by Matthew Ward
"You have come a long way to see me, I believe." His voice was neither young nor old, frail nor strong. It was measured, as if every syllable had been carefully considered before given utterance. Between the screen and the light behind I could make out nothing of his face.
"Not to see you, as such," I replied. "You are Morecet's master?"
"It pleases him to call me such. Servility is hardly in his nature."
"Yet he serves you anyway?"
"After his fashion."
"Has he told you of me?"
"You are Edric Saran, and you hope I will help you fight the serathi."
"And will you?"
The man cocked his head to one side. "Please, take a seat."
There was indeed a chair a little off to my right. Apparently I was not the first guest Morecet's master had entertained. "Thank you, but I prefer to stand. What do I call you?"
There was a dry laugh. "I have no need of a name."
"Very well then, what are you?"
"A gentleman of the world, like yourself. I can assure you, I'm as mortal as you are."
I snorted. "That's not a solid definition at present, as you may have noted."
He inclined his head. "I am aware of your condition. Why do you doubt me so?" He didn't seem offended, but who could tell in that light?
"The serathiel told me that Morecet worked for a Great Power. Did she speak of you?"
The man laughed again. "Goodness, no. Even the feeblest of Skyhaven's host outstrips any modest ability I possess. The serathi have never been what you might call straightforward in their conversation."
That was true enough. "Can you help me fight them?"
"No. But if it is allies you need, look to the past."
I felt my anger stir at his evasiveness. "I don't mean to be rude, but time is pressing. I'd appreciate a straight answer or two, if only to provide a little contrast."
"I'm sure you would." He fell silent for a moment. "Very well. Did you know you are not the first who sought to rein in the serathiel's enthusiasms?" The question was evidently rhetorical, for he forged on after the briefest delay. "So legend tells, the Radiant lost her stomach for war far quicker than her brothers and sisters, and it was she who forged the peace that held for so long."
"That I didn't know."
He laughed softly. "I'm not surprised. The serathi would hardly tell you, not given the rest of the story. In those days, of course, Azyra was but one of three serathiels, and the Radiant's most devoted daughters."
"So I understand. One serathiel was lost, and another slain – or so Azyra told me."
"Indeed, an older sister, and a younger. But I doubt she mentioned that it was she who brought about the downfall of the Elder. You see, the Radiant's peace sat ill with Azyra. She had made many great sacrifices in a distant land, holding back the tide of war. She believed the serathi would have won, had only the Radiant allowed them to do so." He shrugged. "Or perhaps, she couldn't bear the thought of truce after having given so much in victory's cause."
I thought of Calda, and of Karov. "I've seen similar."
He nodded. "Over time, Azyra's resentment became rebellion, and there was civil war on Skyhaven. Hundreds perished. The Radiant could have emerged victorious, had she thought to do so, but her heart was weary, and Azyra's heart burned with rage. The Radiant was executed under the very light she had brought to her children. Those who remained loyal to the end were stripped of power and cast out."
So that explained the emptiness of Skyhaven, and the behaviour of the serathi. Elynna had been afraid of Azyra, even before the serathiel had callously commanded a drudge to kill her. Irina had borne such sadness, Myrzanna such rage... "But if they killed the Radiant, why do they seek her return?"
"That I cannot tell you. Perhaps they seek her forgiveness. Perhaps Azyra has grown weary of the leader's burden..."
"Or perhaps they need her back for no other reason than so the Reckoning can begin."
"Prophecy has a powerful grasp on us all, immortal or otherwise."
I heard something odd in his voice. "Are you an eternal?"
The man laughed. "It is most impolite to ask, but no, I am not. Not everything in this world falls easily into previous assumptions."
This was going nowhere. "All this talk of the past... Are you saying I should recruit some of the serathi? That's not going to work. I might get help from one, or maybe two, but that would hardly be enough."
"Then cast your net wider, Edric. What do the serathi do to those who they seek to punish, but do not wish dead?"
