Raven's Ladder (25 page)

He stood and raised his voice, calling out, “I do not ask you to give me riches. Or power. Only that you help me to lead my people, to bring them into a place we can call home.”

“Who are you?”

He turned back to the wall of green stones, astonished. The voice, so near and sudden, sent his hand grabbing for the hilt of a sword long gone. “Who’s that?” he asked.

“I asked first.” It was a voice like a boy’s, but harsh, hushed, and urgent. He walked toward the wall. “I am from Abascar. Brought here. Imprisoned without explanation.”

“You’re a trespasser.”

“I was dragged into Bel Amican territory by slavers.” He eyed the green stones and heard a faint rustling of heavy cloth. “I had intended a proper visit. I’ve been summoned by the heiress.”

“Bel Amica has no heiress. Haven’t you heard? Partayn has returned. He’s restored to his proper place, first in line for the throne.”

Cal-raven was stunned. “The house must be overjoyed. But my claim remains.” He trailed his fingers along the wall. “What is your offense?”

“I won’t lie,” came a weary sigh in return. “I’m tormented for pursuing what I most desire. You would think that this would please the Seers, who urge us to follow our impulses. But I tell you this: if your impulses run counter to those of the Seers or their favored followers, they do not hesitate to thwart your ambitions.”

He walked slowly along the wall, trying to find the point where the sound was strongest. It seemed to shift.
Keep him talking
. “I’ve been led to believe that the men and women of Bel Amica pursue happiness here in freedom.”

“We’re free to follow whatever paths we like. But does anyone see that all the paths we’re offered—for work or pleasure—have been carefully mapped and baited by the Seers? They keep us busy pursuing our whims. We dash about from this to that, more selfish all the time. Paths that might lead to any good are made complicated or concealed altogether. It is hard to make people care anymore, because their attention is enslaved.”

“Masses are easily fooled,” Cal-raven agreed. “My… King Cal-marcus once convinced Abascar’s Housefolk to give up their freedom. They agreed in order to gain his favor and to rise in power and status.”

“Ah, but Cal-marcus’s people resented his authority. Here, the people are more than happy to do their tempters’ bidding, because the Seers give them such enthralling and flattering potions. Bel Amica’s becoming a land of pleasant dreams, and we’re all so happily asleep that we may never awaken to do what should be done. I’m in trouble because I believe there are better possibilities. There are healing waters out there, running deep.”

“Are there?” He leaned in closer. “And colors. Such colors.”

The word gave Cal-raven a start. “You speak of colors. As I lay here, I heard a tale of Auralia through these walls.”

“Yes, we’ve heard stories about a young woman who caused trouble at Abascar. Bel Amicans love stories about rebels.”

“Auralia was not a rebel. She would not have done harm to anyone. She was a very young woman with a vision she wanted to share.”

“You knew her?”

His answer stuck in his throat, for it would have been a lie. He pinched the base of his ring finger, thought of giving Auralia his Ring of Trust to protect her against his father’s judgment.

“Tell me, Abascar man, why were you coming to Cyndere? Have you deserted your people?”

“Abascar’s king has a plan for them, but the people are hungry and weary. He has reason to believe that Cyndere might send help. I’m here to find out.”

“Send help? Cyndere is already helping them. Just today the people of Abascar—well, whatever is left of them—were given shelter and meals here, in Bel Amica’s safety.”

The words bewildered him, like the answer to a riddle he had missed in his sleep.

“They’re in a spread of tents down at the shipyards. Didn’t you see them carried in?”

“What?” Cal-raven gripped the windowsill. His heartbeat fell out of step. “Impossible,” he whispered.

“They fled their caves, escaping some kind of invasion.”

“Beastmen?”

“No, something else. But there are rumors everywhere. Captain Ryllion intercepted them in the forest. The queen is deciding what to do with them.”

“By what authority?”

“They’re under her protection. They are eating her food. Would you rather they were handed over to the Seers?”

Cal-raven turned sharply toward the voice. “I was under the impression
that Queen Thesera did the Seers’ bidding. I know what the Seers are made of.”

“No one,” said the prisoner, “knows what the Seers are made of.” Cal-raven began to press at the edges of the window, widening it. “Cyndere,” the voice cautiously continued, “has become concerned about these people. Would you trust her to look out for them?”

