“Shhhh. It’s okay. I’m not going to make you eat anything. It’s okay.” Gareth’s agitation subsided enough for Evin to lay his palm against Gareth’s forehead. Not cold anymore, not like it should be. Evin would have to find a fever remedy tonight. Maybe a cool stream.
They came instead to a small, unoccupied cabin. Evin judged that they would be safe there for the night. Maybe Gareth could have a real bed, and there might even be stores Evin could use. Evin took Gareth’s arm and led him up to the little house and inside.
“Oh no, they burned the meat,” Gareth said. “Smells bad.”
The little bed looked too rickety to support Gareth’s weight, so Evin led him to a clear area on the floor. “Time to rest now, baby.” He tugged on an arm, and Gareth sank obediently down.
“Mother won’t make me eat it this time, will she? Somebody burned him up.”
“No, you don’t have to eat, just rest now. Here, lie down.”
“Why’re you crying?”
Evin tried a brittle smile. “I’m happy, because you’re here with me.”
“That’s stupid.” Gareth lay facedown. “Hurts,” he said into the floorboards.
“I know. I’ll get something to make it feel better.”
“Please don’t let her make me!”
A stream. Evin could let him rest for now, but if he could find a cool stream, he could put Gareth into it to bring down the fever.
* * *
Evin wandered around in the darkness for too long, cursing the aeons for not giving him, just this one night, burning eyes to see something in the dark, anything that might help. But he found nothing.
Near midnight, he grew too nervous to leave Gareth alone any longer. He returned to the cabin to reassure himself that their situation had not worsened.
He found an old man, a stranger, sitting on a wooden chair outside the cabin.
Evin couldn’t see him very well in the darkness beneath the trees, but he didn’t care. He walked past the man without a word, going to the door to make sure—
It was locked.
“Hello, son. We’ve been waiting for you. Gareth told me all about you while you were gone. Come speak with me.”
Evin rattled the door’s latch, pounded his fist against the wood.
“Gareth! Gareth, I’m here! Can you hear me?” He tried to ram the door with his shoulder, but it wouldn’t budge. He went around the cabin looking for another way in, but the windows were too high for him to reach. How had he not noticed before?
“Evin, come here, child. You’re not going to get him that way.”
Evin stalked over to the man. “What have you done?”
“That’s better. Hold this.” The man put something into his hand. Evin hissed. Searing cold! But his hand closed and he didn’t drop it. Couldn’t drop it. He couldn’t turn his head or even move his eyes. Fear swept out his anger.
“Put it on.”
The terrible cold had faded. Evin lifted the thing into his field of vision. It was a pendant with a leather strap. He put it over his head. His gaze never left the man’s face.
“There you go. Evin, my name is Cydrich. Have you heard of me?”
Demon hunter. Oh no, oh no! A scream built up in his chest, squeezing his heart like a fist. But he could make no sound.
“Oh, I see that you have indeed heard tell of me. I’m very pleased to meet you, my boy.”
You didn’t find him, no, please, lords, no, you didn’t!
“Look at the cabin, boy.”
Evin looked. The cabin shimmered. Its solid wooden walls rippled and dissolved as if they had been nothing but a dream. A hazy, empty image of safety that faded away to reveal devastation.
He saw the black smoke first, rising from the few timbers that remained, some standing at odd angles, as the rest of the building had burned away. The cabin was nothing but a blackened husk, sagging in on itself. Here and there, edges still glowed with pulsing orange light. Sparks rose in the night, carried by smoke that tumbled and rolled up into the sky.
With the glamor lifted, Evin smelled it now. Charred wood and flesh. Somebody burned him up.
The scream in his chest was a protest. A denial. The high shriek of a child running with a sword too heavy to wield. It fought to break him, tear him open for release, but still no sound could escape his body.
Only tears could come out. Streams of them.
“Evin, child, I want you to tell what happened here. Are you listening? Look at me again.”
