Crown of Shadows

28

They came by ones and twos, and then—as the day progressed and they gathered courage and friends-in small, fiercely bonded groups. The Patriarch met with them all. His advisers protested that by doing so he was only encouraging people who would feign great faith in order to stoke the fires of their own self-importance, and-to be fair-they were not entirely wrong. For every genuinely faithful man there were half a dozen whose only purpose in coming was to brag at a later time that they had been in the presence of the Holy Father. For every truly devout woman there were half a dozen whose friends fluttered around the doorway to his chamber like anxious birds, their only purpose being to serve as witnesses that this unique honor had really taken place. But though he heard the truth in his peoples’ warnings, he chose to disregard them. There was no other servant of the Church who could see into these people’s hearts as he did, and therefore no other one who could choose. It was that simple.

At times his visitors were exactly the type he would have predicted: coarse and simple men, whose faith was as rough-hewn as their manner, whose innate preference for a world divided into clear domains of black and white was uniquely well suited to this enterprise. He didn’t doubt that among those faces were many that had been seen in the pagan quarter at night, and indeed several of them seemed familiar to him from his brief appearance at Davarti’s Temple. Those were the men he had expected his proclamations to draw, and he welcomed them in a manner that was sure to secure their loyalty. Others were more surprising. There were more women than he would have expected, for one thing; given that gender’s lesser propensity for organized violence, he had expected that few would sign on for such a venture. But he had underestimated the symbolic power of the Forest in the minds of his female congregants, and the depths of their hatred for the Hunter. Some claimed that they would give their lives in order to bring that demon to his knees, and he did not doubt for a minute that it was true.

There is the kernel of a warrior in all of us, he thought grimly, as he watched the futures that swirled madly about each applicant. God give me the strength to control it, once I have encouraged it to dominance.

He judged them each individually, one after another, with his eyes and his new Vision both. With some it was instantly clear what manner of support-or danger—they might provide. With others he was forced to unravel a tapestry of potential so tangled, so volatile, that it took all his self-control to maintain a human conversation while trying to make sense of it all. It wasn’t under his control, this new power, but swept him along in a flood tide of prescience that threatened, at each moment, to drown him utterly. Did his advisers suspect the weakness in him? Did they sense how fragile his grip on sanity was now, how easily he could lose his purchase and be lost to them forever?

Calm. That was the answer. Perfect, unshakable calm. It was a front that he cultivated as he interviewed dozens-or was it hundreds?-of would-be warriors. Calm, that most precious illusion, that kept his inner torment from being expressed and so kept it from being reflected back at him one, ten, a thousand times, in the mirror of others’ souls. A stillness so absolute that Nature had no equivalent ... save at the heart of a storm.

The hurricane bore down on him. Housewives. Craftsmen. Stevedores. Journalists. They came from all walks of life, some for reasons of faith, some for reasons of pride, a few out of sheer boredom. He could See the strength of their courage, or their lack of it. He could See which of these fledgling crusaders would accept the yoke of his leadership and dedicate their energies to the common good, and which would threaten the ranks by continual disruption. And he assigned them each a role in the coming war by virtue of that assessment. There were roles enough that all could serve the cause, and he was diplomat enough to make each offering sound like a unique honor. Fund-raisers would be needed, purchasing agents, advance men sent ahead to Kale and Mordreth to prepare for the army’s passage; there would be crew chiefs to organize labor at the fringe of the Forest, where a vast swath of landscape must be cleared in order to contain the cleansing fire which would be their final effort; there were medics needed, and veterinarians, and seamsters, and messengers, and even envelope staffers ... so many duties that there was always a niche to be offered, hopefully one suitable enough that it was received with a nod of gratitude, not a glare of resentment.

What amazed him was how fast it was all coming together. How tempting it was to thank God for that, and ignore the role Vryce’s demon had played in making it happen! But there’s no shame in that, he told himself, as he waited for yet another warrior-applicant to present himself before the throne of God. Using evil to destroy evil is a blessed enterprise. Didn’t the Prophet teach that? Clearly the world was ready for such action. The Forest had been a threat for too long. And there was no other organization on the face of this planet, religious or otherwise, with the courage to attempt such an assault, and the skill to make it succeed.

Only the Church.

His Church.

God save us, he prayed between interviews. And he bowed his head in guilt at the power he now wielded, the visions he could not turn away. They were there even when he shut his eyes, burning his eyes, a constant reminder of his damnation. God save us all, he prayed. Wondering if his God could ever forgive him for what he had done ... or if he could forgive himself.

Dusk, the day’s interviews over, the clamor of angry souls giving way, at long last, to silence.

Time to decide.

Wordlessly, the Patriarch left his chamber and descended to the secret room that waited far below. By now his attendants were used to his strange silence, and in their eagerness to anticipate his needs they ran down the corridor ahead of him, calling for assistance. By the time he reached the double-locked door there was a priest waiting for him, key in hand. Awe flickered about his head in a wild halo, belying the cool texture of his greeting. Two keys turned in unison, unlocking the ancient door. The Patriarch descended the stairs alone, leaving the priest behind him. To his surprise the ceaseless clamor of the earth-fae grew muffled as he descended, granting him an unexpected respite. He leaned against the wall and breathed the silence in deeply, desperately, as a drowning man might gasp for air. If he descended deep enough, would the earth-fae abandon him altogether? Was there a depth at which he might find peace-true peace-at which the tumult of futures would cease their racket and allow him a few seconds in which to think? To pray? To be? What a rare and precious gift that would be!

But it was not yet time to rest, not for a long while yet. The earth-fae still coursed about his feet as he continued down the long staircase, weaker than above-ground but undeniably potent. No peace yet. At the base of the staircase was a heavy door, banded with iron, and he fitted his key into the ancient lock with a steady hand. It seemed to him there was another light besides that of the earth-fae, one that seeped out from under the door as he cracked it open. For a moment he hesitated, afraid of what his new vision would disclose in the room beyond. Then, with a prayer upon his lips, he quickly pulled the heavy door open.

Beyond it was a sea of light so blinding that he cried out involuntarily as it struck his eyes, burning them, and threw up a robed arm across his face to protect himself. Above him footsteps clattered on the stairs as his people responded to his cry, but he called out harshly for them to stay where they were. This was his trial, not theirs. By feel then, without sight, he worked his way slowly into the room. All he could see was a field of black spots against a blazing sun, undulating in time to his heartbeat. Was this what Vryce had seen when he had conjured his special vision? Or was it one more facet of his own special Hell, the price of accepting a demon’s gift, that he could not look upon the Workings of his own Church?

But slowly, painfully, his vision adjusted. By that time his face was drenched in sweat, and much of his body also. His eyes felt raw and tender, so that the mere act of blinking was painful. But he could see now, and with wonder and not a little fear he gazed upon the relics of the Great War, which had been Worked by priests of his faith so long ago.

Shards of steel, long since gone to rust. Fragments of cloth. Scraps of gilded leather. They were all imbued with the solar fae, that nearly untamable power, so that even in their decay they made the very air resonate with sunfire. Blazing like a thousand captive suns, they bore witness to a power so far beyond anything the Patriarch might command that for a moment he reached out to the nearest case for support, overcome by the memories they conjured. It was lost now. All of it. Those warriors, their strength, their dreams ... all gone now. Only these few relics remained, that might with care be forged into a weapon again. To serve the Church anew, this time in triumph.

But as he gazed upon those few precious fragments, imagining what they might become, he realized suddenly that there was more than sunpower visible in their auras. There was a taint also, a kind of slithering darkness, that was visible just at the edge of his new vision. After a moment he realized what it represented, and the knowledge made him tremble inside, and brought tears of frustration to his eyes. To him these relics might be symbols of man’s ultimate faith, but to his people they were reminders of the Church’s greatest failure. To bear them into battle against the Forest again would be to shackle his army to that great defeat, to awaken echoes of a loss so devastating that the fae would be forced to respond, damning their efforts. They might as well just feed their blood to the enemy, he thought, as try to use this power. The end result would be much the same.

Oh, my God, he despaired. Will You send us naked against the enemy? Will You make us batter at the walls of Hell with no more than cold steel in our hands?

Let faith be your shield, a cold voice whispered, and its tone was such that his skin crawled to hear it. Was that some inner voice of his own speaking, or the whisper of his God? Or was it a suggestion from some more demonic source, Gerald Tarrant’s ward, perhaps, or the demon Calesta, using the Patriarch’s human weakness as a path of invasion into this holy place?

Take this trial from me, Lord. I’m not strong enough to handle it. Give it to someone who won’t fail you.

But the visions refused to fade. The relics continued to burn. And about him, above him-within his very soul-an endless stream of futures clamored for fulfillment.

She was slender and delicate, and beautiful in the way that a porcelain doll might be beautiful, a priceless antique. For a moment he just stared at her, unable to grasp why such a woman would choose to be part of his mission ... and then the tumult of images that cascaded about her flesh came into focus, and with it an identity.

“Narilka Lessing.”

She seemed startled by the fact that he knew her name, but quickly regained her composure. He sensed a tension within her so great that it might have broken a lesser soul; the fact that she could contain such a thing and not even show it bore witness to a strength far beyond anything her physical self even hinted at. Was this the woman that Andrys Tarrant had fallen in love with? If so, it wasn’t hard to see why.

“Your Excellency,” she said. Hesitantly, not knowing if the honorific would please or offend. A curious pagan, this one, uncomfortable with his identity as the voice of the One God, yet anxious to do him appropriate honor. He accepted the honorific with a gracious nod, his eyes fixed upon the storm of images that surrounded her. Bright, sharp, volatile images; in all his interviews he had rarely seen such a tumult of potential.

“I take it you told my people that you belong to the Church.”

Her face flushed hotly, but her gaze didn’t flinch. “There was no other way to get in to see you. I tried.”

He nodded, and watched as an image of blood and flesh spattered into fragments by the side of her head. What was that white face beside hers, grinning? “I regret that we forced you to such subterfuge. It wasn’t our intention.” He struggled to focus on her face through the whirlwind of images. “Now that you’re here, what is it I can do for you?”

She drew in a deep breath, and then said bluntly, “I want to go with you to the Forest.”

So that was it. He should have guessed. “Mer Tarrant already asked me if that was possible. I told him no.”

“I can’t accept that.”

In another time, another life, he might have gotten angry at her. Now, in this transformed self, he felt strangely distant, as though he were watching two strangers converse. “This campaign is a Church matter. All the people involved serve the One God. You, Mes Lessing, don’t.” He nodded slightly. “At least, that’s my understanding of it. Correct me if I’m wrong.”

“Are you afraid I’d try to convert your people?” She challenged him proudly. “Is that what you think? Is their faith in your God so weak? Do you really think I’d be a threat to them?”

“That isn’t the point,” he said quietly. He turned away from her slightly, as if to gaze out the window while he spoke; anything to look away from the faeborn chaos that surrounded her. “Faith has power, Mes Lessing, real power. Unified faith can re Work the very currents, changing reality so that it favors our cause. One discordant soul might not seem like much of a problem to you, but its effect upon our mission would be like that of a sour note in an otherwise perfect symphony.” He paused, giving her a moment to muse upon that. “If you came with us, it would increase the risk to all of us—and to Andrys Tarrant-a thousandfold. Is that what you want? To place him in even greater danger?”

“You don’t know what you’re doing to him,” she said fiercely. “It’s eating him up inside, taking on this role. It’s making him crazy. You want him to face that alone?”

“He has us,” he said coolly. “And he has his God.”

“That isn’t enough!” she retorted. “Your God doesn’t hold a man’s hand when he’s alone in the night. Your God won’t show up to comfort him when he’s scared. Your God doesn’t care if he hurts, as long as-” The words caught in her throat then, and she coughed heavily. He glanced back at her, just in time to see a white mask with frightened eyes scream as its throat was slashed, then fade into a mist of blood about her hair.

“I won’t get in your way,” she promised. Pleading now, all anger leached from her tone in a desperate bid to placate, to persuade. “I won’t say anything to offend anyone. I can even hold my own when we fight——”

She drew in a deep breath, and dark images fluttered about her head like bats. “And the Forest can’t hurt me. It’s a ... a kind of gift. Nothing that belongs to the Hunter will hurt me. I’d be safe.” She took a step closer to him; futures flickered in and out of existence with blinding speed as she moved. “Please,” she begged. “Let me go with him. He needs somebody.”

If you care so much, he wanted to say, then embrace his God. Join him in faith, and you can truly share in his enterprise. The words were forming, balanced on his lips—and then a new set of images took shape around her, a chaos of futures so vivid, so powerful, that the breath meant for words was expelled in a gasp, and it was all he could do to stand there and stare at them.

He saw this woman accompanying Andrys Tarrant into battle, and he saw her left behind. Those two futures divided once, twice, a hundred times each, until the whole room seemed filled with images, blood-filled and fearsome. It was far more intense than the kind of Divinings he had experienced before-save perhaps with Andrys Tarrant himself—and he struggled in vain to absorb it all without losing himself. A storm of images, a riot of raw potential, bits and pieces that flickered in and out of existence so quickly he could barely focus on them. Was this one decision really so important? Could it be that whole futures depended on whether or not this woman joined their effort? A chaos of answers assaulted his brain, and he struggled to sort them out. If she came with them, they might succeed, but the chances of that were slim. If, on the other hand, she stayed behind ... then there were a thousand new futures to choose from, and so many more of those led to success. He saw images of a white face grinning, of her slender throat being slashed, of ribbons of blood flowing down a wall of black glass ... he shivered to watch her die time and time again, to watch her not die, to watch the Forest triumph and wither and grow and burn——Enough! He took a step back from her and shut his eyes, shielding them with a trembling hand. Enough. It was too much for him to interpret, he knew that; if he tried to understand it all, he might lay waste to that fragile shell which was all that remained of his sanity. The pattern was clear enough, though painful to acknowledge. All his planning, all his hopes, all his faith ... without this woman it might all come to naught. Without her in her proper place, his chosen futures might fall to pieces, like the fabrics of the Great War which rotted far below him.

His head spinning, his mouth dry, he struggled to find his voice. Not to guide her now, or to comfort her, but to drive her away. Even as the words left his lips, he ached inside to be causing her pain, but he knew it was necessary. He had Seen.

“If that’s God’s will, so be it.” He tried to put scorn into his voice-just a little bit-so that his words would seem doubly callous. He could see futures dissolving as he did so, and others taking their place. “We’re all risking our lives here, and much more. Did you think it would be easy? Did you imagine that war could be waged without pain, without sacrifice?" Be careful, he warned himself, as some frightening new potentials began to take shape about her. In one of them he was callous enough that she devoted all her energy to convincing Andrys not to go to the Forest at all. “I’m sorry,” he said, and he kept his voice carefully neutral. “Genuinely sorry. But the answer has to be no.”

She seemed about to speak, but apparently words failed her. “You’ll kill him,” she whispered at last. Hoarsely pushing the words out one by one, wincing as they left her. “Maybe not in body, but in spirit. Don’t you care about that at all?”

He looked away, so that he need not see the thousand faeborn images that reflected her suffering. “I’m sorry,” he said. Quietly but firmly, finality in his voice. “I can’t allow it.”

For a moment there was silence. He dared not look back at her, for fear of what the fae would reveal. Finally he heard motion: footsteps on the rug, the click of a latch opening, the hard, cold sound of a door slamming shut. Gone. She was gone.

“Dear God,” he whispered. Feeling her pain as though it had somehow charged the air in the room, so that he drew it into his lungs with every breath. His legs felt weak beneath him and he permitted them to fold, his hand against the wall for support as he fell slowly to his knees.

Forgive me, Lord, for being the cause of pain in others. Forgive me for manipulating so many lives in ways that go against Your teachings. Forgive me.... And then the weight of his sorrow was too great even for prayer, and he wept.

29

They left the city right after sunset, as soon as Tarrant could tolerate the light. The Hunter had wrapped his cloak about his head and shoulders in a manner that made him seem more like a spectre than a man . . . which was wholly appropriate, Damien thought, given the nature of their business. Not until the Core had followed the sun into its westerly grave did he push back his improvised hood and breathe in deeply, testing the scents of the night.

“Nothing,” he said quietly, which might mean any number of things. Seemingly satisfied, he urged his mount forward. Marginally confident, Damien followed.

There were two routes available to them, and they had argued for over an hour about which one to take. One followed the west bank of the Stekkis River to Kale, along a road that catered to the needs of travelers. It offered supplies, shelter, and various other amenities that Damien found appealing. But it was also the road that the Church would take in its newly declared war against the Forest, and those troops would be leaving any day now. True, the odds of meeting up with them were small-hopefully they would be several days ahead of them at least-but Tarrant was loath to risk even those odds. And since, truth be told, there was nothing Damien would enjoy less than running into the Patriarch with the Hunter by his side, he had finally agreed to the eastern route, on the far side of the river.

He tried not to think about Calesta as they rode, but it was damned hard not to. Did the demon know about their mission, and was he even now making plans of his own to counter theirs? Tarrant had said that the Iezu could read the secrets in the hearts of men. How did you work up a defense against someone like that? Maybe the demon would be so busy with the Church and its campaign that Tarrant and he were safe for the moment. The Hunter had said that Calesta was involved in that enterprise, although he didn’t know exactly how. Maybe it would use up all the demon’s energies—

Yeah. Right.

Two hours’ ride brought them to the western bank of the Stekkis, at a tiny settlement called Lasta. The town’s few businesses were all closed for the night, its houses locked and shuttered securely against the darkness. Tarrant used a Locating to find the ferryman’s house. Left to his own devices the Hunter might have coerced the man into his service, but Damien took over, and eventually they agreed upon a price which was half coinage and half sorcery. Glaring, Tarrant worked a Warding on a piece of crystal the man supplied, and not until he was content that it worked would the ferryman step forth out of his house to lead them to the river.

Demonlings fluttered overhead as they led their horses along a narrow paved path behind the house, to where a simple wooden ferry waited. It seemed to Damien that there were a lot of them here, given the size of the town. Either the inhabitants were unusually creative or something else was responsible. Maybe the city-born entities that foraged in this direction found the water to be a barrier, and piled up here like trash in a cul-de-sac, too stupid to know that if they just turned around and went home their odds of finding food would increase a hundredfold. Their presence was a solemn reminder of just how many nasty things were out there, that usually kept their distance when Tarrant was around. No wonder the ferryman had insisted upon the Warding as part of his price.

The river here was broad but shallow, nothing like it was where it roared over Naigra Falls a hundred miles to the north of them, nothing like the vast delta that was host to half a dozen ports beyond that. The ferry was small but adequate, and if the horses had any complaints, they were quickly banished by Tarrant’s faeborn skills. Leaning against the rail, watching the inky black water rush by, Damien remembered his protests the first time he’d seen Tarrant use that trick. Now it was just one more choice bit of sorcery, more practical than some, less offensive than most.

Face it, man. You’ve gotten used to him.

On the far side of the river there was no town, no road, only a rough dirt path that led away from the river. There would be settlements arrayed between there and the coast, but they would be few and far between and their inhabitants would be wary of strangers. Since the road west of the river offered both comfort and safety, anyone choosing the eastern bank would be highly suspect.

As the ferryman poled his way back home, Damien came to where Tarrant stood, one hand resting against the black flank of his horse. It was clear from his expression that he was Working, and not until Damien saw him move and judged him finished did he speak to him.

“Anything useful?”

Tarrant’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “The Patriarch intends to lead his people into the Forest itself, straight to my keep. They mean to confront me in my lair, confident that God will favor them in their mission and lead them to victory.”

No more. After a moment of silence, Damien pressed, “And?”

He shook his head; clearly he was perplexed. “There are futures in which they succeed. Only a few ... but how could they make it through my domain? Do they think I have no defenses? The very ground will rise up against them, the species I nurtured will—”

“Gerald.” He put a hand on the other man’s shoulder, for once not noticing the chill of his undead flesh. “It doesn’t matter any more. Not the Forest, not any of it.” He didn’t say the words, but let them hang between them in the chill autumn air, unspoken: You have twenty-nine days left. That’s all. You can’t afford to lose your focus now. “As long as Calesta’s alive and kicking, everything’s at risk.”

The Hunter hesitated; Damien could see something dark flash in those cold, cold eyes. Anger? Frustration? Tarrant glanced northward toward the Forest, as though he wanted to Know what was going on there, but the strong northerly flow of the current wouldn’t allow it. With a muttered curse he forced his eyes away and took up the reins of his horse once more. “You’re right, Reverend Vryce. Much as I hate to admit it.”

He mounted his horse and swung it around so that it faced east. But Damien didn’t mount up, and after a moment Tarrant looked back at him, to see what was wrong.

“I’m not,” Damien said hoarsely. “Reverend, I mean.” He swallowed hard, forcing the words out. “Not a priest anymore.”

For a moment there was silence.

“They cast you out?”

“No.” He shook his head stiffly. “I quit. I was ...” God, he wished there were an easy way to end this conversation. But Tarrant had a right to know. “It was my choice. Really. I ...” Whom was he trying to convince, Tarrant or himself? “It was right,” he whispered hoarsely. “The right thing to do.”

For a long time the Hunter said nothing. Then: “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.” He shut his eyes, trying not to feel the pain of it all over again. How long would it be before the healing started, before he could think about his choice and not feel sick inside? “Let’s just go on, okay?” He vaulted up onto his horse’s back and grabbed up the reins. “We’ve got things to do.” He kneed his horse into motion, hoping Tarrant would just follow. He didn’t want to look at him again, for fear that he would see something all too human in those death-pale eyes. Something he couldn’t deal with right now.

Pity.

They rode hard, pausing only to rest the horses when they had to in order to keep going. There were no stables midway along this route at which one could trade for fresher mounts, hence the animals would have to keep their strength up until they reached the coast. That meant three days at the very least, maybe more. Damien and Tarrant pushed them as hard as they dared on that first night, but both of them knew that speed would cost them dearly if one of their mounts became injured as a result.

You could make the trip faster without me, Damien wanted to say. You could put on wings and make the coast in a day or two, and Shaitan in little more than that. But he didn’t voice that thought. The Hunter was aware of his own capacity, and he knew damned well that having Damien with him slowed him down. Yes, he could reach Shaitan in less than a week if he traveled alone, but clearly he preferred not to. He doesn’t want to face death alone, Damien mused. And, darkly: I don’t blame him.

It was Tarrant who determined their route, leading them away from the packed dirt of the narrow road into the grassy lands beside it. There weren’t many caves in this area, he explained. They would have to swing farther east to where the mountains started to rise, to increase their odds of finding shelter when dawn came. What went unsaid was an eloquent reminder of what their relationship had become. Tarrant himself could find shelter alone along any stretch of earth, using his fae-sight to locate an underground passage and his sorcery to facilitate entrance. What would complicate this search was that he meant to keep Damien with him. And that was the first time in all their travels together that the Hunter had voluntarily chosen to share a shelter, with anyone.

He’s afraid, Damien mused, as a third moon rose to shed light on their journey. Hell, I’d be, too, in his shoes. Any sane man would be.

As for being in Damien Vryce’s shoes ... he tried not to think about that.

Near dawn they reined up at last, and Damien dismounted with a sigh that was half relief and half pain. Ten months at sea had weakened his leg muscles enough that he could feel every mile of this trip. If the Hunter felt any similar discomfort, as usual he didn’t show it. In silence they led the horses to the place where Tarrant had Located shelter, and after a brief bout with a shovel and a wrestling match with several heavy rocks, Damien managed to break into the underground space. It was dry at least, which was more than he could say for some of the other places Tarrant had led him to.

“I’ll stay up here with the horses,” he said, nodding toward the camping supplies in his saddlebag. “They should be able to graze, which’ll help stretch our supplies. I’ll keep them close to home.”

And then came the question he didn’t want to ask. The answer he didn’t want to know. He drew in a deep breath and forced the words out one by one, trying to make them sound casual. “I guess you’ll need to ... tonight or in the morning....”

“Feed myself?”

He muttered something unintelligible.

In answer Tarrant unbuckled one of his saddlebags and drew out a large canteen. “As you see, I came prepared.” He uncapped the container and took a long drink from it; something about the weight or the way he handled it made Damien certain it wasn’t water. “No more nightmares, Vryce. Not this time. You need your strength as much as I need mine, and in the face of Calesta’s power ... there should be enough nightmares to go around soon enough, for both of us.” He took another short swallow, then capped the canteen once again. “I can make it on this until we reach the coast. After that ...” He shrugged.

Don’t think about it, Damien warned himself, as the Hunter shouldered his supplies and slipped down into the darkness of his subterranean shelter. The misery that this world will suffer if Calesta succeeds in his plans is a thousand times worse than anything the Hunter could devise.

He wished he could be sure of that. He wished he were sure of anything. Twenty-eight days left.

What will happen to the Church’s troops if they do make it through? Damien had asked Tarrant. If your creations let them pass and they reach the keep. What then?

Then their fate will be in Amoril’s hands, he responded. And as for what Amoril is capable of... He shook his head grimly. The Forest is still mine, and will be until my death. He may tap into its power, but he can never fully control it.

So they could win out, then.

For a long time the Hunter didn’t answer. It was a long enough delay that Damien began to wonder if he had heard him at all, and was about to repeat the question when the Hunter said, very quietly, The price for that kind of success would be high. I wonder if your Patriarch is willing to pay it.

It took them three days to reach the northern coast. Each night as Tarrant arose, Damien could see him stop and gaze northward toward their distant goal, and he could almost hear him counting down the days that were left to him. Twenty-seven. Twenty-six. Twenty-five. It was enough time to do what they had to, Damien told himself. It had to be. Shaitan wasn’t all that far away, so if the journey didn’t kill them outright, they should make it with at least a week to spare. Right?

Calesta had still made no move against them. Rather than reassuring Damien, that fact made him doubly nervous. Despite Tarrant’s insistence that the Iezu would make no direct attempt to kill them, Damien wasn’t so sure. Tarrant had said that the laws of the Iezu forbid them from interfering in human development, and Calesta was doing that already, wasn’t he? God only knew what the demon was planning for them, but it was damned likely not to be pleasant. Maybe he would wait until they got to Shaitan, Damien thought. Maybe this first part of the journey would be relatively easy, as they all prepared for a confrontation on the Iezu’s home turf. Maybe—

He sighed, and shifted his position in the saddle so that his legs ached a little less.

Yeah. Right. Dream on, Vryce.

They came within sight of Seth shortly after midnight on the fourth night of travel. It was a small town by Jaggonath’s standards but adequate for their purposes, with the kind of harbor that should host at least one vessel willing to carry them. Damien saw Tarrant fingering the neck of his tunic as they approached the southern gate, and wondered if he had replaced the Forest medallion Ciani had torn from his neck so very, very long ago. It had made negotiations easier once before, but he wondered if wielding it now would be such a good idea.

As if in answer to his thoughts, Tarrant dismounted and motioned for him to do the same. “Try not to Work here,” he warned, as he wrapped the horses’ reins about a nearby tree limb for security. “The currents this close to the Forest may well overwhelm you.” Damien nodded that yes, he understood. Senzei Reese had almost been swallowed up by the fierce currents in Kale, and that city was just across the river from them. He wasn’t anxious to test himself against a similar power.

For a moment Tarrant stood still, gathering himself for a Working. It must be of considerable complexity, Damien noted; the Hunter rarely required such mental preparation. Then Tarrant reached out toward him; Damien could almost feel a gust of power whip about him like a whirlwind. For a moment he couldn’t see, and then vision returned to him, and the wind died down. His flesh tingled as if it had just been scraped with a rasp.

“What the hell—”

“An Obscuring,” the Hunter said evenly. “Not for the flesh, but for identity.”

“You think that’s necessary?”

“I think it’s wise. Calesta’s known our path for several days now. Why make ourselves more vulnerable than we have to be?” He took up his horse’s reins again and remounted. “The fact that our enemy can be subtle makes him doubly dangerous,” he warned, and he urged his horse into motion once more.

“I know-I agree-it’s just-damn!” He mounted his own horse and urged it to a trot, to catch up with Tarrant’s own. “You could have warned me.”

He couldn’t see Tarrant’s face, but he suspected he was smiling.

Another half mile brought them to the edge of town. There was a guard stationed on the road there, which was something of a surprise; Damien wouldn’t have thought that this small town, off the beaten track from anywhere, would require such security. Two men in armor hailed them as they approached, and gestured for them to dismount. Who were they? the guards asked. Why were they here, and why were they entering the town so late? Damien let Tarrant speak for them both, improvising false names and enough details of their supposed travels that the guards would be satisfied. He was right, the ex-priest thought, as he listened to the exchange. Calesta could well have arranged for a welcoming committee, and we would never have seen it coming. If so, that would certainly explain why the demon hadn’t made a move against them before. It explained it so well, in fact, that as Damien remounted to follow Tarrant into the town itself he felt a knot of dread form in the pit of his stomach.

Calesta wouldn’t kill them himself, Tarrant had said. Those were the rules that his kind lived by.

Yeah, but he can manipulate others into doing it for him.

Tarrant led the way to the harbor, following directions that the guards had supplied. The narrow streets were all but silent and the hoofbeats of their horses echoed back at them emptily, as if they were—riding in a cavern. It had rained recently, and a thin film of water over the cobblestones made them glimmer like glass in the moonlight. Black glass. Polished obsidian. Bricks like those of the Hunter’s keep, toward which even now the Patriarch and his chosen few were riding. He tried not to think about where the Church’s army was now, or whether or not he hoped they would succeed. Right now they had enough troubles of their own.

They turned down a side street, narrower than before, which curved to the north. They were close enough to the water now that they could smell the rank perfume of the Serpent, salt and seaweed and decay all blended together into a dank miasma. The harbor must be close by.

They came to another intersection and were about to ride through it, when suddenly the Hunter reined up to a stop.

“What is it?”

Tarrant looked down the three roads available, then back the way they had come. Damien followed his gaze. There was an open-air market to the left of them, its wooden tables now empty until the morning. Some kind of factory stood to the right, its windows dark, its doors securely locked against the night. Up and down the street and to both sides of them it was the same: no signs of human habitation, or of any business that might be active after dark.

He watched as Tarrant worked a Locating, and breathed in sharply as the image took focus. The road to the harbor was wide and paved with flagstone, and even at this hour it was not wholly deserted. Not like this road that they had been sent to, which might have been in the midst of a desert for all the human life it contained. They had been sent in the wrong direction ... and that could only mean one thing.

With a sharp curse Tarrant wheeled his horse about, and the Locating shattered like glass as he passed through it. Listening carefully, Damien could hear a faint noise approaching from the way they had come. Voices? There was a similar sound to the west of them, and the clear echo of hurried footsteps. No safety there, either. Damien was willing to bet that the other two roads were similarly guarded, or had been closed off.

“You said they wouldn’t know who we were,” he whispered fiercely.

“I worked an Obscuring,” Tarrant snapped. “Either they’re hunting mere strangers ...” He didn’t finish the thought, but Damien could finish it for him. Or Calesta gave them a vision of who we really were. An illusion of his own, to take the place of the one you conjured. Shit. If that’s what had happened, then they were in real trouble—and not only here, but anywhere that men could be gathered together for action.

“That way will be a dead end,” Tarrant declared, indicating the direction they had been riding. “And that way, too, most likely.” He gestured toward the silent street to the right of them. “With an ambush waiting, no doubt.” He studied the road down which they had come; Damien saw his nostrils flare, as if sifting the scent of the road for more information. “Calesta will have known that our destination is the harbor. Therefore they will have turned us away from it.”

“So we go back?”

“That, or drive the horses forward and go elsewhere ourselves. Maybe the sound of their flight would detract attention for just long enough ... we could take to the rooftops.” He nodded toward the wooden awning that had been erected over the market area, and the buildings that abutted it. “They wouldn’t think to look up there, at least not until they learned that the horses were riderless.”

The sounds were getting closer now, and were loud enough that Damien could guess at the size of the approaching mob. If it was a large enough crowd, then the horses would never be able to break through it. On the other hand, trying to make it to the harbor and beyond without swift mounts to carry them was not an appealing alternative. “What’s your preference?” he demanded.

Tarrant stared back down the way they had come, studying the currents that flowed along the street. “Calesta can point people to the roof as easily as he can control their vision. And then what would we have? In this district, where there are no homes to put in jeopardy . . .” He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t have to. Damien could picture the district burning up all by himself, along with the refugees who clung to its rooftops.

“All right, then.” Tarrant steadied his horse with one hand and drew his sword with the other. The coldfire blade blazed in the darkened street with an almost hungry brilliance. “Let’s do it.”

“Gerald.”

The Hunter looked back at him. The silver eyes were black as jet, and it seemed to Damien that something red and hungry had sparked to life in their depths.

“You can shapeshift,” the ex-priest reminded him. “Fly out of here and reach Shaitan that way.”

“Yes,” he said shortly. “But you can’t.”

And he kicked his horse into sudden motion, forcing Damien to follow suit.

It was an eerie ride, back down those deserted streets. Tarrant had wrapped some fae about the horses’ hooves that kept their footfall from being heard, but there was no way to tell if Calesta was circumventing that Working as well. If so, Damien thought grimly, they’ll be ready for us. He had his own sword out, flame-embossed grip settled firmly in his palm. The sword of his Order, the Golden Flame, of which Gerald Tarrant had once been Knight Premier. And he still claimed that title, Damien knew. Assuming Tarrant dead, the Church had never bothered to throw him out. For some reason, in this dark moment, the thought pleased him immensely.

They could hear distinct voices up ahead, and see the glittering of lanterns. Not far now. With a sinking heart Damien realized just how many men had come to seal the trap, and he knew that there would be no way through them save on a road paved with blood.

“Jump,” Tarrant muttered fiercely. Damien glanced over at him and saw a strange double image flickering about the head of his horse, as though there were two animals sharing the same space. A quick glance at his own revealed a similar situation. Teeth gritted, sword raised high in preparation for combat, he forced himself to ignore Tarrant’s Working-whatever the hell it was-as he signaled his mount to leap. His old horse would have done it-his old horse would have followed him to Hell and back and not complained-but who could tell what this new mount would do? Ten feet closer to the crowd, now twenty. He could make out individual faces, torches and lamps, swords and spears. There was a rage in those faces burning so hot that several were flushed red with the force of it, and as he and Tarrant came into range, curses were wielded along with sharp steel. What the hell had Calesta told these people-or showed them-to merit such hostility? There were spears being leveled in their direction, and Damien knew that if his horse failed to jump, they would be skewered within seconds.

Please, he prayed. Do it.

It did.

He could see the false image peel off as his horse rose up, powerful flanks driving them up over the heads of the nearest townspeople. Behind him the false horse-image plowed into the crowd, and the men there, believing what their eyes told them, fell down before it. Tarrant’s own phantom worked similar damage, with such brutal efficiency that row upon row of their attackers seemed to be trampled by the ghostly hooves. The men behind them pressed forward, thrusting spears and swords into the illusory flesh, believing in it enough that it seemed to them the bodies resisted, then punctured, then bled.

—And then the real horse was coming down with Damien still in the saddle, only it hadn’t cleared the mob yet, not by a long shot. The men beneath him never saw it coming. One minute they were focused on the ghost-horse before them, and the next minute half a ton of steel and flesh was bearing down on them. Damien heard bones crack as they landed on a sea of moving flesh, and he clung desperately to his saddle as his horse struggled for solid footing, wincing at every cry from the bodies crushed beneath him. For a few precious seconds it was all he could do to keep his seat, and hope that no weapon reached him. Then he saw a blade swinging down toward the horse’s neck, and with strength born of utter desperation he leaned out as far as he could to strike it aside, then cut back toward its owner’s chest. His blade bit deep into leather and flesh, and the man fell back with a cry.

They don’t know what they’re doing here, he thought, as he whipped around to see what threat might be coming from another direction. They probably don’t even know who it is they’re fighting. He could hear screams of fury and pain now on all sides. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Tarrant’s coldfire blade sweeping like a scythe through the mob. Some of the attackers were starting to back off now, horrified, and the look in their eyes was like that of men awakening from a dream. Damn Calesta, for whatever he had done to them! Wasn’t it enough that armies had to die, without making the innocent join them!

Finally he was free, the last broken body fallen behind him. He glanced about to see Tarrant break out of the crowd, and gestured for him to take the lead. The black horse broke into a fevered gallop down the dark street, and Damien followed. He could see blood streaming along his horse’s neck and could only pray that the wounds weren’t too deep. The black flesh of Tarrant’s mount, glistening with sweat, made it impossible to assess its condition, but it seemed to be moving all right. God forbid either horse should lose its footing now.

Two blocks beyond the mob Tarrant slowed, and focused the fae before them into a picture. Now they could see clearly, as if on a map, where the harbor lay. And they could see just as clearly that they had been sent in the wrong direction, into a trap that had almost killed them.

“Come,” Tarrant said, and he kicked his horse into a gallop. Down through the dark streets they rode with desperate speed, across a broad avenue, onto a smoothly cobblestoned road. The few townspeople who were abroad that late fell back from them as though they were demons. At least there were no angry mobs here, Damien thought. God willing Calesta was arrogant enough that he never considered they would escape him. Or desperate enough that he had focused all his manpower at that one four-pronged trap, leaving no backup to cover their escape.

And then they turned right instead of left. “Gerald-” Damien called, but the Hunter waved off his protest and continued in that direction. Then he led them through another turn, equally mistaken. Damien struggled to remember the map Tarrant had conjured, and saw it all too clearly in his mind’s eye. “You’re going the wrong way!” he yelled. Heads appeared in the nearest windows as townies grew curious about the racket outside, then quickly withdrew. “Your map-” he began.

“Follow me!” the Hunter commanded. With a muttered curse Damien followed his lead. If Tarrant wouldn’t stop, then there was no other choice; he wasn’t about to let them be separated. Damn the man, he swore, as he urged his horse to even greater speed. The mob would never catch up to them now, not unless he and Tarrant did something stupid that would slow them down. Like getting lost. Like forgetting the goddamn map. Like turning left when they should go right, and maybe it was all Calesta’s fault, maybe Tarrant wasn’t seeing the right turn, but knowing who and what their enemy was, he damned well should have been prepared for something like that.

And then the houses gave way to an open road paved with flagstones, beyond which the moonlight glinted on surf. Damien could hear waves, and human voices, and the soft growl of a distant turbine. The Hunter rode to the end of the street and paused there.

“How-” Damien began.

“Later.” The road dropped away sharply at its end, down to the harbor some hundred feet below. A long flight of stairs and a switchback trail offered equally uncomfortable ways of getting down to the water. The

Hunter studied the boats splayed out below them, assessing each one’s potential for speed as well as its position in the small harbor. “That one,” he said at last, pointing to a small boat at the end of the easternmost pier. Its two masts flanked the exhaust pipe of a steam turbine. “I can raise a wind that will move it quickly, hopefully before anyone thinks to follow.”

“What if its owner-?”

“Its owner is irrelevant,” Tarrant said sharply. “If you have a problem with that, stay here and argue with him.” And he turned his horse toward the switchback path that led down to the water’s edge.

It was a nightmare descent, even for one as experienced in riding as Damien was. The path was covered with loose rocks and gravel, and the racing horses slid into several turns. At one time Damien’s horse actually missed the edge, and his heart nearly stopped as it half-staggered, half-slid, down to the turn below.

And then they were on flat ground, mud and gravel mixed, clumps of earth tearing up out of the ground as they galloped toward the pier. No secrecy now, nor any attempt at it. Calesta knew where they were headed and that meant the townspeople did as well. The only hope they had of making it out onto the water was to get there before the locals had a chance to stop them.

