The room became a whirlpool of color, into which Toshida and Damien were sucked. The walls lost their substance, and the floors and ceiling also. Even gravity lost its hold; everything was sucked toward the center of the whirlwind, all matter and thought, all flesh and spirit, all hopes and fears and dreams-
And the future unfolded before them. Not one single timeline, pristine in its certainty. A wild, unfettered morass of futures, a chaos of raw possibility. Damien saw worlds in which Calesta’s holocaust had swallowed up whole cities, whole regions, setting brother against brother in a war whose only purpose was to destroy life. He saw worlds in which the Church had become a tool of control, a vehicle of tyranny, and the Prophet’s dream had been smothered in ritual brutality. World after world passed before his eyes, bloody and violent and hopeless and corrupt. He could see the corruption spreading out like waves, from the populace to the Church to the fae itself, until pollution flowed like a tide about the planet, fouling every soul it touched. Calesta’s dream; Calesta’s hunger. And in the midst of it all there was only one world with hope, only one vista in which any light shone. Only one world in which a man stood strong against the tide, a single man of vision and determination who could turn back the flood of corruption if he chose to, who could set his city on a new path, and through that city, his world. One new-made Patriarch, dark-skinned, triumphant-
There was a sudden cry—half anger, half anguish—and then the vision exploded like shattering crystal. Fragments of reality rained down on Damien as he struggled to get his bearings again, but for a long minute it was impossible; by the time he could make out the outline of the door it was already closing, and the figure that had passed through it had long since faded from sight.
“Gerald!” No thought for Toshida now; he bolted for the door himself, hoping to catch the Neocount in the hallway beyond. But the Hunter had moved quickly, or else he’d had a substantial lead; not until Damien had run from the building, startling half a dozen guards in the process, did he see Tarrant’s lean form fleeing the Manor grounds, long legs covering the ground with feverish speed-
“Gerald! Stop!” He didn’t know if the man could hear him, but it couldn’t hurt to try. “Please!” It had no effect. He pushed himself for as much speed as he could manage, trying to make up for Tarrant’s natural advantage in height and endurance.
And at last, in a deserted district, he caught up with him, not because he was running faster, but because Tarrant had stopped. Fear showed starkly on that death-pale face; the silver eyes were bright with it.
“Do you know what I did back there?” he demanded. His voice was hoarse with terror. “Do you understand?”
“You shared a Divining,” Damien told him. “And if Toshida saw what I saw, then you may have saved this world. You’ve certainly saved this region—”
He stopped. No more words would come. Because suddenly, he understood. He understood..
“What I’ve done,” the Hunter whispered fiercely, “is to commit suicide. Have you forgotten my pact? Have you forgotten the power that sustains me? There are conditions set on my existence, priest. And if in truth I inspired Toshida to lead this region away from its current course, then I just broke them all.”
For a moment Damien couldn’t speak at all. “You’re still here,” he managed. “You’re still alive.”
The tortured face turned away from him. “For how long?” Tarrant whispered. “Until Toshida commits himself to change? Until that change begins to take effect? Where in that process is my life to be terminated? Nine hundred years of service, wiped out in one careless instant!” He shut his eyes. “You brought me to this, priest. You and your philosophy! You and your human influence! Are you happy now?” he demanded. “Is this what you wanted? Will it please you to imagine me suffering in Hell while you plan your next campaign against Calesta?”
“If I did,” he said evenly, “wouldn’t that just feed the bastard more? Gerald. Please.” The Neocount had turned away; Damien could see his strong shoulders trembling. “I don’t relish the thought of fighting him alone. Quite frankly, without you I wouldn’t last a minute.” As for the other question the Hunter’s words had raised, he didn’t dare face that. Not now. After months of praying that Gerald Tarrant would be brought to judgment for his many sins, that the world would be freed from his tyranny forever, he wasn’t ready to admit that the thought of it actually coming to pass made him feel sick inside. Had his feelings toward the man changed so drastically in these last few months? If so, it was a dangerous development.
A shudder seemed to pass through that lean, tormented frame. “Go find Rozca,” Tarrant whispered hoarsely. “Help him get hold of a ship that can make the passage. Without our pilot we have little chance of surviving a journey, but make what arrangements you can. When they’re done I’ll know, and I’ll come back to you. If I’m still alive.”
He began to walk away.
“Gerald—”
The Hunter turned back to him. His eyes were empty, black and cold and utterly without boundary; looking into them chilled Damien to the bone. “I must be what I was meant to be,” he said coldly. Bits of his intentions were manifesting about him as he spoke, fueled by the raw power of his desperation; the images were filled with violence and pain. “So don’t look for me to return to Mercia until you’re ready to leave here, Vryce. Because my only hope in surviving that passage—in surviving to begin that passage—lies in defining myself anew. In praying that the power which sustains me is capable of forgiveness . . . or at least of forgetfulness. If I please it.”
“Don’t,” Damien whispered. Sick at heart as he realized what the Hunter intended. “Don’t do it!” But Tarrant wasn’t listening to any arguments. Coldfire blazed up from the ground, engulfing his body in frigid power. His flesh melted, reformed, became a giant winged figure—not a bird this time, but something with a sleek black body and leathery wings, a creature out of nightmare realms—and then he was gone, rising up high into the sky so that he might survey his new hunting-ground.
Sick inside, Damien watched him fly until his black form faded into the distant night. Headed toward Paza Nova, perhaps, or Penitencia, or the Kierstaad Protectorate . . . anywhere there was fear. Anywhere there were unprotected souls to be harvested, so that the Hunter might cleanse his dark soul with the terror of innocents.
As he turned back toward Mercia’s central district, as he numbly began to walk again, Damien tried hard not to think about how delighted Calesta would be when he learned of the Hunter’s decision.
Epilogue
Darkness.
Not the simple blackness of Erna’s night sky, with its absence of sun or stars. Not the insulating darkness of the ocean’s floor, with miles of water filtering out each intrusive ray. Not even the total lightlessness of a cavern’s interior, in which a man might put his hand before his face and not only fail to see it, but doubt that it even existed. Those were mere shadows compared to this, echoes of darkness that could be compromised by a single match, or lamp, or candleflame. This was a blackness that would swallow light, just as it swallowed life.
Things stirred in that blackness. Envies. Hates. Hungers. Echoes of the darkness in the human soul, now given independent life. Sometimes a few of them would coalesce, giving birth to entities as cold and as ruthless as the place was dark. Sometimes they would all scatter, and the only hint of consciousness in that black realm would be whispers of hate that wafted through the darkness like errant winds. Sometimes—rarely—all of them would gather together, and a Presence would take form whose nature was so powerful, so corrupt, so utterly maleficent, that if its existence had been stable it would have posed a threat to every living thing on Erna. Men who knew of it called it the Dark, the Evil, the Devourer, and they prayed to their various gods and demons that no man might ever give it a true name—for a human name has the power to endure, and that was the one power the Unnamed One lacked.