The Raven Ring (26 page)

Karvonen’s eyes grew large in a parody of surprised innocence. “Heavens no! I was speaking of the Emperor of
Rathane.
I thought that was obvious.”

Eleret almost laughed at the blend of suspicion and annoyance on Daner’s face. “Why should it be obvious?” Daner demanded.

“Because the crown of the Emperor of Rathane is far more impressive.” Karvonen’s eyes went out of focus, as if he were gazing at something in the middle of the room that only he could see, and his voice took on a dreamy quality. “Three flawless blue-white diamonds, each the size of a hen’s egg, and a good two dozen more as big as my thumbnail; six matched rubies and eight sapphires as big as a dove’s egg; four big square emeralds that would fill a child’s palm; and enough smaller gems to stock a jewelsmith’s shop for at least four years. Plus a goodly amount of gold and silver to hold them all together, of course. Tasteless, but immensely valuable. The scepter—”

“I don’t believe it,” Daner said.

“Oh, that’s right. You’ve never been to Rathane.”

“Neither have I,” Eleret put in. “Nor do I intend to go there. So this whole discussion is beside the point as far as I’m concerned. If you two want to continue it, go out into the hall so I can get some sleep.”

“But you haven’t told me what I want to know yet,” Karvonen said plaintively.

“I’ve told you as much as you’ve asked,” Eleret said, trying to be patient. “If you
will
keep wandering off the main trail—”

Karvonen sighed. “Oh, very well. The ring. Everybody wants it, you say. How did
you
get it?”

“It’s a family heirloom.”

There was a moment’s silence; then Karvonen shook his head. “Getting information out of you is like trying to take a toy from a toddler,” he complained. “So you inherited the thing. How long ago? From whom, exactly? Under what circumstances? How many people knew about it? And how many of
them
know the ring is magical?”

“No one,” Eleret said, frowning, “I didn’t know it myself until today. So how do
you
know?”

Karvonen sighed again, this time with more sincerity. “My big mouth. I guessed.”

“Did you?” Daner said skeptically. “Or did you know before you came here looking for it?”

“If I’d known, I wouldn’t have come, Cilhar debt or no Cilhar debt. I don’t fool around with magic.” Karvonen paused. “If I can help it.”

“How did you guess?” Eleret asked.

“It was the way you saved my life a minute ago,” Karvonen said reluctantly. “You’re no magician, so whatever broke the choking spell—”

“What?”

Karvonen looked from Eleret to Daner and back. “You didn’t realize, either of you? The shapeshifter threw a choking spell at me just before your raven’s-foot hit his shoulder. Eleret broke it when she grabbed my hands. If she hadn’t— Anyway, there aren’t many Cilhar magicians, so the odds were good that she had something with her that neutralized magic. When you said everyone was after that ring, it seemed obvious.”

“The ring neutralizes magic?” Eleret stared down at her hand. “I thought it just warns me whenever there are spells nearby.”

“Warns you?” Karvonen sat bolt upright, his studied air of casualness completely gone. He leaned forward, every fiber intent. “How does it warn you, Freelady?”

“It pricks my finger.”

“But not always,” Daner pointed out. “It didn’t react to my probe.” He rubbed his chin. “Not in any way
you
could feel, at least.”

“Well, that part fits with what Karvonen just said about neutralizing magic.” Eleret frowned, struggling to explain clearly what she wasn’t sure she quite grasped herself. “And I think it only warns me when I need warning.”

“Then why didn’t it let you know about Jonystra?” Daner asked.

“Who’s Jonystra?” Karvonen asked. “And how and why did she try to get hold of the ring? And don’t ask me how I know that, because you’ve mentioned the name several times already, and it’s fairly clear she’s not trying to help out.”

Eleret looked at Karvonen in mild exasperation. “You ask all the right questions, thief. Trouble is, we don’t have the answers.”

“Start at the beginning, then. It makes for a more organized tale.”

Frowning indignantly, Daner opened his mouth. Then he closed it again and sighed. “It’s your choice, Eleret. I’m still not sure it’s a good idea.”

“What can we lose?” Eleret said. Tactically, they were in a strong position; she had the ring, she had allies, and she was in a safe place. Relatively safe, she amended, remembering the shapeshifter. In terms of long-range strategy, however, things were more precarious. She didn’t know enough about the ring, about who wanted it and why. Without more information, she couldn’t plan an effective defense. On the other hand… She turned to Karvonen.

