Apostate's Pilgrimage: An Epic Fantasy Saga (Empire of Resonance Book 3) Page 2

  Which made things much more complicated.

  Tai touched down in the center of a field of white, boots sinking in past the knee, forest silent after the howl of wind in his ears. Blue-green needleaves swam in the clearing, frosted in snow, with bare branched leatherleafs sticking through here and there. He stilled resonance and waited through the bends, world spinning and stomach rising from using so much uai.

  When it passed he traced the smoke to a tent of hides tucked back in the trees, not so different in design from an Achuri guyo.

  “Hello the tent!” he called, not wanting to startle the man, hating the old feeling of uncertainty and danger. He’d gotten used to the power of his resonance, to his ability to fight or escape anything, but the sense of uncertainty and danger was still there. It had kept him alive on the streets.

  There was no answer, so Tai wafted up and inward, following a depressed trail in the snow—it looked like Nauro left regularly, likely to hunt or forage. It would be a lonely existence this far out. The man must really care, to be willing to wait out here for Tai to come to him.

  The area immediately around the tent was hard-packed snow covered in wood shavings. Half an elk carcass hung frozen from a tree. Tai dropped to the ground, called out again, and pulled back the door flap.

  Heat rolled out, almost unearthly after hours of cold. Nauro stood to the side of a blazing fire, bare to the waist, his tailored slacks and tidy quarters a strange contrast to the wilderness outside. “Tai,” he said, seeming totally unsurprised. “It’s good to see you. Come in?”

  Tai had been braced for an attack but Nauro was unarmed, hands at his sides, though that meant little.

  “Yes,” he said, voice muffled under his wraps. “I think I will.” The warmth from the fire felt wonderful, and his skin ached from the cold.

  “Care for a cup of mavensytm? Or dreamtea? I still have a bit left.” Nauro gestured to an elegant bench along one wall, on which a few earthenware cups and bottles were arranged in clean lines.

  Tai pulled the flap closed, and immediately started to sweat. “Mavensytm, yes. Thank you.” Was the man offering it to show he was unafraid of Tai’s resonance?

  “Apologies if it’s warm in here,” Nauro said. “I haven’t spent many winters in the south, and I’m afraid my northern blood isn’t up to it.”

  Tai unwrapped his face and hands, then moved to his three layers of coats. “Where are you from, anyway?”

  “Worldsmouth,” Nauro said simply. “Though Worldsmouth before it was named Worldsmouth. The Yersh pronounced it more Worldsmout, but of course the merchant houses changed that once they successfully won their freedom.”

  Tai paused in unwrapping. “How old are you?”

  “One hundred and thirty-eight, at last counting,” Nauro said, sitting back on his cot with a sigh. “Winters like this make me feel it.”

  He looked thirty.

  There was just one other chair in the room, and Tai took it, wondering how the man got all this furniture out here. “One hundred and thirty-eight? How is that even possible?”

  Nauro gave him a level gaze. “You defeated Naveinya, yes? So, you are a mindseye now?”

  Tai nodded, feeling foolish. He still wasn’t used to the resonance—he could have been reading Nauro this whole time. He struck and tried, but Nauro’s mind was a river under ice, thoughts too far down to read.

  The fyelocke man grinned, pouring steaming water from a pot over the fire into a clay mug. “I didn’t mean for you to check the veracity of my statements by reading my mind. I try to stay protected against such things. But you must have read Semeca’s mind, in the end. Seen how old she was.”

  “Yes. I don’t know exactly, but at least a thousand years.”

  Nauro nodded. “And we believe there are archrevenants who are older. Some who are original, even. There are ways to tell but,” he shrugged, “you would need to have captured her revenant to do so.”

  Tai leaned in, accepting the mug. Good. This was the kind of information he needed. “So, is that what you do? You—capture revenants?”

