When True Night Falls

by C. S. Friedman

  “But necessary. I wondered how humans and rakh could live together—”

  “And now we know. They don’t.”

  “They do in the Prince’s house,” the girl told them. “Humans and rakh work together there, and even though they don’t like each other everybody behaves. Because the Prince is a human now, but he was rakh one time, so they don’t fight because of him.” Her eyes, previously unfocused with the effort of remembering, fixed on them: first Damien, then Hesseth. “Does that make sense?” she begged. “I think that’s what he said.”

  Damien drew in a deep breath. “Apparently the Prince ... transforms , somehow. It must happen when he becomes young again; he can change his species or gender when he rejuvenates.”

  “That’s a strange kind of sorcery,” Hesseth mused.

  “Not for one who rules in a place like this. Think about it. Is there any other way that a human could have earned the loyalty of a whole rakhene nation? Enough to keep them from tearing out the throats of their human neighbors?”

  She snorted. “Not likely.”

  “My dad said the Prince is getting old now,” Jenseny offered. “He said that means he’s going to have to change soon.”

  “So he does nothing to alter the aging process itself,” Damien mused. “Just one gala transformation at the end of it.”

  “Conserves energy,” Hesseth noted.

  “But it’s risky. Men have died playing that game,”

  “Do other people do things like that?” Jenseny demanded. Damien sighed. When he spoke at last, he chose his words with care. “Lots of people would like to stay young,” he told her. Or stay alive—like Tarrant—at any price. “Some people are skilled enough that they can manage it for a time.” He remembered Ciani, so very youthful at seventy years of age. Could she stay that way forever?

  “Are you going to do that?” the child asked him.

  “No,” he said softly. “No. I’m not.”

  “Why not?”

  He shut his eyes for a moment, trying to come up with the proper words. How did one explain to a child what death was on this world, or what it would mean to his Church when he chose to die at his appointed time? “Because we try not to use the fae just for ourselves,” he said finally. “We only use it when it helps us to serve God.”

  “Like back in the hotel?” she demanded.

  Suddenly he felt very tired. Very old. He pressed her hand tightly in his, wishing that he had some better words to offer. “Yes, Jenseny. Like back at the hotel. I believed that I was serving God by keeping us safe long enough to do His work here. And believe me, if I weren’t convinced that there was some terrible evil here and that only we could fight it ... then I never would have done what I did. Even if it meant that I might get hurt.”

  He didn’t dare look at Hesseth, but kept his eyes fixed on the girl. Despite his best efforts he could imagine the rakh-woman’s expression: taut, disapproving. But much to his surprise she reached out across the table and placed her hand briefly atop his own, a gesture of reassurance if not approval.

  “Your god demands a lot,” she said quietly.

  From somewhere he managed to dredge up a smile. “I never said it was easy.”

  Afternoon watch: the girl and the khrast were asleep, curled up together on one of the cots. A bracing pot of tee, double-strength, hung over the fire. The rain outside was dying down, but the sky was still overcast.

  Damien sat by the fire, nursing a cup of the hot, bitter liquid. The girl’s questions had disturbed him deeply. Not because of what she said, or even how she said it. But the questions she asked struck deep at the root of who and what he was, a foundation already riddled with doubt.

  Have I become too accepting, too complacent? Has the line between good and evil become so blurred in my mind that I no longer worry about where it is?

  Long ago, on a dark grassy plain, the Hunter had told him what effect his presence would have on the priest. For you I’ve become the most subtle creature of all: a civilized evil, genteel and seductive. An evil you endure because you need its service—even though that endurance plucks loose the underpinnings of your morality. An evil that causes you to question the very definitions of your identity, that blurs the line between dark and light until you’re no longer sure which is which, or how the two are divided. Had he done that? Had the Hunter’s unquestioning acceptance of sorcery as a tool desensitized him to its dangers?

