Revelation

Table of Contents

 

“Plenty of action, some interesting magic, and a pair of unlikely heroes keep this first novel powerfully entertaining.”

—
Locus

 

 

“Superby textured, splendidly characterized, this spellbinding tale provides myriad delights.”

—
Romantic Times

 

 

“[A] wonderful debut novel. Her heroes come alive on the page . . . [and] the magic is fresh and full of purpose.”

—Lynn Flewelling, author of
Traitor’s Moon

“Vivid characters and intricate magic combined with a fascinating world—luscious work!”

—Melanie Rawn

ROC
Published by New American Library, a division of
Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane,
London W8 5TZ, England
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood,
Victoria, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2
Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road,
Auckland 10, New Zealand

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:
Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

First published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.

eISBN : 978-1-101-16570-6

First Printing, August 2001

Copyright © Carol Berg, 2001

All rights reserved

 

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

 

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE AT QUANTITY DISCOUNTS WHEN USED TO PROMOTE PRODUCTS OR SERVICES. FOR INFORMATION PLEASE WRITE TO PREMIUM MARKETING DIVISION, PENGUIN PUTNAM INC., 375 HUDSON STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10014.

For Ginny, Jane, and Shirley—
friends and craftswomen all—
my eyes and conscience.

 

 

And for Andrew, first fan and true believer.

I am not a Seer. What lies ahead, now that I have done the unthinkable, I cannot say. I believe . . . I hope . . . it will be wholeness. For sixteen long years I had assumed I would go mad—when I was a slave and believed the life I loved forever lost to me. But I’ve come to think the gods play tricks on us. Only when I had reclaimed sanity and surety did my world begin to come apart, and once on the path to my own disintegration, I could find no way to stop.

 

“Hold still,” said the slight, prim young woman who was dressing my bleeding shoulder. She dabbed at the deep gash with a cloth soaked in teravine, an acrid medicament surely concocted by some Derzhi torturer. Her hand was surprisingly heavy for one with her waiflike body, but then I already knew Fiona’s frail appearance was as painfully deceptive as an iron splinter.

“All I want right now is a drink of water and my own bed,” I said, pushing away her unsatisfactory ministrations and reaching for the gray cloak that lay on the floor. The orange light from the dying fire glowed warm in the polished stone. “The bleeding has stopped. Ysanne will see to healing it.”

“It is irresponsible to expect the Queen to care for an unbandaged wound from demon combat. Certainly until her child is born.”

“Then, I’ll do it myself. I would not endanger the child
—our
child.”

Spending every waking moment with someone who considers you an abomination is not at all comfortable. Perhaps it would have been easier to ignore Fiona if she had not been so good at everything she did. She exhibited precision and intelligence in the weaving of her enchantments, and perfection in her adherence to law and custom. Every movement of her hand, every glance, every word she deigned to speak was a reproach for my own lack of virtue, so that I found myself feeling guilty for my constant state of anger and frustration.

“But it should be bandaged before you leave the temple. The law says—”

“No poison will get into it, Fiona. You’ve cleaned it well, and I thank you, as always. But it’s the middle of the night, I’ve fought three battles in three days, and if I hurry, I might get to sleep on something other than this rock of a floor before I have to fight another. You need to rest, too. We can’t afford to slip.”

I fastened the cloak about my shoulders. Although the night was pleasantly warm, the rain that whispered through the oak trees surrounding the open-sided temple would cool me off too quickly, a risk for cramps. I was still overheated from a ferocious fight in a landscape that made the furnace-like heart of the Azhaki desert feel like a spring garden.

“As you wish, Master Seyonne,” said the young woman, her narrow nose flared in distaste and her slightly overlarge mouth pressed into a familiar disapproval. She gathered up her bags of herbs and medicines, the roll of clean linen, and the slim wooden box in which I had placed the silver knife and the oval mirror I used to battle demons. “I’ll complete the cleaning and the invocations.”

She almost made me feel guilty enough to stay and help with those things Ezzarian custom required of the Warden and the Aife to ensure that no trace of demon lingered in the temple, and I could well imagine her jotting down this latest transgression in her growing list of my faults. But the prospect of being out of Fiona’s sight even for a few moments would have made me abandon a great deal more than a few meaningless rituals. There comes a point when you can’t pretend anymore, even when you know your choices are going to make your life miserable. I was very tired.

With a self-righteous flourish Fiona threw a handful of jasnyr leaves on the smoldering ashes of the temple fire, and the sweet-pungent smoke trailed after me into the rainy night.

Despite the constant drizzle, the late hour, and my fervent wish to be in bed with my wife, I walked slowly along the well-trodden path through the open woodland. I inhaled deeply, the fresh scent of the night a balm for aches and bruises and a troubled heart. Rain . . . new-sprung grass . . . rich black earth . . . moldering oak leaves. Melydda—true power, sorcery—in every leaf and stem. Ezzaria. Our blessed land. As I did every time I walked its forest paths or sat atop its green velvet hillsides, I sent my gratitude to the Derzhi Emperor-in-waiting.

I had not spoken with Aleksander since the night of his anointing. While my days had been consumed with the resettlement of Ezzaria and the resumption of the demon war, his life had taken him to the farthest reaches of his sprawling empire. Almost two years had passed since we had joined his strength with my power to defeat the Gai Kyallet, the Lord of Demons, and ruin the Khelid plot to place a demon-infested emperor on the Lion Throne. I never failed to smile when I thought of the wild and arrogant prince, which was perhaps the strangest outcome of all from our strange adventure. How often does a slave come to love his master like a brother, and the master return his love with gifts of a renewed heart and the most marvelously beautiful land on earth?

The path crested a hill, and I looked down into a tree-lined vale where lamplight shone like tiny jewels nestled in a fold of black velvet. I could have run down the path and within a quarter of an hour drowned myself in firelight and dry blankets, slender, loving arms and dark hair tinged with red-gold light. But as I always did when I walked that particular path, I climbed up the limestone bluff that crowned the hill like a white tooth in the jawbone of the earth, and I sat for a while. Though I would never again believe I could fight any battle unaided—my ordeal inside Aleksander’s soul had taught me that, at least—I still needed time alone once the fighting was done. Time to let the fire of enchantment in my blood cool. Time for the intense concentration that it took to pursue demons to subside into more normal perceptions of the peaceful world. Time to ease the toll a life of violence—no matter how worthy its goals—took upon the soul. And after sixteen years of life in bondage, when I could not afford to live beyond the present moment lest I founder in the pain of my existence, it was an exquisite pleasure to sit, gaze down at those lights, and savor the expectation of joy.

As had been the case for several months, this brief interval was also the time I forced my anger, frustration, and indignation aside before going home to Ysanne. For half my life I had been a slave to the Derzhi, taken at eighteen when the sprawling Derzhi Empire had at last engulfed Ezzaria. In those years of pain and degradation, my existence was everything my people deemed corrupt. Ezzarian law viewed my impurity as a sure channel for demon vengeance, and so even after Aleksander had granted me my freedom, I was supposed to be shunned . . . dead, in effect. No Ezzarian was to speak to me, to acknowledge my existence, to hear any word that came from my tongue lest I infect them with my corruption and put our secret war at risk. Only the persuasive power of my dead mentor’s grand-daughter and that of my wife, the Queen of Ezzaria, had convinced my countrymen that the circumstances of my battle with the Lord of Demons were so extraordinary as to merit an exception to our law.