When True Night Falls (39 page)

“Do you see it in any form?”

“Sometimes. A flash of light, when several beats come together. As brilliant as a lightning strike when a lot of power is involved. Sometimes the whole sky will light up—just for an instant—like the whole world was a piece of shattered glass, with light glistening along every flaw. Light broken into a thousand colors. So very beautiful....” She shut her eyes, remembering. “It can be dangerous, though. I know of at least one
khrast
who was hunting when the tidal fae pulsed, and when the light blinded her, the quarry turned and charged ... so we try not to see it, we train ourselves not to look. It’s a matter of survival, you understand.”

He asked her gently, “Do you succeed?”

“Mostly,” she smiled. “But it is very beautiful. And that’s part of what we learned from your species: how to hunger for beauty.” She sketched a pattern in the dirt with a claw while she spoke: circles within circles within circles. “And it’s part of what stands between us and our males. The defining difference, you might say.” She looked up at him. “Your women don’t see it?”

“Tarrant says that a few can, with effort. Occasionally a man gets a glimpse, but no more.”

“More sorcery.” She shook her head sadly. “You’re such strangers to this world, you humans. You come here and redefine our very world, you sculpt our native species as though they were clay, you spawn a thousand monsters each time you draw a breath ... but you never really belong here. Not even after all these years. You live on this planet, but you’re not part of it.”

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Tell me about it.”

Days of traveling, nights of rest. A luxurious schedule, which he could indulge in only because of Tarrant’s absence. On the third night there were five minutes of true darkness, when the sun, the stars, and all three moons were hidden behind the bulk of the planet, and he wondered if Tarrant was taking advantage of its power. The true night might be a time of terror for most men, a time when humanity’s darkest imaginings borrowed substance from the night and came calling, but for the Hunter it was a time of unequaled power and potential. Maybe (Damien thought as he severed the spine of something gruesome which the dark fae had conjured) Tarrant could use it to get a handle on who or what they were going after. God knows, they could use information.

On the third day they came over a ridge and saw the valley at last. Vast, dramatic, forbidding, it was unlike anything he had ever seen before. He was accustomed to valleys that lay comfortably in the cradle of their surrounding mountains, flat plains which were a cohesive part of the mountain range which flanked them. This was a whole different creature. It was as though the earth had folded crisply in two, so that between the rocky hills they had just crossed and the soaring granite peaks of the eastern coastal range there was a deep crease—perhaps sea-level deep—with walls so steep that climbing them would be all but impossible, and a bottom that was lost in a sea of tree tops and mountain shadows. A white mist seemed to fill the whole of the valley, twining about the treetops like hazy serpents. The late afternoon sun did little to illuminate it, but cast its light instead on the sheer granite cliffs opposite them, so that the peaks seemed crowned in fire, and the depths were doubly dark by contrast. There would be precious few hours of the day in which the sun would rise high enough to shine directly down into the vast gorge, and even then the thick mist would protect the gloom that blanketed the miles like a shroud.

Despite the relative warmth of the afternoon, Damien found himself shivering. “That’s the route, huh?”

“The one he wanted.”

He stared at it a while longer, taking the measure of its gloom. As if by doing so he could somehow alter it. “It’s that or climbing mountains all the way south.”

“Or going back to the Protectorates.”

“Yeah.” A breeze drifted up to them, damp and cool. “No thanks.”

He braced himself, drew in a deep breath, and patterned a Knowing. For a minute the fae didn’t respond, and he was afraid that he was too far from the valley’s current to access its secrets. Then the familiar patterns appeared, and he dissected them carefully for information. He found no evidence of anyone watching them, or of anything lying in wait. Not yet. But there was a feeling about the area that he didn’t like, and he was almost disappointed when the Knowing failed to define a specific threat. Better an enemy you could give a name to than a cold, clammy ignorance crawling up your spine.

“Is it all right?” she asked.

He sighed, and let the Knowing fade. “For now.” He looked back to where the horses were waiting, saw Tarrant’s black mount grazing on a nasty-looking weed. Hesseth’s mare, as usual, was more circumspect. “I think this is as far as we should go without Tarrant. We’d better make camp and wait for him.”

She nodded.

He went to the black horse and gathered up its reins. “Come on,” he muttered. “Time to move.” Beside him Hesseth urged her own mount back, until the two animals faced away from the daunting panorama, back toward the mountain’s crest.

Without a word. That was the eerie part. Neither of them saying a thing, but moving in silent and perfect concord. Both of them knowing that the thing to do was to cross over the crest again and descend partway down the mountainside, so that they might pitch their camp out of sight of the dismal valley.

Not a good omen, he thought. Not good at all.

Tarrant returned on the fourth night, and it was clear that whatever slaughter he’d indulged in had renewed both his flesh and his spirit. His pale eyes gleamed with the subtle malevolence that Damien had learned to know and hate in the rakhlands, and his movements were a flawless admixture of arrogance and grace. But for all that he despised the Hunter’s facade of dark elegance, Damien was glad to see it back in place. The change meant recovery and recovery meant power—possibly more than Tarrant had wielded since landing in this twisted realm—and power was what they needed right now, pure and simple.

He took his place among them as though he had never been gone, and made no attempt to explain how he had passed his absent nights. Nor did Damien ask. If he had learned nothing else in his months with the Hunter, it was that there were some things he didn’t want to know.

The Neocount looked about the camp with discerning eyes—and looked about the currents as well, with hardly more effort—and then said, “You’ve been here a good day at least. I assume that means you’ve found the valley.”

“Over the ridge.” Damien nodded toward the east. “Not a pretty sight.”

