Raven's Strike (Raven #2)(56)

Kissel and Toarsen had their swords out, but none of the rest of them were armed with anything more lethal than eating knives. Which was stupid in retrospect, Phoran thought, as he ducked beneath a sword and set his hip behind his attacker's. A quick push and the man fell over backward just as Gerant had promised when he'd demonstrated the move the day before yesterday at morning practice.

It worked, but Phoran couldn't follow up his advantage because he was too busy avoiding another sword. Phoran wasn't able to wrest the sword from the man before he had to give up the attack or be hewn down.

A gleaming blade came from nowhere and slid toward his belly with snakelike swiftness. Phoran watched it with an odd detachment that had overcome him as soon as he realized that there was no way out, no rescue coming. He knew that he was dead and that this sword made him so.

The blade was touching Phoran's tunic when it jerked back and fell to the floor, along with the man who held it. Standing behind the fallen man was a familiar dark shape Phoran had hoped he'd never see again.

In a bewildering mixture of relief and horror, Phoran stared at the Memory, so much more solid than the last time he'd seen it. It returned his stare - or so he imagined, because it had no eyes he could see. Then it continued its hunt.

It should be gone. The Traveler healer had said once it killed the people responsible for its death, the ghost of the Raven he'd seen murdered would cease to exist. He had been so certain it was gone. He hadn't seen it since the night it had killed the Masters of the Path, the wizards who had killed a Raven to steal his power and loosed this Raven's Memory upon the only witness not protected against it: Phoran.

Looking almost like a man covered in an enveloping black cloth that flowed over the top of his head to the floor, the dark thing moved from one of Phoran's attackers to the next. It was more solid than he remembered, but no one but Phoran paid it any attention at first - but no one except for Phoran and the Travelers had ever been able to see it.

If it were still around, why hadn't it continued to feed off Phoran every night? And if it didn't need to feed from him, why had it protected him?

Phoran watched as his masked attackers fell, one after the other. A few were killed by human hands. Gerant and Avar had managed to arm themselves, and both were remarkable fighters. But many more fell to his Memory.

His arms folded on his chest, Phoran watched as the remaining fighters, on both sides, became gradually aware there was another killer present. Several attackers tried to run, but the Memory was swifter.

Phoran wondered what the others saw. For him the dying men were obscured, enveloped by the Memory, until they dropped bloodless to the floor. Toarsen and Kissel quit fighting the assassins altogether and flanked Phoran.

"It's all right," he told them. "It won't hurt me." Which was almost funny, as he carried the scars of the Memory's bites up and down his arms. But still and all, he knew it would not kill him. It couldn't. If he died, so would it.

The Memory turned its eyeless gaze back to Phoran.

Even as he moved to place himself between it and Phoran, Avar said in a hushed voice, "What is that Phoran?"

"It won't hurt me," Phoran said again. None of the others could see it, he thought, only Avar. He remembered the way the Memory had never come when Avar was around - was it because it knew Avar would see it?

But the others had seen the men fall dead, they'd know it was magic. Magic connected to the Emperor.

"I have fed this night," the Memory said, ignoring everyone except Phoran. "I will give you an answer to one question. Choose."

Why aren't you gone? thought Phoran. If you didn't die when the Path fell, why have you stayed away? Why come back here now?

But the question he asked was more important.

"Did anyone else see this?" he asked.

The Memory turned its attention upward, and Phoran followed its gaze. Two levels up he saw the gaze of a youngling so swaddled in rags it was difficult to tell if he were male or female. As soon as he realized they were looking at him, he took of in a scuttle of soft-shod footsteps.

There were any number of such homeless folk who found shelter in the endless unmapped rooms in the palace. His bad luck that one had found shelter here.

"Do I need to eliminate that one?" the Memory asked. "Does it pose danger to you?"

Temptation. But Phoran shook his head, and lied, "There is no more danger to me. You may go."

The Memory bowed shallowly and dissolved into nothingness.

When it was gone, Phoran looked at his men. No use hiding it, he thought wearily. Avar might have been the only one actually to see it - but there was no denying the bodies scattered on the floor.

"That was what the Travelers call a Memory," he told them. "One of their mages was killed by the Masters of the Path while I was secretly watching. The Masters had protected themselves, so it attached itself to me. It needed vengeance upon the wizards who killed the Raven, and I thought it had managed that when it killed the Masters when the Path fell; but it seems that is not the case."

There was an old law, immutable, written while the fell signs of the Unnamed King's reign, empty cities and barren fields, were still visible upon in the lands of the Empire: an emperor could not be touched by magic. The days when the Emperor had to wear the Stone of Phoran visible on the circlet that displayed it on the front of the imperial forehead were long gone. But Phoran had worn it on his forehead and ridden through Taela the day before his coronation as had his father before him. If one of the Septs chose, they could request he wear it before the Council.