By the time their dessert came the night was as dark as most nights ever got, the sun and Core wholly gone, one moon soon to follow, a few lingering stars barely visible above the horizon.
“So,” she said pleasantly, as she spooned black sugar—another Jaggonath specialty—into a thick, foamy drink. “Your turn? What is it you hunger most to know?”
He considered the several half-jesting answers he might have offered another woman, then reconsidered and discarded them. An open offer of information was just too valuable an opportunity to waste on social repartee.
“Forest or Rakh,” he answered, after very little thought. “Take your pick.”
For a moment—just the briefest moment—he saw something dark cross her countenance. Anger? Fear? Foreboding? But her voice was its usual light self as she leaned back and asked him, “Ambitious, aren’t you?”
“Those things are only legends where I come from. And shadowy legends, at that.”
“But you’re curious.”
“Who wouldn’t be?”
“About the Forest? When merely thinking about it opens up a channel for the dark fae to travel? Most men prefer to avoid that risk.”
The Forest. The fact that she had chosen that topic meant that it was the other one which had caused her such acute discomfort; he filed that fact away for future reference, and addressed himself to the issue she preferred. The Forest, called Forbidden in all the ancient texts. What did they know of it, even here? It was a focal point of the wildest fae, which in an earlier, less sophisticated age had been called evil. Now they knew better. Now they understood that the forces which swept across this planet’s surface were neither good nor evil in and of themselves, but simply responsive. To hopes and fears, wards and spells and all the patterns of a Working, dreams and nightmares and repressed desires. When tamed, it was useful. When responding to man’s darker urges, to the hungers and compulsions which he repressed in the light of day, it could be deadly. Witness the Landing, and the gruesome deaths of the first few colonists. Witness the monsters that Damian had fought in the Dividers, shards of man’s darkest imaginings given fresh life and solid bodies, laying traps for the unwary in the icy wilderness.
Witness the Forest.
“Sheer concentration makes the fae there too strong to tame,” she told him. “Manifestial response is almost instantaneous. In plainer English, merely worrying about something is enough to cause it to happen. Every man that’s dared to walk in those shadows, regardless of his intentions, has left some dark imprint behind him. Every death that’s taken place beneath those trees has bound the fae to more and greater violence. The Church once tried to master it by massive applications of faith—that was the last of the Great Wars, as I’m sure you know—but all it did was give them back their nightmares, with a dark religious gloss. Such power prefers the guarded secrets of the unconscious to the preferences of our conscious will.”
“Then how can man thrive so close to it? How can Jaggonath—and Kale, and Seth, and Gehann—how can those cities even exist, much less function?”
“Look at your map again. The Forest sits at the heart of a whirlpool, a focal point of dark fae that draws like to like, sucking all malevolent manifestations toward its center. Most things that go in never come out again. If it were otherwise we could never live here, this close to its influence.”
“You said that most things never leave.”
She nodded, and her expression darkened. “There’s a creature that lives within the Forest—maybe a demon, maybe a man—which has forced a dark sort of order upon the wild fae there. Legend has it that he sits at the heart of the whirlpool like a spider in its web, waiting for victims to become trapped in its power. His minions can leave the Forest and do, in a constant search for victims to feed to him.”
“You’re talking about the Hunter.”
“You know the name?”
“I’ve heard it often enough, since coming east. Never with an explanation.”
“For good reason,” she assured him. “Merely mentioning the name opens a channel through the fae . . . people are terrified of such contact. It’s more than just the Hunter himself. He’s become our local bogeyman, the creature that lurks in dark corners and closets, whose name is used to scare children into obedience. Easterners are raised to fear the Hunter more than any other earthly power, save the Evil One himself. And don’t take me wrong—he is, genuinely, both powerful and evil. His minions hunt the shadows of the eastern cities for suitable prey, to take back to the Forest to feed to him. Women, always; mostly young, inevitably attractive. It’s said that he hunts them like wild animals there, in the heart of that land which responds to his every whim. A very few survive—or are permitted to survive, for whatever dark purpose suits him. All are insane. Most would be better off dead. They usually kill themselves, soon after.”
“Go on,” he said quietly.
“It’s said that his servants can walk the earth as men, once the sun is gone. For which reason you’ll rarely see women abroad alone after dark—they walk guarded, or in groups.”
“You call it he,” he said quietly. “You think it’s a man.”
“I do, myself. Others don’t.”
“An adept?”
“He would have to be, wouldn’t he?”
“Whom the Forest dominated.”
She studied him, as if choosing her words with care. “Maybe,” she said at last. Watching him. “I think not.”
Or he dominated the Forest. The thought was staggering. All the might of the Church had been pitted against the measureless evil in a war to end all wars . . . to no avail. Was it possible that one single man might dominate such a place, when thousands had given up their lives failing to do so?
With a start he realized that she had signaled for the bill, and was gathering her jacket about her shoulders. Had they been here that long?
“It’s getting late,” she said, apologetically. “I do have to get back.”
“To meet with them?” He tried to keep his tone light, but there was an edge to it that he failed to disguise.
