Two men came into sight. They looked startled to see Katassah there, but were far more surprised by Damien’s presence. After a moment of confusion and hesitation they both bowed low to the rakh and then hurried away in pursuit of other business. Katassah stood still just long enough to accept their obeisance, then resumed the long climb by Damien’s side.
“They don’t know, do they?”
The rakh shook his head. “No one knows. No one will know, until I tell them. Or until they guess.”
He would have asked him more about the Prince’s death, but at that moment the stairs grew steep and uncomfortably narrow, and he decided that his attention was better spent on his footing. They climbed perhaps twenty feet that way, to a narrow tunnel which opened onto darkness-
And the night sky unfolded before them, in all its predawn glory. Overhead the heavens were as black as ink, with a spray of stars scattered across the east like drops of fire. Beneath that was a band of pale blue rising along the horizon, and it was bright enough already that the stars directly over it were nearly invisible. Damien had watched the sun rise often enough on this trip to know how little time they had left.
“Where is he?”
The rakh pointed. It was hard to make out shapes on the glowing rooftop, but he thought he saw a man-sized shadow in the direction indicated. Carefully but quickly he made his way over to where it lay; the walking was treacherous, and more than once he stumbled over one of the sharp crystalline growths that littered the roof of the palace. In the end he made his way more by feeling than by sight, to the place where the Hunter lay.
Gerald Tarrant had been bound, but not by chains. There were wards etched into the glassy surface beneath him, and the crystal substance of the palace roof had grown over his arms and legs in several places, binding him in arched fragments of a faceted cocoon that hugged his flesh tightly, cutting into it in several places. Whoever had brought him up here had torn his outer robes from his body, leaving only his leggings and boots and—ironically—his sigil necklace. Prepared to meet the sun, Damien thought grimly. He remembered what a moment’s exposure had done to Tarrant in the rakhlands, and knew there was no hope of him surviving a longer immersion.
He knelt down by his body, noting the strain on the Hunter’s face, the subtle tremors in his body. He was conscious, then, and struggling to overcome the pain the light was causing him long enough to free himself from his sorcerous bonds. But the light was too strong, too lasting; even Damien could feel its power, and he lacked the Hunter’s sensitivity. The priest ran a hand over the nearest of the wards and worked a Knowing, but it netted him little real knowledge; whatever patterns had been used to grow those bonds were too subtle and complex for a man of Damien’s skill to unravel it.
He glanced east, saw the sky just above the mountains brightening ominously. There wasn’t much time.
“Can you unWork it?” the rakh asked.
He looked at the wards, at the Hunter’s crystal bonds, at the Hunter himself. I should leave you here, he thought. The world would be a better place for your absence. But somehow it didn’t seem the time or the place to be making that decision.
“Do you have a sword?” he asked.
For a moment Katassah looked at him like he had gone crazy, but apparently he decided not to question the request. He reached inside the folds of his cloak and drew his own sword from its sheath: a short sword, narrow-bladed, which was meant to complement gunfire rather than replace it. Damien took it from him and noted the thick quillons, the heavy pommel. Good enough.
He chose a spot on one of the growths and brought the butt of the weapon down hard on the crystal, in the place where he judged it most likely to be weak. Chips flew as the steel pommel struck, but the formation held. He struck again. On the second blow a chunk of the arch broke loose and went flying, leaving a space just big enough for Tarrant’s bare arm to be dragged through. In the east the stars were disappearing, swallowed up by the sun’s early light. He moved quickly to another of the growths and struck at it, hard and fast. This one was a thick arch, and it took three blows for it to begin to shatter and five more before there was enough space to pull Tarrant’s leg free. Katassah was helping now, pulling the man’s limbs out of the way as soon as Damien made such action possible, and it was a damned good thing; the arches were growing back almost as fast as he could destroy them, and if Tarrant lay in one place for too long he might well have to do this all over again.
At last Tarrant was freed, and together they dragged his limp, death-cold body to the exit. Spears of white light crowned the eastern mountains in fire as they forced him into the narrow passageway, and as they fought to maneuver Tarrant’s limp form down the stairs Damien imagined he could hear the solar fae striking the crystal spires behind them. They completed two turns down the staircase, then three, and Damien allowed himself a sigh of relief; the sunlight was behind them now, and while the conjured light inside the palace might cause Tarrant pain, he doubted it had the power to kill him.
The Healing Damien had Worked on himself might have helped ease the pain of his injuries somewhat, but it couldn’t negate the strain of carrying a grown man across so much space; by the time they reached the stairs leading down to Damien’s prison cell he could barely walk, and he had to lean against the wall for a long time gasping for breath. The rakh looked little better. But Damien was afraid that if Tarrant stayed in the light too long it might prove too much for him, and so he forced himself to move again, to drag the man’s body downward, downward . . .
They stopped after the third turn, when the light in the stairwell was dim enough that a lamp’s illumination would have been welcome. “This is it,” Damien gasped. “This is good enough.”
“Wouldn’t he be better off at the bottom? It’s darker there.”
Damien shook his head, “He needs the earth-fae to heal himself. I think. And there isn’t enough of it much farther down than this.”
He hoped he was right. He hoped the faint light which remained wasn’t enough to cause further injury, or to keep the Hunter from healing. For now there was nothing more he could do for him, other than wait. The rest was in Tarrant’s hands.
They set the body down on the wider part of a step; there was just enough room for it to lie securely. Kneeling down beside the Hunter, Damien studied his traveling companion with a practiced eye. The tremors had ceased; that was one good sign. And it seemed to him that the strain on Tarrant’s face had eased somewhat; that was another. No, there was nothing more he could do here. Nothing more anyone could do.
He looked up at the rakh. How worn Katassah looked, how tired! In another time and place the captain might have tried to hide his infirmity, but here there was no point in dissembling. Damien knew what had happened to him. Damien understood. And more than any other man on the planet, Damien comprehended that the most damaging part of his experience was not the horror of bodily possession, or his sense of betrayal at his ruler’s callousness, but the utter degradation of having a human soul inside his flesh. A wound like that would, not heal easily, nor quickly. Damien understood.
“Is there anything I can do?” the rakh asked.
“Yeah.” He stood. The ache in his back was duller now, a mere vestige of pain; with a muttered key he Worked enough earth-fae to make sure that dragging Tarrant here hadn’t damaged it anew. It was partly a safety precaution and partly a test of sorts; if he could Work the fae this far underground, it was a good bet that Tarrant could also. Given that power, the Hunter could heal himself.