags of his costume. He scrawled an X in the air just before Mordafey’s face. Jorn snarled, yet Mordafey knew that his brother would not risk a blast from that stick. Goreth stood quiet and did nothing.
“Now hear this,” said the giant. “I shall come to you again. At your den this time.”
“Brothers’ caves?” Mordafey cast a startled glance at Goreth.
“Don’t underestimate me, Mordafey.” The giant raised a small wooden box and rattled the contents, as if this were some sort of weapon. “I have powers you’ll never understand. You can’t hide from me. Or from the captain.”
Mordafey looked up the slope of the hill. “The captain?”
“Yes, I’ve sent him a report of your failure. He’s had enough of your foolishness. You have yet to prove to him that you can muster an army worth his time. I’ll bring him to your caves, and he’ll have instructions. You’ll obey him. Remember what he’s done for you—the sacrifices he has made. He’ll not tolerate another disappointment.”
Mordafey sank his claws into the tree trunk and pulled himself to his feet.
“I was going to send you off like a good dog to sniff out and destroy the one who betrayed you. But that riddle is already answered. The traitor ran right to me. Took one of the bulls before I could catch him. He looks”—the Seer pointed to Goreth—“like that one.”
Goreth yelped, fearful of what the Seer might be saying to his older brother. Mordafey’s scowl slowly twisted, curling back into a gleeful grin. “I know the one,” he answered in Common. “And I know where he’s hiding.”
“I drove him off,” the giant said. “He fled. On one of your bulls. You must promise to bring him back to me. Or…what remains when you are finished with him.”
“Abascar.” Mordafey glanced in the direction of the cliffs. “What about Cal-raven?”
“I will deal with Cal-raven. Eventually.”
Jorn whimpered as Mordafey strapped him over the back of the larger bull. Then Mordafey climbed into the saddle. He wanted to kill the giant here, now, and rid himself of any worry. But he bottled his rage, saving it for another target.
“Where now?” Goreth asked. He did not approach the other bull. Something held him back.
“Goreth,” Mordafey said through a smile. “Goreth is faster than Jordam. Yes?”
Goreth’s tail twitched, swiping traces of snow behind him.
“Goreth is stronger than Jordam, yes?”
Goreth nodded slowly, but his scowl remained.
“Jordam set traps for us, Goreth. Jordam tried to finish us. Time to teach Jordam not to trap his brothers, yes?”
Goreth scratched at his ear. Then he climbed into the saddle of the second prongbull. The animal kept watch on the giant’s staff.
The Bel Amican spun his walking stick slowly in the air. “You know where to find him?”
“Awake, Jordam lies to us.” Mordafey spurred his bull beneath a leaning tree and reached up to snap off a branch that would serve as a whip. “Asleep, Jordam has surprises. Secrets.”
“I remember!” Goreth announced.
Mordafey looked at Goreth. “Goreth remembers what?”
Goreth’s face quivered with indecision. Then he muttered, “Always let Older Brother go first.”
Mordafey snorted, assuming that his brother was confused again. But as they rode out, picking up Jordam’s trail, he could hear Goreth repeating those words again and again to himself. They buzzed about him like a stingerfly he could not smash.
Tabor Jan found his king staggering down a corridor, one arm draped around Krawg’s neck, the other around Warney’s, and he immediately pitied the man. Anyone trapped between those two smelly old fools was worthy of pity.
But the captain’s concern deepened to fear when he got closer. Cal-raven seemed hollowed out, his eyes dark, the bruises beneath them even darker. The bandage on his face was purple with old blood. His short red braids were matted with sweat, and he shuddered, racked with chills.
“Give him to me.” Tabor Jan pulled the king’s arm around his own neck and dismissed Krawg and Warney. The two thieves walked away slowly, as if in a dream, having just served the greatest privilege of their often unpleasant lives.
“The counting?” Cal-raven’s voice was like dry leaves.
“We’re still waiting,” said Tabor Jan.
“Must know.”
“You look terrible.”
“Never looked good with a beard,” said the king.
After leaning on Tabor Jan for a fair distance, Cal-raven paused at a crossroads. “I wish I could tell my father.” The captain felt tremors shake the king, long-suppressed emotion threatening to erupt.
He coaxed the king back into walking, and they made their way around a corner and down a steep incline into a cave lit with torches. The walls surrounding them were strung with tapestries of interwoven blackreeds. The people of Abascar had generously and reverently displayed the gifts Auralia had given them. Many of these treasures had been returned to Abascar’s people by the efforts of the boy, the one they called Rescue. He would leave them where harvesters would find them, at the base of the cliffs, in the bushes, in the harvest carts. Now they shone like flares soaring through dark skies.
