Beneath her fingers she felt a tentative response. She pressed the cool bone to her forehead and left it there a long time as she sought to touch the faint pulse of experience.

The sun was setting when she placed the skull gently beside Frostas.

aThis man was not Tier,a she whispered around the throbbing pain in her temples. aHe was a Traveler, dead of a blade, not magic firea"and he died somewhere far away, though not long ago.a aIt doesnat mean that Papaas alive,a he said, obviously hoping shead contradict him. aSomeone tried to make us think him dead with the skull and Frostas bodya"but they might simply have taken his body away, or taken him off to kill elsewhere.a aIt only means that Tier probably didnat die here,a she agreed, fear and hope both held in firm control.

Lehr began filling in the grave, skull and all, and Seraph thought about what she knew.

aLehr?a she said finally.

aHmm?a aThese people who killed Frost took a lot of trouble to obscure their tracks. They werenat good enough to fool you, but they tried very hard. If you hadnat seen their tracks below, would you have noticed them here? If we were looking for Tieras remains rather than evidence that he was taken?a He frowned, aMaybe not.a Seraph nodded. aI think they knew about you. They were careful to take Tier outside of the realm of the forest kinga"I think they knew about him as well. They cleansed Frostas body and the leather and cloth, leaving them no past for me to read. They spent a long time trying to make that skull silenta"and almost succeeded.a aNo one knows about the forest king,a said Lehr, turning over the last spade of dirt. aBut Hennea said that whoever sent the letter to the priest knew what we are.a aYes,a agreed Seraph. aHow did they know, not only that I am Raven, but exactly what my skills are? Most Ravens cannot read the past in an object. These men knew what trail Tier would take homea"and itas not the way he left.a Lehr frowned. aNot even I knew what path Papa takes home. He kept it quiet because the furs are worth a lot of moneya"did you notice that there is no trace of the furs? They would have been packed over Frostas hindquarters, which werenat even scorched.a aNo, I hadnat noticed,a said Seraph. aSo thrifty of them.a Lehr packed in a layer of dirt with his foot. aI suppose that someone could have overheard Jes talking about the forest kinga"but Jes seldom talks to anyone but the family. No one else really pays attention to what he says anyway. And if none of us knew what magic you could do until Forder brought back Frostas bridle, who would know what you could do?a She waited, watching him think about it. If he came up with the same answer as she did . . .

aBandor used to hunt with Papa, didnat he?a Lehr whispered it. aDuring the first years when the bakery used to have to support the farm, too? Jes was just a baby.a aThatas right,a Seraph said.

aAnd, after you and Papa got married, Bandor was the only one who used to talk to you. He knows a lot about the Travelersa"did you tell him what kinds of things you could do?a aYes,a she said.

aAnd Bandor knows about Jesas stories of the forest kinga"but he doesnat believe them, Mother.a She smiled at him grimly. aDo you know who your father thinks the forest king is? I mean aside from Jesas dealings with him?a aNo.a aWhat if I told you that in a very old language, ell means king or lord and vanail is forest. If you put them togethera"a aEllevanal?a Seraph had never seen anyoneas jaw drop before; it was an unattractive expression.

aDo you mean,a whispered her son, athat Ellevanal, god of the forest and growing things, the Ellevanal, Karadocas Ellevanal, is Jesas forest king?a aI donat know,a she said. aToday is the first time Iave met him, and I didnat ask. He doesnat look like a god, does he? But I know that Tier was convinced of it, and he told your Aunt Alinath what he thought.a Alinath had been at her worst, telling Tier that Seraph couldnat give Jes the kind of attention that he needed. That Seraph encouraged Jesas problems by listening to his stories about his made-up friend. A boy, shead said, needed to understand that lying was not acceptable. She hadnat liked it when Tier suggested Jes hadnat lied at all.