"They turn them into drudges." Before the words were fully out of my mouth I'd grasped their import. "Drudges." I laughed, seized by sudden excitement. Was it really that simple? Perhaps it was. "Their names," I said. "Tell me the names of Azyra's sisters, if you know them."
"As I understand it, they were Katriana and Zorya."
That was it. The answer had stared me in the face since the very beginning. For the first time in days, I felt as if I could actually win the battle before me. I had to get back to Tressia. If Zorya had once been a serathi – no, not just a serathi, but a serathiel – then that could only mean the other sentinels too had once been serathi. Somewhere, there was an army. I just had to find it. "How do you know all this?"
"I've lived a long time. Like most truths, this one is recorded if you know where to look for it," the shadowy figure replied. "The Ith'najim have many impressive libraries, and I've been fortunate enough to walk within them. And the serathi too recorded it all. Many of them feel guilty, I think. The murals in Skyhaven are most illuminating, if properly read."
"You've been to Skyhaven?" Somehow the idea seemed ludicrous.
"Morecet has," the man corrected. "He possesses two invaluable skills: a keen memory and an artist's hand. He sketched many of the murals, and the story they told was plain as day."
So that's what Morecet had been doing there. No wonder the serathiel hadn't taken kindly to his presence, what with her sins proclaimed on Skyhaven's walls.
"I must leave," I said, "but I can't thank you enough."
"I believe Morecet owed you debt. Can I assume this discharges it?"
I nodded, restless now I'd a course to follow. "It does. It truly does. Farewell."
The shadow laughed softly to himself. "Until we meet again."
*******
I ran from the temple, careless of the wind and rain, my excitement refusing to cool. I'd no idea where to find Zorya, let alone the other sentinels, but at least I'd somewhere to start. Perhaps...
"Edric!" Elspeth's shout cut through the rainstorm. She sounded... afraid? That was new. There was no sign of her at the window.
I redoubled my pace. My boot slipped in the wet, taking my balance and the last of my good mood with it. I scrambled to my feet and continued on.
"Edric!"
Elspeth called out again as I reached the house, sounding more desperate this time.
I lowered my shoulder and barged the door open. There was no sign of Elspeth on the ground floor, so I ran for the stairs.
The upper floor was just as open and sparsely furnished as the lower, with only a few pieces of battered furniture and bare floorboards. Elspeth stood in the far corner. Her glowing skin was the only real source of light. It cast strange shadows where it touched four inky-black figures, silver skull-helms high on their heads and swords ready in their hands.
Revenants.
I should have expected this. Constans had even warned me of the possibility. They'd come looking for me. So why were they attacking Elspeth? It didn't matter. I saw four enemies that I could hack to pieces without the slightest guilt.
Elspeth's held a wooden chair by its backrest, brandishing its legs at her attackers. As I reached the top step, a Revenant surged towards her. The chair slammed into his torso, battered him aside.
I sprang over the top step. My sword burst into white flame as soon as it cleared the scabbard. Three long steps, and my blade took the first reven
ant in the back before it could turn. The creature screamed pitifully, then disintegrated into ash.
The surviving spectres turned as one. In Otherworld, their shadowy bodies were impervious to most harms. Here in the living world they were corporeal, and easy prey. Even so, three to one was still three to one.
Fortunately, one of the revenants – the one Elspeth had battered so efficiently – was a fraction keener than his fellows. Ducking under his clumsy swing, I thrust and reduced him to dust.
Two down, two to go.
One sword hissed out at neck level. Another hacked down at my legs. I parried the first attack and threw myself backwards, narrowly avoiding an embarrassing fall down the stairs. The sword aimed at my legs smacked into the wooden balustrade, and stuck fast. I bore down on the other revenant, beat the sluggish parry aside and cut him down. With a hissed battle-cry, the last revenant wrenched at his blade, still lodged in the balustrade. I took his head in the moment his sword came free of the timber.
I wasn't even breathing hard. Perhaps there was something to be said for being a fallen, after all.
"Edric! Behind you!" Elspeth shouted.
I span to see three more revenants bearing down, shadowy flesh rippling like a fouled tide. They must have been at the far end of the room when I arrived. I should have marked their presence, but I'd charged recklessly in. Now I was to pay the price.
