Raven's Strike (19 page)

“That's not what I meant,” Avar said impatiently. “
You
know it isn't. I don't want your place.”

“No,” said Phoran. “Which is the best reason for me to name you heir. Come, it's all right. Hopefully, you'll be deposed by the child of whatever poor lady someone eventually forces to marry me. But until then, I need an heir, and you are it.”

Avar's handsome chin set firmly. “I won't, and you can't make me.”

Toarsen grinned and raised his goblet at Phoran. “That's the first time I've ever heard him sound like a spoiled brat. Thank you for that—it's hard growing up with a big brother who is perfect.”

“Come, Avar,” coaxed Phoran. “The weight of the Empire is a heavy one, twenty-seven emperors deep. Since the first Phoran We have protected and served Our people. Who else's strong right arm am I to trust to keep the Empire safe and whole?”

“Gerant,” said Avar.

Even as Gerant shook his head, Phoran said, “Gerant is no relative of mine, not even if you search back ten generations. The Council could overthrow the appointment even before it was announced.”

“Come, my lord,” said Gerant gently. “It is for every man to serve his emperor and the Empire as best he can.”

“All right,” he said, but he didn't sound happy about it.

Deciding it was best to get the business over with before he had to argue Avar around again, Phoran bounced to his feet. “Come then, all of you, let's go see if my scribe has the papers drawn up yet. We'll need witnesses.”

“You've already had them drawn up?”

Phoran grinned at Avar. “I know you, my friend. Duty has never been a burden you've shunned.”

Phoran had a new scribe. His previous scribe, whose duties had been far lighter than the scribe of a proper emperor ought to have been, was, nonetheless, one of the gentlemen due to lose his life by hanging in the market square sometime in the next week or so.

Phoran had found his new scribe himself via his archive keeper, who was not happy about losing his most promising journeyman. He'd given him several rooms in an underused wing with a secret passage to the libraries, where the young man worked during the day. It was after hours, and in any case, Phoran had requested this business be secret until he had the papers signed and witnessed.

As he led the way to the scribe's apartment, Phoran found himself wondering, not for the first time, what his ancestors had been thinking when they put the palace together. Small civilizations could flourish in unused rooms, and no one would be the wiser. Since the palace had been built over many generations, there was no pattern to how it was laid out.

He led his cohorts up three stories, over two halls, then down a floor, through several small doorways, the last of which led to a gallery where one could look down over waist-high rails to a pond three stories below. A raised section in the middle had obviously been a fountain, though the stone fishes' mouths were dry.

The whole pool—which was deeper than the pole Phoran had once pushed into it and large enough to swim a small whale—was covered with scum giving the whole gallery an unpleasantly fishy smell despite the fresh air that came from having no ceiling over the gallery.

“You put your scribe here?” asked Avar. “What did he do to you?”

“This is the shortest way,” explained Phoran. “If you'd all quit gawking, we'll be there in no time.”

“I think this might be why they keep getting pigeons in the art gallery.” Kissel had his hand propped to shade his eyes from the bright sun that made quite a change from the dim halls they'd been wandering through.

“I haven't seen this before,” said Toarsen, leaning over the rails. “I've been exploring this place for years. How could I not have seen this? Have you looked into fixing that fountain?”

“Fall over, and you won't have to worry about the fountain. Phoran has all the maps to the palace somewhere,” said his brother. “He knows all sorts of odd places.”

“Not all the maps, by any means,” said Phoran. “Or if they are all the maps, then they leave out a great deal.”

Irrepressible, Toarsen twisted until his back rested on the rail rather than his belly and looked up. “Three stories up? What does the outside of this look like Phoran? Are we in the North Central section or—”

The sound of a door thwacking against the wall pulled Phoran's eyes away from Toarsen in time to see armed men boiling out of the doorway.

He had a moment to wonder, stupidly, what they were doing here, wearing masks and waving swords, then Gerant shouted, “Assassins.”