Seraph smiled grimly. aBandor was there when he said it.a But Lehr was still worried about other matters. aBut the forest lord belongs here, to our forest. Ellevanal is worshiped everywherea"I mean, Karadoc has had apprentices, and thereas a larger church in Korhadan.a aI donat worship gods,a said Seraph. aYouall have to take it up with the forest king next time you meet him.a Lehr thought about her answer, but it seemed to satisfy him because he changed the subject. aUncle Bandor loves us, loved . . . loves Papa. He wouldnat do anything to hurt Papa.a aSo I believe,a agreed Seraph. aBut you and I both came up with his name. Heas become one of Volisas followers. I think that we need to be cautious around him until we know more.a aSo what are we going to do now?a aFirst weall finish here, then I have a few questions for the priest. Can you take us by the quickest route to Redern?a aYes,a he said. aBut we wonat make it before dark.a aNo matter,a Seraph said coldly. aI donat mind waking up a few people.a Or tearing them limb from limb if she had to. Tier had been taken, alivea"because she couldnat bear it otherwisea"and she intended to find out where he was. And tearing someone limb from limb sounded very, very good. Let Volis face a Raven who knew what he was when he didnat have a cadre of wizards to protect him. Oh, she would have her answers from him before she slept this night.

aWhat about Rinnie?a asked Lehr.

aJes will have gotten back from taking Hennea to the village by now. Rinnie will be safe with him.a Gura barked, and Rinnie looked up from her gardening. But whoever had disturbed the dog was on the other side of the house.

Rinnie jumped to her feet and dusted off her skirt. She put her hand on Guraas collar and set off to see who had come.

CHAPTER 7.

He opened his eyes to utter darkness and a cold stone floor under his cheek, though he didnat remember going to sleep. He took a deep, shaken breath and tried to determine how he got here, wherever here was. The last thing Tier remembered was riding Frost down the mountain on the way back home.

Undeniably, he was no longer on the mountain. The stone floor beneath his hands was level, and his fingers found the marks of a chisel. He was in a room, though he could hear water flowing nearby.

He rose cautiously to hands and knees and felt his way forward until his hands closed on grating set into the floor, the source of the sound of water. The bars were too close to let him put anything wider than his finger through and the water flowed well below that. He tried to pull up the grate, but it didnat so much as shift.

Hours later he was hungry, thirsty, and knew that he was in a room six paces wide by four paces long. An ironbound wooden door was inset flat against one of the narrow walls with the hinges on the outside.

The stonemason responsible for the walls had been very good, leaving only the smallest of fingerholds. Tierad fallen three times, but he finally climbed the corner of the room until he touched a wooden ceiling. By his reckoning it was about twice his height to the floor. With a foot braced on adjacent walls he couldnat put any significant pressure against any of the boards, though he tried all the ones he could reach from his perch.

At last he climbed back down, convinced that the room he was in wasnat anywhere in Rederna"or Leheigh either for that matter. Head been inside the Septas keep a time or two, and the walls in this rooma"which had obviously been designed as a prison cella"were better formed than the walls of the great hall in the Septas keep.

Why had someone gone to the trouble of hauling him off the mountain and imprisoning him? It wasnat as if he, himself, would be worth money to anyone, not the kind of money that would be important to anyone who could afford a cell built like this one was.

He had a long time to think about it.

Emperor Phoran the Twenty-Seventh (Twenty-Sixth if he didnat count the Phoran who united the Empirea"it was the first Phoranas son who had declared himself emperor) stretched his feet out before him and cast a practiced leer at the woman sitting on him. She was all but baring her breasts at him, the stupid cow. Did she really think that his favors were likely to be won by such as she?

He snagged a mug from a nearby serving tray and drank deeply, closing his eyes to the party that had somehow spread from the dining hall to his own private rooms. The laughter of a nearby woman cut through his spine with its falseness.

He wondered what his so-long-ago ancestor would have thought about such decadence. Would he still have set aside his plow to organize his fellow farmers into a militia to defend themselves against bandits? Or would he have turned back to his farming, ashamed that his loins could breed such a degenerate creature as the current emperor?

