Crown of Shadows (37 page)

He remembered what that obsession had cost Senzei, and pain welled up inside him as fresh as the day it had happened. He saw Senzei’s body, twisted and tortured, lying on the mountain grass where it had been struck down. And beside him the flask of holy Fire, which he had tried to take into his body to burn through his inner barriers. Though they hadn’t recognized it at the time, that was Calesta’s first victory over their small party. The first death in a war that had now claimed thousands in the east, and threatened to do the same here.

“Earthquakes,” Tarrant prompted. “Did he talk about them?”

Puzzled by the request, he tried to remember. They had discussed so much on that journey, desperate to pass the time in something other than silence. “He was so fascinated by the fae-surge,” he said at last. Struggling to remember. “I think he wanted to harness it, but didn’t dare try.”

Tarrant hissed softly. There was an alertness about him that reminded Damien of a hunting animal. “He thought it might make him an adept?”

“He thought a lot of things,” Damien said warily. “The last one got him killed. What’s on your mind?”

The Hunter looked at him. His eyes were black and hungry. “Did he take notes?”

“I think so. Why?”

“Might they still exist?”

He considered. “He lived with a woman before we left. I sent back word to her of what happened, when we got out of the rakhlands. Your guess is as good as mine what she did with his things, after that. Why?” he asked suddenly. “What are you thinking?”

“A possible plan,” he said softly. “But I need more data before I can assess its practicality. I think Mer Reese would have collected that data. I think that some of it may be in his notes.”

“You won’t tell me what it is?”

He shook his head. “Not now. It’s too great a long shot. Let me confirm what I suspect, and then ...” He drew in a deep breath. “I’ll tell you as soon as I know for certain. I promise.”

“Yeah. Thanks. I live for secondhand research.”

If the sarcasm in his tone bothered Tarrant, the Hunter gave no sign of it. “Come,” he said, rising. “Let’s see if his notes are still around.”

Out of habit, Damien glanced at the clock. “Isn’t it a little late to go visiting?”

The Hunter’s gaze was venomous. “I have twenty-nine days left,” he said icily. “In the face of that, do you think I care if I inconvenience someone?”

“No,” he muttered, embarrassed. “No reason you should. I’m sorry.”

“Do you remember where this woman lives?”

“Not exactly. But that’s what the fae’s for, isn’t it?” Then he hesitated. “Are you sure she’ll be willing to help us this late?”

“No.” The Hunter smiled coldly. “Not at all. But that’s what the fae’s for, isn’t it?”

The house was just as he remembered it: small and warm and utterly domestic. There were more quake-wards on the front porch now, as well as several new sigils etched into the window; he felt a pang of mourning at the irony of that. When Senzei Reese had lived here, his fiancée had been wary of such devices. Now that he was gone, and the house was free of his obsession, Worked items became acceptable again. It surprised him how bitter he felt about that.

“All right.” He sighed, and started toward the stairs. “Let’s do it.”

“One moment.” Tarrant’s eyes were focused on the ground before the house; Damien sensed him grow tense as he took hold of the currents with his will and began to mold them. As always, he found it eerie that a human being could Work without any sign or incantation to focus concentration.

When it seemed to him that Tarrant was done, he asked, “What are you doing?”

“Merely compensating for the late hour. I understand that anything more would be offensive to you. You see?” The pale eyes fixed on him, a spark of sardonic humor in their depths. “I do learn, Reverend Vryce.”

“About time,” he muttered, as they climbed up the porch stairs together.

It was Tarrant who rapped on the door, and Damien could sense his power woven into the sound, making it reverberate inside any human brain within hearing range. He waited a moment and then knocked again, and suddenly a light came on near the back of the house. She had been sleeping, no doubt. Damien wondered how effective Tarrant’s Working would be if she were barely awake.

After a minute they could see a figure padding through the house, a lamp in its hand. It came to the door and fumbled with the latch, then opened it. A short chain stretched taut as the door was pulled open a few inches.

“Yes?” It was a man. “What do you want?”

Damien couldn’t find his voice; it was Tarrant who filled in. “We’re looking for Allesha Huyding.”

“What’s it about?” he demanded. “And why can’t it wait until morning?”

Damien was about to risk an answer when a female voice sounded from the back of the house. “What is it, Rick?”

“Two men,” he answered curtly. “I don’t know either of them.”

There was movement in the room behind him now, as someone else approached. “Let me see,” she said softly. She peered over his arm and studied Tarrant, then turned to look at Damien. And gasped.

“Sorry to bother you—” the priest began.

“No bother,” she answered quickly. She nodded to the man. “Let them in.”

“But, Lesh—”

“It’s okay. Let them come in.”

He clearly thought otherwise, but he pushed the door closed for a moment, undid the chain, and then opened it wide. Whatever Tarrant had done to keep her calm and cooperative, it had clearly not worked on him. “Hell of an hour,” he muttered, as they stepped into the small, neat living room. He radiated hostility.

Memories. They rose up about Damien as the lamplight flickered, picking out details of a room that was painfully familiar. Here, on that chair, he had waited to see Ciani. There, in the room beyond, she had lain in a state near death. There, in that place, the demon Karril had started them on a journey more terrible than any could predict....

He forced his awareness back to the present time, and to the matter at hand. Allesha’s new boyfriend was regarding them with the kind of hostility a wolf would exhibit upon finding that another wolf had pissed in its den. He was a thick-set man, heavy with muscle, and Damien suspected that he harbored a violent temper. A dark man, bearded, who was the opposite of Senzei Reese in every way. Again the priest felt a sense of acute mourning for the loss of his friend, and the manner in which this house had been so thoroughly cleansed of his presence.