These three appeared had learned a lesson their comrades had not and attacked together, three pools of liquid darkness seeking to drown me in their emptiness. I threw my sword up to block one strike, twisted aside to avoid another, then cried out in pain as the third blade sliced into my shoulder.
The pain faded almost immediately, but so did all feeling in that arm. I saw, rather than felt, my grip loosen. My sword fell from my nerveless right hand, so I snatched it up with my left. The revenants came forward again. A desperate backhand slash gave them brief pause. It wasn't going to be enough. I was nowhere near as good a swordsman with my left arm as my right. The weight of the metal felt strange, awkward.
Why had my arm gone numb? The fallen I'd fought had battled on through pain. I retreated around the head of the stairs, putting the balustrade between me and my foes. The revenants' weapons had to be more than mortal steel – at least as far as my undead flesh was concerned.
The revenants moved to flank me; two on the right, one on the left. I pounced at the revenant to my left, battering his weapon aside.
A whisper of sound made me turn. The other revenants had kept pace. One brought his sword down in a diagonal slash at my neck. I whipped my sword back to deflect the blow, but felt a brief spark of pain as the revenant I'd come so close to felling stabbed me in the thigh.
My leg went numb quicker even than my arm, and I collapsed to one knee. I twisted backwards as I fell, my sword hissing to finish the revenant who'd struck the blow, but the act betrayed my already tenuous balance. The revenant perished in a burst of flame, and I half-toppled, half-slid onto my back.
The survivors advanced on me, swords held high. I propped myself up onto my still-working elbow and kicked at the floorboards with my responsive foot. I skidded back a pace, but the revenants were on me within a heartbeat. I looked up as the blades speared down, and laughed. In the heat of the moment, I'd forgotten about Elspeth. So, it seemed, had the revenants.
The chair slammed into my leftmost attacker's back, shattering into a mass of broken spars. The revenant staggered forward, and screamed as my sword took him in the chest.
The final revenant hissed and thrust at me. I rolled desperately aside, the blade missing by a thumb's breadth. The revenant regathered himself, his sword flashing out a second time.
Elspeth struck him in a blur of silver, her thin arms closing beneath the spectre's rippling waist as she dove. Both went down in a tangle of arms and legs, but Elspeth recovered first. For a glorious moment, she knelt on the small of the revenant's back, clouting him about the head with a broken spar. Then the shadow heaved himself upright, throwing her backwards into a table.
It was all the respite I needed. As the revenant faced me once more, my sword hissed out, biting deep into spectral ankles. The revenant caught light at once, and fell backwards with a ragged, hollow scream. A moment later he was ashes.
By the time Elspeth helped me to my feet, feeling was reluctantly returning to my numbed limbs. I found I could stand unsupported once more – shakily, at first, but with increasing confidence as the moments passed. My robes were sticky with my own black blood, but examination showed that the wounds had already closed. The mixed blessings of being a fallen at work again.
I sheathed my sword with a trembling hand. "Are there any more?"
Elspeth shook her head. "I didn't see any others."
There was no thanks, I noticed. She'd needed my help earlier, but there'd be no admission of weakness.
"I assume they came to drag me back down to Otherworld," I said, rubbing life back into my right hand. "Why attack you?"
She scowled. "They wanted my light. They thought it would make them whole."
"And would it?"
"They're not going to find out." Her conviction was absolute.
"Why didn't you run? I doubt they'd have caught you, not if you were a cat." I propped myself on the corner of the table. I clipped my injured leg as I did so, and winced at the sudden flood of pain.
"Run? From creatures like that? It would have been humiliating."
I thought back to Indrig. "You ran from mortals quickly enough."
"That was different. Does your leg hurt?" She sounded interested more than concerned.
"I've been stabbed and hacked at," I said with diminishing patience. "What do you think?"
"Let me help." Her words framed a tone of command, not suggestion.
She peered with distaste at my bloodstained sleeve, then pressed her fingers against the wound. Her touch was warm – more than that, it was soothing. By the time she removed her hand and repeated the process on my leg, the pain had gone.
