Black Sun Rising (39 page)

He looked at the telescope and tried to envision a world such as the Hunter described. And at last could only mutter, “I can’t imagine it.”

“Nor I. After years of trying. The magnitude of it staggers the imagination. That a whole planet could be so utterly unresponsive to life ... and yet life as we know it evolved on its surface.”

“Advanced life.”

The Hunter smiled faintly. “We do like to think so.” He looked toward Ciani and indicated the telescope; an invitation. As she came forward and lowered her eye to the viewpiece, he said quietly, “Are you prepared for another question?”

Damien felt himself stiffen. Ciani looked up.

“Let’s hear it,” he said.

“What was it the lady’s assailants wanted, in Jaggonath?”

“You mean when they attacked me?” Ciani asked.

“Exactly.”

“Revenge,” Damien told him. “Ciani had escaped from them—”

“Hell of a long trip, for vengeance.”

The night was very quiet.

“What are you suggesting?”

“I suggest nothing. I merely ... ask questions. Like what would have happened if the lady’s assailant had returned to the rakhlands after crippling her—as he supposedly intended.” He gave them a moment to digest that, then continued, “According to what we know about the Canopy, when he crossed to the other side of that barrier, the bond that joined them would have been severed. Banished. From the lady’s standpoint, I imagine ... it would be much the same as if he had died.”

“She would have been freed!”

“Not exactly an efficient vendetta, eh? A week or two of misery for her, and then it would all be over.” His pale gray eyes were fixed on Ciani, drinking in her response; there was a hunger in him that made Damien uneasy.

“You think they had something else in mind.”

With obvious reluctance, he forced his eyes away from her. “I think they intended one of two things. To kill her ... or take her with them. Either way they would have benefited from having her disabled, by loss of memory and adeptitude. Except that in the former case, it wouldn’t really be necessary. A knife thrust through the heart is as fatal to an adept as it is to your common man on the street; if they had her under their control long enough to disable her, it seems unlikely they would have failed to kill her. If that was what they intended.”

Damien moved closer to where Ciani stood, to put a reassuring arm around her. She was trembling. “You think they meant to take me back?” she whispered.

“I’m afraid I do, lady. It’s the only explanation that makes sense. They must have come to Jaggonath for that purpose, then panicked when your shop’s defenses hit them. Had your assistant not faked your death they would surely have come back for you. As it was, they thought you were beyond their reach.”

“So they started home.”

“And met with reinforcements. Perhaps more of their kind who had been left behind, to cover the trail; perhaps some who came later, after the initial attack was launched. No matter. They guessed your friends’ intention to be a mission of vengeance on your behalf and joined forces to deal with you. And prepared to ambush you all in Morgot, because they knew you would have to pass through that port to reach their homeland.

“They know who she is now, I’ll bet.”

“So much for disguise. What next?”

“That depends on why they want her. They may try to capture her again. Or they may simply settle for killing the whole party, just to have the matter ended. Three of their kind have already died at our hands, I’ll remind you. They must be questioning whether the game is worth the cost.”

“Either way ...”

“We’ll be ambushed in Sheva,” Ciani said quietly. “Because of me.”

“We’ll be ambushed in Sheva because we’re hunting them down like the dogs they are,” Damien corrected her.

“We will not be ambushed in Sheva.” Tarrant said irritably. “I’ve already launched a Working that will take care of that. By the time your friend is fit to travel, that small army will be long gone. Which leaves us with several larger problems to confront.” Overhead the clouds had covered Prima’s disk, darkening the night a thousandfold. It was impossible to see Tarrant’s face as he told them, “The lady would be safest if she remained here.”

“No,” Damien said firmly. And Ciani stiffened proudly, as if somehow the suggestion had poured fresh strength into her veins. “I can’t just sit back and wait,” she said. “I can’t! It’s my fight, more than anyone’s.”

“As I expected.” Tarrant said quietly. “But it had to be said. It has to be your decision. So: the lady comes with us. We cross under the Canopy. And discover what force is allied to these creatures, that hungers so desperately to possess her. There is no alternative to that course of action if the lady’s to be freed.

“But consider this,” he said—and his voice took on something of the autumn night, its darkness and its chill. “If we take the lady into the rakhlands, whatever our intentions may be ... might we not be doing exactly what our enemy wants?”

They waited alongside the road to Sheva, as they had done for many nights. But despite the doubts that several had expressed, the one who guided them insisted that they were right, that this was the correct place to be; and so they waited, hungry and uneasy, anxious to obtain their vengeance and then hurry home. As one of them had done already, in order to report to the Keeper.

And then the humans came.

They emerged from the Forest’s edge barely an hour after dusk. Two men and one woman, the same trio that had left from Jaggonath so many days ago. Only now it was possible to see past the woman’s makeup, as though her nights in the Forest had somehow compromised her skill in applying it. Even the newcomers could recognize her, from the description given them in the rakhlands.

So she’s not dead!
one hissed.

Not yet, another responded hungrily.

They could hear the humans speaking now, and as the trio drew closer they could make out words. The woman was angry at the Hunter for what he had done to her and wanted to get away from him as quickly as possible. The large man—who had been so much trouble in Morgot—insisted that it was all for the best, that if she hadn’t demanded they leave without the Hunter, he would have insisted on it. Only the tall, pale one was silent, but it was easy to see as he adjusted his Worked spectacles that he had been through much, and not recovered well.

