“Assst!” The hissed exclamation was sharp and hostile. Glancing over at Hesseth, startled, Damien saw that the rakh-woman’s fur was stiffly erect; the coarse bristle about her face banished any illusion of humanity which her altered features might otherwise have conjured.
“It’s lava.” He forced the words out, imprinting the strange land with the ordered power of scientific nomenclature. “Cooled lava flow. Perfectly normal.” He remembered seeing land like this in the Dividers, when he crossed the Fury Basin, and once before that in the desert north of Ganji. He had even seen trees like that once, trunks and limbs stripped bare by the heat of an eruption. Perfectly natural, he told himself. But though the shape of this land might have its origin in the natural balance of earth and fire, its aura was anything but wholesome. And he needed no Knowing to confirm that a man’s hand, a Prince’s will, was the source of its strangeness.
The crust could be thin in places, he thought. Under our combined weight it might well give way, and then what? Cold tubes and tunnels if we’re lucky, and if not.... He had broken through the ceiling of an active lava tube once, and only barely managed to throw himself back rather than plummet down into it; the acrid fumes and raw heat that had blasted him in the face were sensations he would never forget. Was there a live volcano somewhere nearby? He searched the hills and mountains within sight for some characteristic sign. There was none. Which didn’t mean that one of those mountains might not explode while they were passing by, or that some hidden vent might not vulk to life without warning, right beneath their feet. Volcanoes were notoriously unpredictable.
The Black Lands bordered on this region, he remembered suddenly. Was the Prince’s stronghold also a lava plain of some kind? The name made it likely. If so, what did that say about the man who had chosen to make such a region his home?
If he’s living this close to a volcano—any volcano—then he’s a lunatic for sure. The woman in the rakhlands had built her home on an earthquake fault, he remembered. She had been quite insane, of course, and twice as dangerous for it. He prayed that the Undying Prince was more stable, for all their sakes; a crazy enemy was impossible to predict.
“Come on,” he whispered hoarsely. “We’ve seen enough. Let’s go back down.”
They had made their camp by a stream some two miles back, and although it was not a difficult journey once they had slid down the north side of the ridge, they hiked it in silence. Hesseth’s fur was still erect, and periodically she hissed softly as she walked; clearly she had never seen such a landscape before, or considered its implications. After a while Jenseny began to come up with questions—mostly about volcanoes—but though he answered them thoroughly and honestly there were things in his experience he was careful not to tell her about. Like the cloud he had witnessed from a distance, that had descended without warning from Mount Kali and scalded nearly twenty thousand people to death. Like the molten boulders he’d had to dodge when he was searching for passage through the Dividers. Like the volcano-born tsunami he had once seen, a wall of water nearly three hundred feet high that had crashed into the shore by Herzog, swallowing half the town in minutes. Those were the kinds of images that would give a child nightmares, and he was careful not to share them with her. But it was humbling to consider the true power of Erna; compared to it even Tarrant’s depredations were mere child’s play, the Forest a mere amusement park.
But give him time, he thought dryly. He’s working on it.
They ate a somber breakfast, a porridge of grain and local roots that Hesseth had concocted. There had been no game for many days now, which was just as well; he wasn’t all that anxious to have her leave the camp in order to hunt. Fortunately he had purchased an assemblage of pills in Esperanova that should keep them nutritionally fit; he doled them as the tea brewed, vitamins and minerals and amino acids in thin gelatinous shells that should supplement the nutritive limitations, if not the boredom, of their fare. Hesseth made a face as she swallowed hers, as if to imply that her rakhene biology should be above such things. Jenseny watched her, then bravely gulped hers down.
All right, he thought. Nobody’s starving, anyway.
“Let’s see the maps,” he said.
Hesseth rummaged through her pack until she found the one they had consulted before, a crudely drawn rendering of the Prince’s whole continent. The upper edge of the land mass, a ragged coast, was dotted with cities and towns whose names evoked a time of persecution and conflict. Misery. Warsmith. Hellsport. Farther south the names grew gentler, but the land was equally harsh, and most of the populated centers seemed to be on or near the coast. That was good news. He had cursed the emptiness of this land more than once in the last few days, but there was no denying the part it had played in helping them to travel undetected. As for the desert they were about to enter....
It stretched across the bulk of the continent, dividing the Prince’s land cleanly in two. To its west a line of mountains served as stark sentinels of its border, denying access to the coast by any landbound route. To its east were more of the same, scattered mountains which coalesced into a vast continental spine, which continued down the eastern coast for hundreds of miles until at last it met and merged with the tip of the Antarctic land mass. Below the desert was a vast region with no cities marked, no roads, no borders: the rakhene sub-nation, shrouded in cartographic mystery. He frowned at that, knowing that it would make things all the harder for them once they got there.
One thing at a time, Vryce. First the Wasting. Then the rakh.
It was a vast area, nearly five hundred miles from east to west and two hundred across at its widest point. The western part, nearest the coast, was labeled The Black Lands; the rest was simply Wasting. There was no clear indication of where one region became the other, or what sort of barrier might divide them. Nor was there any indication of where the Prince’s stronghold might be located. He stared at the map for some time, memorizing its details. At last he looked up at Jenseny.
