When True Night Falls (22 page)

At last it was time for him to speak. He heard the Regent introduce him as he came to the pulpit, felt the gaze of the assembled fixing on him with an almost palpable force. He drew in a breath, gathered his thoughts ... and then froze, as the communal gaze shifted elsewhere.

Behind him.

He turned, and felt his own heart skip a beat.

The Matria.

Her body was slight, but her presence was not; as she came forward to take her place beside Toshida, he was struck by just how much presence that slender form could command. Layered robes of fine silk whispered about her legs and ankles, hinting at the form beneath; her veil was anchored by a heavy crown that adorned her hair without fully concealing it. She was not a beautiful woman, but in that costume and role she embodied all the beauty and power of his faith, and when Toshida bowed in greeting, there was no question of who really controlled the reins of state.

She sat beside Toshida, in one of the ornate thrones that flanked the podium.
Go on
, her gaze said to Damien.
Continue.
And it seemed that she smiled slightly as she settled back onto the cushions.

It took effort to turn away from her and pick up where he had left off. It took even more effort not to mold the earth-fae into a Knowing, to discover more of who and what she was. But that would be rank stupidity in front of this many witnesses, plain and simple.

And so he addressed his attention—and his words—to the congregation. Presenting something that was not quite a sermon, not exactly a history lesson ... but it had elements of both, as he used words to sculpt a bridge between their disparate worlds.

He wanted to respond to what they had accomplished. He wanted them to see it through his eyes. He wanted to give them the gift of his vision, to help them draw back from their day to day life and see—really
sse
—how great their triumph was.

And more. He wanted to put all that in context, so that they knew how hard western man was struggling to find a similar peace. And—most of all—he wanted them to know what it would mean to the west when he brought home word of their triumph. For word of their success would surely spread, until all of Erna was inspired to devote itself to the Prophet’s dream. At last.

When he was done, he bowed to the multitude, deeply and formally, and then stepped down from the podium. Toshida nodded his approval as he took up his place once more, and the regular service resumed. When Damien was seated, he looked over toward the Matria, meaning to acknowledge her presence. To his surprise, he found that she was already gone.

She had come to hear him speak, then. That was all. She had come to hear what the foreign priest had to say—to take the measure of his faith—and then she had left before there could be any more intimate contact between them. Had he displeased her with his sermon? No, he thought. That wasn’t likely. Was it possible she simply wanted to leave before chance or protocol brought them closer together? Why? The question plagued him all through the service, and into the hours beyond. What was there about him that the Matria would feel a need to avoid?

The hour was late when he finally returned to the Regent’s Manor, and he was glad Toshida had been unable to accompany him. He needed to think. The Manor had a guest wing for visiting dignitaries and Toshida had insisted that he accept a room therein. For his comfort, or so he could be watched? Probably both, Hesseth had said. Damien had insisted that she be housed there also, and though Toshida clearly found the request more than a little strange—didn’t she want to stay in the House of the Sanctified with the others of her Order?—in the end he’d agreed. The two of them shared a parlor, and as Damien climbed the vast circular staircase that led to the guest wing he was certain she would be there, waiting for him.

She was.

So was Gerald Tarrant.

For a moment Damien just stood in the doorway. Coming from the church service into the Hunter’s presence was like having a bowl of ice water suddenly splashed in his face; it took him a moment to catch his breath.

Then, very carefully, very quietly, he shut the door.

“Were you seen?” he asked.

“By guards? No.”

“At all.”

The Hunter shook his head. “No one knows I’m in the city. No one knows I’m on this continent, for that matter. I thought it best to keep it that way.”

He nodded tensely in agreement. “They searched the ship, you know. Pretty thoroughly. Just like you said they would.”
Looking for you
, he wanted to say. But he didn’t know that for certain, did he? “Looking for something nocturnal,” he said at last, and Tarrant nodded.

He forced himself to walk into the room, to overcome his revulsion enough to ask the necessary question. “You feel better?”

“I fed,” the Hunter responded dryly. “If that’s what you’re asking. Nothing that a gourmet would brag about, but let’s say I’ve recovered from the journey here.”

The words were out before he could stop them. “How many?”

“You really want to know?”

The pale eyes were fixed on him. Cold, so very cold. After a moment he managed to look away, and muttered, “No. I guess not.”

“My strength isn’t what it once was ... but that won’t improve for some time, I regret. Not without the Forest’s power to draw on.” His slender hand fingered the hilt of his sword, as if reminding Damien that it, too, had been drained of strength. “However, my knowledge base is undiminished. And Mes Hesseth has done a fine job of accumulating maps.”

It was only then that he noticed that the floor—the whole floor—was covered with renderings of the land they had come to. Street maps, road maps, nautical charts, maps of landmarks and state monuments and political divisions ... most were the fold-out type that was sold at newstands and on street corners, but some were in Hesseth’s own hand, painstakingly copied from library references. While he had been playing priest, the rakh-woman had been assembling a cartographer’s wet dream.

“Any luck?” he asked. Trying not to meet that frigid gaze. Trying not to ask where Tarrant had been, or what he had been doing.

The Hunter walked to where one map lay and crouched by its side; like all his movements this one was fluid, catlike in its grace. “Three possibilities. You won’t like one of them.”

Damien glanced at Hesseth—who had taken her place by the side of that map—and then lowered himself to the floor opposite. “Go on.”

