Dark Magic by Angus Wells

now—Anomius set conditions on his aid, and against the better judgment of wiser men there were those who agreed to them. My masters are divided on this and did those who spoke for Anomius’s release know what I tell you, or what I do here, my life should be forfeit. More than my life! So hear me and trust me, for the sake of all the world.”
    His eyes locked with Bracht’s and after a while the freesword nodded.
    “One of Anomius’s conditions was that word be sent to all the vexillans and lictors of Kandahar—to watch for a black-sailed Vanu warboat carrying you two. That you be apprehended and sent under guard to Nhur-jabal. The other, that he should have a criminal condemned to death.”
    His gaze shifted from Bracht’s stern face to Calandryll, to Tekkan, and the look chilled Calandryll.
    “That demand was met and he took a woman to make his creature. He made of her a revenant. Do you understand what that means?”
    Tekkan frowned, shaking his head; Bracht shrugged and murmured softly, “A creature undead, no? Slain and resurrected to serve its master.”
    Calandryll felt the ale he had drunk curdle in his belly. In Secca he had read something of revenants, in the ancient tomes and erudite manuscripts that had occupied so much of his time before fate cast him as a hunter, and the memory filled him with dread. More modern scholars denied the existence of such creatures, and even in the old texts they were infrequently mentioned, always with loathing. Their creation was deemed a guarantee of hellish suffering for the maker, the act considered an abomination that must ensure eternal damnation, while the creatures thus made were possessed of superhuman powers. He felt chill fingers trace his spine: to fear the Chaipaku was dread enough; to find himself the object of a revenant’s quest was raw terror.
    “You know,” he heard Menelian say, and nodded, his mouth suddenly too dry that words might form.
    “And shall you trust to blades to protect you?”
    The sorcerer looked to Bracht, his voice hollow, not waiting for an answer before he explained: “I know not how the mages of your land do it, or even if they stoop so low, but a revenant is a creation of foulest necromancy, and that an art spurned by all civilized sorcerers. The creature’s heart is cut from the living body, ensorcelled, and held hostage by its creator. It answers only to its creator and must do his will. It knows not human hunger nor thirst—only the fulfillment of its purpose, which is the satisfaction of its creator’s wishes. A blade offers it no harm—it is dead! That falchion you wear, Bracht, you might carve its head from its body and still its arms would seek you, the teeth look to bite you. Bind it and it will snap the ropes like thread; chains as easily. It has no life you can take from it! Only by finding its heart and destroying that can it be slain. And that heart will be well hid by the revenant’s maker. It is an obscenity!”
    He paused, seemingly stilled by the enormity of what he described. Bracht stared at him, his own face grim now. Then he smiled thinly and said, “I have never met anything that cannot be killed. You speak of warnings and tell us that we are hunted by some undead creature Anomius made. You say it cannot be slain—this is no warning: it is a threat.”
    “A dreadful threat,” Menelian agreed, “but not of my making. And still I say it is a warning.”
    The Kern’s tanned face creased in disbelief. The chill fingers that had tracked Calandryll’s spine encompassed his body, tapping against ribs and chest, clutching hard about his throat as he gasped, “How so?”
    “Aye,” Bracht echoed. “How so?”
    “Because it must yet find you!” said Menelian. “Anomius raised her—raised it!—in Nhur-jabal. He knew only that you had sailed for Gessyth. Not whereyou might reappear, nor, I pray, where you go. Until he knows that, he cannot set his creature loose, for it must have some scent to follow,