Crown of Shadows - C. S. Friedman [6]
“He’ll never kill you. Human life is cheap to him, but killing you would mean destroying his family line—forever—and he would never do that to one of his own creations. No, Andrys Tarrant, you’re the one man on this planet that he won’t ever kill. That’s why I need you.”
“Then he’d torture me—”
“Worse than he has already?”
Andrys lowered his head. And trembled.
“He’s powerful,” the demon said. “Perhaps the most powerful fleshborn creature that this planet has ever produced. And evil, without question. But he’s also proud, and infinitely vain—and that will be his undoing.” The brittle voice altered, becoming smooth. Seductive. Liquid tones, that lapped at his brain like a drug. “You know what I want. Now let me show you what I have to offer in return.”
Fear wrapped a cold hand about Andrys’ heart. A hundred generations of Tarrants clamored for him to flee.
But—
But—
What did he have to lose?
“Go ahead,” he whispered.
—And it occurred to him that maybe with demonic help he could get the bastard who’d slaughtered his family, could make him pay ... but not with a quick death, oh no. Nor with simple pain. With something equivalent to what he had done to Andrys—some slow, living death that would rot away his soul until there was nothing left but a core of despair, stripped of all its pride and its vanity and its strength and its power and all its hope.... He pictured the proud Neocount of Merentha made helpless by his actions, assigned to a living hell by the force of his hatred, and felt something stir inside him that had been dead for too long. Purpose. Direction. Hope. His blood ran hot with it, and he trembled as unaccustomed vitality poured into his brain. As his body flushed with the thrill of his intentions.
And then it was gone. As suddenly as it had begun. The hope, the certainty, the sense of power—all dissolved into the night, as if they had never been. All that remained was a spark of heat in his groin, as if he had just withdrawn from a woman. And an emptiness so vast it seemed ready to swallow him whole.
“Well?” the demon demanded. “Do you want to live again? Or shall I leave you to crawl your drunken way into an early grave, and exchange this hell for the one that follows? Which is it?”
His hands shook as he tried to think. Bargaining with demons was suicidal, he knew that. No one ever won that game. And he was hardly in shape to make life-altering decisions.
But ...
He wanted the feeling of purpose back. He wanted it back so badly he could taste it. He would have traded his soul to have it again ... and the demon wasn’t asking for that, was he? Only for his assistance in ridding the world of a murderer. In cleansing the Tarrant name once and for all.
“I can call it off,” he said at last. “Whenever I want. When I say it’s over, you go and leave me alone. Agreed?”
The cracked face twisted. The faceted eyes glittered. It was more than a smile, less than a grin—and it made the air vibrate with hatred, until Andrys’ soul was filled with it.
“As you command,” it whispered.
Demon’s wake
One
She walks in the moonlight, her footfall on the weathered planks as soft and as silent as a ghost’s. All about her the sailors are busy cleaning up the detritus of the storm: mending sails, untangling lines, freeing those items which were, for safety’s sake, bound to the deck. Intent upon their tasks, they do not notice her. The wind is crisp and clean and she imagines that she can catch the scent of land in it. So close, so very close.... For a moment she trembles, and almost turns back. One more month, the priest said. Maybe less. But then she remembers what that month would be like—what all other months have been like on this ship—and she stiffens with new-foundresolve. No more, she tells herself. No more.
The sea is quiet now, having spent all its anger in the three days before; in the moonlight she can see no white upon the