Ravens Shadow Read online

Chapter 7

 

  He opened his eyes to utter darkness and a cold stone floor under his cheek, though he didn't remember going to sleep. He took a deep, shaken breath and tried to determine how he got here, wherever here was. The last thing Tier remembered was riding Frost down the mountain on the way back home.

  Undeniably, he was no longer on the mountain. The stone floor beneath his hands was level, and his fingers found the marks of a chisel. He was in a room, though he could hear water flowing nearby.

  He rose cautiously to hands and knees and felt his way forward until his hands closed on grating set into the floor, the source of the sound of water. The bars were too close to let him put anything wider than his finger through and the water flowed well below that. He tried to pull up the grate, but it didn't so much as shift.

  Hours later he was hungry, thirsty, and knew that he was in a room six paces wide by four paces long. An ironbound wooden door was inset flat against one of the narrow walls with the hinges on the outside.

  The stonemason responsible for the walls had been very good, leaving only the smallest of fingerholds. Tier'd fallen three times, but he finally climbed the corner of the room until he touched a wooden ceiling. By his reckoning it was about twice his height to the floor. With a foot braced on adjacent walls he couldn't put any significant pressure against any of the boards, though he tried all the ones he could reach from his perch.

  At last he climbed back down, convinced that the room he was in wasn't anywhere in Redern - or Leheigh either for that matter. He'd been inside the Sept's keep a time or two, and the walls in this room - which had obviously been designed as a prison cell - were better formed than the walls of the great hall in the Sept's keep.

  Why had someone gone to the trouble of hauling him off the mountain and imprisoning him? It wasn't as if he, himself, would be worth money to anyone, not the kind of money that would be important to anyone who could afford a cell built like this one was.

  He had a long time to think about it.

  Emperor Phoran the Twenty-Seventh (Twenty-Sixth if he didn't count the Phoran who united the Empire - it was the first Phoran's son who had declared himself emperor) stretched his feet out before him and cast a practiced leer at the woman sitting on him. She was all but baring her breasts at him, the stupid cow. Did she really think that his favors were likely to be won by such as she?

  He snagged a mug from a nearby serving tray and drank deeply, closing his eyes to the party that had somehow spread from the dining hall to his own private rooms. The laughter of a nearby woman cut through his spine with its falseness.

  He wondered what his so-long-ago ancestor would have thought about such decadence. Would he still have set aside his plow to organize his fellow farmers into a militia to defend themselves against bandits? Or would he have turned back to his farming, ashamed that his loins could breed such a degenerate creature as the current emperor?

  Phoran sighed.

  "Am I boring you, my love?" asked the woman on his lap archly.

  He opened his mouth to inflict the kind of cruel remark that had become second nature to him over the past few years, but instead he sighed again. She wasn't worth it - dumb as a sheep and oblivious to fine nuances of language.

  Instead he pushed her off and away with a pat. "Go find someone else to cuddle tonight, there's a love. This fine ale suits me better than a woman. . . tonight. "

  Someone giggled as if his remark had been witty. The woman who'd been on his lap swayed her hips and half staggered onto the lap of a handsome young man who'd been seated on the end of the bed, watching the party with a jaundiced eye - Toarsen, Avar's younger brother, who'd doubtless been told to watch over Phoran while Avar was out in the wilds taking stock of his new inheritance.

  Phoran swallowed the better part of the contents of his cup then closed his eyes once more. This time he left them closed. Maybe if he feigned a drunken stupor (a common enough occurrence) they would all go away.

  He let his hand fall away from his lips and the mug fell on the plush rug his great-grandfather had imported from somewhere at great expense. He hoped the dark ale ruined the rug. Then the chatelaine would run to Avar when he returned. Avar would listen gravely, and when the chatelaine left, he would laugh and pat Phoran on the back - and pay attention to him again.

  Avar, mentor, best friend, and Sept of Leheigh now that his miserly old father had died hadn't had much time to spend with his emperor lately. Spitefully, Phoran wondered if he should take away the title and lands that kept Avar from noticing that his emperor needed a friend more than he needed another Sept.

  Tears of self-pity welled up and were firmly repressed. Tears were something he shed alone, never, never in front of the court no matter how drunk he was.

  Self-indulgence aside, Phoran had no intention of taking Avar's inheritance away. He even knew that Avar had to attend to his duties; he just wished he had duties to attend to as well. The endless parties had become. . . sickening - like too much apple mead. When would he be old enough to start ruling his empire?

