If he didn’t-
What?
He could feel the sweat trickling down his neck, cold now as it soaked into his collar. Where was he? What was he supposed to be doing? He struggled for a context. Images came to him, drifting in and out of the shadows like disembodied wraiths. He and Hesseth and the child . . . camping in the Wasting . . . tent erected, food shared . . . dawn’s light bright over the hard earth . . . first watch established . . .
He gasped as it hit him. Suddenly, with the force of a blow.
First watch!
The child and the rakh-woman had gone to sleep, huddled in a nest of blankets. He had leaned his back against a tree and set himself to guard them, a process so familiar that it was now second nature to him. If any danger should approach, he would be armed and ready. He felt himself relax into the familiar watch-state, sleepless, alert . . .
And he had dreamed.
Fear knifed into him, cold and sharp. Never in all his years had he fallen asleep while on guard. Not even when he was traveling alone, when the only permissible sleep was garnered in restless snatches, too short to measure. Not even when exhaustion was a dead weight on his chest and he could barely keep his eyes open a moment longer—and yet he did, he did it because he had to, because you couldn’t travel in this world without keeping your wits about you, there were too many things all too happy to feed on a sleeping man.
He had slept.
He had slept!
What the hell had happened?
He forced his eyes open and got to his feet, his hand already reaching for his sword. Or so he intended. But though his eyes did open and his right arm twitched, the rest of his body did not move. It was as if some vital link between mind and flesh had been severed, and his limbs would no longer respond to him.
He remembered his dream of the Black Lands, the terrible fear that had consumed him. It was nothing compared to what he felt now, the hot panic that blazed in his gut as he realized the full extent of his helplessness. Neither nature nor sorcery acted without a purpose, he reminded himself, which meant that if he was helpless there was something that wanted him to be helpless, something that would perhaps feed on his helplessness. Or on him.
Trapped in the confines of a crippled brain, Damien struggled to make his flesh respond to him. Each attempt was a trial, each thought a torment. It would be so much easier to give in, to rest, to let the shadows have him . . . but there was no question of his giving in to that, none at all. He had done too much and seen too much for the concept even to tempt him. Thought by thought he forced his will out into the shell of his flesh, demanding that it respond to him. Thought by thought his demands dissipated into the shadows of his mind. He could feel his body trembling, feverish as he tried to work his will on an arm, a leg, anything. And that gave him hope. If he could feel his flesh, then surely he could control it! But effort after effort resulted in failure—devastating failure—and at last he lay panting, exhausted, caged within himself, unable to fight any more.
The fae.
Using it meant risk. Accessing it meant that the enemy might See them, might get a fix on them, might know how to reach them . . . but did he have a choice? It was that or die, he realized suddenly. Because whatever had taken control of him wasn’t going to let go. And if he didn’t Work soon, while he still had the strength, he might never get the chance to do so.
He envisioned the patterns of a Healing in his brain, felt the power coalesce in response. He didn’t know if such a Working would help him, but it seemed the most likely course—and it was the strongest Working in his repertoire, which made it doubly appealing. The short prayer which he used to focus his intentions was normally muttered out of ritualistic habit, one part of a complex formula; this time he prayed it with all his soul, begging for response. Give me the strength, God, to use this power. Guide me in my handling of it, so that my every use may be concurrent with Your Will.
The power surged within him and he rode it down the avenues of thought, seeking the damage within him. There, a shadow; he burned it away, reveling in the smell of heat and ash which his senses supplied. There, bright thoughts mired in a bog; he set them free with a thrust of power, tasting their sharpness as he did so. Again and again he burned, cleansed, opened, freed—and each time he did so his thoughts came faster, his purpose was clearer, the power was easier to wield.
At last he felt that it was time. Eyes open, body braced, he tried to move an arm. For an instant his flesh failed to respond and he felt despair flood his soul—and then the flesh stirred, first faintly and then distinctly, as fingers, hand, and forearm came under his control. He used the arm to rise up, to support the weight of his torso as he forced that solid mass to respond to him as well. Pain lanced through him as his body left the ground, but he refused to relinquish his advantage. His legs were moving now, he had them under him, he was sitting upright and then rising, then standing unsteadily on the hard black earth-
He swayed and gasped for breath, reaching out to one of the white trees for support as he struggled to get his bearings. There was no enemy visible, thank God, although that didn’t mean that none was around. Hesseth was sleeping soundly some ten yards away, Jenseny curled up against her side like a slumbering kitten. They both looked peaceful enough, but was that the result of true sleep or of drugged immobility? Try as he might, Damien could see nothing nearby that would account for his strange weakness, though even now he could feel the drag of it on his thoughts, the numbness of it in his body. There was no question in his mind that the minute he ceased to struggle the strange malaise would come upon him again, and this time it would consume him utterly.
He let go of the tree and headed toward Hesseth and the girl. Or tried to. But his body was weak, or else his control was lacking; he fell to the ground, hard, scraping his hands and bruising his knees on the black rock, his vision swimming as he focused downward on the place where he had been lying-
And for a moment he stopped breathing. Was still. Tried to focus on the ground before him, on the black expanse that had once been smooth and unbroken, which he had chosen for his watch-site.
It had changed.
With a trembling hand he reached out to touch the thing he had seen, to test its reality. His fingers made contact with a network of fibers that must have sprouted from the ground while he slept, rootlike in form, their casing as hard and as white as the trees at his back.
The trees.
His heart pounding wildly, he struggled to his feet. He was seeing in his mind’s eye the piles of bones they had passed, not sheltered by the bleached white trunks like he had thought but wrapped around them, invaded by them. And he knew what kind of creature would need to immobilize its prey, first lulling it to sleep and then invading its dreams, its mind, and at last its very flesh . . .
He fell to his knees by Hesseth’s side, oblivious to the pain as his bruises hit the earth. He grabbed her by the shoulder and shook her violently, willing her to come awake. But for all his effort it was long seconds before her eyelids fluttered open, and even then the spark that was in them was dim and confused.
“You have to get up,” he told her. “Our lives are in danger, Hesseth!” He shook her again, harder. Slowly her eyes came into focus, and she managed to nod. Thank God; whatever had gotten hold of him hadn’t fully gotten control of her yet. As he helped her sit up, then helped her stand, he could sense the presence of the trees at his back. Hungry, so hungry. How long did they normally have to wait before some prey blundered by, some animal who had happened upon the black lava desert and then lost its way, until sleep—and death—at last claimed it? He tried not to think about it as he helped Hesseth get her balance, then looked at Jenseny. The girl hadn’t moved in all this time, which was a dangerous sign; she had been shaken and jostled enough times by now to wake her ten times over.