Raven's Ladder (10 page)

Warney knew Krawg by reputation. And, in fact, by admiration. For how could he not be impressed by a thief who always escaped without hurting anybody, without any evidence to point to him? Krawg had become a secret hero, a pilferer who perplexed the smartest guards.

Once, Warney dashed into a decrepit stable, gripping his favorite feathered hat, which he had just repossessed from his sisters. Stumbling through old piles of dung, he dove to the floor and, lifting an overturned food trough, concealed himself, fitting it over him as neatly as a coffin.

He panted into quiet, endured the stench that saturated his temporary cell, and drifted into a fantasy in which he was the Midnight Swindler himself.

He could never have guessed that the floorboards beneath him were loose or that Krawg himself lay beneath them, hiding from a dispatch of furious guards. And even if he had, how could he have suspected how mightily Krawg was striving to stifle a sneeze?

Whether it was the force of the eventual sneeze, or Krawg’s powerful lurch from a lie-down to a sit-up, or Warney’s spasm of astonishment—it didn’t matter in the end. Warney rose from the floor like a boulder from a catapult. And the boat in which he sailed brained the ornery goat that a merchant had just bullied into a stall.

Krawg and Warney had run together, cursing at each other even as they took turns leading the escape. They learned in their hurry that the merchant was a guest from Bel Amica, and they would never forget his rage. He gave chase like a wild pig, fast as a fitter, thinner man. And it was not until they clambered over a fence into a children’s schoolyard and hid themselves behind archery targets that they were still again. Thus began one of the longest tests of their endurance.

Crouching at the end of the yard, holding the targets before them like shields, they whispered angry accusations at each other. But as the steam of tempers dissipated, Warney’s admiration kindled Krawg’s sense of pride. Soon Krawg regaled his fellow escapist with an array of stories about his wild exploits.

So their ritual began, and Warney came to think of stories as whispered and exciting prologues to some daring disappearance with a prize.

In those early days, Krawg’s stories were exaggerated and—Warney came to believe—stolen. Their twists and surprises were as hot as a panpatty snatched from the fire, and Warney learned that his hero, now his friend, was as skilled in plundering histories and biographies as he was in robbing laundry from the line.

But in time Warney’s doubts conjured questions, and those questions both aggravated Krawg and provoked him to narrate in more elaborate detail. Pleased to find an attentive companion whose curiosity seasoned his stories, and so delighted to train an apprentice in thievery, the Midnight Swindler had welcomed the Bandit as a partner. But there was never any doubt which thief was in command.

Together they had weathered a hundred crimes, and while they harassed each other unceasingly, they also had formed an unbreakable bond. It endured through their disputes, as when Krawg stole Warney’s occasional sweetheart. (That story always ended when the girl absconded with both of the thieves’ broken hearts.) It endured when they were captured and beaten and when Warney lost his eye in an epic escape. It endured when they were exiled from the safety of Abascar’s walls and were made to labor in the harvest until they were old.

One night Warney had wondered, “Krawg, what would drive a wedge between us since not a woman or a wound has ever come close?”

Krawg had given it some thought. “Satisfaction,” he sighed. “Riches would keep us from conspiring, either to snitch what’s not ours—but we don’t go that way no more—or to claim what’s ours rightfully. We’d get lazy and fat, and where’s the fun in that?”

Warney, stunned with the insight, had slowly wagged his head. “Gotta ’gree with ya there.”

Tonight as Krawg applied his talent to a story of ancient adventure, he lavished detail upon each scene, detail that often had nothing to do with the
story but so enriched it with food for the senses and kindling for the imagination that Warney remained enthralled.

Sometimes those meanders would bring the story’s biggest surprises. And like some lucky wanderer who runs away, gets lost, regrets his foolish wanderlust, and stumbles inexplicably upon his own home, Krawg would reach the end of the tale and tie all fraying strands back together.

No story was told more often, in versions more varying, than this—a tale of rebellion, escape, ambition, and tragedy. Tammos Raak, hero to kings and thieves, had stolen children from a formidable cursemaster and led them over the Forbidding Wall. He had delivered them triumphantly into the Expanse and established a house called Inius Throan. Together, they lived in an ongoing celebration of freedom.

