Pain stabbed suddenly into his shoulder and the weight of a large, hot animal slammed him sideways. The leading beast had dared a leap across the abyss and now it was on him, its sharp teeth swinging around mere inches from his throat. He couldn’t bring his sword around in time but rammed its pommel into the black-scaled head again and again, trying to force it back. Hot, sour breath blasted him in the face as the animal struggled for access to his throat, where a single bite might dispatch him. As he fought, he prayed—not for himself, but for Hesseth. Prayed that she could push the tree over the edge by herself before the rest of the animals came across. Because if she couldn’t, they were doomed. That simple. No single warrior, no matter how skilled, could fight off such an invasion.
Claws raked his stomach as he slammed the sword’s pommel into the creature’s eye, and for a moment he feared that the beast would eviscerate him; then the animal spasmed and he threw it off and managed to rise up despite his wounds. A quick slash through its neck satisfied him that the beast would be no more trouble, and though his stomach was cut badly and his clothes were splattered with blood, there were no vital pieces falling out of him and all his muscles worked, which was good enough for now.
Hesseth had managed to push the tree far enough that the bulk of it was now over the chasm, and she was struggling to get the topmost part over the edge so that the whole of it would fall. The child was beside her, gamely adding her pittance of strength to the effort, and rainbow sparks glittered about both their hands as the tidal fae manifested additional force. But though the tree was moving, there was now additional danger, for the sharp angle at which it now bridged the chasm permitted the leading animals to leap directly across to Hesseth.
He got there just in time. His sword stroke was desperate, undisciplined, but the sheer force of it knocked the creature off course and sent him slamming down into the chasm wall. There was a brief pause then, which Damien used to take up a better position beside Hesseth. Only seconds more and then the bridge would be gone, and all three of them would be safe....
It happened quickly. An animal leapt straight at him, forcing him to bring up his sword between them in order to defend himself. The beast impaled itself, but sheer velocity carried it forward, and the dead weight of its flesh slammed into him with stunning force. He was thrown back against the earth with a suddenness that drove the breath from his body, and his head banged the rock so hard that for a minute his vision deserted him, and all he could see were brilliant white stars in an endless sea of blackness. Then there were figures, hazy and indistinct, and he focused on them as he tried to struggle to his feet.
One of the beasts had gotten to Hesseth and they were locked in a death-grip atop the tree trunk, teeth and claws and silver knife flashing in the sunlight. He tried to stand, to go to her, but something was wrong with his balance and he fell, he fell hard, he fell down to his knees while the world swam in circles about him, fighting to orient himself. Dimly he was aware of Hesseth getting atop the beast, of the silver knife flashing again and again as it cut downward—
And the tree broke. With a crack like thunder its trunk split in two right near Hesseth. The part which had bridged the chasm went hurtling down into its depths, taking the rest of the animals with it. The shorter end hesitated for a second, counterweighted by Hesseth and the animal atop it, and then its balance point slipped over the edge and it, too, began to slide—
“Hesseth!”
—and she saw what was coming, she tried to get free, but the beast had hold of her and the branches were tangled about her and the sheer weight of it all dragged her off her feet—“No!”
—and she reached out for something to hang onto, anything! but all her claws could find was the tree, branches and trunk all spattered with crimson, and then she went over—
—and down.
He lunged toward the lip of the chasm as she fell, trying to grab hold of her. Branches struck his face as the last limbs went sliding down into the chasm, slamming against the jagged black walls as it fell. For a moment rainbow power flashed in those lightless depths, and he thought that she had used the tidal fae to save herself. But then that was gone and there was only darkness, accompanied by the howls and the thrashing of dying beasts.
No. God, no. Not her. Please.
Pain was a fire in his stomach as he tried to focus on the earth-fae, enough to conjure light. His hands, slick with blood, gripped the edge of the chasm with spastic force as he spoke the key words over and over again. At last a faint light answered his summons, and as he felt the girl rush to the ledge by his side, as he heard her crying, the conjured light filled the chasm and let them see what had happened.
Bodies. Everywhere. Black, scaly bodies and broken tree limbs and pink flesh and rock ... he searched desperately for Hesseth’s body, at last found it sprawled across the viciously sharp outcropping which had stopped its fall. There was so much blood all over the place that it was impossible to see where her wounds were, but the sharp angle of her neck and the impossible bend in her back left no doubt about her fate. Grief welled up inside him with such raw force that he lost control of the light, and it faded. Into blackness. Into death.
“No!” the girl screamed. She jumped toward the chasm as if she would throw herself into it, but Damien grabbed her by the neck of her shirt and pulled her back. “No!” She struggled blindly against his confining grasp, as if somehow by doing so she was also fighting Death. Bits of rainbow light swirled about her as she cried out to Hesseth, screaming words Damien didn’t understand—rakhene words?—hysterical in her shock, in her grief. Numbly he let her rage. She was doing it for both of them, voicing the horror of this loss better than he ever could.
Hesseth. She was gone. The Wasting had killed her. She had been by his side for so long now that it seemed impossible that he would never see her again. Tears ran down his face as the loss of it—the terrible, fearsome loss of it—hit home. For a moment he envied Jenseny the freedom of childhood, which permitted her to rant and rave with total abandon; all he could do was lower his head, his whole body shaking, and let the tears come.