Out onto the wooden planks, their horses’ hooves beating emptily over the rocky shore below. Two men jumped back out of their way, and another few ran as they saw them coming. Good enough. Fear of a maddened horse could be just as effective as a direct assault, and in this case it proved even better. No one tried to stop them as they turned their mounts down the pier Tarrant had chosen, although Damien could see a few men running for help. Within minutes, no doubt, the whole harbor would be swarming with armed men.

Tarrant didn’t stop to lead his horse across the water, but urged it into a leap that carried it from the end of the pier onto the boat’s narrow deck. Damien saw it slide as it landed, and by the time Tarrant managed to bring it to a stop, they were nearly in the water. He slowed his own mount down as he approached, less than certain that he could manage the same feat. Sliding off the saddle, he moved quickly toward the boat with reins in hand. His horse was less than happy about stepping onto the swaying deck, but a hard jerk on the reins convinced it not to argue, and it managed a half-leap that got it across the water safely.

Damien cut through the mooring lines, not taking time to unbind them. Behind him Tarrant’s sword blazed with conjured coldfire, and in response a wind began to rise almost at once, blowing from the shore toward the Serpent. At the other end of the harbor Damien could see spots of light moving-lamps?—and he could hear the cries of would-be pursuers as they made their way down the slope. Faster! he urged the wind, as he drew up the sails singlehandedly to harness its power. The small boat shuddered and then drew away from the pier, its sails billowing out white and strong in the moonlight. One of the horses whinnied its discomfort, but Damien doubted that either of the animals would actually be stupid enough to go over the side in protest. Maybe stupid enough to trample their owners, but not that.

“The turbine’s below.” Tarrant pointed toward the stairs at the rear of the small boat. “Get it started.”

“I don’t know how-—”

“Then make an educated guess.”

With a brief glare for his companion he hurried down the stairs, into the cabin and its attendant cargo space. In the galley he located a candle and a pack of matches by moonlight. That lit, it was a bit easier to search. The turbine was similar to one he had seen before, the last time he had made this crossing, and he tried to remember how its owner had worked it. He looked about for fuel, located the furnace door, and started things going. It would be a short while before there was enough pressure to drive the boat, but until then the wind would have to do. He allowed himself the brief luxury of sitting down beside the small engine and of taking several deep breaths in succession. Tarrant would keep the wind going until the turbine kicked in, and then he would turn it around to slow their pursuers. If he could. Damien reflected on how hard it was to command the weather like that—even within such limited parameters—and the fact that Tarrant couldn’t use the currents for power, but must rely upon the limited amount of fae that was stored in his sword, surely wouldn’t help. Then he decided not to think about any of it. He closed his eyes for a moment and tried not to reflect upon what they had just done. But he couldn’t help it. The blood was still red on his sword, and a gory spattering covered his right leg and boot. The feel of his weapon cutting into human flesh was still hot in his palm, and he rubbed his hand against the thigh of his breeches as if somehow that could cleanse it. In his ears he could hear the sounds of innocent men screaming as the horses bore down on them, unseen but all too keenly felt—

“Well?”

It was Tarrant, calling down to him. He opened the valve on the turbine the way he had seen a captain do it once before and was somewhat surprised to hear the small engine rumble to life. Its owner must have had it Worked for it to start that fast; had Tarrant Seen that when he chose this vessel? “It’s on,” he called back, and he made one last check of its dials and settings before he climbed back up to the deck.

Tarrant had sheathed his sword, which meant that whatever Working he had crafted to control the wind was over and done with. God willing, it would work. The horses were grazing on imagined grass, and one of them had left its last meal as a gift on the deck. Damien almost stepped in it.

“Do you think they’ll try to follow?” he asked Tarrant.

“Unlikely.” He turned the wheel slowly as he spoke, forcing the boat to head into the waves. “Hunting down a small craft on the Serpent at night would be a nearly impossible feat, even for one of Calesta’s power. However,” he added grimly, “we can certainly bet that all the northern ports will be watched, and that we can expect a similar welcome there if we try to land.”

“In all the ports?”

“If he anticipated our journey, then he’s had a good week to prepare. If not ... then he still has a whole day left to warp the minds of those who might otherwise assist us.” He said nothing further on that point, but no words were necessary. The Hunter couldn’t leave the shelter of the boat while the sun was shining. Either they reached the northern shore and found safe harbor within hours-an unlikely task-or they would have to remain on the river until tomorrow’s sunfall. “I’ll take the wheel until dawn. You go below and see that there’s secure shelter for me somewhere, then try to rest. Oh, and see to the horses.” He glanced at the animals. “Secure them inside the cabin if you can. They won’t like it, but if the sea grows rough, they’ll be safer there.”

“Gerald-” He hesitated. “I can’t handle a boat. You know that, don’t you? I don’t know the least thing about sailing—”

“Then I suggest you see if there are any books on the art lying about.” The pale eyes glittered. “And pray that we make landing before dawn. Weather-Working is a chancy art at best, and to rush it as I did ... that might well draw a storm.”

Damien looked out at the choppy waves—was there more froth riding on them than before, or was that just his imagination?—and he shivered. How large a storm might the adept have conjured, in his need for an obliging wind? It wasn’t a welcome thought in any context, but with him and Tarrant alone on this boat and half the northern coast setting traps for them, and then when the sun came up he’d be handling the boat alone—

Hell, he thought. Taking a deep breath, fighting to calm his nerves. You knew it wasn’t going to be easy.

He went below to search for a manual.

Gresham Came to Narilka’s workbench and sat himself down, straddling a nearby chair. For a moment she just went on buffing as if he weren’t there, but the pressure of his gaze slowed her rhythm, and at last forced her to stop. Slowly, reluctantly, she looked up at him.

“You want to talk about it?” he asked.

It took her a minute to find her voice. “I don’t know what you mean.” The words sounded weak even to her, and Gresham shook his head gently.

“Don’t, Nari.”

“What?”

“Keep it all pent up inside. It just eats at you worse that way.”

She turned back to her work and started buffing again. But his large hand reached out and took hers, and kept her from moving.

“It was polished long ago,” he said quietly. “See?” He turned the piece over; its surface was gleaming. Gently he took it from her and set it on the worktable. Then he took up her hand again, folding it carefully in his own. “Talk to me, Nari. Let me help.”

With a sound that was half-sigh, half-sob, she turned away from him. “You can’t help. Nobody can help.”

“Let me try.”

She shook her head stiffly. Tears were forming in her eyes.

“You miss him?”

“I’m afraid for him. Oh, Gresham ...” And then the walls broke down and the tears came, hot tears that had been days in the making. “What they’re doing to him

30

“... nobody understands. They don’t even really care, as long as he does what they want. So what if there isn’t a whole man left when they’re finished? What does it matter to them if he goes crazy?” She lowered her head, and wiped her eyes with the back of her free hand. “I’ve been having nightmares,” she whispered. “I think they’re his. Is that possible?”

“If you care that much for him? Yes, of course it is. That’s how the fae works.”

“He’s so afraid, Gresh.”

He snorted. “Any sane man would be, going where he’s going.”

She shook her head. “It isn’t that. Nothing that simple. It’s because-” She stopped then, because the truth was too private a thing. She couldn’t even share it with Gresham.

He fears that this masquerade will really transform him. He’s afraid of losing his soul. He had held her all that last night, barricaded in his apartment as if the enemy were at his door, and she had tasted the substance of his fear as if it were her own. She had felt the terror inherent in his masquerade, his gut fear that once the essence of Gerald Tarrant was invoked into his flesh he would never be free of it. To invite the substance of your enemy to take you over, to dim the flame of your own soul so that his might burn even brighter ... was there any greater terror than that? She had managed not to cry that night, but only because it would have made him more afraid. Now the tears flowed freely.

“He needs me,” she whispered.

He squeezed her hand, said nothing.

“I could help him.”

“You said they had their reasons for not letting you go with them,” he reminded her. “You said you’d try to accept that.”

Reasons. She shut her eyes and trembled as anger seeped into her veins, a rage that was days in the making. “Damn his faith!” she whispered fiercely. “They think they’ll have more control over the fae if I’m not there. Who’s to say if they’re right? Or even if they are, if it’s worth the price he’ll have to pay? What kind of a god is that, who rewards his people for suffering?”

He snorted. “No one I know has ever claimed to understand the One God.”

Oh, Andrys. She reached out with all the power of her soul, wanting so badly to feel his presence, to know that he was still safe. But she lacked the kind of power it would take to establish such a link. Was he reaching out for her, too, with the same sense of desperation? Or was he beyond all that by now, subsumed by the essence of his masquerade? Shivering, she opened her eyes, blinking tears away.

“Look,” Gresham said gently. “You can’t go through all this and pretend it isn’t happening. I’ve seen what it’s doing to you these past few days, trying to work as if everything’s normal while your soul’s all tied up in knots. Why don’t you take a few days off? Go somewhere maybe, take a break. Try to relax. You need it, Nari. Trust me.”

She turned and looked into his eyes. For a long, long time she was silent, as his words echoed softly in her brain. “Yes,” she said at last. Her voice was a mere whisper. “You’re right.”

“You’re not alone, you know. In every war there are women left behind ... and men, of course, and children, friends and lovers and relatives who care ... sometimes you can lose yourself in work, and sometimes you can’t. It’s never easy, honey.” He touched the side of her face lightly, lovingly; his finger smeared a tear across her cheek. “I think maybe for you a change would be best. Go somewhere peaceful, cut out the stress. That way you won’t have to put on a show all the time, pretend that nothing’s wrong.”

She stared at him for a long time, then whispered—almost soundlessly-"Yes.” She nodded slowly, very slowly. “A change. Somewhere fresh.”

She leaned forward and kissed him gently on the cheek, trembling as she did so, loving him as much in that moment as she ever had her father. What would he say if she told him what his few words had inspired?

How would he react if she told him right now what she was thinking?

She didn’t dare. He’d talk her out of it, surely. “Thank you,” she whispered softly. “I’ll do that.” As she gathered up her things, she wondered if she would ever see him or his shop again.

The apartment was just as Andrys had left it, and she stood in the doorway for a minute just drinking it in, remembering their short time together. In his weeks in Jaggonath he had trained housekeeping to come when he called, and at no other time. Now, with the apartment permanently silenced, the scattered glasses and rumpled bedding stood as a monument to the man who had lived here, and the few days she had shared with him.

Her lover.

How strange that word seemed. How odd to apply it in this case, where their time together seemed like a brief bout of passion between one tragedy and the next. They had not even made love in the traditional sense, although he’d known enough close variations to make the time pass pleasurably enough. Now, though, she ached for that shortcoming, and wished she had held him inside her once, just once, in that embrace which was so intimate that echoes of it lasted forever in one’s flesh. But he’d been terrified of making her pregnant, and though the intensity of that fear was incomprehensible to her-like so much else about him-she had indulged him, stifling all the arguments that she might otherwise have raised about the efficacy of birth control, the predictability of her fertility cycle, the availability of abortion should all other things fail ... those were things you said to other men, not him. His soul was too tender, too bruised, too vulnerable. If intercourse would increase his anxiety, then it would have to be avoided. There’d be time enough for it later, when his soul had a chance to heal.

If that time ever came.

She walked to the bed and sat down upon it, breathing in deeply; their scents were mixed together on the sheets, along with the sweat of love and the sharp tang of fear. Here he had trembled as she held him, shaking like a child lost in a storm as bloody memories enveloped him, images so horrible that he couldn’t even talk to her about them, could only whimper as they flooded his brain, overwhelming his fledgling defenses. He’d tried to pull away from her when it happened, to run away from her so that she wouldn’t see him fall apart; she hadn’t let him go. That was a bond even more intimate than their passion, now, that she had seen his fit of weakness and accepted him. She sensed that night, with poignant clarity, that no other woman had done that.

Closing her eyes now, breathing in the scent of his presence, she could almost see him as he rode northward, every beat of his horse’s hooves carrying him closer and closer to what he feared the most. How powerfully he must hate the Hunter, to commit himself to such a venture! They had never discussed his ancestor at length, partly because of her own mixed feelings about him. Now he was alone, headed toward a confrontation that only one of them would survive. If even one.

Time to choose, Nari.

The Hunter wouldn’t hurt her, she knew that. His Forest was no threat to her. She didn’t know enough about Andrys’ demonic ally to predict what he would do, but the goddess Saris had promised to protect her in that arena. So she wouldn’t need an army to protect her if she went north. Hells, she wouldn’t even need weapons-although of course she would bring them, just in case—and she could make better time riding alone than the Church troops would be able to, with their wagons of supplies and their overladen horses slowing them down. If she played it right and made good enough time, she could follow them in secret, to be there when he needed her.... Or maybe even enter their camp openly and demand her proper place in it. And if their god didn’t like it, to hells with him. Let him protest the move in person if he cared so damned much, and explain to all concerned why the suffering of one man was so important to him that his precious war could not be waged without it.

Oh, Andri. She shut her eyes and trembled, but not from fear this time. It was exhilaration coursing through her veins now, the sure high of certainty. This was right. This was what she was meant to do. And soon-within days, if all went well-she would be where she belonged, joining the man she loved in battle. Waging war not only for his Church, but for his very soul.

“Hang in there, my love,” she whispered. “I’m on my way.”

31

They couldn’t make it to shore before daybreak. Tarrant said that was just as well. At best they would have been rushed through a dangerous landing, with barely enough time left to find suitable shelter before the sun rendered him helpless. At worst their enemy would find a way to mobilize neighboring towns against them before they had a chance to lose themselves in the lands to the north. No, despite the risk of remaining at sea, this was surely the safest course.

Which was all well and good, Damien thought, but Tarrant wasn’t the one who had to sail the vulking boat alone for twelve hours, with enemies to the north and south and a damned ugly weather system taking shape on the horizon. By dawn’s cold light, and then by the mixed light of sun and Core, he watched as ominously dark clouds gathered to the west of him, and wrapped his jacket tightly about his chest as winds gusted heavily across the bow. Tarrant had raised a storm, all right; the only question was how long it would take to reach them, and whether Damien could ride out the fringes of the squall long enough to drown them both in the heart of it.

He dared to leave the wheel long enough to feed the horses from their store of special grain, not because he thought they couldn’t make it a day without food but because he was afraid that hunger might disrupt the Working that kept them calm. There was water in the galley, too, and he gave them some of that, although the motion of the ship on the waves turned that normally simple exercise into a test of both agility and nerves. He checked their wounds to see that they were clean and that the bleeding had stopped, but he could do no more to help them; the fae he would have used for Healing was hundreds of feet beneath the surface of the water, inaccessible. He stoked up the furnace anew and fed it as much fuel as it would hold, not wanting to think about what would happen if it went out while he was trapped at the helm. By the time he regained his post there was land clearly visible to the north of him, and he steered away from it as best he could. He tried to bear in mind what Tarrant had said about steering into the waves so that they wouldn’t capsize the boat, but exactly how that worked when the sea was going one way and you wanted to go the other was something the Hunter had failed to explain. It seemed to take forever to accomplish that minimal maneuver, and when the northern shore finally faded into a curtain of mist in the distance, his every muscle ached from doing battle in a world whose rules he didn’t really understand, and whose aspect was growing less friendly by the minute.

By noon a pattering of rain had begun to fall, and the waves that beat against the hull more than once sent a spray of saltwater up over the prow. It occurred to Damien that he probably should have tied down the loose items on deck, or at least brought them down into the cabin for protection, and that there was probably some special way the sails were supposed to be tied up in a storm-but when you were one man alone and the sea had turned against you, such distractions were luxuries you couldn’t afford. He did dare to leave the wheel once more, long enough to make sure that there was enough fuel burning to keep him in steam for a while, and by the time he came back, the sheer force of wind and current had brought the boat about into the trough of a wave. It took everything he had to keep it from going over, and when he had at last forced it back into position, his hands were shaking and a cold sweat had broken out across his brow. He felt a sudden sympathy for the captains of legend who tied themselves to their wheels when a storm closed in on them. No doubt (he mused) they had the intelligence to supply themselves with rope before the storm really got going; God knows you couldn’t go back for it later.

He tried not to remember that those men had crews, as he struggled to maintain the bearing Tarrant had chosen. He tried not to think about the fact that if those men wound up in the water, all they had to worry about was drowning. If this boat went under with the Hunter inside it, unable to save himself while any hint of daylight remained—

Not much danger in that, he thought grimly, as the sky overhead went from pearl gray to ash gray to a steamy charcoal. A film of rain enveloped the horizon, and Damien could only pray that he was still where he belonged, in the middle of the Serpent, and not north or south where the rocky shores lay hidden in the mist. Soon it would be dark enough that even the Hunter could come out ... and Damien wouldn’t have complained if he did.

“Tell me again how this is less dangerous than being on land,” he muttered, as he fought the wheel into a new and hopefully more promising position. Damn the man for going below without doing something to control this storm! It was little consolation that without it their enemies in Seth would surely have overtaken them by now. Damien would trade this cold, rainy Hell for a hand-to-hand conflict any day.

At last, after what seemed like an eternity, the wind began to abate. Numbly, Damien noted that they were still afloat. It seemed nothing short of a miracle, for which he gave thanks as he tried to unclench his hands from the wheel, to force life back into his strained and frozen flesh. There was a pain in his shoulder blades that felt like a spear had gouged into his flesh there, and his feet were soaked and aching from the cold ... but he was alive. That was worth a few deep breaths, surely. He watched foam-topped waves break against the prow with considerably less fury than before, and muttered a quick prayer under his breath. Please, God, let that be the worst of it.

It was.

At sunset Tarrant rose up from his hiding place within the cargo hold, and came to where Damien stood, shivering and exhausted. Without a word he took hold of the wheel and nodded for the ex-priest to withdraw. It took Damien a minute to get his flesh to respond, so frozen was he in that attitude. At last, stiffly, he started back to where the turbine still churned, meaning to feed it more fuel. “I’ve already taken care of it,” Tarrant informed him, as he swung the boat about on a new heading. For a moment Damien could neither move nor respond, then he walked a few steps to where a narrow bench was fixed to the deck and fell down onto it, heavily.

“It would have been nice if you’d done something to calm down that storm,” he muttered.

“I did. As much as any man can, who conjures wind in such a hurry.”

“I meant during the day.” Hell, what was the point of this? But he couldn’t stop the words from coming, not after all those hours. “It was dark enough—”

“I did," the Hunter snapped. “Forgive me for not coming up on deck to make a show of it. Or did you think that the storm died down just in time out of liking for us?” He glanced toward the shore as if judging their distance from it, then back at the water directly ahead of them. “Weather-Working is a risky art, Vryce, I told you that before. Under the circumstances, I did the best I could.” He glanced back at Damien; the look of concern on his face was almost human. “Get some sleep,” he urged. And then, dryly: “I’ll wake you before the fun starts.”

He started to respond, then didn’t. His mouth framed a question, then lost it. With a groan he forced himself to his feet-no easy task, that, not once he had allowed himself the luxury of sitting, down—and started back toward the cabin. There should be a comfortable place in there somewhere, if the horses didn’t trample him while he looked for it. Definitely worth the search.

That decided, he sank down to the deck beside the bench, lowered his head to the rain-washed wood, and drifted off into a sound and untroubled sleep.

Waves against wood. Wind slapping canvas. For a moment he couldn’t place where he was, and then it all came back to him. Along with the pain.

“God,” he whispered. His neck, the only part of him that hadn’t hurt earlier, was cramped from his awkward sleeping posture. He tried to massage out the knot that had formed in it while pushing himself up to a sitting position. “Where are we?”

Tarrant was still at the wheel. “Check the furnace,” he said, without turning around. Damien muttered something incoherent and moved to obey.

There was still fuel, but not much. He stayed around for a minute to watch it burn, reveling in the feel of its heat upon his face, and then climbed back up to the captain’s perch.

“Everything all right?”

“Yeah,” he affirmed. “If you don’t count that the horses nearly killed me.

The Hunter glanced at him. “My Working didn’t hold?”

“They’re scared and they’re hungry; you’ve got a lot to Work against.” Heavily he sat down on the bench once more, gazing out at the water ahead. It seemed to him that there was something dark along the horizon, that might or might not be land. “You bringing us in?”

“Unless you’d care to spend another day on the water.”

“Please.” He shivered melodramatically. “Don’t even joke about it.”

It seemed to him that Tarrant smiled ever so slightly. Damien studied his slender hands resting on the wheel, so elegant, so confident-so different from his own anxious grip—and asked, “So when the hell did you learn to sail?”

“When I accompanied Gannon and his troops to Westmark.” The Hunter shifted the wheel slightly to the right, toward the land ahead. “Unlike you, I take every opportunity to expand my store of knowledge.”

“You also had a crew to back you up.”

“You did fine, Reverend-” Damien heard his quick intake of breath as he caught himself. “You did fine,” he said softly. “We’re still afloat, aren’t we? That’s what matters.”

Damien stood again and studied the view; the thing that might be land was growing steadily larger ahead of them. “So where are we?”

“Halfway between Hade and Asmody, if I judge it correctly.”

Farther east than they’d planned on. “How can you tell?”

“I have Vision, remember? To my eyes this whole region is alive with power, and the Forest-” he nodded toward the darkness ahead and to the left of them, "-is as bright as a beacon to my eyes.”

Something occurred to him then, that never had before. “You’re never really in darkness, are you?”

It seemed to him that the Hunter smiled slightly. “Not as you know the word. Although when we were out in the ocean there were nights that came close. And the Unnamed—”

He stopped then, unwilling or unable to say more, but Damien could see the muscles along his face and neck tense as he remembered. What had the Unnamed done to him, there in his custom-designed Hell? Damien didn’t want to ask.

“So what now?” he said quietly.

Tarrant exhaled softly, accepting the reprieve. “Calesta will no doubt expect us to put into Hade or Asmody, and continue northward from there.”

“Which means he’s probably prepared a reception for us in both places.”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Damn.” It was hard enough avoiding pursuit on open land, where you could go in nearly any direction. How did you do it pulling into a harbor, where one man with a farseer could spot you in time to raise a regiment? “Any idea how he’s controlling these people?”

The Hunter shrugged stiffly. “Dreams, perhaps. Visions. Or perhaps even direct control, using those few men who have bonded with him. Does it matter? The result is deadly for us, no matter what the technique.”

“So what do we do?” he demanded. “Sail east past Hade, and hope we can make the next port by morning? Hope that he hasn’t fortified that one as well?”

For a moment Tarrant didn’t answer. Then, without a word, he pointed toward the dark mass before them.

Damien drew in a sharp breath. “You’re crazy.”

“Prima’s full overhead, and Domina’s half should rise soon. That should give us good enough light.”

“For what? To see ourselves get killed?”

“I hope something less dramatic than that.” He glanced to the left slightly, as if measuring their direction against the Forest’s chill glow. All Damien could see was water. “We can’t just sail into port. Surely you realize that. Which leaves only one way to land—”

“They built a port on every hospitable mile of this coast,” Damien reminded him. “Which means, by definition, that any place without a port is going to be nasty.”

“So it is,” he agreed. “How fortunate that we both know how to swim.” The pale eyes fixed on Damien. “You do know how to swim, don’t you?”

“I can swim,” he growled.

“It’ll take us about an hour to get into position. The horses should be brought out by then, in case I miscalculate. As for supplies—”

“What chance is there of that?”

“What?”

“That you’ll miscalculate"

It seemed to him that a fleeting smile flitted across the man’s face. God damn him if he finds this amusing. “I can get some sense of the ground beneath us by the light of the earth-fae, but that won’t come into clear focus until we’re very close. And there is, as you say, no truly hospitable shore. Nevertheless ...” He adjusted the wheel again, ever so slightly; it seemed to Damien that the shadow ahead was noticeably larger. “Even such risk is preferable to marching right into Calesta’s hands, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” he growled. “Only ... oh, hell.” He drew in a deep breath and counted to ten. Exhaled it slowly. “It doesn’t matter, does it? Just tell me when to jump.”

Now the Hunter’s amusement was clear. Damn him to hell for it.

“I will,” he promised.

Damien had been on a freighter once that had gotten caught up in a tsunami. It had been a simple flood wave that brought them in, not a bore, but that made it no less frightening. The wave had borne them into the harbor amidst a sea of wreckage and then withdrawn beneath them, dashing them down upon the very pier it had deluged mere moments ago. He still remembered the sound of the hull smashing as mooring piles stabbed into it from beneath, the screams of men and women as the deck canted wildly, spilling the less fortunate into the madly churning harbor. It was a scene that still haunted his dreams, that had driven him to choose land over sea whenever possible, that had developed in him an almost pathological hatred of the sea and all its arts.

Compared to such a landing, he had to admit, this one wasn’t the worst he had experienced.

But it came damned close.

Tarrant brought them in as close as he dared, then paralleled the coast for some miles searching for a promising site. Lacking his adept’s Vision, unable to Work his own equivalent with a fathom of water between him and the earth-fae, Damien could only watch and pray as mile after dark mile passed to the starboard. At last he saw Tarrant begin to bring about the wheel, a look of grim determination on his face. “Good spot?” he dared. “Best we’ll get,” the Hunter responded.

Great.

They drove the boat aground on a rocky slope, their speed carrying them forward for yards more even as the ground ripped wood from the hull beneath them. The sound awakened memories in Damien that were better off forgotten, and he tried to focus on the mechanisms of immediate survival as a way of escaping them. Get the horses into the water as safely as possible, and see that they were moving toward shore. Clear the boat himself and get far away, lest it slip from its precarious grounding and drag him out into the sea in its wake. Try to keep sight of the shore as the breaking waves frothed over his head, pointedly not reminding himself how much he hated to swim even at a civilized beach....

But Tarrant had done it well, give him credit for that. Not yards beyond the place where they ran aground Damien felt solid earth beneath his feet. Within yards more he was walking, as securely as one could with surf pounding at one’s chest, and he saw to his satisfaction—and relief-that the horses had likewise found solid footing. He didn’t bother to look for Tarrant-if, God forbid, the current dragged the adept under, he could use the earth-fae beneath the water to save himself-but struggled toward land, sputtering and cursing the fate that seemed determined to drown him.

And then at last he was on shore. A prayer of thankfulness rose to his lips as he struggled along the rocky beach, to a boulder-strewn slope that even the horses didn’t seem anxious to climb. There he collapsed, cursed briefly at the impact of sharp rocks against his flesh, and took a few deep breaths to celebrate his safety. From where he sat he could see Tarrant coming up on the beach, and rather than come up directly to where Damien was he loosed the slip knot at his belt and began to pull in the rope that led back to the boat. For a moment Damien held his breath, wondering if their last-minute plan would bear fruit, and then he saw a low shadow coming toward them, riding the waves. He forced himself back up to his feet and down to the water’s edge, where he helped the Hunter pull. Their makeshift raft trembled as the waves broke over it, but made it to shore without real incident. Quickly they unloaded the supplies they had lashed upon it, and carried them up to where the horses, milling nervously, waited for them.

“Whoever owns that boat isn’t going to be happy about this,” Damien noted, as the last of the small ship’s stores was brought out of reach of the water.

“Let’s hope he has insurance.” The Hunter was running his hands over the horses’ legs, making sure they had sustained no injury in the landing. “This one’s bleeding,” he warned Damien, and the priest limped over to Heal the wound. Was there a category of insurance for having your boat stolen by an undead sorcerer while the owner was away attending a demon-inspired posse? If so, the rate schedule must be interesting.

The Hunter walked back to the edge of the water. Damien almost moved to follow him, men decided that if the man wanted help he would have asked for it. He watched while Tarrant fixed his eyes on the wounded boat. Working, no doubt, but toward what end? Then the boat, half-submerged in the water, tore loose from its rocky mooring with a crack of wood and screech of metal so loud that Damien stiffened despite himself. Slowly, inch by inch, it began to back its way out into the Serpent. He could see it shaking as if struggling to rise up, some trapped air pocket not yet willing to acquiesce to the watery embrace, but Tarrant’s power and the underwater currents held it fast. The rail slipped beneath the water’s surface, then the cabin roof, then the polished wooden wheel, spinning madly as though in protest. Soon only the masts remained, rising up like sea serpents out of the black water. Damien could see Tarrant tense, as an athlete might before lifting a great weight. And then the masts began to bend to one side, and the waves seemed to tremble, and it seemed to him that the earth itself grew warm as the wooden beams finally cracked at their base and plummeted down into the waves. There the power of the Hunter weighted them down, until they sank into a grave that no mere sea might unearth.

“Can’t Calesta just create an illusion that it’s still there?” he asked as the Hunter came back up the slope.

“We don’t yet know the limits of his power.”

Damien could hear the exhaustion in his voice, from an exercise which, however impressive, shouldn’t have drained that much. “Why make it easy on him?” How long had it been since Tarrant had fed properly? Four days at least. He’d planned to find fresh blood in Seth, or across the Serpent if that failed. What would he do now that the cities were off limits?

When the animals were Healed and calmed—the latter by Tarrant’s skill, and against considerable resistance-they negotiated the rocky slope at the point where it seemed most navigable. Though their mounts slipped once or twice and Damien had to stop to pry a stone out from between the toes of his, they made it to the top without major mishap, and finally looked out upon the land where fate had deposited them.

It was a bleak and barren landscape, and the cold, lifeless moonlight did little to soften its edge. The rocky ground was softened only by lichens and an occasional island of coarse grass, and jagged black monuments broke upward through its surface like knife blades, eerily aligned all at the same angle. There would be little grazing here, nothing on which to fuel a fire, and no certain cover come daybreak. Thank God they had brought the ship’s store of supplies along with them, now strapped to their saddlebags in makeshift oilcloth packs.

“North,” the Hunter directed, and they proceeded with all due haste. Once or twice he called for a halt, dismounting momentarily so that he might make direct contact with the earth-currents. Damien saw him Working, and guessed that he was doing something to hide their trail. An Obscuring? No, that would be too easily countered by their enemy. More likely some Working that actually stirred the dirt and stones until their marks were truly invisible, so that it would take more than a mere illusion to uncover them. Nevertheless he could see a hard truth in the Hunter’s eyes, backlit by a growing fear: if the demon Calesta knew where they were going, how great an effort would it take for him to lead men to them? “Let him at least work for it,” the Hunter muttered as he remounted. And they started off again.

Some two hours north of the shore the land grew marginally gentler, and plants could be seen to sprout where time and wind had broken the stone down to a hospitable soil. Tarrant Knew some five or six species of grass before at last he pulled up where one clustered, announcing, “This will do.” As soon as he released the horses from the Working that bound them, they lowered their heads to the fresh plants and began to eat as if there were no tomorrow. Which, Damien mused darkly, there might not be.

“Where now?” he asked, as Tarrant rescued his maps from an oilcloth bundle. The well-wrapped papers had suffered little from their immersion, thank Tarrant’s power for that. The Hunter was nothing if not thorough. As Damien rescued a meal’s worth of food from his saddlebag—the horses were so intent on their own meal that they didn’t notice him at all-Tarrant studied the currents to all sides of them as a mariner might study the stars. “We’re here,” he said at last. He spread out the map on a mound of rock and weighted its corners down with stones. Sitting down on the opposite side of it, Damien studied the familiar handwriting with its assortment of notes. They had indeed come to land midway between Hade and Asmody, as Tarrant had guessed; even now the men of those two cities might be searching the rocky shore for traces of their passage. The Hunter’s slender finger marked a place some miles north of the water, then moved upward: over the first line of hills, through the Raksha Valley, up to a mountain range labeled Black Ridge. “We have to cross this,” he told Damien. “And there are only three ways to do that, short of riding up over the top. This pass-” and he moved his finger west, to a place near the Forest’s own border, "-is by far the easier crossing, and the one I would have preferred. But there’s little doubt in my mind, given our experience in Seth, that Calesta will marshal local forces to make that pass inaccessible.”

“No argument there,” he muttered, thinking of all the violence that had been taking place at the Forest’s edge. The men of Yamas and Sheva would be all too happy to ambush a pair of sorcerers, if they believed that by doing so they might render their families safer. “So: here.” The Hunter moved his finger eastward along the Ridge, until it came to rest at a place labeled Gastine Pass, some forty miles north and twenty miles east of them. “It’s bound to be safer than the other right now.”

“And pretty far out of our way.”

“Do you see an alternative?”

“You’re the one who cares about time.” Did it seem that the Hunter flinched? Certainly he hesitated before answering, “I would rather lose a day reaching my goal than lose my life getting there.”

“You’re that sure he’ll be waiting for us?” The silver eyes met his. “Aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” he muttered. “That’s the rotten part about traveling with you, you know? Even your enemies are competent.” He took a short swig from his canteen, and watched as Tarrant did the same, trying to assess the weight of the Hunter’s canteen by the way he handled it. Half-empty at least, he judged. Did he have others like it, or was he reaching the end of his supply? “What about the Gastine? Won’t he try to whip up some kind of ambush there, once he guesses where we’re headed?”

“Without doubt. But the towns near there are farther from the Forest, and its people will be less ready to rally to his cause.” He paused. “The trick is to beat them there.”

He drew in a sharp breath and glanced back at the grazing horses. “Our mounts—”

“Will need attention,” he agreed. “And as Healing is your department, not mine, I leave you to it.” He rose to his feet in a fluid motion, not unlike a snake uncoiling. “The currents here are strong, but you should be able to Work them. One benefit of having been driven so far from our chosen course,” he said dryly. And then he began to walk away from the camp. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Far enough from the three of you that I can Know what’s happening in the Forest. Or, at least, try to.”

“I thought it was all but impossible to do that from here.”

“Yes. Well.” The Hunter’s eyes glittered in the moonlight, half-lidded and thoughtful. “Doing the impossible seems to be our order of business, doesn’t it?” He gazed out at the endless dark vista to the west of them, and Damien thought he saw him stiffen in anticipation. “You just see to the horses.”

See to the horses. Easier said than done, when the problem was not one wound or a simple illness but general systemic exhaustion. The animals needed sound sleep and a few good meals, not another Working. But with fifty or more miles ahead of them before they reached the Ridge, Damien and Tarrant had little choice. Calesta would certainly make sure that no town let them come close enough to purchase-or steal, he added grimly-fresher mounts.

“Don’t go far,” he warned Tarrant. The man was too far away to hear him now, but what the hell. He felt better for saying it.

With a sigh, he braced himself for a Healing.

They pushed hard for the rest of the night, hard enough that Damien wondered if the horses wouldn’t collapse before dawn. If so, he didn’t know that he could do much to save them. It was one thing to spruce up an animal’s biochemistry when it was still relatively healthy, another thing entirely to save it once systemic breakdown had begun. But to his surprise they kept up a hard pace through the remainder of the night, enough to get their riders across the sloping line of hills which bordered the Raksha Valley to the south, and partway across the valley itself.

By morning’s light Damien could see their eventual destination, a solid black wall that stretched as far as the eye could see to the east and the west of them, cutting short not only routes of travel but the very winds themselves. Weather systems rarely crossed the Black Ridge, he knew that from Geography 101, and the currents likewise tended to flow around it instead of across it. Which was in the long run what made the valley habitable, since the fae beyond that barrier was hot enough and wild enough that even sorcerers feared it.

And that’s where we’re headed, he thought, gazing at the snow-clad peaks. Not a happy thought.

From where they made their camp, Damien could see the pass itself, a place where the great ridge had folded in its making, creating a deep cleft through which men might travel without braving its heights. His stomach tightened at the thought of what might be waiting for them there, but he knew in his heart that there was no alternate route. Unlike the varied ranges of the east, the Black Ridge was an all-or-nothing climb for most of its length. And while they could push their horses hard along open ground and hope to make good time, Damien knew that if they tried to ride up there, where heat and oxygen were both in short supply, they would soon find themselves walking.

Nevertheless ... “No other way?” he asked Tarrant as the man dismounted. Hoping that there was some route he didn’t know about, which they could turn to.

“I’m afraid not,” the Hunter told him. And that was that. Because if there was any man Damien trusted to know the layout of this land, and to assess its hidden potential, it was the Hunter.

He watched as Tarrant drained the last of his canteen’s contents, and waited for him to say something about his need for further nourishment. But the Hunter offered no information, and he didn’t want to ask him about it. If he needed something more than he carried with him, surely he would tell Damien. The Hunter had never been shy about his needs.

I’ll feed him if I have to, he thought. Wondering even as he did so how he could do battle with Calesta’s troops with less blood in his own veins than he needed, or weakened by an endless assault of nightmares. Then he thought about the pass and what would be waiting for them there. Can you make me more afraid than 1 already am?

“Get some sleep,” Tarrant urged him. “Tomorrow will be a hard day.”

Sleep. Could you sleep in the shadow of such a threat, pretending that it was just another day? When the wind grew quiet, he imagined he could hear men’s voices in the distance, as Calesta used the daylight hours to prepare for combat. How many local warriors had he gathered there, how had he prepared them for the battle to come? Did they think they were fighting demons, or some other faeborn threat? What manner of illusion served them in the place of courage, that would keep them fighting long after every human instinct cried, Enough!

Shivering, he laid his head down on his pack and tried to sleep. Wondering if somewhere in between the nightmares that awaited him he might not find five or ten minutes of genuine rest, so that he could be fresh and ready at sunset.

Twenty-three days left.

32

It took the Church’s faithful five days to reach Kale. They followed the path that regional planners had laid out centuries ago, when they first came to understand that in order to travel freely across the continent man would need protection from the night and its demons at regular intervals. The daes—small fortress-inns, solidly walled and carefully warded—punctuated the road at planned intervals, and their facilities, designed to accommodate massive trade caravans when necessary, were not hard pressed to provide room and board for the small band of warriors and their horses.

Eighty-seven men and women. Not all of those would be going into the Forest, of course; there were a handful who would be assigned liaison duties in Mordreth, and at least a dozen more who would man a supporting camp just outside the Forest’s borders, to guarantee their supply line should the conflict become an extended one. Several hundred more were already in place at the edge of that damned realm, stripping the land of all that could burn against the day when the Church’s final weapon would be wielded, and the Forbidden Forest would pass into history. It was a small force even in its total, a deliberate contrast to the vast armies which had assaulted that realm in ages past. Those armies had failed, the Patriarch was quick to remind them. Numbers alone could not guarantee safety in a war where the very battlefield was alive and hostile. So this time they would field not an army proper, but a finely honed strike force, who would pierce the Forest quickly, strike its blow, and then—hopefully—get out.

The Hunter’s realm, going up in flames. Andrys dreamed of it daily, savoring the vision as his mount carried him closer and closer to its fulfillment. The image sustained him when all else seemed about to fall apart, when the strength he feigned and the courage he pretended to possess seemed more of a lie than ever. The heat of that fire fed him with life, and with hope, and gave him the strength to go on.

His companions were strangers to him. He walked among them, he ate dinner in their company, but they might have been from another planet for all he understood them. It was the religious thing, of course. Like all the Tarrants, Andrys had been raised to serve the One God, in word and deed if not in spirit, and he had been to services often enough for weddings and the like to be able to mouth the common prayers along with his fellows. But it meant little to him. These people were different. They were marching north to fight, perhaps to die, all in the name of a God so divorced from human affairs that they never even dreamed He would help them. Why? Between their motives and his comprehension was a chasm so vast, so darkly infinite, that all the well-intended prayers in the world could not begin to bridge it.

Faith. It meant nothing to him. Faith was a fantasy, a delusion. Faith was like"wine: you poured it inside you and for a brief time it blossomed, it eased the pain of living, it banished the guilt that tended to clog up a man’s head. And then it was gone, like wine: digested, expelled, forgotten. What was the point?

Did anyone really believe the One God was out there? Did anyone believe that He cared the least bit whether this venture of theirs succeeded? Did they honestly believe that a caring God would let a creature like the Hunter exist in the first place, much less reward his lifestyle with virtual immortality?

