Michael A. Stackpole - Talion Revenant

TALION

REVENANT

Michael A. Stackpole

ISBN 0-553-57656-9

Chapter One

TALION:

AMBUSH

Had Morai given the job to anyone else, the ambush would have gotten me.

The assassin waited just halfway up the hill on the camp's north side. New

spring undergrowth covered the steep slope and a light breeze stirred things enough

to cover tiny movements and sounds, yet caused nothing to obstruct the assassin's

view of the camp. Sitting there, at the base of the big oak, he could watch everything

with little fear of discovery.

His position gave him an easy crossbow shot at anything in the flat clearing

below. Morai's men had stripped or scattered all the cover so I'd have no place to

hide if the first crossbow bolt missed. And, if I was quick enough to figure out

where the bolt had come from, the only way I could get to the ambusher was a

suicidal charge up the hill, straight at him.

The only questionable part of Morai's plan was assigning Fortune the job of

killing me. Fortune, the sixteen-year-old miller's son from Forest Crossing, had run

away from home and decided to join the bandits who had just raided his town. The

other members of the gang probably would have killed him outright or, if Chi'gandir

had his way, done worse. By setting the youth out as a trap for me, though, Morai

amused his men and saved the boy.

Clearly bored out of his mind, Fortune perched on a knobby root at the base

of the oak. He'd waited a long time for me to walk into his sights, and after a

morning of nervous, sweaty anticipation he'd set the crossbow down. After a quarter

of an hour or so he took out the gold Imperial Morai had paid him for my head and

inspected it. He traced the golden profile of Ell's King with a dirty fingernail and even

though he'd never held a gold coin before, the novelty of it soon wore off.

Fortune, perhaps entranced by the omen of his name, flipped the coin into the

air. The coin rang with each flick of his thumb, and sunlight flashed from the bright

metal. With each subsequent toss the gold piece rose higher and higher until, at the

peak of its gilded arc, it vanished into the oak's lower branches. Fortune caught it

each time it fell toward the earth and slapped it down on the back of his left hand.

He'd peel his right hand away slowly, smiling or frowning at the face of the coin

showing. His guess right or wrong, he'd slide the coin into his right hand and launch

it again.

One final time the coin flew from his hand as before, but then glanced off a

tree branch and ricocheted to his left. Landing on the hard-packed earth, it rolled

around back behind the tree and out of his sight. Fortune stretched, looked down at

the clearing, and rose to a crouch. He turned around the sturdy barrel of oak and

stopped abruptly.

His coin lay in my right palm.

He glanced back at the crossbow, then at me.

I shook my head slowly and his shoulders sagged. "I believe, Fortune, this is

yours." I extended my hand toward him.

A handsome youth, Fortune never should have worn such a look of abject

terror on his face. Flared nostrils ballooned his noble, narrow nose. He held his

brown eyes open wide enough to reduce them to flat white circles surrounding dark

spots. Acrid, nervous sweat pasted brown hair to his forehead. His dropped jaw

stretched his face—already thin like the rest of him—and made him look like a very

old man.

I saw myself reflected in his eyes, yet I knew Fortune did not really see a tall,

slender, dark-haired man with bright green eyes. His horror took him beyond my

physical self and he stared at what I was and what I'd become since the ritual. He did

not see a man, he saw a Talion Justice.

And he feared I was the last thing he would ever see.

Fortune reached out with trembling fingers and took the coin. He looked at it

and smiled. Then he looked at my hand and dropped to his knees, tears leaking from

tight-shut eyes.

Hidden beneath the coin until he plucked it from my hand, a death's-head

tattoo had stared at him and had taken his breath away. The simple line drawing

covered my palm and marked me as a Justice. From the fleshless jaw at my hand's

heel to the skull's crown extending up to the base of my middle finger, the stark

design watched him with cold empty eye sockets. Its memory forced a visible shiver

into him.

