Celia Friedman - When True Night Falls

“Are you sure they’ll land here?” one of the humans demanded. “Shouldn’t we have some kind of backup?”

He turned to face the man. There was no need to hiss a warning; his expression was enough. The man’s color, already light in tint, went two shades paler.

“ His Highness says they’ll land here.” There was scorn in the captain’s voice, and the absolute authority of one who has earned his position not only through civilized human channels, but by blood and by claw. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“No, sir.” He shook his head vigorously. “Of course not, sir.”

Deliberately, the captain turned away from him. “All right,” he said. “You know the plans. Take up your positions and be ready. Stay quiet. And remember: they have sorcery. Don’t take chances.”

“Sir?”

Humans. It never ceased to amaze him how they needed everything spelled out for them,

“If they look like they’re about to Work,” he told them, “then kill them.”

And he added, just because they were human, “Any questions?”

This time, there were none

There was an earthquake soon after sunset. By the light of the Core they could see the twisted land rippling as the shock waves passed through it, the black earth heaving like a storm-tossed sea. And then, at last, all was quiet. New cracks surrounded the base of their island, but there was nothing they couldn’t get across if they had to.

“Is he coming soon?” the girl asked.

Tarrant.

In Hesseth’s absence he was their anchor, their key. Damien’s Workings might net them a few helpful tips about dealing with their immediate environment, but it would take a man of Tarrant’s power and experience to obtain what they must have now: exhaustive knowledge about a land few humans had ever seen, and a safe means of approaching a species hostile to their own. With Hesseth gone, he was their only hope.

“Soon,” Damien promised.

The local faeborn were beginning to gather about their mount, but they were few in number and lacked strength; evidently the more enterprising wraiths had made their bid for nourishment the night before. Unable to Banish them because of the earthquake-hot currents, Damien held the child close to him and watched as they flitted about the camp. Ghostlings, bloodsuckers, a single succubus. He watched the latter for a few seconds, marveling at the way she—it—responded to his scrutiny. Slowly the foggy form adopted all the features that he found desirable in women, and if he had responded even for a moment it would have taken that as an opening and attached itself to him faster than he could draw in a breath. But he knew all too well what it was and what it could do, and far from arousing his sexual interest it repelled him so thoroughly that at last the thing screeched in frustration and darted off into the night, no doubt to seek more cooperative prey. The rest kept their distance, circling warily about the ledge. Damien kept his hand on his sword, ready to deal with the more solid manifestations, and prayed that the subtler demonlings would make no move until the fae cooled off. Wouldn’t that be the ultimate waste, to come all this way and fight so hard to get here, only to fry himself to a crisp in a single careless gesture-

Oh, my God.

For a moment he was unable to move, and barely able to think; if one of the ghostlings had attacked him then and there, that would have been it for him. Because a thought had just occurred to him that was so terrible, so absolutely devastating in its implications, that his mind could barely touch on it without opening a gateway to utter panic.

Tarrant.

Had awakened at sunset.

Had transformed himself in order to return to them.

Had Worked?

He remembered the earthquake which had so recently shaken their granite mount, rock shards tumbling down on them as the ground convulsed from horizon to horizon. And yet that physical upheaval was nothing compared to what preceded it. To the surge of earth-fae which flowed just ahead of it, swallowing everything in its path . . .

How alert was the Hunter when he first awoke? How careful? Did the deathlike trance release him so suddenly when sunset came that his mind was alert and functioning mere seconds later? Or was there, as with the living, a short period of dullness in which the brain struggled to throw off the bonds of sleep and get on with the business of living? Was that precisely disciplined soul so perfectly oriented that he would never think of transforming his flesh without first checking the currents for an earthquake’s subtle warning signs? Or had he Worked his own flesh so many nights now, so fearlessly, that a glance at the earth-fae would seem enough? A token gesture without real concentration behind it-

“What is it?” Jenseny demanded. “What’s wrong?”

Shaking, he wrapped his arms around his chest and tried to believe that everything was all right. Because if Tarrant was gone, then there really was no hope for them. They might get through the desert, they might even find a willing ear or two among the rakh, but without Tarrant’s power to back them up there was no way they could defeat a man like the Prince. Not a sorcerer who was so deeply entrenched here that even the plants served his will.

Oh, God, he thought, shivering. Let him be all right. Please.

“Nothing,” he managed, in answer to the girl’s question. With childlike acuity she seemed to sense that he was lying to her, but with rare maturity she accepted his words at face value and did not press the point. Perhaps she was afraid to. Perhaps, after Hesseth’s death, she had little stomach for bad news.

“Come on,” he muttered. “Let’s eat something.”

They went through the motions mechanically, silently. The dry food was tasteless to Damien, and the girl hardly picked at her portion. Another slight tremor shook the ridge as they washed the meal down with water—precious mouthfuls, carefully rationed—but the aftershock was of little consequence. Hopefully there would be no more of them as they traveled; Damien didn’t relish the thought of the black earth rupturing beneath his feet.

When they had packed away the food and hooked the canteens to their packs, Damien took out his one spare shirt and pulled off the bloodstained one he was wearing. Neither was clean by any standard, but the new one was at least still in one piece; the other was so badly scored by claws that it pulled free of his body in strips, glued to his flesh by the blood and the sweat that had soaked into it. Not a pretty sight, he thought grimly as he packed away the ragged garment. Tarrant, with his usual hygienic chauvinism, would doubtless make some disparaging comment when he arrived.

If he arrived.

They watched together as the Core followed the sun into its western grave, the golden light turning amber and then blood-red as it was filtered through Erna’s veil of volcanic dust and windborn ash. Still the Hunter did not return to them.

Tarrant, I need you. I need your knowledge, I need your insight, I even need your God-damned cynicism. Get back to us soon, will you please?

But Tarrant didn’t come.

And in time, his heart as cold as ice, his brain a numb morass of confusion, he whispered to the girl, “We’re on our own.”

To do what? Confront the rakh?

Numbly he lowered himself to the lava plain, and helped her down beside him. Numbly they started off across the black earth, their movements mechanical, their conversation strained. Again and again Damien went over their situation in his mind. Again and again he didn’t like what he saw.

You’re on your own, Vryce.

The girl might help him somehow. She had been close to Hesseth, close enough to absorb some of her language and a number of her memories; Damien regretted now that he had respected their privacy too much to explore the parameters of that absorption. And Jenseny had power. Wild power, untamed power, but power nonetheless. A power the Prince could neither foresee nor dominate, if ever she could learn to wield it properly.