When True Night Falls (74 page)

“We need Tarrant,” he whispered hoarsely. Clinging to the name like a lifeline. Tarrant would be immune to the trees’ power—or he would make himself immune, with much the same result. Tarrant would know how to excise the alien tendrils from the girl’s flesh—and perhaps from their own—without killing them in the process. Tarrant would save them, as soon as night fell.

If they lived that long.

Hours passed, without rest or relief. They came to a crevice, earthquake-born, that turned them aside to the east for several miles. And then another, its tributary. The hard rock was brittle and seismic shock had taken its toll in this region; they tried to hold to a southward course, but sometimes it was impossible. Once they skirted a deep chasm whose rim led them directly into the sun; after nearly an hour of staggering toward that blinding disk, Damien’s eyes were watering so badly that he could barely see. Still they kept moving. He didn’t dare ask himself how long they could keep going, or what they hoped to accomplish. They could never reach the rakhlands by nightfall, and it was clear that this land offered no safe refuge. Time and time again they passed tree clusters that were littered with bones, and now that he knew what to look for he could clearly see what had taken place there. One tree, rooted in a human rib cage, rose up like a surgeon’s scalpel just beside the sternum; another had cracked through a pelvis in its quest for further growth. They passed one skeleton that might have been rakhene, but neither he nor Hesseth wanted to stop to examine it. And what if it was, anyway? They knew the two peoples were enemies. Doubtless there had always been madmen of both species willing to brave the Prince’s wasteland in search of vengeance or glory or some other gain. And doubtless they all had expired here, some taken in their dreams their first night in the Wasting, others struggling onward as Damien and Hesseth were now doing, until sheer exhaustion forced them to their knees and the Prince’s creations claimed them at last.

There was no shelter. No hope. If they could make it until nightfall, then Tarrant might be able to help them, but if not ... he didn’t dare think about that. Not now. It sapped his strength, to fear like that.

And then they came over a rise and he heard Hesseth hiss sharply.

“Look,” she whispered. “Look!”

They had been traveling due west for a while, and it was in that direction that she was pointing. The sun had begun to sink and was now directly ahead of them, which made it almost impossible to see; he blinked heavily, as if the moisture of his tears might somehow clear his vision. Black land, ripples and knots and whorls of it ... what had she seen? A mound in the distance, somewhat taller than most, but that was no surprise; the vagaries of the lava flow had produced a number of swells, all of which served as host for at least one tree cluster. Yet it was clearly the mound she was pointing to. He stared numbly at it, trying to understand. At last, with an exaperated hiss, she grabbed him by the wrist and guided him on. The girl’s weight jarred into his spine as he staggered westward, following her lead, wondering at her sudden spurt of energy.

And then they were walking on rock, only it wasn’t basalt any more; it was rough and it was gray and he knew without Knowing it that it was granite, blessed granite—a granite island in the midst of the black lava sea, about which the magmal currents had parted so many eons ago, leaving it high and dry ...
and safe.
Praise God, it was safe! No trees broke through its surface, though there were clusters enough about its boundaries. It stretched for hundreds of yards in each direction, and all those yards were utterly barren. Bereft of bones. Bereft of life.

It was sanctuary.

With a moan he fell to his knees, and he lowered the girl from his shoulder as gently as he could. Pain lanced through his spine as her weight finally left him, the agony of sudden relief. He could feel himself shaking—not quite in fear, not quite in joy, but in some strange admixture of the two that was totally overwhelming. And he succumbed to it. For the first time in long, tortured hours, he embraced the utter abandon of submission. Emotions engulfed him that he had been fighting off since morning; the weakness which he had fought for so long was at last allowed to take hold.

We made it, he thought. His heart was pounding, his body filmed with sweat. Thirst rasped hotly in the back of his throat; with shaking hands he managed to uncap his canteen long enough to take a drink without spilling anything. One precious mouthful, savored cool and sweet on his tongue. In the midst of this black desert he dared drink no more.

He looked out over their granite island, Hesseth’s crumpled body, the girl’s. “We made it,” he whispered. To them. To no one.

Made it ... to what?

“It’s still alive,” the Hunter pronounced.

Damien pressed a hand to his head, as if somehow that could ease the pounding inside it. “Can you help her?” he asked. “Can you do anything?” He could hear the exhaustion in his own voice, knew that his weakness was painfully evident.

Night had come. Tarrant had been late. And Damien and Hesseth had spent a small eternity fighting off the faeborn scavengers that scoured the desert night for food. They were simple creatures, primitive in form, unschooled in demonic wiles and guises—but their simplicity made them no less deadly, and by the time Tarrant had arrived, the granite island was littered with the bodies of the fanged and toothed nightmares that the desert had thrown at them. One for each human who died here, Damien thought grimly. Or maybe more. Spawned by the terror of those whom the desert entrapped, given shape by their dying fears. It would be a slow death, to have one’s flesh consumed by the trees; a man would have time enough to create a legion of monsters.

The Hunter leaned back on his heels and studied the girl. Stripped to the waist, she lay facedown on the bare rock before them, as still and unmoving as the trees themselves. Circular welts pockmarked the region between her scapulae and down to the right of her spine; here and there a white root was visible, pricking out from the swollen flesh.

“It’s alive,” the Hunter mused aloud, “without doubt. And still growing.”

“How far has it gotten?” Hesseth asked.

Tarrant hesitated; his gray eyes narrowed as he focussed his Sight on the girl. “There are tendrils in her lungs, and at least one has pierced the heart. The other major organs seem to be unviolated ... so far.”

“Can you kill it?” Damien asked sharply.

