Black Sun Rising

by C. S. Friedman

  He threw himself back. The distance somehow seemed to sever the contact between them, and the terrible vision was gone—but her screaming went on, rising in pitch to a fevered shriek as the earth-power poured through her. He tried not to listen as he jerked hard at his bonds, fighting to free himself. The coarse rope cut into him as he tried to force his hand through it, drawing blood—but with that lubrication, and a near-dislocation of his thumb, he managed to pull one hand free. Burning suns swam in his vision, an afterimage from the fae; he blinked as though that could cool their glare and tried to see past them to locate an exit. The shrieking numbed his brain, made it all but impossible to think clearly. How had he come in? He had no hope of finding a true exit from the citadel, not in time; his only chance lay in getting himself underground, and in hoping that the coming quake was merciful to whatever space housed him. With luck he could find his way back to the entrance tunnel—which would lead him down to the plains, and relative safety. . . .

  He grabbed his sword as he ran, sweeping it up from the crystalline floor—now spattered with blood and vomit, therefore visible. He didn’t dare be unarmed, not now. Thank God mere steel was enough to dispatch the Dark Ones. He ran, trusting to blind instinct to guide him. Stumbling, as unseen steps trapped his feet, hitting one mirrored wall hard enough to shatter it. Where was the exit? Where was the passage down? He tried to remember all the turnings they had taken on the way in, tried to reason his way through the glassy labyrinth—and then he took his sword and slammed its pommel into an obstructing wall, hard. Crystal shivered into bits, revealing the dark mouth of a tunnel beyond. Praise God, he thought feverishly. Please, let it be in time. Bits of mirror crunched underfoot as he fought his way toward the entrance, slipping and sliding on the glassy fragments. And then the earthen wall was beside him, and his hand was upon it, and he was stumbling down into the depths—

  And the earth convulsed, with force enough that he was thrown from his feet, headfirst into a hard dirt wall. Overhead the citadel tinkled, like a thousand wind chimes in a stormy sky—and then began to shatter, wall by wall, staircase by staircase, as the ground swelled up and broke beneath it. Huge chunks of crystal crashed to the earth behind him, sending fragments like spears down into the tunnel at his feet. Half-stunned, he forced himself to move again, to work his way down into the heart of the trembling earth. To his side, a wooden support snapped and came loose; chunks of rock and dirt hailed down on him as bits of crystal caromed into the depths. Too close to the surface, he thought, despairing. Too close! A shockwave threw him off his feet, and dirt rained down on him as he struggled to recover his balance. Must get deeper. . . . He struggled on blindly, not pausing to consider whether greater depth would really mean safety—not stopping to question whether any place could be truly safe, in such an utter upheaval.

  It should only last seconds. Shouldn’t it? What were the parameters of a quake like this, that had been decades in the making?

  The tunnel grew dark about him, dawn’s dim light filtered through a rain of dirt and gravel that fell from its ceiling. He staggered down the length of it by feel, praying for enough time to save himself. But even as he did so he knew that if the quake had already begun, his time was just about up.

  And then a support overhead broke loose, and swung down into him. It knocked him against the far wall, hard, leaving him stunned where he fell. The motion loosed a fresh avalanche of dirt and rock that rained on him as he struggled to right himself. All around him he could hear the tunnel collapsing, the roar of the earthquake as it raged through the planet’s crust. His hand clenched tightly about his sword grip as he struggled to his feet—as if that weapon could somehow protect him from the fury of the earth itself—but then the ground beneath him spasmed furiously, and the whole of the ceiling gave way at last. Pounds upon pounds of dirt and rock poured down upon him, battering him into the ground. He tried to fight free, but the torrent of earth overwhelmed him. Gasping for breath, he choked on dirt—and as he struggled to clear his lungs, something large and sharp struck him hard on the head. Driving him down, deep down, into the suffocating depths of Nature’s vengeance.

