Celia Friedman - Crown of Shadows

The Forest was burning. Its enemies had waited until the dry season prepared it properly, then set fire to it in a dozen places along its border, so that the purifying conflagration would work its way inward from all sides at once. That way only, they explained, could man be certain that all the degenerate life-forms within the Forest died forever, rather than fleeing to adjacent regions. It was a good plan, and it would almost certainly succeed, and if Damien Vryce took a moment to mourn the loss of the Hunter’s prize horses, or the fact that no man would ever again wield the kind of power that would make it possible to evolve new ones ... well, that was his own human weakness speaking. Progress had its price. In the long run mankind would benefit from this act of destruction, and that was what mattered.

Wasn’t it?

He walked to where the narrow deck began and leaned against its railing, watching as the great fire miles away lit up the land with roaring brilliance, clouds of ash whipping about its head with whirlwind fury. For two weeks now it had burned that brightly, and the winds in the Raksha Valley had roared west instead of east, sucked in by its insatiable hunger for oxygen. A massive thunderhead cloud had reared up from the fire, impossibly high, a vast mushroom of water and ash that towered over the Black Ridge’s walkways like God’s own vengeance made manifest. The great cloud blotted out the sun at times, at other times filtered its light so that dense, bloody shadows played across the walkways. The tourists loved it. The scientists were in seventh heaven, explaining to anyone who would listen—and many who wouldn’t-that this was fire weather, a natural phenomenon, wholly predictable by their Earth-born art. He watched them drink themselves into joyful oblivion over the fact that they now lived in a world where such things could be measured, understood, predicted -while later that night a sorcerer cast himself from off the very place where Damien now stood, unable to adapt to a world that now declared his kind powerless.

He understood how a man could do that. He didn’t share the man’s despair, exactly-no matter what the Patriarch might have thought, he had never been that addicted to power-but in the secret recesses of his heart he nursed his own, gentler regret. He wanted to See the fae again. Just once more. He wanted to See the corrupt Forest currents surge beneath that cleansing fire, and taste their essence as they came out the other side. He wanted to See what the currents of the shadowlands looked like now that the Mother of the Iezu was active there, now that her children were meeting with journalists on the very trails he and Gerald Tarrant had forged. The loss of his Vision was like a wound that refused to heal, doubly painful because he had done it to himself ... and yes, he knew that what they had done was good, and necessary, even if they hadn’t understood all the implications at the time ... but that didn’t quell the longing inside him. He was, after all, only human.

How would you be dealing with all this, Gerald? They say that adepts can still see the fae, although they can no longer Work it; would you come to terms with that as the price of man’s salvation, or rage against the bonds that your own sacrifice forged for us? Or would you find some new way around the rules, carving out a niche for yourself in this new world as surely as you did in the old?

He wanted the man to be here now, to see all this, to witness the bad and the good and pass judgment on it all with cool sardonic indifference. He had seen him die, but he still couldn’t accept it. Maybe that was what was keeping him here. Maybe until he came to terms with the Hunter’s death-no, with Gerald Tarrant’s death, which was a different thing entirely-he wouldn’t be free to start his own life moving again.

Something dark moved against the clouds, that didn’t follow the pattern of ash and wind; without thinking he drew up his springbok to the ready and prepared to fire—

And there was a crack right by his ear, as loud as if the very mountainside had split open beside him. Startled, he missed the shot. Someone else didn’t. An unseen projectile slammed into the winged thing, hard enough that its scaled wings nearly snapped off as it was thrown back from them. A moment later it exploded into a mist of blood and fire, to the delight of those tourists who had been present to see the shot. Some of them applauded.

His left ear ringing, he turned around to see who the marksman was. A young man nodded back at him, not warmly but apologetically, as one damned well should after firing off a pistol that close without warning. For a moment he almost said something sharp, but he managed to swallow the words before they came out. Never mind that the guy looked like some spoiled brat from a rich house, out to play with explosives now that he could do so without risking his own pretty skin; there was nothing inherently wrong about using a pistol, or killing demonlings, and Erna wasn’t experienced enough in firearms etiquette to make deafening one’s neighbors a mortal offense. He managed to nod stiffly himself and hoped it looked forgiving, then turned back to the view. On both sides of him tourists were gathering at the rail now, straining to see down into the depths below. He wondered how many of them understood the significance of the killing they had just witnessed. Like legions of demonlings killed in the past this creature was now dead and gone, but unlike its predecessors, it would never be replaced. The minds of men no longer had the power to give life to such creatures. Which meant that someday, when enough demons and wraiths and hate-constructs had been dispatched, there would come a time when men and women could walk about safely in the night, as they did on other planets.

It was an awesome thought, and an oddly unnerving one. He wondered if he would recognize that world as his own.

Tarrant would.

He shut his eyes, trying not to feel that loss. The tourists at the rail had kept their distance from him, thank God, perhaps sensing the darkness of his mood. He could hear them chattering on all sides of him, but the sound had no meaning to him. In this one spot, in this one single moment in time, he was alone with his memories. Just him and the Forest.

“Hard to believe that he’s gone, isn’t it?”

Startled, he turned back to see the young man watching him. “What?”

“The Hunter.” The youth resheathed his pistol in a worked leather holster that hung from his belt. Both pieces looked expensive. “I assume that’s who you’re thinking about.”

He shook his head, unable to believe the man’s audacity. “You assume a hell of a lot.”

“You don’t act like one of the tourists. You’ve been here too long to be an ambassador to the Iezu, self-declared or otherwise, and you don’t talk to the news service people.” He nodded toward the fire beneath them. “Why else would a man be here, if not to contemplate the Hunter’s demise?”

Arrogant, he thought, as well as spoiled. He judged the man to be twenty-two, if that, and from the look of him he had never done anything more strenuous than clean and oil Daddy’s firearms collection. Smooth olive skin, without pockmark or blemish, was molded into features that were delicate, unseasoned. Untested. Thick black hair, nearly waist-length, was caught up in a braid at the back of his neck so perfect that there must surely be some expensive pomade keeping it all in place. A body shorter than Damien’s own-but not by much-served as a lean and elegant frame for an outfit of expensive finery. Pants of glove-soft black leather. Knee high riding boots. A doeskin vest embroidered in layers of gold-probably the real thing—and a shirt of fine crimson silk that more than one exotic caterpillar had given its life for. All of that was topped off by dark eyes, thick-lashed, that languidly gazed upon the world as if they owned it—