Ravens Shadow Read online

Chapter 9

 

  They came for him shortly after Myrceria left.

  Tier set the lute down, and stood up when the door opened to admit five men in black robes like the one Telleridge had worn. Their hoods were pulled down over their faces and they walked in as if they each had a predetermined place to stand. Tier had the oddest feeling that they did not see him at all.

  They took up positions around him. One after the other they began chanting, a low, droning, off-pitch sound that he could not decipher because the words they used belonged to no language he'd ever heard. Magic, he knew, but he was helpless to stop them because of Telleridge's command.

  As one, they raised their hands above their heads and clapped. . .

  He awoke lying on the floor, naked and sweating. The memory of pain lent nausea to the cacophony of tingling body parts. He sat up, frantically trying to remember what had happened after the wizards had clapped their hands, but the thought of the sound made his ears ring.

  They had taken his memories. Even so, there were things that he knew, as if the events he couldn't remember had left a visceral residue on his body. He'd been violated, not physically raped but something that was a near kin.

  He sat up straight and held his head like a wolf scenting a hare. He remembered that, remembered someone telling him. . . remembered Telleridge telling him that he would not know what had happened.

  Owls had very good memories.

  Tier's lips drew back in a snarl. Hatred was a foreign emotion to him. He'd fought for years against an enemy he was told to hate, but he'd never found anything in his heart but agrim determination to persevere. The Fahlarn were not wicked, just wrongly ambitious. He had seen people do terrible things because of stupidity, ignorance, anger, but he'd never met evil before.

  Now he was befouled by it.

  Staggering to his feet, he looked for his clothing. When he was clothed he could feel less vulnerable. They'd taken his memories and his magic, but surely they would leave him clothes.

  A cursory search of the room turned up a tunic and pants, though not his own. They were looser in fit than he was used to and darker colored: Traveler clothes for their pet Traveler. Nevertheless, he pulled them on quickly.

  Instinctively he looked for something he could use to clean himself, and noticed there was no water in the room. Even as he regretted the lack, he knew that it wouldn't have mattered if they'd left him in the bathing room - the filth that coated him could not be cleaned that way.

  His gaze fell upon the lute.

  No matter how fine the instrument, a lute always needed tuning. He sat down beside it and cradled it to him.

  There were eight courses on this instrument, two strings per course except for the highest note, and this lute hadn't been properly tuned in a while. As he settled into the familiar chore, the shaky, frightened feeling in his stomach began to settle.

  He tightened pegs by slight movements, because there were no extra strings sitting around if he broke one. As the lute started to come up to tune, he noticed that the man who'd set the fretting had had an ear as good as his own - perhaps he'd been a Bard, too.

  He tried a simple refrain and knew in a rush of relief that this was what he'd needed. For a long time he just played bits of this and that, letting the music salve the hurt that had been done to him.

  At last his fingers hit upon a tune that his ears enjoyed, a piece his grandfather had written to welcome the coming of spring. He closed his eyes and let the music fill him until everything else was distant, where it could no longer harm him. He took a deep breath that filled his lungs with the scent of lilacs.

  Magic.

  He opened his eyes, stilled his hands, and took another breath. The scent had faded, but he could still smell the sweet flowers until his sinuses closed. His eyes watered and he sneezed twice; Lilacs always made him sneeze.

  Perhaps, he thought, they don't know as much about Traveler magic as they think they do.

  There was a scuffle outside his door, as if someone fumbled with a key.

  "Drat," said a young man's voice. "Drat, drat. This key is supposed to open any door in the palace. Wait, ah. A turnkey box. " There was some more rustling and a jangle of keys rattling together. The door of his cell creaked open.

  "Er, hallo?" A rather pudgy young face peered around the edge of the door.

  "Hello," Tier said mildly, though his body was tense and ready to act.

  "Look, I hope I didn't wake you or. . . your light was still on so I thought. . . " The young man stumbled to a halt.

  "Come in," invited Tier genially. Keys, he thought, lowering his eyelids. This boy would be no -

  He rolled to his feet abruptly. "What in the name of the seven flaming hells is that?"

  The boy looked over his shoulder at the dark, nebulous shape behind him for a moment.

  "You can see it?" he asked, sounding unhappy. "Most people can't. It's. . . ah. . . it calls itself a Memory - as if that's a name. I haven't figured it out exactly myself. It doesn't usually linger like this. "

  As the thing moved into the room, Tier took a step back from the overwhelming presence it carried with it. He sat back on his bed and tried to look peaceful.

