Talion Revenant

by Michael A. Stackpole

  As an afterthought I looked around for one of the red strips of cloth I had to collect. Off to the left I spotted a small wooden box nailed on a tree. Inside it I could see a flag but, before I got back to my feet and approached it, a door snapped down over its front and locked the flag away. I'd lost my first flag!

  I quickly examined the hardwood box and discovered a simple sand timer counterbalanced by some small weights. As the sand drained out of a small pail, the weights pulled the box lid down. The weights probably varied according to the age or expected speed of the recruit. The trumpet blast at the start, I guessed, told Talions to start the sand draining.

  I started running again, faster than before, so I could regain some of the time I'd lost. That I'd missed my first flag bothered me because it was possible that I'd failed the whole trial at the first obstacle. I felt that wouldn't be fair, but I had no guarantee the trial was meant to be fair. I could only hope one mistake would be forgiven.

  I ran around a hill and down into a narrow ravine. The trail ended at a stretch of icy mountain stream. It started again about twenty feet upstream and the blue pennants lined the stream shores. Up where the trail began again I saw one of the flag boxes with its door half shut.

  I suppressed a smile. In Sinjaria I'd lived near the Darkesh, so mountain streams held no novelty or fear for me. My brothers and I used to relax and swim in them whenever Father didn't need us, and we were all good swimmers. Without hesitation I dove into the water and stroked toward my goal.

  The cold water numbed the pain in my shoulder and I cut through it like a warship running before the wind. Drenched but exhilarated, I climbed from the stream and took my flag. I hooked it through the belt of my loincloth and started running again.

  Had I not injured my shoulder, the next test would have gotten me. A half mile beyond the river, along a path that went up and down hills lying like a wrinkled blanket on the forest floor, I came to a long, deep pit blocking my way. A series of ropes hung from a log suspended above the pit by stripped-pole tripods at each end. The easy, and obvious, path across it was to swing from rope to rope, but my injury made that path impossible for me to even consider.

  I shinned up one of the poles on my side and worked my way across the log holding the ropes. Midway I saw that the hook holding one of the ropes in place would shear off and drop into the pit if someone swung onto that rope. Suddenly the hole in my arm seemed not so much of a burden, because it saved me from this trap.

  I located the box, gathered my second flag, and smiled, because the door on this box was not as close to shut as the door had been on the last one. I'd regained some time and that gave me a little heart. I filled my lungs with the fresh, living mountain air, fastened the flag to my belt, and resumed my run.

  I almost missed the next flag. I guess it was meant as a test of observation. I'd been running for over half a league, a feat that would have been well beyond me had not my journey to Talianna trained me for it, and I felt very tired. Sweat covered me and some of it seared into my wound. It stung fiercely, as though some portion of the sliver was still in there. I knew I had to keep up my pace, to beat the timers, but I had to stop to retie the bandage and snatch at a moment's rest.

  A lightning bolt of pain forked through my arm as I tightened the blood-soaked cloth. I took one end of it in my mouth and tasted the salty-sweet blood as I knotted it off. I caught my breath and then, as I looked forward again, I caught a flash of red from the corner of my eye. Instantly I left the trail.

  There, at eye level but half hidden behind the thick bole of an oak, hung a box with a flag. This door stood almost as open as the last one, and suggested the pace I'd set would stand me in good stead if I could keep it up. I took the flag, tucked it for safekeeping with the others, and raced on.

  I found the next and final encounter, in a small, bowl-shaped dust flat between hills. I ran around a hill and entered the arena with the morning sun full in my eyes. Silhouetted on the hilltop across from me stood several adults, and although I couldn't see their features, I thought I recognized Lord Hansur as the tall man in the middle.

  Across the dustbowl from me, in a box high on a pine, sat the last flag. A Talion stepped from the brush at my right and tossed me a quarterstaff. Between me and the flag box another Talion, a novice my age, who wore the white sword ensign of the Warriors on his left breast, barred my path.

