Raven's Shadow (Raven Duology #1)

Raven's Shadow (Raven Duology #1) Page 8

This time it wasn't the grating that opened, but the door. Tier shot to his feet and had to stop there because the sudden light blinded him.

"If it please you, my lord," said a soft tenor voice that could have belonged equally well to a young man or a woman, "Would you come with me? We have arranged for your comfort. I am to offer you also an apology for how you have been treated. We have not been ready to receive you until now."

Tier wiped his eyes and squinted against the glare of what was, after all, a fairly dim lantern to see the backlit form of a woman.

The sight, he could tell, was staged. She held the light carefully to exhibit certain aspects of her form. The slight tremor in the hand that held the lantern might be faked as well - but he'd have been worried about facing a man who'd been caged for as long as Tier had, so he gave her the benefit of the doubt.

"I'm no lord," he said at last. "Tell me just who it is I have to thank for my recent stay here?"

"If it please you, sir," she said. "I'll take you to where all of your questions can be answered."

Tier could have overpowered her, and would have if she had been a man. But if they, whoever they were, sent a woman to get him, it could only be because overpowering her would get him nowhere.

"You'll have to give me a moment," he said, "until I can see again."

As his vision cleared, he saw that the woman was arrayed in flowing garments that hinted broadly at the body beneath.

A whore's costume, but this woman was no common whore. She was extraordinarily beautiful, even to a man who preferred his woman to be less soft and breakable. Even if the net of gems and gold that confined quite a bit of equally golden hair was paste and brass - and he wasn't at all sure it was - the cloth of her dress was worth a fair penny.

"Can you see, yet, sir?" she asked.

"Oh aye," he said congenially. He'd bide his time until he had enough information to act. "Lead on, fair lady."

She laughed gently at his address as she led him out into a winding corridor. Behaving, he thought, as if he were a customer, rather than a man who'd been imprisoned for weeks.

The hall ceiling was so low he could have easily touched it with a hand. On either side of his cell there were doors that opened to his hand and revealed rooms that looked much like his. The woman was patient with him, waiting without murmuring and pausing with him when he stopped by an iron door twice as wide as the one that led into his cell. The door stuck fast when he tried it.

The woman said nothing. When he took the lantern from her and adjusted it brighter so he could look more closely at the doors, she merely folded her arms under her full breasts.

He ignored her until he was certain that the door was hinged on the other side, with two iron bars (barely visible in the narrow space between door and frame) in place to keep the door shut. If he'd access to a forge he could fashion something to unbar the door - but they were unlikely to allow him such.

He handed the lantern back to his hostess and allowed her to lead him.

The hall continued around a sharp bend and ended in double doors. Just before the walls ended, there was a door on either side. It was the left-hand door the woman opened, stepping back for him to precede her.

The smell of steam and the sound of running water emerged from the opened door, so he was unsurprised to enter a bathing room. He knew what one looked like because the Sept of Gerant had held war conferences in his - saying that the sound of the water kept people from overhearing anything useful. But that austere chamber had as much to do with this one as a donkey had with a warhorse. A golden tub of a size to accommodate five or six was brim full of hot, steaming water with a tall table near it holding a variety of soaps and pots of lotion. But by far the most impressive part of the room was the cold pool.

Water cascaded from an opening in the ceiling high above and poured onto a ledge of fitted rock where it was spread to fall in a wide sheet to the waist-deep pool below. He could tell the pool was waist-deep because there were two naked, frightened, and obviously cold women standing in it.

"Sssst," hissed his guide in sudden irritation. "You look as if you are about to lose your virtue again. Does this look like a man who'd hurt women?"

She softened her voice to velvet and turned back to Tier. "You'll forgive them, my... sir. Our last guest was none to happy with his captivity and took it out on those who had nothing to do with it."

He laughed with honest amusement. "After that speech I would certainly feel like a stupid lout to try any such thing," he said.

In the brighter light of the bathing chamber he could see that she was more than beautiful - she was fascinating, a woman who'd draw men's eyes when she was eighty. He mentally upped her probable price again. So why was he being offered such service? The thought pulled the smile from his face.

"So I'm to clean myself before being presented, eh?" he said neutrally.

"We will perform that service, sir, if you will allow us," she said, bowing her head in submission. "When you are finished bathing, there are clean clothes to replace the ones you wear now. This is for your comfort entirely. If you choose, you may stay as you are and I'll take you in now. I thought you would prefer not to appear at a disadvantage."

