Dominion

  DOMINION

  C. S. Friedman

  DOMINION

  Copyright © 2011 by C. S. Friedman

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover by Linda Gilbert and Casey Gordon

  This story is dedicated to

  Linda Gilbert, Tom Deitz, Vicki Sharp, Bob Green, Mike Stevens, and Sara Strickland

  They know why.

  DOMINION

  DEEP WITHIN THE BOWELS of his makeshift bedchamber, Gerald Tarrant could feel the sun setting.

  For a moment he lay still in darkness, savoring the moment. The dark fae lapped at his body softly, like waves on a moonless beach. The power was weak in this place—little more than random echoes of spiritual malevolence that had been drawn to him while he slept—but it was refreshing nonetheless.

  Outside his temporary haven he could sense the hunger of creatures that crouched in the shadows, waiting for night to fall. Soon the sun would set and the balance of power in the world would shift once more. Soon all those night-born monsters that were held at bay by its lethal brilliance would venture forth once again, ready to feed upon blood or terror or despair, or whatever else suited their natures.

  I must go to the Forest, he thought suddenly.

  The words rose unbidden from the depths of his soul, displacing all other thoughts. That didn’t surprise him. For some days now he had been experiencing strange impulses, almost as if some outside power was placing thoughts in his head. Cross the Serpent Straits, a sourceless voice would whisper. Go east. A lesser man might perhaps have believed that such thoughts were his own, and responded without question. But he, who was more than a man, knew better.

  The Forest was calling to him.

  Opening his eyes, he sat up on his makeshift bed. Though the storage room surrounding him was dark to human eyes, it was anything but lightless to him. Earth-fae stirred in the corners of the chamber, its icy blue glow visible to his adept’s sight. It took little effort for him to call up a wisp of the power and bind it to his purpose, using it to cleanse his person of the dust that had gathered on him during his sleeping hours, neutralizing the faint scent of mildew that clung to him. The fact that he had taken shelter in a dirt-floored cellar didn’t mean he had to smell like the place.

  The familiar act of Working helped him focus his mind, and for a moment the voice of the Forest was silent. But the respite would not last long, he knew. Less than a dozen miles from where he had slept the leading edge of a vast metaphysical whirlpool swept across the land, and the currents of power that roiled in its wake would not be held at bay by a simple sorcerer’s trick. A living man might ignore their influence for as long as he kept his own darker urges in check, but a creature who fed upon darkness itself had no such defense. Currents of black power tugged at Gerald Tarrant’s flesh like an inexorable riptide, trying to force him to move towards the center of the whirlpool. A lesser man would have given in long ago, without ever understanding what was driving him toward that hungry darkness. Only a man who knew the darkness by name understood it well enough to resist.

  Come to me, the Forest whispered inside his brain.

  Upstairs he could hear his hosts pacing back and forth, anxiously awaiting his emergence. While it was unlikely that they remembered the exact details of his arrival the night before, or the sorcerous commands that had made them cover over their windows and doors for his protection, they could sense his awakening with the same kind of animal instinct that allowed a mouse to sense the approach of a hungry cat. If he had not Bound them before he retired, knotting his power about each soul like a choke-leash, they would have fled the place long ago.

  He climbed the cellar stairs and pushed open the door that led into the interior of the small house. The couple that owned the place cowered in the corner, a young boy by their side; several feet away stood their daughter, a girl just on the edge of womanhood. They had managed to light a single lamp to fend off the shadows of evening, but it was not enough to banish the wisps of dark fae that swirled about Tarrant’s feet, or the fear-wraiths that manifested briefly in his wake. But though the dark fae was volatile in this place, it had little staying power; no sooner did the wraiths come into existence then they headed off to the east, drawn toward the whirlpool of malevolence in the distance.

  It is power, an inner voice whispered to him. Raw power, without equal. Go east and claim it.

  Slowly, deliberately—defying the Forest’s call—he entered the small kitchen. For a moment he felt a pang of regret, remembering the grand estate he had once called home, the magnificent neo-gothic castle he had designed himself. If there was one facet of his current existence that he despised, it was his itinerancy. He had become a wanderer without a home, mesmerizing host after host as necessity demanded, forcing each one to protect him for a day—or a handful of days—until it was time to move on. What other mode of existence was possible? If he stayed too long in any one place he was sure to draw notice. And he was too vulnerable during the daylight hours to risk that. The Church was sending out teams of hunters these days, to track down and destroy all faeborn monsters. They would not care that he had once been human, or that he had authored half their sacred texts back in his living days. He was a creature of darkness now, and thus beyond the pale of their mercy.

  As it should be, he thought. Perversely pleased by the thought that the Church he had created would attempt to kill him. At least they understood his teachings.

