Dominion

Deep within the bowels of his makeshift bedchamber, Gerald Tarrant could feel the sun setting.

For a moment he lay still in darkness, savoring the moment. The dark fae lapped at his body softly, like waves on a moonless beach. The power was weak in this place-little more than random echoes of spiritual malevolence that had been drawn to him while he slept-but it was refreshing nonetheless.

Outside his temporary haven he could sense the hunger of creatures that crouched in the shadows, waiting for night to fall. Soon the sun would set and the balance of power in the world would shift once more. Soon all those night-born monsters that were held at bay by its lethal brilliance would venture forth once again, ready to feed upon blood or terror or despair, or whatever else suited their natures.

I must go to the Forest, he thought suddenly.

The words rose unbidden from the depths of his soul, displacing all other thoughts. That didn’t surprise him. For some days now he had been experiencing strange impulses, almost as if some outside power was placing thoughts in his head. Cross the Serpent Straits, a sourceless voice would whisper. Go east. A lesser man might perhaps have believed that such thoughts were his own, and responded without question. But he, who was more than a man, knew better.

The Forest was calling to him.

Opening his eyes, he sat up on his makeshift bed. Though the storage room surrounding him was dark to human eyes, it was anything but lightless to him. Earth-fae stirred in the corners of the chamber, its icy blue glow visible to his adept’s sight. It took little effort for him to call up a wisp of the power and bind it to his purpose, using it to cleanse his person of the dust that had gathered on him during his sleeping hours, neutralizing the faint scent of mildew that clung to him. The fact that he had taken shelter in a dirt-floored cellar didn’t mean he had to smell like the place.

The familiar act of Working helped him focus his mind, and for a moment the voice of the Forest was silent. But the respite would not last long, he knew. Less than a dozen miles from where he had slept the leading edge of a vast metaphysical whirlpool swept across the land, and the currents of power that roiled in its wake would not be held at bay by a simple sorcerer’s trick. A living man might ignore their influence for as long as he kept his own darker urges in check, but a creature who fed upon darkness itself had no such defense. Currents of black power tugged at Gerald Tarrant’s flesh like an inexorable riptide, trying to force him to move towards the center of the whirlpool. A lesser man would have given in long ago, without ever understanding what was driving him toward that hungry darkness. Only a man who knew the darkness by name understood it well enough to resist.

Come to me, the Forest whispered inside his brain.

Upstairs he could hear his hosts pacing back and forth, anxiously awaiting his emergence. While it was unlikely that they remembered the exact details of his arrival the night before, or the sorcerous commands that had made them cover over their windows and doors for his protection, they could sense his awakening with the same kind of animal instinct that allowed a mouse to sense the approach of a hungry cat. If he had not Bound them before he retired, knotting his power about each soul like a choke-leash, they would have fled the place long ago.

He climbed the cellar stairs and pushed open the door that led into the interior of the small house. The couple that owned the place cowered in the corner, a young boy by their side; several feet away stood their daughter, a girl just on the edge of womanhood. They had managed to light a single lamp to fend off the shadows of evening, but it was not enough to banish the wisps of dark fae that swirled about Tarrant’s feet, or the fear-wraiths that manifested briefly in his wake. But though the dark fae was volatile in this place, it had little staying power; no sooner did the wraiths come into existence then they headed off to the east, drawn toward the whirlpool of malevolence in the distance.

It is power, an inner voice whispered to him. Raw power, without equal. Go east and claim it.

Slowly, deliberately-defying the Forest’s call-he entered the small kitchen. For a moment he felt a pang of regret, remembering the grand estate he had once called home, the magnificent neo-gothic castle he had designed himself. If there was one facet of his current existence that he despised, it was his itinerancy. He had become a wanderer without a home, mesmerizing host after host as necessity demanded, forcing each one to protect him for a day-or a handful of days-until it was time to move on. What other mode of existence was possible? If he stayed too long in any one place he was sure to draw notice. And he was too vulnerable during the daylight hours to risk that. The Church was sending out teams of hunters these days, to track down and destroy all faeborn monsters. They would not care that he had once been human, or that he had authored half their sacred texts back in his living days. He was a creature of darkness now, and thus beyond the pale of their mercy.

As it should be, he thought. Perversely pleased by the thought that the Church he had created would attempt to kill him. At least they understood his teachings.

Quietly he whispered the key to a Compelling. The young girl began to move about the room in response to his will, gathering the items that he would need for his evening meal. A long knife from the nearby sideboard. A wooden tankard from one of the shelves. Her parents watched in horror as she approached Tarrant and placed the tankard on the table before him, but they were frozen by the sorcerer’s power and could voice no more than a whimper of protest. As the girl bared her forearm, Tarrant could see her struggling to reclaim control of her flesh. But his Compelling was too strong for that. For a few seconds he indulged her resistance, much as a fisherman might allow his catch to struggle on the hook before pulling it out of the water at last. But at last her fragile will gave way. She slashed downward toward her left arm with the knife-fiercely, awkwardly-cutting deeply into her own flesh. Red blood gushed out of the wound and splashed down into the tankard. A small moan escaped the mother’s lips, and Tarrant could see the father tremble as he fought to break free of his Binding, but from the girl herself there was no sound… only a delicious admixture of resignation and terror, as refreshing to him as the blood itself.

Such theatrics were not necessary, of course. He could have simply torn open her throat to get at her blood directly, with transformed teeth or claws, and drunk the hot, heady stuff straight from her veins. He had done that kind of thing in the early years of his damnation, when his control over his transformed flesh had still been weak. But such violent feeding was crude and messy, and it strengthened the dark side of his soul. He was experienced enough now to understand that if he wished to preserve his human identity and not devolve into some brainless, ravenous monster, he must hold his inner beast in check.

Do it the old way, temptation whispered. You know you want to.

Ignoring the urge, Tarrant shut his eyes, lifted the tankard to his lips, and drank deeply of the precious fluid. He could taste the girl’s youth in her blood, along with her innocence, her femininity… and of course her fear. A priceless cocktail of vital energies coursed through his veins like fire. If only he could absorb them directly, without need for such a crude vehicle to aid in the digestion! That would be sweet sustenance indeed, if he could ever manage it.

The girl’s emotional emanations were growing weak now as the last of her life poured out of her, but that was to be expected. The first drink was always the sweetest. As for her parents… Tarrant whispered the key to another Working, and saw their expressions go blank as his power began to reweave their memories. By the time he was out of sight they would no longer remember that he had ever been in their house. Someone else had rearranged the cellar during the night. Someone else had covered over all their windows during the day. Their daughter had taken her own life, without telling them why, and they had not found her body until it was too late.

Eventually the Church’s hunters might figure out that something evil had visited this place, but they would have no way to determine its nature. Or to know how it must be hunted.

This monster left no trail

Outside the house the night sky was dark, nearly bereft of stars. A single crescent moon hung low on the eastern horizon, and beneath it, shivering with sparks of earth-fae, was the place that mortal men called the Forbidden Forest. The greatest focal point of natural power on this continent… perhaps in all the world.

A man must be willing to risk his life to explore such a place, Tarrant thought. And a creature of the night, uniquely vulnerable to the dark forces of the world, might have to risk more than his life. Was it worth it?

He knew that the Forest was affecting his mind. Every thought in his head was suspect now. Every instinct in his soul would urge him to go eastward, even if certain destruction lay along that path.

Which is why he had made his decision before coming within range of its influence.

Drawing upon the earth-fae that swirled arount his feet-how powerful it was here! — he worked a Summoning to call the nearest available mount to him. When an unhorse came galloping down the road a few minutes later, he used sorcery to remove its rider from its back as casually as one would swat a fly. Normally animals could sense his predatory nature and were loathe to let him approach them. But a minor Soothing ameliorated the situation, allowing him to mount the animal and ride.

Layering such Workings upon the animal that its spirit would be steady to the gates of Hell themselves if need be, he kneed it into motion and let the siren song of the Forbidden Forest guide him eastward.

When Faith awakened, she didn’t know at first where she was, or how she had gotten there. She didn’t know very much at all, in fact, save that at some point she had set off with a dozen of her fellow knights to hunt down a particularly troublesome faeborn demon that had been plaguing communities along the border of the Forest, and… and…

Now she was here.

Which was…

Where?

Her head throbbed painfully as she sat up; reaching up, she discovered that dried blood was crusted in her hair. Not a good sign. She started to run her hands all over herself, feeling her flesh for wounds, her armor for damage. There were no open wounds that she could find, but every muscle was sore, and judging from the stabbing pain she felt every time she took a breath, one or more ribs might be broken. Her armor had taken quite a beating, several of the steel scales ripped loose from their moorings and the leather beneath badly scorched. A faint smell of sulfur clung to it, making her wonder just what sort of fire she had faced.

What had happened to her?

Overhead was a canopy of trees so dense that only a trickle of sunlight could seep through it, leaving the ground beneath in shadow. She cursed the poor visibility as she struggled to get to her feet. Her sword banged against her left leg, reassuring in its weight, but she had the uncomfortable feeling that other things weren’t where they should be. A quick inventory of her weapons confirmed that fear. Everything else that she might have used to hunt the faeborn-or defend her own life-was gone. Even the smaller weapons that she’d worn close to her body, where a mere fall couldn’t possibly have dislodged them, were missing now. But she still had her sword, though the blood of the demon had dried while it was in the scabbard, making it stick to its leather encasement. Whoever had taken all the other things had left her that.

Memories were starting to seep back into her brain now, slowly, like the gray-green sunlight that was oozing through the branches overhead. She remembered the faces of her fellow hunters, grim with determination. She could hear the prayers of the One God’s faithful as if they were offered in preparation for battle, girding the holy warriors with sacred energy. She remembered the sound of well-oiled steel being drawn from its sheath Niklaus lies on the ground, badly wounded. They can’t stop to tend to him now. Their quarry has finally begun to weaken, which means they must redouble their efforts, pressing home their advantage before the demonic creature they are fighting can draw enough power from the fae to heal its wounds and recover its full strength. Unlike most faeborn creatures this one seems to be intimately bound to its flesh, which means that simple blows can dispatch it, but that doesn’t mean it won’t have a thousand nasty tricks up its sleeve. The less time they give it to try one of them, the better.

