Revenant

by Bevan McGuiness

  The shapeshifter laughed as if Keshik had made a great joke. ‘How do I know? I was there.’

  32

  Once outside the domed chamber, Myrrhini stopped glowing, although Slave did not pay this much attention. His mind was given over to the disturbingly familiar tunnels he found outside. He ran with increasing concern along the passage that could not be, towards the pool of water that both had to be, but could not be, here.

  It was where it — impossibly — had to be. He looked for the signs of a xath lizard, and was deeply relieved to not find any. That particular impossibility would have been too much.

  Slave gently lowered Myrrhini onto the sandy ground near the ice-cold pool. She moaned once, but whatever had happened to her back in the chamber had left her drained. Not unconscious, but utterly exhausted. Slave tore a strip of cloth from her ruined dress and dipped it into the pool of water, using it to clean the blood and black ooze from her face.

  Her delicate features reappeared as he washed her. He paused for a moment before undressing her. She was covered in blood and gore, as was he. With a wry shake of his head, he undressed himself, picked her up and walked into the pool.

  The icy shock jolted Myrrhini into full wakefulness. She cried aloud, but when her arms wrapped around his neck, she buried her face into his chest and fell silent. Slave’s first thought was one of relief that she had finally learned silence. Beneath his feet, the bottom of the pool was smooth and sandy, sloping gradually downward. He lowered Myrrhini until she stood by herself and then started to wash them both. She stood mutely, enduring his hard hand as he attempted to remove the filth from her unresponsive body. When he was done, he led her back to the dry sand and went to dress her again, but she gave a small sound of denial and pushed his hands away.

  It was then that Slave realised he could see.

  Despite this being underground with no light source, he could see everything clearly, from the sand at his feet to the damage on Myrrhini’s skin. Intuitively, he covered his right eye. Nothing changed. He covered his silver left eye and was plunged into utter blackness.

  Another gift from the Revenant.

  How long had it been like this? His senses were so much keener than anyone else he had yet encountered, so he had not really been aware of any great change in his abilities to move in the dark, relative to those around him. He crouched. He took a handful of the soft sand in his hand and watched it run through his fingers, marvelling at its sparkling colours and perfect consistency. Myrrhini made another sound.

  ‘Slave,’ she whispered. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Right here, Myrrhini,’ he replied. He looked up at her, to watch her reach out her arms and blindly feel about, as if he were standing up in front of her. At least she knows the general direction. ‘At your feet.’

  She crouched down, her hands feeling for him, looking rather silly as she did so. Her hands met his head, sliding down over his hair to find his face. It felt strange to have her feel him like that, unable to see when he could see so clearly. When she seemed content that it was indeed him, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled herself close, nearly unbalancing them both.

  ‘What happened back there?’ she whispered.

  ‘I don’t know. There was something in that chamber besides all those people. It knew us both and did something to us.’

  ‘Something in addition to trying to kill us?’ Myrrhini asked with a bitter edge to her voice.

  Slave nodded. ‘But what I can’t work out is why it didn’t kill us. It was almost as if it couldn’t.’

  ‘We both know what it was though, don’t we?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But it can’t be, really? Could it?’

  ‘No, not in its entirety. If Kielevinenrohkimainen was actually here, there is no way we would have survived. It must have been a part of it, or a projection or something.’

  Myrrhini scowled and released Slave to rock back on her heels.

  ‘I have read something about that kind of thing,’ she said. ‘I imagine that something as powerful as that could do things we can’t even guess at.’

  ‘Imagine? Guess? You read something? Is that the best you have?’

  Myrrhini’s face showed her sudden flash of anger. Slave recognised the emotion, pleased that after so much practice, he was getting better at identifying it. Myrrhini stood quickly, staggering slightly as she did so. She held her head, as if dizzy. Slave rose to stand in front of her. He was impressed when Myrrhini reached out her hand and rested it on his shoulder. It was as if she had sensed his movement in the darkness and responded without knowing how she knew. She had listened to the senses that always operated, but she rarely acknowledged.

  ‘You should get dressed,’ he said.

  Myrrhini snorted. ‘Is there any point in this darkness?’

  ‘You will need your clothes later,’ he pointed out.

  Myrrhini appeared to give this some thought before sighing. ‘Can we find them?’

  ‘I can,’ Slave assured her. He stepped away from her and gathered up their clothes.

  ‘Do you know how to get out of here?’ Myrrhini asked.

  ‘Yes, I think so. I can find my way back to where I came in.’

  ‘Slave?’ Myrrhini’s voice was small, uncertain. The expression on her face was one he had not seen before.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘When we were in the chamber, did you want to … I mean were you …’ Her voice trailed away as if unwilling to complete the sentence.

  ‘Did I what?’

  ‘Did you … want me?’

  Slave did not respond immediately. When he did not speak, Myrrhini’s face changed again. Slave was unnerved to see tears form in her eyes.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. He felt it was a lie, because he was now sure his flood of desire was not his, but that of the Revenant, Kielevinenrohkimainen. ‘But I don’t know why.’

  ‘You don’t know why?’

