Revenant

by Bevan McGuiness

  Dedication

  For Deb

  Contents

  Cover

  Dedication

  Map

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  Epilogue

  Glossary

  About the Author

  Other Books by Bevan McGuiness

  Copyright

  Maps

  1

  Myrrhini stalked across the mosaic floor and dropped into a large chair by the window. For a while she sat and simply stared out at the ever-changing world below. With every movement, the image shifted slightly. Each action altered the destiny of someone, changed the path they might take. Some things were so significant they affected people all across the city, others so trivial nothing seemed to happen. At first, just the act of looking out over the swirling mass of possibilities gave her a headache, but she had grown used to it surprisingly quickly. Now, she relished the fascination.

  The stares she received from everyone she met made her wonder about wearing a blindfold. On the occasions she had closed her eyes, the visions from what the Mertians called the Eztli-Ichtaca sprang into sharper relief, making them easier to focus on, to interpret. When the visions were overlaid with what she used to call reality, the world took on a surreal, confusing aspect. Myrrhini had seen people make decisions that would lead inevitably to the end of their life, or someone else’s. From the moment she had watched Itxtli’s death before it happened, she knew there was nothing she could do about someone else’s decisions.

  There was only one person who defeated her mystical sight — Slave.

  He either had no destiny or it was somehow hidden from her, because all she saw when she looked at him was pain and hate. She had regretted her impulsive declaration of his destiny within moments of saying it. It had taken her only that long to realise how wrong she had been, but it had been the only thing she could think of to say to keep him close to her. Her earliest vision of him bringing a circle of peace and protection was still as strong as it had ever been. She had to stay close to him if she were to survive the coming conflagration. There were even times when she considered using what Maida had described as ‘her weapons’ to seduce Slave as she had seduced the Ce Atli back in Sullito.

  But the memory of how that seduction had ended still haunted her: Tatya’s savage fury; the sound of her teeth tearing through flesh and bone; the blood that spurted obscenely from the unspeakable wound, even the smell of it, were all as clear now as if the scene lay before her. Would her natural ‘weaponry’ always result in tragedy? Unwelcome images of Hinrik flashed through her mind. He had seduced her for a purpose, as she had seduced the Ce Atli. She had Seen herself with the Ce Atli, so long ago. Did she have any choice in the matter?

  Myrrhini shook her head to clear it of such troubling thoughts. She knew exactly what she was doing, and it had resulted in death. Could she risk that with Slave?

  But how to keep him close to her?

  He was clearly restless, uneasy here in this luxurious palace, surrounded by comfort and stern-faced agents. He would leave the moment he had a reason.

  She hated that she needed him, but her weakness, her fear in the face of suffering, had not diminished despite her experiences. Her dreams of pain and torment at the hands of faceless monsters, raging mobs bent on mindless destruction and rape at the behest of some vast, ancient thing still left her shaking in sweat many mornings. Slave would bring her peace, this was true, but only when he was close.

  Myrrhini cursed and rose from her chair, knowing subconsciously where she would head. Back to the Chamber of Kalev.

  It was deserted as usual, and in near darkness. Not that simple darkness could hide the vibrant — violent — life that throbbed through the mosaic floor and painted walls hidden behind heavy drapes. The instant she walked into the room, the strange tale of the world as seen through the mystical vision of the Mertian Eye exploded into writhing brilliance. This madness, forever locked in image, was what the Blindfolded Queens had never truly Seen. It was the truth of the world, the underlying theme of life — if only Myrrhini could make sense of it.

  The metal dome rising from the floor in the middle of the room hummed quietly with power. She shuddered, repressing once again the memories of so long under the hateful control of the Acolytes.

  My cousins, my own blood. Myrrhini almost spat in disgust at the knowledge of their shared heritage.

  The circular door swung smoothly open at her touch, revealing the utter dark inside. She hesitated before lowering her head and entering. The door closed after her. Like striking a spark, the interior of the metal dome blossomed into soft yellow light. As at the Place of the Acolytes, there was a maze inside the metal dome, but no julle hunted her here. Neither would there be a vial of daven juice to steal her mind. The visions that came to her here would spring directly from the power of this place.

  Myrrhini made her way into the centre of the maze, sat cross-legged against one of the cold metal walls and waited for the Seeing.

  Tatya sprang over the low wall. She cleared it easily, landing on the hard earth outside the Blindfolded Queen’s city. Without a moment’s hesitation, she ran into the tall grass and vanished from sight.

  No one, nothing could touch her out here. She could run without hindrance for days, free from encumbrance, free from fear, free from Maida. The Scaren warlord had said the words, he had set her free. A growl of joy escaped her throat. Now that she was free of the Link, her recent actions looked pathetic. That she, a shapeshifting spurre, should be reduced to a fawning pet! It was too much to bear.

  Blood.

  Need blood.

  Hunt. Kill. Feed.

  A scent teased at her nostrils.

  Human.

  Slow and close.

