When True Night Falls (5 page)

Wasn’t it?

We need his power on our side
, he told himself.
Otherwise an even greater evil will take control of us all. Doesn’t that mandate some kind of alliance?
But suddenly he wasn’t sure of that. Suddenly he wasn’t sure of anything. It was one thing to dismiss such a creature in mere words, especially as it had been months since he had last seen Gerald Tarrant. But the Patriarch’s words, fae-reinforced, awakened memories far more direct, more horrifying. The Hunter’s soul, caressing his own. The Hunter’s vileness invading the deepest recesses of his heart, his soul, his faith. Leaving behind a channel that clung to him like a parasite, a reminder of the power that linked them. What would the Patriarch say if he knew about that? If he understood that Damien had submitted to a bond with the Hunter, which would endure for as long as they both lived?

“That was your real fear,” the Patriarch accused. “Wasn’t it? That I would recognize your lies for what they were—”

“There are no lies—”

“Half-truths, then! Evasions. Deceptions. It all amounts to the same thing, Vryce!” He slammed his hand down on the report. “You write that Senzei Reese died, but never mention how! Never mention that in his last moments he destroyed a holy relic I had entrusted to you. That this treasure from our past was wasted. Wasted! And then there is the matter of the Hunter—”

“I can explain—”

“What? That fate flung the two of you together? That for the sake of your partnership he committed no sins while in your presence?” The cold eyes burned with condemnation, intense as the Hunter’s coldfire.
“You saved his life,”
the Patriarch accused. “When the enemy had captured him, and bound him, and sentenced him to destruction, you freed him.
You.
Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” he demanded. “Is that why you sent me this ... this ...” He struggled to find a suitable phrase, at last spat out, “This
travesty
of a report? Hoping I would never learn the truth?”

He desperately tried to think of something to say—a protest, a plea, anything—but how could he answer such a charge? When he had written his report (agonizing over each and every word, analyzing every turn of phrase a thousand times over) he had never imagined that the Patriarch would learn the truth. Never. But now he realized that he had underestimated the man. The Patriarch was a natural sorcerer, even though he refused to acknowledge the fact. It stood to reason that the fae, altering the laws of probability in response to his will, should cause him to meet up with a source of information. Damien should have seen it coming. He should have prepared....

“You saved his life,” the Patriarch repeated. Utter condemnation, spiced with a more personal venom. “In his name you betrayed your vows, your people. And God Himself, who sits judgment on all of us! Every evil which the Hunter commits, from now until the moment of his demise, will be because of you. Every wound the Church must suffer because of his influence, it will suffer because you freed him. Because you encouraged him to endure.”

He stepped forward, an openly aggressive move. Startled, Damien stepped back. The thick white wool of his ritual robe tangled about his ankles, an unfamiliar obstacle. About his neck the heavy gold collar of his Order pricked his skin with etched flame-points, sharp metal edges hot against the chill of his skin. Why had he worn these things? Had he thought that the regalia of his Order might shield him from the Patriarch’s anger? If so, they had failed utterly.

“In the name of the One God,” the Patriarch pronounced, “I have been given authority over this region—and you.” He paused, giving the fact of his absolute authority a moment to sink in. “And in the name of God I now exercise it. In the name of those thousands who gave their lives to redeem this world, choosing death before corruption. In the name of the martyrs of our faith, who served the Church in its darkest hours—and never wavered in their service, though they faced more terrible trials than you or I can imagine. In their name, Reverend Sir Damien Vryce, in their most holy memory do I now divorce you from our service—”

Fear took hold of him as he recognized the ritual. “Holy Father, no—”

“In their name I now declare you cast out from the society of priests, and from the Orders that initiated you—”

The Patriarch reached forward too quickly for Damien to respond, and his hand closed tightly about the golden collar. “—Damien Kilcannon Vryce, I hereby dismiss you from our Church and from all its Orders, now and forever.” And he pulled back, hard, with the kind of strength that only rage could conjure. Metal cut into the back of Damien’s neck as the decorative links strained to part, drawing blood as they finally gave way. The Patriarch pulled the heavy collar from him. “You are unfit for our society.” He threw the collar to the floor, and ground his foot into the delicate metalwork. “If not for
any
human society,” he added venomously.

For a moment Damien just stared at the Patriarch, unable to respond. Despair overwhelmed him, and a sense of utter helplessness. What could he say now that would make a difference? The Patriarch’s authority was absolute. Even the Holy Mother, Matriarch of the west-lands, would respect and honor such a dismissal. Which meant that he was no longer a priest. Which meant in turn that he was ... nothing. Because he suddenly realized that he had no identity that was not Church-born; there was no fragment of his psyche that did not define itself according to the Prophet’s dream, the Prophet’s hierarchy.

What could he do now? What could he be? The walls seemed to be closing in around him; the air was hard to breathe. Blood dripped from the wounds on his neck, staining his white robe crimson as it seeped down about his shoulders. It gathered in a stain that mimicked the spread of his collar. Why had he worn it here, this emblem that he so rarely donned? What had moved him to make such a gesture? Usually he scorned such regalia....

Usually
...

His thoughts were a whirlwind. He struggled to think clearly.

It’s wrong. Somehow. Wrong....
He tried to remember how this meeting had come about, but he couldn’t. His past was a void. His present was a sea of despair. He couldn’t focus.

Things began to swim in his vision: the collar. The Patriarch. The gleaming white robes he never wore. And some fact that lay hidden among those things, something he could sense but not define....

