Raven's Strike (Raven #2)(102)

"They were killing their families," said Rufort slowly. "Libraries seem..." He floundered for the right word.

"Petty," supplied Ielian.

"They couldn't bear to lose everything." Tier said. The scene of the past had gone as soon as Phoran caught his attention. "If I were forced to kill my family and survive them, which is almost the most terrible fate I can imagine, then I would want some keepsake - something to show that once they had lived."

"Isn't that what they sacrificed?" asked Lehr holding on to the fence. "Mother says magic is about patterns, and along with the lives of the people who lived here, it was the patterns of everyday life, all the things that made Colossae their home, that they sacrificed."

"The library wasn't sacrificed," said Rinnie. "It's not part of the spell. Maybe the mermori are like the library."

Phoran smiled, and said wryly, "Maybe, but my uncle said if a wizard had a choice between rescuing a book or his only child from a flaming building, the wizard would save the - "

Phoran's voice broke off, and Tier was suddenly looking up at the branches of a tree.

"Papa?" Rinnie's voice was small and scared.

"I'm all right," Tier said, instinctively answering the fear in his daughter's voice before he'd had a chance to assess the situation.

He hadn't realized he was being held down until his arms and legs were released. He was lying on his back in the street, with the boys crouched around him and Rinnie's tearful face looking over Lehr's shoulder.

"Another fit, eh?" he said. He sat up too suddenly, and if Phoran's hand hadn't shifted unobtrusively behind his back, he would have fallen again. There was blood in his mouth, and he could feel a cut on the inside of his cheek.

"This one was bad, Papa," said Lehr. His voice didn't tremble, and there were no tears, but Tier could see he'd scared Lehr as much as he'd scared Rinnie.

"Kissel caught you before you fell," said Toarsen. "But it looked to me as if you hit your head pretty hard before I could steady you."

"Thank you," Tier said, putting a hand on Phoran's shoulder and using it to pull himself to his knees. When he didn't feel any dizziness, he got to his feet.

"I'm all right," he told the worried faces gathered around him, and Bard that he was, he knew that he lied.

"The Raven could have set the magic upon Colossae herself," said the Scholar, answering Seraph's question as he paced the short distance between Seraph's bench and the stairway. "But that would not have been a sacrifice capable of binding the Elder gods. Only the wizards could make the proper sacrifice of the wizards' city. The Raven directed the spell, and Hinnum served as the focus - but the power of the spell came from the wizards of Colossae."

"They killed their loved ones," said Seraph, trying to imagine how it was. "They destroyed all they held dear. How did you persuade them all?"

"We gathered them in the Raven's temple and explained what had happened. They knew the Weaver and the Stalker were unbound - no one could deny it by then, all of nature was in tumult."

"They didn't all agree," said Seraph, trying to imagine a roomful of Ravens agreeing on anything.

He stopped at the head of the stairs. "No," he said heavily, and she heard death in that one word and saw it in his bowed shoulders. He took a deep breath, though she didn't think he really needed to breathe. "We left Colossae by the University Gate. And then we sacrificed her."

"But not the library, not even the wizard's personal libraries," she said slowly putting together the pieces as a Raven did, taking facts and using them to intuit beyond what she knew for certain. She remembered the way the Scholar focused on Hennea, and his voice as he spoke of his goddess. As if he were here, she could hear Tier say that he thought Hennea was old.

"And not the Raven. She planned on dying, didn't she?" Seraph whispered, awe rushing through her. Hennea was the Raven. "After she'd seen the whole of the business finished, she wanted to die like the other gods."

"I couldn't bear it," said the Scholar. "I couldn't bear that she die, too. I loved her."

"So what did you do?"

"I took her memory instead. As you have seen, she still doesn't remember. I changed her face - just for a while, until all of those who would have known her for what she was were gone. So many of the wizards died that night, and those who lived were all damaged one way or another. She wasn't the only one to have lost her memory. There were wizards who never again worked magic, a handful who went blind. One who never said another word."

"Isolde the Silent," said Seraph.

He turned then and stared at her. "How do you know of Isolde? Are you of her house?"

Seraph nodded.

He smiled, remembering something with pleasure, she thought. "No. It wasn't Isolde who was struck dumb. Isolde could have studied under the Owl's wing - she had a singing voice like crystal strung to sound in the wind. In the days after Colossae fell, her songs comforted us all. We called her the Silent because she never said a word that didn't need to be said." He paused. "You don't look like her, but you have something of her manner."

Seraph pursed her lips. "I don't know how you are doing it, but you are Hinnum, himself."