“And Hell?”
It seemed to him there was laughter in that blackness; the tenor of it made his skin crawl. He betrayed Us, and must be made to answer for it. Hell may have what is left when We are done.
And then it asked: Agreed? A thousand voices once more, all echoing the same demand.
For a moment the albino hesitated. Only a moment, and not because he was afraid. This was an act to be savored: the moment in time at which his path and the Hunter’s would separate forever. Centuries from now he would look back on this night and celebrate the birth of his soul, as mortals celebrated the birth of their flesh. And were not the two acts congruent in spirit as well as form? A baby’s flesh existed for months before its arrival in the world; all that its “birth” signified was passage from one state of being to the next. So it was with him. So it was exactly. The Hunter was a fool, if he didn’t see it coming.
“Agreed,” he said.
He pulled a knife from his belt, white steel blade with a handle of human bone; the seal of the Hunter was etched into the blade. “When I first came to him, when I swore to serve him, he fed me a portion of his blood to bind us. He said that it would be with me always, part of my own blood for as long as I lived. A channel between us far stronger than mere fae could ever conjure.” He drew the blade across his palm, sharply; blue blood welled up in the wound. “If so, then here it is.” He made a fist and squeezed; the viscous fluid dripped to the tabletop and pooled there. “Flesh of his flesh: the blood of the Hunter. Take it from mine and use it to bind him. I give it to you freely.”
A thousand sparks of black flame spurted to life on the tabletop. The hunger they exuded was so sharp that the albino stepped back quickly, lest he be drawn into the flames himself. How many men throughout history had summoned these demons with the intention of bargaining, only to be devoured themselves in the midst of their offering? Even the Hunter didn’t trust the Unnamed Ones, and he had served them for over nine hundred years.
And just see where it got you, he thought triumphantly.
At last the flame drew back from his offering. The pool of blood seemed undiminished, but how little flesh did that awesome Power need for its work? A single cell would do it, or even a fragment of a cell, if it came from the Hunter himself. Freely sacrificed, it gained in power tenfold.
The skin of his palm twitched suddenly where he had gashed it; he looked down, to find the wound already closed.
It is done.
“The Forest is mine?” he asked hungrily.
When he has left the world of the living, then the Forest will be yours. Until then—
Hunger welled up inside him with such force that it left him reeling, a hunger that filled every cell of his body with such frigid fire that he shook to contain it. Not hunger for cruelty, or even for power; this was a need more simple, more primitive, more driving. The need to devour blood. Life. Hope. The hunger to destroy those things which the living cherished most, and consume them into his own dark soul. Into that boundless pit of cold, dark hunger which would never, ever be filled....
With a cry he fell to his knees, his flesh convulsing as the black need filled him. More hunger than any human body could contain; more raw need than any human soul could ever satisfy. It remade him from the inside out, pulping his body and his soul until both were a raw, bleeding mass, and then it sculpted him anew. Making him into a more perfect container for its crimson frenzy.
No! he screamed. Pain folded about him like a fist and squeezed. Dendrites tore loose in the confines of his skull and reattached in new, unhuman patterns. A section of the forebrain, pulped to liquid, oozed forth into his bloodstream to be processed as waste matter.
As it should have been for the Hunter, the voices proclaimed. As it almost was, nine centuries ago.
Shivering in hunger, the creature that was once called Amoril twitched in pain as the final ripples of transformation coursed through its flesh. It still looked human, to a degree. It could still act human, if it had to. Beyond that point all similarity ended.
What a pity that you lacked your master understanding of Us, a thousand voices mused aloud. And his strength. But then, that will make this relationship so much easier.
Then the voices were gone, and there was only hunger.
Thirteen
Her children were restless.
She wasn’t sure yet if that were good or bad. She had no way to communicate with them, to test them to see if their natures were right, if they were indeed what she had created them to be. Only a few of them could speak to her at all and those were, by that definition, her greatest failures. As for the rest, sometimes she was aware of them. Most often she was not. Sometimes the few who could speak to her brought her news of their distant siblings, but they themselves understood so little that their reports were hardly better than a dream.
She wondered if she should try again. In theory she could. In theory she had the strength and the knowledge, so why not make another attempt? But she lacked the emotional stamina she had once had, she was drained from an eternity of wasted efforts. She had cast out her hopes into the world countless times before and so few of her children had come back to her, so few of them tried to communicate, so very few understood their own nature, or why she had created them in the first place. So what was the point? Her first children were long gone now, and she could no longer remember what it was like to bond with them. These new children, the seeds of her desperation, would never know such intimacy. Why go on creating them as if that formula would change? As if somehow, magically, the same forces which killed her first family could be made to nurture these, the offspring of her despair?
These new children were restless. She knew that. She sensed it. They were testing the boundaries she had set for them, and soon she would have to decide their fate. Should she endure their rebellion, or wipe the slate clean and start over? With her first children—her proper children—the question would never have arisen. But with these strange creatures, in whom the bonds of family were so weak as to be virtually nonex istent, how was she to judge?
