Black Sun Rising (11 page)

He tried to get some sense of the local currents—to read who might be Working this special darkness, and why—but it was like trying to focus on a single ripple in the midst of white-water rapids. At last, exhausted by the effort, he let his Vision fade. Back home he could have identified every sorceror in town by now, and spotted those few who dared to Work the stuff—but the currents here were so volatile and so complex that his skill was barely more than a child’s by comparison.

He watched as the point of Domina’s crescent slipped over the eastern horizon, right on schedule. Watched the deep violet light thin out and dissipate, as if it were no more than an early morning ground fog scattered by sunlight. He watched it recede into the myriad cracks and crevices that would protect it from the light, while fresh moonlight scoured the streets and rooftops clean of its deadly presence. He watched until the moon was half-risen, then went back to bed.

3:35. He fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Fifteen minutes later, the explosion came.

“What the hell?” He sat up groggily, still half-immersed in sleep. Remembering a loud, sudden noise that hadn’t been fully incorporated into his dream, which was gone before he was awake enough to identify it. Was it his imagination? He shook his head to clear it, and heard doors slam along the corridor of the Annex. Feet running in the hallway, slipper-shod. No. Not his imagination at all.

He threw on a cotton robe and, as an afterthought, grabbed for his sword. No telling what was going on, he’d best be prepared. Out into the corridor then, to quickly take his bearings. A sister-priest from Kale was just emerging from the room opposite his; her face was white. “Southwest,” she whispered, and he realized that the window of her room must face that way. “What is it?” he asked, but she shook her head:
No, can’t help you, I don’t know.

Southwest. He ran down the corridor as quickly as he could, took the broad central stairs two at a time. The outer door was just closing as he reached it. There was too much light coming in through the windows, much more than the crescent Domina should have provided. A light that flickered, like flame gone mad. As he put his hand to the door and flung it open he realized, with a start, that even that was wrong. Fire should be yellow, orange, even yellow-white; this light was a chill blue, as if from some unnatural flame.

Outside the Annex, some two dozen guests of the Church stood with their heads thrown back, gaping at the sky. Damien didn’t stop to look. If the fire—or whatever it was—was to the southeast of here, he was in the wrong place to determine its source. He sprinted around the side of the Cathedral, until that building no longer blocked his view. And then saw—

Fire. Spurting heavenward. Not a natural fire, no; cold blue, like the quake-wards. Fae-spawned flame, without a doubt. Damien tried to visualize the city’s layout, to determine the fire’s source. And as he did so something tightened inside him, a mixture of dread and fear so cold and so intense that he trembled where he stood.

Ciani
...

He ran. Down Commerce Street, pushing his way past frightened mothers and scurrying vendors and the inevitable rubber-necked tourists. Shoving them out of the way, when necessary. Past Market Lane, past Seven Corners, into the artisan’s district, then through it and beyond. Here, on this quiet street, the Fae Shoppe had done its business. And here, on this suddenly crowded street—

It burned. Burned with a fae-light so intense that it drove him back; he had to fight his every physical instinct to get within a block of it. It was impossible to look at, it burned like a thousand suns, it would surely sear the retinas of anyone who tried. He worked a Shielding for his eyes, felt the light about him dim, then tried to look again. Better. He forced himself forward, past the firewagons that were even now being pushed into place, past an adept in singed robes whose attention was fixed on the fire, past ... there were too many people to count, running toward the fire or away from it. He got as close to it as he could, with all the force of the faeborn flames pushing back at him. Until he could feel its unnatural smoke in his lungs, and had to work a Shielding against that, too.

The shop was gone. His altered sight could see that now; what was left to burn was no more than the rubble of what had already been destroyed. Some monstrous explosion had ripped the place to pieces, along with the better part of two adjoining buildings. Now it was all gone, along with whoever had been tending shop at the time....

Fae Shoppe,
the sign had said.
Open all hours.

No one could have survived that blast. No one.

