Raven's Ladder

  Cal-raven pushed his way closer to the stage.

  “No one would believe her.” The speaker’s eyes burned red. Spittle flew from his lips as he groaned, “The shhhhhame!”

  At the next whip crack, one woman sobbed and broke from the assembly to run for the door. A man stepped to block her escape.

  “Where are you going?” the speaker laughed. “Do you think that just because you never set foot in Abascar, you’re innocent? Her colors were meant to burn. Burn our guilty eyes.”

  Bahrage eyed them all like some disapproving schoolteacher. “We gave up on the guardian that visited us in our dreams. We forgot the Keeper and turned instead to the colors and sensations of the Expanse. We must withdraw and think only of the glory that waits beyond the Expanse—the glory that Auralia promised us. Then the Keeper may return to our dreams, bringing comfort and consolation. All else is frivolous. Folly.”

  Again the spitting.

  “The Seers tell us to indulge our desires. But desire is the very root of all crime. We must surrender the paltry beauty of this world. Raise walls with me, brothers and sisters. Wait with me in dark rooms. The Keeper will see us. This life will not torment us much longer.”

  Cal-raven blinked.

  “When we are asleep,” Bahrage continued, pounding his fingertips against his forehead, “we are at our best, for then come the dreams. The Keeper draws near, and we cannot resist it. Our waking hours are fraught with dangers: food, drink, and distractions of the imagination.”

  He leapt down off the stage into the mob, and his voice became commanding. “Withdraw from the city and its corruptions. Withdraw from the sea and its seductions. Withdraw, my fellow maggots.”

  He walked to the woman who had tried to flee and put his arms around her. He was like a child embracing his mother, and she cradled his head under her chin and sobbed. He grinned out to the crowd. “Where can we hide from the Keeper? It hunts for us. We must withdraw from the world of pleasures and go where we belong: the darkness. When the Keeper finds us there, it will see that we are the awakened. Perhaps it will spare us the fire of its lash.”

  “The Keeper exists,” they agreed.

  “This miserable box—this is the only home for the awakened. We have something they do not have. What do we have?”

  “Evidence,” murmured the audience.

  “Evidence,” Bahrage hissed, ecstatic. He marched back to the stage, climbed the small rungs of the iron ladder, and stalked about the statue like a crane hunting in the shallows.

  As he did, a strange tone began to shimmer from the mirror, and he hesitated, his face contorted in alarm. Cal-raven recognized the sound.

  Partayn is singing.

  Bahrage cast his arms wide, fingers pushing out as if he would break apart the sanctuary. “Do you hear that?” His robe swirled behind him, sweeping up clouds of white dust.

  Every piece of glass or crystal in Bel Amica sang.

  “They call this a gift. But this is corruption unless he sings the Keeper’s name. What do you hear?” He cupped his massive hands to his ears. “It’s a song of a man’s love for a woman. Is this how we should waste our voices? Nothing is worth our attention but the Keeper.”

  “The Keeper exists,” the mob chanted. Aggravated by the thought of Partayn singing a love song within reach of Lesyl, Cal-raven chanted with them.

  “I hear laughter. Laughter up there in the halls of revelry. Laughter and filthy talk. But the only true laughter, my friends, is ours.”

  A bitter and condemning laughter rippled through the assembly.

  “I hear appeals to moon-spirits.” Bahrage lifted a small clay bowl like the kind used to light the prayer lamps. And then he cast it down, smashing it upon the glowstones. “The only prayers worth raising are appeals for mercy from our magnificent Keeper. We must beg our way back into its favor.”

  Suddenly aware that his hood had slipped, Cal-raven drew it over his head. The room was hot with the press of people. His hands felt heavy, and he brushed them together, only to find that they were grimy from the white grit clinging to the sweat on his flesh. The Seers can see this. The dust is everywhere. He glanced back toward the door.

  “Some of us acknowledge how wretched we are. The rest are the Keeper’s enemy and so our enemies as well. In its sacred name, we must assail them at every corner. Assail them with the truth.”

  He knelt down, took one of the sharp shards of the broken bowl, and then pressed its jagged edge into three of his fingertips, drawing dark drops of blood. “The Keeper’s hands have three fingers and a thumb,” he said.