  "I'm sorry," the boy apologized.

  Tier turned his attention back to him with an effort, and noticed for the first time the quality of the clothes he was wearing. Velvet embroidered in heavy metal threads that looked as if they were really gold.

  "Look," said the boy again. "I don't know why you're here. These aren't the regular holding cells. But for some reason" - he gave an odd, short laugh - "I think you might help me with a problem I've been looking into. "

  And the boy took a piece of parchment he'd been holding and thrust it at Tier. He sat beside him on the bed, started to point at something and then stopped.

  "Do you read?" he asked. "Not to be offensive, you understand, but you're dressed like - "

  "I can read Common," said Tier. He'd learned under the Sept of Gerant, making him one of the double handful of people who could read in Redern.

  Since the Memory, whatever that was, had decided to stay on the far side of the cell, Tier allowed himself to look more closely at the writing on the parchment.

  "Look here," said the boy, sounding more authoritative. "This is nominally just a simple award for a job well done. Except that usually properties that belong to one Sept aren't gifted to another - certainly not with a vague 'for services to the Empire. ' See?"

  Tier looked at what he held with disbelief. It appeared to be a law document of some sort.

  First Tier had thought that the boy might be one of Telleridge's wizards, especially with the thing that had followed him in. Then he'd been almost certain that he was one of the Passerines Myrceria had told him about. Now. . .

  He cleared his throat. "Are you a member of the Secret Path?"

  "If I'm not, does that mean you can't tell me the answer?"

  The disingenuous answer made Tier laugh in spite of his generally lousy mood. The young man gave him a pleased smile.

  "Actually, I've never heard of the Secret Path. Though, if you put any three nobles together, they'll start four secret societies of something. "

  Tier nodded his head slowly. "I'd been given the impression that the Path members had taken over this bit of the palace and made it their own. If you're not one, how did you find your way here?"

  The boy shrugged. "The palace has enough rooms to house the whole city and then some. The first fifteen Emperors Phoran spent all their time building the place and the next ten tried to figure out what to do with all the rooms - mostly close them up. At least two of them, the eighth and the fourteenth - or the seventh and the thirteenth if you'd rather not give a number to the first Phoran - were fascinated by secret rooms and passages. By happy chance I stumbled upon the plans of Eight and actively sought Fourteen's. Once I had them, I hid them myself. At any rate, they g
ive me ready access to most of the palace. Not that there's usually much to see. "

  "I see," said Tier, rather dazzled by all the eights who might have been sevens - there was a song in that somewhere. He hadn't really thought about how the Path had managed to secret off such a big chunk of building. He had a hard time wrapping his mind around a building so large that the Path could use a section for generations and not have it discovered.

  "I'm not a lawyer," Tier said finally. "Nor do I know anything about the Septs. I don't see how I can help you. "

  The boy frowned. "I asked if there was someone who could help me find out more about the piece of land in question. Is there any reason that you would know something about the Sept of Gerant's lands?

  "The Sept of Gerant?" exclaimed Tier, distracted from the question of who knew enough to send this boy after him.

  "That's right," said the boy. "I don't know him by face, but it sounds as if you've met him. "

  "He'll not have been at court," murmured Tier, reading the rest of the document rapidly. "He's an old warrior, not fitted for wearing silks and such. The Sept of Jenne, hmm. "

  "I have this, if it helps," said the boy, and he pulled a small, faded map from a pocket. "I can show you where the land in question is - I just don't know what's so important about it. "

  The soft hand that handed Tier a map had a signet ring on it. Tier noticed and catalogued it, but he was thinking about the map so it took him a moment before he realized who was sitting on his bed beside him.

  The Emperor?

  His night had acquired a new level of strangeness. Tier glanced at the Memory. Was it some sort of body guard?

  He forced his eyes back to the map. If the Emperor had wanted him to know who he was talking to, he would have introduced himself.

  The boy tapped a spot on the old map. "That's where it is. It doesn't even connect to Jenne's lands. "

  Tier closed his eyes and thought back twenty years, trying to make the lines on the map correspond to the land he had known rather well at one time.