"Disadvantage, eh?" He glanced at his clothes. "If they kidnap a man at the tail end of a three-month hunt, they get as they deserve. I'll wash, but you ladies get yourselves out of here or my wife will have my head."

The women in the pool giggled as if he'd been witty, but they waited for a gesture from the woman he'd followed before they left the pool. They wrapped themselves in a couple of the bathing sheets folded in piles on a bench and exited the room through the same door he'd entered.

"You too, lass," he told his guide. "The high-born you serve may be comfortable with help, but we Rederni are competent to wash ourselves."

Smilingly she bowed and left, shutting the door behind her. He hadn't noticed a latch, but he heard a click that could be nothing else so he didn't bother to try the door. The waterfall was more intriguing.

Four leaps gave him a fingerhold on the lowest ledge and he climbed the rest with relative ease. When he found the opening the water fell through in the corner of the ceiling, it was grated with iron bars set in mortar.

He slid back down and splashed uncaring of his battered clothing into the cold pool of water. He hadn't expected such an obvious way out, but he needed to know what he dealt with. Eventually he'd manage a way out - in the meantime there was no need for filth.

He washed the clothes on his body first, then threw them into the waiting hot tub, where he'd soap down both them and himself when he was ready.

The cold water poured over his face, clearing his head and his thoughts as he scraped away dirt.

He hadn't heard anyone enter, but when he stepped out from the waterfall, there were clean clothes waiting for him.

He ignored them and settled into the tub of hot water, soaped himself off, and gave rough service to his clothes. Rinsing everything in the cold pool, he draped his clothes where he could. Shivering now, he dried himself and examined the clothing she'd left for him.

It was serviceable clothing, very like the filthy garments he'd taken off, though less worn. He fingered the shirt thoughtfully before donning it. The leather boots fit him as well as his old ones, lost somewhere during his captivity.

As he tied the laces of his boots, his guide returned, her timing too accurate for guessing. Someone had been watching him - he hoped they enjoyed the show. She held a tray with a comb and a plain silver clip and held them out. He ran the comb through his hair and pulled it back into a queue which he fastened with the clip.

He turned around once for her perusal and she nodded. "You'll do, sir. If you'll follow me, the Master awaits your presence."

"Master?" he asked.

But she'd given him all the information she intended to. "Come," she said, leading him back to the corridor.

The double doors at the end of the hall were open this time and a haze of smoke drifted into the corridor along with a desultory drumbeat and a hum of conversation. But he had only a moment to glance inside and get an impression of some sort of public room with tables and benches scattered around, before the woman opened the door directly across from the bathing room and gestured him in.

In size and lack of windows, the room resembled the cell Tier had been living in, though here the stone floor was covered with a tightly woven rug that cushioned his feet. A pair of matching tapestries hung on one wall. The only furnishings in the room were two comfortable-looking chairs flanking a small round table.

In one of the chairs sat a man in a black velvet robe sipping from a goblet. He was a decade or so older than Tier with the features of an eastern nobleman, wide-cheeked and flat-nosed. Like his face, his hands belonged to an aristocrat, long-fingered and bedecked with rings.

He looked up when Tier's guide softly cleared her throat.

"Ah. Thank you, Myrceria," he said pleasantly, setting his goblet on the table. "That will be all."

The door shut quietly behind Tier's back, leaving the two men alone in the room.

The robed man folded his hands contemplatively against his chin, "You don't look like a Traveler, Tieragan of Redern."

Traveler?

Tier raised an eyebrow and took the empty chair. It was a little short for him, so he stretched out his legs and crossed his ankles. When he was comfortable, he looked at the man most probably responsible for his recent imprisonment and said courteously, "And you don't look like a festering pustule on a slug's hind end either. Appearances can be deceiving."

The other man's face didn't change, but Tier felt a pulse of power, of magic - just as he was meant to.

The surge of magic died and the wizard smiled. "You are angry, aren't you? I do believe we owe you an apology for keeping you locked in your cell, but it has been a long time since we had an Owl in our keeping. We had to be certain that we could contain your magic before releasing you."

Contain his magic?

"You seem to know a lot about me," Tier commented. "Would you care to return the favor?"