Righteousness sings in Faith’s blood, and sparks of sacred fury dance along the edge of her sword as she takes up position directly in front of the unholy thing, blocking its access to her fallen comrade “Faith! Look behind you!”

She whirls about in response to the warning. Too late, too late! While she and her fellow knights were concentrating on the demon a human mob had snuck up behind them. Rank upon rank of maddened men with primitive weapons now fall upon the hunters like a pack of ravenous beasts. The same knight who had called out a warning to Faith cries out once more as he is crushed beneath their feet. She cannot reach him in time to save him. She cannot reach any of her companions in time. The knights are spread out in a circle around their demonic quarry, which means that they are scattered, divided. One by one they will be engulfed by this tide of angry flesh and steel, forced to choose between turning their backs on their faeborn enemy or this rabid mob of demon-worshippers.

The creature is laughing at them now.

Despair is a knot in Faith’s gut as she brings up her sword to protect herself from the thrust of a rusty pitchfork, barely in time; tines scrape against the scales of her armor as she pushes it aside. Who are all these people? Don’t they understand what this creature really is? Or what the cost of worshipping it will be? All creatures born of the fae feed upon mankind. This thing is no exception. Do these people really think that they will escape that fate just because they have agreed to worship it?

It’s not a real god! she wants to scream, as she struggles to keep the wave of attackers from overwhelming her. Her blade slices through the neck of one opponent before swinging into the next. It is not worthy of your worship! But even if these men could hear her words, they would not care. Once a faeborn creature becomes this powerful, it attracts weak-willed humans like rotting meat attracts flies. And why not? Such a creature can perform a thousand and one “miracles”, and weak-willed men are easily swayed by such tricks. Why should they choose to worship a more complicated god, who might actually ask them to read a book or obey restrictive laws, when this one will indulge their vilest pleasures and ask for nothing in return? Never mind that it is a construct of the fae, not a creature of living flesh, and therefore only has one real goal. By the time its followers come to understand what that means for them, it will be too late.

The mob seems endless. The demon must have worked its corruption in all the surrounding towns. Why had the Church’s scouts not reported that? On and on Faith fights against her attackers, knowing that the battle is all but hopeless, but she is too proud-or perhaps too stubborn-to die. Her fellow hunters are no longer visible to her. Whether they have gone down to their deaths, or are simply shielded from her eyes by the bulk of the mob, she does not know. They are not part of her universe any longer. There are only the men surrounding her and the pounding of hot blood in her veins But those are mere distractions, she realizes suddenly. Behind her is the faeborn creature they came here to destroy, and it is controlling these men like puppets. Even while she wastes time fighting this mob, the creature is gathering the power it needs to heal its wounds. How close the hungers had come to destroying it! One more blow might have dispatched it forever. But now, thanks to the sudden arrival of this mob, the greater battle will be lost. By the time Faith can force back the demon’s worshippers-if she can do that at all-the demonic thing will be at full strength again, and more than capable of taking on a single knight.

She cannot allow that to happen.

A strange sense of calm comes over her as she realizes what she must do. As a pitchfork comes thrusting toward her head she forces it aside, steps in towards its wielder, and slams her shield into his face. Stumbling backwards, he cries out as an axe that was meant for her slices into his shoulder. The moment’s triumph should please her, but it does not. The next assailant should worry her, but he does not. Her mind is elsewhere now.

This is her final moment of duty.

She takes one last wild swing at her attackers, trying to force them to back away far enough away that she can gain a moment’s time. The strategy manages to clear a small space around her, but she knows that will not last for long. Men with real lances are headed her way. Once they get within striking distance, she’s finished.

It’s now or never.

Whipping about, she launches herself without warning at the demon. There is no fire in her veins now, nor fury, just an eerie sense of peace, and it is strangely empowering. The creature is still weak from their earlier assault, and apparently her sudden attack has taken it by surprise. Knowing she will have only one blow and must make it count, she swings her sword toward that place in its neck where a thick black vein throbs, putting all her weight behind the effort. If God is with her, perhaps she can take the thing’s head off. If not, if his body is true enough to the human template, then severing a major vein might still bring it down. She prays that it will. Right now that is the only hope these people have, of ever being free of its influence.

But before her blade can connect with the cursed flesh something strikes her on the back of her head, hard enough to dent her half-helm. Her swing goes wild. Something else slams into her back, knocking her off her feet. And then the bulk of the mob engulfs her, a tide of rabid human flesh bristling with rusted blades and twisted pikes, forcing her down to the earth, crushing her beneath its weight until she cannot breathe, she cannot breathe, darkness is closing in and the air will not come -

I am sorry, my God. I have failed you. Forgive me.

The memories vanished.

Shuddering, Faith wrapped her arms around herself. She was grateful to be able to take a deep breath at last, though the effort sent shards of pain lancing through her chest. Where were her fellow hunters now? Almost certainly dead. She prayed they were dead. Death in battle was an honorable end, especially when one was fighting in the name of God. While the possibility of being taken prisoner and sacrificed to a faeborn demon-of being devoured by the very creature one was bound by sacred oath to destroy-would be the ultimate religious defilement.

Now that she could remember the battle clearly, she knew where she was. The demon must have wanted to exact vengeance upon her for her final attack, and had ordered its followers to bring her here. Or perhaps it had done so itself. Either way, she was not to be allowed to die in battle, or even as a messy sacrifice on some pagan altar. That kind of death would be over too swiftly.

They had left her alone in the Forest.

All about her were trees… or rather, what might have been called “trees” in a more wholesome setting. These were twisted, sickly structures, covered with a mottled patchwork of parasitic growths, hollowed out by colonies of nacreous insects. High in the canopy overhead, where sunlight reigned, there might be a smattering of normal life, but everything below that reeked of death and disease. And power. The currents of earth-fae here were so corrupt, so malevolent, that they made her skin crawl. Normally she couldn’t detect such things, lacking an adept’s vision, but in this place the power was so concentrated that she could feel it all about her. Its visceral foulness made her want to vomit.

It was said that all the human nightmares of the world were drawn to this place, where they manifested on such a scale that normal faeborn horrors paled by comparison. A single despairing thought could spawn a host of wraiths, each of them hungering to devour its creator. A normal person who was abandoned here would stand no chance at all; his own fear would take on a life of its own within minutes and consume him. Doubtless that was the fate that the demon had intended for Faith: a desperate and painful demise, fleeing the claws and teeth of her own inner fears until finally they ripped her to pieces.

With a trembling hand she drew her sword from its sheath. The blade was dull to her eyes, and crusted with dried blood from her battle, but she knew that to faeborn creatures it glowed with sacred fire. Had her enemy left her this one weapon because it repelled him so much that he could not bring himself to remove it? Or had he just wanted to prolong her death-struggle? One sword might not be enough to hold every nightmare creature in this blighted realm at bay, but maybe it would encourage her to fight for her life, instead of just surrendering to the inevitable. And thus prolong her dying, and his amusement.

But the demon had not known about her special gift.

Kneeling in the thick loam, holding her weapon upright before her, she let her eyes fix upon the symbol etched into its guard. Two interlocked circles. Two worlds, inextricably linked. She had dedicated her life to cleansing this one of the fae’s corrupt influence. And the One God had blessed her with a special gift to make that mission possible. It was not like the gift that sorcerers enjoyed, which allowed them to mold the fae with their minds. Nor was it like the gift of the adepts, to whom all the shadowy powers of this world were clearly visible. No, her gift was rarer than both those things, and in a world where Workings were a part of everyday life, it was a talent few men would envy. Most would call it a curse. But it had allowed her to become a deadly hunter in the One God’s holy cause, and now it might-just might-save her life.

The fae did not respond to her. Ever. That same dread force which brought men’s secret desires to life and could transform one’s fears into demons never manifested her emotions. It did not bring her luck or misfortune, health or sickness, or any of the myriad other types of gifts and curses that it provided for other men. Oh, what a precious and terrible blessing that was, and how the others knights of the Church envied her! Earth’s blessing, they called it. A sign from God that she had been destined to serve Him.

But just how complete was her immunity? Was she really safe from the fae’s ministrations, or had she just never been in a place where the earth-power was potent enough to test her gift to the breaking point?

Grimly she thought: I am about to find out.

Things were starting to stir in the shadows now, just beyond the range of her sight. Foul, unwholesome things, whose mere proximity made her stomach churn. In the distance she could hear strange chittering sounds, which seemed to be coming closer. Deathly pale insects were starting to emerge from burrows in the trees surrounding her, and were crawling along lichenous branches in her direction. She needed to get out of this place, and fast. But how? The southern border of the Forest was probably closer than any other, but which way was south? The dismal light seemed to be coming from all directions at once; she couldn’t even find a clear enough shadow to watch it shift as the sun moved. In time the angle of light through the trees might become clear enough for her to make out which direction was west… but night would fall soon after that, and then it would be too late.

She had to start moving now.

There was a clear grade to the land surrounding her. If she followed it downhill she would eventually reach running water. There was a river that flowed south through the Forest, and if she could find that she could follow it to safety.

It was a slim chance, but it was the only one she had.

Taking up a fallen branch to use as a walking stick-shaking off the various foul insects that were clinging to it-the huntress of the One God muttered a prayer under her breath and began to move through the Forest. Promising herself that if she had to die in this foul place, at least she would go down fighting.

The currents of power surrounding the Forest were so strong that by the time Tarrant was within a mile of its border he could feel them pulling at his flesh, threatening to drag him into the whirlpool. Rarely was the earth-power so aggressive, so compelling. Overhead Erna’s largest moon glowed a brilliant white, nearly full in its aspect. But such a display paled in comparison to what that the earth itself was emanating: a cold blue light that rippled across the landscape, lending everything within sight an eerie illumination.

Since the day of his birth Tarrant had been gifted with the ability to see the fae directly, without need for any spell or amulet to aid him. But even he had never seen anything like this. Even the color of the earth-fae seemed different here, streaked with violet, as if streams of dark fae had gotten caught up in it somehow. Was that possible? Could the two powers mingle like that? He longed to gather up enough of it to craft a proper Knowing, to determine the answer to that question. But it was too soon for that. First he needed to learn what lay at the heart of this maelstrom, and then he would know how to harness its power properly. And safely.