“Can Cyndere protect them from the Seers?” The stranger was silent. Cal-raven waited.

“The Seers,” the voice quietly continued, “have been sinking their hooks into the queen for years. Many of us have wondered why they don’t just take the throne for themselves. But they have not gone so far yet. And they seem to enjoy their…their work.”

“You know a great deal about what is going on for someone locked up here.”

“I told you. I know too much.”

“I have to get out of here. I have to get back to my people.”

“And what do you think you could do for them? They have a capable captain.”

“Tabor Jan is here?” It was unthinkable. And then, before he could stop himself. “What about Lesyl? Have you heard of a musician called Lesyl?”

“I am not free to converse with the strangers,” the voice said dryly. “And you’ll bleed yourself to death digging at these walls. This is coarse, punishing stone.”

“If you can help me speak with Cyndere, I’ll free you from this prison when I leave.”

“Why do you want to speak with Cyndere?”

“I told you. I came here by her invitation.”

“I’ll ask you one more time, Abascar man. Why do you want to meet Cyndere? Many zealous men are eager to speak with her these days. She may have lost a husband, but she’s still young. And Queen Thesera is so eager for grandchildren.”

Exasperated, Cal-raven pushed his fingers into the wall. “What do you mean? I just told you! I’m looking out for the best interests of my people.”

“Your people?”

He bit his tongue. He had used the phrase once too often. He bared his teeth at his faint reflection in one of the stones.

“If Cyndere promised to help you, she will. But it’ll be a gamble. She’s cornered, you see.” There was bitterness in the voice. “The Seers are puppeteers, and Ryllion’s their favorite toy. He’s Bel Amica’s captain now, with all defenders at his command. If he gets his way, he’ll direct the watchmen, too, and all patrollers on the streets. Queen Thesera’s besotted, even though she’s twice his age. If she could make herself younger—and the Seers have made her think it’s possible—she might invite him to sit on Helpryn’s throne. Cyndere and her brother are struggling to preserve what little sense their mother has left.”

Cal-raven sighed. “Perhaps it’s folly, then, to put my hope in Thesera’s daughter when the Seers have Bel Amica surrounded. But I have to take that chance.”

Even the birds were quiet. Wind whistled across the widened window.

“You see things clearly now,” came the hushed voice. “Wait until the Seers’ potions take hold of you.”

“The Seers won’t seduce me. I’ve bested one before. One who promised aid to Abascar but instead led a swarm of beastmen to our doorstep.”

The voice sharpened excitedly. “One sure way to stay locked up is to speak openly of Seers in league with beastmen. Why are you telling me?”

“Because you’re locked up too. What harm can it do?” He put his hand against the wall, suddenly uneasy. “Will you keep quiet about what I’ve told you?”

“I’ve kept your secrets before.”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t think you slipped away undiscovered the last time you were here, do you, Cal-raven?”

He stepped away from the wall.

“I followed you through the evening revels. My disguise was much more convincing than yours. And I know what scared you away. But don’t worry, King of Abascar. I haven’t told anyone. The secret’s too much fun to spoil.
Still, you cannot blame me for wondering—can you really be trusted this time?”

The haze of Cal-raven’s confusion suddenly cleared. The answer took a clear shape in his mind even before he could ask the question. “Who are you?”

He heard a shifting, then footsteps.

He flung himself at the wall, his hands burning into the stone.

When he broke through into the next cell, it was empty, and the door was shut. There was a lingering scent of rosefruit in the air. Small footprints marred the dust, but they led straight to a solid wall—a wall upon which was chalked the likeness of the beastman who had delivered Cyndere’s message.

Heavy boots sounded in the corridor outside. He struggled back through the opening into his cell. And even though he groaned for the ache of it, he scooped up piles of misshapen stone and slapped and pressed them together, hoping to repair the wall before anyone looked inside.

F
ull-grown, but enthusiastic as a puppy, Drunkard careened from side to side, a black blur barking at the netterbeaks and bumping into her brother Trumpet in his golden, stately stride. Holding one leash in each hand, Cyndere laughed, envying the dogs’ joy. Both knew they were off to visit their mother, Willow. The old grey hound would probably be curled at the queen’s feet before the fireplace.

