They gathered around him.
Dead, another agreed. And a third added, Without question.
Who will tell the Keeper that we lost her?
They looked at the bodies, the fallen horses, the roads . . . anywhere but at their fellows.
The Keeper will know, one said at last. When we enter the homeland. As soon as we do.
They considered that. Several of them shivered.
We could . . . choose not to go home.
For a moment there was silence, as they all considered that option. But it really was no option, and they knew it. The rage when the Keeper learned of their failure would be nothing compared to what they would suffer if they tried to flee. The Master of Lema was wise, they told themselves, and experienced, and would know that these things happened. Surely their punishment would not be too harsh.
They looked at the bodies—and licked the blood from their lips—savoring the last echoes of the humans’ screams. And then they turned south, toward the outskirts of Sheva, and began the long journey home.
Twenty-seven
Gazing out into the night, Gerald Tarrant thought, It’s done. The black stonework of his observatory was barely visible even to him, cloaked as it was by the absolute darkness of the true night. Soon, however, Casca would rise in the west, shedding its maverick light upon the landscape. And then the most delicate wisps of the dark fae—which were also the most powerful—would dissolve into nothingness, and take their Workings with them.
Good enough. The job was done. The demons from the rakhlands, secure in their triumph, had already turned toward home. In a few days’ time they would cross beneath the edge of the Canopy, which barrier would then keep them from realizing the truth—that they had been tricked, and tricked thoroughly.
He watched with his special vision as his Working faded in the distance, as the three humans he had altered regained their original identities. It didn’t matter now. The demons had already moved on and wouldn’t see the change. Only with the dark fae was such an illusion possible—one that was maintained not only on the gross physical planes but in the arena of thought as well—but the dark fae was a fickle, impermanent force, and could hardly be bound now to sustain an illusion that no longer had purpose. He would have to lead the lady’s people along a slightly different path, to avoid the questions which the presence of bodies might raise. . . .
Listen to yourself, he thought angrily. You’re catering to them!
Better that they should cater to you.
Three nights, at most. Maybe less. Then he would leave the Forest which had been his home—his shield—his refuge. The land which was him, as much as the flesh he wore.
And what if some idiot lights a match while I’m gone? He looked out over the thickly webbed canopy and considered calling rain. With enough effort he could establish a weather pattern that would guarantee regular precipitation for months . . . but with winter coming that could as easily mean snow, and too much snow meant its own special perils. No. Let nature take its course. Amoril could handle the Forest. The albino couldn’t Work the weather yet—possibly he’d never be able to—but his skills were strong enough in other areas. And if at times he seemed to lack . . . say, a sense of aesthetics . . . he more than made up for that with his enthusiasm.
And besides, no one would know that the Hunter had left. He must remember that. No one would know that the Hunter had passed beyond a boundary through which no human thought could travel, and was cut off from that source of power which he had cultivated for centuries. . . .
He felt a tremor deep within himself, as if some part of the human self he had buried had trickled through to the surface. Fear? Anticipation? Dread? He had lived for so long within the Forest’s hospitable confines that he could no longer remember what it was like to be afraid. Somewhere along the line he had lost that, too, as if fear and love and compassion and paternal devotion had all been a package deal, discarded together in that first red sacrifice which took him from one life to another.
And if he feared, was there something that would feed on that? As he fed on the fear of others—that last delicious moment when the human mind abandoned all hope and the defenses of the soul came crashing down? Man had arrived on this planet little more than a millenium ago, and already there were myriad creatures that relied on him for sustenance; why should the food chain stop there?
In the quiet of the night, the Neocount of Merentha mused: How long does evolution take, among the damned?
CITADEL OF STORMS
Twenty-eight
They left the gloomy replica of Merentha Castle promptly at dusk. Or so they were told. High up on the ramparts it might have been possible to see the sun, possible to verify that day had indeed ended and the reign of night begun. But in the closed corridors of the castle’s interior and beneath the Forest’s thickly woven canopy, one had to take such things on faith. The Hunter’s faith.
