Imperial Year 768
The Heptagram
"Who are you and what are you doing in my room?"
The strange woman sitting at Taryn's desk leafing through one of her notebooks looked up and smiled. "Waiting for you, of course. Come in, my dear, come in, we have much to discuss."
Taryn closed the door cautiously, studying the stranger. She was tall, over six feet, and well-dressed, though her gauzy white gown seemed fit for warmer weather, and not at all in keeping with the fashions of the Heptagram, which tended towards dark robes in military cuts. Taryn glanced down for a moment and froze, seeing a dainty cloven hoof peeking out from under the edge of the stranger's dress. She tried to start breathing again, as the stranger cocked an eyebrow in amusement. "You still haven't told me who you are." A faint hope remained that this was all a prank.
The stranger smiled, gently. "I'm sure you've guessed, by now, but for avoidance of doubt you may call me Mara." Rejected from the school of sorcery she might have been, but even Taryn knew some names that were too dangerous to claim frivolously.
She searched her memory frantically as she sat on the edge of her bed, folding her hands tightly to keep them from shaking. Mara. The Shadow Lover. Demon of the Second Circle. A teacher, to some, a counsellor, to others, but always a carrier of knowledge that hurt more than it helped, in the stories. "How are you here?"
:"There are rules, and there are rules, dear girl." Mara set the notebook down and leaned forward to focus entirely on Taryn. "No sorcery, no ward, no law of Creation exists that can prevent me from answering a prayer freely given."
"Forgive me, my lady, but I was unaware I had offered a prayer to you."
"Well, not to me specifically, perhaps, but your need and your sacrifice called to me in a way I found difficult to ignore." Taryn frowned. Sacrifice? Then her eyes widened, as Mara held up a familiar silver ring. "So tell me, my child, what is on your mind?"
Taryn opened her mouth to tell Mara that she was fine, that she did not need help, that she was sorry the demon had come all this way for nothing, and then she paused. Her life's ambition had been ripped away from her not hours ago. She was trapped, a thousand miles from home, on a shore that would shortly prove rather hostile once it learned she had rejected the table scraps it saw fit to give her...She found herself pouring out her life's story, the whole mess of frustrated ambition. Mara sat there and let her speak, giving only nods or the occasional "hm."
"...so that's it, and now I don't know what to do." Taryn felt like she had been talking for an hour. For all she knew, she might have. She stood and moved to the washstand to pour herself a cup of water. The demon was still giving her that same measuring look when she turned around again. "Well?"
"Sorry, it's been a long time since anyone has called me up to ask me for advice." Mara giggled, Taryn felt her lips quirk up at the sound. Absurd. In the stories Mara's advice always ended badly, and here she was asking for it. "For anyone else I'd give them this ring back, tell them to move on. Things will seem better in the morning, and there will be other opportunities to stand out. For you, though..." She tapped her lips thoughtfully. "You threw it away. You'd rather go home in disgrace than settle for second-best." She pondered. Taryn stood, hands clasped behind her in the military rest posture the Heptagram drilled into its students. If this wasn't an inspection she didn't know what was. Finally Mara nodded. "I think I'm going to give you another option. It will be difficult and dangerous, you may end up doing things you'd rather not, but if you take this road the one thing you will not be is ordinary."
Taryn let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. "What do I have to do?"
Mara smiled, and for a moment there was a predatory cast to her features. "Is there somewhere in this tower that isn't regularly trafficked? Bring us there and I can take care of the rest."
The walk down into the storerooms proceeded in silence. Taryn briefly entertained worries about what she would say if they were stopped, before remembering that she had Mara with her. Then she worried briefly that the sheer magnitude of the disappointment had caused her to snap and Mara was a figment of her imagination. Before she was entirely done with that line of thought they arrived in a dusty sub-basement wing.
"This should do nicely! Just a moment..." Mara paced the perimeter of the room, her hooved feet occasionally putting in an appearance as she sketched blobs of shadow into the dusty floor, resolving themselves bit-by-bit into an elaborate pentagram. Taryn swallowed. The demon looked up. The single candle Taryn had brought danced crazily in her hand and Mara's shadow appeared vast and monstrous for a moment, without identifiable features apart from pinpricks of green fire somewhere near but not exactly at where her eyes should be. "It's not too late to back down, my sweet. I can still give you your ring back and you can go back to your room and await an offer of a post." She smiled. "Probably in some southern satrapy, so they can show off just how well-trained you are."
Taryn's face hardened and she stood firm at the center of the pentagram.
"Good!" Taryn jumped as a shadow detached itself from the corners of the room, slinking towards the center. She couldn't make it out but it moved like a cat. "I can't give you much advice here, this is a new process and you're much more experienced at being you than I could ever be, but it'd probably be a good idea to get off the island quickly when you wake up. They keep a closer eye here than elsewhere."
This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.
Taryn frowned. "What..."
"As I said, this is a new process and there aren't exactly procedures to follow; but we're going to be doing some surgery on your soul here, so this will be quite painful!" Mara clapped her hands together cheerily.
Taryn barely had time for her eyes to widen before the shadow-thing leapt at her, striking her in the breastbone and knocking her down in the center of the pentagram. And then the pain started.