Maybe the pagans have it right, he thought bitterly. Envying his polytheistic brethren for the comforting simplicity of their faith. Do good or evil, and the world responds in kind. Maybe not the way you would have liked, maybe not in a way you even understand, but at least the relationship is there. That, he could relate to. This ... this was a total mystery to him.

Perhaps if he could just be alone for a short while he could come to terms with it all. But there was little privacy in this new world of his. His days were spent riding with the troops, the Patriarch of the Eastern Autarchy on his right and the Company Commander, a woman named Tabra Zefila, on his left. Sandwiched in by authority like that, he felt self-conscious even sneezing; God alone knew what would happen if a muttered curse should escape his lips when his horse stumbled. At night he ate with the common troops, while the two leaders withdrew to converse in private. An alien in their midst, he rarely joined in their conversation. When it came time to retire, he joined his fellow men in a room prepared for merchant guards, six bunks to a room with a common bath. Never alone. Sometimes he felt so desperate for privacy that he wanted to scream. It wasn’t just because he needed a drink so badly, so often; after dinner there was enough ale and enough wine making the rounds that he could sate his thirst without being conspicuous. In the past he’d had to hide his drunkenness in front of Samiel and Betrise so often that the skill was now second nature to him; he could drink himself to the borders of oblivion and still walk steadily to his room, even climb up to his bunk as if nothing were wrong. No, that wasn’t the problem. And it had nothing to do with the drugs he had brought with him, a last desperate gambit in case the journey proved too much for him. He hadn’t needed them yet, and if he did, he could always swallow a pill quickly in the bathroom and get back to bed before it took effect. No, that wasn’t it either.

It was the memories.

Not just memories of the past now, though chilling images of his family’s slaughter—and his own cowardly inadequacy-still churned in his brain. Now there were memories of the girl, as well. Sweet memories, warm and seductive ... and more painful than all the others combined. Because he wasn’t going back to her. He knew that. He was going to pit himself against the Forest in the hope of avenging his family, but the odds of his coming back from that quest were minimal. And even if he did, how could he take that gentle girl into his arms again once his flesh had housed the Hunter’s spirit? Even if he did survive this, even if he somehow-impossibly-managed to salvage his sanity, how could he pretend to just pick up where he had left off as if nothing had changed? Could a man become the Hunter in spirit and not be poisoned by the experience?

When he could, he lost himself in drink. When he couldn’t, he vacillated between fighting the memories-all of them—and giving way to the sweetest ones, a last fleeting indulgence before the darkness of the Hunter’s realm swallowed him whole.

They were received warmly in Kale, even passionately, as befit the first visit of this Patriarch to the thriving port city. To Andrys, who had never paid much attention to Church hierarchy-or any other power structure, for that matter-it was an eloquent reminder of the importance of the man who rode by his side, and the significance of his position to the men and women who worshiped the One God.

There were thousands of them lining the south road when they arrived, the faithful and the curious both, come to see this man who embodied God’s Will. Many reached out to touch him, and once or twice the Patriarch reined up and indulged them, offering his hand to be shaken or kissed or whatever. Watching him, Andrys was awed by the aura of the righteous authority which he exuded, and by its power over the people here. Some of them even fell to their knees as he approached, a gesture which he accepted as naturally and as regally as he did all the others. It was hard to remember who and what this man was when you saw him only in small rooms and on dusty horseback, running small affairs, dealing with trivial day-to-day matters, surrounded by people who were accustomed to his presence. It was something else again, Andrys thought, to see this. He found that he was trembling despite himself, and when the Patriarch turned once to look back at him he felt genuinely shaken, as if those blue eyes had been a channel to something greater, something any mere human should be frightened of.

The mayor met them at the city gate-an impromptu structure which had been hastily erected in order for there to be somewhere to hold such a ceremony—and showered them with verbal honor. Saviors of the north, he called them. Saints of the One God. But despite his surface enthusiasm, Andrys had the distinct impression that the man kept looking back over his shoulder, as if expecting something to creep up behind him at any moment.

It’s the ghost of Mordreth, Zefila whispered to him. It took him a minute to place the name, but when he did so he nodded solemnly that yes, he understood. Mordreth was a town just across the Serpent, on the very border of the Forest, which had once hosted a similarly organized effort to destroy the Hunter’s realm. In retribution, the town had been destroyed in a single night: man, woman and child; their pets and their flocks; and even the buildings that housed them, reduced to dead meat and rubble in one night of vengeance. It was little wonder that the mayor seemed so nervous, with such a reminder of the Hunter’s power only miles away. Given the circumstances, it was almost surprising that the troops had been welcomed at all.

They were given rooms, and food, and offered supplies; the Patriarch accepted it all. He was pressed into holding an impromptu service in the local church, which had to be moved to the city square to accommodate all the people who came. Andrys knew enough about Church theosophy to recognize that as the man stood there, the center of attention for thousands of worshipers, he was in fact shaping the fae through their faith, weaving additional power for use in this venture. Why can’t they just do it openly? he wondered. Call a stone a stone. But by the end of the service even he could feel the force of what had been conjured, and for once that night he retired without doubt, without fear, drifting softly into a realm where even the nightmares were gentle.

Would that it had lasted!

In the morning they set sail for Mordreth. Across the choppy waters of the Serpent (was the Hunter sending a storm to harass them?), past the dark bulk of Morgot (what enemies might emerge from that secret port?) into the muddy waters of Mordreth’s harbor. This time there were no warm welcomes awaiting them, no crowds to shower them with honor, not even a low-level official or two to make sure that they followed local port custom. Their own agent met them at the pier, along with the four Church-folk he had brought with him. Other than that, the harbor was practically deserted.

“They’re afraid,” he told the Patriarch, and Andrys thought, Who can blame them?

Through a nearly deserted town they rode, and the sky added its own silent comment by drizzling rain down on them. Many of Mordreth’s inhabitants had left the town in fear for their lives, and those that remained dared not even look upon the passing troops, for fear that the Hunter would read his own meaning into such behavior and “exact a terrible vengeance. Nevertheless, there were signs that life—and hope—had not been totally extinguished. A shutter creaking open as they passed, so that frightened eyes might gaze through the opening. A curtain pulled aside to reveal shadowed faces. It seemed to Andrys that once or twice he could hear muttered words-fragments of a prayer, it seemed-but he was at a loss to identify its source, or even explain how the sound had reached him.

“This is the face of our enemy,” the Patriarch pronounced, when they had all gathered at the far edge of town to hear his words. His arm swept toward the south, encompassing the town they had just passed through. “This is what we’ve come to fight. Can any man see what we have seen and doubt the inevitability of such a battle? Can any of you bear to stand back and do nothing and watch this influence spread, household by household, city by city, until the entire eastern realm scurries like frightened animals at the mere mention of the Hunter’s name? Until your husbands and your wives and your children cower in shadows at the slightest hint of his presence? We will cleanse this land forever,” he pronounced. “Not only to destroy an unclean thing which God Himself abhors, but to restore the spirits of our fellow men. It is the souls of humankind that we do battle for,” he told them, and the winds of the fae etched that message into their brains so powerfully that it seemed the fate of the entire world was at issue in this one campaign.

They rode northward for several hours, until at last, atop a low rise, Zefila called a halt. In the distance it was just possible to see the grasslands give way to a tightly wooded expanse, and Andrys felt his soul clench up at the sight of it. For a long time they stood there, gazing down at the enemy’s domain, and no one spoke a word. The air seemed to be thicker coming from that direction, and colder, and it carried a scent that was markedly unpleasant, of blood and illness and flesh gone to rot. One man was sickened enough by it that he went off to the rear of the company to vomit; Andrys could hear his heaving off to the left somewhere as he struggled to gather his own courage, and he wished desperately that he could sneak away and steal a drink. But there’d be no more ale now and no more wine until this matter was finished, he knew that. In a realm where one’s every fear would be given wings and teeth and the hunger to kill, drunkenness was too volatile a weakness.

They made camp there, within sight of their enemy’s domain. Amidst the wreckage of former encampments, now abandoned by the hunters and foragers who had erected them, they unpacked tents and bedrolls so new that price tags still dangled from the ends of many, and advertising leaflets fluttered to the grass as packs of foodstuffs were wrenched open. They would spend the night here and then move with the sun, letting that ultimate enemy of night light their way into Hell’s domain. Not that the light would actually help them much beneath that canopy, Zefila observed, studying it with a farseer, but the symbolism was important.

Symbolism.

It was in the name of symbolism that he unpacked his armor late that day. It was in the name of symbolism that he would be expected to wear it now, so that the troops might become accustomed to him in his new role. It was in the name of symbolism that he would be introduced to them anew, not as a visitor from a foreign realm, but as one who held the key to the Hunter’s domain: flesh of the Hunter’s flesh, blood of his blood.

One of the men had been sent in to help him, and at last it was he who took up the heavy breastplate and fitted it around Andrys’ torso, over his shirt. The youngest Tarrant shut his eyes and trembled, not only for what the moment represented in a military sense, but for the memories that were suddenly awakened. Her hands, soft upon the steel, gentle against his flesh. Her eyes, so deep and dark that a man could drown in them. Lost forever now. He felt a wetness come to one eye and wiped it away quickly, hoping that the man who was adorning him didn’t see it. He had to be strong now, that was part of his new image. Part of his new persona. Andrys Tarrant, a leader of men ... he almost laughed aloud. Was there ever a greater contradiction than that one? How Samiel would have roared with outraged laughter to hear it!

And then hands were guiding him and the man was telling him that all was finished, and he found himself stepping out of the tent, being led by a stranger’s touch toward the place where his fellow warriors awaited, where the Patriarch awaited....

Where his fate awaited.

The Patriarch stood at the crown of the mount, with the men and women who served him ranged in a half-circle beneath. Andrys came to the Patriarch’s side and bowed formally, acutely aware of how much each gesture mattered now. They had schooled him well on the journey here, and he went through each move like a seasoned dancer, sensing the power of his performance. Eighty-seven men and women-for they had left none in Mordreth-gazed upon the image that he projected, and their response shimmered in the unseen currents, creating a reality more powerful than any one man could manifest on his own. The fae here was so volatile, it was said, that a man’s dreams took on reality before they were even completed; what power did that give to the joint dreams of a hundred, when their minds were all fixed on a single focus? Him.

He looked like the Prophet now, as much as any living man could. His hair had been cut straight across the bottom, in the Prophet’s chosen style, and though it wasn’t quite long enough for the illusion to be perfect, it was damned close. His armor was the same as that in the mural which overhung the sanctuary in Jaggonath, down to the finest detail, and the clothing he wore beneath it was likewise identical. He was an image out of history, a creature of living legend, and as the waves of reaction rose up from the small crowd, he could feel it like a dull heat on his face. God, it was hard to breathe. He pulled at his collar to loosen it, but that didn’t help much. The constriction was internal.

He stood there as the Patriarch explained to them all just what the link was between Andrys Tarrant and the Hunter. He tried not to flush with shame as several of his companion warriors nodded knowingly, as if to say yes, we knew he wasn’t one of us, this at least explains why he’s here. Had he proven himself so unworthy in the past few days that such an explanation was required? As the Patriarch detailed the role that he would play, as the sun set in golden splendor behind him, Andrys heard few of the words. He was alone again, alone among aliens, and the one person who might have brought him comfort was a hundred miles behind him now, in another world.

The Forest will recognize this man as its own, the Holy Father explained. It will let him pass through unhindered, and every man that belongs to him will likewise be protected. Therefore every one of you must swear fealty to him, here and now, so that the relationship is clearly established.

They came to him one by one, then, to kneel before him and clasp their hands between his own. The words of oathtaking left his lips automatically, and he hardly heard them. Because as each man and woman knelt before him, as they repeated the ritual oath that the Patriarch had designed, the fae that coursed about them began to take on a new texture. He could feel it as he spoke, and the hair along the nape of his neck began to rise as if something loathsome were stroking him. It took everything he had not to draw back from them, to stand his ground and force the ritual words to his lips as if nothing whatsoever were wrong. After five of the oaths had been taken, it seemed to him that the loathsome something had somehow gained entrance to his brain, so that its presence seemed more intense when he struggled to think clearly. Panic welled up inside him, all the more intense because no one surrounding him seemed to be aware that anything was wrong.

Then, as the tenth oath was completed, it suddenly became clear to him what was happening.

The vows which these people were reciting had been carefully crafted for the, occasion in much the same way that other prayers—and the Law of the Church itself-had been crafted in the past. Emotive phrases had been designed to evoke specific images, so that the fae might be imprinted with the Church’s will. And it was working, all too well. The volatile fae at the edge of the Forest was quick to acknowledge the Church’s chosen imagery, and to set it upon the flesh which served as its focus. As soldier after soldier knelt before Andrys, acknowledging him as the Hunter’s kin, he could feel that fae pounding at him, driving the image home. He could feel bits of his identity tearing loose, and like a drowning man whose strength is failing him, he sensed the vast emptiness beneath him, which wanted only a moment’s acquiescence to swallow him whole.

He panicked then, and if the Patriarch hadn’t been by his side, he might have turned and run. But either the Holy Father sensed the turmoil in him, or his visions had given him warning; he came up behind Andrys and put a hand firmly upon his shoulder. Just that. The simple touch reminded him of everything that had driven him here, of the horror that his life had become, of his commitment to the Church and to these people who served it. Trembling, he stood his ground. Another man knelt before him, and then a woman, and then two men. Each oath spawned a new tidal wave of power that slammed into him, leaving him so breathless it was all he could do to mouth the words of acceptance which had been assigned to him, not hearing them, just struggling to survive. He was seeing visions now, vile hallucinations that would no doubt have pleased the Hunter, images of blood and death and violence so extreme that it seemed impossible anyone could have witnessed them. Were these Gerald Tarrant’s memories, or some nameless, less precise horror? He shivered as they poured into him, struggling to hold onto his sanity. Twenty oaths. Thirty. The line seemed endless, and as each new soldier knelt before him, he wanted to scream at them, he wanted to turn and run, he wanted to be anywhere but here, doing anything but this. ...

And then there was a familiar touch in his mind, and the visions shifted. Only for a moment, but the moment was enough. Calesta’s touch, sure and effective, rekindled the hatred that was his only remaining strength. Visions of blood gave way to visions of his family’s slaughter; dreams of violence gave way to the hunger for vengeance. He clung to the moment’s offering as a lifeline, and somehow forced the required words past his lips time and time again: I accept the dedication of your life to mine, I acknowledge you as an extension of my will, I swear unto you protection against all harm.... He gasped as the cold malignance of the Hunter’s presence surged through his flesh, and felt the Patriarch’s grip tighten on his shoulder. Oh, God, he prayed, if you’re really out there, if you give a damn, help me! But the God of Earth wasn’t known for interference in such affairs, and His holy representative, for all his good intentions, had no idea what manner of power he had conjured with this ritual.

And then it was over. The last man retreated a respectful distance from the mound, giving Andrys room to breathe at last. Shivering violently, the young man prayed that he would be allowed to withdraw soon. Surely it was in all their best interests that his terror not be made manifest before the troops! But then there was a stirring by his side, and the Patriarch himself stood before him. The clear blue eyes met his for a minute and he felt himself pierced through by their intensity. Then, with a nod, the Holy Father slowly lowered himself to one knee and offered up his own hands for oathtaking.

No! Andrys wanted to scream. I’m unclean now! Can’t you see that? But the Patriarch’s gaze was steady, and his hands didn’t waver from their position. At last, trembling, Andrys took up the required pose. “For this one occasion,” the Patriarch’s oath began. “In this single set of circumstances.” He had chosen his words carefully, but Andrys could barely hear them. The cold grip of the Forest was squeezing his heart, and terror surged within his veins. What if the creature who received this oath was no longer entirely Andrys Tarrant, but some half-made being that was even now being reWorked by the Forest’s currents? He understood why the Patriarch felt that even he must be fully a part of their deceit, but wasn’t the risk just too high?

Don’t do it! he wanted to yell. Save yourself, your people need you!

And then it was truly over, all of it. Finally. Dazed, he listened to the closing rites, watching as the golden Corelight took precedence over the clean white light of the sun. The latter was wholly gone now, and the first stage of night was descending. Soon the demons of the night would come out in force, and if they didn’t acknowledge Andrys in his chosen role—

Don’t think about that, he thought desperately. Knowing, in the core of his soul, that the unclean essence of the Hunter was inside him now, and that any hungry demonling with eyes could see it. Oh, God. He had thought that it might drive him mad to pretend to be the Hunter; what would it do to him if the Forest’s fae transformed him utterly, making him into a copy of that damned soul in truth? What would his Church allies do then-struggle to save him, to salvage his soul, or condemn him to the same fate as his forebear?

He suddenly felt trapped, and was desperately glad that the tents had already been erected; as soon as this nightmare scene was over, he could take refuge in the limited privacy of his assigned canvas quarters. The thought of that privacy was all that sustained him as the last prayers were said, the last evocations recited. ...

He walked. He wanted to run, but that would only alert the others, and then they would follow him. He walked to the tent that had been assigned to him-a private tent, in deference to his new position of authority—and carefully ducked in beneath the flap. His heart was pounding so loudly he was amazed they couldn’t hear it, but maybe their minds were on other things. Maybe in the face of what was coming tomorrow they had little time to spare for worrying about the mental health of their chosen figurehead.

His pack was lying beside his bedroll; he dropped to his knees beside it and struggled to open it, his hands shaking as he attacked its ties and clasps. Soon, he promised himself. Soon. Thinking of what was inside and the peace that it would bring, he could barely manage the patience required to get the damn thing opened. Then the top flap was open at last and he spilled his possessions out onto the ground, all of them in a pile. With feverish hands he sorted through the pile, having no concern for any item other than the one he sought. Buried, it eluded his searching fingers for long, painful minutes. He drew in a deep breath and started again, this time moving each item to a new pile as he searched beneath it. Clothing, first aid, toiletries ... It wasn’t there. No, he thought. Not daring to believe it. He searched through the pile again, this time less neatly, and when he was done the interior of the tent was littered with his possessions. Still the small bottle eluded him. He began a desperate search through the pack itself, forcing shaking fingers down into its deepest pockets, squeezing the lining to see if anything had fallen down into it, madly searching even the straps—

“Looking for something?”

The voice stopped him cold. The straps of the pack fell from his numbed fingers as he looked up from the ground to his visitor’s face, scanning robes that were all too familiar. God, please, he prayed, spare me this humiliation. But no simple prayer was going to make the Patriarch go away, no matter how heartfelt it was.

“I removed the drugs from your pack en route to Mordreth,” the Holy Father said quietly, “and I gave them to the Serpent. I assume that’s what you’re looking for?” When Andrys didn’t answer, he nodded slightly as if reading confirmation into his pained expression. “What you did with your life before this point is your own business, Mer Tarrant, but now you no longer live for yourself. You live for all of us. And I will not have my Church’s dreams compromised by a handful of pills, or by your willingness to parade your addictions in front of my people.”

Shame rose to his face in a hot flush; he tried to stammer some kind of protest, but couldn’t get the words out. Had the Patriarch known all along what Andrys carried with him? Was it a vision that had betrayed him, or some more human source? “I wouldn’t-” he began. Then shame caught in his throat, and even those words failed him. “You don’t understand,” he whispered.

“I understand enough to see what would happen to my people if they perceived such weakness in you. Before tonight it might have meant little, but now, after all their vows . . . you have a responsibility, Mer Tarrant, and it’s my job to see that you live up to it. Painful though that might be.”

He hung his head, and thus didn’t see what the Patriarch was doing as the wool robes shifted. He didn’t see what the Patriarch removed from his pocket, not until the man cast it down in front of him.

A bottle.

“It’s from Jaggonath,” With numb fingers Andrys picked it up; the velvet black pills of a blackout fix tumbled one over another as he turned it in his hand, incredulous. “The founding fathers of that city, in their wisdom, declared that no man should ever have the right to burden others with his intoxication. They ordered that all mind-altering drugs be combined with a paralytic, so that the user must suffer its effects in the privacy of his own soul.” He gestured down toward the bottle. “If you perceive such a desperate need for comfort that you would be willing to risk a period of paralysis, then here it is. You may do whatever you like in private, so long as you remember that your public life is no longer your own.”

Lowering his head in shame, he whispered, “You don’t understand.”

“As one who has lived in the public eye for almost fifty years, I do understand,” His tone was bitter, unforgiving. “I understand more than you know.” He paused for a moment; his condemnation was like a gust of hot wind, that made Andrys’ face flush even redder. “I won’t have this mission compromised by a moment of weakness, Mer Tarrant-not yours, not mine. Remember that.”

He left the tent as silently as he had come, but something of his condemnation seemed to remain behind him: Andrys could feel it as he turned the bottle over and over in his hand, hungering desperately to open it and swallow its precious contents, but knowing in the tortured depths of his heart that there would be no place and no time safe enough to do so until this campaign was over. Then even that vestige of the Holy Father’s presence faded, and he was alone at last. Just him and the bottle. Just him and the night.

Just him, and the Hunter in his soul.

33

"We’re WHAT?"

“Going west,” the Hunter repeated, in a voice that was so maddeningly calm Damien wanted to choke the life out of him. “Toward the pass that lies near the Forest. You remember, we discussed it last night.”

“I know, I just...” He shook his head, torn between anger and amazement. “Just like that? You woke up and decided that we’d wasted the last ten hours, time to pick a new direction?”

“Not at all,” Tarrant said coolly. “The decision was made long before that.”

“You mean you lied to me.”

“I regret that it was necessary.”

He almost hit him. Really. Even though it wouldn’t do any good. Even though the Hunter could Work the earth-fae and stop him faster than he could carry through the blow. It would feel that good just to try it. Only the look in those pale, cold eyes kept him from moving. The utter calm in them, and the unshakable certainty. Before those things he quailed.

“Think about it,” Tarrant urged. “Our enemy has the power to read what’s in our hearts. Which means that we can have no secrets from him. Unless he doesn’t bother to look for secrets. Unless he thinks he knows all there is to know.”

“So, in other words, you set me up. You told me we were going east when you never intended to, so that Calesta would believe it.” His hands had curled into fists of their own accord; he forced himself to open them. “And what made you so sure he would look into my heart, and not yours? Wasn’t that a hell of a risk to take?”

The pale eyes, golden in the Corelight, glittered with disarming intensity. “We already know he’s not watching us every minute. What else explains the Locatings I worked in Seth? The one I conjured while we were in flight was masked by an illusion meant to mislead us, but the one before that wasn’t. Such trivial games were of no concern to him when he thought he had us cornered. He has a war to fight, remember.” He nodded west, toward the distant Forest. “No doubt he’s anxious to focus on it.”

With a hot flush Damien remembered their flight through Seth, and his own angry cries. Dammit, man, you’re going the wrong way! Remember the map? He hadn’t noticed that the two images Tarrant had conjured didn’t match up. He had trusted in the Hunter’s power....

“In the face of Iezu illusion,” Tarrant said, answering his thoughts, “even my own Workings must be suspect.”

“How do you know he’s reading my mind?” he demanded. “What if you’re his source?”

“Unlikely. Of the two of us, I would be more likely to recognize signs of his interference. With you ...” He hesitated. “No offense, Vryce, but you’re hardly well versed in demon recognition.”

“He could fool you if he tried.”

“But he’d have to work much harder at it. And I’m willing to bet that the Iezu, like men, prefer the path of least resistance.”

“Yeah, but can we be sure of that?”

“No,” he admitted. “It’s a gamble. A last-ditch effort in a game where Calesta controls most of the pieces. I’m sorry I had to plan it alone, but sharing my fears with you would have meant sacrificing the effectiveness of the feint. And seeing how little we have going for us without it . . .” He shrugged. “I apologize, Vryce. You deserved better.”

“No.” He sighed heavily and raised up a hand to rub his temples. “Don’t. You were right, as usual. Let’s just hope it worked.” He glanced toward the east, where the mountain cleft beckoned. “So what happens now?”

“If Calesta’s paying attention to us right now, then he’ll assign his local pawns to direct pursuit. But I don’t think he is. I think that he’s arrogant enough—and distracted enough-to believe that his current arrangements are sufficient.”

“But we can’t really know that, any more than we can know what his next move will be.”

“There are four dozen men waiting for us right now at Gastine Pass,” he said calmly. “That much is without question. Assuming my understanding of the situation is correct, I estimate two hours before Calesta realizes something is wrong, as that’s how long it would have taken us to reach his little trap. At that point it will be too late for anyone from there to catch up with us. He’ll have to make new plans, focusing on the western route.”

“And then what? If he can motivate that many to come after us ..." Four dozen! God in Heaven! “You said yourself that the towns bordering on the Forest would be ready and willing to protect their turf. What makes that region any safer for us?”

“Time, Vryce. Time.” With a jerk he tightened the strap securing his horse’s saddle. “He can give them all the dreams he wants, but few men will rise up out of bed at that instant to fight his battles. I’m willing to bet he can’t muster a lynch mob until morning, and by then we should be far beyond their reach.”

“Gerald.” He put a hand to the saddle of his own horse. “It’s more than a hundred miles to the pass from here. That’s a hell of a ride in one night, even for horses that are endurance trained. Do you really think these two are going to make it?”

“All they have to do is get us there.” His black cloak fluttered in the evening breeze as he mounted, like a vast pair of wings. “As for their endurance ... I did what had to be done to assure that.” He brought his animal about so that it faced their distant goal. “And no complaints from you this time. Two horses are a small enough sacrifice, if their expiration puts us ahead of the enemy.”

Hand trembling slightly, Damien touched his horse’s flank. He could feel no change in the animal’s substance, but that didn’t mean that nothing had been altered. How little effort would it take to refigure its equine biochemistry so that the beast devoured itself for energy, ignoring all signs of exhaustion? How many vital systems had the Hunter re Worked, so that the processes which would normally kill the beast were circumvented, redirected, thwarted? He felt sick as he swung himself up to his accustomed seat. He felt as if death itself were poised there between his legs, wanting only the proper hour to make its true aspect known. But what other option was there?

“No complaints,” he muttered. Swinging his own horse around, so that they faced the looming Ridge. “I promise.”

Full-out gallop: the rhythm of death.

He wondered if Calesta could hear it.

Hour melding into hour, knees aching as he gripped the animal beneath him. A short stop to dig food out of his pack, then hurried mouthfuls swallowed while riding. Trying not to feel sick over the decay that was taking place beneath him, only telling himself over and over that there was no choice. If they didn’t make the western pass by morning, then Calesta would have the whole day to mobilize the valley folk against them.

Innocent blood on his sword, now wiped clean from all but his soul....

Two horses are a small enough sacrifice....

God help him, what had he become?

Closer and closer to the great ridge they rode, until its shadow blocked out the moon setting behind them, leaving only Casca’s crescent to light their way. It was a vast mountain range, barren and forbidding, and its stark silhouette was as unlike the gentle rolling hills of the south as the cracked frozen surface of a glacier was unlike a cool mountain stream. A steep oceanic ridge birthed when this continent was at the floor of the ocean, it cut across the land like an immense wall, protecting the fertile human settlements from the winds and the poisons of the regions beyond. It was said there were similar mountains to the north, scoring the land in parallel welts like claw marks, but most were submerged in a frozen sea, and none but the Earth-ship had ever seen them. One was enough, as far as Damien was concerned.

They rode through its foothills-if that word could be applied to such a place-where the earth began its steep slope upward. The towns which had been built in this region were far to the south of them, clustered along the river that coursed down the valley’s center. And for good reason, Damien noted. There was a temblor as they approached the ridge, and the cascade of sharp-edged rocks that came plummeting down the steep slope were an eloquent warning to any would-be traveler. Yet it was worth the risk for them, he thought, if it kept other people away. In this land where any human soul might be controlled by their enemy, isolation was a prerequisite for survival.

Mile after mile beat numbly into Damien’s flesh, his horse’s skin like fire between his legs, beneath his hands. God alone knew what was happening inside it, as the miles pounded underfoot one by one. Once he started to rein up to feed them, but Tarrant waved angrily for him to continue. Not necessary, his expression seemed to say. Or perhaps instead, No point. His heart cold, Damien obeyed. This ride would echo in his dreams for years to come, he knew, but not half so loudly as the ones he would have if they failed to get through the western pass before dawn.

Two horses is a small price....

What’s the third route to Shaitan’s valley? he had asked Tarrant, when the two pulled up briefly so that Damien might relieve himself.

A tunnel from beneath my keep, that exits there.

From the Forest? Damien had asked, surprised.

The Hunter nodded. I built it years ago, against the possibility that someday a human army might attack the keep itself. If I were to need an escape route, it stood to reason that it should be to a place where men would fear to follow. An unlikely event at best, but I pride myself on being prepared.

There was an army in the Forest now. What would happen if Jahanna fell? Would it affect Tarrant’s power, or only his mood?

None of that matters now, Damien told himself. Nothing matters but Calesta’s death.

He hoped, as they rode, that the Hunter shared his sentiment.

“There it is.”

They pulled up beside one another on a flat stretch of ground. Beneath them the horses had gone past sweat, past blood-flecked foam, to a state so painful and degraded that Damien flinched to note its symptoms. They were truly members of the living dead now, who wanted only Tarrant’s approval to fall to the ground and expire. Damien hoped for their sake that the moment came soon.

Black Ridge Pass wasn’t like its eastern sister in scope or configuration, but it promised a tolerable climb. A past earthquake had rent the ridge almost to its base, and time and weather had worked at the flaw, carving a u-shaped saddle into its slope. The approach was a steep climb, but not so impossible that horses couldn’t manage it. He glanced down at his mount and shuddered. Or whatever horses have become.

Then Tarrant kicked his own mount into motion, and Damien had no choice but to follow. The fact that the Hunter made no attempt to Divine their odds of success, or to otherwise See what lay ahead, was a chilling reminder of their enemy’s Iezu capacity. If there were some kind of ambush here, Tarrant knew they would never see it; no Working of his, no matter how well refined, could change that fact.

Trust to his planning, Damien told himself. Trust to his understanding of the enemy. But even as his mount’s trembling feet bit into the harsh mountain slope, he couldn’t help but remember what Tarrant had said before. It was a gamble. No more than that. And if Calesta had foreseen their latest move ... Damien flinched as they climbed, half-expecting an arrow in the back at any moment. But none came. They were up a hundred feet above the valley floor, then two hundred, and still no one and nothing came at them. Four hundred. Eight. Still they climbed in safety, so far that Damien finally loosened his death grip on his weapon long enough to button the collar of his jacket closed. The wind this high up was fierce, sweeping as it did across the face of the ridge for hundreds of miles without obstacle, and every hundred feet the travelers gained in altitude cost them a few degrees of subjective heat. By the time they were high enough to see the whole valley spread out beneath them, Damien’s teeth were chattering, and not wholly from fear. The sky above glittered with starlight, but despite that warning the horizon was still dark. They had some time left, then ... but not much.

And then, with a lurch, Damien’s dying steed managed to gain the coveted ground at the end of the climb. The pass itself was a narrow passage that cut through the ridge at an angle, with crumbled rock and a thin film of ice underfoot; the horses stumbled as they negotiated it, while Damien fought not to look up at the two peaks that flanked them, snow-clad sentinels that reared up ghost-pale in the moonlight at either side.

Suddenly, without warning, Tarrant’s horse went down. The Hunter barely got clear of it before it began to convulse, horrific spasms coursing through its body in waves. Damien froze for a moment, horrified by the sight, and then quickly dismounted. It was not a moment too soon. Blood streaming from its nose and mouth, the animal that had faced death to bring him here went down on its knees, then screamed in terror and joined its fellow in dying. The sight of its suffering was too much for Damien. “Kill them!” he yelled at Tarrant. “You started this, damn you, you finish it!”

For once the Hunter didn’t argue. Damien saw the unearthly chill of the coldfire blade blaze to life, and the ice on the mountains to both sides flickered with eerie silver-blue light as its work was done. Not until Tarrant was finished did he look at the horses again, and even in death their suffering was so apparent that it made him sick to his gut to see it.

There was a time when even that small act of mercy would have put Tarrant’s soul in jeopardy, he realized. Have we come so far beyond that, that such fine distinctions no longer disturb his unholy patron? He watched for a moment as the Hunter worked at getting his saddlebags loose from his horse’s body, then stooped beside his own mount’s corpse to follow suit. The Unnamed expects him to die, he thought grimly. In the face of that, what transgression has any meaning?

The stars were bright overhead by the time they had their supplies freed, sorted, and repacked, but the horizon was still comfortably dark. That gave them at least an hour, Damien estimated, maybe more. Enough time get through the pass and find shelter, God willing. For the first time in days, he felt almost optimistic.

“Let’s go,” Tarrant urged, and he led the way north.

It was no easy path, that narrow divide. Mountain waters had dripped down the flanking slopes and frozen, making flat sections treacherous. Rockfalls had strewn the ground with thousands of knife-edged obstacles, some large enough to require climbing over, some small enough to lodge in the leather of a boot sole. It was a hard transition from twelve hours of hard riding to such a strenuous hike, and more than once Damien stumbled. But they had cheated time and Calesta both, and that knowledge gave him new strength with every step he took. The inhabitants of the valley would be less than happy about following them here, where the spirits of the dead were said to rule.

Once they made it to the far side of the pass, Tarrant said, they would surely be safe.

And then they came around a turn and Shaitan’s valley spread out before them, as suddenly as if they had lifted a veil to reveal it. Below them the earth swirled with a gray mist that seemed almost alive. No, not gray: thin streamers of silver, that glowed with an eerie phosphorescence. He could see figures within it that appeared almost human, but they were too far away for him to make out any details. “Shadows of the dead,” Tarrant said quietly, following his gaze. Clouds hung low about the valley floor, their surfaces reflecting the stars as no real clouds should. And in the center of it all, rising up from the clouds and the mist like a mountain from the sea—

Shaitan. Its summit glowed with hot orange fire, and streams of that color cascaded down its flank, into the unnatural mist that obscured its base. Its steep cone reared up high into the sky, and the clouds of ash that surrounded it seemed to glow with their own inner fire, so fiercely did they reflect its light. Above it the sky had been blanketed with ash, whose undersurface rippled with orange and red highlights as a sea might ripple with froth. It made Damien feel strangely lightheaded to stare up at it, and he forced his eyes downward again, to a more comfortable terrain.

“Do the dead really live down there?” he asked Tarrant.

“Shadows of the dead,” he confirmed, “which are not quite the same thing.”

“What’s the difference?”

“The real dead, if they survived separation from their flesh, would feed as other faeborn creatures do: upon the species that gave birth to them. While the shadows of the dead ... do. not feed. Do not hunger. Do not expire. They’re like reflections in a mirror: perfect, but without real consciousness. The only world they know is the moment in which they died, and they only exist here, where the currents are so powerful that thought is practically the same as being."

“They don’t sound very dangerous.”

Tarrant looked at him sharply. “Don’t kid yourself.”

“But if they don’t need to feed—”

“They’re perfect reflections, formed at the instant of death. Violent deaths mostly; those are the kind with the greatest power.” He gazed out at the vista before him. “You think of what that would mean, to have a creature whose only memory of life is the one moment when it betrayed him ... and then ally that image to that power, down there.” A sweeping gesture encompassed it all: the mists, the volcano, the unseen currents that swept like tsunami across the earth. “I’d call that very dangerous indeed.”

He glanced at the sky again, toward a place where it was clear, and saw the constellation of Arago rising over the top of the ridge. Why did that seem wrong to him? He shook his head as if to clear it, but the thought wouldn’t come to him. It was still dark, at least. Starlight might serve as a warning of the coming dawn, but in and of itself it wouldn’t hurt Tarrant—

And then there was someone else there beside them, someone who gestured sharply down the slope and bade them, “Come quickly!”

He half drew his sword, then sheathed it again when he saw who it was. “Karril?” he asked. Not quite believing.

“Come,” the demon urged. Waving toward the slope^ behind him, taking a step in that direction as if to inspire them to follow. “There’s not much time.”

Damien looked back at Tarrant; the Hunter’s expression mirrored his own hesitation. “The Iezu can’t imitate one another,” he said at last.

“And they can’t kill humans either,” the demon reminded him, “But don’t bet your life on that.” Again he gestured down the hillside, and whispered fiercely, “Trust me, old friend! If nothing else, you know I respect Iezu law. Come with me!”

Something in his words or his manner must have decided Tarrant, for the Hunter nodded and began to follow him. Damien trotted alongside, praying that neither would lose his footing on the treacherous ground.

—And then they were sliding down the vast slope, so quickly and so recklessly that Damien couldn’t even pretend to control his descent. In what must have been no more than a handful of seconds, they dropped so far that Damien could no longer make out the pass above them, yet Tarrant continued to follow. Even when that meant descent through a grove of thorned brambles that tore at their clothing and skin as they forced their way through. Even when that meant dropping down from a ledge into utter darkness, trusting to the demon’s judgment. A demon which could be no more than Calesta’s newest illusion, and never mind that Iezu law forbade it ...

It was a ten-foot drop into darkness, and then there was earth to support their feet again. “This way,” the demon urged. He showed them a dark space that led into the mountainside. “Quickly!” With only a second’s pause to study his face-for motive, perhaps?—Tarrant passed within the cavern’s mouth and was gone. Damien hesitated, then moved to follow. But Kami’s hand fell on his arm, stopping him.

“It’s over,” the demon announced. Not to Damien. To the air above him ... or something in it. “You failed, brother! Give it up!”

—And the illusion was suddenly gone from Damien’s eyes, the false backdrop of night that had blinded him to a deadly truth. To the east of him dawn blazed brightly-dawn!—and even as he watched the white sun breached the horizon, filling the valley beneath it with fatal, unforgiving light. Had Tarrant been shelterless right now ... He felt sick just thinking about it.

“This way,” Karril said gently, and he led Damien into the cavern’s darkness.

Immersion in the blackness of the underearth was blinding after such a vision; he fumbled for his lantern and lit it with trembling hands, praying that Karril wouldn’t leave him behind while he did so. But the demon waited patiently, and not until he had the wick adjusted and the perforated door latched shut did he urge him onward, into the mountain’s heart.

Two chambers later, safely beyond the reach of the sun’s killing light, they found Tarrant. The adept was sitting with his back to stone, his eyes shut as if in pain.

“It’s dawn,” Damien said quietly.

“So I gather.” The pale eyes slid slowly open, fixing first on Damien and then, at last, on Karril. “You saved my life,” he whispered. “In defiance of Iezu law.”

“He broke our law.” The demon’s tone was defiant. “Should I sit back and let him be rewarded for that?”

The Hunter shut his eyes again. Now that the illusion had been lifted, Damien could see that his face was reddened where dawn’s light had fallen upon it. What kind of power did these Iezu wield, that could blind a man to his own pain?

Perceptual distortion, he mused. That’s all it is. A power more deadly than any other, if used without reservation.

“Thank you,” Tarrant whispered. Not to Karril alone, it seemed, but to both of them.

The demon hesitated. “I can give you dreams-"

“No. Leave me the pain.” He lifted a hand to his face, wincing as the fingers made contact. “Let it be a reminder to me of what we’re fighting.”

The stars, Damien thought suddenly. The stars had been wrong. Arago shouldn’t have risen that high until the sun was nearly up. He should have known the truth from that. He should have guessed.

“Don’t,” the demon said gently. They can read what’s in your heart. “You couldn’t have known. Not even we knew, until the dawn was well underway.”

He looked sharply at the demon. “We?”

Karril nodded. “There are others here. Some as human as I am, others so alien in form even I can’t speak to them. And the mother of us all is stirring, after so many centuries of inactivity that some of us thought she might be dead.”

“Toward what end?” Damien asked sharply. “Will she get involved in this?”

The demon shrugged wearily. “Who knows? Those few of us who can speak to her use a language I don’t understand. Most think that she’ll respect her own law and stay out of it. But then, we also thought that Calesta would be punished long before this.” He looked at Tarrant; his expression was grim. “I can’t keep my brother from using his power to stop you, but I won’t allow him to kill you directly. That much I can promise.”