Cal-raven did not have a throne room in the Blackstone Caves, although the people had offered to craft one. He refused, for they slept in crowded spaces, and every chamber needed to serve several purposes. Instead, he sanctioned a chamber for private conferences, for strategy, for heated debate. He had chosen this room, where he could peruse a display of Auralia’s colors to remind him of what his father’s house had lacked, what it had been offered, and what might yet be achieved.
Tabor Jan helped the king lie back against one of the cushions where the counselors sat during daily sessions. Then he moved to stand by the door and ensure no one disturbed the chamber. He watched as Cal-raven stared at the spectrum of Auralia’s inventions illuminated in the torchlight. He seemed to bask in the color.
Brevolo and Say-ressa appeared in the doorway. Brevolo whispered something in Tabor Jan’s ear. His eyes widened, and he looked at her in disbelief. She smiled and then leaned in to whisper more. He nodded, trying to maintain a solemn scowl in spite of the rather alluring invitation. “Perhaps later,” he said.
Say-ressa started forward when she saw Cal-raven, but Tabor Jan stopped her. “Leave him be for a few moments. I’ll bring him to you soon for some attention. He’ll need whatever you can give him.”
Cal-raven raised a hand in greeting. “I must look like they dug me out of a grave,” he rasped.
“We’ll patch you up, master,” Say-ressa promised him. Then she and Brevolo moved away, whispering together.
“My king,” said the captain.
“Stop,” Cal-raven whispered. “Listen.”
Tabor Jan tensed, expecting trouble. Instead he heard the faint touches of Lesyl’s music rising from somewhere deep in the labyrinth.
“My lord,” said the captain, “it is time for you to know.”
“Lesyl is playing music for the children.”
“It was your idea. You said it would calm them so they would not be afraid. So they would sleep. It’s the Early Morning Verse. Don’t you remember?”
“I don’t. It’s lovely. She can make the saddest song beautiful. And the joyful songs…oh.”
Tabor Jan pressed on. “Master, I’ve heard the report. All have been accounted for.”
Cal-raven stared into the colors, his head cocked thoughtfully as he listened. At first the captain thought that his old friend had not heard. But then the king looked at him and answered. “All of them.”
“Down to the last watchman blowing a horn in the woods.”
“Alive? Unharmed?”
“Say-ressa says that two of the cave cleaners, Copus and Saugus, got scratched up pretty badly when they fell on the climb down from the precipice. We should never send those two out into the wild. They couldn’t boil stew chunks if you gave them a pot and a fire.”
“And Krawg and Warney? They showed signs of a struggle.”
“You really want to know?”
“I need a good laugh.”
“Took each other for beastmen in the darkness of the corridor. Scuffed each other up good.”
“That’s it?”
“I’m telling you, King Cal-raven, that it’s done. All of Abascar’s people are alive. The siege is over.”
With great care Cal-raven got to his feet. He spread his arms to find his balance, but when Tabor Jan stepped forward to help him, he waved him back. The king walked across the chamber to pause before Auralia’s array, pulled the torn neckband from his pocket, and tucked the edge of it through the reeds so that it glimmered among the gallery. “Maybe something out there is watching out for us after all.”
“How did you know that the beastmen were coming? How did you know when they would strike?”
Cal-raven scowled. “You’re not ready to know the answer yet.”
Tabor Jan’s eyes widened. Then he scowled and barked, “What do you mean? I can—”
“You’re not ready to know the answer, Tabor Jan. I wasn’t ready.”
“Try me.”
“Very well, then. I will try you. I am glad, Tabor Jan, that we did not have to venture out and fight the beastmen face to face tonight. I could not have done it.”
“Of course you could have, my king. You are the best beastman slayer I know. You could have taken on that whole—”
“Don’t make me tell the tale tonight. It would ruin me.”
Shaking his head, Tabor Jan ignored the king’s objections and placed his arm across his shoulders. “You need sleep, King of Abascar. The caves are sealed. The people are safe.”
“Take me to the music.”
They found the cave where Lesyl was singing. Children were gathered in a crowd about her. Merya, once a Gatherer and now in charge of planning meals, stood cradling her newborn at the edge of the room, listening. Many of the soldiers, the Gatherers, and the Housefolk were assembling as well.
Cal-raven tried to quell the emotions that seized him as he took in this sight. Peace. Relief.
Lesyl sang quietly about a magnificent violet tree that had fallen in a storm. One bird tried to lift it, but her wings were much too feeble. Another came to offer help, but they were not enough. But when their whole flock descended, each bird grasping a branch, they could fly together and lift the tree, planting it back in the scar of its uprooting. As she sang the chorus again, the children of Abascar raised their tired voices to join her. She looked up and saw Cal-raven. Her voice faltered.
