When True Night Falls

  Carefully, tenderly, he carried her out of the Hunter’s lair, and up into the healing night.

  It was midnight when Tarrant left. A bright night, with Domina’s full disk and Casca’s three-quarter face lighting the sky. A brisk night, with uneasy waves that trembled white at their upper edges, as if undecided about whether or not to break into froth. But Tarrant had assured them that the wind would grow no worse for an hour at least—although how he knew that without the earth-fae to draw on was beyond Damien—and so they were setting sail despite it. Or setting oars, more accurately.

  Damien strained to make out the form of an island to the east of them, but could see only water. Which didn’t mean it wasn’t there, of course. He had the utmost faith in Rasya’s observations, and if she said there was an island due east of them he wouldn’t think to doubt it. Ever.

  An island. That meant land, cresting above the waves.

  Earth-fae.

  Beneath them the lifeboat struck water, with the deep, resounding slap of a nuwhale’s tail. Rasya swung herself over the side of the ship and began to clamber down toward it. Damien briefly considered insisting that he take her place, that he should be the one to transport the Hunter to shore ... but they’d had that argument before, several times already, and he’d lost each time. Rasya wanted it this way and Tarrant had agreed, so who was he to interfere? What was he afraid of, anyway—that she’d see his power in action and instantly be corrupted? Give her more credit than that.

  He felt strangely out of control, with Tarrant leaving. A curious feeling. As if he had ever really controlled the Hunter. As if anyone ever could.

  At last the two men who had helped lower the lifeboat withdrew, leaving Damien and his dark ally alone on the deck. For a moment Tarrant just watched the sea, moonlit waves rippling like mercury beneath a haze of silver spray. Waiting. At last the men’s footsteps were distant enough and faint enough that they could be certain of their privacy.

  “You never asked why I came on this trip,” the Hunter said quietly.

  “I assumed you had your reasons.”

  “And never wondered what they were?”

  Despite himself he smiled. “You’re not an easy man to pry information out of.”

  “That never stopped you from trying.”

  Damien shrugged.

  Tarrant looked downward to where Rasya was waiting. Damien knew better than to press him. At last he said, in a voice hardly louder than the breeze, “He came to me, you know. Our enemy’s pet demon, the one she called Calesta. He came to me in the Forest, when I was done healing. I remembered him from her citadel....” Damien saw the muscles along the line of his jaw tighten momentarily. Remembering the eight days and nights of his captivity, when he had been at the mercy of a being even more sadistic than himself? “It was he who’d revealed that his mistress had trapped me not with sunlight, as I’d perceived, but with simple illusion. A sorcerer’s trick! It was my own fear that defeated me....” The pale eyes were narrowed in hatred; Damien thought he saw him tremble. “He came to make peace, as demons will do when their masters die. I felt myself safe, being in my own domain at last, and made the mistake of listening.” He shook his head, remembering. “He nearly caused me to betray myself. There in my own land, where the very earth serves my will ... he almost bested me.” His expression was tight, but the emotion causing it was hard to read. Anger? Humiliation? The Hunter had never handled defeat well. “I spent five hundred years making the Forest into a haven which neither man nor godling might threaten. It survived wars and crusades and natural disasters and was as much a part of me as the flesh that I wore ... and he took me on there. There! Tricked me, and put my very soul in jeopardy....”

  He drew in a deep breath, slowly. Trying to calm himself. “If the Forest is no longer my refuge, then no place will ever be. I could hide myself away with my books and my conjurings for a month, a year, a century ... but the threat would always be there. Will always be there, until I deal with it.” The pale eyes fixed on Damien. “You understand?”

  “I think so.”

  “You’ve always distrusted me ... which is appropriate, I assure you. But the day may come when that will be a dangerous luxury. Our relationship has been strained even here, on this ship, and I know you’ve had your doubts about the wisdom of our alliance. That’ll only get worse as time goes on. Our enemy seems adept at reading our fears and turning them against us—perhaps even feeding on them—and so I thought it best if you understood why I was here. How much is at stake for me in this venture. I thought that knowledge would be worth more than anything I could say about trustworthiness, or loyalty.”