As they crossed the narrow footbridge from the slender, unadorned stalk of the Heir’s Tower toward the stout monolith ahead, Cyndere’s gaze climbed the dark scar lines of her mother’s crooked tower. Those marks recorded the builders’ responses to Thesera’s frequent requests for a taller tower. For Cyndere, the lines were the rungs of a ladder her mother was climbing in hopes of escaping this world and all the loss she’d suffered in it.

Cyndere had grown up in the Palace Tower, listening to her parents’ footsteps in the chambers above her own room. Through one window she had watched the sea for oceandragons until she accepted the disappointing theory that they had left this world; through the other she’d waved at her brother, who lived in the tower set aside for the heir. Years after their father’s death, when reports came that Partayn had been slain by beastmen on the road to House Jenta, Thesera had insisted that Cyndere move into the Heir’s Tower to be formally acknowledged as Bel Amica’s next queen.

While the burden of that future pained her, Cyndere found some relief in the distance from her mother and the Seers, especially when she married Deuneroi. And when Deuneroi, too, fell victim to the Cent Regus while seeking
survivors in Abascar’s ruin, the Heir’s Tower became Cyndere’s hideaway, a place to mourn.

When Partayn reappeared, Cyndere’s life was transformed, her ambitions rekindled. Partayn joined her in the Heir’s Tower, accepting only a small, simple room for himself. But the two were rarely to be found in their chambers. They worked together zealously in Myrton’s greenhouse, plotting rescue for the Cent Regus prisoners and seeking a cure for the Cent Regus curse.

Cyndere gazed down through the fog to the complex of structures within the palace wall on the crown of House Bel Amica’s rock. Since childhood she had loved this view of the domed greenhouse, a great tortoiseshell of gleaming panes crafted by the glassmakers. It had loomed large in her childhood, as had the man who worked within.

Emeriene’s father, Myrton, the royal chemist, still labored there, seeking cures in herbs, wildflowers, seeds, and roots. There, Cyndere and Emeriene as children had played and learned how to care for all things green and growing. Later, after long days in the royal court, Cyndere and Deuneroi had spent many nights under Myrton’s tutelage, studying tinctures that might become antidotes for poisons.

But now the sight of Myrton’s laboratory and gardens saddened her. The greenhouse, which had once shone in the morning sun, was now in shadow. The hulking, mirrored structures of the Seers’ laboratories surrounded Myrton’s greenhouse as if to taunt it. The Seers, rising in power after the death of King Helpryn, had subverted Myrton’s work. Taking the old chemist’s secrets, they had conjured potions that acted swiftly to please the senses, numb pain, and disguise blemishes. In offering these, the Seers won the hearts of the people and of Queen Thesera as well.

Myrton’s treatments, meanwhile, which worked with more subtlety and were often bitter medicine, fell into disfavor. His resources were stripped away when the Seers convinced Thesera to build up Bel Amica’s militia as if it were wartime. He sank into seclusion in dark rooms, his spirits enfeebled by the loneliness of rejection.

Now the Seers, with the help of their champion, Captain Ryllion, were
on a campaign to capture and train the beastmen. Ryllion would slay any Cent Regus he could not reform into obedient dogs.

This morning the sight of the greenhouse troubled her. Suddenly she was not so eager to go see her mother. She took the dogs on a walk full circle around the tower and paused to gaze out over the Rushtide Inlet.

The horizon was marked by the sails of Bel Amican ships as they moved through the inlet. When they reached the Mystery Sea, their sails leaned, buffeted by the wind. The ocean, always temperamental, permitted their passage begrudgingly.

Watching that distant drama, Cyndere felt a strong kinship with the sailors. “Deuneroi,” she whispered, “I need your help today.”

Released, the dogs shot through the purple curtains, claws clicking and scraping up the stone stairs, yelping their way into the queen’s receiving chamber.

The strong, honeyed scent of incense told Cyndere that her mother was not alone.

Stepping into the large, round room, she kicked off her silver-scale slippers so she could feel the thick red woolen carpet underfoot. Reflections welcomed her, mirrors framed in gaudy gold, catching and casting the light that filtered in through the domed glass ceiling.