Gift exchange
Disclaimer: I don't own the Coldfire Trilogy, and no profit whatsoever is intended.
A/N 1: Well, this is my X-mas contribution for 2015. In honour of the holiday spirit, I opted for posting a chapter on each Sunday in the Advent season and maybe another one on the 24th of December. Unlike in English speaking countries, it's the most important Christmas day here in Germany, usually celebrated in a rather solemn way (no funny hats and that kind of stuff, lol). But times have changed, and for most its just a 'present orgy', just as anywhere else, I suppose... Anyway, have a nice Advent, all ye Coldfire fans still somewhere out there!
A/N 2: Concidering that Gerald was revived by the Mother of the Iezu as the Hunter in this story, still undead and with his powers intact, it's basically an A/U, set about five months after the showdown on Mount Shaitan.
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His eyes narrowed into slits of suspicion, Damien Kilcannon Vryce glared at the gnomish man who had succeeded Jaxom IV as the head of the Church of Unification on the eastern continent and found the object of his scrutiny somewhat wanting. Alastair Temchevar's predecessor might have been a prejudiced, headstrong bastard who had resented him right from the beginning, had loathed sorcery so much that he had closed his eyes to being a natural, but in the end, he had been exactly what the Prophet of the Law must have envisioned as the perfect leader of his most treasured creation: steadfast in his beliefs, immune to the insinuations of evil and willing to pay the ultimate price for the common good.
The sad excuse for a Patriarch sitting across him at the heavy mahogova desk, fidgeting restlessly on his seat like a child awaiting being told off for his latest prank, couldn't hold a candle to him. However the man had gotten in this position, personal charisma certainly hadn't played a part in it.
"What is it?" the former priest asked curtly. "I've got business to attend to." It was a blatant lie. Since Tarrant had deemed it best to ditch him and set about crushing the crusade against his domain, sparing just a single soldier of the Church who had returned to civilization half out of his mind with terror, babbling about white wolves and disgusting worm creatures erupting from the ground and devouring his comrades, he had been doing nothing but idly twiddling his thumbs. But that was none of Temchevar's concern.
"A messenger has arrived this morning, Mer Vryce. From Jahanna."
Damien's heart skipped a beat, just one more thing his vis-à-vis didn't need to know. "And what the hell has that got to do with me, if I may ask?" he retorted with feigned indifference. "The Church surely can handle her own affairs."
The Patriarch harrumphed. "That goes without saying. But it turned out that the Hunter explicitly requests your involvement in the business."
"My involvement, my ass. I hope you don't mind me saying, Holiness, but you're wasting our time. I've seen enough of him and his vulking Forest to last me a lifetime, thank you very much." His face a grim mask of determination, the warrior knight rose out of his chair. "If that's all, I'd rather return to my lodgings.
"But it's a matter of utmost importance! You can't just turn your back on the institution you once swore to serve!"
Vryce laughed, a harsh, bitter sound devoid of any genuine mirth whatsoever. "I can and I will. Where was your precious Church when I needed her most? Instead of backing me up when I damn well risked my hide in order to save the world from falling into the clutches of a power-crazed Iezu, she hindered me every step of the way, very nearly chucking me out for allying with a creature considered evil incarnate. And now her leader wants me to negotiate with the very same man? 'We use what tools we must', eh? Whatever can be said about you, you certainly follow the Prophet's teachings to the letter."
"You have no right to criticise the Church," Temchevar snapped in a huff. "The Hunter is a monster, an abomination in the eyes of God. But special circumstances require certain... adjustments. The messenger had a woman in tow, one of the five unfortunate souls abducted from the area over the last months. A gesture of goodwill from his master he had the nerve to call her discharge. Of course the poor girl is stark mad, like all the others he allows to escape from his lair for whatever sinister purpose of his. But there were hints at more humans held captive at the Keep, survivors of the crusade and civilians alike, may God help them, and the possibility of them being handed over to us if we meet the conditions. We mustn't pass up the golden opportunity to save them from a terrible fate. As a former priest, you of all people should understand this."
Intrigued very much against his will, Damien sat down again. "And let's not forget the fact that their deliverance from evil would strengthen your position and get you a bunch of new followers, something coming in quite handy after the Lord of the Forest wiped the floor with your army and half of the believers converted to paganism consequently," he retorted drily. "But you've managed to pique my curiosity. What does the son of a bitch want for his show of leniency, and how do I come into the picture?"