  Someone patted his cheek and he slapped at the hand, purposefully making the movement clumsier than necessary. He could drink a fair bit more than he had tonight before it affected him much.

  "He's unconscious. " Phoran recognized the voice. It was Toarsen. He must have gotten rid of the cow, too. "Let's get this room cleared out. "

  The Emperor listened while people shuffled away. At last the guardsmen came in to gather the few who'd passed out in the chamber. His door shut behind them and he was alone. Without people around, without Avar to keep it at bay, the Memory would come for him, again.

  Before he could sit up and call them back, someone spoke. It startled him so that for a moment he didn't quite recognize the speaker.

  "Some emperor," sneered a voice quite close to his ear. Not his Memory but someone who'd stayed after the guardsmen had left - Kissel, the younger son of the Sept of Seal Hold. The relief of his mistake almost blinded Phoran to the words. "A beardless boy who drinks himself to sleep every night. "

  "Got to hand it to Avar," agreed Toarsen. "I thought that the boy would be harder to tame and we'd have to have him killed like the Regent was. But Avar's turned him into a proper sot who jumps when Avar asks. "

  "Well I'd rather not have to be on the cleanup committee. He's gone to fat like a capon. Come help me heave him to the bed. "

  They managed it with grunts and swearing while Phoran concentrated on being as heavy as possible. How dare they speak of him like this? He'd fix these imbeciles. Tomorrow his guards would have their heads. He was emperor, they'd forgotten that. He'd have Avar. . . Avar was his friend. Just because Avar's brother talked that way about him didn't mean that Avar felt the same way. Avar liked him, was proud of the way he could outdrink and outinsult any man in the court.

  "And why isn't Avar here to do the honors?" asked Kissel. "I thought he was going to see the Emperor tonight after resting yesterday. "

  Avar was in Taela?

  "He had some pressing business," grunted Toarsen, pushing Phoran toward the center of the bed. "He'll admit to coming in late tonight and greet the Emperor over breakfast. "

  When the men left him alone in his room, the Emperor opened his eyes and rolled off the bed. He walked to the full-length mirror and stared at himself by the light of the few candles that had been left burning.

  Mud-colored, too-fine hair that had been coaxed into ringlets this afternoon hung limply around his rounded face, spotty and pale. Hands that had once had sword calluses were soft and pudgy, covered with rings his uncle had eschewed.

  "Ruins your sword grip, boy," the regent had said. "A man who can't protect himself depends upon others, too much. "

  Phoran touched the mirror lightly. "But you died anyway, Uncle. You left me alone. "

  Alone. Fear curled in his stomach. Unless Avar was with him, the Memory came every night.

  If Avar
was in Taela, as Toarsen had claimed, he'd be staying with his mistress in the town. Phoran could send a messenger to bring him here.

  The Emperor stared at his image in the mirror and rolled up the sleeve of the loose shirt he wore. In the reflection the faint marks the Memory left on him each night were almost invisible in the dim candlelight.

  Avar planned to lie to his emperor: Avar, who was Phoran's only friend.

  The Emperor made no move to summon a messenger.

  Food came at irregular intervals through a small opening near the floor that Tier had somehow missed on his first, blind, inspection of the cell. An anonymous hand opened the metal covering and shoved a tray of water and bread through, shutting and latching the cover before Tier's eyes even adjusted to the light.

  Still, he'd grown grateful for those brief moments, for the reassurance that he was not blind.

  The bread was always good, flavored with salt and herbs and made with sifted wheat flour rather than the cheaper rye. Bread fit for a lord's table, not a prison cell.

  First he'd tried to fit his situation into some logical path, but nothing about his captivity made sense. Finally he'd come to the conclusion that he was lacking some information necessary for a solution.

  Only then had he raged.

  He'd slept when he was tired, worn-out from anger and fruitless attempts to find a way out of the cell. When he'd realized that he was losing track of time he told himself stories, the ones he'd gathered from the old people of Redern, saved word for word from one generation to the next. Some of those were songs as well as stories, ballads that took almost an hour each to sing.

  When the toll of the hours grew too great, he'd quit singing, quit thinking, quit raging, and given in to despair. But even that left him alone eventually.

  Finally, he developed habits to fill the empty hours. He did the exercises he'd learned when he'd been a soldier. When he ran out of the ones he could do in his confined space, he made up others. Only after he was sweating and panting, he'd sit down and tell one story. Then he'd either rest or exercise again as the impulse took him.

