Crown of Shadows - C. S. Friedman [97]
Whether he lives or dies is not Our concern.
“Your sentence means his death,” he persisted. Sensing that there was an intelligence behind the voice now, and a malevolence, far greater than anything it had contained before. “You know that. He knows it.” And he dared, “Taste the knowledge inside him, if you doubt me.”
Something dark and unwholesome moved close by his cheek, almost touching him as it passed; it took everything he had not to collapse in a heap of gibbering panic at the near-contact. God in Heaven! What would happen if it had actually touched him, like the others had? Then he heard a sharp cry behind him, and the straining of flesh against living bonds. Whatever method of Knowing the owner of that voice was using, it was clearly painful.
I’m sorry, he thought to Tarrant. Wishing the man could hear him. There was no other way.
At last the struggling behind him subsided, and he was aware of the dark thing withdrawing to its place. What you say is true, it rumbled. It’s still no concern of Ours.
“He served you for nine centuries,” Damien challenged. “He tortured and killed and maimed and corrupted whole generations, all in your name. He warped an entire region so that it would serve his hunger—your hunger—and made himself into a legend that’ll feed you with fear long after he’s dead.” He paused dramatically; his heart was pounding. “For all that service he should deserve some kind of chance for survival, don’t you think?”
Perhaps, a lighter voice whispered, and others echoed the thought. The sense of overwhelming malevolence had faded ever so slightly, for which Damien was grateful. Would that greater being have accepted his argument? For the first time he sensed what Tarrant must have gone through, putting his soul in the hands of a creature who changed its very definition with each passing second. Or perhaps instead We should judge him by the company he keeps. You defend him as if he were one of your own, priest. If he were truly as evil as you claim, no living man would stand up for him like that.
“I need him!” he snarled. Making his voice as callous as it could become, smothering every last bit of sentiment his human heart might nurture. “I need him as a tool, and when that’s done I couldn’t give a damn what happens to him. Let Hell have him if it wants. God knows, he’s earned it.”
Silence. Damien glanced over desperately to where Karril must be, but saw no sign of her in the darkness. Would his argument work? Clearly the Unnamed’s response to such things had as much to do with the form it was in at the moment, as any inherent merit his argument might have. Was it in Damien’s favor that the voices had stayed joined together through most of their interview, or would the fragmented whispers that flitted about like insects have been easier to convince?
At last, after long minutes of silence, the voices whispered, Judgment is rendered.
He looked back at Tarrant, then into the heart of the darkness once more. “What is it?” he demanded.
Death may take him, another voice whispered. But not by Our hands. There was a pause; Damien could feel the blood pounding hot in his head, and it felt near to bursting. One longmonth from today, the compact that sustains him will be dissolved. If he can find an alternate means of survival before that, so be it. If not, then Hell may have him.
You will see that he understands Our terms.
“Yes,” he whispered. Numbed by the seeming victory. “Of course.”
A stench of foulness spilled into the space surrounding Tarrant, a smell so unclean that it made Damien’s stomach heave in protest. A hot, bitter fluid filled his mouth; he forced himself to swallow it down as the living ropes unwound themselves from about the Hunter’s limbs, withdrawing themselves from his flesh. One by one they slithered off into the stink and the darkness, and became invisible. One and one only remained, coiling about Tarrant