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Chapter 10:
The Missing Man


I


The dark youth bowed his head when he opened the villa door and greeted Hanuvar, who had announced himself with a lie.

“My master awaits within,” the young man said, and stepped aside with a broad sweep of his arm. “Come.”

Hanuvar scanned the dim interior of the empty entry chamber, though he had not left off examining the house slave, who waited with a curious wide-eyed blankness. Well groomed, he wore a plain beige calf-length tunic with simple belt and sandals. His owners surely intended he blend unobtrusively into the background, yet his disquietingly fluid movements promoted the opposite effect. He fairly vibrated with urgency.

Hanuvar wore an expensive white tunic, fine sandals, and a gold citizen’s ring. Any astute observer would know him for an eques, minor nobility descended from those once wealthy enough to supply horse troops for Derva.

He spoke of his own misgivings with the arrogant, dissatisfied air expected of his assumed role. “I understood that I alone was to meet with your master. Yet I see there are a number of servants waiting outside among their masters’ horses.”

“Yes, sir. Many have been summoned this day.”

“Competition to bid on the slave I am here for?” Hanuvar asked with a sniff.

“I could not say, sir.”

As befitted his station, Hanuvar grunted disapprovingly, wondering why he hadn’t been told others were interested in purchasing the Volani scholar. But then much about the current circumstance had struck him as odd, particularly the state of the exterior, which troubled him even more than the youth’s odd manner. “Where are the slaves to take the horses? To work your yard and fields?”

Following up on his successful inquiry via messenger, he and Antires had ridden ahead of the circus through the night, arriving in the late morning to discover a host of other people’s attendants resting in the shade of regal pine trees planted sequentially along the dirt road leading to the villa’s central door. No servants had escorted their mounts to stables, and the animals cropped grass beside the waiting men. With an estate like this, a small army of slaves should have immediately greeted them, led the horses off, and treated the visiting servants to food and drink, but those resting outside complained that nothing of the kind had happened, as though that were not already obvious.

Hanuvar had left Antires with their horses and advanced to the villa, where he’d met the strange house-slave.

The youth didn’t answer either of his questions. “All will be made clear, sir. If you will come with me?”

Remaining in character, Hanuvar scowled. “It had best be made clear quickly. I am on a schedule.”

Hooves clattered on the road behind him. Hanuvar turned to see a rider on a dark horse rein in near Antires.

The new arrival arrogantly took in those around him before dropping from the horse and handing the reins to another man’s retainer. He paused to adjust his dark cloak and brush road dust from his black tunic. Tall, broad, and tanned by long hours in the sun, he was crowned by well-trimmed ebon hair. Even from a distance, Hanuvar spotted the silver skull medallions holding the man’s cloak to his shoulders, and understood why all those near the stranger watched with trepidation. One of the notorious revenants had arrived in their midst.

The officer adjusted his sword belt, then walked toward the villa with supreme confidence. Hanuvar hid his rising worry with aristocratic hauteur. This meeting grew more surprising and dangerous by the moment.

He showed no concern when the revenant’s dark eyes caught his own, for the official he pretended to be would not be cowed by a centurion of the Order of the Revenants.10

The youthful slave performed his loose-limbed bow again, as though he were a puppet guided by unseen strings. “Our final guest,” he said.

The revenant eyed him dispassionately, then turned his head to Hanuvar. His voice was smooth and coolly cordial. “I am Centurion Caius Murias Vace, of the fourth quarter of the Revenant Order.”

Hanuvar inclined his head ever so slightly and continued to speak in the Dervan accent of a city native. “I am Kelenian Fenn, assistant to procurator Aurelian Troculus.”

Vace’s eyebrow ticked up, clearly recognizing the name of the famed landholder. “How interesting.”

Hanuvar dismissed the idea that his presence was interesting by means of a negligent wave. “I thought revenants always travelled in threes.”

“My colleagues seek a fugitive. Why did Decius Bavonus contact the procurator?”

“Contact?” Hanuvar inquired politely.

Vace frowned. “I assumed you were here for the same reason I am. Perhaps I am in error.”

“I’m here to purchase a slave.”

“How curious. I’m here to see what a slave has wrought for his master.” Vace appeared to be telling the truth, which likely meant he himself wasn’t hunting for Hanuvar, although his two colleagues might be. “I assume he’s the same slave you’re after, a Volani scholar?”

“Quite probably, unless our host Decius Bavonus owns two Volani scholars.”

“I suppose it’s possible, though how many of them can there be left?” Vace grinned at his own joke. Hanuvar laughed politely at the reference to the genocide of his people, inclining his head while the revenant continued: “I hope he doesn’t mean to have our two offices bid against one another. Mine can simply requisition the man.”

“So can mine. But we need not be at odds.”

“At least not until we see what the man intends to show us, yes?” The revenant turned to the slave, watching expressionlessly. “Are you going to lead us to your master, or not?”

“This way, please.” The slave turned with his peculiar grace and eased into the home. Hanuvar resisted the impulse to signal Antires he was well. The person he pretended to be certainly wouldn’t bother communicating with some distant slave or secretary.

The house slave closed the door behind them. With the sun but newly risen, little internal light reached through the villa’s northern windows. The slave didn’t bother retrieving a lantern as he headed into the dim interior, walking with little sound.

“There’s something odd about that slave,” the revenant muttered to Hanuvar.

“I’ve noticed,” Hanuvar whispered back. His senses were taut, and his imagination rich with improbable scenarios, but before it peopled the room ahead with blood-smeared corpses, he heard a subdued chatter of voices.

They arrived at a pleasant atrium, illuminated by an open courtyard through nearby arches. Much like the fields outside, the bushes, trees, and flowers were circled by weeds and several weeks overdue a trim. Four people waited around a table with meager refreshments. The muscular, grim one standing with folded arms near a pillar was obviously someone’s bodyguard. Another was a patrician woman with a broad chin and a pronounced scowl. Seated, but not reclining upon one of the nearby couches, was a younger woman, clearly a close relative, lacking the tight and predatory features of the older. Leaning toward her was a portly, balding man with a prominent hook in his nose. He wore a light toga praetexta.

The young slave cleared his throat. “The master has awaited your arrival, gentle ladies and sirs, and with everyone now here, I would like to take you to him.”

“I think introductions are in order first,” said the balding man. His voice was brash and certain, even friendly, though his bonhomie was absent from his eyes. He extended his arm toward Hanuvar, who took it. “I am Melius Tentor, Senator Aminius’ first adjutant.” Hanuvar didn’t have time to reply before Tentor continued: “This is Arcella Sulena, the wife to this province’s esteemed governor. And her charming daughter, Julia.” He stepped to Vace.

“An honor,” the revenant said, proceeding to introduce himself and then Hanuvar. No one bothered to introduce the bodyguard.

“What are all of you here for?” Vace asked.

It was Arcella who answered curtly. “Bavonus promised us a demonstration that would change the course of the empire. Something to do with a Volani slave.”

“And he invited all of you?” Vace asked with obvious disappointment. He did not wait for a response. “And why are you here, milady, rather than the governor, or one of his men?”

Her answer was stern and sharp. “Because my husband trusts my judgment. And it’s high time my daughter learned how to cut her own way through a man’s world.”

Hanuvar thought this speech was meant to intimidate or challenge the revenant, but Vace’s eyes flashed in amusement. “What an interesting expression,” he said.

“If it’s a matter for the empire, all of our superiors need to be informed,” Tentor said.

“That depends upon how important this matter turns out to be.” Vace’s gaze shifted to the house slave.

Once more the slave cleared his throat. “I do apologize for keeping you waiting. But the master is ready for you now.”