The bill was placed between them. He looked at it.
“There are ninety-six pagan churches in this city,” she warned him. “Nineteen adepts, and nearly a thousand more that style themselves sorcerors, or its equivalent. You won’t like any of them, or approve of what they do. So don’t ask.”
“I don’t know about that. I rather like this one.”
She looked at him, clearly bemused, and at last shook her head. “You’re not half bad company, considering your livelihood. Far better than I expected.”
He grinned. “I try.”
“You’ll be in town for a while?”
“If they can tolerate me.”
She didn’t ask who he was referring to, which confirmed the fact that she already knew. Her Knowing had been thorough indeed—and little surprise, in such a place as this.
He looked out into the night-bound plaza, and thought of the things that such darkness might hide.
“Come on,” he told her, and he scattered eastern coins on the table. “I’ll walk you back.”
If the cathedral had seemed magnificent from a distance, it was even more impressive from up close. Greater archways soared above lesser ones, the space between them filled with a rich assortment of stylized carvings. Layer upon layer of ornamentation covered the vast edifice, as if its designer had suffered from a phobia of unadorned space; but if the whole of it was overworked, by modern standards, that too was part of its style. The strength of Revivalist architecture lay in its capacity to overwhelm the viewer.
Damien stood at the base of the massive front staircase and let himself open up to all that its presence implied: the faith of thousands bound together, serving one Law; the remnants of a great dream that had been damaged but not destroyed in one terrible war, that had fragmented man’s Church and left him at the mercy of what this strange planet called Nature; the hope that someday faith would conquer fae, and th
e whole of Erna could be colonized—safely—at last.
All those impressions filled him, joining with the warmth of his body: the coursing heat of rich ale in his veins, the triumph of his arrival, and the exhilaration of sexual diplomacy.
If I were not so dusty, he had said to her, when at last they returned to her shop, I might attempt to seduce you.
If you were not so dusty, she had answered with a smile, you might stand a chance of success.
An excellent omen for the future, he thought.
The last congregants of the night were descending on both sides of him, parting like a wave as they poured down the ivory steps. No women walked alone, he noted, but they stayed together in small groups, or were guarded by men; even here, on God’s own front steps, the shadow of the Hunter was felt.
Then the last well-wishers shook hands with their priest and made their descent, and the great ornate doors were swung slowly shut, closing out the night.
He looked at them for a while, admiring their intricate carvings, and then climbed the steps himself and knocked.
A sub-door opened and a robed man with a small lamp peeked out. Against the background of the gleaming white steps, in the wake of so many well-dressed attendants, Damien knew that he looked his grubbiest.
“Well?” the man asked, in a tone of voice that clearly stated: We are closed for the night. He shot a suspicious glance toward Damien’s sword.
“The building is open?”
With a sigh of exasperation the man stepped aside, allowing Damien to enter. Yes, technically the building was unlocked, and anyone could enter it to pray—that was Church custom, in east and west alike—and if some rough warrior wanted to do so at this time, the man had no right to turn him away. Damien had known that when he asked. But as he ducked beneath the lintel of the low, narrow sub-door, and entered the foyer of the cathedral itself, the man’s hand fell like a warning on his shoulder.
“No arms,” he instructed coolly.
Damien was more amazed than angered. The hilt of his sword was plainly visible over his shoulder, and its gold-worked pommel and quillons with their flame motif should have warned the man to better manners. Had it been so long since a member of his Order had entered this place, that these people knew nothing of their customs?
“Is His Holiness available?” he asked.
The man regarded him as though he had just worked a Cursing in his presence, and brushed at his sleeve as though somehow Damien’s mere presence had made him dirtier. “The Holy Father is occupied,” he said brusquely. “Come back in the morning, during our regular business hours, and you can apply for an audience.”
“Tell him that Damien Kilcannon Vryce is here,” he responded. “I think he’ll see me.”
The man stared at him for one long, hostile moment. And then at last decided that he would get rid of this unpleasant guest faster by indulging him than by trying to throw him out. He waved over an acolyte—a young boy with clear eyes and a willing smile—and said to him gruffly, “Go tell His Holiness—if he’ll see you at all, which I doubt—that Damien Kilcannon Vryce desires an audience, right now.”
The boy ran off, eager to serve. Damien took the time to walk across the foyer and peek between the heavy alteroak doors, into the sanctuary itself. He caught a glimpse of velvet-clad pews, a gold-chased altar, a jeweled mural of the Prophet binding the Evil One to darkness—one of the few representations which the Church permitted.
Nice, he thought. Very nice.
“Father?”
The boy had returned. He stared at Damien with wide eyes, full of awe, as the robed man, clearly distressed, offered, “I’m sorry, Father. We didn’t know who you were. Of course His Holiness will see you.”
The boy moved to lead him, but Damien said gently, “No. I know the way. Thank you, son.”
He could sense the boy gaping as he crossed the tiled floor, to a pair of heavy doors that must surely open on a staircase. How much had he been told? Damien tried to listen for whispers or some hint of movement behind him, but not until he had reached the stairs themselves, and the doors were swinging shut behind him, did he hear the youngster reveal what must have seemed an incredible truth.
