The Revenants Read online

  “No. It would take more than twenty years to mature a clone to the same apparent age as my wife, and we’ve only been separated for twenty years. Besides, this Samara has all of the same memories, and the same personality as the one I remember.”

  Darius nodded. “I guess I was just being paranoid.”

  “Indeed,” Tanik replied.

  “Is that why you were asking me about a necklace?” Samara asked.

  “Yes,” Darius replied.

  Samara stood up and walked over to the nightstand. She retrieved something from the top drawer, turned, and held it dangling from her fingertips. “Did it look like this?”

  Darius gaped at the sight of it, and crossed over to her for a better look. The necklace was black with age, and the heart-shaped pendant wasn’t any cleaner, but there were still glimmers of the golden color it had once had. It certainly looked like a twenty-year-old necklace, but for some reason it had looked new in his vision.

  “Where did you find it?” Darius asked.

  “In one of the rooms on the lower levels,” Samara said. “I was going to clean it up and wear it myself.”

  Darius considered that with a frown. “Well, I guess you’re not going to die because of the necklace.”

  “Unless it’s cursed,” Cassandra suggested.

  Darius arched an eyebrow at her. “You’ve been watching too many horror movies.”

  “No, Darius is right,” Tanik said. “The necklace is unimportant. Wear it or not, it won’t change anything.”

  “Then I’ll wear it,” Samara said.

  “Is there something else you’d like to tell us?” Tanik asked.

  “Both of my visions involved people dying here,” Darius said. “Maybe that necklace has nothing to do with it, but clearly this planet does. We need to leave before the things I saw start to happen.”

  Tanik held his gaze for a long moment. “We don’t know how far into the future these visions are. They could be things that are going to happen a hundred years from now. What did Cassandra look like in your vision? Older, or the same?”

  Darius consider that. “I don’t know...”

  “Think.”

  “Maybe a year older. Or two. No more than that.”

  Tanik nodded. “Then let’s not overreact. As for your vision of Samara, she doesn’t age, so there’s no way to be sure that what you saw is imminent. If you have another vision, let us know. Perhaps that will reveal more. Until then, we’re staying right here.”

  “Another planet would be safer,” Darius insisted.

  “Would it?” Tanik replied. “This planet is abandoned and not frequented by Revenants. Furthermore, our presence is masked by the planet and this place,” he said, gesturing to the castle walls. “We won’t find another planet like it within range of our remaining fuel supply, and we’re going to need that fuel to leave here when the time comes.”

  “And when will that be?” Darius asked.

  “Once your training is complete and you are ready to fulfill your destiny to take the Augur’s place. Now, if there’s nothing else...”

  Darius frowned. He wanted to insist further, but he’d run out of arguments for them to leave. If it came to it, he supposed there was nothing stopping him from leaving by himself and taking Cassandra with him. Maybe Dyara, too, if she wanted to go.

  “No, there’s nothing else,” Darius said. “Sorry to wake you.”

  “No need to apologize,” Samara replied as she stood up and walked with them to the door. “You did the right thing by coming to tell us what you saw, but I suggest that the three of you go get some sleep now. You’ll need your energy for tomorrow’s training.”

  “Sure. See you tomorrow,” Darius said as he stepped out into the hallway with the others. The three of them walked back to their room in silence. Once they were inside, they locked and barred the door. Dyara stripped out of her muddy boots and gloves, and then her flight suit. A rotten smell began to saturate the air.

  “Yuck,” Cassandra said, waving her hand in front of her nose. “Maybe we should leave that out in the hall.”

  “Or leave it on,” Darius suggested.

  “Leave it on?” Dyara echoed, shaking her head. “It’s wet. I can’t go to bed in that.”

  “I’m not sure that we should go to bed. We need to get out of here.”

  “Do you know a safer planet than this one?” Dyara challenged.

  “Well, no but...”

  “It makes no sense to avoid one threat by running headlong into another,” Dyara insisted.

