The Raven Ring (40 page)

“You’re the healer.”

“Now, then—what happened?”

Karvonen started to shrug, winced, and stopped short. “I ran into a man who wanted some information. The only way to convince him that he was getting what he wanted was to let him…persuade me to give it to him.”

“But the silencing spell…” Eleret said, then stopped, uncertain how to continue.

“He put it on and off like a gag. Very effective. It’d be a useful trick to know, under some circumstances.”

“This, I take it, represents the fellow’s means of persuasion,” the healer said with a disapproving frown at Karvonen’s injuries.

“Not all of it. Some of the bruises are from rolling off the bed.” Karvonen gave Eleret an apologetic look. “I couldn’t get loose, but I thought I could make it look as if I had. So I rolled off, and sort of slid underneath, and pulled the blankets down. It was the best I could do.”

“You must have either an iron constitution or an iron head,” Livarti said acidly. “With a damaged kidney, that kind of movement—”

“It…wasn’t one of the more pleasant things I’ve ever done,” Karvonen admitted.

The healer snorted. “You’re luckier than you deserve. About this man you met—the Commander will want details. The Emperor frowns on incidents like this; whoever did it—”

“The Commander already has details, and the man who did it is dead,” Eleret put in. She looked at Karvonen. “Are you sure you weren’t a little
too
convincing?”

Karvonen smiled very slightly. “Now that you mention it, I think maybe you’re right.”

“Next time, don’t overdo it,” El?ret said, and touched his shoulder lightly, careful not to add to his pain. “Or Jaki will be convinced you’ve taken up that Fourth Profession of yours.”

“There had better not
be
a next time,” Livarti said. “I don’t like patching people up twice.”

“Don’t worry,” Karvonen told him. “I never disobey a healer’s orders.”

“Then you’re the first patient I’ve ever had who doesn’t. Quiet now. I’m going to do some preliminary work on that kidney, and set a few binding spells to hold the rest of you together until we get you to the infirmary. Freelady, would you tell the Captain to send two men up with a litter in about half an hour? I’ll tend to that arm of yours as soon as I’m finished here.”

That was a dismissal if she’d ever heard one. Reluctantly, Eleret rose and left the room. As the door swung closed behind her, she heard the low murmuring of the healer’s spells begin once more.

TWENTY-NINE

F
OR THE NEXT TWO
days, Karvonen lay in a small room in the infirmary of the Imperial Guard of Ciaron, tended alternately by Commander Weziral’s healer Livarti, and the Vallaniri healer, whom Daner insisted on sending over the moment they returned to his home. Eleret was impressed by the speed with which Karvonen’s bruises purpled and faded; in the mountains, he’d have rivaled a rainbow for a week. The cuts, too, healed unnaturally fast. By the evening of the second day, there was only a network of darker skin to show where they had been, as if someone had painted a diagram of Ciaron’s streets across his face and chest in walnut juice.

We need someone at home who can do things like that,
Eleret thought, watching Karvonen devour a dinner large enough for three men. Such rapid healing, the two physicians had explained, made unusual demands on the patient’s physical reserves. Until he was well enough to leave, Karvonen would spend whatever time was not occupied by the healers’ treatments either eating or sleeping.
Maybe Climeral can send a teacher to the mountains next year, or maybe he’ll let Orimern or Calla come to school here. I’ll have to ask him before I leave.

Finally, Karvonen pushed the tray away and sat back with a sigh against the pile of pillows at the top of the bed. Daner frowned. “Are you sure you’ve had enough? You’ve left half the fish paste.”

“I’m sure,” Karvonen said. “Anyway, they’ll be back with another load in two hours. If I’ve missed anything, I’ll make it up then.”

“Livarti says—”

“Livarti can go shovel fish-heads. I’m not eating any more tonight, and that’s that.”

“I’m pleased to see that you’re feeling better,” Commander Weziral said. As one, Eleret and Daner turned to find him standing in the open door of the room. “And since you’re all in one spot, perhaps you can fill in a few details in regard to this shapeshifter of yours. I’ve put off making my report as long as I can.”

“What do you need to know?” Daner asked.

“What that shapeshifter was after, for a start,” the Commander replied promptly. “After that—well, it would be nice to know exactly what happened before my men got to that inn, and why.”

