Crown of Shadows - C. S. Friedman [23]
But then there came other dreams, with more familiar subjects. And little by little, against his will, he was forced to acknowledge the truth. That these intrusive images weren’t merely dreams but true visions, clairvoyancies that came to him even as the acts they represented took place. When he dreamed one night of the mayor’s corruption, it was only to awaken and find that the morning tabloids were afire with news of blackmail and embezzlement. When he dreamed of Nans Bakrow’s adultery, it was only to hear three days later that her husband had begun divorce proceedings, for exactly that cause. And when he had dreamed of the Gillis child killing himself—
It still pained him to remember that. The midnight awakening. The rapid dressing. The rush to the Gillis’ abode through streets that were alive with demonlings, in the desperate hope that something could be done to avoid the tragedy he had witnessed. All to no avail. By the time he had roused the boy’s parents and reached the site of his vision, the young veins had already rendered up their last drop of blood; the boy’s lips were blue and cold, his dead eyes open and accusatory. If you knew, they seemed to say, why didn’t you come sooner? Words his parents never voiced, but the Patriarch knew they thought them as well. As he himself thought them, all the hours he lay awake before that dawn, struggling against the bleakness of guilt and utter despair.
Prophecies, his aides and servants whispered. The Holy Father was seeing futures. But they weren’t that, not by a long shot. Prophecy implied a temporal framework, a balance between the present and future that might—with care—be altered. Were there not thousands of potential futures for each moment in this world, of which prophecy revealed but one? No, prophecy would have been a blessing compared to this. This was a nightmare of clairvoyance, a forced voyeurism that made him witness to the evils of his world without giving him the power to change anything. A pornography of the soul, which had made of him a helpless victim.
He had tried drugs. He had tried prayer. He had even tried sleeplessness, hoping that sheer exhaustion would culminate in a collapse so total that even dreams could not reach him. To no avail. And though he rarely dreamed of Vryce anymore, when he did it was with such power that he would awaken trembling, cold sweat trickling down his face. Images of volcanoes fuming, of a black sky raining hot ash, of a ship rent into pieces, casting its passengers into a boiling sea... and images of a woman suffering such pain and fear that his heart twisted in sympathetic agony, while Vryce stood by and did nothing to save her. Nay, while he allowed the suffering to continue, in consummation of some strange demonic pact which he and the Hunter had established.
God help you, Vryce, if those visions are true. He whispered the words into the night, as the last of the images faded into shadows of fire and ash. God save you from my wrath.
A knock sounded suddenly on the heavy wooden door of his chamber. He looked up quickly, alerted by its volume. What could be so urgent at this time of night?
“Come in.”
The door swung open hard, banging against the wall behind it. Leo Toth stood in the doorway, breathless, his skin sheened with the sweat of recent exertion. “Street of Gods,” he gasped. It was clear he had been running hard; he put out a hand to steady himself as he drew in a deep breath. “Temple of Davarti.” And he added, almost apologetically, “You said you wanted to know.”
He knew in an instant what the man was trying to tell him and he stood quickly, all thoughts of exhaustion forgotten. There was no time for exhaustion now, nor any other time-consuming weakness. “When?” he demanded.
“Just starting now,” the man gasped. “If you hurry—”
“How many?”
He shook his head. “Don’t know. Two dozen. Maybe more. I passed them just outside