Crown of Shadows

  “But you aren’t mine. You’re a guest from a foreign autarchy, with different traditions. Different beliefs regarding our faith. For all that we venerate unity, it would be unjust of me not to recognize that fact. Or to allow for it in my judgment.”

  Shaking, he struggled to voice some neutral respose. “I thank you, Holiness.”

  “Don’t. Not yet.” The sharp gaze was venemous. “I wrote to your Matriarch, and outlined the situation. A month ago I received her response.” He pulled a letter out from his robe, cream-colored parchment folded in thirds; the gold seal of the Church hung from the bottom. “It gives me permission to wield authority in both our names.” The cold eyes narrowed. “Do you understand me, Vryce? If I decided that you aren’t fit to be a priest, there’ll be no running home for redress. Judgment is here and now.”

  Damien said it very quietly, his heart pounding so loudly he could barely hear his own words. “Is that what you’ve decided?”

  For a moment the Patriarch said nothing, only studied him. “No,” he said at last. “Not yet. But the future’s in your hands. I want you to understand that. Comport yourself like a priest and you’ll remain one. Otherwise ...” The words trailed off into silence, a threat too terrible to be voiced. Otherwise you will have nothing, the silent words continued. Because without the priesthood, what are you?

  “I understand.” He tried to sound calmer than he felt. If only the Patriarch had read his report before meeting with him! Surely knowledge of the situation would mitigate his rage at Damien, and direct his energies elsewhere!

  What good will your holy protocol do if Calesta has his way? What good can the Church do in a world where sadism rules supreme? It’s humanity’s soul we’re fighting for now, can’t you see that? Can’t you see how petty your rules seem by contrast, when the future of the whole world is at stake?

  “Our most holy war is against corruption,” the Patriarch reminded him. “In this world, and in ourselves. The first battle is easy compared to the second. So the Prophet taught. I suggest you reflect upon that, and seek guidance from his writings. It may help put things in perspective for you.”

  He nearly lost control then, nearly snapped at the Patriarch that yes, he damned well knew about the Prophet’s writings, he had traveled with the bastard for two years now and probably had a better handle on his philosophy than any man alive. But—

  The Prophet is dead in this man’s eyes, he realized. And maybe that’s right. Maybe I sense a ghost of that identity in Tarrant because I want it to be there, not because it really is. Maybe I fear my own corruption too much to look at him objectively.

  He met the Patriarch’s gaze head-on; in coldness and power it reminded him of the Hunter’s own.

  You would have no power over me if I weren’t already plagued by guilt, he thought to the man. You would have no power to make me obey if I didn’t believe, in the core of my soul, that you were right.

  “I am the Church’s servant,” he said quietly. Trying his best to sound humble. “Now and always.”

  The Patriarch nodded; his expression was grim.

  “Then let’s see it stays that way, Reverend Vryce.” His voice was quiet, but the threat behind his words was clear. “Shall we?”

  Seven

  Narilka remembered:

  Kneeling on the ground, the cold ground, the Forest earth. Fingers raw and bleeding. Legs cramped from endless running. Exhaustion like a vise around her chest, and every breath gained a fleeting triumph against its constriction.

  Wait, he had said, when the Hunt was over and he had decided to spare her life. Just wait. My people will come for you.

  She tried not to be afraid. This was the Hunter’s land, wasn’t it? The people here were his. The beasts obeyed his will. Even the tentacles of thorny vines which had torn at her ankles while she fled, the black-barked trees which had blocked her path, the tangled branches overhead which filtered the moonlight so that practically none of it reached the ground... they were all his creatures, weren’t they? And he wouldn’t hurt her. He had promised her that. The Hunter would never, ever hurt her.

  “Please come soon,” she whispered, clutching the amulet he had given her. Blood from her roughened hands filled in the delicate etched channels, smeared across the golden surface. She could feel the Forest closing in around her like some vast living thing with a will of its own, its cold heartbeat throbbing beneath her knees. Every creature in its confines was a part of that system, every branch and insect and microbe. One living anatomy, all of it, united as the cells of a single body were united. And the Hunter was its brain. If he chose to kill her, then his Forest would rise up, every living and unliving thing within its borders, and crush her as surely as the swat of a human hand might kill an insect. All with no more thought than that, she knew. The Forest was his reflex, no more.

