Maida stared at Keshik, unable to think of a single word to say. Unfair was beyond understatement. Arrogant. Stupid. So many words that could be used, so impossible to summarise what had just happened. Maida did the best she could.
After a moment, Keshik joined her as she laughed with all her strength.
Slave swam to the sandy beach, just outside the breakwater that sheltered the entrance to Asnuevium. The rocky groyne was no longer manned and he swam around it easily. Beside him, Tatya in rodent form swam some of the time, at other times she climbed onto his back. As he walked up the sand, feeling the chill of the night air on his skin, he shivered. Tatya shook herself as she shifted back into spurre form.
‘What now, Beq?’ she asked.
‘I am no Beq,’ Slave said idly.
‘What now, Slave?’ Tatya repeated.
Slave looked up at the sky, fighting back the urge to scream and hide from the terrifying emptiness. The battle beneath the city had reminded him of how much he hated the outside world. Down there, he was home, he could live happily, knowing where his enemies were, what they were doing and how they moved. Out here, with its shifting air, its inconstant light, its limitless dangers, he was always at risk.
He lowered his gaze, seeing that he once again held the Warrior’s Claw. How much of his life had been determined by the random chance of finding that weapon as he dug out of his cell?
Had it been random chance?
How much of what had happened had been at the behest, the planning, of Sondelle? Looking back, Slave could imagine he had made the decisions that had led him here to this point, but had he? All of his decisions arose from who he was, and he had been made who he was by Sondelle. All that training, the books he had been given to read — how much of who he was arose from Sondelle, and how much from Slave?
Just how much had Sondelle planned? Could it possibly be a coincidence that he had arrived in Asnuevium, where there just happened to be a labyrinth identical to the one beneath Vogel? A labyrinth where Sondelle had been busily creating those warped shapeshifters and those monsters that had so effectively distracted the Tulugma from what was going on beneath the city? And throwing daven at just that moment, the one thing that would send the Eye of Varuun into a Seeing?
Had he only ever been the Slave of Sondelle all the time?
With a shake of his head, Slave examined the beautiful Claw, quiescent in his hand. The necromancer’s mind was as labyrinthine as anything ever built beneath the ground. Perhaps he should just leave well alone and flee from here. Slave tucked the Warrior’s Claw back inside his jerkin, feeling the cool sphere hidden there. He pulled it out and raised it to the sky, examining the three spots of light swirling deep within its inky blackness.
‘Now what am I going to do with you?’ he asked quietly.
He had found it lying beside Myrrhini’s lifeless body. The moment he rested his hand on it, he knew what it was — the Revenant residing within him stirred at the touch, threatening to rip his sanity away again, but Slave maintained his control as he picked it up.
Now, as he stared into it, he could again feel the angry stirrings of the beast inside him. The points of light formed an intricate pattern as they seemed to focus on his face. Slave tried for a moment to make sense of the pattern, before lowering his hand and shoving the sphere away beneath his jerkin once more. There would be time to consider the ramifications of what he held later.
‘Where are you from?’ he asked Tatya.
‘My kind? Or me in particular?’
‘You.’
‘South, by the Lake of Dreams.’
‘South it is, then.’
‘Why?’
Slave did not answer. His knowledge of the southern lands was less extensive than what he had read of the north, but as he had destroyed much of the north, he decided his knowledge was no longer valuable.
No, south seemed good.
He had no memories of the south. He had not killed anyone there.
No one would know him there.
He might find peace there.
Epilogue
Beneath the smoking ruins of the city of Asnuevium, a dead body stirred. It had once belonged to one of Bai’s men. He had been killed by Tatya and bore horrific injuries, but as he sat up, the wounds closed, apparently of their own volition. He looked down, watching his chest knit itself back together. When it was all done and he was whole once more, he stood. The eyes that stared out of the young man’s face were ancient, sparking with malice and an intelligence built over uncounted Crossings.
He smiled as he tested out his new body. It was a good body; it would last a long time before it had to die like so many others before. Which was good, because he had a lot of work ahead of him. Work he enjoyed. Work he looked forward to with renewed youthful vigour.