The audience turned, saw the two men in the entryway, and against the king’s objections, they stood, every one of them, silent and respectful.
“Please,” said Cal-raven. “Please, finish the song.”
They remained standing, bowing their heads in reverence, and Lesyl made her way through the song, her voice shaking as her emotions overcame her craft. The children sang the chorus for her and kept on singing as their parents and guardians guided them away to sleep for the night.
Shoulder to the wall, Cal-raven thanked and dismissed the captain. “Go and say good night to Brevolo, my friend. I think you’ll find it easier to rest and regain your strength if you’re in her company. And I suspect she will welcome seeing you.”
His face reddening in a stubborn frown, Tabor Jan departed.
Cal-raven sat down.
He saw that it was difficult for Lesyl to meet his gaze. She plucked a few melancholy notes. “I don’t have gifts like Auralia,” she said.
“No one has gifts like Auralia,” he said. “The world would burst into flames. But you, you play beautifully. Did you look up while you were singing?”
“I don’t pay attention to the listeners.” She pressed the blisters forming on her thumbs. “I play to find some kind of focus in the fear.”
Cal-raven smiled, sympathetic.
“When Mother and I learned that Father was dying, Father asked me to sing for him,” she said. “Mother insisted that I only sing songs from their youthful days together. She wanted me to take her mind off Father’s pain. But when she stepped away, Father asked me to sing songs about pain. About loss. About the world without him. When I played those songs, he would cry. It was the only way he could cry. And now it’s the only way I know to cry.”
“We need you to lead us in crying, Lesyl, or we’ll drown in unshed tears.” He gestured to the empty corridor. “Tomorrow we’ll want you to lead us in celebration. There are enough songs in today’s story to keep you busy for many days to come. But I would ask you to consider something else as you play.”
“My lord and king.”
“The people will want to jeer at the beastmen. To exult in how we deceived them. But if they saw the whole picture, it might give them pause. I want to ask House Abascar to remember the fall of House Cent Regus.”
She turned her head, as if he had inspired some troubling memory of her own.
“I hate the Cent Regus,” he continued. “I learned to hate them when I was a child, and I’ve never questioned the training that prepared me to strike them down in battle. But through it all, I’ve never understood them or even tried to. I don’t know what they are. Or how they came to be. Abascar’s in a desperate state. Who’s to say we’re not vulnerable to such corruption? I want us to consider what they were, what they lost.”
“I once woke from a nightmare,” Lesyl began, “and tried to compose a song about the beastmen in the dream.” She placed the instrument back across her knees, strummed a dark and dissonant chord. “I thought it would help me overcome my fear. But instead, the music just made me sad. It’s a sad story, the fall of House Cent Regus. I’ve never played it for anyone. Your father’s counselors would have confiscated all my instruments if they’d heard me singing this song. Nobody wants to hear songs about their enemies unless I’m praising the brave men who cut them down.”
“I think I need to hear that song tonight.”
The notes were simple at first, harmonious and sustained, swelling into a foundation of chords over which she improvised a grand architecture of melodies and countermelodies—terror and magnificence, hunger and ruin—and lingering above it, a shimmering sadness, a heartbreak deeper than blue.
29
A SONG FOR ABASCAR,
A SONG FOR THE KING
Beneath the green moon that gilded the plains of icebound brambles, Cal-raven lay on the domed head of his sculpture gazing beyond the dusty bowl to the eerie glow of the faraway Cent Regus wasteland.
Everything hurt—his body, his memories, his questions. Sweat ran down his face and beneath his bandages and stung his stitches. He wondered if stonemastery burnt away marrow; every bone in his body, every link in his spine, felt charred and fragile. The cooling air was a relief to the fever that followed the strain of exertion.
But there was no help for his raw and bleeding hands. Not yet. The heat and the friction of so much stonemastery had burnt much of the flesh away. He did not understand how his hands could soften and sculpt stone any more than he understood how an impulse could direct his hands or his feet. He knew his control of that gift came from patience and rigorous discipline, and he knew the limitations of his abilities.
Somehow he had surpassed those limits in his struggle with Jordam. And tonight he had driven himself further—sealing tunnels, raising walls, melding boulders, opening passages. New windows allowed archers to fire arrows from safe chambers and freed trumpeters to blow their horns into the night until his hands sealed those open spaces. Riding a vawn up to the heights of Barnashum, galloping along the edge of the cliffs to the great pinnacles, he had dismounted to place his hands at the base of each stone, weakening the foundations with surges of power. Soldiers, waiting for his signal, then struck at the foot of each monolith. One by one those pillars toppled, hurtling down the rockslides, laying waste lines of attackers.
“You are not the king your father was,” Brevolo had said, kneeling suddenly before him in a corridor during the struggle. “And I am grateful. Forgive me, my lord.”