  He had promised not to hurt her.

  She clung to that thought as the cold breeze stirred branches too near her face, as their sharp tips scratched her skin ever so lightly. She jerked back, startled. There was rustling in the bushes all around her, and it took all her willpower not to struggle to her feet and start running again. Not that she would last long. She hadn’t slept for nearly three days now, and her only food had been hard black berries that had made her stomach cramp and had bloodied her stool. Fortunately she had found water on her second day, or she might not have made it this long—

  Fortunately? She laughed bitterly. There was no fortune in this place, nor any random hope to cling to. The Hunter had meant to chase her for three nights, therefore she had found enough water to keep going; his Forest had herded her properly. What kind of mind did it take to create such a place, what magnitude of power did it demand to keep it going? She couldn’t begin to understand it, but she had heard its music. Black music, whirlpooled in his eyes. She shivered, remembering it. She shivered for wanting it so badly, and for fearing that desire.

  The rustling had stopped, she realized suddenly. It seemed to her that it ended abruptly, or perhaps she was only suddenly aware of it. Trembling, she rose to her feet. Her legs shook and her feet burned in pain, but she managed to straighten up, her hand clenching the amulet so tightly that its edge cut hard into her palm. What new danger was this, that drove the normal denizens of the Forest to silence?

  It was a man.

  He stepped from the darkness suddenly, into a thin beam of moonlight that allowed her to see him. A ghost of a man, with ghastly pale skin and eyes that blazed blood-red in the darkness. His hands were long and thin and his fingernails had been sharpened like claws; his teeth, when he grinned, were long and sharp likewise, as though Nature had stripped them from some predatory beast and set them in his mouth. There was no color about him, not anywhere on his person, and his flesh had a nacreous glow that spoke of a chill, unwholesome power.

  There was sudden movement behind her, about her, and she whipped about to see its source. Wolves, lean and hungry... but not any creatures that Nature had made. These were warped, obscene entities, whose thin legs ended in handlike extremities, whose eyes glowed redly like the eyes of their master, whose fur was as pale as the fur that he wore on his vest, as the hide that made up his boots. It took effort to turn away from them, to face the man again; but he was their master, that she sensed clearly. Growl they might, paw the ground with their mishapen limbs, but they wouldn’t attack her without his approval.

  “Well. ” His thin lips twisted into a smile, or at least a close fascimile. “What have we here? A damsel in distress, perhaps?”

  His presence was like a chill wind that froze her skin as he approached. It took everything she had not to quail in terror before him, not to sink to her knees and beg wildly for mercy, though she sensed there was no mercy in him. He belongs to the Hunter, she told herself. The Hunter won’t hurt me. He promised.

  He came very close, so close that she could feel his breath upon her hair. The red eyes studied her—allof her—and as he glanced down at her chest with a smile, she r
ealized that the Hunter’s assault had left her half-bare, one breast and a shoulder exposed to the night. Did the white man stare at her in that way because he thought it would frighten her? Maybe in another time and place it would have. But she could still feel the Hunter’s grip upon her arm; she could still taste the terror of that moment. She could still feel his power, death-born, demanding, and a desire inside herself so terrible, so all-consuming, that it was all she could do not to offer herself up in sacrifice to his hunger. What was the mere gaze of one ghostly creature, compared to that? Fleshborn or fae-spawned, he was a servant of the Hunter. And the Hunter had promised that none of his people would hurt her.

  “I need to know the way out, ” she whispered. Her voice was weak, and hoarse from thirst. “Please. ”

  The ghost-man laughed; it was a cruel sound. “Do I look like a tour guide to you?” He reached out a hand toward her face, and she forced herself not to back away. Fear hammered in her chest, but fear was what he wanted; she refused to give him the pleasure of seeing her give in to it.

