Crown of Shadows

by C. S. Friedman

  Whoever said he was sane?

  “Look.” Karril pointed into the distance. “Something’s changing.”

  Despite the harsh light—or perhaps because of it—he found it hard to make out anything in that direction. Nevertheless, it seemed to him that there was a difference. After a moment he realized what it was. No lava spurted from the region ahead of them. No clouds of choking ash arose from the landscape. Try as he might, he could see no bright red rivers coursing across the terrain where Karril pointed.

  For some reason, that scared him more than everything which had come before. He started to speak, to try to voice his misgiving, but then a gust of noxious gas filled his throat and his nose, setting off a new round of coughing; his stomach heaved as if somehow that could cleanse the delicate membranes. Behind them the rock was giving way again in long, thin sections, bright lava eating away at the shelf they stood upon, inch by inch, whittling down their haven. Soon nothing would be left to stand upon. There was no alternative but to run, and nowhere to run but to that still region up ahead ... and it scared him.

  “Vryce?”

  “Is that the right way?” he gasped. To his relief Karril nodded. What would he have done if it weren’t? Dived into the lava stream, and swum through the boiling currents to their destination? It didn’t bear thinking about.

  They sprinted forward, just in time. With a roar like thunder, the very ground they were standing on shattered like glass and collapsed into the current beneath; fire lapped at their heels as they ran for the refuge which seemed to beckon, just ahead. The whole land was in flux now, and Damien could feel the ground trembling beneath his feet as it buckled in waves, sending red fountains spouting into the air on all sides of them. Molten droplets gouged his flesh as he struggled to keep on his feet. It seemed impossible that he could keep moving, but he did. Somehow.

  Falter now, priest, and you’ll be stuck here forever.

  Finally they came to a place where the ground was still steady, and Damien paused for a brief instant to catch his breath. Ahead of them the black rock had crumbled and fallen, providing a sloping path down to the region beyond. Despite his misgivings, Damien began to scramble down the precarious slope, scoring his flesh on the razor-sharp rocks that lined it. Was there pain ahead? More fear? Anything was better than the glowing rivers and burning rain that were closing in behind them. Wasn’t it?

  At the bottom of the slope he paused, and lay back upon the harsh gravel, trying to catch his breath. But his lungs, constricted by cloud-borne poisons, would not relax enough to draw in air. For a moment he debated the relative risk of trying to Heal himself, and at last decided he had nothing to lose by trying. He took hold of the current with his mind and began to weave it, drawing together the wild power into a Workable whole—

  Or he tried to. But there was no fae here, or perhaps just no way to Work it. Earth, he thought, looking up at the swollen yellow star that shone down on them, recognizing it at last. Earth was his passion, and also his nightmare. He remembered the Hunter sharing his dreams of Earth with Damien to make him afraid, and there was no denying their power. Had the Prophet feared the very world he idolized, and mourned the concept of a world without sorcery even as he worked to bring it into being?

  “Look,” Karril whispered.

  He got to his feet quickly, prepared for some new assault. But the rock beneath his wounded feet was steady, and the air down on this plain was almost breathable. He looked in the distance, following Karril’s own gaze, and saw what looked like the ground moving up ahead. No, not the ground, but something on top of it that shifted and writhed like a living blanket. It was lighter than the ground itself, a sickly yellowish color that might, in a gentler light, have looked like flesh. Human flesh, discolored by the unrelenting sun.

  Filled with misgivings, he nonetheless started forward toward it. If the path leads that way, we have no alternative. He disciplined his mind by recounting all the various ways he would make Tarrant pay for forcing him to come here, and thus managed to keep his fear under tight rein. But as he drew closer, as he saw the strange realm for what it was, that strategy failed him utterly.

  It was bodies. Human bodies, stretching ahead to the horizon and beyond. Women’s bodies, strewn across the landscape like discarded refuse, gathered together in such numbers that in places they were stacked in mounds, like heaps of living garbage. As he watched, they twitched and shivered, and their combined motion gave the illusion of waves passing across the surface. He saw thin limbs, pale skin, fingers that clutched at air and then withdrew again, burrowing deep down into the flesh-blanket that seemed to cover the whole planet like crabs seeking shelter.

