Crown of Shadows - C. S. Friedman [77]
He lay still for a few minutes, and then it occurred to him that the lamplight, dim though it was, might hinder whatever process Karril meant to initiate. He turned the wick down nearly all the way and closed the hood tightly, leaving the room in nearly perfect darkness. Good time for demonlings to strike, he thought grimly, resting one hand upon the grip of his sword. God, what he wouldn’t give to be back in the days when the worst of his worries was that some hungry brainless thing would try to snatch a bite of his flesh while he slept! That seemed like heaven, compared to the dangers he was courting now. He could hear little things scrabbling under the bed and for a moment he tensed, but then he realized they were probably no worse than bugs and rodents, arguing over some choice bit of refuse a previous occupant had left behind.
Damn it all, I hate waiting. He trained his vision on where the ceiling must be, darkness within darkness within darkness. There was no longer moonlight coming into the room, or any other light that could help him. His hand closed reflexively about the hilt of his sword as the thick, surreal blackness of the true night closed in around him. Now what? Was he supposed to change, or the room, or ... what? He listened to the scrabbling for another few minutes, until he thought he would go insane from doing nothing. Maybe Karril had chickened out, he thought; given the demon’s state of mind, that was a real possibility. If so, what was his next step? He tried to work out some kind of plan in his mind, but the close-lying darkness made organized thought difficult and, besides, he had already exhausted every plan he could think of. If Karril failed him now, then Tarrant was gone for good. In which case Calesta might as well chow down on the whole western continent, because there was nothing Damien could do to stop him.
He sensed several hungry things flitting outside the window, no doubt spawned by the brief bout of true darkness. Fortunately for them, none mistook him for prey and tried to enter. He almost regretted it. It would feel good to cut something to pieces—anything—for the sheer physical relief of such action.
Then, slowly, it dawned on him that he could see again. A rectangle of dull light where the window had been. A shadow in place of the back of a chair. With a muttered curse he rose up to a sitting position, and
Stopped moving. Stopped breathing. Stared.
The walls were gone now, and in their place was something far less substantial, through which he could see the lights of the town beyond. The floor of his room was still dark, but beneath it—through it—he could see currents of fae-light coursing like water over the ground, sparkling here and there with silver and silver-blue highlights. The rest of his room was gone, simply gone—all the furniture, the rug, even the sad little picture that hung crookedly on the far wall—and only shadows of those things remained, some clear to his eye, others barely discernible.
“Ready to go?”
He started to hear Karril’s voice from right beside him, and grabbed reflexively for his sword as he turned to acknowledge him. The demon had exchanged his velvet robes for a tight-fitting jacket and breeches not unlike Damien’s own; a short cloak was clasped to his shoulders by jeweled brooches the size of a man’s fist. He seemed unarmed, but who was Damien to judge the nature of a demon’s arsenal? He also seemed tense, which was so uncharacteristic that it heightened Damien’s own sense of impending danger.
“Where?”
“Following the path Gerald Tarrant left for us. Or for you, more specifically. It’s the channel between you two that gives us any hope of finding him.” A dark smile crossed his face, a bleak attempt at humor. “Not exactly a road your Church would approve of, but it’s the one you ordered.”
Damien stood. The action was surprisingly difficult, as though something were being wrenched from his flesh as he moved. He swayed a bit afterward,