  My heart sank. They'd matched me against a trained fighter with a staff. My "staff" training consisted of days spent whacking oxen who didn't like plowing straight furrows, and my only fighting experience came from the rough-and-tumble wrestling melees my brothers and I always got into. If I'd not lost the trial on the first test, I knew it now lay beyond my ability to win at all.

  Desperation and anger filled me. The utter frustration at having come so far to fall so short of my goal choked me. I cried out against it in an incoherent war cry, brandished the staff, and ran directly at my waiting foe. Though I had no skill, I could certainly batter him with my rage and defeat him. At least in that I could take joy and would win a small victory within my huge defeat.

  Then, as the Warrior moved to oppose me, I remembered I wanted the flag. My goal was not to crack his head, but to pull that shred of cloth from the box on the tree. I was really fighting for time and a chance to get the flag. And that battle I could win.

  I raised my staff like a spear, cocked my right arm back, and threw with all my might. The staff spun like a yarn spindle and flew directly at the Warrior's face. With a look of contempt he parried my cast wide to my left. The staff skipped off his with a crack and tumbled to a rest in the dust. I veered for it and the Warrior shuffled over to block me.

  As he moved, I cut for the flag box and put every ounce of speed I had left into my run. I heard him curse when he discovered my deception and he shot after me. I heard his footfalls right behind me and I imagined his breath on my neck. Exhaustion knotted my sides, but I thrust my pain aside and sprinted hard, even though I knew he gained on me with each step.

  I felt him right behind me. I dared not look back, yet I knew, in seconds, he'd swing his staff through my weakening legs, trip me up and send me to the ground. He'd stand over me to knock me down if I struggled to get up off the gritty arena floor. The flag, so close, looked so far away. In my mind I had lost.

  "No!" I screamed. I had not lost yet. I could not let me defeat myself.

  I planted my left leg, stopped abruptly and stabbed my right leg out behind me. The Warrior impaled himself on my heel and folded around my leg like a slack sail wind-whipped against a mast. Air exploded from his lungs in a loud ooofff and his staff flew from limp hands.

  The jarring collision knocked me sprawling forward on my face. Sand scraped and stung my chin and chest, crunched beneath my teeth, and made me sneeze. It coated me head to foot and each tiny grain seemed to weigh a pound in my exhaustion.

  I slowly hauled myself to my feet. I moved as fast as I could, but my mind kept screaming that I had to move faster. I knew in my heart that the Warrior meant his groans to lull me into believing I had all the time in the world to get my last flag. I stumbled once, grinding more sand into my bleeding knees, then rose and limped toward the flag box.

  Grimy and bloodstained, I grabbed the last flag. I locked it in a steely fist. My lungs burned and my body ached, but I had won. I'd gotten—no, I'd earned—my damn flags. I'd done my best and better than that. But was that good enough?

  I bent down, rested my hands on my knees, and sucked in as much air as I could. Overhead the box snapped shut. I closed my eyes and shook my head to clear the beads of sweat running down my face. My pulse pounded in my ears and my head felt huge. Vertigo swept through me and I almost fell. Then I heard the sand crunch before me and I straightened up.

  Lord Hansur stood there like the shadow of death. Behind him, a black shadow in the sun's disk, only one figure remained on the hillock. Lord Hansur held his long-fingered left hand out to me. "The flags."

  I took th
e other three from my belt and handed all four to him. He dropped them into the sand as he counted them. To the left I could see the Warrior still rolled up into a ball, with two other Talions poised to help him, but they watched the flags fall as intently as I did. Each flag fluttered noiselessly onto the dusty basin floor, but I heard each impact with the thundercrack finality of a headsman's ax falling on the block.

  The Lord of Justices looked at me. "There are only four flags here. To become a Thirteen you require five."

  I crumpled inside. I could not breathe. Vertigo returned to drown me. My limbs trembled as the tension that had fueled them evaporated with my hopes and dreams. It was over, it was all for nothing. I'd done what they asked and I was rejected. I was finished.

  Before I could organize my thoughts enough to remember I always had my other plan, the man on the hill spoke. His voice was not deep or commanding but all the Talions instantly paid attention to it. He spoke in the Talions' own tongue. His short statement—if inflection meant anything—was a question.