  “What is it?” he whispered.

  Karril breathed in sharply, for once without a pat rejoinder. “Damned if I know.”

  With a wrenching sensation in his gut he realized that the living blanket was parting, ever so slowly. Limbs contracted to draw the nearer bodies out of their path; their motion was crablike and horrible, not at all human. What is this place? he thought desperately. A narrow path was forming, flanked by twitching limbs. It was just wide enough for them to walk single file, if they watched where they were going. Just narrow enough to make him feel sick at the thought of such a passage.

  But ...

  That was the path, without question; he didn’t need Karril to tell him that. Tarrant’s own fear had marked it for them. How many miles did this horror stretch onward, glazed eyes staring out of undead faces as spider-fingers struggled to clear the way? His stomach churned at the thought that one wrong step might put him in contact with those gruesomely contorted bodies, but a hissing behind him, like steam off approaching lava, warned him that to stay where he was might prove an even worse alternative.

  There’s no other choice, he told himself grimly. Not unless we want to go back the way we came. And that was out of the question.

  “All right,” he muttered. “Let’s do it.”

  He went first, moving toward the narrow path the bodies had made for them. On both sides the mounds of flesh still twitched and writhed, and periodically a leg or a hand would be flung across their path, a gruesome reminder that their new-made road might disappear as quickly as it had begun. The thought made hot bile rise in his throat, but still he forced himself forward. There’s no other way, he told himself, repeating the words over and over again, a mantra of endurance. Behind him he could hear the hiss of lava as it flowed down the rocky slope and enveloped the nearest bodies, and the stink of burnt flesh filled the air like a choking perfume. He could see details of the bodies now, faces and breasts and buttocks made waxen and distorted by death, undead eyes gazing out of hollowed sockets as if facing some unseen horror. The movements of their limbs were not random, he could see now, but each body twitched as if running, or striving to run, while the weight of all its neighbors trapped it in place and turned the motion into a mockery of flight.

  His foot landed close to the head of one, then by the clutching hand of another. It took almost balletic skill to avoid coming in contact with them, a trial his burned and aching body was no longer up to. It seemed to him that every step must surely be his last, and only the sheer horror of the bodies surrounding him gave him the strength to keep going. Karril followed silently behind him, wrapped in her own Iezu thoughts. Were these unalive creatures human enough to disturb her? Did they give off waves of pain of their own, or some other, more virulent suffering? He glanced back now and then to check on the demon, but though Karril’s expression was grim her short nod told Damien that all was well with her. For the moment.

  And then he stopped and stared, as one human fragment among many caught his eye. A dark arm atop the paler ones. Thick hair, as black as night. Eyes that he knew, staring into the sky like eyes of the dead even as the dark limbs twitched in a mockery of life.

  “Sisa,” he whispered.

  He heard the Iezu curse softly as she, too, realized who this body belonged to. Tarrant’s latest victim, strewn atop
this lake of human remains like so much garbage. How many others here were his victims, or at least vivid simulacra of the same? He looked out upon the acres and acres of twitching flesh and shuddered. They were all women, and from what he could see they were all within a narrow age range. Mostly pale, as befit the Hunter’s taste in victims. Doubtless attractive during their lives, although now that quality made them seem doubly gruesome.