This region had been normal once, he knew. Its currents of power had always been strong, but they’d been neutral in tenor, no more dark or dangerous than in any other place. The fae was a natural force, after all, and had no more personality of its own than air or water. But unlike air or water, the fae reflected man’s own fears back at him, and apparently the currents here had accumulated enough human nightmares to manifest this deadly whirlpool… which in turn was now drawing even darker energies to it.

Many sorcerers had come here in recent years, Tarrant knew. None of them had ever returned. His own abilities might exceed theirs by a hundredfold, but that would matter little if he made reckless choices.

In the distance the Forest’s arboreal front loomed high and black, the mountain peaks of its northern border rising up like jagged islands from its thick canopy. Wisps of earth-power played about the treetops like rippling veils, reminding him of the sky-born auroras he had once seen in the far north. It was a strangely beautiful display, despite all its ominous overtones. He wondered what the place would look when true night fell, when neither moon nor stars would be present to provide illumination. The volatile dark fae would be able to rise above the treetops then, to add its eerie purple substance to the glowing display. What a glorious sight that must be!

Be careful, he warned himself. The Forest’s power is said to be seductive in nature. What better way to entrap an adept than to offer him such glorious visions?

He tried to urge his horse into motion again, but it whinnied anxiously and pawed at the ground in protest, struggling against the Workings he had used to bind it. Even its dull equine brain could sense the true nature of what was in front of them now, and a simple Soothing was not going to be enough to reassure it. Tarrant’s first instinct was to increase the power of his Compelling, and he nearly did so. But such an act would require him to tap into the local currents, or else expend a portion of his own limited resources. Neither move was justified yet.

He dismounted in a fluid gesture, the ends of his surcote rippling down over the flanks of the horse like silken waterfalls, and then, stepping back from the animal, he dispelled the Workings that had bound it to his service. Last to go was the Soothing itself, and as the shackles of unnatural calm fell away from the horse’s brain it reared up in terror, its hooves flailing as if striking out at some unseen assailant. Then it hit the ground running and began to gallop west as fast as its legs would carry it. The scent of fear lingered on the breeze in its wake, piquant and pleasing.

Tarrant watched after it for a few minutes, his delicate nostrils flaring as he savored the sweet perfume of its terror. Then he turned his attention to the Forest once more and began to walk toward the heart of the whirlpool.

She managed to find a stream bed at last, though it was currently empty of water. But she could tell from the pattern of detritus left behind which way water had flowed in the past, and that was good enough. All of the running water in the Forest emptied into the Serpent Straits sooner or later, so even if this path didn’t lead her directly to the river, it might still point to some way out of here.

Or so she told herself as she picked her way along the narrow strip of mud and rocks, wary of the slimy black algae that seemed to be everywhere. In the dim light it sometimes seemed to her that a patch of algae shifted its position as she approached, or that a mushroom-like growth by the side of the stream bed twitched when she passed by. She just shuddered and kept on going. Until the point when something actually reached out and grabbed her by the ankle she was not going to stop.

She had jury-rigged a small torch, binding dry brush with a strip of fabric torn from her tabard, and as the shadows about her began to darken she set fire to it. It gave off a foul smell as it burned, possibly from some unwholesome creature she’d failed to shake off when she had assembled the thing. But at least it enabled her to see where she was going.

To her frustration, the sun provided no sense of direction as it set, its low-angled light unable to pierce the tangled brush in enough quantity to cast meaningful shadows. The gloom in the Forest simply thickened little by little as the place began its slow descent into night, a dense soup of darkness that filled her lungs as she breathed it in, making her feel as if she were suffocating.

As darkness came, so did the faeborn. Whispers of fear flitted in the shadows on all sides of her, shards of human emotion that had survived the deaths of their human creators and taken refuge in this place. Her torch held most of them at bay, but the torch would not last all night. She would not last all night.

Don’t think like that. Just walk.

The pain in her side was blinding now, but there was nothing she could do about it save grit her teeth and keep on going. She hadn’t started coughing up blood yet, which was a good sign, but she didn’t have any illusions about just how bad her condition was. She imagined she could feel bone grating on bone whenever she moved too quickly, and she knew she was lucky that her lung had not been pierced. Thus far she had managed to rise above the worst of the pain, but she feared that if her mental focus wavered for so much as an instant it would all crash down on her like a tidal wave and she might never get up again.

She’d had worse injuries than this, she told herself stubbornly. She’d survived them.

But never in a place like this.

Soon the stream bed began to widen out and a gap appeared in the canopy overhead, a tenuous sign of hope. Now she could see the stars for the first time, and the leading edge of a full moon cast thin blue light down onto the stream bed. The sight of it made a knot rise in her throat, and a whispered prayer crossed her lips without her conscious volition. She knew in her heart that merely seeing a glimpse of the open sky didn’t mean she was going to get out of the Forest alive, but the slender beam of moonlight was as refreshing as a spring rain upon her face, and she turned her head upward to let it wash over her, drawing strength from the utter normalcy of the act.

Suddenly a twig snapped behind her. She turned around quickly, seeking the source of the sound. But it had come from deep within the woods, and neither the thin stream of moonlight nor her makeshift torch had enough power to part those shadows. For a moment she held herself still as a statue, straining her sense of hearing to the utmost. But whatever was out there was silent now. Waiting. Even the normal chitterings and rustlings of the Forest had gone silent; a deathly silence reigned. Perhaps the denizens of this place were afraid of this new threat as well… or perhaps they had already fled the vicinity, leaving her alone to face whatever it was.

And then suddenly she heard another twig snap, this time directly behind her. She whirled about to face her unseen tracker, raising up her sword to the ready. The sudden movement sent spears of red-hot pain stabbing into her side, and she grit her teeth as she struggled to ignore them. But though she searched the shadows beyond the stream bed for any sign of movement, there was nothing to see. Whatever was making those noises was hidden in the inky depths of the Forest, and she was damned if she was going to plunge back into the depths of that foul brush to find it.

Maybe that’s what it wants, she thought suddenly. Maybe it’s trying to tempt me to leave the moonlight behind. The idea made her blood run cold. Only a creature of the dark fae would care about something as inconsequential as moonlight. She stepped directly into a beam of light, wishing she could somehow absorb it into her flesh so that it would remain with her.

When it became clear that whatever was in the woods was not going to show itself, she started walking again. There was simply no other option. She flinched as she heard a rustling on one side of the stream bed, and then on the other, sure signs that more than one creature was now flanking her movements. But there was nothing she could do about it without leaving the relative safety of the stream bed, and she was determined not to do that. So she just kept on moving, her hand gripping her torch so tightly that she could feel the blood pound in her knuckles, pain throbbing in her side with every step.

And then something flashed in the darkness directly ahead or her, reflecting her torchlight back at her in twin crimson sparks.

Eyes.

She could see the bulk of some large four-legged creature standing in front of her, and she thought she could hear it panting: a rasping, tortured sound. Its malevolence swept over her like a foul wind, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Only her faith and sheer stubbornness enabled her to stand her ground, with all the primitive instincts in her brain screaming out for her to flee. Or maybe she simply realized that there was nowhere to flee to.

Suddenly there was a noise behind her. She twisted about partway, not wanting to turn her back on the first creature entirely-but pain shot through her torso at the motion, with such force that it left her gasping for breath. For a moment she could not see anything but black sparks swirling about her. Waving the torch wildly around her to fend off attack from all directions, she reached out for some trees that she remembered being off to her left, a thicket of close-set trunks with a wall of tangled brush between them. It was the best cover she was going to get. She managed to get over to them somehow, and she placed her back to the natural barrier as she struggled to get in enough air to think clearly. The strange creatures moved closer, but they did not attack. She could make out their general shapes now, and as her eyes finally came back into focus, and could pick out a few details. They looked somewhat like wolves, though with chests more massive than any wolf God had ever created, and there was an oddness to the proportion of their limbs that made her skin crawl. She could have defended herself from both of them at once if she’d been in sound shape, but in her current condition she wasn’t all that confident. Still, there were only two of them, and if they were afraid of fire, as most animals were-or afraid of the faith that was bound to her sword-she should be able to handle them.

But then another creature moved out into the stream bed, beside the first, and her heart sank.

Another followed.

Despair welled up inside her as she watched more and more of the strange beasts come out of the forest, taking up positions in the open space surrounding her. Soon there were nearly two dozen of them, ranged in a semi-circle just beyond her torchlight. Their eyes glittered with blood-red sparks, and when one of them walked into a beam of moonlight she could see just how unnatural its limbs were. The muscles in its stocky legs appeared more human than bestial, and where paws should have been there were hands instead-or things that had once been hands, before the fae had deformed them.

Were the creatures fleshborn or faeborn? If they were merely animals that the dark fae had misshapen, they would be relatively easy to kill. But if they were true faeborn creatures, birthed by this planet’s malevolent power rather than by living animals, there was no telling what it would take to dispatch them. Some faeborn manifestations took on physical forms so real that they became dependent upon their flesh, and they died like true living creatures if their bodies were destroyed. Others flitted about the night in dreamlike wisps, the nightmare energies of their creation providing the illusion of flesh but not its substance. Against the latter species there was little defense but faith.

They all fed on man. That was the one terrible constant of Erna: all the creatures that drew their life from the consciousness of man had to feed on him in order to survive. But exactly what manner of sustenance a particular manifestation would require was anyone’s guess. Faith had seen some gruesome things in her life, in the aftermath of faeborn feeding, but she also knew that there were creatures who sipped from the emotional exudates of a man’s sleeping mind as delicately as a socialite sipped fine wine, their only spoor a shimmer of darkness at the border of his dreams.

Gazing into the crimson eyes of these beasts, she suspected they were not the delicate sort.

If they all rushed her at once the sheer weight of their bodies would bring her down, she knew; there was no way she could defend herself against so many. A cold sweat trickled down her neck as she prepared herself for the onslaught. At least I will go down fighting, she thought, her hand tightening about her sword. And I will take as many of these creatures down with me as God allows.

