“Not if it allows the beastmen to grow smarter while their appetites still rage. I don’t like it.”
The old man stifled another cough as the foreman emerged from the throat of the dig, shovel in hand, to stand before the diggers. The workers sat still as their commander unleashed his latest diatribe. He held up the shovel and waved its bent, blunted tip in a digger’s face, ranting about damage to equipment. Throwing the shovel down, he castigated another for laziness and another for moving too slowly with the wheelbarrow. Then he threatened to summon Captain Ark-robin to punish the mappers for leading them into such an obstacle.
The younger man started forward, but the old one grabbed his sleeve. “Wait. Look.” He gestured down the long line of stone-laden carts.
A young woman wrapped in an elegant cloak sewn from grey green leaves scurried birdlike between the large wooden wheels and ducked under the carts. She clasped a chain of yellow bindweed, its long-stemmed strands punctuated with explosions of flowers, which she wound around and through the wheelspokes.
Watching her, their eyes awakened. She had been busy for a while. Among rain-wet boulders on several carts, certain rocks had become luminescent—ember red, flame blue, harvest gold. All along the haunches of the carthorses, she had inked spiraling tattoos, a script telling of strength, grace, and motion.
The young woman hesitated before the span of a wood-spoked wheel. She rummaged in a shoulder bag so full of cargo it nearly burst at the seams and withdrew a lump of chalk. In a sweeping motion, she dragged it along the edge of the wagon wheel until it gleamed as if plated with gold. Then she moved to the next wheel, laughing. Finally, she ducked out of sight to make more mischief behind the carts.
The younger man had already taken several steps toward the meddler when he heard his friend hiss a warning. The foreman had noticed them at last.
“Who do you two think you are?” The diggers’ superior officer unleashed a barrage of expletives. “Think you can skulk around by the carts and excuse yourselves from my speech?” He sloshed through the mud toward them, spitting his words.
“We were about to empty these carts.”
“Don’t,” his friend whispered in warning. “Don’t provoke him.”
“I commanded the force to assemble,” said the foreman.
“The wheels will warp if you let the carts sit overloaded in the rain.”
“Overloaded? Do you think you know more about this kind of work than I do?” the foreman said. “This is my dig site, not your backyard.”
“In fact,” remarked the younger man coolly, “it is my backyard.”
“Prince Cal-raven,” whispered the old man so only he could hear. “Not now.”
The foreman stopped in his tracks, notching new curses to the bow.
The prince was not about to stop what he had set in motion. “Isn’t it interesting? You see my muddy raincloak and assume I’m one of your charges. But you were entrusted with fifty officers, Blyn-dobed. And I count fifty who were listening to you. I might be a Bel Amican spy in disguise. I might be a thief or a merchant come to lift what I can for a trade.”
Frantic, the foreman scanned the faces of his now-attentive workers. Then fixing a firmer grip on the shovel, he faced his challenger.
The young man began to walk a wide circle around the foreman. “It’s your job to secure this dig. But it appears to me that you think it’s your job to shout at good workers who are exhausted from your demands. I think they’re suffering enough from the weather, not to mention the abuse inflicted upon them by that one.” Prince Cal-raven gestured to the musician’s escort. “That one, who calls himself a royal authority on music. In the meantime…” The young man pulled back his hood to reveal his sharp brown eyes, his scraggle of beard, his wild braids of redbrown hair, and the emblem of royalty emblazoned on his tunic.
The foreman knelt. “Prince Cal-raven! I…”
“In the past few days, your diggers have made Abascar proud. And you reward remarkable progress with a lesson in cursing, accompanied by nursery rhymes.”
“My lord, we were told you were off on a hunt,” said the foreman, clearly shaken.
“If you had known I was coming, what would you have done?” Cal-raven stopped, standing between the foreman and his workers. “You’d have posted a guard at each corner. Emptied these carts. Someone would be helping poor Yawny prepare the meal. Instead the old Gatherer’s in that tent trying to cook for fifty hungry laborers all by himself. Is it hard for you to guess, Blyn-dobed, why I sneak away from a hunt and enter your camp in disguise?” Cal-raven turned to the diggers. “I tire of people putting on airs of duty whenever I step into a room, knowing they’re going to drop their guard as soon as my back is turned. I insist upon knowing the people of my house as they are. And I prefer to see Abascar’s laborers treated with respect.”