  Cal-raven almost laughed out loud.

  “Let us bring forward that which Auralia left behind, those signs that our world is worthless and unworthy of our attention. Let us secure those things that they might not be lost, corrupted, mocked, or exploited by those who don’t understand.”

  “Evidence,” chanted the mob.

  The speaker seemed impressed. “Provide the evidence.” The crowd was silent for a moment. Then a man raised his trembling hand. Bowing, he advanced like a guilty dog to a cruel master. He carried a glimmering glowstone, a gem split in two, revealing a core of shimmering crystal. Within that broken core, other gems had been placed, and in the center, the bloom of a thistle, which seemed as brilliantly alive now as it had been when it was planted.

  As the man went forward, Cal-raven almost reached for his sleeve. For there was no question in his mind who had made this wonder.

  “Tell us about this evidence you ask us to protect.” The overseer seemed to swell with satisfaction.

  At that, the man hesitated. “My name is Daryus. When my daughter fell ill in Abascar, she sank into a deep sleep. My wife and I carried her out to Deep Lake, and my wife found this stone on the shore beside an abandoned campfire. We believe it belonged to Auralia.”

  “It did, Daryus,” sighed the overseer. “We will protect it.” He reached out his hand.

  “Evidence,” came the chorus.

  “We gave it to my daughter,” Daryus continued. “We thought that if the Keeper had cared for Auralia, it might come and care for our daughter too. Even though she was asleep, she clutched this gemstone tightly with both hands. And in the morning, she was awake. When we came to work in Bel Amica, people laughed at our tale. So we are grateful to find others who revere Auralia and what she came to show us.”

  The overseer took the stone from Daryus—a little too eagerly, Cal-raven thought—and clutched it in his bleeding hand. “We mark the beauty,” he sighed, “with the sign of the Keeper.”

  Meanwhile, Daryus walked bowed and burdened, reminding Cal-raven of the slow, laborious progress of a sunclinger across sharp stones.

  “Evidence,” murmured the overseer reverently. “Evidence has the power to persuade those who doubt. But doubters will have to come to us. For Auralia’s work is fragile, just as we are fragile. We must protect her work as we protect ourselves. We do not dare go out from these walls and risk temptation. In our dark rooms with our strong walls, we can be clean and safe.”

  “Clean,” chorused the faithful. “And safe.”

  Bahrage exhaled as if he were trying to pour something out upon them, some conviction rising from deep within. And they breathed it in.

  “It is time for a testimony.” Bahrage looked up to the mirror, searching for a volunteer.

  In that reflection one man’s face suddenly shone out, bobbing like grey driftwood on a dark sea. “I will testify!” Tears streamed from his eyes. His lips quivered beneath his mustache. He swiped his hand across the sweaty glaze of his bald head and came lurching through the crowd toward the front.

  “Faithful Snyde,” said Bahrage, “how long have you been with us? And yet you have been silent. You have kept your story bound up. It’s time for the awakened to know. Your doubts are finished. You have stepped into the Keeper’s favor.”

  And that’s my signal. It’s time to go. Cal-raven began to back slowly through the crowd.

  “I was
a man pumped up with pride,” declared Snyde. “I sought to earn the favor of King Cal-marcus in Abascar. And that was my first mistake.”

  “Yes,” agreed the chorus.

  “A vain man, that Abascar king. He surrounded himself with the selfish. I was one of them.” Snyde beat his chest with such violence that even Bahrage winced. “I despised the very idea of the Keeper, for I hated the thought that my selfish deeds were seen. I lied. I cheated. I stole. I took honors that were earned by others. The Keeper saw it all.”

  Cal-raven stood still, stunned.

  Snyde turned to the mirror and raised his hands, wringing them so they were clearly visible to all. He seemed eager to appear miserable. “I was there when Auralia stood before the house. I approved of her imprisonment. I joined in her condemnation because she named the Keeper as her master.”

  “This world is full of worthless people,” said Bahrage. “You had plenty of company.”

  “But after my most despicable deed, I was hunted down by—”

  Bahrage lunged back into the center of the image. “Wait! We must know. What was that despicable deed?”