Then a new one stepped out from the shadows. It was taller than the others, but also thinner, and its proportions were disturbingly human. Its coat was not a mottled grey, but white-sickly white, crusted yellow about the edges-and its fur was stained with mud and worse. Its paws splayed out upon the ground like human hands, stunted and twisted but with recognizable fingers and even fingernails. And as she looked into the creature’s eyes she saw madness in their depths. Not some simple bestial madness, the rabid insanity of an animal brain pushed to the breaking point by having to live in this terrible environment. This was something darker. More frightening.

More human.

The others moved out of its way as it came toward her. Was this one their alpha, or something even more than that? Suddenly the beasts nearest Faith began to edge toward her, bringing her attention back to them; she swung her sword fiercely in their direction, trying to frighten them back. And indeed there was a spark of fear in their eyes as they backed off a bit, suddenly uncertain. But not in the eyes of the white one. The madness in that one’s eyes was a burning ember that did not waver even when the blessed steel sliced through the air right before its face. Could it not see the blessings that guarded her blade? Or did it just not care about such things? The latter would suggest that it was a fleshborn creature, despite its ghastly form. Which meant that it would be vulnerable to a simple physical assault.

She moved quickly-so quickly! — stepping into their ranks before any of them had a chance to respond. With one hand she swept her torch about her in wide, aggressive arcs, driving the nearer ones back from her, while her other hand tightened its grip about the blessed sword, preparing for a single blow. She knew that one was all she would get before the pack found its courage again and attacked her. She had to make it count.

A dark mass hurtled toward her from one side. She thrust her torch into the face of the wolf just before it hit her; it howled in pain as its jaws snapped shut about the burning brand instead of her flesh. But its body slammed into her with stunning force, driving her down to one knee; her ribs exploded in red-hot shards of pain. As she struggled to her feet again, the powerful jaws of another wolf closed about her left calf. She thrust the torch down in its direction, heedless of the flames that flared up around her own body as she did so. But this beast was not to be frightened away so easily. It locked its teeth tightly about her leg, and although it could not bite through the polished steel of her greave, its dead weight meant she could no longer maneuver freely.

Suddenly they were all rushing toward her, and if the ones in the front ranks had second thoughts about facing either her fire or her blade, the ones in the back ranks were not allowing them to hesitate. For an instant she was overcome by a terrible sense of deja vu, remembering the sheer mass of the peasant mob that had overwhelmed her companions. And she remembered the blow that had skewed her own aim just as she had moved to strike at the demon; whatever happened to her in this battle, she could not allow herself to fail like that again.

Muttering a prayer to the One God under her breath, she thrust toward the white wolf with all her strength, gritting her teeth against the blinding pain that followed. The sheer force of the move jerked the wolf on her leg several feet forward, and the jaws of others snapped shut on empty air where she had stood only a moment before. Startled, the white wolf began to back away from her, but the other members of the pack were gathered too closely behind it, and it was forced to stand its ground. As Faith’s blade pierced its flank it was clear she had failed to strike the killing blow she’d hoped for, but the wound was long and deep and crimson blood sprayed out of it. She put all her weight behind her sword, desperate to reach some vital organ. But the effort pulled her off balance, and even as the white wolf struggled to free itself from her blade she could feel herself falling. She dropped the torch and reached out to save herself, but it was too late. Powerful bodies buffeted her from both sides, and the fangs of one beast slid beneath her left bracer, piercing at the cloth and flesh beneath it. The ground rushed up to meet her even as the white wolf whipped its head from side to side, trying to jerk itself free from her blade And then there was impact.

And blinding pain.

The sound of a wolf howling.

And darkness.

If the region surrounding the Forest had seemed wild, its interior was chaos incarnate. Currents of creative and destructive fae collided at random intervals, setting the whole of the Forest alight with sprays of ice-blue power. Waves of emotional energy, raw and unfettered, surged across the landscape like angry surf. No living species could possibly establish a stable presence in such a realm, Tarrant thought, but that hardly mattered. Evolution would be driven forward at such a pace here that as soon as soon as any one life-form failed, a dozen new ones would take its place.

To his eyes it was beautiful.

The currents of power that surged about his feet might be chaotic in their manifestation, but they had the potential to become something else-something greater-and he wondered what kind of effort it would take to tame them, to force them to adopt a more ordered course. The creatures that hissed and howled in the darkness surrounding him might be warped constructs, but a strong enough sorcerer could redesign the faeborn ones, and the fleshborn ones could be urged toward a more reasonable evolution. Even the trees overhead, with their warped and tangled branches, could be forced to serve an ordered purpose. Twist the branches even more, divide them many times over to create a fine webwork of filaments, and the canopy would trap autumn’s leaves as they fell, creating a shield of vegetative detritus thick enough to cast the Forest into perpetual twilight. Would the constructs of the dark fae mature more quickly if they were freed from the threat of sunlight entirely? Or would that only increase the power’s volatility, making its creations even less stable, less likely to survive? To Tarrant they were all fascinating questions.

Deep within his soul he could feel an ancient hunger stirring, human ambition surfacing in the black pool of his soul like a drowning man gasping for breath. He had been a scientist back in his mortal life, and his experiments in forced evolution had produced many of the Terran simulacra species that this world now took for granted. But his current lifestyle as an itinerant predator did not allow for the luxury of a laboratory-or a scholar’s library, or any kind of permanent place in which to store the specimens that scientific experimentation required. He’d had to relinquish that whole part of his existence when he left Merentha, and since then his intellectual inquiries had been confined to a strictly internal landscape. It was one of the most frustrating facets of his transformation.

But this place could become his laboratory now. He could mold new species to his will here and test their adaptation, using the volatile currents to accomplish in a few generations what might take centuries elsewhere. His soul hungered for that kind of intellectual stimulation as powerfully as his altered body now hungered for human blood.

But he was also wise enough to question the source of such temptation. That same seductive power which had drawn him to the Forest in the first place now sought to bind him here, and even the thoughts in his own head must be considered suspect. Would he feel the same way about the Forest if were not trying to draw him in? How could one even begin to evaluate one’s options, so close to the center of the whirlpool?

A scream split the night.

For a moment he thought it was a human cry. It had the emotional resonance of one, and Tarrant’s fae-sight could see the ripples of frustration and rage that followed in its wake, clearly from a human source. But the sound itself was bestial in nature, clearly not formed by a human throat.

How very curious.

In another time and place he might have worked a Knowing to gather more information. Here, he dared not do so. Any contact he made with the Forest’s fae would increase its influence over his mind tenfold. No, if he was curious about the source of the sound he was going to have to investigate it the old-fashioned way.

Loosening his sword in its scabbard, he began to head in that direction. He moved quickly and quietly, a shadow among shadows, and the local wildlife must have been moving out of his way, for he saw no other creatures. Even some vines and branches seemed to draw back as he approached, clearing a path for him. Was that possible? He knew of no plants that were sentient enough to control their movement like that, but that did not mean that none existed. In a place like this anything was possible.

Soon he could hear a low keening noise coming from directly in front of him. He stopped moving and extended his senses to their utmost capacity as he strained to analyze it. Canine, he decided at last. Only one animal was vocalizing clearly, but he could hear the huffing and panting of many others. A wolf pack, perhaps? In the world outside the Forest such things were of little concern to him; animals could sense his unnatural nature and generally kept their distance. But here, where so much of the environment was itself unnatural, they might be less inhibited. Or the wolves might be faeborn themselves, in which case they would play by a whole different set of rules. He would take no chances.

He drew his sword from its scabbard. Ice blue flames danced along the edge of the blade, a ghostly fire bereft of heat; frost appeared suddenly on the plants that were nearest to him, and the edges of a few leaves grew stiff, shattering like glass as he brushed against them.

The trees thinned out a short way ahead, opening into some kind of clearing. The noise seemed to be coming from there. He did not approach the clearing directly, but took up position behind the last dense stand of trees, letting the folds of his surcote fall about his sword so that its light would not betray him.

There were indeed wolves in the clearing, real flesh-and-blood animals, but they were twisted and malproportioned creatures from a species he had ever seen before. There were about two dozen of them, and they paced anxiously back and forth across the clearing, snarling at one another whenever two paths crossed. In the center of the clearing a single wolf lay motionless upon the ground. It was larger than all the others, with fur that had probably been white at one time. Now its coat was dank with filth and only a few patches of colorless hairs showed through. The scent of its blood came to Tarrant on the wind, and to his surprise it stirred his hunger. Since he fed exclusively on human blood, that answered one question… but it raised a thousand others.

Sword at the ready, he stepped out from his place of concealment.

As soon as the wolves saw him they began to snarl. Several rushed at him, but they drew up just short of attack, unable to overcome their instinctive fear of a supernatural predator. Others froze in place, their long matted fur rising up in clumps like surreal porcupine quills, making fearsome growling sounds as they tried to warn him away. He observed them for a moment and then, when he felt certain that none of them were likely to summon the courage to approach him, he walked over to the wounded wolf. It did not seem to notice him until he came close enough for the chill of his sword to raise frost along its flank, at which point it bared its teeth and growled a warning. But the sound lacked conviction and its fierce expression faded quickly, giving way to sheer exhaustion. There was a deep gash in its side, Tarrant noted, and the ground beneath it was soaked with blood. That was not good for his purposes. Whatever manner of creature this was, he did not want it to die before he had a chance to study it.

He was not able to Heal it, of course. The power that sustained him was derived from death and darkness, and he could no more work a true Healing than he could bang together two blocks of ice to start a fire. But there were other things that he could do. Lowering his sword until it almost touched the wolf, he summoned forth the coldfire that was bound to its blade and molded it to his purpose. A frosty mist began to rise from its surface, like human breath in winter. Then he touched the blade to the wound. The wolf howled in pain and tried to pull away, but the muscles along that side spasmed and then froze, and it was helpless to escape.

The mist rising from the sword was crimson now, and Tarrant’s nostrils flared as he drank in the scent of it. Human blood, without question. He moved his blade down along the wound, making sure that the sorcerous steel made contact with every inch of damaged tissue. The flesh that it touched blackened and curled back upon itself, taking on a mummified aspect. He continued until the whole of the wound had been treated thus, and no more blood was flowing. Then he stepped back and studied his handiwork.