She would give them time, she decided. She would see where their restlessness led them. If it proved that their transgressions were serious, then their lives might be put to better use as fodder for a new generation. For there must be children. There must always be children. Living and learning, dreaming and needing, playing their parts without knowing they did so, in the hope that one of them might some day glimpse the greater game that controlled them all.
And then, she thought, then at last—
Dreams of the first family. Union. Hope.
She waited.
The Dark Within
Fourteen
The main temple of Saris was at the edge of town, just beyond one of Jaggonath’s better neighborhoods. Though the goddess had other temples elsewhere in the city—one on the Street of Gods, even one in the slums of the south side—this was by far her most prosperous, and the best attended. Little wonder. The worship of Beauty is a luxury for most, and is ill attended to in areas where such basic needs as food, shelter, and safety are still at issue.
Narilka walked to the temple. It was a good five-mile hike from where she lived, but she thought of the walk as part of her worship. It gave her time to relax her mind, to focus it on the issue she wished to address. Normally that was some artistic project for which she hoped to gain special inspiration, Saris’ most precious gift. Sometimes it was an offering, the joy of a project completed or a moment of aesthetic inspiration realized. But today ...
I shouldn’t be going here. This isn’t right.
Today she was far from calm, and far from certain that she was doing the right thing. She had discovered Saris in her youth, when she was still working on her parents’ farm; it was the goddess who had made her acknowledge the spark of an artist in her soul, and who had helped her to see that her restlessness was the result of stifling that inner fire. It was Saris who had granted her the courage to confront her parents, and t
o demand a situation that would give outlet to her innate talent. Thus, after much teary-eyed debate, her apprenticeship with Gresham had been arranged. And she had learned the joy of molding liquid silver into forms so beautiful that they might have graced this very temple.
But today it was not art that drove her here, but need; need for the kind of reassurance that only a god could offer. Would Saris respond? She was a minor goddess, as such beings were measured, and her domain was a limited one. Was it right to bring these problems to her, when there were at least a dozen other gods dedicated to that kind of turmoil?
You are the patron of my soul, she thought, gazing upon the gleaming temple. Even now, tormented by doubts, she felt a sense of serenity at the sight of the familiar building. It was simple, clean-lined, conspicuously undecorated; only Saris’ faithful would understand how its plain columns and carefully sculpted empty spaces were like a blank canvas to the mind, supporting a greater beauty than any human architect could achieve.
Slowly she walked up the broad stairs and entered the temple proper. Like the facade the sanctuary was plain, but infinitely beautiful. Sunlight fell in shafts from the pierced-work roof, that wove amongst themselves to sculpt shifting patterns on the floor. Open spaces in the walls allowed the breeze to play through, carrying with it all the scents of spring. Water flowed within, a natural fountain over which the temple had been built, and she paused to scoop up a mouthful in her palm and taste it. Would that it could calm her. Would that it could convince her that she’d been right to come here, to place her inner torments before a goddess of beauty and peace.
She looked up for a priest or priestess, and found one waiting in the shadows. As soon as Narilka began to move toward him (her?), the figure glided forward, silken robes in delicate mottled hues fluttering in the sunlight. The mask the figure wore was of silver, finely polished, and gave no hint of gender or identity. Anonymity and grace, in perfect combination.
“I’ve come for communion,” she said quickly; could the priest hear how hard her heart was pounding? “If that’s possible.”
Wordlessly the wraithlike figure turned to lead her to a communion chamber; she fell into step behind him. They left the main sanctuary and entered the part of the temple reserved for private offerings. She tried not to think of Andrys Tarrant or the Hunter as she walked, but struggled instead to focus on images that the goddess would find pleasing. It was no use. Images of her finest work faded into images of the coronet, and Andrys’ hand testing its substance; abstract images re formed themselves, becoming images of the young nobleman. By the time they reached an empty communion chamber she was trembling, wondering if she could manage the self-control that prayer required. How would Saris respond to such images?
Goddess, help me. I don’t know where else to turn.
The priest left her alone in the communion chamber. Grateful for privacy, she shut the door behind him and locked it. There was a robe laid out in the antechamber, of soft white linen, and a basin of water beside it. She took off her clothes and laid them aside, her hands shaking as she undressed. The white robe was soft against her skin, the water cool and bracing as she rinsed her face and hands. Dressed thus, cleansed thus, she left all the cares of the real world behind her, and entered into the goddess’ presence a blank slate, an open soul. At least that was the theory. But her memories and her need were too powerful today, and the ritual failed to calm her.
Saris, I’m sorry. I tried.
Slowly, hesitantly, she moved into the communion chamber. There a low brazier filled with charcoal awaited her, with a circle of cushions about it. She chose one of the cushions and settled herself onto it, heart pounding. Beside the brazier were small bowls of dried herbs, and she chose a few handfuls of the ones that pleased her. Rosewort. Briarwood. Nuviola. Opening her hand slowly, she let the leaves and bark bits fall onto the glowing charcoal. Scented smoke began to rise, twining in tendrils as it worked its way up to the ceiling vent. Stare at the smoke, she thought. Let the visions come.