  Feed.

  Consciousness faded into need. The big spurre shifted her direction to track the slow-moving human.

  Like a shadow of death, she hunted.

  Myrrhini’s eyes snapped open. Tatya? Why would I have a Seeing about Tatya?

  She’s gone. Slave set her free. How did he do that?

  Another question echoed through her mind.

  Why did he do that?

  She had to know. Tatya was important: she had appeared in other Seeings. If Slave had sent her away, there was no telling what the consequences might be. Slowly, Myrrhini was beginning to understand what Quetzalxoitl meant about the Eztli-Ichtaca. It truly was the world that could be. Anything done could alter what could be; the visionary world was fluid, ever shifting.

  Myrrhini rose stiffly. The yellow light seemed brighter, more substantial, as she made her way back through the maze to the door that would lead her out of this eerie place. She tried to ignore the way the swirling, mist-like light seemed to be grabbing at her legs as she waded through it, focusing instead on the subtly pulsing walls around her. Again, she was grateful that there was no julle hunting her in this maze.

  Once outside the domed structure, she was confronted again by the writhing, coruscating brilliance of the dancing pictograms. As before,
they moved on the edge of comprehension, always just out of complete understanding. Myrrhini felt she knew the past now, having seen so much of what had led them all to this point, but the future remained less clear than she wanted.

  What she did know still terrified her. The two Revenants were abroad in the world. They were moving unfettered, pursuing their own goals, which remained hidden. Her first Seeing of them returned too often, showing them rising and rising, to be confronted by the Scarred Man encased in his silver peace. Every time she Saw it, the picture became clearer, but still the final destiny remained unclear. All she could say with certainty was that the world would see great devastation.

  2

  Keshik felt the hate, the savage, brutal violence, as it surged through him. His only response was impotent submission, dropping to his knees in utter despair. With a convulsive retch that felt like he had been kicked in the chest by a horse, he expelled the darkness from his gut. In growing horror, he watched it spread after leaving his mouth, flowing out to engulf the Tuk. With a scream unlike anything Keshik had ever heard, the Tuk went down, appearing to dissolve as the blackness spread.

  By the time the last of the vile muck had left him, it had taken several of the Tulugma. Keshik rose from his knees, fighting back the waves of despairing weakness, to stand, leaning on his swords. Around him, shouts and screams rang out. Men and horses were dissolving beneath the blackness, but a few stood motionless.

  Keshik watched in disbelief as one man, a Gielden swordsman by the look of him, opened his mouth to draw in the black sludge. It flowed into him like water. When he was done, he looked up and roared with a voice that Keshik recognised. The man’s eyes glowed orange and three points of light swirled in a complex pattern beneath the skin of his forehead. Keshik thought for a moment that he almost knew the pattern, but he had no more time to think when the swordsman drew his weapon.

  There were others who had not been dissolved by the blackness. They, too, raised their weapons. For a heartbeat, there was silence, then they struck out with savagery, cutting down anyone within reach. Keshik hesitated. He watched the battle as it started, noting what was already emerging. A grim smile formed, then he raised his swords and threw himself into the fray.

  He was beset on two sides by howling swordsmen. The one on Keshik’s left drew his sword back over his head for a massive downward hack that, had it landed, would have taken Keshik’s shoulder off and ended somewhere down near his navel. Unfortunately for the swordsman, Keshik was far too fast, and slashed his own blade — the metal one — across the man’s abdomen just below the breastplate. It opened him up from one side to the other, the cut going through almost to the backbone. The tone of his howl shifted up into agony and he fell.

  The man on Keshik’s right thrust lower, aiming at Keshik’s chest. Keshik parried the blow, although the man’s strength nearly forced his blade aside. He shifted his weight slightly to face his assailant more squarely, but there was no time for any niceties, his opponent was already preparing the next blow. Keshik brought both blades to bear in a complex attack pattern designed to distract the eye while allowing the attacker close for a clean thrust low in the belly. The sword drove down through the gut, exiting between the legs. It was a savage blow that killed slowly but inevitably, often through blood poisoning from the rupturing of the bowel, sometimes days later.

  The swordsman fell for the attack completely and dropped to his knees, weeping in anguish as Keshik ripped his sorcerous blade back through the man’s destroyed gut. There was a momentary halt in the blade’s exit as it caught on the pelvic bone, but Keshik’s wrists were enormously strong: the sword scraped clear and Keshik stepped over the writhing man to address the next maniacally howling Tulugma.

  He was an axeman hailing originally from Tusemo, with the flame-red hair and green eyes of so many of his compatriots. He was of average height but with the massively overdeveloped chest and upper arms of an axeman. Unlike so many axemen, he wore a heavy breastplate that covered his body from neck to groin. It would afford him considerable protection were he to make the same sort of blow as the first swordsman, the huge overhead swing. Almost every axeman did this, which left the whole front of the body exposed for any opponent brave enough and fast enough to step inside the swing. This armour allowed him to use his whole body strength to cleave a man in half.

