Crown of Shadows (28 page)

There was no other way, he told himself. No other way. God would understand that, wouldn’t He? And if He didn’t (he told himself), then He would damn only the Patriarch, and spare those innocents who followed him. Wouldn’t He?

Slowly, hesitantly, his fingers closed around the stone. His hand was shaking so badly that the cobalt light shimmered across the altar like waves. Then, with a sudden spasm of determination, he clenched his fist shut about the crystal, trapping its light.

In Your Name, God of Earth. For the sake of Your people.

A roaring filled the chapel, and light flooded the small room. The sudden brilliance was stunning, blinding; he fell back with a cry and threw an arm up across his eyes, as if that could protect them. But the vision stayed with him even when his eyes were closed, as if it were burned into his eyelids. Light on the floor, like liquid fire; light on the altar, sizzling as it spread out from the blessed candle flames; light that seeped in from under the door frame, light from the distant windows, light from his very flesh. The blue crystal fell from his hand and was lost in the swirling tide as bright as the sun itself, that lapped at his legs and left shimmering rivulets to run down his robe.

Power. It was power. The raw power of the planet itself, made visible by the Hunter’s ward. Fae. He fell back from it in horror and saw the currents stir as if in response to his fear, saw the patterns of light draw back from him as though in obedience to some unspoken command. No! The light was taking shape, gaining color and substance and solidity, and

No!

No!

He screamed. Not to be heard, not to be saved, but to empty himself of the terror which was choking him. Still the visions pounded at his brain; memories, hopes, and fears rushing through his head in one vast chaotic onslaught, and beyond that the knowledge that the power had always been there, that he had always controlled it, that the price of denial had been to lose a part of his soul. Until now ...

Something slammed behind him. A door, struck open? It seemed a universe away to him. So did the footsteps that ran toward him from behind, and the hot hands that lifted him up from the floor, struggling to make him stand. Another world, another time. He couldn’t go back to it now.

He saw the future. The
futures.
He saw his war won, and the Church triumphant. He saw it lost, and watched the Church wither away in the shadow of that failure. He watched the Church triumph again and again, and he watched it fail also, and each time it was different: future after future unveiled before him in one blinding flood of raw potential. The war was won, but the violence continued; the war was won, but his people’s faith was poisoned; the war was lost and all, all was lost with it. . . .

He was aware of a hand pressed against his throat to catch his pulse, and the fevered concern of the men at his side fluttered about his head like batlings. They were saying something to him, but their words couldn’t make it through the roar of the fae in his ears. Where was the future with hope in it? he despaired. Where was the path to salvation? Symbols and human figures and fears that had wings swirled wildly about him as he struggled to find some focus.
Father?
they chittered.
Holy Father, are you all right?
He saw a demon with the eyes of an insect cut open his head and place dreams inside.
Holy Father?
Faster and faster now, visions of the past and future tumbling over one other, pouring into his soul faster than he could sort them out.
What’s wrong?
He needed the right future.
Someone call a doctor, fast!
The war was over and the Patriarch called his soldiers together, and the fae gathered at his feet in response to him just as it always had, obeying this man who had been a sorcerer since the day of his birth-

There was terror in that image, but also exultation, for it was a new pattern, a new path. This was the one way he could save his people; this was their only hope. He saw it acted out, he watched it replayed a thousand times within each second as his heart pounded, shaking his body, sending ripples out through the fae

and there was a stabbing in his arm, not fire now but cold, icy cold. He could feel his heart struggling against it, and the visions began to shatter like glass about him. Pain spread through his veins and the fae turned to ice and cracked from his skin, and a darkness descended from the ceiling and a weight came crashing up from the floor-

Fine.
He’s
fine.

Hard to hear. Hard to see. Impossible to move.

Cling to the vision. Don’t forget!

Darkness.

The color
of pain was red. A raw, ugly red, that stank like rotting meat and oozed inward through his pores until he was filled with it. A red that flayed his nerves alive and then scraped along their surfaces, arousing pain beyond that which any living body could endure. A pain so total that it stripped him of his humanity, it bled him of all intelligence, it left him no more than a core of terror and agony in a universe gone mad, in which waves of pain were the only marker of time.

And then, in that madness: a human hand, grasping his. The touch was like fire, but Damien gripped it desperately, allowing the contact to define him. Fingers. Palm. Soul. It became the focus of his universe, the single point about which worlds revolved, the core of his private galaxy. Fire blazed along his arm as his muscles split from the strain, bloody strips curling back upon themselves, laying the moist bones beneath bare and vulnerable. Skin, he needed skin, nature’s own armor: he fixed his mind upon that one need until it seemed to him that his muscles were no longer bare, clothing them with the power of his imagination. It was instinct that drove him rather than knowledge, but the instinct seemed true and he clung to it desperately, unwilling to sink back into formless agony again.

Arm: define it, feel it,
believe
in it. Shoulder. Chest. Fire lanced across his torso like whip strokes, and in those seconds when his concentration wavered he could feel his newly imagined skin peeling from his body in heat-blackened strips, edges charred to a glowing ash ... the hand that held his gripped him tighter as he fought to regain consciousness of self, and another clasped his shoulder. Good. That made for two points of contact in a universe of burning blood. Two points defined a line. Three points defined a plane. Four points defined a solid....

