Crown of Shadows

  “I got your note.” He nodded a token greeting to Narilka (and how distant he was! Like a stranger again, as if their last meeting had never taken place) and then he clasped Gresham’s hand, accepting his welcome. “Is it really finished?”

  “I think you’ll be very pleased.” Again Gresham glanced at Narilka, but she turned away. Andrys Tarrant’s presence in the room made her feel strangely naked, painfully vulnerable. Blessed Saris! How had he done so much to her by doing so little? “Come into the back. I’ve got it all laid out for you.”

  They went through the door at the rear of the shop, letting it swing shut behind them. After a moment of hesitation, Narilka followed. She snapped the inner lock shut on the front door out of habit, so that no one might enter the shop while it was unattended. Did it really matter? she wondered. Did anything matter, when he treated her like a stranger?

  She caught up with them just as they reached the polishing bench; Gresham was explaining to Andrys all the fine points of the work they had done, as if expecting that his appreciation of the coronet and armor would somehow fall short if he were uninformed. Even from behind him, she could see him stiffen as he saw the finished product. She ached to reach out to him, to tell him with a touch on his shoulder, his hand, that no, he wasn’t alone, she knew his pain and she would help him bear it. But that gesture belonged to another world, a place of dreams where their fragile connection had flourished. Not here.

  “It is ...” He breathed in deeply, as if struggling for courage. “Magnificent.”

  It was indeed. Gresham had put the breastplate on a body form, with its matching bracers and greaves arranged in their proper positions. A golden sun blazed on the breastplate with a brilliance that rivaled the Core itself, and the delicate inlaid forms that spiraled around it were without doubt the finest work Gresham Alder had ever produced. The curve of the breastplate did not mimic the shape of a human torso, but improved upon it. Picturing Andrys’ strong shoulders encased in that steel, his full flowing sleeves caught up in polished bracers at the wrist, Narilka felt tears come to her eyes.

  Gresham had fixed a wire to the form to support the coronet in its proper position, and as Andrys’ attention turned to it, she felt herself flush with pride. It was, without question, the best work she had ever done. Its delicate form embodied not only a talent that had been finely developed through the years, but a sensuality that paid homage to the feelings he had stirred within her. Now, watching as he studied her work, imagining him as cold as a stranger to her, she hurt more than ever to have her feelings so exposed.

  “Just magnificent,” he breathed. “Far beyond the original.” She saw Gresham draw himself up with pride, and wished she had the heart to do the same. Why couldn’t she hear only his words, and not sense the pain behind them? Why couldn’t she stop caring?

  “Would you like to try it on?” Gresham asked. She saw Andrys stiffen, and could guess at the turmoil within him, but there was no way he could deny such an offer. He nodded, and moved as if to help Gresham remove the pieces from the body form. But no, the master indicated, he was the guest, the beloved patron, and such a man was meant to be served. He stood still while the pieces were removed from their places one by one, and Narilka came around to where she could see his profile. Hurting for him. Hating him. Wishing she could be anywhere other than where she was, or that the time could be made to move faster so that there was some hope of escape.

  She saw him shiver as the breastplate was fitted to him, but only because she knew to look for such a response ; Gresham would never notice. She watched as the bracers were fitted on his arms, their straps buckled tightly over his shirt sleeves. She knew that to him they felt like manacles, binding him to a past he would far rather forget. She bled for him as the greaves were fitted about his lower legs, and hated herself for doing so. This man had done everything but reject her to her face; why couldn’t she force him out of her heart?

  And then the coronet was lifted and offered, and Andrys took it up in his own hands and set it upon his head. She could see him quake as the band of finely worked sterling settled down about his forehead, and his eyes fell shut in a manner that made her fear he would faint—but Gresham was busy getting a mirror into place for him, and didn’t notice. The glass was turned toward him, reflecting a figure so finely adorned that it might have stepped out of the pages of a fairy tale. Or a romance novel. Or a horror tale, she thought, sensing what he saw when he looked into that mirror. Knowing the courage he must have nurtured over these past few weeks, to be able to endure this moment in front of strangers.