I walked beyond the sobbing boy, leaving him alone with his fear and a

chance to conquer it. I squatted where he had waited for me and nodded grimly. I

picked up the crossbow and sighted down the bolt. The brush parted just enough

for me to see the entire camp. I triggered the weapon and sank the bolt into the ashes

of the bandits' campfire. A little dust and smoke rose, but nothing else moved below

me. I shivered and ground my teeth in anger. Morai knew the romance of the

bandit life had attracted Fortune. Fortune's father probably had his son working hard

when the boy wanted to be out courting girls or dreaming about the great warriors of

legend. The bandits raided Forest Crossing, and Fortune followed them to escape

hard work and reality for fame and riches.

Without question Morai knew Fortune was not suited for anything but being a

miller's son. Morai also knew Fortune could not be sent away or talked out of a life

on the road. If he sent the boy away, he knew Fortune would only hitch up with

another band, or would starve to death in the wilderness. The bandit leader realized

the youth had to be terrified out of an outlaws' life, and Morai knew I could do that

job. It was a job I didn't want and one more black mark against Morai that he

forced me to do it.

Part of me took pride in helping Fortune return to the life meant for him. By

simply playing the boy's conception of a Justice, I could frighten Fortune enough

that neither he nor his children nor his grandchildren would ever think of doing

anything but milling, and milling honestly. That was good, and for that I might thank

Morai. But that also meant Fortune's people would forever fear Talions—a trait too

many people already shared—and I wanted no part in reinforcing that image.

Still, I knew ultimately, as much as I detested it, Fortune's fear gave me the

perfect tool to set him straight. While I would have preferred to talk him into

returning to his family by explaining to him the harsh realities of life on the road with

Morai, the romance of the bandits' life was fairly tough armor against a

commonsense approach to the problem. Some bard had even made up a song about

Morai—a version of which I had heard butchered in Talianna—making him seem

more noble and gallant than he really was.

Getting past that version of Morai—and the generally held whimsical notions

about bandits—would require me to present Fortune with a big dose of reality,

delivered in a manner that was anything but whimsical.

I returned to Fortune and towered over the kneeling boy. I let my left hand

land heavily on his right shoulder. He started and the rhythm of his sobs broke.

"Morai never told you I'd kill you, did he?"

He looked up at me. His red-rimmed eyes had shrunk in size, but they still

brimmed with tears. Those tears washed a clean path through the dirt on his face

from each eye to the corners of his mouth. He swiped a hand at the tears and

smeared the grime back into place. "Not him." He halted and gained control of his

breathing. "The others. They said you'd suck my soul out with that skull."

"I certainly could do that." I pursed my lips and turned away. "I have that

right. You meant to kill me. Although intended murder is not a capital crime, who

knows what atrocities you have already committed?"

"But I haven't done anything." Baffled innocence shot through his voice and,

for a moment, set aside his fear.

I whirled back. My green eyes narrowed as I stared down at him. "And how

do I know that? Forest Crossing is a dozen leagues backcountry. How do I know

you didn't help murder a small merchant caravan in the two days since you left

home? Do I assume that Morai, the man who collects madmen the way a Princess

might collect dolls, would take in a child unless that child fit with his group? I know

Morai well enough to know that's unlikely." I paused, then thrust my snarling face at

him. "So what did you do?"

Fortune spilled backward and wailed like a lost soul. "I didn't do anything.

Don't kill me. Please, don't. I'm innocent. Please, don't kill me."

I knelt before him and grabbed his chin with my left hand. "Understand this,

little boy, you abandoned your innocence in Forest Crossing. You've ridden with a

pack of human jackals. You've seen them do things, bad things, and because you

were in their company, you can be held responsible for those actions."

I let him have another good look at the tattoo on my right palm. "This is a

badge of my authority to deal with people like you—Morai's men. It is also a tool for

me to use. If I were to press my hand against your forehead and will your soul to

surrender to me, it would. You would be left here a lifeless husk, alone, dead and

forgotten by everyone."