  Then: “Move!” the demon hissed from behind him, and he did so without thought, trusting Karril’s warning. Fingers scratched his ankle as he moved just beyond the reach of something, and for a moment a wave of fear surged through his blood with such force that his limbs bound up like a frozen motor. Frightened, he struggled to keep moving. From behind him the demon hissed sharply as if in pain, but when he stopped to turn around, a hand shoved him from behind as if to say, I’m fine! Keep going! Glancing down at the ground before his feet, trying to locate the safest ground, he saw with horror that human limbs were closing in on the path from both sides. Arms grasped at him as he lurched past, some closing on air behind him, some coming close enough to scrape his boots. For some reason that sight made him more afraid than all of Tarrant’s lava hell combined, and he broke into a run. Forcing his way past the grasping arms, whose fingers sent waves of terror coursing through his soul whenever they made contact. Where was the end of this path? he thought desperately. How many bodies were there? He found it impossible to believe that so many women could have fallen victim to one man’s hunger, but what did he really know about the Hunter? How many numberless atrocities had the man indulged in, in the years before his semi-retirement in the Forest?

  And then one of the arms grabbed his ankle and held it. His own weight sent him plunging forward and down, into the hands and the arms and the legs that were waiting for him, and—

  —running.Tree branches spreading across the path like spider silk, dark webs catching her as she runs, she struggles, she convulses madly, desperately, as the black thing that has chased her for three days and nights closes in—

  —running while the ground comes alive, crawly things oozing out of the very pores of the earth to trip at her ankles, sending her facedown into a bed of hungry worms—

  —running from the thing that has chased her for days, manlike but demon-strong, whose hunger licks at her flesh as she stumbles, as she feels sharp talons piercing her skin, setting hot blood to flow free—

  Strong hands took hold of his hair and his collar and yanked upward; it was the pain more than anything which made the visions scatter, allowing him one precious instant in which he could gasp for breath. The hands about his ankles shifted grip, and the visions began to close in once more—but the demon dragged him forward, hard enough and fast enough for them to be thrown lose. Left behind.

  Shuddering, he gasped, “Tarrant’s victims—”

  “I know,” Karril said grimly. “Keep moving!”

  He knew in that moment, as he struggled to his feet once more, that the demon had experienced those awful visions through him. And he knew with dread certainty that if he should fall again, if those bodies should overwhelm him, the demon would be trapped alongside him in an endless hell of suffering, reliving the last moments of each of the Hunter’s victims over and over and over again....

  He ran. Fast enough that the hands couldn’t take hold of him, or so he prayed. Hard enough that any which did would be shaken loose by his momentum, before the memories they stored within their flesh could take hold. One arm lashed out across the path and he landed on it, crushing its dead flesh into the rock ground beneath; a spear of memory burned up through his leg and he felt cold teeth bite into his throat, the hot wound of despair as his lifeblood gushed out. It took everything he had not to stumble, but terror lent him a strength that cold logic could never have inspired, and he managed to stay on his feet. There were moans all about him now, and while some were echoes of pain and fear, others seemed to be sounds of hunger. Were the bodies aware of him? Did they think he was Tarrant? Ahead of him the path was closing up now, and he realized in horror that to get beyond this region he was going to have to wade through a sea of bodies, each of which had the power to send him spiraling down into unending nightmare. Panic assailed him, and he glanced back over his shoulder—stumbling as he did so—to assess the odds of retreat. There were none. The path in the distance was already gone, and as they ran forward, a wave of flesh came at them from behind, threatening to submerge them utterly.

  And then he reached the wall of limbs and he surged into it, knowing even as he did so that no human velocity could possibly overwhelm such an obstacle, that a realm which had been designed to overwhelm the great Gerald Tarrant could easily overcome a mere human like himself—

  —running/falling/fearing into darkness darkness, running DESPAIR! and the great bird closes in, talons red, feathers white—andthe man with eyes of blue flame—and the wolveslspiderslsnakesl shadows/HUNTER!—

  A hand grasped hold of his shoulder; he felt it distantly, like a thing from another world, as the terror of the Hunter’s victims reverberated through his flesh, drawing strength and solidity in each new second.

  —facelike a ghost and hunger a palpable force that licks at her with an icy tongue—

  He struggled to surface and failed. Struggled to define himself, to divide himself from the tsunami of pain and fear that surged through his brain, but the memories were too strong, too compelling ... too many. He was drowning in terror.

  —faceof a monster-

  Another hand grasped him, held him tightly.