  ‘No.’ He was about to say more, but Myrrhini abruptly turned from him and started walking away.

  She moved quickly, apparently unaware of the solid stone wall directly ahead of her. In a moment of clear recollection, Slave remembered the time he had fled a xath lizard in a room unnervingly like this one to run headlong into that wall. Fortunately, Myrrhini did not knock herself senseless, but the noise of her head smashing unhindered into the stone was disconcertingly loud. She reeled backward, her hands clasped to her forehead, blood already trickling down past her eyes. Slave moved to aid her, but she shoved him away as soon as he touched her.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ she snapped.

  ‘If that is what you want,’ said Slave, stung by her vitriol. He stepped back from her and dropped her clothes. ‘Your clothes are on the ground behind you. I will leave you alone now. Goodbye.’ He turned towards the exit that would lead him back to the chamber and jogged away.

  Her voice called to him before he had rounded the second corner. He stopped moving to listen.

  ‘Slave?’ she called. ‘Where are you? You can’t leave me down here alone.’

  Make up your mind, woman!

  He was about to turn back to her when he sensed another presence in the tunnel with him. While he could see, there were dark shadows gathered all around him, so dark as to be impenetrable even to his enhanced sight. One corner especially was simply too dark to be natural. The irony of imagining anything to be natural in this impossible place was not lost on Slave as he allowed his bundled clothes to drop to the ground. His Claw pulsed with energy as he raised it to his face in salute towards the dark.

  A harsh, growling voice spoke from the midst of the blackness. ‘You were always too good to fool for long.’

  Slave felt his world shake and shudder beneath his soul. His breath caught in his throat and the dimness of the tunnels suddenly faded as his vision faltered. Within his chest, Slave’s heart pounded mercilessly, driving all air out of him. Panic strode boldly through his mind, stealing his courage, trampling on his control, unma
nning him utterly as he dropped to his knees with tears streaming down his cheeks. Slave’s life shattered as he was transported back to a world he had fled, a world he hoped beyond reason he would never see again. There was nothing he could do as everything crashed around him in ruins.

  ‘Master,’ he sobbed. ‘Please don’t hurt me.’

  33

  Maida put her foot on the dock, feeling it move slightly with the pressure. Standing too close, the guard watched her with lust in his eyes. He gripped the hilt of his sword as if she offered him some threat. Of course she did, but not the sort he was prepared for.

  Since Keshik had left without a word to her, Maida had waited for his return seething with anger. To watch him climb up the wall surrounding this inland dock without so much as a backward look at her, let alone his complete lack of even telling her where he was going, was as painful an experience as she had had since they were separated by the Blindfolded Queen’s agents.

  Soon after the Habbiga had left, there was a predictable scramble at the top of the wall as evidence — most likely a dead body or two — of their entry was discovered, followed by the equally predictable loss of interest as the fuss died down. Now that the dawn was approaching, she would wait no longer. This fool of a guard was the only thing between her and an easy way off the ship.

  She did not know why he had lowered the dock, nor did she care. No one else aboard ship had bothered to come to speak with him, so he was probably left feeling rather stupid. Maida had taken her chance and approached him. The platform was there, there was only one man on it, and she wanted to be off the ship. It all worked for her.

  ‘I need to leave,’ she repeated.

  ‘I’m sure we can come to an agreement,’ the guard said with a leer.

  Maida took a deep breath and moved closer to the unwashed man. His smell was rank, almost overpowering, but Maida knew she had smelled worse herself. She pressed against him, making sure her breasts were much in evidence.

  ‘I’m sure we can,’ Maida agreed. The guard’s arm slipped around her waist and pulled her hard against him.

  ‘That’s what I wanted to hear,’ he breathed into her face. His breath smelled even worse than his body. His left hand was actively feeling her body while his right hand pulled on a lever to alert the guard at the top to start the winch that would raise the platform. By the time the dock started to move, the guard had found Maida’s lips with his.

  Maida endured the clumsy embrace until they reached the top, at which time her knee sought a soft target. She drove the blow up as hard as she could to be rewarded by the guard’s strangled cry and his doubling over like he’d been stabbed. Maida shoved him away before lashing out with her boot, connecting a savage kick to his face. He dropped like a dead fish. The guard operating the winch, his back to the platform, had no chance as Maida’s dagger was driven into the base of his skull. After wiping the blade on his clothes, Maida sheathed it and set off at a flat run towards the walled city. She had to reach the wall before dawn fully illuminated it if she were to have any chance of infiltration. Once inside, she would reconsider her options.

  As it happened, she stopped running well before reaching the city. In the growing light, she saw the area around the wall start to move. What she had assumed was a normal cleared zone, left bare to offer an attacking army no cover from the various projectile weapons mounted on the walls, was anything but cleared. In the dark, the hundreds of mounds dotting the killing zone that Maida had dismissed as remnants from the siege were in fact rude dwellings, out of which were now pouring hundreds of ragged, stinking people.

  They surged out of their ramshackle dwellings to move like a huge single creature towards the gate. In moments, Maida was swamped by them. The stench assailed her as much as the physical onslaught of so many bodies pressing against her. There was no hint of physical danger from any form of attack — it was nothing beyond pressure of bodies surging together. Maida, by virtue of her own movement, was near the front of the crowd. She was carried along with the mass of rancid humanity.

