Raven's Ladder

  Madi, Luci, and Margi were as different in opinions as they were alike in appearance and gifts. Born stonemasters, they took regular lessons from Abascar’s only master of that art—the king. Cal-raven had shown them how fingertips could read a rock. Like the gift of firebearing, healing, or wild-speaking, stonemastery was evidence of direct descent from Tammos Raak, the man who first crossed over the Forbidding Wall into the Expanse, followed by the parade of children he had freed from captivity.

  While they were proud of their stonemastery, they kept their telepathy secret. Double blessings such as theirs were rare indeed. Those so greatly gifted were often assumed to be schemers and crooks.

  When the triplets’ parents had joined the assembly in the quake’s aftermath to wait for Cal-raven’s instructions, Luci had turned to her favorite distraction—the rascal merchant boy who had, much to his own dismay, charmed her.

  But what had begun as distraction turned troubling the farther Luci led her sisters in pursuit. Wynn seemed afraid, his concentration so fierce that he had not noticed his followers.

  They emerged from the tunnel to walk along a high tier under the night. Wynn was well ahead of them, shadowing the soldiers as closely as he dared. They followed him up a weedy slope.

  Summer constellations glistened—the Golden Heron, the Healerfish, the Wildflower, and the Changeling. And there, low on the northern horizon, the Kite People, six clusters of stars like men and women in flight, trailing strands of dust that bound them to a single blue star with a wavering aura. The sisters paused together, and not for the first time. Starlight always enchanted them, as if it were a strange music composed only for them.

  Luci led them through the bowl where they had helped Cal-raven sculpt a towering Keeper and along narrow ledges, tempting gusty winds to cast them over the cliffs.

  Coming around a bend, they saw the soldiers slip into a crevasse in the cliff face. Wynn climbed along the vines just above the entrance and hung there like a bat, upside down.

  The girls, seeing him stop, clustered together on the path. He saw them, hissed, and waved them off.

  Luci ventured on, bare feet padding along the path. “You’re gonna get in trouble,” she whispered.

  Wynn held out a hand to quiet her, listening intently.

  Wind moaned through the Red Teeth, the field of stone spears far below the precipice. Margi, who seemed drawn to danger, grew distracted and crawled to the edge to look down. Luci could feel her thinking of things they could sculpt with those jagged lances.

  Wynn’s head snapped back as if he’d been struck by what he heard in that crevasse. He let himself down soundlessly and approached the sisters.

  “Run, Luci,” whispered Madi. “He’s angry.”

  No, thought Luci. He wants our help.

  “You’ll get us into trouble,” Madi growled, coming up to Luci’s shoulder.

  Wynn wagged a finger in their faces as if they were obstinate children. “If you want Cal-raven to live another day, you need to help me. Right now.”

  Luci could see the moon like red jewels in the boy’s wide eyes, but those eyes were on Madi. She stepped closer and rested her wrist’s beaded bracelet on his shoulder to win his attention. “We promise to help,” she said just as Madi said the same thing. They turned and scowled at each other.

  Wynn spelled out instructions. All memories of the quake fell away. This conversation made them feel hot and cold at the same time. A different kind of quake had begun, and when the shaking stopped, the world would be changed. They would be changed. Here in the open, under a rising red moon, the sisters’ doubts dissolved. In a sudden decision, as final and immovable as the stone, they sealed the crevasse and trapped the soldiers inside.

  3

  RIDDLES IN THE DARK

  Krawg found the king kneeling in the entry cave, stroking Say-ressa’s bloodied cheek. Lying beside two others nearly crushed in the cave collapse, Abascar’s beloved healer rasped through a dust-choked throat while her apprentices guessed what they could about unseen injuries.

  “Would this be of any comfort?” Krawg, his knees popping, approached the king, offering a purple scarf.

  Cal-raven took it with cautious hands. “Auralia made this.” He nodded to acknowledge Krawg’s generous sacrifice. “Thank you.”

  “Has healing properties, it does,” Krawg muttered. “It’s Warney’s.” He felt the heat of displeasure in the crowd behind him. Some would protest that a scarf with healing powers was just the sort of superstition the Gatherers were prone to believe. Among Housefolk, suspicions lingered that the Gatherers, former criminals, had all gone rather strange in the head during their hard labor outside the protection of Abascar’s walls. But the king had given the Gatherers a chance to prove themselves responsible.