Phoran sighed.

aAm I boring you, my love?a asked the woman on his lap archly.

He opened his mouth to inflict the kind of cruel remark that had become second nature to him over the past few years, but instead he sighed again. She wasnat worth ita"dumb as a sheep and oblivious to fine nuances of language.

Instead he pushed her off and away with a pat. aGo find someone else to cuddle tonight, thereas a love. This fine ale suits me better than a woman . . . tonight.a Someone giggled as if his remark had been witty. The woman whoad been on his lap swayed her hips and half staggered onto the lap of a handsome young man whoad been seated on the end of the bed, watching the party with a jaundiced eyea"Toarsen, Avaras younger brother, whoad doubtless been told to watch over Phoran while Avar was out in the wilds taking stock of his new inheritance.

Phoran swallowed the better part of the contents of his cup then closed his eyes once more. This time he left them closed. Maybe if he feigned a drunken stupor (a common enough occurrence) they would all go away.

He let his hand fall away from his lips and the mug fell on the plush rug his great-grandfather had imported from somewhere at great expense. He hoped the dark ale ruined the rug. Then the chatelaine would run to Avar when he returned. Avar would listen gravely, and when the chatelaine left, he would laugh and pat Phoran on the backa"and pay attention to him again.

Avar, mentor, best friend, and Sept of Leheigh now that his miserly old father had died hadnat had much time to spend with his emperor lately. Spitefully, Phoran wondered if he should take away the title and lands that kept Avar from noticing that his emperor needed a friend more than he needed another Sept.

Tears of self-pity welled up and were firmly repressed. Tears were something he shed alone, never, never in front of the court no matter how drunk he was.

Self-indulgence aside, Phoran had no intention of taking Avaras inheritance away. He even knew that Avar had to attend to his duties; he just wished he had duties to attend to as well. The endless parties had become . . . sickeninga"like too much apple mead. When would he be old enough to start ruling his empire?

Someone patted his cheek and he slapped at the hand, purposefully making the movement clumsier than necessary. He could drink a fair bit more than he had tonight before it affected him much.

aHeas unconscious.a Phoran recognized the voice. It was Toarsen. He must have gotten rid of the cow, too. aLetas get this room cleared out.a The Emperor listened while people shuffled away. At last the guardsmen came in to gather the few whoad passed out in the chamber. His door shut behind them and he was alone. Without people around, without Avar to keep it at bay, the Memory would come for him, again.

Before he could sit up and call them back, someone spoke. It startled him so that for a moment he didnat quite recognize the speaker.

aSome emperor,a sneered a voice quite close to his ear. Not his Memory but someone whoad stayed after the guardsmen had lefta"Kissel, the younger son of the Sept of Seal Hold. The relief of his mistake almost blinded Phoran to the words. aA beardless boy who drinks himself to sleep every night.a aGot to hand it to Avar,a agreed Toarsen. aI thought that the boy would be harder to tame and wead have to have him killed like the Regent was. But Avaras turned him into a proper sot who jumps when Avar asks.a aWell Iad rather not have to be on the cleanup committee. Heas gone to fat like a capon. Come help me heave him to the bed.a They managed it with grunts and swearing while Phoran concentrated on being as heavy as possible. How dare they speak of him like this? Head fix these imbeciles. Tomorrow his guards would have their heads. He was emperor, theyad forgotten that. Head have Avar . . . Avar was his friend. Just because Avaras brother talked that way about him didnat mean that Avar felt the same way. Avar liked him, was proud of the way he could outdrink and outinsult any man in the court.

aAnd why isnat Avar here to do the honors?a asked Kissel. aI thought he was going to see the Emperor tonight after resting yesterday.a Avar was in Taela?

aHe had some pressing business,a grunted Toarsen, pushing Phoran toward the center of the bed. aHeall admit to coming in late tonight and greet the Emperor over breakfast.a When the men left him alone in his room, the Emperor opened his eyes and rolled off the bed. He walked to the full-length mirror and stared at himself by the light of the few candles that had been left burning.

