“So she’s punishing him? Is that it?”
But the Iezu shook his head. “Not punishing, exactly. More like... using him.”
“For what?”
Karril hesitated. Damien could see his brow furrow in concentration as he struggled to find the proper words. “To replace what was destroyed,” he said at last. “To make her family whole again.”
To replace—?
Oh, my God.
Hundreds of men and women had come into this valley in past centuries, courting the wild power of Shaitan. From each she had taken one seed, one spark of consciousness, never realizing that a man was made up of a thousand such elements and her Iezu children inherited only one. What happened to those men? he wondered suddenly. Did Karril’s human father leave this place in the same condition he had come to it, or did he leave behind him that capacity for pleasure which made human existence bearable? What would be left of Gerald Tarrant when the process of replacement was over?
As if in answer, the mother of the Iezu rose from Tarrant’s body and withdrew to the lip of the crater. Damien had no eye for her, but made his way as quickly as he could to where the Hunter lay. “Dying” was the image the mother had chosen. Not “alive, ” but “dying. ” That meant the man wasn’t out of danger yet. Damien put a hand to Tarrant’s face, and even through the silk veil he could feel its uncommon heat. Its human heat. If he did die, even for aninstant, then his compact is broken. He’s free. He put his hand above the man’s mouth and felt, even though the silk, a thin stirring of breath. “You son of a bitch,” he whispered hoarsely, “you’re alive!”
The Hunter’s eyes fluttered weakly open, and for a moment it looked as if he was going to say something typically dry in response. But then the strength left him and he shuddered and closed his eyes, never having made a sound.
“Karril!” He hauled Tarrant up by the shoulders until he was sitting upright, then wrapped one arm about him. Cinders that had fallen in his hair began to smoke as he cried out, “Help me get him out of here!”
For a moment Karril hesitated, and Damien wondered if he hadn’t perhaps asked for more help than the Iezu could give. How solid was the body he wore, constructed of fae for convenience’s sake and clad in an illusion of humanity? But then the Iezu began to climb, and when he reached Tarrant he went around to his other side, wrapping his arm about the man’s torso so that together they could lift him. Clearly whatever served him for flesh was solid enough to function. Cinders smoked in their clothes and their hair as they struggled to carry the Hunter down from the deadly peak. Once Damien had to stop to beat out a burning spark that had taken hold of a fold of his shirt sleeve, and another time Karril called a halt in order to brush red-hot cinders from the Hunter’s hair. Tarrant tried to help them by supporting his own weight, but the simple fact was that he was too weak to walk unaided.
At last, after a nightmare descent, they found shelter beside a cooled lava dome, a blister of rock whose position on the slope would protect them from the worst of the wind-borne ash. With a groan Damien lowered Tarrant to the ground so that his back was supported by the rocky protrusion, and then let go. The earth was trembling here, but it wasn’t too warm, which was as good an omen as they were likely to get. There was, of course, no telling where Shaitan’s fury would erupt next, and it could well be right beneath their feet... but that was such a mundane terror after all they had experienced that it had been strangely leached of power. With a sigh Damien lowered himself beside the Hunter, his legs throbbing with exhaustion as he stretched them out. How long had they been going without a real break now, ten hours, twelve? He rubbed a knot that was forming in his thigh, wincing as the tender flesh recoiled from the pressure. He wasn’t going to make it much longer, that was certain. He squinted over toward the sun to get a sense of its position, then out at the Ridge. It seemed much closer to them than it had been before; Almea must have led them partway around the volcano’s peak. Now they faced south, and the knife-edged mountain chain was close enough for him to make out details on its flank.
“There,” he said, and he pointed in a direction where the ground seemed smooth and solid, where a clear path between the meandering acid streams could be determined. “We’ll go that way.”
“I don’t think he’s in shape to move.”
Damien looked down at Tarrant, and for a moment was so lost in wonder that he could hardly concentrate on the issue at hand. There was sunlight falling across his face—sunlight!—seeping through the silk in bands of white to illuminate a face that had been in darkness for nearly a millennium. Sunlight glistened on the fine beads of sweat that were gathering on his forehead, and the skin beneath them was flushed with a hint of red, just like a living man’s should be.