“And he will not come here, to welcome us?” Tentor asked, with the air of someone repeating a query.

The slave bowed. “Master Bavonus begs that you be patient and realizes that his requests may strike you as strange. He asked me to assure you that all shall be explained to your satisfaction once the demonstration begins.”

Hanuvar lifted his nose. “I am not here for a demonstration.”

“I understand, sir. These matters are related directly to the slave, and his future. Please, come with me.” With a beckoning gesture, the house boy backed toward a side hall.

Vace gave Hanuvar a curious glance, as if to gauge his thoughts, then they followed in a group.

“Bavonus is proving himself an eccentric,” Tentor said, addressing them at large. “I hope he hasn’t wasted my time.”

“He dares not waste the time of revenants,” Vace said with a cool smile, “or, indeed, a servant of the procurator, the advisor to a governor, and the adjutant to one of the most powerful senators in Derva.”

One of Tentor’s thick eyebrows arched up. “You seem amused.”

“You’d be surprised how little in my job brings actual pleasure. This, at least, is diverting. My patience, however, is not eternal.” He looked sidelong to Hanuvar. “You seem irritated, Fenn.”

“I was dispatched to oversee a transaction,” Hanuvar explained. “I’ve no interest in demonstrations or gatherings.”

Arcella spoke to Hanuvar for the first time. “Don’t you want to see just how valuable this slave might be?”

“He doesn’t want to pay top money for him,” the revenant said.

The slave turned into a side corridor that led to a stairwell and descended into the gloom without comment. At the bottom he lifted a lantern, briefly fussed with lighting it, then rehung it and opened a thick door wrapped in dark brass.

“Your master’s on the other side of that?” Tentor asked gruffly.

“What he’s created must be kept from prying eyes, sir.” The slave opened the door on soundless hinges and revealed another stairway, this of pitted stone extending into absolute darkness. The slave used his lantern to light a second, smaller one hung on a peg just inside the door, offered the first to the bodyguard, who didn’t take it, then to Tentor, who did. With a muttered “Please follow me,” the youth started down, his lantern painting his huge shadow upon the wall.

The revenant took the lead. Hanuvar followed, with the two women after, Tentor and the bodyguard bringing up the rear. Apart from their own footfalls there was no sound; around them was the cool, still quiet of a tomb, though the place was free of cobwebs and vermin.

The stairwell stretched on long as two ordinary flights, and terminated in a long subterranean stone hallway only a little wider than the stairwell, with room for three people to walk abreast. A half dozen recessed doorways showed along both sides, made visible by a light shining through a doorway further down the hall. The corridor continued into the darkness beyond.

“What is this place?” Tentor demanded.

The slave answered without hesitation or hint of apology. “Our destination.” He started forward, his lantern light playing upon the old stone and doorways. The slave made for the one where the light already shone, then stopped outside, and with another of his sweeping motions, encouraged their entry. Hanuvar hesitated while the others stepped past into a small sitting room with cushioned couches and walls painted with the depiction of a sedate dinner party. A jar of wine and set of goblets stood on a low table.

“Please, make yourselves comfortable. I will inform my master of your arrival and you will shortly be entertained by him.”

Tentor headed straight for the goblets, holding one up in the light of three flickering oil lanterns and smiling a little at the emerald worked into its side. The governor’s wife lifted another. “What do you suppose this is about?”

Hanuvar suspected it was about a diversion, and noted the revenant watching the slave walk into the darkness.

The bodyguard stepped close to Arcella. He, too, warily surveyed his environment.

“On your guard, Fenn?” the revenant asked.

Hanuvar knew then that the persona he’d crafted had slipped, though he tried to hide the change in his character with flinty arrogance. “Still amused, Vace?”

“Barely. Someone’s putting on a show for us, and I’m wanting it to get to the main act.” With a last glance toward the darkened hall, he stepped into the room.

Hanuvar followed. “Would you rather be hunting for the fugitive your colleagues are after?”

“My colleagues are seeking signs of Hanuvar.”

Hanuvar managed a skeptical look. “I’ve heard the rumors, but they hardly seem credible.”

“You haven’t seen the reports, then. Consul Caiax himself swears he looked upon the real man.”

Hanuvar’s surprise shown honestly, not because of the report, but that Caiax had survived to relay one. The last Hanuvar had seen of the general he’d had a spear protruding from his chest.

“Other survivors of a garrison Hanuvar attacked have likewise testified,” Vace continued.

He had wondered how long it would be before a new supply ship would reach the Isles of the Dead and return with Dervan survivors of the battle there.

The young woman, Julia, had been watching Tentor and her mother eye the goblets. She took a step closer to Vace and Hanuvar. “I heard he’s a ghost,” she said.

Hanuvar snorted at that.

“If he’s a ghost,” Vace said, “he’s a very strange one, for he appears in daylight and carries a sword. Some claim he’s a magic worker, for there are reports he’s been conjuring monsters, and that he can change his appearance at will.” The revenant offered a mocking smile, suggesting he found the account amusing without criticizing it outright.

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” Hanuvar said.

“If he could change shape, he might be anyone,” Julia said to Vace. “Like you. Or the senator’s aide. Or me, I suppose.”

Hanuvar had noted that she spoke with a curious stiffness of her lower lip and glimpsed the reason in her last few words—her left lower incisor was missing. She must labor hard to conceal what some would view as an unflattering blemish.

Perceiving a new light shining in the hall, he stepped to the doorway and discovered a lantern sitting at the bottom of the stairs. Though this was odd given no one stood near the lantern, he was more troubled that the faint light streaming through the door at the stair head had vanished.

“What is it?” Vace asked.

“The door’s closed.” Hanuvar listened, looked both ways, then advanced toward the light, the revenant following. His left hand grasped the hilt of his knife.

As he neared the lantern an object lying nearby resolved itself into an adult body, dried, and apparently skinless. Hanuvar recoiled but shifted his attention, knowing a horrid distraction could be setting its discoverers for ambush.

The revenant almost sounded calm. “This man has been flayed,” he said. “And it looks like someone has taken a few of his organs.”

Hanuvar started up the stairs, watching the walls and steps. But there were no further surprises, other than that the door had been scored. Someone had tried to open it before. That it was locked was no surprise at all.

“It’s locked, isn’t it,” the revenant called to him.

Hanuvar started down. “Yes. And the hinges are on the outside. Someone’s playing a game with us. We walked right into it.”

Vace looked back at the stiff corpse. “Placing the body could have been a trap to put us off guard.”

“It’s not. This is to alarm us.” Hanuvar picked up the lantern. “Or to separate us.”

“Wisely reasoned, Fenn.”

Naturally a well-trained revenant would be alert, and while it was somewhat reassuring to have a perceptive warrior at his side, Hanuvar hardly felt at ease. The revenants were ever suspicious, and ever vigilant. And now he had let his mask slip, though he had retained his upper class accent the while. He hoped his pretend position as a trusted representative would shield his actions. Surely the wealthy patrician he pretended to serve might employ someone quick thinking and perceptive to act in his stead.

Hanuvar took the extra lantern with them when they returned to the reception room.

There Vace addressed the other four. “Friends, all is not as it seems. Our slave guide has disappeared. The door to the outside is locked, and a body was left for us to view.”

Tentor lowered his wine goblet. “This sounds like the kind of games revenants play.”

“I assure you that I am playing no game. And this is nothing like anything my people would do.”

“What are you saying?” Arcella asked. “Was the body that of our host, or the slave?”

“It was too dried out to have been the slave,” Hanuvar said. “I’ve never met Bavonus.”

“We may all have been lured here under false pretenses,” Vace said.

“But why?” Tentor asked, his voice rising in concern.