They had no other choice.
Tarrant provided horses for Ciani and himself, jet-black creatures with muscular limbs and rich, glossy coats. They left behind them a trail of crescent indentations, as unlike the three-toed marks left by Damien’s mounts as those of another species would be. Their proportion, likewise, seemed strange to the eye, almost but not quite identical to that of their southern brethren. Damien was hard pressed to put his finger on the difference—but he knew, whatever it was, that it was both controlled and intentional. With a thousand years of leisure time on his hands and the nearly unlimited potential of the Forest’s fae, the Neocount of Merentha had completed his most ambitious task. Erna now had true horses.
Without a word, as if they feared that the noise of speech might somehow put them in danger, the party rode east. The foliage of the Forest parted before them like a living thing—and on those occasions when it failed to do so, the Hunter’s coldfire would flare in the path ahead of them, clearing the way. When they passed, then, they would find the plant life frozen and brittle; the tree branches that had previously hindered them shattered into frigid dust at the mere sound of their passage.
They rode for hours. At last it was Damien who called a halt, judging that the horses would need a breather if they were to continue at pace until dawn. He looked at Tarrant and gestured toward the ground, as if questioning its safety. After a moment the Hunter smiled—faintly, ever so faintly, as if traveling with mere humans had sapped him of humor—and then drew his sword. Silver-blue light filled the air, and a gust of frigid wind went sweeping past Damien, sucked toward the Worked steel. Then the Hunter thrust downward, casting his weapon into the earth. The ground seemed to shudder and cracks appeared, jagged lines that radiated out from the invading swordpoint. The front end of a wormlike creature broke ground and then stiffened—and shivered into a thousand bits of crystal that sparkled like fresh snow on the frozen ground. After that, there was no further movement.
“You can dismount,” the Hunter assured them.
Damien and Senzei fed their mounts from the stores they had brought with them; the Hunter’s black horses, weaned on the Forest’s vegetation, seemed content to crop the leafless stalks that flanked the cleared area. Damien wondered what adjustments he had made to their digestive systems that allowed them to thrive in this dismal place. Did their massive hooves keep them safe from Forest predators who might otherwise track them through the heat of their trail? What adaptive purpose had such thick armor plates served on Earth, where a beast might tread the ground without fear of heatseekers?
“When we reach Sheva,” Tarrant told them, “and from then on, I would prefer you not use my title. Or refer to my true identity.”
“They seemed to recognize you outside Mordreth,” Senzei challenged.
“As a servant of the Hunter. Not as the Hunter himself.”
“It makes so much difference?”
“Enough. When a man thinks of killing the Hunter’s servant—or even disobeying him—he must take into account what the master’s reaction will be. Which is very diffe
rent from how he will act if he imagines that he might, through the luck of a single kill, dispose with the master altogether.” And he added dryly, “It spares me the inconvenience of killing every time I travel. Surely you find that appealing.”
Through gritted teeth, Damien muttered. “Surely.”
Night. True night reigned below, blind to what was happening in the heavens; even Domina’s light couldn’t pierce the thick canopy, which had been designed to keep the sunlight out. Thick, white-skinned vines glittered in the lamplight as they passed, their leafless lengths twining upward about the tree trunks until they reached a height where sunlight was available. Research in the castle’s library had revealed that the Forest was once a fairly normal place, unique only in that it was located near a natural focus of the Earth-fae. The Hunter had changed that. It was he who had evolved the Forest’s special trees, which trapped their own dead leaves in a webwork of hair-fine branches, so that even in the dead of winter no light would reach the ground below. But what other adjustments must have been made to this ecosystem to keep it functioning? The perpetual darkness would have killed any light-dependent species within the Forest’s confines, throwing the whole ecosystem out of balance. He must have Worked it all—plant by plant, animal, insect, and bush alike—until he had stabilized thousands of species in a new, light-starved balance. And created a few new ones, to facilitate its functioning. Damien thought of the wormlike creatures, and realized that even they must play their part. A biosphere with so little energy input had no room for waste.