“Your father went to the Black Lands.”
She nodded.
“Do you know how he got there?”
The tiny brow furrowed as she struggled to remember. “He said ... he took a boat to somewhere on the coast. Then the Prince’s men picked him up in a different boat, and took him up the river.”
“Into the Black Lands?”
She nodded.
He studied the map again. There was indeed one path through the western mountains, a narrow river that wound its way down from the desert plateau through nearly seventy miles of rocky territory before at last reaching the coast. He noted the port where it met the sea: Freeshore. That must have been where the Protector met his guides.
And where Tarrant wanted us to go, he remembered. He was suddenly very glad that he had nixed that plan.
“His stronghold, whatever it is, will be located on or near the river. That’s good for him, since it guarantees both water and transportation. Not so good for us.”
“In what way?” Hesseth asked him.
He pointed to the northernmost tributary, a thin line of water that flowed through part of the Wasting. “Normally we’d make for here; that would guarantee a source of water and maybe fresh food about two-thirds of the way through. But if the river’s his main highway, it’s a hell of a risk.”
“Tarrant will want to go that way,” she said quietly.
He felt something inside his gut knot up when she said that, something hard and tight and angry. Because she was right, God damn it. Even as his mouth opened to protest the thought, he knew she was right. Every time Tarrant had made a suggestion it had pointed in that direction, from his intended landing in Freeshore to a dozen tense discussions they’d had since. It was as if Tarrant wanted to bring them as close as possible to the Prince’s territories—no, Damien thought, as if he was drawn to it, in much the same way that an insect might be drawn to a candleflame.
And suddenly it all came together, and he understood.
The Prince is a sorcerer
of his own dark caliber. His equal, perhaps, or maybe even his better. When’s the last time there was someone like that in his world? Was there ever?
He doesn’t know how to deal with it. He’s afraid and, at the same time, fascinated. He knows we can’t afford a direct confrontation, yet he hungers for knowledge of the enemy. The concept was both reassuring and unnerving. Reassuring because it offered an explanation for the Hunter’s bizarre behavior. Unnerving because it implied that Tarrant had lost his objectivity without even realizing it.
I wonder how much he’s aware of the struggle going on inside him. How much of it is conscious, and how much is masked by his unwillingness to look too deeply into his own soul.
“We’ll take the safest route,” he promised Hesseth. Suddenly realizing that if the Hunter’s judgment was impaired, the determination of what was safe and unsafe lay entirely in his hands. Hesseth didn’t know enough of human sorcery to make the crucial judgments. The child didn’t know enough of life.
Dear God, please help me. Not for my own sake, but for all the generations who have been and will be corrupted by the Wasting’s creator. For the rakh and for the humans here, and for whatever future they might share. Help me to cleanse this land of his corrupt power forever, so that mankind may achieve its true potential without his interference.
He lowered his eyes. The heat of the fire warmed his face.
And help Tarrant get. his shit together, he added. For all our sakes.
Night fell. Tarrant returned. He must have taken shelter not far from them, for the faeborn denizens of this desolate region had barely begun to gather about the campfire before he arrived; his presence, as usual, drove them off, or dissolved their wraithly essence, or maybe just absorbed their demonic substance into his own. Damien had never questioned the mechanics of it, was merely grateful to have the demonlings dispersed. One less threat to deal with.
They brought out the map again, and studied it together. Damien watched Tarrant closely as he considered the various options, and wished more than ever that he had some way of reading the man. But the pale face was stone-steady, impassive, and even when Tarrant looked up and met Damien’s eyes, there was a mask in place that no mere human skill could penetrate.
“The river lies east, near the Black Lands.” he said, “Going that way would mean added danger. But it also would provide a source of water, which might be scarce otherwise.”
He could almost hear Hesseth’s soft indrawn hiss behind him. He didn’t turn to her, but met the Hunter’s pale gaze head on. “We think it would be too dangerous.”
Seconds passed, silent and leaden. At last the Hunter turned away. “Your expedition,” he said quietly. “Your decision.”
Be glad for me, Hunter. Without me you would march right into the enemy’s hands, without even knowing why.
“All right, then,” Damien muttered. “Let’s get going.”
They set off southward, canteens and water skins sloshing against their packs. Damien had purchased a dozen of the latter in Esperanova and last night they had filled them all, in anticipation of the long dry march ahead of them. This time Tarrant made no offer to shoulder the extra burden. Perhaps he meant to drive home the fact that mere human thirst was no longer of any concern to him.
But he must be weakening, Damien thought suddenly. There can’t be prey in these lands for him, not enough to keep him at full strength. What can he find within an hour’s flight of here—a hunter maybe, a lone forager, a handful of travelers at best. More likely he’s gone hungry quite a few times, and that bodes ill for all of us.
Or was he feeding on Jenseny’s fear? That would be quite a feast. He looked sharply at the girl, trying to sense any linkage between them, any trace of the Hunter’s aura clinging to her own. But no, Tarrant feared her wild power too much to attempt such a thing. For better or worse, he would leave the girl alone.