  “I think she’s right, Dad,” Cassandra said.

  Darius glanced at her. Two against one. He let out a breath and walked up to the window to get some fresh air. The night’s sky was bright and dazzling with stars. A warm breeze caressed his face, bringing with it alien smells. He shut his eyes for a moment, and focused on his breathing, trying to still his racing heart. He felt a hand slide into his, and turned to see Dyara standing beside him.

  “Come to bed,” she said. “We can worry again in the morning.”

  Darius allowed her to lead him back to bed. Cassandra was already curled up under the covers on the other bed with her eyes shut.

  Once he was lying in bed with Dyara’s head on his chest once more, he realized how wide awake he was. Something was bothering him, something he couldn’t put his finger on.

  Dyara’s leg twitched, and Darius glanced at her to find her face relaxed in sleep. He looked to Cassandra, she seemed to be sleeping, too. How could they both fall asleep so easily while he was still wide awake? And how was it that they’d been in agreement to leave Ouroboros right up until they’d talked to Tanik and Samara? Now both Cassandra and Dyara were singing the same tune as Tanik and Samara.

  Were they convinced by Tanik’s arguments? Or something more sinister? If Samara is an impostor, and capable of influencing or controlling other people’s minds, then maybe she’s doing that with Cassandra and Dyara.

  But she can’t affect my mind, Darius thought. Maybe that’s why I’m wide awake and worrying while everyone else is sleeping soundly.

  Darius frowned up at the hazy stone ceiling. He didn’t know enough about visions or the zero point field. Could Samara have somehow removed the bodies from the well without leaving any water or mud on the floor? Maybe she’d thrown the bodies out a window. No one would find them in the forest a thousand feet below the castle, unless they went down there purposefully to look.

  Darius took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Maybe he was just being paranoid. The fact that Samara had found that locket could be evidence that what he’d seen was a vision of the future. Or it could be that Samara had dredged that locket from the well in order to make him think that.

  Darius rubbed his eyes and kneaded his temples, trying to massage away his headache. There was only one way that he was going to settle his doubts. He needed to find some excuse to go looking at the base of the cliffs below the castle. If he didn’t find anything down there, then maybe he could finally put his suspicions to rest.

  Chapter 20

  Darius only managed to sleep for an hour before waking up to the sound of a fist thumping on his door, followed by Tanik’s voice. “It’s time to get up. Meet me in the armory in ten minutes.”

  Cassandra groaned and sat up. “What’s going on?”

  “Time to train,” Darius said, as he stumbled out of bed.

  “It’s four in the morning!” Dyara said. “The sun isn’t even up yet.”

  Darius walked to the window and peered down at the horizon. He saw a faint blue glow of dawn building there, but no hint of a sunrise yet. Cold air caressed his face and made him shiver. “I guess a cup of caf would be too much to ask for,” he said as he turned from the window.

  They ate a quick breakfast of dry rations and washed it down with stale water from their canteens before hurrying down to the armory.

  The morning’s training involved more sparring with swords, and then practicing a new ability—concealment,
which they could use to hide their presences from each other. Tanik had them practice by playing hide and seek in the castle.

  Darius wasn’t comfortable with being separated from Cassandra and not knowing where she was, especially not with his lingering suspicions about Samara. Whenever possible he’d hide with or near Cassandra. In the latter case, he used his awareness to keep track of her, despite her best efforts to keep her presence concealed.

  She wasn’t the only one who couldn’t hide from him. When it was his turn to seek, none of the Acolytes could hide from his awareness. He could see all of them, bright and shining, even with his eyes open—and even through the castle walls. Only Tanik and Samara might have been able to hide from him, but they weren’t playing.

  In the final game, Darius found a particularly good hiding spot. He climbed out one of the windows in the armory and stood on a ledge around the corner from it, with his fingers wedged into gaps between the stones in the wall. He used concealment to hide his presence, and waited for Arok to find him.

