Talion Revenant

  The next day Jevin and I had a note from Lord Hansur. It read: "I believe you understand military operations. No further demonstrations will be necessary."

  Chapter Seven

  Talion: Sharul

  Talianna lay over four hundred leagues to the northwest. Despite the urgency of the Master's message, I convinced Erlan that a stop at the Broad River ferry was not out of order. Hawks flat refuse to fly in the dark, so our first day could only be a short flight, and we landed in the meadow near the cabin just as the sun started to set in the west.

  Weylan and Elverda were more than happy to see me and they accepted Erlan as if he had visited many times before. The Elite delighted in showing Elverda the Imperial Hawks close up while I spoke with Weylan. He admitted that living with another human being did take a little getting used to, but they both looked very happy to me.

  Despite Elverda's protests that she had nothing special to fix for us, the dinner she served was delicious. Weylan had caught some fish and she had baked bread earlier in the day. They had fresh milk from a cow they'd added to the ferry since I'd left.

  Weylan smiled. "Elverda said some fresh milk would be nice so I convinced a tinker that the cow he'd taken in trade would not cross on the ferry at all well, and he consented to trade it for passage throughout the next three years."

  After dinner we talked and sang well into the night. Erlan recited an Elite poem that I'd heard a number of times in my youth, but he made it come alive. It told of an Elite and the special relationship between him and his Hawk. Like most tragic poems it ended with the hero and his faithful mount dying in a glorious battle, but the tragedy to this poem was the pain in the Elite's voice that he'd die earthbound and would never again soar with the winds and chase the clouds from the sun's face. Erlan presented it very well, and both Weylan and Elverda cried at its ending.

  We headed out early the next morning. Fleet was interested in Weylan's cow but I reined him away from it and we flew off toward Talianna. Before noon we let each Hawk take an antelope and after we hooded and hobbled the birds Erlan managed to steal enough meat for us to eat. We rested for a short time and then were off again.

  At night we chose not to head for any settlements or even isolated farms. Aside from the way stations the Talions maintain for Elite couriers—many of which appear to be nothing more than a normal farm—no place really has the facilities to care for an Imperial Hawk. Very few farmers are eager to put the Hawks in their barns, and I can't blame them for their reluctance. The way stations south of Talianna were a bit off line of our course, and a couple of Elites Erlan preferred to avoid staffed the only station even close to our route.

  Luckily the weather remained warm and dry. We chose all our campsites for water and cover and, if we had to make a choice, we opted for a defensible position. Even so, nothing out of the ordinary happened on the journey, and three and a half days after we left Tadd and Wolf in the meadow we reached Talianna.

  The view of the Tal valley from the air—when it is not choked with Festival visitors—is deceptively peaceful. The valley looked very much like any of the other valleys we flew over, and carried with it no hint of the power seated there. A patchwork of small plots with even rows—by this point in the spring, filled with half-grown plants—carpeted the valley floor. The outlying buildings looked quite common even down to the drying laundry flapping in the light breeze nearby.

  Everything looked perfectly normal, if you ignored Talianna.

  Talianna rose from the valley floor like a piece of earth-bone. Brilliantly white and surrounded by verdant fields, it appeared less built by man than an ancient structure uncovered by erosion; much as gold nuggets are sometimes discovered in a streambed. Pennants snapped and canopies rippled above merchants' stalls in Taltown. Once again I felt at home and proud to belong in Talianna.

  Erlan and I flew one pass over Talianna. The Hawks easily recognized Talianna below them and stretched their wings out to show everyone their power and majesty. Fleet bobbed his head once, having selected a target below, but I jerked his reins sharply to the right and broke off any stoop. The bird cried out and followed Valiant to the Mews. We landed without further incident.

  I hooded Fleet and tossed the reins to a young Elite. "Feed him, but be firm." The Elite looked at me curiously. I frowned. "Fleet wanted to stoop on the crowd."

  Erlan looked over at me from where he was hooding Val. "These birds get nasty when they molt."