He started to cry at that prospect and gibbered words out in between sobs

and sniffling. I released him, letting him slump back as I stood. He lay on the ground

and his chest pounded as if something trapped inside wanted to get out.

I walked away from him and retrieved my horse so Fortune wouldn't see the

disgust on my face. It wasn't for him, but for Morai in forcing my hand and for

myself for allowing my hand to be forced. Some other Justices all but reveled in

ripping a soul from a body, but I only used the ritual when given no other choice.

Threatening the boy with it, while it did make the impression upon him I wanted to

make, was using a spear to do work meant for a needle.

I'd left my horse, Wolf, down behind the hill. The black stallion flicked his

ears in my direction but made no noise. I patted him gently on the neck, untied the

reins from a sapling, and led him back up to where Fortune waited.

My anger with myself grew from the realization that I'd let Morai dictate, in

absentia, my actions—and not for the first time, either. That boded ill for my pursuit

of him, though it continued the patterns we'd played through in the past. He intended

me to harvest his men one by one while he escaped, and Fortune was the first of the

lot in this go-round. I decided this would be the last time we played this particular

game, but before I could continue after Morai, I needed to repair the damage I'd

done to Fortune.

Fortune's unsteady approach, and the noise it created, interrupted my

thoughts. Rubbery-legged and pale, he stumbled down the hill. He looked as though

he might have vomited and certainly could do so again.

"Talion?"

"Yes?"

"I can tell you where they went, if you want, if that will make it right." He

offered the information freely, not to save his life, but to atone for the wrongs he

might have done.

I shook my head and tossed him my canteen. "Here, drink some of this; it's

just water, but it will wash your mouth out." The boy drank cautiously and settled

down. "Fortune, let me tell you something about the Talions. Two thousand years

ago Emperor Clekan the Just created the Talions. He saw us as the instruments of

his law and ordered us to travel throughout his empire. He made us independent of

all authority save the Emperor or the Master of all Talions. We rode from Talianna to

administer the laws and dispense justice."

Fortune restoppered the canteen and handed it back to me. I smiled and

hooked the strap over my shoulder. "After rebellions shattered the thousand-year-old

empire, the Talions' role in the world shifted. The Master created new divisions and

the original Talions became Justices. Though the empire existed no more, the new

nations agreed to let us keep peace and order when they found it beyond their

abilities to do so. Chasing down a gang like the one Morai has put together, a gang

that ranges over several nations, is a very good example of the duties my Master

charges me with."

I smiled at him. "Killing boys who run away from home is not one of my

duties." I rested a friendly hand on his shoulder and squeezed it. "Fortune, the

crimes you've committed can be undone. You've left your mother terrified and

worried about you. Your father, as you might expect, is angry with you, yet anguish

eats him up inside. Your brothers and sisters don't know what to think and every

gossip in Forest Crossing is telling every other gossip that they knew you would turn

out this way."

Fortune nodded his head with resignation at everything I said. "What do I

do?" I swung into the saddle. "Go back to Forest Crossing. You're lucky in that

you have a family, and doubly lucky because they love and care about you. Go

home and work through whatever punishment your father gives you. Make the

gossips eat their own words."

The boy swallowed hard, sniffed, and wiped tears away. "Thank you, Talion.

Here." He held the Imperial out to me. "Take this, it's not mine. I've not earned it and

I don't want it."

I shook my head. "Keep it. Morai would think of it as an investment. After all,

without honest folk like you working to earn gold, what would he have to steal?"

The boy smiled and we laughed together. "And, Fortune, thanks for the offer,

but I don't need your directions for finding the others. While you waited on the hill, I

scouted all over this area. Two of them went east toward the Broad River ferry. Two

others headed west and the other three, probably including Morai, started north but

will have to cut west to hit any of the mountain passes. I will get them."

I reined Wolf around and started him toward the Broad River Valley. I smiled,

because even above Wolf's hoofbeats I heard Fortune heading home, and the gold

Imperial ringing as it flew up and down through the air.