It’s wrong
, he thought.
All of it.

And the room began to fade. Slowly at first, like a tapestry that was frayed at the edges. Then more rapidly. The collar shimmered where it lay, then vanished. The Patriarch’s ivory silk became a curtain of light, then nothing. The chamber ...

... became a room on a ship. His ship. The
Golden Glory.

“Oh, my God,” he whispered. His heart was pounding with the force of a timpani; his throat still tight with fear. He lay there for a moment in utter silence, shaking, letting the real world seep in, waiting for it to banish the terror. Listening for sounds that would link him to the present: the creak of tarred timbers, the soft splash of ocean waves against the prow, the snap of sails in the wind. Comforting, familiar sounds. They had roused him from similar nightmares before, on similar nights. But this time it didn’t seem to help. This time the fear that had hold of him wouldn’t go away. The trembling wouldn’t stop.

Because it hit too close to home,
he thought.
Because this nightmare might yet come true
. What did the Patriarch really think when he read Damien’s report? Did he take it at face value, or did he discern the subtle subterfuge with which it had been crafted? What kind of welcome would await Damien when at last he returned to Jaggonath?

Fear lay heavy on his chest, a thick, suffocating darkness. He tried to reason it away—as he had done so many times before, night after night on this endless journey—but reason alone wasn’t enough this time. Because this fear had real substance. This nightmare might yet come to pass.

After a while he gave up, exhausted. And sank back into his fear, letting it possess him utterly. It was a gift to the one who traveled with him, whose hunger licked at the borders of his soul even now. The one who had inspired his dream, and therefore deserved to benefit from it.

Quiet night. Domina bright overhead, waves washing softly against the alteroak hull. Peace—outside, if not within him.

He went to where the washbucket lay and splashed his face with the cool desalinized water, washing the sweat of his fear from his skin. His shirt was damp against his body and the night wind quickly chilled him; he took down a woolen blanket from a masthook and wrapped it about his shoulders, shivering.

Drenched in Domina’s light, the deck glittered with ocean spray. Overhead the sails stirred slightly, responding to a shifting breeze. For a moment Damien just stared out across the sea, breathing deeply. Waves black as ink rippled across the water, peaceful and predictable. He tried to Work his Sight, and—as usual—failed. There was no earth-fae on the ocean’s surface for him to tap into.

We could be on Earth now
, he thought.
For all this lack of power ... would we even know the difference?
But the comparison was flawed and he knew it. On Earth they would be speeding across the water, abetted by the kind of technology that this planet would never support. Blind technology, mysterious power. Here on Erna it would have doomed them long before they left port, when the doubts and fears of the passengers first seeped into the waterproofed hull and began their disruptive influence. Long before they set sail the fae would have worked its first subtle distortions, affecting the friction of various parts, the microfine clearance of others. On Earth that kind of psychic debris had no power. Here, it would have doomed them before they even left port.

Wrapping the blanket closer about his shoulders, he headed toward the prow of the ship. He had no doubt that the Hunter was there, just as he had no doubt that the man was trying—yet again—to find some hint of earth-fae beneath the ink-black waves. The channel between them had become so strong that at times it was almost like telepathy. And though the Hunter had assured him that it would subside again in time—that it was their isolation from the earth-currents which made any hint of power seem a thousand times more powerful—Damien nursed a private nightmare in which the man’s malignance clung to him with parasitic vigor for the rest of his life.

I volunteered for it
, he reminded himself.

Tarrant stood at the prow of the ship, a proud and elegant figure-head. Even after five midmonths of travel he looked as clean and as freshly pressed as he had on the night they set out from Faraday. Which was no small thing in a realm without earth-fae, Damien reflected. How many precious bits of power had the Hunter budgeted himself for maintaining that fastidious image? As he came to the prow he saw that Tarrant had drawn his sword, and one hand grasped it about the coldfire blade. Absorbing its Worked fae into himself, to support his unnatural life. Even from across the deck Damien could see that the malevolent light, once blinding, had been reduced to a hazy glow, and he managed to come within three feet of Tarrant before he felt its chill power freeze the spray on his hands. Whatever store of malevolent energy that thing had once contained, it was now nearly empty.

Tarrant turned to him, and for a moment his expression was unguarded: hunger whirlpooled in his eyes, black and malevolent. Then it was gone—the polished mask was back in place—and with a brief nod of acknowledgment the Hunter slid the length of Worked steel back into its warded sheath, dousing its light. In the moonlight it was possible to see just how much this trip had drained him, of color and energy both. Or was that ghastly tint his normal hue? Damien found he couldn’t remember.

He took up a place beside the man, leaning against the waist-high railing. Staring out at the ocean in mute companionship. At last he muttered, “That was a bad one.”

“You know that I require fear.”

“Worse than most.”

The Hunter chuckled softly. “You’ve grown immune to most of my tricks, Reverend Vryce. In the beginning it was enough to plant suggestions in your mind and let them blossom into nightmares on their own. Now if I mean to make you afraid—and keep you dreambound long enough for that fear to strengthen me—I must be more ...
creative.”

“Yeah. I know.” He sighed heavily. “I just wish you didn’t enjoy it so goddamned much.”

Below them the ocean was smooth and calm; only a gentle swell and a hint of foam marked the place where the prow of the
Golden Glory
sliced through it. The Hunter turned back to study the water, searching for some hint of power.