“Karril—”

“It’s not much of an assurance, I know.” His tone was frankly apologetic. “But it’s the most I can offer right now. I’m sorry.”

“Karril, please—”

But the demon had already begun to fade. A few seconds later only his voice remained, and a few precious words that lingered in the dark cavern air before they, too, dispersed into nothingness.

Whispered:

Good luck.

34

The Creature called Amoril ran through the halls of the Hunter’s keep, howling out his frustration in a wild, inarticulate cry. Over the shapeless mounds of what had once been human flesh—the Hunter’s servants, now half-eaten and left to rot-past curtains soaked in blood and urine, past golden sconces which had once held torches but which now, in deference to Amoril’s new Master, held only darkness, he made his way to the Hunter’s chapel, where an even greater Darkness awaited.

“Not fair!” he screamed. The human words felt strange to him, tattered remnants of another life. But his anger couldn’t be vented without the proper words and so he remembered them, formed them, forced them out. “It’s not fair!” he howled to the black space surrounding him. The smell of blood was thick in die air, and he could see crusted stains on the altar, left over from his nightly human sacrifice. “We made a deal!”

For a moment it seemed that he was truly alone in the room. If so, it would hardly be the first time. The dark forces which he had courted back in his human past didn’t take an active role in his life; rather, having remade him so that he served their purpose, they preferred to sit back and feed in silence on the fruits of his labors. Now, however, something stirred. Its presence was pain and fear and insufferable hunger, and the thing called Amoril whimpered as it manifested itself.

Have patience, came the black whisper.

“You promised me the Forest,” he choked out. “You said it would be mine!”

It will, a thousand voices assured him. As soon as the Hunter is dead.

“You said you were going to kill him!”

We said that he would die, the voices corrected. And so he will, once the compact is broken. Soon.

“There are men in the Forest,” he growled. “Church men with weapons, coming here to the keep. The Forest should be stopping them, but it isn’t. He still controls it!” Phlegm clotted suddenly in his throat and he spat it out onto the floor, a thick black mass. “Why would he let them come here? Why won’t his Workings stop them?”

There was silence for a moment, such utter silence that for a moment he feared his Masters had deserted him. Then the voices returned, a sibilant whisper that filled the cold room.

The cause of that is irrelevant. Gerald Tarrant will be dead before the next sunrise, and the Forest will be freed from his control. You will have enough time to stop them.

“You said he would die before and he didn’t,” he accused. “Why should I believe you now?”

The answer was pain. Black pain, cold pain, that wrenched at his limbs and sent needles of ice stabbing down into his flesh. With a cry of anguish he fell to the floor, his body contorting into shapes no human form should ever adopt, racked by the Unnamed’s punishment.

At last, whimpering, he lay on the floor like a beaten dog, echoes of the terrible pain scraping across his nerves like a rasp.

Your role is not to question, but to serve. The whispers had become one voice now, that filled the whole chamber with its venom. He trembled, knowing how merciless the owner of, that voice could be. Tarrant will not fight this death. He embraces it willingly, for the power it will give him.

“Power?” he whispered weakly. Suddenly he was struck by a new and terrible fear: what if the Hunter, in his dying moment, struck out against the servant who had betrayed him? The man whose sacrifice had sent him to Hell? What then? He began to gasp out a question, but the sounds of it caught in his throat. What if the Unnamed perceived in that question further defiance? He whimpered softly and drew up his body into a tight ball, as if that simple posture could somehow save him. No. Better by far to say nothing. Better to bear this fear in silence.

But the voice must have heard his thoughts, for it answered him. The power he invokes will be directed at another, not you.

It took a minute for the words to sink in. “Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you.”

But the voices were gone. He waited for a while longer in his huddled position, shivering with dread, but no new power assaulted him. At last, very slowly, he unfolded his limbs. No response. Very carefully, very slowly, he raised himself up. Still nothing. With a whimper that was half fear and half relief, he finally got to his feet again. Still nothing. The Unnamed had truly gone.

One more day, he thought. He could taste the Forest’s power on his lips, a heady tonic. Just one more day, and then it’ll all be mine. Won’t you be sorry then, my brave little Churchmen!

Then all the human words deserted him. Hungry, restless, the creature called Amoril set off at a frantic lope to find his pack.

35

The Forest had changed.

Narilka had gone barely ten steps into it, and already she knew something was wrong. It wasn’t a difference she saw as much as one that she felt, but she felt it so strongly that for a moment she just stopped, too shaken to move forward. She remembered the Forest from before. Not clearly, not willingly, but she remembered. The Hunter had set her loose in these woods and she had stumbled through its preternatural darkness like a terrified animal, not yet aware that the creature out of legend who followed her trail was a man, and would never hurt her. Now, as she breathed in the rotting stink that came and went like a breeze, she knew that something was wrong. As she gazed upon the necrotic mold that clung to the trunks of the Hunter’s trees, she knew that no growth like that had been here before. And as she dared to reach out with her hopes and her fears into the heart of the Forest itself, struggling for some fae-borne sense of Andry’s passage, the presence that she sensed within that realm of shadows was enough to make her draw back, sickened. Not a human presence, that. Not the clean demonic signature of the Hunter either, which she knew so well from their two brief encounters. This was something less than human, something so unclean that the Forest itself would surely vomit it up if it had the power to do so. What was going on here?

She reached out for a nearby tree-one of the few healthy ones—and shivered, trying to absorb it all. Had he changed also, the Forest’s monarch? Was this transformation just a facet of his own soul’s evolution, reflected in the trees and the earth of his homeland as a simpler man might be reflected in a mirror? If so ... She shuddered. The monarch of the old Forest had declared her safe. Would his promise hold in this transformed place? And what about Andrys’ supposed invulnerability? Suddenly she felt very cold, and very alone. Until this moment her quest had been like a dream, her way so brightly lit by the flame of her love that she never got a close look at the shadows which were gathering behind her. Now, suddenly, she felt smothered by them.

With trembling hands she lit her lantern, so that its earthy light might reassure her. As she adjusted the wick, she heard a sudden sound behind her and she almost dropped it as she whipped about, her free hand going to the hilt of the long knife which was sheathed at her hip. But it was only a forager rooting in the dirt. Thank the gods. For a moment she had thought it might be a soldier, and had braced herself for a far more unpleasant confrontation.

The guard at the Church camp would be changing soon and they would discover that she was gone. Or maybe it would take them longer than that. Maybe they had enough duties to occupy their time, so that each soldier would think another had attended to her. Maybe hours would pass and the sun would set and darkness would fall again before they realized that she had slipped away at dawn .. . and by then it would be too late for them to stop her. Gods, let it be so! She had wanted to circumvent the Church camp entirely, had even turned her horse toward the east with the intention of circling wide about it and entering the Forest from another direction. Then it had struck her just how foolish that plan would be. There were no roads inside the Forest, and certainly no markers to measure distance or indicate direction. How could she hope to find Andrys unless she followed directly in his footsteps? So she had come back reluctantly to Mordreth, her starting point, and taken the north road directly to the

Forest’s edge. Where the Church had made its encampment. Where the soldiers of the One God stood guard against all enemies, real and imagined.

It had been easy enough for her to explain her presence to them. A lifetime of having men make presumptions about her nature had given her a feel for that game, even though the presumptions were usually wrong. Perhaps she was lucky that men were on guard when she rode into the camp. Surely women would have seen through her subterfuge, and watched more closely for hints of what lay beneath. Men rarely bothered.

She was afraid for her lover, she said as the guards confronted her. She had spent too many sleepless nights and tortured, distracted days thinking about the dangers he was facing, and at last she had decided to follow him. That was what she told them, and certainly the words were true enough. What was false was the manner in which she spoke them, and the conclusions she inspired the guards to draw. She appeared to be a weak woman, a confused child, a fragile creature who clearly had never considered the hard reality of battle when she set off to be with her loved one. Now, at the edge of the Forest, with these men explaining the true nature of war to her, she would of course understand that she couldn’t ride into the Forest alone, that she didn’t want to ride into the Forest alone, that the best thing for her to do was wait here, in this camp, until her lover finished his manly work and returned to her. They would be glad to protect her until then, they said. And their eyes added: such a woman needs protection.

Bullshit.

They let her use his tent for the night. That brought genuine tears to her eyes, to see the manner in which he had left his few possessions, to read his state of mind in their disarray. Belongings were strewn all about the interior, soap and razors, bits of clothing ... and a tassel. She gasped when she saw that. It was a tiny thing, black silk with brass tinsel wound around the base, and she wouldn’t have noticed it at all if it hadn’t been so familiar. She’d owned a scarf with tassels on the ends, just like that. She remembered it. She’d worn it as a belt one night and then lost it. Later she’d thought that maybe she had left it at his place, but when she’d looked for it the next day, it wasn’t there. Or so it had seemed.

Oh, Andrys. She shut her eyes tightly, and her hand clenched shut about the tiny thing. He must have hidden it among his possessions days in advance so that she wouldn’t find it and reclaim it, more comfortable with the concept of theft than he was with the thought of asking her openly for a keepsake. There were tears coming to her eyes now and for a short while, in the privacy of his tent, she let them flow. Why had she let him come here alone? Why had she ceded to anyone—even his God—the authority to separate them?

Never again, she promised herself.

She’d spent that night in the Church camp, huddled among his possessions. In the morning it had rained, which was an event so fortuitous that she whispered a quick thanksgiving to Saris, just in case the goddess had been responsible for it. In the distance she could see the morning guard huddled in their rain capes, keeping watch on the paths that led to and from the Forest. Did they really think something from that darkbound realm would brave the sunlight to strike at them? Or were they more concerned that she might continue her journey, and compromise the purity of their faith-driven campaign with her presence? She had no doubt that they would stop her if they could, and so she planned her next move carefully, knowing that she would have only one chance to get past them.

There was a cape among Andry’s belongings similar to theirs, and she put it on. Its bulk covered her clothing and her pack and its hood, drawn forward against the rainfall, cast her features into deep shadow. Clad thus, her booted legs imitating the stride of the soldiers as best she could, she made her way to the outskirts of the camp. There was another guard there-a man, she guessed by the height—and for a moment she thought he would recognize her despite her disguise. Heart pounding, she raised up a hand as if to acknowledge his presence, then set off with a firm stride toward the edge of the Forest. He didn’t follow her. Nor did he raise an alarm. She knew that he would have done one or the other if he’d realized who she was; he could hardly allow the sanctity of his Patriarch’s mission to be compromised by the presence of a single pagan woman!

Remembering the Patriarch’s rejection of her pleas, she shook her head sadly. Is there so little to fear in this world that you have to make enemies out of your neighbors? Does your God have nothing better to do than pass judgment on the innocent? But deep within her heart, where it hurt to look, she did indeed understand him. And she knew that in a way he was right. She had seen the Forest and she knew its power, and nothing short of the One God Himself was going to bring it down.

Quietly she slipped out of the rain cape and let it fall to the ground behind her. There was no need for it now that the rain had stopped, and its bulk might slow her down. A faint mist clung to the ground, but despite its clammy touch she was grateful for it, for it made the earth damp enough to hold the mark of footprints. If she could find the place where Andrys and his fellows had entered the Forest, she could surely follow their trail. It was too bad that her improvised plan hadn’t allowed her to bring her horse along; it would have made the journey easier. But if she had tried to bring it along with her the guards would surely have noticed, and therefore she must do without it.

As she traveled, searching the ground by lamplight for a promising sign, the Forest changed about her. Not in a neat progression, as one might expect, but in fits and starts. In one place the smell of rotting meat was so strong that it nearly choked her, and she held a damp cloth over her mouth in the desperate hope that it would keep out the worst of the stink. Ten steps later, that smell was gone. Unwholesome growths clung to the tree trunks in one place, but left neighboring acres undisturbed. Wormlike creatures writhed at the foot of the great trees as tribes of smaller parasites slowly chewed their way through their skins, but twenty steps away no sign of worm or parasite was visible. She didn’t remember the Hunter’s realm being like that before. She couldn’t imagine that the man who had shown her the glories of the night-fearsome and violent, yes, but ordered as the finest music is ordered, and pristine as the moonlight itself-would have condoned such a state of affairs.

And then she found it. She thought it was a riverbed at first, a trough scoured into the mud by some flash flood that had swept down from the mountains. But holding her lantern close, she saw the footprints that marked its bottom. They were horses’ prints, the triune markings of an eastern breed. She had found the Church’s trail at last.

A sense of relief so intense that it was almost painful welled up inside her. Not until this moment had she been willing to admit to her greatest fear, which was that the Hunter’s realm might swallow all signs of Andrys’ passage, so that no one could follow him. But these tracks were so clearly marked, so utterly mundane in form, that she felt a sudden rush of confidence, and even the sour stink of the Forest seemed to fade for a moment, as if to acknowledge, This is it. This is right. Follow him.

Turning up her lantern wick, she followed the soldiers’ trail deep into the Forest. The lumps of horse droppings scattered here and there were still damp and pungent, which seemed to imply that they weren’t far ahead of her. Thank the gods! She tried not to think about what her reception would be when she finally caught up with them. The Church soldiers would be furious, but Andrys ... she could feel his need now, as though there were a cord connecting them. Andrys was all that mattered. And if his god truly meant to bring down the Hunter, surely he wouldn’t let the love of a single woman stand in his way?

The region’s thick darkness folded about her like a shroud as she walked, until the light of her lantern was all but smothered. Trembling, she kept her eyes on the ground before her, refusing to search for threats in the looming darkness at either side. If the Forest meant to attack her now, then it surely would do so, and no single lantern could stop it; she had gambled everything on the Hunter’s promise, and now, with his words ringing in her ears like a prayer, she gave her whole attention over to following the trail before her. It wasn’t easy. The earth was dryer this far into the Forest, which meant that the marks she was following were more shallow, less certain, easily confused with the scrabblings of local animals. It was so hard to see in the gloom that once she went down on one knee so that she might run a hand along the trail for a foot or two to confirm its presence by touch, but the sudden sense of something burrowing beneath the soil, something filthy and hungry and drawn to her heat, made her stand up quickly again. It won’t hurt me, she told herself. Her heart was pounding; her hand felt clammy against the lantern’s handle. Nothing here will hurt me. But despite that self-reassurance she moved quickly forward, whispering a prayer to her goddess that her feet might stay on the right path, even as she fled unseen horrors beneath the earth.

Hours passed, cold and immeasurable. She found a hump of rock and sat down on it, resting just long enough to catch her breath and wash down a bit of dried biscuit with a swallow of water. Had she truly run in this place once for three days and nights? She trembled to recall those hours of terror. Could Andrys sense the Hunter’s constant presence here, or was that sensation reserved for the woman he hunted? For his sake, she prayed he was immune.

At last, her strength renewed by the meager meal, her courage somewhat bolstered, she lowered herself down from the rock and prepared to take up the Church’s trail once more.

Then she heard the noise.

It wasn’t like the other noises that surrounded her, although it would have been hard for her to describe the way in which it differed. A thousand creatures had skirted the edge of her lamplight since she had come here, and their scrabblings and slitherings had become an accustomed counterpoint to her own footsteps. This noise was different. This noise echoed with purpose. This noise, as it mirrored her own footsteps, warned of something intelligent, something focused . . . something dangerous. Something unbound by the Hunter’s promise, that was free to sate its own hunger in these nightbound woods.

Her heart began to pound, but she forced her stride to stay even. Surely anything that belonged in this darkness could outpace her easily; the trick was not to run, not to provoke it. The Church soldiers couldn’t be far ahead-right?—and if she could just get within hearing range of them, maybe the thing that was following her would be frightened off. Or maybe she could cry out and get someone to come to her, fast enough to keep it from moving in on her—

And then there was a sound ahead of her, and another to her side. She heard footsteps first, like those which followed her, and then a kind of snorting. She felt a chill crawl along her skin, and only the knowledge that displaying her fear would make things a thousand times worse kept her legs from locking up in terror beneath her. Everything in the Forest is his, she chanted silently. Nothing of his will hurt me. But what if her fears had manifested some new creature, some demonling not yet broken to the Hunter’s ways? Would she still be protected then? There was rustling on both sides of her now, so loud that she knew it was deliberate; the things that echoed her steps were taunting her. Goddess, help me. Please.... Her legs were numb, her feet so heavy she could hardly move them. Could her pursuers smell her fear? Did it whet their appetite? Oh, Andrys, what have I done!

A figure moved into the path before her. At first it seemed to be some kind of animal and she took a step backward involuntarily, trying to put herself out of range of its teeth. But then it straightened up, and stretched somehow, and when she held the lantern up so that she might see it better, she saw that it was human in shape, human in countenance ... but not human in substance. That much she saw with her heart, if not her eyes.

It was the white man, the Hunter’s servant. But not as she remembered him from their meeting years ago, a slender, lithe creature with ghostly white skin that gleamed in the moonlight, feral hunger that gleamed in his eyes. This was a creature of plague and rot, a living manifestation of the malignance that had assailed the entire Forest. His hair-if hair it could be called—was a matted mass of dirt and slime that seemed to move of its own accord as he watched her. His body seemed somehow distorted, in posture if not in form, his clothing was torn and filthy and reeked of urine, and his eyes ... those were the most horrible thing about him, she thought. Not human eyes at all, but pits that seemed gouged into his flesh, emptiness where eyes should have been, framed by a ring of flesh pulled back so hard against his bone that she could see black veins pulse beneath it.

“Ah,” he whispered, and the sound was more a growl than any human utterance. “It seems we have company.” His voice gurgled thickly in his throat, as if some growth within that passage made human speech a trial. “So rare, these days.”

Stay calm. You know how to deal with him. Just stay calm and do it. She tried to reach a hand into her jacket pocket, but she was shaking so badly that she couldn’t find the opening. Wolflike creatures were moving into the circle of light now, and like their master they were horribly deformed, filthy satires of a once-proud pack. If the Hunter’s own servants could be so twisted, what did that imply about their master? She trembled to think about it. Stay calm! Then her hand slid into the pocket-finally—and she clutched the thing within it, grasping it like a lifeline. Even as he took a step toward her she jerked it out and held it up before him, wielding it as a warning, a weapon. The Hunter’s token dangled in the lamplight, glints of gold along its edge warning back those demons who would defy his will. It had worked once before, when this creature meant to toy with her. Surely it would do so now.

The white man stared at her amulet for a long, silent moment.

Then he laughed.

Goddess! She felt her soul flinch as the sickening figure came toward her. Help me! She tried to back up, but something large and cold had come up behind her legs; it took all her remaining strength not to fall backward over it, into its waiting jaws.

“The Hunter isn’t around right now,” the white creature informed her. He grinned, displaying a mouth full of rotting and bloodstained teeth. “But don’t worry. I’m sure we can manage to entertain you in his absence.”

He reached for the amulet then and she tried to back away from him, but the beast behind her knees moved suddenly and she fell over it, her lantern hurtling to the ground far out of reach. She tried to regain her feet, but it was impossible; the beasts closed in on her even as she struggled to get to her knees, their jaws closing tight about her arms and legs, their rank weight forcing her down again.

She screamed. Hopeless effort! What did she think it would gain her, in this land where even the laws of sound would surely be warped by sorcery? But the cry welled up from a core of terror so stark, so primitive, that mere logic could not silence it. And the white man laughed. He laughed! The whole Forest was his now, not only its plants and creatures but the very air itself. Who could hear her, if he willed it otherwise?

And then his face bent down close to hers and his hands closed tightly about her wrists-icy flesh, dead and damned, that sucked out her living heat through the contact—and she could feel her frail grip on sanity giving way, the darkness of terror closing in about her brain even as the flesh of the albino’s pack closed in around her body. Sucking her down into depths where was neither terror nor pain, only mindless oblivion.

Andrys! she screamed, as the darkness gathered in thick folds about her. The sound built up in her throat and left her mouth, but made no tremor in the air. Andrys!

He couldn’t hear her. No one could. No one except the Hunter’s servant, whose beasts even now were mauling her frozen flesh.

Oh, Andrys....

36

Sunset was sandwiched between earth and ash, its light like a wound in the darkening sky. Though the sun itself had disappeared behind distant mountains, its rays, stained blood red by a veil of ash, lit the bellies of the clouds like the fire of Shaitan itself. Now and then a wind would part the ash-cloud overhead and the light of the Core would lance through, but it was a fleeting distraction. The day was dying.

Pointedly not looking down at the landscape that spread out beneath his perch, Damien squeezed his way back into the shelter that Karril had found for them. The lantern he had left at the first turn was still burning, and he caught it up as he made his way back to the place where Tarrant waited. Unlike the Hunter, he needed light to see.

Tarrant was exactly as he had left him, resting weakly against the coarse wall of the cavern. By the lamp’s dim light Damien could see that his burns hadn’t healed, and that was a bad sign; a full day’s rest should have restored him. His scar alone remained unreddened, and its ghostly white surface, framed by damaged flesh, reminded Damien uncomfortably of the scavenger worms of the Forest.

“Sun’s gone,” he said quietly. No response. He put down the lantern and lowered himself to the ground beside Tarrant, striving to maintain an outer aspect of calm when inside he was anything but. Come on, man, we’ve got a long way to go and not a lot of time to get there! But something about Tarrant’s attitude scared him. Something that hinted that the worst damage wrought last night might not be that which was visible, but some wound inside the man that was still bleeding.

At last, unable to take the silence any longer, he ventured, “Gerald?”

The pale eyes flickered toward him, then away. Staring at something Damien couldn’t see, some internal vista.

“We can’t win,” the Hunter said weakly. The pale lids slid shut; the lean body shivered. “I thought we could. I thought there must be limits to his power. I thought that human senses were complex enough to defy absolute control—”

“And you were right-” he began.

“No. They aren’t complex at all. Don’t you see? What we would call a view of the sun is no more than a simple pattern of response in the eye, which is translated into simple electrical pulses, which in turn pushes a handful of chemicals into place within the brain ... there are so many places in which that flow of information can be interrupted, and with so little effort! Our enemy has that power, Vryce. One spark in the wrong place, one misaligned molecule ...” He gestured up toward his ravaged face with what seemed like anger, but for once Damien didn’t think the emotion was directed at him. “The only thing stopping him was Iezu custom. Now that he’s willing to disregard the law of his own kind, what chance do we have?”

“First of all,” Damien said, with all the authority his voice could muster, “It isn’t that simple a process. You of all people should know that. Do you think all those molecules in your head are labeled clearly, so that it’s easy to tell which one does what? Oh, you could probably figure it out-I wouldn’t put too much past you-but I doubt if Calesta’s got the patience or the know-how for that kind of work. Which means that he may have the power to screw with our heads, but he’s not necessarily going to do it right every time.”

“He did it well enough to—”

“Shut up and listen for once! Just once! All right?” He waited a moment, almost daring Tarrant to defy him. But the Hunter was too weak to spar with him like that ... or perhaps he was simply too astonished. When it was clear that his outburst had had the desired effect, Damien told him, "He didn’t do it perfectly. If you or I had known what to look for, we would have seen the signs, we would have known that trouble was coming, we could have taken precautions—”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“The stars, Gerald. He could black out the sun from our sight, but he couldn’t change every one of the stars so that its position was right!” He told him about the constellation he had noticed, that shouldn’t have been so high in the sky until dawn was well underway. “Or maybe he just didn’t bother with details,” he concluded. “Maybe his arrogance was such that he imagined simple darkness would work the trick. Well, now it won’t. Now we know how his Iezu mind works. And if he couldn’t pull off that illusion perfectly, maybe all his work has flaws. Maybe, like an Obscuring, a Iezu illusion succeeds because men don’t think to look at it too closely. Well, now we know to look.”

“And do you imagine that we can remain so perfectly alert at every moment, that not a single detail out of place will escape our notice? Because that’s what it would require, you know. Even if his illusions are less than perfect—and we don’t know that for a fact-he’s no fool. He’ll wait until our guard is down, until we’re being less than perfectly careful, and then what?” He raised up a hand to his face, wincing as the pale fingers traced the scar there. “I didn’t feel my own pain,” he whispered. “I could have died out there, and not until the final moment would I have understood what was happening.”

“Karril said he’d protect us,” Damien reminded him. “He can’t stop Calesta from misleading us, or from making others try to kill us, but he won’t let you walk into the sun. He promised.”

The Hunter’s voice, like his manner, seemed infinitely weary. “And what about Iezu law? What about the rule their creator set forth, that there was to be no conflict between brothers?”

“Maybe,” he said quietly, “there are things that matter more to Karril than that.”

“Like what?”

“Like friendship, for one.”

He dismissed the possibility with a wave of his hand. “The Iezu aren’t capable of friendship. Their venue is limited to one narrow range of emotion, and their only motivation is a hunger for—”

“Oh, cut the crap, Gerald! You know, you’re a brilliant demonologist in theory, but when it comes down to facing facts you can be downright stupid.” He leaned toward the man, as if somehow proximity could give his words more force. “Was it Iezu nature that made Karril take me down to Hell to rescue you? Where does pleasure fit into that? And was it Iezu nature to do what he did last night: defy the law of his creator to step into the midst of his brother’s war, at the risk of angering the one creature on this planet who can kill him? He did that to save you, Gerald Tarrant. For no other reason. Just to save you.” He leaned back on his heels. “That’s friendship by any standard I know. To hell with who or what he is. I’d be damned proud to have a friend that loyal myself.”

“You wouldn’t have said that once. You’d have damned yourself for even entertaining such a thought.”

“Yeah. Well. We’re worlds away from that time now. I may not like that fact, but I accept it.” He studied the Hunter-his wounds, his weakness—and then asked, “You need blood, don’t you? Blood to heal.”

The Hunter shut his eyes, leaning back against the stone. “I drank,” he whispered.

“Warm blood? Living blood?”

Tarrant said nothing.

“I’m offering, Gerald.”

Tarrant shook his head; the motion was weak. “Don’t be a fool,” he whispered hoarsely. “You need your strength as much as I need mine.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “The difference is that my strength can be renewed easily enough. Or don’t you think that a Healer would know how to accelerate the production of his own blood?”

“You can’t Work here,” Tarrant told him. “Not even to heal yourself. Shaitan’s currents would swallow you whole.”

Damn. Damien drew in a slow breath, trying to think. Were there alternatives? “What about fear? I don’t mean a nightmare this time. The real thing. Straight up.” He managed to force a laugh. “God knows there’s enough of it inside me right now for both of us.”

But the Hunter shook his head, dismissing the thought. “Without an artificial structure? The channel between us isn’t strong enough for that. That’s why I used dreams.”

The words were out before he could stop them. “Then make it stronger.”

Slowly the Hunter looked up at him. Those chill eyes were black now, bottomless, as dark and cold as the fires of Shaitan were bright and hot. “And could you live with that?” he demanded. “Knowing what I am, understanding what such a channel would do to the two of us? Could you live with yourself, knowing that a part of me was in your soul, and would be until one of us died?”

“Gerald.” He said it quietly, very quietly, knowing there was more power in such a tone than in rage. “I knew when we came here that we probably weren’t getting out of this mess alive. So what are we really talking about? A day or two? I’ll deal.”

Tarrant turned away from him. Maybe the channel between them was already stronger than he thought, or perhaps Damien simply knew him well enough to guess at what he was feeling; he could feel the sharp bite of hunger as if it were his own, the desperate need not only to feed, but to heal. Damien reached out and grasped the man’s arm, as if somehow that would lend his words more power. “Listen to me,” he begged. “Deep inside there’s a part of me so afraid I don’t even like to think about it. It’s in that place where you store hateful feelings and then bury them with lies and distractions, because you can’t bear to face them head on. Because you know they’ll eat you alive if you try.” He whispered it, pleading; “Why waste that, Gerald? It’s food to you, and the strength to heal yourself. Take it,” he begged. “For both our sakes.”

For a long, long time the Hunter was silent. Then, ever so slightly, he nodded. Just that.

Damien let go of his arm. His heart was pounding. “What do I have to do?”

Silence again, then a handful of words whispered so softly he could barely hear them. “Complete the bond.”

“How?”

Slowly, the Hunter then reached into the pocket of his tunic for the knife he carried there. Not the same one he had used so long ago to open Damien’s vein, establishing the channel between them in the first place-that had been lost in the eastern lands-but one very much like it, that he had purchased afterward. He opened the blade partway and then quickly, precisely, pressed its point into the flesh of his fingertip.

“Here,” he whispered. Raising up his hand, so that the tiny drop of blood might be visible. Black, it seemed, and so cold that its surface glittered like ice. Or was that only Damien’s expectation, playing games with his vision? “Only once in my long life have I offered this bond to another man ... and that one betrayed me.”

As vulnerable as this will make you, it will make me equally so. The words rose up out of memory unbidden, and for a moment Damien understood just how desperate the Hunter must be to offer such a bond. You fear this more than I do, he thought. Reaching out to touch the glistening drop, gathering its dark substance onto his own fingertip. Damn Calesta, for making us do what we fear the most.

As the Hunter had done to his first offering years ago, so now Damien did to this. Touching his tongue to the cold, dark drop. Forcing himself to swallow it, as one might a bitter pill. Forcing his flesh to take the Hunter’s substance into itself, so that a deeper link might be forged—

—And the monster within him rose up with a roar from those hidden places where it had lain shackled, its bonds shattered, its howling triumphant. Fear: pure and terrible, agonizing, undeniable. Fear of dying in this place. Fear of surviving, but as less than a man. Fear of returning to a world in which he no longer had a purpose. Fear that Calesta would claim his soul, or else leave him unclaimed—the ultimate sadism!-to witness his final holocaust. Fear that the Church would fail and mankind would be devoured by the demons it had created ... and fear that it would succeed, and the world would become something unrecognizable, that had no place for him. Those fears and a hundred more-a thousand more, ten times a thousand-roared through Damien’s soul with such horrific force that he could do no more than lie gasping on the floor of the cavern, shaking as they exploded one after another in his brain.

Then, at last, after what seemed like an eternity, the beast’s roar quieted. He could still hear it growling in the corners of his brain-it would never be wholly quiet again, not while Tarrant lived-but if he tried hard enough, if he focused on other things, surely he could learn not to hear it. Surely.

“You all right?”

He managed to open his eyes, amazed that his flesh still obeyed him. For a while it hadn’t. “Just great,” he whispered. It seemed there was an echo in the chamber, that it took him a minute to place. Tarrant’s perception. The thought sent a chill down his spine. I’m feeling him hear me. Fear uncoiled anew in his gut, rising up to—

He choked back on it, hard. His whole body trembling, for a moment he could do no more man lie where he was, struggling to get hold of himself. Then slowly, very slowly, he rose up to one elbow. Tarrant offered him a hand for support, and he grasped it in his own. Not cold, that undead flesh, but comfortable in its temperature, comforting in its strength. That, too, made him shiver.

“It won’t last long,” the Hunter assured him.

“Yeah.” He brushed himself off with shaking hands. “Only until one of us dies.”

“As I said.” The Hunter reached down to pick up his backpack, handed it to him. There was a strange kind of echo to the gesture, such that when Damien closed his hand about the leather strap it was as if he had just done so seconds before. Unnerving. “Not long at all.”

He drew in a deep breath, then slipped his arms into the straps. It seemed to him that the air between them was warmer than before; was that some new faeborn sense, or just overheated imagination?

“The strangeness of it will fade,” the Hunter promised. It seemed to Damien that he smiled slightly. And yet his mouth didn’t change, nor any other part of his expression. Weird.

“How about you?” he asked. The Hunter’s face, he saw, was back to its accustomed ghastly color. “Feel stronger?”

“Strong enough to send a Iezu to Hell.” And he added: “Thanks to you.”

For a moment there was an awkward silence. Not quite an expression of gratitude. Something stronger, and subtler.

“All right, then.” Damien shifted the pack on his back until its straps fell into their accustomed position, allowing him free access to his sword. Without further glance at Tarrant he started toward the exit, knowing that the Hunter followed. “Let’s do it.”

The valley was ...

Different.

Where before a dark valley floor had served as backdrop for mist and moonlight, now an ocean of fiery power seethed and frothed, driving itself onto the rocks beneath them with such force that a spray of earth-fae, fine as diamonds, drizzled down the slope of the ridge. Where once vague tendrils of mist had curled about the crags and monuments of Shaitan’s domain, now it was possible to see things stirring, snakes of mist that resolved into semihuman form and then, with a ghastly cry that Damien could feel in his bones more than he could hear, melted into mist once more. The whole of the valley floor was in motion, spewing forth malformed creatures and then swallowing them up again while Damien watched; the sight of it made him dizzy, and he leaned back against the ridge for support, afraid that he might lose his balance and fall into it.

And then that vision faded. Not utterly, though he would have liked that. Out of the corner of his eye he could still sense unearthly motion, and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to walk along that ground without feeling the earth-fae twine about his flesh, without knowing that here every human thought became a thing with a face and a hunger and a chance to scream, before Shaitan’s power swallowed it up again.

“A taste of my Vision,” the Hunter said quietly. “Now that you can share it.”

“Is that really what you see down there?”

The Hunter chuckled. “A faint shadow of it, no more. The most your human brain can handle. Here.” He held out something to Damien. “Put this on.”

It was a fist-sized bundle, soft and gleaming. Damien shook it out to its full length, nearly ten feet long. “A scarf?”

“Just so.” The Hunter had taken out one of his own and was wrapping it about his head like a turban. The fine black silk was so thin that it seemed more like smoke than fabric, and when he drew a fold of it across his face and fixed it there, it gave his white skin a weird, ghostly quality. “Shaitan’s breath is hard on the skin. You’ll want to put on your gloves also.”

“Not to climb down a mountain, I don’t.”

—and his hands are burning, corrosive mist eating into the flesh until the skin peels off in reddened bits, blood welling in the wounds—

“Okay, okay! Gloves it is!” He fumbled in his pack and retrieved them. “God.” He put the wrong hand in the wrong glove and had to start over. “You’re a lot of fun to travel with, you know that?”

“The fun,” Tarrant assured him, “has not even started yet.”

He looked down into the valley again. The ground was dark. The mist was just mist. It was comforting. Damien wrapped the black silk around his head as he had seen Tarrant do-it took three tries—and noted that it had a faint chemical odor, as if it had been treated with something. It did surprisingly little to affect his vision; perhaps it had also been Worked in that regard. Tarrant’s been here before, he reminded himself. He knows what he’s doing.

“Ready?”

The Hunter had brought a special rope for the descent, a thin line meant to steady them on the rubble-strewn slope, long enough to guide them down almost to the valley floor. He tied one end to a spire of rock and sent the other end, weighted, hurtling down into the darkness.

Damien sighed. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

Tarrant led the way. Slowly, oh so carefully, they dropped down toward the valley floor and the dangers that made their home there. At times the Hunter would stop and signal for Damien to do the same, and they would grasp the thin rope to keep from sliding while he waited for whatever danger he had sensed to pass them by, or turn its attention elsewhere, or ... whatever. Damien didn’t want to know the details.

The rope gave out at last and they had to make their way without it. Gazing down at the ground by his feet, eerily lit by the orange fire of Shaitan in the distance, Damien couldn’t help but notice die tendrils of mist that played about his feet, couldn’t help but remember the vision that Tarrant had shared with him. When he made the mistake of looking too closely at the misty tendrils, they reared up like snakes and began to take on a more distinct form-but Tarrant ignored them, and just nudged him forward at a faster pace. Soon they were moving too fast to look at things closely, thank God. If you didn’t look, did they leave you alone?

At last they reached a place where the ground seemed level enough, and Damien allowed himself a small sigh of relief. Thin orange highlights played along the earth, not enough to see by; with a glance at Tarrant to make sure it was all right, he took out his lantern and lit it. Golden light flickered upon the bellies of mist-clouds, outlining ghostly faces that formed and faded as he watched. “Those are no danger,” Tarrant told him, when he seemed hesitant to move forward. “Come.”

It was an eerie place, and the orange light from Shaitan, flickering and fading as its lava fields pulsed, did little to make it more comforting. Craggy monuments lined the valley floor, and the mist flowed between them like rivers. A handful of plants had tried to take hold on the rocky ground, but they were stunted things, pale reflections of a hardier species, and their leaves and bark had been eaten away in seemingly random patterns, fibers peeling back to reveal a core laced with channels and pockmarks. The very smell of the place was strange, as if the plants were struggling to create some kind of natural perfume but were too wounded to do it right; wisps of unnatural odor came and went with the breeze, mixed with the stink of ash and the omnipresent bite of sulfur in the air. The ground seemed solid enough, but what if that were just another of Calesta’s illusions? Karril said he would protect us, Damien told himself as they walked. He won’t let Calesta kill us with illusions. Yet there was a vast gap between killing and being safe, Damien knew that, and if Calesta believed that Tarrant had figured out a way to kill him ... what would he do? Damien gazed up at the mists surrounding them, at the craggy monuments that reared high over their heads, and shivered. That Calesta would strike at them was not to be questioned. The only question was when, and how.

The bastard’s afraid of us, he told himself. Trying to derive some satisfaction from the thought.

And then something drifted out at them from the mists, all too human in shape for his comfort. Tarrant said nothing, but urged him forward with a touch, and Damien obeyed silently, his stomach a tight knot of dread. They walked like you did with a mad dog, slowly, pretending not to notice its presence, while all the while your heart was pounding, and sweat was running down your face. The figure had come closer now, close enough to investigate, and it took everything Damien had not to turn and look at it. Were there other figures by its side, or was that only his fear making him see things? Or Calesta’s power, turned against them at last? Damn it, if this place didn’t give him a heart attack all by itself, waiting for the enemy to strike at them might just do it.

He was moving forward, watching the strange figure out of the corner of his eye, when suddenly Tarrant grabbed his arm and jerked him back. He felt cold air rush up against his face, and as he looked down he could see that there was no ground in front of him, not by a good fifty or sixty feet. He had almost walked right into it.

“God,” he whispered.

Tarrant had turned to face their pursuer. His body was rigid with tension, which Damien found less than reassuring. With a last glance down at the chasm by his feet, Damien turned as well, and dared to look at the thing that had been following them. At first it seemed no more than a shadow, and then, as he gazed upon it, it took on form and substance. A man’s head, gashed from nose to jaw. A man’s throat, rubbed raw by rope. A man’s body—

“My God,” he choked out, turning away.

A man’s body gutted open, intestines streaming down its legs like worms, heart twisting between the jagged shards of a shattered rib cage. He felt sickness welling up inside him and didn’t know if he could hold it in. Was it better to vomit away from a ghost, or right on top of it?

"Go." Tarrant’s voice was no more than a whisper, but the power it bound made the figure’s surface ripple like water. The Hunter put a hand to his sword and drew it out ever so slightly. The coldfire didn’t blaze with its normal brilliance, but curled about his hand and wrist like tendrils of glowing smoke. “You have no business with us. Leave us alone, or ...” He pulled the sword free another inch, to illustrate his intention.

The creature stared at them, and for a moment Damien was certain that it was going to move toward them. But then, with a snarl, it moved back a step. And another. Fading into the mist before their eyes, until its outline could no longer be seen.

Damien allowed himself the first deep breath in several long minutes. “A shadow?”

The Hunter nodded.

“Is it gone?”

“As much as such things ever are, in this place.”

“You could have destroyed it, right?”

The sword snapped shut. The veiled gaze of the Hunter was cold and uncomforting. “Let’s hope I don’t have to try.” He took a step closer to the precipice, and Damien dared the same. A river had cut into the plain before them, etching out a canyon that twisted back in hairpin turns on either side. Water glistened blackly at its bottom, and thick clouds of mist clung to its walls that all but obscured its details.