  I slid from the saddle and joined Erlan's laughter. I knew many Elites made "feints" on targets both in Talianna and on the road, but I was not going to criticize that practice standing in the Mews. Actually I should have anticipated Fleet's action, and I did remember that he broke the attack off the instant I pulled him away from it.

  I shouldered my saddlebags and headed down the hill to the Siegegate. I'd been more than three months away from Talianna, between one assignment and the next. Though winter blanketed the valley with one last snowfall the day I left, the ground had been bare weeks before that so the valley did not look that much changed to me. It felt good to be back, and would feel better if I found Marana waiting for me.

  Bored with their duty, the Warriors at the gate decided to be difficult. It bothered the larger one that he'd not seen me leave the gate earlier, and he wondered why I had saddlebags when I had no horse. "Who art thou?" he demanded. His voice, along with his look, marked him a Rian who'd managed to win entry to the Warriors as an adult. That accounted for his arrogant challenge, but did not excuse it.

  I stiffened. My eyes blazed at him. No Warrior watching the gate had any reason to demand anything from a Justice and my exhaustion eroded my restraint. I balled my right fist even as his partner shouldered through the stream of people pouring in and out of the gate.

  His partner saw the Justice emblem on my jerkin, and could see from the sweat stains that I'd been traveling for a long time. I saw he even noticed that I'd not shaved for days—as per the Master's message—and he suddenly concluded something was unusual here, and with a Justice that meant only one thing. Still the Rian only saw a disheveled Justice and decided it was his duty to force me to conform to the rules and regulations of the service he had worked hard to join.

  "Who art thou?!" The Rian's voice rose to a bellow, as if his volume could bludgeon me into submission. He ignored the hoarsely whispered advice offered by his partner and put a hand out to stop any effort I made to go around him.

  Slowly and deliberately I raised my right hand and opened my palm so both of them could see the skull. The smaller Warrior blanched immediately and withdrew, but a mask of uncomprehending anger still possessed the Rian's face. Because I stood within the shadow of Talianna—as the itch beneath the tattoo reminded me—I could but utter one word, so I filled every syllable with all the rage boiling up inside me. "Sharul!"

  The Rian stood there dumbly then jumped back as if a viper coiled on my chest to strike at him. "He's Sharul, Niles, Sharul!" The other Warrior nodded with disgust at the Rian's display of surprise and waved me past them both.

  Sharul. Unclean—or rather "one who needs cleansing." A Justice who has taken lives through the Skull is prohibited from speaking any but that one word when he enters within the shadow of Talianna. Until I completed the Shar ritual I could not speak with or touch another human inside Talianna, lest they have to complete a ritual of their own. I would not eat or drink. I did not exist as a living human until I had undergone Shar.

  Enough of the crowd had heard the two Warriors and my reply to know I was Sharul. They cleared a path for me to the Eastgate. The people stood and stared, with little children poking their heads out from between adult legs, in awe and horror of me. I looked at the crowd and tried to recognize people I knew, but as my gaze touched theirs people turned away and secretly made signs or breathed prayers against evil.

  Everyone saw me as a monster because I could kill in a way that repulsed them and confused them. They would rejoice if I destroyed their enemies, but were t
errorized when I walked among them while Sharul. Yet let me be two minutes outside the Shar chamber, wandering around Taltown, and they would carry on as if I were a favorite customer or very good friend.

  That reaction embittered a number of Justices, but I learned early on to accept it. People are fickle, but they try to view everyone in a positive light if given half a chance. I decided long ago to give them that chance.

  I entered the long, dark tunnel into the Star alone. The shadows swallowed me and cooled me while my footsteps echoed and heralded my arrival. At the far end of the tunnel, before the doors that led to the supply corridor, a clerk stood and bowed. I paused and returned the bow. He did not meet my eyes and said nothing to me. He respected the great burden I bore while Sharul and would do nothing to irritate or inconvenience me.