  “I have no words,” he murmured, and Gresham glowed at the perceived compliment. Andrys’ hand touched the golden sun at the center of his chest, fingers splayed along its rays. “This is beyond anything I could have expected.” And then he turned to Narilka, and for an instant she saw, in his eyes, the torment that was in his soul. She could hear his silent screaming, as he forced his voice and body to obey the forms of gratitude without any hint of the pain that was inside. “More beautiful than the original,” he whispered, and then he quickly looked away. As if he feared, looking longer, what he might see in her eyes.

  She turned away herself as the two men divested him of his shell, unable to look at him any longer. She felt faint herself, and frightened by her own reactions. Why did she feel like every word was a knife in her flesh? When had he gained the power to hurt her like this? After a moment she realized that Gresham wanted her to do something, and she went and got his leather-bound notebook for him. Yes, he would be happy to have the pieces delivered. Of course, that date would be fine. And if there was anything else that Mer wanted, anything at all, Gresham would be happy to get it for him or make it for him, whichever he preferred.

  She took his check without making eye contact and wrote a receipt with a trembling hand. This is it, she thought. I’ll never see him again. It was better that way, wasn’t it? Did she really want to get involved with a man like this? Let him play his games with the women who enjoyed them. There were enough of those in the world, weren’t there?

  But she ached inside to see him go, crumpling Gresham’s copy of the receipt into a shapeless wad in her hand. And as he walked down the narrow street, out of her life forever, a thin voice began to scream inside her. How can you let him go like this? Without a word of explanation, a hint of apology? Don’t you deserve better than that? Isn’t this just another kind of abuse, albeit more subtle than the rest? Why do you just stand there and take it?

  She looked up at her boss, shaken. “Gresham—”

  “Go ahead,” he told her. His expression was dark, his disapproval clear, but he nodded his permission. No more words were needed. She started toward the door, then remembered the receipt in her hand. Fingers trembling, she struggled to straighten it out. But he came to where she was and took it from her crumpled, and kissed her gently on the forehead. “Go,” he whispered.

  She went.

  He had gone a block by the time she caught up to him; rather than touch him, she ran up beside him and willed him to notice her. He did, and his face grew suddenly pale. He stopped walking, but she had the impression it was more because his legs had failed him than because he really wanted to talk to her.

  “Why?” she demanded. “Just tell me that, all right? No pretty lies, no petty excuses. Just tell me.”

  He opened his mouth, then shut it again. She could see the tension in his jaw, in the tightening of his brow. At last he turned away and whispered, almost inaudibly, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “And what the hell do you think you’ve been doing?” There were tears coming to her eyes now; she wished she knew how to stop them. “Did you think you weren’t hurting me with your silence, back there? Did you think I wouldn’t hurt all those days that you avoided me? Was that all for my sake?”

  He flinched, but didn’t turn back to her. “You don’t know my life,” he whispered hoarsely. “You don’t understand the risk involved—”

  ??
?Then explain it to me!” She reached out and grabbed him by the nearer sleeve, pulling him back to face her; her strength in doing so seemed to surprise both of them. “Let me make my own decisions, damn it! I’m a grown woman, not some empty-headed doll that can’t think for itself! Give me a little credit for intelligence, will you?”

  A fruit vendor from down the street was watching them. She didn’t care. The only thing in the world that mattered to her now was the man before her, and the tear she thought she saw forming in his eye. Good, she thought fiercely, so you can hurt, too. Maybe when you’ve hurt as much as I have, then we can do something about it.

  “Look.” His voice was tender as he took her by the shoulders, his fingers warm about her arms. “I’ve been ... cursed. Do you understand? Everything that I touch falls to ruin. Everyone that I love dies. I don’t want that to happen to you.”

