Talion Revenant

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Beyond the King, in the ballroom, I watched the assembled nobles and guests gently retreat from the base of the stairs we would descend. Everyone was dressed in shades of blue and silver, yet despite the limited choice of colors permitted for that evening, no two gowns or suits looked the same.

  The first thing I noticed about the ballroom, after my eyes adjusted to the brighter light therein, was the intricate pattern of stone revealed on the floor as the nobles withdrew. The stonework was made of both granite and marble, yet instead of having simple square blocks, the stone had been cut and shaped like pieces of stained glass. They varied in color from a bright pink granite to a dark black marble and formed a map of the continent. Clearly, from the nations shown, the map had been produced after the Shattering, but had not yet been revised to incorporate Sinjaria within Hamis's borders. Small stars of contrasting colors pinpointed the important cities within each country.

  White marble pillars supported a vaulted ceiling painted with scenes from legends and faery tales. A large, glittering crystal chandelier hung in the middle of the room and splashed little rainbows of light onto the walls while four smaller versions of it lit the deeper corners of the rectangular room. Directly across from our doorway stood open glass doors provided access to the Castel's gardens.

  Eight musicians gathered together in the ballroom's near right corner reverently played the national anthem with respect and skill. Standing to either side of them, and scattered strategically around the room, tables offered various forms of food and drink, but three tables remained empty to be later filled with meat taken during the leopard hunt.

  The procession took place as Halsted had instructed and warm applause greeted the Princess. The younger male nobles double-checked their attire, and a few uncharitable individuals made whispered comments to their escorts about her, but the majority of people seemed genuinely charmed by her beauty and friendly smile.

  King Tirrell turned and looked to me as the applause trailed off. I advanced and stopped one step below her before I turned to offer her my left arm. She gently laid her hand on my forearm, did not let her surprise show when she felt the knife, and let me lead her to the Grand Duke. She graced me with a smile that shot a thrill through me and burned envy into more than one noble as we glided past them.

  We stopped at the Grand Duke's right and Halsted appeared at my shoulder instantly. "The first dance is the Ceremonial."

  I nodded. He took it for granted that I knew the dance, because all nobles had to know it. Fortunately it was common in Sinjaria and my grandmother had seen to it that all of us—save Arik—learned it as children. Somehow I managed to avoid laughing as the image of a Services clerk teaching the step to one of Lord Eric's Lancers burst unbidden into my brain.

  Halsted's voice saved me. "You will dance with the Princess. Follow her parents onto the floor."

  I nodded and he vanished to signal the musicians that all was ready for the dance. I stiffened for a heartbeat because, although the music started familiarly enough, it shifted as King Tirrell led his Queen into the floor. The Princess half-stepped to the left and slipped her right hand up to take my hand. With her hand resting gently on mine at shoulder height we walked onto the dance floor.

  The dance itself really was simple, and my initial concern faded as the steps came back to me. We walked forward three strides, turned to face each other, slid one step back in the direction whence we had come, then turned and stepped forward for three paces while the Princess turned a pirouette. We repeated the sequence and followed the King and Queen in their circuit around the ballroom. Behind us couples fell into line and soon almost everyone was dancing.

  In Hamis the dance had been changed ever so slightly. Physically the steps remained the same, but the musicians picked up the pace with each repetition, and the women were expected to turn more than one pirouette as the tempo increased. I adapted quickly by surrendering myself to the music and my partner's skill in the dance.

  Light and graceful, the Princess moved fluidly, like a silk pennant in a gentle breeze, and used me for nothing more than guidance and support during the dance. The music consumed her and she spun wildly with her hair flying and her eyes flashing. Her smile was infectious, so I soon found myself grinning like a fool before we'd half finished the dance.

  The music raced on and older or timid couples gracefully bowed out of the dance. The Princess reached down, caught her gown with her left hand so it would not trip her, and continued to fly around the room as the crowd thinned. I noticed the King and Queen had withdrawn, but Count Patrick and his wife followed quickly behind us in a scintillating blur of silver and azure.