  "Water rights," he said finally. "That's the headwaters of the creek that gives Gerant's people water. This piece of land belongs to the Sept of Jenne's father-in-law - or it did twenty years ago. The current Sept might be the son or grandson of the man I'm thinking of, but at any rate, the land's in Jenne's family's hands. It's pretty useless despite its size, because it's in the rainshadow of Brulles Mountain - won't grow anything but sagebrush. If Jenne had control of Brulles - that strip of map should be marked to show the mountain - he could hire a wizard to divert the flow of water and send it down the other side of the mountain, or find some way of diverting the small river that runs on the wrong side for their purposes. "

  "Hah," the boy exclaimed happily. "It's a payoff. That's the one I want, then. What can you tell me about Gerant's allies?"

  Tier hesitated. "Gerant's a good man," he said.

  The boy raised an eyebrow. "I'm not planning on hurting him. I. . . " Now it was his turn to hesitate.

  "I suspect," said Tier softly, "that there's a law or two against a common man like me sharing a seat with the Emperor. If you've a need to be incognito, it might be better to take off that ring. "

  Phoran (doubtless the boy's name was Phoran - though Tier couldn't remember the number that went with the name) looked upset for a moment, glanced at the ring that was the Emperor's seal, then shrugged.

  "I'll keep your advice in mind. Well enough. If you know that much, look here. " He tapped the paper impatiently. "I need something I can use as a fulcrum to move the power structure in the Council of Septs so that I don't continue to be just a figurehead, and this document is it. It was in my twice-yearly stack of petitions to be signed into law. There aren't many signatures on this - only a few people who owed Jenne something. Like as not most of them didn't know what it was they were signing. You can't even tell that this land is Gerant's without this map. "

  "Right," said Tier. He hadn't realized that the boy was a figurehead, but then he hadn't concerned himself with any news outside of Redern since he'd left Gerant's services several years before the last Phoran died. "Twenty-sixth," he said aloud.

  "Only if you don't count the first Phoran," said Phoran, not the least discomposed. "I like to, though my father didn't. Are you still with me?"

  "Right," Tier nodded. "You have a bill, obviously a favor, but not for a Sept who is very powerful. So if you decide to decline to sign it, you're not going to make a slew of enemies. Who could object to your refusal to grant one Sept's lands to another without better reason than you've been given? And I'll put up my right arm that Gerant is no traitor or mischief maker that will embarrass you on this. He's true as oak. So you refuse to sign it, and the rest of the council either supports you, or makes it look like they think the council should have the right to take land from whatever Sept they want without giving an adequate reason. "

  "That's it," said the boy, gathering up his map and document. "And I have a toehold into ruling on my own. So, you have done me a favor. " Carefully he folded the parchment so it fit into his pocket with the map. "I owe you an equal favor. Before I determine how best to repay you, tell me what you are doing here, what this Path that I'm not a member of is, and what the two have to do with each other. "

  "It's faster if I start with the Path," said Tier after thinking about it for a minute. "The rest of the story should fall out of that. " Briefly he outlined the information Telleridge and Myrceria had given him.

  Phoran stopped him. "They kill the Traveler wizards for power, these wizards who wear black robes?"

  Tier nodded. "So I'm told. I've only met two people - three with you - since I was brought here. " He thought the ladies in the bath didn't count. "I haven't actually seen any of this for myself. "

  "You still haven't told me what you are doing here," said Phoran. "Or who you are, other than someone who fought under Gerant in the last war. "

  "I am a farmer who occasionally sings for a few coppers at the local tavern in Redern," Tier said. "I usually spend the winter months trapping for furs. I was on my way home. I have a vague memory of seeing a group of strangers, and then I awoke in this cell. Telleridge - that's the man I told you about - "

  "Telleridge?" said Phoran. "I know him, though I didn't know he was a wizard. Did he tell you why they wanted you enough to take you from Redern?" asked Phoran. Then a strange expression came over his face. "Is that the Redern that belongs to the Sept of Leheigh?"

  "Yes," Tier agreed.

  "Avar?" said Phoran almost to himself.

  Avar, Tier recalled, was the given name of the new Sept, the new Sept who was supposed to be so influential with the Emperor.

  "Is Avar a member of this Path?"

  Tier shrugged. "I don't know. The only two I've met by name are Telleridge and Myrceria - and I don't think she'd be considered a member. "

  Phoran got to his feet and began pacing. "Why you?" he asked again. "Why did they go all the way to Redern to find you? You aren't a Traveler, not if you're a farmer in Redern who used to be a solder. "

  "Because I have a magical talent usually associated with the Travelers," replied Tier. Preempting the next question, he began telling Phoran what he knew about the Orders.