“There’s a region here—” he indicated a point some two hundred miles south of them, nestled between two mountain ranges, “—about which the locals know little. But they speak of monsters there, horrible malformed creatures who trap and then devour unwary travelers. That could be meaningful.”

“Or just a legend.”

“Or just a group of faeborn creatures loosely banded together, not at all related to the ones we seek”
Trap and devour unwary travelers
could be said of half the things that roamed the night. “It’s worth noting that there are few travelers in that region. Not enough to feed a horde of demons.”

“And ours were a horde,” Damien said softly. Remembering that their enemy had kept a stockpile of humans and rakh underground, milking their souls of enough vitality to sustain an unholy army. “Doesn’t sound right, does it?”

The Hunter shook his head.

“Second possibility?”

Hesseth was closest to that part of the map; she spread it flat with long, gold-furred fingers so that Damien could study it.

“The southern continent,” Tarrant explained. “Separated from this one by very little water ... and possibly none at all when the first expedition arrived.” He looked up at Damien. “There’s a settlement down there, Reverend. One that the locals are very much afraid of. That’s what the cannon are for. That’s why the coastline is guarded. If this region has an enemy, its stronghold is here.” A meticulously manicured finger tapped the map. “And that may be our enemy as well.”

Damien considered it. “And the third possibility?”

“You won’t like it,” he warned.

“You said that already.”

Tarrant stood. Taking care not to step on any of the maps, he walked to the window. Damien saw his eyes narrow as he Worked the fae, probably in some form of Obscuring. That precaution concluded, he pulled the heavy curtain aside. The city that was spread out before them was well-lit even at midnight.

“The roots of it are here,” he whispered.

“The roots of what?”

“Our enemy’s power. Can’t you see it?” He nodded toward the city lights. “It’s here. All around us.”

It took him a moment to find his voice. “You’re crazy.”

“I said you wouldn’t want to hear it.”

“These people have a more sane society than any I’ve seen on Erna. They live without fear, without despair. Their life is full of wonder, and their faith is—”

“Is that all you’ve seen? Faith and prayer, safety and order? I’m disappointed, Reverend Vryce. I thought you’d be a little more discerning than that.” His hand on the curtain tightened as he gazed out into the night. “There’s something wrong here. Something so terribly wrong I can’t even put a name to it. But the symptoms are right there in front of you, there for the seeing ... unless you don’t want to. Unless you prefer dreams to reality.” The Hunter turned back to him; the silver gaze was piercing. “Do you?”

It took effort to keep his voice from resonating with the anger he felt. “Just because your eyes are more attuned to corruption than mine doesn’t mean this land is polluted. Maybe it’s you who sees what you want to see ...
Hunter.”

If Damien had expected Tarrant to respond with anger—or with any human emotion—he was wrong. The slender fingers released the curtain, which fell back into place. The pale gray eyes fixed on him, their depths cool and confident. “Ah. So very confident. You must know a lot about this land, to be so quick to defend it. So tell me, Reverend—if you can—what happened to the last three expeditions that were sent here?”

He tried to remember Toshida’s exact words, but for some reason they eluded him. “They never arrived.”

“So. You have bought their propaganda.” He glanced at the rakh-woman. “Hesseth?”

“Two of them made it,” she said quietly.

“They were slaughtered,” the Hunter informed him. “Man, woman, and child. The first time only the pagans were killed, and the Church’s faithful were allowed to settle here. But that led to problems—social, political—so the next time a ship made it through they killed everyone on board. In the words of an old Earth philosopher, ‘God will know His own.’ ”

“It’s in the library,” Hesseth told Damien. “They set fire to it while it was still at sea. Any who jumped ship were killed in the water, before they could swim to land.”

“As they would have done to us,” Tarrant assured him. “That’s what Toshida’s ship was prepared to do—what it was
sent out to do
—and if you’re alive today it’s only because you had enough foresight to coach the crew in its lies long before we got here.”

Damien said nothing. His hands clenched silently, then unclenched. Again.

“Shall I guess what you’re thinking, Reverend Vryce?
That all happened four hundred years ago. These people are different now.
Maybe so. So let’s consider something else.” He walked to where Damien was and crouched down opposite him again; only the map was between them. “Fact: there’s an Order called the Sanctified. You know what they do. But do you know how they purify themselves for doing it? With a vow of chastity, Reverend. For three years, for five years, or for life. Now, another man might applaud that—purity of the body equals purity of the soul—but you’ve read my writings. You know how destructive it is to build into any religion an assumption that natural, healthful urges are
unclean.
For every Sanctified man in this region there are at least ten who wallow in guilt each time they have an unplanned erection. Is that the kind of emotion you want the fae responding to? Not to mention the repressed energies of the Sanctified themselves.”

“So they made a mistake,” he growled.

“Did they? I wonder. The people who came here from the west had no such tradition. So where did it come from? When did it start?” He leaned forward. “And the Matria. Haven’t you wondered about that? Doesn’t it strike you as odd that only women can head the Church here?”

“Why should it?” Hesseth demanded. “Division of labor according to gender is part of your human heritage. What makes this so significant?”

“First, because the colonists who were chosen to come to this world had no such tradition. Each colony had its own socio-psychological profile, and that was part of ours. Second, because there are real biological differences between men and women, and those
should
serve as a template for any division of labor which develops. It did in my own time, when we resurrected the so-called ”traditional“ roles as part of the Revivalist experiment. Men competed for the reins of power and women adopted roles of protection and nurturing. That arrangement worked because it was compatible with our biological heritage; this one isn’t.”