Revenant

by Bevan McGuiness

  ‘It has been too long now, Ild,’ Keshik said.

  ‘And your pain at surrendering the Ild has faded?’

  Keshik glared but did not reply.

  ‘I thought not,’ Badat went on. He sheathed his sword. ‘And I think you have suffered as much as I have. Perhaps now, your suffering will go on, surpassing even mine.’ Ild Badat turned on his heel and stalked away.

  The small crowd of Tulugma who had gathered to watch the confrontation parted to allow Badat passage, closing behind him, shielding him from view. All around them, Maida could see the different tents marking the various kingdoms represented here in this collection of the best fighters the world had to offer. At many of them, she saw its owner either watching or carrying out some sort of arcane activity associated with whatever martial art they followed. There seemed to be a preponderance of men, but there were many women. More eyes, too many unfriendly, were focused on her rather than Keshik. She suddenly felt threatened, unsafe. She grabbed Keshik’s arm.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ she whispered.

  Keshik was about to wrench his arm from her grasp, but stilled his response. He grunted in agreement, turning to walk with her.

  Drikka came with them to where they had set their own makeshift camp. She stood and looked down at the flattened grass that marked where Keshik had cleaned himself up in preparation for his meeting with the Ogedei.

  ‘I will get you a gyrn,’ she said.

  Keshik shook his head.

  ‘They can carry whatever I bring,’ Drikka said, stabbing a finger towards the horses they had taken, ‘and there is a lot of unclaimed gear lying around after the fight.’

  ‘I said no,’ Keshik snarled.

  ‘You didn’t say anything,’ Drikka countered.

  ‘I am saying it now.’

  ‘Have I ever listened to you?’ Drikka did not wait for an answer, turning on her heel and making her way through the chest-high grass back to the Tulugma.

  Keshik watched her go, swearing softly.

  ‘Was she always like that?’ Maida asked.

  ‘Always. Rude, stubborn, arrogant, and usually right.’

  ‘Sounds like someone else I know,’ Maida said, wrapping her arms around him. ‘A gyrn would be nice.’

  Keshik put his arms around her and pulled her close. ‘It would,’ he agreed.

  Holding her tight to his body, he breathed her scent deeply. She smelled good. Her skin was warm in the afternoon sun, her hair glowed and her lips were parted slightly. He kissed them, savouring the feel and taste of her, revelling in her willing responses.

  ‘I said you two needed a gyrn.’

  Maida gave a cry of surprise and pulled a blanket up over herself. Drikka looked down at the two of them with an unreadable expression on her face. Keshik muttered as he sat up.

  ‘Where is it then?’ he grumbled.

  Drikka gave a gesture with her right hand and three men walked past her, carrying piles of gear. They dumped everything beside Maida before walking away without a word. Keshik pulled on his pants. He rose to examine the equipment. It smelled bad, like it had been packed away still wet, but looked sound.

  ‘Whose was it?’ he asked.

  ‘Blai,’ Drikka said.

  ‘Blai? Is he dead?’

  Drikka gave a short nod. ‘Rilaman assassin.’

  ‘Must have caught him asleep.’ Keshik paused as a thought occurred to him. ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘Three days ago.’

  ‘It happened while you were travelling here?’

  Drikka nodded.

  ‘How did an assassin get through the sentries?’

  ‘No one knows.’

  ‘You didn’t ask him?’

  ‘Oh, we asked her, believe me, we asked. But she did not say a word.’

  ‘So she’s dead now?’

  Drikka’s grim expression was all the answer Keshik needed.

  ‘There’s a lot you’re not telling me,’ Keshik accused.

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘Why are you really all here? And why would a Rilaman assassin be after Blai?’

  ‘You have changed a little, Kabutat Keshik. I remember a time when thinking was beyond you. It was all kill first, drink about it later with you.’

  Keshik snarled at his former Tuk.

  ‘I remember that look, Keshik.’ She wagged a finger at him mockingly. ‘You didn’t frighten me then, you don’t frighten me now.’

