Nineteen

The color of pain was red. A raw, ugly red, that stank like rotting meat and oozed inward through his pores until he was filled with it. A red that flayed his nerves alive and then scraped along their surfaces, arousing pain beyond that which any living body could endure. A pain so total that it stripped him of his humanity, it bled him of all intelligence, it left him no more than a core of terror and agony in a universe gone mad, in which waves of pain were the only marker of time.

And then, in that madness: a human hand, grasping his. The touch was like fire, but Damien gripped it desperately, allowing the contact to define him. Fingers. Palm. Soul. It became the focus of his universe, the single point about which worlds revolved, the core of his private galaxy. Fire blazed along his arm as his muscles split from the strain, bloody strips curling back upon themselves, laying the moist bones beneath bare and vulnerable. Skin, he needed skin, nature's own armor: he fixed his mind upon that one need until it seemed to him that his muscles were no longer bare, clothing them with the power of his imagination. It was instinct that drove him rather than knowledge, but the instinct seemed true and he clung to it desperately, unwilling to sink back into formless agony again.

Arm: define it, feel it, believe in it. Shoulder. Chest. Fire lanced across his torso like whip strokes, and in those seconds when his concentration wavered he could feel his newly imagined skin peeling from his body in heat-blackened strips, edges charred to a glowing ash ... the hand that held his gripped him tighter

as he fought to regain consciousness of self, and another clasped his shoulder. Good. That made for two points of contact in a universe of burning blood. Two points defined a line. Three points defined a plane. Four points defined a solid.. ..

And then the redness was gone and he was on his knees, choking on air that reeked of sulfur and burning meat. The hands that held him helped him to his feet, and he accepted their aid with gratitude. The ground was so hot that already his breeches had begun to smoke, and the stink of burning wool added new strength to the noxious melange surrounding him.

"What was that?" he whispered. He didn't expect an answer, so much as he needed to test his voice. To his surprise the words indeed sounded, though he distinctly remembered his vocal cords having burned to bloody ribbons at least twice.

"Did you think the transition would be easy?" a voice from behind him asked. The hands that were gripping him released him, and a wave of panic nearly overcame him at the sudden loss of contact. There was no doubt in his mind that without Karril's touch he would have been lost in that pain forever. A numbing fear grew in him, that perhaps he had indeed taken on more than he could handle this time. If that was just the gateway to Hell, what lay beyond?

And then he grew aware of the voice that had spoken. Not Kami's, nor anything like it. A more musical voice, higher-pitched, that was painfully but indefinably familiar. He turned around suddenly, so focused on the source of that voice that he hardly saw the surreal landscape surrounding it.

It was Rasya. No, not Rasya exactly. It was a woman of Rasya's height and coloring and general form: sunbaked bronze skin, short-cropped platinum hair, long, lean limbs with capable muscles playing visibly beneath. But the face was different, and the clothing also, and this woman's eyes were so like Kami's that he shivered to see them set in a body so like that of his lost lover.

"Why?" he gasped. The stink of sulfur was stronger

now, and it was getting difficult to breathe. It was hard to say whether anger or mourning played louder in his voice as he demanded, "Why, Karril?"

"My life is on the line here, too," he said. She said. "And I can't change form in this place, any more than you can. I needed a body that would be strong, enduring, and versatile. Given your orientation, it had to be female. Given your memories. . . ." The woman shrugged stiffly. "I'm sorry. I didn't catch the mourning until it was too late. I meant no disrespect."

He shut his eyes for a moment, painfully aware of the heat that was baking through his boot soles. "Do you expect some kind of response from me?" he whispered hoarsely. "Is that what this is about?"

"If I required that to survive, would you be so quick to deny me?" She reached forward and took Damien's hand again, in a grip more reassuring than affectionate. "Like you, I try to keep all options open." She pulled his hand, gently but firmly, forcing him to move. "Come on. Time matters."

He forced himself to look away from her, toward the bizarre landscape that surrounded them. The land all about was black and glassy, and it smoked with a heat that made the very air shimmer. Overhead a sun blazed, not the wholesome white star of Erna but a bloated yellow shape that "sent streamers of flame down almost to the landscape, sparking explosions which in turn sent gouts of lava spouting into the air. The sky surrounding it was as dark as night, as were the shadows its harsh light etched upon the landscape. Beneath his feet the ground seemed to tremble, and as he watched, it cracked not ten feet to the right of him, revealing a glowing red subsurface.

"Damn," he breathed.

"What?"

"Too vulking realistic for my taste." He glanced toward the demon, then quickly away. "Which way's out?"

"Out's the way we came. Which route I will gladly point out to you, whenever you've had enough. As for what we came here to do ..." She looked out over the

landscape, and at last indicated a direction. Thank God, it was away from the crack. "That way, I think."

"You think?"

"This isn't my realm," Karril said testily. "I wonder if it would even exist without your Church doing constant publicity for it. Come on."