“Information for information, you said. What have you got to trade that might be useful to us?”

“I won’t know until I hear your story.”

“You’ll have to do better than that,” Eleret said. “I won’t pay in advance for arrows I haven’t tried. Give me an idea of what I’m buying, or take your wares to someone else.”

“And people say the Cilhar are too insular to bargain well.” Karvonen shook his head sadly. “They ought to meet you, Freelady, and readjust their ideas.”

“Your information?”

“Mmmm. I’ve already told you about Grand Master Gorchastrin’s death, but I could add a fair bit about him and his order. Your not-so-friendly shapeshifter seems to be Rathani. I can tell you about their customs, habits, and so on.”

That might be useful, but she wanted more. Eleret gave Karvonen a neutral nod. “Go on.”

“I can tell you a good bit about Ciaronese politics. And a lot about the, er, foibles of the nobility.” Karvonen gave Daner a deliberately guileless look. “Some of it might be quite instructive. I can tell you a few things about shapeshifters that you may not know. And of course, I can always take an order.”

“What does
that
mean?” Daner said.

“What does it sound like? You tell me who or what you want to find out about, and I’ll set the family on to it. In a day or two, you’ll know as much about ’em as can be known.”

Daner snorted. “Then why are you asking
us
about the ring, instead of this miracle-working family?”

Karvonen pursed his lips and stared past Daner’s left shoulder. “Well now, I had thought of that. But I’m not sure they’d tell me.”

“Then what good will it do us to ask you about the ring?” Eleret said, frowning.

“Oh, if
you
ask, Freelady, they’ll give you whatever you want to know. I thought I’d mentioned that there’s an aid-in-distress clause for Cilhar.” Karvonen leaned back against the headboard, a picture of innocence. “So tell me, Freelady: What do you want to know?”

As Eleret hesitated, Daner’s lips twitched. Then he shook his head with reluctant admiration. “You’re a rare catch indeed, thief. You’re setting the younger son against the elder so you can walk off with the family fortune.”

Karvonen smiled smugly. “I told you I was good.”

“I don’t quite follow you,” Eleret said.

“If he’s telling the truth, he’s wiggled himself into a position where we’re going to make it possible for him to get what he wants to know,” Daner said. “On his own, he can’t find out anything from us or from his family. But if we ask, his family will tell us whatever they can dig up. And now that we know that, we have to ask.”

We
? thought Eleret.
It’s my ring
! But all she said was, “Why?”

“Because
somebody
out there knows more about that ring than we do, or they wouldn’t want it so badly.”

“Several somebodies, by the look of it,” Karvonen muttered. “Cilhar never do things by halves.”

“The only way to find out what his family knows is through him,” Daner continued, nodding at Karvonen. “And the only payment he seems interested in is our information.”

“Well, if you offered me the crown of Rathane, I wouldn’t turn it down. The object, that is, not the position.”

“So we tell him what
we
know. Then he talks to his people, they tell him what
they
know, and suddenly he’s the only one with both pieces of information.”

“Until he passes it along to us,” Eleret said.

“Assuming he does.”

“Of course I will!” Karvonen said indignantly. “The family would throw me out for sure if I didn’t.”

Eleret considered briefly. “All right, information for information. But you won’t get everything you want, not before you fill your half of the bargain.”

“Or after,” Karvonen muttered, giving her a sour look. “Well, I suppose it’s my own fault for sticking my fingers through the wrong knothole. Agreed, Freelady. What do you want to know?”

“Quite a lot.” Eleret frowned, trying to decide what would be most useful. “How many people have heard the same rumors you did, and will act on them? How many other thieves will be after my ring?”

Karvonen winced. “There shouldn’t be any. Nobody’s going to waste time on a wild rumor when there are over a dozen targets in Ciaron with a sure payoff. Nobody but me, that is.”

“Then where did all these other people who’re trying to steal Eleret’s ring come from?” Daner demanded.

“What can I say?” Karvonen spread his hands. “They’re not thieves.”

“Then what are they?”

“Amateurs.”

Daner laughed. “All right, I’ll stop fishing in Eleret’s waters. He’s all yours, Eleret.”