Cal-raven picked up the shovel. “You punish them for blunting shovels? Who is in charge of making sure they have the proper tools? You use this? For tunneling? It’s about as flimsy as the song that poor Lesyl is being forced to sing.”
“Sire,” squeaked the musician’s escort, his round head reddening in the rain. “Your own father approved these songs.”
“Yes. He did approve them…for a formal occasion so many years ago that nobody can remember their purpose.” Propelled by the same energy and pride that had made his mother famous, the prince marched toward the escort. “Songs are not meant to be used as blunt instruments, Snyde.” He tossed the shovel down, splashing mud over the escort’s polished boots. “They’re supposed to lift us, dazzle us, rekindle our spirits. Oh, those are impressive honor stitches on your uniform, but you obviously didn’t earn them for your understanding of music.”
The singer covered her mouth with her hand and turned her head.
Cal-raven approached her, placed his hand on her shoulder. Flustered, she smiled at him. “Good morning, Lesyl,” he said with a familiar wink. “I’ve heard rumors that you’ve composed some rather beautiful songs of your own. Let’s hear one. The men have suffered enough.”
“Sire!” shrieked her escort, who was now almost hysterical. “She does not have the authority to select music. The songs must be approved. These honors on my jacket represent my—”
“Snyde, those badges—which you bought—speak of nothing more than what you’ll pay to convince us of your own imagined greatness.”
The foreman spoke with just enough menace to draw back the prince’s attention. “You are going too far, Cal-raven ker Cal-marcus.”
Cal-raven met the foreman’s steely gaze.
“You’re right. I should have posted guards. Yes, I will correct my oversight. Now, if you’re smart, you’ll call your friend out of the tunnel. We have not secured it. And with so much rain, he might be buried in a cave-in.”
“My friend?” The prince was startled to find that his companion had vanished. And then he saw the tracks, which led down the ramp and through the dig’s gate.
One of the diggers gasped. “By the beard of Har-baron, look!” He pointed at the boulder carts. All the diggers came to their feet, agog, seeing for the first time the elaborate decoration of their equipment.
“Sabotage!” roared the musician’s escort. “Foreman, your carts have been compromised. Somebody’s defying the Proclamation.”
“You see, Snyde?” said Cal-raven. “Imagination actually offends you.”
“Foreman.” It was Marv the digger who stepped forward. “Permission to examine the wheelbarrows, sir.”
With a quick, nervous look at Cal-raven, Blyn-dobed nodded, and the diggers rushed, like excited children, to inspect the colors, designs, and ornaments festooning their equipment.
Lesyl began a new song, and the string-weave was transformed. The notes danced in light and shimmering tones. The more she played, the more confidence she gained, smiling at Cal-raven as if the song were emerging on its own, to her surprise and delight.
In that tense and temper-charged moment, the ground suddenly
quaked.
All of them turned to the opening of the dig, where a cloud of dust swirled up and out into the rain.
Cal-raven’s smile vanished.
The quake rattled the carts, and one of the wheels broke so that the cart tipped and dumped an avalanche of boulders into the puddles.
The prince sprang forward, yelling at the foreman not to follow him, despite the shouts of protest growing distant as he ran. He fought his way down the long ramp into a crooked, torch-lined corridor.
And there, where the tools were piled beside coal black stone, mounds of fresh rubble were settling. The wall of glittering blacklode had cracked, revealing a clear passage to the other side.
“Scharr ben Fray!” Cal-raven exclaimed. “Why didn’t you wait? We were going to do this together. How do you expect me to learn stonemastery when you finish the job without me?” His words echoed in the breakage, and he listened to them fade. When he spoke again, it was in whisper. “Where have you—?”
