Crown of Shadows - C. S. Friedman [197]
With one last glance at the ruddy sunset to the west of them (and Damien didn’t have to be psychic to know how much Tarrant wanted to study it longer, his first sight of the sun in over nine centuries) the adept rejoined them. “Something’s changed, no doubt about it.” His tone and his expression were both grim. “I can’t tell for certain what happened without some more specific tests, but I don’t think either you or I should count on being able to Work until we get out of here. Once we get back, I can figure out what happened, and hopefully discover a way to work around it.”
Hopefully. There was a stress on that word, ever so subtle, which underscored a fear neither man would voice. If something had changed in the currents, what if that change were permanent? What if it turned out to be a problem not with the fae, but with them?
And then the other words hit him. So casually voiced, but they resounded in his brain all the more powerfully for their lack of emphasis. Once we get back. Such a simple, disarming phrase! As if getting back were something they had always expected to do. As if they hadn’t thought they would die on this journey, and thus had made no plans for ever going home. Damien felt his heart lurch as he acknowledged that the possibility was suddenly very real. Tarrant was alive. The enemy they thought they could never vanquish was dead and gone. They were going home....
Focus on that, he thought. Not the other thing. That was too terrifying to face, and they weren’t likely to come up with answers until Tarrant had the strength and the leisure to investigate the matter. He forced himself to turn to Karril and he asked, “Will you come with us?” Not only because the Iezu would be a valuable guide in this land—doubly valuable if they really couldn’t Work—but because, at that moment, Karril was part and parcel of their triumph, and he wanted him there.
The Iezu looked at Tarrant, and something unspoken seemed to pass between them. At last he shook his head. “I can’t. I’m sorry. My family . . .” He gazed out into the valley, toward Shaitan, where the other Iezu gathered. “There are so many questions to be answered now. My place is with them for as long as I can stay here.” He looked back at Tarrant, as if expecting him to say something, but the Hunter remained silent. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “But you really don’t need me now.”
“I understand,” Damien assured him. He turned to Tarrant, but the Hunter’s eyes were fixed on Shaitan. “We can stay here a while if you think you need more rest, but we’re low on supplies, so it can’t be too long. You tell me.” When Tarrant said nothing, he pressed, “Ready to go home yet?”
“Do what you think is best,” the Hunter said quietly.
He knew that tone of voice. God damn it, he knew it all too well. He knew what it meant when the Hunter shifted from the plural pronoun to the singular, too, and damn it to Hell! This wasn’t the place for that kind of game, or the time for it, or ... or anything!
“We’re going home, right?” His tone was half plea, half growl. “Calesta’s dead. The Forest’s so far gone by now that you can’t change what happens there one way or the other. Right? The whole goddamn world’s at peace and I didn’t figure we’d both still be part of it, so I don’t have the kind of food and water it would take for two people to go off and do something stupid. Whatever that stupid thing happened to be.—Are you listening to me, Gerald?”
The adept’s eyes remained fixed on Shaitan, as if something there were so fascinating he dared not turn away even for a moment. “She’s a starfarer,”he breathed. “Not just the descendant of an alien species stranded on this world—like we are—but an individual born and bred on another planet, with memories of foreign stars and the technology needed to get to them.” At last he turned away from that view and faced Damien again. “What was the point of all my work, if not to give us the stars? Why have men rallied to the Church’s banner for the past thousand years, if not for