  The pond in front of the gate slowed the movement down as many stopped to drink, but as hundreds trooped past, splashing through, the clarity of the water did not last long. Maida did not pause, but tramped through the water towards the open gates. From the way the people did not pause, she guessed there was a chance that some would be allowed inside, as if this were a regular event. It was Maida’s chance to get inside without the risks associated with a clandestine entry.

  There might well be other risks, but she would face those as they came.

  Maida kept her head down and shuffled along. Around her, the ragged people paid her little attention beyond avoiding making unnecessary contact. No one spoke directly to her, although there were conversations going on all around her. She heard snatches about the lack of food, the lack of water, the upcoming war, the siege, the desperation to get inside before ‘they’ took more lives in the dark of the night.

  Something was preying on these people, taking them silently while they slept. On hearing this, Maida started to pay attention to anything about ‘them’, but detailed information was lacking. Everything she heard had a sense of rumour based on fear rather than solid facts, but fear was usually based on something real. And these people were desperately afraid of something outside the city gates.

  The surge of people carried her inside the city. As she passed through the gate, she looked up, seeing the hundreds of murder holes in the wall above. She also saw the grooves cut at either edge of the five-pace-thick walls, indicative of the presence of portcullises that could be dropped, allowing for the wholesale slaughter of anyone trapped between them.

  As Maida passed into the city, she sensed a change of mood in the crowd. The fear that lay so thickly over them seemed to lift, replaced by a feeling of relief. It happened so quickly she could almost smell the difference. Then conversation stopped abruptly as the sound of rattling chains rang out. There was a sudden surge forward as those behind her cried out, fear reappearing. The push became almost panicked as the inner portcullis slammed down into the crowd.

  It smashed onto the stone-covered ground, the sound of its fall drowning out the screams for a moment, but only for a moment. There was a heartbeat of silence, followed by a new wailing, a screaming, not of fear, but of pain and loss as those close to the portcullis realised their fate.

  Those on the outside felt the anguish of being condemned to another day and night beyond the questionable safety of the walls, while the people on the inside looked at those separated from them. From the poignancy of their cries, Maida guessed this separation could well be final. Hands reached through the heavy metal grid of the portcullis, gripping those of loved ones, seeking reassurance, seeking a last touch, before the soldiers on either side started to move in to separate the crowd.

  And then there were the piercing screams of agony from those few who were unable to escape the falling metal gate as it crashed down to divide the mass. Five lay dead, mercifully crushed, but a few others lay trapped under the huge metal gate, held there by shattered limbs, their blood seeping out to join the stains from previous days. Hands reached out imploringly, but the soldiers ignored their plight as they moved through the crowd, shoving people either further into the city, or away beyond the wall. Maida tore her eyes from the shrieking injured, trying to block their gut-wrenching agony from her mind.

  No matter their fate, she could not help while the noise and confusion offered her the best chance she would likely have to get away and lose herself in the maze of alleys that had to exist in such an ancient city as this. She pulled the hood of her robe up over her head and started to shove her way through the crowd, seeking an escape.

  There had to be some sort of dark underneath of this city — there was in every city in the world. No matter where one went, the dregs, the disaffected and the anarchistic would drift downward in society to congregate in huddled groups that met in darkness to plot and scheme. Even the useless needed to eat,
drink and clothe themselves, and even the most anarchistic needed money. This meant crime and criminals — something she understood. Maida eased away from the ragged crowd, slipping into the narrowest, darkest alley she could find. Once out of the sunlight, she started to move more quickly, dagger in hand, senses keen.

  Like every other city she had ever had the misfortune to enter, Asnuevium smelled of urine and faeces mixed with sweat and the rancid stink of casual sex. She had been sneered at for being a stinking barbarian all her life by those who washed even less often than she did. At least when it rained on her, she took advantage of the opportunity to wash, unlike these scuttlers hiding in the shadows they made for themselves. Maida knew her anger clouded her judgement, but she was unwilling to expend the energy to put it aside. In truth, she treasured her anger, relishing the emotion that made her seethe, made her eyes flash and gave her throat a flush of red. More often than she cared to remember, the physical signs of her anger had been interpreted as those of sexual arousal.

  Men would fight an angry woman, but they rarely drew a blade on an aroused one.

  She ran on, taking into account the near-deserted alleys, the shuttered windows, the locked doors and the quiet. She ran without clear direction, but a general sense that the criminal parts of any city tended to be a town within a city, often marked by barriers, sometimes even guarded barriers. Maida doubted she was looking for anything so overt in a city like this one. An ancient city would likely have traditional zones, established over generations, buried deep in the consciousness of the people. They would not be hard to find.

  Maida slowed her pace as the alleys became narrower, darker, with less sky visible overhead. It felt as if the buildings had started to hunch over, coming together above her, enclosing her, entrapping her. She sensed the change in mood, the shift from city to ancient village, from welcoming to hostile. A quick, furtive movement from a dark corner ahead alerted her to the first watcher.