Against his will, Evin’s flooding eyes tracked back to the face in the dark. He would have fallen to his knees, but caught up by power in the pendant, his joints remained locked, waiting for Cydrich’s commands. He could not even open his mouth to curse the demon hunter. Or to curse the demiourgos who made Gareth, a miracle, and gave him over to a fool like Evin to destroy.
“I have a little job for you, my friend. An important job. I want you to tell the queen what happened here. About the demon who slew Tyber Clane and—remember these names—Rhyd and Magareta Duskan. The queen will be in her palace at Parige.”
Evin couldn’t move, couldn’t look away.
“Know the way now and go.”
Evin’s legs moved. He turned in a direction. The direction he must go. As he turned, his gaze raked across the destruction once more. Sparks wafted up. More timbers collapsed.
He found the direction he must go, and he went.
“Oh, wait. Stop!” Cydrich called. “You’re nobody; you can’t just walk up to the palace and gain entry. Let’s see…”
Locked up again, Evin heard rustling and humming, the sounds of Cydrich rooting through items in a pack.
“Hm, hm, hm. The thing about sorcelry, Evin—no, that won’t do—is that you have to prepare everything in advance. People around here used to talk about hexes, did you know that? Curses and spells. Silly superstitions. But when sorcelry was discovered, how to make devices to do wondrous things…well, that changed the world, didn’t it?”
Without hope, Evin tried to shut out the droning voice. Why had he wasted so much time wandering in the woods? Why hadn’t he been here to help when Gareth needed him most?
“But you have to prepare in advance. If you don’t have the right device at the right time… Ah! And I think I do, boy, yes, I think I do. Harmless, not made with blood. They’ll never notice it. Oh, the women will adore you, Evin. The queen will want to listen to you!”
Cydrich approached. Skin crawled on Evin’s neck and shoulders as he waited in dread of what would come next. Something terribly cold clasped against Evin’s ear. It grew colder still until it hurt like a knife cutting in, and then it was gone.
“Say nothing about that object. Forget it now.”
Skin crawled on Evin’s neck and shoulders—but instead of touching him with any new device, Cydrich simply gave orders. Maybe he hadn’t found what he was looking for.
“Tell the queen you were hunting tonight, on a trip far from home. You were tracking the beast who killed your friend, Tyber. You came here quite by coincidence, just after I burned the demon. Say nothing to contradict this story. If she discovers you were the demon’s plaything, she will execute you.”
There was a place of suffering. Evin realized that the priests were right. Punishment for all the times he had lied to make things better, to get what he wanted, to protect himself or the ones he loved. For pulling Gareth into danger to satisfy his own curiosity and lust, despite Gareth’s need to remain hidden forever.
For bringing him here to die, then leaving him to die alone.
Cydrich had taken Evin’s body, worse than Tyber or anyone, and he was trapped in it, alone with Cydrich’s lies and the certainty of his own guilt. How far was it to Parige? If it was too far to walk, he might be in the place of suffering for the rest of his life.
“Go,” Cydrich said.
Chapter Fourteen
In his fitful dream, an old man had come to him. A new friend. He had two friends now. Somehow he wanted to
tell his new friend things he never dreamed he would share. Secrets. Mother and Father would sure be mad.
His new friend listened and talked with him for a while, promised to make the hurt go away, then patted him on the hand and said he needed to leave for a moment to get rid of Evin.
Gareth tried to get up, tried to stop him, tried to tell him that Evin was their friend too, but the old man told him to sleep and the world snuffed out.
He woke in a different place, suffering more than ever from his burns. He didn’t have any strength. The effort to lift his chest off the floor so that he could look around exhausted him.
The new place was a cellar, much like the one at home but finished in smooth stone and with no rope or other way to climb out. He lay on the floor near a small, barred drain, and he despaired. A trickle of blood and pus oozed from the burned place on his shoulder.
He would probably die here alone and never be found. What else did he deserve? After heaping disaster upon Evin, he could not even be there to do his part. He had promised to be a protector! Suffused with torment from his wounds and fear of what might have happened to Evin, he lay unable to move, his eyes too heavy to stay open.
