Crown of Shadows

  “What do you want?” he begged aloud. Willing Calesta to hear him, to answer. “What’s the point of this? Tell me!” But there was no response. At last he struggled to his feet and staggered over to his bureau, where a flask of Jaggonath brandy awaited him. Disdaining glasses, he upended it and drank directly from its narrow neck, feeling the powerful liquid burn its way down his throat. Not enough. Not enough. Stumbling over to the table at his bedside, he caught up a small glass vial; black pills winked at him from within, promising the ultimate forgetfulness. It was dangerous to drink and then take these, too, he knew that. But what did it matter? Did he really want to live another day? Did he dare to face her again?

  Choking with shame, he spilled out a small handful of pills, enough for an evening’s oblivion. With a quick motion he tossed them all into his mouth and used the brandy to wash them down. Fast. Before he could have second thoughts. If it killed him, then it killed him. At least this torture would be over with.

  “What’s the armor for?” he begged. The demon didn’t answer him, which raised new doubts. What if Calesta didn’t just hate Gerald Tarrant, after all, but all the Tarrant clan? Him included? What if this was just some complex game the demon had concocted to torture them all—

  No, he didn’t dare think that, he didn’t dare—

  Too much torture, too much too much!

  “Calesta,” he gasped. “Please. Help me.”

  But there was only darkness, and silence.

  “That boy,” Gresham said, “has real problems.”

  She wrung out the rag in the sink, not saying anything. She didn’t trust herself to speak.

  “Nari.”

  Slowly she turned to him, laying the rag aside. The floor was clean. The armor was clean. Her hands had finally stopped shaking.

  “Nari. He’s trouble.”

  She didn’t dare look at him. She knew how well he could read her.

  “You’re stuck on him, aren’t you?” His voice was gentle but the disapproval was clear. “Couldn’t you have picked a sane one, this time? There are a few around, you know.

  “Please, Gresh.” She leaned against the edge of the worktable; her blouse front brushed the coronet. “Not now.”

  “Nari. Listen to me.” He came up behind her and took her by the shoulders, turning her to face him. “You’re like family to me, you know that? And when family gets hurt, it hurts me, too.”

  She was looking away, refusing to face him; he caught up her chin in his and and gently turned her back to him. “He’s good-looking. He’s rich. He’s got charm that most men would kill for. And he’s got problems, Nari. Real problems. Did you see the look on his face when he saw his reflection? Did you?”

  “I saw,” she whispered.

  “I don’t know what’s going on with that boy, but I’d bet this shop it isn’t healthy. Haven’t you had enough of that kind? Don’t you deserve something better?”

  “I saw,” she whispered. Fingering the delicate silverwork. He had touched it, too, and his hand had trembled. Why?

  Yes, I saw him. I saw eyes wide with the kind of terror most men never know. Looking into those eyes was like looking into a mirror. Like being back in the Forest again, running from the unknown. Alone, so alone. Yes, I know that look.

  “Nari—”

  “I’m not a child,” she snapped. Pulling away from him. “Not anymore. I can take care of myself.”

  And he would accept that, she knew it. That was the marvel of their relationship. Even though he was concerned for her, even though he thought she was dead wrong, even though he was sure she was heading for disaster. That was the difference between Gresham Alder and her parents. He had seen the change in her, when she returned from the Forest, and he had accepted it. Her parents couldn’t. They still wanted to baby her, to shield her from all the evils of the world, and no matter what she said or did, they would never change in that orientation. How could she explain to them that she had already faced the greatest evil of all, the well of terror in her own soul? How could she explain the way in which that confrontation had transformed her, smothering the helpless child who so needed protection, giving birth to someone older and stronger and far more adaptable. What did the petty evils of this world amount to, when compared to the Hunter’s Forest? Abusive men were an annoyance, nothing more. Even rapists were a finite terror. And as for men who wore the Hunter’s face, whose haunted eyes hinted at wounds so vast that no mere words could set them to healing....

  I can handle it, she told herself. Running her fingers over the sterling figures, imagining that she could feel Andrys Tarrant’s warmth through the metal. Drawn to his pain, even as powerfully as she was drawn to his person. And I want to.

  “I’ll be careful,” she told him. “I promise.”

  Six

  “His Holiness will be with you shortly.”

  Damien nodded a distracted acknowledgment as the acolyte left him. He had been left to wait in the antechamber to the Patriarch’s formal audience chamber, which didn’t bode at all well for his upcoming interview. It was a space designed to impress, perhaps intimidate, and it did so with marked aesthetic efficiency. The high, vaulted ceiling was of dark polished stone, unwarmed by paint or plaster; the numarble walls were sleek and minimally decorated. The furniture was stiff and formal, and after sitting in a high-backed chair for several seconds he decided he would much rather pace. All in all it was a markedly uncomfortable place, and Damien guessed that the room beyond, where the Patriarch meant to receive him, was much the same. Maybe worse. Not the kind of atmosphere he’d hoped for, that was certain.

  What the hell did you expect? ‘Come into my parlor for tee, and oh, by the way, would you mind filling me in on your recent activities?’ Fat chance, Vryce. You’ll be lucky if he listens to you at all, and doesn’t just throw you out before you get a chance to open your mouth in your own defense.