After all this, Cal-raven had hauled his exhausted body up to this high, quiet vantage with his ruined hands. They seemed like something separate from himself—fierce wonders, opening and closing. What they had wrought tonight he found hard to fathom. How many lives had been saved by the work of these hands and by those of the three girls? The thought shook him, made his stomach turn. It might have gone so differently had he not heard a few words of the beastman’s truth through his rage.
He had found at last the answer to the terrible questions that had burdened him these months within the caves. Yes, he could bear the burden, fulfill the role of king. He could unite these desperate people, protect them, and draw out their strengths. But he had needed help. And it had come from a creature he thought his enemy.
“Don’t thank me, Brevolo,” he had answered. “Someday I’ll tell you about the man who deserves our gratitude.”
Abascar’s survivors would reassemble in the grand cavern soon. Say-ressa would apply healing salve to the young stonecrafters’ hands. Parents would calm their children’s fears and assure them that all was well. Guards would patrol, numbering survivors, taking account of the wounded and the dead. And Lesyl would soon ask, “Where is the king?” He would go to her soon, to put her worries to rest.
Who had planned a defense so outrageous? Who had ever trusted the survival of a house to the notions of children?
Last night, as Say-ressa tended to his wounds after the beastwoman’s savage attack, his apprentices had whispered at the door. The healer commanded Margi, Madi, and Luci to stay clear and let the king plot Abascar’s defense, but Cal-raven invited them in. The triplets spoke in bursts of inspiration, finishing each other’s sentences, their words tumbling over one another. Their proposals were ridiculous. They involved shadow puppets. Costumes. Noisemakers. Deception. One even suggested that Abascar slip out of the Blackstone Caves, bait the beastmen inside, and then bury them alive there.
As the children blustered, each idea more audacious than the last, Cal-raven had thought of Auralia’s cloak and how those colors had struck the house like lightning, breaking his father’s feeble hold on the Housefolk. He remembered those beacons of light shooting forth from the girl’s prison cell, illuminating the Underkeep. Beauty had made the people stand still—the poor and the powerful, the dreamers and the dangerous.
After Say-ressa politely dismissed the children, her laughter continued as she passed on a similarly ludicrous notion she had overheard from two Gatherers—the idea of setting the precipice birds on fire and releasing them to the forest. Perhaps it was delirium setting in as she tenderly threaded stitches into his face, or perhaps she’d given him a potion. Whatever the case, Cal-raven fell into a dream shot through with threads of color, each strand clutched tight in the hands of his apprentices. The tapestry forming behind them rose up, became an army. It was the host of statues in the Hall of the Lost. The eyes of each figure shone. Closed lips opened, and chests heaved with breath. Their stone shells began to break as power surged from within. Cal-raven had awakened with a gasp.
House Abascar might not have resources to fight the enemy properly. But Jordam the beastman had said that the Cent Regus had been watching them. Perhaps Cal-raven could convince the beastmen that there were too many survivors to overcome. Perhaps they could turn the beastmen’s fears against them. Perhaps, he had thought, his gifts could serve in the defense of his house after all.
“Master?”
Krawg descended from the ledge into the hollow. Cal-raven recognized the former Gatherer’s awkward, angular silhouette and his wheezy, rasping groan. He raised a hand in greeting.
“Master, is it over?” Krawg stood staring up as if addressing the statue.
Cal-raven tried to respond, but his throat was parched. He shifted his head to keep the bandaged side off the stone and rested his thin beard against the Keeper’s head. The moonlight, the faint sparkle of snow on the distant forest, columns of smoke still rising from the ruined harvest carts, the gleaming of the glowstones shining from the cliffs in the night—it was a spectacle with all the strangeness of a dream.
For a moment Krawg wavered where he stood. “Master, are you well?”
“Still here,” he wheezed. “The counting. Have you heard?”
“The counting, master? No, not yet.”
“You should have seen us,” Warney exclaimed, staggering up behind Krawg on a crutch. “We put on scowls most fearsome and stood our ground. No Cent Regus dared approach our tunnel.”
“Warney, think for a moment of somethin’ besides your own flea-bitten hide.” Krawg turned and tried to kick Warney’s crutch to keep him back.
“You’re wounded?” Cal-raven asked.
“Oh, it’s an honor to be hurt in a battle against beastmen, master.” Warney held up his bandaged leg, tapped it with his crutch, and winced.
“He didn’t see any such battle,” Krawg snapped.
“In the morning I’ll need your help again,” said Cal-raven. “To retrieve arrows from the ground below. And the sharp stones too. We’ll need them again. We’ve won ourselves some time, but the beastmen will be back. Next time they won’t fall for illusions.” Caught by a wave of nausea, he lay down, clinging to the Keeper’s head.
