When True Night Falls (46 page)

In the realm of black lava

In the citadel of night

In the throne room of the undying Prince

Calesta waited.

The form which appeared before him did so without fanfare, without flourish. He hissed softly as it solidified, a sound like fingernails scraping on slate. Recognition was instant.

“Karril.” The sharp black lips shaped sharp words, harsh to the ear and mind. “To what do I owe this dubious pleasure?”

When Karril’s eyes had fully manifested, he looked around, taking in the rich trappings of the throne room: gilded chairs, crystal lamps, a wall of black glass through which the whole realm might be glimpsed. “You seem to be doing well for yourself.”

Calesta bowed his head. “My patron is wealthy.”

“And powerful?”

“Of course.”

“No doubt you see to that.”

“We each have our own ways of bonding with humans.” The black mist that drifted about his glassy form coiled around his neck like serpents. “Why are you here? There’s no love lost between us.”

“No,” Karril agreed. “And never will be, I’m afraid.” He took a few steps toward Calesta, running his finger along the edge of a gilded chair. When he spoke again, there was an unaccustomed hardness in his voice. “You trespass, Calesta.”

The black figure snorted. “Hardly.”

“You trespass,” Karril repeated. “Nine centuries ago I bonded with a human, and now you interfere.”

Understanding glistened in Calesta’s faceted eyes. “Gerald Tarrant.”

Karril nodded.

“If that’s what you came about, you’re wasting your time. Tarrant’s
mine
. I swore it the day he destroyed my project in the rakhlands. Him and that oversized priest of his—”

“The priest is no concern of mine. The Hunter is.”

The black face smiled; obsidian teeth glinted in a lightless gash. “So sorry you had to come all this way, then, just to be disappointed. The matter isn’t open to debate.”

“I think it is,” Karril insisted. “I think it bears on the very rules we live by. Or would you like to have the matter arbitrated?”

The faceted eyes flashed angrily. “You wouldn’t dare,” he growled.

“Try me.”

“On what basis? Noninterference? This war began long before you got involved in it.”

“He’s been mine for nine centuries, Calesta. That predates any claim of yours and you know it. Remember the rule? No one of us may interfere where another has staked his claim.”

“Yours? He’s been
yours
?” The black figure laughed harshly. “Come off it, Karril! When did the Hunter ever submit to you?”

“I’ve fed on him—”

“I’ve fed on thousands—millions!—and it doesn’t make them mine. Not in the sense you mean. No, your precious Neocount values his independence too much to truly bond with you—or any of the Iezu—and because of that the rules don’t apply here. So sorry, brother. If that’s what you came for, you may as well leave now.”

“If I do,” Karril said calmly, “it will be to go straight to our maker.”

The obsidian body stiffened. “You wouldn’t dare. I have the right—

“Shall we let her decide that?”

The black figure drew itself up; the sharp edges of its flesh glittered dangerously. “You little fool! Petty god of sweaty couplings, patron prince of masturbators ... don’t you see what you’re interfering with? Can’t you see how many years I’ve put into this, how much planning is behind it? I’ll
change
this world, Karril. Not just its outward appearance ; I’ll change its fundamental laws. I’ll alter the fae itself! In time the entire planet will resonate in harmony with my aspect. Isn’t that worth the death of a piddling sorcerer or two? Think of it! Our natures are so very similar, Karril; you can feed where I do. You often have. Think what it will be like when this whole planet exists only to indulge us—”

“You don’t have to call off your precious project,” Karril said icily. “You don’t even have to let Tarrant go free. Just lift the illusion from the Terata’s domain. That’s all I came to ask.”

“Why don’t you join me instead?” Calesta asked softly. “We’re so very alike, you and I. Together we could tame this human species, and reshape it to suit our will. Why won’t you do it?”

Karril shook his head. “You disgust me, you know that?”

“Your answer never changes, does it?”

“Did you really think it would? We were born to be symbiotes, not predators. And you’re pushing that line. What would our maker think?” When Calesta didn’t answer, he pressed, “Lift your illusion from the Terata camp so that Gerald Tarrant can see your creations for what they are. Or else I’ll go before our maker and let
her
ecide the merit of my arguments.” A pause, threat-laden. “I’m willing to take that chance, Calesta. Are you?”

“You’re bluffing,” he accused.

“I’ve never been more serious.”

“She’d kill us both.”

“Very possibly.”

“You haven’t got the nerve to chance it!”

“Is that your final answer?”

Calesta was about to respond when a third voice broke in. “Go ahead, Calesta. Indulge him. It might prove amusing.”

The two demons turned. In the doorway stood a man, tall and blond and perhaps fifty years of age. Though he wore no coronet to proclaim his rank, it was obvious in the way he entered the chamber. This room had been designed to please him. The whole world existed to indulge him.

“Lift the illusion,” he urged. “What does it matter? We’ll have him in the end, all the same.” He came near to where Calesta stood—the demon’s chosen body was rigid with tension—and looked Karril over with eyes that missed nothing. “Friend of yours?”

“Hardly,” Calesta growled.

“So.” He chuckled. “The faeborn have their own wars. I thought infighting was against Iezu law.” When no one responded, he asked, “What’s this one’s name?”

Neither of them answered. There was power in the name of demons, which made their silence a defiant gesture. The prince’s expression darkened.

“As you wish.” He nodded toward Karril. “You came to speak for the undead sorcerer?”

“I came to ask Calesta to lift his illusion,” he said through gritted teeth. How could he threaten this man? How could he coerce him? The prince was human, and thus immune from the kind of threats one would use on a demon; as for human threats, he had already conquered death. What tool was left for manipulation? “So the sorcerer could fight his own battles.”

