When True Night Falls

by C. S. Friedman

  “Think about it, Neocount. Think about it carefully. I await your reply.”

  Its message completed, the figure faded slowly into night. The last thing to fade was the glitter of its crown

  Tarrant opened his hand. His palm was empty.

  The night was very quiet.

  “Will you answer him?” Karril dared.

  “Yes.” He shaped the words carefully, deliberately. It was clear he was deep in thought. “I’ll answer him.”

  His eyes were unfocused, fixed on landscapes and possibilities that were visible only to the mind. Wisps of intentions sparked to life about him, only to be swallowed up once more by the darkness of the Hunter’s soul.

  “When I’ve decided,” he said quietly.

  Twenty-eight

  Jenseny awakened in a strange place.

  For a moment she just lay huddled in the darkness, unable to remember where she was, or even what day it was. Then, slowly, it all came back to her. She felt strangely numb, as if she had been afraid for so long that something inside her had finally snapped and she just couldn’t be afraid any more. Or maybe, instead, she felt safe. Maybe this was what safety felt like in the Outside.

  Slowly, as if her newfound sense of security was something that might be dispelled by movement, she raised herself up on one elbow and looked around. She was in a dark space whose irregular walls were made up of woolen blankets, crudely stitched together; some kind of makeshift shelter. There were a few holes through which sunlight shone, and a triangular opening in the far wall that was propped open with a stick. In the far corner there was a pile of supplies, too much in shadow for her to make out details. Opposite where she lay was another pile of blankets, with the rakh-woman curled up warmly inside them, sleeping.

  Silently, with the care of a frightened animal, she crept from her own bedding. Even in sleep the ralch-woman’s presence was reassuring, and she wished she were awake so that she might crawl closer to her and curl up by her side. That she had feared her once seemed so distant now, so unreal, that it might have been in another life for all it affected her. Because in that moment when Hesseth had pulled Jenseny away from the white-feathered sorcerer she had blazed with such protectiveness, such searing maternal ferocity, that Jenseny could no longer think of her as one of the southern rakh. She had become something different, a species all her own, so replete with warmth and protective strength that Jenseny ached to hold her again, to drink it in anew. When the rakh-woman held her she felt safe again, like she could nuzzle herself into that warm fur and just forget that the rest of the world existed, because the rakh-woman would take care of her. No matter what.

  When she was very quiet and very still she could hear the voices in that golden fur, the songs of a life lived far away from mistborn jungles and human sorcery. Sometimes if she was very, very still and the Light came on strong enough, she could see a camp filled with rakh like this one, with tinkling ornaments and painted tents and golden-furred children who ran from tent to tent, squealing with delight as they tumbled and raced like kittens. She liked the rakh children. She was sorry when the Light faded, taking that vision with it. Doubly sorry, because when they were gone she felt so lonely. Her father had been good to her, and the few servants who’d cared for her had been gentle and kind, but what was it like to run with other children? What was it like to laugh and yell with no care for who might hear you, safe in the knowledge that you belonged in your world, that nobody was going to show up suddenly and take you from the ones you loved because you had screamed too loud, or because someone had seen you running.... It hurt, watching those children. It hurt to want what they had so very much, and to know she could never have it.

  But at least she was away from the Terata. And the rakh-woman was here. And the strange priest also. She didn’t yet know if she should be afraid of him or not. Her father had said that all priests were the enemy, and that if any of the One God’s servants ever found out about her they would take her away and kill her, and probably kill him also for having protected her. But this priest couldn’t be like that, could he? When he’d told her that his kind would rather die than hurt children, it had seemed to her that he really believed that, and even though the Light was pretty strong then, she could hear no false note in his voice to warn her that he was lying. What an incredible thought that was! That a servant of Erna’s most vicious god could be so very gentle. Maybe it wasn’t really the same god that he worshiped. Maybe his people called it by the same name, but it was a different god altogether. Yes. That would make sense.

  Slowly she crawled to the flap of the tent, where a crooked stick held the wool covering to one side. Warily she peeked out. The mist outside was thin and sunlight had trickled down to the forest floor, its noise muted to a dull clatter. She looked around for danger, but couldn’t seem to find any. There was a low fire burning some ten feet from the tent, its glowing embers surrounded by a circle of stones. A cookpot hung from a tripod arranged over the flames, and whatever was in it smelled good. Hunger stirred in her belly, and she wondered whether she dared take some of the food. Surely it would be all right. The priest and the rakh-woman would hardly rescue her and then not feed her, right? Especially since she was so very hungry.

  She had just started toward the cookpot—timidly, like a skerrel braving open ground—when a footfall behind her set her heart pounding so hard against her rib cage that she could hardly breathe. She jumped up and was about to run when a kindly voice said, “Easy, girl! The camp’s warded tight, and Tarrant says there’s nothing within miles to hurt you.”