“We did it. Didn’t we, master? We fought a battle with light,” murmured Krawg, amazed. “With string and birds and fire and stone. And horns.”
“And a little bit of help from beyond our own house.” Cal-raven wondered where Jordam had gone. He wondered if he would see the creature again. If he did, things would be different.
He strained to keep his eyes open. You’ll freeze to death if you fall asleep out here, he thought. And Tabor Jan will drink your share of the celebration wine.
A glimmer of crystalline green moved between the stone teeth on the edge of the hollow. Cal-raven saw a ghostly figure there holding a glowstone and looking back at him. The figure raised a hand as if in salute.
“Who am I to say what’s possible?” Cal-raven raised his hand to answer, but when he blinked, he saw only the glowstone set on the ledge between the teeth. He tried to lift his head, but it was too heavy. “Krawg,” he rasped.
“Master?” the old Gatherer answered. “What is it?”
“Not long ago you were stranded out here, stuck on a ledge, trying to steal an owl.”
“Yes, my king. I tried to adopt the blasted bird and take it inside where it would be safe. Soon as I told it so, it up and flew away! And I remember that you did me quite an honor. You helped me down. Probably saved my life.”
“Well, now you can return the favor,” Cal-raven laughed. “I can’t move.”
With a little help from Warney, Krawg helped the king of Abascar down.
Pacing in front of the fangbear’s den at the base of Baldridge Hill, Mordafey watched Goreth whimper and cling to the trunk of a two-columned tree. The beating he had just given his brother had not satisfied his fury. “Where were you?” he roared again. “Why didn’t you run with Mordafey?”
“Older. Brother.” Goreth clutched at his bruised belly, then his bleeding head. “I forgot the plan.”
Mordafey pressed his snout against Goreth’s so that the browbones on their foreheads clattered together. “Forgot?” His question sprayed Goreth’s face. “What were you thinking about?”
Eyes pleading, blood running from between his teeth, Goreth replied, “Same Brother.”
“Sssame Brother? Jordam’s a coward. A fool.” He seized Goreth by the beard and raised him to his feet. “No more time for Jordam. Mordafey must plan. Goreth must help the brothers ruin Abascar.”
A small pack of Cent Regus lurked about, glaring at the brothers, hoping to claim some kind of prize for their ordeal. When Mordafey stormed down into a fangbear’s burrow, he heard them crowd in behind. They feared him. They feared he would hold them responsible for this defeat. And yet they were hot for revenge against Abascar or revolt against the white giant.
Frantic to come up with a strategy that might still salvage his bargain with the stranger, Mordafey began barking about weapons they should assemble for an attack at daybreak. “Cal-raven thinks Cent Regus will give up,” he growled. “Mordafey is patient. Cal-raven will come out. Cent Regus will be waiting. Go. Gather lost arrows. Find cowards who ran. Bring them to me.”
Mordafey’s mad laughter reinvigorated the stragglers of the swarm. They pressed together to make their way out of the tunnel and hurry back to the cliffs, where Abascar’s defense had quieted and the day was ready to break.
Mordafey turned to Goreth and Jorn. “Four brothers not finished yet.”
“Three brothers,” sighed Goreth. “Only three.”
Jorn, striving to impress his older brother again, sprang after the departing crowd of Cent Regus and pushed his way out of the burrow. “Always let Older Brother go first,” Goreth muttered. Mordafey was surprised by the unusual show of respect.
As they made their way into the tunnel to catch up, the sounds outside the burrow suddenly changed.
The quiet of the woods was torn by screams and the sharp song of wires snapping taut.
All about the mouth of the tunnel, across a wide swath of ground, the Cent Regus were struggling, bound in tightening snares, every attempt to break free causing the wires to dig in.
“Someone,” Mordafey gasped. “Someone followed us to the burrow. Someone…someone set traps!”
Goreth scrambled down the tunnel, crying, “Abascar’s come after us!”
“No.” Mordafey looked up toward Baldridge Hill. “No. Not Abascar.” He scanned the piles of sprawling, thrashing Cent Regus for Jorn. He found his younger brother jerking and clawing up clods of earth, his skin absorbing the color of the blood-flooded moss beneath him.
“Bel Amican,” Jorn rasped as Mordafey leaned over him. “Krammed Bel Amican trap.” He begged Mordafey to release him.
Mordafey yanked the pin of Jorn’s trap and examined the spring-spool. Then he unearthed a heavy stone and smashed the spool until its mechanism fractured. The tension loosened. He pulled the wires free from Jorn’s lacerated body. Jorn whined, crawled a few steps, and lay still, heaving for breath.