And this is where the storyteller came to a fork in the road. Thread-weavers in each house blamed the breaking on founders of other houses. They painted starkly contrasting pictures of failure and betrayal. But each tale concluded with Tammos Raak fleeing to save his life from rebels, wolves, or—in Krawg’s version—monsters. The hero had climbed up the tallest of the world’s starcrown trees and vanished in a cataclysm of fire that left a cavity called Mawrnash.

Krawg’s story, like other versions, was lit by the wrathful eye of the rising red moon. But the detail he imagined led Warney and his companions down a new trail. Warney forgot himself until Krawg fell into a silence, lost in the sadness his own words had opened up.

“Who knew,” said Cal-raven, “that a Gatherer could tell a tale we’ve heard a hundred times and make it something new? Your role in New Abascar is already established.”

Even Bowlder, who hated Gatherers, nodded.

This praise, and the color that covered Krawg’s smiling face, filled Warney with unexpected dismay. He had not imagined that Krawg might ever step into some new purpose. And if he did, what then would become of Warney?

K
aww!” rasped Warney. The raven glowered, guardlike. Its talons squeezed a path-barring branch as if to wring out its sap.

“Brains as brickish as old bread.” Warney lunged and thrust out his hands. “Kaww!”

The raven stared at Warney’s eye as if it were a grape.

Krawg pushed past, his netcaster propped against his shoulder like a spear. He marched right at the bird, and when it finally flew, the branch it had weighed down sprang up, disrupting a cloud of long-legged willowflies that swarmed about Krawg’s head. With foul announcements, he swung at the bugs with the caster.

Warney hurried along until the river’s roar forced him to shout. “Awfully far from camp. And the sun’s already high up. How do we know the king won’t ride off ’n’ strand us?”

“Cal-raven’ll never abandon his own. Let’s catch breakfast where it can still be got. Nuthin’ left in the woods. Critters are as gone as the starcrown trees of Mawrnash.”

Warney made after his friend, gnawing on questions that Krawg’s campfire tale about Tammos Raak and the starcrown trees had inspired. “Why’d they call ’em starcrowns?”

“The way they caught stars in their branches.”

“And Mawrnash, where they grew… How’d it get a name like that?”

“Why, for the Mawrn, of course.” Krawg climbed over a fallen tree and
staggered down a steep riverbank, his feet punching up gobs of mud with each step. “You hear me comin’, fish? Comin’ to getcha!”

“Mawrn, Mawrn. That does me no good if ’n I don’t know what a Mawrn is, Krawg.”

Krawg stalked across the pebbled banks and toed the edge of the narrow watercourse that rippled through the ravine. “The Mawrn’s a creature that’s made of dust. Scattered across the ground—every speck a watchful eye and a whispering tongue. You can’t go near it without it knowin’ you’re there.”

“And what’s it do when it knows you’re there?”

“Nothin’ probably. But it drives the best men crackers, I tell you.” Krawg raised the netcaster and fired. The dart sailed in a high arc, the stream of silvery webbing unspooling behind it. When the barb stung the far shore, the net laced the surface of the golden water until weights sank it to the bottom.

Krawg took the caster and plunged its sharp point into the soft ground to anchor the line’s silvery span. “Once you’ve walked through the Mawrn, the Mawrn goes with you. Your shoes, your hair, your lungs. And then, the Mawrn owns you. Reads your thoughts, every grain a gossip. Nothing’s hidden from the Mawrn.”

“Jellypots,” Warney scoffed. “You mock me for believin’ in North-children and then start shovelin’ vawn nuggets like that? Mawrnash. Makes the Keeper sound as common as a dinner roll.”

“I never said the Mawrn is
real,”
said Krawg. “It’s just a campfire story, made up to explain a big hole in the ground.”

Glancing back, Warney witnessed the bird hopping along through the branches as if striking the notes of an ominous song. “That blasted raven’s following us.”

“The king?” Krawg turned, surprised.

