Celia Friedman: Black Sun Rising

“I need time,” he told her. There was pain in his voice-deep-rooted pain, and possibly fear. But no doubt, she noted. And no regret. None of the things that her former husband would have felt, standing in this cold stranger’s shoes. “Time, Almea. And there’s no other way to have it.”

“You loved them!”

He nodded slowly, and shut his eyes. For an instant—just an instant—the ghost of his former self seemed to hover about him. “I loved them,” he agreed. “As I love you.” He opened his eyes again, and the ghost vanished. Looked at her. “If I didn’t, this would have no power.”

She wanted to scream, but the sound was trapped within her. A nightmare, she begged herself. That’s all it is, so wake up. Wake up! Wake up . . .

He handled her gently but forcefully, sitting her down on the rough stone slab. Lowering her slowly down onto it, until she lay full length upon its abrasive surface. Numb with shock, she felt him bind her limbs down tightly, until it was impossible for her to move. Protests arose within her—promises, reasoning, desperate pleas—but her voice was somehow lost to her. She could only stare at him in horror as he shut his eyes, could only watch in utter silence as he worked to bind the wild fae to his purpose . . . in preparation for the primal Pattern of Erna. Sacrifice.

At last his eyes opened. They glistened wetly as he looked at her; she wondered if there were tears.

“I love you,” he told her. “More than everything, save life itself. And I would have surrendered even that for you, in its proper time. But not now. Not when they’ve opened hell beneath me, and bound me to it by the very power I taught them how to use . . . Too many prayers, Almea! Too many minds condemning my work. This planet is fickle, and responds to such things. I need time,” he repeated, as though that explained everything. As though that justified killing their children.

He raised a long knife into her field of vision, even as his slender hand stroked the hair gently out of her eyes. “You go to a far gentler afterlife than I will ever know,” he said softly. “I apologize for the pain I must use to send you there. That’s a necessary part of the process.” The hand dropped back from her forehead, and the glittering blade was before her eyes.

“The sacrifice is not of your body,” he explained. His voice was cold in the darkness. “It is . . . of my humanity.”

Then the knife lowered, and she found her voice. And screamed—his name, protests of her love, a hundred supplications . . . but it was too late, by that point. Had been too late, since true night fell.

There was no one listening.

Damien Kilcannon Vryce looked like he was fully capable of handling trouble, for which reason trouble generally gave him a wide berth. His thick-set body was hard with muscle, his hands textured with calluses that spoke of fighting often, and well. His shoulders bore the weight of a sizable sword in a thick leather harness with no sign of strain, despite the fact that the dust stains on his woolen shirt and the mud which caked his riding boots said that he had been traveling long and hard, and ought to be tired. His skin had tanned and scarred and peeled and tanned again, over and over again with such constancy that it now gave the impression of roughly tanned leather. His hands, curled lightly about the thick leather reins, were still reddened from exposure to the dry, cold wind of the Divider Mountains. All in all a man to be reckoned with . . . and since the thieves and bravos of Jaggonath’s outskirts preferred less challenging prey, he passed unmolested through the crowded western districts, and entered the heart of the city.

Jaggonath. He breathed in its dusty air, the sound of its name, the fact of its existence. He was here. At last. After so many days on the road that he had almost forgotten he had a goal at all, that there was anything else but traveling . . . and then the city had appeared about him, first the timber houses of the outer districts, and then the brick structures and narrow cobbled streets of the inner city, rising up like stone crops to greet the dusty sunlight. It was almost enough to make him forget what it took to get here, or why they had chosen him and no one else to make this particular crossing.

Hell, he thought dryly, no one else was fool enough to try. He tried to picture one of the Ganji elders making the long trek from westlands to east—crossing the most treacherous of all mountain ranges, fighting off the nightmare beasts that made those cold peaks their home, braving the wild fae and all that it chose to manifest, their own souls’ nightmares given substance—but the diverse parts of such a picture, like the facets of a badly-worked Healing, wouldn’t come together. Oh, they might have agreed to come, provided they could use the sea for transport . . . but that had its own special risks, and Damien preferred the lesser terrors of things he could do battle with to the unalterable destructive power of Erna’s frequent tsunami.

He prodded his horse through the city streets with an easy touch, content to take his time, eager to see what manner of place he had come to. Though night was already falling, the city was as crowded as a Ganji marketplace at high noon. Strange habits indeed, he mused, for people who lived so near a focal point of malevolence. Back in Ganji, shopkeepers would already be shuttering their windows against the fall of night, and making ward-signs against the merest thought of Coreset. Already the season had hosted nights when no more light than that of a single moon shone down to the needy earth, and the first true night was soon to come; all the creatures that thrived on darkness would be most active in this season, seeking blood or sin or semen or despair or whatever special substance they required to sustain themselves, and seeking it with vigor. Only a fool would walk the night unarmed at such a time—or perhaps, Damien reflected, one who lived so close to the heart of that darkness that constant exposure had dulled all sense of danger.

Or was it that there was simply safety in numbers, in a city so large that no matter how many were taken in the night, the odds were good that it wouldn’t be you?

Then something caught his eye; he reined up suddenly, and his three-toed mount snorted with concern. Laughing softly, he patted it on the neck. “No danger here, old friend.” Then he considered, and added, “Not yet, anyway.”

He dismounted and led the dappled creature across the street, to the place that had caught his eye. It was a small shop, with a warded canopy set to guard the walkway just outside, and a marquee that caught the dying sunlight like drops of fire. Fae Shoppe it said, in gleaming gold letters. Resident loremaster. All hours.

He looked back over his shoulder, to the gradually darkening street. Night was coming on with vigor, and God alone knew what that would mean. The sensible thing to do would be to find an inn and drop off his things, get his mount under guard, and affix a few wards to his luggage . . . but when had he ever done the sensible thing, when curiosity was driving him? He took a moment to remove his most valuable bag from the horse’s back—his only valuable bag, in fact—locked the beast’s lead chain to a hitching rack, and went inside.

Into another world. The dying sunlight gave way to orange and amber, the flickering light of tinted lamps. Warm-toned wood added to the sense of harmony, possibly aided by a ward or two; he could feel his travel-weary muscles relax as he entered, but the Working that made them do so was too subtle to define.

All about him were things. Marvelous objects, no two of them alike, which filled to overflowing the multitude of shelves, display cases, and braces that lined the interior of the shop. Some were familiar to him, in form if not in detail. Weapons, for instance: his practiced eye took in everything from blades to pistols, from the simple swords of his own martial preference to the more complicated marvels that applied gunpowder in measured doses—and just as often misapplied it. Household items, of every kind imaginable. Books and bookmarks and bookstands, pen and paper. And some objects that were clearly Worked: talismans etched with ancient Earth symbols, intricately knotted wards, herbs and spices and perfumes and oils, and all the equipment necessary to maximize their effect.