It hit him then, perhaps for the first time, just what had happened. He had known the words before, but he hadn’t felt their impact. Now he did.
God has given you asecond chance, he thought in wonder, as he touched trembling fingers to the silk veil that protected Tarrant’s face. After so many centuries of evil that your soul must surely be black asjet. He remembered the Binding that Tarrant had worked on Calesta, the horrific images of bloodlust and sadism that had risen up from the Hunter’s core to overwhelm them both. That was all still inside the man, and it would take more than a single dose of sunlight to exorcise it. But now, for the first time, he was free to fight it. Now he was free to struggle against the accumulated corruption of his last nine hundred years, and reclaim his human soul. God has given you achance to redeem yourself. A second beginning. “Don’t you waste it,” he whispered. The Hunter’s eyes flickered open briefly, but he saw no comprehension in them. Finally he forced his gaze away, back to the path before them. “We can’t stay here.”
Karril nodded and moved to take up Tarrant’s arm again, to support him. But Damien gestured for him to wait a minute. He pulled out his canteen from his pack, took a short drink—too short for comfort, but his supplies were running low—and then offered it to Tarrant. For a long minute the Hunter simply stared at it, and Damien wondered if he was too dazed to even realize what it was. But then he took it, his hand shaking slightly, and lifted it to his lips and drank. He seemed to wince as the water went down, but continued to drink nonetheless. Thin stuff compared to what you’re used to, Damien thought dryly. He let him drink as much as he wanted, despite the dwindling supply, trusting to the man to know his own needs. At last Tarrant handed the canteen back to him, and it seemed to Damien that his grip was stronger than before. His pale eyes were open now, and glittered with something of their accustomed light. Even his breathing seemed less labored.
We’re going to make it, Damien thought. Awed by the concept. Both of us. We’re going to get out of here alive, and make it back to the living world—
Suddenly the ground heaved beneath them, as though something were stirring to life underneath it. “Time to move,” Karril suggested, and Damien agreed. Hurriedly they caught up Tarrant again, helping him to his feet and then guiding him down the slope as fast as he could move. After a short distance Damien led them off to one side, so that if, God forbid, anything did come up out of the ground where they’d been sitting, they might stand a chance of not being hit by it. Down the slope they struggled, half walking, half sliding, and when they came to a smooth enough place they even forced Tarrant to a half-run, trying to cover as much ground as they could. Thank God, the Hunter seemed to be recovering his strength. And just in time. Thus far the wind had been in their favor, pushing the ash cloud east and north so that it didn’t affect them, but Damien didn’t want to bet his life on how long that would last. Down the slope they struggled, step by step, stumbling and sliding as the rocky ground became an avalanche of gravel, or as sections gave way entirely to reveal twisted gaps beneath the surface. At one point the ground split open behind them with a roar, venting a torrent of gases that Damien could smell even through his veil, and an avalanche of smoking rocks buried the path they been following mere moments befor
e. Great. Just great. Here they had faced Hell and worse, vanquished the son of an alien life-form and rescued Tarrant from the ranks of the undead ... all to be buried alive while they were on the way home? Not likely, he swore. Not if he could help it.
At last—finally!—the slope leveled off. The cracked surface of Shaitan gave way to the jagged monuments of her valley bed, and then—just when it seemed to Damien that he couldn’t climb down another foot—to level ground. They stopped ever so briefly to take another sip of water, and Damien pressed a bit of food into Tarrant’s hand, but he didn’t want to stop even long enough to make sure that the adept ate it. There were shadows of the dead here, hungry for the pain of the living, and without Tarrant’s help he knew he didn’t stand a chance against them. He chewed his own portion as they started forward again, and prayed that Tarrant’s body still remembered how to digest such solid nourishment.
Moving as quickly as they could, they made their way across the valley floor. The mists were thinner in this place and few shadows even noticed them. The very closeness of the ridge—so near that they could make out a few malformed trees on its flank—lent them a last burst of strength, past the point when their bodies might normally have failed them. Just this one last hike, Damien promised himself, and then it’s all over. You can make camp on the ridge somewhere and get some real sleep, and tomorrow you can head back andstart your life over. The thought of untroubled sleep was so enticing that for a moment he could think of nothing else, that sweet physical surrender as darkness and peace closed in around him, the sure caress of dreams. . . . He looked up sharply at Karril, who refused to meet his eyes. Shit. I guess we all have to eat, right?
