Crown of Shadows (20 page)

But this one was different.

The figure wore the breastplate.
His
breastplate! Embossed with the Earth-sun in that unlikely golden color, rays spreading out in just the way that he had drawn them, copying Gerald Tarrant’s own renderings. Andrys felt sick as he looked up at the mural, as the power of its image hit home. Was this what Calesta wanted him to see—that his fear and his shame were emblazoned on the cathedral wall for all to witness? The vast sanctuary suddenly seemed very close, and its air was hard to breathe. He had to get out of here. He had to get away from that thing, far away, before its presence strangled him utterly. Weak-legged, he struggled to work his way down the row of seats to where the exit was. It seemed to him that there were eyes in that painted face, pale gray eyes that watched him from across the sanctuary. Thank God he was far enough from the other congregants that few seemed to notice his departure; as for the priest, he probably saw him from his standpoint up at the dais, but he wouldn’t interrupt the traditional service to comment upon the departure of one wayward parishioner. Dear God, if he only knew....

He managed to get outside—somehow—and made his way from the great double doors to a place some few yards away where trees provided a modicum of shade. Several strangers noticed his shaky passage .and began to approach as if they meant to offer help, but he warned them off with a look and leaned heavily against a tree trunk, trying to catch his breath.

Ifailed you, Calesta. Despair
was a knot in his heart, a knife in his soul.
You told me what to do and I couldn’t. I couldn‘t!
But if he’d hoped for any kind of response from his patron, he wasn’t going to get it here. No demon could manifest on the One God’s doorstep. He had to face this moment alone.

God, why couldn’t he have brought his pills with him? Even a few grains of slowtime, just to act as a tranquilizer. He saw a few passersby staring at him, and he tried to look stronger than he felt so that they wouldn’t come over to help him. After a moment they looked away and continued walking, and he breathed a sigh that was half relief and half dread.

He knew what he had to do. He knew, but he couldn’t face it. How could he go back in there, back in where
that
was, and endure a whole service beneath that living image of his enemy?
I’m not that strong,
he despaired, and sickness welled up so strongly inside him that for a moment he could hardly breathe.
I can’t do it.

Then you will never have your revenge,
a cool voice warned.

Startled, he stiffened. Was that Calesta? Here? For some reason that possibility scared him more than all the rest combined, that his demon-patron could speak to him so close to God’s holy altar. Wasn’t the very point of the Church worship supposed to be control of such creatures?

The words didn’t comfort him, but rather made him feel horribly isolated. In that church were hundreds of worshipers sharing a communion he could never taste, a faith he had no right to counterfeit; here was he with his demon guide, utterly alone even in the midst of a crowd. How long could he go on like this, pretending that he was coping? Pretending that he was truly alive? He needed more than a demon’s voice in his head to keep going; he needed human warmth, human contact, human touch ... a vision of the black-haired girl took shape before him, and he cried out softly in pain for wanting her. Not that. Never that. To court her now was to condemn her to death—or worse—and he could never, ever be the cause of that. Not even though it made his soul bleed to have her so close, so very close, and not reach out to her.

If you prefer to continue without me,
the cold voice warned,
that can be arranged.

That fear was worse than all the others combined. “No!” he whispered. “Don’t leave me!” What would he be without Calesta? He no longer had a life of his own, but was defined by the demon’s will, the demon’s plans. How would he survive alone, facing his memories with no hope of redress?

Then go,
the voice commanded, and its tone was like acid.
Obey.

Slowly, reluctantly, he turned back toward the cathedral. The outer doors were still open; the inner doors, leading to the sanctuary, beckoned. Slowly he walked up the polished stone stairs once more, and then hesitated. Could he sit through the rest of the ritual without staring at the portrait of his ancestor, without reliving his one bloody memory of the man? Why should his quest for vengeance demand such a trial?

“Calesta—” he whispered.

Obey,
the voice hissed, and its tone made his skin crawl.
Or our compact ends here and now.

Terrified of the memories that the mural would awaken, but far more afraid of being abandoned by the only living creature who could give him back his soul, Andrys Tarrant forced himself to cross the foyer and enter the sanctuary once again. May God forgive him for his presence here, for his use of the Church to further a demon’s plans. May God understand that in the end he would be serving His cause, ridding this world of one of the greatest evils it had ever produced. May God forgive ... everything.

Behind him, out of hearing, Calesta laughed.

In the depths
of the Forest

In the Hunter’s citadel

The albino moved silently, secretly, grateful for the Hunter’s absence.

Through fae-sealed doors he went, well-warded portals protecting the Hunter’s domain. He knew the signs to open them. Down curving stairs, well-guarded by demonlings. He knew how to turn them aside. Into the workshop, and through it. To the secret room beyond, and its torture table: the heart and soul of Gerald Tarrant’s dominion.

Wisps of blackness trailed behind him, like smoke from a candle flame.
There there there, voices whis
pered as it passed.
It must be in that place. That place only.