  Forty-five

  Light. Blinding. He shrank back from it—or tried to—but a strong hand had hold of him, long fingers entangled in his shirt. It jerked him up, forcing his mouth above the level of the earth. He gasped for breath, winced from the pain of the effort. Then his lungs spasmed suddenly, and he began to cough up the dirt that had filled them. Retching helplessly, as the strong hands continued to pull him out of his earthbound tomb.

  The light faded slowly to a mere star, to a tiny lamp flame. By its glow he could see that the tunnel was mostly gone, and what little that remained was filled with dust. Even while he watched, a fresh trickle of gravel began to course down from what remained of the ceiling.

  “Can you move?” Tarrant asked.

  His limbs felt numb, but they responded. He nodded.

  “Then let’s go. This place is death.”

  The Hunter wrapped an arm about his shoulder—so cold, so very cold, who could ever have thought that the man’s chill could be so comforting?—and with his help, Damien somehow managed to make his way to open space. He paused there for a minute, shivering.

  “Close?” Tarrant asked softly.

  “Too close,” he whispered. A wave of sudden weakness washed over him; he let the Hunter support him. “Ciani,” he breathed. “Where—”

  “Right ahead of us. With Hesseth. No one’s being left alone anymore till this is over.”

  “Did she—” He was afraid to voice the words. Afraid of what a negative answer would mean. “Is she—”

  “Whole? Recovered?” He shook his head, grimly. “Not yet. But this is just the beginning. If her assailant isn’t killed in a cavern collapse, I’ll hunt him down later. Now that his protector is dead, it should be easy enough.”

  He looked up at him, sharply. “You know that?”

  “She fed on me,” he answered quietly. “A channel like that works both ways, you know. Did you think I wouldn’t drink in her terror when she died? She owed me that much.”

  He struggled to get his feet firmly beneath him. “Good meal, I hope.”

  “Damned good meal,” the Hunter assured him. “Let’s move.”

  Together they crept through the remains of the access tunnel, through passages made dangerously narrow by earthfall. At times they had to dig their way through, heaving aside rocks and mounds of earth to make enough room for a body to squeeze through.

  “You came in this way?” Damien asked.

  “It’s still collapsing, if that’s your question.” He grasped a fallen support beam and pulled; a narrow passage opened up to receive them. “Somewhat less violently, farther along. That’s where the women are.—But I wouldn’t like to be here when the next shock wave hits,” he added.

  “I’m surprised it hasn’t yet.”

  The Hunter looked at him; there was a faint smile on his lips. “That may be because I left some of the quake-wards intact. I Worked them to kick in again after the first tremors ended. They won’t hold long, of course, not without the rest of the series . . . but every minute counts.”

  “You’re very thorough.”

  “I try to be.” He wiped dirt from his eyes with the back of a sleeve. Damien tried to do the same, and his hand came away from his face sticky with blood. The quantity of it unnerved him. “Much further?”

  The Hunter glanced at him. “You’ll make it.”

  He thought of the dawn light he had seen from the citadel. How much time had passed since then? What kind of safety was there for his dark companion, if the sun had risen? “What about you?”

  He jerked loose a piece of splintered wood that blocked their path; dirt showered down in the narrow passageway. “I’m strong enough, if that’s the question.”

  “I meant the sun.”

  For a moment the Hunter was still. Damien thought he saw a muscle tense along his jaw, and the pale eye
s narrowed. “Let’s deal with that problem when we get to it,” he said at last—and he heaved the broken timber from him, hard enough that it gouged the far wall.

  “If you think—”

  “Talk won’t make the sun set,” he said sharply. “And we’re still far from getting out of here. Look.” He pointed to the far side of the passageway, to a hole that yawned in the far wall. “Can you see it? In the currents. They’re stirring, underground. The ones that survived the first shockwave will be coming to the surface, where they imagine things are safer. Idiots! If they knew their science, they’d stay where they are, where the surface waves can’t reach—”

  “You’re afraid,” Damien said quietly.