It would be a long time before all the flesh he had just destroyed would slough off and be replaced, but for now at least the wound was cauterized. The white wolf lay panting on the ground, its eyes rolled halfway up into its head, but it seemed calm enough. Now that that the worst of the pain was over it appeared to understand what Tarrant was doing. A flicker of something that was almost human intelligence seemed to glimmer deep within its eyes, but it was quickly gone again. Whatever human spark nestled in the heart of this creature, it was deeply buried.

With a glance about the clearing to make sure that the other wolves were still keeping their distance-they were-Tarrant braced himself to perform a Knowing. Doing any manner of Working in this place was risky, but he needed to know what this strange creature was, and there was no other quick way to gather data. The currents about his feet grew agitated as he summoned forth his power once more, and doubtless the Forest’s fae would have been drawn into his Working if he allowed it. But he kept his mind focused and shut the local currents out, unwilling to risk any direct contact. His blade flared brightly as he drew upon fae he had bound to its steel long ago: his own private store of power.

Gradually the Knowing took shape, and he could sense it drawing forth information from the wounded creature at his feet. After a moment he shut his eyes and invited it into his mind, commanding it to present itself as a vision.

Pale, he is-so pale! — milk white skin, hair like spun moonlight-gleaming red eyes overlaid with some sort of Working, no doubt to enhance his vision. He stands proudly amidst the trees of the Forest, and its currents reflect his own essence back at him: power, ambition, vanity. So much vanity! This place is the greatest source of power on the continent-in the world-and he will become its Master.

He spreads his arms wide as if to welcome a lover and whispers to the earth-fae: come to me, come to me, come to me…

And it comes. Core-bright, life-hungry power-ravenous! — pours into his soul with molten fury, flooding his mind with the spiritual detritus of mankind’s nightmares. Madness churns in his brain as he absorbs the dying fears of all the men who walked this path before him, who tried to master the Forest and failed. But he will not fail. He envisions the mental patterns that will allow him to establish control over the powerful tide, muttering the ritual words that he prepared so long ago. He has dreamed of this day since his first Working. He is ready for it. He is strong. Soon, soon, this legendary realm that has destroyed so many will belong to him.

But he is not strong enough.

The power of the Forest engulfs him, chokes him, drowns him. It crashes into his soul like a tidal wave and sweeps it clean of all human thought. It invades his flesh and begins to reshape it, molding his body into a form that reflects the Forest’s twisted essence. He howls in agony, but it is a beast’s agony, not a man’s. And he understands, in his final human moments, the full measure of his failure…

Tarrant stared down at the wolf as the vision faded, trying to reconcile the arrogant sorcerer he had just seen with the pitiful animal that now lay helpless before him. How many years had it been since the creature had last experienced a human thought? Did it have enough rational awareness to understand the magnitude of what it had lost? To mourn what it had become? The involuntary transformation it had suffered was both horrifying and fascinating to Tarrant, in that it reflected the very essence of the Forest. It was also a clear warning to him not to lose his metaphysical footing in these deadly riptides.

Kneeling down by the wolf’s side, Tarrant waited until it opened its eyes and looked at him. It seemed to him there was a flicker of humanity in the backs of its eyes-but if so, that was a dim and distant thing, quickly subsumed by bestial pain.

The sorcerer in Tarrant’s vision had clearly made a study of the Forest. Somewhere in that man’s mind there might be useful information about this place. But for as long as he was trapped in this animal form he could not communicate it directly, Was it possible to change him back? It was an intriguing option, but a dangerous one. Even now Tarrant could feel the Forest’s fae lapping hungrily at his flesh, waiting for a chance to consume him. It might have no real sentience of its own, but five hundred years of absorbing the essence of human nightmares had imprinted it with patterns of human behavior and human fear. It might as well be sentient.

And it wanted him. He could taste its hunger. It wanted him to surrender to it as the albino had surrendered, so that it might devour his soul and excrete the remnants into this warped ecosystem. One careless moment and he might well suffer the albino’s fate.

He gazed down at the wolf for several long minutes, assessing its value to him. Unlike the albino he was not a reckless man, but some things were worth taking chances for. Knowledge was chief among them.

At last he said, very quietly, “I can restore your human form. Perhaps your human soul as well. But there would be a price for such service.” He paused. “A high price.”

The wounded wolf stared at him. It was impossible to read what was in its eyes.

“If I give you back your human life, then that life will belong to me. For so long as you remain human you will serve me. All that you possess, all that you know, all the power you command will be mine for the asking. That is the price of my assistance. Do you understand?”

The wolf continued staring at him. Did it still comprehend human language? If not, then there would be little hope of restoring it to its former state.

Finally, in a jerky and pained motion, it nodded.

“Then you must surrender yourself to me now without reserve. Forget everything that you were up to this moment, and permit me to reshape you as I see fit. Anything less than that, and you will not survive the process of transformation.” He paused. “You were a sorcerer once. You understand why that is necessary.”

He could not interpret the wolf’s expression, but he sensed that inside that bestial head quasi-human thoughts were struggling to take shape. Perhaps it was trying to remember the ways of sorcery, so that it might evaluate his instructions. Perhaps it was asking itself whether or not it was capable of the degree of submission he was asking for.

If not, Tarrant thought, then you will die.

“Do you agree to my terms?” He pressed.

The wolf’s eyes were fixed on him. Unreadable.

Finally-weakly-it nodded again.

Stepping back from it, Tarrant braced himself for what must come next. Shapeshifting was one of the most dangerous Workings in a sorcerer’s repertoire, and more than one student had died while attempting it. In order to adopt the form of another creature one must surrender oneself body and soul to the fae, allowing it complete dominion over one’s flesh. It was a terrifying process, and a dangerous one. Failure to submit completely might result in one being trapped between forms, and such a state was a rarely viable. Few were the sorcerers who dared attempt such a Working, and fewer still the ones who succeeded.

As for working such a transformation on another human being, as Tarrant was about to do… that would require the same kind of absolute submission, but not only to the fae. This human-turned-wolf must be willing to place very his soul in Tarrant’s hands, without hesitation or resistance. Tarrant remembered the sorcerer he had seen in his vision: proud, vain, arrogant. Could someone like that manage the requisite humility? If the man’s years in the Forest had broken his spirit- Tarrant suspected-perhaps. If not, then Tarrant would have to conjure the information he sought from the man’s ashes. Difficult but not impossible.

Closing his eyes for a moment, he summoned forth the coldfire power that was in his sword, channeling it into a dramatic Working. Blue flames roared forth suddenly from its blade: a heatless, unnatural fire with death at its core. Several of the wolves yelped in alarm. One of them turned and fled into the Forest, and a second one followed. Then another. Soon they were all gone, and Tarrant let the Working fade.

The clearing was silent.

Now, he thought. Carefully.

He could feel the Forest’s power prodding at the edges of his consciousness as he began to shape his Transforming. This kind of Working called for an immense amount of power, and normally he would have summoned whatever was available to him, drawing upon the currents of fae that surrounded him without even thinking about it. A sorcerer’s reflex. But if he tried to mold these currents to his will they would try to take control of him, and even if they failed, the concentration required to control them would likely doom his efforts. The Transforming of living flesh left no room for error.

He would have to work with what he had.

At last, when he had summoned forth all the fae that was available to him and bound it to his purpose, he directed a powerful Transforming at the wolf’s body. The animal spasmed in pain as Tarrant’s sorcery engulfed it, which was only to be expected; shapeshifting was not a pleasant process. Molding its body organ by organ-cell by cell-Tarrant forced it to adopt a new configuration, ever so slightly more human than the last. And then another. And another. Normally such changes would flash by in an instant and only the end product would be visible, but this was not a normal Working. Each intermediate stage in this transformation had to be viable in its own right, a combination of organs and limbs that was capable of sustaining life. Whether Tarrant had sufficient knowledge of biology to choose a viable pathway-and the power to force human flesh to submit to it-would determine whether his subject lived or died.

But the albino’s body had been human once, and on some metaphysical level it seemed to remember its previous form. Once Tarrant realized that, he needed to do little to guide its transformation. Slowly the limbs of the wolf straightened and lengthened-its ribcage contracted-its teeth shrank. The fur fell off in sickly clumps, baring a hide that was bloody at first, then pink and raw, then white and soft. The albino’s body trembled as it transformed, and once or twice a howl of pain escaped its lips, but for the most part it bore the suffering in silence. Perhaps it remembered enough about sorcery to understand that pain was the price of success in such an undertaking.

And then, finally, it was done. The body that lay before Tarrant now was naked and filthy, but it was unquestionably human. The chest was rising and falling erratically, its breathing ragged but its lungs clearly functional. The heart was pounding hard enough that the veins under the man’s skin twitched visibly, but its rhythm was within normal human bounds. The wound was gone, Tarrant noted; apparently in the process of recovering its original form the body had healed itself.

He let his power fade and waited.

For several long minutes his subject lay utterly still, with no sign of consciousness about him. Hopefully his mind had not been so badly damaged that he would be incapable of communication. If it had, then all this had been a wasted effort.

Very slowly, the thin, translucent eyelids opened. Scarlet irises were surrounded by a corona of broken vessels, turning the eyes into crimson orbs.

“What is your name?” Tarrant demanded.

The albino’s brow furrowed as he struggled to process the question. Tarrant gave him time. Regardless of whether the speech centers of the man’s brain had survived the change intact, he had not dealt with human language for a very long time. It might take him a while to remember how to speak.

“Amoril,” he whispered at last. He winced as he spoke, as if the passage of sound through his throat was painful. “Name… Amoril.”

“Where are you from, Amoril?”

The crimson eyes squeezed shut as he struggled to remember. He looked much more human with them closed. “Not sure… not remember… maybe Sattin? Long time ago…”

Some of his long term memory may have been damaged, Tarrant observed. And: He may be easier to control if it is not restored.

“Thirst,” the albino gasped. “Water. Please.”

It was a reasonable enough request, but not one that Tarrant could satisfy. “We will have to go find some. I do not carry supplies for the living.”

The bloodshot eyes opened wide and fixed on Tarrant. For a long moment Amoril just stared at him, as if trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

“What are you?” he gasped.

“A creature very much like yourself, originally.” But less reckless, he thought, a nd possessed of a much stronger will. “Now I am… something else.”