“The land is filled with these,” Tarrant told him. “They make the plain into a veritable maze, and one wrong turn can leave a man trapped.”

Until sunrise, Damien thought. That would be long enough, where Tarrant was concerned. “You said you’ve been to Shaitan before.”

“Not by this route. From the tunnel that exits under my keep, which leads to much simpler ground. Not through this.” He shook his head tightly, his frustration obvious. “I had hoped the canyons would be visible from above, so that I could sketch out a path for us before we descended. But the view-as you saw—was hardly that useful.”

“So what now?”

He gazed out into the distance, narrowing his eyes as one might gazing into a bright light. “I can make out some of its pattern from here. Enough to guide us, perhaps.”

Perhaps. How long was the day this time of year, ten hours, eleven? Not long enough to pick their way through a maze of this complexity. Damien looked up toward Shaitan’s light in the distance-not so very far from them, but a world away for all that they could get to it—and then down into the depths again. “What about crossing it?” he asked. “I know it’s a climb, but we’ve got the supplies for it, and even that seems preferable to trying to walk around it.”

In answer the Hunter pointed down into the darkness. It took Damien a minute to figure out what he was pointing at, and then several minutes longer to make out what it was. When he did, he cursed softly.

Bones lay scattered across the floor of the narrow canyon, the skeletons of three men clearly visible. Shreds of fabric and flesh still clung to their upper portions, but their legs had been stripped and polished until nothing remained but lengths of bone as white as snow. Serpents of mist writhed in and out of the joints as Damien watched, like maggots on fresh meat.

He tried to think, at last ventured, “Acid?”

Tarrant nodded. “Shaitan’s breath is venomous, and so is her blood. Or so the legend says. They should have listened to it.”

“Is all the water here like that?”

He nodded. “It’s leached out of the ash-clouds by rain, so that the very earth is soaked with it. That’s why so few things live here ... so few natural things, that is.”

“Shit.”

A faint smile flickered across the Hunter’s face. “Aptly put, Vryce. As usual.” He looked both ways along the length of the canyon, then nodded toward the left. “Shall we?”

“If you tell me we’ve got something better to go on than guesswork,” Damien challenged. “Otherwise we’d be better off looking for that tunnel of yours, and heading to Shaitan from there.”

“My Vision will afford us some guidance, at least for the nearer obstacles.” In illustration of which he reached out a gloved hand towards Damien, and the channel that bound them flared to life; Damien could see with his own eyes how the currents of the earth-fae followed the lips of the canyon, their patterns reflected in the mist-clouds overhead. “As you see.” In the distance it was just possible to see a place where the canyon turned, perhaps giving access to the plain beyond. “And the path is no easier to my tunnel from here, I regret. Either way, the real risk . ..”

He didn’t finish the thought. He didn’t have to. Either way, Calesta’s what we have to worry about. He can make us see canyons that aren’t there, or run from shadows that don’t exist, or even make us walk over the edge of a chasm, thinking it solid ground.... But no, Karril had said he would protect them from a move like that. If only their ally would expand his beneficence to encompass lesser strategies!

They set as good a pace they could along the rocky earth, moving sometimes by the light of the lantern and sometimes, when the mist cleared from overhead and the clouds were obliging, by the blood-colored fire of Shaitan. Ghostlike shapes wisped in and out of life on all sides of them, and occasionally Tarrant would lead Damien out of the range of one that was becoming too solid for comfort. Shadows, he called them. Reflections of the dead. Damien saw one whose head had been severed, and another whose ghostly blood flowed where its arms and legs should have been. Most of them seemed confused rather than dangerous, as befit spirits whose minds contained but one single moment of consciousness, but some were clearly hostile to living men, and while they had no interest in Tarrant, it was clear they considered Damien fair game. More than once the Hunter had to bluff them back, and one time, when a wretched creature with its skull split open proved itself determined to vent its undead wrath on Damien, Tarrant pulled his sword wholly free and let the coldfire blaze. The result was like a block of ice slamming into Damien’s gut, that left him dazed and gasping and very nearly toppled him over into the canyon beside him.

“What the vulk was that?” he demanded, as the Hunter finally sheathed his sword. At least the hostile shadow was gone; one less threat to deal with. “I don’t remember it doing anything like that before.”

“The currents here are like a warped mirror, that reflects and distorts any Working. That’s why I try not to use this,” he explained, as he settled the sword back into place. “Or any other kind of power.”

That’s just great, Damien thought, as he struggled to get his breath back. Another thing to worry about.

Periodically Tarrant would gaze at the earth and sky with an almost desperate intensity, and Damien knew that the adept was searching their environment for any detail out of place-no matter how small or seemingly irrelevant-that would warn them of Calesta’s power being used against them. But after each such stop Tarrant simply shook his head silently, frustrated, and then took up the march again. Were the canyons real, or illusions meant to mislead them? How easy it would be for Calesta to turn them aside from their proper path, or draw them toward a false one! If the demon’s work lacked perfection in any detail, it could well be so subtle that no merely human eye was going to catch it. Or even Tarrant’s.

If so, we’re doomed. He didn’t dare meet Tarrant’s eyes, but through the newly intensified channel between them, he could taste the panic that was slowly taking root inside him. It matched his own. If we can’t find a way to tell what’s real from what isn’t, we don’t stand a chance. Standing by Tarrant’s side, he stared out at the same daunting vistas, hoping against hope that his limited vision might reveal some secret detail the adept missed. But each and every canyon looked hopelessly real, and the bones that were scattered here and there along their bottom—and even at the top, where the two walked-were eloquent reminder of how deadly this land was, and how few travelers made it through.

At last, weary, they paused for a rest. Damien pulled a hunk of bread from his stores and chewed it dryly, careful to disturb the thin veil no more than he had to. Tarrant neither ate nor drank, but stared off into the darkness surrounding them as though somehow he might find an answer there. Through the link between them Damien could sense his state of mind, and it wasn’t comforting.

At last the adept said, “I’m going to have to Work. There’s no other way.” He glanced up toward the sky, a reflexive action only; the ash cloud overhead would keep him from seeing the dawn until it was all but upon him.

“A Locating?”

The Hunter shook his head. “Too easy for our enemy to fake. Remember what he did in Seth? And besides, any precise Working is doomed in this place. Much in the same way that complex music loses its coherency in a hall with too many echoes. No, this Working must be in its purest unstructured form: a plea for the fae to accommodate our mission, however it sees fit. A single chord, pure and simple.”

“Sounds damn vague to me.”

“Anything more than that is doomed to failure, I assure you.”

“And how do we know that Calesta won’t vulk the results of this Working, too?”

The Hunter hesitated. And for a moment, just a moment, the channel between pulsed with fresh energy and Damien could taste the emotion inside the man. Thick fear, black and choking; it was hard to believe that a man could contain that kind of emotion inside himself and not let it show. “He’ll no doubt try to,” he admitted. “And we know all too well how adept he is at that game. But if my Working succeeds, then by definition it must offer us a tool over which he has no power.”

“And what are the odds of that?”

The pale eyes met his. The voice betrayed not a tremor of fear. “Better than the odds if we don’t try anything.”

Working. Normally Tarrant could manage it with no more effort than a single moment of tension, perhaps a narrowed gaze if the matter was difficult, but now ... Damien watched the adept brace himself, eyes shut tightly in concentration, and felt himself grow sick at what that implied. Then he drew out his sword from its warded sheath, and the fae bound to the sharpened steel seemed to glitter hungrily in Shaitan’s bloody light. Damien felt the Working take shape and braced himself for the frigid bite of the Hunter’s coldfire, but the power that surged through him when the moment came was like nothing at all familiar. It was a force that froze and burned all at once, that left his flesh shaking as if an entire storm system had squeezed through his veins. He didn’t need Tarrant to tell him that wasn’t all from the Working; the feeling of heat was a dead giveaway that some other power was involved. Tarrant had stated his Call, and the fae was reflecting it back at him with the accuracy of a funhouse mirror. God willing, the distortion would be minor. God willing they wouldn’t conjure something worse than what they were already dealing with.

When he was done Tarrant resheathed his sword, and the coldfire faded. “Do you think-” Damien began, but the Hunter waved him to silence. The tension in the man was palpable now, and Damien had to turn away and not look at him, to keep from being sucked into it. He had enough fear of his own, thank you very much, and didn’t need to absorb any one else’s.

And then, in the mist before them, something stirred. He saw Tarrant take a half step forward, then stop. A shadow? An illusion? Or something else? Wisps of silver fog twined and gathered, and slowly took on a form that seemed human. Was this the fae’s answer to their need, or simply another of the walking dead, drawn by their cry of desperation? As it slowly became distinct from the mist that surrounded it, Damien saw that its form was female, and that in life it must surely have been a beautiful woman, for even in death its features were graceful and pleasing—

Then Tarrant gasped, and stepped back as if struck. There was more fear in that one sound than Damien had ever heard him utter, and for a moment Damien was rooted to the spot. Then he took a step forward as if to-what, protect the man?-close enough to see the figure clearly, and make out its details.

She was a slender woman, delicately formed, with a thick corona of hair that still hinted at its living color, a soft red-gold. Her eyes were large and were fixed on Tarrant with such intensity that it was clear her living self had known him. A victim, perhaps? Her lips were full and likewise tinted with a trace of rouge, so alive in their aspect that Damien could almost imagine a human breath passing through them, and a heartbeat behind it. She wore a long gown of what must have been a fine wool, pale in color, and on it ... he squinted, trying to bring it into focus. The folds of the gown shifted slowly as if in a breeze, and sometimes they seemed pure white, while others ... he caught a flicker of color and tried to focus on it ... thin tendrils of red running down between the folds, and a scarlet stain just where the heart would be.

And then Tarrant whispered, "Almea."

And he understood. Dear God. He understood.

“Your wife?”

“No.” The Hunter shook his head. “Not my wife. A shadow, formed by the currents here. Not her.”

He looked at the ghostly image, then back at Tarrant. It was hard to say which of the two was paler.

“Maybe it was formed in answer to—”

“No!” The figure was moving toward Tarrant; the Hunter backed away quickly. “It’s Calesta’s illusion. It must be. Or else a real shadow, drawn by our presence here. My God,” he whispered. His voice was shaking. “If it’s the latter ...”

“It’s your wife, Gerald.”

“As she died!” The red lines on her body came into focus for a moment, and Damien could see the whole of her clearly: bloodstained, ravaged, tortured by a madman’s blade ... and then the white cloth folded in again, softly, gently, and the only pain visible was in her eyes. “Almea Tarrant as she was in her last living moments, with none of what came before! None of the love, none of the memories, none of the things that might mitigate her terror as she-as she—”

The shadow had stopped moving. Was watching him.

Damien dared, “I don’t think she’s here to hurt you.”

“How can she be here for anything else? Remember what I did to her, Vryce!”

She was waiting, Damien thought. She expected something. What?

“You called for help,” he offered.

He whispered: “I tortured her.”

She was watching. Waiting. Not Tarrant’s wife, but an isolated fraction of the woman. One instant of her living existence, frozen in time by the power of this place.

He drew in a deep breath, trying to sound calmer than he felt. “She’s the first shadow here that hasn’t gone after us. Maybe that means something.”

Tarrant said nothing.

The figure turned. Not wholly away from them, but slowly moving in that direction. There was no hate in her eyes, Damien noted, nor anger, but a vast tide of pain. And maybe something else ... something more.

“She loved you very much,” he observed.

Tarrant shuddered. “This thing wouldn’t remember love.”

She had stopped. She was waiting. For them.

“Gerald,” He said it gently, testing the words. “I think she wants us to follow her.”

“For what? To help us? More likely to lead me deeper into this trap—”

He looked into the shadow’s eyes, at the reflection of life that shimmered in their depths.

“I don’t think so,” he said quietly.

Tarrant looked at him in astonishment. “Why?” he demanded hoarsely. “Why would she help me, after what I did to her?”

“Maybe she wants to see you punished for what you did. You did say you expected to die on Shaitan, didn’t you? Maybe she wants to lead you to your death.” He drew in a deep breath. How could he word the next idea so that the Hunter would accept it? “Or maybe in that last moment what she wanted was to save you. Maybe she saw the man she had married being swallowed up by an evil so powerful that all her words, all her love, couldn’t save him ... and now he has one chance to redeem himself. The first real chance he’s had in centuries.” He waited a moment, then said softly, “You knew her, Gerald. You tell me.”

The shadow was waiting.

“If she’s an illusion-” Tarrant began.

“She isn’t.”

“How can you be sure of that?”

“Because for all of Calesta’s subtlety, I don’t think he could have created this." He gestured toward the shadow; did it smile sadly in response? “A reflection of pain, yes, and maybe hatred, and certainly a hunger for vengeance. Those are things he understands. But the rest?” Reading what was in her eyes, he shivered. God, what a woman she must have been. “Calesta knows nothing about human love; how could he mimic its form so perfectly?”

The Hunter turned to him. His pale eyes were so haunted, so tormented, that Damien had to fight not to look away. “Is that what you see in her?” he demanded.

“Among other things,” he said quietly. “Enough that I think she might want to lead us where we’re going. And we haven’t got a whole lot of other options, have we? Unless you have something up your sleeve you haven’t told me about.”

“No.”

“So?”

For a long time he just stood there. Damien waited. So did she.

“All right,” he said at last. A whisper, barely audible. “All right.”

They turned to where the ghostly figure stood, and saw that it had moved a few steps away. Damien waited until Tarrant had begun to walk toward her, then did so himself. His heart was pounding, with hope and fear both. Almea Tarrant’s shadow would be immune to Calesta’s illusory persuasions; the Iezu had no power over faeborn creatures. Which meant that she could probably lead them around the true obstacles, and save them the trouble of avoiding things that weren’t really there.

If she wanted to. That was the catch. Watching her from behind, her ghostly substance trailing out into wisps of white smoke that were swallowed up by the omnipresent mist, he prayed that he had read her right. If not, they had so little hope——

She led them away from the canyon they had been following, onto a stretch of plain with little to distinguish one mile from another. Damien glanced nervously at Tarrant, but there was no way of telling from the adept’s expression if he could see anything useful, or if he was equally without a reference point. Soon the noxious mist closed in around them, sealing them in a shell of fog so thick that they could see no farther than the few steps ahead of them. Strange things moved within that mist, half-made creatures that pressed against its border like curious fish, but nothing came too close. Was that in response to Tarrant’s power, or hers? Did the shadows of the dead respect each other’s territory, so that no other creature would bother them while she was there? He stiffened as something with red eyes seemed to be coming straight at him, but it scattered like smoke before it could reach him. For now, for whatever reason, they seemed safe enough. God willing it would stay that way.

Step after step, mile after mile, they followed the shadow of Almea Tarrant across the poisoned earth. Skirting monuments of blackened rock, crushing malformed grasses beneath their feet, working their way around the shore of a tiny lake whose surface smoked like water about to boil. The smell that surrounded them was sometimes rotting, sometimes sickeningly sweet, but always backed by the sharp tang of sulfurous poisons. Thank God for the scarves Tarrant had Worked, which seemed to keep the worst of it out of their lungs. Damien reached up to his every now and then to make sure it was secure. He had traveled enough in volcanic regions to know how quickly your lungs could seize up once that stuff saturated them, and was doubly grateful to Tarrant for having prepared for it.

We’re going to make it, he thought, even as his legs began to ache from the hike. His mouth was growing dry from thirst, as well, and he knew that should be dealt with. He struggled to get out his canteen without slowing his pace and fumbled the cap open, but when he lifted his veil to access its contents a sudden gust of sulfurous fumes hit him full in the mouth. Before he could stop himself, he had breathed some of it in, and though he dropped the veil right away, it set off a coughing fit so powerful that for a moment he couldn’t walk at all. Over and over a deep hacking cough shook him, and he could only pray that the others would stop long enough for him to pull himself together. Did the Almea-shadow care if he reached Shaitan, or was she only concerned with her husband’s fate? The thought of being abandoned in this place was truly terrifying, and he was overcome with relief when his eyes cleared at last and he saw that both Tarrant and the ghost were still with him. “You can drink through the veil,” the Hunter told him. Great. Just great. He did so as they began to walk again, wincing as the bitter taste of some unknown chemical flowed into his mouth along with the water. Thanks for warning me in advance.

And then they came to a place where a canyon cut across their path, blocking their way. Deeply etched, steep-walled, it cut off the land to the right of them, forcing them to swing around to the left if they meant to continue their journey. But the shadow of Almea didn’t go that way. It didn’t move at all. It stood at the edge of the canyon as if judging the depth a man might fall, then looked back at them. Just for a second. And then, without a sound, it stepped forward, into the chasm itself.

Dear God ...

She hung suspended above empty space, her feet pressed against the air as if she stood on solid ground. The far wall of the canyon was perhaps twenty feet away, but she didn’t seem in any hurry to reach it. As casually as if it were real earth beneath her feet, she walked out to the middle of the empty space, then stopped and turned back to them. After a moment, when they didn’t follow, she reached out a slender arm toward them. Bidding them forward.

“If she is an illusion-” Tarrant began.

“Then she can’t kill us like this. Remember? Karril promised.”

“Karril promised Calesta wouldn’t kill us. I don’t remember him saying anything about my wife.”

Silent, she waited. Without her help there was no way to go on.

“Look,” Damien said at last. “She hasn’t got any reason to hate me, right? So I’ll go first. If it’s a trap for you, maybe ...” He couldn’t finish the sentence. Maybe she’ll take pity on an innocent man and warn me back. “Maybe it’ll be okay,” he finished lamely.

He walked to the edge of the canyon and started to look down into it ... and then forced his eyes up, fixing them on her. There was no way to read in her face what she intended, or how far she might go to entice Tarrant over that edge. Finally he drew in a deep breath and forced his right foot forward. He kept his eyes fixed on her as he moved, resolve like an iron fist around his heart. He moved his foot forward a few feet and down, to where open air seemed to be, and then he was stepping forward but there was nothing solid under him, nothing! and his survival instinct cried out in panic for him to throw himself back hard and fast, before his full weight was committed ... but he knew that a good illusion would feel like that, too, and so he didn’t. Eyes shut, cold sweat breaking out across his brow, he committed his full body’s weight to his forward leg. And it held. Praise be to God, it held! He took another step forward, and then another. Slowly exhaling, he opened his eyes and looked down. It was a dizzying sight.

He turned back to where Tarrant stood and tried to force a smile to his face. “Well? You coming?” The Hunter hesitated, then approached the edge himself. Damien watched as the man made the same wary foray that he had, and saw how his face went white with shock as he felt the ground fall out from beneath him. But he, like Damien, persisted, and soon they both stood free on the ground that had been so effectively hidden from them, Calesta’s illusion spread out beneath their feet.

“Apparently he hasn’t forgotten us,” the Hunter whispered.

The Almea-shadow led them onward, deeper and deeper into the maze of mist and acid. They skirted one canyon, turned away from another, and came to yet another which the shadow led them across. This time they followed her without hesitation. How many hours were passing while they fixed their attention on the next stretch of poisoned earth, sour odors rising from the mutated plants at their feet as if to welcome them? It seemed to Damien that the ground had begun to incline; how far from Shaitan’s peak did the volcano’s slope begin? His legs ached and his throat felt raw from breathing the sulfurous air, even through Tarrant’s silken filter. Even as he prayed that it wasn’t much farther to Shaitan’s peak, he remembered the sight of that looming cone, and knew that his legs would hurt much worse before this was over.

And then there was a wall of rock before them, and Almea stepped into it and was gone. The two travelers looked at one another, and then Damien, holding his breath, followed her. For a moment it seemed as if he had indeed walked into a stone wall—and then that feeling was gone, and the illusion also, and the open plain stretched out before them, with Almea waiting just ahead.

“I do believe we found the right guide,” he whispered. And he could have sworn that Tarrant smiled, albeit weakly.

The ground became rougher after that and walking slowed accordingly; the shadow set as fast a pace as she could, but she wouldn’t leave them behind. It seemed to Damien that he could sense a growing tension in the air; Calesta’s, perhaps? If the Iezu were truly worried about Tarrant reaching Shaitan, then he must be near panic now. What had the Hunter told him, that they had no power other than illusion? And he had clearly lost that hand. Good God, they might make it after all.

The gradual slope became a steep incline, and walking turned to climbing. Through the thin silk veil he could taste the biting sulfur of Shaitan’s winds, the reek of foul gases vented up through the volcano’s crust. Gouts of fire blocked their path, some whistling, some roaring, some burning in eerie silence. They skirted most, but some they simply walked through. All felt equally hot. Once Damien saw his pants catch fire, and the heat about his legs almost drove him to run for cool earth to roll it out. But she wasn’t running and so he didn’t either, and within minutes-as soon as Calesta realized that his newest gambit had failed—that vision faded as all the others had, into the stuff of memory.

Damien found that he was gasping for breath, and his heart had begun to pound so loudly in his chest that it drowned out the other sounds around him. The ground itself was trembling as if from an earthquake, but unlike an earthquake the motion was continual. It made for an oddly vertiginous sensation, in which nothing about or beneath him felt solid. As he climbed, he could smell the dry heat of lava nearby, hopefully not too close to where they were. How high up did Tarrant need to go, to do whatever it was he had come here to do?

And then they came around a chest-high boulder, and saw that right ahead of them a thin stream of lava blocked the way. It had vented through the mountainside not thirty feet away, and though it was narrow enough to jump over, Damien wasn’t sure that was the kind of exercise he wanted. “Is there another way?” he asked the ghost. She turned back to him slightly, just long enough to meet his eyes, then faced the stream and started toward it. But he didn’t move.

“Vryce?”

Her eyes. It was only for a moment that he had looked at them, but that moment made him tremble. “Not the same,” he whispered. He looked at the lava stream, so dangerously close, and began to back off. “We’ve lost her....”

The shadow turned back to them. She was the same as before in all superficial aspects, but something indeed had changed within her. That hint of softness Damien had sensed, behind all the pain. That one emotion in her that didn’t reek of hate. That thing which Damien had interpreted as love....

“Damn!” he whispered. When had they lost the real one? He whipped about as if hoping that she was waiting there behind them, but all that was behind them was a pitted slope strewn with boulders. When and where had Calesta made the substitution? All that it would have taken was a moment of inattention, easy enough in this land where every shadow seemed threatening.

“If he means to hide her, then we won’t be able to find her.” Damien could hear the exhaustion in Tarrant’s voice, of a soul wrung dry by fear. “We’ll have to go on alone.”

“No. We can’t.” He was remembering all the obstacles they had walked through, or walked over, or simply ignored. “We don’t stand a chance without her guidance." Think, man, think! “What are the limits of his power?” he demanded. Think!

The dead thing that wasn’t Almea watched as Tarrant considered. “He can create images that appear real. He can cause us not to see things that truly exist. He has some ability to affect the internal senses—hence our sensations of heat and of falling as we defied his illusions-but that ability must be limited, or else he could simply incapacitate us with pain.”

Internal. That was the key. Was there some kind of internal link between Tarrant and his wife’s shadow, that might help them find her? Evidently the Hunter had thought of the same thing, for he shook his head. “If it were really my wife, perhaps. But this isn’t the woman I lived with, remember that. It’s a construct of the fae, which contains no more of Almea Tarrant’s true substance than would her reflection in a mirror.

Believe me,” he said, “under the circumstances I wish it were otherwise.”

No help there, then. Damien looked desperately about the landscape as if seeking inspiration for some new line of attack ... and he found it. It was streaming along the ground not ten yards from his feet.

“We might as well move forward, then.” His heart was pounding with terror as he made his way toward the lava stream, but he knew that he didn’t dare hesitate. “Because without your wife’s shadow I think we’re as good as dead here, don’t you?” He had ten feet left to go, and he could smell the gases that were sizzling on the lava’s surface. “Calesta’s as good as killed us this time by hiding her, so why not take a chance?" Walk into it, he ordered his muscles. Don’t worry about whether it’s real. Just do it.

He was less than a step from the lava stream when something reached out and stopped him. Thank God. He let it push him back from the molten rock, then reached up to wipe the sweat from his face. All he accomplished was to make the silk veil stick to his skin.

“You play a dangerous game,” Karril growled.

He managed a dry smile. “Just holding you to your promise.”

The Iezu took him by the shoulder and forced him back down to where Tarrant stood waiting. “There,” he said. He didn’t sound at all happy. “As I promised.”

The real Almea-shadow was behind them, as clear as if no illusion had ever hidden her. The false one was gone, or maybe just invisible, which was almost as good.

“Would you have really walked into it?” Karril asked him. Damien said nothing. At last the demon sighed. “All right. If that’s the way you want it.” He glanced at Tarrant, and,with a thin smile said, “Just remind me not to play poker with him.”

“You and me both,” the Hunter whispered, and it seemed to Damien that for a fleeting instant there was a smile on his face, too.

Up the slope they went, Almea gliding easily, the two men struggling behind. Much to Damien’s surprise

Karril stayed with them, and when he caught his breath long enough to question him about that choice the demon would only say gruffly, “Someone has to keep the two of you out of trouble.”

We’ve won, he thought. But it was only the journey that was finished. Ahead of them lay Shaitan, and a Working so deadly that no man might attempt it and survive.

They climbed. In places the trembling of the ground was so subtle that they didn’t hear it, only felt it beneath their feet and hands; in others it was like a genuine earthquake, and Damien’s teeth chattered as he pulled himself higher and higher up the broken slope. Sometimes it felt like the very planet beneath them was about to crumble, and he had to shut his eyes and draw in a deep breath and summon all his self-control in order to ignore it. The shadow waited. And Karril climbed behind them. And inch by inch, foot by foot, they made their way toward their destination.

At last they came to a place where Karril signaled for them to stop. The Almea-shadow seemed content to obey, so Damien and Tarrant did likewise. The ground was so steep they could barely stand upright, but supported themselves by leaning against cracked boulders of congealed lava.

“It’s over!” Karril cried out to the mist surrounding them. “You couldn’t stop them from getting here, and now you can’t stop them from doing what they came to do. Let them see it for themselves!”

For a moment it seemed to Damien that the whole world hesitated. The rumbling of the earth, the crackling and hissing of nearby lava, the pounding of his own heart ... all quieted for a moment, as if waiting. Then, slowly, the mist surrounding them began to thin. White smoke gave way to thinner tendrils, and that in turn gave way to air clear enough that the side of the mountain could be seen.

With a gasp Damien leaned back hard against Shaitan’s flank, and he saw Tarrant do the same. A hundred feet beneath them he could see clouds-real clouds—gathering about the mountain’s peak like a flock of broad-winged birds. Between them the air seemed to stretch downward forever, until the flank of the mountain crumbled and flattened and merged into the valley floor so very, very far below. Had they really climbed that far up? he wondered. His eyes found it hard to believe, but his muscles were wholly convinced.

He turned his gaze upward, toward the peak of the great volcano. A short climb farther would bring them to its lip, a jagged rock line silhouetted by the orange glow of Shaitan’s magmal furnace. The black clouds overhead seemed almost close enough that he could touch them, and their undersides flickered with all the colors of fire, reflected from the crater and its attendant vents. The entire sky seemed filled with fire, a universe of burning ash, and thank God that Almea had brought them up on the windward flank, because the stuff spewing forth from that crater looked hot enough and thick enough to choke even a sorcerer.

He looked back down at Tarrant and was startled to find yet another figure beside him. Black and sharp-edged and oh so very familiar. Instinct made him reach for his sword, even though he knew in his heart that steel would do no good against that kind. It was a gut response.

“Give it up,” Calesta commanded.

Tarrant turned away from him and began to climb. From the crater above them a spray of fire seemed to spew forth, and a hail of molten pebbles clattered down around them. He kept going.

“You can’t kill me!” the black demon cried defiantly. “All you can do is waste your own life, and throw away eternity. I can give you what you want!” Tarrant climbed on. A lump of rock directly ahead of him split open and lava began to pour forth—and then Karril cursed and muttered something and it was gone.

“I think he has what he wants,” the god of pleasure told his brother. “Despite your help.”

There were other figures appearing on the slope now, some human, most not. Shapes wrought of gold and smoke and writhing colors, that gathered on the smoking ground to watch Tarrant’s ascent. Some were as fine as glass, and almost invisible to Damien’s eyes. Others seemed to be made of flesh, as Karril was, and only a sorcerous feature or two hinted at nonhuman origins. One was made entirely of silver, neither male nor female but more beautiful than both combined.

“Family,” Karril told him. And in answer to Damien’s unspoken question, he added, “They won’t interfere.”

Up out of the crater itself something was rising now, that was neither lava nor smoke nor any volcano-bom thing. A swirling of color, that lit the ash from beneath. A cloud of images, that blended one into another so quickly Damien had no time to make out details. Faces-planets—the softness of flowers—the faceted light of jewels ... those images and a thousand more swirled in the center of a cloud of light, no more solid than a Iezu’s illusion, no more lasting than a dream. Damien felt as if he were staring into a great mirror, that reflected back at him all the fragments of his life in no special order, with no special meaning: a chaos of consciousness. With a sudden burst of fear he realized what it was, what it must be ... and he prayed that Tarrant wouldn’t look up and see it, lest it drain him of the last of his failing courage.

“Is it-?” he breathed.

“As I said,” Kami’s voice sounded strained. “Family.”

Tarrant had climbed as high as he could now, without trusting his weight to the last crumbling bit that might betray him. With effort he rose up to his feet, and the light of the Iezu’s creator combined with the hot orange glow of Shaitan’s furnace backlit him with a corona hardly less bright than the sun’s.

“Hear me, Calesta!” His voice was strong despite his obvious physical exhaustion; reaching his goal had clearly renewed him. “I Bind you with sacrifice. With the Pattern that has served man since his first days on this planet. I bind you to me as a part of my flesh, a part of my soul, indivisible—”

“Go to hell!” the demon cried.

The Hunter drew his sword then, and its cold power blazed with furious light. Along the channel that bound them, Damien could feel the Hunter’s will reaching out, the coldfire his source of fuel, his burning hatred a source of strength. Come join with me, the power urged. Damien tasted the Hunter’s hunger, and his cruelty. He ran through the Forest in the Hunter’s place, and tasted the sweet fear of women on his lips. The hot bouquet of blood filled his head like a heady wine, so that he had to put out a hand to steady himself. The joy of killing, the pleasure of the hunt, the ecstacy of torture ... they surged through him like a flood tide and they surged through the demon also, a temptation too terrible to resist. Drawn by the power of the unexpected feast, Calesta moved forward. A thousand figures circled about, human and otherwise, watching. It seemed to Damien that the mother of the Iezu was watching also, and he prayed desperately that she wouldn’t interfere with this.

“With this sacrifice,” the Hunter pronounced, “I bind you to me.” And with that he heaved the sword up high, over the jagged rock edge of the crater, into the hidden depths beyond. An explosion shook the ground beneath Damien’s feet, so powerfully that he thought the earth might open beneath him. But it quieted, and over the beating of his heart he could hear the sizzle of lava in the distance, the muffled roar of fire. Shaitan had accepted Tarrant’s offering.

Then the adept met his eyes-his alone—and the fear that shone in those pale glittering depths was only matched by their determination. “You must understand, Vryce. I honestly believed that somewhere, somehow, I could find an answer. I believed that in the month remaining to me I could discover a way to break my compact and survive, and ultimately cheat death anew . . . and I chose this instead. This sacrifice of life, which is the ultimate altruism. The sacrifice of eternity, made in the very face of Hell.” He held out an arm to Calesta, and it seemed to Damien that he smiled. “Come share it with me, demon!”

And he opened himself up to the full force of Shaitan, the raw, bloody power of Erna’s wildest currents.

For an instant Damien could see the world through his eyes, could feel his agony as the fae roared through him, too much force for any one man’s soul to contain ... and he saw the hillside blaze with a heat so terrible that the sight of it could burn out a man’s brain, and he felt the Hunter’s soul catch fire as the man screamed-as he screamed—and through it all he knew that it had worked, that Calesta had absorbed the full force of Tarrant’s altruistic sacrifice, that the terrible gamble had paid off—

Oh, Gerald.

The Hunter’s body lay crumpled and still, and when drops of burning dust fell upon it, it didn’t stir. The swirling colors that had hovered above the crater had gathered over him now, but that didn’t matter. None of it mattered anymore. The Hunter was dead.

May God be merciful to you, he prayed. May he weigh this day against the others of your life, so that in the balance He finds cause for forgiveness. May He acknowledge in His Heart that every generation born to His people from now on will have a chance to prosper because of your sacrifice—

And then it was suddenly more than he could handle, all of it. He let himself down to the trembling earth, and he put his head between his hands, and he let down the barriers that had protected him for so long, from fear and sorrow both. Never mind if the Iezu saw him cry. Never mind. They would mourn, too, if they understood. Any sane creature would.

In the east, a new dawn was just beginning.

37

Andrys despaired, I’m not going to make it.

They had stopped their march to eat and to feed the horses. The men and women who shared his mission were trying to rest, to renew themselves for the next hour’s march. He couldn’t even pretend. How could you relax when all the demons of Hell were battering at your skull?

For a long time he remained on his horse, and though Zefila and a few others narrowed their eyes as they noticed him there, no one bothered him. But then the Patriarch came over and as usual didn’t say anything-as usual, didn’t have to say anything—and with a hot flush of shame he dismounted at last. The alternative was trying to explain that his gut churned at the mere thought of making contact with the Forest soil, and he couldn’t do that. Flinching as his soles touched the damned earth, he tried not to let his terror show as he walked to the place where rations were being doled out. How could they know what the Forest was, or what it was doing to him? How could he explain to them that it wasn’t just a collection of trees, or even a complex ecosystem, but a single creature, living and breathing in perpetual darkness, that seemed intent on swallowing him whole?

What good would it do to tell them? he despaired, as he received his allotment of food. The thought was not without bitterness. They’d be happy if it devoured me.

It was getting worse and worse as they went on. He had hoped that the hours of riding would dull his senses until all feeling ceased, but it had done just the opposite. Every hoofbeat that brought him closer to the heart of the Hunter’s domain was like a nail driven into his flesh, and it was all he could do not to scream, not to beg them to turn back, turn back! and take him out of this place that was slowly remaking him, turning him into something he was never meant to be.

How could he explain to the Patriarch what was happening? He didn’t understand it himself. Shutting his eyes, he remembered the moment when they had first come to the Forest’s border, when he had stood so close to it that he could feel its power like a chill breath upon his neck. He had been afraid to go forward then, as any sane man would be, and for a moment it seemed to him that he would truly be unable to ride on. Then the Patriarch came up beside him, and he put his hand across the vast space separating them and clasped him upon the arm. Strength flowed through the contact, enough that Andrys could gasp out a few words.

“I can’t,” he whispered. “I don’t have the strength.”

The hand on his arm tightened for a moment, and he quailed at the thought of the anger that might now be directed at him. But the Patriarch’s voice was quiet and level, with no condemnation in it. “Then trust in God, my son. He does.”

Andrys looked at him, and for a moment their eyes locked. For a brief moment he sensed the deep well of strength in the other man, a reservoir so vast that all the trials of a lifetime could never empty it. Give me one drop of that in my own soul, he begged silently. Let me taste it, just for a day. Then the moment passed and he was on his own once more. Heart numb, he urged his horse forward, into the point position. Past the Patriarch. Past Zefila. Forward, step by step, into ...

Temptation.

Oh, yes, there were horrors enough in the Forest to send any sane man running. Oh, yes, he was sickened by the foul odors of the place, nauseated by the aura of rot that clung to every tree, every stone in the place. Yes, he could feel the chill power of Gerald Tarrant battering at the gateway of his soul as the fae tried to pry his identity loose, to let his take its place. All those things and more were there, enough to freeze any man’s blood. But there was something else, too. Something so unexpected that he could hardly absorb it. Something so horrifying in its implications—and so seductive in its form-that he dared not give voice to it, for fear the others would declare him mad.

He could feel the trees, as the Forest breeze caressed them. He could feel their coarse bark as if it were his own skin, and he winced at the sharp bite of parasites burrowing beneath it as if it were his own flesh they ate. High above him he could feel the thick night deepening, the faint sting of moonlight on his branches, the cold breath of a mountain wind stirring his leaves. Too much sensation for any one man to absorb ... and yet only the gateway, he sensed, to an even greater vision.

Was he going crazy? Or was this simply a manifestation of Gerald Tarrant’s own link with the Forest, a sign that it indeed recognized Andrys as part of itself? He was afraid to ask. He was afraid that somehow, by putting the experience into words, he would give it more power. He was afraid that his soul would drown, not in a sea of terror, but in a tidal wave of sensation so rich and so fascinating that no man could resist it.

There were birds in the trees, and he could taste their hunger lapping at his branches as they searched for the insects that were their chosen fare. And he was aware of those insects as well, a patter of frenzied movement punctuated by such stillness that it seemed the whole of the Forest was holding its breath. The bark of the trees was alive with tiny organisms, and if he shut his eyes he could sense the Forest as they did, overlapping images of food and hunger and fear and satiation and so many other sensations, alien yet familiar ... he could lose himself in it, he knew. All too easily. He could lie down on the chill earth and let it take him, open up his soul until all the life of the Forest poured into him. Sweet, dark ecstacy! Unspeakably tempting to the hedonistic spirit in him, that craved sensation at any cost. Maddeningly tempting to the wounded shell of a man that he had become, desperately in need of escape. What narcotic could rival such an experience, or offer such total escape from the bleak reality that his life had become?

Shaken, he went back to his horse and fiddled with its saddle, as if seeking some weak point in the harness that needed his attention. His hands were trembling so badly he was afraid someone would notice, but the others were too intent on their own duties to bother. God, he needed a drink. How else did you drive out such a vision, which lapped at your brain like a woman’s tongue, hinting at sensations beyond human bearing? Was this what the Hunter experienced every day? he wondered. Did he escape his own undead flesh to revel in the heat and the hunger of his creations? Or was that an experience reserved for a living Tarrant, which even the great Hunter might not share? The thought of it made his head swim. And the very real fear that he would be swallowed up by those new sensations made him clench his hands into fists so tightly that his fingers throbbed with pain, as if by doing so he could somehow control the source of the alien sensations, and drive the Forest out of his soul.

They ate quickly, remounted, rode on. Into a night so endless, a land so twisted and degraded, that its oppressive power strangled even whispered conversations among them. They had no means of measuring their path or of even chosing their direction. Their compasses had ceased to work long ago, cursed by their own fears into a state of inaccuracy so pronounced that finally, with a sigh, Zefila ordered them put away for good. The path they followed was serpentine, and it seemed to Andrys that several times they crossed their own tracks as they rode along it. No one else seemed to notice it, or at least, no one mentioned it. Was it just a hallucination, conjured by his fear? Or was it a true vision, visible only to those who saw with the Hunter’s eyes?

The Forest was herding them, that much was clear, but to where? If their subterfuge worked, it should lead them to the black keep at the heart of the Forest. If not ... then they might wander these dark woods forever until hope and supplies both ran out. Wasn’t that how the Forest worked? Entrapping the men in a maze of wood and stone until they died, perhaps mere yards from a place where the sun was shining?

Don’t think about that, he thought, pulling at his collar with a feverish finger. You’ll go crazy.

After what seemed like an eternity on horseback, Zefila indicated that it was time to make camp for the day. When they came to an area that was clearer than most, they halted their horses and dismounted one after the other, as exhausted by the aura of futility that hung about their company as they were by the exertion of a long ride. Time to sleep, Andrys thought. Not a happy thought. God, he needed a drink. His throat was burning and his hands were shaking and he really didn’t know how he was going to make it through the next hour, much less continue on like this for another day without fortification. He almost turned to the Patriarch and begged for a swallow from the metal flask the Holy Father had confiscated back at the beginning of their march. Almost. But in the end he lacked the courage to confront the man, or perhaps he was ashamed to admit to such weakness in front of him. Grimacing as he dismounted, he braced himself by remembering that there were times in the past when Samiel had locked up-or smashed-all the bottles of liquor in the keep, and he had made it through. Somehow.