  Keshik could not allow him to reach his full swing, so he threw himself forward to crash into the heavy armour. The impact drove the axeman back, staggering off balance. Keshik slammed his fist, wrapped around the hilt of his sword, into the man’s armpit. The cracking of bone, the tearing of tendon and ligament, drew a high-pitched squeal, making the man drop his axe. Keshik reversed his sword and drove the point down through the man’s boot, pinning him to the ground.

  Keshik wrenched his sword out and ducked under the swing of yet another attacker’s attempt to cleave his head from his shoulders. The swing was fast and precise, the technique clean. The woman wielding the sword was tall and slender, with the arms of a woodsman and the legs of a dancer. She moved like a spurre on the hunt — smooth, graceful and purposeful. Dangerous, her eyes burned with fierce intelligence and her breathing was controlled. A worthy opponent, one in control. He decided to employ the Eagle strategy, designed to counter a sword and dagger.

  Keshik parried her next blow, a lightning-fast thrust at his eyes that was near perfect cover for a left-handed dagger strike at his right elbow. It was a manoeuvre — called the Hunting Dog — that Keshik knew well. He dropped his elbow low, which brought the tip of his right blade up sharply. It just caught her shoulder as she recovered from her thrust, slicing through leather and cloth to find flesh.

  The wound had to have been distracting at least, if not debilitating, but she seemed to ignore it entirely. She lashed out with her fist so fast that Keshik was unable to completely evade it. It caught him a glancing blow on the chin, enough to make him slow his left thrust. His opponent followed her fist with her sword, slashing across Keshik’s ribs. The tip of the blade left a line along his leather jerkin. It was enough to irritate Keshik, so he decided to finish the fight; the woman was good, but no master. Keshik shifted his focus to disabling her, rather than killing her. He changed strategy from the Eagle to the Xath and stepped up his speed. A thrust at her face and a simultaneous slashing attack across her thighs brought her screaming to the ground with both legs opened to the bone. The spinning momentum of his movement brought his other blade around and down across her chest. He pulled the blow at the last instant so that he left nothing more than a thin red line of blood marking the slice through her armour, between her breasts.

  While he had been fighting, the rest of the Tulugma column had moved in quickly to subdue those who had been affected by the blackness. Left standing were Keshik and the Gielden swordsman who had taken the black muck into himself. Keshik, breathing heavily, watched as the swordsman laid about himself in a wild killing frenzy. He remembered the agent he had killed near the barrier into the Hidden City and how not even Slave’s enchanted weapon had been able to injure him. It seemed the same thing was occurring here.

  Keshik hefted his sorcerous blade and joined the fray once more.

  The big swordsman fought with Slave’s ferocity and apparent disregard for his own safety. He swung his sword more like an axe — two-handed chops replacing finesse and strategy. Normally, such a technique would not last moments in a battle where there were multiple opponents, all of whom were highly skilled, but this man was fast, powerful and apparently immune to any weapons. Blows that should have been fatal slid harmlessly from his body, thrusts were deflected from his bare skin, leaving no mark.

  Keshik roared a challenge as he shouldered his way past a woman wielding a long, barbed spear. His sudden appearance in the battle caused her to falter, which was long enough for the Gielden swordsman to hack at her face. She dropped the polearm and fell shrieking to the ground. Keshik took advantage of the distraction to drive a flickering thrust in har
d under the man’s sword arm. It met with more resistance than flesh could provide, but Keshik leaned into the thrust and broke the skin. Blood spurted out of the wound and ran down along Keshik’s sword. The blood was far darker than any man’s should be — it was almost black.

  The Gielden paused briefly to regard Keshik. Something not quite human danced behind his eyes for a moment before he recovered his balance and pulled back off Keshik’s blade. His counterattack was as fast as Keshik’s own thrust, and straight at the throat. Keshik swayed back and to his left, allowing the blade to hiss past harmlessly.

  Even though he knew his ordinary metal blade could not damage this man, a simple blow could still land. Force was force. Keshik slammed his sword with all his strength into the big Gielden’s elbow. The impact drove the arm up, loosening the grip on the sword just a little. In the heartbeat it took the Gielden to recover his grip, Keshik swung his sorcerous blade in a tight arc, driving it up into the soft flesh beneath the man’s jaw, through the head and up through the top of the skull. With a sound like a gurgling sigh, he died.

  Keshik stood on the Gielden’s chest and wrenched his sword out. It came free with a screech of metal as the blade dragged back through the helmet. Keshik wiped the blade on the dead man’s cloak before sheathing it.

  The noise of battle was replaced with the eerie quiet that so often followed a deadly clash. He looked around at the ring of Tulugma. So many thoughts, so many memories spun through his mind as he regarded the men and women who had once been his family. That he had been irrevocably exiled suddenly meant nothing. Faces he recognised stared back at him with mixed emotions that seemed to match his own.