Again the flicker. He could see it more clearly now, and no, it wasn’t like the sirens. Those had been beautiful; this was repellent. A sliver of white that curled and uncurled beneath the surface, wormlike, reflecting the moonlight in broken bits. A tendril perhaps, attached to some larger whole? No, he told himself stubbornly. It couldn’t be that. The Knowing would have revealed that.
But it bothered him. It bothered him so much that he didn’t even dare turn back to look at the girl, to make sure that she was safe; he felt as though if he turned his back on the thing for a minute it would somehow manage to bridge the distance between them and do . . . what? He wasn’t sure. But he felt in his gut that the thing was deadly, and that constant scrutiny was required. “Stay with me,” he whispered, drawing his sword. “Don’t go near it.” Desperately he tried to study its shape despite the surface reflections that masked it, to figure out what the hell it was and what it was doing here before it could-
Before it-
What?
Too late, he realized what was happening. Too late he realized the pattern of his own thoughts, and what they were doing to him. Too late. Even as he tried to turn around—struggling against a tide of dread that demanded he watch the thing, watch the thing!, not take his eyes off it for a single instant—something struck him on the back of the head hard enough to send him reeling. The water was right before him and he splashed down into it, ice-cold liquid that drove the breath from his body in a startled gasp. Somehow he managed to keep hold of his sword. Somehow he managed to get his head above water before he breathed it in, and to ignore the blinding pain in his skull long enough to get to his feet and turn around-
There were a dozen of them, maybe more. Men in uniform, spread out with military precision along the narrow shore. One of them was holding Jenseny, and above the gloved hand which muffled her screams he could see her wide, terrified eyes pleading with him for help.
Tarrant had failed them. Or perhaps the earthquake had disabled him before he even had a chance to Work; perhaps the misKnowing was never even cast. Even so, there must have been a hell of an Obscuring guarding this company that Damien had never sensed its presence. Which meant there might be a Worker with them, and one of considerable power. If so . . . he tried not to think about that. He tried to focus on what he could possibly do against such numbers, the one slim chance he had. With a desperate prayer in his heart he reached with his will down into the water at his feet, the icy current that hid the earth-fae from view-
“Don’t try it,” a cool voice warned.
Startled, he looked for its source. A dark figure was moving among the soldiers, a figure cloaked in heavy wool that walked through the shadows with unhuman grace. The glint of buckles and clasps hinted at a uniform not unlike those which the other men were wearing, but with considerably more decoration. The voice was silken, with a trace of an accent that Damien didn’t recognize.
“Don’t,” the figure repeated. It was holding something up toward Damien, and with a chill the priest realized what it was. A pistol. “If you Work—or even try to Work—I’ll kill you on the spot. You understand me?”
Stiffly he nodded. Desperately he tried to think. There had to be a way out of this. Had to be. But as he looked at the soldiers spanning the shore, at the tall figure who so obviously commanded them, he could feel his heart sinking. There had to be a way out . . . but he couldn’t see one for the life of him.
The figure nodded a command, and two of his men waded into the water toward Damien. For a brief instant he considered resistance, and then one of the men raised up a pistol of his own and trained it on Damien’s face. Point blank. He stared down the cool steel barrel in utter despair, icy water swirling about his ankles as the other man yanked his sword from his hand, his knife from his belt, anything and everything that might be used aggressively from his person. If he had been stripped of his clothes in front of all these men, he could not possibly have felt more naked. Despair welled up inside him with numbing force. Was this it? Was this the end of everything they had fought for, suffered for, prayed for? He didn’t want to accept that. He struggled not to believe it.
Roughly they hauled him back to shore, and forced him to his knees. His arms were jerked behind his back and manacles were snapped shut about his wrists; defeat engulfed him then, so powerfully that it nearly brought tears to his eyes. But he wouldn’t give them the pleasure of seeing that. They had beaten him, bound him, stolen his dreams, but he would not give them his weakness as an added gift.
Slowly the cloaked figure approached him. As it did so, it passed from shadow into light, and Damien could see its features. Beside him he could hear Jenseny breathe in sharply, her struggles momentarily halted as she gazed upon the face of their captor.
Rakh.
A glorious, majestic rakh, with a thick silken mane that lifted in the breeze as he moved and eyes that glowed green in the moonlight. Not from Hesseth’s own species, but a sibling race that had been transformed by the same power which remade hers. His face was marked with the bands and stripes of a jungle hunter, sable upon gold, and it gave his expression a fierceness that no human countenance could rival. His mane was not coarse and shaggy like those of the western rakh, but a thick ruff of silken fur that framed his head and shoulders in a corona of gold. Though his features were more naturally human than Hesseth’s had been, the markings made him seem doubly bestial, and like war paint on a human face hinted at a ruthless, unforgiving nature.
“It’s over,” the rakh said quietly.
Spoken in that way—so utterly calm, so perfectly confident—the words were like a spear thrust into Damien’s heart. It’s over. They had failed. It was finished.
He lowered his head in despair. God, forgive me. We did our best. What more could we have done?
“Get the boats,” the rakh instructed.
Three men ran off eastward along the narrow shore; moments later they rounded a promontory and disappeared.
“There should be three of them,” a familiar voice pronounced.
Startled, Damien twisted about. Despite the firm hand on his shoulder which kept him from moving too fast or too far, he was able to twist around far enough to see the tall, lean man who was approaching them now, his long silk tunic sweeping the rock wall at his side as he moved.
Gerald Tarrant.
“You bastard,” Damien whispered hoarsely. “God damn you! You sold us out.”
“Where’s your companion?” the rakh demanded from behind him.
He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t move. He could hardly breathe, so totally consumed by rage was he. Rage, and also despair; because if Tarrant was helping the enemy, Damien and his small ward didn’t have a chance in hell of getting free. Not now, not ever.
With leisured grace the Neocount crossed the space between them. The soldiers carefully kept out of his way.
“Where’s Mes Hesseth?” he demanded.
For a moment Damien couldn’t speak. Then the words came, spiked with a burning hatred. “What’s the matter, you don’t get paid as much for just two of us?”
He was struck on the head from behind, hard enough that for a moment his vision exploded in stars. “Where is she?” the rakh demanded. His voice made it clear that he was ready to strike again if necessary.
“She’s dead” Damien choked out. He looked up at Tarrant, loathing the lack of reaction on that pale, arrogant face. Had Damien ever truly traveled with a creature that inhuman? Could he ever have really trusted him? “God damn you!” he spat. “She died for our cause.” The words were an accusation, and he poured as much scorn and venom into them as his voice could possibly contain.