  After waiting for what felt like at least half an hour, his fingers were numb and his arms and shoulders were stiff. Still, he clung there, using his own awareness to track people through the wall of the castle.

  The other Acolytes had gathered inside the armory, on the other side of the wall from him, while Arok searched the upper levels of the castle. Tanik and Samara stood to one side of the group, recognizable from their height and the tone of their presences. He didn’t dare to reach for their minds and thoughts, lest he reveal himself, but he did manage to extend his awareness into the armory to hear what was going on.

  The Acolytes were grumbling about lunch. After a few minutes of their whining, Darius wondered if he should reveal himself, but he resisted the temptation, hoping that Tanik, or better yet, Samara, would grow tired of waiting for Arok and try to find him for themselves. If it turned out that he could hide from them, too, then that might give him a chance to sneak out and go snooping for evidence at the base of the castle later on.

  “Arok’s never going to find him,” Dyara said. “Why don’t you go find Darius and tell him that he won?”

  “I would, but I cannot sense him anywhere,” Tanik replied.

  “Nor can I,” Samara said. “You were right about him. He must have exceptional potential to be able to hide from us with so little training. We will have to look for him with our eyes. Everyone spread out and look.”

  Despite his aching muscles and growling stomach, Darius smiled. When everyone had left the Armory, he snuck back in through the window and crept up behind Cassandra.

  “Boo,” he said.

  She jumped with fright and rounded on him. “Not funny!”

  He grinned. “I think it was.”

  “Where were you! We’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

  He shook his head, still smiling. “That’s my secret. Come on, let’s go find the others.”

  Darius stopped hiding his presence, and it wasn’t long before Tanik and Samara found them.

  “Very impressive,” Tanik said as they stood on the steps outside the castle.

  “Yes,” Samara added, her eyes thoughtfully narrowed as she studied Darius. He didn’t like the way she was looking at him, but after a moment, she tore her gaze away to look at Tanik. “Why don’t you get us some lunch while I round up the others?”

  Tanik nodded, and she disappeared inside the castle.

  Darius expected more dry, gummy rations, but instead, Tanik told them to wait on the steps while he walked down to the end of one of the landing pads. Once there, he raised his arms to the sky, and Seekers came flocking to him from the forests below. He called out a warning to the Marines on guard duty, and they shot at the Seekers while they were still circling above Tanik’s head. Three of the beasts fell with mighty thumps at Tanik’s feet; then he dropped his hands and the remaining birds fled, squawking and shrieking with fright.

  Twenty minutes later, the Acolytes gathered outside, watching while Marines tied the birds to spears from the armory and piled scrap wood in a circle of rubble that they’d arranged at the bottom of the steps. Darius watched with the others, thinking about the food chain on Ouroboros. Maybe these giant birds were a threat to Revenants because they could hide their presence and sneak up on them, but Darius was beginning to see the other side of the equation: Revenants were far more of a threat to the Seekers than the other way around.

  Cassandra sighed. “I’m starving! When do you think the food will be ready?”

  Darius shook his head. “Not for a few hours, at least.”

  Cassandra groaned, and Darius favored her with a smile. He reached over and mussed her sweaty hair.

  “Hey!”

  “You need a shower, young lady.”

  Her nose wrinkled. “You too.”

  “You first,” he replied.

  “They’re communal showers,” Cassandra complained.

  He looked around. “Everyone’s out here. I bet you’ll have some privacy right now, and I can watch the door for you to make sure no one else goes in.”

  “Yeah, well, what about my jumpsuit? I’ve only got one left that’s clean. Maybe it would be better to let the stink accumulate for a few days. We don’t have laundry chutes and maintenance bots like we did on the Deliverance.”

  “We’ll have to find a way to wash our own clothes,” Darius said. “What we need is soap....”

  “We can make some after we eat,” Samara said, striding by them.

  “How are we going to do that?” Darius called back to her. She was by the bonfire helping the Marines secure one of the Seeker carcasses.

  “With fat and ash,” Samara replied. “I’ll teach everyone later.”

