Celia Friedman - When True Night Falls

The Light was still there; at least that was something. It wasn’t strong but it was enduring, and that was a good sign. Hesseth had told her about something called a soft tide, when the tidal fae might last for hours. It wasn’t nearly as powerful as a hard tide, which was when several planetary rhythms came together at once and their joint friction made the whole world glow, but it was much more reliable. And reliability was what she needed right now.

She wrapped her hands around her chest and shivered. He’d be coming soon. The hungry beast in a rakhene body, ready to abandon that furred flesh which he had claimed and move into hers. She wondered how Katassah would handle it when the Prince finally left him. Would he be like he was before, with a few hours of unclear memories? Would he be angry with the Prince for having used him like that, or grateful for having been able to serve him? Had he tried to fight the Prince in that first few seconds of possession, so that deep inside he might be hurt and afraid? I’ll know soon enough, she thought unhappily. Wrapping her arms even tighter about her body, as if she could squeeze all the fear away.

A knock. She turned about quickly, just in time to see the heavy door swing open. It was the rakh guard, the Prince-thing.

He stepped into the room and gestured to the men behind him. “Leave us,” he ordered, and they did. He pushed the door and it swung slowly shut, closing with a click as it finally met the frame.

She could see him as a man now, if she tried. His features kept shifting, maybe because he had taken so many bodies. Maybe she was seeing all of them at once.

“Mes Jenseny-” the Prince began.

“Kierstaad,” she said defiantly. “My name is Kierstaad.”

The rakh eyes narrowed in irritation and for a moment she was afraid that he was angry enough to hurt her, but then she realized that she couldn’t possibly be safer. In a very short while he would be living inside her body; surely he wouldn’t want to lay claim to damaged property.

She thought suddenly of that thing moving inside her and for a moment she almost panicked. Did she have to do this? Wasn’t there some other option?

No, an inner voice said gently. No other option. Go on. Do it.

“Mes Kierstaad,” he said. “Does your offer still stand?” She whispered it. “Yes.”

“I’ll need to have a look at your motivation first. Just to make sure there are no . . . surprises.”

She nodded. And shut her eyes. And concentrated oh so hard on everything she wanted him to know: how she really was tired and she really felt lost and she really was terrified of being alone, so much so that she would welcome him into her soul just to make that feeling go away. And she wanted to save Damien, she mourned for the loss of Hesseth, the voices followed her everywhere—everywhere!—and she wanted them to stop, she just wanted to be safe and warm and not be afraid any more, not ever afraid again. All those things were true, painfully true, and as his Knowing unearthed her feelings she felt tears come to her eyes, tears and a sorrow so intense that her whole body started shaking violently. Never mind that those weren’t the real reasons she was doing this; if he believed them, then that was enough.

Evidently he was satisfied, for the next thing that happened was that the room was gone suddenly, along with its rugs and its furniture and its crystal light. She heard him moving toward her and she forced herself not to back away, not even when he reached out and touched her, not even when the power flowed from his flesh into hers-

From his flesh into hers-

Suddenly she Saw. Not the creature she had seen before, and not the man he pretended to be. She saw what he really was, the secret that was the core of his very existence. And the vision was so horrible that she almost tried to draw back from him, using the tidal fae to establish some kind of barrier between their souls so that no more visions could come. But he was inside her now and there was no turning back, not ever. Her eyes were his eyes.

She saw a space deep underground, a chamber fortified by so many quake wards that every inch of its inner surface was inscribed with signs of power. In the center of the room was a glass tank, and though the light cast by several of the wards was dim she could see it quite clearly, and smell its reek, and understand its purpose . . .

“No,” she gasped. “No.”

Floating in the tank was a man. No, not a man any more. It had four limbs and one head and it wore a man’s shape, but there the resemblance ended. The fingers were thick and white, and in the place of fingernails grew a dense brown fungus. The body was so bloated and its surface was so mottled with various growths and discolorations that it would have been a stretch of the imagination to call it human. The face . . . the face was a thing of pure nightmare, its hair and eyebrows long since rotted away, its eyes coated with thick brown sludge, its lips distended to serve as a gateway for the tiny finned creatures that used its mouth as home. All about the body there was movement: snails and slugs and tiny leggy things, all scrounging for the waste matter exuded by their host. There were plants to eat the leggy things and fish to eat the plants, a cycle of life so perfectly balanced that a little light and an occasional infusion of oxygen was all that was required to keep the tiny ecosystem alive.

My first body. The words were not spoken so much as placed in her mind; the taste of them was sour, the feel of them unclean. Keeping it alive makes me all but invulnerable. And no man will ever find where it is buried. She saw how the nutrients in the water were absorbed by that pliant flesh, so that the brain it housed might go on living year after year, century after century, sending out its spirit to claim more attractive bodies while it floated in the semi-darkness, slugs and snails for its nursemaids.

And then it was inside her. Unclean and loathsome, it slithered into her brain and coiled within like a serpent. She could feel its tendrils reaching out through her arms, her legs, all her extremities, and parts of her body began to twitch as it tested its control. Panic welled up inside her, and for an instant she nearly gave in to it. How easy it would be to go crazy now, to release her feeble grip on reality and slide down into madness for thirty years, forty years, until her body burned out and began to age and the Prince no longer wanted it. How easy . . .

Do it, he urged her. Hungry for a kind of control he could never have if she remained active in her flesh. I’ll give you dreams. I’ll give you peace.

She didn’t give in, nor did she draw away. Instead she opened her eyes so that he might see as she did, to fully cement their bargain. Combined with his own abilities her vision was doubly powerful, and the brilliant, scintillating Light of the tidal fae filled the room almost to bursting. She could sense his shock as he shared her vision; she could taste his hunger as if it was her own. Watch me, she thought. I can Work it. As he gazed out in wonder through her eyes, she took up the tidal fae and wove it into pictures for him, beautiful pictures that stunned him with their power, pictures he could feel and taste as well as see (and all the while she was taking out the object she had stolen, praying for him not to notice as she drew it from her pocket and opened it) and she wove the tidal fae into a glimmering shell that contained them both, a vast knotwork of power that would support and enhance their union. He was too lost in wonder to question it. He was too busy reveling in his newfound potential to consider the implications of such a simple Working. No man has ever Worked like this, he thought to her. Not even among the rakh. While he explored the nooks and crannies of her mind, she wove and wove and wove with all her strength, using every skill that Hesseth had taught her and every ounce of power that the tides made available. Tidal power didn’t work that well on material substance, the rakh-woman had told her, but in matters of spirit it was unequaled. She prayed it was so as she bound them together, forging a bond with her fledgling sorcery to support that which he had conjured, a bond which—she hoped—might never be broken.