By the time they finally reached the far side of the valley, the sun was well overhead, and the Core also. Their light had been so wholly eclipsed by Shaitan’s ash-cloud that an eerie pseudo-night had fallen across the valley, blood red shadows sculpting rocky promon tories in sharp relief. Tarrant was still walking, although his pace and his posture warned that his newfound strength was near to giving out. But they were going to make it, Damien thought feverishly. They were really going to make it.
Sleep. It beckoned to him from the slope up ahead, from that place where the mists of the valley gave way to the cold winds of the Ridge. That place where no lava could reach them, no demons would follow them, nothing and no one would disturb their peace. It seemed almost heaven compared to their recent travels, and he struggled toward it with all the energy he could muster. How long now since they had last rested, or eaten a real meal, or even paused to get their bearings? Incredibly, Tarrant kept going, and Damien didn’t want to know whether the man’s strength was genuinely improving or whether it was simply desperation that drove him. Some things were better left unquestioned.
And then they were there at last, high enough on the rocky slope to be safe. Damien remained standing just long enough to wrestle his pack off his back and remove his sword harness, then fell to the earth in exhaustion, Tarrant doing the same by his side. Never mind that the ground was sharp and uneven, and their flesh was bruised from the day’s events. He was alive. Tarrant was alive! And as for the few threats remaining ...
“I’ll keep watch,” the Iezu promised, and he nodded. Good. Yes. That would do it.
We made it, he thought. Numbed by the concept. We really made it. We’re going to live.
And then sheer exhaustion closed in around him and all of it—the hope, the fear, the jubilation—gave way to darkness.
“Damien.”
He was so sore it seemed he could hardly move. Someone was shaking him and it hurt. For a moment he cursed and tried to push the troublesome hands away, but they disappeared when he grabbed at them and reappeared elsewhere.
“Damien. I’m sorry. You need to get up.”
Damn. Damn. What was it now? He forced his eyes to open, and discovered that even his eyelids hurt. There wasn’t a part of his body that didn’t pain him, and that included his bladder. Clearly he had slept longer than certain bodily processes would have liked. “Karril? What the hell is it?”
When the Iezu saw he was awake, he leaned back on his heels, letting him get up at his own pace. “It’s Tarrant,” he warned. “Something’s wrong.”
Shit. He forced himself up to a sitting position, despite the complaints from all muscles involved. Not now, not after all we’ve gone through! “What is it?”
“I don’t know. I’m afraid—” He stopped himself then, as if he was afraid that by saying the wrong thing he might make the matter worse. “You’re the Healer.”
He crawled over to where Tarrant lay. Like himself the Hunter had wound up sprawled across the rocky ground with his head upslope, the only position in which one could sleep without tumbling down the steeply canted slope. Even as he approached, Damien could see that the man’s breathing was labored, and his color looked bad, very bad. A day ago it wouldn’t have mattered, that ghastly pallor. Now it was a sign that Death was tightening its grip on the one man arrogant enough to defy it.
“What is it?” Karril demanded.
Damien raised up his veil a bit, braced himself, and drew in a deep breath. Nothing happened. Reassured that they were now above the level of Shaitan’s poisons, he freed Tarrant from his silken cocoon and watched as the man drew in short breaths, too quick and too shallow. He didn’t have to hear the faint wheezing sound at the end of each one to know what was wrong, or see the fear in Tarrant’s eyes to know just how wrong it was. The Prophet’s color—and his medical history—made that all too clear.
“Damn,” he whispered. “Not now, God. Couldn’t you let us get home first?”
“What is it?”
“Heart attack.” He could see Tarrant flinch as he spoke the words. “Or heart failure, more likely. He had the first incident right before he died, we know that.” And it drove him over the brink of sanity, so that he murdered his family andransomed his own soul to the Unnamed. Must this end the same way, God? Have you no better purpose for him than that? “Where’s the cause?” he demanded of Tarrant. “Do you know? Did you try to fix it?”
