“What about the Terata?” Hesseth asked him.
He seemed to hesitate. “I saw no trace of any creature I could label as such . . . but I’m bound by the same basic ignorance that you are. Until we either get closer to them or have better knowledge of what to look for, I don’t think my skills will be much help. I did catch the scent of human life, however.”
“Human?” Damien was startled. “I thought there were no people here.”
“So did I. Apparently we were wrong.”
“What kind of people?” Hesseth demanded.
“Hard to say at this point. But it’s a sizable group, I do know that. Several dozen at least.”
“Living down there?”
“It would appear so.”
“That implies that the Terata can’t be as terrible as we’d heard.” Hesseth’s tone was one of reason. “If they were, the humans would be dead or gone.”
The Hunter’s eyes fixed on her. In the darkness, pupils distended, they were black. Utterly black. Not merely a color, but a manifestation of emptiness.
“You saw what your people became here,” he said softly. “You witnessed what they did. Are you saying that whatever force molded the rakh couldn’t also mold humans, if it wanted to?”
“Do you think that’s the case here?” Damien asked him.
“I think that something is very wrong in this region, and to pass early judgment on anything—even our own species—is a mistake. I saw signs of faeborn creatures in the currents, but what does that mean? Any group of humans will create its own monsters in time. How can we assess their nature from here?”
“You sound more curious than afraid.”
The Neocount chuckled. “Does that surprise you?”
“No.” Despite himself he smiled. “I guess not.”
“We are what we are, Reverend Vryce. And I was a scholar long before I became . . . what I am.” A faint smile creased the corners of his lips. “Scholar enough to know what you fear most of all, Reverend. Tonight I’ll Work the weather as best I can, so that tomorrow the valley mist is lifted. If that’s possible,” he amended. “That will make it better for you, won’t it? If you have clear sight of your enemy’s turf?”
“I’d prefer it.”
“You should start toward the valley well before dusk. It will take you some hours to find a safe path down, and then time to descend. I’ll meet you at the bottom.” Though he was speaking to Damien, his eyes were fixed on Hesseth.
For a moment he was silent. The insects about them chirruped softly, to the accompanying crackle of the flames.
“The Kierstaad Protectorate,” he said at last, “is controlled by rakh.” His voice was soft, ever so soft, as though somehow he felt that excessive volume might wound her. “As is the one to the north of it. They’re nearly human in form, but their soul is clearly rakhene; the fae responds to them as it never would to a man.”
Damien thought he saw her shudder.
“Their disguise is supported by human sorcery. I don’t know the mechanics of it—I didn’t dare get that close—but the scent is unmistakable. And I think . . .” He hesitated. Glanced at Damien. “It was very similar to what I sensed by the crevasse. The same foreign touch.”
Hesseth drew in a quick breath, hissing. “Why?” she demanded. Of the air. Of no one. “What’s the purpose of it all?”
“Clearly they mean to control this continent,” the Hunter mused.
For a moment she just stared at him. Trying to absorb what he had said, with all its implications. “Maybe in the south,” she admitted. “Maybe . . . although that shouldn’t have turned them into monsters. But what about the north? What about the Matrias? They have control of the Church hierarchy, but what good does it do them? They still have to live among humans, hiding their own identity. Is that really power?”
“Power enough to affect human society,” Damien pointed out. “The Church here has its own record of atrocities. Maybe by a slow manipulation—”
“Are you saying that my people are responsible for the crimes of humans?” Her amber eyes flashed angrily.
“I’m saying that in addition to rakhene power, the one pattern we’ve seen here—over and over—is degradation of spirit. Does it really matter which species serves as a tool, if some master hand is at work? We’re all equally vulnerable.”
She sat back, and forced her bristling fur back into place. Damien thought he heard her growling softly.
“An interesting concept,” Tarrant mused. “It may give us our first real insight into the nature of our enemy.”
“You think he feeds on degradation?”
He shook his head. “The rakh have been affected, and faeborn demons don’t feed on that species. No, it’s got to be more than that . . . but this is a start. Any common link must be a clue to our enemy’s purpose.”
“And therefore to his identity,” Damien added.
“And therefore how to kill him,” Hesseth hissed.
The sheer venom in her voice startled Damien. Not because it surprised him, or because he hated their unknown enemy any less than she did, but because for the first time he was hearing her hatred in the context of other patterns. And what he heard disturbed him.
Are we changing also? Is that the price we pay to come here? Are we allowing this place to degrade our spirits as surely as it did with the rakh, and with my Church?
What happens if we reach the enemy at last, only to discover that in the end we are no better than his other puppets?
“Damien?” It was Hesseth.
“I’m all right,” he managed. But he wasn’t, and he knew she could hear it in his voice. “Something personal.”
“Indeed,” the Hunter said softly. He didn’t need to look at Tarrant to know that the man’s eyes were fixed on him, and that he was studying Damien with more than mere sight. “A night of prayer would do you good, Reverend Vryce. It would cleanse your spirit.”
He looked up sharply at Tarrant, expecting to see mockery in those pale eyes. But to his surprise there was none. Instead he saw something that might, in another man, be called compassion.
Was that possible? Had so much of the Hunter’s veneer been stripped away by their recent experience that he was capable of such an emotion? His cruel persona had been forged and tempered in the solitude of the Forbidden Forest, where his only companions were demons and wraiths and a few carefully chosen men who had likewise sacrificed their emotional birthright. Was it being worn so thin by the constant presence of humanity that a hint of the original Neocount could begin to peek through?
We’re making you more human, he mused.
The thought was strangely chilling.
He took out the Fire near morning, when the skies were a muted gray and Tarrant had left them in search of a daylight haven. The thick layer of varnish that protected the crystal vial had dulled, cataractlike, to a milky finish; the light that shone from within was hardly enough to illuminate his hand, and its miraculous warmth was nearly intangible even when he closed his palm around it.
But it was faith. Pure faith. Faith distilled into material substance, that had witnessed centuries of conflict. The faith of a million souls in the mission of his Church. The faith of a thousand priests in their last battle against evil. The faith of a single Patriarch in the one priest he sent east, believing—in his own words—that a single man might succeed where an army of men would fail.
May you be right, Holy Father. May I be worthy of your trust.
He prayed.
Rain fell in the morning, a brief thundershower. Soon after that the wind shifted direction, gusting with enough power that Damien felt uneasy about riding too near the edge of the steep granite drop. Whatever that combination amounted to down in the valley, it did manage to thin out the mist until it was no more than a translucent cloud. Through it, between the treetops, Damien could make out brown-black earth and an occasional clump of green. A gap in the trees revealed water—a river?—that snaked along the valley’s floor, gleaming blackly between the evergreen branches. Not a pleasant land, but not overtly threatening either; after they had spent a good hour studying it through Hesseth’s telescope, Damien felt immeasurably better about what lay ahead.