The other man laughed, "You'll have to excuse me - you're not quite what I expected. I am Kerstang, Sept of Telleridge."

Tier nodded slowly. "And what would the Sept of Telleridge want with a Rederni farmer?"

"Nothing at all," said Telleridge. "I do, however, have a use for a Traveler and Bard."

"I told you," said Tier mildly. "I am not a Traveler. What do you need me for?"

Telleridge smiled as if Tier's answer had pleased him. "In addition to my duties as a Sept, I find myself with the delicate charge of the youth of the Empire. The law of primogeniture, however necessary, leaves many of the younger sons of noblemen without any constructive outlets for their energies. I run an Eyrie for these lost young men and I'm responsible for their entertainment."

"I'm the entertainment?" said Tier. "Surely there are bards who don't need abducting to be persuaded to provide entertainment."

Telleridge laughed, "But they would not be nearly as amusing." The laughter drifted away as if it had never been. "Nor would they be Owl. All you need to know at the moment is that you are, will you or nil you, my guest for the next year. During that time you will entertain my young friends and occasionally participate in our ceremonies. In return you may ask for anything that you wish, short of leaving, and it will be arranged."

"I don't think so," said Tier.

"Refusing is not an option," said the wizard. "For a year and a day you will have whatever you want - or you can struggle; it matters not one whit to me."

That phrase struck a chord of memory. "A year and a day," Tier said. "You'll make me beggar king for a year and a day." He hummed a bit of the old tune. "And I suppose, like the beggar king, you'll sacrifice me to the gods at the end?"

"That's right," said the wizard as if Tier were a prized pupil. "I see that an Owl will be different than a Raven - which is what we've had the last three times. The Hunter was interesting, though we finally had to cage him. I think you'll do. But first..."

He leaned forward and touched Tier lightly; as he did so, the silver and onyx ring on his index finger caught Tier's attention briefly.

He was distracted by the ring when the wizard's voice dropped a full octave and he said in the Traveler tongue, "By Lark and Raven, I bind you that you will harm neither me nor any wizard who wears a black cloak in these halls. By Cormorant and Owl, I bind you that you will not ask anyone to help you escape. By Falcon, I bind you that you will not speak of your death."

Magic surged through Tier, holding him still until the wizard was done.

"There," he said sitting back again.

There indeed, thought Tier, shaken. No one had ever laid a spell on him before. He felt... violated and frightened. It had been so fast and he hadn't been able to defend himself from it at all. Cold sweat slid down his neck and he shivered, fighting nausea.

"Sick?" Telleridge asked. "It takes some people like that, but I couldn't depend upon the word of a Traveler peasant - even if you'd give it. My young friends are easily influenced. I would hate to lose any of my Passerines too soon."

"Passerines?" asked Tier, breathing shallowly through his nose and hoping he didn't look as shaken as he felt. "You have song birds here?"

The wizard smiled. "As I said, a Bard will be interesting. Myrceria will tell you what you need to know about my Passerines. Ask her about the Secret Path if you wish. She is waiting for you outside the door."

The woman was indeed waiting for him, kneeling on the cold stone of the floor with her hands at rest. Prepared, Tier thought, to deal with a man in any mood he might emerge with. She sat unmoving until he closed the door gently behind him.

"If you like, I can take you into the Eyrie," she said, using her right arm to indicate the open double doors. "There are others to talk to if you wish and food and drink are available to you there. If you would prefer to ask me questions, we can go back to your room. You will find it much improved."

"Let's go talk," he said after a moment.

As Myrceria promised, the cell had been transformed in his absence. It had been scoured clean and furnished with a bed such as the nobles slept in rather than the rush-stuffed mattress over stretched rope he had at home. Rich fabrics and rare woods filled the room; it should have looked crowded, but it managed to appear cozy instead. In the center of the bed a worn lute rested, looking oddly out of place.

He took a step toward it, but stopped. He wasn't like Seraph: he didn't feel the need to do the opposite of whatever anyone tried to get him to do, but that didn't mean he enjoyed being manipulated either. So he left the lute for later examination and chose to investigate another oddity. The room was lit by glowing stones in copper braziers placed in strategic places around the room.

"They're quite safe," said Myrceria behind him. She moved against him, pressing close until her breasts rested against his back, then reached around him to pick the fist-sized rock out of the brazier he'd picked up.