  Keshik exploded into action. In a single movement, he swept up his swords. Without a pause, he crossed the distance between them and, before Drikka could raise her axe in defence, he had both swords crossed at her throat. The momentum of his charge meant he crashed into her, overbalancing her, ending with him lying atop her, his swords pressing down hard on her naked throat.

  Maida could not see their faces, but she could hear Drikka’s laboured breathing. Keshik muttered something harsh to his Tuk before pushing himself up off her.

  ‘I have changed,’ he agreed. ‘You don’t know me any more.’

  Drikka lay still for a while, then eased herself up into a sitting position.

  ‘You haven’t bested me for a long time, Keshik,’ she said. ‘I have missed you, my friend.’ She sprang to her feet. Slinging her axe over her shoulder, she turned to leave. ‘Don’t forget you are a kabutat,’ she said without looking back.

  When she had vanished into the grass, Maida approached Keshik.

  ‘What did she mean by that?’ she asked, resting one hand on his shoulder. He shrugged her hand off and turned away. Maida sighed. She recognised this mood. Sometimes, it lasted days.

  Keshik stalked back to where the gear had been dropped. He crouched beside it, starting to pull at the ties that bound it. Maida crouched by another bundle, also unpacking it. It did not take long before they were looking at a full set of travelling gear — gyrn, bedding, cookware, warm clothes, even hunting equipment. They were rich again. Maida’s nose twitched at the smell of mould.

  ‘This needs a good clean,’ she commented.

  Keshik grunted.

  ‘Should we pitch the gyrn here for a few days?’

  Keshik rocked back on his heels to regard her. ‘I am not sure,’ he said. It was apparent, to Maida’s relief, that this boon had lifted his dark mood. ‘There is something going on over there I don’t like.’ He indicated the Tulugma camp, hidden by the tall grass.

  ‘What?’

  Keshik frowned. ‘I don’t believe they mobilised the whole Kuriltai just to get you back to your tribe.’

  ‘Is it everybody?’ Maida asked.

  ‘Looks like it should be.’

  ‘That’s quite a fighting force to be travelling quietly through the world.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘So who are they going to fight?’

  ‘They could fight anyone.’

  ‘Have they ever moved like this — as a whole group — before?’

  ‘Never that I know of.’

  ‘You have to think it’s about what happened in Vogel.’

  ‘So why come here?’

  ‘They have to be looking for the Blindfolded Queen.’

  ‘But how do they know where she is?’

  ‘Even if someone has told them, how can they get in?’

  ‘Too many questions,’ Keshik said. ‘Time to find things out.’

  ‘How are we going to do that?’

  ‘Remember that I am kabutat.’

  ‘I thought that was a derogatory term.’

  ‘It has become one, but originally it meant exactly what it says: a night guard. One who can only walk a post or stand guard at night. We all train for night duty, but only the shamed can never take daylight duty.’ Keshik rummaged around in Blai’s gear, finally pulling out a bundle wrapped in black cloth. ‘It has been a while, but tonight I will truly be kabutat again.’ He gave a short sigh. ‘I wish Slave was here.’

  3

  Slave lay on the bed, listening to the events going on around him. Even at
night this towering palace of the Blindfolded Queen was never silent. On the floors above him, the conversations between the various advisors and scholars droned on, apparently without achieving any sort of conclusion. He had wondered already whether these conversations were supposed to be secret. How could they assume any secrecy when all they did was close a door? Did they not know how sound could travel through doors? He smiled in the darkness as he heard a raised voice two floors above him. Myrrhini had managed to annoy someone again.

  Below, the floors dedicated to the administration of the Hidden City buzzed with the mundane activity that seemed to entertain so many people. Slave had, on more than one night, crept down and slipped around the area, listening to the incessant passage of meaningless information. It had not taken him long to decide that there was nothing worth listening to. The upper floors, on the other hand, were much more interesting.

  Slave heard another voice raised in anger — Myrrhini herself this time.

  ‘Ice and wind!’ she shouted. ‘Who does she think she is?’

  He heard her stalk across the floor.