  Nauro took a sip from his own steaming cup, revealing the tattoo of a circle pierced by nine spears on the inside of his wrist. “I have longed for human conversation, Tai, but there are still things I cannot reveal until we have an agreement.”

  An agreement. Tutelage, Nauro had called it in his note. Joining his team, whatever that was, and studying their ways with the aim of defeating Semeca. “And how does that agreement change in light of the fact I’ve already killed your target?”

  Nauro smiled. “Very little. You will still need to learn our ways to stand any reasonable chance of defeating other archrevenants, and that will still take time.”

  “So now that Semeca is gone, you just move on to another archrevenant? Is your goal to kill them all?”

  His raised his eyebrows, in the cultured way Tai had seen lighthairs raise their eyebrows, a controlled show of surprise. “Kill them? Oh no, our goal is not to kill them. It’s to become them.”

  Ydilwen’s words came back to him. I can’t risk you taking Semeca’s power. “You want to—become them? But you’re already immortal.”

  Nauro twisted his lips, setting his mug down with a muted thud on the long bench. “Immortal, no. Not even Semeca was immortal, as you proved. But I do have some longevity, yes, and a bit of power to heal myself. All things that would be available to you, if you joined us.”

  An evasion. Tai let it slide—he had more important things to learn here. “You spoke of dangers in your note. Of the archrevenants coming after me, and other ninespears.”

  “Shamans, we call ourselves. But yes. The dangers are real. Which I’m guessing you know, as you’ve been recently attacked.”

  Tai started. He’d been keeping his mind defended against mindsight, using the hundred conversations defense. “How did you know?”

  “There are… traces left, from such an attack. I would love to explain more, but,” he shrugged. “That’s up to you. Stay here, and die, and waste the potential you have to change the world. Or join me.”

  “Does joining you mean becoming your thrall?”

  Nauro’s brows shot up further this time. “Is that what they tried to do? Fools. It must have been a journeyman at best. No, friend, if Naveinya could not manage to keep her hold on you, I have little faith any attempt at thralling you would work.”

  Tai shook his head, feeling too hot in the narrow tent despite having shed his outer layers. He needed to understand all this, needed to know how to defend himself against it. But Nauro had spoke of studying for years, and he couldn’t leave Ayugen that long, couldn’t give up his friends—give up Ella—to go help Nauro fight immortal beings. He had to do this on his own terms.

  Tai shifted on the chair. “In your note, you said I had done what your society has failed to do for three hundred years. You’ve admitted that I can’t be thralled. And yet it seems you are still trying to fit me into your old model of tutelage. That won’t work. I don’t have the time and space to leave and study with you for years on end.”

  Nauro met his eyes, the man’s cool and brown. “You remember our talk of the revolutions of the wheel?”

  “Yes. Of it all seeming pointless when looked at from a longer scale of time. But I saw into Semeca’s mind too, Nauro. I have seen the life that you seek, and it’s empty. She was holding on to power for its own sake, had long ago lost anyone she cared about. What she was really fighting was the realization that she was ready to die, that she had nothing left to live for.”

  Nauro shifted, looking uncomfortable.

  “I’m not living that life,” Tai went on. “I have things to live for, people I care about. And if learning the secrets of your society means giving those up, even for a year, then I’m not doing it. I’d rather die now than spend a thousand years powerful and alone.”

  Nauro held his gaze a moment, then looked down. “Fair enough. You are not our typical apprentice, and the system doesn’t fit you. But
you still need me.”

  Tai shook his head. “In what way? I defeated this man that came after me. I defeated the revenant you put on me, supposedly one of the most powerful the world has ever known. What more do I need?”

  “You need to be able to defeat gods,” the bare-chested man said, voice loud against the crackle of the fire. “The archrevenants are not ignorant of each other. We don’t know how much communication they have, but most scholars agree they’ve had some sort of pact for the last five hundred years, which means they keep an eye on each other. When we attack, we try to do it in secret, with as little fanfare as possible, in the hopes that once we ascend, we will have a few years to prepare ourselves for their counter-attack.”