"If I understand his accursed minion correctly, Gerald Tarrant, or whatever unholy spirit is inhabiting his body, doesn't ask for much. In a way. He suggests a kind of... gift exchange, something appropriate for this time of the year, or so I've been told. I don't have the faintest idea what this is supposed to mean."
The warrior knight could have enlightened him. It was the 4th of December, and if no unforeseen catastrophe had wiped out human life on their mother planet Earth or the religious beliefs had changed completely, a great part of its population slowly but surely would be preparing for celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, the festivities including a ritual gift-giving between relatives and friends. Here, on their new home at the outer fringes of the galaxy, the colonists had been forced to abandon the belief in a messiah along with saints and God's angels long ago, but a man as high up in the Church hierarchy as Alastair Temchevar should have heard about the ancient customs, anyway.
Damien bit back a curse. He was already by no means in a celebratory mood, and his gut feeling told him that he wouldn't like the answer to the question burning on the tip of his tongue, wouldn't like it one bit, but he simply had to know. "So let's stop beating around the bush, Holiness," he said with enforced calm. "You didn't summon me for nothing. What are the vulking conditions?"
"He promises to return all his prisoners, and we're speaking about roughly two dozen, in exchange for one single man. You."
Vryce felt as if he had been clubbed over the head. When the Neocount had been revived by the Mother of the Iezu on Mount Shaitan, if it could be called thus at all in his particular case, he had lost no time in transforming into something black, sleek and nasty. Curved talons the size of a small dagger digging into his clothes and huge, veined wings batting the air around him had been a dire omen of the things to come, and he had put his life into God's hands before losing consciousness. But Tarrant hadn't killed him. When he had finally come to again, he had found himself in a clean bed in Sheva, his accommodation paid for and a pouch full of gold coins in his pocket. He hadn't seen his ally against all odds ever since. The promise to rid Erna of the Hunter's taint forever was still standing between them, but so far, he hadn't been in the least inclined to make good on it.
"And what if I don't agree to this lunacy?" he choked out between gritted teeth when he could finally trust his voice again.
It seemed to him that the Patriarch turned a shade paler. "In this case, the prisoners are to be executed, one after the other. The messenger made himself perfectly clear that his debaucher is sick and tired of feeding more than twenty hungry mouths that serve no purpose, as he put it. He didn't sound as if he were kidding."
"I quite believe it. If the Hunter's minions come after him, and I'd bet my ass that they do, they aren't given to cracking jokes. But this doesn't automatically mean that we should cave in to his demands. It goes without saying that we can't take the keep by assault. It would be outright suicidal to try, as your failed crusade proved well enough. But if we could temporize with the bastard for a while, we might come up with a better strategy. Just let me talk to his servant and..."
"You don't understand, Mer Vryce. The messenger's already gone. Said his presence wasn't needed any longer because his master could read your thoughts from afar, and I've got no reason to doubt the man's words. There's a link between you and Gerald Tarrant, isn't it? A channel forged in blood. You not only fed him more than once, a most heinous deed in itself, if you ask me, but to make matters worse, you also imbibed a drop of his foul essence. It escapes me how you can live with such a thing, with the corruption of your soul it entails, but that's not the point now. If you haven't agreed on the bargain by twelve o'clock tonight, the Hunter will send us a treasure chest, filled with the deplorable prisoners' fingers. Twenty-four hours later, it will be their toes. Then their tongues and so on and so forth. As much as I wish otherwise, I don't think it's an empty threat."
Neither did Damien. He knew very well what the entity called the Darkest Prince of Hell with good reason was capable of if someone was foolish enough to cross him. Even if he hadn't had ample first-hand experience, what had happened to Andrys Tarrant would have been enough and to spare to make his toes curl with dread.
True to his demonic nature, the Prince of Jahanna had shown no mercy on the man daring to lead a crusade against his domain. Learning that a ne'er-do-well who had done nothing in his entire life but lamenting about his fate, whoring around and popping pills had brazenly worn a replica of the Prophet's circlet and famous armour, Damien had felt his hackles rising, but nothing could justify the atrocities Gerald had committed on his last living descendant after he had gotten his vengeful hands on him.
