Power. It was power. The raw power of the planet itself, made visible by the Hunter’s ward. Fae. He fell back from it in horror and saw the currents stir as if in response to his fear, saw the patterns of light draw back from him as though in obedience to some unspoken command. No! The light was taking shape, gaining color and substance and solidity, and mother lies on the floor, and the earth-fae gathers up about her, forming itself into dark little creatures that reach with sharpened claws toward her skull
No!
cathedral and he stands there praying, and the fae takes his words and gives them life and makes the people breathe them in, so that his faith becomes part of their flesh
No!
anger like a fist about Vryce, earth-fae squeezing hard to provoke the desired reaction
He screamed. Not to be heard, not to be saved, but to empty himself of the terror which was choking him. Still the visions pounded at his brain; memories, hopes, and fears rushing through his head in one vast chaotic onslaught, and beyond that the knowledge that the power had always been there, that he had always controlled it, that the price of denial had been to lose a part of his soul. Until now ...
Something slammed behind him. A door, struck open? It seemed a universe away to him. So did the footsteps that ran toward him from behind, and the hot hands that lifted him up from the floor, struggling to make him stand. Another world, another time. He couldn’t go back to it now.
He saw the future. The futures. He saw his war won, and the Church triumphant. He saw it lost, and watched the Church wither away in the shadow of that failure. He watched the Church triumph again and again, and he watched it fail also, and each time it was different: future after future unveiled before him in one blinding flood of raw potential. The war was won, but the violence continued; the war was won, but his people’s faith was poisoned; the war was lost and all, all was lost with it....
He was aware of a hand pressed against his throat to catch his pulse, and the fevered concern of the men at his side fluttered about his head like ballings. They were saying something to him, but their words couldn’t make it through the roar of the fae in his ears. Where was the future with hope in it? he despaired. Where was the path to salvation? Symbols and human figures and fears that had wings swirled wildly about him as he struggled to find some focus. Father? they chittered. Holy Father, are you all right? He saw a demon with the eyes of an insect cut open his head and place dreams inside. Holy Father? Faster and faster now, visions of the past and future tumbling over one other, pouring into his soul faster than he could sort them out. What’s wrong? He needed the right future. Someone call a doctor, fast! The war was over and the Patriarch called his soldiers together, and the fae gathered at his feet in response to him just as it always had, obeying this man who had been a sorcerer since the day of his birth—
There was terror in that image, but also exultation, for it was a new pattern, a new path. This was the one way he could save his people; this was their only hope. He saw it acted out, he watched it replayed a thousand times within each second as his heart pounded, shaking his body, sending ripples out through the fae
Hold him still!
and there was a stabbing in his arm, not fire now but cold, icy cold. He could feel his heart struggling against it, and the visions began to shatter like glass about him. Pain spread through his veins and the fae turned to ice and cracked from his skin, and a darkness descended from the ceiling and a weight came crashing up from the floor—
Fine. He’s fine.
What happened?
I don’t know.
What did you give him?
Hard to hear. Hard to see. Impossible to move.
Is the ambulance—
Coming.
Pulse is strong.
What the hell happened?
Cling to the vision. Don’t forget!
Hold on.
Help’s coming.
Darkness.
19
The color of pain was red. A raw, ugly red, that stank like rotting meat and oozed inward through his pores until he was filled with it. A red that flayed his nerves alive and then scraped along their surfaces, arousing pain beyond that which any living body could endure. A pain so total that it stripped him of his humanity, it bled him of all intelligence, it left him no more than a core of terror and agony in a universe gone mad, in which waves of pain were the only marker of time.
And then, in that madness: a human hand, grasping his. The touch was like fire, but Damien gripped it desperately, allowing the contact to define him. Fingers. Palm. Soul. It became the focus of his universe, the single point about which worlds revolved, the core of his private galaxy. Fire blazed along his arm as his muscles split from the strain, bloody strips curling back upon themselves, laying the moist bones beneath bare and vulnerable. Skin, he needed skin, nature’s own armor: he fixed his mind upon that one need until it seemed to him that his muscles were no longer bare, clothing them with the power of his imagination. It was instinct that drove him rather than knowledge, but the instinct seemed true and he clung to it desperately, unwilling to sink back into formless agony again.
Arm: define it, feel it, believe in it. Shoulder. Chest. Fire lanced across his torso like whip strokes, and in those seconds when his concentration wavered he could feel his newly imagined skin peeling from his body in heat-blackened strips, edges charred to a glowing ash ... the hand that held his gripped him tighter as he fought to regain consciousness of self, and another clasped his shoulder. Good. That made for two points of contact in a universe of burning blood. Two points defined a line. Three points defined a plane. Four points defined a solid.. ..
And then the redness was gone and he was on his knees, choking on air that reeked of sulfur and burning meat. The hands that held him helped him to his feet, and he accepted their aid with gratitude. The ground was so hot that already his breeches had begun to smoke, and the stink of burning wool added new strength to the noxious melange surrounding him.
“What was that?” he whispered. He didn’t expect an answer, so much as he needed to test his voice. To his surprise the words indeed sounded, though he distinctly remembered his vocal cords having burned to bloody ribbons at least twice.
“Did you think the transition would be easy?” a voice from behind him asked. The hands that were gripping him released him, and a wave of panic nearly overcame him at the sudden loss of contact. There was no doubt in his mind that without Karril’s touch he would have been lost in that pain forever. A numbing fear grew in him, that perhaps he had indeed taken on more than he could handle this time. If that was just the gateway to Hell, what lay beyond?
And then he grew aware of the voice that had spoken. Not Kami’s, nor anything like it. A more musical voice, higher-pitched, that was painfully but indefinably familiar. He turned around suddenly, so focused on the source of that voice that he hardly saw the surreal landscape surrounding it.
It was Rasya. No, not Rasya exactly. It was a woman of Rasya’s height and coloring and general form: sunbaked bronze skin, short-cropped platinum hair, long, lean limbs with capable muscles playing visibly beneath. But the face was different, and the clothing also, and this woman’s eyes were so like Kami’s that he shivered to see them set in a body so like that of his lost lover.