  “Such a pretty toy,” he mused. The white hand cupped the side of her head, caressing her roughly; where his thumb pressed against her temple there was a searing pain, so sharp that it nearly made her cry out. “Such a shame, to discard it now. ”

  Terror welled up inside her with numbing force, but with it came fury. Had she run for three nights from the Forest’s demonic master, feeding him with her blood and her suffering, only to yield up her hard-earned survival for this ghostly creature’s amusement? “No, ” she whispered. She pushed his hand away from her; her temple burned like fire. “No!” She thrust the amulet into his face, held the bloodied disk inches in front of those cruel red eyes. “He promised me safety. He gave me his word. ” There was no fear left in her now, nor room for any to take root. Fury had filled her to overflowing, and brought with it its own dark strength. “Take me out of here, ” she commanded. The pain in her temple was intense, nearly blinding, but she wouldn’t give him the pleasure of seeing her react to it. “Or leave me alone until someone comes along who can. ”

  The wolves behind her growled, and she heard one of them pad closer. She did not turn around. It was impossible to read the ghost-man’s expression, or to guess at his intentions. She felt something hot trickle down from her temple, where he had touched her skin. Was it blood? Did he thirst for that, too, like his master did? If so, the bloodied amulet was doubly challenging. She held it higher, demanding that he acknowledge it. She was not afraid now, not at all. The Hunter had claimed all the depths of her fear, and no other man—or beast—might inspire such emotion again.

  Then she sensed, rather than heard, the nearest wolves withdraw. She saw something in the white man’s expression change. And then he, too, stepped back, and caught up the amulet from out of her hand. He was careful not to touch her again, she noticed. Wary of doing any more damage to the Hunter’s prize?

  “Come, ” he said shortly. He turned from her, and she dared to draw in a long, deep breath. Behind her the wolves fell into line; she could hear them sniffing at her bloody footprints as she began to walk. “Move quickly. It’s almost dawn. ”

  Only a little while longer, she promised her bruised and battered feet. Her muscles burned, but she forced them to move. Only a few miles more. A few hours. Then sleep.

  Staggering along as best she could, she let the ghost-man lead her out of the Forest.

  Eight

  Damien Walked the streets until long after midnight. Through the Street of Gods, where countless deities vied for man’s worship. (How many of them were Iezu? he wondered. Did any of them know or care about Calesta’s plans?) Past the Inn of the New Sun, where he and Ciani had shared their first dinner, so long ago. Down through the mercantile district, to where the Fae Shoppe had once stood—

  It was gone now. More than gone. Its rubble had been carted away, its foundation reinforced with new concrete, and a three-story building had been erected in its place. That was high for a city plagued by constant small earthquakes; most architects preferred to keep their ambition under tight rein on such risky ground. But he could see the lines where resilient hask-fibers had been used to reinforce the walls, and a host of quake-wards marked every door, window, and potential weak point. God help Jaggonath if its wards ever failed, he thought. God help them if they were ever as helpless as Earth had been, in the face of an earthquake.

  Domina was overhead when he began the long walk back to his hotel. The Patriarch had offered him a room in the Annex—more out of custom than genuine courtesy, he suspected—but under the circumstances he thought it best that his lodgings be separate. Not that it would keep the Patriarch from knowing what he did, he thought bitterly. Hard as he racked his brain, he could not come up with any explanation for the Holy Father’s detailed knowledge of his sins. Sure, Calesta would like him to know, but how could the demon present such knowledge to a man like the Patriarch without him rejecting it utterly just for its source? Thus far Damien had not dared a Knowing, or any other form of Working, to try to uncover the truth. Because if he did that and the Patriarch found out there’d be no staunching his rage. Maybe Tarrant, with his more subtle skills, could manage it secretly enough. Maybe.

  It was nearly one when he climbed the steps to his rooms. The lodging house was deserted, and only a faint chill clinging to the banister gave any hint that an unhuman presence had passed that way. But he knew that chill by now, and its owner, and therefore it was no surprise to him when he unlocked the door to his small apartment and found the Hunter waiting.

