Black Sun Rising (75 page)

“I think,” he said slowly, “if there’s any one facet of our enemy that terrifies me ... it’s how well he knows us. How well he knows how to get to each of us.”

He walked toward the fire slowly, his eyes filling with tears as the heat of it seared his face. He came as close as he dared and then stopped and stared into it. Into the brutal heart of it, the blazing core of its heat.

And he could barely make out, amidst the dancing flames, the black figure of a man. Stretched out across the opening, arms spread out in a cruciform arrangement. The fingers—if there still were fingers—would be just inches short of the fire’s edge. Damien looked for some kind of support, saw the blunt ends of coarse steel bars resting on both sides of the crevice. The metal glowed with heat where it lay against the stone floor. If he lay on that framework, perhaps bound to it ... merciful God. No doubt it was the powerful air currents, fire-stirred, that kept the smell of roasting flesh from reaching them. Damien had no doubt that it was there, in quantity.

“We have to turn it off,” he muttered. His mind racing as it considered—and discarded—at least a dozen options. “I can’t get to him while it bums.”

“Smother it?” Ciani asked. She was by his side, a hand shielding her eyes as if from bright sunlight.

“Can’t. There’s air coming in, all along there.” He indicated the narrower portions of the crevice. “If not from underneath, too.”

“Block it?” Hesseth asked.

He bit his lower lip as he considered that. “Going to have to try,” he said at last. “The earth-fae’s weak, but I can’t think of another good option.” He turned back toward the chamber’s one entrance, saw that the pierced one had taken up guard there. “They’ll be on us the minute I Work. It may take them time to get down here, but they’ll come. In force. As soon as I alter the fire.”

“Then we’ll just have to be ready for them,” the rakh-woman said fiercely, and she braced the springbolt against her shoulder.

He went back where Tarrant’s possessions lay, and considered them. Then he removed the coldfire blade and unwrapped it, carefully. The Worked steel blazed with a chill blue light, as blinding as snow—and then was extinguished, as he thrust it deep into its warded container. He tested the handle, and sensed no active malevolence.
Thank heaven for that, anyway.

He positioned the other members of their small company as best he could, to prepare for the arrival of the enemy’s servants. But:
Our best won’t be good enough,
he thought darkly. Without Tarrant’s power behind them they were no match for a horde of demons, flesh-dependent or no; they would have to work fast and get out quickly, and hope that Tarrant could be restored before battle commenced.

He looked at the body within the flames, and felt despair uncoiling within him.
If he can be restored,
he thought grimly.
What if we’re doing all this for nothing?

He gathered himself for Working, and stared into the fire. Stared beneath it, to where the sharp lips of rock gaped wide above the earth’s store of fuel. He Worked his sight—no easy task, with the earth-fae so thin—and tried to look deep down into that opening, to assess its structure. But there was no place immediately below where the walls of the crevice drew any closer together. With a sigh he resigned himself to Working its upper edges, and braced himself for the effort.

And air roared past him, sucked up by the conflagration. Earth-fae swept past him, too thin to grasp. He tried to enclose it in his will, to force a form and purpose upon its tenuous substance—but it ran through his fingers like smoke and was sucked up into the inferno.
Not enough of it,
he despaired.
Not enough!
He was used to the currents of Erna’s surface, so deep and rich that the simplest thought was enough to shape it, the simplest Working enough to master it ... but here, Working the fae was like trying to breathe in a vacuum. There simply wasn’t enough power for what he needed to do.

But there has to be, he
thought darkly.
Because we have no other choice.
Already he could feel the malignant thoughts of their enemy closing in around him, like a fist being clenched. How long did they have before he struck? Mere minutes, he guessed. He poured everything he had into his Working: all the force of his hatred for Tarrant, his love for Ciani, his despair at losing her twice—first to the assault in Jaggonath, then to Tarrant’s corruption. If raw emotion could master the earth-fae, then he would use that as his fuel. His will blazed forth in need, in pain, and he grasped at the elusive power. And fought to weave it into a barrier, that might bridge the mouth of the crevice. But there simply wasn’t enough fae there to do what he needed. Again and again he tried, until his soul was scraped raw by remembered anguish, until his whole body shook from the force of his exertion. But his Bindings dissolved even as he made them, and the force of the fire broke through his every Working.