  Quietly he whispered the key to a Compelling. The young girl began to move about the room in response to his will, gathering the items that he would need for his evening meal. A long knife from the nearby sideboard. A wooden tankard from one of the shelves. Her parents watched in horror as she approached Tarrant and placed the tankard on the table before him, but they were frozen by the sorcerer’s power and could voice no more than a whimper of protest. As the girl bared her forearm, Tarrant could see her struggling to reclaim control of her flesh. But his Compelling was too strong for that. For a few seconds he indulged her resistance, much as a fisherman might allow his catch to struggle on the hook before pulling it out of the water at last. But at last her fragile will gave way. She slashed downward toward her left arm with the knife—fiercely, awkwardly—cutting deeply into her own flesh. Red blood gushed out of the wound and splashed down into the tankard. A small moan escaped the mother’s lips, and Tarrant could see the father tremble as he fought to break free of his Binding, but from the girl herself there was no sound… only a delicious admixture of resignation and terror, as refreshing to him as the blood itself.

  Such theatrics were not necessary, of course. He could have simply torn open her throat to get at her blood directly, with transformed teeth or claws, and drunk the hot, heady stuff straight from her veins. He had done that kind of thing in the early years of his damnation, when his control over his transformed flesh had still been weak. But such violent feeding was crude and messy, and it strengthened the dark side of his soul. He was experienced enough now to understand that if he wished to preserve his human identity and not devolve into some brainless, ravenous monster, he must hold his inner beast in check.

  Do it the old way, temptation whispered. You know you want to.

  Ignoring the urge, Tarrant shut his eyes, lifted the tankard to his lips, and drank deeply of the precious
fluid. He could taste the girl’s youth in her blood, along with her innocence, her femininity… and of course her fear. A priceless cocktail of vital energies coursed through his veins like fire. If only he could absorb them directly, without need for such a crude vehicle to aid in the digestion! That would be sweet sustenance indeed, if he could ever manage it.

  The girl’s emotional emanations were growing weak now as the last of her life poured out of her, but that was to be expected. The first drink was always the sweetest. As for her parents… Tarrant whispered the key to another Working, and saw their expressions go blank as his power began to reweave their memories. By the time he was out of sight they would no longer remember that he had ever been in their house. Someone else had rearranged the cellar during the night. Someone else had covered over all their windows during the day. Their daughter had taken her own life, without telling them why, and they had not found her body until it was too late.

  Eventually the Church’s hunters might figure out that something evil had visited this place, but they would have no way to determine its nature. Or to know how it must be hunted.

  This monster left no trail

  Outside the house the night sky was dark, nearly bereft of stars. A single crescent moon hung low on the eastern horizon, and beneath it, shivering with sparks of earth-fae, was the place that mortal men called the Forbidden Forest. The greatest focal point of natural power on this continent… perhaps in all the world.

  A man must be willing to risk his life to explore such a place, Tarrant thought. And a creature of the night, uniquely vulnerable to the dark forces of the world, might have to risk more than his life. Was it worth it?

  He knew that the Forest was affecting his mind. Every thought in his head was suspect now. Every instinct in his soul would urge him to go eastward, even if certain destruction lay along that path.

  Which is why he had made his decision before coming within range of its influence.

  Drawing upon the earth-fae that swirled arount his feet—how powerful it was here!—he worked a Summoning to call the nearest available mount to him. When an unhorse came galloping down the road a few minutes later, he used sorcery to remove its rider from its back as casually as one would swat a fly. Normally animals could sense his predatory nature and were loathe to let him approach them. But a minor Soothing ameliorated the situation, allowing him to mount the animal and ride.

  Layering such Workings upon the animal that its spirit would be steady to the gates of Hell themselves if need be, he kneed it into motion and let the siren song of the Forbidden Forest guide him eastward.

  * * *

  When Faith awakened, she didn’t know at first where she was, or how she had gotten there. She didn’t know very much at all, in fact, save that at some point she had set off with a dozen of her fellow knights to hunt down a particularly troublesome faeborn demon that had been plaguing communities along the border of the Forest, and… and…

  Now she was here.

  Which was…

  Where?

  Her head throbbed painfully as she sat up; reaching up, she discovered that dried blood was crusted in her hair. Not a good sign. She started to run her hands all over herself, feeling her flesh for wounds, her armor for damage. There were no open wounds that she could find, but every muscle was sore, and judging from the stabbing pain she felt every time she took a breath, one or more ribs might be broken. Her armor had taken quite a beating, several of the steel scales ripped loose from their moorings and the leather beneath badly scorched. A faint smell of sulfur clung to it, making her wonder just what sort of fire she had faced.

  What had happened to her?

  Overhead was a canopy of trees so dense that only a trickle of sunlight could seep through it, leaving the ground beneath in shadow. She cursed the poor visibility as she struggled to get to her feet. Her sword banged against her left leg, reassuring in its weight, but she had the uncomfortable feeling that other things weren’t where they should be. A quick inventory of her weapons confirmed that fear. Everything else that she might have used to hunt the faeborn—or defend her own life—was gone. Even the smaller weapons that she’d worn close to her body, where a mere fall couldn’t possibly have dislodged them, were missing now. But she still had her sword, though the blood of the demon had dried while it was in the scabbard, making it stick to its leather encasement. Whoever had taken all the other things had left her that.