Avar bellowed out Phoran's battle cry twice to alert anyone who might be within hearing range that they were under attack. But rescue was a faint hope at best—in all the times Phoran had traveled this way in the last few weeks, he'd never seen anyone else here. Even if someone heard, the chances of their joining in on Phoran's side rather than his attackers was something less than fifty-fifty.

Kissel and Toarsen had their swords out, but none of the rest of them were armed with anything more lethal than eating knives. Which was stupid in retrospect, Phoran thought, as he ducked beneath a sword and set his hip behind his attacker's. A quick push and the man fell over backward just as Gerant had promised when he'd demonstrated the move the day before yesterday at morning practice.

It worked, but Phoran couldn't follow up his advantage because he was too busy avoiding another sword. Phoran wasn't able to wrest the sword from the man before he had to give up the attack or be hewn down.

A gleaming blade came from nowhere and slid toward his belly with snakelike swiftness. Phoran watched it with an odd detachment that had overcome him as soon as he realized that there was no way out, no rescue coming. He knew that he was dead and that this sword made him so.

The blade was touching Phoran's tunic when it jerked back and fell to the floor, along with the man who held it. Standing behind the fallen man was a familiar dark shape Phoran had hoped he'd never see again.

In a bewildering mixture of relief and horror, Phoran stared at the Memory, so much more solid than the last time he'd seen it. It returned his stare—or so he imagined, because it had no eyes he could see. Then it continued its hunt.

It should be gone. The Traveler healer had said once it killed the people responsible for its death, the ghost of the Raven he'd seen murdered would cease to exist. He had been so certain it was gone. He hadn't seen it since the night it had killed the Masters of the Path, the wizards who had killed a Raven to steal his power and loosed this Raven's Memory upon the only witness not protected against it: Phoran.

Looking almost like a man covered in an enveloping black cloth that flowed over the top of his head to the floor, the dark thing moved from one of Phoran's attackers to the next. It was more solid than he remembered, but no one but Phoran paid it any attention at first—but no one except for Phoran and the Travelers had ever been able to see it.

If it were still around, why hadn't it continued to feed off Phoran every night? And if it didn't need to feed from him, why had it protected him?

Phoran watched as his masked attackers fell, one after the other. A few were killed by human hands. Gerant and Avar had managed to arm themselves, and both were remarkable fighters. But many more fell to his Memory.

His arms folded on his chest, Phoran watched as the remaining fighters, on both sides, became gradually aware there was another killer present. Several attackers tried to run, but the Memory was swifter.

Phoran wondered what the others saw. For him the dying men were obscured, enveloped by the Memory, until they dropped bloodless to the floor. Toarsen and Kissel quit fighting the assassins altogether and flanked Phoran.

“It's all right,” he told them. “It won't hurt me.” Which was almost funny, as he carried the scars of the Memory's bites up and down his arms. But still and all, he knew it would not kill him. It couldn't. If he died, so would it.

The Memory turned its eyeless gaze back to Phoran.

Even as he moved to place himself between it and Phoran, Avar said in a hushed voice, “What is
that
Phoran?”

“It won't hurt me,” Phoran said again. None of the others could see it, he thought, only Avar. He remembered the way the Memory had never come when Avar was around—was it because it knew Avar would see it?

But the others had seen the men fall dead, they'd know it was magic. Magic connected to the Emperor.

“I have fed this night,” the Memory said, ignoring everyone except Phoran. “I will give you an answer to one question. Choose.”

Why aren't you gone?
thought Phoran.
If you didn't die when the Path fell, why have you stayed away? Why come back here now?

But the question he asked was more important.

“Did anyone else see this?” he asked.

The Memory turned its attention upward, and Phoran followed its gaze. Two levels up he saw the gaze of a youngling so swaddled in rags it was difficult to tell if he were male or female. As soon as he realized they were looking at him, he took of in a scuttle of soft-shod footsteps.

There were any number of such homeless folk who found shelter in the endless unmapped rooms in the palace. His bad luck that one had found shelter here.

“Do I need to eliminate that one?” the Memory asked. “Does it pose danger to you?”