Arcella knew the answer. “One of our enemies wants to kill us.”

The silent bodyguard put hand to his sword.

“But who wants to kill all of us?” Tentor asked. “And Fenn here wasn’t even on the original invitation.”

“It’s not who we are,” Vace said, “but what. We are Dervan officials with rank. That’s enough to invite hatred from some.”

“It’s Hanuvar,” the girl said in the resulting silence, then turned to Vace. “It must be him. You said your men were hunting him, and this slave is Volani, isn’t he? The one who’s so important? He must be working with Hanuvar.”

Vace answered. “The Volani slave is likely a sorcerer who worked in high levels of the Volani government. We should be alert to the potential dangers this presents.”

The girl’s eyes widened and she spoke in dread. “You think there’s a witch-man after us? That we’re trapped here? What does he want with us?”

“Be calm, daughter,” Arcella snapped. “We are more clever than a slave.”

“Maybe there’s some reasonable explanation for all of this,” Tentor said nervously. “We should keep calm and explore the rest of these halls.”

“Well, come along, then.” Arcella frowned and pointed toward the doorway. “Let’s get a sense of this place and see if there’s another exit.”

While Hanuvar agreed, he couldn’t help thinking this was exactly what their unseen captor wanted.



II


Hanuvar kept his own counsel as they advanced into the hall. He didn’t object that Tentor and Arcella had snatched the lanterns; he wanted his hands free.

Whoever was behind this had distracted them with the slave’s departure while another associate left the body near the stairs. Their opponent was confident, well prepared, and dangerous, motivated not just by hatred, but by the desire to spread fear.

Could it be the master of the house, bent on vengeance against his fellow aristocrats? If so, would he have found a willing conspirator in Senidar? Though Hanuvar had known him only slightly, by reputation the scholar had been quiet and charitable, charged with overseeing the city-state’s collection of sorcerous manuscripts, most of which even he was widely skeptical about. It was hard to imagine that his character would have changed so much that he would countenance these acts. But then it was difficult to know how a man could change when he witnessed the annihilation of his people. Madness might take many forms. Hanuvar knew traipsing through enemy lands to rescue any who had once shared his homeland was not the most rational means of addressing his pain, especially since it would almost certainly lead to his death.

But now was not the time for self-reflection. He couldn’t be certain who was behind this elaborate trap, and their identity wasn’t currently important. For the sake of the unknowing thousand he hoped to save, he had to focus fully on the present, and his survival.

He and the others cautiously explored their surroundings. Six chambers opened onto the hall. One was stacked with old furniture, another with empty amphora of various sizes, yet a third with what at first blush appeared to be kitchen implements, complete with cutting boards and jars filled with dried leaves and spices. Vace explained it was a spellcaster’s laboratory. Hanuvar had guessed as much but kept silent.

The tunnel swept on, and beyond two more doorways lay an intersection with a hallway running transverse to their own. While Hanuvar was still debating which way to explore, the contents of the next chamber arrested the attention of Arcella and Tentor. It held a wealth of garments and additional chests, and the two patricians were further entranced by a small selection of rings, necklaces, bracelets, and earrings resting upon a wooden table. The precious stones upon them glittered in the light.

“We’re not the first people who have been trapped like this,” Vace said to Hanuvar.

“Likely not,” he agreed. “Our captor could not have been doing this long without stoking some kind of suspicion, could he?”

“You would think not. It’s astonishing what careless people can get away with, though. Sooner or later their mistakes catch up to them.”

Tentor had opened one of the chests to uncover a supply of shining silver coins, plentiful enough to draw even the emperor’s attention.

The bodyguard spoke at last. “That’s a lot of money.” His voice was dry and coarse, and Arcella looked sidelong at him. Until that moment Hanuvar had assumed their relationship was employer and employee, but the brief, knowing exchange suggested a greater intimacy. Scanning the faces of the others, he thought only the girl, Julia, had noted it. Everyone else, including Vace, was distracted by the treasure.

From outside came the faint creak of a hinge. Hanuvar immediately slid to the doorway and peered into the gloom. The sound had originated further down the corridor.

He pressed to the wall. The revenant stepped out in front of him, lantern carried in his off hand, and motioned him to follow. Vace drew his sword, a dark blade glistening with some liquid. Poison, probably, stored in his sheath.

Hanuvar heard a whispered exchange behind him. Vace hissed for silence. From up ahead came another footfall.

Vace advanced, searching the ground for trip wires, and came finally to the intersection. Their own hall terminated, but another stretched to their left and right. The revenant crouched, peering. Hanuvar drew up beside him, sensing something in the space in the corridor to the left, upon the floor. The distinct acrid smell of a body long preserved in resin reached him. Lantern in hand, a nervous Tentor passed Hanuvar and rounded the corner. He halted after only a few paces, calling out to the gods in horror.

Vace whipped around the corner after him. Expecting this to be another distraction, Hanuvar immediately looked the opposite way, seeing only darkness and what looked like a stack of broken crates. Julia crept up to his side, shivering.

“Watch that way,” Hanuvar told her. “Our lives may depend on it.”

She nodded, her eyes wide with fear. Hanuvar didn’t see the others behind her.

Still moving with care, he advanced past the goggle-eyed Tentor, rigid as a target dead center in the hall. Vace crouched beside two bodies without touching either.

Both were blackened and skinless, their bellies scooped clear of organs.

“Where are the others?” Hanuvar asked.

Vace answered disapprovingly. “With the gold, I presume.”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Julia said behind them.

“Watch our backs,” Hanuvar told her.

Tentor’s hand shook, and the light wobbled with him. “What mind would conceive of doing this to people like us?”

“Adjust the light,” Hanuvar said, pointing. But Tentor didn’t understand the instruction, so Hanuvar pried the lantern from him and advanced beyond the bodies, feeling the wall.

“We’re being toyed with,” Vace said.

Assuredly. They had been deliberately drawn here so they would be further alarmed. He searched the wall and floor for sign of any track, or the telltale floor scrape of a hidden panel. Nothing. Probably the bodies had been lying here from the start. But a sound had been made so they would be seen.

The corridor reached an end some six paces on, with no door. Hanuvar swept his hand along the wall and then, finally, felt a current of air. Bringing the light closer set the lantern flame wavering. He eyed the mortar in the bricks.

“It feels like someone’s watching us,” Julia said in a stricken whisper.

A man’s shout and a woman’s scream echoed behind them.

Hanuvar’s instinct was to race back, but he let Vace precede him, alert still that someone might have placed a trip wire or other hazard.

They met nothing in the hall, though, and when they stepped into the treasure room, the bodyguard was gone.

Arcella lay there, at least what was left of her. Her dress had been rent down the front, and her skinless, hairless body lay wet and glistening, the lidless eyes rendered enormous. Unlike the other bodies, her internal organs still lay in their places. The reek was overwhelming.

Even Hanuvar was stunned by the scene, for he could think of no ordinary means by which the woman could have screamed and then been rendered skinless in the scant moment since they had raced to find her.

The girl breathed with a rapid wheeze, mumbling in fear and horror.

“It’s magic,” Tentor cried. “It’s got to be some kind of magic! There’s no other explanation, is there? They could come for any of us, any time. I don’t understand. Her guard had a sword! How did this happen?”

“Her guard was probably looking at the gold,” Julia said in disgust.

“But that doesn’t explain how quickly they skinned the woman, does it?” the revenant asked.

“No,” Hanuvar agreed. The daughter had drawn close to him and stared down at the unrecognizable thing that had been her mother. She gagged and wobbled, and Hanuvar clasped her shoulder to steady her. “There must be another exit from this room,” he said to Vace, “or we’d have passed whatever it was.”