  Memories were starting to seep back into her brain now, slowly, like the gray-green sunlight that was oozing through the branches overhead. She remembered the faces of her fellow hunters, grim with determination. She could hear the prayers of the One God’s faithful as if they were offered in preparation for battle, girding the holy warriors with sacred energy. She remembered the sound of well-oiled steel being drawn from its sheath—

  Niklaus lies on the ground, badly wounded. They can’t stop to tend to him now. Their quarry has finally begun to weaken, which means they must redouble their efforts, pressing home their advantage before the demonic creature they are fighting can draw enough power from the fae to heal its wounds and recover its full strength. Unlike most faeborn creatures this one seems to be intimately bound to its flesh, which means that simple blows can dispatch it, but that doesn’t mean it won’t have a thousand nasty tricks up its sleeve. The less time they give it to try one of them, the better.

  Righteousness sings in Faith’s blood, and sparks of sacred fury dance along the edge of her sword as she takes up position directly in front of the unholy thing, blocking its access to her fallen comrade—

  “Faith! Look behind you!”

  She whirls about in response to the warning. Too late, too late! While she and her fellow knights were concentrating on the demon a human mob had snuck up behind them. Rank upon rank of maddened men with primitive weapons now fall upon the hunters like a pack of ravenous beasts. The same knight who had called out a warning to Faith cries out once more as he is crushed beneath their feet. She cannot reach him in time to save him. She cannot reach any of her companions in time. The knights are spread out in a circle around their demonic quarry, which means that they are scattered, divided. One by one they will be engulfed by this tide of angry flesh and steel, forced to choose between turning their backs on their faeborn enemy or this rabid mob of demon-worshippers.

  The creature is laughing at them now.

  Despair is a knot in Faith’s gut as she brings up her sword to protect herself from the thrust of a rusty pitchfork, barely in time; tines scrape against the scales of her armor as she pushes it aside. Who are all these people? Don’t they understand what this creature really is? Or what the cost of worshipping it will be? All creatures born of the fae feed upon mankind. This thing is no exception. Do these people really think that they will escape that fate just because they have agreed to worship it?

  It’s not a real god! she wants to scream, as she struggles to keep the wave of attackers from overwhelming her. Her blade slices through the neck of one opponent before swinging into the next. It is not worthy of your worship! But even if these men could hear her words, they would not care. Once a faeborn creature becomes this powerful, it attracts weak-willed humans like rotting meat attracts flies. And why not? Such a creature can perform a thousand and one “miracles”, and weak-willed men are easily swayed by such tricks. Why should they choose to worship a more complicated god, who might actually ask them to read a book or obey restrictive laws, when this one will indulge their vilest pleasures and ask for nothing in return? Never mind that it is a construct of the fae, not a creature of living flesh, and therefore only has one real goal. By the time its followers come to understand what that means for them, it will be too late.

  The mob seems endless. The demon must have worked its corruption in all the surrounding towns. Why had the Church’s scouts not reported that? On and on Faith fights against her attackers, knowing that the battle is all but hopeless, but she is too proud—or perhaps too stubborn—to die. Her f
ellow hunters are no longer visible to her. Whether they have gone down to their deaths, or are simply shielded from her eyes by the bulk of the mob, she does not know. They are not part of her universe any longer. There are only the men surrounding her and the pounding of hot blood in her veins—

  But those are mere distractions, she realizes suddenly. Behind her is the faeborn creature they came here to destroy, and it is controlling these men like puppets. Even while she wastes time fighting this mob, the creature is gathering the power it needs to heal its wounds. How close the hungers had come to destroying it! One more blow might have dispatched it forever. But now, thanks to the sudden arrival of this mob, the greater battle will be lost. By the time Faith can force back the demon’s worshippers—if she can do that at all—the demonic thing will be at full strength again, and more than capable of taking on a single knight.

  She cannot allow that to happen.

  A strange sense of calm comes over her as she realizes what she must do. As a pitchfork comes thrusting toward her head she forces it aside, steps in towards its wielder, and slams her shield into his face. Stumbling backwards, he cries out as an axe that was meant for her slices into his shoulder. The moment’s triumph should please her, but it does not. The next assailant should worry her, but he does not. Her mind is elsewhere now.

  This is her final moment of duty.

  She takes one last wild swing at her attackers, trying to force them to back away far enough away that she can gain a moment’s time. The strategy manages to clear a small space around her, but she knows that will not last for long. Men with real lances are headed her way. Once they get within striking distance, she’s finished.

  It’s now or never.

  Whipping about, she launches herself without warning at the demon. There is no fire in her veins now, nor fury, just an eerie sense of peace, and it is strangely empowering. The creature is still weak from their earlier assault, and apparently her sudden attack has taken it by surprise. Knowing she will have only one blow and must make it count, she swings her sword toward that place in its neck where a thick black vein throbs, putting all her weight behind the effort. If God is with her, perhaps she can take the thing’s head off. If not, if his body is true enough to the human template, then severing a major vein might still bring it down. She prays that it will. Right now that is the only hope these people have, of ever being free of its influence.