The Revenants Read Online Free PDF

…
    Gone, also, Widon the Golden ,
    into the north with his people ,
    gone the wide realm of Sud-Akwith ,
    faded and scattered by time .
    Gone are the towers and treasures ,
    vanished his line and his glory ,
    into the chasm of darkness ,
    into the Abyss of Souls …
    Yet, from that chasm, long after ,
    one came out bearing the fire-sword ,
    bringing the sword of Sud-Akwith
    into the world once again …
    Does not a time come upon us
    when the great Firelord may call us
    up once again to his service?
    Once more to conquer? To battle?
    Once more to honour his name?
    So, he who searches may find it .
    So, he who finds it may hold it .
    So, he who holds it may conquer .
    Hear, as we heard in our dreaming ,
    Medlo, the scion of Rhees .

CHAPTER FOUR
     
    JAER
     
    Years 1158-1163
    As for Jaer, the boy went on growing – the girl went on growing. Both of them, at once and interchangeably. The only good thing that could be said for it was that there were no other children around to confuse the issue or complicate Jaer’s perception of things. Insofar as Jaer was concerned, the world was like this, with bodies that were one way one day and another way another day, puckered first inward and then outward in a particular place, otherwise not much different, changing for no known reason at no foreseeable interval, though always while Jaer slept.
    Ephraim and Nathan watched this growing with carefully concealed wonder. There were long night hours during which they would sit before the fire with the wind howling around the tower ledges saying to one another, ‘Do you think perhaps …’ or ‘Maybe the reason is …, or ‘Let us consider the implications of… By the time Jaer had weathered ten years, all the implications had been considered down to the last possible inference and reason had been piled upon reason to no avail. They understood no-more than they had understood in the beginning, and their lack of understanding was complicated by an approaching need to explain to Jaer that he/she was not, indeed, the norm in a world which would have expelled him, her at once if it had had the least opportunity.
    ‘If Jaer could only control it,’ Ephraim complained for the thousandth time. ‘If Jaer could determine when it would happen. What will he do, going to bed as a man, a hostler, a member of a caravan, only to wake in the body of a dancing girl? The dangers? The problems? The explanations?’
    ‘There could be no explanations. Who would believe it? Who would accept it? In this world of Gahlians, Separation, Gates and Seals, who would not reach at once for a knife or bludgeon …’
    ‘But,’ Ephraim continued, ‘there is still some world outside the Separated world. Just because you and I have spent much of our old lives inside it doesn’t mean that there isn’t something of the other world still there. If Jaer can get out , past the Seal Bearers and the black-robed minions, and the Temples, and the Separated villages, and the enclaves…’
    ‘If Jaer could get down the canyon, past the falls, by all the guard towers and the patrols with their wagons, and past every barrier between here and Orena (assuming that Orena is still there), Jaer would still be Jaer and have the same problem.’
    ‘Our people would accept him, Nathan. You know they would.’
    Nathan harumphed. ‘Better he stays here. With us.’
    Ephraim shook his head sadly. They had spoken of this so many times before. ‘We’re old, Nathan. We’re so old that the winds of age echo along our ribs and pick at our eye sockets. We could be gone tomorrow. A chill, say, or a little slip on the cliff side. I feel as fragile as a dried flower. I rattle a little in the moving air, but I’m only coherent dust-a shape of what once was. My essence is going.’
    ‘You’ve been saying that your essence was going for the last twenty years.’
    ‘Well, my fragrance has gone. I’m redolent of decay.’
    ‘I’ve heard that before, too.’
    ‘The point is,’ said