“Unless it was a ghost,” Tentor said.

“A ghost couldn’t cart off the guard, could it?” Vace asked.

“I don’t know!” Tentor’s gaze swung wildly around the room, loose and unfocused, as if he expected to see a horror lurking in a corner he had somehow missed. “How do we know what they’re doing or planning? They could do anything!”

“I don’t think so,” Hanuvar said. “There are other exits, and other doors. I’m sure I was close to finding a passage when we were lured back here.”

Tentor stared at him, wide-eyed, more fearful than the girl who had just discovered her mother’s mutilated corpse. Vace faced him as Hanuvar continued: “Whatever is killing us isn’t all-powerful. They need us here. And they need us separated.”

“An astute observation.” Vace had not yet raised his blade, and Hanuvar was aware that it was ready at his side, still slick with poison. “Your procurator chose his servant well. If that is, indeed, who you truly work for.”

“You doubt me?” Hanuvar asked.

“You’re too good, Fenn. If that’s your true name. You’re no aristocrat’s servant. Not even one who served a year or two campaigning. You’re not just used to giving orders, you move like someone who’s been in the front. You’re as observant as I am, and you’re not afraid of me. The others all are, even if they wouldn’t admit it. But not you. I can tell. So you’re either dumber than you seem, incredibly cocky, or you’re something else entirely.”

Hanuvar considered possible responses, including indignation, or insistence that the procurator’s office had hired him for his expertise. He improvised a different answer instead. “You’re right, Vace. There’s no point in dissembling. I rank as a centurion in the Praetorian Guard, though I answer directly to Minister Sarnax. I’ve been sent to investigate the disappearance of one of our men.”

Vace’s expression cleared. The explanation made complete sense, as Hanuvar had known it would. Then the revenant’s veil of suspicion returned. “Have you any proof?”

“I don’t carry it, no. Not while I’m in disguise.”

Vace grunted. “I wouldn’t expect you to. But that does make trusting you more challenging.”

“He could be part of this terrible game,” Tentor said. He pointed his shaking finger at Hanuvar. “He could be Hanuvar.”

“No,” Vace said slowly, “he’s as confused by this as we all are. Many of his guesses have been shrewd, and his observations sound. He’s not in league with our enemies.” The revenant sheathed his weapon with great care. “So, Praetorian, what should we call you?”

“Kelenian’s my true name. Keeps things simple.”

“All right then,” Vace said amiably. “What does a praetorian centurion suggest we do?”

“Return to the hallway. I think we were close. And I think there are sealed doors near many of these rooms, for our enemies to come and go.”

Julia spoke again. “What kind of thing can possibly hunt and flay so swiftly?”

“Something inhuman,” Tentor said.

“Humans are capable of all sorts of surprising practices,” Vace commented.

“Are they capable of this?” Tentor’s voice quaked.

Vace answered. “It might be that the governor’s wife is still alive, and that this grisly corpse was exchanged for her. I find that much more believable. Once men and women are frightened, it’s easy for them to believe the impossible.”

Despite himself, Hanuvar was impressed by the revenant’s reasoning, though he knew his conclusion was in error, for the corpse’s size and eye color were those of Arcella. Vace considered the walls once more. “Bavonus has gone mad. Likely he’s watching us, even now.”

Julia pointed a trembling hand toward the thing on the floor. “You’re saying this is not my mother?”

“It may not be,” Vace said.

“I hope you’re right,” Hanuvar said. “Vace, can we cast your cloak over the body? Whomever it is, wouldn’t it be suitable to cover her face?”

“I might need my cloak. We can use those clothes on the racks.”

Hanuvar took up two of the coins and laid them across the ghastly staring eyes.

Julia suppressed a sob. Hanuvar climbed to his feet and tightly clutched her shoulder. The next moment she was crying against him, and he was patting her, though he searched the wall for places where they might be watched from.

Between sobs she said, breathlessly, with many pauses, “She deserved better than this.”

Most people do, he thought, though he did not say it.



III


Dervans had little difficulty killing, but even Vace was squeamish about touching dead bodies that had not been ritually cleaned by the priests of Luptar, lord of the underworld. Hanuvar pretended he felt much the same and covered both bodies in spare cloth before dragging each of them to the treasury room where Julia's mother already lay concealed. Both times he was accompanied by the surviving members of their group, for he had suggested they separate no longer.

“It’s curious, isn’t it, how we work with care when we knew a person, but dead bodies are otherwise an inconvenience,” Vace mused. “So much trash, and flotsam.”

Hanuvar didn’t acknowledge that. He asked Tentor to guess about the amount of oil they had, and the nobleman reported. “Maybe two hours’ worth.”

“That may not be enough,” Hanuvar said. “If we have to, we can smash these shelves and some of this other furniture and use it for kindling.”

“You’re a practical man, Praetorian,” Vace said. “None of the shelving looks especially sturdy. It should be easily destroyed.”

“I saw a man!” Julia cried out. She pointed one slim hand where the wall met the ceiling. “Watching us! That stone just slid back into place!”

Hanuvar had unsheathed his knife and now advanced on the indicated opening.

“Was he Volani?” Tentor asked.

If Julia was surprised by the narrow focus of the question, it wasn’t obvious, for she was alarmed enough by the sighting. “I don’t know! He was right there!”

Hanuvar felt carefully. He detected a crack in the mortar, but could not move the stone.

“You were right, Praetorian,” Vace said. “They are watching us. We can choose whether to stay here and pry at that, or go back to the hall.”

“The hall,” Tentor said without hesitation. His eyes had swung back to the ghastly corpses and the lumpy stinking thing lying beneath the spare clothes, now moist with blood and other fluids.

“The hall,” Hanuvar agreed. “We know there’s a door there.”

“And you don’t think it will be sealed off?” Vace asked.

“There may be another solution.”

“Which you don’t wish to explain, because we’re being observed,” Vace said. “Very well, the hall it is. It will certainly smell more pleasant. We can smash up some of this for kindling and come back as necessary.”

Soon they had returned to the hall and Hanuvar chose a stone beside the hidden gap he’d discovered. He had recovered a sturdy knife from Arcella’s body, and chipped with this, hammering the hilt with a sturdy shelf support beam and driving the point into the mortar.

Vace set Julia and Tentor to watching both directions.

“We will switch off,” Vace said, “so that we don’t let our attention lapse when we weary. And so that the man hammering doesn’t grow overtired. I expect you to monitor the level of oils,” he told Julia.

“Suppose there’s another hidden door elsewhere,” Tentor said nervously. “They could sneak up on us. Or suppose they drop poison on us from another hidden eye panel. Or fire.”

“Stop suggesting things,” Vace said with cold venom, and Tentor gulped, so swift was the changed nature in the revenant. Vace returned to his odd conviviality. “I thought you were the one worried about skin-flaying ghosts. Watch the hall. You can look for panels there if you wish.”

“What will you be watching?” Tentor asked sullenly.

“Everything else.”

In an hour’s time Hanuvar had chipped the mortar free from the brick in the top corner of what he assumed was a door. It proved impossible to leverage out, so he started on the one beside it, reasoning that the more of them he weakened, the better their chances for pulling them loose.

He felt the revenant’s eyes upon him, but said nothing. Finally, Vace spoke. “What do you think they’ll do next?”

Hanuvar answered without stopping. “Two options are most likely.”

“Which are?”

“I’m not sure I should suggest them, in case they haven’t thought of them.”

Vace laughed. “I like you, Praetorian. Will any of your men start to get suspicious, and come in to help?”

“I work alone. What about yours?”

“Not for some time. They’re several days southeast of here.”

Hanuvar couldn’t help wondering which leads the revenants were following, and whether any clues could point to the circus.