  Darius watched her and three Marines stand up and carry a dead bird tied with zero-G tethers to a frame of two parallel spears. They hoisted the frame up and balanced the ends of the spears on a pair of supply crates that they’d turned on their ends beside the fire. It was a clever setup.

  “Darius,” a gruff voice said. He turned and saw Tanik hurrying down the steps of the castle.

  “Need something?” he asked.

  Tanik stopped in front of him and Cassandra and pointed to the small pile of scrap wood beside the fire. “Yes, more firewood,” he said. “You and I are going to go get some.”

  “How?” Darius asked.

  Tanik nodded to one of the Ospreys. “We’ll fly down and land in a clearing. Our swords will work just fine to fell dead trees and chop them up. We should be back long before the food is ready.”

  Darius’s stomach growled, and he frowned. “Yeah, and that sounds like hungry work to do on an empty stomach.”

  “There’s more rations in the Osprey. Come on. We’re going to need that wood if we want to eat anything else.”

  “What about Cassandra?”

  “She can stay here.”

  “I’d rather she came with,” Darius said.

  “And I’d rather that she stay.” Tanik held his gaze.

  Darius frowned, and Tanik clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Collecting firewood is a man’s work, am I right?”

  “That’s sexist,” Cassandra complained.

  “I can cut wood just as well as you.”

  Tanik arched an eyebrow at her. “Perhaps you can cut it, but can you carry it? You can’t weigh more than a hundred pounds.”

  “So?”

  “So, you can help us once you’ve packed on some more muscle. Besides, I’m sure your father doesn’t want you to get crushed by a falling tree.”

  Cassandra glared at Tanik, but Darius relented with that argument. “All right, let’s go.”

  “Seriously?” Cassandra said. “You’re going to leave me all alone? Remember what happened the last time?”

  Darius gave her a tight smile. “You’ll be fine up here,” he said, and pointed to the Marines standing guard with their laser rifles. “Besides, after today’s training you must be feeling more confident about protecting yourself, right?” />
  “I guess...”

  Darius looked around for Dyara. He spotted her standing to one side of the bonfire. “Stick with Dya,” he said. “I’ll be back soon.”

  “Fine,” Cassandra relented. “You be careful.”

  “I’ve got Tanik with me,” Darius said with a shrug. “I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

  Tanik smiled thinly at that. “Yes. Let’s go.”

  Darius dropped a kiss on top of Cassandra’s head while Tanik turned and strode for one of the two Ospreys. “Be safe,” Darius whispered before hurrying after Tanik.

  “You, too!” Cassandra called after him.

  Chapter 21

  Darius watched Tanik quietly as he flew them to the forest below the mountain. There was a clearing on the slope not far from the castle, just a few kilometers from where Darius had hoped to look for the bodies from the well.

  He felt an uneasy flutter in his stomach as he wondered about that. After spending all day trying to think of a way he could get down to the forests, now Tanik was taking him down there, along with the perfect excuse—to gather more firewood. Was Samara was onto him? Darius’s heart began to pound. Or, maybe Tanik was onto Samara, and he wanted to get Darius alone so that they could talk.

  Darius cleared his throat. “You must be happy to have your wife back after all these years, especially after you thought she was dead.”

  “Yes,” Tanik agreed, bringing the Osprey down between the tops of bright green trees with spiky, cone-shaped leaves that gleamed like jewels in the sun.

  “Sorry for waking you both last night,” Darius went on. “I guess visions can be misleading sometimes.”

  “Most times,” Tanik amended.

  Darius frowned. This conversation wasn’t going anywhere. The forward landing struts touched down with a crunch of gravel, followed by the rear ones as the Osprey landed on the slope. Tanik rose from the pilot’s seat with a twisted smile.

  “You’re not very subtle, Darius.”

  His whole body turned to ice, and he fumbled with the release lever for his acceleration harness. “I’m sorry?” Darius asked with a furrowed brow.