Shadows Rise
by Shadowy Star
October 2013
Disclaimer: I don't own the Coldfire trilogy. It belongs to C.S. Friedman. I do own this story. Characters, places, locations and organizations not appearing or being mentioned in the books are also mine. Do not archive or translate or otherwise use without permission.
Summary: Light defines darkness. Darkness defines light. In between, shadows rise. Sequel to 'Darkness Falls'. Part 4 of Holiday Collection.
A/N: Got talked into writing a sequel to DF by the wonderful Lynn who insisted the story arc needed it and somehow made me see her point. Halloween fic. Be warned.
Posted as part of my New Year Resolution which is now done!
Narilka touched her fingertips to Andrys' name for the last time today, bold dark lines engraved in cool white marble, then left the crypt deep below the Merentha Castle, wrapping her nucashmere shawl tighter around her against the chill.
Andrys' death was months ago, and still the investigator she'd hired had presented no idea as to who the killer was. During those months her need to know hadn't lessened but her reasons, oh those had changed.
She'd known her happiness wouldn't last – had known deep inside and right from the start. It had been too good to be true, much less to last: her meeting a carbon copy of the Hunter, the beautiful inhuman being she'd been so deeply infatuated with. For that other, living and breathing, and so very human, to need her, to love her. For her being able to heal him. It was all she'd ever dreamed of – and dreams ended. Always. And for all her innocent artist soul Narilka Tarrant, nee Lessing, wasn't a fool. She'd realized rather fast Andrys hadn't had a shred of any artistic interest whatsoever. It wasn't that he hadn't appreciated beauty – he'd just been unable to grasp, so much not an artist, that her work had been her life long before he himself had entered it. He'd failed to see why she'd often try to translate the sheer beauty of a True Night long past into silver thread and golden wire. Yes, Andrys had loved her. He'd just never made an effort to truly understand her. So her dream had ended a while before Andrys' death – and maybe it was better that way.
She sighed. Today's festival was really getting to her, filling her thoughts and heart with old regrets and things long gone, forever out of reach. Tonight was All Hallows Eve, or Samhain as the pagans called it – a festival from the old Earth, now remembered and celebrated again as no fae could turn nightmares into reality anymore. Not that there weren't enough faeborn left but the renewed Church and its Knights were successfully dealing with them.
The skies had almost turned dark already, last sprinkles of Coreset touching the western horizon with a brush dipped in deep golden red. She closed the curtains, drew a breath. She was the Neocountess of Merentha now. Breaking down wouldn't do.
She crossed the barely lit sitting room she also used as a study, and was turning toward her bedroom when something changed around her, almost imperceptibly, like a whisper of butterfly wings, and she suddenly realized she was no longer alone. And who ever it was – she hadn't hear them entering nor felt their presence until now.
There was movement close to the window. A slight chill ran thorough her veins.
"No, of course you didn't." The man's voice was deep, warm and vaguely familiar as he stepped further into the room, still seemingly wrapped in darkness. Then, he raised a hand and removed the hood of his cloak.
"Oh!" Narilka made in relief. "Reverend Vryce. I apologize for ignoring you. Please sit down. Would you like a drink?" She recognized him from the river, and later on from the Hunter's Keep. There had been grief on his face when everyone else had rejoiced and, only for a brief moment, soul deep pain in the hazel brown eyes. She remembered those few seconds she'd allowed herself to mourn for the Hunter – or rather for the man behind the Hunter's horrifying veneer, a man who'd felt beauty so acutely. Again, she couldn't help but wonder what had happened that day, deep down under the Keep.
"My greetings, Neocountess of Merentha," Damien Vryce answered, bowing slightly.
He looked younger in the golden light, his eyes darker, almost black. For a moment, he seemed made of deep shadows and flickering light, a being straight out of a nightmare, dangerous and ancient. And though the words were polite and the voice was warm, again, a sudden chill ran down Narilka's spine, more violent than before. She inwardly cursed her far too vivid imagination for overreacting.
He moved, discarding his cloak, and the fire brought soft golden highlights to his chestnut brown hair, with no gray at all. Fluidly, like the master swordsman that he was, he took a seat in the armchair across her, and Narilka's artist eye absently noted the harmony in the play of well defined muscles beneath a simple black tunic and equally black pants.
"No to the drink. But thank you for your hospitality."
For a moment, silence fell and she felt an urgent need to bridge it. "What do you think about today's festival, All Hallows Eve, I mean? What does the Church think about it?"
"I find it fitting," her unusual guest answered, voice like deep red wine and velvet. "The Church probably deals with it the usual way – since we can't stop them, let's make it a holiday and celebrate together." He shrugged and Narilka could've had kicked herself. She'd completely forgotten he was no longer a cleric.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"Don't be. At least, not because of that."
Strange wording, she thought, as if she should be apologizing for something else and there was an underlying current of well hidden pain in the simple line. Something was seriously wrong with the man.
She rose and walked the few steps over to the fireplace. Then turned, and looked at him. Yes, he was younger, some of the lines she remembered on his face gone completely, others much less deep. What she'd thought a mere trick of light most surely wasn't. And there were his eyes – dark even now, deep and infinitely sad. Something was seriously wrong with the man.
What was he doing here?
"I came to explain, Lady Tarrant," he answered her thoughts, and that, that was downright scary.
Don't be ridiculous, Nari, she thought firmly. Telepathy doesn't exist. It's just the holiday and its symbolism affecting you.
"Explain?"