Excellent.

The attackers were still six strong, twice the number that had first set forth on this ill-fated mission. Compared to the puny human force that faced them, they were little less than an army.

The sorceror isn’t with them!
one exulted.

He had taken them by surprise, that one. He, and that damnable bitch from the plains.
She
had gone right home after the battle, driven off by the raw malevolence of the sorceror’s domain. So now she was out of the picture. As for the sorceror himself ... who cared where he was, as long as he was absent? The humans were alone. That was all that mattered.

We kill them,
one of the newcomers instructed.
Quickly. And make sure of it this time.

There were murmurs of protest—of hunger, of fear—but they soon settled down. The newcomer was right. They had tried a more complicated plan, and the humans had come hunting them. Now it was time to end it.

The Keeper would simply have to accept that.

The humans were closer now; it was possible to hear them arguing. The six tensed, waiting for the right moment.

“This is a mistake—” the thin man was saying.

“You’re outvoted, Zen” The large man’s voice was brusque, unyielding. “Tarrant’s just too vulking dangerous. I’d rather face a horde of these demons, unarmed, than have that kind of power behind my back.”

“But—”

“He’s right,” the woman said quietly. Her voice was tense, her manner strained. She looked as though she hadn’t slept for days. “We don’t know anything about his motives. Except that he thrives on human terror—and if he traveled with us, we’d be the only humans in range for quite some time.” She shivered. “He fed on me once. Once is enough.”

They charged.

They ran silently, slipping from shadow to shadow as fluidly as though they themselves were composed of nothing more solid than darkness. The humans were so wrapped up in their argument that it was seconds before they noticed that anything was amiss. And seconds were enough. The first of the attacking army was within arm’s reach of the nearest horse when the priest cried out, “Heads up!” and the battle was joined.

Too late, for the humans. Even as the priest whipped out his sword, the nearest attacker had his horse by the bridle; with a sharp jerk he twisted the creature’s head at an angle it was loath to adopt. The horse staggered wildly, and the priest’s swing went wide of its target. Another twist and the horse went down violently, slamming onto its side. The priest rolled free, barely. A second attacker leapt onto him while he was still completing his roll, while his sword was still trapped beneath his body; claws raked the suntanned face, drawing rivers of blood. The priest shivered, feeling the first touch of their cold hunger invade his flesh. He kicked out with all his might—and his strength was considerable, for a human—but though his assailant’s leg cracked sharply and swung free at an odd angle from the knee down, the attacker managed to hold onto his prey.

The priest fought desperately—as did his companions, each locked in their own small knot of combat—but the attackers knew their tricks now, and would not be defeated the same way again. Besides, the tall and deadly sorceror had not yet come to help the humans—which meant that he would not come at all, that he had abandoned them as thoroughly as they had abandoned him.

Hunger surged in the priest’s opponent as the fresh exhilaration of victory charged his limbs with newfound energy. He was beginning to drink in the man’s substance now, and flickers of memory formed in its brain—images so rich in content that he hissed in delight even as his claws dug into the priest’s protective collar and began to close on his windpipe. He absorbed the priest’s aspirations, his conquests, his fears. His loves. He experienced the passion of a woman’s embrace as this man had known it—wild and intoxicating, obsessive, uninhibited—and the thrill of battle, which felt much the same. He drank in all these things and more: childhood memories, adult desires, dreams and hopes and the terrors that came at midnight, all of them—and as he did so he gained in substance, his pale, translucent flesh taking on the color and texture of life, his empty eyes filled with the warm light of earthly purpose. In that moment, for an instant, the priest’s attacker was
human
—and that was a thing that none of his kind had ever been before. Not perfectly. Not until tonight.

Then the rivers of blood that had pulsed out over his hands, from the wounds his claws had made in the man’s neck, ceased. Likewise, the memories ceased to flow, and with it the warming pleasure that came from a kill.
Make sure,
the attacker told himself, and he cut deeply into the man’s flesh, severing a vital artery that was lodged in his throat. No more than a thin stream came forth; no more than that little bit was left in him. He lapped at the trickle, felt the man’s memories pulse in him like a second heartbeat. And then even that was gone, subsumed into his hunger. The priest was dead.

Sated, the attacker climbed to his feet. The battle was over. At the far end of the field the pale human lay, and he saw that his eyes had been torn out in the heat of that battle. His companions sat between the bodies, licking warm blood from their hands and faces, shivering with the pleasure of stolen memories. He looked for the woman—surely she hadn’t escaped—and found her where she had been felled, not far from her thinner comrade.

Dead. Her horse had reared up, terrified, and she had been thrown from the saddle. She had struck an outcropping of granite headfirst, and her cranium had split open like an overripe melon. A thick, wet mass oozed out between the cracks and dribbled wetly onto the ground.

Dead,
he whispered.

They gathered around him.

Dead,
another agreed. And a third added,
Without question.

They looked at the bodies, the fallen horses, the roads ... anywhere but at their fellows.

The Keeper will know,
one said at last.
When we enter the homeland. As soon as we do.

They considered that. Several of them shivered.

For a moment there was silence, as they all considered that option. But it really was no option, and they knew it. The rage when the Keeper learned of their failure would be nothing compared to what they would suffer if they tried to flee. The Master of Lema was wise, they told themselves, and experienced, and would know that these things happened. Surely their punishment would not be too harsh.