* * *

I urged Wolf to set a faster pace than I demanded of him during our earlier

pursuit of Morai's band. Though only an easy half day's ride from the bandit camp, I

wanted to reach the Broad River Valley as quickly as possible. The two bandits

riding to the ferry knew that by putting the Broad River between me and them they

could earn a day or more over me.

I had to assume they would destroy the ferry after crossing and I knew the

nearest ford lay a day's ride south. If they crossed the river I'd be forced to abandon

them and probably would never find them again.

The bandits took a simple road through the Ell foothills. Broad enough for

three horsemen to ride abreast, it wound through light woods that contained a few

evergreen stands. The sun shined and winked through wind-rustled leaves to paint

the roadway with an ever-shifting mosaic of light and shadows.

I stopped and drank at a stream where my quarry had paused to do the same

thing. The muddy bank yielded footprints that easily identified one of the men to me.

The footprints sank long and deep in the soft mud. Of Morai's men, only Rolf ra

Karesia carried the size and bulk needed to produce the tracks. The other tracks,

more normal than the giant's spoor, could have been made by at least three other

men in the band, though I did know, from vast—and unwanted—experience, that

Morai had not produced them.

In some ways knowing I pursued Rolf came as a relief. Red hair covered the

human titan from his toes up to his big bushy beard and unkempt scalp. Those who

knew him said he wasn't a cruel man, just an angry one who took his temper out on

anyone who crossed him while he was in one of his "moods." Five years ago he left

Karesia after nearly beating his father—a local baron—to death. Then he cut a wide,

bloody swath through towns and villages in the Shattered Empire until he found

himself in the black heart of Chala—an area known to all as the Black Cesspit. Morai

visited the Cesspit to recruit new men after I destroyed his last band, and Rolf

readily joined him.

Rolf might attack from ambush in the forest, but I suspected he'd wait for the

open grasslands of the Broad River Valley before he attacked me. There, without the

trees to hem him in, he could wield his double-bladed broadax with devastating

efficacy. While I did not look forward to that fight, I felt I had one less surprise to

anticipate on my ride through the forests.

I concentrated on figuring out who rode with Rolf. Rejecting Morai left me

with three possibilities, and I liked none of them. Grath, the poisoner, would be little

or no problem to deal with. He was not trained for or well suited to open fights.

Vareck ra Daar was, like all his countrymen, mad, but he'd face me openly and try to

acquit himself honorably. The third candidate, Chi'gandir, left me cold. I don't like

sorcerers.

The second the thought that Chi'gandir might be riding with Rolf came to

mind, I knew with a horrifying crystal certainty it was the case. The gods are

perverse and enjoy toying with mortals. Not only was Chi'gandir the last person I

wanted to face, but he was the one person out of the whole group who could be

cruel beyond measure to Weylan, the ferryman at Broad River. I nudged Wolf into a

gallop.Chi'gandir was a renegade sorcerer of vast power but limited outlets for that

power. He's a small man with a hooked nose and a bald head. No one could even

accurately guess at his age, but his description had not changed in the twenty years

he'd been running loose. His left eye had a diamond tattoo around it, marking him as

a Tingis Lurker, which went a long way toward explaining his ability to survive and

his enjoyment of cruel displays of power.

A very promising student of magick, Chi'gandir's impatience to learn the

higher magicks consumed him. He left his tutor, traveled and studied the

self-centered arts of the Lurkers, then found sorcerers to teach him irresponsible and

destructive ways to channel his talents. They attempted to use him for their own

ends, or so the story goes, but he destroyed them. Like a child given a dangerous

toy, he set out playing with things and animals and people.

Known as "the Changer," Chi'gandir used his power to warp creatures. At

first he did it for amusement. He added a leg or head to a newborn calf just to watch

the farmers react with horror. Then he learned that he could alter people and that, if

they were wealthy or powerful, they would pay well to have his enchantments

reversed.

"If he's done anything to Weylan," I muttered to Wolf, "Chi'gandir will end up

begging me to reverse the things I'll do to him."

