The Ale Boy's Feast

  Walking in a single-file line around the library’s upper echelons, in trepidatious steps, Cal-raven drew back a curtain that concealed a high window. Wild red chickens scattered from the sill in a panic, revealing a view of the courtyard below, where Milora, Luci, and Margi had somehow raised a boulder onto the statue’s foundation. They were hard at work, sculpting.

  “Will you sculpt another gallery in honor of the lost?” asked Irimus.

  “No,” said the king after a moment. “Our minds have been too long on death.”

  At once he interrupted the tour and announced he would pay a visit to Say-ressa and the wounded.

  The healer was busy as ever, shooing a Bel Amican guard out the door and strictly instructing him to rest and to drink only the invigorating waters from the river beneath Inius Throan. She told the king that Jes-hawk had not yet returned to have his dressing changed. And Tabor Jan was struggling, his breathing ragged, his coughs still bloody. He went into a spasm with every absent-minded swallow. Cal-raven knelt beside him, but the captain still would not meet his gaze. Meanwhile Say-ressa was bending busily over every patient, every pallet, the drape of her silver hair trailing softly over those who slept and suffered.

  Departing this temporary infirmary, their solemn silence was interrupted as Kar-balter, who had marched boldly into the ground-level entrance of a low, stout mill tower, ran back out screaming as if his cloak were on fire. The tower shuddered with a muffled cacophony. A stream of fork-tongues flew from the windows that pocked the tower’s sides to reel shrieking away over the city walls and into the mist.

  “Apparently,” Kar-balter said when they could calm him, “I’ve found the king of this blasted zoo. He’s a fangbear. And so well-fed by volunteers who have crawled or flown into his den that he’s grown too large to leave it.”

  An archer, glad to be useful, marched forward with a ready arrow, but the king raised his hand. “We’ll consider a way to release the poor creature. Let’s build a cage to hold him and wheel it to the threshold, where we can send him out into the canyon.”

  Cesyr and Channy stood open-mouthed, disappointment quickly warping into anger.

  “Boys,” whispered Emeriene, her arms around them, “tell me this. Who is stronger—the man who attacks what looks dangerous, or the man who dares to control his fear and find a better way?”

  A strange unease curdled her awe as they wandered web-strewn halls. Fading murals still displayed simple, idyllic village scenes—comfortable cottages and castles filled with light in a world devoid of decay or destruction, intolerant of imperfection. Each mural was being invaded by the tentacles of mold and moss.

  Surely these portrayed a world that this city’s residents had longed to know. But they were such selfish dreams. The pictures offered no sense of history and no sense of future, no awareness of suffering or brokenness—no vision. And no sense of story. They reminded her of a traumatized woman she had found among Abascar’s survivors in the Bel Amican infirmary. This woman had sung sweet little songs to herself, rocking back and forth, her mind fixed upon forgetting what had happened, determined to ignore her present difficulty, unable to move or acknowledge her wounds, much less accept help for them.

  As they moved on, Emeriene began losing her sense of direction, dizzied by the mazelike arrangement that led them in circles and to frequent dead ends. But it was as if the designs were only intricate indulgences of line and motion. Inius Throan was a wonderment, and yet there was a wrongness, as if each street had little to do with the next, had half turned its back to the other, declaring its boundary.

  So she was relieved when she heard Cal-raven murmuring to Scharr ben Fray, “It’s like one of Yawny’s mealtime mistakes—a bite into a sweetberry cobbler souring against a knot of salted grazer jerky.”

  As they moved quietly back out into dusk, the aggressive, angular textures of the streets seemed to shout for a passerby’s attention, to keep her from lifting her gaze to the emerging stars as she walked.

  “It was the first city,” said Scharr ben Fray. “Raak’s people were eager to give shape to everything they could imagine.”

  “Artists learn by imitation,” said Cal-raven. “Teacher, surely you cannot think that this was the world’s first city. What we’ve seen here—it’s full of advanced invention and craft.”

  “It was the first generation of Tammos Raak’s descendants,” said the mage. “They had gifts we cannot imagine.”