  She whirled around to find the priest behind her. He was half naked and dripping wet, and over one arm he carried a load of soaking wet cloth. “Give the stew a few minutes to cool so you don’t burn yourself. Here.” He came over to the fire and lifted up the pot by its hook, setting it aside on the stones to cool. She carefully kept her distance. “There’s a stream if you want to get clean,” he told her, nodding back the way he had come. He began to take the pieces of wet cloth from his arm and hang them on the tree branches surrounding the camp, so that the wind would dry them. One was a shirt, she saw, and an undershirt, a jacket, leggings ... she watched while he laid out all his garments of the day before, except the woolen breeches that he was wearing. He kept those on for me, she realized. So that I wouldn’t feel uncomfortable. The thought quieted alarm bells that had been ringing in her head, and she relaxed a tiny bit. The priest must have seen it, for he grinned.

  “Feeling better, are you?” He knelt by where the cookpot was and picked up a tin cup that was lying beside it. With a wooden spoon he began to ladle the hot stew into it. “I thought a good night’s sleep might do it for you. Here, try this.”

  He handed her the cup. Her first instinct was to try to avoid coming in contact with him, but then she bit her lip and just reached out and tried not to worry about it. Her hand brushed against his as she took the warm metal cup from his grasp ... and it was all right. He felt just as gentle as he sounded. She relaxed just a tiny bit more, and studied him as she blew on the hot stew to cool it.

  He was a big man. Not merely tall, the way her father had been, but thick and solid. His face and arms were a leathery brown, but where his body had been protected by clothing it was a lighter shade, not unlike her own. Wet hair curled on his chest and arms, but not enough to obscure the half-dozen sizable scars that marked his barrellike torso, or the multitudes more that had healed enough to become no more than faint ridges along his flesh. There was one particularly bad gash along his left arm, a ridge of angry pink that ran from his elbow halfway down to his wrist. He saw her looking at it and smiled. “That’s from the last expedition. Skin takes a long time to get its natural color back, you know.” There were parallel ridges along his rib cage on one side—claw marks?—and a welter of stripes across his back that she couldn’t begin to interpret. She was almost grateful that the Light wasn’t strong just then, because then she would have seen even more, and there would have been too m
uch to make any sense of it. Best to take these things slowly, she thought.

  He handed her a wooden spoon and she scooped up some of the cooling stew. The scent of cooking vegetables and some aromatic meat tingled her nose. “Hesseth went hunting,” he explained as she tasted it. Hot. Very hot. But, oh, it was so good.... The heat and the smell of it blossomed within her as she ate; she felt more alive than she had since leaving home.

  He rubbed his jaw as he sat down opposite her, somewhat self-consciously. “I guess they gave my razor to Calesta. Hope the bastard cuts himself with it.”

  She shivered at the sound of the demon’s name. He was scooping some stew up for himself, and didn’t notice. Or so she thought.

  “You all right?” he asked softly.

  She managed to nod.

  “Were you there very long? With the Terata, I mean.”

  His voice was so very gentle. Like the rakh-woman’s touch. Hard and strong but infinitely tender.

  “Three days. I think. I’m not sure.” Again she shivered, remembering. Following them through the forest. Trying to run when she realized what they really were. Driven forward at spearpoint....

  “Easy,” he murmured. “That’s over now, Jenseny. You don’t have to go back there, ever.”

  “I was so scared,” she whispered.

  “Yeah. Truth to tell, so were we.” He spooned up some of the stew and tasted it. “Even Tarrant, I think. Though he puts on a damned good show.”

  Tarrant. That was the third one in their group, the pale-skinned sorcerer. He didn’t like her at all. His gaze was like ice, and when he looked at her she could feel her very blood freeze up. But he was also fascinating, in the way that dead things could be both terrible and fascinating. She remembered an animal she had found in the forest, the first day after she had left her father’s keep. It was a small thing, golden and furry, and it must have been killed in a territorial fight because although its neck was torn up it hadn’t been eaten, just left there for the scavengers to find. When she had come across it, the body was still warm, and the blood-spattered eyes were closed as if in sleep. She remembered putting her hand on it, driven by a terrible fascination, feeling its warmth like the heat of a living thing. For long moments she knelt there, her hand on its tiny body, waiting. For a heartbeat, maybe. An intake of breath. Anything. It seemed incredible that anything which felt so alive could be so utterly dead. So perfectly silent.

  Tarrant was like that, she thought.

  The priest had gotten himself a portion of the stew as well—his own tin cup was battered and bent, and had clearly seen better days—and he ate in easy silence, glancing at her occasionally but never looking at her for so long that she felt uncomfortable. She found that she was able to relax a little, for the first time since leaving home. This man wasn’t going to hurt her, and certainly the rakh-woman wouldn’t. Tarrant, now ... that was another story. But Tarrant wasn’t here. She drank in the sunlight and the safety and the warm fullness of her meal with a grateful heart, while the knots in her soul slowly began to untangle.

  The next time the priest looked at her—kind, his eyes were so kind, it was hard to imagine a man like that killing anything—she nodded toward the tent. “Doesn’t she want breakfast, too?”

  The priest smiled, and took a deep drink from a cup by the fire. “It’s her sleep time now.”

  “Don’t you sleep at the same time?”

  “Not while we’re traveling. This way one of us is always awake, in case there’s trouble. She’ll have her turn later.”