Anger and fear festered and raged within me. Weylan's tragic life didn't need

complicating elements like Rolf or Chi'gandir. Weylan, despite his problems, was a

good man and a better friend. Riding all too slowly through the woods, I became

more and more convinced they would use him against me. Then again, if I was lucky

or Weylan was lucky, Weylan and the ferry would be on the river's western shore

and I'd have the bandits all to myself before the ferryman tangled with them.

Weylan exemplified the Imperial citizen Clekan created the Talions to protect

and avenge. His family had operated the ferry for more years than anyone could

remember: the eldest son always inherited the homestead, ran the ferry, and raised a

family to take over. For centuries the heir took his wife from one of the merchant

families that passed through the valley in their travels.

Until road agents got their hands on Weylan, it was a proud tradition that had

no end in sight.

Ten years ago it all changed—or so the stories I had heard indicated. Weylan

never talked about what happened, but folks in the district shared the story with little

or no prompting. Weylan's entire family left him behind and traveled off with a rich

merchant from Lacia to bring back his daughter Elverda to be Weylan's wife. While

they were away a group of bandits, more numerous but less effective than Morai's

pack, raided the ferry. Weylan, a handsome youth, strong from years of poling the

ferry back and forth across the river, defended his birthright and killed a dozen of

them before they captured him, and his captors worked on him.

The raiders bound him to a tree and deliberately maimed him. They left his

body strong and straight while they smashed his teeth in and broke his face. They

battered his left eye into milky white blindness and half tore off his scalp. They

pulverized his nose, flattened it across his face and left him with very thick and nasal

speech. It was said they watched him for several days to let the healing start so no

wizard could reverse it; then they departed just hours before his family came home

and found him.

His bride, Elverda, did not reject him. I don't know what her reasons were, but

she showed more nobility in that act than I've seen in the rest of the world. Weylan

freed her of all promises and told her to leave. She refused, so he married her and

then instantly divorced her. He sent her and his family away. If tavern tales had it

right, she returned with her father's caravans each spring to ask Weylan to let her

stay. Morai's bandits followed the road as it turned north toward the mountains. I

turned off onto a lesser-used trail—one Weylan had shown me years past—that led

more directly into the valley and the ferry itself. I started Wolf down it and

murmured a prayer that it would carry me into the valley before Rolf and Chi'gandir

reached it.

The instant I saw Weylan's log cabin I knew I'd lost the race. The sun still

flew high in the sky, but I couldn't see Weylan anywhere. The ferry floated at the

dock in front of the cabin and two horses trotted wide-eyed and spooked back

behind the cabin itself.

Wolf and I raced to the cabin, but the horse shied as he got close. I jumped

from the saddle, tugged my tsincaat from the saddle sheath, and let the horse run

off. I knew only two things scared Wolf: magick and snakes. Chi'gandir was enough

magic to scare anyone, and no snake was going to worry me while Rolf lurked in the

vicinity. I let Wolf run off so Chi'gandir had no chance of getting hair or blood of

mine. Without some piece of me to focus his spells, his magicks would be unable to

affect me.

I held my tsincaat before me and crept cautiously to the cabin's southern wall.

A faded green curtain prevented me from looking through the window, but it did little

to muffle the rhythmic squeak of Weylan's rocking chair. I heard nothing else, and

hoped, for a moment, that my worst fears would not be realized.

I relaxed only slightly, crossed to the cabin's porch, and pulled myself up over

the railing. I lowered myself to the porch gently, so the wooden planks would not

creak and betray me. I tested the door and it moved beneath gentle pressure. Shifting

my tsincaat to my left hand and ready for almost anything, I pushed the door open.

Framed in the doorway, I stopped and could not breathe. Ten feet into the

room, rocking in and out of my shadow in his favorite chair, sat Weylan.

Bright blue eyes stared at me from a handsome face, looking like matched

sapphires set evenly in his head by a master jeweler. His narrow nose lent him a look

of great intelligence. His long, thick, black hair hid the tops of two well-formed ears.

