It was need. That feeling of the heart reaching out to implore help, satisfy yearning and quench desire. To beg for attention. And to be reciprocated, meaning to love. All of this flooded through him and he thought that his speed, if he had one, increased. He had the sensation of flying headlong towards those that needed him the very most whether they were in trouble or just hoping without reason that he would return to them.
It was a feeling of the most basic kind. A necessity without which there was no life. And certainly no return to life. Because shortly before light blazed into the comforting darkness that had been his dead soul, that was what he was sure was coming.
He remembered nightmares from his living days when he was falling, falling. Always waking up just before he hit the ground. Yet though this was no nightmare, it was no less terrifying. The light was forming into vague shapes and he had the impression he was hurtling towards them at a speed he could not hope to arrest before he struck them.
There were many of them, grey and indistinct for the most part but surrounding a separate, familiar shape. And it was to this he was being dragged. Curious. The winds buffeting him were enough to blow him away like chaff in the wind but the draw to the shape was so strong. Like he was swimming down to an anchor.
In the next instant he was gasping in breath, opening his eyes and feeling the fear that had killed him. No, not him. The one who had inhabited this space before him. He lay on his back, barely daring to move. One at a time, he lifted his hands in front of his face, seeing strong, farmer’s fingers, calloused and thick. He was not young or, rather, the body was not. Over forty but not yet in decline. The lungs heaved in the wonderful scents of grass and pine and the thick, heavy odours of animals.
He sat up, his soul clinging hard to the body, feeding energy into the heart to steady himself. The heart was tight, the muscles still in spasm. He could not afford to let the body die again. The winds would take him and he had nowhere else to go. He could not go back, that much he knew, and the knowledge sent pain through his new body. Pain of loss. Grief, he supposed, for all that was gone and could never be recovered.
The wolves surrounding him were all old but still he recognised them. Elders of the pack, his pack. He reached out a hand and nuzzled the nearest under the chin, feeling a delightful warmth. Sudden anxiety gripped him and he withdrew the hand.
‘You have been waiting,’ he said, though he knew they could not understand. ‘This body. Waiting for me. You did this. How did you know?’
Words from his mouth. It seemed only a moment since he had spoken his last yet time had passed. Much time. He could see that in the whitening of lupine coats and he could feel it in the air around him.
The wolves, six of them, moved in to smell, lick and know him again. He could sense their relief but it was tinged with fear. Threat.
He stood. ‘I am Thraun.’
His name echoed around the valley in which he found himself and the laughter that followed it from his mouth hid the pain of his return just for a moment. He stretched his new body, feeling strong muscle in his chest, arms and legs. The wolves had chosen well. Thraun bit his lip.
‘I wonder who you were,’ he said, looking down at himself, his rough woollen trousers and shirt. ‘I wonder when you will be missed.’
Thraun scratched the back of his head. He was bald too. He looked down at the wolves, all of whom were stood utterly still, staring at him. Waiting.
‘Something’s not right.’ He laughed again. But briefly. ‘Something more than being back here at all, that is, and not having a blond ponytail. Bugger it, I wish you could talk. Where am I anyway?’
The valley was full of trees. Oak, ash and chestnut mainly. Pine too, of course. A very familiar landscape. He’d run here before but on four legs, not two. The valley rose to east and west, and if he wasn’t mistaken this was Grethern Forest and he’d be able to see the castle and rooftops of Erskan if he climbed west. So he climbed.
The ground felt amazing beneath his feet, and despite the pain in his soul and the heat in his body he couldn’t keep the smile from his face. Yet with every pace, that nag of something being seriously misplaced grew stronger. And every time he glanced back to see the wolves following him up the steep slope, whining quietly, his smile faltered a little more and his brow furrowed deeper.
He reached the top of the valley side and the edge of the forest. The sight of Erskan in the distance was satisfying but no more than that. He could hear a distant thumping sound, like a mighty machine battering metal on metal, echoing darkly. And to the north he was drawn to where he knew the towers of Xetesk lay.
‘They are there,’ he said. ‘All of them.’
Thraun crouched by the wolves again, putting his arms around two of them and letting them all come close, to fire their breath into his face and give him comfort.
‘I know I’m here to help you but I don’t know how. Those I lost when I died are away to the north. They will know what to do. I have to find my friends. The Raven. Come with me. I will keep you from harm.’
The catacombs below the college of Xetesk had been extensively redeveloped in the decade since the demon wars. The Raven themselves had caused a good deal of damage there in their time and Denser had been keen to see them returned to their proper use. Research and archiving, rather than plotting and scheming. Parts of the one-time maze had been turned into a museum of the gory past of the Dark College and Denser had seen the catacombs signposted, properly lit, drained, ventilated and decorated.
Yet the odd bleak corner still remained, and he indulged one in particular. Knocking on the dark-timbered door of the suite of chambers hidden in a side passage near the old Soul Tank, now part of the museum, he always felt like a student sent to the master for some misdemeanour or other. It was an association the incumbents were keen to foster, leaving Denser having to remind himself every time he turned the handle that it was he who was Lord of the Mount.
‘Enter.’
Denser pushed the door open onto a sprawling chamber clad entirely in oak and dominated by a huge fireplace in the left-hand wall. No fire burned within it and the chamber was cool. As always, tables across the back wall were covered in parchments, diagrams and equations. Books lined two walls on shelves which reached floor to ceiling.
A quartet of deep-upholstered chairs was set in a loose arc around the fireplace, its carved marble mantel and ornate candleholders. Above the mantel, a portrait of Dystran, former Lord of the Mount, gazed down benevolently upon those assembled in the chairs. At this moment, as with every other time Denser had been called down to the suite, those assembled were Dystran himself, demonstrating that no longer being lord of the college had not lessened his ego a great deal, and Vuldaroq, former Tower Lord of Dordover, now to all intents and purposes a dead college.