  ‘You stupid bitch,’ another voice grated. It was Yalotqui, one of the Queen’s senior advisors.

  ‘Go away,’ Myrrhini said.

  ‘You cannot treat my queen like that!’

  ‘She ripped my eyes out; how do you expect me to treat her!’

  ‘Better than that.’

  ‘She is a fool. She doesn’t deserve better treatment.’

  ‘She brought you here for a reason, and you are not helping with your stubborn refusal to cooperate.’

  ‘I am cooperating, she just will not listen.’

  ‘Queen Quetzalxoitl has been interpreting the Eztli-Ichtaca since before you sucked your mother’s tit. Don’t presume to judge her.’

  ‘I never sucked my mother’s tit, you stupid old man. I was stolen by the Acolytes and raised by them to do nothing but See. I will judge whomever I want to judge.’

  Yalotqui banged his staff onto the floor with such force Slave wouldn’t have been surprised if it had cracked one of the tiny tiles making up the mosaic floor. ‘I will not tolerate this insolence!’ he roared.

  ‘Personally, what you will or won’t tolerate could not matter less to me. What exactly are you planning to do about it anyway?’

  ‘Do not underestimate me,’ he snarled.

  ‘You hit me,’ she said.

  ‘You bit me,’ he countered.

  Slave rolled off his bed and moved silently to the window. With a deep breath to still the rising feeling of terror, he reached out of the window to find the nearest handhold. Not looking down, he pulled himself out of the window and up. The muscles in his shoulders protested briefly as he dragged his body vertically along the wall until he found a foothold. From then on, it was easy — as long as he never took his eyes from the wall directly in front of his face. He had managed to tell himself he was simply back crawling along the tunnel he had dug to escape his cell beneath Sondelle’s home. It took only a moment to slip back into the climbing rhythm he had practised on his earlier climbs: grip, pull, find toe-hold, push, grip, pull. He passed the Queen’s own level without pausing, pushing on up to the next to last level, where Myrrhini had her own rooms.

  By the time he reached her window, the old man had left. Slave stopped just below the level of Myrrhini’s window to ease his breathing and find out what she was doing.

  As usual, she sat by the window, just staring out at the city below. The first time he had done this, he had chanced a look down at the city himself, almost to his undoing. The sudden rush of blind panic nearly loosened his grip to send him plunging to his death so far below. It was only the involuntary sound he made that alerted Myrrhini. She had grabbed his hand just as he was about to slip.

  At first, she had been angered at his presence, but calmed quickly. Now she seemed to welcome his occasional visits. Indeed, it seemed to amuse her for some reason. Now, satisfied that she was alone, he pulled himself up. She watched him climb over the edge of the window into her room.

  ‘How do you do that?’ she asked him.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Climb so easily up that wall. I looked at it yesterday. It’s completely smooth.’

  ‘No, it isn’t.’

  ‘And how do you know when to come and see me? You never just climb in when there’s someone here.’

  ‘I listen, and wait.’

  ‘But you can’t just hang on that wall, waiting for them to leave.’

  ‘No.’

  Myrrhini shrugged. Slave had given up trying to work out what her various gestures meant — at times she was given to making expansive gestures that had no meaning at all — so he waited for her to speak.

  ‘Yalotqui was just here.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He thinks I don’t speak politely enough to his queen.’

  ‘So you bit him?’

  ‘No; what makes you think I bit him?’

  ‘He said you did.’

  ‘How long have you been there?’

  ‘Not long.’

  ‘So how did you hear what he said?’

  ‘I heard you from my room.’

  ‘That’s four floors down!’

  Slave did not reply.

  ‘You can hear what is said from four floors away?’

  ‘I can. So can you.’

  ‘No, I can’t, no one can.’

  ‘Yes, you can. You just don’t concentrate. Keshik was the same, but he learned. You hear, see and smell a lot more than you realise. All you have to do is focus on what your senses are telling you. My master taught me to move and fight in complete darkness, simply by forgetting what I could not see and paying attention to what I heard and smelled and felt.’