  But it was the magic that had given him purpose.

  He'd known some of the things his magic could do. Seraph had told him what she knew - and, despite the danger, he'd used it some over the years. It helped that his magic wasn't the showy sort that people all knew about, like Seraph's. His magic was more subtle.

  He could calm an angry drunk or give a frightened man courage with his songs. Such things as any music could do, but with more effect. When he chose, he could commit a song or letter to memory and recall it, word perfect, years later. When he'd sung at the tavern in Redern, he almost always gave his last song a push to cheer his audience.

  It had made him feel guilty, because Seraph had given up her magic entirely. But she'd never seemed to mind, never seemed to miss the power that she'd set aside.

  He could never have set aside his music.

  There were some things he'd avoided. Some things were harmful to his audience; music alone shared the darker emotions with his audience, never magic. He was very careful not to use his magic to persuade others to his will - words were enough. And then there were the things too obviously magic to use in Redern.

  Alone in the darkness of his cell, he'd succeeded in creating small lights to accompany his songs the first time he tried. They were flickering, faint things, but they comforted him.

  Sounds were more difficult, even though he'd accidently called them once before. After a particularly nasty battle, he and a bunch of the other officers got roaring drunk and someone thrust a small lyre, part of the spoils, into his hands. The song he'd sung had included fair maidens and barnyard animals. He was pretty certain he'd been the only one who noticed that the moos and quacks of the chorus were accompanied by the real thing.

  He had been trying to re-create the experiment the first time his visitor arrived.

  The constant dark had honed his other senses, and the scuff of a foot on the boards above him stopped him midword. He'd sat silently, waiting for something more.

  Finally, barely audible over the burble of the water that flowed under the grating in the back corner of his cell, he'd heard it again.

  It hadn't been a rat; a rat was too light to make a stout board creak under its weight. He'd been almost certain that the noise was made by a person.

  "Hello," he'd said. "Who is there?"

  The boards had given a small, surprised squeak and then there was nothing. Whoever it had been, he had left.

  Some unknowable span of time later, while Tier was doing push-ups, he'd heard it again. He'd stilled, too worried that he would drive whoever it was off again if he made another move. He hadn't heard another sound, but somehow he knew that his visitor was gone. Desperate for company, Tier turned his thoughts toward enticing his visitor to stay.

  Tier awoke with the knowledge that there was someone nearby. He hadn't heard anything, but he could feel that someone stood above him listening. He sat up, leaned his back against the wall, and began his story with the traditional words.

  "It happened like this," he said.

  If he pretended that his eyes were closed, he could think himself leaning against the wall at home telling stories to his own restless children so they'd fall asleep faster. Seraph would be cleaning - she was always in motion. Maybe, he thought, she would be grumpy as she sometimes got when Rinnie was tired and the boys were restless. Her face would be serene, but the tautness of her shoulders gave her away.

  I wonder if she knows that something has happened to me? Is she looking?

  It was an old thought by now, and held a certain comfort.

  "A boy came to be king when he was only sixteen," Tier said, "when his own father died in battle. War was common then, and the kingdom he inherited was neither so large nor so powerful that the king could sit in safety and leave the fighting to his generals. "

  The story of the Shadowed was one he knew so well that he had once told it backwards, word for word, for a half-drunken wager. He'd missed one phrase, but his comrades hadn't noticed.

  "This young man," he said, "was a good king, which is to say that he promoted order and prosperity among his nobles and usually kept the rest from starvation. He married well, and in time was blessed with five sons. As years passed and his sons became men, his kingdom waxed in wealth because the king was skilled at keeping the neighboring kingdoms fighting among themselves rather than attacking his people. "

  The floor above him made a sound, as if a listener were settling in more comfortably. Tier added his unknown listener to his audience.

  A boy, he decided with no more evidence than his visitor's willingness to travel without lights. There were spaces between the boards that would have let light into Tier's cell, if his unknown guest had brought so much as a single candle with him.

  He would be a boy old enough to be allowed to wander about on his own, but not so old as to have other duties to attend to; an adventurous boy who would venture into the dark corners where prisoners were kept.

  "The king had many of the interests of his kind. He could hunt and ride as well as any of his men. He danced with grace and could play the lute. None of his guardsmen or nobles could stand long against him with sword or staff. " Tier had always had some doubt about the king's prowess - what kind of fool would beat his king at swordplay?