The albino’s eyes began to narrow-and then he flinched, and a shadow of pain crossed his face. He must have been about to Work, Tarrant realized. Then the touch of the fae had reminded him what happened the last time he’d tried it. This man would have to seek the answer to his question without a Knowing.

The clues were there for the finding, Tarrant knew, if one looked in the right places. And a sorcerer should know where to look.

Consider it a test, he thought darkly.

“You are fleshborn,” Amoril said at last. “But not… not alive.”

Tarrant nodded solemnly. “That is correct.”

“But not dead. Not truly dead. So strange… ”

Tarrant said nothing.

“Your clothing… like another time. Almost.” His facility for speech seemed to be coming back to him quickly; each word seemed less strained than the last. “From your real time?” He shook his head weakly. “Few last so long. The living die, the walking dead are destroyed.”

Tarrant said nothing. The eerie crimson eyes continued to study him intently. Assessing the paleness of his skin, perhaps, or its subtly unnatural hue.

“Blooddrinker?” he asked at last.

A faint smile flickered across Tarrant’s face as he rose to his feet. “Among other things.” He held out his hand, to help the man to his feet. “I am Gerald Tarrant, Neocount of Merentha.” If this man knew anything about history he would know just how long ago that title had been created.

After a moment of hesitation Amoril accepted his hand, and with Tarrant’s assistance he struggled to his feet. Once he was standing he seemed steady enough; his body evidently remembered how to move as a biped.

“There’s a river nearby,” Tarrant said. “You can satisfy your thirst there.” He took in the albino’s physical state, from his mud-covered legs to his blood-matted hair; a shadow of distaste crossed his face. “And bathe.”

A cold wind gusted through the clearing; he saw Amoril shiver. Living flesh was sensitive to temperature changes, he remembered. He unhooked his cloak and offered it to him. Amoril hesitated, then accepted. As Tarrant watched him wrap the fine wool about his filthy body he reflected upon the fact that he would probably not want the garment back.

“How were you wounded?” he asked. “It didn’t look like the work of an animal.”

“Not an animal.” The albino’s words were flowing almost naturally now, though his articulation was still poor. “Human bitch. Steel armor. Don’t know where she came from. Sigil of the One God here.” He struck his chest weakly with his fist. “Fought like a demon. Wounded. Won’t last long.” The red eyes glittered hungrily. “Should I kill her for you, my Master?”

“Not necessary.” Tarrant ignored the faint edge of sarcasm with which the title had been voiced. It would take some time before servitude came naturally to this one. “I will take care of it.”

Amoril cocked his head and smiled. “You are hungry?”

Tarrant did not respond.

If the sigil of the One God was emblazoned on the woman’s breastplate, that meant that she was probably a knight of the Church. Perhaps even one of its sacred hunters. And now she was here, abandoned by her own kind, surrounded by the very creatures she had sworn to destroy. No doubt she was afraid that she would die by their hands and thus shame her calling. It was the ultimate fear, for such a crusader.

He wondered how that fear would taste in her blood.

“Where is she?” he asked.

The albino pointed southeast. “Not far. Following a dead stream. Not far.” He hesitated. “Listen to the Forest. It will tell you where to go.”

“Are you saying the Forest is sentient?” he asked sharply.

“No. No. Not sentient. No.” The albino wrapped the cloak tightly around himself as he struggled to find the words that he needed. “Many dreams are here,” he said at last. “In the earth, in the soil, in the air. Human dreams. The fae reflects them. Like a mirror.”

It was along the lines of what Tarrant himself had hypothesized. But was this meaningful information from the time before the albino’s transformation, when he had studied the Forest, or had his mind become so unhinged from its recent experience that he was imagining things? Only time would tell. “I will seek out this warrior,” Tarrant told him. “Meanwhile, you proceed to the river. I’ll catch up with you later.”

He turned to leave, but the albino grabbed his arm. Tarrant was not accustomed to having other people lay hands upon him, and when he turned back his expression was so dark and fierce that Amoril backed away from him quickly, fear in his eyes.

“I can’t stay here alone,” the albino protested. “Not without Working. No protection. Too dangerous.”

Tarrant exhaled sharply in exasperation. But Amoril was right. He was just a man now, and a weak one, with neither armor nor weaponry to protect him. The creatures that feared to come near Tarrant would not hesitate to move in on such a man once he was alone. Leaving him here was a death warrant.

Loosening his sword in its scabbard, Tarrant ran his thumb along the blade just hard enough to draw blood, then reached out toward Amoril. The red eyes glistened with fear, but this time he did not back away. Tarrant smeared his blood across the man’s forehead, using a whisper of the sword’s stored power to adhere his personal essence to it. It gleamed against his milk-white skin like a fresh wound.

“The Forest will respond to you now as it responds to me,” he said. “So unless you come across something that is enamored of the undead, you should be safe enough.”

Then he slipped into shadows and left the clearing, anxious to be gone before another distraction surfaced.

He could smell her fear on the wind. It was carried to him by the air, by the earth, by the currents of fae that swirled about his feet. Its bouquet was as complex and enticing as that of the finest wine, and it aroused a hunger in him so powerful that it sent tremors of desire coursing through his soul.

That her fear was sacred in nature made it all the more appealing. This was the emotional exudate of a woman who had no real fear of injury-or even death-but whose spirit cringed at the thought that she might fail her God. Sacred duty: the taste of it burned Tarrant’s tongue, but like spice on a human palate, it enhanced rather than diminished his appetite.

He was surprised at first at how acutely he could taste her emotions without partaking of her blood, but who was to say if those insights were even true? The fae might simply be reflecting his own hunger back at him, plucking choice details out of his mind and manifesting the elements he most wished to believe. Metaphysical bait. Surrender to the Forest’s power, it whispered in its seductive tones, and all that you hunger for will be provided for you.

But imagine if it were real!

The woman was moving fairly quickly now; given how wounded she was, that said as much about her strength of will as it did about bodily stamina. Tarrant had seen many men defy mortality thus, sustained by passion alone. And what greater human passion was there than religious faith?

A fleeting memory surfaced in the black pool of his soul, echo of a life long forgotten. He remembered a man of faith riding to war in the name of his God, the banner of the one true Church whipping in the wind overhead. So idealistic, that man. So pure in motive. So dedicated to everything that was moral and just.

No longer.

The memory sank to the bottom of his soul and was lost again.

If I had not loved God so much, there would have been no power in betraying Him.

He was getting close to her now. Perhaps she could hear the occasional twig that he allowed to snap under his foot. Perhaps it made her even more afraid. Suddenly he heard a soft splash, followed by a cry of pain. She had come to a place where there was water in the stream bed, and had stumbled on the wet rocks. New pain. New fear.

This one would be a rich feast indeed.

He began to move forward quickly, ready to close the distance between them and claim his prize-when suddenly the earth-fae surged, spraying droplets of ice-blue power high into the air. He blinked against the brightness of it even as drops began to fall like rain all around him, an eerie glowing shower. As they touched him, knowledge came rushing unbidden into his brain. Not the kind of ordered, rational knowledge he might have summoned with a Working. This information was raw-unstructured-a mad chaos of data that roared down the avenues of his consciousness, drowning out all other thought.

He knew exactly where his quarry was wounded, and exactly how life-threatening each wound was. He understood the nature of her pain, her faith, her fear. A lifetime of her memories rushed into his head, images cascading into one another with such speed and force that his mind reeled as it struggled to absorb them. A child’s nightmares-a teenager’s distress-a grown woman’s loss-a knight’s desperation. A thousand and one battles unfolded in his mind, fought against nightmares and bullies and despots and rivals and faeborn demons, too much for any sane mind to absorb. Instinctively he reached out for power, knowing that he must erect some sort of barrier to protect himself from the mad deluge of emotion before it breached the boundaries of his own soul. It was a sorcerer’s reflex, performed without even thinking-and it was also a deadly error, whose carelessness he cursed even as the full force of the Forest’s fae came crashing into his brain.

Hot power seared his soul-nightmare energies bursting up from the ground to engulf him-followed by a cold so intense that it froze the blood in his undead veins. It was a dark and terrible power, an amalgam of earth-fae and dark fae such as Tarrant had never known before, utterly unstable in nature. A whirlwind of power began to take shape around him, metaphysical forces manifesting on the physical plane. Winds began to whip about him with cyclonic force, and within seconds he was trapped in a cocoon of flying debris, splinters of wood and shards of stone scoring his flesh as they were driven past him.

And the Forest’s hunger poured into him. It was not a human hunger, nor anything a sane man would recognize, but something far more primal: a driving environmental need that arose from the land itself. This was the soul of the Forest, this mad, insatiable emptiness that was driven to absorb every human soul within its borders, hungry to drink in every source of vital energy that came within its reach. And now Tarrant had invited it into his soul. Shards of dead men’s memories flashed before his eyes as the storm ripped his soul to pieces, tearing loose bits of his past history so that they might be digested. A few shattered fragments of the woman’s memories flashed by him as well-he had not had time to banish them-but the Forest did not care whose they were. Its hunger was mindless and indiscriminating.

His legs lost all their strength and collapsed beneath him, but the pain as his knees struck the ground was a distant thing, peripheral to the war that was taking place within his own body. The fae was twisting each cell of his body into a new configuration, burning away the biological codes that safeguarded his physical identity and replacing them with patterns that reflected its own warped essence. Tarrant doubled over in agony as his internal organs began to pull loose from their moorings, and he could feel his bones warp and crack as they were forced into a new and terrible template. Just as Amoril’s had been.

But he was not Amoril.

In the small part of Tarrant’s brain that could still think clearly, he knew what he had to do. And he also knew just how dangerous it would be, and what would happen to him if he failed. Amoril’s mutation was but a pale shadow by comparison.

But he had not given over his soul to darkness four centuries ago and destroyed all that he once held dear only to become a mindless beast now.

Opening his soul wide-dismantling all the defenses that would normally protect him-he embraced the fae.

Power rushed into his soul and he welcomed it, wrapping the force of his will around it even as he drew it deeper into himself. It complied hungrily, eager to consume him. He could sense the boundaries of his physical identity giving way, and for a moment raw panic welled up inside him. This was where Amoril had faltered, when his own fear had unmanned him. But Tarrant was not that weak, nor would he allow himself to be distracted, even by the dissolution of his own body. He had wrestled with demons in the past, waged war against jealous gods, and once-long ago-bargained with forces so dark in nature, so utterly toxic in their essence, that no living creature could stand before them. And he had survived all that. He was still here. He’d be damned now if he’d let a simple patch of woodland defeat him, fae or no fae.