  “I betrayed the king’s son!” Snyde wailed as if casting off a burden. “I led killers to Cal-raven!”

  Bahrage was silent, obviously surprised.

  Cal-raven began again to inch toward the door.

  “They took him away. But the Keeper must have spared him from my wickedness, for Cal-raven walks among us in Bel Amica.”

  “Ah,” said the overseer, suddenly troubled. “Perhaps the Keeper has given Cal-raven another chance to become one of the awakened.”

  Snyde raised his voice as if competing with Bahrage for the crowd’s attention. “But then the Keeper found me. I ran, but it caught me up in its claws. It could have crushed me. But it awakened me instead.”

  The overseer stepped forward, raising his hands as if he would catch the entire congregation. “The Keeper exists!”

  “The Keeper exists!” the chorus shouted with conviction.

  “It is great like a dragon,” Snyde ranted. “It has hands with two clawed fingers and a thumb. It has the face of a ferocious hound, and the wrath of a fangbear burns in its tantrum. The Keeper has horns like a ram. And fire in its jaws.”

  “Snyde,” said Bahrage, “you have seen the truth. You are transformed. All your curiosities, they are silenced. Your questions, they are answered.”

  He tried to lead Snyde out of the circle of light, but Snyde pulled free of his grasp and raised his hands. “I have more to say! I must apologize to the one I offended. And he is here tonight!”

  At that joyous announcement, Cal-raven pressed himself against the back wall.

  The mirror moved. It shifted so that Cal-raven’s image filled the glass, as if this had been part of the pageant all along.

  Snyde took a step off the platform, but Bahrage, his face racked with a mad delight, reached out and grabbed him by the collar. “No,” he barked. “Make him come to you, just as we all must come to the truth. We all want to enjoy this moment when Cal-raven awakens.”

  The door was still blocked by that scowling brute.

  Seeing that all eyes were upon him and the crowd was clearing a path, Cal-raven considered his options. Then he lurched forward, limping to the stage. Taking hold of the ladder, he climbed, each rung seeming strangely difficult.

  When he arrived on the stage, Snyde came forward, clasped his hand in a tear-soaked grasp, and fell to his knees.

  “Forgive me, master!” he whispered, and lines ran down from his nostrils. “I did not believe you.”

  “Let us celebrate,” Bahrage instructed the crowd, “that the former king of Abascar has come to complete his journey tonight.”

  “I was a fool,” Snyde spluttered. “You were right. Auralia was right.”

  “Auralia was right,” Cal-raven repeated.

  “Speak, former king of Abascar.” Bahrage smiled. “There’s no better place to proclaim your belief in the Keeper than here. In this, its true home.”

  Cal-raven looked out at the crowd. He tried to swallow. The faces of the observers seemed dim and faraway.

  “Tell them,” Snyde whispered. “Tell them about Auralia. And what our people did to her.”

  Cal-raven spoke, gently at first. “There has been a great deal of talk about what was done to Auralia. Perhaps we would do better to say a few words about what Auralia did.”

  Bahrage’s smile began to seem forced. But Snyde squeezed Cal-raven’s hand again. “Tell them, then,” he pleaded. “Tell them about the colors.”

  “Since I first began dreaming of the Keeper, I wanted to find it,” he heard himself saying. “I remember standing in my cradle and staring out a window. I saw a winged shape soaring in a great dance in the sky. I climbed out of my cradle to pursue it. I took my first steps that day.”

  The crowd sighed, delirious with pleasure.

  “My mother thought I was running after a bird. So she named me Raven. Cal-raven, to honor one of the sons of Tammos Raak. But I remember what I was chasing. And I have sought the Keeper ever since.”

  Bahrage looked eager to interrupt, so Cal-raven faced the crowd—better that than the hovering glass of distortion—and continued.

  “It became my life’s obsession, to the delight of my teacher and to my parents’ dismay. When Auralia came, revealing colors we’d never seen, she said the Keeper had sent her. The colors…” He glared at Bahrage. “Yes, they spoke of some great mystery—a better life, a better place. But Auralia did not bring them from far away. She found them in the Expanse. All things, she told me, are to be embraced. For everything in the Expanse speaks of the mystery we are to seek. And we are part of that mystery. Auralia even wove the hair of a beastman’s mane into that glorious weave.”