“Maybe we should go work the lock,” Tentor said nervously. “There’s no telling if this will even amount to anything, and they could be planning any kind of response.”

“There’s no point with the outer door,” Hanuvar said as he hammered. “It’s scored already from some prior visitor’s efforts. There’s a bar on the other side.”

“What if there’s some kind of obstruction on the other side of this panel?” Tentor asked.

Hanuvar didn’t point out that one of the reasons they were chipping stones was to make a bar pointless, although Tentor had noted their enemies could very well be planning a counterstroke.

“We’ll deal with each problem as it arises.” Vace mimed hammering to Hanuvar, who passed him the tools. They traded positions and Vace took up work where Hanuvar had left off.

“This whole thing stinks of Volani trickery,” Tentor said. “Don’t you think? It has to be them. Hanuvar never faced his enemies fairly. He always had some trick. I’m not surprised one of them is lairing in the dark.” His voice rose and he lifted his balding head: “But we Dervans can find vermin in the dark, and crush them under our heels!”

“Do you really think it’s Volani doing this to us?” Julia asked, suddenly plaintive. “Mother always said some people would blame bad weather on Volani if they could.”

“We’ve been aware of the Bavonus family interests for some time.” Vace spoke over the sound of his hammering. “They’ve accumulated a small library of sorcerous texts over several generations. But until now they have been loyal adherents.”

“Until they got the Volani slave?” Tentor suggested.

“The timing is curious, isn’t it?”

Julia sidled a little closer to Hanuvar and addressed him with quiet intensity. “Do you really think we can get out of here alive?”

“I do. But we have to stay vigilant.”

“It can sneak up on us,” Julia said. “And it must move fast.”

“You yourself said that guard was probably distracted by the gold.”

“Yes. Or my mother. He wasn’t just her guard.”

“I see.”

“I’m not sure you do.” The girl crossed her arms and raised her shoulders, as though they were walls she might shelter behind. “I can’t believe she brought me along to this stupid place. I didn’t want to go.”

“Why did she bring you?”

“She wanted me to be more like her. To take charge. She keeps—kept—trying to show me things. And the stupid cow was rarely right about any of it.” She wiped her eyes.

“Parents aren’t perfect. If she was trying to look out for your future, then she was better than a fair share of them.”

“You needn’t worry,” Tentor said with an oily smile. “Pretty soon your husband can take care of you. How old are you, anyway? If you don’t mind me asking?”

“Shut up, Tentor,” Vace said, without breaking from his work. Hanuvar approved. Tentor frowned, but did as ordered.

“I don’t want to be married yet,” Julia said, with the hint of a child’s whine. “And I don’t want to be here. And I don’t have anything against Volani, so I don’t know why they’d be angry at me. I certainly wasn’t involved in that stupid war.”

“If you’re seeking to sway our watcher to sympathy, it can’t be done.” Vace paused only briefly to address her, then turned back to his work. “You could never reason with Volani. Even when they were beaten.”

“They were always scheming,” Tentor said.

The words of neither man reassured the young woman, who turned her gaze to Hanuvar.

“We’re working to get you out of here,” he said. He hoped they would succeed.

After a quarter hour Vace loosened enough mortar that they were able to pry the topmost stone completely free. They set it on the ground and shone the lantern into a dark space revealed beyond. Nothing looked back.

“That’s one,” Vace said. “Maybe four more before one of us can squeeze through.”

“Assuming no one’s on the other side waiting to poke us,” Tentor said.

“Which is why one of us should be standing by with a sword, ready to poke them.”

“I’ll stand guard.” Hanuvar could have suggested Tentor keep his fears to himself, but then waiting to attack was surely an obvious option their foes had already considered.

Vace handed him the sword with only a moment’s hesitation. “Be careful you don’t nick yourself with it.”

“Poison?”

“The debilitating rather than the deadly kind, more’s the pity.” Vace turned and started to work upon the wall with the steady clink of the board against the pommel, and the ongoing spray of grit.

“So tell me, Praetorian,” Vace said. “What kind of assignments are you usually deployed upon? Are you always a troubleshooter?”

Hanuvar had been fabricating his background over the last while, and the answer came easily. “I was guarding the emperor. Then I got assigned to watch over his nephew, but Enarius said I was too old to look at every day. So then they started sending me into the field. What’s your background?”

“I missed all of the best actions,” Vace said, something only the stupid, the young, or the madly fervent would proclaim about avoiding battle. “I was posted in the west during most of the Second Volani War, putting down all the little in-bred clan fighting and would-be Hanuvars in the western provinces. That Volani madman inspired a lot of maladroits to fight who wouldn’t otherwise have dared. All those battles didn’t amount to much. They certainly didn’t help me get promoted.”

Hanuvar feigned a sympathetic nod. “How did you end up in the revenants?”

Vace peered through the hole before resuming work, his voice conversational above the steady tink of his hammer. “My command stumbled upon a coven of witches advising the king of Faedahn. That was a bloody mess. I got us out of that alive and hanged all the women.”

“I bet that impressed the revenants,” Tentor said.

“It did,” Vace confirmed. “The witches tried to use their wiles on me. To turn me to their ways.” He looked over his shoulder at Tentor.

“Some of those Faedahn ladies are ripe,” the aristocrat said. “That must have been tempting. How many did you hang?”

“Three hundred,” Vace said.

Julia gasped. No matter the horrors she had already seen this day, apparently she could still feel shock. “They were all witches?”

Vace turned back to his work. “I wanted to be thorough.”

Tentor licked his lips. “Did you question them first? To find out?”

“Some of them.”

“Some of the pretty ones, I bet,” Tentor guessed.

Vace’s voice was thick with contempt. He faced Tentor, eyes bright with righteous zeal. “I was protecting my nation. Do you know what’s wrong with Derva these days? People take advantage of their position instead of doing their jobs. It’s bad enough that men like you sleep with slaves. You’ve too little interest in keeping our own bloodlines pure, and the women can’t even be bothered to raise a brood of children. It’s weakened us.”

“I don’t like your tone, Centurion,” Tentor said.

“Do you wish to report me?” Vace asked icily.

Tentor gulped.

Vace thrust the knife at him, then turned it so the hilt was offered first. “Your turn.”

Tentor pretended courage and offered an objection. “You haven’t worked half as long as Kelenian, or whatever his name is.”

“I’ll resume after you work a bit. I think you need to spend less time talking.”

Tentor scowled. “Senator Aminius can make trouble for you, when we get out of here.”

“Can he? I think I can make trouble for you. And who says you’ll get out of here? The only ones I’m really counting on making it out alive are me and the praetorian.”

Tentor’s frown deepened, but he took the knife. “What if whoever’s back there sticks me with a sword while I’m working?”

“That’s why the praetorian’s going to watch the hole. I’m going to watch the hall, and the girl’s going to watch the back wall. Now get to work.”

Tentor glared at Vace after he turned away, then looked at Hanuvar, who affected disinterest. Finally, he set to work.

Over the next hour the senator’s adjutant complained first about his wrist, then his arm, then about being hungry, but he continued hammering and every now and then pried weakly to see if the next block was loose.

Vace took his sword back and switched positions with Hanuvar, who sat watching the wall while Julia studied the hallway. Her expression was strained and she sometimes wiped her eyes, but her attention did not wander.

The lantern oil was running low when Hanuvar caught a brown flutter on his left. A tiny slip of paper drifted down, and above it a small gap in the stone closed without a sound.

Hanuvar shot to his feet, his movement stirring the air so the paper struck Tentor’s wrist. The Dervan jolted back as if he’d been bitten by a spider.