If one’s eyes were sensitive enough, one could see the memories that clung to this place. Almea Tarrant, dying a slow and painful death by her husband’s hand. Gerald Tarrant’s two youngest children, crying out as their father betrayed them. Three elements in a compact established centuries ago, with power enough to sustain a man past death. Three deaths. Nine centuries. Not a bad deal, when all was considered.

The blackness followed him into the chamber and paused there, where it coalesced into a single dark
flame. It should be done in Merentha,
a voice whispered hungrily.
It should be done where the pact was first made.

“If I go to Merentha he’ll find me out,” the albino said sharply. “This place is a perfect copy of the original; it’ll be good enough.”

The blackness parted into a hundred tiny flames, a thousand; its voices fluttered like insects about the room.
Then do it do it do it now now NOW!

He put a hand to the cold stone table, feeling the power that was lodged within it. The whole room was filled with power, centuries of it building and feeding and growing here in the subterranean darkness, seeded by memories of bloodshed and cruelty. Power such as few men ever knew. Power such as no man but the Hunter had ever controlled.

“State the terms of our compact,” the albino demanded. It was his first command to the unnamed power that had approached him so very long ago. For one who had never commanded demons in his own right, it was a heady tonic. “Clearly and simply. I want no room for confusion.”

“And in return?” he asked hungrily.

The lightless presence coalesced into a single flame, a limitless shadow; it hurt his eyes to look at it directly.
We must have him,
a single voice demanded. It was deeper than those which had sounded before, and power echoed in its wake.
Because his soul is independent of Us, We must have a channel in order to claim his flesh. You will give that to Us.

“And Hell?”

It seemed to him there was laughter in that blackness; the tenor of it made his skin crawl.
He betrayed Us, and must be made to answer for it. Hell may have what is left when We are done.

And then it asked:
Agreed?
A thousand voices once more, all echoing the same demand.

For a moment the albino hesitated. Only a moment, and not because he was afraid. This was an act to be savored: the moment in time at which his path and the Hunter’s would separate forever. Centuries from now he would look back on this night and celebrate the birth of his soul, as mortals celebrated the birth of their flesh. And were not the two acts congruent in spirit as well as form? A baby’s flesh existed for months before its arrival in the world; all that its “birth” signified was passage from one state of being to the next. So it was with him. So it was exactly. The Hunter was a fool, if he didn’t see it coming.

“Agreed,” he said.

He pulled a knife from his belt, white steel blade with a handle of human bone; the seal of the Hunter was etched into the blade. “When I first came to him, when I swore to serve him, he fed me a portion of his blood to bind us. He said that it would be with me always, part of my own blood for as long as I lived. A channel between us far stronger than mere fae could ever conjure.” He drew the blade across his palm, sharply; blue blood welled up in the wound. “If so, then here it is.” He made a fist and squeezed; the viscous fluid dripped to the tabletop and pooled there. “Flesh of his flesh: the blood of the Hunter. Take it from mine and use it to bind him. I give it to you freely.”

A thousand sparks of black flame spurted to life on the tabletop. The hunger they exuded was so sharp that the albino stepped back quickly, lest he be drawn into the flames himself. How many men throughout history had summoned these demons with the intention of bargaining, only to be devoured themselves in the midst of their offering? Even the Hunter didn’t trust the Unnamed Ones, and he had served them for over nine hundred years.

And just see where it got you,
he thought triumphantly.

At last the flame drew back from his offering. The pool of blood seemed undiminished, but how little flesh did that awesome Power need for its work? A single cell would do it, or even a fragment of a cell, if it came from the Hunter himself. Freely sacrificed, it gained in power tenfold.

The skin of his palm twitched suddenly where he had gashed it; he looked down, to find the wound already closed.

“The Forest is mine?” he asked hungrily.

Hunger welled up inside him with such force that it left him reeling, a hunger that filled every cell of his body with such frigid fire that he shook to contain it. Not hunger for cruelty, or even for power; this was a need more simple, more primitive, more driving. The need to devour blood. Life. Hope. The hunger to destroy those things which the living cherished most, and consume them into his own dark soul. Into that boundless pit of cold, dark hunger which would never, ever be filled....

With a cry he fell to his knees, his flesh convulsing as the black need filled him. More hunger than any human body could contain; more raw
need
than any human soul could ever satisfy. It remade him from the inside out, pulping his body and his soul until both were a raw, bleeding mass, and then it sculpted him anew. Making him into a more perfect container for its crimson frenzy.

No! he screamed. Pain folded about him like a fist and squeezed. Dendrites tore loose in the confines of his skull and reattached in new, unhuman patterns. A section of the forebrain, pulped to liquid, oozed forth into his bloodstream to be processed as waste matter.

As it should have been for the Hunter,
the voices proclaimed. As it
almost was, nine centuries ago.

Shivering in hunger, the creature that was once called Amoril twitched in pain as the final ripples of transformation coursed through its flesh. It still looked human, to a degree. It could still act human, if it had to. Beyond that point all similarity ended.

Then the voices were gone, and there was only hunger.