  ‘Can you teach me?’

  ‘I just did. Now you have to practise.’

  ‘Practise? That’s all. Just practise?’

  ‘It’s what I did.’

  ‘How long did you practise for?’

  Slave allowed himself a tight smile. ‘It’s all I did. Ever.’

  Myrrhini looked at him with a quizzical expression, as if she did not believe a word he had just said.

  ‘That is not all I practised. I practised killing, survival, hunting; I read a lot and helped Sondelle with his research.’

  ‘Research? What did he research?’

  ‘Death, mainly. What caused it, what could stop it, what it did to a living body, how to avoid it altogether.’

  ‘Avoiding death? How is that possible?’

  ‘There are ways. I think Sondelle was far older than anyone else in the world.’

  ‘How old?’

  ‘From some things he said, I used to guess he had seen something like a thousand Crossings.’

  ‘A thousand! That’s impossible!’

  ‘Any more impossible than this?’ He indicated his silver eye. ‘Or that?’ he added, pointing at her own flame-filled eyes. ‘He was a powerful sorcerer, much more so than any Reader I have ever heard of.’ He looked away, regarding the night outside the window. ‘Not that it matters any more,’ he added softly.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Leserlang was attacked by one of the Revenants; all the Readers were destroyed. I tried to rescue some of the books, but I lost them, somewhere in the wilderness.’

  ‘Destroyed? How?’

  ‘Their minds were taken.’

  Myrrhini’s eyes widened in horror. ‘That’s what that means,’ she whispered.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Come with me,’ Myrrhini said, rising from her chair. Slave stiffened at the tone of command in her voice, but followed at a distance as she strode out of her room. She moved quickly through the darkened corridors, past inattentive guards, down a set of stairs then towards a large door. The agent standing by it snapped to attention as she approached. Myrrhini seemed not to even notice him as she unlatched the door and leaned onto it, pushing it slowly open.

  Even before he could see the room beyond, he co
uld sense the power, almost taste it. The air hung heavy with the stench of ancient magic, of mysteries too long hidden, too dark to be allowed to see the light. He had sensed something like this before — beneath the city of Vogel, in the wilderness near Leserlang, and once in a dream. As the door swung slowly open, the glow from the floor seeped out, flooding the corridor with a sickly yellow light that swirled and drifted like a dank mist in a swamp.

  ‘What is that light?’ he asked.

  ‘What light?’ Myrrhini asked.

  ‘That.’ Slave gestured at the cloying, drifting yellow light.

  ‘I can’t see anything.’

  Slave shook his head and followed her into the room. As he moved through the light, it flowed like steam around his legs. The stink of rotten power became stronger with every step until he was almost gagging with it. When he was inside, Myrrhini closed the door. As it closed with a solid thud, the whole room erupted into near-blinding light. The roiling yellow vanished, to be replaced with clashing, vibrant flashes of brilliant colour. Shapes sprang from the floor, leaping into manic action. He saw human shapes, wyverns, spurre, julle and, standing above them all, a darkly menacing humanoid figure that stared down at him with undisguised malice.

  ‘Who dared bring that in here?’ it boomed, pointing a huge hand at Slave.

  Slave reacted instinctively, rolling to one side, his Claw appearing as if by magic in his hand as he sprang back to his feet, prepared for violence.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Myrrhini called.

  Instead of answering, Slave sent his Claw spinning across the room towards the looming figure. The glowing weapon sliced through the creature as if it were made from smoke and mist, and slammed into the wall. Myrrhini screamed and dropped to the floor, covering her head with her hands.

  The Warrior’s Claw vibrated slightly from the impact, having embedded itself in the wall, after cutting cleanly through the dark drapes covering the stone. But Slave’s attention was drawn beyond the undamaged, apparently completely unaware apparition, to the image that was revealed behind the slashed fabric. He walked through the swirling light towards the damaged drape. The insubstantial apparition followed him, but he ignored it. When he reached the curtain, he gripped both sides of the tear and jerked it apart. The curtain tore from floor to ceiling, exposing part of a mural.