  “But they didn’t work together well, did they?” Cal-raven countered. “There’s no guiding sense here reconciling this city into a whole.”

  Scharr ben Fray nodded, but his slight scowl suggested impatience. “If any cities existed before this one, Tammos Raak left them behind. No doubt for a reason.”

  “And why,” Cal-raven continued, “do we never hear tales of Tammos Raak’s origins? Who were these children he made the residents of Inius Throan?”

  “Perhaps we will find answers here, beneath the ivy and rubble. I’ve always marveled that there seems to be no story about the mother of these children. There are no stories of a queen within these walls.” Then the mage glanced back over his shoulder at Emeriene. “Not yet, anyway,” he laughed.

  Emeriene stopped in her tracks, terrified as others glanced curiously in her direction. Cal-raven did not turn around, but his pace seemed to quicken as if he were eager to outrun the suggestion. Feeling the blood rush to her face, she knelt down and pretended to fix a tear in Cesyr’s shoe.

  “Give them a goal, Cal-raven,” Scharr ben Fray continued. “Wonder and hope will quickly burn out. Exhaustion is coming. Then impatience. And anger. They need to see their king’s vision.”

  “An event,” said Cal-raven. “To mark the end of one journey, the beginning of another.”

  As Cal-raven looked out his citadel window and watched dawn’s long arm paint the mountaintops, he wanted nothing more than to forget it all and go to Emeriene. She was like a deep well of clear water in this filthy, crumbling house. And he was so very thirsty.

  Why did you risk your life, and your sons, to come here?

  He knew the answer. It terrified him. It was one of two secrets he carried. And both were dangerous.

  The other secret was waiting in one of the wall’s fourteen towers, in a chamber below its belfry. He watched its window, then looked down. Jordam slumped wearily against the ground-level gate, faithfully guarding it while he picked at a bowl of seeds and berries.

  Jes-hawk walked slowly past Jordam. The archer, his left arm still bound up in its thick sling, his right hand propping his arrowcaster against his shoulder, paused and looked up toward the dark window.

  Ryllion can’t remain a secret forever. I promised him help. But I’ve made him a prisoner. Perhaps I was rash to make such a promise. My people have lost so much; their mercy will have its limits.

  Jes-hawk walked on, clearly muttering to himself.

  Hasn’t Jordam killed more innocents than Ryllion? And there he stands guard. But he saved House Abascar from a slaughter. Abascar owes him some gratitude.

  Cal-raven pounded his fist on the windowsill. “That must be the heart of my appeal to Partayn and Cyndere. Ryllion is no different than a beastman. He can be cured. Jordam might join me in pleading for his pardon.”

  Scharr ben Fray appeared, walking the same circuit as Jes-hawk. The mage paused too, regarding the beastman as if he were just another curious creature inhabiting this wilderness. Then his gaze drifted up the tower to the high window. Cal-raven caught sight of a gloved hand at the curtain.

  The mage then walked on down the avenue, and Cal-raven saw that he was approaching the yard where Milora, Luci, and Margi were hard at work on their project. Mousey, the red-headed crook, had joined them. She was not a stonemaster, but she was merrily wheeling a cart back and forth from the scatter of crumbled statue. The stone block now supported a large and handsome pair of feet.

  At once Cal-raven reached for his cloak, suddenly inspired to meet the day’s challenge. r />
  Approaching, he asked, “Whose feet are these?”

  “New Abascar needs a statue of its king,” declared Luci. “To think I almost killed you once,” laughed Mousey, a sharp whistle escaping through the gap in her teeth. “Now I’m helping to make you immortal.” Cal-raven held out his hands. “Please, wait!”

  The sculptors paused and met his gaze, except for Milora, who bowed her head as if expecting a reprimand.

  “I … I am grateful. You honor me. But we’ve more urgent tasks for stonemasters.”

  “Like what?” Mousey wore a flirtatious smirk.

  “We must begin another way,” he said, “and I have an idea that should please you. I will not tolerate any statue of myself—not during these early days when I have yet to earn such an honor. But I would raise a monument at the center of this city—not one, but two statues.”