“Smell no Abascar here.” Mordafey’s gaze scoured the surrounding forest across all of the groaning, dying creatures. “No Bel Amicans. Something else.” He knew that he had lost the allegiance of the swarm. If any of these stragglers survived, they would hunt him in their rage. He had brought them here. He had promised them everything, given them nothing. They would kill him if he set them free.
And so with a spear in his hand, Mordafey stalked about the bloodied ground and silenced every moan with swift, sure strikes, finishing the army he had worked so hard to assemble.
Then he lifted Jorn up, slung him over his shoulders, and marched off through the field of sprung traps into the trees. Goreth, staring at the steaming, wirebound corpses, stepped gingerly around them, following.
By morning the brothers reached the place where Mordafey had left three prongbulls they had stolen from the Core. Only two bulls remained.
The white giant waited there, grinning that ever-present grin. The prongbulls bowed their heads beside him, their hides branded with scars Mordafey recognized, for his own chest bore those same scars from the stranger’s walking stick. He looked about, joining his brothers in sudden confusion. The third bull they had stolen was missing.
The white giant advanced, shrilling a question in the Common tongue. “Where have you been?”
Mordafey gathered what strength he could muster. He felt his brothers’ attention and knew that other witnesses might be hiding in the shadows. He had no choice but to respond to this challenge with strength. His claws sprang out for the strike, but the stranger stopped, jutting his walking stick out before him. A bolt of lightning jolted Mordafey, branching through his limbs like blades springing from blades. The blast cast him backward into the trunk of a tree.
The stranger came at him again. “Now that we remember the proper order, I will be brief.” He towered over Mordafey, his cape billowing about the winding white rags of his costume. He scrawled an X in the air just before Mordafey’s face. Jorn snarled, yet Mordafey knew that his brother would not risk a blast from that stick. Goreth stood quiet and did nothing.
“Now hear this,” said the giant. “I shall come to you again. At your den this time.”
“Brothers’ caves?” Mordafey cast a startled glance at Goreth.
“Don’t underestimate me, Mordafey.” The giant raised a small wooden box and rattled the contents, as if this were some sort of weapon. “I have powers you’ll never understand. You can’t hide from me. Or from the captain.”
Mordafey looked up the slope of the hill. “The captain?”
“Yes, I’ve sent him a report of your failure. He’s had enough of your foolishness. You have yet to prove to him that you can muster an army worth his time. I’ll bring him to your caves, and he’ll have instructions. You’ll obey him. Remember what he’s done for you—the sacrifices he has made. He’ll not tolerate another disappointment.”
Mordafey sank his claws into the tree trunk and pulled himself to his feet.
“I was going to send you off like a good dog to sniff out and destroy the one who betrayed you. But that riddle is already answered. The traitor ran right to me. Took one of the bulls before I could catch him. He looks”—the Seer pointed to Goreth—“like that one.”
Goreth yelped, fearful of what the Seer might be saying to his older brother. Mordafey’s scowl slowly twisted, curling back into a gleeful grin. “I know the one,” he answered in Common. “And I know where he’s hiding.”
“I drove him off,” the giant said. “He fled. On one of your bulls. You must promise to bring him back to me. Or…what remains when you are finished with him.”
“Abascar.” Mordafey glanced in the direction of the cliffs. “What about Cal-raven?”
“I will deal with Cal-raven. Eventually.”
Jorn whimpered as Mordafey strapped him over the back of the larger bull. Then Mordafey climbed into the saddle. He wanted to kill the giant here, now, and rid himself of any worry. But he bottled his rage, saving it for another target.
“Where now?” Goreth asked. He did not approach the other bull. Something held him back.
“Goreth,” Mordafey said through a smile. “Goreth is faster than Jordam. Yes?”
Goreth’s tail twitched, swiping traces of snow behind him.
“Goreth is stronger than Jordam, yes?”
Goreth nodded slowly, but his scowl remained.
“Jordam set traps for us, Goreth. Jordam tried to finish us. Time to teach Jordam not to trap his brothers, yes?”
Goreth scratched at his ear. Then he climbed into the saddle of the second prongbull. The animal kept watch on the giant’s staff.
The Bel Amican spun his walking stick slowly in the air. “You know where to find him?”
“Awake, Jordam lies to us.” Mordafey spurred his bull beneath a leaning tree and reached up to snap off a branch that would serve as a whip. “Asleep, Jordam has surprises. Secrets.”
“I remember!” Goreth announced.
Mordafey looked at Goreth. “Goreth remembers what?”
Goreth’s face quivered with indecision. Then he muttered, “Always let Older Brother go first.”
Mordafey snorted, assuming that his brother was confused again. But as they rode out, picking up Jordam’s trail, he could hear Goreth repeating those words again and again to himself. They buzzed about him like a stingerfly he could not smash.