He needed no urging to move, and he moved quickly. He had been in a place like this once and had almost gotten killed, and that was just on its border. How much of the black rock beneath them was solid, and how much was a paper-thin shell hiding rivers of molten lava beneath? Any one footstep might prove the difference. And if the similarity between this place and the real world was unnerving, the discrepancy was downright terrifying. In the real world, if the shell lava cracked beneath your feet, you fell and you cooked and you died. But here, in this unearthly place, where death was a threshold more distant with every step ... could one burn forever? Choking on molten rock, drowning in it, as the flesh was seared from one's bones over and over again? It wasn't a theory he was anxious to test.

"What about Tarrant?"

"You mean, is he still here?" The Rasya-thing glanced at him. "If he were, there'd be no trail."

He looked out over the landscape ahead of them, squinting against the sickening yellow light. "I don't see a damned thing."

"Then it's lucky I came along, isn't it?" She nodded ahead and toward the right, to an area pockmarked by pools of glowing lava. "That way."

He followed her more by touch than by sight, across a landscape where any step might be his last. The ground split as they passed, but though his heart lurched with every new fissure it was only to vent clouds of burning ash and noxious gas, to fill the air with poison. It clogged his lungs as he breathed it in and set off a spasm of coughing so violent that he feared the vibrations of his body might do more damage to the ground beneath them than the weight of his footsteps. He tried not to remember the time in the

westlands when he had almost gotten killed, traversing a lava field all too much like this one.

... ground giving way beneath his feet with a sudden crack and he throws himself sideways as the rock beneath his feet shatters, fragments raining down into a heat so terrible that the hairs on his head sizzle and curl as he grasps at a nearby protrusion ... rock so hot that he can feel the palms of his skin burning, but if he lets go more than that will burn, and he pulls himself across rock no more solid than that which just failed him, praying that the vagaries of Luck will protect him one moment longer....

"Don't," Karril whispered hoarsely. "Stop."

Her hand had released his. Her face was white.

He stared at her in amazement, as it hit home just what he had done. Her life is dependent on my state of mind, he thought. Awed-and also frightened-by the concept. Must he not only endure the rigors of Tarrant's Hell, but do so without undue suffering? He didn't know if he could manage that. Suddenly it hit home just what Karril had risked by coming here. And what depth of friendship there must be between Tarrant and the Iezu-however well-disguised-to inspire such a journey.

A geyser of flame spurted suddenly behind them. They sprinted forward across the black rock, but not fast enough to escape its downpour. Molten drops rained across the landscape, and where they struck Damien, a blinding pain stabbed into him; it took all his strength to keep running even as his flesh burned, the stink of woolen ash mixed with smoking meat as he choked on the fumes of his own destruction. Then one foot came down too hard, or else the ground was especially weak; he felt the rock giving way beneath him and threw himself forward in utter desperation, praying for solid rock ahead of him. In that instant of utter panic he thought he had lost Karril forever, but the demon had chosen his form well; the light, lithe body that so mimicked Rasya's was still by his side as the rock gave way behind him, freeing a blast of heat so violent that it almost knocked him down.

"This way," she said. Urging him onward.

Gasping, he struggled to follow her. The soles of his feet felt as if they were on fire; the leather which hardly protected them had begun to smoke, promising even greater pain in the future. / was a fool to come here! he despaired. What had he hoped to accomplish? Tarrant, you'd better be worth this! Then a fit of coughing overcame him and he staggered forward blindly, guided only by her hand.

"A little late now," she said dryly. As if he had spoken aloud.

The ground was giving way all around them now, and more and more often they were forced to break into a run despite the risk, to keep themselves from falling with it. This is Tarrant's true Hell. Damien thought, unbridled fear. What more fitting torment could there be for such a man, who had made fear into an elixir of immortality, and turned the whole world into his hunting ground? Then another sulfurous cloud enveloped him and he fell to the ground, choking; his hands and back were seared by the hot rock like meat on a grill.

"Come on." Strong arms were gripping him, fighting to raise him up. "There's a cool spot ahead, I think."

Yeah, he thought dully, an oasis in Hell. I believe that. But even that weak fantasy was enough to give him focus, and he struggled to his feet again. The clouds of ash were so thick about them that he could hardly see, but the sound of rock splitting just behind them was warning enough to keep him moving. He followed Karril blindly, clasping her hand in a grip that was sticky with blood, and prayed that the demon's sight was better than his own.

And then, incredibly, the heat did abate somewhat. The ground felt more solid beneath his feet. (That could have been because the nerves in his feet had been seared to numbness, he told himself, but then again, it could be real.) He took the opportunity to stop and bend over, gasping for breath in the sulfurous air. Since Karril didn't urge him to keep moving, he assumed that they were safe. For the moment.

When at last burning tears had cleared his eyes of dust, and his shaking muscles had loosened enough to let him stand upright, he looked back at the way they had just come and shuddered. Bright streamers of lava had broken through the ground in so many places that he could hardly trace their path; red fountains of molten rock spewed up like geysers where they had only recently been running. He had been near volcanoes in his life-too near, on occasion-but he had never gone through any realm like this. No living man could, he realized. Only in a place where life and death were meaningless could man traverse such a hell.

"Please," he gasped. "Tell me we don't have to go back that way."