  He could feel the power in those pale eyes as they studied him, weighing his soul for reaction. And for an instant—just an instant—it seemed to him that he could sense the uncertainty that lay hidden within their depths, the terrible vulnerability within the man. Because when all was said and done, the Hunter was no more comfortable with their alliance than he was. It was a sobering thought.

  “I understand,” he said quietly.

  I swore I’d kill him. He knows that when this is over I’ll try. How fragile is the thread that binds us together? Even more important: how fragile does he perceive it to be?

  With consummate grace the Neocount swung himself over the ship’s railing and onto the narrow rope ladder beneath. The natural grace of a predator, Damien thought. As repelled as he was fascinated by the insight. When Tarrant’s feet had caught a rung he paused, and looked at Damien. “Expose my quarters,” he commanded. “Tear down the walls that guard it. Bring my possessions into the daylight and expose them as well, so that nothing remains of my power.”

  “I imagine we’ll expose the whole ship when we reach port—”

  “Now, priest. Before the locals contact us. Our enemies also shun the sunlight, remember? Best not to confuse that issue.” A hint of a smile, ever so faint, creased his lips. “Trust me.”

  “You once cautioned me never to do that,” he reminded him. “But I’ll take care of it.”

  “At dawn.”

  He winced, and counteroffered, “Early. I promise.”

  Tarrant chuckled. “Good enough.” He began to make his descent—carefully, lest his ankle-length garments get caught between his feet and the rungs—but Damien stopped him.

  “Tarrant.”

  The Hunter looked up at him. And for a moment Damien saw in him not the cold-blooded murderer he was, but the man he once had been. A man of infinite vision. A man of faith.

  That’s still there, inside him. It has to be. But how to bring it out?

  “Thank you,” he said at last. “For telling me.” And he added, “It helps.”

  The Hunter nodded. His expression was grim.

  “Let’s hope it’s enough.”

  Rasya. He dreamed of her, and woke to find himself stiff with longing. They’d had such a good time together when the journey had first begun, what with his energy and her exuberance and a good bit of sexual know-how on both their parts. A perfect match, it had seemed. He’d hoped it would last. But then, as their navigational instruments began to fail, she grew increasingly restless. Tense. He made the mistake of thinking it was because of her work. By the time he realized the true cause, it was too late to salvage what they’d shared.

  I’ve got wards to keep me from getting pregnant, she’d told him, but what if they go, too? Hell of a time and place to be having kids, don’t you think?

  And then there were the volcanos of Novatlantis and the flood tides of the Eastern Gate and the time never seemed quite right to suggest that there were more mechanical means they could resort to. Because they were beyond that, really. They’d fought enough over trivial things before her real fears came out in the open that recapturing those moments of intimacy would be all but impossible. Women were like that.

  Too bad, he thought. It was good while it lasted. That’s all you could really ask for, wasn’t it?

  He turned over to go back to sleep, half h
oping his dream would pick up where it left off. Then a soft knocking on his cabin door reminded him of what had woken him up in the first place.

  He fumbled for the lamp, managed to get it lit without setting himself on fire. Then bunched up the blankets where it mattered most and called out softly. “What? Who is it?”

  The door creaked open, ever so slightly. A slender figure slipped inside, draped in a coarse seaman’s coat. With bare legs, he noted. Shorts, in this weather? How like her.

  “You up?” Rasya asked.

  It took all his self-control not to make the obvious wisecrack. “I am now,” he managed. “Tarrant gone?”

  She nodded. “Dissolved into night, as the poet would say. Quite an impressive display.”

  “Yeah. He’s an impressive guy.”

  Her blue eyes were fixed on him. Sparkling. Mischievous. God he still wanted her. “You up to some some company?” she asked softly.

  “Why? Has something happened?”

  “Not yet.” She smiled, somewhat tentatively. “But I was thinking maybe it might.”

  She came to the bed and sat down on it. By his side. Close enough that he could feel her warmth through the blanket.

