Crown of Shadows

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  His first instinct was to dismiss that thought and any similar fears as a symptom of Tarrant’s condition. It was a known fact that heart failure tended to bring on a sense of dread in its victims, and while that emotion normally focused on the event itself, there was no reason why it couldn’t spill over into other areas. There was also a possibility that the adept had simply met his limit, and was so drained by his condition that not even Working was possible. That last was the most appealing explanation, and he tried hard to believe it. But honesty forced him to remember how much trouble he’d had accessing the fae for his own Working, and the feeling he’d had at the time that using the fae might cost him his life. “Maybe it’s just the currents in this place,” he offered. But he knew even as he spoke that it had to be something more.

  The Hunter shook his head sharply. “The currents may be stronger here, but earth-fae is earth-fae. And I tried other Workings while you were busy.” He nodded toward the overhang. “None had any effect at all. I’ve Worked the fae for nearly a thousand years, Vryce, and it never failed to respond like that. Yet you Worked it,” he said; the words were almost an accusation.

  “Yeah. Barely.” He turned away, not wanting to meet Tarrant’s eyes. That was one experience he didn’t feel like sharing. “I’m not sure I could do it again.” Not unlessIreallywanted to, he thought. Not unless I was willing to pay a hell of a price for it.“You may be right,” he admitted. “But if so, then what—”

  Tarrant began to shift position as he spoke, but a sudden spasm turned his words into a groan. It took no magician to know what that meant; Damien had been expecting it. “I Worked a diuretic to drain your lungs,” Damien told him, “so you’ll be voiding excess fluid pretty steadily for a while. May I recommend the view over that way?” He indicated the overhang, then couldn’t resist adding, “You do remember how to piss, I assume?”

  With a wordless glare the Hunter got to his feet and headed toward the scenic spot. Damien watched him for a moment, then—when he was satisfied that he was steady enough on his feet not to go tumbling down the mountainside—he looked at Karril. “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “Your kind can see the fae, can’t it? So I assume you saw what happened. Any guesses?”

  “I was quite involved with my own assignment, thank you very much. You were the one who didn’t want to be drowned in the local power, remember?—But yes, I saw what happened. And it was . . .” He hesitated. “Strange.”

  “In what way?”

  “The fae responds naturally to humans, y
ou know that. Every human thought, every dream, even a man’s passing fancy will leave its mark on that power. Oh, sometimes there’s no more than a quiver in the current—hardly enough to affect the material world—but the response is always there. Always. Except when you tried to Work before,” he told Damien. “When you first tried to Heal Tarrant, there was no response at all. And he’s trying to Work right now—” he looked pointedly at Tarrant, “—and it’s the same as it was with you. No response at all.”

  Tarrant’s concentration was focused on the ground at his feet, and he was clearly trying to mold the local currents to his will. His brow had tightened into a hard line. His eyes were narrowed to slits. He even cursed, perhaps the first time that Damien had ever heard him do so. Clearly, his chosen tests had failed.

  With one last glance at the ruddy sunset to the west of them (and Damien didn’t have to be psychic to know how much Tarrant wanted to study it longer, his first sight of the sun in over nine centuries) the adept rejoined them. “Something’s changed, no doubt about it.” His tone and his expression were both grim. “I can’t tell for certain what happened without some more specific tests, but I don’t think either you or I should count on being able to Work until we get out of here. Once we get back, I can figure out what happened, and hopefully discover a way to work around it.”

  Hopefully. There was a stress on that word, ever so subtle, which underscored a fear neither man would voice. If something had changed in the currents, what if that change were permanent? What if it turned out to be a problem not with the fae, but with them?

  And then the other words hit him. So casually voiced, but they resounded in his brain all the more powerfully for their lack of emphasis. Once we get back. Such a simple, disarming phrase! As if getting back were something they had always expected to do. As if they hadn’t thought they would die on this journey, and thus had made no plans for ever going home. Damien felt his heart lurch as he acknowledged that the possibility was suddenly very real. Tarrant was alive. The enemy they thought they could never vanquish was dead and gone. They were going home....

  Focus on that, he thought. Not the other thing. That was too terrifying to face, and they weren’t likely to come up with answers until Tarrant had the strength and the leisure to investigate the matter. He forced himself to turn to Karril and he asked, “Will you come with us?” Not only because the Iezu would be a valuable guide in this land—doubly valuable if they really couldn’t Work—but because, at that moment, Karril was part and parcel of their triumph, and he wanted him there.

  The Iezu looked at Tarrant, and something unspoken seemed to pass between them. At last he shook his head. “I can’t. I’m sorry. My family . . .” He gazed out into the valley, toward Shaitan, where the other Iezu gathered. “There are so many questions to be answered now. My place is with them for as long as I can stay here.” He looked back at Tarrant, as if expecting him to say something, but the Hunter remained silent. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “But you really don’t need me now.”

  “I understand,” Damien assured him. He turned to Tarrant, but the Hunter’s eyes were fixed on Shaitan. “We can stay here a while if you think you need more rest, but we’re low on supplies, so it can’t be too long. You tell me.” When Tarrant said nothing, he pressed, “Ready to go home yet?”

  “Do what you think is best,” the Hunter said quietly.