  Tier fought to picture the king in his mind, pulling out details that weren't in the story. He'd be a slender young man, like Tier's son Jes - but his hair would be the pure, red gold of the eastern nobles. . . .

  Seraph had told him that some of the Bards had been able to create pictures for their listeners, but his cell stayed dark as pitch.

  "But what the king loved most was learning," he continued, in the proper words. "He established libraries at every village, and in his capital he collected more books than had ever been assembled together then or since. Perhaps that was th
e reason for what happened to him. "

  Tier found himself grinning as he remembered Seraph's contemptuous sniff the first time he'd told her that part. Books weren't evil, she'd explained loftily, what people did with the knowledge they'd gleaned was no judgment against the books that held it.

  "Time passed, and the king grew old and wizened as his sons became strong and wise. People waited without worry for the old king to die and his oldest son to take the crown - for the heir was every bit as temperate and wise as his father. "

  Tier took a sip of water, experience guiding his hand to the place where he left the earthen bowl. He let the pause linger, as much a part of this story as the words which followed. "Had that happened, like as not, our king would have gone to earth and be as forgotten as his name. "

  "One evening the king's oldest son went to bed, complaining of a headache. By the next day he was blind and covered with boils; by that evening he was dead. Plague had struck the palace, and, before it left, the queen and every male of royal blood was dead. "

  Tier's voice trembled on the last word, because he heard, as clearly as he'd heard his own breath, a woman's voice wailing in grief. He'd done it - and he found the thread of magic that powered the eerie sound.

  A board creaked above him, closer than the sounds of the mourning woman, recalling Tier back to the dark cell where there was no plague, no dead women and children.

  "The king became haunted, spending hours alone in his great library. But no one took much note, because the plague had spread in short order to the capital city and then to the towns and villages beyond. A horrible, ravening sickness that touched and lingered until its victim died a week later, deaf and blind to anything except pain. "

  Cautiously he tried to feed energy toward the path that had allowed the woman's cry to sound. It seemed to him that he could feel the unhealthy miasma of evil coating the emptiness of his cell floor. He stood up abruptly, but the feeling ebbed as he stopped feeding the story. The control reassured him. It was only a story, his story.

  He resumed his efforts as he continued the story. "One day, after the last of his grandsons died, the king went to sleep an old, broken man and woke up a young man of eighteen again. They called it a miracle at first, some kind god's deliverance from the ghastly illness that killed two of every three that came down sick. But the plague spread further, unaffected by the king's miraculously returned youth. It traveled across borders, devouring the royal houses of the kingdoms all around, until there was only one kingdom and one king. "

  Tier's voice stuck there, as the magic of the generations-old words caught him in brutal understanding of the numberless dead whose death had fed the evil that was in the king.

  "He ate their lives," said a voice abruptly from the ceiling above Tier.

  A shiver ran down Tier's spine, though the words were the exact ones he'd intended to use himself. Somehow the oddity of his listener knowing the words to a Rederni story was part of the strange shape the story was taking.

  The soft, sexless voice continued relentlessly, "He ate them all to preserve himself - and so he lost himself in truth. "

  Tier waited, but when his visitor said nothing more, Tier continued the story himself.

  "As the years passed and the king lived far beyond his life span, what few of his old advisors who escaped the original plague died, old men that they were, one by one. As they did the king replaced them with dark-robed, nameless men - it was these who gave him away at last. "

  "The king's youngest daughter, Loriel, discovered them feasting upon a child in her father's antechamber," Tier said, drawing the horror of that into his dark cell. He could hear the sound of fangs crunching the fragile bone in his soul.

  He could see it.

  A woman, older than he'd pictured her, stood in an open doorway. Her hair, like Seraph's, was pale, though washed in sunlight rather than moonlight. Two figures crouched before her, anonymous in heavy brocade robes. They were too occupied with what was before them to notice that they had been seen. Between them lay a boy of ten or twelve years whose freckles stood out against his too-white skin. His shoulders jerked rhythmically back and forth in a mockery of life as the king's councillors buried their heads in his abdomen and fed.

  Tier's shock kept him from holding the image, though the wet sound of their feeding accompanied his voice. "And she fled to the last of her father's advisors, a mage. "

  He stopped speaking and tightened his control until the only sounds remaining in the cell were the ones that belonged there.

