Crown of Shadows - C. S. Friedman [209]
There were voices even closer now. Too close. He looked at Tarrant.
“My wards will admit no one but myself or Amoril to this chamber,” he said, responding to Damien’s unspoken question. “And Amoril being dead—”
“What if they carry his body with them?”
“Even if they think to do that—and I doubt they have so much insight—it won’t work. The wards respond to a man’s vital essence, not to dead flesh.” But despite his assurance it seemed to Damien that he turned the pages faster than before, and his eyes darted up occasionally to ascertain that the door to the library was indeed still shut.
Then footsteps resounded, heavy and purposeful and clearly headed in their direction. “Shit,” Damien muttered, putting down the book he held in order to draw his sword. The Hunter rose, swaying slightly as he did so; clearly his exhausted muscles were less than enthusiastic about the concept of a fresh workout. Damien’s own muscles ached like hell, but that didn’t matter now. Whatever had gotten past the Hunter’s wards was damned likely not to be friendly.
And then the door opened and the light of an unshuttered lantern blinded him for an instant. He took a step backward and squinted against the light, fighting to make out details of a figure that seemed to glow with all the power of the sun—
“Oh, my God,” he whispered. Almost dropping his sword. “Who the hell... ?”
The figure in the doorway was wearing armor cast in silver and gold, that captured his lamplight and reflected it a thousand times over, making the golden sun upon his breastplate blaze like the star of Earth itself. After hours spent in the semi-darkness, the light was blinding. But that wasn’t what stunned Damien so. He was a seasoned enough warrior not to be unmanned by simple pyrotechnics, and even the sight of the Prophet’s famous armor come to life, just as it had been painted on the Cathedral’s high wall, was something he could come to terms with. It was the sight of the man who wore the armor that utterly unnerved him, so that his grip upon his sword grew weak and the familiar steel blade nearly fell from his hand.
The man was Gerald Tarrant.
No, Damien thought. Fighting the power of the image. This man’s skin was tan, where Gerald’s was pale. This man’s eyes were darker, and deeper set. He was slightly shorter than the Hunter, and maybe a little bit stockier, and his hair wasn’t quite the same length. But except for those minor details the resemblance was amazing. Unnerving. Even—given the circumstances—terrifying.
This was how Gerald Tarrant must have looked in his first lifetime, when the heat of life still surged in his veins, when the passions of mortal existence still blazed in his eyes. Even the man’s wounds bore witness to his living state: a livid red scratch mark swelling across his brow, a hot purple bruise along the line of his jaw. And the look in his eyes . . . there was a hate so hot in them that Damien could feel it like a flame upon his face; even the hate-wraiths that wisped in and out of existence about the man were red and gold and orange, fire-hues that sizzled in the keep’s chill air.
The burning eyes fixed on him, then on Tarrant. There was madness in them, and an echo of pain so intense that Damien flinched to see it. With bruised hands the newcomer put down his lantern and then swung a hefty springbolt into firing position, aiming at the Hunter’s chest. But Damien stood between the two of them, close enough to foul a clean shot.
“Get back,” the man rasped. There was a hysterical edge to his voice, the sound of a soul pushed almost to the breaking point. Damien had seen enough men in that state to know how very dangerous it was. “Get out of the way!”
He couldn’t move. He didn’t dare. A knife in the heart is as fatal to an adept as it is to any other human.