  “Andrys—”

  “I can’t ask you to share in that kind of risk. I can’t let you be involved—”

  “I love you.” The words came unbidden to her lips, but as soon as she spoke them she knew they were true. “Don’t push me away. Please.”

  “Oh, God.” He turned from her, and lowered his head into his hand. Where his sleeve pulled back from his wrist she could see a narrow scar, freshly healed, right above the vein. “Don’t do this. You don’t want me. You don’t want my burdens.”

  She put a hand on his arm, ever so gently. “You don’t have to face them alone,” she told him. A passing woman with a dog stared at them for a moment, then walked quickly past. “Not if you don’t want to.”

  He drew in a deep breath, shaking, and wiped his hand across his eyes, smearing their wetness across his cheek. “You don’t know where I’m going,” he whispered hoarsely. “You don’t know what I’m doing, how dangerous it is—”

  She hesitated for only a moment. “I know you want to kill the Hunter. I know he’s your own flesh and blood, the man in the painting you showed me. I know. . . .” she thought of his pain in the shop, and his panic the first time he tried on the armor. “I know it’s tearing you apart to even think about it.”

  His eyes widened in surprise, and she could sense the unvoiced question behind them; How did you find that out? But instead of voicing it, he said, “Then you know the risk. You can understand that when he finds out what I’m planning, he’s sure to strike out at me, and anyone who gets in the way—”

  “He can’t hurt me,” she told him. Feeling her heart pounding anew, as she sensed the power of those words.

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “He promised that he would never hurt me. And he keeps his word, Andrys. I know that for a fact.” There were tears in her eyes now, too; with the back of a hand she quickly wiped them away. “So you see? I’m safe.” Safer than you, my love.

  “But how—?”

  She told him all of it. The chance encounter on a lonely road so long ago. Her abduction from the city by men whose faces she never saw. The three nights in which she was hunted, only to find that the Hunter, once recognizing her, stood by his promise.

  “He won’t hurt me,” she said quietly. “So don’t push me away from you for my own protection. If you don’t want me, that’s something else ... but don’t do it because of that.”

  He brought up a hand to the side of her face; the touch brought back memories so powerful that she had to take a step back to the wall of a building behind her, for support. “I want you,” he whispered, and he moved closer to her. Pressing her back against the coarse brick as he kissed her, his entire soul focused upon the act. It wasn’t a gentle kiss, like last time, but something hard and desperate and hungry. It was fear and loneliness and desire all wrapped up together, and when he finally drew back from her she could feel herself shaking from the force of it, and from the heat of response in her own body.

  “You’re making a big mistake,” he warned her. Running a finger down the line of her throat. She trembled as he touched her, and wondered just what she was getting herself into.

  “Maybe,” she whispered. She was dimly aware of a couple walking by them, muttering in low tones of their disapproval of such a public display. The fruit vendor was still watching. “I’ll try to learn from it, all right? So I can do better the next time.”

  Then he kissed her again, and this time there were no passersby. No street vendors. No Hunter. No anything.

  Only him.

  Twenty-one

  Tarrant lay on a velvet couch in the basement of Karril’s temple, not breathing. His torn silk clothing had been replaced by a heavy robe, rich and plush and festooned with embroidery. Somehow it made him seem that much paler, that much more fragile, to be in such an overdecorated garment. His eyes were shut and his brow slightly drawn, as if in tension, but that was the only sign of life about him. That, and the fact that his hands grasped the sides of the couch as if fearing separation from it.

  The scar still cut across his face, an ugly wound made uglier still by the aesthetic perfection which surrounded it. No other wound had remained on his body but that one. He had healed even as Damien had healed, the marks of imprisonment and torture fading from their flesh as they wended their way back to the world of the living. All except that one.

  “I had blood brought for him,” Karril told Damien. “and I think he drank enough to keep him going. If he needs more, I can get it. Don’t offer him yours.”

  “Why? Is there some special danger in that?”