In a whisper that was nine parts awe, and one part fear: “Father Vryce is a sorceror. . . .”
Damien laughed softly, as he ascended.
Two
Image of a Patriarch: stark white hair above aquiline features, eyes a cold, piercing blue. Thin lips drawn back in a hard line, a fleeting glimpse of flawless teeth within. Pale brown skin dried and thickened by age. Lines of character deeply incised: tense, severe, disapproving. The body, like the face, toughened rather than weakened by seventy winters of life. Broad, strong shoulders, from which cascaded a waterfall of ivory silk, voluminous enough to obscure the body’s outline. Power—in every feature, even in his stance. Authority.
And something else, to be read in his face, his eyes, his very posture—and his voice, a rich baritone that any chorister would pray to possess. Anger. Resentment. Distaste.
Exactly what Damien had expected.
“You have a commission?” the Patriarch asked coldly.
Books lined every wall, punctuated by small, pierced-glass windows that broke up the city’s lights into a thousand jeweled sparks. What furniture there was, was rich: a heavy mahogova desk, crimson velvet cushions on the single matching chair, antique drapes and patterned carpets that spoke of wealth in careful, tasteful investment. Damien looked around for some convenient resting spot, at last chose a shelf edge to support his bag while he rummaged inside it for the Matriarch’s letter. Dust rose up from the travel-stained pack and settled on several of the nearer shelves; he could feel the Patriarch’s eyes on him, disapproving, even before he faced him.
“Her Holiness sends her best,” he announced, and he handed over the vellum envelope. The Patriarch regarded it for a moment, noting that the seal of the Church which granted it official status had been set to one side, so that the envelope remained open. He glanced up at Damien, briefly, cold blue eyes acknowledging the message: She trusts you. And adding his own: I don’t.
Then he removed the commission itself and read.
Power, Damien thought. He radiates power. When he was certain that the Patriarch’s attention was firmly fixed on the document, he whispered the key to a Knowing. Softly—very softly—knowing that if he were caught Working the fae at this time and place, he might well be throwing away everything he’d hoped to accomplish. But the words, barely spoken, went unheard. The fae gathered around him, softly, and wove a picture that his mind could interpret. And yes ... it was as he had suspected. He wondered if the Patriarch even knew, or if the man attributed the force of his own presence to mere human concepts, like charisma. Bearing. Instead of recognizing the truth—which was that his every thought sent tiny ripples coursing through the fae, altering his environment to suit his will. A natural, in the vernacular. A born sorceror, whose chosen profession forbade him from acknowledging the very source of his authority.
At last the Patriarch nodded, and with carefully manicured hands he folded the commission again, sliding it back into its vellum container. “She thinks highly of you,” he said, placing it on the desk beside him: statement of fact, with neither approval nor disapproval implied. “He is loyal, she writes, and wholly dedicated to our mission. You may depend upon his honor, his vigilance, and his discretion.” He glared, and the thin mouth tightened. “Very well. I won’t do you the dishonor of dissembling, Damien Kilcannon Vryce. Let me tell you just how welcome you are here—you and your sorcery.”
Four long steps took him to the nearest window; Damien caught the flash of jeweled rings as he swung it open, revealing the lights of the city. For a moment he simply stared at them, as though something in the view would help him choose his words. “Since my earliest years,” he said at last, “I’ve served this region. Since that day when I was first old enough to understand just what this planet was, and what it had done to mankin
d, I’ve devoted myself body and soul to our salvation. It meant adhering to one god, in a world where hundreds of would-be deities clamored for worship, promising cheap and easy miracles in return for minimal offerings. It meant clinging to a Church that still bled from the memory of its greatest defeat, in an age when triumphant temples rose up like wheat in springtime. I chose what was clearly the harder path because I believed in it—believe in it, Reverend Vryce!—and I have never once faltered in that faith. Or in my belief that such faith is necessary, in order to restore man to his Earth-born destiny.”
A cold evening breeze gusted in through the window; the Patriarch turned his face into it, let the chill wind brush back his hair. “Most difficult of all was Church custom regarding the fae. Especially in this city, where sorcery is so cheap that the poor can buy visions of plentiful food more easily than the real thing . . . and then they die of hunger, Reverend Vryce. Their bodies gutted by starvation, but a ghastly smile on their faces. Which is why I believe as I do—as my Church has believed, for nearly a thousand years. We won’t tame this tyrannical force by parceling it out to sorcerers, for their paltry spells and their squalid conjurations. The more we expose it to humankind’s greed, the more it stinks of our excesses. Gannon saw that very clearly, back in the Revival. He outlawed private sorcery for that very reason—and I agree with him, heart and soul. If you need an example of what the fae can do to a man, once it has hold of him ... consider the Prophet’s Fall. Or the First Sacrifice. Witness all the monsters that the fae has brought to life, using man’s fear as a template . . . I swore to fight those things, Reverend Vryce. At any cost to myself. I swore that the fae would be tamed, according to the Prophet’s guidelines.