Crown of Shadows (27 page)

“Please do.”

As the priest went to the door to summon his acolyte, the Patriarch reached into his desk to pull out the sketch he kept there. It was a pencil drawing on low-quality paper, well worn from handling. He studied it once more as the priest fetched his acolyte, filled with wonder and more than a little misgiving. If he really had seen this man ... He shook his head, banishing the thought. One thing at a time. Confirm the sighting first.

The acolyte Elerin was a freckled teenager with bright red hair and a line of pimples along his chin. The Patriarch couldn’t remember having seen him before, but that was hardly a surprise; lesser priests handled the training of such boys until they took their vows in his presence.

The youth bowed clumsily, clearly anxious about this interview, and mumbled something that might have been, “Your Holiness.”

The Patriarch handed him the drawing. “Have you seen this man?”

The boy glanced at the picture and then back toward the priest, who nodded his encouragement. “I think so, Your Holiness. The drawing I saw was a little different, though.”

“That was a copy. This is the original.”

He looked at it again and then nodded, somewhat stiffly. Clearly he wasn’t comfortable in such august company. “He was at the afternoon service, I think. On Tuesday. Yesterday,” he added helpfully. “I was watching in the foyer, like Father Renalds told me to. This guy came out of the sanctuary right after the service, almost the first one out. He was in a real hurry.” He looked down at the picture again, then nodded. “I’m pretty sure it was him. His hair was a little shorter, and he wasn’t quite this thin, but the face looked about the same.”

“Did you find out who he was?”

He shook his head, scattering the red hair out of its embankments. “I tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t stop. I asked a few people who were there if they knew who he was, but no one did.”

“Did you follow him?”

The boy looked stricken. “No, Holy Father, I ... I’m sorry.” His face had flushed so bright a red that it almost rivaled his hair. “I didn’t think of it. I didn’t realize.... Please, forgive me.”

“It’s all right.” He took the drawing back from the boy. “There’s no reason you should have thought to do that. We’re not training you as a spy.” He tried to keep his tone as beneficent as possible; the boy was so nervous he looked as if a light breeze would knock him over. “Thank you, Elerin. You may go now.”

He did so anxiously, bowing repeatedly as he backed his way toward the door. Not until he was gone did the Patriarch let his smile fade, and a more businesslike expression take its place.

“I want to know who this man is,” he told the priest, tapping the drawing. “If that means following him, then do it. If our people lack the skill to pull that off gracefully, then hire someone who can.” He glanced at the picture again. “Get one of our priestesses to keep watch outside the sanctuary during services. Someone young and pretty, whom he might be willing to talk to. Unmarried,” he added sharply.

Would that be bait enough? The face in the picture, though roughly sketched, was clearly a handsome one. Such a man might stop to talk to a pretty woman, while ignoring the man right beside her.

“Are you sure he’ll come back, Your Holiness?”

He shut his eyes for a moment; visions rose unbidden before his inner eye. “A vision showed me that he would come here, and he did. It also showed me that he would return.”

“Of course, Your Holiness.” The priest’s voice trembled with awe as he bowed deeply before his religious master; clearly he was of the faction that considered the Patriarch’s visions to come directly from God. “We’ll find out who he is, I promise you.”

I am a prophet in their eyes,
the Patriarch mused, as the priest made his way out of the chamber.
Would that I could be so sure of it myself.

As he gazed down at the drawing in his hands, he could not help but shiver. And a chill wind of awe coursed up his back as it seemed to him, for one fleeting instant, that Reverend Vryce’s sketch of Gerald Tarrant was looking back at him.

ANDRYS TARRANT.

The Patriarch looked at the letters written before him as though they were foreign shapes, sounding them out one by one, tasting their meaning. So few symbols. So potent a message.

ANDRYS
TARRANT.

A shiver ran up his spine as he considered the implications of that name. The Prophet had killed his children, or so the Church taught. Was it possible that one had survived? Was this Andrys Tarrant not only a man who looked like the Hunter, but who bore the Hunter’s blood within his veins as well? A man so like him in the substance of his being that the very patterns of his DNA were echoes of the Prophet’s own?

If so—Dear God!

Help me, Lord,
he begged.
Guide me, so that I may serve You more perfectly.

Tarrant. There was a wealth of power in that name, a power that might save or destroy. He remembered the man who had led his dream-army into the Forest—so bright a symbol, the focus of all their hopes—and for the first time since his war dreams began, he felt the stirring of hope. This was the key they needed, this stranger with history running in his veins. That he had suddenly appeared in Jaggonath’s cathedral now, when their need was greatest, only served to confirm his purpose in the Patriarch’s mind. With him, they could fight this war and win it. They could break the Forest’s hold upon this region and send its ruler up in smoke. The centuries would resound with their triumph.

But did they dare?

By night, he dreamed of holy war.

By day, he dreamed of Gerald Tarrant’s offering.

The blue stone lay within its box, deep cobalt light reflecting from the polished alteroak.

The Patriarch bowed his head before the altar, and his body trembled like a branch in a high wind. Was it sin to take up this gift, if all it offered him was knowledge ? Was it wrong to use the Hunter’s power, if in the end that power was to be turned against him?

For a long time he remained as he was, bowed before the hateful object. Since the moment when it had been placed here he had been continually aware of it, as if it had already established some kind of link to his mind. He felt its presence while eating, while reading, even while conducting services in the sanctified hall of the cathedral. But most acutely of all, he felt it when reports of escalating violence were brought to him. Violence within his church, that must be cleansed. Violence surrounding the Forest, that must be answered.

The dreams were so tempting, with their dramatic solution: a war against the Forest, in which the growing violence in his people could be channeled toward a positive end. A second Great War, in which the Church would at last be triumphant. The spirit of his people was ready for it. The means existed. The funds could be assigned.

The consequences were terrifying.

He had prayed for nights on end for some new insight, but none had come to him. It was so tempting, those dreams of triumph. But if he obeyed his visions and started a war, how would he end it?
Violence begets violence,
he despaired. How could he encourage it among his people, and then expect it to disperse at the campaign’s end? What kind of act or symbol would be powerful enough to disrupt such a cycle?

Through it all, silent witness to his torment, was the Hunter’s gift. The ultimate temptation. Not power, but something far more subtle. Not sorcery, but something even richer.

Knowledge.

He took the blue crystal up in his hand, and held it out toward the candlelight. It was so cool in his palm, and so very still. He had half-expected that it would show its power by radiating heat, or vibrating, or in some other way indicating that the fae contained within it waited only for the proper sign before it could break out. But there was nothing. Except for its eerie light, the crystal could have been no more than glass, a finely faceted paperweight.