Into this darkness a stranger came. Though the body he wore was as black as night, it seemed brilliant as lampfire compared to the darkness surrounding him. For a moment he stood still, and the voices of that lost place whirled about him like some wild music, dismal and discordant.
Who is it
Who comes here
Who disturbs Us
Who
Who
Who
“My name is Calesta,” the demon announced. Several of the voices seemed to coalesce for an instant, and then their whisperings were separate once more. “I seek an audience.”
Calesta?
Calesta
Manborn
Iezu
So hungry
Anger
Hate hate hate
What do you want, Iezu?
“You made a compact with a human.” Something flitted past his face, but he didn’t flinch; the flesh he wore was only an illusion and he didn’t fear for its safety. “Nine centuries ago, with a man named Gerald Tarrant. Do you remember?”
Ah, yes
Blood
Hunger
Promises
The voices were becoming different now, as if all the disparate notes had been gathered up into one great chord. He sensed a presence circling him, studying him. We remember. We feed.
“He’s betrayed that compact.”
Silence. Such utter silence that for a moment he wondered if the voices had left him.
What business is it of yours, Iezu? A different voice now, screeching and hateful. Go back to manplaces. This compact is Ours.
“He betrayed you!” the demon hissed. “Don’t you care? You gave him life on condition that he serve you and look what he did! Thousands will live because of him. Millions will know peace who otherwise would have suffered. A whole civilization has been jerked back from the edge of ruin. By him! Doesn’t that matter to you? Don’t you care?”
Compact is Ours
Ours
Ours!
Broken?
Conditions
Unlife
Broken
Ours!
The darkness stirred. In it a presence was gathering, so far beyond the flitting voices in substance and power that they might have been mere insects circling around it. Its voice, when it spoke, was deep and resonant, and it reverberated throughout the darkness.
Our compact with Gerald Tarrant is not a Iezu concern.
“I thought you would want to know what was happening.”
We find it offensive that you assume Our ignorance.
“He’s still alive,” Calesta challenged.
That’s Our concern, not yours.
“What about the compact? The agreement—”
We know the agreement. He knows the agreement.
“He defies you! He betrays everything that you gave him life for!”
Are you concerned for Us, Iezu? Or simply driven by your own need for vengeance? We will not become a tool of your kind.
The demon stiffened. “We share a common concern, you and I. If you were to—”
We have nothing in common with the fleshborn.
The demon drew in a sharp breath; rage emanated from him like wildfire. “I’m no more fleshborn than you are,” he snarled. “And if you’re content to let Gerald Tarrant take advantage of you—if you’re content to have him use you—so be it. I thought you might have a little more backbone than that, but evidently I was mistaken.”
Go home, man-thing. We will decide what to do with Gerald Tarrant Ourselves.
With an angry curse the demon dissolved his flesh, abandoning the darkness of that secret realm for the more comfortable blackness of the human soul. For a long time after his departure there was silence, as the various entities considered their exchange. Then, in voices that rippled one into another too quickly for the human ear to distinguish, a waterfall of sound:
Betrayed
Compact
Good service
Hunger
Blood
Betrayed
Promises
Life
Unlife
Betrayed
Betrayed
Betrayed
Vengeance?
Hunger
They began to coalesce once more, and a new thought took root. This Iezu, a voice mused, does not know what he truly is.
No, another voice agreed. None of the Iezu do.
Help him?
Destroy him?
Ignore him?
Wait, a deep voice recommended. Watch. See if his own kind supports him. See if she takes sides.
And Tarrant?
Something new stirred in the everlasting, darkness. Something so powerful that the blackness became a fierce whirlpool, into which all the other voices were suddenly sucked. Something so malevolent, so utterly hostile, that the petty hates and envies of humankind were lost inside, it, swallowed up by an Evil so vast that it fed on the very essence of life itself. It existed for only an instant, this Power, and then it began to break up again into its disparate elements. But the instant was long enough.
Tarrant, said the Devourer, will have to answer to Me.