Food was doled out: cold, uncomforting rations. He tried not to think about the predators circling the campsite just beyond the reach of their meager light, but his senses were more attuned to the Forest than before, and he could hear them treading warily about the camp, wanting only the right signal to attack. God willing, they’d keep their distance.

He stiffened suddenly. His nerves felt like someone had just screeched fingernails across a slate, right behind him.

Something was wrong.

He shook his head, wincing as a sharp bolt of pain shot through his temples. The animals had stopped their circling. The very night air seemed uncommonly still. He felt as if he were standing before a tidal wave, a vast bore of black water that was about to bear down on him.

“Mer Tarrant?” someone asked.

—And it struck him in his gut like a physical blow, so powerfully that he staggered backward, falling over a man who had been unpacking supplies behind him—falling over him and then still falling, down past the earth, down into the earth, falling into a chasm of darkness so absolute that there was no earth in all the universe, nothing to cling to, no one to scream to ... it was a hot darkness, so hot that he could taste his skin charring, he could hear his hair sizzling, he could smell his blood boiling to vapor—

He screamed. Or tried to. God only knew if the sound had reality; in his world it echoed and echoed until it filled the dark, hot space with sound, until it deafened him to hear his own cries, his own terrified keening—

“Tarrant! What is it?”

He could feel a vast tremor run through the Forest then, a vibration that ripped loose ghost-white roots and sent the scavenger worms digging madly for cover. What was happening? Not an earthquake, but something infinitely more fearsome. He fought his way up from the darkness, struggling to focus on real things: the people around him, the horses stamping nervously on the ground, the sharp pain in his thigh where he had struck it against a rock in his fall. Focus. Think. Try to figure out what the hell is happening.

“Mer Tarrant?” a woman asked.

“I’m okay,” he whispered hoarsely. Hearing his own words as if they were that of a stranger. There was something wrong in the Forest, so terribly wrong that he sensed his very life depended on being able to define it, yet its definition slithered from his mental grasp. The soldiers were in danger now, he realized, far more danger than they had ever been in before, far more danger than any of them could anticipate—

“Oh, my God,” he whispered. Suddenly understanding. “No. Not that.”

“What?” It was Jensing, an older man with a wife and children to go back to. “What is it?”

Andrys looked for the Patriarch, found him. Their eyes met.

“We’re not safe any more,” he gasped. “You have to do something—”

“Why?” the Holy Father demanded. His tone was utterly cool, incredibly controlled. Couldn’t he sense the danger here?

“It broke,” he gasped. “His link with it. Gone.” He stared into those blue eyes, so maddeningly calm, and heard the terror rise in his own voice. "It isn’t his anymore. Don’t you understand what that means? I won’t be able to—”

White-furred shapes erupted from the forest’s edge. Sleek killers, lithe and powerful, with teeth that gleamed like pearls along their slathering jaws. They gave no warning, but burst from the stillness of the surrounding woods with a suddenness and a silence that seemed more demonic than bestial and they were upon the company so quickly that few could muster a defense. One man went down with a cry of anguish, sharp teeth ripping at his throat before he could manage to reach his sword. A woman screamed as two beasts bore down—on her, their claws making short work of her face. Something pale and hungry leaped toward the group that was surrounding Andrys, and before anyone could react it had borne one woman down upon him, spattering him with blood as it tore through her throat mere inches from his face. There was screaming now—some battle cries, some howls of fear—and the mixed sound churned in Andrys’s brain as he struggled to kick the dead weight of the woman off his chest, praying that the creature would go with it. Then someone managed to take up a weapon and spear the beast, forcing a blade through its gut while Andrys struggled to get his own weapon loose. Even that didn’t stop the thing. He felt the teeth clamp shut around his leg as his sword slid free of his sheath and he kicked out wildly with his other foot, hoping to dislodge it before those powerful jaws slid around to the back of his steel greaves, or else crushed them utterly. Another sword hacked at the animal, blinding him with a spray of black, foul-smelling blood. He struggled to get away from the beast, and when at last he did he fought his way to his knees, and then to his feet. He was as ready to fight as he had ever been in his life, but he knew deep inside that even that wasn’t enough. Ten years of civilized fencing bouts in an upper-class salon had hardly prepared him for this.

There were dozens of them in the camp now, and they were carving their way through the Church’s troops with tooth and claw and sheer bestial savagery. Some of them were attacking the soldiers, but most of them were going for their mounts, as if they knew the saddled beasts to be unarmed. Amidst the rearing, squealing horses it was impossible to see how many animals there were, but the smell of blood was thick in the air and the few men who dared come near that battlefield were spattered in crimson.

As for the beasts who had chosen human prey ... with their strength, claws, and endurance they were five times as deadly as any equivalent human host would have been, and ten times more terrifying. Their powerful jaws cracked the shafts of the spears that were thrust through their flesh, and even the sharpened steel hooks of barbed spearheads that were left dangling from their flesh didn’t slow them down. Their misshapen paws grasped at weapons with almost human dexterity, and jerked them out of the soldiers’ hands with savage strength. They might have been devils for all that they acknowledged pain, and the worst of it all was that Andrys had no doubt that devils-true devils-would follow them. In one terrible instant the Forest had ceased to recognize him as its master, and now it was free to unleash all those horrors which it had been saving up since the moment they first violated its borders.

“Get together!” Zefila yelled, and somehow the order carried above the cacophony. Those men and women who were still standing began to fight their way toward each other, gathering together as herd beasts will do when surrounded by predators. Andrys struggled toward them, his own sword dripping a line of black blood along the ground, and relief washed over him as he got to the point where there was human flesh to put his back to, and sharp steel swords to protect his sides. Several of the soldiers had managed to take up their springboks and now, with the protective efforts of their comrades buying them a precious second in which to aim, they launched their projectiles. Again and again, pausing only to reload from boxes at their feet, trusting to their brothers and sisters in battle to protect them as they did so. Bright quarrels bit into white fur, freeing blood as black as the night itself. A smell filled the clearing which was ten times more horrible than the rotting stink of the Forest, and Andrys felt bile rise up in the back of his throat with such revulsive power that for a moment he feared he would be overcome by it. Several of the soldiers were, and their comrades struggled to protect them while they doubled over, giving vent to their fear and their revulsion in a hot, fierce flow.

I’m going to die here, Andrys thought as he gouged one of the creatures with his sword; the creature leaped back with such force that it took everything he had to yank the weapon loose before it was pulled from his grasp. Was that Narilka’s voice he heard, crying out his name in the midst of this madness? The delusion lent him strength, and he dared move forward far enough to stab at the creature’s face. He didn’t hit it himself, but in its effort to avoid him it impaled itself on another’s spear. Good enough. We’re all going to die here.

But the tide of battle was turning. The beasts who had feasted on horse flesh had left, carrying chunks of their booty away in blood-soaked jaws; their fellows were slowly losing ground. As their numbers diminished the humans spread out, extending their protective circle to include their fallen comrades. So many were dead, so many wounded ... you couldn’t look at them, Andrys discovered, or you’d stop fighting. You didn’t dare think about what the battle had cost, or the sheer horror of it would paralyze you.

And then it was over. The last beast was dead, or dying, or fled into the night. Soldiers moved silently to slice each and every white-furred throat that remained, not wanting to be taken by surprise as they recovered the camp. Others moved quietly to where the fallen lay, and in a few corners of the battlefield soft weeping could be heard. That sound shook Andrys to his core. These were city folk, he realized, like himself, and for all their brave talk and macho posturing they had probably never seen more violence than a tavern brawl, or at best a temple riot. Nothing had prepared them for what they saw now. Nothing could.

Gerald Tarrant-you bastard!-you caused this! And so help me God, if I catch you, you’ll pay for it. With a trembling hand he wiped blood from his eyes, hoping it wasn’t his own. First by my hand, and then in Hell.

“You all right?”

It was Zefila. The blood smeared on her face was black, and it reeked of the beasts. He managed to nod and she turned away, evidently satisfied that he could take care of himself. Where had the Patriarch found a woman of such fortitude, he wondered? How had he known, when he interviewed hundreds for this quest, which ones would stand up to such horror?

The Patriarch. He started suddenly, aware that he hadn’t seen the man since the battle started. Whipping about in sudden fright, he searched the battle-scarred campsite for him—and found him, to his relief, standing at the edge of the camp. His robes were spattered with blood and he seemed to be favoring his left leg, but he was alive. Thank God, Andrys thought. How could they have gone on without him?

“Bind up the wounded,” Zefila ordered. “Get them on horseback, if the animals will have them. Move it! Those things may come back.”

“What about the dead?” a woman demanded.

There was a pause. Several men stopped what they were doing, and all turned to look at the Patriarch. The cool blue eyes did not meet their gaze, but turned outward as if staring at some distant vista.

“We take them with us,” he said at last. His tone was strangely bitter. “For as long as we have the horses to carry them.” He looked over the battlefield, and his proud brow furrowed as if in pain. “Men who serve the One God with their lives deserve better than to rot in a place like this.”

With a nod of approval, the man nearest him began to gather up the nearest body; others followed suit, handling the abandoned flesh of their fellow soldiers with a reverence that was born not only of love, but of fear. It could have been them. In another fight—perhaps in their next one-it might be.

The Patriarch walked slowly to where Andrys stood. His steps were heavy, as though he bore some great weight upon his shoulders. When he came within hearing, he said, very softly, “I shouldn’t resent the time it will take, I suppose. Or remind myself that the flesh is but a shell, which has no real value once the spirit has abandoned it. Every minute we delay here puts us at greater risk, but the alternative——” He shook his head in frustration. “It clouds too many futures. Fosters too many resentments. Let them do what comforts them.”

He winced then, and reached out to a nearby tree for support. Andrys hesitated, then dared, “Are you all right?”

The Patriarch exhaled slowly. “I’m over seventy,” he said at last. “Such exercise as this is hardly recommended at that age.”

Then his sharp gaze fixed on Andrys, ice-blue, unwavering.

“You must help us,” he said quietly.

Andrys felt his heart skip a beat. “I ... I don’t know what you mean.”

“If the Forest is our enemy now, then it’s only a matter of time before something else takes an interest in us. Judging from this experience ...” He looked about the camp, his eyes narrow with foreboding. “We might survive another open assault, like this one, and persevere despite it ... but not all the dangers of the Forest will be so obvious.”

He remembered the sense he’d had of hungry things burrowing beneath the earth, and he nodded tightly.

“You have to find us a way through, Mer Tarrant. Either that—”

He drew in a sharp breath. “I can’t—”

“-Either that, or we’re doomed.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but no sound came forth. Because the Patriarch was right, God damn it, and Andrys knew it. Shaking, the Prophet’s descendant struggled to find courage within himself. There was so precious little of it to draw on! But they would all die if he failed them now, he knew that. And he would die as well. Not merely losing his life, as the others would do, but surrendering it to the very power he had come to destroy.

“How?” he whispered at last.

“I don’t know,” the Patriarch said quietly. “You tell me, Andrys Tarrant.”

He was about to say something in response, but at that moment one of the supply officers came toward them, with a list of precious armaments lost in the struggle. As Andrys listened to the two of them discuss the amount of black powder lost with the horses, he felt a cold certainty crawl down his spine, to settle uncomfortably in his stomach. If the Forest were their enemy now, then there was only one thing to do. And only one man, he knew, who could attempt it.

He stared out into the Forest and shivered, sensing its power. Its hunger.

Only me.

He went to a far corner of the camp. It was as far as he dared go for privacy, while still being within the border of the light. Two soldiers flanked him silently, a man and a woman, and took up positions just out of his line of sight, but close enough to protect him if any new danger threatened. Respectful but determined: the man to whom they had sworn their fealty would not be allowed to die.

For a long time he just stood there, trying to work up enough courage to do what had to be done. His whole body was trembling. Was that the first manifestation of alcoholic withdrawal, or a simple fear response? It frightened him that he could no longer tell the difference.

Calesta, help me.

It wasn’t the first time he had prayed to his patron within the Forest, but this was the first time the demon didn’t answer. That in itself was fresh cause for panic. While Calesta hadn’t always answered his prayers in Jaggonath, it had been pretty clear that once this campaign was underway he would support Andrys. The thought that the demon might leave him on his own here was something so frightening he couldn’t even consider it.

Calesta, he implored. I need you!

No answer.

Shaking inside, he drew in a deep breath and tried to steady himself. If the demon wasn’t going to help him, then he would have to do this himself. There was no other option, right? People would die if he failed. He would die if he failed. Right?

Shivering, he shut his eyes and tried to clear his mind. It took no effort for him to establish contact with the Forest. The instant he stopped fighting to resist it, sensations slid into his brain, trees and birds and insects and microbes and even the earth itself—

Only it had changed. All of it.

He felt the trees throughout the Forest twitching, tension eating into their bark like acid. Hungry things that burrowed beneath the ground writhed blindly in their tunnels, unable to find their way to the surface. Sharp-toothed predators growled at their mates, and a white-furred scavenger ate her children while her packmates fell on one another in mindless rage. All throughout the Forest it was like that, fear and fury reigning where order had once held sway, and Andrys could feel the cause of it echo in his flesh: the loss and the shock and the pain of a wound that would never heal, a separation so unspeakable that the entire ecosystem reeled in despair.

He could feel his body staggering as he tried to absorb that knowledge and still maintain his own sense of identity. If he failed in that-even for a moment—he would never be able to return, he knew that. He struggled to establish some kind of focus, to narrow his senses in on the area surrounding the camp and the paths leading from it, in the hope of discovering ... what? What did they want him to do?

You tell me, Andrys Tarrant.

He could feel the currents now, not just coursing about his feet but flowing through his very flesh. Chill currents, swift and powerful, they tugged at his body like a riptide and nearly pulled him off his feet. He could feel the earth-fae surging through the Forest, uniting all creatures within its confines even as it drew them inexorably toward the Center. Toward that place where the power was strongest, the earth-fae was deepest, the very heart of the region—

He felt his heart skip a beat, and for a moment nearly lost himself. How easy it would be to give in to that current, and let it sweep him toward the heart of the whirlpool! That was where all the energies of the Forest were focused, that was the heart and brain of Jahanna, and every living thing that drew strength from sorcery was drawn there, to commune with the Forest or to be devoured.

That was where the black keep would be.

Shaking, he forced the visions out of his brain. It took every ounce of his strength to do so, and even so he wasn’t entirely successful. A faint echo of the Forest remained within him, as though somehow a seed of it had invaded his flesh. Dark and cold, he could feel it growing inside him, and he knew that if he nurtured it too much it would take root in him and flourish, until his own soul was strangled by it.

The Patriarch had come up beside him. He said nothing, waiting. For a long moment Andrys was silent, drawing strength from his presence.

Then, without looking at him, he said quietly. “I know the way.”

For a moment there was no response. Then a firm, strong hand clasped his shoulder in silent support. It seemed to him that strength flowed through the contact, bolstering his own failing courage.

“It isn’t easy to fight for one’s soul,” the Holy Father said. The hand remained a moment longer, then fell away. “I know that.”

Something hard and cold touched his arm. He looked down, and to his astonishment saw the head of a silver flask. The sight of it shook him to his roots, and it took a moment before he could take the container from the Holy Father, a moment longer to uncap it.

Brandy. He savored its sweet smell like perfume, then tipped up the flask to drink from it. Alcohol burned in his throat as it went down, then spread out in warm waves from his stomach. One swallow. Two. Then he forced himself to put it down, even though his soul was screaming for more. He capped it, and handed it back to the Patriarch. His hands were no longer shaking as badly as they had been.

“You’ll have to lead us,” the Patriarch told him. “There’s no other way.”

He nodded. The older man clasped his shoulder once more, then turned away and left him. The two guards looked at him with half-veiled curiosity.

You’ll have to lead us.

Warmed by the alcohol, Andrys Tarrant shivered.

38

Images Cascading one into another, too fast and furious to separate. Visions and sensations tangled together so tightly there is no way to pick one out from all the others, no means of absorbing the storm of images except as one chaotic whole.

Stars.

Space.

Fire.

Blackness.

“What the vulk... ?” Damien’s throat was raw and his lungs constricted from sulfur fumes. The words made it past his lips just long enough for him to hear them, then they, too, were drowned in a deluge of alien sensations.

Loss.

Despair.

Fear.

Desperation.

Oh, my children, my children....

“Karril?”

No answer.

The ship hurtles through the blackness of space like a spark of life, its substance hot in the emptiness. Its walls are not flesh but a living equivalent, energies bound in the place of matter, the skin of a sentient creature that knows nothing of blood or of bone or even of material tools ... but a creature nonetheless. Born for this mission, raised for it, trained for it, the creature-that-is-a-ship hurtles through the wasteland between the stars, her precious children gathered inside her....

“Karril!”

Each child bred for a single purpose, focused and pure in its substance. One to read the stars and choose a course. One to gather up the thin energies of the void and make food from them. One to steer and one to record and one to dream and one—more precious than any other—to carry the patterns of inheritance of their race, so that when the time is right, a whole new world can be peopled with her children.

He had a spasm of coughing and for a moment the images scattered. His lungs were refusing to admit enough air. The images that reformed in his head when the spasm was done were swimming with black spots.

How fragile they are, her children, her crew! How they struggle to adapt to this new place, how they fight to serve her ... all in vain. They were not made for this strange planet, where forces that have no name wreak havoc with every living process. First the seeker dies, and then the dreamer, and the gatherer, and so on through all their number. Child after child submitting in his turn, either to a natural death or to such mutation that she herself must kill them to keep the family pure.

The veil. It had fallen from his face, leaving him exposed to Shaitan’s poisons. With a shaking hand he pushed it back into place, praying that it would ease the constriction of his lungs as well as protecting him from fresh assault. And it seemed to. Thank God, it seemed to.

The death of the breeder is the most devastating loss of all. Without his storehouse of reproductive patterns she will live out eternity on this hostile planet without hope, without purpose, her only comfort the memories that slowly fade as year fades into year, century into century. Periodically she wonders if it might not be more peaceful to follow them all into death, to end her suffering forever. But though the fantasy of suicide is tempting, it isn’t really a choice for her. Like all her people she has been born for a purpose, and hers is to give life to others, not to take her own.

And then, when hope has been lost for so long that she’s all but forgotten the flavor of it, she becomes aware of something new on the planet. Not a creature born to its hateful currents, but a stranger, like herself. A traveler. In joy she reaches out to it, to the thousands of individuals that make up its racial consciousness ... and comes up with silence. Painful, hateful silence! The newcomers can’t hear her. They lack the senses. The structure of their life is so different from her own that interface between them is all but impossible. Surrounded by a host of creatures who would welcome her as a fellow explorer on this hostile planet, she is more alone than ever.

The images were all over him. Not only before his eyes, but in his brain as well. Images so alien that at first he could hardly interpret them, but one by one they sorted themselves out so that he could understand. And he trembled inside, as that understanding came.

She will try one last time. In the period before she came to this planet she had given birth to children who would serve her needs: she will do the same here, in order to reach these people. She has to wait long years for one to come close, for the place that best supports her own life is hostile to theirs. But at last one comes, and she lifts the pattern of his soul from his flesh with a mother’s sure skill, and uses it to make a new kind of child. Half-breed, maverick, enough like her to understand her need, enough like this new species to communicate with it directly. Alas, though the theory is sound, the result is disappointing. Her first child is so like her that its father-species can’t even see it. The second is the same. The third is apparent to them, but can find no common language with which to communicate. Again and again she tries, using those creatures that approach her resting place as templates for her experiments. She gives birth to children so like herself that they share her own limitations, and to children so like their fathers that they lack the ability to see her at all, and to dozens who have qualities of both, but never in the correct proportion. She gives them the ability to alter perception, so that they can bridge the vast conceptual gap between their parent races, but the ones who are strongest in that area have no real understanding of what she is, or why they have been born. Still she tries, over and over, each time new material makes its way to her domain, hoping against hope that someday the right combination will be found... .

And it has been found, but not as she had imagined. Not in the soul of one child but in the presence of many, each one interpreting for the brothers most like him, taking her memories and her hopes and her fears and clothing them in a framework of alien understanding—of human understanding—until at last, in the brain of a dying sorcerer, they are translated so that men might comprehend them—

He pushed himself up onto his elbows and stared toward Shaitan’s peak. The mother of the Iezu had completely enveloped Gerald Tarrant’s body. Images played along her surface and throughout her substance, human and alien both. Stars, faces, mists and darkness, color and light and a thousand shapes without form or name. An attempt at some kind of visual language? Or perhaps simply the reflections of all the humans she had courted, as she plucked from each a single strand of consciousness to guide her procreative efforts.

He looked at Karril, kneeling by his side, and saw in the Iezu’s expression such unadulterated shock that only one interpretation was possible. He didn’t know. None of them knew.

“You’re human,” Damien whispered. The words made his throat burn.

The Iezu nodded slowly. “Half,” he agreed, in a voice that trembled with awe. “And half . . .” He looked up at the mother. “Something else.”

And then suddenly, with frightening clarity, Damien saw the last image again. This time the detail that had almost escaped him didn’t:

... in the brain of a dying sorcerer ...

He struggled to his knees; the motion set off a fit of coughing so violent that it almost knocked him down again. But that wasn’t going to stop him. The living circuit the Iezu mother had described was clearly using a man’s brain for its receiver, and since that wasn’t him and there was only one other man present—

“He’s alive?” He struggled to his feet as he gasped the question, and started to stagger toward Tarrant. “I felt him die!”

A hand grabbed his arm and pulled him back, roughly enough that he nearly fell. “And so he did. Does your kind never start up a man’s heart once again, after it falters? Is the brink of death such an absolute place that no human soul is ever rescued from it?” Damien tried to pull loose from him, but the demon (no, not a demon, something strange and alien and terrible and wonderful, but not a demon) wouldn’t let go. “Don’t,” Karril warned. “She saved him for her purposes, not yours. If you get in her way now, there’s no telling what she’ll do.”

“So she can use him as a translating device? Is that her purpose?”

The Iezu shook his head. “She doesn’t need him for that. Now that she understands the pattern, and her children know how to help her, any human will do.”

“What, then?” He stared up at the mother’s fluid form, trying to catch some glimpse of the man inside it. “What does she want him for?”

The Iezu turned his attention to the creature as well, and for a long moment said nothing. Damien saw that many of the other Iezu had gathered near the mother, as if to intensify their bond.

“She says that he killed her child.” Karril found the words with effort; clearly the Iezu bond was less than a perfect translator. “She says that the right to do so is hers and hers alone, and not even an alien may take it from her.”

“So she’s punishing him? Is that it?”

But the Iezu shook his head. “Not punishing, exactly. More like ... using him.”

“For what?”

Karril hesitated. Damien could see his brow furrow in concentration as he struggled to find the proper words. “To replace what was destroyed,” he said at last. “To make her family whole again.”

To replace-?

Oh, my God.

Hundreds of men and women had come into this valley in past centuries, courting the wild power of Shaitan. From each she had taken one seed, one spark of consciousness, never realizing that a man was made up of a thousand such elements and her Iezu children inherited only one. What happened to those men? he wondered suddenly. Did Kami’s human father leave this place in the same condition he had come to it, or did he leave behind him that capacity for pleasure which made human existence bearable? What would be left of Gerald Tarrant when the process of replacement was over?

As if in answer, the mother of the Iezu rose from Tarrant’s body and withdrew to the lip of the crater. Damien had no eye for her, but made his way as quickly as he could to where the Hunter lay. "Dying" was the image the mother had chosen. Not "alive," but "dying." That meant the man wasn’t out of danger yet. Damien put a hand to Tarrant’s face, and even through the silk veil he could feel its uncommon heat. Its human heat. If he did die, even for an instant, then his compact is broken. He’s free. He put his hand above the man’s mouth and felt, even though the silk, a thin stirring of breath. “You son” of a bitch,” he whispered hoarsely, “you’re alive!”

The Hunter’s eyes fluttered weakly open, and for a moment it looked as if he was going to say something typically dry in response. But then the strength left him and he shuddered and closed his eyes, never having made a sound.

“Karril!” He hauled Tarrant up by the shoulders until he was sitting upright, then wrapped one arm about him. Cinders that had fallen in his hair began to smoke as he cried out, “Help me get him out of here!”

For a moment Karril hesitated, and Damien wondered if he hadn’t perhaps asked for more help than the Iezu could give. How solid was the body he wore, constructed of fae for convenience’s sake and clad in an illusion of humanity? But then the Iezu began to climb, and when he reached Tarrant he went around to his other side, wrapping his arm about the man’s torso so that together they could lift him. Clearly whatever served him for flesh was solid enough to function. Cinders smoked in their clothes and their hair as they struggled to carry the Hunter down from the deadly peak. Once Damien had to stop to beat out a burning spark that had taken hold of a fold of his shirt sleeve, and another time Karril called a halt in order to brush red-hot cinders from the Hunter’s hair. Tarrant tried to help them by supporting his own weight, but the simple fact was that he was too weak to walk unaided.

At last, after a nightmare descent, they found shelter beside a cooled lava dome, a blister of rock whose position on the slope would protect them from the worst of the wind-borne ash. With a groan Damien lowered Tarrant to the ground so that his back was supported by the rocky protrusion, and then let go. The earth was trembling here, but it wasn’t too warm, which was as good an omen as they were likely to get. There was, of course, no telling where Shaitan’s fury would erupt next, and it could well be right beneath their feet ... but that was such a mundane terror after all they had experienced that it had been strangely leached of power. With a sigh Damien lowered himself beside the Hunter, his legs throbbing with exhaustion as he stretched them out. How long had they been going without a real break now, ten hours, twelve? He rubbed a knot that was forming in his thigh, wincing as the tender flesh recoiled from the pressure. He wasn’t going to make it much longer, that was certain. He squinted over toward the sun to get a sense of its position, then out at the Ridge. It seemed much closer to them than it had been before; Almea must have led them partway around the volcano’s peak. Now they faced south, and the knife-edged mountain chain was close enough for him to make out details on its flank.

“There,” he said, and he pointed in a direction where the ground seemed smooth and solid, where a clear path between the meandering acid streams could be determined. “We’ll go that way.”

“I don’t think he’s in shape to move.”

Damien looked down at Tarrant, and for a moment was so lost in wonder that he could hardly concentrate on the issue at hand. There was sunlight falling across his face-sunlight!-seeping through the silk in bands of white to illuminate a face that had been in darkness for nearly a millennium. Sunlight glistened on the fine beads of sweat that were gathering on his forehead, and the skin beneath them was flushed with a hint of red, just like a living man’s should be.

It hit him then, perhaps for the first time, just what had happened. He had known the words before, but he hadn’t felt their impact. Now he did.

God has given you a second chance, he thought in wonder, as he touched trembling fingers to the silk veil that protected Tarrant’s face. After so many centuries of evil that your soul must surely be black as jet. He remembered the Binding that Tarrant had worked on Calesta, the horrific images of bloodlust and sadism that had risen up from the Hunter’s core to overwhelm them both. That was all still inside the man, and it would take more than a single dose of sunlight to exorcise it. But now, for the first time, he was free to fight it. Now he was free to struggle against the accumulated corruption of his last nine hundred years, and reclaim his human soul. God has given you a chance to redeem yourself. A second beginning. “Don’t you waste it,” he whispered. The Hunter’s eyes flickered open briefly, but he saw no comprehension in them. Finally he forced his gaze away, back to the path before them. “We can’t stay here.”

Karril nodded and moved to take up Tarrant’s arm again, to support him. But Damien gestured for him to I wait a minute. He pulled out his canteen from his pack, took a short drink-too snort for comfort, but his supplies were running low—and then offered it to Tarrant. For a long minute the Hunter simply stared at it, and Damien wondered if he was too dazed to even realize what it was. But then he took it, his hand shaking slightly, and lifted it to his lips and drank. He seemed to wince as the water went down, but continued to drink nonetheless. Thin stuff compared to what you’re used to, Damien thought dryly. He let him drink as much as he wanted, despite the dwindling supply, trusting to the man to know his own needs. At last Tarrant handed the canteen back to him, and it seemed to Damien that his grip was stronger than before. His pale eyes were open now, and glittered with something of their accustomed light. Even his breathing seemed less labored.

We’re going to make it, Damien thought. Awed by the concept. Both of us. We’re going to get out of here alive, and make it back to the living world—

Suddenly the ground heaved beneath them, as though something were stirring to life underneath it. “Time to move,” Karril suggested, and Damien agreed. Hurriedly they caught up Tarrant again, helping him to his feet and then guiding him down the slope as fast as he could move. After a short distance Damien led them off to one side, so that if, God forbid, anything did come up out of the ground where they’d been sitting, they might stand a chance of not being hit by it. Down the slope they struggled, half walking, half sliding, and when they came to a smooth enough place they even forced Tarrant to a half-run, trying to cover as much ground as they could. Thank God, the Hunter seemed to be recovering his strength. And just in time. Thus far the wind had been in their favor, pushing the ash cloud east and north so that it didn’t affect them, but Damien didn’t want to bet his life on how long that would last. Down the slope they struggled, step by step, stumbling and sliding as the rocky ground became an avalanche of gravel, or as sections gave way entirely to reveal twisted gaps beneath the surface. At one point the ground split open behind them with a roar, venting a torrent of gases that Damien could smell even through his veil, and an avalanche of smoking rocks buried the path they been following mere moments before. Great. Just great. Here they had faced Hell and worse, vanquished the son of an alien life-form and rescued Tarrant from the ranks of the undead

... all to be buried alive while they were on the way home? Not likely, he swore. Not if he could help it.

At last-finally!—the slope leveled off. The cracked surface of Shaitan gave way to the jagged monuments of her valley bed, and then-just when it seemed to Damien that he couldn’t climb down another foot-to level ground. They stopped ever so briefly to take another sip of water, and Damien pressed a bit of food into Tarrant’s hand, but he didn’t want to stop even long enough to make sure that the adept ate it. There were shadows of the dead here, hungry for the pain of the living, and without Tarrant’s help he knew he didn’t stand a chance against them. He chewed his own portion as they started forward again, and prayed that Tarrant’s body still remembered how to digest such solid nourishment.

Moving as quickly as they could, they made their way across the valley floor. The mists were thinner in this place and few shadows even noticed them. The very closeness of the ridge-so near that they could make out a few malformed trees on its flank-lent them a last burst of strength, past the point when their bodies might normally have failed them. Just this one last hike, Damien promised himself, and then it’s all over. You can make camp on the ridge somewhere and get some real sleep, and tomorrow you can head back and start your life over. The thought of untroubled sleep was so enticing that for a moment he could think of nothing else, that sweet physical surrender as darkness and peace closed in around him, the sure caress of dreams.... He looked up sharply at Kami, who refused to meet his eyes. Shit. I guess we all have to eat, right?

By the time they finally reached the far side of the valley, the sun was well overhead, and the Core also. Their light had been so wholly eclipsed by Shaitan’s ash-cloud that an eerie pseudo-night had fallen across the valley, blood red shadows sculpting rocky promontories in sharp relief. Tarrant was still walking, although his pace and his posture warned that his newfound strength was near to giving out. But they were going to make it, Damien thought feverishly. They were really going to make it.

Sleep. It beckoned to him from the slope up ahead, from that place where the mists of the valley gave way to the cold winds of the Ridge. That place where no lava could reach them, no demons would follow them, nothing and no one would disturb their peace. It seemed almost heaven compared to their recent travels, and he struggled toward it with all the energy he could muster. How long now since they had last rested, or eaten a real meal, or even paused to get their bearings? Incredibly, Tarrant kept going, and Damien didn’t want to know whether the man’s strength was genuinely improving or whether it was simply desperation that drove him. Some things were better left unquestioned.

And then they were there at last, high enough on the rocky slope to be safe. Damien remained standing just long enough to wrestle his pack off his back and remove his sword harness, then fell to the earth in exhaustion, Tarrant doing the same by his side. Never mind that the ground was sharp and uneven, and their flesh was bruised from the day’s events. He was alive. Tarrant was alive! And as for the few threats remaining ...

“I’ll keep watch,” the Iezu promised, and he nodded. Good. Yes. That would do it.

We made it, he thought. Numbed by the concept. We really made it. We’re going to live.

And then sheer exhaustion closed in around him and all of it—the hope, the fear, the jubilation-gave way to darkness.

“Damien.”

He was so sore it seemed he could hardly move. Someone was shaking him and it hurt. For a moment he cursed and tried to push the troublesome hands away, but they disappeared when he grabbed at them and reappeared elsewhere.

“Damien. I’m sorry. You need to get up.”

Damn. Damn. What was it now? He forced his eyes to open, and discovered that even his eyelids hurt. There wasn’t a part of his body that didn’t pain him, and that included his bladder. Clearly he had slept longer than certain bodily processes would have liked. “Karril? What the hell is it?”

When the Iezu saw he was awake, he leaned back on his heels, letting him get up at his own pace. “It’s Tarrant,” he warned. “Something’s wrong.”

Shit. He forced himself up to a sitting position, despite the complaints from all muscles involved. Not now, not after all we’ve gone through! “What is it?”

“I don’t know. I’m afraid-” He stopped himself then, as if he was afraid that by saying the wrong thing he might make the matter worse. “You’re the Healer.”

He crawled over to where Tarrant lay. Like himself the Hunter had wound up sprawled across the rocky ground with his head upslope, the only position in which one could sleep without tumbling down the steeply canted slope. Even as he approached, Damien could see that the man’s breathing was labored, and his color looked bad, very bad. A day ago it wouldn’t have mattered, that ghastly pallor. Now it was a sign that Death was tightening its grip on the one man arrogant enough to defy it.

“What is it?” Karril demanded.

Damien raised up his veil a bit, braced himself, and drew in a deep breath. Nothing happened. Reassured that they were now above the level of Shaitan’s poisons, he freed Tarrant from his silken cocoon and watched as the man drew in short breaths, too quick and too shallow. He didn’t have to hear the faint wheezing sound at the end of each one to know what was wrong, or see the fear in Tarrant’s eyes to know just how wrong it was. The Prophet’s color—and his medical history-made that all too clear.

“Damn,” he whispered. “Not now, God. Couldn’t you let us get home first?”

“What is it?”

“Heart attack.” He could see Tarrant flinch as he spoke the words. “Or heart failure, more likely. He had the first incident right before he died, we know that." And it drove him over the brink of sanity, so that he murdered his family and ransomed his own soul to the Unnamed. Must this end the same way, God? Have you no better purpose for him than that? “Where’s the cause?” he demanded of Tarrant. “Do you know? Did you try to fix it?”

The Hunter shook his head weakly. “Doesn’t matter,” he whispered. “You can’t Heal here.”

“Just tell me, damn you!”

He shut his eyes and trembled: it was clear that every word took effort. “Congenital damage to the arterial wall,” he whispered. “Mitral valve ...” He was struggling for each breath now, and Damien could hear the rasping wheeze behind each one. “Acquired. I tried....”

When it was clear that he had lost the strength for further speech, Karril dared, “Can you do something?”

What was he supposed to say? That there was nothing harder than Healing a beating heart, because if your every effort wasn’t perfectly attuned to that muscle’s natural rhythm, you could bring it to a halt altogether? That was all irrelevant anyway, wasn’t it? Damien couldn’t Heal here. The currents would fry him alive before he even got started.

Think man, think. There had to be a way. He hadn’t come this far to give up now. What tools were available to him? Tarrant was too weak to Work. He couldn’t do it with this much fae around. The Iezu— He drew in a sharp breath as it all came together. “Karril. Your kind can work with the fae, can’t it?”

The Iezu hesitated. “Not as you do. We can’t Work—”

“I know that! Sorcery’s not what I meant.” He struggled to find the proper words. “You can mold it, can’t you? Like you did to make a body.” He looked pointedly at the flesh Karril now wore, which he had used to support Gerald Tarrant. “I mean as a purely physical force. Can’t you do that?”

The Iezu nodded.

“Can you block it off? Divert its flow, maybe?” The

Iezu looked dubious. “Anything, Karril! The currents here are too strong for me to Heal with. Is there any way you can help? If not-” and he nodded toward Tarrant, "-he’ll die.”

The Iezu drew in a deep breath, deliberately melodramatic. “I can try,” he said at last. “Although I can’t promise—”

“Just do it!” Damien snapped. The Hunter’s lips were faintly blue: a bad, bad sign. “And hurry!”

The Iezu disappeared. Not fading slowly, as he normally did, but snuffed out like a candle flame in a wind. Apparently to manipulate the fae he had to be in his natural form ... whatever the hell that was. Doesn’t matter, Damien thought grimly. Whatever works. He sat down by Tarrant’s side and gripped the man’s shoulder in reassurance. “You’re not going to die,” he whispered. “Not after all I went through to bring you here. You’re going home, dammit.” And then he saw the Hunter’s eyes widen in surprise, and he knew by that sign that the currents had changed. For the better, he prayed, as he prepared himself for Working. If not, they would both be dead soon enough.

With a deep breath for courage he reached down into the currents, grasping hold of Shaitan’s power—

Or rather, tried to. But there was nothing there. Had Karril failed him? Again he reached out with his mind, in the manner he had been taught, and again he utterly failed to make contact. But this time there was something there. A faint slithering of power, just enough to confirm that the currents were active. There was enough fae coursing around Tarrant’s body to Heal him, but Damien couldn’t seem to access it.

What the hell was wrong?

Again and again he tried, until a hot sweat broke out across his skin from the strain of his efforts. But the fae was like a wriggling eel, that slithered out of his mental grasp each time he tried to close in on it. Beside him Tarrant was gasping for breath, and his lips and eyes were shadowed with a deathly blue tint; he clearly didn’t have much time left. Again Damien tried to tackle the elusive earth-power, pouring everything he had into the effort. And for an instant he seemed to make real contact with it. For an instant he could taste what was wrong, and though he didn’t know its cause, the result was all too clear. The fae could be Worked, all right, but at a terrible price to the Worker. Was Damien Vryce willing to risk death to do this Healing, or was his own survival too precious for him to make such a commitment? He looked down at Tarrant, so very close to the gateway of death himself that his skin had taken on the color of a corpse, and felt an up-welling of cold determination in that place where the heat of fear might have taken root. You were willing to give up your life on Shaitan to save mankind from Calesta. You were willing to face Hell for that. I can’t let you die now, at the very threshold of salvation. I can’t rob you of the chance to make your peace with God at last ... not even to save my own skin.

—And the fae roared into him, currents ten times more hot than any he had Worked before. For a moment it was all he could do not to drown in it, not to lose himself in the raging flow. Then, at last, he managed to take hold of it with his will and give it form. A Seeing. A Knowing. The tools he needed to see into Tarrant’s flesh, to analyze it, to alter.

The Hunter’s heart took shape before him-no, about him—red muscle pounding out a feverish rhythm, a living sea that throbbed about his head as the spasms that drove it pulsed more and more desperately. He struggled to concentrate on the task at hand, and not let the hot sea sweep him away. Mitral valve, Tarrant had said. Damien searched for it, found it, and Knew it. The thin flap of tissue had thickened across most of its surface, and as he watched it struggle to close time and time again, he could see how the damage crippled it, how its failure to seal completely allowed blood to flow back the way it had come. That was his immediate target, clearly. He focused in his Knowing until he could see the individual cells of the valve itself, trying to judge the extent of the damage. It was indeed acquired, as Tarrant had said, which was a promising sign; beneath the thick layer of scar tissue was a valve that might do its work properly, if given half a chance.

