The Revenants

by Tepper, Sheri S

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Jaer, honestly. They asked her again, and she told them of learning to play the jangle. They had her stripped and looked at her while the guards turned her around before them.

  ‘This is not the one,’ they said. ‘This is not power, not danger, not the weapon, not the adversary. This is only a female, young, useless. The messenger has indeed failed.’

  ‘Lithos does not fail.’ An objection, a hiss.

  ‘The messenger has failed.’ Firmly. ‘This is not the one. But it may know the one. We will send this one for modification, after which it will tell us everything.’

  Jaer looked up, suddenly defiant. ‘I will not tell you anything. Not anything.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ The voice returned to its tittering, oily tone. You will tell us what we wish to know. You will look deep inside for little things you have forgotten. You will bring them to us as gifts. You will beg for the reward, but we will not give it to you until you have told us all. No, we will insist that you live for a time, only a time, until you have told us everything.’

  The figure beckoned with one hand. Jaer was dragged forward until she faced the crouched creatures in their red gowns. Their left hands lay flat on the stone thrones, and through the hands nails of steel had been driven which held the hands to the stone. On each head the high iron crown was held in place by pins of steel thrust through the living flesh into the skull. Filth ran down the sides of the thrones, and Jaer knew they had been nailed there for an untold time.

  ‘You will tell us,’ the voices promised.

  She was taken away, given into the care of a jailer who put her in a cage. Around her were other cages, full of old women who slept, their chests moving slightly with laboured breaths. Soon the jailer returned to her cell and took all her clothing, feeling her body with hands that were like paws, leering from a face that looked like lumps of brown-purple fungus, speaking from a mouth like an unhealed wound. Oh, so much to cut away. This, and this, and they must go up inside to get it all. This is good. It pays best, your kind. I must stay here until it is all paid for me. Someone else must pay for me. Then I can go. Soon, I think. Soon. I have been here so long. No, maybe not long. I forget.’ The creature gave her a wrapping in exchange for her clothing, gave her food and water, and then took her from the cell to show her the laboratories and surgeries where the modifications were done. Jaer saw them all. There was an endless screaming in those places, for it was all done with the victims quite conscious. Then, when what was done had partly healed, it was often done again. The jailer explained carefully what it was they would do with Jaer.

  She was returned to the cage to fall weeping upon the floor, choking with terror and crying endlessly to herself, ‘Oh, Ephraim, Nathan – someone, don’t let them do that to me….’

  But, of course, they did it anyway.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  OUTSIDE OF MURGIN

  Year 116’ – Midwinter Day

  The gryphon buried the Keeper as a cat buries its own excrement, scratching dirt over the body with heavy lion paws. Then it spent long moments staring at Terascouros while the old woman muttered and maundered and shook like a sapling.

  ‘She talks to me in my head, like a beetle crawling on my brain,’ she gasped. ‘Oh, I’m hungry and tired, and there is still so much she demands us to do—

  Jasmine hugged the old woman. ‘You’re cold, grandmother. What are we going to do now? Do you want some tea? To eat something?’

  Terascouros nodded, babbling, ‘Yes. Tea. Oh, that would be good. Something to eat. What are we going to do? Oh, child, Leona says that there are others, others like her. I don’t know if she means really like her. Unseen, she says. Around us, or near us, within hearing. Forgotten and unseen, able to move at our summoning, full of terrible power. She says she can feel them, knows they are there. Perhaps I misunderstand her. It’s hard to know. But we will try. Oh, yes, we will try.’

  They fed the old woman tea and broth. Across the fire the gryphon glared at them, a wicked glint striking at them from the huge eyes as it waited while they ate. They were caught and held by that glare, seeming to themselves to be moving as in a dream in which sight and hearing were intensified but feeling dimmed. They considered the idea of fear, but calmly, as though it were a strangely shaped stone kicked up in their path, a thing of only momentary interest, not really an obstacle.

  Impatiently the gryphon rose to its feet and cried out in its voice of imperious brass. Terascouros lurched upright, stumbling a bit.