Hanuvar advanced on the gap he’d seen close, and felt the mortar with his knife point. There was no obvious break.

Julia scooped up the paper and opened it. “There’s writing on it,” she said.

“What does it say?” Tentor asked.

Vace was peering through the hole in the bricks, now two spans wide.

“I don’t know this language,” Julia said.

Hanuvar turned, extending a hand, troubled about what he might see.

It was written hurriedly in slanted Volani. It read: “I didn’t know it was you. Don’t worry, I can get you out alive.”

“What does it say?” Vace asked.

Hanuvar debated telling him, then handed it over, watching to see how Vace reacted. If he didn’t read Volani, it would be easy to deceive him.

But Vace’s eyes roved over it with the air of a man who understood what he was looking at before swinging up to look to Tentor, then Hanuvar.

“Girl,” he said, “was it aimed for the praetorian, or Tentor?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see it right away.”

“And I was watching the hole. One of them is Volani. Or works with them.” Vace faced them both, sword ready.

Tentor raised palms defensively. “I’m no Volani! Maybe it’s the girl!”

“She’s the governor’s daughter,” Vace reminded him with contempt, then looked at Hanuvar. “You could read this.”

“So could you,” Hanuvar pointed out.

“I can. But I know who I am, and I don’t know who you really are.”

“He can’t be in league with them,” Julia protested.

“He’s not,” Vace said. “But one of these two has been recognized. And I don’t think Tentor here is a good enough actor. The praetorian, though . . . what a fine disguise his identity would make for a clever fugitive.”

“I could say the same thing about a revenant,” Hanuvar said reasonably, fully aware of the man’s sword and the syrupy goo upon the blade. “But I don’t think that’s true. I think our enemy is trying to divide us further.”

“He’s right,” Julia said quickly. “You said so earlier—Kelenian is with us. Whoever’s behind this is trying to set us against each other.”

“Do you think?” Vace asked. “I would be more inclined to believe that if I wasn’t wondering how the note writer knew one of us could speak Volani.”

“Well, if they’re listening, then they know you’re both investigators, and they might have guessed,” Julia suggested.

Tentor sidled to one side, away from Vace, hand still raised. Vace’s eyes narrowed to slits.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Vace asked.

“Come on, girl.” Tentor extended his hand. His eyes flicked up to Vace’s. “I know she and I aren’t working with any madmen. But I don’t know about either of you. You’re the asshole. The praetorian’s been trying to keep us going. But the note landed next to him. And he’s already lied to us once.”

“It landed on you,” Hanuvar said. “They’re trying to set us against each other.”

“Can you prove you’re who you say you are?” Julia asked Hanuvar. “I believe you,” she added. “But is there something you can say to them?”

“You’re about Hanuvar’s age,” Vace said. “And you move like a soldier.”

“There are a lot of men my age who are soldiers.”

“Are those eyes gray, or blue?”

“What does that matter?”

“It matters a great deal,” Vace said. He frowned at Tentor, still sidling toward the end of the hallway, then looked to Hanuvar.

“I think you need to settle down,” Julia suggested.

“Think, girl,” Vace said arrogantly. “Pretend you’re some mad Volani wizard. You set a trap for a bunch of important Dervans. Only, a little way in you realize one of them isn’t really Dervan. He’s actually Hanuvar. Even a mongrel Volani has some sense of loyalty. And so he writes a note, and tries to send it to Hanuvar. But he messes it up. He was too stupid to write it in code, or didn’t know one, or didn’t think I would be able to read it.”

“But why would Hanuvar be here?” Hanuvar asked.

“To find his sorcerer, of course. But lines of communication were crossed.”

Vace’s guess wasn’t too far from the truth, but Hanuvar sighed in disappointment. “It sounds like you’ve decided I’m guilty. Our enemies could guess highly placed officers might know Volani. They might even have researched you before they invited you. And they’ve had hours to find a new way to unnerve us. I’d say they found one.”

Vace’s mouth ticked up. “That’s plausible. But that’s the problem with you. You’re altogether too plausible. You think too swiftly.”

Hanuvar sensed the coming lunge and slammed Vace’s arm aside, then leapt back from the vicious back slice.

Tentor dragged Julia out of the way. She screamed in protest.

When the point swung clear of him Hanuvar punched the revenant in the throat and would have driven his knife into his side, but Vace threw himself back.

Hanuvar tossed the mortar dust into his opponent’s eyes. Vace blinked out the grit, slashing wildly, and struck Hanuvar along the flank.

Hanuvar didn’t have time to worry over the wound; Vace was off balance, so he grabbed him by the other shoulder and smashed him into the wall.

As Vace fought to push away, Hanuvar tripped him to the floor. The revenant landed on his back.

Hanuvar kicked Vace between his legs, kicked the hand still clutching the bloody sword so the weapon popped free, then dropped, thrust his knife into Vace’s throat, and tore through him. He climbed to his feet.

Vace stared back in stunned disbelief while he bled out.

“Thanks for the acting lessons,” Hanuvar said, his voice low. “I’ll remember them when I’m hunting other revenants.”

Vace’s face froze in a look of dismay when he died.

Hanuvar wasn’t upset he’d had to kill a revenant, but that he’d had to do so when the man’s sword arm could still have been useful. He wasn’t sure what the note really meant, or if whoever was behind this was really a friend.

His gaze flicked up to the hole they’d made and then to the spot where he’d detected the eye slot. Nothing. Finally, he examined the wound slashed through his tunic and discovered a light gash in the muscle above his hip bone. It bled freely, but no organs had been struck.

He felt dizzy, though. If Vace had told the truth about the poison, the liquid on the sword had been a mild paralytic or some sort of soporific, and he’d taken a dose into his bloodstream. If Vace had been lying, then he would shortly be dead. Of course, in this circumstance, even a sedative might lead to his death.

He heard Tentor’s cry in alarm, then his scream, and Julia’s echo of it.

Hanuvar pressed the bloody tunic to his wound, snatched up the sword, and headed into the corridor.

The lantern sat in the hallway’s midst only twenty paces on, near the opening to the treasury room, and Julia knelt beside it, struggling to close the front of her dress. A pair of skinless red corpses lay behind her, glistening wetly.

She looked up at him.

“What happened?” He searched the darkness even as she stood.

“It came out of the darkness,” she said. “And it moved so fast—and then . . .”

Hanuvar kept his sword loosely pointed toward her. She stood, and as she took a single step forward he took a single step back. All of the girl’s teeth were in place now.

“What’s wrong?” the thing who wasn’t Julia asked in her voice.

“You’ve killed her,” Hanuvar said.

It stopped its advance. In an eye blink a hundred small, feathery limbs whipped up from behind Julia and pulled back what at first seemed a pink blanket when Julia’s dress fell away.

But it hadn’t been a blanket, it had been skin, and without it, the creature was revealed for a generally manlike being, toasted brown in color, with two huge eyes. Its frame was a structural mating of a skeleton and insect, with spiny protuberances and internal support bones. Those horrible limbs rose from behind it with incredible speed, bearing another pink burden. The limbs pulled back and they stretched a new skin over the creature. In a moment Hanuvar was staring at Arcella’s bodyguard. The skin hung loosely at first, but then the creature stretched with a faint creaking noise, elongating its neck and legs.

Hanuvar struggled with what he saw before him, wondering how he might strike something that moved with such speed. His dizziness did not help.

Those impossible limbs flailed again, withdrew the skin, and brought forth another. This was the sagging, naked flesh of the governor’s wife. Again the body beneath adjusted, spread with faint creaking noises.

“You need not fear me,” the monster said. It spoke with Arcella’s voice. “I can take many forms. Whichever is more comfortable for you.”

“That form isn’t comfortable,” Hanuvar said.