  The issue was not one Working, he reminded himself, or even the sorcerous manipulation of another human being for a holy purpose. Every time that a man Worked the fae for his own private benefit it was another nail in humanity’s coffin, a reinforcement of the patterns which were destroying them all. Where did you draw the line? When was survival a personal concern, and when was it service to God?

  Once he had been sure. Now he was far less certain. And it had taken no more than a child’s questioning to break down the barriers he had erected around his soul, forcing him to face his own doubts head-on. Forcing him to address his conscience.

  He put his cup aside, setting it on the thick wooden tabletop. And stared into the flames as if they could provide some answer. Golden fire, hot and clean. How long had it been since he’d felt truly clean? How long had it been since he’d felt sure of himself?

  He closed his eyes slowly and sighed. The fire crackled softly before him.

  Damn you, Tarrant. For everything. But most of all ... for being right.

  “Fact:” Tarrant pronounced. “The Undying Prince appears to be the only figure in this region capable of altering the rakh the way we know they have altered. Fact: It was he who launched the invasion which resulted in the death of Protector Kierstaad, and the subsequent destruction of several villages.” Damien looked up sharply at that, but Tarrant refused to meet his eyes. How many scenes of brutal destruction had he visited when the Hunter left their company to feed in the Protectorates? They had never thought to ask him. Maybe they should have.

  “Clearly,” he continued, “Inasmuch as we have one enemy, the Undying Prince is it.”

  “What about Calesta?” Damien asked him.

  “No doubt the demon is allied to him, and serves his purpose. Which would make any direct assault exceedingly dangerous.”

  “Downright impossible,” Damien reminded him. “That’s what you said before.”

  The Hunter shrugged.

  “What are our options?” Hesseth asked.

  “For a band of four attacking an established monarch? Very limited.” He leaned back in his chair, steepling slender fingers before him. “Assassination is the simplest solution, and it has distinct advantages. But with a Iezu for a bodyguard, he’s not likely to give us an opening.”

  “What else?” Damien demanded.

  “Short of raising an army of our own—and Conjuring our own demonic patronage—we must work with what this country has to offer.”

  “You mean look for someone local who can do the job.”

  “Or help us to do it. Yes.”

  “But if this Iezu is protecting him,” Hesseth pointed out, “surely even a local couldn’t get through.”

  “Ideally, Calesta wouldn’t recognize our agent as an enemy. But I wasn’t even thinking of assassination. The Prince himself is a sorcerer of considerable power, and very probably an adept as well. Such men always incite envy, and they must be prepared for the violence that attends it.”

  It took Damien a minute to realize what he was driving at. “You’re talking about an insurrection.”

  The Hunter nodded. “Just so.”

  “A revolution?” Hesseth’s tone was frankly incredulous. “According to you, this country has been ruled by one man for centuries—”

  “And there are always those who are restless, Mes rakh, and who await only the right opportunity to take the reins of power in their own hands. That’s the human pattern. The more powerful a ruler is, the more likely it is that the seeds of his downfall are already taking root around him. We have only to find
those seeds and nourish them.”

  “If his enemies have been secretive all this time, they’re hardly likely to come out in the open just because we need them.”

  “Any sane man is secretive when he plans to overthrow a sorcerer,” Tarrant said evenly. “And he would remain so despite our best arguments ... unless he had a sorcerer of equal skill for an ally.”

  “You mean you.”

  The Hunter bowed his head in assent.

  “But that still leaves Calesta,” Hesseth reminded them. “Surely once an inusurrection begins he’ll use his power in the Prince’s behalf—and these people will be no more immune to his illusions than you are. So what does that leave us? A whole army doomed to failure, instead of just us.”

  “Precisely.” The Hunter’s silver eyes glittered coldly. “A whole army doomed to failure, instead of us.”

  Damien breathed in sharply. “A decoy.”

  “I prefer to call it a distraction.”

  “So that the Prince and his demons are watching them and not us,” Hesseth mused.

  Damien’s voice was very cold and tightly controlled. “You’re talking about killing these people. Sending them off to a war they can’t win with the promise of your support—and then leaving them to die, while you attack another front.”