"No need to worry," the demon assured him. "Personally, I think the odds are very slim of us going back at all-He glared at the demon and opened his mouth to voice a nasty response to his wisecrack, but when he saw what the Rasya-body looked like the words died in his throat. Karril was paler than the real Rasya had ever been, and his (her?) skin was an ashen gray. There was fear in the demon's eyes now, and exhaustion so human that for a moment Damien thought that it, too, was just part of the masquerade.

My pain is draining him, he realized. Sickened by the thought. Can I kill him, just by suffering?

There was a sudden crack beside them; instinctively he grabbed Karril by the arm and jerked her away from it, breaking into a run as soon as he was sure that the demon wouldn't lose her balance. The seemingly solid rock they had been standing on collapsed into a swirling orange river beneath; a gust of heat slammed into them with hurricane force, flames licking at their backs.

Another island of cool rock beckoned, and they stopped there just long enough for Damien to catch his breath. His muscles ached as though he had been running for days, and his parched throat struggled to draw in enough air to support him. He raised a hand to his forehead to wipe away the sweat that was streaming

into his eyes, and to his surprise found that it was whole, unbloodied. Uncooked. Was he healing even as he ran? For a moment it seemed impossible ... and then, with a chill, he recognize the pattern. Yes, his flesh would heal itself, just fast enough to allow it to suffer more. Like the Hunter's own flesh had done when the enemy trapped him in fire, forcing him to regenerate just fast enough to burn anew. To burn eternally.

Had those eight days in the rakhlands been so traumatic that they had etched their way into Tarrant's soul, carving out a niche in his private Hell in which the fire would always burn him? Or did the nightmare already exist within him, and Calesta merely tapped into it when he bound Tarrant within the flames? Either way, it was a terrifying concept. How could a man experience such a thing, and not lose his sanity altogether?

Whoever said he was sane?

"Look." Karril pointed into the distance. "Something's changing."

Despite the harsh light-or perhaps because of it-he found it hard to make out anything in that direction. Nevertheless, it seemed to him that there was a difference. After a moment he realized what it was. No lava spurted from the region ahead of them. No clouds of choking ash arose from the landscape. Try as he might, he could see no bright red rivers coursing across the terrain where Karril pointed.

For some reason, that scared him more than everything which had come before. He started to speak, to try to voice his misgiving, but then a gust of noxious gas filled his throat and his nose, setting off a new round of coughing; his stomach heaved as if somehow that could cleanse the delicate membranes. Behind them the rock was giving way again in long, thin sections, bright lava eating away at the shelf they stood upon, inch by inch, whittling down their haven. Soon nothing would be left to stand upon. There was no alternative but to run, and nowhere to run but to that still region up ahead ... and it scared him.

"Vryce?"

"Is that the right way?" he gasped. To his relief Karril nodded. What would he have done if it weren't? Dived into the lava stream, and swum through the boiling currents to their destination? It didn't bear thinking about.

They sprinted forward, just in time. With a roar like thunder, the very ground they were standing on shattered like glass and collapsed into the current beneath; fire lapped at their heels as they ran for the refuge which seemed to beckon, just ahead. The whole land was in flux now, and Damien could feel the ground trembling beneath his feet as it buckled in waves, sending red fountains spouting into the air on all sides of them. Molten droplets gouged his flesh as he struggled to keep on his feet. It seemed impossible that he could keep moving, but he did. Somehow.

Falter now, priest, and you 'II be stuck here forever.

Finally they came to a place where the ground was still steady, and Damien paused for a brief instant to catch his breath. Ahead of them the black rock had crumbled and fallen, providing a sloping path down to the region beyond. Despite his misgivings, Damien began to scramble down the precarious slope, scoring his flesh on the razor-sharp rocks that lined it. Was there pain ahead? More fear? Anything was better than the glowing rivers and burning rain that were closing in behind them. Wasn't it?

At the bottom of the slope he paused, and lay back upon the harsh gravel, trying to catch his breath. But his lungs, constricted by cloud-borne poisons, would not relax enough to draw in air. For a moment he debated the relative risk of trying to Heal himself, and at last decided he had nothing to lose by trying. He took hold of the current with his mind and began to weave it, drawing together the wild power into a Workable whole-

Or he tried to. But there was no fae here, or perhaps just no way to Work it. Earth, he thought, looking up at the swollen yellow star that shone down on them, recognizing it at last. Earth was his passion, and also

his nightmare. He remembered the Hunter sharing his dreams of Earth with Damien to make him afraid, and there was no denying their power. Had the Prophet feared the very world he idolized, and mourned the concept of a world without sorcery even as he worked to bring it into being?

"Look," Karril whispered.

He got to his feet quickly, prepared for some new assault. But the rock beneath his wounded feet was steady, and the air down on this plain was almost breathable. He looked in the distance, following Kami's own gaze, and saw what looked like the ground moving up ahead. No, not the ground, but something on top of it that shifted and writhed like a living blanket. It was lighter than the ground itself, a sickly yellowish color that might, in a gentler light, have looked like flesh. Human flesh, discolored by the unrelenting sun.