Aware that every second counted, that even as he Worked in this scarlet realm its owner was dying, Damien nonetheless took a few precious moments to acquaint himself with the rhythm of the laboring heart muscle. Slowly, with a surgeon’s fine precision, h^ began to pry away the damaged cells. Not too quickly, lest a bit of coherent flesh tear loose and provide deadly blockage in some lesser vein ... but not too slowly either, lest the Hunter expire even as he Worked. Carefully but quickly he struggled to establish a middle ground, knowing that his every move had to be perfectly attuned to the heart’s own rhythm or deadly fibrillations would set in. One clump of cells dissolved into the bloodstream, then another, then another. He struggled to break up the scar tissue into manageable bits, while all the while riding the motion of the valve as if he were part of it. Thank God the tissue underneath was sound, he thought. He could see it swaying in the red sea as he freed it up, graceful and fluid in its natural motion. And it was almost free now. He reached out with his Healing to dissolve the last piece of scar tissue, saw its cells swept away by the hot scarlet tide ... and it was done. The valve was closing properly once more, and the heart was slowly calming. He allowed himself a moment of pure relief, knowing the worst was over. But there was still the congenital damage to be dealt with, which had caused the buildup in the first place. What had Tarrant said, something about an arterial wall? He searched for the damage and found it, a segment of muscle malformed in its making, whose thickened bulk cut short the flow of blood to vital areas. Unlike the scar tissue on the mitral valve, this was intrinsic to the muscle itself, and its removal would leave a gaping hole in a very dangerous place. Briefly he wished for a companion Healer with whom he could coordinate his efforts. And then, that futile prayer voiced, he plunged himself into the damaged flesh. Not just cutting loose this time but healing as well, forcing the surrounding cells to regenerate—and to do so properly—even as he cut the mutated part away. Shaving down the damaged tissue into small enough bits that the body could dispose of it safely, even as he forced its replacement. It seemed to take him forever, but at last that, too, was done.

For a short while he rested, his Vision maintained, watching as the whole system beat more perfectly than it had since its original creation. Then, when he felt his strength was up to it, he fashioned a diuretic out of the materials at hand and set that loose in the bloodstream, making sure that any waste products he created in the process would be safely expelled. And then, at last, it was time to withdraw. It wasn’t without fear that he let his Knowing fade, and his Seeing, and all those other tools which he had conjured. He had been willing to die to Heal Tarrari; must that vow now be fulfilled? But there was no dark power waiting to devour him as he withdrew his senses from Tarrant’s flesh, and nothing felt any different about his own body its attendant consciousness. Unless it was the sudden need to urinate. That was pretty urgent. With a muttered curse he got to his feet and walked a few feet away, to where a sharp overhang looked out over the valley. Good enough. He added his bodily excretions to the realm of the dead, and then turned back to look at Tarrant.

The man was sitting up, albeit weakly, and already his color looked better. His breathing sounded labored but not nearly so bad as before, and Damien had faith that the diuretic he had created would dry his lungs out in short order. There had been no lasting damage to the heart muscle itself, which meant that as soon as his condition stabilized, he should be as good as new. Whatever the hell that meant.

“It seems,” the Hunter whispered hoarsely, “that I owe you once again.”

“Yeah.” He shrugged off what promised to be an awkward expression of gratitude. “And you took me traveling to new and exciting places. Let’s just call it even, okay?”

But there was a dark edge to Tarrant’s expression that warned him something was seriously wrong. For a moment—just a moment—he wished he wouldn t tell him what it was. “I tried to watch you Heal,” the Hunter said quietly. “I couldn’t.”

He shrugged. “You were in pretty bad shape. What did you expect?”

“That shouldn’t have stopped me,” the adept insisted. “I’ve Worked during worse.” His voice was low, and tinged with fear. “Something’s wrong, Vryce.”

His first instinct was to dismiss that thought and any similar fears as a symptom of Tarrant’s condition. It was a known fact that heart failure tended to bring on a sense of dread in its victims, and while that emotion normally focused on the event itself, there was no reason why it couldn’t spill over into other areas. There was also a possibility that the adept had simply met his limit, and was so drained by his condition that not even Working was possible. That last was the most appealing explanation, and he tried hard to believe it. But honesty forced him to remember how much trouble he’d had accessing the fae for his own Working, and the feeling he’d had at the time that using the fae might cost him his life. “Maybe it’s just the currents in this place,” he offered. But he knew even as he spoke that it had to be something more.

The Hunter shook his head sharply. “The currents may be stronger here, but earth-fae is earth-fae. And I tried other Workings while you were busy.” He nodded toward the overhang. “None had any effect at all. I’ve Worked the fae for nearly a thousand years, Vryce, and it never failed to respond like that. Yet you Worked it,” he said; the words were almost an accusation.

“Yeah. Barely.” He turned away, not wanting to meet Tarrant’s eyes. That was one experience he didn’t feel like sharing. “I’m not sure I could do it again." Not unless I really wanted to, he thought. Not unless I was willing to pay a hell of a price for it. “You may be right,” he admitted. “But if so, then what—”

Tarrant began to shift position as he spoke, but a sudden spasm turned his words into a groan. It took no magician to know what that meant; Damien had been expecting it. “I Worked a diuretic to drain your lungs,” Damien told him, “so you’ll be voiding excess fluid pretty steadily for a while. May I recommend the view over that way?” He indicated the overhang, then couldn’t resist adding, “You do remember how to piss, I assume?

With a wordless glare the Hunter got to his feet and headed toward the scenic spot. Damien watched him for a moment, then-when he was satisfied that he was steady enough on his feet not to go tumbling down the mountainside-he looked at Karril. “Well?”

“Well what?"

“Your kind can see the fae, can’t it? So I assume you saw what happened. Any guesses?"

“I was quite involved with my own assignment, thank you very much. You were the one who didn’t want to be drowned in the local power, remember?—But yes, I saw what happened. And it was ... He hesitated. “Strange."

“In what way?"

“The fae responds naturally to humans, you know that. Every human thought, every dream, even a man’s passing fancy will leave its mark on that power. Oh, sometimes there’s no more than a quiver in the current-hardly enough to affect the material world—but the response is always there. Always. Except when you tried to Work before,” he tola Damien. “When you first tried to Heal Tarrant, there was no response at all. And he’s trying to Work right now-” he looked pointedly at Tarrant, "—and it’s the same as it was with you. No response at all.”

Tarrant’s concentration was focused on the ground at his feet, and he was clearly trying to mold the local currents to his will. His brow had tightened into a hard line. His eyes were narrowed to slits. He even cursed, perhaps the first time that Damien had ever heard him do so. Clearly, his chosen tests had failed.

With one last glance at the ruddy sunset to the west of them (and Damien didn’t have to be psychic to know how much Tarrant wanted to study it longer, his first sight of the sun in over nine centuries) the adept rejoined them. “Something’s changed, no doubt about it.” His tone and his expression were both grim. “I can’t tell for certain what happened without some more specific tests, but I don’t think either you or I should count on being able to Work until we get out of here. Once we get back, I can figure out what happened, and hopefully discover a way to work around it.”

Hopefully. There was a stress on that word, ever so subtle, which underscored a fear neither man would voice. If something had changed in the currents, what if that change were permanent? What if it turned out to be a problem not with the fae, but with them?

And then the other words hit him. So casually voiced, but they resounded in his brain all the more powerfully for their lack of emphasis. Once we get back. Such a simple, disarming phrase! As if getting back were something they had always expected to do. As if they hadn’t thought they would die on this journey, and thus had made no plans for ever going home. Damien felt his heart lurch as he acknowledged that the possibility was suddenly very real. Tarrant was alive. The enemy they thought they could never vanquish was dead and gone. They were going home——

Focus on that, he thought. Not the other thing. That was too terrifying to face, and they weren’t likely to come up with answers until Tarrant had the strength and the leisure to investigate the matter. He forced himself to turn to Karril and he asked, “Will you come with us?” Not only because the Iezu would be a valuable guide in this land-doubly valuable if they really couldn’t Work-but because, at that moment, Karril was part and parcel of their triumph, and he wanted him there.

The Iezu looked at Tarrant, and something unspoken seemed to pass between them. At last he shook his head. “I can’t. I’m sorry. My family ...” He gazed out into the valley, toward Shaitan, where the other Iezu gathered. “There are so many questions to be answered now. My place is with them for as long as I can stay here.” He looked back at Tarrarit, as if expecting him to say something, but the Hunted remained silent. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “But you really don’t need me now.”

“I understand,” Damien assured him. He turned to Tarrant, but the Hunter’s eyes were fixed on Shaitan “We can stay here a while if you think you need more rest, but we’re low on supplies, so it can’t be too long. You tell me.” When Tarrant said nothing, he pressed, “Ready to go home yet?”

“Do what you think is best,” the Hunter said quietly.

He knew that tone of voice. God damn it, he knew it all too well. He knew what it meant when the Hunter shifted from the plural pronoun to the singular, too, and damn it to Hell! This wasn’t the place for that kind of game, or the time for it, or ... or anything!

“We’re going home, right?” His tone was half plea, half growl. “Calesta’s dead. The Forest’s so far gone by now that you can’t change what happens there one way or the other. Right? The whole goddamn world’s at peace and I didn’t figure we’d both still be part of it, so I don’t have the kind of food and water it would take for two people to go off and do something stupid. Whatever that stupid thing happened to be.—Are you listening to me, Gerald?”

The adept’s eyes remained fixed on Shaitan, as if something there were so fascinating he dared not turn away even for a moment. “She’s a starfarer" he breathed. “Not just the descendant of an alien species stranded on this world-like we are-but an individual born and bred on another planet, with memories of foreign stars and the technology needed to get to them.” At last he turned away from that view and faced Damien again. “What was the point of all my work, if not to give us the stars? Why have men rallied to the Church’s banner for the past thousand years, if not for that dream?” He turned back to Shaitan and inhaled deeply, as if tasting its potential in the air. “This place is a gateway. This creature, this mother of aliens ... is mankind’s future. Her technology may be too alien for us to use directly, but perhaps between us we can forge something that will serve both species.”

“And her children will, no doubt, be happy to act as go-betweens to-” He saw the quick look that passed between Tarrant and Karril and felt something tighten in his gut. “What is it? What’s wrong with that?”

Karril said quietly, “We can’t stay here.”

Tarrant nodded. “The Iezu were bred to interact with humans, and must do so for their own survival. There’s no food here to sustain them, nor anything else that they require. And even if they could stay, what would become of the temples they’re nurtured, the cults that have declared them gods, the human symbionts they must support? Oh, some of them will remain here for a time, but will those few be enough? When will the critical mass of this gathering be weakened enough that the mother’s voice loses its coherency, and humanity loses its most valuable ally?”

Speechless, Damien turned to Karril for support. But the Iezu only nodded sadly, as if to say, Yes, he’s right. It’s only a matter of time. “So what?” he demanded. “You’re going to stay here? There’s no food here for you either, Gerald, do I have to remind you of that? And what the hell are you going to do for them, anyway?”

“I’m not going to stay,” he said quietly.

He forced himself to breathe in deeply. “Well. That’s something, anyway.”

“Humanity will need a means of translation. So will the Iezu for that matter, at least the ones most human in aspect.”

“So what do you propose to do? Work some kind of translating pattern? You know that’s impossible right now. You said yourself that until you had a chance to test the currents you wouldn’t know why they had failed to respond to us, much less be able to Work them again. So what then?”

“A Working isn’t what’s needed now. Not as much as a sound understanding of who and what the Iezu are, and how their mother’s need was expressed through each of them They are her true language, Vryce, her cries of desperation rendered in fae and flesh. What form did each one first appear in? What pattern did their learning take?” He looked at Karril. “At what point dial they first express emotions outside of their aspect, and what prompted that change?”

“You’re talking about a complete family history,” Damien challenged. “Going back-what-nearly a thousand years?”

“Nearly that,” Karril agreed.

“No one’s going to have that kind of information just sitting around. If you want those kinds of facts, you’ll have to do research, and for that you need to go back to where there are people and libraries and loremasters to help you.” Ciani had kept notes on everything, he remembered suddenly. Perhaps other adepts did the same. “We can look for some sorcerer who specializes in demon lore—”

And then it hit him. Just like that. One moment blissful ignorance, and the next, stunning truth. “Shit,” he whispered. “No.”

Tarrant said quietly. “I’m afraid so.”

“There’s a war on in the Forest. Have you forgotten that? More enemies than you can count, all focused on your destruction—”

“And they mean to burn the Forest to the ground when they’re done, and all my possessions along with it. Which means that in a few days’ time my notebooks will be ash, and the Iezu’s history lost forever.”

“We can work a Remembering-” he began.

And then he remembered what the fae was like now. How hard it was to Work. And he knew that they dared not count on being able to use it in the future, not for a matter this complex.

“Shit,” he muttered. “Shit.”

“I told you I have a tunnel, Vryce. It comes in under my keep, to a chamber so well warded that even if my enemies gain access to the building itself, they will never find its entrance. We’ll come in and take what we want and be gone again before the Church ever realizes we’re there, I promise you.”

“And do you know for a fact that your wards still work?” he demanded. “Have you thought of that?”

“I tested one which I carry, and its effect is unchanged. Apparently past Workings still maintain their power.” His pale eyes glittered redly in the dying sunlight; even without the fae his gaze had tremendous power. “So what do you say, Vryce? Must I go there alone? Because with or without you, I cannot allow those notes to burn. Too much of mankind’s future depends on them.”

Shit.

He turned away from them both, struggling to think it out clearly. The last thing he needed now was a trek to the Forest, least of all while the Patriarch and his soldiers were tearing the place apart. The last thing Tarrant needed now was a fresh exertion, when his newly healed flesh was still struggling with the transition from undeath to life. The last thing anyone here needed was to risk all that they had won for a handful of books-books, God damn it! Even if those books were the key to humanity’s future, and that of the Iezu. Even if those books might allow both species to return to the stars.

Shit.

He raised a hand to his head and rubbed his temples wearily. He didn’t have a headache yet, but one was surely on the way. The body had to do something to protest such utter lunacy.

It’s safe, right? Doors locked and warded. Books safely hidden. One quick visit and then it’s all over. And Tarrant would go with or without him, that much was clear. Did Damien want that newborn soul running head-on into the Patriarch’s troops without someone there to support him? Such a confrontation could well send him spiraling down into darkness again. And after all the time and effort he had put into saving the man, he could hardly allow that. Could he?

“All right,” he muttered. Sighing heavily. “What the hell. Let’s do it.”

Tarrant nodded. “I thought you might feel that way.”

He sounded relieved, Damien thought. As well he should.

It could be worse. At least we don’t have to get on a boat again.

Shaitan rumbled in the distance.

39

Catesta was gone.

At first Andrys fried to deny it. He told himself a hundred reasons why the demon might be unwilling to respond to him, or unable to respond to him, and he managed to half-believe one or two. But then, as hours passed and his desperate entreaties brought no response, fear began to take hold. He fought the emotion off as long as he could, but now, hours later-days later, perhaps, who could judge time in this place?—certainty set in, and with it a dread so cold that he shivered inside his blood-spattered armor, not knowing how he could go on.

Calesta was gone, without question.

Andrys was on his own.

They were forging through a hostile Forest now, and every turn held new threats. More than once they were attacked by creatures that called the Forest their home, and if thus far those assailants were too few or too weak to pose any real danger, that was just the luck of the draw. The next time they were attacked it might be the white pack again ... or worse.

More than half the horses had been lost in that battle, either killed or maimed or run off in terror. The tethers of those that fled had been burned through in some cases, cut through cleanly in others, as if somehow their fear had managed an equine Working and freed them. More likely it was the fears of their riders which had done exactly that. Before they left the battle site the Patriarch had led them in prayer for a few minutes, trying to focus their energies in a positive manner, but how much good was that going to do? In the back of all their minds was a new awareness of the power of the Forest’s fae, and a growing fear that it would betray them. What happened to tethers could just as easily happen to explosives.

A good portion of the remaining horses were now carrying the wounded, with the result that all had to take their turn at walking. Andrys preferred it. His role as pathfinder required continued sensitivity to the Forest’s fae, a terrifying immersion in its power; he used the act of walking as a focus for his sanity, the pain of his blistered feet as an anchor to the world of solid things. Though the Hunter was no longer actively mated to the Forest, yet his essence still permeated it, and if the younger Tarrant relaxed his guard even for an instant, the chill power of that corrupt soul would come pouring into him, drowning out the warmth of his living spirit and replacing it with something in its own dark image. Step by step he fought its influence, but despair was growing inside him. How long could he keep this up, without some kind of assistance? What hope did he have of coming out of this sane, if Calesta had truly abandoned him?

His only comfort lay in a black silk scarf, now wound about his waist beneath the armor. Her scarf. He still felt shame about stealing it from her and, in fact, had tried to bring himself to ask for it on at least three separate occasions, but each time his courage had failed him. Was he afraid she would withhold such a gift? That she would laugh at him for wanting it? Or was it that putting such a request into words would be as good as admitting that he lacked the strength within himself to succeed in this mission without such a token? Now that scarf was his only comfort, and the sweat-soaked silk tugged at his waist with every movement, reminding him of the brief time they had spent together.

Hour after hour, mile by mile, they fought their way through the Hunter’s domain. Even the plant life seemed determined to resist them now, and more than once they had to hack their way through a tangle of thorn bushes and tree limbs in order to move forward.

It hadn’t been like that before, Andrys noted. When they stopped for a meal and the ground began to stir beneath their feet, forcing them to move on, that was new, too. Clearly whatever power he had provided as the company’s talisman was at an end, now that the Hunter was no longer in control here. And that was a terrifying thought indeed.

They broke march three more times to water the horses and see to their own bodily needs-always in rocky areas, where the underground scavengers couldn’t reach them—and once to rest in short shifts, restless and fearful. Try as he might, Andrys couldn’t sleep; he wondered how many could. These weren’t soldiers, trained to pursue combat in the face of enervating exhaustion, but simple men and women whose concept of exertion before today was a short stint in a gym, followed by a hot bath and dinner. Not this.

His own strength was wearing thin from exhaustion, and his nerves, continually stretched to the breaking point, were beginning to give way at last. How much longer could he last?

Calesta, help me! I can’t make it alone. I’m not strong enough.

No answer.

Rats. There were rats. She could hear them scrabbling in the darkness, searching for food along the muddy floor. Periodically one would come up to her to see if she was food. Sharp teeth would nip her skin and she would kick out wildly, hysterically, and maybe she hurt it or maybe it just went away. For a while. They all came back.

She didn’t know how long she had been in this place. It was long enough for her to have crawled along the length and breadth of her prison and explored with her fingers every inch of its surface. The walls were of roughly carved stone, wet with slime, and the muddy water that pooled on the floor was ankle-deep in places, barely a film in others. There was no sign of a door that she could make out, and as for the soft lumps she landed on as she moved, several of which squirmed underfoot ... she’d rather not know.

She was hungry now, so hungry that even her terror had weakened, and though her mouth was parched, she dared not drink from the water that was available, or even lick the moisture that clung to the wall by her side. She had wept until she had no more strength left with which to weep, and now she curled up in the dank puddle, shivering, and tried to accept her fate.

Oh, Andrys——

She’d only wanted to help him. She would have done anything to accomplish that, would willingly have accepted any fate in order to make his burden easier. But now she was here and he was gods knew where and every time she dozed off from exhaustion, something sharp or slimy would crawl across her and she would start slapping it away hysterically before sleep had even fully released her—

It was just a nightmare, she told herself. Some nightmares happened while you dreamed and some happened while you were awake, but they all ended sometime, right? She licked at her lips with a dry tongue, wondering how long she would last. Was this all the white man had wanted her for, to waste away in this foul pit without even knowing where she was? Was he feeding on her despair, or on some other part of her emotional substance? She wouldn’t give him that pleasure, she decided. For as long as she had the strength to dream, she would relive memories of life, and of love. She would fantasize about Andrys Tarrant until his image was so set in her brain that even in her last moments, even while the rats and lizards gnawed at her dying flesh, her soul would still be joyful. Let that albino bastard feed on her love if he wanted to; it would probably give him heartburn.

Something stirred overhead, where there had been no motion during all her imprisonment. She sat up weakly, bracing herself against the slimy wall. There was a scraping noise and then it seemed to her that something moved. There was a line of darkness forming that was less black than that which surrounded, dim and insubstantial, but yes, it might even be called light. She blinked hard as she stared at it, not quite believing.

"Time to come out.” It was the white man’s voice, no longer wholly human but a strange gurgling sound; she had trouble making out the words. Something came down from the darkness and splashed to the floor by her side. She reached out a tentative hand to see what it was, and felt a smooth wooden shaft pointing upward. A ladder. He had lowered a ladder.

"Up,” he growled. “Now!"

Narilka hesitated. Whatever was waiting for her up that ladder could be even worse than her current misery, which she had almost come to terms with. She remembered the foul breath of his pack, the pain of their teeth in her flesh. No. Better the darkness than that.

When he saw that she wasn’t moving, he howled in fury, a sound more animal than human. She heard scrabbling as his beasts ran toward him, and with a sick feeling in her heart she realized that the things she feared most might simply come down into the darkness and drag her out; her obstinacy would gain her nothing. Slowly, her hands shaking, she forced herself to climb. The creatures up ahead of her were growling, and the white man also. When her head cleared the opening, he reached out and grabbed her long hair, hauling her up by it. Stars of pain danced behind her eyes.

"I need you,” he hissed. His hand tangled in her muddy hair, savagely pulling her head back. “Don’t fight me. I’ll let them eat you if you do, you understand me? I’ll hurt you!"

She didn’t have the strength to nod. She couldn’t summon the voice to answer.

Snarling, he dragged her away.

The flat Forest earth gave way to rocky ground, to the gentle slope of hills, to the steep incline of a mountainside. That was a good sign, the Patriarch told them.

Vryce’s notes made it clear that the Hunter’s keep was in the mountains, therefore they were headed in the right direction.

Then there came a point at which the horses could no longer manage the steep climb, and had to be left behind. Given the choice between staying with them or making the climb with their company, the wounded chose to struggle onward. Andrys didn’t blame them. In a place this hostile, where the darkness might erupt with new dangers at any moment, a handful of wounded men and women wouldn’t stand a chance by themselves.

The dead were unloaded and buried in a makeshift cairn. It seemed a waste of time to Andrys. Didn’t the Church teach that dead flesh was only an empty shell? Wouldn’t their companions want them to hurry on their way, rather than risk a delay to attend to such a meaningless ritual? But once more, the Patriarch insisted. To leave the dead unhonored now would “poison too many futures,” he said. Whatever the hell that meant.

They climbed. Bearing their supplies upon their backs, foodstuffs and explosives lashed side by side. Upward they climbed, higher and higher, tramping out a switchback path along the rocky slope. At times the way was so steep that they had to cling to the very vines which meant to hinder them, and men who failed to get a handhold slid back two steps for every one they gained. Andry’s wounds burned like fire, but he was willing to bet that was nothing compared to the Patriarch’s own pain, or that of the other wounded soldiers. The currents had become so powerful that he could hear them now without even trying; their roar drowned out all other sounds, making speech impossible. So strong was the pull on his flesh that he had to fight step by step not to be dragged down to the earth, where its power—and Gerald Tarrant’s-could drown him. How much longer could he hold on?

At last the ground leveled out a bit. Andrys leaned against a tree to catch his breath, then jerked back violently as a serpent hissed mere inches from his face.

Did this damned place never let up? One by one his companions joined him, and though none dared to say it, clearly all hoped that the worst of the climb was over. They were carrying not only their supplies and their weapons, but a share of the equipment which had been on the horses, and that load on their backs made every step hurt tenfold.

Now, he sensed, the enemy was near. Whatever dark power had been trying to stop them, whatever creature now sat at the heart of the Forest and wove black webs of hate to entrap the living, it was here, right before them. He could taste its presence in his mouth, bitter and repulsive. He could smell it on the wind, a stink so foul that several men and women had wrapped scarves about their noses and mouths in the desperate hope of keeping it out. He could hear it echoing in his brain, a presence so unclean that the Hunter’s own power seemed pristine by comparison.

There was a ridge ahead of them that blocked their view. Zefila sent out scouts to explore. From where he waited, Andrys could see them tense up as they rounded the natural barrier. At last, after what seemed like an endless wait, the men returned and signaled for the others to join them. Andrys and Zefila went first, with the Patriarch limping behind them. They came to the end of the ridge and crept around it—And stopped. And stared.

Ahead of them, looming up into the night itself, was a castle. The trees which cloaked so much of the Forest gave way in this place, and Andrys could see it clearly by the light of Prima’s crescent. It was a black structure, gleaming black, with a surface that might have been made of rippling water, so did it seem to move when the light shimmered over it. He heard the others gasp as they came around the turn, but their surprise couldn’t possibly equal his own. Nor could they feel the horror that he did, gazing upon the citadel that his undead ancestor had built.

It was Merentha Castle. His own home keep, down to the last finely worked detail. Cast in black volcanic glass, a mockery of the home which had sheltered him. There, in that window, Samiel had watched for him; there, in that doorway, Betrise had scowled. There, in that courtyard ... he started toward it, drawn by his own horror. Would that be the same as well, down to the last black flagstone?

“Tarrant!” Zefila grabbed him from behind, nearly jerking him off his feet as she pulled him roughly backward. “Stay with us, damn it!”

Silently, wary, they entered the courtyard. There were bodies all over the place. Human bodies, half-devoured and now rotting. Mounds of horseflesh in similar condition. Soldiers prodded a few just to make sure they were really dead, then fanned out, springboks at the ready. Where was the danger? Andrys could feel it, but he couldn’t define it. Something was waiting for them. Where?

“There’s no one here,” a woman dared.

“Make sure of it,” Zefila ordered. She nodded toward a pair of men, who started toward the building—

And white shapes appeared along the wall of the courtyard, where moments ago there had been nothing. Of course, Andrys thought darkly. A simple Obscuring, the most basic of all Workings. In a war defined by sorcery, they should have expected it.

The white animals-identical to those which had attacked them earlier-were spaced out at regular intervals along the wall. There were a hell of a lot of them, Andrys noted grimly. But they would have to come down from the wall and cross a good part of the courtyard to get to them. With enough springbolts and a good dose of luck the soldiers might just survive this.

As if hi response to that very thought another figure appeared. This one was human, and as it moved to the edge of a parapet it pulled another figure with it. A shaft of moonlight fell across them, illuminating a ghastly albino visage above, a pale and a hollowed face beneath—

Andrys’ heart nearly stopped beating as he realized who it was the albino held as hostage. The whole world seemed to stop for a moment, frozen in that single instant of horror.

“Church-man!” The albino cried out the title in defiance, but it seemed to Andrys that there was a tremor of fear in his voice. “I have your girl! Do you see?” He shoved her forward, into the moonlight, his other hand holding a knife to her throat. “Back off now with all your men, or I’ll cut her throat right in front of you!”

He could see her clearly now, her terrified eyes pleading with him. The albino held her by the hair with one hand, and he jerked at it as he snarled, “I’m waiting.” Andrys saw her wince from pain, but she made no sound. No doubt the albino, like his master, would take pleasure in her cries.

It had to be an illusion, he thought desperately, some kind of evil Working. Narilka couldn’t be here. Could she?

As if sensing his thoughts, the white man pressed his blade into the throat of his prisoner; a jewel of red welled up at its point. “Tell him,” he hissed.

“Andrys.” Her voice was weak, but not nearly as fearful as he would have expected. “Please.”

“You see?” the albino demanded. “Do you need to hear more?”

He looked back at the. Patriarch in panic. The Holy Father’s expression was grim, but he shook his head. Some vision had clearly shown him that this was not the time for him to wield his power. Which meant that Andrys was on his own. He looked about desperately for Zefila, but she wasn’t about to interfere without some signal from the Patriarch.

“Leave this place now,” the albino growled. “Or her blood will be on your hands.”

Why wasn’t the man attacking them? His pack was in position. There were enough of the beasts to paint the courtyard red with blood. Did he fear that here, in the heart of the Hunter’s realm, Andrys could tap into his ancestor’s power? Did he imagine that open battle might tip the scale and turn Andrys into an enemy he couldn’t defeat? With sudden inspiration, the younger

Tarrant realized just how intense the man’s fear of the Hunter still was. And the reality of his own helplessness was all the more painful for being contrasted against the albino’s expectations.

His soul knotted in anguish, he looked up at Narilka. How helpless she seemed, that fragile body bent back to meet the knife! Fragile unless you knew her inner strength, fragile unless you had seen her defend herself, fragile unless you’d heard stories of the men who had taken her for a victim, only to be taught otherwise. ...

He looked into her eyes then, and he knew. He saw the message that was in them, and he understood.

“Your choice,” the albino snarled, in a voice so bestial it was barely comprehensible.

Give me a chance, her dark eyes begged. Not trembling with fear, but with another kind of tension. Just one chance.

He saw the albino’s knife arm tense; the moment of choice was at hand. There was only one thing he could think of that would give her a chance, only one distraction that would work. Though his soul quailed at the mere thought of it, he dared not hesitate. He had failed her in so many ways in the past... he would not do so again.

He opened himself to the Forest. Not slowly, not carefully, but all at once, casting aside the defenses he had nurtured during their march, ready to die if that was what it took to save her. And power came welling up inside him with stunning force. Not any force of his own conjuring but a dark power, a cold power, that bore a hated signature. Undead, unclean, Gerald Tarrant’s essence coursed through his blood in a flood tide, tearing loose the last fragile moorings of his human identity. Spreading through his flesh like a poison, remaking every organ, every cell, wrapping icy fingers about his soul and squeezing, squeezing—

With a gasp he opened his eyes. The ground was alive with silver light. The moonlight shivered with music. The walls of the castle glowed with a power that was centuries in the making, his to use at will. But he didn’t need it. It was enough that the essence of Gerald Tarrant looked out through his eyes; it was enough that the man’s power and ruthless confidence echoed in his voice.

"Release her," he commanded.

The albino’s eyes went wide with shock. Or was it terror? Andrys saw him flinch as he realized just what manner of power his adversary had summoned, and in that moment his hand wavered ever so slightly as it held the knife—

Narilka moved. Reaching up to grab his knife arm with both of her hands, kicking out behind her as she pulled herself forward and down, struggling to keep the blade from her throat as she forced him over her body. The move was so unexpected that he was thrown utterly off balance. Levered forward over her back, he slammed into the edge of the parapet. The knife clattered down to the courtyard as he grabbed for the edge of the low stone wall with his free hand; his other remained tangled in her hair, and for a moment it seemed as if he might use that as a lifeline to pull himself to safety. But she rammed the heel of her hand into his face hard, so hard that Andrys could hear bone crack; he lost his grip on the edge of the wall and began to slide. For one chilling moment it seemed that he might drag her down with him; but she braced herself against the wall with all the strength she had left and was rewarded a second later when the handful of hair still wrapped about his hand finally tore loose. Down he plummeted, twisting as he fell, and when he struck the hard flagstones beneath, the soldiers were ready for him.

Shivering, Andrys fell to his knees. He could see Narilka up on the parapet, he could see the albino being hacked to pieces on the ground before him, but he couldn’t connect to any of it: His human emotions had been devoured, and now only a ravenous darkness remained. Andrys Tarrant himself was lost, a mere whisper of human memory fading in the endless blackness; the Forest’s fae was taking its place, claiming the body and soul that had fought it for so long. Currents of power roared through his flesh, until the sounds of the real world were drowned out by the thunder of it. Moonlight scoured his skin like acid as the power of the forest began to remake his flesh, molding it according to the patterns which Gerald Tarrant had established.

She was alive, he thought as the darkness claimed him. That was all that mattered. The Forest had given her what she needed and now it was time to pay the price for it.

Andri—

The roots of the trees sucked at his vitality. The earth lapped at his living heat. He was spiraling down into death, but in the Forest death wasn’t an end. Eternity beckoned, frigid and lightless.

Andri, talk to me. Please.

A thousand voices chittered about him. Sounds of the living, they meant nothing to the creature he now was. But one voice echoed down into the darkness, and it made his soul shiver to hear it.

Andri!

A human memory stirred in the darkness. Some tiny spark deep inside him began to struggle. The voice drew him like a magnet, pulling him up through the darkness, up against the currents, up to the surface that was so very far away.

Please, wake up. Please, Andri.

The last wounded vestige of Andrys Tarrant reached for the sound of her voice with all the strength he had. Feeling the warmth of flesh on his body, of hands-of her hands-touching him, drawing him back.

“Narilka?” he gasped.

She fell upon his chest, holding him, weeping. Where her tears touched him, the coldness faded from his flesh. Her voice was a balm that brought him back to the world of the living. The heat of her life burned him, but it was a welcome pain.

“I’m all right,” he whispered. It took everything he had to move his arm, to lift it up, to place it around her shoulders. For a moment he just lay there, exhausted by the effort. The Forest was still alive in his soul, but its grip was weakening. Soon he would move again. Soon he would get to his feet. Every human act, even one as simple as walking, would reinforce his dominion over his own flesh.

“I love you.” He whispered it into her hair, oblivious to the filth which caked it. In his eyes she was pure and beautiful. “Don’t ever leave me.”

The wolves were gone. Had they been mere illusions all along, which vanished when their maker died? Or had the animals simply turned and run, fearful of doing battle without a sorcerer by their side? From where he lay, he could see soldiers moving into the castle, searching the grounds, unpacking explosives. Soon the real work would begin. By dawn the Hunter’s citadel would be rubble, and all the power that it conjured as a symbol of evil would be scattered to the winds. Too bad the Hunter himself hadn’t been there——

He stiffened. A cold chill wafted up his spine. His arm about Narilka tightened.

“Andri?”

He struggled up to a sitting position. She helped him. Though the Forest’s power no longer flowed freely through his soul, a fragile vestige yet remained. A hint of awareness that made his skin crawl, a whisper of ... what?

“What is it?” she asked him. “Tell me.”

Slowly, her arm supporting him, he got to his feet. The act of breathing felt alien to him; his lungs ached as though they had gone unused for centuries. What was this new thing that he sensed, this threat that he couldn’t put a name to? It was close, very close. He could taste it.

And then he knew. He.stared at the castle, he sensed what was inside it, and he knew.

“Oh, my God,” he whispered.

“Andri?” Her voice was soft, but he could sense the fear behind it. “What’s wrong?”

Calesta wasn’t here now, but Calesta wasn’t needed. Memories returned of their own accord. Samiel.

Betrise. Abechar. His own home castle, drenched in blood.

A dark strength filled him. The love that had warmed his soul gave way to hate.

“The Hunter’s here,” he whispered.

40

The tunnel seemed to go on forever. Maybe it did, Damien thought. Maybe this was the true Hell, and they would spend the rest of eternity trudging through this stifling darkness, heading toward a destination that didn’t even exist. If so, it would serve Tarrant right.

But it was hard to be angry at a man who was so clearly having a hard time of it. His battered mortal flesh needed mortal things to heal itself-food and water in quantity, safety from stress, adequate sleep—and on this trip it wasn’t likely to get any of them. He knew what the Hunter had been capable of, but what were the limits of this living man who walked by his side? He couldn’t begin to guess. Yet despite the flush which bore witness to painful exertion, and the increasing stiffness of his stride, Tarrant refused to slow down for any reason. That was the old Hunter, Damien knew. He only hoped the new one was up to past standards.

When they slowed down for a moment to dig out a portion of their dwindling supplies, or stopped completely-miracle of miracles-to relieve themselves of meals long since processed, Damien took a moment to study his companion. Tarrant was limping now, and the manner in which he walked hinted at blisters near the breaking point, but despite that obvious pain his spirit was unflagging. Whatever the Iezu mother had taken from him, it wasn’t affecting either courage or endurance. What kind of child had the Hunter’s soul given birth to, that would now walk the land with a mind of its own and the ability to orchestrate detailed illusions? He kept looking for a sign of something missing in Tarrant, some facet of his personality that had been drained of substance, but thus far in their journey he had been unable to identify it. Perhaps he had been wrong about the process, and the conception of a new Iezu would cost its father nothing. God willing.

They had walked for hours now, too many to count, and when Damien raised up his lantern to look at Tarrant’s face, he could see a brief flicker of pain tense across his brow with each step. It did no good to suggest that such pain would only intensify if he refused to pace himself properly. The one or two times that Damien even dared to hint at such a truth, Tarrant glared at him with a venom that would have done his old self proud, as if the suggestion that they take a few minutes to recoup were not only foolish, but deeply offensive.

“Look,” the ex-priest said at last, when they paused once more to eat a portion of his dwindling supplies. “They can’t find this secret place of yours, right? And they’re not going to burn the Forest until they’re safely out of it, which’ll take days at best.” He leaned back against the cold stone wall, his muscles throbbing painfully as he shifted his weight. “So we’ve got a little time to pace ourselves. We can spare a few minutes to rest. Just long enough to get a second wind.” And he added dryly, “Living people do that kind of thing, you know.”

Tarrant stared at him for a long moment, then silently upended the canteen and swallowed one more precious bit of its contents. It was their last such container, Damien noted; somewhere they were going to have to find more water, and soon. Tarrant capped the canteen with meticulous care and hung its strap about his shoulder, for once not assuming that Damien would carry it.

“They intend to blow up the keep,” he said. And he began to walk down the tunnel again with a quick, lopsided stride.

“Blow up?” For a minute he was too shocked to move. Then he had to run a few steps to catch up to

Tarrant, and for a moment that left him no breath for words. “You mean, as in explosives?”

“That is the usual procedure.”

He grabbed Tarrant by the arm, jerking him to a stop. “Are you telling me that while we’re in there sorting through your notebooks the entire keep is going to come crashing down on our heads?”

A faint ghost of a smile flitted across his face. “I do hope our timing will be better than that.”

“These are books we’re going after.” His voice was low but his tone was fierce. “Books, Gerald! I appreciate how important they are, but that doesn’t make them worth dying for. I don’t mind risking my life to save a life-or even to preserve an ideal-but to risk something like that for a pile of books—”

"Those books are a gateway to the future," he said sharply. “A dictionary of translation between our own species and that of the Iezu’s maker, which will allow us take a step our Terran ancestors never even dreamed of. And if you’re correct about the changes in the fae ... if, in fact, humans will not be able to Work to gain knowledge ... then that gateway might never be accessible again. Ever. If we let those books be destroyed now, our descendants will be doomed to centuries of trial—and-error guesswork. And who can tell how much that will net them? The knowledge we sacrifice today may be lost forever—”

“And you’d be willing to risk death for that?” he demanded. “For knowledge?”

“I did once before,” he pointed out. “Perhaps the second time is easier.”

He smoothed the fabric of his sleeve where Damien had crushed it, but bound no fae with the gesture; the wrinkles remained. “Stay here, if you like. The way out will be safe soon enough.” He dropped the canteen strap off his shoulder and let the metal container fall to the floor; in the smooth-walled tunnel the impact echoed like a gunshot. “I’ll go alone.”

“Like hell you will.” Damien reached down to catch up the canteen. Tarrant was moving quickly; he had to jog to catch up with him. “Who’ll get you out of trouble next time if I’m not there?” The Hunter made no answer.

The tunnel began to slope upward at last, hinting at an end. Damien’s legs hurt so badly as he forced himself up the angled floor that he feared they would lock up from exhaustion and refuse to carry him; he didn’t even want to think about what Tarrant was feeling. How long had they been walking now-one day? Two? If they did get blown up they’d have a chance to rest, at least. It didn’t sound all that bad right now.

At last, just when it seemed that neither of them could manage another step, they came to the base of a staircase carved into the mountain’s stone. Without even pausing for breath, the Hunter began to ascend. Damien saw him stagger once and he braced himself to catch him from behind, but the Hunter put out a hand against the wall of the tunnel for balance, paused long enough to draw in one long, shaky breath, and began to climb once more. The man’s determination was inhuman, Damien observed as he climbed unsteadily behind him. And why should that surprise him? This was a man who had once bested Death by sheer force of will; why should a little detail like physical pain slow him down?