"Better?" she asked, with an aloof smile that wasn't quite a sneer.
"Much. Thank you. I thought your mother had taken your magic?"
Elspeth frowned. "Some of it has returned. I still can't enter the Palace of Dreams, but I can hear the singing and laughter within. I shared a little of it with you." She stared with displeasure at the blood on her fingers, and wiped it off on an unsoiled patch of my robes.
"When did this happen?" A little magic would have balanced the fight far better than a chair.
"I don't know," she bit out. "It wasn't there, and then it was."
"Perhaps your mother was pleased you put yourself in danger," I suggested, only half serious.
"I don't think it's funny." Elspeth sighed. "As a matter of fact, that's exactly the kind of thing she might do. Another heavy-handed lesson, mother?" She asked the empty room. "So very typical."
There was no response. Ashana, it seemed, had nothing to say – nothing that I heard, anyway.
"Where's Morecet?" I asked, realising he should have been there.
"He went out. We disagreed."
"On what, may I enquire?"
"On whether he should stay. He lost."
He needed to be warned. There might have been more revenants outside. I started towards the stairs, but stopped as the door to the house opened.
"Edric?" Morecet's voice drifted up the stairs. "Are you in here? What have you done to my front door?"
"Up here!"
"I heard your charming companion calling. Is something wrong?" His eyes drew level with the top step and he paused as he took in the ashes and scorched wood where the revenants had once stood. The swords had faded away with the creatures' deaths. I'd never been sure if they were real weapons at all, or extensions of the wielders' bodies.
"Ah," said Morecet. "I'm sorry. I should have anticipated something like this." He'd held a dagger in his hand, and this he quickly tucked in his belt. "I wouldn't have left the lady alone, but sh
e was quite insistent. Are you both unharmed?"
"I think so," I said. "But you should check on your master. There might be more out there."
Morecet shrugged. "He can look after himself, believe me."
"Nevertheless, I think it's time we left. Others will come after me, and I'd rather not be here when they do."
"If you insist," Morecet said, "though the weather's still foul."
"I don't think that can be helped. Your master's given me a place to start, and time's a-wasting."
"I'm glad he was able to help," Morecet said, and seemed to mean it, "but I hope you're not counting on me coming along. My debt only goes so far, and certainly doesn't cover me going near the serathi again."
"I make no such claim on you," I said, staring out into the darkness. "We'll be on our way. We've a long walk ahead."
Six
I trudged northward along the road towards Edrekan, Elspeth in her accustomed position around my neck. She, at least, was tucked away from the rain. Morecet had gifted me a grey travelling cloak, and I had fastened it only loosely, allowing Elspeth to lie between it and my robes. It made the cloak sit unevenly across my shoulders, but at least I didn't have to bear any guilt at her discomfort. Despite what she had said before, I suspected that she felt the cold and wet keenly, but pride held her back from any such admission.
A few miles south of Edrekan, I passed the charred remains of a pyre, and a patch of soft earth that betrayed the presence of a mass grave. The Tressian war against the fallen was still far from done.
Edrekan appeared on the horizon. I heard the battle long before I saw it. The clamour of steel on steel, the howling of the fallen and the battle cries of the Tressians all merged into wild cacophony.
For once, the fallen actually had the worse of the fight. Their numbers were pitifully small to attempt this kind of assault – even against a wall as ill-maintained as Edrekan's. The Tressians had sallied out. In the rain-veiled gloom, their silver and blue raiment shone as a glorious spear as it thrust into the black ranks.
If I were any judge, the Tressians would emerge victorious, but this only presented new problems. I doubted the Tressians would be content simply to break the fallen lines. There'd be a pursuit, vengeful and without quarter. It was no time for a stranger to be abroad, especially one such as I. If the Tressians caught me, they wouldn't listen to my words, they'd hear only the thunder in their blood, and the echoing voices of comrades recently slain. No, better to avoid Edrekan by as wide a margin as possible. I left the road, struck out into the sodden moorland and looped around Edrekan far to the west.