Filled witii misgivings, he nonetheless started forward toward it. If the path leads that way, we have no alternative. He disciplined his mind by recounting all the various ways he would make Tarrant pay for forcing him to come here, and thus managed to keep his fear under tight rein. But as he drew closer, as he saw the strange realm for what it was, that strategy failed him utterly.

It was bodies. Human bodies, stretching ahead to the horizon and beyond. Women's bodies, strewn across the landscape like discarded refuse, gathered together in such numbers that in places they were stacked in mounds, like heaps of living garbage. As he watched, they twitched and shivered, and their combined motion gave the illusion of waves passing across the surface. He saw thin limbs, pale skin, fingers that clutched at air and then withdrew again, burrowing deep down into the flesh-blanket that seemed to cover the whole planet like crabs seeking shelter.

"What is it?" he whispered.

Karril breathed in sharply, for once without a pat rejoinder. "Damned if I know."

With a wrenching sensation in his gut he realized

that the living blanket was parting, ever so slowly. Limbs contracted to draw the nearer bodies out of their path; their motion was crablike and horrible, not at all human. What is this place? he thought desperately. A narrow path was forming, flanked by twitching limbs. It was just wide enough for them to walk single file, if they watched where they were going. Just narrow enough to make him feel sick at the thought of such a passage.

But ...

That was the path, without question; he didn't need Karril to tell him that. Tarrant's own fear had marked it for them. How many miles did this horror stretch onward, glazed eyes staring out of undead faces as spider-fingers struggled to clear the way? His stomach churned at the thought that one wrong step might put him in contact with those gruesomely contorted bodies, but a hissing behind him, like steam off approaching lava, warned him that to stay where he was might prove an even worse alternative.

There's no other choice, he told himself grimly. Not unless we want to go back the way we came. And that was out of the question.

"All right," he muttered. "Let's do it."

He went first, moving toward the narrow path the bodies had made for them. On both sides the mounds of flesh still twitched and writhed, and periodically a leg or a hand would be flung across their path, a gruesome reminder that their new-made road might disappear as quickly as it had begun. The thought made hot bile rise in his throat, but still he forced himself forward. There's no other way, he told himself, repeating the words over and over again, a mantra of endurance. Behind him he could hear the hiss of lava as it flowed down the rocky slope and'enveloped the nearest bodies, and the stink of burnt flesh filled the air like a choking perfume. He could see details of the bodies now, faces and breasts and buttocks made waxen and distorted by death, undead eyes gazing out of hollowed sockets as if facing some unseen horror. The movements of their limbs were not random, he could see

now, but each body twitched as if running, or striving to run, while the weight of all its neighbors trapped it in place and turned the motion into a mockery of flight.

His foot landed close to the head of one, then by the clutching hand of another. It took almost balletic skill to avoid coming in contact with them, a trial his burned and aching body was no longer up to. It seemed to him that every step must surely be his last, and only the sheer horror of the bodies surrounding him gave him the strength to keep going. Karril followed silently behind him, wrapped in her own Iezu thoughts. Were these unalive creatures human enough to disturb her? Did they give off waves of pain of their own, or some other, more virulent suffering? He glanced back now and then to check on the demon, but though Kami's expression was grim her short nod told Damien that all was well with her. For the moment.

And then he stopped and stared, as one human fragment among many caught his eye. A dark arm atop the paler ones. Thick hair, as black as night. Eyes that he knew, staring into the sky like eyes of the dead even as the dark limbs twitched in a mockery of life.

"Sisa," he whispered.

He heard the Iezu curse softly as she, too, realized who this body belonged to. Tarrant's latest victim, strewn atop this lake of human remains like so much garbage. How many others here were his victims, or at least vivid simulacra of the same? He looked out upon the acres and acres of twitching flesh and shuddered. They were all women, and from what he could see they were all within a narrow age range. Mostly pale, as befit the Hunter's taste in victims. Doubtless attractive during their lives, although now that quality made them seem doubly gruesome.

Then: "Move!" the demon hissed from behind him, and he did so without thought, trusting Kami's warning. Fingers scratched his ankle as he moved just beyond the reach of something, and for a moment a wave of fear surged through his blood with such force that his limbs bound up like a frozen motor. Frightened, he struggled to keep moving. From behind him the demon

hissed sharply as if in pain, but when he stopped to turn around, a hand shoved him from behind as if to say, I'm fine! Keep going! Glancing down at the ground before his feet, trying to locate the safest ground, he saw with horror that human limbs were closing in on the path from both sides. Arms grasped at him as he lurched past, some closing on air behind him, some coming close enough to scrape his boots. For some reason that sight made him more afraid than all of Tarrant's lava hell combined, and he broke into a run. Forcing his way past the grasping arms, whose fingers sent waves of terror coursing through his soul whenever they made contact. Where was the end of this path? he thought desperately. How many bodies were there? He found it impossible to believe that so many women could have fallen victim to one man's hunger, but what did he really know about the Hunter? How many numberless atrocities had the man indulged in, in the years before his semi-retirement in the Forest?