Mud-colored, too-fine hair that had been coaxed into ringlets this afternoon hung limply around his rounded face, spotty and pale. Hands that had once had sword calluses were soft and pudgy, covered with rings his uncle had eschewed.

aRuins your sword grip, boy,a the regent had said. aA man who canat protect himself depends upon others, too much.a Phoran touched the mirror lightly. aBut you died anyway, Uncle. You left me alone.a Alone. Fear curled in his stomach. Unless Avar was with him, the Memory came every night.

If Avar was in Taela, as Toarsen had claimed, head be staying with his mistress in the town. Phoran could send a messenger to bring him here.

The Emperor stared at his image in the mirror and rolled up the sleeve of the loose shirt he wore. In the reflection the faint marks the Memory left on him each night were almost invisible in the dim candlelight.

Avar planned to lie to his emperor: Avar, who was Phoranas only friend.

The Emperor made no move to summon a messenger.

Food came at irregular intervals through a small opening near the floor that Tier had somehow missed on his first, blind, inspection of the cell. An anonymous hand opened the metal covering and shoved a tray of water and bread through, shutting and latching the cover before Tieras eyes even adjusted to the light.

Still, head grown grateful for those brief moments, for the reassurance that he was not blind.

The bread was always good, flavored with salt and herbs and made with sifted wheat flour rather than the cheaper rye. Bread fit for a lordas table, not a prison cell.

First head tried to fit his situation into some logical path, but nothing about his captivity made sense. Finally head come to the conclusion that he was lacking some information necessary for a solution.

Only then had he raged.

Head slept when he was tired, worn-out from anger and fruitless attempts to find a way out of the cell. When head realized that he was losing track of time he told himself stories, the ones head gathered from the old people of Redern, saved word for word from one generation to the next. Some of those were songs as well as stories, ballads that took almost an hour each to sing.

When the toll of the hours grew too great, head quit singing, quit thinking, quit raging, and given in to despair. But even that left him alone eventually.

Finally, he developed habits to fill the empty hours. He did the exercises head learned when head been a soldier. When he ran out of the ones he could do in his confined space, he made up others. Only after he was sweating and panting, head sit down and tell one story. Then head either rest or exercise again as the impulse took him.

But it was the magic that had given him purpose.

Head known some of the things his magic could do. Seraph had told him what she knewa"and, despite the danger, head used it some over the years. It helped that his magic wasnat the showy sort that people all knew about, like Seraphas. His magic was more subtle.

He could calm an angry drunk or give a frightened man courage with his songs. Such things as any music could do, but with more effect. When he chose, he could commit a song or letter to memory and recall it, word perfect, years later. When head sung at the tavern in Redern, he almost always gave his last song a push to cheer his audience.

It had made him feel guilty, because Seraph had given up her magic entirely. But shead never seemed to mind, never seemed to miss the power that shead set aside.

He could never have set aside his music.

There were some things head avoided. Some things were harmful to his audience; music alone shared the darker emotions with his audience, never magic. He was very careful not to use his magic to persuade others to his willa"words were enough. And then there were the things too obviously magic to use in Redern.

Alone in the darkness of his cell, head succeeded in creating small lights to accompany his songs the first time he tried. They were flickering, faint things, but they comforted him.

Sounds were more difficult, even though head accidently called them once before. After a particularly nasty battle, he and a bunch of the other officers got roaring drunk and someone thrust a small lyre, part of the spoils, into his hands. The song head sung had included fair maidens and barnyard animals. He was pretty certain head been the only one who noticed that the moos and quacks of the chorus were accompanied by the real thing.

He had been trying to re-create the experiment the first time his visitor arrived.

The constant dark had honed his other senses, and the scuff of a foot on the boards above him stopped him midword. Head sat silently, waiting for something more.

Finally, barely audible over the burble of the water that flowed under the grating in the back corner of his cell, head heard it again.