She prayed. Not in words but in images, because words could never capture all that she felt. The Hunter in all his dark and terrible glory, with the music of the night surging up about him and a secret world so rich in beauty it was painful to behold. And Andrys Tarrant in his need. So wounded, so irresistible, so like the Hunter in outer aspect and utterly unlike him in spirit. She saw them take form in the smoke, and suddenly was unsure of herself. Why had she come here? What did she expect the goddess to do? She shivered and wrapped her arms about herself; the faces in the smoke faded and were gone.
If I let myself love him, I’ll lose myself forever. It was a thrilling, terrifying thought. Guide me, she begged. Not knowing who else or what else to turn to, not even sure that her goddess would listen. Help me!
Slowly an image began to form within the smoke, that was not of her own making. The heady scent of nuviola filled her lungs as she watched it, trembling. Wisps of silver danced in the smoke, twining about each other like serpents. Slowly, sensuously they knotted, melded, re-formed, redefined themselves ... with a start she realized that the vision had begun to take on human form, neither male nor female but a wispy, slender figure that might be either. Or both. The image looked so solid that she felt as if she could reach out and touch it, and yet it seemed utterly weightless as it floated there before her. Silver eyes. Silver face. Silver hair like fine-spun silk, that wafted weightless in an unseen breeze. The smoke became a silken veil that rippled across the figure’s surface, adorning rather than concealing its form. It was so detailed, so lustrous, so real.... With a start she realized that she couldn’t see the far wall through it, as she should have been able to do with a normal vision. Nor did the walls at her sides frame the vision with clean white plaster, as they should have done. The entire room seemed to have faded—walls and pillows, brazier and herbs and yes, even the smoke—leaving her alone in a sweet-scented darkness with a figure that gleamed like moonlight.
“Saris?” She whispered. She barely got the name out past the tightness in her throat. “Is it ... ?”
Tell me your need.
She opened her mouth to speak—and emotion poured out, raw and primitive, unfettered by the bonds of language. All the hope and fear and lust and need and love (was that love?) in a flood tide of memory that she could neither control nor comprehend. Pouring out of her blindly, into the surrounding darkness. When it was over, she fell back shaking, and her eyes squeezed forth hot tears. “Saris?”
For a moment the figure just stared at her. Digesting her response? At last it said, in an even voice, Andrys Tarrant is doomed.
It took the words a moment to sink in, and then it was a few seconds more before she found her voice. “What?”
He’s fighting a war he does not understand, for stakes he cannot begin to comprehend. He has given himself to one who will use him and then discard him, taking pleasure from the destruction of so tender a soul. He is a pawn, Narilka Lessing, nothing more. A blind, unwitting soldier in a war of gods and demons. The figure paused. A sacrifice.
“No,” she whispered.
I speak the truth, it assured her. Its tone was cool, emotionless. I have no vested interest in this matter to cause me to lie.
“No!”
If you bind yourself to him, you will make yourself part of his war.
“What war?” she demanded. “Who’s he fighting? Tell me that.”
The figure seemed to hesitate. A cloud of silk twisted about its thighs.
He means to kill the Hunter, it said at last.
The words were a cold thrill in her flesh. “He can‘t,” she whispered. “No man can.”
A single man, no. But a man with a demonic ally and an army behind him ... perhaps.
“An army? What army?”
The figure hesitated again, then shook its head. I can’t tell you that.
“What demon?”
I can’t tell you that.
“Why? Because I know the Hunter?”
The f
igure didn’t answer.
Wrapping her arms even tighter about herself, Narilka shivered. Andrys or the Hunter. If the two of them pitted all their strength against each other, one would surely die. Maybe both. The thought of that loss was an ache within her. The thought that the loser would probably be Andrys—desolate, wounded Andrys—was almost more than she could bear.
“What can I do?” she whispered. “Anything?”
In terms of affecting the outcome of the conflict? The figure hesitated. I can’t counsel you on that issue. Such interference with another ... it’s forbidden. As for Andrys Tarrant, I will tell you this: he would be fortunate to lose his life in this endeavor, for his ally intends to destroy him in soul as surely as he means to destroy the Hunter in body.
Even more softly: “What can I do?”
You know the options. Now you know the risk. Make your choices accordingly.
“What would you do?”
The figure drew back; if it had been more human in countenance, Narilka might have thought it was startled. I lack the emotions that would make such a question meaningful. The Hunter has created great beauty in his time, though of a cold and inhuman sort; part of me would regret his passing. As for his enemy ... we do not share priorities, he and I. And I think that in a world where he ruled, I would have no comfortable place. But the concept of taking sides is meaningless, when I am forbidden to interfere. Only to protect my own may I act.
Her heart was pounding so loudly she could barely hear the whispering voice above its beat; her hands twisted nervously, one about the other. “You can protect me?”
From his ally. From the illusions that are his power. No more than that.
“How?”
It seemed to her the figure smiled. The same rules bind us all, it said. Silken veils swirled about its thighs. For as long as you are mine, he cannot touch you.
She shut her eyes; the figure was still bright in her vision. “I’ve always been yours. I always will be.”