Something struck him in the shoulder, and he sprawled onto cold shards of blacklode. Over him, a shadow loomed.
“You impudent child,” the old man hissed.
“Teacher!”
“I’ve been counseling you since you were crawling. Haven’t you learned anything?”
The prince scrambled backward on his hands, exasperated. “You taught me everything! Everything that matters…”
“I didn’t teach you that!” The mage nodded toward the falling light. “Knowledge is one thing. Wisdom is another. Your arrogant tantrum out there…You may be right, but you’re as guilty as the lot of them for the pride with which you say it.” The old man gestured at the broken wall. “You’ve learned a thing or two about stonecrafting. But do you think that after a pompous show like that, which I’m sure has won you many admirers, I’m going to let you work some wonder and dazzle them all the more?”
“Most of the diggers will understand what I…”
“Here’s what they now understand: Prince Cal-raven thinks their foreman is a buffoon. You’ve thrown fuel on the fires of resentment. This will fracture and trouble the dig. And if any of these beastmen that worry you should ambush? The men might not be ready to defend themselves.”
“But that foreman…he’s—”
“Blyn-dobed is a windbag. But he knows a few things about his job.” The stonemaster stopped to listen.
The foreman’s voice was raised again, demanding that the laborers repair the broken cart and lighten the load on the others.
“If his diggers don’t fear his temper,” Scharr ben Fray continued in haste, “then their own willfulness will stir up chaos. If you reprimand him in front of the workers, you hurt your father’s mission. If you speak with him at all, speak to him with respect. Blyn-dobed might have actually learned something if you hadn’t humiliated him. Now, you’ve only made him angry.”
Cal-raven climbed slowly back to his feet. “Of course.”
“You’re the son of Queen Jaralaine, Cal-raven.” Affection was returning to the mage’s rasping voice. “Your mother’s arrogance…it ruined her. It cost her everything. And it also cost your father. Never forget that.” He grabbed Cal-raven by the shoulders. “Abascar will be yours someday, perhaps sooner than you expect. Be clever, but humble. Don’t follow her example.”
There were footsteps splashing down the ramp. Three diggers stopped, mere outlines in the dusty air. They were silent, staring in disbelief at the break in the blacklode. Then they ran back up the ramp, uttering selections from the foreman’s book of expletives.
Scharr ben Fray watched them go. “We’re out of time. We will meet again soon. Somewhere else. I wish to tell you what I’ve learned…Strange and incredible things.”
“Does it concern your search for the Keeper?”
“Not exactly. But it does concern that troublemaking girl.”
“When will you meet me again?”
“I will leave you a sign. You will find it. Don’t worry about that. I’ll place it right in your path. Look closely.”
The foreman’s pace slowed as he approached them through the dust.
A smile eased Scharr ben Fray’s expression, and it was once again the gentle, gracious face that Cal-raven had grown to love. “Look closely.”
And then he was gone through the gap.
“The blacklode!” Blyn-dobed walked a few steps into the new passage. “There is only one man in the Expanse who could even attempt such a display of power.”
While the foreman stared into the darkness, Cal-raven stunned him further by unsheathing a dagger and handing it over, hilt first. It was a soldier’s ceremonial gesture of surrender—a bit out of place, but clear in its intention. “I owe you an apology, foreman. I have dishonored you in front of your laborers. I will go and address them and praise your leadership. Forgive me. I spoke out of turn.” He then exposed his forearm, an invitation for scarring.
Blyn-dobed reluctantly accepted the hilt of the dagger. Then he turned it and gave it back, quickly, as if it were hot to the touch. “Forgiven, of course,” he said. And then, quietly, he added, “It is true, you have shaken my reputation with the diggers. Allow me to speak candidly, and keep my words to yourself. I respect your desire to see your people as they really are, Prince Cal-raven. Your father, whom I obey without exception, hides behind palace walls and sends orders with no sense of the cost. So hear this. Dissension is growing. There are men among these diggers who are not likely to swallow their frustrations much longer. Warn your father about the grudgers. Ask him to consider their complaints.”