The man inhabiting the young man’s body looked around at the scene of carnage spread out before him, noting the old body slumped against the wall. A look of sadness crossed his face for a moment; that body had been one of his favourites. With a shrug, he dismissed it in his continuing examination of the area. From what he remembered and surmised, what he was looking for would have been left here by the ignorant fools who had tried to interfere.
The body of a young woman wearing a tattered, blood-stained shift caught his gaze.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘There you are.’
He walked across to her, slightly unsteady on new legs, and stooped to examine the ground. After a short while, his movements became faster, more desperate as he scrabbled in the dirt. With a snarl of bestial rage, he tossed the broken body aside, searching beneath where it had lain. When it was obvious that nothing lay hidden there, the man dropped to his knees and bellowed in wordless anguish.
The sound echoed through the cavern, shattering the silence of the labyrinth he had brought into existence for the sole purpose of finding what was no longer here. His pain shifted into rage, into hatred and thence into vengeance.
‘Slave,’ he growled. ‘Run, if you still can.’
Sondelle forced himself up to his feet. He would hunt again, and he would find what he needed. The Eleven Kingdoms would hide his prey but he had all the time in the world.
Glossary
Adrast — Elbar of the Tulugma
Alyosha — shapeshifter
Camaxtli — merchant of the Hidden City (kah-MASH-te-lee)
Cualli — Tlatloque of the Blindfolded Queen, commander of sixty-four xuauhtli (kwARLI)
Edelmira — Tulugma Habigga
Eztli-Ichtaca — ‘the world of could be’, visionary images seen by Mertian Seers (eshli-ICK-takka)
Habigga — assassin, aka Silent One, trained and retained by the Tulugma, not released to mercenary work
Haron — shapeshifter
Hayde — Tulugma warrior
Ild — Tulugma title, often inaccurately translated as ‘master’, given to a master of one of the weapons taught at the Kuriltai
Ild Vitalis — swordmaster of the Tulugma
Kielevinenrohkimainen — the Revenant released by Keshik (key-lev-en-ROK-imen)
Kuriltai — the home base, the large citadel hidden in the foothills of the mountains, north of the Great River of Kings, east of Tusemo
Kuriltai Tumen — leadership council, responsible for governance and discipline
Li — daughter of Adrast and Bai of the Tulugma
Ogedei — supreme commander, master, leader of the Tulugma
Paraskavios — Asprosian criminal
Quetzalxoitl — the Blindfolded Queen (kate-sal-SHOE-it)
Sondelle — necromancer, formerly of Vogel
Subot — chief master of a particular discipline, eg. archery, axe, spear, sword
Tatya — shapeshifter
Tephan — Tulugma Habigga
Tuk — leader of small group, like a class tutor, responsible for the training and development of his charges during their training at the Kuriltai Yalotqui — advisor to the Blindfolded Queen (ya-LOT-key)
> Zhan Tien — Ogedei of the Tulugma
THE ELEVEN KINGDOMS
book one
THE ELEVEN KINGDOMS
book two
About the Author
Bevan McGuiness lives near Perth with his wife and daughter. He has worked as a factory hand, geophysicist and laboratory assistant, and he is now a teacher of chemistry at a boys’ school in Perth. He has been writing for years and has published short stories, book reviews, a trilogy and pieces for texts on science education. You can contact Bevan at [email protected]
Other Books by Bevan McGuiness
THE TRIUMVIRATE
The Awakening (1)
The First Weapon (2)
The Way of Purity (3)
THE ELEVEN KINGDOMS
Slave of Sondelle (1)
Scarred Man (2)
Copyright
HarperVoyager
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
First published in Australia in 2011
This edition published in 2011
by HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Bevan McGuiness 2011
The right of Bevan McGuiness to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
McGuiness, Bevan.
Revenant / Bevan McGuiness.
ISBN: 978 0 7322 8981 2 (pbk.)
ISBN: 978-0-7304-9782-0 (epub)
McGuiness, Bevan. Eleven kingdoms; bk. 3.
A823.4
Cover design by Darren Holt, HarperCollins Design Studio
Cover images: Samurai sword © Ocean/Corbis; all other images by shutterstock.com
Maps by Bevan McGuiness
Revenant Page 41