  “Why don’t you sleep at night?” she asked. Night was only a vague concept to her—in her rooms at home lamps might be lit at any hour, and all ight meant was that her father was more likely to come—but now she had seen the sunlight and the twilight and midnight’s darkness, and was struggling to sort them out into some kind of order. “Don’t most people do that?”

  The priest hesitated. Only for an instant—but she heard it in the music of his voice, a faint sour note amidst the comforting glissando. “Most people do. Certainly it’s easier that way. But Tarrant ... the sunlight hurts him. So we move at night.”

  Something inside her knotted up again, something cold and afraid. For a moment she couldn’t speak.

  “Jenseny?”

  “They were like that,” she whispered. “The rakh. They could come out in the sun if they had to, but it burned them. That’s what my father said.”

  For a moment there was silence. She was afraid to look at him. Afraid to listen.

  “You don’t have to be afraid of Tarrant,” he said at last. “He’s a violent man, and he does a lot of bad things, but he won’t hurt you.” His tone was gentle but firm, not unlike her father’s. She lowered her head, feeling tears start up in her eyes. The priest’s tone awakened so many memories ... she tried not to see her father’s face, tried not to hear his voice. It hurt too much.

  “Jenseny?”

  “I’m okay,” she whispered. Wanting to be brave for him.

  “We came here because of those rakh,” he told her. “To stop the killing.”

  “They ate him,” she whispered. Choking on tears. “They ate him, and took his place....” Eyes squeezed tightly shut, she fought not to cry. She tried not to remember. But there was enough Light in the camp that the visions came unbidden, and with them a sense of loss so terrible that she could hardly choke out the words. “I can’t go home....”

  He didn’t come over to her then, but he did something. Because the vision slowly faded, and with it the hurt. It wouldn’t have faded on its own, she knew that. How had he made it stop?

  “Jenseny.” His tone was gentle. “We came here to stop that from happening. We can’t help your father now, but we can stop them from hurting others. That’s why we’re here.”

  A new fear took root in her, which had never been there before. Would they do that to others? Would all the Protectors die like that—eaten by monsters and then replaced—and would all their children have to cry away the nights, pretending that they didn’t know? It was almost too terrible to think about.

  “We need your help,” he said. Very softly. “We need to know what your father told you about the rakh. We need to know what he saw. Jenseny ... it’ll help us fight them.” When she didn’t answer—couldn’t answer—he whispered, “Please.”

  What if they ate not only the Protectors, but their families and children as well? What if they went into the villages along the coast and ate the people there, too? She could almost hear the screams as those people died, mothers and fathers and children, too, children just like her, eaten up by things that looked like people but that weren’t really people. Ralch-things from the Black Lands, eating their way through the One God’s country.

  “Jenseny.” He had come to her side so that he might take her in his arms. His skin was cool and damp, but his arms were strong, and she shook violently as he held her. “It’s all right,” he murmured, stroking her hair gently. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I’m sorry I asked.”

  She wanted to help them so much. That was the part that hurt worst of all. She wanted to help them more than anything, but she was afraid to. What would they think when they found out that her father was responsible for all this? What would they think if she told them that the Protector Kierstaad, whose job it was to keep the ralch-things out, had opened wide his gates and welcomed them in? Would they understand? Would they let her explain why he had done it? Or would they hate her, too, for having been a part of it?

  She couldn’t risk that. Not now. Not when these people were all she had.

  “I can’t,” she choked out. Hoping he would understand. Not knowing how he possibly could. Choking on guilt because she knew she could help them, and yet ... if these people came to hate her then she would have no one. No one at all. And she didn’t want to be like that again, not ever.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. Hot tears dripping down her face. “I’m so sorry....”

 
And he held her while she wept. Just like her father would have done. Just like her mother used to do. He held her in this strange place, with dangers all about them, and whispered words of hope and safety. And even more important words, in response to her apology.

  “It’s all right,” he whispered to her. Stroking her hair. Soothing her fears. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. It’s okay.”

  “I can’t....”

  “Shh. It’s all right.”

  And he held her, just held her, while she wept away her sorrow. While the sunlight—the beautiful sunlight—washed away all signs of mourning, and left at last only peace.

  “Our enemy is Iezu,” Gerald Tarrant pronounced.

  The mist had grown thicker with nightfall, blocking out what little Corelight still shone down into the valley. The air was damp and heavy, and at moments the mist felt more like rain than fog. They had left the tent pitched because of the wetness, and Jenseny was tucked away inside it, presumably sleeping. God knows she needed it.

  Jenseny Kierstaad, Damien thought. Remembering that family name from their maps. Guessing at the horrors which her young eyes had seen, in the Protectorate where rakhene invaders had tortured dozens of people to death. No wonder she wasn’t up to talking about it yet. God alone knew if she ever would be. It was miracle enough that she was still alive, and as sane as she was.

  “Which means what?” Hesseth asked.

  “Trouble.” There was something doubly dark in Tarrant’s tone tonight, Damien thought, as if the news he had brought was disturbing on a personal level as well. He seemed ... well, edgy. Which wasn’t like him. Another thing to worry about? “The Iezu have never been enemies of man, but that may be changing. And if it does....”