Crown of Shadows - C. S. Friedman [211]
“If Calesta’s dead, then he has no power now—”
“Doesn’t he?” the adept demanded. “Do you know what will happen if you kill me now? That spark of Calesta’s hate which lies like a dormant seed within you will take root and grow, until it strangles all within you that is still human. That’s his vengeance, Andrys Tarrant. Not your paltry campaign, not even the rigors of Hell itself, but the knowledge that as you pull that trigger, you commit yourself to his world, in which the only joy is suffering.”
The man reeled visibly, as if the words had been a physical blow. “No,” he whispered hoarsely. “You’re just trying to talk yourself out of a—”
“Look within yourself, then! Imagine the hatred taking hold, Calesta‘shatred taking hold, the embrace of vengeance consummated at last ... and then ask yourself how you’ll return to the real world after that. Or did you think it would all end when you pulled that trigger? Did you think your soul would be magically cleansed at the moment of my death?” He shook his head sharply. “This is just the beginning. The easy part.”
“You killed them,” he whispered. Raising up the weapon again, aligning it with his eye once more. “My brothers, my sister, all of them! God damn you to Hell! You deserve to die!”
“Then pull the trigger,” the Hunter dared him. “And destroy us both.”
Andrys Tarrant blinked hard; sweat ran redly down the side of his face. “I don’t ... I can’t....” His hands were shaking. Suddenly he gestured toward Damien with the springbolt. “Go,” he whispered hoarsely. “Get out of here.”
“I think—” he began.
“This isn’t your fight! It’s between him and me. Whoever the hell you are, just get out of here! Now!”
Damien hesitated, then looked at Gerald. The Hunter nodded ever so slightly. “He’s right, Damien.” His voice was quiet but strained. “There’s nothing more you can do here.”
“Gerald—”
The Hunter shook his head. Damien’s protest died in his throat.
“Go,” Gerald Tarrant whispered.
He swallowed hard, trying to think of something to do, something to say, anything that could change this moment. He imagined himself in Andrys Tarrant’s place, and sensed how very easy it would be to fire. How many times had he dreamed of putting an end to the Hunter so quickly, so easily? But now the issue was no longer that simple. Now the Hunter had become ... something else.
Hadn’t he?
You killed my family, the younger Tarrant had accused.
He forced himself to move as indicated. Andrys took a few steps into the room to give him a wide berth in case he intended to attempt a last minute rescue ... and indeed he might have, if there had been an opening. But there wasn’t. And then he passed through the door and it slammed shut behind him, and he knew that one way or another a man was going to die.
You killed my family.
It was justice, surely. Long overdue. Generations would celebrate the death of a man who was every bit as evil as Calesta, whose heart was so like the Iezu’s in its core that when he had beckoned to his enemy with the full force of the Hunter’s sadism, Calesta had come to him like a lover.
He needed time, God. A man can’t contain that kind of evil and then be rid of it overnight. But he would have come back to You.
His heart heavy, his feet like lead, he ascended the winding staircase that led to the upper levels. Up he climbed, toward the black halls he remembered so well. Up to where the soldiers of the Church were laying down explosives and fixing fuses in place. Up to the living world, where the Forest was dying so that new things might be born, where the legend of the Hunter would give way to other things fearsome and terrible, but none so full of despoiled brilliance, or of courage....
There were tears in his eyes, blinding him. Hot tears.
He kept walking.
They had built a bonfire in the courtyard. He watched as they carried the pieces of Amoril’s body over to it and threw them one by one onto the flames. He watched the pieces char and sizzle and lose their human coherency, and he sensed