After a time the girl’s struggles weakened, and she fell sobbing to her knees. He drew her to him then, gently, into his arms. She resisted at first, then clutched at him desperately, burying her face in his bloodied shirt and sobbing uncontrollably. Did she smell faintly of Hesseth? Was that possible? He lowered his face to her hair and for a long time just held her. The two of them alone in the Wasting.
In the end it was the pain in his shoulder and the hot cuts across his stomach that reminded him they needed to move. Softly, ever so softly, he whispered, “Jenseny. We can’t stay here.”
She drew back from him; her expression was fierce. “We can’t leave her!”
“Jenseny, please—”
“We can’t leave her here!”
He held her out at arm’s length, so that she was forced to look at him. “Jenseny, listen to me. Hesseth is gone now.” He said it as gently as he could but, oh, how the words hurt! He could see her flinch as he voiced them and she shook her head wildly as if somehow that would make the fact untrue ... but she knew. She knew. “Her soul is free. All that’s down there is empty flesh. The part you loved, the part that loved you ... she’s back with her people now. What you saw down there was just a ... a container. She doesn’t need it anymore.”
“She left,” the girl gasped hoarsely. “She left us.”
“Oh, God.” He drew her to him and held her tightly, so tightly that there would be no room for grief or loneliness or any other source of darkness in that tiny, frightened soul. “She didn’t want to go, Jenseny. She was trying to protect us. She didn’t want anything to hurt you, not for all the world.” He blinked fresh tears from his eyes as he stroked her hair gently, softly. “She loved you so much,” he whispered.
Suddenly faintness welled up inside him. He forced himself to push the girl away and for a moment just sat there, trying not to lose consciousness. Then, when th
e world seemed steady once more, he pulled open his shirt front. Bloody strips parted to reveal a torso that had been ripped and torn in at least a dozen places; his chest and stomach were coated with blood, and his pants were soaked with it. As if in confirmation of the sight a fresh wave of pain washed over him, and its force was such that he nearly doubled over and vomited onto the lava.
“God.” He tried to work a Healing to close up the wounds, but the fae was slippery, blood-slick, and it defied him. He drew in a shaky breath and tried it again—and this time there was a response, he could feel the earth-power pricking his skin as the torn cells healed, the gashes filled in, the pain receded. When he was done, all that was left was an ache in his chest, a faint echo of the pain that had been. And an emptiness inside him that no mere Working could heal.
She was watching him with wide, frightened eyes. Calm at last, as if the sight of his wounds had scared her back to sanity. She could have lost us both, he thought. Maybe that just hit her.
“Come on,” he whispered. “We have to get moving.”
He tried not to think about Hesseth as he helped the child to her feet. Tried not think about how vital and alive she had been a mere hour ago. How much she had gone through to come to this place only to be killed by beasts—by beasts!—at the very threshold of victory. He tried not to think about all those things, because when he did his eyes filled with tears and his throat grew tight and he found it hard to walk. And they had to keep walking no matter what, he and the child both. Otherwise the trees would have them.
Miles. Hours. He worked a Locating to find them another island, but no Working could bring it closer to them. Step by step he forced himself to keep moving, and when the girl grew too tired or frightened or numb with grief to walk they took a brief rest—never too long, lest the trees reach out to them—and they drank sparingly from their dwindling supply of water, and swallowed a few mouthfuls of dry food. It had no taste. The fact of Hesseth’s death had leached all color from the world, all smells, all flavor. They marched on a black plain into a gray sky, and even when the tidal fae gathered around Jenseny to sketch a fleeting image of the rakh-woman before her eyes, its work was rendered in shades of slate and granite and mist.
It was well past noon when they reached their haven. This island was a sharp slab that thrust up through the lava flow at such a steep angle that they had to circle nearly all the way around it before they found a place where they could climb. On its south side the slab had shattered and fallen, leaving a pile of rubble that could serve as a functional, if precarious, staircase.
When at last they reached a resting spot—a wide ledge some ten feet down from the island’s highest point—Damien felt the raw grief of the day’s experience finally overwhelm him. He let it. The girl collapsed on the granite shelf—safely back from the edge, he saw to that—and sobbed wildly, giving vent to all the misery and the fear that she had been fighting for hours. He let her. He had seen enough grief in his time to know that this, too, was part of the healing. No wound could close until it had been properly drained.
At last, softly, he spoke her name.
At first she didn’t seem to hear him. Then, seconds after he had spoken, she looked up at him. Her eyes were red and swollen and her whole face was wet with tears. Shaking, she wiped a sleeve across her nose as she looked at him, waiting to hear what he had to say.
“I’m going to say a prayer for Hesseth,” he told her. “It’s a very special prayer that we say when someone dies. Normally—” The words caught in his throat suddenly and for a moment he couldn’t speak. “Normally we say it when we bury people, but sometimes the people we love die when they’re far away, or something happens to a body so that we can’t get to it ... like with Hesseth. So we just say it when we can, because God will hear it anywhere.” He gave that a minute to sink in, then told her, very softly, “I’d like you to do it with me.”
