What could he do now? What could he be? The walls seemed to be closing in around him; the air was hard to breathe. Blood dripped from the wounds on his neck, staining his white robe crimson as it seeped down about his shoulders. It gathered in a stain that mimicked the spread of his collar. Why had he worn it here, this emblem that he so rarely donned? What had moved him to make such a gesture? Usually he scorned such regalia . . .
Usually . . .
His thoughts were a whirlwind. He struggled to think clearly.
It’s wrong. Somehow. Wrong . . . He tried to remember how this meeting had come about, but he couldn’t. His past was a void. His present was a sea of despair. He couldn’t focus.
How did I get here? Why did I come?
Things began to swim in his vision: the collar. The Patriarch. The gleaming white robes he never wore. And some fact that lay hidden among those things, something he could sense but not define, . . .
It’s wrong, he thought. All of it.
And the room began to fade. Slowly at first, like a tapestry that was frayed at the edges. Then more rapidly. The collar shimmered where it lay, then vanished. The Patriarch’s ivory silk became a curtain of light, then nothing. The chamber . . .
. . . became a room on a ship. His ship. The Golden Glory.
“Oh, my God,” he whispered. His heart was pounding with the force of a timpani; his throat still tight with fear. He lay there for a moment in utter silence, shaking, letting the real world seep in, waiting for it to banish the terror. Listening for sounds that would link him to the present: the creak of tarred timbers, the soft splash of ocean waves against the prow, the snap of sails in the wind. Comforting, familiar sounds. They had roused him from similar nightmares before, on similar nights. But this time it didn’t seem to help. This time the fear that had hold of him wouldn’t go away. The trembling wouldn’t stop.
Because it hit too close to home, he thought. Because this nightmare might yet come true. What did the Patriarch really think when he read Damien’s report? Did he take it at face value, or did he discern the subtle subterfuge with which it had been crafted? What kind of welcome would await Damien when at last he returned to Jaggonath?
I shouldn’t have risked it. Shouldn’t have dissembled. If he ever finds out . . .
Fear lay heavy on his chest, a thick, suffocating darkness. He tried to reason it away—as he had done so many times before, night after night on this endless journey—but reason alone wasn’t enough this time. Because this fear had real substance. This nightmare might yet come to pass.
After a while he gave up, exhausted. And sank back into his fear, letting it possess him utterly. It was a gift to the one who traveled with him, whose hunger licked at the borders of his soul even now. The one who had inspired his dream, and therefore deserved to benefit from it.
Damn you, Tarrant.
Quiet night. Domina bright overhead, waves washing softly against the alteroak hull. Peace—outside, if not within him. He went to where the washbucket lay and splashed his face with the cool desalinized water, washing the sweat of his fear from his skin. His shirt was damp against his body and the night wind quickly chilled him; he took down a woolen blanket from a masthook and wrapped it about his shoulders, shivering.
Drenched in Domina’s light, the deck glittered with ocean spray. Overhead the sails stirred slightly, responding to a shifting breeze. For a moment Damien just stared out across the sea, breathing deeply. Waves black as ink rippled across the water, peaceful and predictable. He tried to Work his Sight, and—as usual—failed. There was no earth-fae on the ocean’s surface for him to tap into.
We could be on Earth now, he thought. For all this lack of power . . . would we even know the difference? But the comparison was flawed and he knew it. On Earth they would be speeding across the water, abetted by the kind of technology that this planet would never support. Blind technology, mysterious power. Here on Erna it would have doomed them long before they left port, when the doubts and fears of the passengers first seeped into the waterproofed hull and began their disruptive influence. Long before they set sail the fae would have worked its first subtle distortions, affecting the friction of various parts, the microfine clearance of others. On Earth that kind of psychic debris had no power. Here, it would have doomed them before they even left port.
Wrapping the blanket closer about his shoulders, he headed toward the prow of the ship. He had no doubt that the Hunter was there, just as he had no doubt that the man was trying—yet again—to find some hint of earth-fae beneath the ink-black waves. The channel between them had become so strong that at times it was almost like telepathy. And though the Hunter had assured him that it would subside again in time—that it was their isolation from the earth-currents which made any hint of power seem a thousand times more powerful—Damien nursed a private nightmare in which the man’s malignance clung to him with parasitic vigor for the rest of his life.
I volunteered for it, he reminded himself.
Not that there was any real choice.
Tarrant stood at the prow of the ship, a proud and elegant figurehead. Even after five midmonths of travel he looked as clean and as freshly pressed as he had on the night they set out from Faraday. Which was no small thing in a realm without earth-fae, Damien reflected. How many precious bits of power had the Hunter budgeted himself for maintaining that fastidious image? As he came to the prow he saw that Tarrant had drawn his sword, and one hand grasped it about the coldfire blade. Absorbing its Worked fae into himself, to support his unnatural life. Even from across the deck Damien could see that the malevolent light, once blinding, had been reduced to a hazy glow, and he managed to come within three feet of Tarrant before he felt its chill power freeze the spray on his hands. Whatever store of malevolent energy that thing had once contained, it was now nearly empty.
Tarrant turned to him, and for a moment his expression was unguarded: hunger whirlpooled in his eyes, black and malevolent. Then it was gone—the polished mask was back in place—and with a brief nod of acknowledgment the Hunter slid the length of Worked steel back into its warded sheath, dousing its light. In the moonlight it was possible to see just how much this trip had drained him, of color and energy both. Or was that ghastly tint his normal hue? Damien found he couldn’t remember.
He took up a place beside the man, leaning against the waist-high railing. Staring out at the ocean in mute companionship. At last he muttered, “That was a bad one.”
“You know that I require fear.”
“Worse than most.”
The Hunter chuckled softly. “You’ve grown immune to most of my tricks, Reverend Vryce. In the beginning it was enough to plant suggestions in your mind and let them blossom into nightmares on their own. Now if I mean to make you afraid—and keep you dreambound long enough for that fear to strengthen me—I must be more . . . creative.”
“Yeah. I know.” He sighed heavily. “I just wish you didn’t enjoy it so goddamned much.”
Below them the ocean was smooth and calm; only a gentle swell and a hint of foam marked the place where the prow of the Golden Glory sliced through it. The Hunter turned back to study the water, searching for some hint of power.
“See anything?” Damien asked at last.
Tarrant hesitated. “A light so faint that it might be no more than my imagination. Or perhaps the first glimpse of a foreign current, rising to the surface. If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that we are now above the continental shelf, where the waters are shallower. Not shallow enough for Working,” he added. “Not even for me.”