Consciousness faded in and out like a guttering flame. He was dimly aware of waking again, this time on a bed, still lying on his stomach. Hands manipulated his flesh and probed his wounds, making the pain rise to a maddening torment, then fade to a dull ache.
He heard voices speak of fire and fever and filth in the blood.
He drifted, lost in a red mist that his eyes could not penetrate, until they came to him: The girl in her cage, surrounded by straw men on straw horses who drew bows and shot her again and again while Evin screamed, She needed you; you were supposed to help! But the bear held Gareth down, crushing him, dipping her head to tear off putrefying flesh, feeding it to her broken cub. Father drew up behind Evin, his knife rising, as Mother crouched close enough to whisper, There’s one place they’ll never find him. He tried to say he was sorry, but the blood welled in his throat and he was drowning again, coughing, spitting.
Gareth woke strangling on his own drool. His wet cheek pressed into the soft bed.
When his breathing settled, he found he didn’t hurt anymore.
Warm sunlight fell on his naked back. He wiggled his toes, rubbing them against the sheet to feel them, and he moved an arm to test it too. He was whole. He had been released. He closed his eyes and took his first restful sleep in many days.
When he woke again, it was night. He found himself in the same bed, lying on his back this time, able to look around. He was in another round, stone room, much larger than the first. It was ringed with wooden tables holding papers and scrolls, tools and pots, and many other things he didn’t recognize. High above, wide windows gave out onto the starry sky.
At one side of the room, a large, wooden door opened and the old man entered.
“Ah, you’re awake.” The man clapped his gloved hands once, soundlessly. “You gave us a lot of trouble, you know! A lot of trouble indeed.”
“Where’s Evin?”
The man stepped closer and put his hand on Gareth’s shoulder. “Can you sit up?”
Gareth slowly sat up and moved his feet off the bed.
“Good. Good. Excellent.” The old man lifted and lowered Gareth’s arm, the one that had been burned, and encouraged Gareth to stretch. “Very good. You are such a fine specimen. It is lucky for both of us that my healer and I were able to save you, you know.”
“The fire put something in my blood, didn’t it?” Gareth was still tired, and his head spun.
“How did you know? Ah, you heard us talking. Yes, you were very sick because of the burns.” The man finished examining Gareth and moved away. “I think you’re almost strong enough for us to begin our work. Maybe one more day.”
“Begin what? No, I don’t care.” He struggled to get up on unsteady legs. “Where is Evin? What have you done with him?”
The man stepped back and held gloved hands up to show them to Gareth. They erupted in flame. Tongues of fire licked out toward Gareth, and he shrank from them.
“Good, good. You remember how it feels, don’t you, boy?” The man’s smiling eyes sparkled with mirth and reflections of the flame. “Don’t want to burn, do you? You’ll do as I say or you’ll die.”
Gareth pushed down the tired, unsteady feelings and stood tall. Not a baby no more. “No,” he said quietly. “I won’t do nothing you say till I know Evin’s all right. Take me to him. If you killed him, kill me too, because I won’t do nothing for you.”
The old man’s face clouded with anger for an instant, but the smile returned to his lips, and if anything, he seemed pleased. He moved farther out of reach. “Oh, you’re a brave one! But your little friend isn’t dead. I know just where he is.”
“Where?”
“And if you force me to kill you, I’ll go burn him too.”
“No!”
“Oh yes. I’ll burn him piece by piece. I’ll start with his feet. I’ll make it last for weeks, and each day when I come to him, I’ll tell him who is the cause of his suffering. ‘Gareth chose this for you,’ I’ll say, and he’ll curse your name in a thousand screams before I burn out his tongue.”
The words made Gareth’s skin crawl and burn in a way that had nothing to do with the fire.
He had put Evin in danger.