  “Beastmen are abominations,” Bahrage thundered. “The Keeper will trample them. They are abhorrent. Former king of Abascar, you are—”

  “Former?” Cal-raven pointed at the statue. “I am going to lead my people out from here, and I will build a house that honors the Keeper. For I have seen Auralia. I held her hand. I beheld those colors with my own eyes. You’ve understood nothing.”

  He put his hands against that misshapen sculpture and began to soften it into clay.

  “Auralia’s colors should open our eyes, not narrow them. She loved the world and saw it more clearly than any of us. She does not want us to hoard what she revealed or lock it away. Those things were meant to inspire us. With each discovery I’m more determined to search until I find the place they point to, the place where we belong.”

  He clapped his hands together through the molten stone, and it exploded into a thousand pebbles that clattered across the stage and rolled off to the floor. The crowd backed up, amazed.

  He faced them. “That is where I will build New Abascar.”

  “Snyde has seen the Keeper,” rasped Bahrage. “Have you seen the Keeper? I think not. Or you would cower and be afraid.”

  “Snyde’s never seen the Keeper,” Cal-raven shouted.

  Snyde gasped as if struck.

  “Horns like a ram? Three fingers and a thumb? Nonsense. The Keeper looks nothing like that. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. It lifted me right off the ground at Barnashum.”

  Snyde came trembling to his feet, and his broken expression slowly began to piece itself together into a face that Cal-raven recognized—a face full of insolence and pride. Cal-raven felt more comfortable with this figure than with the broken, penitent Snyde.

  “You attack me here?” Snyde shrieked. “You insult me yet again? I saw the Keeper.” His head was purple as a beet. “The Keeper has horns like a ram.”

  “It is clear to me why Abascar’s survivors have come to Bel Amica,” Bahrage said, turning to the crowd, his chin high. “They’re here for guidance, for they have misunderstood. We will show them the way. For we are the awakened.”

  Cal-raven opened his mouth to argue, but when he raised his hand high, he saw his hand enormously mirrore
d in the glass pane suspended above him, and he stopped. All three contenders on the stage stood in cold blue reflections. And it troubled him to see that he was one of them, pale as a corpse.

  What am I doing?

  “Enough of this!”

  A woman’s voice rang out. A figure slipped through the crowd, drawing back her hood, and the crowd gasped in recognition of the tousled golden hair, those piercing eyes.

  “My lady?” Bahrage dropped to his knees.

  Cal-raven stood still, watching Cyndere intently.

  “I’m taking the king of Abascar out of here. I’m ordering the dissolution of this gathering. Bahrage, if I hear that you have spoken to an assembly like this again, I shall have you sent to shovel crolca in Wilus Caroon’s stable at Tilianpurth.”

  “My lady, you would prevent these broken people from receiving the Keeper’s comforts?”

  “Comfort? I’ve seen threats, intimidation, and humiliation. I’ve seen you savoring shame and fear. You have insulted a guest of this house and drawn him into a most dishonorable debate.”

  Cal-raven winced at the look she gave him. He knew he deserved it. He stared out toward the corridor, and the white scar glimmered in the center of his vision.

  I must get out of this house.

  “My mother’s going to hear about this. And the Seers will learn what you’ve said about them and their religion. And then how will you escape?”

  Bahrage looked at her and smiled, seemingly delighted.

  Cyndere faced the assembly. Those gathered seemed afraid and uncertain. “Are you feeling comforted? Is this joy and restoration?” She turned to Cal-raven. “Come. You and I shall determine whether I should go further than boarding up this place.”

  He did not look at the crowd. He followed her as she moved up the mirrorless corridor. She did not look back or say a word until they were in the alley.

  Outside, as she turned to him, Cal-raven bowed his head.

  “My lady,” he said, “I appreciate your care. But I assure you, I do not need protection.”

  “Don’t be naive. Please.” She held out her hand. He took it, surprised at how small and cold it was—or perhaps it only seemed cold, for he was hot with temper. “Of course you do.”