He set the brazier down gently and stepped away from her. "You are quite lovely, lass," he said. "But if you knew my wife, you'd know that she'd take my liver and eat it in front of my quivering body if I ever betrayed her."

"She is not here," Myrceria murmured, replacing the rock and turning gracefully in a circle so that he could see what he was refusing. "She will never know."

"I don't underestimate my wife," he replied. "Nor should you."

Myrceria touched the net that confined her hair and shook her head, freeing waves of gold to cascade down her back and touch her ankles. "She'll believe you're dead," she said. "They have arranged for it. Will she be faithful to you if you are dead?"

Seraph thought he was dead? He needed to get home.

"Telleridge said you would answer my questions," he said. "Where are we?"

"In the palace," she answered.

"In Taela?"

"That's right," she leaned into him.

He bent until his face was close to hers. "No," he said softly. "You have answers to my questions, and that is all I'm interested in." There was a flash of fear in her eyes, and it occurred to him that a whore was hardly likely to be so interested in him on her own. "You can tell Telleridge whatever you like about tonight; I'll not deny it - but I'll not break the vows I've made. I have my own woman; I need answers."

She stood very still for a moment, her eyes unreadable - which told him more about what she was thinking than the facile, convenient expressions of a whore.

Slowly, but not seductively, she rebound her hair. When she was finished she had tucked away her potent sexuality as well.

"Very well," she said. "What would you like to know?"

"Tell me a lie," he said.

Her eyebrows raised. "A lie?"

"Anything. Tell me that the coverlet is blue."

"The coverlet is blue."

Nothing. He felt nothing.

"Tell me it's green," he said.

"The coverlet is green."

He couldn't tell when she was lying. Just about the only useful thing his magic could do. He opened his mouth to ask her to help him escape, just to see if he could, but no word of his request left his throat.

"Gods take him!" he roared angrily. "Gods take him and eat his spleen while he yet lives." He turned toward the whore and she flinched away from him needlessly. He had himself under control now. "Tell me about this place, the Passerines, the Secret Path, Telleridge... all of it."

She took a step back and sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, on the far side of the lute. Speaking quickly, she said, "The Secret Path is a clandestine organization of nobles. The rooms that you have seen today and a few others are under an unused wing of the palace. Most of the activities of the Path involve only the young men, the Passerines. The older members and the Masters, the wizards, direct what those activities are. The Passerines are the younger members of the Secret Path. They are brought in between the ages of sixteen and twenty."

"What do they call the older members?" asked Tier.

"Raptors," she replied, relaxing a little, "and the wizards are the Masters."

"Who is in charge, the wizards or the Raptors?"

"The High Path - which is made up of a select group of Raptors and Masters and led by Master Telleridge."

"What is the requirement for membership?" he asked.

"Noble birth and the proper temperament. None of them can be direct heirs of the Septs. Most of the boys come at the recommendation of the other Passerines."

"Telleridge is a Sept," said Tier, trying to put his knowledge into an acceptable pattern.

"Yes. His father and brothers died of plague."

"Did he start this... Secret Path?"

"No." She settled more comfortably against the wall. "It is a very old association, over two hundred and fifty years old."

Tier thought back over the history of the Empire. "After the Third Civil War."

Myrceria nodded her head, and smiled a little.

"Phoran the Eighteenth, I believe, who inherited right in the middle of the war when his father was killed by an assassin," he said. "A man known for his brilliance in diplomacy rather than war. Now what exactly was it that caused that war..."

Her smile widened, "I imagine you know quite well. Bards, I've been told, have to know their history."

"The younger sons of a number of the more powerful Septs seized their fathers' - or brothers' lands illegally while the Septs were meeting in council. They claimed that the laws of primogeniture were wrong, robbing younger sons of their proper inheritance. The war lasted twenty years."

"Twenty-three," she corrected mildly.

"I bet the Path was founded by Phoran the Eighteenth's younger brother - the war leader."

She cleared her throat. "By Phoran's youngest son, actually, although his brother was one of the original members."

"The Path," said Tier, having found the pattern, "draws the younger sons, young men educated to wield power but who will never have any. Only the ones who are angriest at their lot in life are allowed into it. As young men, they are given a secret way to defy those in power - a safe outlet for their energies. Then, I suppose, a few are guided slowly into places where they can gain power - advisor to the king, merchant, diplomat. Places where they acquire power and an investment in the health of the Empire they despise. Old Phoran the Eighteenth was a master strategist."

