The Ale Boy's Feast

  “It’s not a kite,” the mage laughed, clearly happy to have kept a secret. “Do you see any strings? I’ve finished what my brother started. I’ll be gliding from mountaintops soon. Escaping the pull of the earth and seeing what nobody has ever seen.” He met Cal-raven’s gaze. “It could be yours, Cal-raven. You could cast yourself from this tower and soar over the city. The first flying king.”

  “Don’t change the subject,” said the king. “Tammos Raak tricked a generation into thinking he had saved them from a curse. In fact, he kept them from their true home and covered up his murder of their parents. He made himself out as their savior when he was just a jealous runaway. A traitor. An interesting trick, don’t you think? Seem familiar?”

  “It’s the strategy that the Seers whispered in Ryllion’s ear,” said the mage, “as they prepared to conquer Bel Amica. Kill the royals offstage, but onstage present yourself as the kingdom’s savior.”

  “The oldest trick in their library.” Cal-raven continued around the table. The mage flinched, but the king only placed a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve seen how this house is decorated with pictures of cozy places no one would ever need to leave. A world without trouble. Without decay. Without a shadow. Such a world does not inspire people to risk anything or seek out truth. Nor does it acknowledge what we see every day. Our own failures and lies.”

  Scharr ben Fray pulled away and rounded the table to keep them apart.

  “But Auralia’s colors … they reconciled all of the world’s broken things into beauty.” Cal-raven looked at the folded glider in the corner. “Inius Throan isn’t Abascar’s true home, my old friend. It’s the Seers’ last, best trap to prevent us from finding it.”

  “A good story, Cal-raven,” said the mage. “But you know you’ll find the lie of it. You’ll lose your faith in this just as you lost your faith in the Keeper.”

  “Oh, I still believe in the Keeper, Teacher,” said Cal-raven. “I’ve just begun to see it—and those like it—as messengers sent to help us. They’re works of art and nature, meant to remind us of home. They declare the glory of mysteries we’ve forgotten. They lure us to new places. Encountering them, we ask questions and venture beyond our self-made borders. They comfort us in the dark. But now I believe that my Keeper was sent, Teacher. Sent by one who waits for us to come home.”

  “You’ve the finest imagination I’ve ever seen,” Scharr ben Fray roared. “All of us learn to see shapes among the stars, to connect the dots with lines and name them. It is how our minds work, to impose stories over the chaos so we can live with it. And we always will. Best to choose a good story. Otherwise you end up despairing.” The mage suddenly looked older and lost. “Like Ryp,” he said.

  Cal-raven was silent.

  “Ruffleskreigh’s returned from Jenta with news. My brother saw Deathweed reach the School. He cast himself from his window. He took flight, for a few moments. Deathweed snatched him from the air.” He opened his hands. “Your people may despair if you drive them on to some imagined destination. Tabor Jan’s halfway to despair already. Wouldn’t it be better to stay? To wrap your people around a new story? You just might save the world from the Deathweed if you do and rescue it from Ryp’s surrender.”

  “It’s too late. The master of the Keepers is leading me. I’ve come this far, and I’m not giving up now. Beauty is leading us home.”

  “You may find nothing at all. Or else a tyrant who takes away your freedom.”

  “And I may find the freedom to choose what is best and go on choosing it. All the time. Free of disappointment. Like kites that fly for their master for the joy of it. Without strings.”

  “It saddens me that you cannot imagine a life without someone to serve.”

  “It saddens me,” said Cal-raven, “that you think joy comes any other way.”

  Scharr ben Fray held out his hand. “Lend me your keys. I’ll follow the river to its source. I’ll come back to tell you if you’re right.” His voice was low. “You have to stay. You promised House Auralia’s people that they could depend on you.”

  “I promised,” said Cal-raven slowly, “that I would lead them.”

  There was a commotion beyond the wall where the door had been. The mage touched the wall and opened a window.

  Tabor Jan’s face appeared, and his voice, a rasping whisper, cut through it. “Master, there’s been a killing.”

  “Let him in!” Cal-raven shouted.

  The mage opened a door in the wall, and Tabor Jan stepped through.

