Crown of Shadows - C. S. Friedman [105]
“Not enough,” he whispered. “Not enough.”
Anger welled up inside Damien with unexpected force. He walked to where the Hunter sat and dropped down beside him, grabbing his shoulders, pulling him around to face him. “I went to Hell and beyond to bring you back, and so help me God you’ll earn it. You understand? I don’t care how little time it seems to you, or how vulking depressed you get, or even whether or not you’re going to make it past that last day. What we’re talking about is the future of all of humankind, and that’s a hell of a lot more important than my fate, or even yours. Even yours.” He paused. “You understand me?”
The Hunter glared at him. “Easy enough words, from your perspective.”
“Damn you, Gerald! Why are you doing this?” He rose up from the couch and stepped away, afraid he would hit the man if he remained too close. “Do I have to tell you what the answer is? You’re a free agent for the first time in nine hundred years. Take advantage of that!”
“I am what they made me to be,” he said bitterly. “None of that has been undone. Going against their will means going against my own nature—”
“Damn it, man, no one said redemption would be easy! But isn’t it worth a try? Isn’t that better than handing yourself over to them in a longmonth, without so much as a whimper of protest?”
“You don’t know,” he whispered. There was pain in his voice. “You can’t possibly understand.”
“Try me.”
The pale eyes narrowed; his expression was strained. “Those sins you saw,” he breathed. “Would you forgive them so quickly, if the matter were in your hands? Would you wipe clean a slate of nine hundred years, for one single month of good intentions? For a vow made in the shadow of such fear that its true motivation could never be judged?”
“I wouldn‘t,” he said shortly. “God might. That’s the difference between us.”
“Might is a hell of a thing to bet one’s eternity on.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “About as shaky as trying to stay alive forever. Only in the latter case, you know it has to end someday.” He paused. “You did know that, didn’t you? That it had to end sometime. Today it’s Calesta and tomorrow it might be something else, but you can’t run forever.”
The Hunter turned away from him. Though Damien waited, he said nothing.
“All right,” the priest said at last. “You think about it. I’ll be back in my room if you decide you want my help. Karril has the address.”
He turned toward the stairs and was about to leave, but a single sound, voiced quiet as a breeze, stopped him.
“Damien.”
He didn’t turn back, but he did stop. Waiting.
“Thank you,” the Hunter whispered.
For a moment longer he stood where he was. Then, without voicing a response, he climbed the short flight of stairs and pushed open the heavy door. The sounds and smells of Karril’s temple greeted him, unwelcome reminders of the world that surrounded. Millions upon millions of men and women and helpless children, whose futures were all at risk.
I saved you, he thought bitterly to Tarrant. Now you do your job, and help me save them.
Twenty-two
Pleasure was to apathy as sadism was to ...
What?
The analogy ran through Damien’s head obsessively, forever uncompleted. And though he tried to satisfy the pattern with over a dozen words, none of them were quite right. The answer continued to elude him, and only the knowledge that it must surely exist gave him the strength to rise above his frustration and keep searching.
The key to it all was the insight that Karril had given them, regarding his own counter-aspect. Pleasure was the opposite of pain, and yet a man’s soul could be filled with both things at once. Apathy was Karril’s true nemesis, the absence of any strong feeling, a state in which pleasure could not