“Saris?” She whispered. She barely got the name out past the tightness in her throat. “Is it ... ?”
Tell me your need.
She opened her mouth to speak—and emotion poured out, raw and primitive, unfettered by the bonds of language. All the hope and fear and lust and need and love (was that love?) in a flood tide of memory that she could neither control nor comprehend. Pouring out of her blindly, into the surrounding darkness. When it was over, she fell back shaking, and her eyes squeezed forth hot tears. “Saris?”
For a moment the figure just stared at her. Digesting her response? At last it said, in an even voice, Andrys Tarrant is doomed.
It took the words a moment to sink in, and then it was a few seconds more before she found her voice. “What?”
He’s fighting a war he does not understand, for stakes he cannot begin to comprehend. He has given himself to one who will use him and then discard him, taking pleasure from the destruction of so tender a soul. He is a pawn, Narilka Lessing, nothing more. A blind, unwitting soldier in a war of gods and demons. The figure paused. A sacrifice.
“No,” she whispered.
I speak the truth, it assured her. Its tone was cool, emotionless. I have no vested interest in this matter to cause me to lie.
“No!”
If you bind yourself to him, you will make yourself part of his war.
“What war?” she demanded. “Who’s he fighting? Tell me that.”
The figure seemed to hesitate. A cloud of silk twisted about its thighs.
He means to kill the Hunter, it said at last.
The words were a cold thrill in her flesh. “He can’t,” she whispered. “No man can.”
A single man, no. But a man with a demonic ally and an army behind him ... perhaps.
“An army? What army?”
The figure hesitated again, then shook its head. 7 can’t tell you that. “What demon?" I can’t tell you that. “Why? Because I know the Hunter?” The figure didn’t answer.
Wrapping her arms even tighter about herself, Narilka shivered. Andrys or the Hunter. If the two of them pitted all their strength against each other, one would surely die. Maybe both. The thought of that loss was an ache within her. The thought that the loser would probably be Andrys-desolate, wounded Andrys—was almost more than she could bear. “What can I do?” she whispered. “Anything?" In terms of affecting the outcome of the conflict? The figure hesitated. I can’t counsel you on that issue. Such interference with another . . . it’s forbidden. As for Andrys Tarrant, I will tell you this: he would be fortunate to lose his life in this endeavor, for his ally intends to destroy him in soul as surely as he means to destroy the Hunter in body. Even more softly: “What can I do?" You know the options. Now you know the risk. Make your choices accordingly. “What would you do?”
The figure drew back; if it had been more human in countenance, Narilka might have thought it was startled. I lack the emotions that would make such a question meaningful. The Hunter has created great beauty in his time, though of a cold and inhuman sort; part of me would regret his passing. As for his enemy ... we do not share priorities, he and I. And I think that in a world where he ruled, I would have no comfortable place. But the concept of taking sides is meaningless, when I am forbidden to interfere. Only to protect my own may I act.
Her heart was pounding so loudly she could barely hear the whispering voice above its beat; her hands twisted nervously, one about the other. “You can protect me?”
From his ally. From the illusions that are his power. No more than that.
“How?”
It seemed to her the figure smiled. The same rules bind us all, it said. Silken veils swirled about its thighs. For as long as you are mine, he cannot touch you.
She shut her eyes; the figure was still bright in her vision. “I’ve always been yours. I always will be.”
For now. Until this war is over.
“Always!”
You may choose differently when this is finished.
“I won’t.”
We shall see, the figure said quietly. Until then, however you choose, know that I am watching you. Always.
The figure began to fade slowly, becoming translucent first so that the walls (there were walls again!) showed through it. Then the veils misted into smoke, and were scattered by the air; the gleaming flesh dissolved into random glitter, then dissipated before her eyes. Nothing was left of the image of the goddess, save the memory which even now made her tremble.
“Thank you, Saris.” She could barely find enough voice to shape the words. “Thank you.”
She managed to get to her feet somehow. Managed to get to where her clothing lay and put it back on, piece by piece. How few mortals ever saw a god incarnate, much less were counseled by one? Her hands were shaking as she put the communion robe aside. Saris was watching, she told herself. She would always be watching. For whatever reason, the goddess seemed to care about the outcome of this ... what had she called it? A war.
Fully dressed now, she shivered. Oh, Narilka. What are you getting yourself into?
Had she looked behind her as she left the temple, she would have seen nothing unusual, for Saris no longer maintained the illusion of a solid form. Had she listened closely, she would have heard nothing unusual, for Saris no longer couched her words in cadences the fleshborn might hear. But there was a presence behind her, and there were words, and both were echoed by the fae as it flowed about her feet.
Careful, my brother, the Iezu/goddess whispered. We are all watching now.
15
The Snake is black, and its eyes are drops of blood. At one end its many necks twine like tentacles, promising to enmesh the unwary in a living web of cold flesh and sharp teeth. At the other end is a face out of Hell, whose hot breath stinks of sulfur and carrion as it lunges for him, jaws snapping shut mere inches from his throat as he throws himself backward—
Damien awoke suddenly, heart pounding. He was lying on the couch of his rented apartment, and his body was drenched with sweat. What a nightmare! He tried to sit up, but his muscles were like knots and he had to work them loose before they would obey him. What the hell had brought that on?
He would have suspected Tarrant, but the dream wasn’t his style at all; the Hunter generally preferred a more complex scenario, a sophisticated blend of fear and despair that was light-years beyond the primitive biochemical terror of this experience. What was that thing anyway? It reminded him of representations of the Evil One that the Church favored, only far more real and terrifying than those formalized portraits. And why would he suddenly start dreaming about the Evil One now, after all he’d been through in the last two years? Certainly there were more concrete fears to occupy his mind.
He froze suddenly as a particularly nasty thought hit him. For a moment he couldn’t move, but sat rigid on the worn couch as his sweat chilled to ice on his skin. No, he whispered silently. Willing it not to be. What words had Tarrant used when he referred to his patron?
Divided into parts, it can be petty and unpredictable. Unified, it is a ruthless evil.