Half a day later. Well past noon. Exhaustion numbed his limbs, his mind, his hopes. The dismal forest thinned at last, leaving only the serpentine mist curling above muddy earth. He could smell the river, though he couldn’t see it. Hesseth looked bedraggled. He felt no better. The awkward pace had drained them both.
At last they came to a place where the river spread out before them, glistening coldly in the filtered sunlight. It was no longer a free-moving stream of water that gushed over rocks and through tree-lined channels, but a vast lake whose still surface rippled softly as far as the eye could see. Trees had fallen into the water at various points and lake plants had taken root in their bark, sprouting branches that covered the water’s surface like a web. Green fronds waved softly in the current as small animals scampered across the tangled branches, as comfortable inches above the water’s surface as they had once been in the treetops. Here and there Damien could see a sandbar peeking through a bed of reeds, mountain mud carried down from the heights by the swift-running river. And in the center....
An island arose some half-mile in the distance, that was clearly their destination. The base was a vast mound of boulders, sparsely covered with greenery. Flood waters had left their mark a good ten feet above the current water line, and only above there did trees and larger bushes flourish—but those were twisted creations, whose gnarled trunks and contorted branches seemed grimly well suited to serve as the Terata’s home. Damien wondered if the children had sculpted these life-forms as well, or if they had learned enough of a lesson from their other attempts to leave this island in its natural state.
They started toward the water, prodding Damien forward. He regarded the lake’s surface with some trepidation, remembering the waterborn predators that lived upriver. But though it seemed that there was no solid land ahead of them, the children led them through a matted path in the rushes to a mud bar that stretched some ten yards into the water. He stepped out upon it gingerly, glad that the horses weren’t intelligent enough to understand the risk. But the ground beneath his feet was quite solid, not like mud at all—so much not like mud that he paused for an instant to Work his sight, wondering what it was that he truly walked upon. And his Working failed. No, not failed exactly; it was more like slid off. As if the space he was trying to focus on was made of the slickest glass, and his Sight had gone skittering off its surface.
Strange. He had never experienced anything like it before, could come up with no explanation for the odd effect. Tarrant had once turned his Workings aside, back when they had first met, but the sensation was nothing like this. Was this how the Hunter had felt when his best attempts at a Knowing had netted impossible results? Ominous.
The lead boy had reached the end of the mud bar, but though water seemed to lap at his ankles the ground was as solid as ever. He turned slightly to the left as he stepped off into the water, and the others were careful to follow. Damien braced himself as he came to the end of the bar, knowing that if these children were willing to wade in the cold mountain water, then it was probably quite safe—
And then he stepped down, and didn’t get wet. Nor did the ground beneath him feel like it now looked: a treacherous surface of pitted gravel and water-polished stones, slicked by slime and algae and sported about by thousands of tiny fish. No, it felt more like ... wood. Was that possible? Old wood, weatherworn and mist-dampened. He tried to Work his sight again—nearly stumbled doing so—but if the water beneath his feet was some kind of illusion, he damned well couldn’t See through it. Nor could he See any sign of the region having been Worked, although there should have been something. Every Working leaves its mark, Damien thought, as he followed carefully in the children’s footsteps. Without exception. But if there was a Worker’s mark on this, he damned well couldn’t see it.
Tarrant could make it out. Tarrant could make sense of this. He glanced up at the sky—or rather, up at the mist overhead—and judged it to be very near nightfall. A sense of relief flooded his nerves at the thought, and he felt his muscles relax a tiny bit.
All we have to do is make it till he gets here.
At the end of the unseen bridge was a visible line of stairs, crudely cut into the base of the island. Damien climbed them carefully, knowing that his bound hands would be unable to afford him balance should anything go wrong. Behind him he could hear the children struggling with the horses, who were clearly unhappy about the route. But in the end the animals were coerced into climbing—with sorcery, perhaps?—and soon they had all gained the top of the island, to gaze out upon the Terata camp.