And then one of the arms grabbed his ankle and held it. His own weight sent him plunging forward and down, into the hands and the arms and the legs that were waiting for him, and-

-running. Tree branches spreading across the path like spider silk, dark webs catching her as she runs, she struggles, she convulses madly, desperately, as the black thing that has chased her for three days and nights closes in-

-running while the ground comes alive, crawly things oozing out of the very pores of the earth to trip at her ankles, sending her facedown into a bed of hungry worms-

-running from the thing that has chased her for days, manlike but demon-strong, whose hunger licks at her flesh as she stumbles, as she feels sharp talons piercing her skin, setting hot blood to flow free-

Strong hands took hold of his hair and his collar and yanked upward; it was the pain more than anything which made the visions scatter, allowing him one precious instant in which he could gasp for breath. The

hands about his ankles shifted grip, and the visions began to close in once more-but the demon dragged him forward, hard enough and fast enough for them to be thrown lose. Left behind.

Shuddering, he gasped, "Tarrant's victims-" "I know," Karril said grimly. "Keep moving!" He knew in that moment, as he struggled to his feet once more, that the demon had experienced those awful visions through him. And he knew with dread certainty that if he should fall again, if those bodies should overwhelm him, the demon would be trapped alongside him in an endless hell of suffering, reliving the last moments of each of the Hunter's victims over and over and over again....

He ran. Fast enough that the hands couldn't take hold of him, or so he prayed. Hard enough that any which did would be shaken loose by his momentum, before the memories they stored within their flesh could take hold. One arm lashed out across the path and he landed on it, crushing its dead flesh into the rock ground beneath; a spear of memory burned up through his leg and he felt cold teeth bite into his throat, the hot wound of despair as his lifeblood gushed out. It took everything he had not to stumble, but terror lent him a strength that cold logic could never have inspired, and he managed to stay on his feet. There were moans all about him now, and while some were echoes of pain and fear, others seemed to be sounds of hunger. Were the bodies aware of him? Did they think he was Tarrant? Ahead of him the path was closing up now, and he realized in horror that to get beyond this region he was going to have to wade through a sea of bodies, each of which had the power to send him spiraling down into unending nightmare. Panic assailed him, and he glanced back over his shoulder-stumbling as he did so-to assess the odds of retreat. There were none. The path in the distance was already gone, and as they ran forward, a wave of flesh came at them from behind, threatening to submerge them utterly. And then he reached the wall of limbs and he surged

into it, knowing even as he did so that no human velocity could possibly overwhelm such an obstacle, that a realm which had been designed to overwhelm the great Gerald Tarrant could easily overcome a mere human like himself-

-running/falling/fearing into darkness darkness, running DESPAIR! and the great bird closes in, talons red, feathers white-and the man with eyes of blue flame- and the wolves/spiders/snakes/ shadows/HUNTER!-

A hand grasped hold of his shoulder; he felt it distantly, like a thing from another world, as the terror of the Hunter's victims reverberated through his flesh, drawing strength and solidity in each new second.

-face like a ghost and hunger a palpable force that licks at her with an icy tongue-

He struggled to surface and failed. Struggled to define himself, to divide himself from the tsunami of pain and fear that surged through his brain, but the memories were too strong, too compelling ... too many. He was drowning in terror.

-face of a monster-

Another hand grasped him, held him tightly.

-face of a god, too dark and terrible to behold. She lies transfixed as he bends down over her, her heart pounding like a frightened animal's ... and then, suddenly, there is something besides fear in her. A rising heat, sharp and shameful, that makes her stretch back her throat as his shadow embraces her, baring it for the kill-

-secret, shameful thrill-

-power all around her, throbbing like a living thing, HIS power-

-raw and terrible and magnificent-

-ecstasy as flesh is to,rn from her bone, one last glorious moment in which she shares his pleasure and is willing to die for this terrible embrace-

With a gasp he surfaced long enough to see Rasya's face just above his own, expression drawn and strained as if by some private agony. "Can you move?" it whispered. A dead hand grasped at his thigh as he nodded,

and it sent him plummeting down into nightmare once more. But they were no longer cold dreams of horror and despair; this was a hot sea he sank into, fear transmuted into desire, horror made into beauty, resistance giving way to a blissful acquiescence. He could sense the real terror behind it, masked by Kami's hedonistic illusions, but its edge had been blunted. Just enough, he thought, to give him a fighting chance.

Panting, he struggled to his feet. His groin was painfully swollen, and when an undead hand brushed against it from beneath he cried out, waves of pain and pleasure radiating out from that point in stunning, shameful confusion. He held onto Kami's arm and let the demon guide him, accepting the transformed memories as they washed over him like a wave. Once, for a brief instant, his sight of the real world grew clear enough that he could study the land ahead of them, searching for some end to this trial. But the ground was covered in flesh as far as he could see, bodies piling upon bodies in all the directions he might choose to turn. There was no end to this, he realized. Already it seemed like he had been here forever. Each memory that took hold of him seemed to last forever, and the journey yet to come-

With a strangled cry he acknowledged an even greater danger facing him, and as the next memory dragged him down into the past he fought the time-numbing power of its imagery, and struggled to regain some kind of temporal framework. At last he was reduced to counting seconds in his brain even as he ran, on remembered legs, through the Hunter's Forest. Time and time again, in the dreams of the Hunter's victims, he ran and suffered and desired and died-and all the while the counting ticked in his skull like some vast spring-wound clock, marking the parameters of his body's survival. One minute. Two. Ten. An hour ...