It hadnat been a rat; a rat was too light to make a stout board creak under its weight. Head been almost certain that the noise was made by a person.

aHello,a head said. aWho is there?a The boards had given a small, surprised squeak and then there was nothing. Whoever it had been, he had left.

Some unknowable span of time later, while Tier was doing push-ups, head heard it again. Head stilled, too worried that he would drive whoever it was off again if he made another move. He hadnat heard another sound, but somehow he knew that his visitor was gone. Desperate for company, Tier turned his thoughts toward enticing his visitor to stay.

Tier awoke with the knowledge that there was someone nearby. He hadnat heard anything, but he could feel that someone stood above him listening. He sat up, leaned his back against the wall, and began his story with the traditional words.

aIt happened like this,a he said.

If he pretended that his eyes were closed, he could think himself leaning against the wall at home telling stories to his own restless children so theyad fall asleep faster. Seraph would be cleaninga"she was always in motion. Maybe, he thought, she would be grumpy as she sometimes got when Rinnie was tired and the boys were restless. Her face would be serene, but the tautness of her shoulders gave her away.

I wonder if she knows that something has happened to me? Is she looking?

It was an old thought by now, and held a certain comfort.

aA boy came to be king when he was only sixteen,a Tier said, awhen his own father died in battle. War was common then, and the kingdom he inherited was neither so large nor so powerful that the king could sit in safety and leave the fighting to his generals.a The story of the Shadowed was one he knew so well that he had once told it backwards, word for word, for a half-drunken wager. Head missed one phrase, but his comrades hadnat noticed.

aThis young man,a he said, awas a good king, which is to say that he promoted order and prosperity among his nobles and usually kept the rest from starvation. He married well, and in time was blessed with five sons. As years passed and his sons became men, his kingdom waxed in wealth because the king was skilled at keeping the neighboring kingdoms fighting among themselves rather than attacking his people.a The floor above him made a sound, as if a listener were settling in more comfortably. Tier added his unknown listener to his audience.

A boy, he decided with no more evidence than his visitoras willingness to travel without lights. There were spaces between the boards that would have let light into Tieras cell, if his unknown guest had brought so much as a single candle with him.

He would be a boy old enough to be allowed to wander about on his own, but not so old as to have other duties to attend to; an adventurous boy who would venture into the dark corners where prisoners were kept.

aThe king had many of the interests of his kind. He could hunt and ride as well as any of his men. He danced with grace and could play the lute. None of his guardsmen or nobles could stand long against him with sword or staff.a Tier had always had some doubt about the kingas prowessa"what kind of fool would beat his king at swordplay?

Tier fought to picture the king in his mind, pulling out details that werenat in the story. Head be a slender young man, like Tieras son Jesa"but his hair would be the pure, red gold of the eastern nobles. . . .

Seraph had told him that some of the Bards had been able to create pictures for their listeners, but his cell stayed dark as pitch.

aBut what the king loved most was learning,a he continued, in the proper words. aHe established libraries at every village, and in his capital he collected more books than had ever been assembled together then or since. Perhaps that was the reason for what happened to him.a Tier found himself grinning as he remembered Seraphas contemptuous sniff the first time head told her that part. Books werenat evil, shead explained loftily, what people did with the knowledge theyad gleaned was no judgment against the books that held it.

aTime passed, and the king grew old and wizened as his sons became strong and wise. People waited without worry for the old king to die and his oldest son to take the crowna"for the heir was every bit as temperate and wise as his father.a Tier took a sip of water, experience guiding his hand to the place where he left the earthen bowl. He let the pause linger, as much a part of this story as the words which followed. aHad that happened, like as not, our king would have gone to earth and be as forgotten as his name.a aOne evening the kingas oldest son went to bed, complaining of a headache. By the next day he was blind and covered with boils; by that evening he was dead. Plague had struck the palace, and, before it left, the queen and every male of royal blood was dead.a Tieras voice trembled on the last word, because he heard, as clearly as head heard his own breath, a womanas voice wailing in grief. Head done ita"and he found the thread of magic that powered the eerie sound.