  ‘Thewson, you’ll have to walk beside me to hold me up. These old legs don’t want to work, not at all. Medlo, help Jasmine, she’s as tired as I am. Oh, well, so are you. You won’t have to do much. Just come along and gather together what strength you have. If we catch the city by surprise, it may be enough. Bring our things, and come.’

  At the edge of the pave they could look up into the sky where a slender moon and the stars shone dimly upon the city. The fringe of dead forest gleamed grey-silver, a softly luminous ring which swept from behind them away on either side, far out around the circle of the pave to vanish behind the ebon bulk of Murgin. Nothing moved upon the vast blot. The light from the sky fell upon it and was swallowed up. It was only blackness, with greater blackness as its centre.

  ‘All the trees cleared away,’ mumbled Terascouros. ‘So that from that tower they can see anything that moves. Well, let them see, eh?’ and she dug a sharp old elbow into the gryphon’s ribs. Jasmine shuddered, sure the beast would eat the old woman in one bite. Instead there was a sound of shallow thunder, the gryphon’s laughter.

  ‘Once again, we will make a circle,’ said Terascouros. ‘As I had you do once before. I with you, this time. Yes. We will call to those powers the gryphon senses, creatures of the dark, the forests, the seas, the lonely mountains, the chasms and abysses of earth. Jaer had seen strangeness, had she not? And you, Medlo? Strangeness which we have learned not to see. Well.

  ‘We will do what we can, and the gryphon will go to Murgin, break down the doors, search out that place the black robe spoke of, the place where Jaer should be. If those in Murgin are as I was, they will not be able to see her. She will come like a great, invisible scythe, a vengeful blade. Still, she is only one. We need more. A multitude, a horde….’

  The gryphon may have sighed, or only breathed deeply. Wings struck downward, ringing like anvils, buffeting the air, lifting the beast upward in a long arching flight toward the black city. Terascouros tugged them into the circle, linked their hands and began the breathy, monotonous chant which hinted at melody. The other three shivered, caught in a skein of thoughts which flowed restlessly around the circle as they linked, as though doors had been opened among them, and their very selves flowed and coalesced. Medlo caught a thought of the Tree of Forever, knew it, lost it, wondered at it. Thewson was caught up in the gardener’s mind, was planting herbs, seeing them grow, and knew that he was Jasmine. She, in turn, watched the great sea serpent move down the moon track toward Candor. The flowing thoughts ebbed, steadied, became a torrent which rose up around them like flame. They grew within it like trees of force, their branches waving in a storm wind of sound which was the chant made manifest. It went up from them, a fountain exploding from within their circle, upward to break into clouds borne on hurricane winds, crackling with pent energy and shattering the sky with lightning. Within their circle the sources of the fountain dropped deep into the earth. They were a fragile ring around a tempest which plunged from the depths outward, widening, spreading across the sky to the horizons and beyond, around the sphere, the call of the chant falling from it like rain.

  Then the call faded, the storm quieted, fell away into fragments of cloud, and they were left teetering at the edge of a bottomless well. They looked again, and it was only the bare, grey earth beside the pave. From the black city came a splash of acid light and a mighty clangour as of metal shattering. The squat tower came to life, and light speared out across the pave, beams which crossed and recro
ssed in search. Thewson gathered them back into the shelter of the forest. ‘Leona has broken the doors, he said, matter-of-factly.

  ‘She is only one,’ murmured Terascouros. ‘Only one. Did any other hear us?’

  There were other sounds from the city, a shrilling of bells and whistles. Tiny black shadows began to mass in the light from the broken doors. Terascouros went on mumbling, ‘Only one. One.’

  Jasmine caught her breath, staring toward the south where flickering whiteness at the limit of their sight moved from the rim of the forest into the cleared lands. The movement suggested tossing heads, manes thrown in silver veils, single horns jutting like spears from foreheads. Nearer there were bulkier movements, taller, like vast reaches of pinions. To the north, suddenly, were gouts of flame as though a mighty forge coughed among the trees; and sounds of hills moving, of horns blowing above and below the range their ears could hear. Around the full circumference of the pave drew in a noose of pearly fire, leaving only the space they stood in darkness.

