“We need Tarrant,” he whispered hoarsely. Clinging to the name like a lifeline. Tarrant would be immune to the trees’ power—or he would make himself immune, with much the same result. Tarrant would know how to excise the alien tendrils from the girl’s flesh—and perhaps from their own—without killing them in the process. Tarrant would save them, as soon as night fell.
If they lived that long.
Hours passed, without rest or relief. They came to a crevice, earthquake-born, that turned them aside to the east for several miles. And then another, its tributary. The hard rock was brittle and seismic shock had taken its toll in this region; they tried to hold to a southward course, but sometimes it was impossible. Once they skirted a deep chasm whose rim led them directly into the sun; after nearly an hour of staggering toward that blinding disk, Damien’s eyes were watering so badly that he could barely see. Still they kept moving. He didn’t dare ask himself how long they could keep going, or what they hoped to accomplish. They could never reach the rakhlands by nightfall, and it was clear that this land offered no safe refuge. Time and time again they passed tree clusters that were littered with bones, and now that he knew what to look for he could clearly see what had taken place there. One tree, rooted in a human rib cage, rose up like a surgeon’s scalpel just beside the sternum; another had cracked through a pelvis in its quest for further growth. They passed one skeleton that might have been rakhene, but neither he nor Hesseth wanted to stop to examine it. And what if it was, anyway? They knew the two peoples were enemies. Doubtless there had always been madmen of both species willing to brave the Prince’s wasteland in search of vengeance or glory or some other gain. And doubtless they all had expired here, some taken in their dreams their first night in the Wasting, others struggling onward as Damien and Hesseth were now doing, until sheer exhaustion forced them to their knees and the Prince’s creations claimed them at last.
There was no shelter. No hope. If they could make it until nightfall, then Tarrant might be able to help them, but if not . . . he didn’t dare think about that. Not now. It sapped his strength, to fear like that.
And then they came over a rise and he heard Hesseth hiss sharply.
“Look,” she whispered. “Look!”
They had been traveling due west for a while, and it was in that direction that she was pointing. The sun had begun to sink and was now directly ahead of them, which made it almost impossible to see; he blinked heavily, as if the moisture of his tears might somehow clear his vision. Black land, ripples and knots and whorls of it . . . what had she seen? A mound in the distance, somewhat taller than most, but that was no surprise; the vagaries of the lava flow had produced a number of swells, all of which served as host for at least one tree cluster. Yet it was clearly the mound she was pointing to. He stared numbly at it, trying to understand. At last, with an exasperated hiss, she grabbed him by the wrist and guided him on. The girl’s weight jarred into his spine as he staggered westward, following her lead, wondering at her sudden spurt of energy.
And then they were walking on rock, only it wasn’t basalt any more; it was rough and it was gray and he knew without Knowing it that it was granite, blessed granite—a granite island in the midst of the black lava sea, about which the magmal currents had parted so many eons ago, leaving it high and dry . . . and safe. Praise God, it was safe! No trees broke through its surface, though there were clusters enough about its boundaries. It stretched for hundreds of yards in each direction, and all those yards were utterly barren. Bereft of bones. Bereft of life.
It was sanctuary.
With a moan he fell to his knees, and he lowered the girl from his shoulder as gently as he could. Pain lanced through his spine as her weight finally left him, the agony of sudden relief. He could feel himself shaking—not quite in fear, not quite in joy, but in some strange admixture of the two that was totally overwhelming. And he succumbed to it. For the first time in long, tortured hours, he embraced the utter abandon of submission. Emotions engulfed him that he had been fighting off since morning; the weakness which he had fought for so long was at last allowed to take hold.
We made it, he thought. His heart was pounding, his body filmed with sweat. Thirst rasped hotly in the back of his throat; with shaking hands he managed to uncap his canteen long enough to take a drink without spilling anything. One precious mouthful, savored cool and sweet on his tongue. In the midst of this black desert he dared drink no more.
He looked out over their granite island, Hesseth’s crumpled body, the girl’s. “We made it,” he whispered. To them. To no one.
Made it . . . to what?
“It’s still alive,” the Hunter pronounced.
Damien pressed a hand to his head, as if somehow that could ease the pounding inside it. “Can you help her?” he asked. “Can you do anything?” He could hear the exhaustion in his own voice, knew that his weakness was painfully evident.
Night had come. Tarrant had been late. And Damien and Hesseth had spent a small eternity fighting off the faeborn scavengers that scoured the desert night for food. They were simple creatures, primitive in form, unschooled in demonic wiles and guises—but their simplicity made them no less deadly, and by the time Tarrant had arrived, the granite island was littered with the bodies of the fanged and toothed nightmares that the desert had thrown at them. One for each human who died here, Damien thought grimly. Or maybe more. Spawned by the terror of those whom the desert entrapped, given shape by their dying fears. It would be a slow death, to have one’s flesh consumed by the trees; a man would have time enough to create a legion of monsters.
The Hunter leaned back on his heels and studied the girl. Stripped to the waist, she lay facedown on the bare rock before them, as still and unmoving as the trees themselves. Circular welts pockmarked the region between her scapulae and down to the right of her spine; here and there a white root was visible, pricking out from the swollen flesh.
“It’s alive,” the Hunter mused aloud, “without doubt. And still growing.”
“How far has it gotten?” Hesseth asked.
Tarrant hesitated; his gray eyes narrowed as he focussed his Sight on the girl. “There are tendrils in her lungs, and at least one has pierced the heart. The other major organs seem to be unviolated . . . so far.”
“Can you kill it?” Damien asked sharply.
The pale eyes narrowed disdainfully. “I can kill anything,” the Hunter assured him. “But as for removing it from her system . . . that would leave wounds I cannot heal.”
“Like an opening in her heart.”
“Precisely.”
Damien shut his eyes and tried to think. His head throbbed painfully. “Then we do it together,” he said at last. He couldn’t imagine himself Working, not in his current state, and the thought of Working in concert with the Hunter was abhorrent to him at any time . . . but what other choice was there? The girl couldn’t recover with a root system feeding on her vital organs.