Raven's Shadow

Tier opened his mouth, then saw Phoran’s pale face behind Avar and realized what had killed the wizards. “Must have been him, then,” he said, trying to hide the rush of relief. Jes hadn’t been ru

Lehr stiffened, and Seraph put a hand on Tier’s shoulder. He patted her hand, then Lehr’s leg. “Do the rest of them look the same?”

“Yes,” said Phoran. “Just the same. As if they’d been drained.”

“Work of the Guardian,” said the Healer briskly. Tier hadn’t realized she’d followed them. “Work of the Guardian to protect his own. Get that man up off the floor and don’t put him down until he’s somewhere he can rest comfortably. Do you have a chamber where we can store him overnight?” She asked the last question of Phoran.

He bowed. “I suspect that the one that he’s been occupying will be the easiest for him. He’s welcome to take as long as necessary—and as soon as he’s up to it, I’d be happy to find him better accommodations.”

Brewydd looked at Seraph. “You wanted to burn him to ash, girl, do it now. It’s not a good thing to leave wizard’s bodies intact,” she said.

Lehr and Toarsen managed to lever Tier up once more. Seraph waved a hand and the bodies of the Masters burst into a dark blue-white flame that consumed them utterly in a moment. She gave Tier a look that told him that he’d better have a good reason to put Jes in a position that would make it even more difficult for others to accept him.

“Let’s get him back to his cell,” she said. “Then Lehr can hunt Jes down and bring him to us there.”

The trip down that short hallway was miserable. Halfway there, Lehr exchanged a look with Toarsen, and with his help, shifted Tier until Lehr could pick him up and carry him the rest of the way.

Seraph sent Toarsen off to help Avar with a kiss on his cheek, ignoring Tier’s indignant “Hey.”

When Toarsen was gone, she said to Lehr, “Doubtless your father will explain why he blamed Jes for that nasty business. So just find your brother and bring him back here so Tier can explain it to Jes, too, before he gets hurt by the reception he gets.”

The Healer had accompanied them, and she checked Tier over thoroughly to make sure the mending she’d done on him would hold. When she was through she patted him on the shoulder.

“Hardest thing that a Healer learns is when to stop healing,” she said. “There’s always a price to pay. You’re going to be very tired in a short period of time, and you’ll spend the next few days more asleep than awake. So you’d better tell me quickly why you’re blaming that poor lad for the work of a Memory.”

Seraph drew in her breath. “A Memory?”

“Can’t,” said Tier. “Promised.”

“Promised what?” asked Phoran, slipping into the room and shutting the door behind him.

“Not to explain why he’d want his son to bear the blame for deaths caused by a Raven’s Memory,” said the old Healer sourly. She took another look at Phoran. “You have the signs of being afflicted by a Memory, boy.”

Seraph raised an eyebrow, but cleared her throat. “Emperor,” she reminded Brewydd.

“When you’re as old as I am,” said Brewydd. “You can call anyone anything.”

Phoran smiled. “It’s my Memory,” he said. “It’s all right, Tier. Go to sleep, I’ll tell them.”

The Emperor patted the end of the bed and found a safe place to sit. He spoke quietly and told them how the Memory came to be bound to him. At some point in the story, Tier drifted off.

“They were guarded,” said Brewydd, after Phoran finished his story. “It couldn’t take them. In the normal course of things, unable to feed, it would have just drifted away. But you were there.” She nodded her head. “I’ve heard of something like that happening. The Memory attaching itself to the wrong person. As long as it gave something back, its victim will continue to live. What did it give you?”

“Answers to my questions,” said Phoran. “That’s how I found Tier.”

“Why was it able to kill the Masters now?” asked Seraph. She was touched by the way that Phoran kept patting Tier’s feet.

“They were draining themselves trying to control the Passerines and fight our wizards,” explained Brewydd. “I expect that weakened the protections that kept the Memory from killing them before.”

“It will leave Phoran in peace, then?” asked Seraph.

“If it has accomplished its task it should,” said the old woman. “I suppose your son will understand that the life of an emperor who just might be what this Empire needs is worth a little discomfort. Tell your man to try not to make anyone mad enough to hit him in those knees again and he’ll be right as rain in a month or so. I’d better go back and see if my services are needed elsewhere.”

Phoran got up reluctantly. “I suppose I’d better go as well—before some idiot thinks I’m lost.”

“I’ll be fine,” Tier said faintly. “Go reassure the idiots.”

Phoran was laughing as he left. Seraph shut the door and took Phoran’s place on the end of the bed.

“Is there anyway I can lay down beside you that won’t make it worse?” she asked.

“No,” he sighed without opening his eyes. “Come here anyway.”

When she was tucked against him, he buried his face in her hair.

“Telleridge killed Myrceria in front of me,” he said. “He’d had her tortured, but she didn’t tell him anything. Telleridge didn’t know about you.”

“There was nothing you could have done,” Seraph said, hurting for him and for the woman she’d met only briefly.

“How do you know that?” he whispered, because he needed to believe she was right.

“Because if you could have done anything, you would have. It’s all right, Tier.”

“He was her father, and he tortured her and killed her,” said Tier. “And he enjoyed doing it. Was he shadowed?”

“Can’t people be evil on their own?” she asked with a sigh. “You’ll have to ask your sons; Ravens can’t see shadowing—but I think so. Shh,” she said. “I love you. She did, too.”

She let him hold her while he cried quietly into her hair until the tiredness of being healed overwhelmed him. Then, between one breath and the next he slept.

Seraph awoke from a doze to a light knock on the door. Carefully, she extracted herself so Tier slept on undisturbed.

Lehr and Jes waited out in the hall. Seraph motioned them out, went out herself, and shut the door so they wouldn’t disturb Tier.

“I told him what Papa said,” said Lehr. “Jes said he didn’t kill anyone.”

Seraph looked up and down the hall and quietly explained.

“It’s fine, Mother,” said the Guardian. “No one will be much more afraid of me than they already are.”

“Mother,” said Lehr, “You need to hear why Jes left the Eyrie.”

“I was following a black-robed wizard,” said the Guardian. “Father was right, all the wizards were tainted. But there was one… did you see him, Lehr?”

“No,” Lehr said. “I only saw the five wizards the Memory killed.”

“There was one who left when the wall disintegrated. He wasn’t just tainted, Mother, he was the taint itself.”

“Like the U

The Guardian nodded. “I didn’t see the taint at first, Mother. I followed the wizard out of the room and into the halls on the other side of the wall. Before I could get close, the Memory was there. It touched the wizard.” The Guardian flinched. “I don’t know what the Memory did, but it felt as if a veil had been pulled away and revealed the wizard for what he really was.” He took a shaky breath. “Jes is very brave, Mother, even I don’t scare him—but what hid beneath the wizard’s illusionary veil was evil. The wizard hit the Memory with some kind of magic, and the Memory was just gone. The wizard didn’t see us. When it left, we didn’t follow.”

“Good,” said Seraph, reassuringly. “You did the right thing.”

“When I caught up with him,” said Lehr, “he showed me where the man had gone—and I couldn’t find his trail. Mother, I could see where rats had been ru