  “I’d have thought you’d be keeping an earlier schedule by now,” Tarrant challenged.

  “Yeah. Well.” He pulled the door shut behind him and locked it, then made his way wearily to a well-worn chair. Dust gusted up from the cushion as he sat. “I had a bad day.”

  He could feel the force of the earth-fae sucking at him as the Hunter’s Knowing reached into his brain for surface details. Let him. It was easier to endure the invasion than try to capture the day’s humiliation in words.

  “I’m sorry,” the Hunter said at last. Regret, not apology.

  Damien managed to shrug. “I guess it could have been worse.” He looked up at Tarrant, noted that as usual he looked neither tired, distressed, disheveled ... nor human. “How’s the Forest?”

  It seemed to him that the Hunter hesitated. “Safe enough,” he said at last. “But our enemy’s workings can be subtle, and I wouldn’t bet my life on such an assessment.”

  “Yeah. Same here.”

  “You believe that Calesta has made contact with the Patriarch?”

  He gazed into Tarrant’s eyes. Cold, so cold. Pits of anti-life. How could he have imagined that the Patriarch resembled him? Or any living man, for that matter?

  “He knew,” he said bitterly. “Everything. Details he couldn’t possibly have learned from any other source.” He met that inhuman gaze head-on, drawing strength from its cold inner fire. This is my ally. My support. He wished the thought felt more uncomfortable than it did. Had he changed so much in the last two years? “He knows I fed you my blood,” he said quietly. “He knows about the channel between us. Do you realize how that damns me, in the Church’s eyes? There’s nothing I can say now to save myself. Nothing I can do, except avoid the source of corruption from now on.”

  “Is that what you want?” Tarrant demanded. “If it truly is, then I’ll leave you. If you value your precious peace of mind more than our mission. Maybe Calesta will even forgive you in time, learn to leave you alone, once you’ve ceased to be—”

  “Don’t be a fool, Gerald.” He reached for a bottle of ale he had left on the table earlier in the day; it was warm now, but what the hell. “Neither one of us is safe until Calesta’s dead and gone. Hell, the whole vulking world isn’t safe anymore.” He drank deeply of the warm ale, wincing as its spices bit into his tongue. “Look what happened in the east. Look at how many lives would have been sacrificed to one demon’s hunger, if you hadn??
?t—”

  The Hunter’s expression darkened. Damien let the words trail off into silence.

  “Sorry,” he said at last. “I shouldn’t remind you.”

  Tarrant turned away, toward the window.

  “At any rate, we don’t stand a chance singly and you know it. Like it or not, we’re stuck with each other.” We may not even stand a chance together, he thought grimly as he took another swig of the warm ale. The alcohol was slowly loosening a knot in his belly the size of Jaggonath. Well worth the lousy taste. “So how did your research go?”

  Tarrant shook his head sharply in frustration. “Volumes of notes, centuries of study, and not one useful bit of information. Oh, I can recite you the names of over a hundred Iezu, complete with their aspects, preferred forms, and habitats, but according to Karril none of his family will get involved in this, not even to the extent of pointing us toward more useful information. Their progenitor’s code is apparently enforced with vigor. Thank God for that, anyway.”

  “Thank God for it?” He raised an eyebrow. “That code seems to be our greatest impediment right now.”

  “Their progenitor also forbids the Iezu from killing humans, at least directly. Which is the only reason you and I are still alive.”

  “You said they have no power but illusion. Surely that—” “

  “How little work would it take to make me stay out past dawn, believing that the sun hadn’t yet begun to rise? How little work to arrange an accident for you, how small an illusion to make you misjudge the edge of a pier or a cliff, or mistake the flow of traffic in the streets? No man can stay on his guard against such tricks forever, Reverend Vryce. No, if Calesta meant to kill us, then we would both have died long ago. As it is, I’m sure he’s planned something far more ... unpleasant.”