The night was clear and all three moons were out when they regained their vantage point at the edge of the Wasting, but still the land itself was dark. Damien tried not to look at it as he half-climbed, half-slid down the crumbling ridge. The girl slipped once, but Tarrant caught her—and no, he saw nothing in the man’s manner that would indicate a deeper, more predatory relationship. He felt something loosen up within his gut, to see that she was safe.
From him, anyway.
Carefully, warily, they entered the Prince’s dark domain. The hard earth felt strange beneath their feet, and it took concentration not to stumble on the seemingly chaotic convolutions. Despite Tarrant’s assurances regarding sorcery, Damien’s every nerve was on edge, and it took all he had not to Work his sight and See the truth for himself. But the night was dark and the ground was unpredictable and it took all his concentration just to stay on his feet; he couldn’t have Worked if he’d wanted to.
Half a mile into the wasteland they came to the first of the trees. Tarrant paused to examine it, running a pale finger lightly along its bark. Damien brought the lantern close so that he and Hesseth might get a closer look; the girl stayed back, shivering, unwilling to approach the things her father had described so vividly.
“Is it alive?” Hesseth asked.
Tarrant nodded. “Unquestionably. Its life processes are slow, mostly dormant ... but it is alive.”
“It shouldn’t be,” Damien muttered.
“No. Or rather, if it is alive, then other things should be. Land like this is fertile; once its hard surface begins to break down, many plant forms should take root. The fact that they haven‘t—”
“Nothing lives here but the trees,” the girl said from behind them. “And one animal that eats them. That’s what he told me.”
“Immune,” Tarrant mused, “to whatever force the Prince created to safeguard this land. If we understood why those two species lived, perhaps we would know how to safeguard ourselves.” He caressed the tree’s smooth bark slowly, as if searching for something, but at last with a soft curse turned away. Obviously he could uncover no clue in the tree itself.
They resumed walking. Deeper and deeper into the Wasting, until the darkness swallowed up the hills behind them and they were left walking on a blackened stone sea without any land in sight. Cold stone ripples passed beneath their boots, frozen wavelets, rigid whirlpools. The hard ground made their ankles ache and the constant need to study it as they walked—lest some crack or crevice surprise them—made Damien’s head pound.
Then the texture of the earth beneath their feet changed, from the smooth flow of its southern border to a more broken, scrambled ground. After some discussion they decided to cross it rather than turn aside. But the footing was bad and the rocks were sharp and when they stumbled—which they did often—the rock fragments cut their knees and their hands, scoring deep into clothing and flesh alike. When they were finally on the other side of the broken region, they had to stop to clean and bind up their various wounds, and Hesseth brought out her healing ointment for all of them to use. It was bad enough that Damien thought perhaps he should dare a Healing, but when he looked up to get Tarrant’s opinion on the matter, he saw the man staring toward the west, brow furrowed, as if he feared that some tendril of the Prince’s power might be reaching out to them and was struggling to turn it aside. So with a shiver he simply rose up and shouldered his pack anew, aware that the aches and pains of their recent trial would be small enough suffering compared to what their enemy would put them through, if one careless Healing should draw his attention.
Two hours. Three. They stopped often, favoring Jenseny’s young legs, but though her face was white and strained and a red trickle seeped from under the bandage on her knees, she never complained. Afraid that they would leave her behind, Damien thought. Afraid that if she became a burden they would no longer want her with them. To see a child live in fear like that tore at his heart, and more than once he reached out a comforting hand to pat her shoulder or stroke her hair or offer her a steadying arm as they climbed up the slope of a cracked black wavelet.
An
d then they saw the bones.
They didn’t recognize them at first. The ghostly white trees were so ubiquitous that at first they thought the small white things on the ground were related to them; seedlings, perhaps, or root ends, or maybe random branches that had broken off and fallen. But as they drew closer, they could make out the edge of a rib cage etched in moonlight, fine white needles that had once been fingers, the staring sockets of an empty skull.
Bones. Animal bones. A whole skeleton, nearly undamaged. Damien knelt down by it and carefully tilted its jaw. Scavenger, he judged. No doubt it had wandered into this land in search of carrion, then had fallen prey to ... what? He looked up at Tarrant.
“No sign of sorcery,” the adept whispered. He, too, knelt down by the small tiny skeleton and studied it. “Nor any sign of violent death,” he said at last. He passed a hand over it, eyes shut, and breathed in deeply. “Nor the scent of fear, or even its memory.”
Damien breathed in sharply. “That’s not good news.”
The Hunter’s eyes opened. “No,” he agreed.
“Can you Know it?”
“Of course.” The pale eyes glittered. “The question is, is it worth the risk?”
Damien looked over at Hesseth. She nodded ever so slightly; her expression was strained. “Go ahead,” he told Tarrant. Feeling his hand rise involuntarily to his sword grip as he voiced the words, an instinctive acknowledgment of the danger involved.
The Hunter closed his hand about the small skull, as if its texture might communicate some special message. For a moment he shut his eyes to close out distractions, then opened them again. His eyes were black.
When True Night Falls Page 52