What kind of a mind did it take to think on that scale? To take on such a project and then succeed with it, rather than making the Forest into a lifeless wasteland, whose survival was compromised by the lack of one special insect, or one minute step in the food chain ladder? The sheer scope of the project was staggering.—But with a thousand years of spare time on his hands, a very special man could succeed. A man like the Neocount of Merentha, who had spent his last living years redefining man and God, evolving human society with the same precise attention to detail that he gave to horses and Forest flora. . . .
And then there was light on the path ahead of them, ever so little—but it silhouetted the Hunter as he passed between the final trees and flooded the land beyond with the clean, subtle promise of dawn.
“Almost daylight,” Tarrant said distastefully. He gestured toward the east. “Sheva’s five miles further, at most. You can find shelter there.”
“Not as dismal as Mordreth, I hope,” Senzei muttered.
It seemed that the Hunter might have smiled, but a quick glance at the lightening sky sobered whatever humor he might otherwise have exhibited. “Mordreth is a special case,” he assured them. “But the autumn nights end too quickly for prolonged conversation. Save your questions for the darker hours, and they may get answered.”
“This much light doesn’t seem to be hurting you,” Damien challenged.
Tarrant shot him a quick, searing glare—and it was hard to tell exactly what was behind it. Exasperation, irritation, disdain . . . or all three. “Any man who can stand under the stars can survive the touch of sunlight, priest. It’s simply a matter of degree.” He dismounted gracefully, making no sound as his boots struck the earth. “I have no desire to test my limits.”
He held his reins out to Damien. After a moment, the priest took them. “Feed the animal with your own,” the Hunter instructed. “Give it whatever you imagine horses eat. It’ll survive.”
“You mean you’re not joining us for breakfast?”
“I doubt that witnessing my appetite would do much for yours.” He glanced again at the eastern sky; Damien thought he saw him tense. “Do as you will with the daylight hours,” he said softly. “I’ll be back soon enough.”
“How will you—” Senzei began. But the man had stepped into the shadows of the Forest once more, and its darkness closed about him like the folds of a cloak.
“Not much of a morning person,” Damien observed.
It was good to be in a city again, surrounded by live human beings. Good to be in whitewashed rooms inside brick buildings, with bright quilt coverlets on modern beds and thin curtains that failed to block out all of the glorious, wonderful sunlight. Good to be surrounded by the bustle of human activity once more—even if it meant that getting to sleep was a little bit harder for all the noise. Not to mention the sunlight.
It was good for a few hours. Only that. By the time the sun set they were anxious to move again, and when Gerald Tarrant finally rejoined them there was almost an air of relief about the party.
We want to be there, Damien thought. We want to get it done.
They rode east. Soon Sheva gave way to open ground, the floor of the Raksha Valley. They found the river Lethe and followed it southeast, through some dozen small settlements that had been established along its banks. When they needed a break, they ate real food in real restaurants. While Tarrant watched silently, delicately sipping a glass of fresh blood, or—if that was lacking—a northern wine. What he did for his main sustenance, in the short time after each sunset that he assigned to his own needs, Damien had no desire to know. But during the day he dreamed of a thousand possibilities and often awoke in a cold sweat, his hand groping for his sword, aware that he had just witnessed some terrible dreambound atrocity, and that Tarrant was the cause. And he wondered how much longer he could be the cause of that man coming to his region, without feeling responsible for the human suffering that must be littering their trail in the Hunter’s wake.
And then they came to it. A small city encircling a tiny harbor, whose business was not in trade so much as tourism. Sattin: close enough to the rakhland border that on a clear day it was possible to gaze out across the Serpent and see the jagged cliffs guarding that secret land and—just possibly—the curtain of power that protected it. The city overflowed with tourists, even in this harsh season, who had paid good money and traveled many days in the hopes of seeing what one pamphlet described as the last bastion of native power. Which it wasn’t, by any strict definition of native, or even bastion. But the phrase made good press.