Considering the traces of torture on his body, or whatever had been left of it, Andrys hadn't died quickly. Not by a long shot. When the adept had been finished with him at long last, he had ferried his charred, mutilated corpse to Jaggonath, to be delivered straight to the Patriarch's office. At the time, the position had been vacant, but the message had been understood, nonetheless. What had become of the young pagan girl who had supposedly accompanied her unfortunate lover on the military expedition was still a mystery. Rumours had it that the Lord of the Forest had hunted her for his wicked pleasure, but very likely no one would ever know her fate.
The sound of fingers drumming impatiently on the desktop brought him back to the here and now. "With two dozen lives at stake, you're going to turn me in no matter what I decide, aren't you?" he challenged, his brows knitted into a tight frown.
Temchevar gulped down a mouthful of air. "Have you lost your wits?" he spluttered. "Of course I won't force you into anything. Who do you think I am? And besides, it would be a breach of the rules. You have to sacrifice yourself for the sake of the greater good out of your own free will, or the deal is null and void. In case we laid a finger on you, I was told that the Hunter would retaliate without mercy, annihilating the entire city. I don't want us to share Mordreth's fate."
Maybe the man wasn't as daft as he seemed to be. Anyway, the laws of the game Tarrant had set gave him a certain freedom of manoeuvre. Theoretically. On the practical side, he was in a goddamn tight spot. Turning his back on the captives and thus condemning them to a grisly death was anathema to everything he believed in, something the scheming bastard sitting in his black replica of Merentha Castle like a spider in her web was well aware of. Ultimately, he had no choice but to accept the inevitable and go to the Forbidden Forest like a lamb to the slaughter, a somewhat unsettling comparison, as far as he was concerned. But yet he couldn't bring himself to voice his consent.
His reluctance to play along wasn't so much caused by fear. Or, to be precise, by fear of Gerald killing him. If the man had wanted to do away with him, he could have easily accomplished the deed on Mount Shaitan instead of carrying him back to civilization like a vulking postal parcel. But when the Neocount had cast him a last farewell look up there on the volcano, preparing to sacrifice an existence spanning nigh to a thousand years, there had been something in those molten pools of silver he had never witnessed in them before, nor thought he ever would: pure, unbridled affection. It had struck a chord with him that hadn't fallen silent ever since.
Sometimes, when he was laying wide awake at night, incapable of finding sleep no matter how many stiff drinks he had knocked back in the course of the evening, strange chimeras rose from the abysses of his soul, mocking him with a hundred 'what-ifs' and 'might-have-beens', but it couldn't be. Mustn't be, whatever his fallible human heart might be wishing for. After Calesta's demise had rendered their temporary alliance unnecessary, the Hunter and he couldn't be anything than mortal enemies.
"Stop! You can't go in there, Mes! His Holiness is busy."
The agitated voice snapped Damien out of his reverie. At the very next moment, the door flew open and a young woman stumbled over the threshold, one of the Patriarch's acolytes hot on her heels. "Forgive me, Holy Father," the fellow puffed all in a flutter, his pudgy face flushed a bright red. "We tried to confine her to her bedroom, to avoid any... mishaps, but she refuses to stay there. Insists on speaking to a man called Damien Vryce, whoever that may be."
"I'm Damien Vryce. Leave her be."
The warrior knight got up and had a closer look at what had to be the Hunter's released victim. The woman, no, the girl, he corrected himself, couldn't be older than eighteen. Whatever had been done to her in the weeks of her captivity hadn't fully managed to destroy her porcelain-doll beauty, but there was a glimmer of madness in her blue eyes that made his skin crawl.
Beholding him, those windows to a hell he didn't want to look into ever again widened in recognition, and her face split into a demented grin. "It's you," she exclaimed, her hands grabbing the lapels of his jacket like a vice. "The Master wants you. Needs you. Don't make Him wait too long.
"Calm down, Child. It's all right." His heart in his mouth, Damien wasn't even aware that he was falling back on the jargon of his former profession. "Can you tell me what this is all about?"
The woman cackled hysterically. "Oh yes, I can. Master trusts me, shares His thoughts with me. He isn't happy that you've ruined His taste for delicate pets. But you're different. Strong. You'll please Him for a long, long time."
Crap! This wasn't quite what he had wanted to hear. Gerald was already a handful on a relatively good day, and if he was pissed off at him for whatever reason, it didn't bode well for his personal well-being. There were things worse than death. A lot worse. The nightmares Tarrant had unleashed on him, drawing on his deepest fears, had taken him to the brink of insanity more than once. He didn't even want to imagine how it would be like to be hunted like a wild animal in the adept's ghoulish lair where all living things, be it man, beast or plant, were responding to his every whim.