"Sit down," he suggested gently. "Believe me, you don't want to be standing for what I'm going to say." As if by an unseen hand, the large, very heavy armchair was turned to her.
She sat, slowly, and only then remembered why it should've been impossible for him to use the fae that way.
A smile fleetingly curled the ex-Priest's lips. "For everyone else on Erna that's certainly true."
Wait. She didn't say that aloud. He was reading her mind!
Something was seriously wrong with the man.
Damien Vryce moved his arm, his black cloak still slung over it. Bright flames dancing in the fireplace shimmered through the fabric as if through shadows. No, she thought, and fear, icy and burning, began to creep up her spine. His cloak is made of shadows.
"What are you?" Her hands shook. Was he a ghost? A fae construct?
"At the moment, I'm the only human being on the face of this planet able to Work." And there, it was again. There was infinite sadness in his voice, and beneath … beneath that lay nothing, a deep, gaping void. Something was seriously wrong with the man.
He moved his hand casually, effortlessly, and the candles on her desk went out, one by one. Another gesture, and they eagerly flickered back to life, again one by one. "You see, instead of striking bargains with the Iezu like you yourself once used to do, I struck a bargain with the fae itself instead of forcing it to follow a Pattern. The fae, while not exactly sentient, has an abstract understanding, enough to make a Pact. I didn't understand, before."
"And you sacrificed what, your life? Your sanity?"
Because the man before her couldn't be sane. Or alive, for that matter. What he'd suggested wasn't possible. It just wasn't. Something was seriously wrong with the man.
"Oh, I'm quite alive, I assure you," he leaned across the small distance and placed a glass of brandy into her hands, a glass that hadn't even been there just a second ago. She could feel the warmth of his body, could see the pulse at the base of his throat.
She drank.
"My sanity on the other hand is something I long ago stopped caring about." A darker shade entered the warm voice, still controlled, not yet unleashed, and she shrunk deeper into her armchair. Something was seriously wrong with the man.
"So you're now what? A ghost?"
"No. You could say I'm one with the fae. If you wish for a ghost... Well then, as this is traditionally the night for ghosts, a ghost you shall have for your company." Again a gesture and next to the very solid shape of the ex-Priest another shape –this one ephemeral and familiar– was forming, or being formed, from deep darkness and yellow candlelight.
"Andrys." Her voice was barely a whisper. Then, stronger: "It's an illusion."
"No. This is the imprint of his spirit the fae captured the night I killed him." There was only sadness in the even voice, and no regret.
She jumped to her feet, impulse carried out before she could question its consequences, the empty glass slipping from her fingers, tumbling down in slow motion and shattering on the marble floor. She didn't even hear the noise.
"You?! You killed my Andrys?"
"Sit," he said in a tone impossible to ignore or disobey and she felt the armchair collide with the back of her left knee. Everything around her seemed muted somehow, distant.
"Breathe," the same voice commanded and she did once, twice, again and again until her head and her vision slowly started to clear. All she was feeling now was tiredness – all-consuming, bone deep exhaustion. Her fear was gone, and her thoughts had stopped circling. No hate was rising within, no rage, not even the slightest trace of anger.
Andrys' spirit –if it could be called that– moved to her side and hovered there, not reaching out, doing absolutely nothing. She took another deep breath.
The glass had by then reversed its breaking and was placed into her hand, whole and refilled. Again, she drank.
"Why? Why did you kill him? And why come here, now?"
The hazel brown eyes were still warm, and she wondered, for one endless moment, what could have happened to twist the man's natural kindness into this dark mirror of itself.
"Live happened." The reply held nothing but an abyss of pain. "Death is irrevocable, and in its finality, it's easier to deal with. You've been living it since summer."
"Yes," she made, unnecessarily.
"I'm not here for forgiveness. Let's say it's my turn to give you a gift, a way to lay those open questions to rest. Ask him," the ex-Priest nodded at the ghost, "when I'm gone what he did that day in the Hunter's fortress. He won't be able to talk but still can show you. Ask later. Now, you need to know it was never about revenge. Only about equilibrium. There's this intricate beauty in balance I'm sure you'd appreciate."
The strange thing was that she believed him. Whatever had happened, whatever this man was –because she still wasn't sure how what he claimed to be was even possible– hate was essential for revenge and Damien Kilcannon Vryce had never hated her husband. All she remembered seeing on his face back then, all she could read in his eyes right now was a distant pity. No, it'd never been about revenge.
She stared at him when realization struck. "You loved him. You loved the Hunter!"
He bowed politely, still very much the Knight he once had been. "Goodbye, Neocountess of Merentha. I doubt we'll meet again."
Narilka sat there long after both his voice and his presence had faded.
Then, she turned to her husband's ghost.
"Show me," she said.
FIN
Extra Notes:
1) I didn't intend to bring Narilka into this, it sort of happened. I really think she would've been disappointed in the long run because while in the books Andrys seems to have a sense of aesthetics I'm not sure he could understand just how much one's art is part of them. Besides, he's too self-centered for this much introspection. So when the pink-tinted glasses came off that's what I imagine could've been Narilka's mental processes.
2) My goal was to show a Damien who's one, very powerful and two, more than slightly insane and have my readers wonder whether it was the power that drove him insane or the other way around. I mean, no sane person had the guts to try and strike a Pact with the fae itself, not even Gerald who's been obsessed with survival at (almost) any cost. Ah, I want to play with the idea of Damien becoming one with the fae some more and I have that little scene of how he managed that sitting on my hard drive and grinning at me but for now it's only good for scaring away plot bunnies. Evil breed, those...