  “What about your wards?” he managed.

  She grinned. “His ex gave them a boost for me when we reached shore. Why else do you think I rowed him there?” The coat slid off one shoulder as she spoke; she wasn’t wearing very much under it. Maybe nothing at all. “The way I figure it, we’ve just about completed the second most dangerous voyage on the face of this planet, and so I’m about due for a little celebrating. Right?” She cocked her head and studied him. “Of course, if you’re not interested....”

  Women. Don’t even try to understand them. You’re just not equipped.

  “Hell I’m not,” he muttered, and he reached for her.

  It was only later, in the depths of the night—much later, and after considerable exertion—that he thought to ask her, “What’s the first most dangerous voyage?”

  It was too dark to see, but he thought he sensed her smile.

  “Going home,” she whispered.

  Three

  It was Sara’s first time out.

  Behind her, before her, all about her, the grim sentinels of the One God kept watch for faeborn dangers. As they did so they prodded her forward, pushing her when necessary, cursing her stubbornness under their breath even as they muttered the prayers of the Hunt. She was so afraid it was hard to move, the terror constricted her limbs, she found it hard to breathe ... but that was good, she knew. Fear would draw the nightborn. Fear would manifest demons who were otherwise invisible. Fear would enable the Church to do its holiest work ... and she understood all that, she understood the value of it, she just wished it didn’t have to be her in the center of all this, marching numbly at the heart of this macabre procession while the faeborn gathered just beyond the reach of their torchlight, eager for the promised feast.

  Her.

  With a constant litany of prayers upon their lips, the hunters of the Church wended their way through the depths of the untamed forest. The thick darkness parted grudgingly before their light and closed up behind them, hungrily, as soon as they had passed. She had never seen such a darkness before, a dank, heavy blackness that clung to the trees like syrup, dripping thickly to pool about their feet. The mere touch of her feet against the nightclad ground made her shiver in revulsion. And in fear. Always, always fear....

  At last the man in front signaled for them to stop. She did so, shivering. They had sent her out with only a woolen smock to guard against the evening’s chill, and it was proving hopelessly inadequate. Perhaps they would have given her more had she asked for it, but how was she to know what she needed? She had never been outside before, save in the Church’s sheltered confines. How could she possibly anticipate the rigors of such a journey—she, who had spent twelve sheltered years behind the high walls of the Church, who knew no more of nightborn dangers than the secondhand tales of cathedral matrons, whispered over the daily chores?

  What does it matter? she thought despairingly. What does any of it matter? I’m not coming back from this, am I? Oh, they had told her otherwise. And she knew that some children did indeed come back from the Hunt, because she had seen them. Empty-eyed. Spirits bleeding. Souls screaming out in ceaseless horror, behind a glassy countenance that had lost all capacity for human expression. That was what these men hoped she might become some day. That was their true goal. They would have denied it had she asked them—had she dared to ask them—but she knew it nonetheless, with the absolute certainty of youth. And that thought frightened her more than all the monsters of the dark combined.

  “This is the place,” the man in front announced. The others murmured their assent—their voices filled with hunger, she thought, a hunger for killing, a hunger for her pain—and urged her forward, into a clearing which Nature had provided for their sport. Suddenly the men at her side seemed far more terrifying than whatever evils the night might shelter, and in a sudden burst of panic she turned and tried to run from them. But strong, cold hands were on her shoulders before she could take three steps, and a chill voice warned her, “Not now, little one. You just wait. We’re not ready for that yet.”

  They took her to the center of the clearing, where it waited. A low granite boulder. A steel ring, driven into it. A chain....

  “Please,” she whispered. “Please take me home. Please.”

  They were too busy praying to listen. Prayers for the living, prayers to conjure wisdom, prayers to consecrate the Hunt. A heavy steel band was set about her slender ankle and snapped shut. It fit her, as it had fit a thousand girl-children before her; the measurements of the Chosen didn’t vary much.

  “Please,” she sobbed. Her voice and body shaking. “Take me home....”