For a few seconds, he seriously contemplated turning on his heels, leaving the office with the antique drapes, pierced-glass windows letting in the weak winter sun and patterned carpets he remembered so well from his first visit and to hell with the consequences. He had sacrificed three years of his life for the sake of mankind, had witnessed the deaths of cherished friends and unspeakable acts of cruelty which would make even a dauntless man regurgitate his dinner, let alone enduring things no one should ever be forced to go through himself. Enough was enough.
But he wasn't the only one who had suffered beyond human endurance. The madwoman grinning up to him must have been a light-hearted teenager not so long ago, doubtlessly taking delight in dolling herself up and being courted by her male peers. Now she was just a shadow of her former self, one more item on Tarrant's already long list of destroyed lives. Looking at her, he simply didn't have the heart to fail the remaining captives.
It was beyond all question that Gerald had anticipated his reaction and devised his strategy accordingly. Utterly unburdened by moral scruples, the cunning, manipulative son of a bitch had pulled exactly the right strings that would make his former brother-in-arms dance to his tune like a marionette. Dumping the part of his emotional life, however underdeveloped it might be, he had deemed suitable for achieving his purpose into his victim's defenceless brain couldn't have cost him more than a fleeting thought. And why not? It had already worked out fine in Cee's case, hadn't it? What his course of action might cost her was of no importance whatsoever to a man who had been torturing and butchering innocents without showing a shred of remorse for nigh to a millennium. Damn you, Merentha!
Sighing inwardly, Damien resigned himself to the inevitable. Every so gently, he pried the slender fingers off his lapels and made a sign of blessing over the hapless girl's head. He wasn't a priest any longer, but it certainly couldn't hurt.
Very much to his surprise, she let him do as he pleased, relented without a whiff of protest as the young acolyte wrapped his arm around her and pulled her towards the door. But at the very last moment, she turned her head and looked him square in the face, an eyebrow raised in sardonic amusement. "It was a wise decision," she whispered, her voice deeper than before and hauntingly familiar. "And a brave one. I've never doubted that you'd indulge your helper syndrome once again, though. Having said that, I'd very much appreciate if you were ready for your journey to the Forest in ten days from now on. At sunrise. Unlike me, my servants can travel by day. And Vryce..." The young woman chuckled darkly, a sound that made his hairs stand on end all over his body. "I'm looking forward to seeing you again. Don't disappoint me."
Before he could gather his wits for a reply, her delicate face went perfectly blank and she blinked, utterly confused. Then the door closed behind her with a snap which rang through the stunned silence like a gunshot.
"What... what on Earth and Erna are we to make of that?" the Patriarch gasped forth, his pale face beaded with sweat.
Damien shrugged. "Sorcery. Don't have a clue how Tarrant did it. It shouldn't be possible nowadays unless one is willing to die for a last Working, but it was to be expected somehow. How else could he have been able to defeat an entire army? The high and mighty Neocount of Merentha has never been one to bow down to the rules. Come to think of it, I still have to see the day he hasn't one last ace up his silk sleeve."
When Temchevar stared at him in baffled incomprehension, the warrior knight's lips curve into a crooked smile. "I've seen him manipulating the weather, shape-shifting as if it were child's play and killing with a mere thought, Holiness, so please don't take offence if I'm not wetting myself with excitement right now. In fact, I couldn't care less about his latest parlour trick. But consider me hired. I'm going to pay the vulking bastard a courtesy call he'll never forget."
"God will reward you for for it, Mer Vryce! You can't imagine what a weight you take off my shoulders. I'm deeply indebted to you. It goes without saying that you're reinstated in your office with immediate effect. After what has come to pass, we're in dire need of..."
"Kindly spare me your eulogies," Damien reigned in on his parade. "I don't do it for your sake. Or for the Church's, for that matter, and I definitely set no great store by being brought back into the fold. Frankly spoken, you can shove your reinstatement where the sun doesn't shine. If the girl's words are anything to go by, I don't think I'll ever be in a position to take you up on that, anyway. And now excuse me. I'm back in ten days, two hours before the break of dawn. Have a horse, a pack animal and some provisions ready for me. That's all I ask of you."