  My saddlebags slipped from my shoulder almost accidentally. I ignored them and proceeded beyond the clerk; my long strides greedily devoured the distance between me and the Shar Chamber itself. I knew the clerk would clean the saddlebags and deliver them to the room I had been assigned. The only part of my luggage that would not make it to my room would be my journal. The clerk would deliver that to Lord Hansur so he could review my performance even as I cleansed myself.

  All the doors between me and the Shar Chamber stood open so I had to touch nothing. No one walked the corridors, which saved my friends the awkwardness of refusing a greeting, and afforded me the luxury of silence. I did not find the isolation disquieting. It settled my nerves and let me gather my thoughts in preparation for Shar.

  I turned the last corner and took a dozen fateful strides through the half-light to the door of the Shar Chamber. The doors themselves are narrow, only two feet wide for each of the double doors, but are cast of bronze and look heavy and strong. Magical runes, arcane symbols and designs of great antiquity and importance, scarred the doors' surfaces, but darkness swallowed all but one of them. Inscribed on two halves of a circle in the center of the doors, the simple line drawing of a skull that matched the death's-head on my palm glowed with a coruscating red light.

  I reached my right hand up and out and pressed my palm against the skull sealing the door. The perpetual chill in my palm abated for a heartbeat, as if the Shar Chamber returned that part of me to me; then it went cold again and I felt a tremor in the doors. They rang with a click from inside. I felt pressure against my hand, so I lowered it back to my side.

  The doors slowly, evenly, swung open and out toward me. Incense smoke drifted out like mist to spill over me in the first step of the Shar ritual. No evil spirit or demon bound to me by chance or deliberate curse could abide the smoke and would be banished by it. Furthermore, the symbols worked on the doors barred them from entering the chamber because even the Shar ritual could not cleanse their black souls.

  I let one wave of the sweet smoke wash totally over me from head to foot before I stepped forward. The doors closed silently behind me and would admit no one else for Shar until I completed my ritual. In the next three hours I would see or hear no one. I would be alone with my conscience and if I could not justify the actions I'd taken in the past three months I would never leave the Shar Chamber alive.

  I stood in the first of several smaller chambers and alcoves set within the Shar Chamber. Incense choked this first chamber. The acrid smoke poured into and filled the narrow space from censers set high up on the walls. Though the heavy smoke burned my eyes and lungs, I forced myself to breathe and purged my body of any evil spirits lurking within my chest. Breath wheezed in and out as tears rolled down my cheeks, but I passed from that chamber only after I satisfied myself I harbored no supernatural evil inside my body. The doors in front of me—smaller doors cast in brass—opened at my touch, and I stepped through into the Shar Chamber proper.

  The Shar Chamber's vaulted ceiling glowed with a gentle amber light that wavered and flitted unbound from spot to spot. It played through the stony arches like lightning trapped within a thunderhead, yet never made a sound or flashed brightly to the floor below. A pool of steaming water dominated the center of the chamber. Multicolored tiles arranged in a pattern that seemed random to me lined the pool. I'd often marveled at the delicate design but whenever I tried to follow the pattern consciously I found myself drifting off and remembering the true purpose of the chamber. I am certain there is a very subtle enchantment woven into that design, but it never seems to matter enough to me after Shar to inquire about it.

  Lastly, and oddly foreboding in this place of peace and sanctuary, across the pool stood the black slab. The cold stone reflected none of the vault's light. If not for the gold inlaid circle and skull in its exact center, the slab would seem to be nothing more than a slice of midnight bound by sorcery and trapped inside Talianna. The last phase of the Shar ritual took place in the chamber beyond that slab.

  I stepped to the right and knelt in the first alcove. Here I removed all my clothing and separated it into two piles. I placed all leather items including my boots and weapons belt in one pile while I sorted all cloth items into the other. I picked the cloth items up and placed them in a small, wicker basket. Services clerks would come later, remove those clothes and have them cleaned or burned.