Tabor Jan found his king staggering down a corridor, one arm draped around Krawg’s neck, the other around Warney’s, and he immediately pitied the man. Anyone trapped between those two smelly old fools was worthy of pity.
But the captain’s concern deepened to fear when he got closer. Cal-raven seemed hollowed out, his eyes dark, the bruises beneath them even darker. The bandage on his face was purple with old blood. His short red braids were matted with sweat, and he shuddered, racked with chills.
“Give him to me.” Tabor Jan pulled the king’s arm around his own neck and dismissed Krawg and Warney. The two thieves walked away slowly, as if in a dream, having just served the greatest privilege of their often unpleasant lives.
“The counting?” Cal-raven’s voice was like dry leaves.
“We’re still waiting,” said Tabor Jan.
“Must know.”
“You look terrible.”
“Never looked good with a beard,” said the king.
After leaning on Tabor Jan for a fair distance, Cal-raven paused at a crossroads. “I wish I could tell my father.” The captain felt tremors shake the king, long-suppressed emotion threatening to erupt.
He coaxed the king back into walking, and they made their way around a corner and down a steep incline into a cave lit with torches. The walls surrounding them were strung with tapestries of interwoven blackreeds. The people of Abascar had generously and reverently displayed the gifts Auralia had given them. Many of these treasures had been returned to Abascar’s people by the efforts of the boy, the one they called Rescue. He would leave them where harvesters would find them, at the base of the cliffs, in the bushes, in the harvest carts. Now they shone like flares soaring through dark skies.
Cal-raven did not have a throne room in the Blackstone Caves, although the people had offered to craft one. He refused, for they slept in crowded spaces, and every chamber needed to serve several purposes. Instead, he sanctioned a chamber for private conferences, for strategy, for heated debate. He had chosen this room, where he could peruse a display of Auralia’s colors to remind him of what his father’s house had lacked, what it had been offered, and what might yet be achieved.
Tabor Jan helped the king lie back against one of the cushions where the counselors sat during daily sessions. Then he moved to stand by the door and ensure no one disturbed the chamber. He watched as Cal-raven stared at the spectrum of Auralia’s inventions illuminated in the torchlight. He seemed to bask in the color.
Brevolo and Say-ressa appeared in the doorway. Brevolo whispered something in Tabor Jan’s ear. His eyes widened, and he looked at her in disbelief. She smiled and then leaned in to whisper more. He nodded, trying to maintain a solemn scowl in spite of the rather alluring invitation. “Perhaps later,” he said.
Say-ressa started forward when she saw Cal-raven, but Tabor Jan stopped her. “Leave him be for a few moments. I’ll bring him to you soon for some attention. He’ll need whatever you can give him.”
Cal-raven raised a hand in greeting. “I must look like they dug me out of a grave,” he rasped.
“We’ll patch you up, master,” Say-ressa promised him. Then she and Brevolo moved away, whispering together.
“My king,” said the captain.
“Stop,” Cal-raven whispered. “Listen.”
Tabor Jan tensed, expecting trouble. Instead he heard the faint touches of Lesyl’s music rising from somewhere deep in the labyrinth.
“My lord,” said the captain, “it is time for you to know.”
“Lesyl is playing music for the children.”
“It was your idea. You said it would calm them so they would not be afraid. So they would sleep. It’s the Early Morning Verse. Don’t you remember?”
“I don’t. It’s lovely. She can make the saddest song beautiful. And the joyful songs…oh.”
Tabor Jan pressed on. “Master, I’ve heard the report. All have been accounted for.”
Cal-raven stared into the colors, his head cocked thoughtfully as he listened. At first the captain thought that his old friend had not heard. But then the king looked at him and answered. “All of them.”
“Down to the last watchman blowing a horn in the woods.”
“Alive? Unharmed?”
“Say-ressa says that two of the cave cleaners, Copus and Saugus, got scratched up pretty badly when they fell on the climb down from the precipice. We should never send those two out into the wild. They couldn’t boil stew chunks if you gave them a pot and a fire.”
“And Krawg and Warney? They showed signs of a struggle.”
“You really want to know?”
“I need a good laugh.”
“Took each other for beastmen in the darkness of the corridor. Scuffed each other up good.”
“That’s it?”
“I’m telling you, King Cal-raven, that it’s done. All of Abascar’s people are alive. The siege is over.”
With great care Cal-raven got to his feet. He spread his arms to find his balance, but when Tabor Jan stepped forward to help him, he waved him back. The king walked across the chamber to pause before Auralia’s array, pulled the torn neckband from his pocket, and tucked the edge of it through the reeds so that it glimmered among the gallery. “Maybe something out there is watching out for us after all.”
“How did you know that the beastmen were coming? How did you know when they would strike?”