The Hunter shook his head weakly. “Doesn’t matter,” he whispered. “You can’t Heal here.”
“Just tell me, damn you!”
He shut his eyes and trembled: it was clear that every word took effort. “Congenital damage to the arterial wall,” he whispered. “Mitral valve . . .” He was struggling for each breath now, and Damien could hear the rasping wheeze behind each one. “Acquired. I tried....”
When it was clear that he had lost the strength for further speech, Karril dared, “Can you do something?”
What was he supposed to say? That there was nothing harder than Healing a beating heart, because if your every effort wasn’t perfectly attuned to that muscle’s natural rhythm, you could bring it to a halt altogether? That was all irrelevant anyway, wasn’t it? Damien couldn’t Heal here. The currents would fry him alive before he even got started.
Think man, think.There had to be a way. He hadn’t come this far to give up now. What tools were available to him? Tarrant was too weak to Work. He couldn’t do it with this much fae around. The lezu—
He drew in a sharp breath as it all came together. “Karril. Your kind can work with the fae, can’t it?”
The Iezu hesitated. “Not as you do. We can’t Work—”
“I know that! Sorcery’s not what I meant.” He struggled to find the proper words. “You can mold it, can’t you? Like you did to make a body.” He looked pointedly at the flesh Karril now wore, which he had used to support Gerald Tarrant. “I mean as a purely physical force. Can’t you do that?”
The Iezu nodded.
“Can you block it off? Divert its flow, maybe?” The Iezu looked dubious. “Anything, Karril! The currents here are too strong for me to Heal with. Is there any way you can help? If not and he nodded toward Tarrant, ”—he’ll die.“
The Iezu drew in a deep breath, deliberately melodramatic. “I can try,” he said at last. “Al
though I can’t promise—”
“Just do it!” Damien snapped. The Hunter’s lips were faintly blue: a bad, bad sign. “And hurry!”
The Iezu disappeared. Not fading slowly, as he normally did, but snuffed out like a candle flame in a wind. Apparently to manipulate the fae he had to be in his natural form... whatever the hell that was. Doesn’t matter, Damien thought grimly. Whatever works. He sat down by Tarrant’s side and gripped the man’s shoulder in reassurance. “You’re not going to die,” he whispered. “Not after all I went through to bring you here. You’re going home, dammit.” And then he saw the Hunter’s eyes widen in surprise, and he knew by that sign that the currents had changed. For the better, he prayed, as he prepared himself for Working. If not, they would both be dead soon enough.
With a deep breath for courage he reached down into the currents, grasping hold of Shaitan’s power—
Or rather, tried to. But there was nothing there. Had Karril failed him? Again he reached out with his mind, in the manner he had been taught, and again he utterly failed to make contact. But this time there was something there. A faint slithering of power, just enough to confirm that the currents were active. There was enough fae coursing around Tarrant’s body to Heal him, but Damien couldn’t seem to access it.
What the hell was wrong?
Again and again he tried, until a hot sweat broke out across his skin from the strain of his efforts. But the fae was like a wriggling eel, that slithered out of his mental grasp each time he tried to close in on it. Beside him Tarrant was gasping for breath, and his lips and eyes were shadowed with a deathly blue tint; he clearly didn’t have much time left. Again Damien tried to tackle the elusive earth-power, pouring everything he had into the effort. And for an instant he seemed to make real contact with it. For an instant he could taste what was wrong, and though he didn’t know its cause, the result was all too clear. The fae could be Worked, all right, but at a terrible price to the Worker. Was Damien Vryce willing to risk death to do this Healing, or was his own survival too precious for him to make such a commitment? He looked down at Tarrant, so very close to the gateway of death himself that his skin had taken on the color of a corpse, and felt an upwelling of cold determination in that place where the heat of fear might have taken root. You were willing to give up your life on Shaitan to save mankind from Calesta. You were willing to face Hell for that. I can’t let you die now, atthe very threshold of salvation. I can’t rob you of the chance to make your peace with God at last . . . not even to save my own skin.