  Behind them came the pad of huge feet, and they turned to confront a sphinx which paced toward them on slow lion feet, fixing them with enigmatic eyes. ‘We come who were called, with those both high and low, with theuram, with basiliskos. Go or die.’

  Thewson backed away from the sphinx, gathering the others with outstretched spear toward an outcropping of stone onto which he lifted them, muttering the while, ‘Wa’os fanuluzh. To break those walls…. Basilisk…. I know him….’ They perched precariously above the torrent of pale creatures which flowed past them, some part snake, part bird; some part bird, part beast; some part beast, part man; some part man, part snake; a tumult and perturbation of creatures, striding leafed ones, flying fish, some indescribable. Jasmine laughed, almost hysterically, and Terascouros pulled her close.

  ‘ “All things are possible, and enduring, in Earthsoul.” Have you not learned that? There is no Separation in the heart of earth. Annnh. Look on more wonder than these eyes have ever know….’

  Before them the circle of pearly light grew thicker as it moved over the pave toward Murgin. In that black city, the outcry mounted, the light beams jittered across the pave, washing the creatures into invisibility with splashes of green light. They can’t be seen in that light,’ said Medlo, awed.

  ‘Pray they cannot be seen at all,’ murmured Terascouros. ‘Leona is still inside alone.’

  The pearly light had extended almost to the walls of Murgin, washing over scurrying black figures that darted this way and that without avoiding the creatures. Abruptly the disc of light divided, becoming a pallid wheel, dark spokes running from the centre to the edge, and down these aisles of darkness something moved from the forest to the city. Down the aisle directly before them there was a soft clicking, as if made by small talons. The light flowed in behind the sound, making the disc whole once more.

  All waited. The creatures filled all the miles of the pave, filled it and covered it and waited now at the very walls of Murgin. Within Murgin the clamour went on, but on the pave was only silence. At last a winged shadow occluded the light from the broken gates, and from this shadow came the gryphon’s voice crying adamant and iron, blood and stone. A sigh rose from the pave, and the walls of Murgin began to fall.

  First was the sound of a cat spitting, a small cat, with small anger. Then a hair-thin crack ran up the walls of the city, spilling light, and the crack grew wider as the wall bulged outward, hanging for long moments like a brooding cliff. Then the wall fell, and the sound began again. The city gasped and shuddered, dying as it stood, killed by the unseen while its light still searched for what had killed it.

  Through the rents in the city wall, the host poured into the city. The searching beams paled and died. A moan came over the pave as the earth would moan after a great quake, and the multitude of creatures met in the centre over the wreckage of the fallen tower. For a moment the pearly light blazed up, silvering wing and talon, horn and hoof. Then the light faded and was gone.

  Beside them the gryphon cried over a bundle which it touched with a single talon. Terascouros and the others scrambled across fallen stone to unwrap the robes in which Jaer was tangled and then to weep as the gryphon did. The Keepers had not done everything that could have been done, so the body could still be recognized as Jaer—as they had last seen her. They turned from the mutilation with anger and nausea as Terascouros knelt to examine it with trembling hands.

  ‘The heart still beats. Great Powers, why does she still live? It is not possible to live after that, but her heart still beats.’

  Thewson gathered Jaer’s body into the robes and stood, saying, ‘We must do something. Where are healers?’

  ‘None,’ said Terascouros. ‘The nearest would be the Sisterhood where we were going. It’s too far. Days’ journey from here. Even there, I doubt they could save her.’

  The gryphon wailed, a long, whining cry, stumbling to its feet to show long lacerations on its sides and flanks. The great beast turned away from them north, began to move away.

  ‘I tell you, it’s too far!’ screamed Terascouros.

  The gryphon wailed again, but moved on. Thewson followed. Medlo hawked deeply and spat. It was not possible to look on that body without a deep, heart-holding sickness which made one spit sour bile from the throat. He went after the others, gathering up his belongings as he went, moving wordlessly into the forest. At the crest of the first hill, he turned to look back, feeling Terascouros clinging to his arm. A lonely cry came from one of the black figures which still moved upon the pave, moved and dropped, one by one. In the early light they could see what was left of Murgin, a featureless pile, a great tumulus, tomb for all who lay within.