  He laid another branch on the fire, wet bark hissing. “You have no such options. Word of your battle with Semeca will have spread all over the continent by now, and likely beyond. Thousands witnessed the Broken in Gendrys, and while less will have escaped Ayugen having seen Semeca in her power, do not doubt that some have, and that the tale will grow in the telling. The other archrevenants know of you now, and they know you are a real threat to their power.”

  Tai wiped the sweat from his forehead. Gods? Is that what Semeca was? “Won’t they also know that I didn’t take her power? That maybe I just got lucky?”

  Nauro glanced at him, then back to the fire. “No. I don’t think you just got lucky. But yes, they will know you didn’t take her power. I don’t know how they will interpret that. I’m not sure it’s ever happened before. But any deicide, after so long without one, will raise their hackles. And the archrevenants are not ones whose hackles you want raised.”

  A chill ran down Tai’s spine, despite the heat. “Why? What would they do?”

  Nauro shook his head. “Anything. Everything. Semeca was the least example of these, and still she commanded an army of insane resonators, threw giant bridges at you, duped one of the world’s most powerful governments into thinking she was daughter to a Councilate House. Their power is not limited, Tai, in the way that yours or, to some extent, mine is by the revenants we have overcome.”

  “And they would destroy my friends to get to me?” It didn’t really need to be asked, but he had to know.

  “They would destroy cities to get to you. Whole peoples. Archrevenants think on the scale of millennia, not years or decades as we do. They view people like we view the insects of summer, dead now for months with no one to mourn them. So would your city be. So would all our cities, if they had reason.” He looked back to the fire.

  Tai took a moment to let his breath catch up. He was in real danger. That was fine—was normal, really—but it meant he was a danger to his friends, to Marrem and Feynrick and Aelya and Ella. At least he could do something about that. “And this tutelage you offer,” he said quietly. “It would give me a chance against them?”

  Nauro rolled a log, flashing the tattoo on his wrist again. “For most people, no. But you are not most people. Which is likely why this journeyman tried to thrall you.”

  “Ydilwen,” Tai said. “A Yatiman.”

  “Yes, well. What you need to know is that as much danger as you are in from the archrevenants, you are in even more from my people. Make no mistake that they have heard you defeated Semeca, and that you do not know our ways. No decent journeyman, no initiate would have let her revenant escape.”

  “Which means they know I can’t defend against them,” Tai said. The words reminded him with a chill that Nauro was very capable of such an attack, if he wished. That he had only defeated Ydilwen, apparently of low rank in their society, by dumb luck and a knife throw.

  “Yes. And that you are either a threat or an asset, but either way not to be ignored. Ydilwen saw you as an asset—thralling you would have given him access to your uai stream, increasing his own power. Others will see you as a danger to their own efforts and want you gone.”

  Tai raised an eyebrow, trying to find some humor in the situation. He couldn’t trust Nauro, but he had no other options. “I take it you are in the first camp?”

  “Yes,” Nauro said simply. “And I have been patient in my offer, but your grace period is over. More shamans will come, with greater skill than Ydilwen’s. Eventually, the archrevenants will come too. If you don’t start tutelage now, there is little hope you can save yourself.”

  A warning with an offer. Powerful, but Tai had spent too long scraping coins on the streets not to know he had power here too. “Seems like your grace period is over too. I imagine many will come seeking my talent, once they realize thralling me will not work. I will likely have my choice of who to study with. Some who will be more pliable than you have been.”

  “I have been duly pliable!” Nauro growled, then took a deep breath. He continued in a more even tone. “You do not know how this usually happens, how apprentices usually beg to begin real tutelage, so I will give you leeway. But you cannot deny I have done nothing but help you and give you time, living out here in this wasteland when there are important things going on right now elsewhere, waiting for you to see the urgency of the situation.”