  Krawg and Warney, famous thieves, had become resourceful and productive; through the winter they helped House Abascar gather a harvest from this barren region. Krawg approached the king with some confidence, for Cal-raven respected their experience, and he was not one to doubt claims about the power of Auralia’s colors.

  “You look like a Bel Amican,” Cal-raven told Say-ressa after binding the scarf around her head. “As lovely now as you were when you caught Ark-robin’s eye.”

  Krawg withdrew, wrapped in joy for having provided help. He knew the subtle ministry of Auralia’s colors, knew the scarf would cool the healer’s fevers. He had a scarf just like it, after all. But his was yellow, and he would never part with it.

  Somewhere Warney was sweeping the shaken caves. Stalactites had shattered, cobwebs had come down, and walls had broken to puzzle pieces. Krawg moved instead to help others deep within to sift debris from the shallow reservoir of water that sustained them.

  “Didja hear?” That tattling was Hildy the Sad One, a gossipy old Gatherer drifting by on a raft, her sifting net neglected at her side. “Five defenders have gone missin’. Five. Didja hear?”

  Saying most things twice, as always, she kept on, speculating about who the five might be and the grisly ways they might have died. Krawg rowed away. He’d heard enough trouble already today.

  At the darkening of the next long day of recovery, what had been a fuss of guesses over the missing defenders’ fate settled into a burdensome quiet punctuated by fitful coughing from the quakedust.

  Krawg crawled into his blankets, assuring himself that the distant thunder came from the sky and not from the ground beneath. Beside him, Warney’s bed lay empty, but Krawg was too wrung out to worry, sore from the toil of hauling debris.

  Soon after the last thought left his head, footsteps awakened him.

  Lurching awkwardly between the sprawl of slumbering laborers, Warney’s scarecrow silhouette advanced. In the faint candlelight, Krawg watched him kneel and pat the floor to find his folded mat of reeds.

  “Spit it out, Warney. Somethin’s got you running scared. Are the beastmen back?”

  “Hope not.” The mat crackled as Warney smoothed it. “I’m just losin’ my mind.”

  “That’s been certain for years. But what’s the story?”

  “It’s the season, Krawg. Bad things happen when a red moon’s up. Say-ressa’s half-crushed. Some say the quake’s a sign we don’t belong here. And there’s something else.” Warney shivered, wrapping himself in bug-eaten blankets. “Don’t make me say.”

  “How can I sleep if your bones keep rattling? What do you think you saw with the eye you haven’t lost?”

  “Saw? It’s what I heard that bothers me.” Warney burrowed deeper into his cocoon. “Help me forget. Tell me an Auralia story.”

  “I’ve told you—no bedtime stories about our little girl.” Krawg pressed his head into the yellow scarf he had rolled for a pillow. “I have bad dreams about what happened to her.”

  “Gimme riddles then.”

  Krawg picked at his fingertip calluses. “Fine, I’ll fold you a riddle if you promise to tell me what’s tied you in knots.”

  “If our cave don’t collapse, I’ll tel
l.”

  Krawg sat up and cleared his throat. “Who am I?” He stared into the darkness of the cave’s high ceiling.

  Fish nibble my toes,

  my head’s in a cloud,

  got so many riches,

  I’m boastful and proud.

  Warney’s silence might have been deep thought. Impatient, Krawg embellished his trick.

  One crown sinks,

  then the next one dies.

  My eyes, they’re blinded

  by moonlit skies.

  Warney noisily gnawed at his lips. “Fish nibble my toes,” he repeated. “Is it a ship?”

  “You’re close. Bring her in to port.”

  “House Bel Amica!” Warney gasped. “Built on a rock in the Rushtide Inlet. Clouds around its head.”

  “And the two crowns?”

  “King Helpryn, dead in a shipwreck. His heir, Partayn, slain by beastmen. But what’s that line… ‘blinded by moonlit skies’?”

  “Moon worshipers, Warney. Those fish-brained Bel Amicans spend too much time out on their boats, I tell you.”