  When he had spelled out his instructions, Luci and Margi went right to work. But Milora had fallen into a familiar solemn silence, as if she were waiting for something.

  Scharr ben Fray stepped up to Cal-raven. “Master,” he said quietly, “I want to show you something.”

  The mage took Cal-raven up to one of the belfries where he had swept out a bell with a broom, casting nests and webbing to the wind.

  The bell was enormous, but intact, its sheen a merging of copper, rust, and silver.

  Scharr ben Fray raised a large rod from the floor where it was bound by a chain to a ring in the corner. “See the emblem on this hammer?”

  With a slight nod, Cal-raven acknowledged the familiar shape of the Keeper. “Go ahead,” said the mage.

  The king waved him off. “I doubt these bells were ever meant for celebration. When they rang out across the valleys and streams, I suspect they rang for alarm. Let’s wait for … for an occasion.”

  Scharr ben Fray’s smile seemed forced, and he cast the hammer into the sludge of bird waste.

  He’s dreamed of this for hundreds of years. And now that he is here, I am in his way.

  “I taught you to respect stories of the Keeper. They gave you hope. They inspired your leadership. And now, here, we can see that the people of Inius Throan dreamed of the Keeper as well. So forgive me, King of Abascar, but I must ask for an explanation. Since I found you in the canyon, any mention of the Keeper has made you scowl. When you do, you look like your father.”

  Cal-raven fought to control his expression. “I found courage in those stories—it is true. I searched for the Keeper my whole life. When I found it on Barnashum’s doorstep, I was overjoyed. And then … then I learned something more.”

  “You saw them,” the mage whispered.

  “Thirteen,” Cal-raven growled. “Thirteen Keepers in cages. Captured. Tortured. Helpless. And one empty cage remained, for one either hunted or already dead.” He took the bell-hammer from the ground and raised up its emblem. “Any one of them might have been the one I saw in dreams. I don’t know which one left the tracks I sought as a child. But none of them, not one, is immune to Cent Regus claws or the Seers’ conspiracies. I had believed I was tracking the answer, the sovereign, the invincible authority. Something I could trust. But now,” he said bitterly, “I am at the end of my belief.”

  “In Jenta we call them the Imityri.”

  “What?” Cal-raven asked, incredulous. “They have a name? And you knew it?”

  “The Aerial have studied signs of their passage for generations, Cal-raven. Sometimes we thought there were many, sometimes one. It was a mystery to me why people everywhere would dream of the Keeper yet their dreams would differ so greatly.”

  “You told me the stories were true!” Cal-raven’s voice echoed in the tower. “The story of the Keeper is true. But it is a simple first step toward real understanding.”

  “Don’t speak riddles with me, Teacher. You told me the stories as if they were history. I believed they were leading me.”

  “And why regret that when such belief inspired courage and vision? You were never wrong to believe in the Keeper, Cal-raven. There comes a time when all myths and superstitions crumble. But they inspire us to investigate mysteries. They strengthen us in ways that help us survive. They give us hope. These little illusions that kindle our questions go away when we arrive at the answers to which they were leading us all along.”

  “But I don’t want this answer!” Cal-raven exploded. He turned and struck the bell.

  The sound hit them both like lightning and threw them against the walls. It surged across the ruins and stopped the people in their tasks. Dust rose over Inius Throan as the wave shook every stone.

  His ears ringing, Cal-raven climbed to his feet and looked out into the haze. He looked right at the tower where Jordam stood guard. The beastman was on his feet, staring in their direction. A hooded figure watched from the tower’s high window.

  “I want to know there is a greater, sovereign intelligence in this blasted, crumbling world,” he said, uncertain if the mage could hear him. “Just as I want to find the destination that Auralia’s colors promised.”

  “We all want those things,” said the mage, coming close to Cal-raven. “That desire drives us toward becoming the sovereignty we hoped to find in the world. It leads us to solve every mystery until we live in the perfect house and have nothing left to fear.”