He tried to work a Divining, but the currents were in chaos, their patterns unreadable. All he could make out was that somehow a chain reaction had been triggered—that some malicious Working aimed at Ciani had ignited her wards, one after the other, until the whole place blew—

There were tears in his eyes; he wiped them away with his free hand, tried to breathe steadily. The smoke was thick in his lungs; he Shielded against that, too. It occurred to him that several adepts in the crowd were working hard to contain the faeborn flames, to keep them from spreading to neighboring buildings. He raised one hand as if he, too, would begin to pattern a Working—but another hand grasped his, and a familiar voice warned, “They can do it better than you or I.”

He turned, as if facing an attacker. It took him a moment to absorb the fact that the speaker was Senzei, and that the man was dressed in a thick cotton robe, his hair still tangled from sleeping. Slowly, painfully, the truth of it sank in. Senzei Reese: in a bathrobe, because he had rushed here in the middle of the night after hearing the explosion ... because he hadn’t been there at the time it happened. Which meant Ciani had. Damien cursed fate, for making it so—and hated himself, for wishing it were otherwise.

He lowered his head and blinked forth new tears, to wash the smoke out of his eyes. Senzei was silent, which confirmed the horrible truth of it all. If she had survived, he would have spoken. If she had stood even a chance of survival ... but she was inside the Fae Shoppe when it blew, and never had a chance. Senzei’s silence confirmed that.

With an anguished curse—at fate, himself, Jaggonath, the true night—Damien turned back into the crowd, and elbowed his way away from Loremaster Ciani’s crematory fire.

Loss. Like an empty wound, out of which all the blood had drained. Incapable of healing because all its vital fluids were gone. Dried up by grief.

Alone in the still of the night, he struggled to come to terms with his feelings. He’d lost friends before, and even lovers; those were the risks which his chosen vocation entailed, and each loss was its own separate grief, an island of mourning, finite and comprehensible. Why was this so different? Was it the shock of what had happened, the suddenness of it—the terrible impotence of standing there, unable to do anything, while the last remnants of a woman’s life went up in smoke? Or ... something more? Some feeling he hadn’t yet acknowledged, which had been growing between them along with the jokes and the entertainment and the loving? Some feeling which had been cut short now by the heat of the fire, as if it had never existed. As if some part of him that had never fully opened up had begun to, just briefly ... and then slammed shut again, charred by the heat of that terrible fire.

Was this love? Was this what love would have felt like, had it lasted?

Alone in his room in the Annex, Damien Vryce wept silently.

Do you even know how old I am?
she had asked him once. Bright eyes sparkling in amusement.

He had thought then how wonderful it must be, to reach one’s seventieth birthday without aging a day past thirty. That number had seemed filled with wonder, because of her. Filled with vitality.

Now, it was just a rotten age to die.

The door creaked open slowly. Damien raised his head just enough to see who had entered, that much and no more. And when he saw, he lowered his head again.

“I’m sorry,” the Patriarch said softly. “Genuinely sorry.”

Are you?
he wanted to snap. But for once, the anger was gone. Emptied out of him, by grief.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“No.” He managed to shake his head; even that much movement took effort. “I can’t ... I just need time. It was so sudden....”

“It’s always hard, losing those we care for. Especially in such a senseless accident.”

“It wasn’t an accident,” he whispered.

The Patriarch came into his room—slowly, quietly—and took a seat opposite him. When he spoke, his tone was gentler than it had ever been before. Gentler than Damien had imagined it could be. “You want to talk about it?”

“What’s the use? I couldn’t read it clearly enough. Something attacked either her or the shop, and her defenses ... backfired. I couldn’t read what, or how, or why. I don’t know what I could do about it now, even if I knew. And I think ...” He shut his eyes, tightly. “I think ... I was falling in love with her.”

“I guessed that,” the Patriarch said softly.

“I feel so damned helpless!” He got up suddenly, upsetting a chair as he did so. And turned away, to stare at the weapons which hung on the wall behind him. “I stood there while it burned—while
she
burned, for all I know!—and what on Erna could I do to help? I couldn’t even get
near
the place....” He shook his head, was aware of new wetness on his cheeks. “You don’t know what it’s like, seeing something like that happen, feeling like you could stop it if you could just figure out what to do ... and then not being able to. Standing there helplessly, unable to save someone you care about....”

“I do understand,” the Patriarch said quietly. “More than you know.”

He heard the Holy Father stand, and walk to where he stood. But unlike Senzei, the Patriarch made no physical contact.