When True Night Falls

by C. S. Friedman

  “God of Earth,” he muttered. And he steered them eastward, even as he prayed.

  Not now, he thought feverishly. Please. Not like this. We have too much to do. Please don’t let them stop us now.

  If he had prayed to a pagan god, perhaps it would have answered. Perhaps, for a favored son, it would have staged a truly divine rescue, complete with pyrotechnics and a choir of demons. Certainly Tarrant’s Iezu seemed to have the power and the temperament to stage such a thing. But the price of changing the world through faith was that one had to forgo such convenient spectacles, and it was with heavy heart and a trembling hand that Damien steered his companions away from their intended path, into the heart of the factory district.

  Here long, featureless buildings housed the manpower that had made Esperanova a city to be reckoned with. Here young men and women—and sometimes children, despite the labor laws—picked among baskets of freshly prospected gems, choosing those whose color or brilliance held especial promise. Here slender hands refined the stones one by one, not only the larger, prouder specimens but rubies as fine as dust, diamonds as delicate as powder. For some techniques only a child’s hand would do; those of an adult were simply too large and clumsy to manage the requisite manipulation. In other buildings precious metals were melted, blended, and cast into myriad decorative forms for sale in the northern cities. Fine steel blades were forged and whetted. Wood was whittled into furniture as smooth as glass. Esperanova’s wealth was based upon her labor force, and the western quarter of the city was a maze of factory complexes, large and small. All of which, without exception, would soon be closing for the night.

  The streets were almost empty when they arrived, which was good cause for panic. He had taken a chance in coming here—a big one—and for a moment he feared he had gambled too much. He could almost feel Hesseth’s eyes on him as he guided them through the labyrinthine district, questioning his purpose in bringing them to such a place. Maybe even questioning his sanity. For a short while he wondered about that himself, as he herded his party from street to street, trying to avoid those streets and alleys which were truly deserted. It was getting harder and harder.

  And then, without warning, a whistle split the dusky air. He felt Jenseny’s hand tense up in his own, and he squeezed it once in reassurance. For a moment he could only wait, praying that his assessment of the situation was sound. The people surrounding them had thinned out long minutes ago, which meant there wasn’t much cover left. Already he could feel the back of his neck begin to crawl, as if in response to some springbolt or firearm which was aimed at that spot—

  Then they came. In twos and threes at first, and then in a herd. A swarm. Women and children and young boys and older men, red-eyed and tired and anxious to wend their way through the maze of factory streets, until they got to wherever home might be. A boundless, shapeless mass of people, who comprised by their mere presence the greatest Obscuring of all. He exhaled heavily in relief as the crowd enveloped them, sensing the potential for safety in their numbers. He felt Jenseny tense as all those new psyches battered her, as she shared their memories and their fears and ... who knew what else? He made sure he had a firm hold on her hand and dragged her forward, muttering a key under his breath as he did so. It was hard to concentrate in the midst of such a stampede, but he had no illusions about the task: his very life depended on it. And so he wove a Working even while strangers shouldered into him from the right and the left, even while he had to pull Jenseny close against him to keep the flood tide of humanity from sweeping her away, even while he had to watch for Hesseth’s coiffed head and make sure that it, too, was within safe distance.

  He needed an Obscuring. A powerful Obscuring, that drew on the very nature of human distraction for its strength. For while a single grain of sand might be observed upon a granite plain (his teacher would have argued), in the midst of a sand dune it was all but invisible. So it would be with them, now. If Damien could hold onto the power—if he could channel it right—they should be able to distract their pursuers long enough to lose them. Nothing obscures a clear trail, Damien’s teacher would have insisted, better than a thousand other footprints. He hoped to hell the man was right.