  “It’s Jes-hawk, Cal-raven. Emeriene’s boys found a break in the dungeon wall and went through. He went out to save them and a viscorclaw cut him to pieces.”

  “Oh, no.” Cal-raven sank down against the casket. “No.”

  “It’s worse. Your … your guest. He also tried to save the boys. But apparently viscorclaws got him too.”

  “Ryllion.”

  Tabor Jan and Scharr ben Fray exchanged a look that made Cal-raven feel suddenly sick.

  “Ryllion? The Bel Amican traitor?” Scharr ben Fray snorted in disbelief. “That was your big secret?”

  “And there is something else,” rasped Tabor Jan. “A dark cloud is rising in the south.”

  “The forest fire is burning again?” asked the mage.

  “No,” said the soldier. “I don’t think so. It’s different. We’ll know better as dawn spreads.”

  “Viscorclaws,” said Cal-raven.

  Scharr ben Fray went pale. “The forests. The Cragavar. Fraughtenwood. They’re disintegrating, Cal-raven. They’re coming.” His face flushed, and he growled through clenched teeth. “You see? You’ve enraged the Seers. They’re unleashing their worst to keep you from moving on.”

  “Moving on?” Tabor Jan looked at Cal-raven, shaken by the words.

  Cal-raven shook his head. “Tabor Jan, find Luci and Margi. And Milora. No, I’ll go. We need all the stonemasters we have to help us seal up the house. I want anyone who can shoot to stand on the wall with arrows and fire.”

  He marched to the door, then paused and gripped Tabor Jan’s forearm. “My friend,” he said softly, “I trust you. Do what you deem necessary. And tell your men—if they see anything breaking through a wall … don’t wait to measure its danger.”

  “You know me, Cal-raven. There’s a reason I always win the hunt. You’re the kind who hesitates. I’m the one who shoots.”

  With that, the king descended into the night.

  Hand on the hilt of his new sword unsheathed, Cal-raven entered the main dungeon’s guardhouse for the first time.

  Down the stairs he found the corridor empty and the cells on either side quiet.

  He stared into an empty cell, astonished. “How?” Absently, he reached into the pocket at his side for the keys.

  My keys are gone.

  He slumped against the doorway. I had them at the feast. Who could have taken them? No one has touched me.

  He closed his eyes. Someone embraced me.

  “Krawg!” he choked. Then in utter disbelief that the old man would betray him, he reached into the pocket again. He drew out an emerjade ring.

  He stared at it in the faint lantern light. The green circle gleamed, sculpted in a figure he recognized because he had crafted it. It was the shape of the Keeper. It was the Ring of Trust that he had placed on Auralia’s finger.

  “Krawg,” he whispered, “where did you find this?”

  He moved to the next cell, and his breath caught in his throat. The colors swirling across the back wall reminded him vividly of another cell he’d seen that surprised him—a cell in Maugam’s dungeons.

  The truth of the matter began to shine like a spark behind his eyes. He did not understand it at first. But as it brightened, everything else began to make sense.

  “Auralia,” whispered Cal-raven. “I’ve been blind.” And then, “I’ve broken my promise. I’ve failed you.”

  “They’re gone,” said a voice. Warney stepped out of the shadows.

  Cal-raven
began to shake with anger. “It’s her, isn’t it?” he cried. “She’s come back. Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

  “She made us swear.” Warney’s voice quavered in fear. “She wanted to be recognized.”

  He lunged forward, driving Warney back against the wall. “Where is she?”

  “Krawg told me to tell you he’s sorry. He had to help her. She wants to leave.”

  Cal-raven staggered away, incredulous. Then he stopped, drew in long breaths, and closed his eyes. “They have my keys. Where would they go?”

  “If it’s any comfort, they’ll move slowly,” said Warney. “Jordam’s a bloody mess.”

  Cal-raven thought of the map on the mage’s table. Where does the river come from?

  Then he dashed up the stairs. Shouts rang up and down the avenues in the dark. A wind moved through the house, disturbing those who had fallen into intoxicated sleep. He hastened to the kitchens.

  Adryen was there cleaning up, and as he hurried in, she stepped in front of him and grabbed his sleeve.