  He knew that tone of voice. God damn it, he knew it all too well. He knew what it meant when the Hunter shifted from the plural pronoun to the singular, too, and damn it to Hell! This wasn’t the place for that kind of game, or the time for it, or ... or anything!

  “We’re going home, right?” His tone was half plea, half growl. “Calesta’s dead. The Forest’s so far gone by now that you can’t change what happens there one way or the other. Right? The whole goddamn world’s at peace and I didn’t figure we’d both still be part of it, so I don’t have the kind of food and water it would take for two people to go off and do something stupid. Whatever that stupid thing happened to be.—Are you listening to me, Gerald?”

  The adept’s eyes remained fixed on Shaitan, as if something there were so fascinating he dared not turn away even for a moment. “She’s a starfarer,”he breathed. “Not just the descendant of an alien species stranded on this world—like we are—but an individual born and bred on another planet, with memories of foreign stars and the technology needed to get to them.” At last he turned away from that view and faced Damien again. “What was the point of all my work, if not to give us the stars? Why have men rallied to the Church’s banner for the past thousand years, if not for that dream?” He turned back to Shaitan and inhaled deeply, as if tasting its potential in the air. “This place is a gateway. This creature, this mother of aliens... is mankind’s future. Her technology may be too alien for us to use directly, but perhaps between us we can forge something that will serve both species.”

  “And her children will, no doubt, be happy to act as go-betweens to—” He saw the quick look that passed between Tarrant and Karril and felt something tighten in his gut. “What is it? What’s wrong with that?”

  Karril said quietly, “We can’t stay here.”

  Tarrant nodded. “The Iezu were bred to interact with humans, and must do so for their own survival. There’s no food here to sustain them, nor anything else that they require. And even if they could stay, what would become of the temples they’re nurtured, the cults that have declared them gods, the human symbionts they must support? Oh, some of them will remain here for a time, but will those few be enough? When will the critical mass of this gathering be weakened enough that the mother’s voice loses its coherency, and humanity loses its most valuable ally?”

  Speechless, Damien turned to Karril for support. But the Iezu only nodded sadly, as if to say, Yes, he’s right. It’s only a matter of time. “So what?” he demanded. “You’re going to stay here? There’s no food here for you either, Gerald, do I have to remind you of that? And what the hell are you going to do for them, anyway?”

  “I’m not going to stay,” he said quietly.

  He forced himself to breathe in deeply. “Well. That’s something, anyway.”

  “Humanity will need a means of translation. So will the Iezu for that matter, at least the ones most human in aspect.”

  “So what do you propose to do? Work some kind of translating pattern? You know that’s impossible right now. You said yourself that until you had a chance to test the currents you wouldn’t know why they had failed to respond to us, much less be able to Work them again. So what then?”

  “A Working isn’t what’s needed now. Not as much as a sound understanding of who and what the Iezu are, and how their mother’s need was expressed through each of them. They are her true language, Vryce, her cries of desperation rendered in fae and flesh. What form did each one first appear in? What pattern did their learning take?” He looked at Karril. “At what point did they first express emotions outside of their aspect, and what prompted that change?”

  “You’re talking about a complete family history,” Damien challenged. “Going back—what—nearly a thousand years?”

  “Nearly that,” Karril agreed.

  “No one’s going to have that kind of information just sitting around. If you want those kinds of facts, you’ll have to do research, and for that you need to go back to where there are people and libraries and loremasters to help you.” Ciani had kept notes on everything, he remembered suddenly. Perhaps other adepts did the same. “We can look for some sorcerer who specializes in demon lore—”

  And then it hit him. Just like that. One moment blissful ignorance, and the next, stunning truth. “Shit,” he whispered. “No.”

  Tarrant said quietly. “I’m afraid so.”

  “There’s a war on in the Forest. Have you forgotten that? More enemies than you can count, all focused on your destruction—”

  “And they mean to burn the Forest to the ground when they’re done, and all my poss
essions along with it. Which means that in a few days’ time my notebooks will be ash, and the lezu’s history lost forever.”

  “We can work a Remembering—” he began.

  And then he remembered what the fae was like now. How hard it was to Work. And he knew that they dared not count on being able to use it in the future, not for a matter this complex.

  “Shit,” he muttered. “Shit.”

  “I told you I have a tunnel, Vryce. It comes in under my keep, to a chamber so well warded that even if my enemies gain access to the building itself, they will never find its entrance. We’ll come in and take what we want and be gone again before the Church ever realizes we’re there, I promise you.”

  “And do you know for a fact that your wards still work?” he demanded. “Have you thought of that?”

  “I tested one which I carry, and its effect is unchanged. Apparently past Workings still maintain their power.” His pale eyes glittered redly in the dying sunlight ; even without the fae his gaze had tremendous power. “So what do you say, Vryce? Must I go there alone? Because with or without you, I cannot allow those notes to burn. Too much of mankind’s future depends on them.”

  Shit.

  He turned away from them both, struggling to think it out clearly. The last thing he needed now was a trek to the Forest, least of all while the Patriarch and his soldiers were tearing the place apart. The last thing Tarrant needed now was a fresh exertion, when his newly healed flesh was still struggling with the transition from undeath to life. The last thing anyone here needed was to risk all that they had won for a handful of books—books, God damn it! Even if those books were the key to humanity’s future, and that of the Iezu. Even if those books might allow both species to return to the stars.