  Princess Zaria winked at the Countess and tossed her head back in a wordless challenge. She whirled four times beneath my hand with that sequence and five times the next. I saw a grimace on Patrick's face as his wife matched the Princess, then spun like a top, swirled six times around, and smiled broadly at her cousin.

  The dance ended abruptly as one musician, unable to match the pace set by the royal dancers, faltered and broke his companions' concentration. The Princess twirled to a stop and breathlessly backed away from me to curtsy. I bowed, fully expecting to lose her to the other nobles who already hovered nearby, but she saw them and quickly took my right hand. "You will get me some wine?"

  The question had only one answer, so I led her to the nearest table laden with goblets and pointed to a crystal decanter filled with a dark red vintage. Though I did not realize it until I smelled the bouquet, the wine I'd chosen came from Yotan. She sipped and smiled at my choice.

  The Princess studied my face and I smiled in a vain attempt to forestall a blush. A small laugh caught in her throat and she slowly turned her goblet between her third and fourth fingers. "I thank you for the dance."

  "The pleasure was all mine, Your Highness."

  She tilted her head down, studied the light reflecting from her wine for a moment, then flashed her brown eyes up at me. "You dance quite well for a Darkesh bandit."

  Her comment took me by surprise and caught me in the middle of a swallow. I narrowly avoided inhaling the wine, but it still took a second or two, and a weak cough, to recover myself. "I have no idea how you would have gotten the idea that I ever was a bandit."

  She peered up impishly over the lip of her cup. "Certainly the object hidden up your sleeve would not have suggested that possibility to me, would it?" She sipped then composed her face with mock sympathy. "Your shoulder does not bother you when you dance?"

  I smiled and matched her mischievious stare with one full of innocence and chivalry. "Not when my partner is so lithe and graceful."

  Her reply died aborning along with the playful light in her eyes as a man joined us. Shorter than me by an inch or two, his thick muscular build suggested he outweighed me by at least forty pounds. He was easily twice my twenty-three years and wore his white hair in a mane cut. He alone ignored the evening's chosen colors and proudly displayed a white horse rampant device on the left breast of his black tunic. He wore a rjqril of sorts at his left hip.

  The Princess bowed her head to him just enough to suggest respect without any trace of friendship or warmth. "Lord Nolan ra Yotan, this is Captain Herman ra Tal. He is the Talion in charge of the cavalry here."

  I turned and smiled to him. "My pleasure."

  "Hast thou been long in Seir?" Herman backed his deep voice with a smile and the words came naturally slow. He set his trap well.

  I shook my head and stared at him with an utterly puzzled expression. "Excuse me, I do not understand."

  He forcefully renewed the smile on his face. "Forgive me. I had to practice High Tal so often when I joined the Lancers that now I even come to think in it. I asked if you had been long in Seir."

  I shook my head. "No. I met the hunting party in the country." Then I turned to the Princess and laughed. "This is rather odd, is it not? You believe me a Darkesh bandit and the good captain here mistakes me for a Talion."

  The Princess smi
led, then turned to speak with a young baron. He asked and she agreed to join him in the current dance. I reached out to take her goblet with my right hand and openly exposed my unadorned palm to Captain Herman. The Princess smiled at me and thanked me, and Herman frowned. He excused himself, turned away, and wandered off through the crowd.

  I gravitated toward Count Patrick because, as the Princess's escort, I could dance with no one but her. I found him at a table eating grapes and, although we started talking quietly, we soon attracted a circle of people who pressed us to describe our adventure in the Dhesiri warren. I demurred, but Patrick had no qualms about terrifying our listeners with dark and forbidding pictures of an underworld ruled by lizard demons. Once he'd brought them to the point where they believed the King's party was lost, he pointed me out as their savior.

  Our audience turned to me for my half of the story, but I shook my head to downplay any heroics on my part. "If not for the Count risking his life to leave me a trail, I never would have found them. His risk was much greater than any I took."