  “What is it now?” he shouted in a rage.

  She drew back, cocked her head, then offered him a goblet. “You never drank a sip at the feast.”

  Impatiently he seized it and drank deep. An unexpected wave of gratitude welled up within him. He paused, catching his breath, the fever of anger cooling. He looked around at the piles of dishes, the scatter of crumbs, the splashes of sauce and batter, and Stasi who had paused in her dish scrubbing to acknowledge him.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you both for feeding us through the winter in Barnashum. And for this feast. It was … revelatory.”

  Taken aback, Stasi laughed and shrugged, while Adryen made a dramatic bow like an actress on a stage.

  Cal-raven took the goblet from the kitchen and descended through the tunnels, the water burning in his throat, opening the eyes of his eyes, the ears of his ears. At the bottom of the long, crooked stairs, he arrived at the riverbed.

  The river was gone. The ground was dry. The tunnel was quiet.

  Cal-raven dropped to his knees beside one of the rafts that the travelers had abandoned, set the goblet upon it, and prodded at the silt of the riverbed with the point of his sword. “How is this possible?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Krawg.

  The king rose.

  Krawg stood at the base of the smooth, sculpted swells of stone that had been a rippling falls. “It’s just like Irimus Rain explained. The river changes. Can’t make your plans around it.”

  In the stone the king saw a gate of black glass that had been concealed by the falls. He walked slowly up to it and touched it. It was cold, and he could sense that it would be utterly unresponsive to stonemastery.

  This is the way back, he thought. Tammos Raak kept it locked.

  “Krawg,” he said softly, “where are my keys?”

  The thief held them out. “I …” Tears dripped from the frazzle of whiskers under his nose. “I promised I wouldn’t tell,” he said. “But I can’t bear it. She’s gone through.”

  “Auralia? Through this gate? All by herself?”

  “No,” said Krawg. “She’s got Jordam and Ryllion with her. She invited them along but told me I must stay. For you. I gave her your trumpet. For an alarm.”

  Cal-raven blinked. “Ryllion? But he’s …” He lifted the keys. “I’m going after them.”

  “Master!” whispered Krawg. “Someone’s coming.”

  Cal-raven tensed. Then he stuffed the keys in his pocket. “You didn’t see me.”

  He stepped to the left side of the gate and opened a depression in the stone. By the time Scharr ben Fray descended the stair, Cal-raven was encased in the wall, peering through a narrow crack, straining to hear the voices over his thundering heartbeat.

  The mage stopped halfway down the stairs when he saw that the river was gone.

  Then he looked at Krawg. He looked at him for a long, tense moment. Krawg began to pace awkwardly in front of the black gate like a nervous, flightless bird. When the mage continued his descent, he moved slowly. Cal-raven could almost hear the pending ultimatum in the mage’s mind, boiling. Krawg stopped pacing and performed a strange dance of anxiety involving elbows and tiptoes.

  Then the mage, in the soothing voice of a father coaxing an irresponsible child into a confession, said, “Krawg, storyteller of House Auralia, I have a few simple questions for you. Calm yourself. Have you seen the missing prisoners?”

  “Yes,” said Krawg.

  “Did they pass through this gate?” He lifted his fist, and Krawg flinched, but the mage struck the door, knocking slowly, waiting. “Afraid they did.”

  “And how did they do that without the king’s keys?”

  “They had the keys. Somehow.”

  “Do you have the keys now?”

  “No, Master Scharr ben Fray.”

  “We’re locked out?” The mage stepped to the wall and pressed his hand against it, melting away a slide of stone that spilled out across the floor. This only revealed that the tunnel itself was encased in the dark glass of the gate, and the mage’s powers would not change that. Glowering, he walked a circle around Krawg. “Who went through?”

  “Auralia.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “You call her Milora.”

  Scharr ben Fray stopped. He laughed a joyless laugh. “What an interesting story. Let me guess. One of your imaginary tricksters went with her.”

  “No. But Jordam did. And Ryllion.”

  “Ryllion! Amazing. There are reports everywhere that Ryllion was killed tonight by viscorclaws.”

  “Killed?” Krawg was surprised. “Well, that might explain why he didn’t look so well.”