  "And so they gathered," said his listener.

  "And so they gathered," repeated Tier, and the repetition felt right, felt like the rhythm of the story. He relaxed; it was only a story, one that he knew very well. "The remnants of people who had survived the plague. But the sickness had taken the experienced warriors, the lords, and commanders, leaving only a broken people. Loriel led the first attack, herself. "

  "She died," whispered the listener and the magic coaxed Tier as well, raising needs he'd never realized he'd felt.

  "She died," Tier said, "but left behind a handful of men who had learned what leadership meant, left them with the ancient mage who taught them and fought by their side. They battled the minions of the Shadowed. As his followers died, the king called upon a host of evil; ancient creatures woke from their slumbers to fight at his behest. "

  Tier let his magic free, finding the places where he had bound it too tightly over the years. The bindings, he saw, had been the reason he'd had such difficulty. As the magic swept through him, exhilarating and frightening by turns, the words came to him, as well-worn and soft as an old cotton coverlet, but full of unexpected burrs that pricked and stung.

  "He lost himself and his name. There remained only a title, given by the men who died fighting him. They called him the Shadowed. "

  "Numberless were the heroes. . . " The other's voice became part of the story, too. Tier felt his magic rush up to envelope his listener.

  "Numberless were the heroes who fell," continued Tier. "Their songs unsung because there was no one left to sing. " He paused, letting the other do his part.

  "Then came Red Ernave who fought with axe and bow. . . "

  "A giant of a man," said Tier. "He gathered them all, all the men, women, and children who could pick up a stick or throw a stone. He called them the Glorious Army of Man, and he taught them to fight. "

  As if there were no walls in his cell, the people of the Glorious Army gathered before Tier. Gaunt-eyed and battered, they stood in silent, unmoving defiance of the evil they fought. There were a few men, but most of them were hollow-cheeked women, old men, and a small, precious gathering of children worn by hunger and fear.

  Tier knew, by the Owl-borne bond that formed by magic between storyteller and audience, that his listener saw them, too.

  "And in the first days of autumn the king's old mage took council with Red Ernave. They talked alone all night, and when the morning sun came, the mage's days had found their number. He was burned in great ceremony, and as the last coals died, Red Ernave assembled his army. He brought them to a flat plain, just beyond the Ragged Mountains. "

  Tier had been there, once. He'd been following the track of a deer and found himself, unexpectedly, on the plain of Shadow's Fall. There was no marker to warn the unwary, but he'd known where he was. Even so many centuries later, under a blanket of pure white snow, there was death in that place. He could almost feel the soil of the wounded land under his feet.

  The meadow stretched out before him now; he recognized the shapes of the peaks that surrounded it. There was no snow on the ground to hide the shape of the bodies littering the ground.

  "There, there they faced the hosts of the Shadowed and fought. The sky grew black and blood drenched the ground. " Tier smelled the bitter scent of old blood and almost gagged at the familiar odor of war.

  "Bodies piled and the battle raged around them for days. And nig
hts. "

  His cell rang with the sounds of battle, and he realized he'd forgotten how overwhelming it was: the clash of metal on metal and the screams of the dying.

  "The Shadowed's creatures needed no sleep and they fed upon the dead. The Army of Man fought on because there was nothing else to do; they fought and died. But not so many died on the third day as had fallen on the second day. By the fourth day it seemed that the evil host was thinning, and hope rose among the ragged band - and for the first time they drove the host back. "

  Tier found that he had to stop to catch his breath, and slow his heartbeat. In his pitch-black cell he saw a red-maned, scarred warrior with his axe held wearily against his shoulder, waiting for Tier to continue telling his story.

  But it was too real now, and the words were gone, lost in the desolation of the long-ago battle.

  "And hope flooded the Army of Man for the first time," said the other, in a voice as ragged as Tier's.

  "But even as they cheered, the skies darkened, though it was yet midday, and another assault began. " The words were Tier's again, though they seemed oddly unreal compared to the scenes that unfolded before him.

  It was hard to breathe, the air was so foul. Red Ernave's hands were weary from the endless fighting. His axe laid into a creature that looked as if it had once been a wolf before the Shadowed's magics had gotten to it. It died hard and Ernave had to hit it a second time before it lay still.

  He found himself on a small rise without an immediate opponent. He took the chance to rest briefly and ran his gaze over the fighting - and saw the Shadowed for the first time since the battle had begun.