  The earth-fae was still hot, shrill to the touch, hard to mold. He felt an unaccustomed sweat break out on his forehead as he plunged into it, struggling to break it to his will. It would have been difficult under the best of curcumstances; done while walking, knocked about by this indifferent crowd, it was all but impossible. Once Hesseth had to urge him forward with a touch in order to keep him moving; he had instinctively turned inside himself as sorcerers were wont to do, shutting out all awareness not directly connected to his Working. Such behavior was a luxury here and now, and he was glad she had awakened him. Already several of the people nearby were looking at him strangely, which was the last thing he needed. He picked up his pace again, letting the motion of the crowd carry him along. No time now to focus on footsteps, or wonder where those two pair were; it took all he had to concentrate on the flow of the earth-power, to wrestle it into subservience. And then ... yes. There it was. The current shifted itself beneath his touch and began to reform. He held his breath, trying to stabilize it. A child running through the crowd barreled into his legs, but he barely felt it; his Working was the only thing real to him, the hot earth-fae and the dripping sweat and the pain that lanced through his limbs like needles as he struggled to tame the wild power that flowed about his feet. He no longer even knew if he was walking, and he barely knew where he was; only the power mattered now, the surging flow which the quakeling had released. Only the Obscuring mattered.

  And then it was done. He let his Vision fade—and staggered for a moment, blinded by its afterimage. Hesseth tried to pull him along, but he put out a hand to stop her, and he caught up the child before the crowd could sweep her away.

  “It’s done,” he gasped. He nodded toward the nearest wall. “Get out. Now.”

  She understood immediately, and together they managed to get themselves and the child over to the wall, and away from press of flesh. Jenseny was shivering, clearly terrified, but at least she was still with them. Still standing. That was something, wasn’t it? Damien leaned against the brick wall and breathed deeply, trying to calm himself. It was done. It had worked. Any minute now their pursuers would be passing them by, eyes fixed firmly on the crowds ahead, unaware that their prey had turned aside. And then they would be safe for a while. Maybe long enough. One could only hope.

  “What did you do?” the girl whispered. Frightened to speak but too curious to remain silent. “What happened?”

  “I caused them to be distracted,” he whispered back. He probably could have spoken aloud in utter safety, but why push his luck? “When they try to see us, they’ll wind up watching other people, until it’s too late.”

  “How long will it last?” Hesseth asked.

  He sighed, and rubbed his temples. “Long enough. If we keep to crowded areas, we should be able to make it to the harbor unnoticed; that much’ll stay with us.”

  “And then?”

  He shut his eyes and allowed himself the luxury of a long, deep breath. An Obscuring like this was a touchy thing, and a thousand and one variables affected it. But one thing mattered more than any other. One single element could be their undoing.

  “That depends,” he said quietly, “on if they’re expecting us.”

  Night falling. Harbor shadowed. Perfect time for an ambush.

  “There they are.”

  From behind the bulk of a storage shed—corrugated tin, mottled with rust—the Regent’s soldiers took the measure of their prey. Tucked away in the shadow of the shed they were nearly invisible. Perfect.

  “Now?” A soldier whispered, but their leader shook his head: No. Not yet.

  There were few enough people on the wharf now that it was possible to make out the strangers clearly. The priest, coarsely dressed, with no sign of rank or vocation other than the sturdy sword harnessed across
his back. The woman, lithe and mysterious, swathed in such layers of wool as were reserved for church tradition. And a child, thin and fearful, whose dark eyes swept over the piers again and again, as if searching for something to be afraid of. Her thick dark hair coiled like snakes over her shoulder, and she twisted its ends in her fingers as she gazed at shadows of the harbor.

  “Who’s the kid?” Charrel demanded, his voice a hoarse whisper in the darkness.

  “Doesn’t matter,” their leader told him. “You know our orders.”

  They began to move. Slowly at first, like pack animals testing the ground for solidity. Slipping from shadow to shadow, silent as men could be, their dark clothing all but invisible in the thick, gloomy dusk. Their quarry hadn’t seen them yet, which was good. If they could manage to surround them before they responded—

  And then the child looked at them. Straight at them, her dark eyes piercing through the shadows like lances. Her mouth fell open and she trembled violently, momentarily unable to respond to what she had seen. It would only last an instant, the leader guessed, and he was gesturing for one of his men to fire just as a family group wandered across the wharf, fouling the line of fire. He cursed under his breath and hissed, “Fan out! Contain them!” Even as the girl moved. Even as she warned her companions about the danger that was closing in on them, and they began to run.