  Patrick offered me no refuge. "Blazing a trail is simple, but only a hero could follow it and recover us from certain death."

  I glared at him, then smiled. "Honestly, my lords and ladies, my efforts would have been all for naught had the King not led the Count, Duke, and myself through the warren and forced us to hold the only defensible position in the whole underworld. And if the Grand Duke had not brought the others to our rescue there is no way we would be here talking to you this evening."

  Patrick guessed what I was doing and helped me deflect our audience. They easily accepted our story and slowly evaporated when they found our tale no longer novel or thrilling. As the last one turned away, Patrick raised a cup to me and laughed. "Nolan, let them see you as a hero. There is no reason you should fight it so hard."

  I swallowed a grape and repeated his gesture. "I could say the same to you, my lord. You were as much a hero there as I was." The wine we had picked up was a sweet white from the island of Takkesh. It had a subtle flavor and I enjoyed it.

  Count Patrick narrowed his eyes and a self-conscious grin flitted across his lips. "Between us, I will accept that praise. You were there and you know what we did. But we only did what we had to if we were to survive. Is that bravery? I do not think so, but others who are not in that situation might see it that way."

  Phillip's arrival cut off further conversation. "Father, up, up. The bard. I want to see." The boy held small hands up and clutched at air until Patrick lifted him into his arms.

  I set both Count Patrick's and my cup down, then trailed after the redheaded noble as he cut through the crowd. Everyone moved toward the corner where the musicians had been earlier, and I saw the musicians drifting off toward a wine table. I could see nothing of the bard until I got close, and my first glimpse of the minstrel came through the tall fan-comb one dowager wore at the back of her head. Though I saw a flash of golden hair, I didn't make the connection until I met her blue eyes.

  The bard was Selia!

  I backed to retreat instantly but the Princess slipped up from behind me and firmly took hold of my left forearm. She led me to an open spot in the circle of nobles surrounding Selia. I knew better than to hope my moustache and goatee would conceal my identity from her, so I smiled like everyone else and nodded to her when she looked at me. My only chance to keep my identity intact was if she could keep quiet until we had a chance to speak together privately.

  Selia first sang two songs about Hamisian history. Both praised the wisdom and antiquity of the current ruling family without even a hint of the strife Selia told me about when we were on the trail. I understood it. She had no reason to insult her hosts and another version of these songs that included the bloody start of this House would play well enough in Sinjaria or Lacia.

  For her third song she chose, of course, Morai's Song. I had a smile on my face throughout, laughed when the others did, and prayed she'd not embarrass me. I tried not to cringe when she added two new verses to the song I'd heard in Pine Springs, but I had nothing to worry about. They only mentioned me in passing—by title instead of by name since she did not know it—and they concentrated on the lady Morai had fallen for. It changed the bandit's song into a romance and provided an ending that precluded the need for the Talion to pursue Morai any further.

  Duke Vidor limped from the crowd behind her as the third song ended and led the applause. Halsted appeared and reverently whisked her lute away. The Duke took her arm and led her straight toward the Princess and myself. Recognition sparked in Selia's eyes.

  "Your Highness, I would like to present the bard Selia ra Jania." He hesitated, then corrected himself. "More properly she is Lady Selia as her father is a Janian noble. Lady Selia, this is Princess Zaria."

  Selia curtsied deeply. Princess Zaria smiled and returned the gesture. Vidor then turned on me. "Lord Nolan, this is Lady Selia ra Jania ..."

  I interrupted him. "We know each other already." I held my right hand out to her palm up, took the hand she placed in it, and kissed it. Then I turned to the Princess. "Ask her nothing about me. She will merely fill your head with tales of a Darkesh bandit who ran with Morai for a short time. None of it is true."

  Selia smiled and nodded her head sheepishly. "My lord, the Duke, says we should discuss the escape from the Dhesiri warren. He says it would make an interesting song."

  "Perhaps," I replied, "it can be arranged."

  Duke Vidor immediately bowed to the Princess. "Who are we to stand in the way of art? Since these two have something to discuss, could I trouble you to join me in the dance? This one is simple enough I think I can acquit myself admirably."