Two even rows of white teeth flashed at me in a fleeting smile, and his strong jaw

gave him a physical strength of character denied him before by his deformities.

Chi'gandir's black arts made Weylan's face perfect. Perfect, except for the

tears rolling down the ferryman's cheeks.

His noble head topped an atrophied, twisted body. He'd been shrunken to

proportions smaller than those of a child. The sorcerer had warped and bowed

Weylan's bones like rain-soaked wood, then had swollen and knotted his joints. His

ash-gray flesh hung thick and flaccid in great folds over his body the same way a

father's robe hangs on his young son.

He tried to raise his right hand toward me, but that task taxed his stringy

muscles beyond their ability to respond. "Talion, Nolan, friend." His voice still came

clear and strong. "Kill me."

I shook my head violently and stepped into darkened, dead room.

"Chi'gandir, where is he?"

Weylan did not hear the full question. The mention of the sorcerer's name

tightened his face and wrung more tears from his azure eyes. "When I saw him I

begged him to make me as I was. She'll be here soon and I just wanted her to see me

as I was, just once." His lips quivered and he swallowed to choke back more tears.

His hands tried to rise and wipe his face but they only reached his stomach before

they gave up and limply flopped to his sides. "Kill me or I'll drag myself to the river

and drown myself before she can see me like this."

"No!" Anger rose to my face and spat words from my mouth. "You fool, you

know a sorcerer's magick only lasts as long as he lives. Where is Chi'gandir?"

Weylan's gaze flickered beyond my shoulder and a warning rose to his lips,

but I'd already seen the shadow on the floor. I spilled his chair to the right with a

kick as I drove forward and twisted to the left. The rough floorboards creaked

beneath me when I landed—and exploded where Rolf's ax tore into the floor.

Without even turning to look at him, I rolled to my feet, spun, and leaped through a

draped window onto the porch.

Rolf ra Karesia turned from the doorway, ax clutched lovingly to his breast,

and once again the depth of Chi'gandir's evil stunned me. Scarlet serpentskin

covered the bandit and sunlight burnished gold highlights onto his scales. A forked

tongue flickered in and out of the wide, lipless mouth in his muzzled, serpentine face.

His narrow, slitted nostrils ran perpendicular to the sharp, black-lozenge pupils in his

amber eyes. The changes melted his ears into his head, left holes where they should

have been, and welded his legs together to form an undulating viper's body.

Rolf hissed inarticulately and writhed forward. I backed up and vaulted the

porch railing seconds before his ax splintered the wood. I retreated several more

steps; then, as he pursued, I stopped.

Rolf rippled off the porch and his torso plunged toward the earth. His upper

body teetered off balance before enough of his lower half could reach the ground

and right him again. I rushed in, parried a weak ax blow with my tsincaat, and

snap-kicked the tottering monster in the head. The blow smashed him back against

the cabin, but he whipped his tail around and almost swept my feet out from under

me. I jumped above his tail and then cartwheeled to the right out of his range, but

abandoned my tsincaat behind in the dust.

Rolf flicked his tail and swept the blade from his path. He laughed, though it

sounded more to me like the choking cough of a dying coal miner than any honest

sound of mirth. He came for me slowly and, even in his bestial form, allowed himself

to relish the idea of being the first man in a decade to kill a Justice.

I smiled at him and concentrated. I summoned my tsincaat, and it materialized

in my grasp. I laughed when I felt it's heavy hilt against the cold dead flesh of the

tattoo on my right palm. I thought about drawing my ryqril from the sheath at the

small of my back, but the daggerlike blade would require me to get closer to Rolf

than I really wanted if I meant to use it.

Cloudy membranes nictitated up over Rolf's eyes, then flicked back down. He

surged forward and rained ax blows down on me. I dodged the first two attacks,

ducked the third, and closed when he raised the ax over his head for the fourth. I

lunged and hit him over the heart, but the tsincaat skittered wide along his scales and

did not hurt him.