The pale eyes narrowed disdainfully. “I can kill anything,” the Hunter assured him. “But as for removing it from her system ... that would leave wounds I cannot heal.”

“Like an opening in her heart.”

“Precisely.”

Damien shut his eyes and tried to think. His head throbbed painfully. “Then we do it together,” he said at last. He couldn’t imagine himself Working, not in his current state, and the thought of Working in concert with the Hunter was abhorrent to him at any time ... but what other choice was there? The girl couldn’t recover with a root system feeding on her vital organs.

A strange look came into the Neocount’s eyes. “I don’t think that would be wise,” he said quietly.

“Yeah,” Damien agreed. “And it won’t be pleasant, that’s for sure. But I don’t see an alternative. Do you?” His expression dared the Hunter to state the obvious: that by killing the girl here and now they would be saved the necessity of such a trial.

But Tarrant, for once, did not rise to the bait. His lips tightened ever so slightly. A muscle tensed along the line of his jaw. He said nothing.

“Well?”

“I think it would be unwise,” he repeated.

Anger surged up in him, hot and sharp. “Look. I won’t kill her. I won’t leave her behind. And I can’t carry her for another day. That means she has to be healed, right? And if you can’t do it alone and I can’t do it alone, then we have to do it together, right?”

The Hunter turned away. Said nothing.

“Is it the act of Healing? Is that it? Are you afraid—”

“I would be killing a plant,” he said brusquely. “Nothing more. The healing itself would be in your hands.”

“Then what’s the problem? There’s already a channel between us. Are you afraid of using it? Afraid that I might see something inside you so terrible—”

He stopped suddenly. He had seen the Hunter stiffen, and suddenly, with all the force of a thunderbolt, he understood. And the understanding left him speechless.

You’re afraid,
he thought.
Afraid I’ll see something inside you that I shouldn’t. Something you don’t want me to know about.
The concept seemed incredible. They had experienced close contact before, once when the channel between them was first established and then later in the rakhlands, when the Hunter’s soul took control of his. And Tarrant had fed on him for more than five midmonths on board
Golden Glory
, which was as intimate a contact as you could get. So what was he afraid of now? What new element was alive inside that dark and deranged soul that he didn’t want Damien to see?

He looked at the Hunter standing there, so still, so alone, and he thought,
I don’t know this man any more.

“Look,” he said quietly. “You do what you can. I’ll move in and Heal her as soon as you’re finished. If we’re lucky, if we’re fast ...”
Then she won’t bleed to death before I can fix her up,
he thought. “All right?”

The Hunter nodded.

It was a nightmare Healing, and not one he would ever care to repeat. The network of fibers had invaded a good part of her body, and was still growing even as Tarrant focused his power on it. Damien Worked his sight so that he could watch the operation, but otherwise kept a respectful distance. He watched as the Hunter destroyed the network, strangling its life branch by branch, fiber by fiber. Watched as he degraded its substance, so that it might be broken down and absorbed by the fluids of the young girl’s body. Watched as the slender branches dissolved into fluid, leaving pock-marks and scars wherever they had touched her flesh—

And he was Working then, quickly, before her flesh had a chance to react to those wounds. Closing up the wall of her heart where it had been ruptured, repairing the torn tissue in her lungs, sealing and cleansing and forcing cells to replicate themselves with feverish haste, before her fragile life could seep away. It seemed to him in that moment that he had never Healed so fast or so hard in all his experience.

When it was all over—at last—he sat back and drew in a deep breath, shaking. The girl was still asleep, but she seemed to be all right now. Physically, at least. God alone knew if that fragile spirit would respond to his ministrations and find its way back to the flesh that had housed it ... but he had done what he could. The rest was in her hands.

“It would have been a mercy to leave her here,” the Hunter said quietly. “To let her die.”

For once, Damien didn’t respond in anger. Wiping the sweat from his brow with an unsteady hand, he gazed out at the desert before them. Miles upon miles of broken black landscape, that stood between them and their destination. Thousands upon thousands of deadly trees, and who knew how few islands like this one? Maybe a hundred such granite havens. Maybe a handful. Maybe only this one.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “Maybe it would have been.” He looked up at Tarrant. “How far did we get?”

“In miles traveled, a considerable distance. That’s why it took me so long to find you. The distance is a monument to your stamina.”

“More like our desperation,” Hesseth muttered. She had the girl’s head in her lap and was stroking her hair gently, oh so gently. Damien wondered if the child was even aware of it.

“On the other hand,” Tarrant continued, “you hardly kept to a direct route.”

“There were a few minor obstacles—” Damien snapped.

“I wasn’t criticizing. I was merely pointing out that in terms of passage south, you are hardly farther along now than you were when I left you at daybreak. Though considerably farther west.”

Damien lowered his head in exhaustion. For a moment it seemed like the whole of the desert was closing in on him, black and dry and deadly. For a moment he could hardly speak. Then: “All right. We knew it wouldn’t be easy.”

“There’s an understatement,” Hesseth muttered.

“Clearly you can’t travel tonight,” Tarrant observed.

He looked at the girl, at the rakh-woman. Considered his own state, drained and battered. “No,” he muttered. “Not tonight.”

“Which means waiting until dusk tomorrow, if you want me with you. Do you have enough water for that?”

He tried to remember how much they had drunk on that terrible journey, How much they had consumed at the end of it, half dead and not thinking straight. Too much, he thought grimly. “We’ll make it. If there are no more surprises.”

“Do you want to count on that?”

Damien sighed heavily. “You know an alternative?”

“There’s always the river.”