His fingers grew sharp and pricked at him as he clenched his fists. He wanted to leap at the old man, kill him just like the bear. But if Gareth died in the fire first…if the man did go to Evin… Gareth’s insides turned to cold, dead stone. He didn’t dare try to hurt the man or even sacrifice himself to protect Evin. Worthless and lost, Gareth couldn’t do anything. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“That’s better.” The flames vanished, and the man pointed at the bed. Gareth sat on the edge. “Let’s be civil. My name is Cydrich. You’ve seen enough to know I’m a sorceler. I’m the queen’s demon hunter.”
Gareth hung his head. He didn’t understand sorceler, but his parents had warned him often enough about demon hunters. And yet he’d disobeyed them, come out of hiding, and brought on the very fate they gave up so much to prevent. Worse, he’d dragged Evin into it too.
Cydrich sighed. “Oh, well, it does impress most people. But I imagine those aren’t things Rhyd and Magareta ever taught you about.”
What? “How do you know my parents?”
Cydrich walked to a high-backed chair and sat. He placed a booted foot on his knee and crossed his hands over his lap. “Oh they weren’t your parents, boy. They were my servants. I gave you to them to raise.” He waited then, watching as Gareth tried to understand.
Gareth looked away, staring at nothing. Servants?
No. If that was true, nothing was real. All this time.
As long as he could remember, he had wanted to do something, somehow, to make up to his parents for being cursed. To make their fear and disgust go way. To make their lives easier. To see kindness in their eyes when they looked at him.
He hadn’t known the word for it before Evin, but he had wanted to earn their love.
And now… What if the old man was telling the truth? That it was all a lie, everything, from the start? His whole life?
He didn’t want to accept it. He wanted Cydrich to be lying, but he knew. He knew. And so he murmured the words that damned his parents: “They told me there was someone else. You’re the important visitor. They were going to g-give me back.”
Cydrich nodded. “I was coming to collect you, Gareth. I created you, and it is time for you to serve your purpose.”
Gareth looked to Cydrich, to plead for an answer, a reason. Everything he knew was a lie, but why? What was it for?
Why had they done this to him?
The sorceler said, “But first I’m afraid you must suffer.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Captain!”
Simone Uliette turned away from her worktable, where she had been wasting he
r time looking over patent reports—forms the queen’s subjects used to request permission to sell sorceled devices. Functionaries had already been over the forms once to mark out ones that might be too powerful. Her job was to look over them to eliminate any which might pose a threat to the security of Parige or the castle. Eventually Queen Denua would receive the list to reject any which, in her estimation, could possibly bring about some long-term threat to her rule.
Boring, daily, can’t-keep-your-eyes-from-crossing scut work. She was thankful for an interruption. As long as it wasn’t serious.
“What is it, Abel?”
“Well…it’s Cydrich.”
Shit. That didn’t explain anything, but unfortunately it probably explained everything.
“Can you tell me or do you have to show me?”
“I’ll try to tell. We have a youth downstairs. Cydrich sent him here with news for the queen. Bastard’s half-dead because Cydrich compelled him and didn’t tell him he could stop to rest—”
“Shit!”
“So here he is, and he can’t talk to anyone but the queen. He can’t stand, but he won’t stop crawling. We keep dragging him back, but…” Abel shrugged helplessly.
She saw the problem. If they didn’t take him to the queen, he’d die under compulsion. But letting him go to the queen under sorcelrous compulsion would be a serious security risk. They could kill him and be done with it, but either way, nobody but Denua would dare frustrate a sorceler like that. Especially the demon hunter.
Simone stood. “Let me see him.”
* * *
When they arrived at the palace’s first-floor antechamber, Simone found the problem had already been solved—badly. Queen Denua was already there. A gaunt youth in filthy clothing lay unmoving at her feet.
Simone admonished her queen. “Your Majesty. I see you are still alive.”
“Indeed. The compulsion charm on this man was nothing. You see?” A silver charm on a crude leather strap dangled from Denua’s hands.
Denua wore her own jewelry, ensorceled to provide a shield that would surely protect her from one of Cydrich’s devices. But even so, touching the charm was a risk that made Simone angry. Who would the queen blame if, after behaving so cavalierly, her shield wasn’t enough to protect her from a weapon?
In the Darkness Page 13