The skin slipped away in an eye blink and another was brought forth. Soon Hanuvar looked on the shape of the youth who had greeted them, though it was bereft of clothes. “Do not worry,” it said. “I have orders not to harm you.”

“Orders from whom?” Hanuvar asked.

A footfall came from the treasury room and a figure glided into sight. “From me.”

He beheld Senidar, an ordinary man of middle age, dressed in a Dervan tunic with blocky blue decorative borders, belted at the waist. It was splotched with old, dark stains that probably weren’t wine. He must have raided the wardrobe of his master. His skin was pale, his hairline receding.

Senidar lifted open hands in a welcoming gesture. “I didn’t recognize you at first, General, probably because I didn’t expect to see you. How could I? It was unexpected. Unanticipated.” He laughed, then his eyes tracked to the bloody fabric Hanuvar held to his side. His expression fell. “How bad is your wound?”

“The wound’s a graze.” He did not share further information about his condition with these two.

“You can lower the sword. The creature’s under my control. What are you doing here?”

“I was trying to free a Volani slave.”

Senidar laughed and spread his arms. The creature, still wearing the naked skin of the house slave, bent over one of the bodies behind it. There was a fluid, ripping noise, and then it lifted something dark toward its lips.

“I freed myself!” Senidar cried. “That idiot Bavonus gave me all the tools I needed. He thought I could build a weapon for the empire! But I brought a weapon for me. For us!”

“How many has the thing killed?”

“Those you see here. Some of the district leaders. My ‘owner,’ and his family. Some of the key slaves. I had the taver wear the skin of the owner and free the rest of them.”

“So every man and woman in the household,” Hanuvar said. “And those with me. And the young lady.”

Senidar’s brow furrowed. “Why should that bother you? After what the Dervans did to our people?”

“Julia, the young woman it just murdered, was innocent.”

Senidar shook his head in disbelief. “I would have thought you could see the truth. Our people were nothing to them but marks on a ledger sheet. They would kill us again, if they could. The entire society didn’t care; their entire society profited from us. They are all guilty.”

Hanuvar didn’t remind him that these people hadn’t designed their society, much less engineered the invasion of Volanus. But something in his look informed Senidar’s reaction. “If you think I feel remorse, it has been burned away. Like ashes. Like Volanus.”

There would be no advancing down that particular line of attack. Hanuvar gestured with his sword at the thing. “Where does this creature come from?”

“From the land nearby,” Senidar said, then explained further: “The one you sometimes glimpse from the corner of your eye, where cats and madmen stare.”

There was more in that statement than Hanuvar understood, but he was uninterested in further details. “And how do you control it?”

“With the sigil.” Senidar lifted his hand. A twisted dark clay circlet rested in his palm, and strings tied through it encircled his wrist. “You have to know spells, as well, to control it. But it likes to obey, because I give it what it craves.”

Hanuvar nodded as though he were having an ordinary talk with a sane man. “Can we travel with it?”

“It can assume any shape it has taken. You’ve seen it, and how fine a mimic it can be! The skins can last a good long while, and it passes well for human. Don’t you think?”

“Fairly well.”

“It can even mimic the voice of those it killed. I’m sure you noticed how good it is at that.”

“Yes.” Hanuvar smiled. He was taking on another role, today, that of a man welcoming madness. Antires would have been disappointed by his earlier performance. This one had to be better assayed. He spoke with the subdued pressure of a fellow conspirator. “We must travel in disguise, and you can’t constantly have the creature leaving a trail of bodies. That will make us much easier to find. The revenants are already tracking me.”

Senidar wasn’t so mad he didn’t understand that line of reasoning. “Where are you going, and what are your plans?”

“I’ll take you into my confidence. Answer me this, though. If you send this creature back, can you call it forward again?”

“Oh, do not send me back,” the taver said.

Senidar ignored its pleading. “I could,” he said thoughtfully. “It would take more blood, to get it back to us but . . .” He paused, carelessly adding: “I mean to spill all the Dervan blood I can, anyway. As I’m sure you do.”

“I’ve some experience with it,” Hanuvar admitted, and Senidar laughed.

“So, what are your steps? I had thought to work my way to Derva, and the emperor.”

“I will go to Derva,” Hanuvar acknowledged. “But it must be done stealthily, and not in company of your creature. Send it away. We’ll call it back later.”

Senidar looked at the taver, finishing its work on a lung. Its eyes looked back at him, its facial expression unreadable.

The wizard touched the sigil resting in his hand, whispering a phrase, and tore a wound through the world’s skin. A shuddering gap opened in the darkness to the right of the creature, a wheezing hole into a reeking twilight landscape of sinking suns and a huge blue moon and a sandy ground littered with craters.

Senidar breathed heavily and paled to a corpse-like hue. The sorcery must be taxing, but then it was also disorienting; Hanuvar, growing nauseous, braced himself against the wall with the hand he’d held to his side, for the world spun.

Senidar whispered more words in a sweet, flowing language Hanuvar never wished to learn, and the sigil in his hand glowed redly the while. The creature stared at him and opened its mouth. Little filaments stretched out from between its human teeth and wiggled, like an ant’s antenna, and then it turned and considered the portal.

A scent of rent flesh and steaming blood wafted from within, worsening Hanuvar’s discomfort.

The creature, though clearly drawn to the gaping opening, did not yet advance through it. It faced Senidar, its brows drawn together in exaggerated consternation. “Please, master,” it said. “The prey here is so much more delicious, and simple.”

“I will find you, and bring you back, and you will feast on many things.”

It stared hard at Hanuvar, then stepped through the aperture. Its master whispered again to the sigil and the portal’s edges blurred, faded. Reality was restored and somehow reassuring even with two bodies lying near the lantern, one of them mutilated.

The wizard turned to Hanuvar with a triumphant look. “You see? I have mastered it utterly.”

“I see.”

“Am I the first man you came to free?”

Hanuvar shook his head no.

Senidar beamed, even as he wiped sweat from his pale forehead. “There are other survivors who are no longer enslaved? I could teach the cleverest among them to do what I have done. Think of the vengeance we could take with an army of those things behind us!”

“I’ve already thought of that.” Hanuvar lowered the sword and considered his wound. It seeped blood but did not leak prodigiously. He needed to get it sewn and bandaged.

“Of course you have,” Senidar said with a shake of his head. “They always said you were ten steps ahead of normal men.”

“Gather all you need,” Hanuvar told him. “Your notes. Your tools. We should take the gems with us.”

“Only the gems?”

“We can take some of the denarii, but gems are much easier to travel with. And then please get us out of this place. This basement smells like a charnel house.”

“Yes. Yes, of course. With my doings, I have become accustomed to it.” Senidar started to turn away, adding. “I would think that you, a general and soldier, would be immune to carnage.”

“I’ve no liking for enclosed spaces. I’ve spent too much time outdoors.”

Senidar believed that. “Ah, of course!”

They returned briefly to the treasury and took a bag of coins along with the gemstones, placed in a smaller cask. Then Senidar pressed against a stone in the wall. A section of it swung open into a dark passage. Cool, clean air wafted down. “This path leads behind all the rooms and up into the master’s study. Master,” Senidar repeated with a laugh.

“What was this place?” Hanuvar asked. They started inside. Senidar’s lantern threw their lurching shadows on the wall.

“Decius Bavonus and his father fancied themselves students of the arcane arts, but they were dabblers. My notes are above. It’s an interesting little library, even though they have dozens of useless scrolls mixed in with anything useful.”

They arrived at narrow stone stairs, and Senidar glanced back at him solicitously. They started up.

“Don’t you need to get that bandaged? How bad is it?”

