Crown of Shadows - C. S. Friedman [178]
“We might as well move forward, then.” His heart was pounding with terror as he made his way toward the lava stream, but he knew that he didn’t dare hesitate. “Because without your wife’s shadow I think we’re as good as dead here, don’t you?” He had ten feet left to go, and he could smell the gases that were sizzling on the lava’s surface. “Calesta’s as good as killed us this time by hiding her, so why not take a chance?” Walk into it, he ordered his muscles. Don’t worry about whether it’s real. Just do it.
He was less than a step from the lava stream when something reached out and stopped him. Thank God. He let it push him back from the molten rock, then reached up to wipe the sweat from his face. All he accomplished was to make the silk veil stick to his skin.
“You play a dangerous game,” Karril growled.
He managed a dry smile. “Just holding you to your promise.”
The Iezu took him by the shoulder and forced him back down to where Tarrant stood waiting. “There,” he said. He didn’t sound at all happy. “As I promised.”
The real Almea-shadow was behind them, as clear as if no illusion had ever hidden her. The false one was gone, or maybe just invisible, which was almost as good.
“Would you have really walked into it?” Karril asked him. Damien said nothing. At last the demon sighed. “All right. If that’s the way you want it.” He glanced at Tarrant, and with a thin smile said, “Just remind me not to play poker with him.”
“You and me both,” the Hunter whispered, and it seemed to Damien that for a fleeting instant there was a smile on his face, too.
Up the slope they went, Almea gliding easily, the two men struggling behind. Much to Damien’s surprise Karril stayed with them, and when he caught his breath long enough to question him about that choice the demon would only say gruffly, “Someone has to keep the two of you out of trouble.”
We’ve won, he thought. But it was only the journey that was finished. Ahead of them lay Shaitan, and a Working so deadly that no man might attempt it and survive.
They climbed. In places the trembling of the ground was so subtle that they didn’t hear it, only felt it beneath their feet and hands; in others it was like a genuine earthquake, and Damien’s teeth chattered as he pulled himself higher and higher up the broken slope. Sometimes it felt like the very planet beneath them was about to crumble, and he had to shut his eyes and draw in a deep breath and summon all his self-control in order to ignore it. The shadow waited. And Karril climbed behind them. And inch by inch, foot by foot, they made their way toward their destination.
At last they came to a place where Karril signaled for them to stop. The Almea-shadow seemed content to obey, so Damien and Tarrant did likewise. The ground was so steep they could barely stand upright, but supported themselves by leaning against cracked boulders of congealed lava.
“It’s over!” Karril cried out to the mist surrounding them. “You couldn’t stop them from getting here, and now you can’t stop them from doing what they came to do. Let them see it for themselves!”
For a moment it seemed to Damien that the whole world hesitated. The rumbling of the earth, the crackling and hissing of nearby lava, the pounding of his own heart ... all quieted for a moment, as if waiting. Then, slowly, the mist surrounding them began to thin. White smoke gave way to thinner tendrils, and that in turn gave way to air clear enough that the side of the mountain could be seen.
With a gasp Damien leaned back hard against Shaitan’s flank, and he saw Tarrant do the same. A hundred feet beneath them he could see clouds—real clouds—gathering about the mountain’s peak like a flock of broad-winged birds. Between them the air seemed to stretch downward forever, until the flank of the mountain crumbled and flattened and merged into the valley floor so very, very far below. Had they really climbed that far up? he wondered. His eyes found it hard to believe, but his muscles were wholly convinced.
He turned his gaze upward, toward the peak of the great