It was, as the Terata themselves were, fragmented and ill-executed. Skin tents betrayed by their shapes that the staffs upholding them were less than perfectly arranged, and indeed several had collapsed; there were children working on them even as Damien watched. A foul smell came and went with the breeze, from skins that were less than perfectly tanned, and the odor of long-dead meat seemed to hang about the camp like a haze. And the children! There were at least two dozen here, in addition to Damien’s band of captors, including several that were mere babes, hardly able to walk. Without their masks and fierce weapons they looked strangely vulnerable, and though their flesh seemed healthy enough, Damien thought he caught a hint of past abuse in their eyes, the haunted look of bruised souls.
When they saw his party, the children turned and cheered, and gathered about them every bit as gaily as youngsters begging candy from adults. The little faces were dirt-smeared and sunburned, but they looked healthy enough. If you didn’t look in their eyes.
Flanked by cavorting youngsters, the prisoners were led to the center of the rocky isle. There a cave mouth gaped, its root-fringed darkness leading down into the depths of the island. The children pushed Damien forward, and clearly meant for him to enter it. He glanced back at Hesseth. She wasn’t any more happy about it than he was, but she seemed reasonably confident. At last he nodded and ducked through the opening, to the accompaniment of blows. The ground was slick beneath his feet and he almost fell, but he managed to stay upright and get out of the way before Hesseth slipped down into the darkness. When they were both inside, a thick grate of wood was put into place over the opening, and Damien heard some kind of latch being fixed in place around it. Thick tree limbs, bound together with coarse rope. Hard to break through, but not impossible. He was glad that the children hadn’t taken up metalworking.
“Turn around,” Hesseth whispered softly. When he did so, he felt her lean down to where his hands were bound; the damaged skin of her face rubbed against his wrist as she gnawed him free of his bonds. He untied her then, and rubbed some life back into his hands. Good enough for now. It would only be hours before Tarrant returned to them, and he felt confident they could protect themselves that long.
By the fading light of the sun which filtered down through the grate, he studied their prison. It was a rough space, muddy, replete with the nooks and crannies that nature delighted in. For a brief moment he considered crawling into one of those narrow passageways in the hopes that it would lead to freedom, but then he remembered the children. Tiny, lithe, and insatiably curious, they would have followed every path to its end long before declaring this space a prison, and if there were an opening they would have sealed it long ago. So much for that. He shifted slightly so that his own shadow didn’t blacken the rock face before him, turned to the left—
And saw eyes.
Hesseth must have seen them at the same time that he did, for he felt her sharp intake of breath beside him. For a moment he thought that the two gleaming points were the eyes of an animal, but then he remembered the size and scale of his hosts. And yes, it was a child. No doubt about that. A frightened child who scrabbled backward as he approached, keening terror low in its throat. A girl? Hard to say in this darkness, but the voice sounded female.
“Get away from me!” she shrieked. Her voice was hoarse and broken, as if she had bruised it by screaming too much. “Get back! I know your God. He can’t have me!”
&
nbsp; He froze where he was. The cave was suddenly so silent that he could hear his heart pounding. Then, slowly, he took a step backward. The eyes didn’t move. Another step. When there were perhaps twelve feet of distance between himself and the owner of those eyes, it seemed to him that she relaxed somewhat.
“Who are you?” he asked gently. Her strange accusation still ringing in his ears. Your God can’t have me. “Why are you here?”
“Keep away!” she gasped. “Keep them away from me!”
Them.
The children?
What was going on here?
He looked at Hesseth. The rakh-woman’s face—and thus her expression—were lost in shadow. But he thought he saw her nod.
“All right,” he said gently. “We won’t come near you.” He chose a spot on the muddy ground that was smoother than most, and sat. A cool wind blew in through the grating, chilling his sweat. He could sense those eyes fixed on him, studying him, but he tried not to meet them. Animals sometimes needed time to accustom themselves to the smell of a newcomer; perhaps in her fear she was subject to a similar instinct. Let her take her time, then. Time was one thing they had.