“I usually charge for this, you know,” Karvonen muttered.

“No you don’t,” Eleret said. “That’s a different branch of your…family business.”

“Ah? What business are you in?” Weziral asked.

“Oh, my family has broad interests,” Karvonen said. “I’m sure you wouldn’t be interested in the details. I’m in the acquisitions end of things,” he added blandly.

Daner made a choking noise.

“I thought what happened at the inn was fairly obvious,” Eleret said quickly. “Mobrellan left some Syaski there in case we came before he found us, and we had to fight our way through them when we arrived.”

Weziral sighed. “Yes, but
why
? Posthumous revenge is well enough in minstrel’s tales, but—”

“He didn’t expect it to be posthumous,” Daner said. “And— Well, it will be easier if I start at the beginning.”

“I’ve been waiting for someone to say that. Hold on a minute.” Weziral went out, returning almost at once with another stool. He sat down and looked at Daner expectantly. “You were saying?”

“Mobrellan was the bastard son of a Rathani wizard,” Daner said. “Illegitimate offspring aren’t highly regarded in Rathane, so even though he had his father’s magical abilities, he didn’t have much of a future to look forward to.”

“Until he got himself hooked by a Shadow-born,” Karvonen said.

“Exactly. I don’t know whether he tried to summon the Shadow-born, or whether the Shadow-born felt some of Mobrellan’s more…unusual magical experiments and reached out to him without being called, but it doesn’t matter. Mobrellan—”

“How did you find out all this?” Eleret asked, frowning.

Daner gave her a guilty look. “Jonystra Nirandol has recovered enough to talk. My father and I spent the afternoon asking questions. You were busy with Adept Climeral, or I’d have asked you to join us.”

Ciaronese have no sense of priority.
“I see. Go on.”

“Jonystra really was a Trader once, but the caravans threw her out. I think she was cheating the customers.”

“All Traders cheat their customers,” Karvonen said.

“Then it must have been for getting
caught
cheating the customers,” Daner said with exaggerated patience. “Anyway, she and Mobrellan have been together for a long time, so she was able to tell us a lot.

“Mobrellan learned how to draw on the Shadow-born’s power—that’s where his shape-changing ability came from—but it still wasn’t enough to get him accepted by the Rathani wizards’ guilds. Then Grand Master Gorchastrin announced that he’d discovered something that would put his particular guild at the helm, and Mobrellan went a little crazy. He thought, you see, that Gorchastrin had hooked his own Shadow-born, which would mean that the guilds wouldn’t need Mobrellan’s borrowed abilities at all.

“What Gorchastrin had really discovered, of course, was the existence of Eleret’s ring.”

“But my ring wouldn’t have been any help to a Rathani wizard,” Eleret objected. “Would it?”

Karvonen grinned. “It bounced spells, didn’t it? The Rathani wizards’ guilds have such a complicated stack of spells and counterspells and counter-counterspells among them that all it would take is one little disruption to bring the whole mess down around their ears.”

“That’s what Jonystra said.” Daner threw an annoyed look in Karvonen’s direction. “Mobrellan went to see Gorchastrin the night he died. Jonystra doesn’t
know
that Mobrellan killed him, but… In any case, Mobrellan came back determined to get his hands on the raven ring. He thought he could use it to control a Shadow-born completely, instead of having to accept whatever dribbles of power it chose to offer him.”

“The more fool he,” Karvonen said, shuddering.

“Mobrellan and Jonystra left immediately for the border, which was where Gorchastrin had detected the magical disturbances that led him to the ring.”

“Ma must have been wearing it in a battle,” Eleret put in.

“If a Rathani tried a battle spell, the ring would deflect it, and from what you’ve said, the wizard would notice for sure.”

Daner nodded. “It took them a while to track your mother down. When they did, she was recovering from wounds. Mobrellan used his shape-changing to slip into the infirmary tent and try to talk her into giving him the ring. When she wouldn’t, he used his shadow magic. Someone interrupted him before he finished, and he left, planning to return the following night.”

“But by then Ma was already dead,” Eleret said softly.

“Yes.” Daner gave her a sympathetic look. “He’d overestimated her strength, or the ring’s, or underestimated the power he’d put into his attempt at persuasion.”