You are mine, he thought fiercely. As he began to force his own imprint upon the fae, to mold it into a form of his choosing. For a moment the two powers were deadlocked against one another, as he pitted all the force of his human intellect against the Forest’s raw strength… and then, at last, he felt it begin to yield. It was only a flicker of weakness at first, but that was all he needed; he pressed forward with all the strength he could muster, struggling to impress his will upon the invading power… to make it his. Fresh pain shot through his flesh as his body began to reshape itself once more, returning to its original form, but it was the pain of victory, and he embraced it gladly.

And then, at last, it was all over.

He found that he was hunched over on the ground, much as Amoril had been during his own transformation. As he checked out his limbs to make sure they were all in their proper form-they were-he tried not to think about how close he had just come to sharing the albino’s fate.

The winds were gone now, and only a circle of fallen debris bore witness to the storm of energy that had so recently surrounded him. His sword was on the ground nearby; he must have drawn it during his struggle. The coldfire blade flickered weakly now, its power drained. He picked it up and rose unsteadily to his feet. His legs were weak but they were functional, and all his body parts seemed to be moving as they should. Good enough. He could still feel the Forest’s presence in the back of his mind, a hunger simmering just below the threshold of his consciousness, but for the moment it was no longer a threat to him.

Satisfied, he resheathed his sword.

Looking around, he realized that the Forest felt different to him now. Less chaotic. More alive. For a moment he stood still, trying to put his finger on exactly what had changed. When he finally realized what it was, he drew in a sharp breath. The trees had not been altered, nor the beasts that lurked the shadows, nor even the currents of fae at his feet… but he had.

He could sense the heartbeat of the Forest now, an amalgam of living energies that throbbed just below the threshold of consciousness, binding all creatures within its borders to a single purpose. He sensed the nightmare-born energy that flowed through the earth like blood, and the vast network of metaphysical veins that channeled them. And it seemed to him that he could sense every creature within the Forest as well-fleshborn and faeborn, living and undead-though it was hard to pick out any one entity from the chaos of data.

And he could sense the woman.

She was thirsty. So thirsty. She had found a source of water and was cupping her hand to bring mouthfuls of it up to her lips, but the thirst was rooted deep in her damaged flesh and had more to with lost blood and exhaustion than with simple dryness. Nevertheless he could taste her pleasure as she drank, and even the flicker of hope that she allowed herself, having found such refreshment. A dim hope, but she wielded it like a shield to ward off the fear that might otherwise make it impossible for her to continue. Such a strong soul.

When she began to move again he was aware of her as the Forest was aware of her, through the thousands of living creatures that were impacted by her presence. He could feel the weight of her foot pressing down against insects in the earth, the warmth of her body brushing against trees, the stirring of leaves in response to her breath. And then there was her fear. Waves of it rippling out into the night, washing over him in a sweet black tide. He shut his eyes to savor the sensation, and he could sense predators stirring in the shadows that surrounded him, responding to his arousal. Then he opened his eyes and placed his hand on a nearby tree branch, and it, too, responded to him; the bark running down one side of it contracted, and it curled back on itself like a snake.

Hunt with me, the Forest seemed to whisper. Feed us both.

He was not so drunk on the moment that he forgot the danger he was in. What the Forest had failed to accomplish in a direct contest of strength it might still manage by seduction. Its nature demanded that it subsume all creatures within its boundaries, and if he gave it the right opening it might yet succeed.

But some temptations were not meant to be resisted.

He stood silently for a moment, considering his options. Then, with a short nod, he began to move through the woods once more, heading toward his prey.

The beasts of the Forest followed.

Blood.

Hot.

Pounding in her head.

Her skull felt as though it had been split open. Maybe it had been. Maybe she had died and gone to Heaven. Or Hell. Either one would be fine by her right now. Anywhere other than where she had just been.

For a moment she just lay motionless on the ground, unwilling to open her eyes and resume the nightmare. But her head was on fire and her chest was growing tighter with every breath, and she knew that she had to start moving again if she was to have any hope of survival.

With a groan she lifted her face from the slime-covered ground, blinking as she tried to get her bearings. The moon was still bright overhead, so not much time had passed. That was a good thing, wasn’t it? There was a throbbing pain in her arm where the wolf had managed to bite her, but the limb responded as it should, so nothing new had been broken, and there wasn’t any sign of blood trickling out from under her bracer. Also good.

Why was she still alive?

She looked about for her sword. It was lying on the ground a few yards away from her. The lead wolf must have fled after she’d wounded it, dragging it just that far before it had fallen free of him. If the rest of the pack had followed him, that would explain why she was still alive. She crawled over to the sword, and used it to steady herself while she regained her feet. As she stood upright she swayed slightly, and for a moment her eyes refused to focus. She had been wounded often enough in her life to recognize the cause of her lightheadedness; somewhere inside her body her lifeblood was leaking out. If she did not find a healer soon to repair her internal injuries, she was not going to make it.

She forced herself to begin walking again. Her feet were numb and she stumbled often, but staying here was simply not an option. She had to keep moving. As fast as she could, as far as she could. Every minute counted now.

God of Earth and Erna, help me stay on my feet. Just for another few hours.

But she had only managed to go a short distance when suddenly her foot slipped out from under her. The torch went flying from her grasp as she stuck out her hands in front of her, trying to break her fall. She hit the ground with bone-jarring force, her left knee slamming into solid rock. Ice-cold liquid splashed across her face, shocking against the feverish heat of her skin. Somewhere in the distance, the torch hissed and expired.

For a moment it was all she could do to catch her breath and make sure that no new bones were broken. Only then did the significance of her situation hit home.

Water.

As her eyes adjusted to the moonlight, she saw that she had fallen in a shallow pool, from which streamers of water stretched out like glistening tendrils along the ground. Thirst welled up inside her at the sight of it, but the thought of drinking anything from the ground here made her stomach turn. God alone knew what manner of noxious parasites it might contain. But the droplets of water trickling down her sweat-streaked face reminded her of just how long it had been since she had last tasted food or water, and how long it might be before she had another opportunity to do so.

If you don’t have the strength to make it to a healer, she told herself, you’re doomed anyway.

Leaning down, she cupped her hand to bring some of the water to her lips. It tasted odd but not overtly foul, and after a moment’s hesitation she began to drink in earnest. The cold water soothed the parched membranes of her throat and eased the fever in her flesh. Finally, feeling the weight of the ice-cold fluid building in her stomach, she forced herself to stop, knowing the risk of overindulgence.

The water had cleared her head somewhat, and she studied the pool surrounding her. It had been disturbed by her motion, so that it was hard for her to see if it had any sort of natural current; after a moment she picked up a fallen leaf from the ground nearby and placed it on the water’s surface. It bobbed about randomly for a few seconds, then slowly but surely began to move away from her. Watching it, she felt the shadow of despair lift ever so slightly from her soul. A current implied gravity, direction… and hope. Assuming this tiny stream did not disappear into the earth, it might eventually lead her out of here.

A wolf howled in the distance.

Panicked, she jerked her head around to look for the source of the sound, but nothing was visible behind her save moonlight and shadows. She struggled to her feet as quickly as she could, but her bruised knee was loath to support her. Her torch had fallen into the deepest part of the pool and was thoroughly soaked, so she didn’t waste time trying to retrieve it. If the wolf wasn’t aware of her presence yet she might still have a chance, but only if she moved quickly.

But then another wolf howled. And another. Their cries were eerie, ghostly sounds that made her skin crawl. Were these the same animals she had fought before? Or something new that the Forest had conjured? She began to move along the side of the stream as quickly as she could, but she was limping badly now, and each time her left foot hit the ground it sent red-hot knives of pain shooting through her knee. She struggled to think past it, to keep focused on her objective. Keep your eye on the water. Don’t lose sight of it! Keep moving…

Suddenly she heard an animal moving through the Forest to her right, crashing noisily through the underbrush. A few seconds later there was one on her left as well. Apparently they had picked up her trail, and intended to surround her. At her current pace she didn’t stand a chance of escaping them.

Gritting her teeth, she started to run. A stumbling trot was the best she could do, but it was better than walking. Once or twice her foot caught a low-hanging branch or vine and she had the crazy delusion that the Forest was trying to trip her. But she managed to jump over most of the obstacles, and tear herself loose from the rest, so she kept going. Running as an animal would run, drawing upon those reserves of strength which are stored on the threshold of death, which only terror can access.

As prey would run.

Suddenly then she realized that all the movement she was hearing was now coming from her left; to her right there was only silence. Apparently the pack had abandoned its attempt to surround her and was closing ranks. Which meant that now she had a chance-albeit a slim one-to escape them.

Channeling all her energy into one last desperate burst of speed, she turned away from her pursuers and sprinted in the direction they had abandoned And stopped.

Breathless, heart pounding, she knew with visceral certainty that something was wrong, but for a moment she could not give it a name. When the revelation finally came, it chilled her to the bone.

She glanced down at the water beside her-still barely more than a trickle of moisture among the rocks-and then at the empty blackness of the Forest that flanked the stream bed. The water was her lifeline; if she left it behind she would have no hope of finding her way out of this place. The wolves had given her an opening that would require she leave the water behind; if she stood her ground, the pack would soon be upon her.

They were herding her.

She realized that she had only two choices left: she could leave the moonlight and the water behind and flee like helpless prey through the darkness-the outcome they clearly desired-or she could make her stand here, dying as a knight of the Church was meant to die, and deny them their final triumph.

Not a real choice at all.

A strange calm came over her as she looked around for the most defensible position. The longer she could hold out, she told herself, the more of the beasts she would be able to dispatch to hell on her way out. But the trees weren’t as densely packed here as they had been at the site of her last battle, and there was no convenient cluster of them to use for cover. Finally she saw a place where thick black vines had established a webwork between two trunks. It wasn’t a solid barrier by any means, but she knew from tripping over such vines just how strong they could be. At least they would slow down anything coming at her from that direction.