It'll never end, he thought grimly, unless I make it end. He struggled to win free of the nightmares that assaulted him long enough to get a good, hard look at his situation. If he had managed to gain any forward ground thus far, it wasn't visible. There was still no

end in sight. And Karril, whose bizarre ministrations had allowed him to cling to sanity, was clearly weakening from the strain of such sustained effort.

With the kind of courage that only sheer desperation could muster, he drew himself upright and raised up his fist against the black sky. "Damn you!" he screamed, in a voice so hoarse it hardly sounded human. "You know we're here! You know why we're here! Why play these games?" A cold hand closed around his ankle and he began to sink into memories once more; he struggled to cling to consciousness long enough to voice the challenge that his heart was screaming. "Are you afraid?" he demanded. "Afraid of one man and a Iezu? Afraid that if we get through this nightmare, we'll lay waste to all your plans?"

"Don't," Karril whispered fiercely. "You don't know what they'll do-"

But I know what'II happen if they don't do anything, he thought grimly, as the horrific images began to flood his brain anew. Already the black sky was fading, and his image of the swollen sun, and the bodies on the ground were giving way to night-black, Forest-spawned underbrush-

And then there was a rumbling beneath his feet, so like that of a volcano's flank that he nearly turned back to see if some new eruption had followed them here. But Karril was clutching him too tightly for him to turn. Another quake shook the ground, and it seemed to him that the bodies before him were beginning to withdraw, clearing the way ahead. The one that grasped his leg let loose, and he felt an almost unbearable relief when, for the first time in hours, his mind was wholly his own.

"Karril-" he began.

"You're suicidal, you know that?" Amazed and exasperated, the demon shook her head. "How on Erna did you manage to survive this long?"

The ground split before them with a roar, and a vast, black chasm opened just before their feet. The bodies on its edges spilled down into the guts of the earth, still twitching their death-dance as they fell. It seemed to

Damien that the bodies moaned as they fell, or perhaps some hellish wind that scoured the chasm's depths merely mimicked the sound. Instinctively he stepped back, but the demon would not permit him to retreat.

"You summoned it," she growled. "You deal with it."

Something in the chasm's blackness made his stomach clench in terror, but he knew in his heart that Karril was right. Tarrant's captors were clearly aware of their journey here-as he had guessed-and they had answered his challenge. It was too late to undo that. All he could accomplish now, by refusing their invitation, was to anger them enough that they closed the way out of here forever.

He walked slowly to the edge of the chasm and gazed down into it. Though his human eyes could make out no details in the blackness, other senses picked out motion within the lightless depths, of things that slithered and flew and ... waited. A sickening reek rose up to his nostrils, all too like the one that had been in Tarrant's apartment. He had barely been able to tolerate that assault; how well would he handle this, its hellish source? As he stared down into the abyss, he suddenly wasn't sure.

Well, you should have thought of that before you came here, priest. It's too late now.

The lip of the chasm near his feet wasn't a sheer drop, as elsewhere, but an angled and rocky slope. Clearly it was the only way down, short of jumping. With a last glance at Karril and a pounding in his heart, Damien slipped free of the demon's grasp and began the precarious descent. Into the black, rent earth. Into a darkness so total that despite the light from above, sharp yellow shafts making the lips of the chasm glow as if they were burning, he couldn't make out the shape of his own hand in front of his face, much less any detail of his surroundings.

Then the darkness closed in overhead, and all sight of the world above was gone. He breathed in deeply, trying not to give way to the claustrophobia that suddenly gripped his heart. At last, when he felt capable

of moving again, he began to work his way down the slope by feel alone. When the path seemed to dissolve beneath his hands, he fought hard not to panic, and waited it out. The blackness surrounding him was close and thick and evil-smelling, but his sense of impending danger had become so great that those things took a back seat in his consciousness. As did the pain of his many wounds, now burning anew as the darkness rubbed against them.

"Karril?" he whispered. "You with me?"

"Unfortunately." He felt the demon brush against him and reached out to take her hand; from the strength of her returning grip he judged that she wasn't any happier about this place than he was. He was suddenly glad that she had come here in a female form. It didn't matter worth a damn in reality-a demon was a demon-but he would have felt like an idiot squeezing hands with a man in this darkness, even knowing the truth. Thank God for Kami's insight.

Something brushed against his leg-and a wave of loathing rose up in his gut, clogged his throat, made his brain fill with images of hatred and destruction. An instant later it was gone. What-? Then another thing slithered against his back, and for an instant he was consumed by such jealous rage that all conscious thought gave way before it. That, too, passed quickly, fading into the darkness that surrounded as soon as its messenger lost contact with them.