Hanuvar steadied himself against the wall as he followed up the steps. “I just want to get into the sunlight.”

They turned at a landing and arrived at what appeared a dead end until Senidar pushed and they moved out from behind a shelf unit, emerging in a small study with a wooden writing desk and a cushioned stool, overlooking a flowered courtyard going to seed. Hanuvar took all of it in, especially the exit routes, and turned his attention to Senidar. “Gather your notes. We have to hurry. The revenant said he had come alone, but revenants constantly lie. I’m worried you’ve been a little too overt with your movements.”

“If you had let me keep the taver, we would have no need to worry, but I take your point. I keep everything right here.”

While he bent to gather scrolls and rooted through the desk, Hanuvar tore a decorative cloth lying across a table supporting some family busts. He used it to wrap his torso. It would hold until he had time for sewing. In the meantime, Senidar finished placing a small pile of scrolls on the desktop.

“I’ll need something to carry them in.”

“I’ve a spare saddlebag. Are you sure that’s all of it?”

“This is everything important. A lot of it is up here.” He tapped his head, smiling. “I have clothes, of course.”

“Don’t worry about that now.” Hanuvar still felt woozy, and blinked, trying to decide how much movement he could dare.

“I hope you don’t think this too strange,” Senidar said with a sigh. For the first time he sounded embarrassed. “I never meant to study this sort of thing, you know. I merely wanted to see what lay beyond. But once I saw what the Dervans had done . . . I had to do it. You see that, don’t you?”

“I see it, and I understand,” Hanuvar said gently. “Really, I don’t blame you. I blame the Dervans for doing this to you.”

“Blame me?”

“I will always wonder what you might have been.”

The wizard’s eyes widened. Hanuvar swung the pommel of his knife into Senidar’s temple. The scholar sagged, and Hanuvar grabbed his head in both hands and twisted powerfully. He heard a snap, then eased the wizard’s body to the floor.

“I am sorry,” he said with honest regret.

The poison still had its claws in him, and the burst of energy left him shaking. He steadied himself against the desk, gathering his breath, then cut the sigil from Senidar’s wrist.

He ground the clay sigil under his heel and tossed all the scrolls into the fireplace. He did not leave until every scrap had burned to ashes.

The afternoon had died and evening was settling in by the time Hanuvar emerged. He carried only a messenger’s satchel, filled with scroll tubes. Each held gemstones or denarii mixed in with bits of cloth to keep them from rattling. His wound stung, and he fought fatigue, though dizziness no longer troubled him. Antires loitered close to the exit and his features settled into relief at sight of Hanuvar, though he then eyed him with unvoiced questions.

The other slaves and underlings still took their ease under the nearby trees. Many of them stood as Hanuvar walked clear, Antires following, and he felt their scrutiny. He had long since decided what he would tell them.

“What’s taking so long in there, sir?” an officious looking younger man asked. “We were told the negotiations might take a while, but—”

“It wasn’t negotiations.” Hanuvar halted, speaking both to his questioner and the other onlookers. “It was a trap. There was a madman in there who was drugging people, then skinning them. I barely got out alive. I’ve recovered his papers and am taking them to the legion, but I need to see a physician. You’ll find the bodies of everyone but the wizard in the rooms below, but you’ll have a hard time identifying most of them.”

They were asking more questions, but Hanuvar took a few steps, wobbling, and Antires made noises about getting him to a healer. The others fell back.

They left the people talking confusedly among themselves and nervously eyeing the dark villa. Hanuvar cantered off and Antires came after. Neither slowed until they’d left the place a good mile behind and ridden past another hillock. Somewhere ahead the circus would be making camp for the evening, and Hanuvar longed for the homely comfort of its tent and the companionship of its people more than he would have expected.

Antires looked at him searchingly. “How much of that explanation was true?”

“They’re all dead,” Hanuvar answered. “All of them.”

“What killed them?”

“A thing from nightmares.”

“That’s not very specific.”

“I’ll get into the details later. Although you won’t like them.”

Antires eyed him doubtfully but didn’t pry. “What about the Volani slave? Was he there?”

“He was there,” Hanuvar replied. “But I couldn’t save him.”

Hanuvar shared this tale with me only reluctantly, telling me that I might do with it what I willed, though he hoped I would never have it staged. I think he worried it could deepen the fear and loathing of the Volani people felt by so many Dervans.

I long thought that I would honor his wish, but I am older now. This dark episode shows how war and hate and loss can warp even the best of men, and how evil begets evil. And so I have relayed it almost word for word as he narrated it to me.

After that grim day we were happy to rejoin the circus troupe, which by contrast seemed fashioned of light, so that even its most grating members appeared mild irritants at best. Hanuvar’s wound healed relatively fast. As we drew ever northwest, we saw the snow-capped bulk of the Ardenines towering in the distance. Before too long we would have to separate, for the circus would return south on the coastal road while Hanuvar and I headed toward the mountains.

We planned only a few more stops together, one at the river town of Miletus, the closest settled point between the Tyvolian mainland and the eastern provinces. With the long Dervan summer nearing its final, most sweltering days, many of the wealthy escaped for more comfortable climes. One of these was Miletus which, if not exactly famed, at least boasted some spas and coastal winds. Thus was it home to a small, wealthy enclave that swelled at this point in the year, which was one of the reasons Mellika always scheduled the circus to pass through, for wealthy viewers often meant extravagant tips.

Among the patricians living there was the son-in-law of none other than Ciprion, the only general to have ever defeated Hanuvar in pitched battle. We did not know that, nor could we guess who it was who had recently departed Derva for reasons of his own.11

—Sosilos, Book Four




10 The Order of the Revenants was founded by the emperor’s decree a scant fifteen years before Hanuvar’s journeys with Antires, near the tail end of the Second Volani War. The original intent of their order was to hunt down Volani spies, sympathizers, and collaborators. As is the way with powerful organizations, they quickly found new duties with which to occupy themselves. After Hanuvar’s withdrawal from the Tyvolian peninsula, they continued their hunt for former collaborators and spies, but broadened their areas of interest to the persecution of magicians, social deviants, and priests working in unsanctioned ways. They employed what was thought to be a vast army of informants, though even at the height of their power a careful review of their documents reveals they were never so widely rooted as was believed.

For almost ten years they were a terror in Tyvol and especially in the western provinces, leading hundreds away for questioning and execution.

Their growing power was eventually reined in when Emperor Gaius Cornelius had the High Revenant quietly murdered and replaced with someone both less ambitious and less eager to drain the treasury on private crusades.

At the time of Hanuvar’s travels, revenants were no longer so widely spread as they had been during the previous decade, but they remained an elite secret police force answerable only to the emperor himself, ever alert for intrigue and challenges to the empire.

Silenus


11 Antires here alludes to what was once an event of common knowledge. A historian, of course, can never assume that his or her audience will understand every inference. One can never be fully certain of what subjects future readers will be cognizant. For example, how much familiarity shall we assume they will have with matters we take utterly for granted, such as women’s hair styles or other articles of fashion? . . . Only a few weeks prior, Ciprion, accused by his enemies of bribery and graft, appeared upon the floor of the senate not with a defense, but an attack. He brandished his accounts, asking his accusers to search there for the source of the thousands of gold talents his victories had delivered to Dervan coffers. He then tore them in half and threw them contemptuously at the feet of his fellow senators. He announced his resignation from the senate, saying that he was leaving Dervan lands forever, to reside within the provinces, and that he had further willed he be buried there.

This unexpected line of response ended the careers of all but his most clever attackers, but it also weakened many of his adherents, and caused all manner of consternation for them, especially ambitious younger members of his family, who feared their own political futures had been ruined.

Silenus


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