There were sorcerors here, enough to populate a minor colony on their own, and as a record of their presence they left headlines splashed in bold print across the gray of cheap northern paper: Southern Sorc Feeds the Serpent: Suicide or Sacrifice? Sorceress finds Hunter’s Mark Carved on Bedpost. And, inevitably, The Ghost of Casca is Back—Local Sorceror Reveals the Terrifying Truth. Their advertisements lined the streets, and filled the windows of shops and taverns. Offers to Share a Seeing, boat rides to Take you close enough to touch the Canopy, and Seer Reads the Future—Reasonable Rates.
If Sattin’s tasteless commercialization of the rakhland’s defense system amused Damien, it seemed to irritate Gerald Tarrant no end. Either that, or something else was eating at the nightbound adept. More than once he snapped at Damien in a manner unbefitting his normally smooth demeanor; once the priest thought he even saw an emotion flash in those quicksilver eyes that might have been fear, or something akin to it—but the expression was gone so quickly, and was so out of character for the Hunter they had come to know, that in the end he decided he’d been mistaken. What was there in a place like this for the Hunter to fear?
It was while they were sampling what passed for dinner in one of the city’s many restaurants—overpriced fare with no pretensions of quality, hardly preferable to their own dried traveling rations—that Tarrant went seeking a vessel to take them to the rakhland’s rocky shoreline. It took him a surprisingly long time, given his past record with such things, and several dismal courses had come and gone before he returned to join them.
“They’re cowards, all,” he informed them. “Ready to risk the Canopy’s edge for a handful of tourist gold, but ask them to sail through it....” His fingers tapped the tabletop as he spoke, a gesture of tension that was uncharacteristic of him; Damien wondered what prompted it. “I found a man who’d risk the trip. His price is high. If I were of a mind to c
riticize such business practices, I would call it robbery—but never mind that.” He saw Damien about to speak, waved short his interruption. “I have the funds. And my Jahanna coinage may cause him to think twice before dumping us into the Serpent.”
Startled, Ciani asked, “You think that’s possible?”
“My lady, the human soul’s a dark place—who knows that better than I?—and greed is a powerful master. Add to that man’s passion for self-preservation . . . and yes, I think it very possible that a man we hire to take us to the Achron’s mouth might find it expedient to . . . shall we say, lighten his load before reaching shore? I would even call it likely. There’s a real danger in that landing, and not all men like the smell of risk. I suggest we be careful.”
“I could Work—” Damien began.
“So could I. More efficiently than you. And then, when we passed under the Canopy, all that would be gone. Do you want our pilot’s murderous instincts suddenly unleashed at the very moment we’re least able to defend ourselves? When even an unconscious Working might backfire on us all?” He shrugged; there was a weariness in the gesture that seemed oddly human. “I chose the best man I could. I paid well and threatened carefully. Coercion is one of my skills. Let’s hope it works.” He turned to Ciani. “Lady, I’ve scanned the city three times over—and its environs, and the Serpent, and each and every current of power that passes through or near this place. You have no enemies here. Our pilot says we must wait two nights for a suitable syzygy—a high tide will make the rakhland shore considerably more accessible—and that means waiting here. Which I regret. The place is . . .” he scowled. “Distasteful, to say the least. But it is safe. I want you to know that. Your enemies passed through here days ago, and they left neither ward nor watcher behind. I made certain of that.”
“Thank you,” she said softly. “That’s worth . . . a lot. Thank you.”
“And now.” He pushed his chair back from the table and stood; his pale eyes fixed on Damien, their depths brimming with hostility. “You’re not my ideal of a traveling companion, priest, and I know I’m not yours. Since the lady is safe and our transport assured, may I assume that you would have no objection to my passing my time in other company until we depart?”