Celia Friedman - When True Night Falls

Katassah!

He twisted about suddenly, but they were already moving into the stairway’s shadows. All he could see was the fleeting glint of lamplight on sable-striped fur, long golden strands masking the shoulders of a uniform.

And then they were gone and even that hope was gone—that fragile, nameless hope—and he slumped against the bars of his prison. Wishing he had known earlier. Wondering what the hell he could have done if he had.

“He called him Katassah,” the small girl whispered.

“Yeah.” He leaned back against the bars and shut his eyes. Desperate plans were flitting through his brain, but they all dissolved before they gained substance. “Fat lot of good it does us now,” he muttered.

But deep inside, he wondered.

Dawn was coming.

A lone bird circled high in the darkness. Its talons were like rubies, its eyes as bright as diamonds. Its wingspan was broader than any bird’s wingspan should be, and its feathers were tipped in cool silver unfire.

It banked low, took its bearings, then rose again. Seeking.

In the west a dull light glowed that was neither sun nor starshine. A faint red light that played along the ridge of one mountain, crowning its summit in blood. The bird flew toward it. As it came near the currents grew fierce, so much so that as it struggled to tame the winds to its purpose it must also fight to maintain its chosen form. Even a minute’s relaxation in the vicinity of a volcano could prove fatal to a shapechanger.

It crossed over the ridge, and hot winds buffeted it from below. The coldfire on its wingtips died, and the feathers began to char and curl. It was struggling now as volcano-born thermals rose up from the ground with violent force, sometimes accompanied by a spray of molten rock or hair-fine ash.

At last it could fly no farther, and it landed. Earth-fae swirled hotly about its feet, almost too violent to tame; it took long minutes for it to mold the stuff to its will, to drain it of its intrinsic heat so that it might be Workable. At last, not without fear, it changed. Feathers gave way to flesh, talons to hands, down to clothing. Silken robes were cooked in the process, crisped to ash along the edges. The scabbard of the Worked sword was singed.

Gerald Tarrant looked down the long slope of the volcano, studying the deadly landscape. Not half a mile to the west of him the earth had been rent open, and lava poured red-hot down the mountainside; he could feel its heat on his face even from where he stood, and knew that he dared get no closer if he valued his life. Accompanying the lava was a flood of earth-fae so powerful that only a madman would try to Work it, and it established a current that flowed westward, toward the sea, away from the Prince’s citadel.

Excellent, Tarrant thought.

The Prince had offered him accommodations in his palace, which Tarrant had politely refused. He wasn’t about to spend his most vulnerable hours in the man’s stronghold, alliance or no alliance. So he had put on his wings and headed west, toward the volcano. Let the Prince think that he had done it for privacy. Let him think that Tarrant had chosen this place because the fierce currents would disrupt any Seeing, any Knowing, any attempt on the Prince’s part to discover his daytime hiding place. That was certainly part of the reason, but it was not all. And if the Prince ever knew the rest of it . . . then burning currents and molten rock would be the least of Gerald Tarrant’s problems.

The ground trembled beneath him as he knelt on the black earth, and the smell of sulfur drifted to him on a hot breeze. The place reminded him of Mount Shaitan back home, a volatile crater whose outpouring fueled the Forest’s currents. He had made a pilgrimage to it once, to tap that awesome power, and he knew just how deadly a volcano’s outpouring could be.

This time he had an alternative.

He put his hand about the hilt of his sword and drew it free of its sheath. Coldfire blazed furiously as it made contact with the hot power of the local currents, and a hiss like that of steam rose from its sharp steel edge. It was bright again, nearly as bright as it had been in the rakhlands; he had been charging it night after night throughout their journey, molding the earth-fae with painstaking care until it suited his special need, then binding it to the steel until the whole length of the sword blazed with frigid power. It enabled him to Work when the currents were made deadly by earthquakes, or when he was deep underground where the earth-fae was feeble. It would enable him to Work safely now, even in this hostile environment.

One more tool, and then he was ready. He took it out of his pocket and opened it, laying it on the warm black earth before him. Memories clung to it like vapor, and for, an instant he thought that the volatile currents would bring several of them to life. But all that manifested was a thin red fog, that twined about the handle in crimson filigree and left small drops, like blood, floating in the air.

Shutting the rest of the world out of his mind, he braced himself for Working. In all of his repertoire there was no harder task than what he was about to attempt here. It went against the very patterns of Nature, defied the very flow of reality. He had done it only once before, as an exercise, and even then he had not been wholly successful. This time, however, there was no room for error.

Carefully he wove power into the slender object, priming it to take the fae in the same way he had done to his sword so many centuries ago. That was easy enough. Next would come the Warding, a complex command that would enable the object to craft the fae itself, molding the currents, dodging magnetism, bending light . . .

An UnSeeing.

An Obscuring would have been far easier to establish, but that only decreased the chance of an object being noticed. A Distracting was more effective—he had used one against Damien and Jenseny at the river—but that was more suited to a single moment in time than a lasting need for secrecy. And a sorcerer might notice either of those Workings if he were alert for it, which the Prince most certainly was. No, this had to be the real thing. And that must affect not only the mind of the observer but reality itself, remaking the physical world so that nowhere was there even a shadow of its existence. True invisibility. Scholars had argued that it wasn’t possible. He had argued that it was. And here, on this torrid ridge, he was about to bet his life on that assessment.

With care he molded the fae, weaving it about the small object as finely as a silk cocoon. Light, striking that barrier, would pass about its perimeter and then resume its course. Magnetic currents would be shielded from contact with the metal within before they were allowed to pass through. Heat and cold and conductivity and the currents, the winds, the tides . . . they must all be dealt with separately, for they all had their own special patterns. The only thing he left untouched was a narrow band of visible light; that would have to be dealt with on a more mundane level.

When at last he was done, he leaned back, exhausted, and studied his creation. Out here in the field it looked good, but if the Prince turned his attention upon it . . .

Then we’ll find out if I’m right or not, he thought grimly. The hard way.

“Damn Stairs” the guard muttered. “Don’t know why he can’t keep his prisoners on the ground floor this time, like all the others.”

He was less than thrilled about having drawn this duty, but he was hardly going to admit that to the captain. You didn’t tell a rakh that you’d rather do sentry duty than walk a simple food tray down ten turns of stairs. He’d read you for a wimp in two seconds flat, and then there’d be some damn animal pecking-order bullshit and the next thing you knew you’d be hauling out garbage or waxing canoes or some such crap thing like that. No, better to just walk the vulking tray down the vulking stairs and try not to think about the climb back up.