“I can‘t” he gasped at last. “Can’t do it.” His brain was on fire, his whole body shaking, his plans in chaos. What
now?
he thought desperately.
What now?
Behind him he could sense Ciani’s despair, and it cut into him like a knife.
I failed her. I failed them all.

How much time had passed, while he wrestled with the earth-fae? He didn’t dare ask. But every second they spent here increased their danger. Already their only escape route might be cut off—

He knew, suddenly. And turned to Hesseth.

“Tidal power,” he gasped. “Can you—”

“Not stable,” she warned. “Not for solid work. There would be danger—”

“To hell with the danger! It’s that or nothing.” He was drenched with sweat but refused to move back from the fire.
“Can you do it?”

For a moment her eyes unfocused, and she stared not at him, but past him.
Through
him. He remembered the tidal fae fluxing over Morgot, the brief rainbow power that had suddenly filled the sky with brilliance, then vanished with equal rapidity. It was a fickle power, utterly impermanent. Dangerously unstable. And right now, it was the only hope they had left.

“I can try,” she said at last. “But you understand—”

“Just do it!” He was counting down the seconds in his mind, wondering how long it would take their enemy’s soldiers to reach them. “Do it fast,” he whispered. Was it possible that the enemy’s attention had been elsewhere when they struck, delaying his response? He prayed that it was so. Every minute counted now.

Hesseth turned her attention to the fire, and he followed her gaze. He tried to See the forces she was summoning, but the delicate power eluded him. How much fae would be available to her, and how long would it last? The tidal patterns altered minute by minute, as time and tides progressed about the planet. Even if she could conjure a barrier for them, would it remain solid long enough for them to do what they had to?

“There it is,” Ciani whispered. Pointing to the crevice. It could be seen at one edge of the opening, now: a fog, a darkness, that grew solid even as they watched, and eclipsed the fire behind it. He felt his heart pounding as he watched it extend—several inches into the crevice, a foot, two feet, now halfway across it—and he wiped the sweat from his face with a salt-soaked sleeve.
Go for it, Hesseth. You can do it.
The remaining fire was ragged now, as if struggling against some unseen bond. Smoke was beginning to seep from other places along the crevice, desperately seeking egress from the pit of its birth. For a moment he feared that the fire would break out elsewhere, that Hesseth’s Working might force it to break through the very rock beneath their feet. Then the last of the Fire spurted upward, licking the ceiling with its orange tongue—and was suddenly gone, vanished beneath the shadowy blockage.

It wasn’t hard to see what the enemy had done to Gerald Tarrant; the grating that supported him still glowed red-hot, supplying them with more than enough light. Atop the thick steel bars lay a body that had been burned and healed and burned again, so many times that its surface was little more than a blackened mass of scar tissue. Where cracks appeared red blood oozed forth, and it sizzled as it made contact with the superheated skin. Damien didn’t look at the face—or what was left of it—but he felt hot bile rise in his throat as he studied the man’s bonds. Wide metal bands bound the Hunter to his rack at the wrist, upper arm, ankle and neck; they, too, glowed with heat, and had burned their way deep into his flesh until the edges of bones were visible.

“How long—” he began.

“Eight days,” Ciani whispered. “If they brought him right here.” She looked up at him; her face was drenched with sweat, or tears. Or both. “What do we do?” she begged him. “How do we get him off it?”

He fought back his growing sickness and tried to Work. It wouldn’t take much fae to break those bonds; that was a simple exercise, a straightforward molecular repulsion. But either Hesseth’s Working had affected the earth-fae or he was simply too exhausted to Work it. He fought with the fae until his vision began to darken about the edges, the whole of the room swimming about him. And then knew, at last, that he was defeated. The best of his efforts couldn’t conjure more power than there was in this place, and there simply wasn’t enough. Tarrant might have been able to do it. He couldn’t.