"Hate-wraiths," Karril whispered. "Rage-wraiths. And more. Every species of evil that man has ever produced is here, given independent life by the force of the planet. Congregating in this one place, like drawn to like, until their sheer mass gave them a kind of consciousness no lone demon could ever enjoy." Damien could sense her eyes fixed on him; could her Iezu senses function in this darkness? "That's your Unnamed, priest. Erna's great devil. Like everything else, a creation of your own species." Damien could feel her twisting, as if to look about them. "And a damn lousy host, besides."

He was about to respond when a voice whispered,

See. Others echoed it, fragments of speech that entered his skull not through his ears, as human speech might, but through his very skin. Whispers that etched their way into his brain matter without ever making a real sound.

See

Intruders!

No place

Go

Go

See

Invasion!

Strike out

Destroy

And then a deeper voice, more resonant, that seemed to contain a thousand others: See what it is you came to see, priest. Know your own helplessness.

A figure some ten yards distant from Damien was made visible, but not by any natural light. Eerie phosphorescence illuminated the form of a man hanging as if bound to some frame, but gave no view of his supporting device. It gleamed off the polished surfaces of belt buckles, buttons, and embroidery, but was swallowed by the darkness surrounding those things before it could illuminate any details of the chamber surrounding. It etched in harsh relief the visage of a man so wracked by pain that his features were almost unrecognizable, and the shreds of his clothing where they hung from his lean frame were little more than wisps of dying color, bleached by the unnatural light.

"Gerald," he whispered.

He was bound as he had been in the fire of the earth so long ago: cruciform, his arms stretched out tautly to his sides, his legs separated just far enough to make room for the bonds at his ankles. But where the Master of Lema had used plain iron to bind the Hunter, the Unnamed had more gruesome tools. The ropes that were wrapped about him glowed with an unwholesome light all their own, and they shifted and twitched as Damien watched, like living creatures. Horrified, he saw one raise its head as if noting his approach; when

it decided at last that Damien was no threat to it, it returned to the work at hand, burrowing down between the tendons of the Hunter's forearm like some hungry animal, leaving a band of sizzling flesh wherever it passed. Now that he knew what to look for, Damien could see that the other "ropes" were much the same, serpentine creatures that twined inside and out of the Hunter's body, their flesh burning into the man's own like acid every time they moved.

He wasn't surprised that Karril let go of his hand and refused to approach with him. Gazing at Tarrant's tortured visage, sensing a man so lost in pain that he wasn't even aware of their presence, he wondered that the Iezu had managed to come even this close.

You see? a slithering voice pressed, and another whispered, Your Church would approve.

He tried to focus on why he had come here, on the arguments he had been running through his mind since his discovery of Tarrant's disappearance. It was hard, with that horrific display hanging just overhead. He flinched inside each time he heard one of the serpent-things move, guessing at the pain they caused. "Is this some kind of punishment?" he demanded. This is his judgment, many-voices-in-one answered him.

"For what crime?"

He could sense agitation in the darkness around him; one or two of the damned creatures flitted near him, but none made contact. For the act of forgetting who he is, and what power sustains him. For the crime of pretending to be human.

"It must have been a terrible thing he did, that over-weighs nine centuries of service. Tell me what it was." You were there, priest.

Was that anger in its voice? He tried to keep the fear out of his own as he urged it, "Tell me how you see it."

He saved a civilization from ruin, one voice whispered into his brain.

He circumvented a holocaust that would have fed us all, another proclaimed.

He gave your Patriarch a weapon no man of the Church should ever have.

"What-?" He looked up at Tarrant, eyes narrowing in anger as he realized what the voices must be referring to. You son of a bitch. You did it! It was hard to say if he was more amazed or angry, now that he knew. What kind of desperation must the man have felt, to have risked such a thing?

He forced himself to turn away from the Hunter's body, to face the unseen creatures once more. He had an answer for that argument, and for any other they might come up with. "Each thing you name, he did for his own purposes. Each thing he did, he did to stay alive so that he could serve you." Doesn't matter Doesn't matter Doesn't matter Traitor!

His mind racing, Damien struggled to regain control of their interview. "And so what? You'll keep him here forever? Is that your intention?" Until judgment is rendered Until the compact is broken Traitor!

"A death sentence," he mused. "Is that what nine centuries of service are worth to you?"

He could feel something swelling in the darkness, like a wave gathering overhead, preparing to crash down on him. The next voice was deeper and infinitely more resonant, and played against a background of utter silence; the whispering voices had been sucked into a greater whole.

We reclaim a gift he no longer deserves, it told Damien. What he does after that is his own concern. "You're sentencing him to death." Again there was the dizzying sensation of something gathering just beyond his sight, drawing back like an incipient bore wave. Panic shot through his flesh like hot spears, but he sensed that it was some kind of assault from that presence, and he struggled to stand his ground.

Whether he lives or dies is not Our concern. "Your sentence means his death," he persisted. Sensing that there was an intelligence behind the voice now, and a malevolence, far greater than anything it had contained before. "You know that. He knows it." And he dared, "Taste the knowledge inside him, if you doubt me."