“My name is Gerald Tarrant,” the Hunter said, focusing his attention on Allesha. “I was a companion of Senzei Reese during his recent travels, as was Reverend Vryce.”

She nodded slightly to Damien. “Yes. I remember you.”

“I’m sorry to bring up what must be painful memories, Mes Huyding, but we have great need of some notes that were in your fiancé’s possession. I was wondering if you could tell us what became of his things.”

“What the hell is this?” her new boyfriend sputtered. “Can’t it wait until morning? Who the hell are you, to show up on our doorstep at this hour and—”

“It’s all right,” she told him. To Damien’s surprise, the words seemed to quiet him. “I don’t mind. You go back to sleep if you want. I’ll be there as soon as we’re finished.”

“I’ll be damned if I’m going to bed while you—”

Tarrant caught his eyes then. And held them. Something passed between them that Damien could sense, an invisible power that soothed, smothered, silenced.

“Yes,” he said quietly. His eyes were half-lidded, as if sleep were already reclaiming him. “I’ll do that.”

They were silent as he turned and left, walking as slowly as if he had never awakened. At last, when he was safely behind the bedroom door and well out of hearing, Allesha said softly, “I’m sorry. He’s protective, that’s all.”

“We understand,” Damien assured her.

“The truth is, I didn’t really know what to do with Zen’s things when he died. He didn’t have any family that I knew of, and as for friends ... he was close to Ciani. You know that. But there weren’t many other people in his life.” She picked up a lamp from a nearby table and lit it with her own; the flickering light picked out warm shadows amidst the furniture. “I kept the things that looked important, notes and such, and a few valuables. They’re upstairs.” She handed the second lamp to Damien and gestured toward the staircase. “This way.”

The two men followed her up into the attic, into a room that brought back painful memories to Damien. There was the rug Senzei had knelt on while they planned their trip to the rakhlands; there was a box of Ciani’s papers he had rescued from the Fae Shoppe fire. The rest was stacked in boxes in a comer of the room, books and notebooks and papers and charms that filled their wooden crates to overflowing. “There’s no order to it, really.” She sounded apologetic. “I didn’t know what to do with it all—”

“You did fine,” Damien assured her.

“I wouldn’t know where to look for anything. I—”

“It’s fine,” Tarrant said. The power behind his words was musical, compelling. “Everything’s fine. Leave us here, and go back to sleep. We’ll lock the house behind us when we go.”

For a moment it seemed as if she might make some protest, but then the fae that Tarrant had conjured took hold at last and she nodded. Wraithlike, silent, she made her way downstairs again.

When she was out of hearing Damien said softly, “That would have bothered me once.”

“And you would have been a pain in the ass about it. Fortunately for us both, you changed.” He knelt down by the nearest pile of crates, running a hand along the rough surfaces. “Can you Locate what we need, or do I have to do this alone?”

“If you tell me what I’m looking for.”

“Any notes he might have made regarding the use of earthquake surges. Or volcanic hotspots, for that matter. Any fae-current too intense for human skill to Work.”

“And you want notes on Working it.”

“Exactly.”

Apparently he didn’t see the contradiction in that statement, and Damien wasn’t in the mood to argue with him. Drawing in a deep breath, he focussed his own attention on the fae, and envisioned the mental patterns that would allow him to control it. When he had impressed it with his need, he went over to the nearest pile of crates and began to search through them, using the fae to stroke each page, each book, searching for a connection.

It took nearly an hour. They had to rearrange the room twice, to gain access to the crates that were buried in the rear. But at last Tarrant stiffened and breathed, “This is it.” And together they managed to unearth the crate in question and free its contents.

“Why don’t we just take it all?” Damien whispered. He felt like an intruder, acutely conscious of the innocent people sleeping just downstairs from them. “We can carry it.”

“I want to make sure we have what we’re looking for.” He was rummaging through a stack of clothbound books—ledgers, from the look of them—and at last he pulled out one that seemed to please him. It was a large volume, leatherbound, that had seen much handling in its life. An inkstain marked its spine and spread across one cover, from some accident long in the past. Tarrant put it down on the floor and set the lamp beside it. As Damien crouched nearby, he began to turn the pages.

It was the scrapbook of a man obsessed, maintained for more than two decades. Newspaper articles were glued to the pages with meticulous care, chronicling every attempt that humankind had made to harness the wild power of the earth. Every sorcerer who had tried to Work the earthquake surge was in there, along with a description of each gruesome demise. Damien would have guessed that few men were stupid enough to attempt such a thing, but apparently there were hundreds. As Tarrant turned page after page, as the volume of human tragedy gained in weight and horror before them, Damien could only wonder at the lunacy of such men, who would give their lives to test themselves against a force that no human will had ever harnessed.

Senzei would have done it,
he thought grimly.
Given enough time, enough frustration, he would have tried the same thing. And he would have died the same way.

“This is it,” Tarrant said at last. “The rest can go back.”

Damien lifted up the nearest crate and hauled it back to where it belonged. “Is it time to tell me what all this is about?”

He could hear Tarrant hesitate. “Not yet. Let me go through this in detail. I need one piece of information, and I’m more likely to find it in here than in any other source. If it’s here, if it says what I think it does ... there’ll be time enough then to discuss things. If not, why waste the effort?”

“I don’t know what you have in mind,” Damien said sharply, “but remember: none of those people survived.
None of them,
Gerald.”

“None of them survived,” he agreed. “But that doesn’t mean that all of them failed, does it?”