And then the redness was gone and he was on his knees, choking on air that reeked of sulfur and burning meat. The hands that held him helped him to his feet, and he accepted their aid with gratitude. The ground was so hot that already his breeches had begun to smoke, and the stink of burning wool added new strength to the noxious melange surrounding him.

“What was that?” he whispered. He didn’t expect an answer, so much as he needed to test his voice. To his surprise the words indeed sounded, though he distinctly remembered his vocal cords having burned to bloody ribbons at least twice.

“Did you think the transition would be easy?” a voice from behind him asked. The hands that were gripping him released him, and a wave of panic nearly overcame him at the sudden loss of contact. There was no doubt in his mind that without Karril’s touch he would have been lost in that pain forever. A numbing fear grew in him, that perhaps he had indeed taken on more than he could handle this time. If that was just the gateway to Hell, what lay beyond?

And then he grew aware of the voice that had spoken. Not Karril‘s, nor anything like it. A more musical voice, higher-pitched, that was painfully but indefinably familiar. He turned around suddenly, so focused on the source of that voice that he hardly saw the surreal landscape surrounding it.

It was Rasya. No, not Rasya exactly. It was a woman of Rasya’s height and coloring and general form: sun-baked bronze skin, short-cropped platinum hair, long, lean limbs with capable muscles playing visibly beneath. But the face was different, and the clothing also, and this woman’s eyes were so like Karril’s that he shivered to see them set in a body so like that of his lost lover.

“Why?” he gasped. The stink of sulfur was stronger now, and it was getting difficult to breathe. It was hard to say whether anger or mourning played louder in his voice as he demanded, “Why, Karril?”

“My life is on the line here, too,” he said. She said. “And I can’t change form in this place, any more than you can. I needed a body that would be strong, enduring, and versatile. Given your orientation, it had to be female. Given your memories....” The woman shrugged stiffly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t catch the mourning until it was too late. I meant no disrespect.”

He shut his eyes for a moment, painfully aware of the heat that was baking through his boot soles. “Do you expect some kind of response from me?” he whispered hoarsely. “Is that what this is about?”

“If I required that to survive, would you be so quick to deny me?” She reached forward and took Damien’s hand again, in a grip more reassuring than affectionate. “Like you, I try to keep all options open.” She pulled his hand, gently but firmly, forcing him to move. “Come on. Time matters.”

He forced himself to look away from her, toward the bizarre landscape that surrounded them. The land all about was black and glassy, and it smoked with a heat that made the very air shimmer. Overhead a sun blazed, not the wholesome white star of Erna but a bloated yellow shape that sent streamers of flame down almost to the landscape, sparking explosions which in turn sent gouts of lava spouting into the air. The sky surrounding it was as dark as night, as were the shadows its harsh light etched upon the landscape. Beneath his feet the ground seemed to tremble, and as he watched, it cracked not ten feet to the right of him, revealing a glowing red subsurface.

“Damn,” he breathed.

“What?”

“Too vulking realistic for my taste.” He glanced toward the demon, then quickly away. “Which way’s out?”

“Out’s
the way we came. Which route I will gladly point out to you, whenever you’ve had enough. As for what we came here to do ...” She looked out over the landscape, and at last indicated a direction. Thank God, it was away from the crack. “That way, I think.”

“You
think?”

“This isn’t my realm,” Karril said testily. “I wonder if it would even exist without your Church doing constant publicity for it. Come on.”

He needed no urging to move, and he moved quickly. He had been in a place like this once and had almost gotten killed, and that was just on its border. How much of the black rock beneath them was solid, and how much was a paper-thin shell hiding rivers of molten lava beneath? Any one footstep might prove the difference. And if the similarity between this place and the real world was unnerving, the discrepancy was downright terrifying. In the real world, if the shell lava cracked beneath your feet, you fell and you cooked and you died. But here, in this unearthly place, where death was a threshold more distant with every step ... could one burn forever? Choking on molten rock,
drowning
in it, as the flesh was seared from one’s bones over and over again? It wasn’t a theory he was anxious to test.

“What about Tarrant?”

“You mean, is he still here?” The Rasya-thing glanced at him. “If he were, there’d be no trail.”

He looked out over the landscape ahead of them, squinting against the sickening yellow light. “I don’t see a damned thing.”

“Then it’s lucky I came along, isn’t it?” She nodded ahead and toward the right, to an area pockmarked by pools of glowing lava. “That way.”

He followed her more by touch than by sight, across a landscape where any step might be his last. The ground split as they passed, but though his heart lurched with every new fissure it was only to vent clouds of burning ash and noxious gas, to fill the air with poison. It clogged his lungs as he breathed it in and set off a spasm of coughing so violent that he feared the vibrations of his body might do more damage to the ground beneath them than the weight of his footsteps. He tried not to remember the time in the westlands when he had almost gotten killed, traversing a lava field all too much like this one.