  “Do you realize the danger they’re in? That’s the way back to the Curse!”

  “Auralia says there isn’t one,” said Krawg. “And she’s never told me a lie.”

  “Milora’s a thief,” said Scharr ben Fray. “That makes her a liar. She just told you something you wanted to hear. Now, I’m going to hope that Cal-raven thought to make a stone replica of those keys. If he hasn’t, then we had better start hoping that those crooks don’t come back with an army to destroy us. Because if they have the keys, we can’t keep them out. Now go get Cal-raven.”

  “I’m waiting here,” said Krawg, utterly failing to sound resolute. “I take orders from the king.”

  “Cal-raven may be the king,” said Scharr ben Fray. “But he follows my counsel. I’ve been planning New Abascar for ages. I’m the only one who …” He stopped, seething. “Those keys should be mine.”

  “Teacher.”

  Tabor Jan stood halfway down the stair, leaning against the wall, exhausted. His face was purple from the effort and his breathing ragged. In his left hand he held his arrowcaster, and a batch of arrows was clenched in his right. In his brace he looked like a man whose head had been bandaged back onto his shoulders.

  Scharr ben Fray went to the foot of the stairs and described the situation. “I’ll find Cal-raven,” said the captain. “But not … anytime … soon. I’ve done about all the walking I can take. I need to lie down.”

  “I’ll go,” said the mage. “But, Captain, guard that gate. We’ve no idea what kind of destruction might come back through. We must preserve this house. I’ve come too far, worked too hard, since long before you were born, and I’m not going to let it all crumble now.”

  “And I,” said Tabor Jan, “have lost too much. This is where the journey ends.” As the mage disappeared back up the stairway, Cal-raven felt a thread inside him snap before he could catch it.

  My last true friend in Abascar.

  He felt a sob escape him. The frail stone shell around him cracked. Tabor Jan whirled, staring at the stone. Another crack, and a bit of the wall fell away.

  I won’t deceive him like this, even so.

  Cal-raven shrugged the shell off in a rush of sand and staggered out of the wall.

  Tabor Jan’s bowstring sang. An arrow buried i
tself between two ribs on Cal-raven’s left side, emerging beneath his left shoulder. He clutched at it, coughing out dust, and fell.

  “My king!” Tabor Jan reeled and fell, crying out. He threw the arrowcaster aside and crawled to Cal-raven.

  Krawg was hysterical, tearing at the wisps of hair behind his ears and then turning to pound on the gate and call for Auralia.

  Tabor Jan drew the knife he’d used for clearing the path in Fraughtenwood and sliced quickly through the arrow at the base of its feathered shaft. “Forgive me,” he was saying. “I thought it was Deathweed. I … oh, forgive me, forgive me.”

  “For following my orders?” Cal-raven rasped. “Told you … not to hesitate. You see now … how worthless I am … as a king.”

  The captain reached around to Cal-raven’s back and jerked the arrow through. The king choked and blood spewed from his wounds.

  “I’m sorry for what I said.” Tabor Jan’s face was a river of tears. “You’re my friend. My king.”

  “King? No. That’s what the world expected me to be. I was born to be something … else. Forgive me. For all I’ve cost you.”

  “Go for Say-ressa!” Tabor Jan shouted at Krawg.

  “Will she put all that blood back in him?” Krawg replied in a squeak, and then he collapsed, unconscious.

  “I can’t leave you,” the captain moaned.

  “I can leave you,” said the king. “And I will if you don’t bring Say-ressa.” Trembling, Tabor Jan stood. “I wish I’d missed.”

  “You never do,” said Cal-raven. “It’s why I trust you.” He smiled, resting his cheek on the bloody ground. “Probably … why Cyndere … wanted you to stay. Now go.”

  Tabor Jan obeyed.

  Cal-raven, snarling like a wolf full of arrows, crawled toward the black gate. It almost looked like he was swimming. “Krawg,” he hissed, shaking the old man.

  Krawg, blinking as he awoke, saw the king point toward the goblet that still rested on the abandoned raft. So he rushed to retrieve it. Cal-raven drank it down, then poured some over his wound. “Probably … too late.” He pulled himself to his feet.