“Sounds reasonable to me,” the Undying Prince assessed.

Calesta said nothing.

“I would like to see him confront the Terata,” the Prince mused. “It would be interesting to see if he makes it to my realm, and in what condition. In fact ...” His piercing gaze wandered to Karril. Fixed there. “I’m thinking he might be put to a better use than a target for Iezu vengeance.”

Calesta hissed.

“Think. How many men are there of that caliber? Perhaps one a generation is born with that ability, and so many die, so many make fatal mistakes.... Here is one who’s survived the centuries—the most challenging art of all—and crossed land and sea against all odds ... and come here. Why waste that power? Why discard that unique intellect? Between us we could tame a planet.”

He turned to Calesta. “Lift the illusion.”

“But my Lord—”

“
Lift it
.”

The demon took a step backward; anger flashed in his mirror-bright eyes.

“I’m not one of your mindless puppets, Calesta. Remember that. And I’m not that woman in the rakhlands, whom you twisted over the decades. I know your power and I know your limits and I won’t hesitate to use that knowledge. Those are the terms of your service here. I’ve never seen fit to interfere in your hobbies before—not even when you took that woman from my lands, along with half an army—but this time there’s something I want, and I’ll damn well have it. Lift the illusion.
Now
. Let the Hunter see what kind of power he’s dealing with.”

The demon’s glassy form blazed in the lamplight. “You command this?” he demanded.

“I do.”

The tendrils of smoke agitated about him, forming a thick black cloud. “I’ll give him the eyes to see through it,” he hissed. “No more. The others will just have to suffer.”

“The others aren’t my concern.” The Prince turned to Karril. “Is that sufficient?”

Karril managed to nod.

“There’s a service you’ll do for me in exchange. Tarrant’s too far away for me to contact him directly against his will. You’ll take him a message. Ask him to receive it.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

The blue eyes glittered. “That’s his choice. But he might regret it later, I think. Mention that.”

“I won’t do anything that causes him to be hurt.”

The Prince chuckled softly. “Loyalty in a Iezu is so refreshing. Isn’t it, Calesta?” He waved expansively. “It’ll be no more than a message. You can view it yourself if you like. He won’t even have to open a channel to me to listen to it ... although he might choose to do that, in time. Yes. I think that he will.”

He turned and left then, as silently as he had come. Not until he was gone—and safely out of hearing—did Karril whisper, “Strange game you’re playing here, Calesta.”

The black face cracked; the foggy tendrils twisted. It might have been a smile.

“Not strange at all,” Calesta assured him. “Merely complex. So stay out of my way, will you? Because as you said, the price of open conflict would be high.”

And his faceted eyes glittered as he added sweetly, “
Brother
.”

The one thing he wanted almost as much as freedom, Damien decided, was a bath.

Morning light illuminated all too clearly their current state. Hesseth was clean enough, having started the previous day in fresh clothes, and while rakhene fur had its own distinctive odor it lacked the foulness of stale human sweat. Damien had supplied the latter in abundance. It was hard enough trying to keep clean with only one set of clothes to his name—the rest having been lost a small eternity ago, back at the gap—but when the only available river was seeded with nasty carnivores, and then their juvenile captors decided that the only water necessary was a single cupful for the three of them to pass around ... he wanted a bath. Badly. And he suspected that his cellmates wanted him to have one.

They were all covered in mud, of course. And God alone knew what else that mud contained. Thus far his only need for biological relief had been satisfied by urinating into a corner, but it occurred to him that if they stayed here much longer they’d be adding more solid substance to the mucky chamber as well. And what about the girl? He got the impression she had been here some time already. Did they let her out for a toilet break now and then, or had she grown adept at hiding her own waste beneath the muddy cover? His nose was so numbed by the reek of mold and rotted meat which seemed to hang about the Terata island that he could no longer sort through the foul odors surrounding him to analyze their source. Hesseth must be suffering quite a bit, though. Thank God his sense of smell was only human.

The girl. What was she? When he awakened in the gray light of dawn—surprised to find that he’d fallen asleep at all in this dismal place—he found the Fire by his side, set one end upright in the mud. Sometime during the night the girl had crept back to her tiny hole and curled up there like an animal, head tucked down by her knees. After a moment he took the vial up and put it back in its protective pouch. What had she been doing with it? Why the strange reaction? And come to think of it, how the hell had she known that he was a priest? Without his sword there was no obvious sign of his profession, and he hardly looked like a clergyman.

A priest of swamps,
he thought, rubbing a coating of grime from his chin. Stubble raked his hand.
Serving a god of mud
.

Gently, very gently, he worked a Knowing. He didn’t know how sensitive she was—or even what form her sensitivity would take—but he did his best not to wake her. The currents were sluggish, but at last they responded. He felt Hesseth drawing near beside him as the pictures formed, ghostly tableaux that were nearly as confusing as the girl herself. Could the ralch-woman see his Knowing for what it was, or did she merely sense the flow of power? He had never thought to ask.

Images misted through the gray morning light, fading one into the other like fae-wraiths. Contrasting images that seemed to come from different worlds, even different realities. Warm scenes from a secure home. A garden of crystal leaves, shimmering in the moonlight. A coat drenched in blood. The darkness of a cavern. A young girl running. The face of a priest contorted in hatred, the downstab of a ritual sword ... he felt her almost awaken as that image formed, and had to dim down his Knowing until sleep once more claimed her. Then: Religious images, drenched in blood. A mother’s smile. A predator’s grin. A woman so twisted by age and neglect that her joints had thickened like tumors, her eyes tearing blood and pus. Malformations. Unhealed wounds. And running, always running; that image surrounded all the others, flanking them, creating a fragile web of unity that bound them all together.