  The Shadowed was less than he'd expected. A full head shorter than Ernave and half his weight, he looked no more than a lad. He bore more than a passing resemblance to Loriel - though her eyes had never been so empty. The Shadowed smiled, and Ernave, who had thought he was tired beyond fear, found that he was wrong.

  A voice beside him said, "I'm here. "

  It was Kerine, the scrawny Traveler who was now their only wizard. He'd staggered into Ernave's encampment several winters ago and been a thorn in Ernave's side ever since.

  "It only needed that," said Ernave sourly.

  Surprisingly the wizard laughed. "When the Shadow one is dead, I'll wash my hands of you, you hard-headed bastard. But from this moment until that we are brothers, and I'll stand with you. It'll take more than that axe of yours to kill the Shadowed. "

  Ernave said, "Come then, brother," and cut a path through the battle to the Shadowed.

  The Nameless King fought alone. His own creatures granted him a wide berth - as if there could only be so much evil in one place and the Shadowed's presence made all other dark things unnecessary.

  Ernave approached from the side and swung, but the king's shield intercepted the blow. Ernave's axe sank through the thin metal outer layer into the wood underneath and stuck.

  Ernave jerked his axe hard and forced the Shadowed two wild steps to the side before he slipped his arm out of the shield's straps.

  Ernave slammed the shield into the ground, splitting it as he would have a log so that his axe was free. It was a swift and practiced move, but he just barely managed to bring his weapon up to parry the king's strike.

  The Shadowed fought as well as the old mage, his advisor, had warned Ernave. Time and again the sword slid along Ernave's axe, turning the blows so that the heavier steel of the axe didn't damage the sword blade.

  The king's mouth moved with magic-making the whole time he fought. For the most part Red Ernave forestalled the spell with heavy blows that forced the king to lose his rhythm and concentrate on swordwork. Doubtless there were more spells that Kerine deflected, but, every so often, a spell touched Ernave with white-hot heat that drained his spent body even more.

  The king was fresh, and Ernave had been tired unto death before the battle began. Even so, Ernave planted his feet, and, with a swift pattern of his axe, he forced the king to leap away.

  The axe felt heavy in his hands, and every time it jerked as the king turned aside another blow the shock shot up Ernave's forearms and through his shoulders and neck in a flash of pain.

  Ernave stumbled over nothing and, as he fell, his axe caught the king a glancing blow in the knee and laid it bare to the bone. Ernave didn't hesitate, but kept rolling until he staggered to his feet and turned back to face the king.

  The Shadowed shrieked and the semblance of the young man the king had been fell away, leaving behind something that was little more than sinew clinging to bone. There was no time for horror. Ernave surged to his feet and struck at the king's sword again.

  The blow hit fairly at last, shattering the elegant blade. Ernave set himself for a killing blow, but the Shadowed dropped his sword and lashed out with his hand. Claws that belonged on no human fingers sunk deep into Ernave's side.

  Ernave cried out, but the pain did not slow his strike and the axe cleaved sweetly through the Shadowed's neck.

  Bleeding and breathing heavily, Red Ernave stared in astonished shock at the body of the old, old man who lay on the ground.

  Who'd have thought the Shadowed could really be killed?

  "How did you do that? How did you withstand his magic? I couldn't block it all. You are no mage. " Kerine's nagging voice broke through the buzzing exhaustion that made everything seem oddly distant.

  "The old mage," said Ernave, his breathlessness growing worse until he breathed in shallow pants. "He gave the last of his life to hold off the dark magic long enough for me to kill the Shadowed. I thought he was a fool to believe it would work. . . but it didn't matter as we were all dead anyway. "

  As he finished speaking he fell to his knees.

  Buried deep in Red Ernave's heart, Tier, knowing how this story ended, realized his danger and struggled to surface, but there was nothing to cling to as Ernave began to submit to the death bequeathed him by the Shadowed.

  A thin whisper rang in his ears.

  "And so the great warrior died in the wake of the Shadowed and left. . . "

  "Left the battlefield. " Tier grasped the words. "Left his army to mourn. " But he couldn't remember the next -

  Kerine tried uselessly to save Ernave with what little remained of his power.

  "They burned the thing that had once been a king," continued Tier's visitor softly when Tier stopped speaking.