  Phoran held up a hand. "Enough," he said. "I believe you. Let's get you out of here, then you can explain anything you feel necessary. "

  Tier followed him to the threshold, but when he leaned forward to step through the door, white-hot pain convulsed his body and a shock of magic threw him back several feet into the cell.

  "What was that?" said Phoran, startled.

  "He is bound," said the Memory. It sounded like a crow's mating call or the rattle of dry bones.

  Tier wobbled to his feet. "It talks?"

  The Emperor looked at the Memory. "Sometimes. But this is the first time it's ever volunteered information. Are you all right?"

  Tier nodded. "Your Memory is right. The
re must be some sort of magic here I cannot cross. "

  "Can you do something with it? Didn't you say that you have magic?"

  "He is bound," said the Memory again.

  "Stop that," said Tier, a command that usually worked when Jes began to get too creepy. He turned to Phoran. "I don't have the kind of magic that could counter this, and they have managed to keep me from what little useful magic I do have. It looks like I'm stuck here. "

  Phoran nodded. "Very well. " He came back into the room and shut the door. "There are wizards who are supposed to serve me, or serve the Empire at least, but I don't know if any of them are the ones who belong to the Path. Find out who the Path's wizards are, and then maybe I can find a wizard to undo this. "

  He gave Tier an apologetic look. "I am more emperor in name than in reality or I could just order your release. The twentieth - nineteenth by common reckoning - had real power. "

  Tier grinned, "That's because he'd ordered the death of fifteen Septs by the time he was your age and accounted for another three or four personally. "

  "I'm rather finicky in my food choices," said Phoran with mock sadness. "I'll never manage to be properly terrifying. "

  "You wouldn't have to suck the marrow from their bones the way the Nineteen - ah, excuse me - Twenty did," said Tier solemnly. "I suspect a cooked heart or two would do just fine. "

  "I don't eat heart," said Phoran firmly. "Though I suppose I could feed it to the grieving heir - that might have a similar effect. "

  Tier and Phoran gave each other a look of mutual approval.

  "I already owe you a favor," said Phoran, "but your experience is different than my own. I'd like your opinion on my problem. " He waved at the Memory.

  "I am, always, your servant, my emperor," Tier was rather pleased to find that he meant it.

  "For the past three months," Phoran began, "I've had this creature. Not that it follows me all the time, you understand. Usually, it just visits me once a night. " He smiled grimly and sat down on the bed.

  Tier followed his example and collapsed on the other end of the bed. He should have waited until the Emperor bid him sit, but between whatever happened during the time he couldn't remember and the jolt the doorway had given him, his joints were all but jelly.

  "Sometimes when I can't sleep," Phoran said, "I go exploring the shut-off places in the palace. I have this key," he took one out of his pocket. "It's supposed to open every door in the palace. It didn't do yours, but it opened the turnkey's box that had your key in it. "

  He put it away and began his story again. "Anyway, one night a few months ago I was wandering through the Kaore wing - that's one of the ones my father shut down, I'm told. It's usually pretty boring: long corridors with identical rooms on either side, that sort of thing. But this time I heard some noise at the end of one of the corridors.

  "No one's supposed to be there - but sometimes people are. I sneaked down to a door that was ajar. " He pulled the velvet fabric of his pants and absently rubbed it between thumb and index finger.

  "There were a number of people in dark robes with hoods over their heads. They were standing in a loose circle, chanting. A seventh man was kneeling, blindfolded and bound in the center. If I'd known what they were going to do, I'd have tried to stop it somehow. But by the time I saw the knife it was too late. One of the robed men had already slit the bound man's throat. "

  Phoran got off the bed and began to pace restlessly. "There was blood everywhere - I hadn't realized. . . It was too late for the dead man, and I thought that they might not be too excited at having a witness so I left as quickly as I could. The Memory came to me the next night. "

  Phoran looked at the creature solemnly, then sank back onto the bed and began rolling up his sleeve. "It comes to me every night," he said, showing Tier marks on the inside of his wrist that climbed in fading scars to the hollow of his elbow.

  "After it feeds it tells me that in return it owes me the answer to a question. Usually its answers aren't very useful. Tonight I asked if it knew someone who could tell me something about the Sept of Gerant's lands and it brought me here. "

  Tier said, "You think that you interrupted them killing their last Traveler prisoner. " He considered it. "I think you are right - how many groups of dark-robed men do you have going around killing people in the palace?"

