When True Night Falls (54 page)

“Don’t you think I know that?” he whispered. “Don’t you think that knowledge is part and parcel of my damnation?”

He lowered his head, aching to say something that would help, that would heal. But if a man of the Hunter’s intellect could see no way out of this terrible trap, what manner of salvation could Damien offer? At last he muttered, inadequately, “I wish there was something I could do to change things for you.”

“No one can,” he whispered. “But I knew the risk, you see. I knew when I made my bargain that there would be no backing out. I understood it then and I understand it now. It’s just ... this whole thing took me by surprise. That’s all. After nine hundred years, living beyond the reach of the Church ... I wasn’t ready. For this.” After a moment he added, “I suppose you were.”

“No one is ever prepared to meet God,” Damien said quietly. “We may think we are, but that’s only because we don’t understand Him.”

Eyes shut, the Hunter nodded. “The girl is safe from me, you realize. I don’t dare Work her again. If even some tiny portion of that Power remained within her, even a faded vision of it—”

“Do you really think you can avoid death forever?” Damien asked softly.

A strange expression flickered across the Hunter’s face. Almost a smile. Almost a tremor.

“I’m sure as hell going to try,” he assured him.

 

 

 

When Damien returned to the campsite Jenseny was asleep, curled up tightly in Hesseth’s arms. For a long time he just watched her, listening to the rhythm of her breathing, feeling the warmth that rose from their close-knit bodies. Hesseth stroked the long black hair gently, separating its knotted strands with her claws. The girl’s face was streaked with tears, but for now it seemed peaceful.

At last he whispered, “Is she all right?”

“She will be, I think. What about Tarrant?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I hope so.”

And because he offered nothing more, Hesseth didn’t press him for an explanation.

How well we’ve come to know one another,
he thought.
Aliens to each other in every sense of the word, and yet we’ve discovered a common etiquette.

He settled himself down on the opposite side of the fire, and felt exhaustion settle over him like a shroud. Too much for one night, he thought. Too much for
any
night.

When sleep began to dull his senses, he made no attempt to resist it. Because sleep was forgetfulness and sleep was peace, and that was what he needed more than anything else right now.

 

 

 

In the stillness of the forest clearing, Gerald Tarrant waited. The first of morning’s sunlight had filtered down through the omnipresent mist, turning the air a filmy gray. It warmed his skin, but not so painfully that he had to leave to find shelter. Not yet.

A figure formed in the space before him, drawing its substance from the mist. As he watched, the Iezu manifestation took on form, color, and at last life. When it was complete, the Hunter nodded in acknowledgment and addressed it.

“It’s nearly dawn, Karril. I called you hours ago.”

“Your pain kept me away,” the demon said softly.

Tarrant shut his eyes. It seemed to Karril that he trembled. “Then I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Thank you for coming despite that.”

“Are you all right?”

For a moment he just stood there, as still as the trees that surrounded him. At last, without answering, he held out his left hand. A small spot of darkness quivered like a flame in the center of his palm. “Will you take this to the Prince for me?”

“What is it?”

“An answer. To his offer.” He shook his head. “No more than that, I promise you.”

The demon held out his hand beneath Tarrant’s, so that the Hunter might pour the unflame into his own palm. It flickered there like a malevolent star, jet black against his own illusory flesh.

“Can I ask what your decision was?”

“I thought you didn’t want to get involved.”

“I seem to be involved despite that, don’t I? So how about filling me in?”

Grim-faced, Tarrant turned away. He said nothing.

“This isn’t like you, Hunter.”

He whipped back to face him; his eyes, sun-reddened, blazed with anger. “Who are you to judge what is and isn’t
like me
? Who is any demon to judge me? If I thought for one moment—”

Then he shut his eyes as if in pain, and raised a hand to rub his forehead. “I’m sorry, Karril. That wasn’t fair. It’s been a rough night, but I shouldn’t take that out on you. Your service deserves better.”

The demon shrugged. “Every friendship of nine hundred years has its moments of strain. Don’t worry about it.”

“You served me well all those years. Even though I now understand that you didn’t have to.”

A faint smile softened the demon’s expression. “The first human being I ever spoke with will always have a warm place in my heart. Even if he does pride himself on his lack of humanity.” He closed his hand about the black flame, wincing as its power bit into him. “Couldn’t you have chosen a more pleasant form for this?”

The Hunter’s expression darkened. “He sent me true fire. Whether it was meant as a warning or a display of power, the gesture deserves to be returned.”

“Ah. Ever the diplomat.”

“You can carry it, can’t you?”

“There are several hundred things I’d rather be carrying, but I’ll manage. Is that all?”

The Hunter nodded.

“Then I’ll be on my way. Dawn beckons, you know. Take care, Hunter.”

The Iezu form began to fade, its colors seeping out into the fog.

“Karril ...”

The demon paused as he was and waited.

He whispered it, “Thank you. For everything.”

The demon nodded. Then his flesh became translucent, transparent, and slowly dissolved in the misty gray light of dawn. The black star in his hand was the last thing to fade, and that went out suddenly, like a snuffed candle flame. The smell of conjuration was sharp in the damp air.

Gone to its destination, Tarrant thought. Gone to deliver its message of death and betrayal.

Alone in the light of the early dawn, the Neocount of Merentha shivered.

There it is, Damien thought.
We made it.

The cities of the coast lay nestled in a crescent-shaped valley whose broad, curving mouth opened to the sea. To the east and west loomed the bald granite peaks of the continent’s two mountain ranges, which curved like pincers about the cities’ bounty and then extended far out into the water. There they became two diminishing lines of weather-worn ridges and jagged islands which stretched southward as far as the eye could see, providing the crescent shore with a vast harbor that was sheltered from storm and from foreign tsunami alike.