  —faceof a god, too dark and terrible to behold. She lies transfixed as he bends down over her, her heart pounding like a frightened animal’s... and then, suddenly, there is something besides fear in her. A rising heat, sharp and shameful, that makes her stretch back her throat as his shadow embraces her, baring it for the kill—

  —secret, shameful thrill—

  —power all around her, throbbing like a living thing, HIS power—

  —raw and terrible and magnificent—

  —ecstasy as flesh is tom from her bone, one last glorious moment in which she shares his pleasure and is willing to die for this terrible embrace—

  With a gasp he surfaced long enough to see Rasya’s face just above his own, expression drawn and strained as if by some private agony. “Can you move?” it whispered. A dead hand grasped at his thigh as he nodded, and it sent him plummeting down into nightmare once more. But they were no longer cold dreams of horror and despair; this was a hot sea he sank into, fear transmuted into desire, horror made into beauty, resistance giving way to a blissful acquiescence. He could sense the real terror behind it, masked by Karril’s hedonistic illusions, but its edge had been blunted. Just enough, he thought, to give him a fighting chance.

  Panting, he struggled to his feet. His groin was painfully swollen, and when an undead hand brushed against it from beneath he cried out, waves of pain and pleasure radiating out from that point in stunning, shameful confusion. He held onto Karril’s arm and let the demon guide him, accepting the transformed memories as they washed over him like a wave. Once, for a brief instant, his sight of the real world grew clear enough that he could study the land ahead of them, searching for some end to this trial. But the ground was covered in flesh as far as he could see, bodies piling upon bodies in all the directions he might choose to turn. There was no end to this, he realized. Already it seemed like he had been here forever. Each memory that took hold of him seemed to last forever, and the journey yet to come—

  With a strangled cry he acknowledged an even greater danger facing him, and as the next memory dragged him down into the past he fought the time-numbing power of its imagery, and struggled to regain some kind of temporal framework. At last he was reduced to counting seconds in his brain even as he ran, on remembered legs, through the Hunter’s Forest. Time and time again, in the dreams of the Hunter’s victims, he ran and suffered and desired and died—and all the while the counting ticked in his sk
ull like some vast spring-wound clock, marking the parameters of his body’s survival. One minute. Two. Ten. An hour ...

  It’ll never end, he thought grimly, unless I make it end. He struggled to win free of the nightmares that assaulted him long enough to get a good, hard look at his situation. If he had managed to gain any forward ground thus far, it wasn’t visible. There was still no end in sight. And Karril, whose bizarre ministrations had allowed him to cling to sanity, was clearly weakening from the strain of such sustained effort.

  With the kind of courage that only sheer desperation could muster, he drew himself upright and raised up his fist against the black sky. “Damn you!” he screamed, in a voice so hoarse it hardly sounded human. “You know we’re here! You know why we’re here! Why play these games?” A cold hand closed around his ankle and he began to sink into memories once more; he struggled to cling to consciousness long enough to voice the challenge that his heart was screaming. “Are you afraid?” he demanded. “Afraid of one man and a Iezu? Afraid that if we get through this nightmare, we’ll lay waste to all your plans?”

  “Don‘t,” Karril whispered fiercely. “You don’t know what they’ll do—”

  But I know what’ll happen if they don’t do anything, he thought grimly, as the horrific images began to flood his brain anew. Already the black sky was fading, and his image of the swollen sun, and the bodies on the ground were giving way to night-black, Forest-spawned underbrush—

  And then there was a rumbling beneath his feet, so like that of a volcano’s flank that he nearly turned back to see if some new eruption had followed them here. But Karril was clutching him too tightly for him to turn. Another quake shook the ground, and it seemed to him that the bodies before him were beginning to withdraw, clearing the way ahead. The one that grasped his leg let loose, and he felt an almost unbearable relief when, for the first time in hours, his mind was wholly his own.

  “Karril—” he began.

  “You’re suicidal, you know that?” Amazed and exasperated, the demon shook her head. “How on Erna did you manage to survive this long?”