  "There might be as many as five or ten," he said. "But not that manage to summon or create something like this. " He pointed at his dark comrade. "This is wizardry. "

  Tier nodded slowly. "I'm not a wizard, but I've dealt with them. If this was something that might result from their meddling, I'd think they'd be careful that it would not attach itself to them. Maybe some magic. That would mean that you were the only one there it could attach itself to. "

  He got off the bed and walked closer to the Memory. His eyes wouldn't quite focus on it, reminding him forcibly of the way Jes could fade into the shadows when he wanted to.

  "How did you know that I could answer the Emperor's question tonight?" asked Tier.

  The thing shifted restlessly. "You fed me true," it said at last. "I know you as I know Phoran, twenty-seventh emperor of that name. "

  "I fed you?" Tier asked.

  " 'Numberless were the heroes who fell,' " whispered the Memory in a voice quite different than it had been using: it was no longer without inflection. The change was remarkable.

  "You were my listener?" said Tier.

  "I was Kerine to your Red Ernave," agreed the Memory.

  "What else are you?" Tier took a step nearer to it.

  "I am death," it said and was gone.

  "Did you understand what it meant?" asked Phoran.

  Tier rubbed his hands together lightly. "Only a bit of it," he said. "Apparently it feeds on more than just blood. I gave it a story and it took more than I offered - which is how it knew that I'd been one of Gerant's commanders. "

  He'd invoked magic in that story - more magic than he'd ever brought forth before - and it had only been shortly after that when Telleridge had informed him that his magic was contained. He'd thought that Telleridge had meant that they'd taken his magic away - but perhaps it was more subtle than that.

  "Would you tell me a lie?" he asked Phoran.

  "My stallion is cow-hocked," he said immediately, apparently unfazed by the abrupt change in subject. "What are you doing?"

  "Well," said Tier. "I misunderstood what Telleridge meant when he said they had contained my magic. I can tell if you lie - but not Telleridge or Myrceria. "

  "Your magic works, but not on the members of the Path," Phoran said.

  "So it seems. "

  "I have two more requests before I go," said Phoran. "First, I ask that you not tell anyone about the Memory. " He gave Tier another bleak smile. "It's more than a social problem for me, you know. If a whisper of the Memory got out I'd face a headsman's axe. The Empire cannot forget the lessons learned from the Shadowed: the Emperor must be free of magic. "

  "Without your permission, no one will hear it from my lips," promised Tier.

  "Would you see if you can find out if your Sept, Avar the Sept of Leheigh, is a member of the Secret Path?" He sighed. "Telleridge is. . . a spider who avoids the light of day while he spins his webs and sends his friends and foes whirling in deadly earnest, unaware whose threads pull them this way and that. If he is involved with the Secret Path, then they are a threat to me and vice versa. I need to know who I can trust. "

  "If I can discover it," Tier agreed, then gave his emperor a wry grin. "Since I don't have any choice about staying, I might as well make myself useful. "

  He slept for a while after Phoran left. He had no idea how long because his cell allowed for no daylight, just the endless glow of the stones that lit his room.

  Longing for home brought him to his feet. Frustration sent him pacing. He hadn't been able to ask if Phoran could get a message to Seraph. His tongue wouldn't shape the words.


  By Cormorant and Owl, I bind you that you will not ask anyone to help you escape. . . Seraph would help him escape if she could. He supposed that was enough to invoke Telleridge's magic.

  If Seraph knew where to find him. . . but she did not. She probably thought him dead after all this time.

  He probably would die without seeing her again: there was something in the arrogance of Telleridge that told Tier that many Travelers had died here.

  Tier closed his eyes and rested his face against the cool stone wall. Without the distraction of sight, he could pull her into his heart's thoughts. Owl memory, she called it, when he was able to recall conversations held months before. Gifted, his grandfather said, when he could sing a song after the first time he'd heard it. Blessed, he thought now, visualizing the pale-faced child Seraph had been the first time he'd seen her. Blessed to have his memories to keep in his heart in this place.

  In his mind's eye, he built her face as it had been, little by little, loving the curve of her shoulder and the odd pale color of her hair.

  Proud, he thought, she had been so proud. It was in the stubborn set of her chin, raised in defiance of the men in that tavern. He could see the bruise on her wrist where the innkeeper had grabbed her and yanked her out of bed.

  He'd been intrigued by her then, he thought as he had before. In the clear light of his memory he could see how young she'd been, little more than a child, and yet they'd been married less than a season later.

  Eschewing the luxuries his cell now offered, Tier sat on the floor and set his back against the wall. He remembered the very moment that he knew he loved her.