  Tier fumbled a little but the familiar words began to flow again, separating him from his story. "And. . . and scattered his ashes in stream and field so that there would be no grave nor memorial to the king who had no name. "

  The pain in Tier's side faded and he was once more safe in the dark of his prison.

  "They buried Red Ernave in the battlefield, hoping that his presence would somehow hold the host of darkness at bay. They trailed into the empty city where the Shadowed had ruled and pulled down the king's palace until not one brick stood upon the other. Then the remnants of the Glorious Army of Man waited, for they had no place to go. The last of the cities and villages were years since ground to dust under the weight of the Shadowed. Only when the food ran short did the army drift away in twos and threes. "

  Tier found himself shaking in the dark as the story faded away. Next time he experimented with magic, he decided firmly, it would be with a story whose hero survived.

  "What have you done, Bard?" said the voice from above him. "Magic for music, both becoming more real. What have you done?" And, severing the bond that still held him to Tier, the listener departed without a sound.

  Avar, Sept of Leheigh, looked just as a Sept ought, thought Phoran, playing with his breakfast without enthusiasm.

  Avar was lean, tall, and heroic. His face was chiseled, his chin firm and his mouth smiling sympathetically. He'd come, unannounced, into the royal bedchambers as if he had the right to be there.

  "Not hungry this morning, my emperor?" he said, looking at the mess Phoran had made of his
plate. "When I heard that you were breaking your fast in your room I thought that might be the case. My new man has a potion against drink-sickness. He's a half-blood Traveler, or so he claims. He's certainly a wizard with potions and medicines. "

  "No, thank you," Phoran looked down at his plate. Avar was home.

  Relief and joy were severely tempered by his suspicion that Toarsen's words last night were truth. Last night he'd been certain, but in Avar's charismatic presence Phoran's need for Avar's approval vied with the words of a couple of half-drunken lords and scored a narrow triumph. Narrow enough that Phoran didn't ask Avar to join him - although there were extra plates and plenty of food.

  Phoran forked up a bit of fruit and ate it without enthusiasm. "I don't need potions - I'm not sick from drinking. " It sounded too much like a pouting child, so Phoran continued speaking. "So you're back from your sept already?" Did he sound casual enough? "I'd thought you intended to be gone longer than this?"

  Avar looked disgruntled, Phoran thought, feeling a bare touch of triumph. Perhaps Avar had expected a warmer greeting - or even the scold Phoran'd intended to hand out to the Sept before overhearing that conversation last night. Cool composure wasn't a mood the young emperor often indulged himself in.

  "Where is Leheigh, anyway? In the South?" The indifference in Phoran's voice was less of an effort. There. See how little I concern myself with your affairs?

  He'd looked up the ancient deed in the library and followed the path on several of the maps in the map room. He could have discussed the crops in the Sept's new inheritance with knowledge gained from poring over tax records of the past few centuries. But now he would not admit to knowing anything. Avar's brother wouldn't have dared to show such disgust for the Emperor if he had no encouragement from Avar himself.

  But Phoran needed Avar. He needed his praise. He needed his support against the older council members who weren't happy with an emperor who indulged himself in nightly parties, and yet they still refused to let him do anything more useful. Needed him because Avar, when he stayed at the palace, often slept in a bed in the Emperor's suite - and when Avar was there, Phoran was safe.

  "Leheigh is southwest, sire, along the Silver River below Shadow's Fall," said Avar, his face settling into its usual warmth. "I didn't have time to visit the battlefield - but I will next time I go there, if I can find a guide. All in all, I'm very happy with the lands; my father wasn't a hunter so he left the forest wild and filled with game. The keep dates back to a few centuries after Shadow's Fall - the family legend claims that my many times great-grandfather was a solder of the Remnant of the Army of Man, and a few of those soldiers settled along the river after the final battle. There's a couple of towns in the district, a largish village near my keep, and a smaller town on the banks of the river. The Redern villagers - that's the smaller town - still talk as if the Fall of the Shadowed happened yesterday. I suppose because nothing interesting has happened there since. "

  "I see," said Phoran. "When did you get back?"

  "The day before yesterday," Avar said. "My apologies for not coming to you directly, but I had to make arrangements for some items I brought back. " He hesitated. "And, I came back and found that my mistress had a few extra men warming her bed while I was gone. By the time I dealt with that my temper was none too sweet. "

  A good reason for waiting, thought Phoran with secret jubilation. Maybe Avar's brother was jealous of the time Avar spent with him; maybe that's why he'd said such hurtful things. Phoran could understand Toarsen's jealousy.