  From within the ruin a mist gathered, pillarlike, rising, beginning to change, to move, a roiling fog which hung in long, tangled tentacles then drew into a single shape, the shape of a monstrous head, cocked and listening. Terascouros gabbled under her breath, ‘Oh, that… that… come away, quickly, come away.’ She plunged down the hill, shuddering, with Medlo running to catch up as she went on, ‘Away, into the trees. Hide from that.’

  They managed to walk for some hours before the gryphon moaned and fell, panting, limbs shivering with chill. They gathered wood, built a fire, and Terascouros bathed the gryphon’s wounds while Jasmine ripped clothing into bandages. In her kit was a store of dried herbs which she stewed into a sharp-smelling poultice to stop the wounds from bleeding. They used it on both Jaer and on the gryphon, then gulped food and lay aching on the hard ground until the gryphon cried out and stumbled to her feet once more.

  They went on through the afternoon, losing the sun in a pallid overcast which seemed to lower with every passing our. Medlo remembered the shape which had gathered over Murgin, and he kept looking over his shoulder as he tried to carry Terascouros. They took brief rests at intervals. From time to time Thewson would lower Jaer to the ground while he stretched and bent his arms to get the blood flowing through them. Each time, Jasmine would turn back the blanket and put her ear to the thin, bloodied chest which moved so slightly.

  Their way led upward, along dim aisles of trees so lofty and full that no sunlight fell between, the forest floor carpeted only with generations of leaves. By late afternoon the ends of the forest halls were hidden in fog, and even Thewson’s steps had begun to slow. The gryphon panted strangely. They were lost in greyness, in chill. The end of the light came suddenly, and Thewson turned to them.

  ‘Off that way a little is a cave. I smell the fern and the water. We can go no farther now.’ He led them aside from their path into the darkness and mist until all of them could hear the music of water dropping slowly into cavern pools. It was a sound like hollowed wood struck randomly in an aimless melody. There were beds of dry sand beside the pool within the cavern, and dead trees lay at the entrance in a tumble of broken branches.

  Their fire lit the cavern, but it barely touched the wings of the gryphon where it lay deep against the rock, eyes closed and beak gaping across a talo
ned foot. Jaer’s wounds had bled again, and Jasmine poulticed them with the last of her herbs. They slumped beside the fire, too weary to eat, unable to sleep, for Jaer’s shallow breaths had long, agonizing pauses between them during which each of them believed that she would not breathe again.

  Medlo’s fingers caressed the neck of his jangle. The endless music of the falling water fell into him with an obdurate sadness. He knew Jaer would die. He wished, prayed that Jaer would die so that he could stop screaming within himself for Jaer to live, to breathe again, and again. He saw in Jasmine’s eyes the shadow of his own panic and fear.

  Terascouros, also, knew Jaer would die, but wondered why those in Murgin had let her live this long. She would not die at once. No. This had been done so that Jaer would die after a time, after waking. Terascouros thought of that waking and prayed that Jaer would die before that could happen.

  At length they slept. Outside the cavern the mist moved past in endless companies of shifting forms; it gathered in battalions at the cavern’s entrance and waited there. Inside, the travelers woke to Jaer’s screaming.

  It was not a loud screaming. It had rather the sound of a small animal which had been caught in a trap and had been there through days and nights without water or food or hope. It was not a cry for help or a scream of surprised pain; it was the cry of a body which can make no other sound and is too agonized to remain silent. It is the sound the torturers wait for, knowing that there will be no more after this sound has ended. It was not Jaer’s voice, nor any human voice.

  ‘It is too far,’ said Terascouros. ‘We will not reach the Sisterhood while she lives.’

  ‘We will go on,’ said Thewson. ‘If she dies, we will bury her.’ His face was dark and inscrutable.

  ‘There are certain roots,’ said Jasmine hopelessly. ‘Ease-root is one. It grows in meadows – can stop pain. I have none. This is not the country to find it.’