Something dark and unwholesome moved close by his cheek, almost touching him as it passed; it took everything he had not to collapse in a heap of gibbering panic at the near-contact. God in Heaven! What would happen if it had actually touched him, like the others had? Then he heard a sharp cry behind him, and the straining of flesh against living bonds. Whatever method of Knowing the owner of that voice was using, it was clearly painful.

I'm sorry, he thought to Tarrant. Wishing the man could hear him. There was no other way.

At last the struggling behind him subsided, and he was aware of the dark thing withdrawing to its place. What you say is true, it rumbled. It's still no concern of Ours.

"He served you for nine centuries," Damien challenged. "He tortured and killed and maimed and corrupted whole generations, all in your name. He warped an entire region so that it would serve his hunger- your hunger-and made himself into a legend that'll feed you with fear long after he's dead." He paused dramatically; his heart was pounding. "For all that service he should deserve some kind of chance for survival, don't you think?"

Perhaps, a lighter voice whispered, and others echoed the thought. The sense of overwhelming malevolence had faded ever so slightly, for which Damien was grateful. Would that greater being have accepted his argument? For the first time he sensed what Tarrant must have gone through, putting his soul in the hands of a creature who changed its very definition with each passing second. Or perhaps instead We should judge him by the company he keeps. You defend him as if he were one of your own, priest. If he were truly as evil as

you claim, no living man would stand up for him like that.

"I need him!" he snarled. Making his voice as callous as it could become, smothering every last bit of sentiment his human heart might nurture. "I need him as a tool, and when that's done I couldn't give a damn what happens to him. Let Hell have him if it wants. God knows, he's earned it."

Silence. Damien glanced over desperately to where Karril must be, but saw no sign of her in the darkness. Would his argument work? Clearly the Unnamed's response to such things had as much to do with the form it was in at the moment, as any inherent merit his argument might have. Was it in Damien's favor that the voices had stayed joined together through most of their interview, or would the fragmented whispers that flitted about like insects have been easier to convince?

At last, after long minutes of silence, the voices whispered, Judgment is rendered.

He looked back at Tarrant, then into the heart of the darkness once more. "What is it?" he demanded.

Death may take him, another voice whispered. But not by Our hands. There was a pause; Damien could feel the blood pounding hot in his head, and it felt near to bursting. One longmonth from today, the compact that sustains him will be dissolved. If he can find an alternate means of survival before that, so be it. If not, then Hell may have him.

You will see that he understands Our terms.

"Yes," he whispered. Numbed by the seeming victory. "Of course."

A stench of foulness spilled into the space surrounding Tarrant, a smell so unclean that it made Damien's stomach heave in protest. A hot, bitter fluid filled his mouth; he forced himself to swallow it down as the living ropes unwound themselves from about the Hunter's limbs, withdrawing themselves from his flesh. One by one they slithered off into the stink and the darkness, and became invisible. One and one only remained, coiling about Tarrant's neck like a restless serpent.

We leave him with this, the voices whispered, as a reminder of Our power.

The snakelike creature lashed out at Tarrant's face suddenly, and such was its speed and its force that it cracked like a whip as it struck his flesh. The Hunter cried out sharply, and his body bent back in agony. Then that creature also slithered away, leaving Tarrant's body to fall from its unseen frame to a lifeless heap on the floor. A shapeless sack of bones, no more, so tortured and starved and exhausted by fear that it lacked even the strength to cry out as it struck.

The light was beginning to fade, but it seemed to Damien that the source of the whispers was also gone. "Karril?" he dared. "Can you do something?"

He heard something move toward him, and then the demon was by his side. "Here." She handed him a candle-or the illusion of a candle, more likely- whose feeble light was just enough to illuminate Tarrant's face. Damien rolled the Hunter gently onto his back. Where the serpentine creature had struck him there was now a scar that glistened wetly as it coursed from his jawline to the corner of his eye. The flesh was puckered about it as if it were a wound badly healed, enhancing its disfiguring power tenfold. He'll love that, he thought grimly. Tarrant's eyes were open but glazed, unseeing, their pupils so distended by pain that no hint of the iris was visible. Just as well, Damien thought. Not much worth looking at around here.

He readied himself to lift the man's limp form up onto his shoulders-and then shuddered, at the thought of where he had to carry it. "Tell me the way back is easier," he begged Karril.

"It's easier," the demon assured him.

He looked up at her.

"It really is. I swear it." She reached out to the Hunter's face as if to touch it gently, but then drew back before contact was made. Afraid to share his pain? "You have him now. I can lead you home directly."

"Thank God for that," he muttered. For a moment longer he crouched by Tarrant's side, his body aching

from its many wounds. Then, with a practiced grip, he heaved the unprotesting body up onto his left shoulder, and rose with it. The weight hurt like hell-so to speak-but that pain was ameliorated by the knowledge of his victory.

Well-he cautioned himself-partial victory, any-

W3.V

As he turned to follow Karril, the weight of Tarrant's limp form heavy on his shoulder, he thought, Pray God it will be enough.