  “Maybe we should pray to the moon.” Anger flared on the edges of Warney’s words. “Ask it to help us outta this mess. Gimme another riddle, Krawg.”

  “Tell me what scared you.”

  “In the morning.”

  Another breeze wafted through the cave, the earthy perfume of a warm rain stirring up another wave of sneezes.

  The beastmen come a-hunting,

  but I’m always underground.

  And on a map of the Expanse,

  I just cannot be found.

  When the floor fell out from under me,

  I fled to a safe haven.

  Oh, what will become of me?

  Go ask King—

  “Cal-raven,” Warney almost shouted. “House Abascar.”

  “Until we get to some new home and become New Abascar, that’s the whole of it.”

  “What’ll we be when we get there, Krawg? Will they need us anymore?”

  “Someone’s coming!”

  A torch bobbed in the dark as a soldier found his way through the maze of sleepers.

  “He’s looking for you,” said Krawg.

  “I had nothing to do with it,” blurted Warney. “But I heard the screams. Screams, Krawg. Coming from a solid stone wall.”

  “I’ve come for you, Krawg,” said the torchbearer.

  “Tabor Jan?” Krawg recognized that broad jaw line, the obvious displeasure. His fingers clenched his pillow as if he might wring comfort from it. “I gave up thievin’ many years ago. Ask anybody! They’ll tell you—”

  “King’s called for you. Bring your stormcloak.”

  Krawg lurched from the blankets. Warney’s whimpers returned. “Where—”

  “Think I know?” he snapped. “Don’t expect me anytime soon. And, Warney, don’t let anyone take my bed.”

  The stone underfoot gasped at the rain’s beating, and the streams that washed over the clawed feet of six groaning vawns were heavy with sludge from the quake.

  Did you come to Barnashum because I called for you?

  Cal-raven closed his eyes and tried to remember the creature. Its scales had rustled like leaves of ivy layered on a stone wall. Its wings had struck at the air like great sheets shaken free of dust. He had called; it had appeared. He had asked for guidance. If he could befriend it, summon it for help….

  Lightning shattered night’s dark glass. The flash revealed two figures advancing from the cliffs—Tabor Jan with his hand fastened on Krawg’s shoulder.

  The one riderless vawn in this half circle of six sneezed a spluttering hello to the shadows that approached. The animal seemed eager for a rider so they could all charge north to the shelter of the forest.

  Tabor Jan shouted back toward the descending path. “Wynn! I won’t say it again.”

  Again? Pugnacious, that merchants’ orphan. In the next faint flicker, Cal-raven glimpsed the boy standing still on the path.

  Wynn’s fierce voice cut through the rain. “I gotta talk to the king!”

  Tabor Jan’s tone made it clear that his forbearance was at an end. “You’ve got your own tasks. Go back to the stables. This work’s for men, not boys. Soldiers’ business.”

  No, Cal-raven thought. This isn’t even soldiers’ business. This is in that uncertain region between revelation and madness.

  The next storm blast rang out like a threat.

  “Fine!” the boy barked. “I won’t tell where to find the missing soldiers.” With that, he turned and ran back up into Barnashum’s heavy shadows. Cal-raven scowled down to Tabor Jan.

  “I’ll look into it, but I suspect it’s just another lie, my lord. Merchant trickery. He’s used to getting what he wants.”

  Uneasy, Cal-raven surveyed the companions he had chosen.

  He could read Shanyn’s face. She was wondering why he didn’t just trim the boy from Abascar’s story. Shanyn never liked unnecessary fuss, especially before a ride. He liked her bold, blunt counsel, and he depended on the strength of her sword arm in matters both military and practical. For a bonfire, she’d shear all the branches from a cloudgrasper in the space of a song. Nobody knew if she had sharp spurs or a gift for wildspeaking, but steeds responded to her with speed no other could inspire.

  Bowlder shifted in his saddle, staring at Shanyn. Women were his only fear, and one so confident and strong set his broad, pulpy face to twitching. Cal-raven had chosen Bowlder for his muscles more than his mind, in case they stumbled into trouble.

  They would also need accurate arrows, so Cal-raven had called on Jes-hawk as well.