  “To strive. And strive. Are we any closer than our ancestors? I’m not convinced. That’s why I followed the Keeper. We are broken. And when we seek to save ourselves, we fail. But if I could follow those tracks to their maker and show the Keeper my devotion, then it would lead me to where broken things are repaired, where what is torn can be mended, a place without fear or suffering. That was the promise in my dream. That is what I tasted when Auralia revealed all the world’s missing colors. A better, uncursed world. The end of all fears. That’s the story you told me. I let my dreams get the better of me. And I was wrong.”

  Scharr ben Fray raised his hands, closing them as if lifting silent puppets, just as he had when he had taught a much younger Cal-raven. “Hush. I told you the story of the Keeper because it is the most powerful story I’ve ever known. Look at where this story has led us.” He moved to the sill and gestured to the city spread out beneath them. “Now we can amend that story and shape the future.”

  Cal-raven was thunderstruck.

  “King of Inius Throan, King of New Abascar, hold on to your story. It is the ladder you have climbed to this height. Be grateful. Enjoy the view.” He turned and put his hand on the bell as if to quiet it. “In a world such as ours, you can despair over its emptiness, like my brother, and let death’s certainty rob you of all joy. Or you can make life what you wish, building on a story that pleases you. For the sake of your people, sustain the myth, as I sustained it for you. It will unite and inspire them and make your name great.”

  Cal-raven looked down at the bell-hammer.

  “If they see your faith falter now, Cal-raven, you’ll lose them. They’ll stray. And the world will fragment into contending stories and dreams, as it did here long ago. Tammos Raak set the children free, but he failed to captivate them with a vision. So they came up with four flawed visions of their own. Abascar, Bel Amica, Cent Regus, Jenta. I saw in you, from the very beginning, an imagination that could grasp whole worlds of vision. That is what makes a king, Cal-raven. You are already greater than your father. You surpassed him years ago.”

  Cal-raven slumped to the ground and put the bell-hammer across his knee. “You’re asking me to rule upon a lie. To build upon denial.”

  “Lies? Denial? Those are my brother’s words. Vision. Imagination. The road to understanding is a path of increasing pain, Cal-raven. Everything fails. We need a big, beautiful dream to help us forget so we burn right through to the end. Don’t go quietly. Let what you’ve seen inspire you. You’ll become like Auralia, giving the world something to remember you by. Look at what she achieved in her sublime delusions.”

  Cal-raven propped his elbows on his knees so he could rest his brow against his
palms. “Give me an hour alone,” he said.

  “Of course, master.” And yet the mage hesitated. Cal-raven could hear his teacher’s unspoken question. But Scharr ben Fray surrendered and disappeared down the stairs.

  “No,” said Cal-raven quietly. “I’ll keep my secrets awhile longer. I cannot bear what will come if I reveal them now.”

  He rose and staggered to the sill. The world below seemed illusory, unsteady, as if the tower were leaning.

  Steam seeped from vents in the cobbled avenue, carrying rumors of activity in the underground kitchens.

  The dreamers will go on dreaming.

  When Cal-raven finally came out of the tower, Batey passed him, pushing a cart loaded with apples from the overgrown orchard. The Bel Amican stopped, giddy, and scooped up an array. “King of Abascar, look at the bounty we’ve discovered.”

  Reluctant, Cal-raven stared blankly at the apples’ extravagant colors.

  “There must be twelve varieties,” said Batey. “Some I’ve never seen before. Not even from the islands.”

  “Master?”

  Hearing Emeriene’s voice, Cal-raven could not move. She limped forward into his view. She was draped in the same stormcloak she had worn on the road, but she had washed her hair so that it gleamed like raven feathers, and her gaze was bright with hope.

  “King of Abascar,” she said carefully, “your chamber is cleaner now than when Tammos Raak himself slept there. You shall find it is finally fit for a king.”

  “I’m sure,” he said softly. “I’m sure I will.”

  She bowed awkwardly and waited. The silence became uncomfortable.

  Her boys ignored them, inventing a game with fragments of colored tile among lines they’d chalked on the paved ground. “These,” said one, “are the beastmen pieces. And these are us. And this is where they fight.”