Raven's Strike

“Brewydd?” Jes had left his bench. Lehr looked up and saw that whatever had been tearing at his brother was better now. “We’ll take you home, and Mother will fuss over you like she does Papa.”

“No, boy,” she said gently. “I stayed to talk with you. One of my gifts was farseeing—a weak gift, but it told me I had to wait. Don’t mourn me, Lehr—” She brushed away a tear with her thumb. “I’m an old, old woman. Too old to see this illness for what it was. I should have: I knew there was a new Shadowed.”

“What went wrong?” Lehr asked. He carried her over to the maple tree and its bench and sat, cradling her as if that might protect her somehow.

“I healed, and they were back the next day worse than before. It was shadow plague, boy. Deaths to feed the Shadowed’s power. I knew what to look for, but I’d forgotten, old woman that I am. By the time I thought of it, I was sick myself and half the clan with me. Healed them, then healed myself, but it was too late. The healing took more than I had to give, so I’m dying anyway. Just as this town all died. Shadow-killed. I saw it.”

“Mother said Lark can’t see shadow,” said Lehr, his voice gentle.

She shook her head. “Can. We all can a little, it’s just hard for us who don’t have Hunter eyes or Guardian instincts. Orders have more in common than not, for all that the Ravens like to pretend differently.”

“The Shadowed killed this city,” said Jes.

Brewydd nodded. “Those who weren’t killed by knife or club. The Shadowed will be up to full strength now. Tell your mother to be careful of him.”

“It is a man?” asked Lehr.

She shook her head. “Don’t know. Shouldn’t assume anything. Could be anyone. You had questions for me to answer. Important enough for me to stay for them, I think.”

“Phoran’s Memory isn’t gone,” said Jes.

Lehr explained about the aborted assassination attempt that led Phoran to flee Taela.

“Papa thinks that the Memory won’t leave until the Shadowed is destroyed.”

The old woman nodded again. “If the Memory didn’t leave when the others died, that is probably so. But it’ll get stronger, too, more like the man it once belonged to. It might be that even the Shadowed’s death will not set it free—like the Ordered gems.” She swallowed. “Tell your mother that. The Memory is like the Ordered gems—but the Order is attached to Phoran rather than a gemstone. It might help her.”

She rested for a minute, her breathing slow and shallow. “What else?” she said, sounding impatient. “There were two things, I know there were.”

“Papa,” said Jes. “Lehr knows.”

Lehr said, “Mother thinks something the Path did is weakening the co

“She did? Tell me how?”

“She told me to tell you she persuaded one of the Lark gems, the tigereye, to help her. You’d know which ring it was.” He cleared his throat. “She said she used magic to make yarn and the Lark’s Order became a needle wielded by her own Order and she darned the holes to close them. Does that make sense to you?”

Brewydd made an odd sound that frightened Lehr before he realized she was laughing. “Audacious child,” she said when she could. “She’s lucky the Lark half-trapped in that gemstone didn’t kill her while she held it.”

“She says the mending is temporary and won’t last. She was hoping you could do better.”

“No, boy,” she said. Her hand fell from his face, and he felt bereft of it. “Not even if I were twenty again. The Orders are beyond my touch as they should have been beyond hers. No. What she needs was lost when Colossae fell.”

Lehr felt a chill go down his spine.

“Is it still there?”

Lehr jerked his head to stare up at the Guardian—but met his soft-eyed brother’s gaze instead.

“In Colossae?” she asked. “I don’t know.” She gasped for breath while Lehr rocked her in his arms. She was too light; it was almost as if he held a child.

Her breathing settled. “I’ve been dreaming of Colossae while I waited for you. I’ve never dreamed of Colossae before. You were there. You and your black dog and a tower.”

“We found maps of Colossae,” said Lehr. “In the Path’s temple in Redern.

“Yes, yes,” said the old woman smiling. “The dream was for you. That’s why I had to stay for you. To tell you that you have to go to Colossae.” She paused and relaxed. “Yes. That was it. You may not find your answers there, but if you do not go—you will find nothing.” Power, raw and hot, slammed into Lehr’s body where it touched the blankets wrapped around Brewydd, robbing him of breath as she said, her voice ringing through him as if he were a bell, “If you do not find Colossae, Tier will fade, and the Emperor’s head will adorn his enemy’s wall.”

Her body went limp in his arms, and the strange power slid away until it was gone.

“Brewydd?” Lehr whispered.

He was afraid she was dead, but she stirred at the sound of his voice.

“I’m still here, boy. Tell your mother. I’ve been thinking about those Ordered gems. A few days ago something occurred to me. I didn’t think it was important, but if you go to Colossae, maybe it will help.”

She closed her eyes and breathed for a moment. When she opened them again her color was a little better. “Tradition has it that there is nothing about the Orders in the libraries of the mermori, and from the searching your mother, He

“The Stalker?” said Jes.

She nodded. “That might be, of course. But they knew how to create the Orders; they must have written something down. A Raven shouldn’t need much. There was a library.”

“Rongier the Librarian,” said Jes.

She nodded. “Tell your mother this, too; if Tier loses his Order, it will destroy him. His body won’t die, not if there’s folk to care for it, but the Order will take Tier with it. Leaving nothing. Nothing. If that happens, you’d best take care of it, Hunter. Your father will be dead, his body should be as well.”

She closed her blind eyes again and patted Lehr’s hand. “There now,” she said. “I’ve had my part in this. I can leave the problem of the Shadowed to those more fit.” Her breath caught as if it hurt her. “There’s a bag in my karis. Give it to your mother, she’ll know what it is and what to do with it.”

“Shh,” Lehr said. “Rest.”

Instead her left hand closed over his. “Jes,” she said, holding out her free hand. “Come here, and take my hand. Now listen you both.” But she didn’t say anything, just sent her magic through him like a flame that warmed almost to the point of pain, but not quite. From Jes’s startled expression she was doing the same to him.

“Safe now,” she said at last, panting a little. “The plague ca

“I remember how,” Lehr promised. “I can keep people out for two weeks.”

“Careful.”

“Always, grandmother,” he said.

She squeezed his hand, but didn’t speak again. After a moment he felt her relax into sleep.

Jes cleaned out the karis while Lehr held the old woman. He found fresh bedding from somewhere—Lehr didn’t ask where. Then Lehr put her in her karis and sat with her.

Jes put a hand on his shoulder, then left them.