After many long minutes of shadowy silence, a rustling from outside the gate alerted Damien to someone’s approach. It was a young boy, maskless but coated with war paint and mud, carrying a carved wooden spear. He came over to the grate and stared inside the makeshift prison—and something burst from the far corner, something small and filthy and very, very scared, moving with a suddenness that made Damien jump. The small girl ran to the grate and fell to her knees before it, clutching its bars, her whole body shaking with terror. “Take them away,” she gasped. “Please! He’s a priest, can’t you see? They’ll kill you all!”
“The god of the cities don’t have no power here,” the boy reminded her. “Remember? As for them—” and he nodded toward Damien and Hesseth, “—they’ll just be here till sacrifice.” His eyes glittered hungrily. “I expect old Bug-eyes’ll eat ‘em for a snack, don’t you? Eat ’em up whole, and spit out the bones for us to play with. So don’t you worry.”
Sacrifice. Damien didn’t like the sound of that. How long till night fell? They needed Tarrant, badly.
It was Hesseth who kept her head together and thought to ask, “When is this sacrifice?”
The boy looked at her. If her strange ears and hands aroused any curiosity in him, it didn’t show. “Tomorrow,” he told her. “Whenever he says it’s time.”
He nodded back as he spoke, not the way that Damien and Hesseth had come, but down another path. One half of a circular clearing was visible, and in its center a statue. Black stone—obsidian?—crudely carved into a man’s shape. Only not a real man. The body was human enough, allowing for the crudity of the carving, and its arms were outstretched as any carved figure’s might be, but the face seemed ... wrong, somehow. The eyes were too large, and they were not of a human cast. Strangely familiar, it seemed to him. He waited until the fog shifted, until enough light came through the mist to illuminate the features....
And then he remembered. That face. Those eyes. They had mocked him from over a woman’s shoulder, once. In the crystalline tower in the rakhlands, just minutes before Tarrant’s conjured quake had surged through those walls.
Faceted eyes, like a fly’s. Mirror-perfect. They seemed to turn toward him as the sunlight shifted, sparkling with amusement. But that was his imagination. Wasn’t it?
“Who is that?” he gasped. Barely managing to get out the words.
The boy grinned. “That’s our god, city-man. And you’ll meet him soon enough.”
He pushed some small packages through the bars, followed by a crude wooden cup. Food of some sort. The girl grabbed up one of the tiny bundles—half-cooked meat wrapped in a large green leaf, it looked like—and ran to her corner, where she tore into it like one starving. Her eyes never left Damien. After a time, Hesseth went over and got the two remaining packages, which she sniffed and then presented to Damien.
The priest didn’t move. His eyes were fixed on that statue, on the terrible visage that was all too familiar. The dusky air about it had taken on a gray cast, and the sky overhead—where he could see it—was tinted with the gold of the setting Core. The sun must be gone by now. Night had fallen. Where was Tarrant? Couldn’t he sense Damien’s need through the link that bound them? Didn’t he know to rush?
Calesta. That was the demon’s name, he recalled. Tarrant’s tormentor. Servant of the House of Storms. The one who had stood behind the shoulder of Damien’s captor in that terrible place, encouraging torture as the ultimate means of dominance. Even after all these months the memory made him shiver, and the name was enough to turn his blood to ice. They had known that he might be here, that he might be connected with the enemy they had come to fight ... but this?
If they believe in him enough, they can make him a god. They can give him that kind of power.
Two dozen mad children, and a god who delighted in pain. No wonder the city-folk were afraid of them. No wonder they embraced the distancing power of legends, preferring to believe that the Terata were animals, or fae-wraiths, or perhaps even demons themselves ... anything but human. Anything but this.
“Come quickly,” he whispered. As if Tarrant could hear him. “As soon as you can. We need you.”
