The Revenants by Tepper Sheri S

Author:Tepper, Sheri S. [Tepper, Sheri S.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780575116191
Publisher: Hachette Littlehampton
Published: 2011-09-28T22:00:00+00:00

Jaer opened her eyes.

Before them, the body on the bed rippled, features melting and flowing as though the person before them was not one but a multitude, as though a legion battled for mastery within the wakened body. Terascouros called out, ‘Jaer, hold on, let me …’

But Jasmine had already flung herself forward to cling to the flowing insubstantiality before them, crying Jaer’s name. As the others laid hands upon the body, it stilled and became. Medlo found himself staring into Jaer’s eyes, remote and vague as a misty horizon seen from a high mountain, blank and directionless. Medlo shook the shoulder he held.

‘Jaer. It’s Medlo. We are with the Sisters at Gerenhodh.’

Momentarily, someone who looked almost like Jaer was there with them, putting her hand to her throat, murmuring, ‘Thirsty.’ One Sister, more practical-minded than most, had prepared a cup of broth. Jaer drank deeply, eyes closed, then belched, a tiny, very human sound in the unearthly quiet. Someone giggled. Jaer searched for the sound. Not Jaer anymore, but someone – anyone else.

She was standing in a tall grey vault of stone, watching the smoke rising like visible prayer in the light of the high windows, hands raised to the knife and the images …

… walking through the marketplace of a port city, servants trotting behind him, carrying the ledgers, the air heavy and damp with noon, smelling of rotting fruit and the bite of dye …

… drifting through a moss glade, naming herself woods-walker, moving as quickly as the flicker of a hawk owl’s flight in that long, dropping curve …

… at the forge, hammer in his hand, the blows falling sure on the red iron as the bellows chuffed in the amber light…

… high on the scarp, tugging at the hides in which the bloody meat was packed for the long trip down to the place where hunger waited…. Who are those who unger? Where are they?

‘Who are those who hunger?’ she asked. ‘Where are they? In Cholder?’

An indrawn breath hissed from the Sisters in the cavern, Old Aunt blanching at the name of the place. ‘Only dreams, Jaer. There is no one here from Cholder, no one from that place.’

At the sound of her name, Jaer flickered into being once more, was gone again. Those who watched could see others within her, others who changed her face, her eyes.

She was spiked to a bed by a faceless, hard body, her mind exploding in amber and purple …

… falling into the endless softness of woman, wheels of fire in his head, spinning sparks into the caves of loneliness …

… on the pitching deck as the wind drove salt ice into his face …

… captive in the woods tower, watching from the narrow window as clouds went by like startled sheep …

… in the cavern of Gerenhodh, where familiar faces ringed her, saying ‘Jaer, Jaer,’ again and again, imperatively, ‘Jaer.’

‘I have,’ she murmured, ‘more lives than I was given.’

Sisters mumbled at the bedside, ran away for cups and vials, mixed and muttered, offered a potion.

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