"You are well educated for a... a baker," she said, "from a little village in the middle of nowhere."

He smiled at her. "I fought under the Sept of Gerant from the time I was fifteen until the last war was over. He has a reputation as being something of an eccentric. He wasn't concerned with the birth of his commanders, but he did think that his commanders needed to know as much about politics and history as they knew about war."

"A soldier?" She considered the idea. "I'd forgotten that - they didn't seem to consider it to be of much importance."

"You are well-educated for your position as well," he said.

"If younger sons have no place in the Empire, their daughters have - " she stopped abruptly and took a step backward. "Why am I telling you this?" Her voice shook in unfeigned fear. "You're not supposed to be able to work magic here. They said that you couldn't."

"I'm working no magic," he said.

"I have to go," she said and left the cell. She didn't, he noticed, forget to shut and bolt the door.

When she was gone, he pulled his legs up on the bed, boots and all, and leaned against the wall.

Whatever the Path was supposed to have been, he doubted that its only purpose was to keep the young nobles occupied. Telleridge didn't strike him as the sort to serve anyone except himself - certainly not the stability of the Empire.

Thinking of Telleridge reminded Tier of what the wizard had done to him. His magic was really gone - not that it was likely to do him much good in a situation like this. Alone, without witnesses, Tier sat on the bed and buried his head in his hands, seeing, once more, Telleridge's hand closing on his arm.

Wizards weren't supposed to be able to cast spells like that. They had to make potions and draw symbols - he'd seen them do it. Only Ravens were able to cast spells with words.

Telleridge had spoken in the Traveler tongue.

Tier straightened up and stared at one of the glowing braziers without seeing it. That ring. He had seen that ring before, the night he'd met Seraph.

Though it had been twenty years, he was certain he was not mistaken. He'd a knack for remembering things, and the ring Telleridge had worn had the same notch on the setting that the ring... what had his name been? Wresen. Wresen had been a wizard, too. A wizard following Seraph.

How had Telleridge known that Tier was Bard? Tier had supposed that his unknown visitor had told the wizard, if it hadn't been the wizard himself. However, it sounded as if Tier being a Bard was the reason they'd taken him in the first place. No one except Seraph knew what he was - though she'd told him that any Raven would know.

They had been watching him. Myrceria had known that he had been a baker and a soldier. Had they been watching him and Seraph for twenty years? Were they watching Seraph now?

He sprang to his feet and paced. He had to get home. When an hour of fruitless thought left him still in the locked cell, he settled back on the bed and took up the lute absently. All he could do was be ready for an opportunity to escape as it presented itself.

He noticed the tune that he'd begun fingering with wry amusement. Almost defiantly he plucked out the chorus with quick-fingered precision.

A year and a day,

A year and a day,

And the beggar'll be king

For a year and a day.

In the song, in order to stop a decade-long drought, desperate priests decided that the ultimate sacrifice had to be made - the most important person in the nation had to be sacrificed: the king. Unwilling to die, the king refused, but proposed the priests take one of the beggars from the street. The king would step down from office for a year and let the beggar be king. The priests argued that a year was not long enough - so they made the beggar king for a year and a day. The drought ended with the final, willing sacrifice of the young man who'd proved more worthy than the real king.

Just as the Secret Path's Traveler king, Tier, would die at the end of his reign.

He thought of one of the bindings Telleridge had put on him. The young men, the Passerines, didn't know he would die - otherwise there would be no reason to forbid him to speak of it with them.

No doubt then his death would serve a purpose greater than mimicking an old song. Would it appease the gods like the beggar king's sacrifice in the story? But then why hide it from the young men? What would a wizard want with his death?

Magic and death, he remembered Seraph telling him once. Magic and death are a very powerful combination. The better the mage knows the victim, the stronger the magic he can work. The mage's pet cat works better than a stray. A friend better than an enemy... a friend for a year and a day.

He had to get word to Seraph. He had to warn her to protect the children.

His fingers picked out the chords to an old war song. Myrceria, he thought, I will work on Myrceria.

Phoran held the bundle of parchment triumphantly as he marched alone through the halls of the palace toward his study. They'd look for him in his rooms first, he thought. No one but the old librarian knew about the study. They'd find him eventually, but not until he was ready for them.