The Hunter went where he indicated, and was soon lost from sight. Damien took the small pot of water from over the fire and placed it to one side, dropping in a few tee pellets. It could be a long wait.

The tee was fully brewed and he’d drunk down half of it by the time the Hunter returned. Tarrant reentered the circle of the fire without a word and sat, lowering himself with a grace and ease that Damien hadn’t seen in a long time.

Damn him. He must have killed a lot
.

“What do you think?” Hesseth asked him.

“First tell me what you two saw.”

They looked at each other; at last it was Damien who answered. “A nasty, damp, dismal place with little sunlight and a host of terrain unpleasantries. You’d probably like it,” he added.

“Actually, I do. There’ll be fewer hours of direct sunlight in those depths—if any at all—which means that I can stay with you longer. If the mist holds steady throughout the day it might even be possible—in an emergency—for me to walk abroad at noon. That’s no small thing, you know.”

“I hadn’t thought of it,” Damien admitted.

“There’s no scent of our enemy in the currents, which either means that he hasn’t anticipated our taking this route, or that the new current doesn’t afford him access to us. Hopefully both. Given the force and the direction of the flow, I should be able to Obscure our progress from his eyes with little effort.”

“What about the Terata?” Hesseth asked him.

He seemed to hesitate. “I saw no trace of any creature I could label as such ... but I’m bound by the same basic ignorance that you are. Until we either get closer to them or have better knowledge of what to look for, I don’t think my skills will be much help. I did catch the scent of human life, however.”

“Human?” Damien was startled. “I thought there were no people here.”

“So did I. Apparently we were wrong.”

“What kind of people?” Hesseth demanded.

“Hard to say at this point. But it’s a sizable group, I do know that. Several dozen at least.”

“Living down there?”

“It would appear so.”

“That implies that the Terata can’t be as terrible as we’d heard.” Hesseth’s tone was one of reason. “If they were, the humans would be dead or gone.”

The Hunter’s eyes fixed on her. In the darkness, pupils distended, they were black. Utterly black. Not merely a color, but a manifestation of emptiness.

“You saw what your people became here,” he said softly. “You witnessed what they did. Are you saying that whatever force molded the rakh couldn’t also mold humans, if it wanted to?”

“Do you think that’s the case here?” Damien asked him.

“I think that something is very wrong in this region, and to pass early judgment on anything-even our own species—is a mistake. I saw signs of faeborn creatures in the currents, but what does that mean? Any group of humans will create its own monsters in time. How can we assess their nature from here?”

“You sound more curious than afraid.”

The Neocount chuckled. “Does that surprise you?”

“No.” Despite himself he smiled. “I guess not.”

“We are what we are, Reverend Vryce. And I was a scholar long before I became ... what I am.” A faint smile creased the corners of his lips. “Scholar enough to know what you fear most of all, Reverend. Tonight I’ll Work the weather as best I can, so that tomorrow the valley mist is lifted. If that’s possible,” he amended. “That will make it better for you, won’t it? If you have clear sight of your enemy’s turf?”

“I’d prefer it.”

“You should start toward the valley well before dusk. It will take you some hours to find a safe path down, and then time to descend. I’ll meet you at the bottom.” Though he was speaking to Damien, his eyes were fixed on Hesseth.

For a moment he was silent. The insects about them chirruped softly, to the accompanying crackle of the flames.

“The Kierstaad Protectorate,” he said at last, “is controlled by rakh.” His voice was soft, ever so soft, as though somehow he felt that excessive volume might wound her. “As is the one to the north of it. They’re nearly human in form, but their soul is clearly rakhene; the fae responds to them as it never would to a man.”

Damien thought he saw her shudder.

“Their disguise is supported by human sorcery. I don’t know the mechanics of it—I didn’t dare get that close—but the scent is unmistakable. And I think....” He hesitated. Glanced at Damien. “It was very similar to what I sensed by the crevasse. The same foreign touch.”

Hesseth drew in a quick breath, hissing. “Why?” she demanded. Of the air. Of no one. “What’s the purpose of it all?”

“Clearly they mean to control this continent,” the Hunter mused.

For a moment she just stared at him. Trying to absorb what he had said, with all its implications. “Maybe in the south,” she admitted. “Maybe ... although that shouldn’t have turned them into monsters. But what about the north? What about the Matrias? They have control of the Church hierarchy, but what good does it do them? They still have to live among humans, hiding their own identity. Is that really power?”

“Power enough to affect human society,” Damien pointed out. “The Church here has its own record of atrocities. Maybe by a slow manipulation—”

“Are you saying that my people are responsible for the crimes of humans?” Her amber eyes flashed angrily.

“I’m saying that in addition to rakhene power, the one pattern we’ve seen here—over and over—is degradation of spirit. Does it really matter which species serves as a tool, if some master hand is at work? We’re all equally vulnerable.”

She sat back, and forced her bristling fur back into place. Damien thought he heard her growling softly.

“An interesting concept,” Tarrant mused. “It may give us our first real insight into the nature of our enemy.”

“You think he feeds on degradation?”

He shook his head. “The rakh have been affected, and faeborn demons don’t feed on that species. No, it’s got to be more than that ... but this is a start. Any common link must be a clue to our enemy’s purpose.”

“And therefore to his identity,” Damien added.

“And therefore how to kill him,” Hesseth hissed.

The sheer venom in her voice startled Damien. Not because it surprised him, or because he hated their unknown enemy any less than she did, but because for the first time he was hearing her hatred in the context of other patterns. And what he heard disturbed him.