  Without explanation, Cal-raven had also summoned Snyde, his father’s ambassador of Abascar’s arts for thirty years before the collapse. But Snyde was no trained traveler; he bundled the reins tightly in his hands as if he might fall even before the vawns set out.

  Tabor Jan waited beside the last vawn, hesitating to help Krawg into the saddle. “Are you sure about this, master?”

  “Remember when we first arrived, Captain? I trusted you to ride out and investigate the smell of smoke. You were gone a long while. But, true to your word—”

  “True to my word, I returned with good tidings,” Tabor Jan interrupted. “Your trust in me was well placed. That’s why you should take me, my lord.”

  “My trust is well placed, Captain. That’s why I need you to stay. The quake unsettled us all. The people need a leader they trust.”

  “What is so important,” snapped Snyde, “that we ride out in this tempest while the people are troubled?”

  “We ride to find chillseed,” said Cal-raven. It was all he would tell the company for now. He didn’t want them frightened by his true destination. “Say-ressa’s fever is fierce, and chillseed is the surest help we know.” He turned to Krawg. “Gatherers learned how to find it in the wild, didn’t they?”

  “Blindfold me, my lord, and I’ll still find it for you!” the old man exclaimed.

  “Captain.” Cal-raven watched Tabor Jan reluctantly help the old man into the saddle. “Keep a close watch on the Cragavar. Keep our stonecrafting sisters close so they can—”

  “We’ll be watchful, my lord.”

  Cal-raven urged him to keep the people busy storing up food and fashioning wagons and wagon wheels in case they needed to set out from Barnashum soon. Then he turned abruptly to Krawg. “Why do you keep staring back at the caves? Have you forgotten something?”

  Krawg bowed his head. “I reckon, my lord, that I can find chillseed faster if I have help.” His hands opened and closed as if they were swallowing the rain. “He’s light as a bundle of bird bones. He could sit behind me on this animal. Surely…”

  “He?” Cal-raven smiled. He had expected this. He nodded to Tabor Jan, who hunched his shoulders against the rain, mumbled something, and trudged back into the caves.

  Storm light splashed across the northern darkness, as seven riders on six vawns departed across the flooding plains. The distant Cragavar fores
t seemed frayed and worn in patches, a dark and ragged blanket.

  Tabor Jan waited out in the open longer than was safe. He listened to the low wind and surveyed the star-glint on the thorns of rain-wet husker-brambles. Just as this weather would beat the summer’s loose husks from that sea of tangled boughs, so Abascar’s new troubles would purge the remnant’s weaker aspects. Only the most resilient would endure to the next season.

  He knew he would survive. But what of his friendship with the man who knew him best?

  His shadow leapt out ahead of him as a torchbearer came up from behind. “There you are.” It was Brevolo’s voice. She took his wrist and drew it around her hooded stormcloak, leaning into him. They stood watching the wind and rain. “So he didn’t take you with him. Look at it another way. Now you’re in charge.”

  “I’ve never been a superstitious man,” he murmured. “Never glimpsed a ghost. Never heard voices. I think those who claim visions of Northchildren are a little too fond of madweed. I’ve inherited no magical gift, at least none that I’ve noticed.”

  “There are still tricks you haven’t tried,” she laughed, relentless in flirtation.

  “I tried to talk to an animal once—a rabbit. The thing ran away up a dry streambed, drawing about a dozen other long-ears into flight. Like it had warned the rest that there was a madman on the loose.”

  “Let Cal-raven be Cal-raven,” she said. “You have your own path. And frankly, I’m uncomfortable following anybody who bases decisions on dreams. You should counsel him more forcefully. Abascar would do better with a practical leader like you.”

  As a child, Tabor Jan had chopped wood, raised boulder walls, and hunted. His renown had increased because of the bundles of firewood he could carry on his shoulders and because of his willingness to carry them wherever the king’s men commanded. That strength had gained him armor, a horse, and responsibility. His rise after that came from a near-perfect record for hitting his mark with the first arrow shot, even from the back of a charging vawn.

  Like anyone else, Tabor Jan had dreamed of the shadow that lurked in the forest. But he had been troubled by his father’s scorn for the idea, just as he was troubled by Cal-raven’s certainty that it existed and could be trusted like some infallible guide.