  Lord Hansur, who had never turned from me, nodded. "I have been instructed to ask for the fifth flag. The flag you used to bind your arm."

  A lump in my throat blocked any denial I could have offered. The fingers of my right hand trembled as I pried the knot loose and unwrapped the bloody rag from my arm. Dark brown where the blood had already dried, the rag in no way matched the other flags. Reluctantly, fearfully, I held the flag out. This was not my deception, yet I was terrified of the rebuke I'd earn for being a party to it.

  Lord Hansur took the tattered strip and examined it as he had the others. Its length and ragged edges mocked the flags piled below it. Obviously torn from my loincloth, the spotty color and coarse weave proclaimed it an impostor. Stiff and twisted, it hung from his hand lifelessly. I could not have produced a worse forgery had I tried to do so.

  Lord Hansur turned it over one more time, nodded, then dropped it with the others. He looked up at me and smiled. "Welcome to Talianna, Novice Nolan ra Sinjaria."

  Chapter Three

  Talion: Pine Springs

  I awoke the next morning in Weylan's cabin and, though I was anxious to start back on the trail, Elverda protested I was too weak to ride off immediately. Her persuasive argument had powerful allies in the hacking cough that racked my body from time to time—usually at the same moment I announced my total recovery—and her cooking. I agreed to stay for one more day and prayed the dry weather would hold out to preserve enough of Morai's trail so I could use it in my pursuit of him and his men.

  I spent the morning writing down an account of my actions in my journal. All Talions keep journals, though only Justices and Elites have them reviewed by their Lord on any regular basis. I also got Weylan's version of what happened at the ferry station written up. Like most people, Weylan was illiterate, so Elverda wrote what he had to say on a page in my journal and they both signed it.

  That afternoon I got out into the hot sun and chopped some wood. I felt weak at first but the sun burned the remaining illness from my body as I worked. I took great satisfaction in chopping the wood because, after dealing with a sorcerer and waking up not as dead as I expected to be, finding something that worked as I anticipated it would reassured me about reality. The sharp ax split the wood with a loud, surprised crack and sent the logs tumbling back away from me.

  My decision to stay the extra day provided a bonus that made the delay more than worth it. Two tinkers came to the ferry in midafternoon and I helped Weylan tie their wagon to the barge for the crossing. The tinkers, both from Kas, gladly left that work to us and, without realizing I was more than Weylan's aide, idly commented about their travels and the strange things they'd seen.

  "And we even saw a Daari as we rode out of Pine Springs!" commented the elder, more rotund, tinker. "That was a nightmare. It took me back to the start of our trip."

  I looked up at his comment. Vareck, one of Morai's men, was a Daari. The tinker's observation gave me one place to start looking for him. If I set out directly for Pine Springs, I'd not lose a day traveling back to the camp to pick up his trail from there.

  The sun was setting by the time Weylan and I got back from crossing the tinkers. We tied the ferry to the docks, washed ourselves off in the river and returned to the cabin. Inside Elverda stirred a large pot of bubbling stew over the fire and a fresh loaf of bread steamed on the table. She ladled out a bowl of the thick, hot stew for each of us.

  Over the meal Weylan told her about the tinkers and the information they'd supplied me. "Nolan thinks he can pick up their trail from there before they head north to Memkar."

  Elverda nodded and smiled, but I read reluctance at my leaving in the stiff formality of her actions. I could

  understand that, in some ways, because she and I were Weylan's only true friends. For my part I had no doubt Weylan would well survive my departure.

  Elverda stood and refilled Weylan's bowl. "The Daari, they're dangerous, aren't they?"

  I hesitated, laying my brother Arik's ghost yet again, and then answered. "Yes, they are. The Daari are a very savage and superstitious people. They see the world as a demon-haunted place and themselves as the only people who can destroy those demons."

  Weylan frowned. "I think I saw one once, when I was very young. He was horribly scarred on his face." Weylan shuddered and Elverda reached across the table to squeeze his right hand.