Temptation. But Phoran shook his head, and lied, “There is no more danger to me. You may go.”

The Memory bowed shallowly and dissolved into nothingness.

When it was gone, Phoran looked at his men.
No use hiding it,
he thought wearily. Avar might have been the only one actually to see it—but there was no denying the bodies scattered on the floor.

“That was what the Travelers call a Memory,” he told them. “One of their mages was killed by the Masters of the Path while I was secretly watching. The Masters had protected themselves, so it attached itself to me. It needed vengeance upon the wizards who killed the Raven, and I thought it had managed that when it killed the Masters when the Path fell; but it seems that is not the case.”

There was an old law, immutable, written while the fell signs of the Unnamed King's reign, empty cities and barren fields, were still visible upon in the lands of the Empire: an emperor could not be touched by magic. The days when the Emperor had to wear the Stone of Phoran visible on the circlet that displayed it on the front of the imperial forehead were long gone. But Phoran had worn it on his forehead and ridden through Taela the day before his coronation as had his father before him. If one of the Septs chose, they could request he wear it before the Council.

He knew, because he'd tried it when the Memory first came to him, that the stone would not stay clear at his touch while he was bound to the Memory. If the Septs knew, he would be executed.

It was Avar who said it. “If that ragged child tells anyone about this, it will be all over the palace that the Emperor has a monster who slew assassins for him.”

Phoran waited for their judgment.

Toarsen bent down and jerked the mask off one of the dead men. To Phoran's relief, the body was not shrunken and dried the way the Masters' bodies had been.

“First we'll have to dispose of these bodies,” Toarsen said. “If anyone sees them, they'll know nothing human killed them.”

“I thought Tier's son killed the wizards,” said Kissel.

“No,” said Phoran. “It was the Memory. Tier lied to save me.”

Avar nodded. “If you'll help me, gentlemen. We'll throw them into the pond. They're wearing armor—that'll keep the bodies from floating. By the time someone finds them, any oddities will be explained by the water.”

As Toarsen and Avar tossed one over, Gerant and Kissel picked up the next one. After the first several, Phoran helped, too—he tried not to watch as they hit the water below.

“It's a good thing that pond's so big,” said Kissel, tipping another one over. “It'll be decades before anyone finds them—if ever.”

“No renovation of the fountain,” said Toarsen, with mock sadness.

“We'll have to rethink having the castle guard watch over your rooms,” said Avar. “Did you notice most of them wear
standard-issue boots? I don't see any faces I recognize, but I bet they are all from the castle guard.”

“So,” said Phoran, when they had finished. “I'm assuming that none of you has decided you need a new emperor.”

Gerant patted him on the shoulder. “That law was not meant for this kind of situation. We'll help you.”

“It'll be a few days before the gossip starts to spread,” said Avar. “And even then, all they'll have is bits and pieces. Those pauper children don't associate with the Septs. It'll come from the servants upward.”

“Unless I can get rid of it,” said Phoran, “how long it takes won't matter. When the gossip hits, the Septs will demand I show them I'm untouched by sorcery—and I have no reason not to, except, of course, that I can't pass the test.”

“The stone can be stolen,” said Toarsen.

Phoran shook his head. “What we'll do is this. Gerant, Avar, and I'll go on to my scribe now. Avar might inherit a little earlier than I thought. Kissel and Toarsen, I want you to go to the Emperor's Own and have them make ready to go. Pick out a few of the most trustworthy to ride with me as my personal guard. I'll leave early in the morning. Gerant, if you would, I need you to take the rest of the Pass”—he caught himself—“the Emperor's Own to your home and train them. I won't abandon them here to rot, and I can't stay. I'll see to it that a suitable purse goes to you—”

“Not necessary,” he said.

Phoran waved a hand. “I thank you for that, but they are mine, and I'll see to their housing and training.” He took a deep breath. “I'm headed out for Redern. Hopefully Tier and his Traveler lady will be there and can help me. If not, I'll send word, and we'll fake my death—since I have no real interest in being beheaded, having lately gained a new aversion to the process.”