  Two days after Jes was born, Tier came back from the barn to find Seraph sitting on the end of the bed, back straight as a board, with Jes held protectively in her arms.

  "I have something to say to you," she said, as welcoming as an angry hedgehog.

  He took off his coat and hung it up. "All right," he'd said, wondering how he'd managed to offend her this time.

  Her eyes narrowed, she told him that their son was a Guardian. She explained how difficult Jes would find it to maintain a balance between daytime and nighttime personalities.

  "If he were a girl, he would stand a better chance," she said in the cold, clear voice she only used when she was really upset. "Male Guardians seldom maintain their balance after puberty. If they become maddened, they will kill anyone who crosses their path except for those in their charge. Once that happens, they must be killed because they cannot be confined. "

  Jes began to fuss and she set him against her shoulder and rocked him gently - keeping Tier at a distance by the force of her gaze. "I had a brother who was a Guardian, adopted from another tribe. Often Guardians are given to other clans to raise because the normal anxieties of birth parents seem to add strain to the Guardian's burden. It is an honor to raise a Guardian child, and no clan would refuse to take him. "

  Give up his son? The shock of the suggestion ripped cleanly through dismay that had encased him as he realized the terrible thing that the gods had laid upon his small son. How could she think that he'd entertain a suggestion that they throw Jes away because he was too much trouble? How could she consider deserting her child?

  She wouldn't. Not she. She who fought demons for people she didn't even know, would never, ever, shrink at anything that would threaten her second family.

  "How old was your Guardian brother when he died?" asked Tier finally.

  "Risovar was thirty," she said, her hands fluttering restlessly over Jes, as if she wanted to clutch him close, but was afraid she might hurt him if she did. "He was among the first who died of the plague. "

  "Then you know how it is done," Tier said. "Jes will stay with us, and you will teach me how to raise a Guardian who will die of ripe old age. "

  Her face had come alive then, and he saw what it had cost her to be honest with him. When he cradled his family against him, mother and child, she'd whispered, "I'd have killed anyone who would have tried to take him. "

  "Me, too," Tier had said fiercely into her moon-colored hair. No one would ever separate them.

  "Me, too," said Tier, in his cell in the palace at Taela.

  How best to weather this captivity? The answers came to him in Gerant's dry tenor. Know your enemy. Know what they want so you know where to expect their next attack. Discover their strengths and avoid them. Find their weaknesses and exploit them with your strengths. Knowledge is a better weapon than a sword.

  He smiled affably when Myrceria entered his room.

  "If you would come with me, sir," she said. "We'll make you ready for presentation. After the ceremony you'll be given the freedom of the Eyrie and all the pleasures it can provide you. "

  The women who'd tried to bathe him once before were back in the bathing pool, and this time Myrceria wouldn't let him send them out. They scrubbed, combed, shaved, trimmed, and ignored his blushes and protests.

  When one of the women started after his hair, Myrceria caught her hand, "No, leave it long. We'll braid it and it will look properly exotic. "

  They persuaded him into court clothing, the like of which he'd have never willingly put on. He might actually have refused to wear them, even with his resolution to be a meek and mild guest while he gathered knowledge of his enemy, if it weren't for the fear in their eyes. He could see that, if they didn't turn him out pretty as a lady's mare, it wouldn't be him that suffered. So he protested and made rude comments, but he wore the silly things.

  There was a polished metal mirror embedded in the wall, and the women pushed and shoved him until he stood in front of it.

  Baggy red velvet trousers, tight at waist and ankles, were half-concealed by a tunic that hung straight from shoulder to knees. From the weight of it, the tunic was real cloth of gold. Under the tunic, his shirt was blood-red silk embroidered with metallic gold thread. They'd shaved his face smooth, then oiled his hair with something that left flakes of metal in it that caught the light as he moved. Then they'd braided it with gold and red cords that gradually replaced his own hair so the braid hung down to his hips, where it ended in gold and red tassels. On his feet were gold slippers encrusted with bits of red glass. At least he hoped it was glass.

  After looking at the full effect, he hung his head and closed his eyes.

  "Lassies, if my wife ever saw me like this she'd never let me live it down. "

  Myrceria tapped him playfully with one manicured finger. "You look handsome, admit it. We did a good job, ladies, although he wasn't so bad to start out. "

  Tier looked at himself in the mirror again. If he looked carefully, he could see how the outfit might have been inspired by Traveler's garments. They wore the loose pants and the knee-length tunic - but one of the things that Seraph liked about Rederni clothes was the bright colors. Her own people wore mostly undyed fabrics or earth tones.