  The Hunter began to protest, then stopped himself. “Of course I’m afraid,” he muttered. “I’d be a fool if I weren’t. Does that satisfy you?” He kicked loose a thick clod of earth, clearing the passage ahead of them. “I suggest we get to the lady and Hesseth before our subterranean friends do—and worry about fear later. There’ll be time for it, I assure you.”

  He gave the lamp to Damien—his own sight didn’t require it—and led the way eastward, through the ruins of their enemy’s escape passage. As the tunnel cut deeper into the earth the damage seemed to be lessened, but it was still a struggle to make good time through the ravaged warren.

  Periodically Tarrant would turn and look back, his eyes narrowed as he focused on the weak underground currents. But if he saw anything specific that disturbed him, he kept it to himself. Once, at the mouth of a narrow tunnel that led down to the Dark Ones’ realm, he paused to listen—senses alert as a hunting animal’s, nerves trigger-taut in tension—but he said nothing. His expression grim, he nodded eastward, urging the priest away from the citadel.

  And then they came across the body. It was half-buried in dirt, as though in its fall it had loosed some new, private avalanche. Tarrant turned it over, brushed the dirt from its face—and breathed in sharply as the charred hole of a Fire-laden bolt became visible, right where one eye should be.

  He looked up, lips drawn tight, and muttered, “Come on.” And ran. In time they passed another body—this one’s chest had a gaping hole, with fresh smoke rising from its Fire-seared edges—but they didn’t stop to examine it. The smell of burning flesh was thick and sharp, doubly acrid in the tunnel’s claustrophobic confines. They passed a turn where the earth had fallen, kicked a hurried path through loose clods of dirt that barred their way—

  And found them. Springbolts in their hands, determination in their eyes. There were bodies here, too, and the scent of their blood was fresh. Tarrant had been right: the Dark Ones were surfacing.

  Damien went to where Ciani stood—her back braced firmly against the wall, her hands gripped tightly about the weapon—and put one bruised arm around her. She softened, slightly, just enough to lean against him, barely enough to accept the reassuring gesture. Then she put her free arm around him, too, and squeezed.

  “Thank the gods you’re still alive,” she whispered.

  He glanced back at the adept. “Thank Tarrant, in this case.”

  “We’d better move,” the Hunter warned them. He grabbed up a supply pack that had been left by Hesseth’s feet, swung it to his back. “And fast.”

  “How much ammunition is left?” Damien asked the women.

  “Plenty,” Hesseth responded. “But only three with the Fire.” Her teeth were half-bared, as if in a dominance display. “You think there’ll be more of them?”

  “I think there’s no doubt of it,” Tarrant assured her. “The only question is how fast they’ll come.”

  “He hasn’t died yet,” Ciani whispered. “I would know that . . . wouldn’t I?”

  My God, will you know it. The memories will smash into you like a tidal wave—like the surge of fae that killed your enemy. The experience of an entire lifetime, reabsorbed in an instant. He hated himself for dreading that moment. Hated himself for wondering, with steel-edged calculation, whether that moment might not be the most dangerous of all.

  They ran. And they were not alone. Close behind them, back the way they had come, something else was moving through the tunnels. Something that chittered in half-human speech, as it followed the path they had cleared. One demon—or many? With a sudden start Damien realized that his sword was still buried near the citadel, the rest of his weapons inside it. All he had left was the flask of Fire—if that was still intact—and he couldn’t draw that out without burning Tarrant. Still, if Tarrant could survive it, and if it could drive back their enemies . . . he fingered the flap of the pouch as he ran, made sure that it was free to open. Tarrant would understand. Strategy demanded it. Survival might demand it.

  And then they came around a turn, and there were the Dark Ones. A good four of them at least, and perhaps more in the shadows beyond. They were bruised and bleeding, and more than a little disoriented—but their eyes blazed with hatred, and hunger, and their nostrils flared as they caught the scent of human fear. Of food.

  “Don’t let them touch you,” Hesseth whispered. A tremor of fear was in her voice; was she remembering when she’d been drained, back at the earthfire? Damien stepped to Ciani’s side and took the springbolt from her. “Get back,” he whispered. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Tarrant reach out to her—for a moment he was lost in Morgot again, as the tidal power Hesseth had conjured dissolved all their barriers, and set loose the Hunter’s evil—and then he nodded, and gestured for her to go to him, knowing that there was no place where she would be safer than by the adept’s side.