  There was a small mirror on the far wall, a minimal concession to visitors who might wish to see if they looked as uncomfortable as they felt. He paused in his pacing to look in it, to see what manner of man the Patriarch would be confronting. The priest who gazed back at him was not the same man who’d left Jaggonath two years earlier, that was sure. Limited rations at sea had thinned his stocky frame until he looked almost trim, an unfamiliar somatype. With a weathered hand he stroked the short beard that now marked his jawline, and wondered if he shouldn’t have shaved it off. His skin was markedly darker than it had been two years ago, a tawny brown that spoke eloquently of long months beneath an equatorial sun. There was gray in his hair now, a few strands at the temples and scattered bits of it in his beard. Gray! It was an affront to everything he perceived himself to be, the first hint of decay in a life too full of challenges to slow down for anything as mundane as aging. He had almost pulled the hairs out when they first appeared—back when there were fewer than a dozen—but the sheer vanity of such an act reminded him of Tarrant, and so he’d let the damn things stay.

  You could use the fae to maintain youth, he told himself. Others have done it. Ciani did it. At times, now, he could see how tempting that path might become, as age continued its inexorable assault on his flesh. But the Patriarch’s words, voiced so long ago, came back to him at such moments. When the time comes to die, as it comes to all men, will you bow down to the patterns of Earth-life that are the core of our very existence? Or submit to the temptations of this alien magic, and sell your soul for another few years of life? The acceptance of such natural processes was central to Damien’s faith, and dying at his appointed time would be his ultimate service to his God. Sure, it would be hard. Many things in this world were hard. That’s what gave them power.

  “Reverend Vryce?” It was the Patriarch’s secretary, a young man Damien dimly remembered from two years back. “Please come in.”

  To his surprise the man did not lead him into the audience chamber, but opened the heavy mahogova doors for him and stepped aside for him to enter alone.

  It was a la
rge room, formal like the antechamber but more impressive in size and proportion. It reminded him somewhat of Gerald Tarrant’s own audience chamber in his keep in the Forest. He stiffened as the memory of that tense meeting (so long ago that it might have been in another world, so real that it seemed hardly yesterday) came back to him. Back then one friend had been dying, another kidnapped, and the Hunter was his enemy. Now... he felt something tighten inside his gut as he walked toward the arbiter of his faith. Now he was... what? The Hunter’s ally?

  The Patriarch’s expression was stonelike, unreadable, but a cold rage burned in his eyes. Such was the chill of it that Damien could feel his skin tighten in physical response. In two years’ time he had managed to forget the power the Holy Father wielded: not simply the force of a unique personality, but the faeborn aggression of a man who molded the currents to his will without even knowing it. Now, standing against the force of that rage was like trying to keep his footing in a riptide.

  If only you could learn to wield that power consciously, Damien thought, no man could stand against you. But the Patriarch never would. Sorcery was anathema to him, and so he had blocked all knowledge of his own natural skills, and lived an illusion of flesh-bound helplessness. God alone knows what would happen to you if you ever learned the truth.

  “I’ve received your reports,” the Patriarch said acidly. He gestured briefly to a table by his side, and the manuscripts that lay upon it. Damien saw the coarse sheets of his first report, shipped home from Faraday, and the thinner package of notes and drawings he had delivered himself to the Cathedral two days ago. At the time it had seemed like a good idea, letting the Patriarch see the nature of the war they were fighting in the hope he would be more forgiving about how the battle had been waged. But the ribbon which sealed the second package was still unbroken. He began to protest, then stopped himself. The Holy Father had deliberately chosen not to read his work in advance of their meeting as a gesture of his condemnation. To protest such a move would only bring that rage crashing down upon his head.

  You knew this would be bad, he told himself. Defiance will only make it worse. Swallow your pride for once in your goddamn life and wait this out. It’ll pass. But it was hard, so very hard. It went against every instinct of self-preservation that he had.

  “I’m sure I don’t need to comment upon your breach of protocol in leaving this continent without permission.” The Patriarch’s tone was like ice. “Your own report made it clear that you knew exactly what you were doing—and, I suspect, exactly what the eventual cost of such disobedience would be. To show such a level of disrespect for proper authority is a grave offense in a Church whose very foundation is hierarchical stability.” He shook his head stiffly. “But you’re not a stupid man, Reverend Vryce, though sometimes you play at it. You’ve read the Prophet’s writings often enough to know your sin for what it was.”

  “I thought the situation merited it,” he dared. Where was the safe ground in this scene? He wished he dared work a Knowing for guidance, but that was, of course, out of the question. “Under the circumstances—”

  “Please. Don’t insult us both. You knew exactly what you were doing, and what my reaction would be. And you also knew that your blatant defiance would give me the authority to discipline you in whatever manner I thought best, without interference from anyone.”