  “In the morning,” one of the men uttered shortly, testing the strength of her chain. As if she could find her way out through some subtle flaw in the steel. “All in good time.” The rest of them said nothing. They were forbidden to comfort her, she knew that—but it was terrifying nonetheless, to have the men she knew so well suddenly transformed into these emotionless statues. Statues who might curse the loss of a bolt or the escape of a night-wraith, but who would not blink an eye if she were torn to shreds before their very eyes.

  Not true, she told herself desperately. They have to care! They’re my people, aren’t they? But it frightened her more than anything that suddenly she wasn’t sure of that. She felt like an animal surrounded by strangers, being sacrificed for something she could barely comprehend.

  Prey.

  They had withdrawn to the shadows of the forest, black and concealing, so that she could no longer see them. The lantern which they had used to light their way through the forest had been hooded now, so that the faint stars of the rim and Casca’s quarter-disk were the only illumination. Hardly enough to see by. Not nearly enough to drive away the hordes of monsters who took shelter in night’s darkness, whose hunger she could sense just beyond those hard-edged shadows....

  “Please,” she whimpered. “Oh, God, please. No.”

  She heard them before she saw them. Heard them chittering among the trees while their forms were still masked by the shadows. Heard their scrabblings, as they fought for a prime vantage point. High above a vast shadow circled: razor-sharp wings, crowding out the moon. She sobbed, and jerked her foot against the chain, desperately trying to break free; the thick steel band didn’t give.

  “Let me go!” she screamed. As if the men would listen to her. As if they would care. “Oh, God, please, let me go ... I’ll be good, I swear it. I’ll do anything you want! Just get me out of here!” She jerked at the chain again and again, pulled herself along the half-frozen earth until the steel links were strained to their utmost—as if a child’s strength could somehow break such a bond, if she only tried hard enough. And she prayed, with a passion born of utter terror. Knowing even as she did so that the God of her faith would never hel
p her. The Hunt was His device—His plan, His ritual—and why would He set aside His plan for her, why would he break His own rules for the comfort of one tiny soul? But to pray when one was frightened was a reflexive response, and so she muttered the ritual words of supplication even while her eyes darted from shadow to shadow, searching for movement.

  At last she found it. She whimpered as the shadows opposite her stirred, as the liquid darkness coalesced into a long, scaled body. Something leapt at her. Long body, scaled flesh, horns set just above the eyes—it was upon her so quickly that she barely had time to scream before its claws raked her skin, its carrion breath choking her—

  And then something struck it, hard. The creature made a noise that was half shriek, half gurgle, and fell back. She was dimly aware of a black shaft that transfixed its flesh, and of noxious blood that poured forth from it as it clawed at its chest, trying to pull the barbed shaft loose. Then another quarrel struck it, and another. It howled in pain and rage and fell back again, almost to the line of the trees. There were small things coming from the shadows now, faeborn parasites that thrived on dying flesh; they fixed their sharp teeth into it and began to feast, even while it thrashed about in pain. Even as she watched the blood that gushed from it slowed to a trickle, sizzling as it struck the ground. The desperate thrashing ceased. Only the tiny scavengers continued to move, and she could hear the gurgling sounds they made as they tore loose bits of the faeborn flesh and swallowed it.

  She was shivering. Uncontrollably. Her face stung from where the beast’s claws had raked her, and when she rubbed the spot with her hand her fingers came away bright red and sticky. That thing had almost gotten her. One more second and it might have ripped her throat out, or torn out her heart, or done something even worse, that left her alive to suffer. Suddenly mere death didn’t seem so terrible anymore. At least it would end this suffering. At least it would quell the fear. She looked up at the sky, at the position of the moon, and sobbed. Mere minutes had passed since they had chained her here. Out of how many yet to pass? How many hours of fear and pain and utter despair must she endure, before the dawn released her? And if she survived this night—if her body survived, if some fragment of her mind retained the capacity to fenr-how many more nights would there be, in which her God would use her to draw out the nightborn, in order that His servants might destroy them?