  And then the creatures fell upon them. Mindless as animals gone rabid, and ten times as deadly. He brought one down with a shot to the gut, fired point-blank into the demonic flesh. And then cursed himself as he brought the second bolt into line, for failing to ask which one of the weapons had only one Worked bolt in it.

  And then one was upon him, and his weapon was still uncocked—so he brought the brass butt up into its face, hard, cursing it as he did so. There was blood, and the sharp crack of bone splitting, but the blow did nothing to slow the creature down. One clawed hand grasped the barrel of the springbolt, another grabbed at Damien’s arm. He tried to throw the creature off, but a strange numbness had invaded his arm; he found it hard to move. Shadows began to fill his mind, and his thoughts were slow in coming. He needed to fight it. Didn’t he? He needed to drive it back from him, before it . . . what? What would it do? He found himself shaking as the numbness claimed more of his flesh, found himself filled with a dread and a fear that was all the more terrible because he couldn’t remember its cause.

  —And then the Dark One howled, and fell back. In its chest was a smoking hole, where the point of a Fire-laden bolt had pierced through the flesh. Hesseth was ready behind it, her blade poised as if to decapitate the creature, but the Fire made that unnecessary. With a last desperate cry, the Dark One fell—and memories flooded Damien’s brain like some wild dream, a thousand and one disjointed bits pouring into him with nightmare intensity. He staggered, trying to absorb the onslaught. Trying to brace himself for further battle, even as he reclaimed his humanity. But beside him the cold blue light of Tarrant’s sword filled the tunnel, and he could see by its glow that an icy path had been etched through the flesh of two of their assailants. Carmine crystals glittered where the great veins had been severed, and a frosty steam arose from the newly chilled flesh.

  “Let’s go—” Damien began, but Tarrant ordered, “Wait.”

  He walked several yards down the tunnel, back the way they had come. And studied the ceiling overhead as if searching for something. After a minute had passed he seemed to find it, and he raised up his sword so that the glowing tip brushed the packed earth overhead. And then thrust up, suddenly. Chunks of dirt burst outward from the point of contact in an explosion that echoed down the length of the tunnel. And when the dust cleared, they could see that passageway behind them was filled. There might be Dark Ones still ahead of them, but none would be coming from behin
d. Not without a digging crew.

  The Hunter resheathed his sword. “Now we go,” he whispered. His posture was tense, in a way that Damien had never seen before. Had the enemy touched him, as well? Or was it just that the odds against them were growing, too swiftly for the adept’s liking?

  If he’s afraid of them, Damien thought grimly, what does that mean for the rest of us?

  They passed other openings that offered access to the lower regions. Half of them were already filled with rubble, rendering them useless to the Dark Ones. The other ones they left alone. There were simply too many, and each one that Tarrant chose to seal meant another delay, another chance that their enemies would get ahead of them . . . Damien caught sight of the adept’s expression as they passed by a particularly large opening, and it was utterly colorless and grim. And he remembered the sunlight that awaited them all, if they ever did reach the end of this passage, and wondered what the man could do to save himself. Was it safe for him to stay down here until sunset? With so many Dark Ones coming to the surface, half-mad with rage and hunger?

  I won’t let him do it alone, Damien thought darkly. Remembering the hands that had pulled him from the earth, which might just as easily have left him there. Feeling a loyalty which might have shamed him, in another time and place, but which now felt as natural as breathing.

  “They’re coming,” Tarrant whispered, and he turned to look behind them. There was nobody visible there, not yet, but Damien knew enough to trust the man’s senses. He was about to speak when Ciani cried out, sharply—and the look on her face was one of such abject terror, such utter despair, that Damien’s blood chilled as he recognized what the cause must be.

  ��He’s there,” the Hunter said. Giving voice to her fear. “He’s coming.”