  Tai relaxed some inside, seeing how much it meant to Nauro. He raised an eyebrow. “You did sic Naveinya on me.”

  “Yes, I did. I tried to force the matter, as I thought your death not far off. You accomplished the impossible once. Do not expect to do it again.”

  “You were wrong, you know,” Tai said. “Semeca was not archrevenant of fatewalkers, as you told me. She ruled the mindseyes.”

  “Yes,” Nauro said, looking back to the fire. “I realized my mistake when you released her power. Our knowledge is not complete, even now. Or especially now.” He refocused. “But it is still leagues beyond what you know. You need me, Tai.”

  “As you need me,” Tai answered, “or you would not be waiting out here in the cold, hoping that I came by. So let me propose a different agreement, something that might work for both of us.”

  Nauro’s knuckles tightened on his cup, but he nodded.

  “I will study under you. But you will stay with me, go where I go, and if we fight it will be on my terms. I am not interested in the power you seek. I will fight more archrevenants if need be, but what I care about is keeping my friends safe.”

  “And if that safety involves leaving? Involves fighting the gods themselves? Will you refuse the power they offer?”

  “The question you are asking,” Tai said, meeting the man’s cool gaze, “is whether I will refuse you their power. I know what you seek.”

  Nauro inclined his head. “Fair enough, yes. I am not donating my time to you in the hopes that you live a long and prosperous life, or that your little rebellion becomes the next Councilate. If we do fight more archrevenants, or shamans who have gathered some power of their own, I will need my share of the rewards.”

  Tai did not miss the change in tone. Nauro was close to an agreement, an agreement Tai desperately needed, all question of the man’s mad quest for power aside. If Ydilwen was only a low-powered ninespear and he nearly bested Ayugen’s best two fighters in combat, Tai needed to know how. To make defenses against it. Learn how to attack with it.

  Which meant trusting a man he could not trust.

  “And you will have them,” Tai said. “I take it you expect we will be facing more archrevenants at some point?”

  Nauro inclined his head. “I would not be so motivated to agree to this otherwise. But your potential demands its own exceptions. I will accept your terms, Tai Kulga of Ayugen, if you will in matters of shamanic wisdom and practice take me as your master and agree not to leave my cell until such time as we are both satisfied with your power.”

  “Agreed,” Tai said, the moment feeling too weighty for a sweltering tent in the middle of nowhere. “Do we lock arms now? Or go through some other ritual?”

  “Normally yes, there is a formal process, and I would attach a new revenant to you. But given our history,” he said with a slight smile, “perhaps a simpler ceremony will suffice.” He held up a hand,
fingers spread wide. “To defeat death.”

  He showed Tai how to pierce the five fingers with four of his own, forming nine. “To overcome life,” Tai repeated, wondering again what he’d gotten himself into.

  They met eyes, Nauro’s deadly serious. “The gods must die.”

  3

  We know of four waystones: the At’li stone sticking from the ice, the Seingard rock, the Wanderer in the Yati hinterlands, and the stone at the center of old Aran. If Semeca’s stone is not one of these, or the stone rumored to exist in the Minchu peaks, the journey to find it will be long. But what is time to a shaman?

  —Meyn Harides, personal journals

  Ella trudged back to town trying not to think about Tai. She loved him, but she hated how much power he had over her emotions, especially at moments like this. She would worry about anyone going to see Nauro, given what she knew of the man, but Tai? It was like a butcher held her raw heart in one hand while he juggled cleavers with the other. Drunk.

  How had this happened?

  She knew she was odd for not having had more relationships, but there’d never been time. Not in the whirlwind since she came to Ayugen. Not on the ship, despite Ralhen’s urgings, because she’d had too much to hide. And certainly not in her parents’ house, where the whole reason she’d been locked up had been her refusal to get involved with suitors. Not since Poddy, and as much as she’d loved him, they’d just been children.

  So apparently love was like Rider’s Pox—the older you got it, the worse it was.