A board creaked above him, closer than the sounds of the mourning woman, recalling Tier back to the dark cell where there was no plague, no dead women and children.

aThe king became haunted, spending hours alone in his great library. But no one took much note, because the plague had spread in short order to the capital city and then to the towns and villages beyond. A horrible, ravening sickness that touched and lingered until its victim died a week later, deaf and blind to anything except pain.a Cautiously he tried to feed energy toward the path that had allowed the womanas cry to sound. It seemed to him that he could feel the unhealthy miasma of evil coating the emptiness of his cell floor. He stood up abruptly, but the feeling ebbed as he stopped feeding the story. The control reassured him. It was only a story, his story.

He resumed his efforts as he continued the story. aOne day, after the last of his grandsons died, the king went to sleep an old, broken man and woke up a young man of eighteen again. They called it a miracle at first, some kind godas deliverance from the ghastly illness that killed two of every three that came down sick. But the plague spread further, unaffected by the kingas miraculously returned youth. It traveled across borders, devouring the royal houses of the kingdoms all around, until there was only one kingdom and one king.a Tieras voice stuck there, as the magic of the generations-old words caught him in brutal understanding of the numberless dead whose death had fed the evil that was in the king.

aHe ate their lives,a said a voice abruptly from the ceiling above Tier.

A shiver ran down Tieras spine, though the words were the exact ones head intended to use himself. Somehow the oddity of his listener knowing the words to a Rederni story was part of the strange shape the story was taking.

The soft, sexless voice continued relentlessly, aHe ate them all to preserve himselfa"and so he lost himself in truth.a Tier waited, but when his visitor said nothing more, Tier continued the story himself.

aAs the years passed and the king lived far beyond his life span, what few of his old advisors who escaped the original plague died, old men that they were, one by one. As they did the king replaced them with dark-robed, nameless mena"it was these who gave him away at last.a aThe kingas youngest daughter, Loriel, discovered them feasting upon a child in her fatheras antechamber,a Tier said, drawing the horror of that into his dark cell. He could hear the sound of fangs crunching the fragile bone in his soul.

He could see it.

A woman, older than head pictured her, stood in an open doorway. Her hair, like Seraphas, was pale, though washed in sunlight rather than moonlight. Two figures crouched before her, anonymous in heavy brocade robes. They were too occupied with what was before them to notice that they had been seen. Between them lay a boy of ten or twelve years whose freckles stood out against his too-white skin. His shoulders jerked rhythmically back and forth in a mockery of life as the kingas councillors buried their heads in his abdomen and fed.

Tieras shock kept him from holding the image, though the wet sound of their feeding accompanied his voice. aAnd she fled to the last of her fatheras advisors, a mage.a He stopped speaking and tightened his control until the only sounds remaining in the cell were the ones that belonged there.

aAnd so they gathered,a said his listener.

aAnd so they gathered,a repeated Tier, and the repetition felt right, felt like the rhythm of the story. He relaxed; it was only a story, one that he knew very well. aThe remnants of people who had survived the plague. But the sickness had taken the experienced warriors, the lords, and commanders, leaving only a broken people. Loriel led the first attack, herself.a aShe died,a whispered the listener and the magic coaxed Tier as well, raising needs head never realized head felt.

aShe died,a Tier said, abut left behind a handful of men who had learned what leadership meant, left them with the ancient mage who taught them and fought by their side. They battled the minions of the Shadowed. As his followers died, the king called upon a host of evil; ancient creatures woke from their slumbers to fight at his behest.a Tier let his magic free, finding the places where he had bound it too tightly over the years. The bindings, he saw, had been the reason head had such difficulty. As the magic swept through him, exhilarating and frightening by turns, the words came to him, as well-worn and soft as an old cotton coverlet, but full of unexpected burrs that pricked and stung.