  “If they want to free their land of its current ruler,” Tarrant responded coolly, “then this would accomplish it. Many of these men are no doubt prepared to die in order to achieve that. Why should it matter how and when it happens, if in the end their goal is achieved?” When Damien said nothing, he added, “Sometimes war requires a sacrifice.”

  “Yeah,” he muttered. “I know. I still don’t like it.”

  “If we were to do that,” Hesseth asked him, “how would we start? How would we go about finding a group like that?”

  “Ah,” he said softly. “That is the sticking point.”

  “Come on,” Damien snapped. “With one Knowing—”

  “I could interpret the tides of revolution in this land—and also announce our presence to the Prince like a thousand trumpets heralding an army. No, Reverend Vryce. We need to be circumspect in using the fae here. Any fae,” he added, and he looked pointedly at Jenseny.

  The girl didn’t quail as his cold gaze met hers, not in body nor in spirit. For all that the outside world still frightened her, she had come to terms with Tarrant’s particular emanations. In that, Damien thought, she’d done better than most adults could dream of. Better than himself, sometimes.

  “Jen.” Hesseth stroked her hand gently. “Can you tell us anything? Something your father said, maybe, or something he showed you?”

  She hesitated. “Like what?”

  “About people who weren’t happy with the Prince. About places where the Prince might be in trouble.”

  “Do you really expect her to know that?” Tarrant asked sharply.

  “Her father came here because he was the Prince’s enemy,” Damien reminded him. “Whatever other reasons he might have given for the journey, basically he came here to scout out the Prince’s situation—including possible weaknesses.” He reached out and squeezed Jenseny’s shoulder in reassurance. “Since he seems to have told his daughter everything else, why not that?”

  “I think...” she said slowly. The words faded into silence as she struggled to remember. “I think he said there were rakh who weren’t happy.”

  Hesseth exhaled noisily. “I can believe that.”

  “He said it was hard for them, because the Prince was like one of their kind. But also he wasn’t.”

  “Species bonding instinct at war with intellect,” Tarrant observed. Hesseth hissed softly.

  “Do you know any names?” Damien asked softly. “Did he ever talk about anyone in particular?”

  “He saw a rakh city,” Jenseny said. Her eyes were unfocused, as if struggling to see something far, far away. “The Prince took him on a tour. He said that he wanted to impress him with how good everything was. But my dad said that some of it wasn’t good. He said he thought some of the rakh were angry, and they really wanted their own country. But they would never dare say anything.”

  “Names,” Damien urged. “Do you know any names?”

  She bit her lower lip, concentrating. “Tak,” she said at last. “The city was Tak. And there was a guide, a rakh-woman ... Suka, I think her name was. Suka ... there was another part.”

  “We need—” Damien began

  “Shh.” It was Tarrant. “Let her talk.”

  “Suka ... I can’t remember.” Her hand, still covered by Hesseth’s, had balled into a fist with the strain of remembering. “And then there was another. Somebody important.” Damien could feel himself tense as she said that; it took effort not to press her for details, but to wait until she chose to offer them. “He was strong, and really important. The way rakh-men are important, and women aren’t.”

  “Alpha male,” Tarrant provided.

  Hesseth shot him a look that could kill. “Prime male,” she corrected him. Insisting on the title that her own people used, instead of the one that humans had created for studying animal behavior. And she was right, Damien mused. A people capable of overriding their inherited instincts deserved something better than a term used to describe dogs and horses.

  “I think ... his name was Kata something. Katas ... Katassah.” Her hands unclenched as the memory came to her at last. “That was it. Katassah.”

  “A prime male,” Damien said softly.

  “Which means that the others will obey him.”

  “Which means that the others might,” Hesseth corrected.

  “Tell us about this Katassah,” Damien urged.

  The girl hesitated. “My dad said that he was tall and strong and he liked to fight. All the rakh-men like to fight.”