“No, not Cal-raven. What am I? His mother? I’ve never called the king by anything but his formal name.” Warney snatched up a seedcone and threw it at the bird. The raven leaned to dodge but continued to stare at Warney as if it recognized him. “A shame, really, to name a child Raven just because he took his first steps chasin’ some blasted bird.”

“Cal, rava?” asked one of the ravens.

Warney stood quite still.

Then, one by one, more ravens began to appear as if summoned by the first.

Nervous, Warney strode along the shore upstream, the bird in unhurried pursuit. Arriving at a fallen tree that formed half a bridge across the water, he climbed onto its span and cast a pocketful of dried beetles into the stream. They glittered like jewels and pattered the water. The fishermen waited for fish to follow the bait into the net.

The ravens were all around Warney now, closer, perched on every twig and branch of the fallen tree. They began to caw, as if working up courage to push him into the stream. “Now, which one of you summoned Cal-raven from his cradle?” Warney grumbled. “Kawww. Kawww!”

Another raven spoke. “Cal, rava?”

“Krawg, one of these ravens is askin’ for the king!”

Krawg waved his arms and rasped, “Shush! You’ll scare the fish!”

Warney pointed at the guilty bird.

“What berries you been eatin’, Warney?”

“Cal, rava?” asked the raven.

Warney lost his footing and hit the water with such a splash that the ravens scattered. Krawg dove in to grab him by his sodden hood.

“Ballyworms, Krawg!” Warney choked, thrashing. “It called for him!”

“You’ve just scared off the king’s breakfast. We gotta move upriver.” Krawg dragged him to the shore.

“I gotta tell the king.” Warney clambered back up the muddy riverbank and dashed into the trees.

As he ran, he heard the ravens’ frantic pursuit, glanced back over his shoulder, and nearly collided with an approaching horse and rider.

Tumbling off the path, he recognized the man and shouted, “Master Cal-raven!”

Jes-hawk came running not far behind the rider. “Warney, let the king go. Come and see!”

Warney followed the archer back to the campsite, then further south into the woods to a flat patch of ground punctured by thousands of tiny beetle burrows. Bowlder and Snyde were circling a depression in the brittle
earth. Warney reached out to grip a young tree like a walking stick to save himself from falling.

“Seven,” Jes-hawk agreed, scanning the trees. “Seven toes on this foot. And whatever it was, it came through sometime this morning.”

Warney’s eye bulged, and his grin was a fright. “Didja find a baby lying inside?”

“Cal-raven heard something, woke up, and rushed out of the tent,” said Jes-hawk. “Then came an incredible noise. We followed him here.”

“Did he hear the birds?” Warney asked. “Ravens everywhere! Calling his name!”

“Told you they were off eating mushrooms,” muttered Bowlder.

Snyde laughed quietly, kicking at the footprint so that its soft edge collapsed. “And you wonder why I’m concerned about the king. He leaves us behind to chase a monster. Oh, a very bright future awaits us.”

Jes-hawk cursed. “Saddle up. We don’t want to lose him.”

Just then Krawg stepped out of the trees with a net full of wrigglers. He glanced about. “Did I just let pinchers nip my ankles for nothin’?”

“You said the king wouldn’t leave us,” Warney blurted. “Well, he has.”

Following the massive footprints, surrounded by ravens calling his name, Cal-raven crossed the river and rode northward. He rode for hours, confident his company would keep up as he moved along the western edge of Deep Lake.

“Listen for the path.” He repeated Scharr ben Fray’s words to himself. “Listen.”

The ravens’ cries seemed to coax him north and west, through the Cragavar.

“I was there, Cal-raven,” the mage had said as they tossed stones to each other on the threshold of Barnashum. “I stood in your father’s courtyard when Auralia revealed the colors of her craft. The greatest mystery I’ve ever seen. That girl had knowledge that even the wisest of my Jentan brethren lack. Since that revelation, I’ve been crisscrossing the Expanse, looking for the
right answers. You’ve seen the colors too. We both want to know where they come from. Well, I’ve seen something new. And if you are to go forward without doubt, you must see it too.”