It had been impulse, really. When the old fool, Douver, set down the papers the Council of Septs had for him to sign, Phoran had just picked them up, tucked them under his arm, and announced to the almost empty room that he would take them under advisement.

He'd turned on his heel and walked out, slipping through a complex system of secret passages - some of which were so well known they might be corridors and others he rather thought he might be the only one who knew. He'd given no one a chance to follow him.

For most of his life, he'd signed what they told him to. At least his uncle had done him the courtesy of explaining what he'd signed - though he remembered not caring much about most of it.

But the empty room had been an insult. When the Emperor signed the proposals into law twice a year, there should be people present, and would have been, if anyone thought that the Emperor would do anything but sign what he was told.

He entered the library through a secondary door, passed unnoticed among the bins of parchment and shelves of books in the back corner of the room, and unlocked the door of his study. It was a small room, but it locked from the inside as well as the outside, which was all that he required.

He settled himself into his chair and thought. It was all very well to decide to be emperor in fact as well as name, but he didn't really have the support he needed. The Sept of Gorrish fancied himself defacto ruler, and the Septs who followed him, Telleridge, and the like, would do their best to fight any sign of independence.

Really, he'd best sign the damn things and get it over with.

Instead he uncorked his inkwell, trimmed his pens, and began to read. The first three parchments he signed - complex trade agreements between various Septs, and nothing the Emperor should interfere with. But, almost involuntarily, he made mental notes of the names involved and the alliances the new laws revealed.

The fourth parchment was another of the increasingly punitive laws aimed at the Travelers. He signed that one, too. Most Travelers were thieves, his uncle had said, though not without a certain amount of sympathy. Having no land they could settle on, because no Sept would have allowed such a thing, they were forced to earn their bread as best they could.

Hours passed. Occasionally, Phoran would sneak out to the library to retrieve maps or books. But he signed the parchments one by one - setting only a few aside for further review.

Two he found that might serve his point. They were regional matters that most of the council would not care unduly about; each was signed by only a few more than half the council with no protests.

The first act would give the Sept of Holla exclusive fishing rights in Lake Azalan. Phoran had checked his maps and found Lake Azalan to be a small body of water in the Sept of Holla's lands. The law was so odd - the Septs usually had effective exclusive rights to any fully enclosed body of water - that Phoran knew there was a story behind the ruling. The second concerned a small section of land awarded to the Sept of Jenne for his "services to the Empire."

He pored over the simple words to mine them for clues and regretted the indifference that had kept him from the council the past few years, because he no longer knew all of the different alliances. Geography helped - all of Holla's signatures were from Septs in the Northeast, Holla's neighbors. All except one of his neighbors. The one, thought Phoran with sudden comprehension, who had been sending fishermen into his neighbor's lake.

That one would work - Holla had little influence in the council. But he'd rather come down on the side of justice.

The second one was frustrating because the land in question was so small that he couldn't find out much about it.

He looked up from a map and the Memory was there.

He hadn't realized how long he'd been in his study. He'd trimmed the lamps absently as he'd needed, and there was no window to tell him that the sun had set.

Slowly Phoran set his pen down and shed the heavy state robes so he could bare his arm. The hope that had cloaked him for most of the day evaporated at the touch of cold, cold lips on his skin.

It hurt, and he looked away as it fed.

"By the taking of your blood, I owe you one answer. Choose your question."

Tired beyond reason and still trembling with the remnants of pain, Phoran laughed harshly and said, "Do you know someone who could help me understand what's so special about a small slice of the Sept of Gerant's lands that the council would gift it to the Sept of Jenne?"

The Memory turned and drifted toward the door.

"I thought you owed me an answer," said Phoran without heat. That would have taken too much passion, and he'd already, really, given up on his plans. He would not hurt an innocent man just because his petition was convenient for his purposes, and he was beginning to believe that the library did not contain the information he needed to refuse to sign Jenne's petition.

He'd already begun to go back to comparing two well-drawn maps to a third, less clear, but more detailed when the Memory said, "Come."

Phoran looked up and saw it waiting for him. It took him a moment to remember exactly what he'd asked.

"You know someone who could help?"

It didn't answer.

Phoran stared at it and tried to think. If anyone saw him... He glanced at the parchments and maps scattered around and gathered the ones that might prove helpful.