  I broke a piece of bread from the slice in my left hand and dipped it into my stew. "The Daari believe that demons swallow the sun at night and then parade over the world working great evil. All the Daari are scarred at birth on the left half of their body. Each night the entire Daari population faces north as the sun sets. They expose the left sides of their bodies and the scarring is supposed to be so frightening to the demons that they avoid the Daari. In their haste to flee from these fierce folks, they do not devour the earth. The Daari even bury their dead on hillsides facing north so they continue their service to the world even after they are no longer living."

  Elverda passed me a pitcher of ale. "The Daari do not often leave their country, do they?"

  I shook my head. "Not since the Demon Crusade, when two thousand Daari decided to rid the world of the Talions." I showed them my right palm. "The Daari believe Talions are demon-possessed because of this mark. Our Lancers slaughtered their crusaders and captured the Prince leading the force. Since then the monarchy has avoided any overt concentrations of force. Right now the only Daari out of country are ambassadors, a few mercenaries, and one or two outlaws like Vareck."

  "What did he do?" Elverda frowned. "Surely leaving Daar is not enough of a crime to set a Talion on him."

  I poured ale into my cup and passed the pitcher to Weylan. "Daari elders drove Vareck out because he got a bit overzealous in his demon-hunting activities. Each Daari warrior is taught how to carve a spiritlance from a yew branch. They cover it with symbols to imbue it with the power to slay any demons possessing whomever the spear hits. The problem is the spear also kills the person housing the spirit. Vareck claimed his wife and two children were 'possessed.' He slew them and because he said they were possessed the act was not considered murder by his elders, so exile was the worst punishment they could inflict on him."

  "He's killed others since, so he's mine now." I shrugged. "Local authorities normally would deal with someone like him, but since he's begun traveling with Morai, he moves fast and has eluded his pursuit."

  Weylan frowned. "What would Morai want with someone like him? From the stories I would have thought Morai smarter than that."

  I nodded. "So would I, but Morai has always been full of surprises. This time around he's gathered up a truly foul group of individuals, all of whom have significant bounties offered for them. I half suspect he's been paid to lure them out where they can be killed."

  "Letting you take them and earn him his fee?"

  "Possibly, Elverda." I hesitated. This time I'd been sent after Morai and his people because of political unres
t in Memkar. The Talions in service there reported a rumor that Morai had been hired to harass and weaken various families in the Gem cartel. The people he'd pulled out of Chala certainly could accomplish that feat, which in turn could hurt the government enough that ambitious nobles could tear the nation apart and induce invasions by neighbors in an attempt to stabilize things again.

  And stability is something the Master of all Talions holds sacred.

  I smiled at her. "Whatever Morai is doing, I'm certain he has multiple goals and multiple paths for attaining each. Nothing is ever quite what it seems with Morai."

  Our conversation turned away from things grim and ugly, and I let it go gladly. Weylan cleared the plates and we gathered the chairs in front of the fireplace. Weylan got out his lute and strummed his fingers across the strings. Both he and Elverda could play it, so the three of us sang songs long into the night. The evening passed quickly and pleasantly. It felt very good and I could only have hoped that if I'd not become a Talion my life could have been that happy.

  * * *

  Morning came a bit early, but other than lingering lethargy I felt very good and ready to travel. Elverda packed me some bread and cheese while I saddled Wolf. I hugged both Weylan and Elverda and promised to return to visit as soon as possible. With their wishes for good fortune ringing in my ears, I mounted Wolf and rode off.

  Pine Springs lay only two days' ride from the Broad River ferry. Nestled in the foothills of the Ell Mountains, the town was the first settlement south of the pass into Memkar. Though Pine Springs thrived on the caravan trade running from Chala north and back again, the limited prosperity kept the town modest in size.

  On the first night out I left the road to camp at a point beyond where the trail from Morai's camp joined the road. I found a spot back away from the road where I could make a fire without it being seen by any late travelers or bandits. The campsite had been used recently, and to my surprise I found two yew branches and a pile of shavings near the firepit. Vareck, or another Daari, had camped here.