Cal-raven scowled. “You’re not ready to know the answer yet.”
Tabor Jan’s eyes widened. Then he scowled and barked, “What do you mean? I can—”
“You’re not ready to know the answer, Tabor Jan. I wasn’t ready.”
“Try me.”
“Very well, then. I will try you. I am glad, Tabor Jan, that we did not have to venture out and fight the beastmen face to face tonight. I could not have done it.”
“Of course you could have, my king. You are the best beastman slayer I know. You could have taken on that whole—”
“Don’t make me tell the tale tonight. It would ruin me.”
Shaking his head, Tabor Jan ignored the king’s objections and placed his arm across his shoulders. “You need sleep, King of Abascar. The caves are sealed. The people are safe.”
“Take me to the music.”
They found the cave where Lesyl was singing. Children were gathered in a crowd about her. Merya, once a Gatherer and now in charge of planning meals, stood cradling her newborn at the edge of the room, listening. Many of the soldiers, the Gatherers, and the Housefolk were assembling as well.
Cal-raven tried to quell the emotions that seized him as he took in this sight. Peace. Relief.
Lesyl sang quietly about a magnificent violet tree that had fallen in a storm. One bird tried to lift it, but her wings were much too feeble. Another came to offer help, but they were not enough. But when their whole flock descended, each bird grasping a branch, they could fly together and lift the tree, planting it back in the scar of its uprooting. As she sang the chorus again, the children of Abascar raised their tired voices to join her. She looked up and saw Cal-raven. Her voice faltered.
The audience turned, saw the two men in the entryway, and against the king’s objections, they stood, every one of them, silent and respectful.
“Please,” said Cal-raven. “Please, finish the song.”
They remained standing, bowing their heads in reverence, and Lesyl made her way through the song, her voice shaking as her emotions overcame her craft. The children sang the chorus for her and kept on singing as their parents and guardians guided them away to sleep for the night.
Shoulder to the wall, Cal-raven thanked and dismissed the captain. “Go and say good night to Brevolo, my friend. I think you’ll find it easier to rest and regain your strength if you’re in her company. And I suspect she will welcome seeing you.”
His face reddening in a stubborn frown, Tabor Jan departed.
Cal-raven sat down.
He saw that it was difficult for Lesyl to meet his gaze. She plucked a few melancholy notes. “I don’t have gifts like Auralia,” she said.
“No one has gifts like Auralia,” he said. “The world would burst into flames. But you, you play beautifully. Did you look up while you were singing?”
“I don’t pay attention to the listeners.” She pressed the blisters forming on her thumbs. “I play to find some kind of focus in the fear.”
Cal-raven smiled, sympathetic.
“When Mother and I learned that Father was dying, Father asked me to sing for him,” she said. “Mother insisted that I only sing songs from their youthful days together. She wanted me to take her mind off Father’s pain. But when she stepped away, Father asked me to sing songs about pain. About loss. About the world without him. When I played those songs, he would cry. It was the only way he could cry. And now it’s the only way I know to cry.”
“We need you to lead us in crying, Lesyl, or we’ll drown in unshed tears.” He gestured to the empty corridor. “Tomorrow we’ll want you to lead us in celebration. There are enough songs in today’s story to keep you busy for many days to come. But I would ask you to consider something else as you play.”
“My lord and king.”
“The people will want to jeer at the beastmen. To exult in how we deceived them. But if they saw the whole picture, it might give them pause. I want to ask House Abascar to remember the fall of House Cent Regus.”
She turned her head, as if he had inspired some troubling memory of her own.
“I hate the Cent Regus,” he continued. “I learned to hate them when I was a child, and I’ve never questioned the training that prepared me to strike them down in battle. But through it all, I’ve never understood them or even tried to. I don’t know what they are. Or how they came to be. Abascar’s in a desperate state. Who’s to say we’re not vulnerable to such corruption? I want us to consider what they were, what they lost.”
“I once woke from a nightmare,” Lesyl began, “and tried to compose a song about the beastmen in the dream.” She placed the instrument back across her knees, strummed a dark and dissonant chord. “I thought it would help me overcome my fear. But instead, the music just made me sad. It’s a sad story, the fall of House Cent Regus. I’ve never played it for anyone. Your father’s counselors would have confiscated all my instruments if they’d heard me singing this song. Nobody wants to hear songs about their enemies unless I’m praising the brave men who cut them down.”
“I think I need to hear that song tonight.”
The notes were simple at first, harmonious and sustained, swelling into a foundation of chords over which she improvised a grand architecture of melodies and countermelodies—terror and magnificence, hunger and ruin—and lingering above it, a shimmering sadness, a heartbreak deeper than blue.
| © 2025 Библиотека RealLib.org (support [a t] reallib.org) |