“Actually, that was going to be my next question.” Eleret looked at Karvonen. “You know about Gorchastrin, or whoever is pretending to be Gorchastrin, and you’ve heard us talking about Jonystra. If they’re not professional thieves, what are they? And how did they find out about my ring?”

“I don’t know,” Karvonen said. “But I can probably find out. It would help if you’d give me a little more to start with.”

“Such as?”

“Such as Jonystra’s full name, where you met her, and how she got hurt badly enough for him”—Karvonen nodded toward Daner—“to call in a healer. And if you want to know why she wants your ring or how she found out about it, it would help if you told me more about that, too.”

“It would help if we knew more,” Daner muttered.

“Jonystra followed me to the inn the day I arrived in Ciaron,” Eleret said. “She told me her name was Jonystra Nirandol, that she was on her way to Kith Alunel, and that she collected small, old things like brooches and rings. She’s probably the person who searched my room while I was out, though I haven’t any proof of that. When Daner came to the inn to accompany me out of Ciaron, she was talking to me, which is how she met him, Daner’s cousin, Baroja Vallaniri, brought her here to…to amuse people after dinner; he said she was a Luck-seer and would chart cards for everyone. He told us later that a Trader had recommended her. Jonystra charted cards for Daner’s sisters; when she tried to do mine, the cards exploded in the middle of it and burned her.”

“Not quite,” Daner put in. “Fire certainly did shoot out of the cards, but Jonystra’s injuries were back-flow burns.”

“Terrific.” Karvonen rolled his eyes. “Another wizard.”

“I’m not sure.” Daner hesitated, glanced at Eleret, shrugged, and went on. “You don’t get burns like hers from a minor spell-casting. If she’d been doing anything major while she charted Eleret’s cards, I should have felt it, but I didn’t.”

“So?”

“So she may have been using someone else’s magic, not her own.”

“That’s supposed to make me feel better? I assume you don’t have any idea who it could have been.”

“I still think it was Mobrellan,” Eleret said.

Daner shook his head. “If Mobrellan had that kind of power, he wouldn’t have been working for Jonystra.”

“Why not?” Karvonen asked. “And how do you know he was? Who is this Mobrellan person, by the way?”

“Jonystra’s porter,” Daner said with a hint of impatience. “He got away in the confusion after the cards exploded.”

“He vanished,” Eleret corrected. “The same way the shapeshifter vanished from this room a few minutes ago. I think Mobrellan is the wizard who was helping Jonystra, and I think he’s the shapeshifter who pretended to be Daner. He’s probably the person Karvonen says was pretending to be Gorchastrin, too.”

“A wizard
and
a shapeshifter rolled up in one?” Karvonen ran a hand through his hair, thoroughly rumpling it. “This gets worse and worse.”

“I suppose it’s possible,” Daner said, frowning. “But I still don’t see why he’d have bothered playing porter for Jonystra. If he has that much power—”

“Maybe it was easier to hide behind someone else,” Karvonen said. “A lot of shapeshifters work that way; it seems to come with the ability to get inside a different skin. Maybe he wanted someone else to take the blame if things went wrong; maybe they’re old friends or partners; maybe she owed him a favor, or he owed her one. Having power doesn’t mean you have to be right out in front where people can shoot arrows at you all the time.”

“No, but—”

“It’s possible,” Eleret broke in. “You said so yourself. We don’t
know
anything about Mobrellan, and until we do we shouldn’t waste time arguing about whose guess is going to be the right one.”

“So you want to know about Jonystra Nirandol and her porter Mobrellan,” Karvonen said. “Anything else?”

“No.” There was the obnoxious Birok Maggen from the Imperial Guard, of course, but Commander Weziral could tell her what she needed to know about him. It wouldn’t hurt to find out a little more about Gorchastrin, just in case Karvonen was wrong about his being dead, but she’d do better to get that information, too, from other sources. Eleret swallowed a yawn. “That’s all I want, and I want it as soon as I can get it. So you’d better get started.”

“That,” Karvonen said sagely, “was a hint.” He rose smoothly and bowed. “Never let it be said that an Aurelico doesn’t know when to take a hint. It’s been an enlightening evening, Freelady. My lord.”

Daner’s eyes narrowed; then he smiled slightly and returned Karvonen’s bow with a flourish. “That it has. Fare you…well.”

NINETEEN