They climbed two flights’ worth of stairs, maybe more. At the top there was a small landing where they paused to catch their breath, and a heavy alteroak door barring the way beyond. Thick iron braces were clearly meant to hold a wooden bar that would lock it from this side, but-thank God-that wasn’t in place. Damien wasn’t sure he could have lifted it. Without asking for help, Tarrant grabbed hold of the nearer brace and began to pull; when it was clear that his effort wasn’t enough, Damien grabbed hold of the other one and added his strength to the effort. Together, inch by inch, they pulled the massive door open. Its hinges made a creaking sound loud enough that Damien flinched, and a foul smell gusted through the opening, right into—his face. It was an odor of rotting meat and bodily waste and at least a dozen other things that he didn’t care to identify, and for a minute or two it was all he could do not to vomit. What the hell was going on here?

If Tarrant noted the smell, he made no mention of it. When the door was open far enough to admit a man, he slipped through, and Damien followed. As he did so, he turned up the wick of his lantern a bit so that they could see the space they were entering. It was a small chamber, crudely carved, with little in the way of comfort or decoration. There was a large slab table in its center, carved whole from the same gray stone, and his lantern’s dim light picked out several objects that lay upon its surface. Damien took a few steps closer, trying to make out what they were. Chains. Manacles. Feces of some sort, possibly human, that had been smeared across the table’s surface. The latter smelled pungently recent.

“Do I want to know what this place is?”

“No,” Tarrant stared at the mess on the table for a few seconds, his eyes narrowed to slits. God alone knew what he was thinking. “Suffice it to say that I kept it somewhat cleaner.”

He moved to the far corner of the room, where a lighter door swung open easily at his touch. As they passed through this one, Damien could hear faint sounds from above, murmurs and impacts transmitted down through the layers of rock. The soldiers of the Church must be very close.

“My wards will hold,” the Hunter said quietly, as if sensing his thoughts. As they walked on blistered feet through the fetid darkness, Damien wondered which of them he was trying to convince. Then suddenly the Hunter drew himself up, as if alerted to a hostile presence. Damien stiffened and drew his sword, ready for action. But Tarrant’s eyes were fixed upon the ground, where the earth-fae would be bright and rich with meaning; it was knowledge that had alerted him, not some foreign presence.

At last Tarrant said, in a voice that was still and cold, “He’s dead.”

“Who?”

“Amoril. My apprentice.” The pale eyes narrowed. “My betrayer.”

“Are you sure?”

He seemed to hesitate. Were the messages of the fae less clear to him now that he had no Working to interpret them? “Yes,” he said at last. “He lived—and ruled here-long enough to leave his mark upon the currents. That stink is his as well, no doubt ... or that of his animal familiars. He never was fastidious.” The thin mouth curled in distaste. “That he’s gone now is equally clear, and there’s only one way to explain that.” He looked at Damien; his expression was grim. “If they’ve truly killed him, then we have very little time left.”

They moved on, through a space that was more cavern than tunnel, in whose distant recesses water dripped with agonizing slowness. Now and then a noise would drift down to them, echoing through some flaw in the stone overhead. Soldiers’ voices, issuing orders. Animals’ howls, the cries of the dying. It was good that they could hear such things, Damien told himself. It was when the noises stopped that they would be in real trouble.

They came to another door, this one so finely worked that it seemed out of place in the rough stone corridor. Tarrant touched a ward at its center, which may have been meant to unlock it; the polished wood pushed easily inward, and the two men moved into the room beyond. Damien’s lantern light revealed a modest chamber, shelf-lined, which might have been a library in another age. Tarrant’s workshop, no doubt.

Utterly devastated.

He could feel the sight of the destruction strike Tarrant like a physical blow, and he flinched himself as he gazed about the room. Books had been hurled down from the shelves and mangled. Manuscripts had been shredded and wadded up like garbage. Leather covers, ripped from their volumes and scored with claw marks, reeked of urine and decay. He could hear the Hunter’s indrawn breath as he gazed upon the wreckage of his storehouse of knowledge, and he sensed that in some bizarre way this pained him more than Amoril’s other betrayals, or even the loss of the Forest itself.

You believed that knowledge like this would be sacred, he thought. You thought that even the Evil One, being man-made, would respect its value. He shook his head sadly. Welcome to the real world, Gerald.

There was a large trestle table in the center of the room, now overturned. Silently Tarrant moved to one end and reached down for a handhold; Damien put down his lantern and hurried to the other end to do the same.

“At least your people hate fire,” he offered, as they righted it. “If they’d burned the place there’d be nothing left at all.”

Tarrant made no comment. Reaching down into the mess that was under his feet, he brought up a single page, torn and crumpled and crusted with something brown. For a long time he stared at it, and Damien sensed that he was watching how the fae clung to the paper, how the current responded to the words that were on its surface. Then his hand clenched tightly, crushing it.

“We’ll never find the right pages in time,” he muttered. Damien could hear the exhaustion in his voice. “Not without a Locating.”

“Of course we will. We have to, right?” He spotted several whole notebooks on one of the shelves and pulled them out. “Hell, my desk in Ganji looked worse than this.”

For a moment Tarrant’s eyes met his. For a moment he could sense the utter despair welling up inside the man, not a product of this one moment or even of several moments past, but of everything he had experienced since they’d started on this God-forsaken mission. Even the Hunter’s indomitable spirit had its limits, he realized. And there was no sorcery left to sustain him now.

In the distance there was a louder sound; voices arguing, it seemed to Damien, and the impact of metal on stone. It seemed uncomfortably close.

“Come on,” he urged. He put the notebooks down on the table and began to search for more. “We’ve got a lot to go through here.”

He didn’t look at Tarrant again, but focused on the shelves surrounding him. Whoever had ravaged the hidden library might have worked with enthusiasm, but he lacked efficiency; there were several dozen volumes still intact, and he pulled them free and shook them off and brought them to the table. There Tarrant searched through them page by page, sorting through the diaries of his undead centuries to find the notes he needed. God willing, Damien thought, they’d be somewhere in these intact volumes. Otherwise ... he looked at the mess on the floor and shook his head, trying not to think about what that search would be like. Or how damned long it would take.

There were voices even closer now. Too close. He looked at Tarrant.

“My wards will admit no one but myself or Amoril to this chamber,” he said, responding to Damien’s unspoken question. “And Amoril being dead—”

“What if they carry his body with them?”

“Even if they think to do that—and I doubt they have so much insight-it won’t work. The wards respond to a man’s vital essence, not to dead flesh.” But despite his assurance it seemed to Damien that he turned the pages faster than before, and his eyes darted up occasionally to ascertain that the door to the library was indeed still shut.

Then footsteps resounded, heavy and purposeful and clearly headed in their direction. “Shit,” Damien muttered, putting down the book he held in order to draw his sword. The Hunter rose, swaying slightly as he did so; clearly his exhausted muscles were less than enthusiastic about the concept of a fresh workout. Damien’s own muscles ached like hell, but that didn’t matter now. Whatever had gotten past the Hunter’s wards was damned likely not to be friendly.

And then the door opened and the light of an unshuttered lantern blinded him for an instant. He took a step backward and squinted against the light, fighting to make out details of a figure that seemed to glow with all the power of the sun—

“Oh, my God,” he whispered. Almost dropping his sword. “Who the hell... ?”

The figure in the doorway was wearing armor cast in silver and gold, that captured his lamplight and reflected it a thousand times over, making the golden sun upon his breastplate blaze like the star of Earth itself. After hours spent in the semi-darkness, the light was blinding. But that wasn’t what stunned Damien so. He was a seasoned enough warrior not to be unmanned by simple pyrotechnics, and even the sight of the Prophet’s famous armor come to life, just as it had been painted on the Cathedral’s high wall, was something he could come to terms with. It was the sight of the man who wore the armor that utterly unnerved him, so that his grip upon his sword grew weak and the familiar steel blade nearly fell from his hand.

The man was Gerald Tarrant.

No, Damien thought. Fighting the power of the image. This man’s skin was tan, where Gerald’s was pale. This man’s eyes were darker, and deeper set. He was slightly shorter than the Hunter, and maybe a little bit stockier, and his hair wasn’t quite the same length. But except for those minor details the resemblance was amazing. Unnerving. Even-given the circumstances-terrifying.

This was how Gerald Tarrant must have looked in his first lifetime, when the heat of life still surged in his veins, when the passions of mortal existence still blazed in his eyes. Even the man’s wounds bore witness to his living state: a livid red scratch mark swelling across his brow, a hot purple bruise along the line of his jaw. And the look in his eyes ... there was a hate so hot in them that Damien could feel it like a flame upon his face; even the hate-wraiths that wisped in and out of existence about the man were red and gold and orange, fire-hues that sizzled in the keep’s chill air.

The burning eyes fixed on him, then on Tarrant. There was madness in them, and an echo of pain so intense that Damien flinched to see it. With bruised hands the newcomer put down his lantern and then swung a hefty springbok into firing position, aiming at the Hunter’s chest. But Damien stood between the two of them, close enough to foul a clean shot.

“Get back,” the man rasped. There was a hysterical edge to his voice, the sound of a soul pushed almost to the breaking point. Damien had seen enough men in that state to know how very dangerous it was. “Get out of the way!”

He couldn’t move. He didn’t dare. A knife in the heart is as fatal to an adept as it is to any other human. Who had said that? He couldn’t remember. “Who are you?” he managed. Not because he thought the man would answer him, just to buy a precious moment’s delay.

To his surprise it was the Hunter who responded. “Andrys Tarrant.” Was that a tremor of fear in his voice? “Last living descendant of my family line.”

“You killed them!” the newcomer cried hoarsely. His hand on the springbolt was shaking; the dried blood on his face was streaked with sweat. “God damn you to Hell for it.” He reached up with his left hand to wipe away what might have been a tear, or maybe just a drop of sweat, then quickly returned it to the barrel of his weapon. “I don’t know who you are,” he snapped at Damien, “and I don’t care. But I’ve got two bolts loaded and so help me God, if you don’t move out of my way, one of them’s for you.”

There was nowhere to run to. No way to Work a defense. One slender wooden shaft was all it would take, to pierce a heart that had only just started to beat again. In this strange new world they were in, there was no way to stop it.

God, don’t let it end like this. Please. Give him a chance to come back to You.

The Hunter’s manner gave no sign of his desperation, but Damien knew him well enough to hear it in his voice."It’s over,” Tarrant said quietly. “You’ve won.”

“Shut up!” the man shouted. He raised the weapon higher, and cursed as he confirmed the fouled sightline along the barrel. In a voice that edged on hysteria, he shouted at Damien, “Move!”

“The Forest is dead,” Gerald persisted. His voice was low and even; Damien could sense the monumental self-control required to keep it that way. “That’s what you came to do, isn’t it? The Forest and its current master are dead, and its past master....” He let the sentence trail off into eloquent silence, as if daring his enemy to complete it. “Isn’t that what you wanted, Andrys? To destroy all my work, so that I would have nothing left?” How much did he know about the man from past Knowings, Damien wondered, how much could he read in the currents now, how much was he guessing? His very life depended on those skills. "You won. It’s over. Go back to your life.”

“I have no life, you son of a bitch.” The man’s voice was shaking. “Not while you’re alive.”

The finger on the trigger tensed. Damien’s muscles were ready to move, wound taut as the steel springs inside that killing weapon.

“Calesta is dead,” Gerald Tarrant said quietly.

The newcomer’s face Went white. He reeled slightly as if struck, and his finger moved a precious inch or two back from the trigger.

“You bound yourself to him,” Gerald pressed. “Didn’t you? What did he promise you? Forgetfulness? Purging? An orgy of vengeance?” He paused. “Did he tell you what the cost of that would be? Did he tell you that you would lose your soul if you served him?”

“That doesn’t matter,” he whispered.

“He was my enemy long before you were involved.” Damien could see the newcomer flinch as each word hit home, forcing him to reconsider a relationship he had clearly taken for granted until this moment. “Did you know that? He’d use any tool that was available to accomplish his ends. Even my own flesh and blood. Or did you think when he offered his power to you that it was only for your benefit?” He shook his head sharply, tensely. His whole body was poised like that of an animal about to bolt for cover, or launch itself at its prey. “He lived for pain and pain alone. Not only mine, but yours. Killing me wouldn’t be enough for him, not unless I knew in my last dying moment that he had also destroyed those things I valued most. The Forest. The Church. And now you.”

“You value me?” He spat the words out in disbelief, almost unable to voice them. “What kind of bullshit is that? How stupid do you think I am?”

“You’re my own flesh and blood,” the Hunter said icily. “Not the proudest member of my line, certainly not the strongest, but right now you’re all that’s left. When he claims your soul, he will debase a history that stretches back nearly a thousand years.” The pale eyes were an icy flame that chilled whatever they gazed upon. “That will be his true triumph, Andrys Tarrant. Not my death. Your corruption.”

“If Calesta’s dead, then he has no power now—”

“Doesn’t he?” the adept demanded. “Do you know what will happen if you kill me now? That spark of Calesta’s hate which lies like a dormant seed within you will take root and grow, until it strangles all within you that is still human. That’s his vengeance, Andrys Tarrant. Not your paltry campaign, not even the rigors of Hell itself, but the knowledge that as you pull that trigger, you commit yourself to his world, in which the only joy is suffering.”

The man reeled visibly, as if the words had been a physical blow. “No,” he whispered hoarsely. “You’re just trying to talk yourself out of a—”

“Look within yourself, then! Imagine the hatred taking hold, Calesta’s hatred taking hold, the embrace of vengeance consummated at last ... and then ask yourself how you’ll return to the real world after that. Or did you think it would all end when you pulled that trigger? Did you think your soul would be magically cleansed at the moment of my death?” He shook his head sharply. “This is just the beginning. The easy part.”

“You killed them,” he whispered. Raising up the weapon again, aligning it with his eye once more. “My brothers, my sister, all of them! God damn you to Hell! You deserve to die!”

“Then pull the trigger,” the Hunter dared him. “And destroy us both.”

Andrys Tarrant blinked hard; sweat ran redly down the side of his face. “I don’t... I can’t——” His hands were shaking. Suddenly he gestured toward Damien with the springbok. “Go,” he whispered hoarsely. “Get out of here.”

“I think-” he began.

“This isn’t your fight! It’s between him and me. Whoever the hell you are, just get out of here! Now!”

Damien hesitated, then looked at Gerald. The Hunter nodded ever so slightly. “He’s right, Damien.” His voice was quiet but strained. “There’s nothing more you can do here.”

“Gerald—”

The Hunter shook his head. Damien’s protest died in his throat.

“Go,” Gerald Tarrant whispered.

He swallowed hard, trying to think of something to do, something to say, anything that could change this moment. He imagined himself in Andrys Tarrant’s place, and sensed how, very easy it would be to fire. How many times had he dreamed of putting an end to the Hunter so quickly, so easily? But now the issue was no longer that simple. Now the Hunter had become ... something else.

Hadn’t he?

You killed my family, the younger Tarrant had accused.

He forced himself to move as indicated. Andrys took a few steps into the room to give him a wide berth in case he intended to attempt a last minute rescue ... and indeed he might have, if there had been an opening. But there wasn’t. And then he passed through the door and it slammed shut behind him, and he knew that one way or another a man was going to die.

You killed my family.

It was justice, surely. Long overdue. Generations would celebrate the death of a man who was every bit as evil as Calesta, whose heart was so like the Iezu’s in its core that when he had beckoned to his enemy with the full force of the Hunter’s sadism, Calesta had come to him like a lover.

He needed time, God. A man can’t contain that kind of evil and then be rid of it overnight. But he would have come back to You.

His heart heavy, his feet like lead, he ascended the winding staircase that led to the upper levels. Up he climbed, toward the black halls he remembered so well. Up to where the soldiers of the Church were laying down explosives and fixing fuses in place. Up to the living world, where the Forest was dying so that new things might be born, where the legend of the Hunter would give way to other things fearsome and terrible, but none so full of despoiled brilliance, or of courage.... , There were tears in his eyes, blinding him. Hot tears.

He kept walking.

They had built a bonfire in the courtyard. He watched as they carried the pieces of Amoril’s body over to it and threw them one by one onto the flames. He watched the pieces char and sizzle and lose their human coherency, and he sensed the relief among the soldiers as it was guaranteed, by that burning, that no undead resurrection would bring their enemy back.

Distantly he watched, as if from another world. No one disturbed him. Not the soldiers whom he knew, not the Patriarch ... no one. Surrounded by a cocoon of darkness he watched as the flames danced, feeling their heat upon his face, an alien thing in the Forest night.

And then there was a stirring in the main portal of the keep, and a figure emerged from the shadows within it. One man, clad in armor of silver and gold, bloodstained sword gripped tightly in one hand. There was a dark-haired girl in the crowd who ran toward him, but something in his manner made her stop before she had reached him. The Patriarch rose up from where he sat and took one step toward him, but then Andrys Tarrant’s gaze-haunted, bloodshot-froze him in place.

Slowly he raised his other hand, along with the trophy it held. His bloodied fingers gripping it by the hair, he raised up the severed head of Gerald Tarrant so that all could see it. Damien shut his eyes, but the image was already burned into his brain and he couldn’t shut it out. That white skin, truly bloodless now. Those silver eyes, emptied of all intelligence. That life which was ever so much more than a mere human life, smothered out like a candleflame....

He mourned. God would condemn him for it, perhaps, but he mourned. The man who had once been called Prophet deserved that much, surely.

Five steps brought Andrys Tarrant to the edge of the fire. For a second he paused, as if giving those about him a chance to fix the moment in their minds. Then he cast the head onto the pyre-that tortured face, so like and unlike his own—and cried out as the first flames licked at it, as if feeling their bite on his own flesh. He fell then, and the dark-haired girl ran to him, and she dropped to her knees and held him and wept. The Patriarch came up beside them and offered his own words of comfort. God has led us to triumph, perhaps. Or something like that. Some ritual prayer that couldn’t possibly do justice to this moment, or to the man whose death had made it possible.

No one noticed Damien Vryce as he left the courtyard. No one saw him slip into the shadows of the Forest, away from the light of the flames. Away from the keep, and its storehouse of knowledge. Away from ... everything.

In the silence of the Forbidden Forest, in the darkness that the Hunter had called home, Damien prayed for God’s forgiveness, and for the peace of his friend’s soul.

41

They blew up the black keep at solar noon, when the hot white light of day set the finials ablaze and the glass stones shimmered like quicksilver. It had taken them all morning to prepare for the act, exposing all the rooms of the keep before a single fuse was lit, so that there was no chamber, no closet, no corner in which a shadow of the Hunter’s power might remain to sabotage their efforts. Amidst the towering, thickly thatched trees of the Forest that had meant waiting until day was well under way, for dawn, like sunset, lacked the angular power to breach the lower windows. In the meantime they mixed the materials they had brought to the Forest with meticulous care and constant prayer, and laid their fuses to the sound of Church-chants. Every grain of powder was tamped down in the One God’s name; every precious fiber was dedicated to His purpose. In a world where one man’s doubts might skew a host of enterprises, one couldn’t be too careful.

They were following a plan set down by the first settlers, in the days when the ravaged colony had struggled to record all of Earth’s knowledge. Inner walls first, and supporting columns, then the outer structure of the keep. On Earth such a pattern would have guaranteed a controlled infall of debris, minimizing the risk to those who watched. On Erna, where there was no guarantee that any of the fuses would fire properly, much less any fantasy that all the explosions could be timed ... call it a dream. Call it an act of faith.

It went off perfectly.

They heard the first blast from down the mountainside, and felt the ground tremble beneath them. The second followed seconds after, and then the third, and a barrage that was more deafening than all three combined. With a sound like thunder the black walls shattered, some blowing outward, most falling inward. Floors collapsed beneath the weight of ceilings, fell to the floors below, collapsed again. The mountain shook. The sun was obscured by smoke. Fragments of obsidian, sharp as arrow points, fell to the ground like rain.

After the smoke cleared, the Hunter’s keep was gone.

Some monuments still remained, spared by the conquerors’ lack of adequate explosives, or else by the limits of their book-learned skill. A single buttress arched up against the sky, seemingly defiant. A segment of the courtyard wall jutted up from the ground, its base buried in rubble. There were parts of walls still standing within the keep, against which debris had drifted like sand, or snow; vast dunes of wreckage that promised frustration to any man or beast that might dare to brave the site in search of buried knowledge, or some key to power.

They said prayers over the rubble, as soon as the dust had settled. Prayers and sunlight would expose and destroy any remnant of power clinging to the ancient stone. No one doubted the power of that combination. No one doubted that the Hunter was now gone forever. No one doubted that a great and terrible age had finally been brought to a close, with this single act that would reverberate through history. Such was the power of symbols in men’s minds, they told each other. Such was the power of their Patriarch.

And Damien alone, sitting apart from all the others, removed from their celebration, saw what was within the Patriarch’s soul that day. Not joy, but a dark and terrible anxiety. Not relief, but a fresh determination. Damien alone, knowing his Church, knowing the Patriarch-but most of all, knowing his fellow men—understood the cause of that anxiety.

And knowing, he mourned.

42

The Holy Father walked out carefully upon the rocks, booted feet wary on the slippery surfaces. Thick brush tangled about his ankles, not the twisted, perverted vines of the inner Forest, but the rich green life of a region that was daily bathed in sunlight. After days in that stifling domain, their smell was a heady tonic.

He stood where the rocks went out into the river listening to the waters of the Lethe rush about his feet. Fish darted quicksilver beneath the gleaming surface, and a red crab scuttled out of the way as his shadow fell upon its hunting ground.

He looked at the place-its sun and its water and its rich, teeming life—and he looked at the currents of earth-fae which were bright beneath his feet, and he gazed into a plethora of possible futures, so tangled together now that his best efforts could barely pull loose a single thread. He shut his eyes and let them seep into him, and when he was sure that he liked the feel of them, he nodded and said quietly, “This is the place.”

The soldier who had accompanied him on his search beat his way back through the bushes that lined the river, hurrying back to tell the others. For a short, precious time the Patriarch was alone.

Give me courage, God. Lend me Your strength.

His left leg hurt so badly that he could barely stand on it. There was a good chance that it had broken back when the white beasts attacked them, but he hadn’t told anyone. There could even be an infection by now, if a shard of bone had broken through the skin. No matter. He had managed the tortuous climb despite it, wincing at every step, almost crying out when a misplaced footfall caused his wounded leg to jar against the earth. But he knew that if he’d told them what was wrong, they would have stopped then and there to tend to him, increasing the risk to all at least tenfold. And maybe deep inside, in that hidden place where a man least wanted to look, he was afraid that if he sat down and gave in to the pain, if he offered exhaustion that opening, he would never rise up again.

His body ached from a fatigue so terrible that it was only raw faith that kept him standing. Raw faith and the knowledge that if he gave in now, if his soldiers had to carry him back, the Church would lose more than any campaign could ever restore. Now was the crux, the focal point of a thousand futures; now was the moment when loss must be turned to gain, when the hundreds of futures in which his Church succumbed to the temptation of easy violence must be cut short, so that brighter fates could flourish.

There was a rustling behind him, and then a man appeared in the waist-high brush. He bowed deeply to the Patriarch, as one might bow to a god. That hurt him more than the pain in his leg and all his exhaustion combined. Didn’t they see what they were doing? Didn’t they comprehend the risk?

They never do, his conscience assured him. Which is why the Church must lead them.

As he must lead the Church.

With careful steps he waded across the shallow river. The water was ice-cold, mountain drainage, and within a few steps his feet were so numb he could hardly feel them. Good, he thought. At least they wouldn’t hurt. With all of the burdens he bore today, he deserved a few square inches of flesh that didn’t pain him.

There was a crowd gathered on the bank of the river by the time he reached the other side, and more were coming. The wounded were helped into place by their fellows, foliage trampled flat as dozens of men and women sought a place to stand or sit. That a place as beautiful as this should exist a mere stone’s throw from the Hunter’s mountain was a gift of God, he mused; he prayed that it would recover once they had left.

He took up a position on a rock on the far side of the river, staggering slightly as he fought for balance on its slippery surface. Two of the men started toward him to help, but he waved them back. For this he needed them in one place, so that his speech would have full effect.

Past where he stood, the water flowed into the Forest proper, nourishing all life forms within that darkened realm. Past where he stood, the currents of earth-fae on which all power depended, even the creative power of prayer, flowed directly toward his people. Overhead the sun was bright, washing the light gap clean of any lingering malignance, burning away the fears and sorrows which might otherwise create new demons in these volatile currents. Good. That was as it should be. A handful of dark futures dissipated as he watched, and it seemed that several promising ones took their place. Many of the futures now emerging were similar, he noted with satisfaction, their potentials converging upon this moment like animals at a water hole. Soon, soon, he would nourish his chosen few, banishing the others forever.

He drew in a deep breath and gazed upon his people. Blood-stained, muddied, they waited on the opposite shore for the words that would seal their victory. He counted them silently, making sure that all were there. Zefila had taken up a position behind and above the others, he saw. Andrys Tarrant was off to one side, as if doubtful that the rest of the company would accept him. He had his pagan girlfriend with him, the Patriarch noted. There were so many futures tangled about that pair that he couldn’t pick any one out, but it seemed to him that the balance, on the whole, was positive. Let her share in this moment, then. Let her see what kind of courage the One God inspired in His faithful.

Only Damien Vryce was missing, and for a moment-one terrible moment—the Patriarch feared that he wouldn’t show up at all. He didn’t know why it was so important that the ex-priest be present-indeed, he would much rather never look at him again-but his faeborn visions had convinced him that Vryce’s presence would increase the odds of success here a hundredfold. How ironic—and unfair!-that God would reward such a man with that kind of importance.

And then the flurry of futures that swirled around him resolved to a mere hundred or so, as Damien Vryce beat his way through the underbrush and took up a place on the riverbank. He looked toward the Patriarch, but didn’t dare meet his eyes. Nor did he look at the other soldiers, or Andrys Tarrant. That was probably best, the Patriarch mused. He had kept far enough apart from the others that none had asked him why he was there, or what part he had played in the battle between faith and sorcery, but every man knew that he had come out of the black keep, and that was condemnation enough. If the Holy Father hadn’t made a show of tolerating his presence, they probably would have run him out of camp. Or worse.

Watch now, he bade Vryce silently. Gaze upon true faith, in all its fearsome glory.

He raised up a hand to still the group, and dozens of whispered conversations ceased. In the silence that resulted, it seemed to him he could hear their hearts pounding ... and maybe, with the fae underscoring his every thought with power, he could. An adept’s damnation.

“Praised be God,” he pronounced, “who has brought us to this day of triumph.” He could see waves of power spreading out from where he stood, echoing the rhythm of his speech. “Praised be the courage of the fallen, who gave all that they had to defend their fellows.” Had it always been thus, and he had simply lacked the power to See, it? He watched as the shimmering futures shifted in response to those fae-waves, and he shivered inwardly. How could a man live with such vision, and still remain a man?

He led them in the Prayer for the Dead, a recitation crafted ages ago by some anonymous hand. It was beautiful, it was comforting, it was a somber reminder that their victory had cost them dearly. He wondered if the Prophet had written it.

When they were done, he gave them a moment to revel in their pride, taking the time to draw in a deep breath, trying to still the trembling of his flesh so that they would see only the image he wanted them to see, a leader serene and confident. Not a man overcome by hesitancy, remorse ... and yes, he had to admit it, fear. Not the truth.

“There comes a time,” he began at last, “when a man is tested. Sometimes the test is of his courage, or his strength, or his endurance. Sometimes it is of his inner conviction, his faith.” He drew in a deep breath. “Sometimes it is of his judgment. That is the most difficult test of all, my children ... and it can be the most painful.

“Like the father who steals a loaf of bread to feed his starving child, daring the vengeance of the law because he feels that the law of life is more pressing, we each make our choices when we must. Who can judge a man in such an instance, or say with certainty that the course of his heart is wrong? What is the will of government, when contrasted against a man’s innate morality?

“Such are the ways of the laws of man, which are by definition imperfect. But human governments come and go, and statutes change daily in response to circumstance. The Law of the One God is a different thing. Written by God’s own Prophet, affirmed by generations of priests, it was meant to be an absolute Law, which would endure for all time. A reflection of God’s own Spirit, whose wisdom would be unquestionable. A pathway to salvation.

“Decry violence, the Law instructs. Reject sorcery. Resist, above all else, corruption of the human spirit.”

His throat was dry. He drew in a deep breath, and wished he could reach down into the water and draw up a handful to cool his mouth. But his wounded leg throbbed and his muscles felt weak, and he thought that if he tried he might not rise up again.

“It came to pass that an Evil was born into our world, so great that faith alone could not do battle with it. We tried, my children, we tried. Five centuries ago we marched against the Forest with an army vast enough to tame a continent, with standards and with sorcery and with a host of weapons ... and we lost. We lost. We suffered a defeat so devastating that in the five centuries since we haven’t managed yet to recover, in numbers or in faith.

“What would have happened after that war, if the soldiers of the One God had succeeded? Would those men and women have gone back to their homes and their families and enjoyed the rewards of their success? Or would they have sought out other enemies, other Evils, so that now, five hundred years later, you and I would live in a world in which faith and violence were all but synonymous? A world in which constant war drained man of all his vital energies, so that nothing was left to devote to higher aspirations?

“Such were the questions I asked myself as I saw this Evil growing. Such was my torment of faith that nightly I prayed for guidance. While all about me temples fell, blood was shed, the souls of my people were made black by intolerance.” He looked pointedly at the handful of soldiers who had been involved in the temple riots, and he saw—them flinch as the accusation struck home. “The man in me longed to respond in kind to this Evil. The leader in me knew the cost of such action.

"Will You let Your people perish? I asked God. Is it truly Your will that mankind surrender to this darkness, rather than risk one transgression of Your Law? Would You rather we die now, blindly obedient, than survive to serve You?

“Then one night, I saw/a vision. Say perhaps that God sent it to me, responding not to one man’s prayers but to the pain and the fear of all His people. Or say instead that it welled up from the depths of my soul, from that secret place where conscience resides. What I saw was a creature of light, so bright and so beautiful that it hurt my eyes to look upon it. Its voice was not one voice but a choir, and as it spoke, its words echoed in my soul with a power that made me tremble.

"The Lord God of Earth and Erna is perfect, it said to me, but the world of men is not, nor are the creatures who inhabit it. Therefore are human choices uncertain, and full of strife. If given a choice between one man’s sin and the destruction of a nation, what leader would choose the latter? But remember this if you choose to transgress, it warned me. Like the father who steals bread for his child, knowing it to be against the law, you must be prepared to pay the price for your actions. Thus alone can you save the child and still uphold the Law."

He lifted up to his hands toward the heavens in an age-old attitude of prayer; futures flitted about his head like restless birds, bright and agitated. “Hear me, oh, my God,” he prayed. “Hear me, Lord of Earth and Erna, creator of humankind, now made King of this Forest. In order to serve my people, I have transgressed against Your greatest Law. I have committed bloodshed, and sanctified violence, and encouraged in my people a fever of destruction which runs counter to Your every teaching. Let the sin be mine alone, not theirs. If any soul is to suffer corruption, let that soul be mine. Forgive these people, repair their spirits, replenish their souls’ inner strength, make them as innocent in their faith as they were before my call urged them to violence. On my head and mine alone is the fault for any wrong we have committed. On my soul sits the weight of your judgment, my God.”

All eyes were upon him, unwavering. He could see in their depths a ghost of doubt now, a quiver of fear. Good. Let them question what they had done here and they might yet be saved.

“In acceptance of Your Will,” he drew out a slender knife from his sleeve, turning its blade so that it glittered in the sunlight, “and in recognition of the righteousness of Your most holy Law, do I offer You this sacrifice.” Quickly he placed the knife against his palm and cut downward with it, hard. There was little pain, for the blade was sharp, but something stabbed his heart as the blood began to flow free. Fear? Regret? Those emotions had no place here, he thought fiercely. He raised up his hand in a gesture of benediction, so that all might see what he had done; a thin crimson waterfall splashed down into the river, and it seemed to him that the fae itself was stained red as it coursed outward from him.

“May You cleanse this land forever of the darkness which once ruled here,” he prayed. Thin streamers of red were unfurling in the water, reaching toward the stunned men and women who stood upon the opposite bank. “May You cleanse my people of the darkness which has gripped their souls, so that in this new world which they have made they may be worthy of salvation. In Your Name, Lord God of Earth and Erna.”

Earth-fae. It would give his words tenfold power, and adhere his message to the souls of his people. With his new sight he could see the power of his sacrifice spreading out in waves from the falling blood, and as each wave touched the future-images surrounding him they shimmered and shifted, taking on new patterns of potential. Some were more positive than before, but not enough. Not enough! God in Heaven, was he offering up his life for nothing?

And then Damien Vryce moved forward. Hesitantly at first, his eyes never leaving the Patriarch, then with firm conviction as he stepped into the river. He walked forward until he was near the river’s center, knee-deep in the mountain water, then reached down with his hand and touched it. A thin stream of red curled about his fingers, almost invisible now as the Patriarch’s blood thinned in the river’s swift current. With a muttered prayer he brought up his hand to his forehead and touched it, leaving a drop of water on his brow. As he bowed to the Holy Father, another man staggered forward, following his lead. And another. And another. In the waters of sacrifice they baptized one another, and he could see the futures that gathered about them shifting tenor as they accepted, by that ritual, the gesture he had made. Scenes of violence dissipated even as he watched, and he felt tears come to his eyes as he saw them replaced by visions of hope, and peace, and reverence.

It wasn’t all in vain, then.

No one saw him raise up the knife again, to a point some six inches down from where he had cut before. No one saw him press its slender point into his flesh, or twist it deep between the bones, or cup his hands so that the sudden spurt of arterial blood might be disguised as something less vital.

I accept Your judgment, God of Earth and Erna, and give myself into Your Hands.

He saw Andrys Tarrant step into the water, then turn back to see if his lover was following. Did she know that for a thousand years the Tarrant men had refused to marry except within the Church? After a moment-a long moment, fraught with obvious indecision-she nodded, and stepped into the water beside him, accepting the hand that he offered her.

One more soul for God, he thought. That was how you won a world. Step by step. Infinite patience....

The world began to waver in his vision. The futures-so many favorable now!-began to fade. How long would it be before they realized what he had done? He tried to step down from his perch, but the water surrounding it was deeper than he remembered and he went down heavily, his damaged leg slamming into the river bed hard enough to send spear points of pain shafting up into his groin and beyond. He groaned, and for a moment almost fell. One or two of his people started toward him, but he waved them back. His wounded arm hung down now, where none could see it, and it seemed strangely distant now, not like part of his own flesh at all. From somewhere came the sound of splashing, as if of a body approaching, but that, too, seemed distant, a sound from another world. He drew in a deep breath and swayed, his strength ebbing out into the cold river current that swirled about his thighs. The efficacy of sacrifice is in direct proportion to the value of that which is destroyed. Or so the Prophet had written. What could possibly be of more value to this Patriarch, whose greatest dream had been to live long enough to see his world change? “I have nothing more precious to give,” he whispered to his God. Darkness was closing in about his vision like a tunnel. The river’s murmur had become a roar that filled his ears and drowned out all other sound. He could feel himself drifting off, could feel his soul’s linkage to the flesh that housed it separating like a frayed cord, and he struggled to remain upright as long as possible. Best to die with dignity, he thought, to give this symbol power. Best to hold out long enough that no one tried to save him, until he was finally past all saving.

And then he felt a touch at his side, human warmth, a powerful grip. He managed to focus clearly enough to make out a face, bearded and scarred and furrowed with concern. Vryce. At first he thought the man was going to try to help him, but then he saw the truth, that Vryce understood-not only what he was doing, but the necessity for doing it—and he let the man support him as the last of his worldly strength left him. Upright unto the end, his lifeblood staining his robes and Vryce’s jacket as it streamed off into the river, to cleanse the Forest with its power.

Unto your judgment, my God. For Love of You.

In the darkness that was gathering now he saw a vision slowly take shape. A hazy point of light shimmered, shivered, then expanded into the shape of a planet, complete and perfect before his eyes. Erna. He could sense the rhythms of its tides, the heat of its life, the immeasurable beauty of its potential. He sensed the peace of a planet in utter harmony, where all life and all of nature were bound together by a power that flowed around and through everything....

... and he felt the presence of Man on Erna, an alien intrusion, abhorrent. He saw the tides of fae respond to the invader’s presence, struggling to absorb him, to adapt. He heard the voice of one man rising above that of three thousand, offering Erna a key, a channel, a Pattern for contact.

Sacrifice.

Loss as a link; destruction as a creative force.

Casca’s madness reshaped the currents, carving out a niche of violence and mourning for his species to inhabit. And mankind thrived. The children of the colonists spread out across the planet, until their numbers were so great that no one man might command that kind of power again. Only something greater than a man, that served as the focus of a thousand souls. Something like a Church. A crusade.

A legend.

He saw a mountain crowned with smoke, whose slopes spewed forth gouts of fire, whose base was ringed by ghosts. He saw a man climb up that slope—but no, not a man, not merely a man. This was a legend incarnate, figurehead for a nation of fear. The Hunter trailed nightmares in his wake, that linked him to a million souls across the face of the planet. And when he raised up his sword and bound the fae to serve him, when he offered up the most valuable thing that any man possessed, the very currents shook with the force of his conjuring. From the ground at his feet shock waves swept across the planet, and the Patriarch saw that when they passed, the currents of the fae shifted, as if accepting some new message into their substance. A new Impression, more powerful than Casca’s. A new Pattern for contact, that would change the face of sorcery forever.

He saw his own body as if from a great height, Vryce now wholly supporting its weight. He saw men wading across the river in panic as they realized what he had done, but it was too late now for them to save him. The deed was done, the Pattern consummated. A new set of futures was taking shape, brighter and clearer than any he had seen before, and in them he could see the force of his own sacrifice encircling the globe, reflected and magnified in the souls of his faithful like sunlight in fine crystal. Such power, he saw, could change Erna forever. The Hunter had already paved the way, establishing a new channel for the currents to follow. He, with his death, would confirm that Pattern, and set it upon the face of the planet forever.

Self-sacrifice.

How many sorcerers would practice their Art when death was the price of a Working? How many men would be willing to part with their lives as casually as they had once parted with books, or artifacts, or even the lives of others? Those few who might dare to Work wouldn’t be men of greed or cowardice now; the new rules would scare those away. Perhaps one man in a million would dare to pay the price the fae demanded, to serve a higher goal. Perhaps. As for the rest, they would observe that the fae was now a distant force, unworkable ... and slowly the fae would respond to that belief, and become so in truth. As it had changed after Casca’s sacrifice, so it would change again.

Bright futures exploded before his eyes, blinding in their brilliance. He saw a sky peppered with colorful explosions, winged carriages that flew like birds, a thousand and one precious legends of Earth come alive before him. There were things he didn’t know the name for and things whose purpose he couldn’t begin to guess at, but oh, the overall pattern was clear. Tears came to his eyes as future after future unfolded before him, not all of them perfect, but so full of hope! He saw what must have been a spaceship-how smooth it was, how plain in design, how unlike anything he would have imagined a spaceship to be!—and then the visions began to fade, pictures bleeding into a field of light, sensations into a numbing warmth—

“Thank You, Lord,” he whispered. Voicing the words within his soul, not knowing or caring if they ever reached his lips. “Thank You for giving me this.”

Slowly, peacefully, the Patriarch let loose his hold on life, and slid down into the embrace of his God.