Twenty-four
The Hunter flew over the valley fifteen times—or was it sixteen? —and still he couldn’t find the others. He sifted through the earth-fae with meticulous care, but still could discover no trace of them. He even conjured up a wind to scour the valley clean of its omnipresent mist, but despite the increased visibility he still found nothing.
Which was patently impossible. If they had ridden on, if they were in hiding, even if they had died, there would have been some sign of their passing. Even an Obscuring would have left its mark, a faint echo of power that would be discernible in the currents. But there was nothing. Nothing! It was as if they had simply disappeared. Or ... as if they had never existed.
Just like the other humans here, he thought grimly.
He came to a stop on a barren peak and exchanged his feathers for human flesh. The wind whipped his long tunic around his calves as he stared down into the valley, his fists clenched tightly in silent frustration. They had to be there, he thought. They had to be. And if he couldn’t locate them, there was only one explanation. Not a pleasant one, but he was prepared to deal with it.
He drew in a deep breath to brace himself for Working—the mountain air was cold, and left a film of ice in his lungs—and then he patterned the earth-fae into a Summoning. It would have no real power over the one he was calling, he understood that now. But he wanted something that was more than an invitation, something that communicated not only his desire for an audience but his power, his determination.
If he’s still in the east, he thought.
The demon came. It took him half an hour to arrive, but Tarrant was ready for that; he was prepared to wait another five days if he had to. Karril brought with him no decorative backdrop this time, no false panorama. Perhaps he sensed Tarrant’s mood. Perhaps he knew that Iezu illusion was the one thing that might push the Hunter over the edge, toward unfettered violence.
“So,” Tarrant said, when the familiar form had solidified. “You did stay in the east, as I thought.”
Karril looked about quickly: at the mountain, at the chill night sky, at the hills in the distance ... but not down into the valley, Tarrant noted. Not that.
“What is it you want?” he asked quietly.
“Reverend Vryce and the ralch-woman have disappeared. I need your help to find them.”
Karril stared at him in astonishment. “You know I can’t get involved in this. Did you think just asking again—”
“Perhaps I should explain the circumstances.” His voice uncoiled like a serpent, slick and venemous. “Three nights ago there were humans there.” He pointed down into the valley, to where they had been two nights ago. “Now t
hey’re gone. One night ago Hesseth and Reverend Vryce made camp beside that river. Now they’re gone.” Ice-cold eyes fixed on the demon, black with hate. “Not dead. Not deserted. Not even Obscured. Gone.”
“So what?” Despite the demon’s tone of bravado, there was nervousness in his eyes. He can sense the rage in me, Tarrant mused. He knows how close I am to directing it at him. “What do you expect me to do?”
“Find them.”
Karril was silent.
“Then tell me how to.”
The demon turned away from him. Afraid to meet his eyes? “I told you, I can’t ever—”
“Get involved? Don’t fool yourself, Karril; you are involved. This isn’t the work of some human sorcerer; I’d smell that a mile away. And it isn’t the work of a simple demon either, I know that.” He took a step closer to Karril, was pleased to see that the move made him nervous. In some ways the demon was remarkably human. “It must be illusion. What else? A veil of false reality, obscuring their movements. But there’s only one kind of creature on this planet that can create an illusion so perfect, so utterly undetectable. Isn’t there, Karril?”
“I know nothing about sorcery,” he whispered.
“But you can change the world’s appearance with a thought, can’t you? Create images of material objects so real that the human mind, accepting their existence, finds them utterly solid. You can even kill with such illusions—though I doubt you ever tried.” He paused. “All the Iezu have that power, don’t they? Isn’t that part of what defines your kind?”
Karril said nothing.
“Only the Iezu are capable of such artifice. Only one of that kind could cloak a valley so completely that no human sorcery could defy it—and leave not even a mark upon the currents, to testify to their interference. Only the Iezu, Karril.”