----------------------------------------
The Scavenger Lands
City of Thorns
In those days only the bravest and most foolish of souls dared brave the road to the city of Thorns. Scant months earlier armies of war-ghosts had poured forth from the shadowlands around the city, legacies of its recent wars, and behind them greater and more terrible things. The Deathknights, horrors still spoken of only in whispers, human in shape but wielding powers out of legend, ascribed to the ancient anathema by the priests of the Realm. The Juggernaut, an obsidian fortress built on the back of a vast necromantic construct, crawling slowly forth from the darkness to park itself beside the city. And Him, their conqueror, the Masked One.
While the great tide of refugees had died down stragglers and the people of outlying villages, newly fallen under the shadow of Thorns, still trickled steadily outwards. The Revenant walked in towards the city alone. Incredulous travelers bade him stop, warned him what he was walking into, implored him not to go further. He ignored them. None pressed him on the issue.
Shortly thereafter the Revenant topped a hill and the panorama that was Thorns lay itself open before him. A shadowland, where the Underworld bleeds through into Creation, was not always easy to identify, but the Mask's servants had taken care of that problem quite handily. The Revenant had never been to the city but had heard stories, as all in the East, and indeed in the wider world, had, of the marble palaces of Thorns. The black rock and iron statues that greeted him were not the Thorns of stories. He passed on without hesitation or comment.
At the gates a guard of ghosts stood, fully manifested and yet still slightly translucent, armed and armored in an eclectic mix of archaic styles. Their spears still looked sharp. One stepped forward. "Halt. None shall pass."
The Revenant started to speak, coughed, tried again. It had been weeks since he had spoken, and he had had his throat slashed since. The voice that came out was rough, hoarse. "I want to speak to your master."
The ghost stared at him with an expression approximating incredulity. "By order of the Mask of Winters none shall pass. You do not seek Him. If He wishes to know you then you will be informed."
The Revenant stepped forward, smiling, into the confused ghost's reach, laid one hand on its shoulder, and rammed his other fist into its gut. The cold fire wreathing the fist was a trick that had come easily to him, more so than the rest of his newfound tools. The ghost's eyes rolled back up into its head and it fell backwards, dematerializing as it went, until it fell through the ground in front of him. Ash stirred, listlessly, on the paving stones. The remaining ghosts looked to each other, then back to him, polearms leveled. “I would speak to your master.” The silence stretched out. “I will not ask again.” The dead in front of him conferred, in whispers, and then one slipped back through the gate. The Revenant stood, back straight, arms crossed, staring. Minutes later the ghost returned and beckoned him forward, silently, he moved through the guard, who parted like water before him.
The living eked out an existence there still, he knew, but as the Revenant followed his guide through Thorns few signs of them remained. They hid from the tramp of ghostly boots as legions of the dead patrolled through the streets, mismatched armor and sable banners, the same as those outside. The Revenant found it difficult to determine what anything in the city had been before the necromantic wave had washed over it. Death was a great leveler, even for buildings.
They reached a small plaza and the ghost bowed and withdrew in silence. Across the space waited seven figures, standing on the steps of what might have once been a small temple. The Revenant inhaled, then started across the stone. He studied the figures as he moved. Four ghosts, an honor guard for show, he discounted immediately. To one side, a smaller figure, possibly a woman, solid-looking enough but shrouded in concealing grey-black armor, that would be one of the Deathknights. Placed there to dissuade him from attacking, perhaps, as if the armies surrounding him were not sufficient. To the other side another ghost, but more coherent than the foot soldiers, dressed as a scholar but in funeral blacks. An oddity. And the greater oddity, in the center, robed in concealing black, seven feet tall at least, face concealed by a silver mask, that would be the Mask. He stopped a respectful distance away and waited.
“Whose are you, then?” The growl coming from the robed figure was low, bored, and put the Revenant in mind of rocks grinding together.
“I have no master but the voices that speak in my dreams.” The armored figure and the scholar-ghost looked at each other. “They bid me come here.”
The Mask nodded. “Freshly-woken, then. What do you call yourself?”
“The Iron Revenant.”
“Simpler than most of your fellows.” Confirmation, then, whatever happened to him had made him one of these Deathknights. “Go, Iron Revenant, follow your dreams away from my city.”
Strange. “You do not wish my service?”
The Mask of Winters had half-turned away. “You are an unknown quantity, boy, untutored, with your loyalty untested. I do not need you.”
Information. The Revenant needed to keep this conversation going. “You believe I should accept an offer from another, then?”
That seemed to give the Mask pause. “Who has made you this offer? The Lion? The Dowager?”
“The Lion.” The Revenant kept his voice steady and his hands clasped firmly behind him.
“My lord, shouldn’t we…” The armored figure was definitely a woman.
“Silence.” The Mask had turned fully back towards the Revenant and for a moment he felt the full weight of that gaze, the black pits that were the empty eyeholes in that silver mask wrought in the shape of a snarling demon, and the stories fleeing peasants told of a gaze that could make strong men soil themselves came unbidden to mind. Then it abated. “You have never spoken to the Lion or his agents.” The Revenant tensed, ready to move, but the Mask continued speaking. “You do not lack for courage. I may not need your service but I would not have you leave here empty-handed today.” He stretched out a hand, and drew a sword from thin air, a broad grey-black blade, worked symmetrically and flaring out into spikes near the broad tip, and cast it onto the ground, where it clattered to a halt by the Revenant’s feet. “This sword is called Fear of Darkness. I shall remember you on our next meeting, Iron Revenant, and I shall expect you to tell me of deeds you have added to this sword’s name.”
The Revenant bowed, took the blade, and turned to leave the city. He had the beginnings of a direction. The whispers in his dreams would guide him from here.