  Before I picked up my weapons and leather to move to the next alcove, I took a small, earthenware jug from a hollow in the wall and uncorked it. The scent rising from it was heavily spiced and full of wine, but it could not disguise the cloying underscent of an emetic. I choked it down and promptly threw it back up again—along with anything remaining of my breakfast—into a basin to my left. I took a small swallow of water from a goblet deeper in the hollow and rinsed my mouth out before I wiped my face and replaced the jug where I first found it.

  I picked up my leather apparel and weapons gear and carried it to the next alcove. There I drew my tsincaat and ryqril and set them aside. Kneeling on the cold stone floor, I poured liquid from an urn onto a cloth and, beginning with my jerkin, cleaned my leather. The liquid smelled of vinegar and removed the salt stains and other grime easily. I set each piece, when done, aside to dry. When I had finished cleaning the leather I unstoppered a squat brown jug and rubbed everything down with a polishing oil.

  Though part of me knew how much time passed as I knelt there and worked, I did not consciously keep track of my time. Working on the leather, cleaning and polishing it, was certainly symbolic in the Shar ritual, but it was something else as well. It was a simple task that had a beginning, middle, and end. Unlike so many of the tasks I was asked to perform as a Justice, this task started at one point and would end at another, and at any point in the process I knew how close or far I was from finishing. Success was easy to measure. Such a simple job did not annoy me as it did others because, for me, it provided a reference point within reality and reassured me that while I dealt with good and evil, and the vast gray area in between, there were jobs that could be finished and finished well. In its own small way it confirmed the possibility of progress, and how any task that could be started could also be completed.

  I rose and left the leathers neatly folded in a pile with my boots beside them. I took up my weapons and slipped barefoot through the open archway into the next small, round alcove. There I knelt again, this time beside a pot of jeweler's polish, and worked on the tools of my trade.

  I took great care to clean the blades. I lavished upon them the deep cleaning I would have given ordinary blades. I dragged the polishing cloth along each edge, searching closely for the nicks I knew would never appear, and waited for even the tiniest tug or snag. I studied both my tsincaat and ryqril for any signs of rust or weakening. There were none, because the blades were perfect, and would remain so until I died.

  I settled the tsincaat and the ryqril in the rack at the alcove's edge and passed to the next alcove. It had a stout, wooden door that opened at my touch and closed behind me. I stepped into an utterly black room. I stood and waited.

  The room's heat built slowly and seeped into my body. First sweat beaded up on my nose, th
en rolled down from my temples. My black hair caught the heat, trapped it, and felt hot enough for my head to burst into flames. Sweat moistened my armpits and slicked my flanks while it streamed down my chest, thighs, and buttocks. Soon I stewed in glaze of my own perspiration and could taste the salty fluid on my lips.

  The internal heat rose as soon as my outer body surrendered any attempt to keep me cool. Blazing warmth waded through the torrents of sweat washing down my body and seared into my lungs. My nostrils burned with every breath and the back of my throat dried like a drought-bled riverbed. I calmed myself and forced myself to breathe slowly past my swollen tongue to save my lungs. I shut my eyes against the heat and the sting of sweat. Though my body begged me to leave the room, I resisted because this part of the ritual was not complete for me.

  I set aside the physical discomforts and withdrew into my mind. There, with cool deliberation that mocked the inferno torturing my body, I painstakingly reviewed my conduct over the last three months. I relived every incident, every hour of time I spent away from Talianna. I checked all my actions against my responsibilities as a Justice, then checked them again against my own personal code of conduct.

  As a Justice I was allowed leeway in my conduct, and it would be ludicrous to suggest I held myself to a stricter standard than my masters demanded, but ultimately I had to live with my decisions. I was determined to make sure the choices I made were ones I could freely justify to myself and feel good about.

  I don't think I'm special in this regard. I am merely a man who realizes he is capable of mistakes, but I am also a man who is willing to take responsibility for those errors. That is a decision I made long ago, and it is one I have chosen to live with. I have my own code of justice and I work within it. After all, if I do not control myself, how can I be asked to dispense justice to others?