Clearly humankind had thrived here. Looking down upon the cities of the south—there were three that he could make out by moonlight, and probably more that would be visible in the light of day—Damien saw all the signs of successful settlement. Lush farmlands hugged the mountains, and a system of roads was visible that spanned the valley like a web. The fact that it was all at sea level, or very near to it, spoke volumes for the natural safety of this fertile niche; if the harbor waters had ever spawned any smashers of their own, man would have sought higher ground.

He stood on a ridge some two hundred feet above the valley floor and gazed at their destination. Some hundred yards to the east of them the waters of the valley—now a sizable river, formidable in current—plunged headlong over the rocky edge, roaring like a hurricane as they smashed themselves upon the rocks below. From there it was another drop, and then another, as the vast waterfall plummeted in stages to the floor of the harbor basin. Damien gazed down into the mist-filled lower valley and thought he saw figures milling about the foaming lake below. Fae-wraiths? Real people? Perhaps lovers, braving the dangers of the night in order to spur on their passion. Or perhaps even tourists, from the Protectorates or beyond; who could say what manner of commerce these thriving cities supported? One thing was certain: after weeks of traipsing through cold forests and over bare granite plateaus, Damien was overjoyed to see people again. Any people. He felt muscles unknot that had not been relaxed for weeks, and even though he knew that the dangers in those cities might be every bit as deadly as those without, he couldn’t help the sense of optimism that filled him at the sight of this thriving human metropolis.

Jenseny was something else again. She wouldn’t even come near the edge of the cliff, but stayed back by the horses, cowering close against their flesh.
Humanity
meant danger and betrayal to her—how quickly the young learned to fear!—and clearly she dreaded the coming descent. But at least she had stayed with them this long. That was something Damien hadn’t expected, and if he had failed to sketch out plans for her in the past few days it was mostly because he hadn’t really thought she’d still be with them. For a while it had seemed that she might bolt from them, animal-like, at the first sign of danger, disappearing into the brush like a frightened skerrel. Now she seemed somewhat more stable, if no less terrified. Somewhat more human.

How ironic, that the rakh-woman should prove the humanizing factor with her. He wondered if Hesseth had noticed the change. He wondered if she had caught the humor of it.

Love is a universal language,
he reminded himself. Then he glanced back at the girl—still terrified, still cowering, but Hesseth had gone to comfort her—and thought,
So is loneliness.

With a sigh he looked about for Tarrant. At last he spotted him some hundred yards away, standing by the edge of the river, gazing down upon the valley beneath. He made his way to where the tall man stood and offered him the telescope. But Tarrant shook his head, his pale eyes fixed on the panorama below. Studying the southern cities, with all the special senses available to him. Damien waited in silence. At last the Hunter nodded shortly and stepped back from the edge; fine mist sparkled in his hair like diamonds.

“Our enemy isn’t here,” he said quietly. Despite the roar of the compound waterfall beside him, his words carried easily to Damien’s ears. “Although his people have been to this shore, without question.”

“As invaders?” he asked. He had to shout to make himself heard. Not for the first time, he was jealous of Tarrant’s easy power. “Spies?”

The Hunter brushed back a lock of hair from his forehead; water dripped from it like a tear. “I’m not sure. The traces are complicated, and layered about each other like the rings of a tree; it’s hard to sort them out. But I would say from the fortifications here—” and he waved an eloquent hand out over the valley, “—or rather, from the
lack
of them, that whatever conflict now exists is diplomatic rather than martial. Hardly what one would expect,” he mused.

He turned to look at the river by his side, whose chill water rippled and foamed as it gushed over the edge. It gave Damien a rare moment in which to study the man unobserved. There had been a change in him recently, and not for the better. Damien would have been hard-pressed to capture it in words, but he could sense it clearly enough.
Maybe it’s hunger,
he thought. He thought of the cities before them, nestled in the lower valley, and shuddered. He considered how many nights had passed since they’d left the Terata camp, long nights spent traveling in an empty land. Though Tarrant hadn’t talked about his needs, it was clear what the cities must mean to him. Fresh food. Rejuvenation. Maybe even—with the right luck—a hunt.

Damien felt sick inside, and turned away.
You never get used to it. Not ever. You never learn to accept it.

In recent nights Tarrant had avoided Jenseny, and the rest of the party as well. He no longer rode with them but flew overhead as they traveled, keeping pace with them far above the thick canopy of treetops. Which was just as well, Damien mused. God alone knew how he would have reacted if they’d asked him to ride double with someone, or how Hesseth’s mare would have handled it if they tried to put three people on her back. There was a limit to what even strong horses could handle. No, it was best that they travel as they did. He just wished he didn’t feel in his gut that this was just another facet of the strange darkness which now hung about the man like a shroud, which seemed to grow as the long days of travel progressed.

He stood in the presence of God,
he reminded himself,
and was rejected. He’s faced the truth of his own damnation head on. Wouldn’t that change a man?
Shouldn’t
that change a man
?

Repentance meant death, the Neocount had told him. And death, in his philosophy, meant eternal judgment. Was there any way out of that intellectual trap which the sorcerer had crafted for himself? Was there any path he would accept? The thought of saving that twisted soul instead of destroying it was a heady concept, and not one that he had considered before. He wasn’t yet sure it was possible.

“We’ll need to get rid of the horses,” the Hunter announced.

“What?” It took a second for him to get his conversational bearings. “Why?”

“Because they’ll give us away. There’s no creature native to the east that’s even remotely like them, and the Matrias know that. If they’ve sent any warning to these people, it’ll include a description of our mounts. In the mountains we could hide them, but down there?” He gestured toward the city lights below them.