Both men looked up at him, adopting expressions of patronising sympathy, scrutinising him over their identical half-moon spectacles.
‘Drives me mad,’ muttered Denser. ‘Am I to issue myself with a mild rebuke to save you the bother?’
‘My dear boy, no. Come, sit by us. We have matters to discuss and decisions to make,’ said Dystran, patting the arm of the chair next to him.
‘Boy? Dystran, I am older than you.’
But he didn’t look it. Denser sat and sucked his lip. Poor Dystran. A few wisps of white hair clung to his head. He was painfully thin and his hands trembled violently whenever the calming spell began to wear off. Even so, his bony digits shook a little and his voice was faint as if to speak any louder would be to court disaster.
And Vuldaroq was no better. Admittedly he was significantly older but Denser could still remember the truculent fat man who had hated The Raven as much as he hated Xetesk. Now he was reduced to a skeletal figure, blind in one eye and with a sagging right side to his face following a stroke four years previously.
That the two were the closest of friends was an unlooked-for blessing for them and an occasional pain in the backside for Denser.
‘We have been noting the arrival of many, shall we say, old friends,’ said Vuldaroq, wheezing as he spoke, his words a little slurred but wholly comprehensible.
‘It’s in danger of reaching epidemic proportions,’ said Denser. ‘How—?’
Dystran rang the little bell sitting on the arm of his chair.
‘Tea?’
‘Coffee,’ said Denser.
‘Ah. Still like to remind yourself of the tin pot of coffee on a Raven campfire, eh?’
‘No, I just like it better than tea,’ said Denser.
‘And, speaking of which, we understand many of your former mercenary friends are on the Mount as we speak.’
Denser frowned. ‘You’re very well informed for men who never leave the catacombs for anything barring funerals.’
Dystran managed a shaky smile. ‘Ah well, you know the way the Mount works. We must all have our sources, must we not?’
‘So it seems.’
‘And we understand that the Communion Globe on Calaius is currently not functioning,’ said Vuldaroq.
Denser sucked in his cheeks and said nothing.
‘Now, if you assume as we do that this is linked in some way to the problems afflicting the mana spectrum at present—’
‘Wait,’ said Denser sharply. ‘That is not open research.’
‘Oh Denser, all research is open to the Lord of the Mount,’ said Dystran, patting Denser’s wrist.
Denser moved his hand. ‘Former.’
‘Some will remain forever loyal,’ said Dystran.
‘You do remember it was me who gave explicit instructions that you were not to be killed, don’t you?’ Denser sighed. ‘It has left you in a unique position and I rather hoped you might respect that. There are moments when I regret my leniency.’
Dystran laughed but it was brief and forced. ‘There are times I do too, Denser.’
Denser nodded. ‘Yes, I suppose there are. So tell me, what are your thoughts on all this?’
‘You see?’ said Dystran. ‘Having the old lord about isn’t all bad. If you’re lucky, it’ll become the done thing.’
‘I think we’ve moved beyond assassination as a mode of ascension,’ said Denser.
Dystran raised his eyebrows. ‘Only a fool would truly believe that. And only a fool would see what is happening here and now as a serious threat.’
‘Then I am a fool,’ said Denser. ‘I have dead souls reanimating fresh corpses all over the city, perhaps all over Balaia. I cannot talk to the elves even if I wanted to. I have massive mana dropouts to the east and getting closer, and I have reports that whatever it is that forced the dead out of their dimension is heading for the gates of Xetesk. How is this not a serious threat?’
Vuldaroq shook his head and exhaled loudly. Denser looked away and closed his eyes briefly.
‘Something wrong, Denser?’ asked the erstwhile Dordovan Tower Lord.
‘Nothing that not being patronised won’t fix.’
‘Don’t be so touchy. Instead, consider an alternative viewpoint.’ Denser motioned for Vuldaroq to continue. ‘Thank you. If there is one thing we learned from the demon invasion it was that the dead are far from the helpless onlookers we assumed. Not only do the Wesmen have direct access to their elders, the elves have a basic communication mode and was it not Ilkar who guided you to your destination all those years ago despite being dead?’
Denser shrugged. ‘Yes. So what?’
‘Open your eyes,’ snapped Dystran, slapping the arm of his chair and dislodging the bell which fell into his lap. He was interrupted by a brief fit of coughing.
‘You really believe they are here because something ripped open their own dimension? Something that powerful would not just be here by now, it would have destroyed us already. Think, my Lord of the Mount. This is not threat, it is opportunity. Find out what they really want. Find out why the mana spectrum is unstable. Xetesk thrives on harnessing fear, we always have.’
‘You’re saying I should dismiss the statements of my dead friends as lies?’
‘We’re saying treat anything a dead soul says with a little healthy scepticism. Every time one speaks, repeat to yourself, “Would I want to regain life if I were to die?” ’
‘Well of course I would. No one wants to die.’
‘Exactly,’ said Vuldaroq. ‘And expect them therefore to come up with a solution to the problem they have so conveniently appeared to warn you about.’
‘They already have,’ said Denser and a frown crept on to his face. ‘Are you saying . . . ?’
‘Ha! I rest my case,’ said Dystran, folding back into his chair, an expression of smug satisfaction on his pasty, thin face.
‘Wait, wait, young Dystran,’ said Vuldaroq, leaning further forward. ‘What form does this solution take?’
Denser shrugged. ‘Well, to be fair, this is where I have begun to lose it. They are convinced the enemy they say we face is too powerful and that we need to leave.’
Dystran gaped. Vuldaroq’s smile was half knowing.