For a moment she didn’t answer. Then, in a hoarse whisper, she asked him, “What is it?”
He drew in a deep breath, “We tell God how much we loved Hesseth, and how sorry we are that she’s gone. And then we talk about the good things she did, and how much she cared for all of us, and we ask God to please take care of her, and see that she gets back to her people, and to see that her soul is surrounded by the souls of those she loved.... That’s all,” he said hoarsely. “It’s just a ... a way of saying good-bye.” He held out a hand to her. “Come on. I’ll lead you through it.”
She didn’t move at first. The look in her eyes was strange, and at first Damien attributed it to her fear of his Church. For a brief moment he wondered if he had chosen badly, if the offer of healing he had intended might not hurt her more.
But then she whispered, with tears in her voice, “After we do it for Hesseth, then we ... can we please ... say one for my father?”
“Oh, my God.” He pulled her to him, oh so gently, wary lest she reject the contact. But she came to him and she put her arms around him and she sobbed into the fabric of his shirt, shedding tears that had been kept inside for so long that they must have burned like fire as they flowed. “Of course, Jen. Of course.” He kissed the top of her head. “God forgive me for not having thought of it sooner. Of course we can.”
In the desert night, by the light of a single moon, they prayed for the souls of their loved ones.
Forty
The river was swollen fat from the spring tides, and its icy current easily submerged the various rocks and promontories which might be hazards in another season. The three boats slid over its surface with ease, reflections shimmering in the Corelight as the oars dipped quietly in unison, drew free of the water, dipped again.
They were using no steam tonight, nor any form of power that might make noise. If their quarry had been merely human, the captain might have chanced it, but one of the travelers was rakhene—and that kind could pick out the mechanical sound of a steam engine down a hundred miles of canyon, if they knew that their lives depended on it.
It was rare that he got to hunt his own kind. It was ... intriguing.
They came to where the canyon turned, and then he signaled the three boats ashore. The thin leather gloves he wore made his hand seem almost human as it executed the command gesture, and the irony of it was not lost on him.
They dragged the boats ashore, beyond the reach of a sudden spring swell, and gathered about the captain. With minimal words and gestures he described the situation, their position, their intention.
One of them asked, “Alive?”
“If possible,” he responded.
He opened the hood that protected his head and face from the sun and let it fall back on his shoulders. A cool breeze ruffled his mane and he breathed it in deeply, sifting it for scents. Nothing useful.
“Are you sure they’ll land here?” one of the humans demanded. “Shouldn’t we have some kind of backup?”
He turned to face the man. There was no need to hiss a warning; his expression was enough. The man’s color, already light in tint, went two shades paler.
“His Highness says they’ll land here.” There was scorn in the captain’s voice, and the absolute authority of one who has earned his position not only through civilized human channels, but by blood and by claw. “Do you have a problem with that?”
“No, sir.” He shook his head vigorously. “Of course not, sir.”
Deliberately, the captain turned away from him. “All right,” he said. “You know the plans. Take up your positions and be ready. Stay quiet. And remember: they have sorcery. Don’t take chances.”
“Sir?”
Humans. It never ceased to amaze him how they needed everything spelled out for them.
“If they look like they’re about to Work,” he told them, “then kill them.”
And he added, just because they were human, “Any questions?”
This time, there were none
Forty-one
There was an earthquake soon after sunset. By the light of the Core they
could see the twisted land rippling as the shock waves passed through it, the black earth heaving like a storm-tossed sea. And then, at last, all was quiet. New cracks surrounded the base of their island, but there was nothing they couldn’t get across if they had to.
“Is he coming soon?” the girl asked.
Tarrant.
In Hesseth’s absence he was their anchor, their key. Damien’s Workings might net them a few helpful tips about dealing with their immediate environment, but it would take a man of Tarrant’s power and experience to obtain what they must have now: exhaustive knowledge about a land few humans had ever seen, and a safe means of approaching a species hostile to their own. With Hesseth gone, he was their only hope.
“Soon,” Damien promised.
The local faeborn were beginning to gather about their mount, but they were few in number and lacked strength; evidently the more enterprising wraiths had made their bid for nourishment the night before. Unable to Banish them because of the earthquake-hot currents, Damien held the child close to him and watched as they flitted about the camp. Ghostlings, bloodsuckers, a single succubus. He watched the latter for a few seconds, marveling at the way she—it—responded to his scrutiny. Slowly the foggy form adopted all the features that he found desirable in women, and if he had responded even for a moment it would have taken that as an opening and attached itself to him faster than he could draw in a breath. But he knew all too well what it was and what it could do, and far from arousing his sexual interest it repelled him so thoroughly that at last the thing screeched in frustration and darted off into the night, no doubt to seek more cooperative prey. The rest kept their distance, circling warily about the ledge. Damien kept his hand on his sword, ready to deal with the more solid manifestations, and prayed that the subtler demonlings would make no move until the fae cooled off. Wouldn’t that be the ultimate waste, to come all this way and fight so hard to get here, only to fry himself to a crisp in a single careless gesture—