No, he underestimated what Ma would do to keep him from getting hold of what he wanted,
Eleret thought, but she did not say it aloud. After all, she had only her own inner certainty as evidence. Pa would understand, but not these Ciaronese.
Well, maybe Karvonen…

Daner glanced at Commander Weziral. “Mobrellan had also underestimated the efficacy of the Ciaronese army. By the time he came back, Freelady Salven was on her pyre, and her personal effects had been sealed to send home.”

“I suppose Mobrellan was responsible for the various attempts to get at the effects afterward, as well,” Weziral said.

Daner nodded again. “He heard someone talking about Eleret one day when he was here looking for a way to get at them. That’s how he found out she was coming to pick up her mother’s things.”

“Rathani are idiots,” Karvonen said disgustedly. “With a little practice and a bit more common sense, that man could have made a fortune as a spy, but did he even think of it? No. He was too busy haring off after Eleret’s ring on the chance that it would get him into that rat’s nest the Rathani call guild politics.”

“It’s as well that it didn’t occur to him,” Weziral said, frowning. “The chaos he could have caused doesn’t bear thinking of.”

“Sorry.” Karvonen shrugged. “I just hate to see talent go to waste, that’s all.”

“The rest of the story you already know,” Daner said to Weziral, pointedly ignoring Karvonen. “Mobrellan couldn’t get at the ring while it was in your office, so he got Maggen to try for it here. He also planted some rumors among the Syaski, because he’d heard they disliked Cilhar, and even tried to get hold of the ring himself by posing as Gorchastrin. When that didn’t work, he and Jonystra tried the card-charting.”

“So it was just a trick to get into your house?” Eleret said.

“Not entirely. They
were
trying to manipulate your future, but Mobrellan didn’t know enough about the cards, and he didn’t realize that since Jonystra was doing the chart, she would have to control the spell and whatever power he fed into it. She’s nowhere near the magician he was, so she lost control fairly quickly. At that, she’s lucky. If she’d hung on for another card or two, she’d probably be dead now.

“When the spell went wrong, Mobrellan abandoned Jonystra and ran. Later, he tried to trick Eleret out of the ring by pretending to be me, but it didn’t work. After that…” Daner shrugged. “You know as much as we do.”

“After that, he went back to Jonystra’s room at the Broken Harp to try to think of something else,” Karvonen said. “He was still thinking when I got there to search the place. Apparently my arrival gave him all sorts of brilliant ideas.”

“No need to go into detail,” Weziral said. “I think Livarti has given me a fairly good picture of all that went on.” He looked at Eleret. “It’s a good thing that ring of yours was destroyed.”

“What?” Eleret stared at him in surprise.

“If you still had it, I would be forced to confiscate it,” the Commander said. “The Emperor has placed rather specific limits on the types of magical objects that his subjects may hold, particularly within the city of Ciaron. I am sorry for your loss, but I confess that I am pleased to be spared an unpleasant necessity.”

Karvonen looked at the Commander, started to say something, and then closed his mouth and shook his head. From his expression, Eleret thought she knew what he was thinking.
It wouldn’t have been that easy to get Ma’s ring from me, Emperor’s law or no. Just as well we don’t have to worry about it.

“Speaking of which, I have a…memento for you, Freelady,” Weziral went on. “That is, if you wish to take it.”

Eleret looked at him in surprise, and he smiled and pulled a small object out of his pocket. When he held it out to her, she saw that it was the melted remnant of the raven ring.

“We…retrieved it from the shapeshifter’s body after you left,” Weziral said. “It retains no magical properties, and no traces of shadow magic or the Shadow-born; that’s been checked, several times, in as many different ways as we could think of. A sufficiently expert wizard might be able to enchant it again, but there’s no hope of reproducing the original spell. Varnan magic is beyond most of us, I fear.”

“The magic was never the important part,” Eleret said, taking the silvery lump from Weziral’s hand. “Not to us. I’m glad to have it.” She looked down, studying it. The silver had melted and run into a flattened blob, partially covering the raven stone. Only the raven’s head and upper wings were still visible.
The raven is for protection, the stone is for night and
s
hadow, and the silver…the silver is for sacrifice. I should have remembered that sooner. I bet Ma did.
She blinked back tears and looked up. “Thank you, Commander.”