  There it was, the threat at last. How bad will it be? he thought desperately. He remembered the nightmare Tarrant had once crafted for him, in which the Patriarch had cast him out of the Church. Would he really go that far? Without even reading his report, which justified so many of his actions? He began to protest, then bit back on it in anguish. The Patriarch was radiating rage in waves that warped the fae all around them; he wanted the priest to react to him in anger, to justify the very harshest sentence. If Damien gave in to that influence and lost his temper, even for a moment, he might indeed lose everything.

  “I am the Church’s loyal servant,” he muttered.

  “Yes,” he said icily. “You are still that. For now.”

  He stared at Damien in silence for several long seconds. Studying him? Measuring his response? He forced himself to say nothing, knowing that any words he chose would be wrong.

  “You traveled with the Hunter,” the Patriarch said at last. His voice was cold, his manner utterly condemning. “A man so evil that many consider him to be a true demon. There’s enough wrongdoing in that one act alone to condemn a dozen priests like you... and yet the matter doesn’t end there, does it?” The cold eyes narrowed. “Does it!”

  “We needed him,” Damien said tightly. “We needed the kind of power he controlled to—”

  “Listen to yourself! Listen to your own words! You needed his power. You needed his sorcery.” He shook his head sharply. “Do you think it makes a difference whether you fashion a Working yourself, or hire another to do it? Either way, you are responsible for the proliferation of sorcery. And in this case, for the proliferation of evil.”

  He waved his hand suddenly, as if dismissing all that. For an instant something flashed in his eyes that was not rage. Exhaustion? Then it was gone, and only steel resolve remained. “But you know that argument as well as I do, Reverend Vryce. And I have no doubt that you’ve gone over it yourself time and time again, trying to find some theological loophole to save yourself with. An intelligent man can justify anything in his own mind, if he’s determined enough.”

  He paused for a moment then, and Damien could almost feel the waves of condemnation lapping about his feet. The man’s power was vast, if unconscious; by now all the fae in the room would be surely echoing his words, undermining the foundations of Damien’s confidence. How did you fight such a thing without Working openly? “My only intention—” he began.

  The Patriarch cut him short. “You fed him your blood.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement of utter revulsion. “More than once.”

  He was so stunned by the accusation that he could manage no coherent response, could only whisper “What?” The Patriarch couldn’t possibly have knowledge of that incident. Could he? What was going on here?

  “Let’s ignore for the moment the symbolic power of such an act. Let’s ignore the vast power you added to his arsenal, by making a voluntary sacrifice of your own flesh. Let’s ignore even the channel it established between you, which by definition cuts through the heart of your defenses and makes you vulnerable to all his sorcery. Thus making the Church vulnerable, through you.”

  Was this another nightmare that Tarrant was feeding him, in order to make him afraid? If so, it was working. How the hell did the Patriarch know such details of his travels, when his reports had made no hint of them? He found that he was trembling, and hoped that the Holy Father couldn’t see it.

  “Yes or no,” the Patriarch said icily.

  Did he really know, or was he only guessing? Why would one guess a thing like that? Feverishly he tried to work out how to minimize the damage. If the Patriarch’s source of information was unreliable—

  “Yes or no!” he demanded.

  Nightmare. It was a scene out of nightmare. How many times had Damien dreamed this scene, or its equivalent? And yet those dreams had no emotive power at all compared to this, the real thing.

  Where the hell had the Patriarch gotten his information?

  “Yes or no.”

  He looked up into the Patriarch’s ice-cold eyes, and suddenly knew the futility of denial. If the Patriarch had such detailed information as this, then there was no point in dissembling; the man had damned Vryce long ago, and long ago decided his punishment. Lying to him now would only make things worse.

  He said it quietly, trying not to sound either guilty or defiant. “Yes.”

  A strange shiver seemed to pass through the Holy Father’s frame. Had he expected some other answer? Damien felt as if he were being tested somehow, but not in any manner he could understand.

  “You conversed with demons.” There was no hesitation in the Patriarch’s manner now
; whatever confirmation he had required from Damien, he was clearly satisfied that he had it. “You countenanced the slaughter of numerous innocents, in order that the Hunter might be fed.”

  It took all his strength not to snap back a sharp response; the fae was beating at his will, battering his self-control. “It was necessary,” he forced out between gritted teeth. “If you would read my report—”

  “You gave in to corruption. ” The very air seemed to shiver with the power of the Patriarch’s condemnation.

  “You fell into the Prophet’s own trap, justifying your sins by the very scriptures that damned you.” He paused, then demanded, “Must I deal with each transgression individually?” he demanded. “Or will you simply accept that I know them all? That I pass judgment on you not only for one sin, or several, but for nearly two years of continual defiance?”

  He drew in a deep breath. “Your Holiness, if you would only let me explain—”

  “In good time, Reverend Vryce. I’ll read your report. I may even listen to what you have to say. After I’ve made my position perfectly clear.”

  He paced a few steps toward the far wall and back again. “If you were one of my own I wouldn’t hesitate to demote you, maybe even cast you out of the priesthood entirely. Because allowing you to serve the Church is one thing, but allowing you to represent it is another matter entirely. If I had ordained you—if any of my people had—I might free you here and now of all your Church obligations, so that you could spend your years warring with demons and gambling for human souls without any concern for my interference. I suspect you would be happier that way.