  Tier sighed, "I'm glad there's no one here who knows me. I'd never live this down. "

  They covered his magnificent gaudiness with a brown robe and pulled its hood down to hide his face.

  "There now," said Myrceria. "You are ready. " She hesitated, and the practiced manner of a court whore faded a little. "You've made our job easier," she said. "Let me help you a little. The wizards will be waiting when we take you out the door. Go with them quietly; they won't hurt you. They'll escort you through the Eyrie - the largest room that belongs to the Path. It's an auditorium tonight, but usually it is just a room for people to gather in. The wizards will take you to the stage at the end and introduce you to the Passerines and whatever Raptors decided to come. "

  He took her hand in his and bent to kiss it. "Thank you for your kindness, Myrceria. Ladies. "

  There were four men in black robes waiting for him, just as Myrceria had promised. Like him, their hoods were pulled over their faces.

  Tier hesitated in the doorway, unprepared for the fearful reluctance he felt at the sight of them and the sudden
conviction that he'd seen the knobby hands of the man nearest him holding a small knife wet with blood.

  He repressed his fear and the anger it called. With a small smile he set himself in the center of the procession.

  "Shall we go, gentlemen?" he said pleasantly.

  The Eyrie was made up of broad shelves of level flooring with short drops between sections; the level shelves narrowed as they neared the stage at the far side of the room.

  The uppermost section, where Tier and his escort entered, was mostly occupied by a bar laden with food. Behind the bar was an open doorway where servants appeared with trays of food or armloads of ale mugs.

  There were a few tables against the wall with white-robed men who watched Tier mostly indifferently. But most of the people in the room were young men in blue robes who quieted as the procession passed them by. By the time they reached the stage, the room was eerily silent.

  The wizards walked Tier onto the stage and stopped in the middle, turning as one to face the audience. As soon as they stood there, the lights in the Eyrie dimmed except for the stones that lined the edge of the stage.

  Squinting against the odd light, Tier saw that everyone in the room was slowly moving down to the chairs set in front of the stage. When they had all gathered, a hollow boom made the Eyrie shudder, and in a cloud of smoke and magic, a fifth black-robed man appeared: Telleridge.

  He stood bareheaded before the crowd so that every man there could see him.

  "My friends," he said. "For some of you, this will be the first introduction to the secrets of our path. Traveler Magic from the hands of the Five Gods. " He lifted his right hand up and displayed an implement that looked like a morningstar without the spiked ball. Instead, dangling on the end of the chain was a large, silver owl.

  "Owl who is Bard," he said.

  The man on Tier's left front held up a similar item with a raven rather than an owl. "Raven who is Mage," he said.

  Five gods? thought Tier. If they were using the Orders they were missing one. The other wizards called out Lark, Cormorant, and Falcon; but there was no Eagle. He would have fretted about it more, but he remembered where he'd heard of the Five Gods before: the new priest in Redern. Seraph, he thought in panic, my children - who would they take next?

  A flood of magic interrupted Tier's worrying.

  "For centuries," Telleridge said, his voice carried to the far corners of the room by magic, "the Travelers hid their power from us - just as the Emperor and his Septs hide their lands and titles away from us, thinking that they have rendered us powerless, helpless. But we are the Followers of the Secret Path and Hidden Gods: we worship the Birds - Raven for magic, Lark for life and death, Cormorant to rule the seas, Falcon to find our prey, and Owl to lead men into our darkness. Tonight, my friends we will all partake of darkness. "

  He took a step to the side so the audience had an unobstructed view of Tier; at the same time one of the wizards who stood behind Tier pulled off his robe. He said something as well, too soft for Tier to catch, but whatever it was, it froze Tier motionless.

  "Raven is flown," said the man who held the raven symbol. "Gone from our keeping. "

  At his words Telleridge flung his free hand up and the whole room erupted into howls, like a pack of hunting dogs. Tier would have been impressed if the effect hadn't had a practiced polish. This was a response trained into the Passerines, a war cry without passion.

  The wizards Tier could see put the chains over their shoulder, balancing their symbols with the handle hanging down their back, leaving the birds in front where they could be seen. With their hands free, they began to clap in a slow, restless rhythm. Fourteen beats into it there was an echo from the audience. By the twentieth beat the noise was loud enough to account for everyone in the room except for Tier. On the thirty-fifth beat, everyone stopped, leaving only Tier's heart beating still.