  Damn! The officer thought, holding his weapon close to his side as he moved out into the open. Running now, his hand clenched tightly about the pistol’s grip. Damn! The people on the wharf got out of his way when they saw him coming—as they’d damned well better—but it wasn’t soon enough, it couldn’t possibly be soon enough, the fugitives were running toward the nearest crowd and would soon be lost among them, damn it!

  And then he saw one of his men cut them off, herding them back into the open. The child stumbled, and the priest caught her up in his arms. That slowed them. They were approaching a part of the harbor where business was slow, and the crowds that had served them as shelter were thinning. The leader pushed his way by an old woman, nearly trampling a child in his haste. The Regent had said that the fugitives would be boarding a free merchanter, but that wasn’t the direction they were heading in now; he could only assume that the Regent’s source of intelligence had been mistaken, that they hoped to make it to one of the great passenger ships docked at the west end of the harbor, now drawing in their gangplanks to catch the departing tide. Well, you won’t get there, he swore silently, and he pushed for even greater speed. You won’t get past this harbor alive.

  And then there was an opening. Charrel had the clearest shot, and fired first; a crossbow quarrel lanced across the space between them and speared through the child’s thigh. She spasmed in the priest’s arm and screamed, and for a moment it seemed to her pursuer that a brilliant light, blood-red, enveloped her body. Then an elderly couple moved out of the way—at last!—and he fired, he held up the pistol and pulled on the trigger and felt the explosive power take root in his hand, to send death plummeting through the air with a force no crossbow could rival. The soft lead pellet missed the priest by inches but took the woman in her side, and she fell; red blood exploded across the white of her robe as she fell to her knees, and

  —and—

  —and—

  His vision wavered. He staggered as though struck, dimly aware that sorcery was the cause. Trying to fight the effect. It seemed to him that the three figures were blurring, as in a drawing whose edges had been erased. Giving up their color, their form, to meld into the twilight. He shook his head desperately, hoping that his men were holding on. He couldn’t lose them now, not when they were so close to triumph. He squinted into the shadowy air as he lined up the second pellet in the gun’s chamber, as he aligned the second priming. It wasn’t that they were becoming invisible, so much as ... changing. Yes. That was it. The girl’s dark hair becoming a tangle of blond curls, the priest’s formidable bulk shrinking to the middle-aged pot-belly of a hen-pecked bureaucrat, the woman’s robe becoming mere housewife’s garb, blood-spattered....

  “My God,” he whispered.

  And he lowered his gun.

  And he stared.

  They were cringing now, terrified of him and his men, but they needn’t have been. Not now. Because he knew in his gut as he gazed at them that these faces were the real ones. Not what he had seen before. Not what he had fired at.

  He looked about wildly, as if somewhere on the wharf an explanation would be waiting. What he saw, in the distance, was a merchanter setting sail. White canvas leaves dropping to catch the wind, angled sails billowing in the stiff southerly breeze. He struggled to make out the flag that topped the mizzenmast, and when he did he cursed. He knew that symbol, all too well. He had studied it in the Regent’s chamber only hours before.

  “What is it?” came a voice at his shoulder. One of his men. “What happened?”

  He turned back, saw one of his soldiers tending to the wounded. Trying to comfort the innocent victims, in a voice that must be shaking with fear. He felt that fear himself, like a knot in his gut.

  “We vulked up,” he muttered. “We vulked it up good.”

  In the distance, safely out of reach, the Desert Queen made for the open sea.

  Not until they were safely out of the harbor did Damien feel the knot in his own gut loosen up. Not until the lights of the city were so low on the horizon that a passing wave might swallow them up, and the granite arms that reached out from the mainland to the harbor were all but invisible in the fading light, did he feel that he could relax.