  “Assst!” Hesseth hissed. “Tell me about it.”

  “He acted like he liked the Prince, and maybe he really did, but my dad didn’t think so. He didn’t think any of the rakh really liked the Prince. He said that if there was a chance for the Prince to be overthrown, some rakh might go for it.”

  “Including this Katassah?”

  “I think so,” she said. “But he wasn’t really sure. It was something he said he just sensed, but he couldn’t talk about it with anyone. Just a guess.”

  There was silence about the small table. A sharp silence, heavy-laden with thought. At last it was Hesseth who spoke what they all were thinking.

  “Dealing with the rakh,” she said quietly, “means crossing the Wasting.”

  “Yeah,” Damien muttered. It was not a concept he relished.

  “Are we so sure they’d be willing to ally with us?” Tarrant challenged. “A rakhene warrior who’s dedicated himself to the overthrow of a human master is hardly going to welcome allies from that species.”

  Damien looked at Hesseth, who reminded him, “I’m not human.”

  “What I meant—”

  “You forget why I’m here,” she said evenly. Her voice was calm, but her eyes glittered darkly with remembered hatred. “This man—this Prince—is transforming my people into demons. Worse: he’s transforming them into monsters who think they’re demons, who hunt and feed like the lowest of the faeborn, even to the extent of surrendering their lives to the sun.” She looked at Jenseny. “Did these rakh go out in the sun? Did your father say?”

  For a minute the girl was silent. “He said they don’t like the sun,” she said at last. “But I don’t think it hurts them. Not a lot.”

  Hesseth hissed. “So. What was finished in the west is only half-begun here. Maybe it’s harder to alter a nation of a hundred thousand than it is a tribe of several dozen. Or maybe the woman who ruled there was more determined to make the transformation complete. Either way ... what we saw there was a sign of things to come for these people. Why else would they be turning into ... what Jenseny saw?” She turned to Tarrant, amber eyes flashing in the firelight. “Do you think there is a rakh who wouldn’t join us, once h
e understood that? Do you think any rakh would continue to serve the Prince once they saw where his power was leading?”

  “I think there are always men who will serve a tyrant,” Tarrant said dryly, “and your species is no exception. But the point is well taken.”

  Silence fell once more, amid the golden flickering of flames. Amid thoughts of the Wasting, and its ruthless monarch.

  “I don’t see an alternative,” Damien said at last. “Does anyone else?”

  Hesseth looked pointedly at Tarrant. The tall man nodded slowly, his expression grim. “No,” he said. “There’s no other way that presents itself here.” His tone was strange, but Damien chalked that up to the subject matter. Starting a war was no small thing.

  “All right,” Damien said. “But I want this understood. We’ll go to the rakh cities, we’ll find this Katassah, and we’ll see if he wants to work with us. Agreed? And then we’ll discuss what our options are. But I’m not agreeing to use him as a sacrificial cover. Ever. If we ally with him, then we ally. Period. All cards on the table.” He glared at Tarrant. “Understood?”

  The adept’s voice was quiet, but his eyes were burning frost. “You would doom us all for the sake of some abstract morality.”

  “Maybe. We’ll see. In the meantime, those are the conditions.” When Tarrant did not respond, again he pressed, “Well? Agreed?”

  “Your quest,” the Neocount said quietly. Very quietly. It was hard to say just where in his words the disdain was so evident, but it was. In his tone, perhaps. Or maybe in his expression. “You call the shots.”

  “Fine. That’s it, then. On those terms.” He glanced out the window, at the darkness beyond. “We’ll wait another day to let the ground dry out a bit; if the weather stays this cold, that could make a big difference. I imagine in the Wasting it’ll be even harder, with no real shelter—”

  “And we don’t know what traps that place will contain,” Tarrant reminded him. “I don’t imagine black land and ghostly trees will be the whole of it.”

  “No.” A chill ran up Damien’s spine, just thinking of the place. “But we have my experience and Hesseth’s senses, not to mention your own considerable power.”