  The Princess looked at me and Selia, then turned away and took the Duke's arm. "Of course." The swirling cloud of silver and blue quickly swallowed them.

  Politely, I took Selia's arm and led her around the dance floor to the gardens. In the sky above us the Wolf Moon, half-full, did its best to catch the smaller Rabbit Moon as they raced from horizon to horizon. The night breeze mixed the salty sea air with the fragrant perfume of night-blooming flowers. In a shadowed corner of the garden I found a stone bench and guided Selia to it.

  "Selia, I thank you for not saying anything. It is more important than you can imagine that my identity remains secret."

  She smiled too easily, then nodded her head. "Perhaps we will work on more than one ballad, then?"

  I shook my head solemnly. "Not about this." I grimaced, then dropped to one knee in front of her. I took her right hand and held it firmly, but not as roughly as I had in Pine Springs. "I need to ask you something and I need an honest answer. Is Morai in Seir?"

  She stiffened and looked over my head.

  I gently squeezed her hand. "Selia, I'm not stupid. The lady in the last two verses of your song is you. If you've managed to tame his spirit and have convinced him to leave off banditry, I'm all for you—both of you." I reached up, took her chin between my thumb and forefinger, and tipped her head back down toward me. "You must believe I don't intend to bring Morai in, or kill him, and I would never ask you to betray him while keeping a confidence for me. I need to speak with him." I hesitated. "I need to ask him for help."

  I stood and stared out at the stars reflecting in the sea. "The one thing no one anticipated when they asked me to come here was a need for information from the streets. I can't get it. I'd be too conspicuous in a ghetto here—if I ever found the time to get to one with all the ceremonies taking place." I turned back to her and folded my arms across my chest. "On top of that, I don't know who to trust here—they may all be involved in plots."

  I squatted and smiled at her. "You see, I need Morai."

  She paused and, with the moonlight shining silver off her hair, smiled weakly. "Yes, he is here."

  "Where?" I asked. Then it dawned on me. I smiled and laughed. "Finally, I can surprise him."

  * * *

  I silently opened the door to my suite just a crack. I heard some furtive shuffling
and a mumbled curse. I stifled a laugh, slipped into the library, and slammed the door shut with an explosive bang.

  A shadowy figure, Morai silhouetted himself beneath the arch leading to my bedroom. "Say nothing, my Lord Keane, and you will live to see the Princess's coronation." Morai moved quickly and his sword materialized in his hand as if by magick. "Only a fool would attack an armed swordsman with a dagger."

  I let a low, insane chuckle rumble from my chest and summoned my tsincaat.

  Moral's silhouette jumped.

  "Earl Cadmar and the Star of Sinjaria are in a different suite. I was given these quarters just today."

  Moral shrugged his shoulders. "Oh." Then he turned his head and peered through the darkness at me. After a second he rested his sword's tip on the floor and struck a pose that was the very picture of indignant outrage. "What are you doing here, Talion?"

  I squatted and stirred the coals in the fireplace with a poker. I tossed a small log on the fire and its flame lit the room. "Take a chair, and help yourself to the wine if you haven't already." I pivoted and looked up at him. "I've got something to discuss with you."

  Morai looked as dapper and handsome in his night-black thieving clothes as he had when I last saw him. I seated myself across the table from him and took the goblet he offered me. "I'm glad to see you're not letting Selia support you with her singing."

  He shrugged and drank. "This is contract work. Some Sinjarian noble wants the stone." He smiled at me. "Besides, I have to stay active or I'll get fat like your Captain Herman."

  "He's not mine, he's a Lancer."

  "He's a Talion. They're all the same." He drank more wine. "No offense intended, of course."

  I snorted out a laugh. "None taken." I waited for him to finish refilling his cup before I continued. "I have a problem I want you to help me with. Oh, don't look so offended. Half the Talions in Talianna think you and I have worked out a deal to trap all the truly mad criminals in the Empire."