Cal-raven left Blyn-dobed to contemplate the magic of Scharr ben Fray. He climbed back out into a song of trouble and longing.
Lesyl’s new song was reminding the men of all they loved back home. It gave shape to their loneliness, their weariness, and hunger. It awakened them.
Cal-raven listened, admiring the verse, while he searched for the meddling girl from the wild. He lifted his eyes toward home, up the western slopes to the northern edge of the Cragavar woods. And there she was—the small, mischievous stranger—slipping away. To his amazement, the girl sat astride a wild black viscorcat, holding the scruff of the predator’s neck with the familiarity of a rider on her favorite horse.
“Auralia,” he muttered, remembering the name at last.
10
A DAY OF RAIN AND ROBBERY
T he viscorcat ran while Auralia clutched fistfuls of fur at the nape of his neck, his purr resonating through his throat. Woods opened before them, fields parted as they passed. They splashed up rainy inclines and flew down the opposite slopes.
As the wind streamed through Auralia’s hair, the thickweave pouch at her side kept her warm. It warmed her for the hours of care she had spent crafting its cargo—a collection of inventions to lift the spirits of the Gatherers, to distract them from their troubles, to prompt their curiosity.
There was more, something unfinished folded beneath those packages. She carried with her everywhere the intricately woven threads of her finest work, an incomplete creation, a mystery. She kept it close in case she should find its missing piece, its final thread.
While the big cat ran, Auralia fell into a trance. The details of the landscape around her became a blur of color, which she sifted in search of some new hue.
At times a pattern or a shape would awaken her, and she would steer the cat to follow it, convinced there were tracks in the grass ahead, fresh impressions fading in the rain. But at other times she doubted, suspecting the trail was only a delusion born of wishing.
It was the way she lived each day—following a notion of the Keeper’s progress. When she was very young, no one could tell her what was or wasn’t, and she had been certain of finding the Keeper’s tracks. But that was so long ago. Now, almost sixteen years among the Gatherers, Auralia’s curiosity had taken a troublesome turn. For all her self-assurances, for all her claims, she had not seen evidence quite so convincing for months. In her darkest hours she challenged her own ass
umptions of what she had seen. If she could not find tracks to follow, she would feel lost and discouraged and wonder if she had ever walked in the Keeper’s path.
Seeking such signs, her intuitions had led her to the Abascar dig. Decorating carts had been an unexpected joy, lifting her spirits whether she had been led there or not. Now she thrilled to the run, eager to reach the Gatherers before sunset, anxious to entertain them with her surprises.
As they crested that last thickly wooded hill before the descent into orchards and down to the shelters, the cat slowed. He stopped and pawed the air, spreading his toes with foreclaws extended to signal his delight.
But then he paused, an alarm rippling from his head to his toes, his tail bristling until it was as thick as the rest of his body. He stared at a mossy boulder, his tufted ears sharp and cupped. Auralia heard what had caught his attention—the nervous whispers of children hiding behind the stone.
“Isabel,” Auralia scolded, “you and your cousins are not to climb this hill, and you know it! Now get back before I tell Dukas here to eat ya.”
Screams—the sort that can warp a person’s spine—seared the air, and a huddle of girls in berrystained tunics scampered through the edge of the trees and down, down the grassy hill to the orchards. The farther they ran, the more their screams thinned from knives to needles, but they cut Auralia’s ears all the same, and the cat’s purr soured into a whine of displeasure.
“Oh, be tough, Dukas.” Auralia slid off the feline’s back. She scratched his cheeks, where his whiskers were thick as spike-crawler spines, and his lips beaded with sparkling drool.
She drew from her shoulder bag an unfinished scarf—sky blue and cinnamon—and hung it around his neck. He smiled and pressed her shoulder with his cheek, gleaming green eyes clenched shut. Then he padded in circles before curling up on a bed of intoxicating madweed.
Auralia sighed and patted the grey stripes of his brow. “Thank you, Dukas. I’ll be away for just a while. Rain or otherwise, I gotta make my deliveries.”