He looked up, and saw Ciani’s eyes fixed on him. Not despairing, now, but filled with a feverish excitement. And with a terrible fear. The combination was chilling.

“The coldfire,” she whispered. “The sword.”

It took him a moment to realize what she meant. “Too dangerous—”

He remembered the malevolence housed within that blade, and shuddered. “Can you?” he whispered. “Can you control it?”

She hesitated. “He controls it,” she said hoarsely. “But I think I can use it. For him.”

She went to get the blade. He tried to fight back his growing sickness, his sense of horror at what she was attempting. If she tried to master that power and failed, what would the cost be? He remembered the hunger he had sensed while handling it, that had so horrified him. What had the Lost Ones called it—the Eater of Souls?

And then she was back, and the sword was in her hands. She hesitated just an instant—and he knew in that moment that she feared it every bit as much as he did—and then drew it from its sheath. The containment wards let loose their hold, and the chill power of Tarrant’s coldfire blazed forth freely.

Hot versus cold. Expansion and contraction. If she could gain control of that frigid force, if she could focus it finely enough ... it might be enough to break through those bonds and free the Hunter. But if not....

He saw the barrier flicker for an instant; a burst of flame shot through it, enveloping Tarrant’s torso, and then was gone. He looked at Hesseth, saw her whole body tense with the effort of Working.
Hang in there,
he begged her.
Hold onto it....

Ciani touched a hand to the blade—and cried out as the blue-white power shot up that extremity, up to her shoulder. Her skin took on the ghostly pallor of long-dead flesh, and frost rimmed her fingernails. Then she grasped the haft of it with that hand, at it seemed that her fingers froze closed about the grip. Slowly she extended the Worked weapon toward the nearest of Tarrant’s bonds; he could see her struggling to bind its power, fighting to impose her own focus on its chaotic essence. Then the tip of the sword touched the red-hot metal, and sparks flew. Coldfire arced upward with electrical brilliance, and snapped like lightening in the charged atmosphere. Then it was gone, and the sword was withdrawn ... and the steel band that had bound his wrist was shattered, its frosted pieces falling like shrapnel to the fae-worked barrier beneath.

Smoke spurted and curled upward through Hesseth’s Working as she struggled to move the sword again.
Hold onto it!
Ciani’s face had taken on the same ghastly pallor as her hand, and he could almost hear her heart laboring to maintain its beat as the Hunter’s killing cold invaded her flesh. Damn the man! Would they free him from death, only to lose her? He watched her face as a second metal strap shattered into frozen crystals, saw the pain—and the fear—that was etched across her brow. Still she continued. Tarrant’s neck was freed now, and Damien’s hand closed tightly about the grip of his own sword. They could cut through the man’s other wrist if they had to, and even his ankles; let him regenerate the flesh at his leisure, once they were out of here. He thought he could hear footsteps now, a distant pounding as if from running feet. The fourth bond shattered. The sweat on Ciani’s face had frozen, and ice crystals rimmed the bottoms of her eyes. Five. He started to move forward, saw a wall of flame erupt before him.
Ciani!
But it was gone as quickly as it had appeared, and though her hair was singed and the skin of her face burned, Ciani seemed unharmed.

He moved as the sixth bond shattered, so that by the time Ciani reached to free Tarrant’s second ankle he had hold of the man’s flesh, was grasping him tightly about the wrist. Hot blood scalded his hand, but he knew there was no time to experiment with less direct measures. As soon as Ciani had broken the last steel band, he pulled with all his strength. The body moved like a broken doll, burned flesh pulling loose from it as it was jerked from the red-hot framework, scar tissue sizzling as it was dragged across the grating—and then they were both out of the danger zone, and just in time. Thin flames licked upward through Hesseth’s barrier and then suddenly, with a roar, shot upward toward the ceiling, burning with newfound energy. He felt his own hair curling from the force of the heat, could only pray that Ciani had made it back in time.