A figure formed in the space before him, drawing its substance from the mist. As he watched, the Iezu manifestation took on form, color, and at last life. When it was complete, the Hunter nodded in acknowledgment and addressed it.
“It’s nearly dawn, Karril. I called you hours ago.”
“Your pain kept me away,” the demon said softly.
Tarrant shut his eyes. It seemed to Karril that he trembled. “Then I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Thank you for coming despite that.”
“Are you all right?”
For a moment he just stood there, as still as the trees that surrounded him. At last, without answering, he held out his left hand. A small spot of darkness quivered like a flame in the center of his palm. “Will you take this to the Prince for me?”
“What is it?”
“An answer. To his offer.” He shook his head. “No more than that, I promise you.”
The demon held out his hand beneath Tarrant’s, so that the Hunter might pour the unflame into his own palm. It flickered there like a malevolent star, jet black against his own illusory flesh.
“Can I ask what your decision was?”
“I thought you didn’t want to get involved.”
“I seem to be involved despite that, don’t I? So how about filling me in?”
Grim-faced, Tarrant turned away. He said nothing.
“This isn’t like you, Hunter.”
He whipped back to face him; his eyes, sun-reddened, blazed with anger. “Who are you to judge what is and isn’t like me! Who is any demon to judge me? If I thought for one moment—”
Then he shut his eyes as if in pain, and raised a hand to rub his forehead. “I’m sorry, Karril. That wasn’t fair. It’s been a rough night, but I shouldn’t take that out on you. Your service deserves better.”
The demon shrugged. “Every friendship of nine hundred years has its moments of strain. Don’t worry about it.”
“You served me well all those years. Even though I now understand that you didn’t have to.”
A faint smile softened the demon’s expression. “The first human being I ever spoke with will always have a warm place in my heart. Even if he does pride himself on his lack of humanity.” He closed his hand about the black flame, wincing as its power bit into him. “Couldn’t you have chosen a more pleasant form for this?”
The Hunter’s expression darkened. “He sent me true fire. Whether it was meant as a warning or a display of power, the gesture deserves to be returned.”
“Ah. Ever the diplomat.”
“You can carry it, can’t you?”
“There are several hundred things I’d rather be carrying, but I’ll manage. Is that all?”
The Hunter nodded.
“Then I’ll be on my way. Dawn beckons, you know. Take care, Hunter.”
The Iezu form began to fade, its colors seeping out into the fog.
“Karril . . .”
The demon paused as he was and waited.
He whispered it, “Thank you. For everything.”
The demon nodded. Then his flesh became translucent, transparent, and slowly dissolved in the misty gray light of dawn. The black star in his hand was the last thing to fade, and that went out suddenly, like a snuffed candle flame. The smell of conjuration was sharp in the damp air.
Gone to its destination, Tarrant thought. Gone to deliver its message of death and betrayal.
Alone in the light of the early dawn, the Neocount of Merentha shivered.
The Black Lands
29
There it is. Damien thought. We made it.
The cities of the coast lay nestled in a crescent-shaped valley whose broad, curving mouth opened to the sea. To the east and west loomed the bald granite peaks of the continent’s two mountain ranges, which curved like pincers about the cities’ bounty and then extended far out into the water. There they became two diminishing lines of weatherworn ridges and jagged islands which stretched southward as far as the eye could see, providing the crescent shore with a vast harbor that was sheltered from storm and from foreign tsunami alike.
Clearly humankind had thrived here. Looking down upon the cities of the south—there were three that he could make out by moonlight, and probably more that would be visible in the light of day—Damien saw all the signs of successful settlement. Lush farmlands hugged the mountains, and a system of roads was visible that spanned the valley like a web. The fact that it was all at sea level, or very near to it, spoke volumes for the natural safety of this fertile niche; if the harbor waters had ever spawned any smashers of their own, man would have sought higher ground.
He stood on a ridge some two hundred feet above the valley floor and gazed at their destination. Some hundred yards to the east of them the waters of the valley—now a sizable river, formidable in current—plunged headlong over the rocky edge, roaring like a hurricane as they smashed themselves upon the rocks below. From there it was another drop, and then another, as the vast waterfall plummeted in stages to the floor of the harbor basin. Damien gazed down into the mist-filled lower valley and thought he saw figures milling about the foaming lake below. Fae-wraiths? Real people? Perhaps lovers, braving the dangers of the night in order to spur on their passion. Or perhaps even tourists, from the Protectorates or beyond; who could say what manner of commerce these thriving cities supported? One thing was certain: after weeks of traipsing through cold forests and over bare granite plateaus, Damien was overjoyed to see people again. Any people. He felt muscles unknot that had not been relaxed for weeks, and even though he knew that the dangers in those cities might be every bit as deadly as those without, he couldn’t help the sense of optimism that filled him at the sight of this thriving human metropolis.
Jenseny was something else again. She wouldn’t even come near the edge of the cliff, but stayed back by the horses, cowering close against their flesh. Humanity meant danger and betrayal to her—how quickly the young learned to fear!—and clearly she dreaded the coming descent. But at least she had stayed with them this long. That was something Damien hadn’t expected, and if he had failed to sketch out plans for her in the past few days it was mostly because he hadn’t really thought she’d still be with them. For a while it had seemed that she might bolt from them, animal-like, at the first sign of danger, disappearing into the brush like a frightened skerrel. Now she seemed somewhat more stable, if no less terrified. Somewhat more human.
How ironic, that the rakh-woman should prove the humanizing factor with her. He wondered if Hesseth had noticed the change. He wondered if she had caught the humor of it.
Love is a universal language, he reminded himself. Then he glanced back at the girl—still terrified, still cowering, but Hesseth had gone to comfort her—and thought, So is loneliness.
With a sigh he looked about for Tarrant. At last he spotted him some hundred yards away, standing by the edge of the river, gazing down upon the valley beneath. He made his way to where the tall man stood and offered him the telescope. But Tarrant shook his head, his pale eyes fixed on the panorama below. Studying the southern cities, with all the special senses available to him. Damien waited in silence. At last the Hunter nodded shortly and stepped back from the edge; fine mist sparkled in his hair like diamonds.
“Our enemy isn’t here,” he said quietly. Despite the roar of the compound waterfall beside him, his words carried easily to Damien’s ears. “Although his people have been to this shore, without question.”
“As invaders?” he asked. He had to shout to make himself heard. Not for the first time, he was jealous of Tarrant’s easy power. “Spies?”
The Hunter brushed back a lock of hair from his forehead; water dripped from it like a tear. “I’m not sure. The traces are complicated, and layered about each other like the rings of a tree; it’s hard to sort them out. But I would say from the fortifications here—” and he waved an eloquent hand out over the valley, “—or rather, from the lack of them, that whatever conflict now exists is diplomatic rather than martial. Hardly what one would expect,” he mused.