  The demon looked sharply at him. “War’s been declared, you know. Maybe not in words as such, but it’s no less real for all that. Keep your strength up, and your guard. You’ll need them both.” He reached down to Tarrant’s face and laid a hand against his forehead. “He’ll wake up soon, I think. I’ll leave you two alone to talk about ... whatever.”

  “There’s no need for that.”

  “Maybe not for you, Reverend. But for me?” He sighed. “I’ve broken so many rules it’s a wonder I’m still here to talk about them. Let’s leave it at that, all right? From here on you’re on your own. I’ve taken on enough risks these last few days to last me a lifetime.”

  With a nod of leavetaking he turned away, and started toward the stairs.

  “Karril.” He drew in a deep breath. “Thank you.”

  The demon stopped. He didn’t turn back. It seemed from his posture that the words had shaken him.

  “He was a friend,” he said at last. “I wish I could do more.”

  His velvet robe brushing the stairs as he ascended, he exited the cellar and shut the heavy door behind him. The silence he left behind was thick and heavy, and Damien breathed in deeply, trying to ignore its ominous weight. On all sides of him, racks of bottles rose from floor to ceiling, punctuated by ironbound casks and small wooden crates. He hadn’t asked what the latter were for. He didn’t want to know. It was bad enough taking shelter in the cellar of a pagan temple, without also implying approval of its contents.

  There was nowhere else to go, he explained silently. To Tarrant, to the Patriarch, to himself. Nowhere else we could be safe, for the hours it would take him to recover.

  Hell. There was a time when even that argument couldn’t have gotten him to stay down here, when he would have safeguarded the sanctity of his person as vehemently as he now protected the Hunter’s flesh. When had the last vestiges of that righteous dedication faded? When had he come to regard such things so lightly, that it no longer bothered him where he was or who his allies were, as long as they served his purpose ?

  With a heavy sigh he reached for the pitcher Karril had left beside him, and poured himself yet another drink. Since the moment when he had first awakened in his hotel room his thirst had been insatiable, yet drink after drink failed to moisten the dryness in his throat. Was that thirst born of fear, perhaps, instead of bodily need? Had a clear view of Hell and the creatures who thrived there given him a new perspective on their conflict with Calesta, and made him realize just how unlikely it was that a war like this could be won
?

  Gerald Tarrant groaned, and shifted upon the plush couch as though in the grip of a nightmare. Seeing him, Damien couldn’t help but remember the thousands of women who inhabited his private Hell, and his stomach tightened in loathing at the thought. What kind of man was this, that he had made his ally? What kind of man was he, to have accepted him?

  With a sharp moan the Hunter stiffened, and his eyes shot open. For a moment it seemed that he wasn’t focused on the room, but upon some internal vision; then, with a shudder, he looked at Damien, and the truth seemed to sink in.

  “Where am I?” he whispered. His voice was barely audible.

  “Karril’s temple. Storage cellar.”

  “Karril?” His brow furrowed tightly as he struggled to make sense of that. “Karril’s Iezu. Why would he ...?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “I don’t ... not him ... I remember you. You came for me.” His tone was one of amazement as he whispered, “Through ...”

  “Yeah,” he said quickly. Not anxious to rehash it. “Through all that.”

  The Hunter shut his eyes and leaned back weakly. One hand moved up to his face, to where the newly-made scar cut across his skin; his slender fingers explored the damage, and Damien thought he saw him shiver. “We’re back,” he whispered. A question.

  “You were given a month’s reprieve. Don’t you remember?”

  “Not clearly. I wasn’t ... wholly cognizant.” Again his hand raised up to his face, seemingly of its own accord, and traced the disfiguring scar. Then his eyes unlidded, and fixed on Damien. “Why, Vryce?” The words were a whisper, hardly loud enough for the priest to hear. “Not that I’m not grateful for the brief reprieve, mind you. But it is only that. Was that worth risking your status for?”

  He stiffened at the reminder of his professional vulnerability; it wasn’t a welcome thought. “I need you,” he said curtly. “We’re fighting a Iezu, remember? I can’t do that alone.”