Crown of Shadows - C. S. Friedman [21]
The Hunter nodded, his eyes never leaving his apprentice. “I’ll design a counterphage for the new mutation. You have samples of the infected flesh?”
There was a door at the end of the corridor they were traversing; the albino pulled it open for him. “Of course, my lord.”
“Such concern over minute biological detail is commendable, Amoril. I’m pleased by your development.”
“One learns a lot when one is left alone, my lord.”
Black halls, dark curtains, a lightless and soothing domain: he drew confidence from it step by step, and from the chill power flowing about his feet. This place was his strength, he thought. His soul. As long as he had the Forest, no man could stand against him.
And no demon either, he thought darkly. Not even a Iezu.
Down through the keep they went, Amoril following his lead in silence, until they reached his library. There, on shelves stacked ten feet high, were accumulated all his notes from the last five hundred years. Would that I had begun this work earlier! He withdrew a volume of demonological data and handed it to Amoril. Would that I had understood, in the arrogance of my youth, just how much memory can be lost after nine hundred years.
The albino opened the book he had been handed and scanned its contents. “Iezu?” His tone was scornful.
“Calesta. You recall him?”
“Calesta.” As he sought the proper memory, Tarrant worked a subtle Knowing and cast it about him. Had the Iezu tried to corrupt Amoril while he was in the east? There was no point in trying to Know that directly; the demon’s illusions could mask any trace of contact. But a question like this, so casually voiced, so casually answered ... one might unravel that with care and uncover a hint of artifice, a fleeting breath of warning. “He was the one who tricked you, yes? Before you went east.”
“Yes.” Nothing. There was nothing. Despite himself he relaxed a bit. “Go through that volume,” he commanded. “Look for his name, or anything like it. Or any mention of his aspect, which is sadism. As for his intentions ...” He looked at Amoril and relaxed a bit. What had he expected? That the one man who needed him most would betray him?
Take nothing for granted, Hunter—notyour lands, not your people, not even your own power. When your very senses can be warped by another, everything must be suspect.
“We’re at war,” he warned the albino. “So be careful. Unless I can find some means of killing a Iezu ... things may get very unpleasant.”
The albino shrugged. “They’re all just demons in the end, right? How hard can it be?”
Oh, my apprentice. How little you understand!
He set three more volumes down, which were likely to contain notes on the Iezu. Considering how many Iezu there were and how long they had been active, it seemed a painfully insufficient collection. He would have given anything for Ciani of Faraday’s notebooks right now; she had specialized in that demonic family, and must have uncovered countless bits of lore in her many years of study. But she was in the rakhlands now, and all her notebooks were ash. Not for the first time, he cursed Senzei Reese for his damnable shortsighted ness. Better to shed human blood for sacrifice—even one’s own—than destroy such treasures as that.
“My lord?”
He looked up, saw that Amoril had not even opened his book. “What is it?”
“I have a gift for you.” He grinned, displaying sharpened teeth. “A homecoming present, which I prepared when I Divined you coming. If I may be excused to fetch it?”
Distracted by the task at hand, he nodded.
Perhaps he should contact the lady Ciani. Not with a Working, of course; the fae-wall which the rakh had erected about their domain would