Crown of Shadows - C. S. Friedman [88]
“What about Tarrant?”
“You mean, is he still here?” The Rasya-thing glanced at him. “If he were, there’d be no trail.”
He looked out over the landscape ahead of them, squinting against the sickening yellow light. “I don’t see a damned thing.”
“Then it’s lucky I came along, isn’t it?” She nodded ahead and toward the right, to an area pockmarked by pools of glowing lava. “That way.”
He followed her more by touch than by sight, across a landscape where any step might be his last. The ground split as they passed, but though his heart lurched with every new fissure it was only to vent clouds of burning ash and noxious gas, to fill the air with poison. It clogged his lungs as he breathed it in and set off a spasm of coughing so violent that he feared the vibrations of his body might do more damage to the ground beneath them than the weight of his footsteps. He tried not to remember the time in the westlands when he had almost gotten killed, traversing a lava field all too much like this one.
... ground giving way beneath his feet with a sudden crack and he throws himself sideways as the rock beneath his feet shatters, fragments raining down into a heat so terrible that the hairs on his head sizzle and curl as he grasps at a nearby protrusion... rock so hot that he can feel the palms of his skin burning, but if he lets go more than that will burn, and he pulls himself across rock no more solid than that which just failed him, praying that the vagaries of Luck will protect him one moment longer....
“Don‘t,” Karril whispered hoarsely. “Stop.”
Her hand had released his. Her face was white.
He stared at her in amazement, as it hit home just what he had done. Her life is dependent on my state of mind, he thought. Awed-and also frightened-by the concept. Must he not only endure the rigors of Tarrant’s Hell, but do so without undue suffering? He didn’t know if he could manage that. Suddenly it hit home just what Karril had risked by coming here. And what depth of friendship there must be between Tarrant and the Iezu-however well-disguised-to inspire such a journey.
A geyser of flame spurted suddenly behind them. They sprinted forward across the black rock, but not fast enough to escape its downpour. Molten drops rained across the landscape, and where they struck Damien, a blinding pain stabbed into him; it took all his strength to keep running even as his flesh burned, the stink of woolen ash mixed with smoking meat as he choked on the fumes of his own destruction. Then one foot came down too hard, or else the ground was especially weak; he felt the rock giving way beneath him and threw himself forward in utter desperation, praying for solid rock ahead of him. In that instant of utter panic he thought he had lost Karril forever, but the demon had chosen his form well; the light, lithe body that so mimicked Rasya’s was still by his side as the rock gave way behind him, freeing a blast of heat so violent that it almost knocked him down.
“This way,” she said. Urging him onward.
Gasping, he struggled to follow her. The soles of his feet felt as if they were on fire; the leather which hardly protected them had begun to smoke, promising even greater pain in the future. I was a fool to come here! he despaired. What had he hoped to accomplish? Tarrant, you’d better be worth this! Then a fit of coughing overcame him and he staggered forward blindly, guided only by her hand.
“A little late now,” she said dryly. As if he had spoken aloud.
The ground