  "I thought I'd go riding today," said Phoran, changing the subject as if Avar's trip and return were something that held no interest. "Will you accompany me?" He hadn't intended to ask for company. But Avar's presence soothed the hurts Toarsen and Kissel had dealt. Avar was his friend - anyone could see it by the warmth of his gaze.

  Avar's eyebrows climbed up that perfect forehead. "Of course, my lord. I'll send word to the stables. I left my horse at home. "

  "I've done that already," Phoran said, setting his fork aside. "You can ride the horse my armsman was to take. " He'd have no need of a guard with Avar by his side. "I feel as if I haven't been out of the castle in months. " Only after he said it did he realize that it was true. When was the last time he'd been out? Oh, yes, that tavern crawl in disguise on Avar's birthday four months before.

  "Ah. " Avar frowned a little. "Is something bothering you?"

  Phoran shook his head and stood up. "Just bored. Tell me about your new curiosity. A Traveler, you said. Is he a mage?"

  Avar grinned, "Aren't they all? But truthfully, I don't think he has a drop of Traveler blood - he is, however, a skilled healer. "

  And as they strode through the palace to the stables, Avar chatted cheerfully about his trip, not at all like a man talking to someone he held in contempt. Phoran wondered whether he should tell Avar what his brother had said - and decided not to. Not because he was afraid to hurt Avar, but because he didn't want Avar to know that anyone held Phoran in contempt.

  Under the cheerful flow of Avar's attention, Phoran began to rethink the whole of last night's debacle. It was traditional for people not to like their rulers - and he probably misunderstood what they were saying about his uncle. They hadn't said that they had killed him, just that he had been killed. Phoran hadn't been drunk, precisely, but he hadn't exactly been sober either. It was easy to misinterpret things in that state.

  Phoran relaxed and let himself revel in his hero's company. It had been weeks since he'd had Avar's undivided attention. His contentment was somewhat shaken when they brought his stallion to him.

  Phoran, who had learned to ride as soon as he could walk, had to use a mounting block to attain the saddle.

  Fat, indeed, he thought, red-faced as the stablemen who'd known him from the time he was a toddler fought not to meet his eyes. At least they had trusted him with his own stallion, who had responded with his usual fury to the weight of a rider - perhaps a little worse for having not been ridden for so many months.

  By the time Blade quit fussing, Phoran was tired, quite certain he'd pulled a muscle in his back, and thoroughly triumphant. Not everyone could have stayed on such an animal, and he'd managed it. The stallion snorted and settled down as if the previous theatrics had never been.

  "Nicely ridden, my emperor," murmured Avar with just the proper amount of admiration to make the comment too much.

  Phoran watched the stablemen's faces change from approval to veiled contempt. Had Avar done that on purpose? thought the small hurt part of Phoran that was still writhing under Toarsen's derision.

  Avar had things to look after that evening, and Phoran did not follow his impulse to plead with Avar to stay. The ride had reminded him of his uncle, who had taught him horsemanship. His uncle, who would have been disappointed in the man Phoran had grown to be.

  "You have brains, mi'lad," he remembered his uncle saying. "Emperor or not. Use them. "

  So it was that as darkness fell in his rooms and the flames in the fireplace died to bare glowing embers, Phoran was alone again when the Memory came.

  It stood taller than a man and stopped some few feet away. Doubtless, Phoran thought with humor that barely masked his terror, it was taken aback that he was not in a drunken stupor or crying in the corner as he had been on more than one occasion.

  It looked like nothing at all, as if a human eye couldn't quite focus on what it was - though tonight it looked, somehow, more real than it had been before.

  Its hesitation, if it had hesitated at all, was only momentary. For the first time, Phoran stood quietly as it enfolded him in its blackness, taking away his ability to move or cry out. He'd hoped that it would be better if he held still, but the burning pain of fangs piercing the inner skin of his elbow was as terrible as he remembered. Cold entered Phoran from the place where the Memory fed, as if it was replacing what it drank with ice. When it was done it said the words that had become too familiar.


  "By the taking of your blood, I owe you. One answer. Choose your question. "

  "Are you afraid of other people?" Phoran asked. "Is that why you don't come if someone's in the room with me?"

  "No," it said and vanished.

  Shivering as if he'd been hunting in winter, Phoran the Twenty-Seventh curled up on the rug on the floor of his room.