Seriously unbalanced, I looked up in horror. Rolf towered over me, shifted his

grip, and brought the ax haft down on my head. I twisted, but caught enough of a

glancing blow on my left temple to stun me. Dazed, I staggered back and fell flat.

Stars exploded and cavorted before my eyes while Rolf, all red and gold like a

sunset, tossed his ax aside and huddled over me.

Rolf wrapped his huge hands around either side of my rib cage, squeezed pain

through my chest, and tossed me into the air. Like a parent playing with a child, Rolf

caught me around my waist with a bear hug that trapped my left arm to my side. My

tsincaat slipped from my other hand and the pain prevented me from concentrating

enough to summon it again. Rolf shook me twice and then, confident I could not

wriggle free, tightened his arms.

I kicked weakly against his stomach and tried to escape. My left hand

remained firmly trapped in his right armpit, yet could exert no pressure on nerve

centers deeply shielded by scale and muscle. I screwed my eyes shut against the

pain and shuddered when Rolf's tongue played against my sweaty throat.

His fists ground my ryqril into my spine, reminding me how close it lay and

frustrating me with its inaccessibility. I wrenched my head forward to smash it down

into his face, but he held me too high up. My right fist beat on his shoulders with no

effect. No other options lay open to me. Rolf himself gave me no choice.

I stared down at my palm, then shook my head to clear my mind. I looked

down into his eyes, beyond the madness and anger, and tried to see what sort of

man he had been. I pushed my pain away and smothered the regrets lingering from

how I dealt with Fortune.

I pressed my open palm to his forehead. His flesh felt slick and fluidly warm,

as if living copper or gold. I felt his brow ripple beneath my touch as the part of him

that was a man tried to understand why this hand should be so cold, and why the

animal in him instinctively dreaded my caress.

I breathed in and called his life to me.

Brief scenes, like pictures illuminating the manuscript of his life, flashed before

my mind's eye. I felt his sense of triumph evaporate and I lived through one of his

rages. I saw the world through his eyes and understood how he misinterpreted

innocent acts and gestures as threats. I shared his pain and deep fear of the world.

For a heartbeat, when his life had been stripped of the evil and anger, he

returned to the innocence of youth, yet retained his adult comprehension of the

world. He read his own history and understood the suffering he caused. He knew

why I had to take his life, and he knew he had to die. His soul fled into the skull

tattoo on my palm.

I peeled my hand back from his forehead and chose to leave a black

death's-head mark there. His body slackened, collapsed, and freed me of the

physical pain. Life seared back into my limbs and distracted me enough that, for

several seconds, I failed to notice that I'd not fallen with him to the ground. When I

did notice, and looked around for the author of this strangeness, Chi'gandir

contracted the spell enfolding me and held me tighter than Rolf ever had.

He rotated me through the air so I could stare at him. He strode through the

cabin doorway holding Weylan by the back of his tunic. Chi'gandir settled him on

the porch edge as a child might arrange a doll. Then he turned to me and gestured

with my tsincaat, which he held in his left hand. "I always assumed, given the

stories, that Justices were linked to their swords, but I never imagined such a strong

link." I nodded gently. "Give yourself up now, Chi'gandir. Kill me and other Talions

will never let you rest."

Chi'gandir wheezed a nasal giggle. "Bravado hardly becomes you, Talion. It is

like the ferryman's body, inappropriate and useless." Again he giggled and stroked

the blade of my tsincaat. "Rolf's transformation took hair and blood. I wonder what

I can do with you and this sword."

The tingle that stole over my body when Chi'gandir gestured at my tsincaat

shocked away my reply to him. I felt my toes merge and lose their individuality. It

started as the same uncomfortable feeling when there is something caught between

my toes. It spread up through my feet as they began to flow one into the other,

becoming a fertile breeding ground for fear and frustration.

Michael A. Stackpole - Talion Revenant

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