Raven's Ladder by Jeffrey Overstreet Page B

rushing across Deep Lake.
    Snyde looked as if he’d been belly-kicked by a vawn. He had not spoken more than a few suspicious questions on their journey.
    “The ride seems to have bruised you,” Cal-raven laughed. “Shall I ask the Gatherers to weave you a pillowed saddle?”
    Snyde froze in that hunched position, as if caught in some treachery. Then as he straightened, his scowl melted upward into a smile broad and toothy. “You misunderstand the nature of my discomfort. I’m unworthy to travel in such…prestigious company. You should have brought a rider who would have been more able to defend you in a fight.”
    “Are you expecting a fight, Ambassador?”
    Snyde began digging dirt from beneath his nails with the corner of a folded leaf. “I only hope my king will return to Barnashum unscratched.”
    “Oh, I think I’m as vulnerable to scratches in Barnashum as I am out here.”
    “What are you insinuating?” Snyde snapped.
    “Insinuating? Why, Ambassador, I was only referring to the quake that buried our healer. You haven’t forgotten the quake, have you?”
    Snyde’s face was hot and red as the moon. He sank slowly back down to the grass. “Why did you bring me here? I’m old. These lungs do not contend well with breezes so heavy with blossoms. I’m an ambassador of the arts. I should be indoors revising the verses of the royal—”
    “There will be new choruses sung in New Abascar,” Cal-raven said. “The people will compose them.”
    The ambassador looked as if he’d been struck in the forehead with a fry-pan. “Composed by…Housefolk? By Gatherers? In House Abascar the king and his ambassadors provide the people with their songs. If the songs do not follow the patterns and themes established by our ancestors, we won’t have music. We’ll have a nursery’s squall.”
    “I’m not interested in dogs who howl on command, Snyde. Our house is full of dreamers who have heard new melodies, new verses. New Abascar will be a kingdom that manifests all the colors its people have to offer, united by that golden strand that’s been sewn through king, cook, chemist, and carver.”
    “What”—Snyde blinked—“strand?”
    “The Keeper who haunts our dreams. I’ve begun composing lines for a chorus that describes its dimensions, the number of its wings, the way its hands can snatch a person up as easily as an owl grasps a mouse.”
    “Such particularity,” Jes-hawk observed, still gnawing on the root-gum. “Dreams of the Keeper give us many different pictures. Aren’t you asking for trouble by requiring people to favor your definition?”
    “Ah, but that’s just it. Most have only dreams. What if I told you the Keeper’s been observed?”
    “When did you see it, my lord?” Jes-hawk asked. Not “Have you seen it?” or “Did you catch a glimpse?” but a direct challenge. Lowering his voice as if he were speaking with a friend in private, he added, “You’ve never made such a claim before.”
    All eyes were fixed on the king.
    Cal-raven smiled, the secret roiling within, steam in a kettle. Then he slapped Krawg’s shoulder to disrupt the challenge. “Krawg, another story!
    What’ll it be?”
    “Nobody paints pictures of Tammos Raak’s escape better than Krawg,” suggested Warney.
    Cal-raven clapped his hands. “Incredible. The very tale I had in mind.” And it was, for the culmination of the story occurred in the very place they quested for, even though none of them yet knew their aim.
    “Which version shall it be?” Krawg asked. “The death of Tammos Raak? The blessing of the ladder? The rescue by sky chariot?”
    And so it was Krawg who told another tale.

    Krawg’s storytelling had first impressed Warney in the early days of their thievery. Krawg had filled long hours with tales to calm the nerves of his anxious co-conspirator while they lay in wait for a door unguarded, a wagon unobserved, a treasure momentarily forgotten.
    Warney had learned so much from Krawg in those