  The wizard with the raven said, again, "Raven is flown. "

  An older man in white stood up and said, "So farewell the Raven. What guest have you brought?"

  Telleridge said, "We bring the Owl, cunning and beautiful, that he will give us the gift of music. "

  The Passerines replied then, as if one man spoke with a hundred mouths. "By blood shall we bind him, by fire shall we seal our bargain. By blood shall we free him after a year and a day. "

  "As you will," said Telleridge. He touched the owl and a small blade shot out at the end of the owl's feet. With measured steps he walked to Tier's side. He took Tier's helpless wrist and made a shallow cut. Then he held the knife beneath the wound until the silver blade was completely covered in blood.

  He went to the wizard with the raven and touched a finger to the blade and then touched the wizard's raven.

  "By blood," said the Raven wizard.

  Telleridge repeated the procedure with the others. When he was finished he resumed his former position to the right of the Raven wizard.

  The ceremony was nonsense as far as magic went, Tier knew. The only magic that had been done was the spell that kept him still - but Tier could read audiences. Excitement filled the room like some heady wine.

  "Raptors, Passerines, Masters all, I give you the Owl!" Telleridge called, and the audience roared to their feet.

  When the cheering and hooting died down, Telleridge held up his hand, snapped his fingers, and a lute appeared in his hand.

  "Play for us, Bard," said Telleridge. "And we will grant you guesting rights. "

  As easily as that Tier could move.

  Quickly, he considered his options and chose the one that appealed to him the most. He took the lute the Owl Master held out to him - a beautiful instrument to look at - but when he played a few notes he shook his head.

  "Myrceria, lass," he said, letting his voice find her wherever she waited in the darkness that disguised the further rows of the audience. "Hie you back to my rooms and bring my lute, please. This one your Masters provided is garbage for all it's pretty. "

  The problem with solemn ceremonies and young men, Tier knew, was that the urge to break the solemnity was almost irresistible. They greeted his informal request with a roar more spontaneous than the one they'd given Telleridge, if not as loud. As easily as that he took the crowd from the wizard and lessened the effect of the earlier ceremony in the minds of everyone present.

  He wouldn't have tried it if his cell were far away, but it should only take a moment to retrieve the lute - not long enough to make his audience restless.

  "Bard," called a young man. "I thought that an Owl could play any instrument. "

  Tier nodded his head. "I've heard that, too. But no one ever said they would play any instrument just because they could. "

  It wasn't Myrceria, but one of the Passerines, who ran up with the lute from Tier's cell. Tier took up the battered lute and sat on the edge of the stage, one long leg hanging over the edge. He'd only had her a night, but the lute felt like an old friend as he cradled her and coaxed her back into tune, again.

  "Now," he said, "What kind of song should it be?" He played a rippling series of scales so quickly it was hard to pick out the individual notes. "No," he shook his head, "No one except another musician would like that. " He tightened a peg again to bring a string back into pitch. He'd have to watch that one, he thought, probably a new string.

  "War songs sound stupid on a lute," he said, picking enough of a familiar melody out that a few heads began to nod, "at least they sound stupid without a drum. "

  "Play 'Shadow's Fall'," said someone over the suggestions in the crowd.

  Tier shook his head. It'd be a while before he used that story again. "No, everyone knows that. What about a love ballad?" He struck a few chords of a particularly flowery piece and laughed at the groans from the audience.

  "Fine," he said, "Try this one for size. " And he began the song he'd intended to sing from the very first.

  It was a wickedly funny story of a lowborn killer
who, on impulse, stole the clothes of a rich young man he'd been paid to kill and set himself up as a nobleman. Tier smiled to himself as he saw that the young men in the audience enjoyed rude double meanings and clever wording as much as the soldiers he'd fought with.

  The lute, for all that it was battered, was easily the finest he'd ever played. Responsive and clear-toned, it sang out, complementing his voice and lending just the right accent to the words.

  He started into the third verse, the crowd silent, muffling their laughter so that they wouldn't miss a word. Even with such a fine instrument, it was difficult to get the volume he needed before this many people. With his encouragement, they joined in the final chorus, making the stage vibrate with the sheer volume.

  He ended it with a flourish. He could sense the wizards moving forward, but he decided to end the performance without them.

  "Now," he said with a deliberately engaging grin. "Come join me for the feast and drink or two - and I'll do my best to be entertaining. " Lute in hand, he jumped off the high stage, away from the wizards, and led the horde to an invasion of the bar in the back of the room.