It was the best she was going to be able to do.

Facing in the direction of her pursuers, her back to the tenuous barrier, she flexed her hand around the grip of her sword, drew in as deep a breath as her bruised lungs would allow, and prepared to face her final battle. G od, grant that I may serve Your holy purpose to the end…

Then-suddenly-the howling stopped. She held her breath, listening for any other sounds of pursuit, but all was silent now. Whatever had been crashing through the Forest in pursuit of her was no longer moving.

Shifting her weight uneasily from one foot to the other, she caught her ankle on one of the vines and tried to shake it loose. But it was caught on her greave and would not come off. With a wary glance at the shadowy tree line head of her, she reached down with her sword to cut herself loose — but her arm would not move freely. Then something took hold of her other ankle. And her left arm. And her chest. By the time she realized what was happening there were vines all over her, gripping her body like steel bands. She knew that she could not pull free of so many at once, and that her only hope was to cut her way out, but her sword arm was so entangled that she could not get it free. Panic flared in her gut as she felt one of the vines wrap itself around her head, but try as she might she could not shake it loose.

And then something stepped out of the Forest’s shadows that was not a wolf, and it stood in the moonlight before her.

A man.

He was tall and thin, with delicate features and skin so pale that in the moonlight he seemed to be carved from alabaster. His shoulder-length hair would probably have glowed a warm golden-brown beneath the sun, but in Domina’s cold light it was an eerie, ashen hue, and the halo of moonlight that crowned it lent to his entire face an unnatural luminescence. And he was clean. Unnaturally clean. His midnight blue surcote did not have so much as a speck of dirt on it. Even his boots looked spotless, though the ground beneath his feet was a muddy mess, and the hilt of his sword gleamed brightly in the moonlight. Suddenly she felt acutely aware of her own degraded state, mud-splattered and sweat-stained and probably reeking from all the vile slime she had been crawling through. It made his fastidiousness seem doubly unnatural.

His pale eyes fixed on her with an intensity that transfixed her, much as the gaze of a cobra might transfix its prey. It was impossible for her to look away.

“Who are you?” she whispered hoarsely.

His eyes were cold-so cold! — human in form but without a trace of humanity in their depths. She saw him glance down at her sword, and a strange expression crossed his face. Was he a creature of the fae, sensitive to the aura of faith that clung to the blessed steel? She tried to raise the weapon up so that she could protect herself with it, but the effort was hopeless. A fly in a spider’s web had more freedom of movement than she did right now.

He began to walk toward her. A knot of fear twisted in her gut as she tried to draw back from him; inwardly she cursed herself for her weakness. What was it about this man that unnerved her more than all the demons she had fought? Was it because the darkness she sensed within him had left no mark upon his physical person? With his delicately beautiful features and the halo of moonlight glowing about his head, he looked almost angelic. Benign. Was it easier to deal with monsters when they looked like monsters?

Then he was in front of her. It took all her strength of will not to flinch before the power of his gaze.

“So very brave,” he said softly. There was a faint inflection to his voice that she could not identify: an echo of lost lands and forgotten times. “You would fight me if you could, wouldn’t you? Even though the battle would be lost before you began.”

He reached down for her sword. She tightened her hand around its grip-but then he touched her and her fingers froze, and he lifted the weapon from her hand easily as if he were taking a toy from a child. For a moment he just looked at it, studying the Church insignia that adorned its grip. Whatever hope she might have had that the religious symbol would repel him faded as he ran one finger slowly over the design. A hint of dark amusement flickered in his eyes.

“What are you?” she whispered.

“A servant of the One God, in ways that you will never understand.” He put the sword off to one side of him, sliding its point into the ground so that it would stand upright just beyond her reach. Then he reached out to touch her face. She tried to pull away from him, but the vines were wrapped about her too tightly to allow her more than a few inches of leeway. His pale fingers stroked her cheek gently, a mockery of a lover’s caress. “Helplessness,” he murmured. “That’s your greatest fear, is it not? Better to suffer a thousand wounds in battle than to surrender control of your fate to another.” He smiled coldly as he brushed a lock of sweat-soaked hair back from her face; the grip of the vines was so tight that she could not even turn her head away from him. “How very sad, that in the end you must die in a state of submission.”

Anger welled up inside her suddenly, driving out all the fear and the despair; her entire soul was alight with white-hot indignation. I will not be your plaything! her soul screamed. She stared into his visage-so beautiful, so clean, so perfect in its vanity-and realized that she did have one weapon left. Perhaps it would not be enough to win her freedom, in this life, but she could claim her freedom as she headed into the next.

I know your weakness, she thought.

She hawked up phlegm from deep within her lungs. It wasn’t hard to do; her chest was full of the stuff.

“Fuck you,” she growled.

And she spat in his face.

He was clearly unprepared for such a move, and for a moment he did not react at all, as the glob of blood-flecked spittle on his cheek began to slide down his face. Then the human facade seemed to give way, and with a cry of fury he grabbed her by the edge of her helm, jerking her head to one side, bearing her throat. The spittle exploded into a thousand frozen fragments and fell from his face, but she knew he could still feel it there, like a slow-burning brand. Imperfection. Filth. Denial of his dominion. There was a black rage burning inside him now, more intense than any emotion a mortal soul was meant to contain, and she could sense the bloodthirst that welled up in its wake. Better than she could have hoped for.

Shutting her eyes, she muttered a prayer under her breath as she braced herself for death. Receive my soul, God of Earth and Erna, that I may serve you in the next world forever.

But s econds passed, and nothing happened. She could feel his hand tremble where he held her, fingers digging deeply into her flesh, but otherwise there was no motion.

Let the rage overwhelm him. Please, God. Allow me to die quickly.

Finally he lowered his face to her throat, and she braced herself to have it torn open, or sliced through, or whatever other form death might take. But death did not come. She could feel his cold breath just above the edge of her gorget, and then-unexpectedly-the touch of his lips upon her skin. Disarmingly gentle, perversely intimate. She felt more violated by that kiss than she had by all the rest of what had happened to her, and she shivered as his cold breath raised goosebumps along her neck.

“Tell your masters that the Forest is spoken for.” He whispered the words softly into her ear, a lover’s intimacy. “Tell them that trespassers will not be received well.”

Then he let go of her and stepped back. The vines that had been binding her twitched, stiffened, and then shattered like glass. Frozen black crystals showered down around her as she was suddenly freed from bondage. The unexpected absence of support left her unprepared, and she stumbled to her knees. For a moment it was all she could do to catch her breath, trying to absorb what had just happened. Then she looked up at him. The storm of emotion that had briefly possessed him was gone now; his gaze was as steady as a frozen lake, and equally unreadable.

He pointed to the depths of the Forest, in the direction she had been about to run. “South is that way,” he said. And he added, “Nothing will stop you.”

Then he turned and slipped into the shadows of the Forest, and a moment later was gone from sight.

Faith shut her eyes and trembled. Every survival instinct in her soul warned her that that guidance of such a creature was not to be trusted. The wolves had wanted to drive her into that very same darkness, for reasons of their own; how could she be certain his motives were any different? But logic, too, had its voice. There was no point in his giving her a message for the Church if he did not expect her to deliver it, was there? If he sent her to his death he would be defeating his own purpose.

Tell your masters the Forest is spoken for.

She took one last look at the glimmering stream of water, then turned away from it and limped into the shadows of the deep woods, in the direction she prayed was south.

“She won’t make it out.”

Startled, Tarrant turned to find the albino standing only a few yards behind him. Had the man been following him? If so, he might prove more dangerous than Tarrant had anticipated.

Perversely, he discovered that the concept did not displease him. Too few things in the world gave him any real challenge these days. “It will be a test of her faith,” he responded.

“Her Church people will come here. Your warning won’t stop them.”

No, Tarrant thought. My warning will do exactly what it was intended to do.

The Church would have no choice but to come here. Not immediately-perhaps not even for a generation or two-but sooner or later it must. A religion that was dedicated to bringing the fae under control could not simply sit back and watch while a human sorcerer claimed dominion over the Forest. They would come. They would come in force. It was as inevitable as the sun rising in the morning.

“ It will be a test of their faith,” he said quietly.

He did not expect Amoril to appreciate the irony of the situation. The man had no way to know that in another time-another life-Tarrant had been one of the founding fathers of the Church. If the priests came after him now, they would be waging war against their own Prophet.

If they have the courage to challenge me here, in this place, then I will know my creation was worthy of me.

“You mean to stay here?” Amoril asked. Though only one question was voiced, others echoed in its wake: Can we really leave this place? Will the Forest allow us to go? What if you are able to break free of its power and I can’t? “Is that wise?”

That Amoril still feared the Forest so much was a sign of weakness. Tarrant would have to break him of that if the man was to be a useful servant.

He remembered the moment when his own strength had been tested. When rage and bloodthirst had roared through his veins like wildfire, threatening to sear his soul to ashes if he did not submit to it and devour the woman. It had taken all the force of his will to resist the assault, but he had managed it. And now the Forest knew his true strength. All its tricks could not make him taste a single drop of blood if he did not want to, nor kill at another’s behest. It had tested its own strength against his, and it had failed.

The currents lapped at his ankles now like the tongue of a beaten dog. Still violent and unpredictable-no question about that-but now subservient to his will. Had the Forest adapted to him, or he to it? The bloodthirst that had defined him for centuries now seemed a distant thing, bereft of power. Was he free of it at last, or was this only a brief respite? Either way, it was something to be embraced, a freedom he had dreamed of for many years but never thought possible.

He looked to the north, where stark black mountains were crowned in Domina’s moonlight, poised above a sea of shimmering power. Exquisite. To the south he could sense the woman slowly making her way to freedom, and though she manifested no fear-wraiths in her wake, as a normal women might have, he could taste her fear on the wind. Also exquisite.

Nothing in the Forest would impede her progress. Not unless he commanded it.

So much beauty. So much power.

“Come,” he said quietly. “We have a castle to build.”

He slipped into the depths of the Forest without further word, his midnight garments melding effortlessly into the shadows. The albino watched for a moment, crimson eyes gleaming with a host of unvoiced emotions. Then, lips tight, he nodded his head ever so slightly, and followed his new master into the darkness.