  Soft golden Corelight washed over the deck as he made his way to where Tarrant stood and it picked out jeweled highlights on the water beyond. About and above them the sailors scurried to make the most of what the wind had to offer, and Damien had no doubt that if the wind held in their favor the Desert Queen was capable of outrunning—and probably outmaneuvering—any possible pursuit. Wasn’t that the one capacity a smuggler needed most?

  “I can’t believe we made it,” Hesseth was saying as he joined them. The girl was by her side, her arm around the rakh-woman’s waist. “I can’t believe there was no one watching for us.”

  “They were watching,” Tarrant said quietly.

  Damien looked up at him—delicate profile haloed in gold, eyes as dark and as secretive as the sea—and demanded, “So what happened?”

  The Hunter shrugged; his eyes remained fixed on the sea. “They must have been misled, somehow.” A faint smile ghosted across his lips, then was gone. “Perhaps they followed the wrong trail. Perhaps they attacked the wrong people.”

  A cold, sick feeling stirred in Damien’s gut. He had to force the word out. “Simulacra?”

  “Perhaps,” the Hunter murmured.

  Sickness transmuted into sudden anger. He grasped the man by the arm, closing his finger angrily about flesh no warmer than ice. “Do we have to leave a trail of blood behind us?” he demanded. “Does every victory have to cost some innocent his life?”

  The dark eyes turned on him with gentle disdain. “You’ve made your feeling on that point rather clear, Reverend Vryce.” With his free hand he plucked Damien’s own from his arm, handling it like one would a child’s. “As it happened, I didn’t kill them. Nor do I think that our enemies will. I gave them, as you would have wanted, a fair chance. Even though that increased the risk to us all.”

  For a moment Damien was utterly speechless. “But ... if the enemy thinks they’re us—”

  “That illusion faded as soon as we were safely under sail, priest. Not the safety margin I would have preferred, but obviously it will have to do.”

  He turned to go then—to seek out some private niche on the tiny vessel, no doubt, some shadow he could claim for himself—but Damien challenged him, “You spared their lives?”

  The Hunter turned back to him; a sparkle of dry humor glinted in his eyes. “In all probability, yes.”

  “For what reason?” He couldn’t imagine Tarrant motivated by hum
an compassion.

  “For the best of reasons,” the Neocount assured him. “Because I knew that if they died I would have to spend the better part of this voyage hearing about it.” And he added, with gentle maliciousness, “Verda?”

  Thirty-four

  The Sea of Dreams, it was called.

  It was dark. It was cold. It was turbulent and deadly. Eastern and western waters met with a clash above a sea floor studded with mounts and mountains, driven by a system of tides that revealed new hazards with every passing hour. Or concealed them, just as swiftly. In places there were obstacles so close to the surface that the currents parted around them, rippling with whitewater ferocity. In others there were pools where chance had turned the currents aside, so that in the midst of chaos one might find a circle of water as smooth as glass, a surreal arrangement that might last only seconds, or perhaps as long as hours. It was rumored that somewhere in the midst of the Sea of Dreams lay a vast pool of untroubled water, where even the wind had ceased to blow. After more than an hour on board the Desert Queen, Damien was ready to believe it.

  Here the Novatlantic Ocean, fifty feet higher than its eastern neighbor, plunged through the rocky gap which nature had supplied, dashing its waves upon numerous obstacles as it churned its way east. Here the cold currents of the antarctic region met the warm waters of the tropics with whirlpool ferocity, raising a mist that gathered about the peaked granite islands, hiding them from sight. Here there was a path from north to south that might be sailed, but only by men who knew these waters like the back of their hands. And then only with luck, and only when the tides permitted.

  Much to his surprise, Damien found that he had been afraid for so long now that even the sight of rocky obstacles passing mere yards from the bow wasn’t enough to upset him. In the face of what they were up against—and how long they had been fleeing—it just wasn’t enough to upset him. Besides, he had been through Novatlantis, which was a journey ten times longer than this and easily ten times as turbulent. If he had made it through that terrible trip without panicking, he could certainly manage to make it through this one.