With a formal bow he said to the rakh. “I’m afraid your people have a long, hard battle ahead of them, Mer Captain. The Prince used his power to evolve your species to suit Calesta’s need, and it will be a long time before those weaknesses breed out. But they will in time, if no human interferes. I’m sorry I can’t help you more.”
“You’ve done enough by explaining things,” Katassah said tightly. “Thank you.”
The demon turned back to Damien. His flesh was starting to fade, solid cells giving way to a more shadowy substance. The flicker of a lamp behind him could be seen, through his black-robed torso. “My family are symbiotes, not parasites,” he told the priest. “And some of us are proud of that distinction. Be careful, Reverend Vryce. Be wary. Travel fast.” He was little more than than a veil of color now, fading out around the edges. “And take care of Gerald Tarrant, will you? He seems to be getting himself into a lot of trouble these days.”
“I’ll try,” the priest promised. A tight smile softened the lines of his face.
As they watched, the demon dissolved completely, his color and form fading into the very air that surrounded him. When he was finally gone, the illusion of darkness faded also, and the room was restored to its former painful brightness. Damien stared at the spot where he had been for a long time in silence, the demon’s words echoing in his brain.
“Well, shit,” he said at last. “That’s just great.”
49
They left from Freeshore on a merchant ship bribed to ply the northern seas for their purpose. It was Katassah who had paid for the journey, dispensing royal gold as if it was his own. Which it was, in a way. His men had seen the Prince take over his body, and until he informed them of the new state of things—or until he made some vital mistake that caused them to guess at it—the throne and the power were his for the asking. It would cost him dearly in the end, Damien knew. As the lights of Freeshore faded behind them and the gentle swells of the Novatlantic drew them northward, he remembered the rakhene captain as he had been at their departure: studiously proud, carefully arrogant, imitating with perfection the man whom he had served for half a lifetime. It was a masquerade that couldn’t last, of course, no matter how well he played at it; in time his lack of sorcery would give him away, and the game would disintegrate from there. They would turn on him then, all the men and women who had served the Prince. He knew it would happen. And yet he wore the royal robes over his rakhene uniform and placed the Prince’s crown on his head, risking that fate. Because—he explained—with Calesta’s dark plan coming to fruition, he dared not leave his people leaderless.
There’s the soul of a born ruler, Damien thought. If only it could have been expressed under happier circumstances.
They had taken a case of homing birds with them, and Damien released the first after a day at sea. Found passage with the Silver Siren, it said. Proceeding as planned. The rest of the birds would be saved for when they reached the northern kingdom, when they learned what havoc Calesta had wreaked there.
How isolated Katassah must feel, how very helpless, now that the Prince’s power no longer served as a link between his people and their northern contacts! The crystalline palace was no longer the nerve center of an empire, but a tiny island of hope and fear nearly lost in the vastness of the black lava desert. Damien wished him well with all his heart, and prayed feverishly that his self-sacrifice would serve its intended purpose: to stabilize his divided nation against the threat of war, so that when the truth was at last made known the country might adapt and thrive, rather than dissolving into chaos.
The girl Sisa had come with them. When she had first shown up with her few belongings as the boats were loading, Damien had been aghast—no, furious—and he raged at Tarrant, declaring in no uncertain terms that he would not permit the man to bring her along for the sole purpose of feeding on her terror. To which the Hunter had replied, quite calmly, “I must have food, Vryce, and you can’t supply it any more. We’ve discussed that. As for the woman’s motives . . . I suggest that you ask her yourself.”
He did. And though she had claimed that she wanted to come with them, that Tarrant had in no way coerced her to make the trip, he found it hard to believe. Each time she glanced at the Hunter she trembled; each time conversation turned toward the Hunter and his needs she grew visibly paler. Had Tarrant found himself the perfect masochist, a woman who delighted in suffering? Damien doubted it. Not because such people couldn’t exist—he had no doubt that they did—but because he couldn’t imagine Tarrant taking any real pleasure in torturing one of them.
Why are you here? he asked her later that night, when chance left them alone together. Why do you want to be with him?
He thought for a moment that she wouldn’t answer him. But though her eyes were cast low, there was fear in her voice, it was clear when she spoke that she trusted him. Slowly, hesitantly, she told him of the night that Tarrant had hunted her in the Black Lands, the night she had run like an animal in the desert night, fully expecting to die. But instead of killing her when he finally ran her down, the monster had offered her an alternative fate: Survive my hunger, he said, and I will free you. Keep me alive for the months it will take us to reach my homeland, and I’ll set you up as a rich woman in a land with no princes, no religious wars, no slavery. And she had accepted. The challenge was all that was keeping her sane now, and the dream of success kept her going. So that she might suffer all the more, Damien thought. So that she might feed him. Like the women who ran from him in the Forest, convinced that three days of successful flight would buy them a lifetime of safety. How utterly consistent Tarrant was in his sadism, how perfectly ordered! Damien wondered if this woman would survive the test that so many had failed. He prayed for her sake that she would.
As for Tarrant . . .
He came to the place where Damien was standing, late in the second night of the voyage. There were no other people nearby and the sea was smooth and quiet. It was the kind of night in which two men might stand together companionably and watch the waves, thinking of the lands ahead and the trials yet to come. The kind of night in which a priest might turn to his dark companion and ask softly, Why? and expect to be answered with honesty.
For a long while the Hunter watched the sea, and Damien knew better than to press him. “It was as I told you,” he said at last. “We had no chance. No chance at all. Not with a Iezu involved, and a sorcerer of that caliber. I perceived that the only way to get near enough to strike was to allow ourselves to be taken by him, and thus I designed my subterfuge. I wanted to tell you,” he said, and his tone was one of rare sincerity. “I wanted you to share in the choice. But it was already apparent to me that there was a real connection between the Prince and our adversary in the rakhlands, and I suspected their strategies would be the same. She Knew me, as you may recall, in order to determine what you would do; I guessed that he would proceed similarly. Which meant that you couldn’t know, Reverend Vryce. The whole plan hinged on your ignorance. I’m sorry,” he said softly. Facing the night. Addressing the waves. “I did try to make it easier on you. Tried to bring us in at Freeshore for an early capture, or arrange for a controlled ambush afterward. I wanted to spare you the hardships of the Wasting, but you fought me at every turn. I’m sorry.”