The past never dies

Disclaimer: I don't own the Coldfire Trilogy, and no profit whatsoever is intended.

Quotes: 'The nature of the One God...' and so on and so forth is from 'When True Night falls', page 353; 'a path of least resistance for the fae...', on the other hand, is from 'Black Sun Rising'. As I'm currently at my boyfriend's place and this is the only one of the three books I don't have at my disposal here, I can't give you the exact page. Sorry!

A/N 1: I'm well aware that another author used the nickname 'Gerry' for Gerald first (story: When Gerry met Allie), but as I can't think of anything else even remotely as fitting, I was forced to stick to it all the same...

A/N 2: Greetings to Morgana, Silvereyedbitch, Shadowy Star, Herdcat, Puffskien Overlord of Darkness, Sartala, Kenji, Carpatian Lady and all ye Coldfire fans hopefully still around. Happy Easter!

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Forgive me, Gerald. I'm here, have come back to you. Oh please forgive me...

Repeating those few lines in his mind again and again like a mantra destined to keep him from going insane, Vryce allowed himself to take a short break, his broad shoulders sagging with exhaustion. Incapable of bearing the throngs of boozing and chattering gaffers populating Black Ridge Pass in joyful anticipation of the big event, aka the burning of the Forest, anymore, he had bought some provisions and an old nag from the rest of the Patriarch's allowance and set out for the place where all his futile hopes for the future had ended in such an abysmal fashion.

Try as he might, he still couldn't fathom what the heck had possessed him to desert his companion when the man had needed him most. At that time, his reasoning had seemed perfectly logical, though. Andrys Tarrant had been grievously wronged, and killing the merciless slaughterer of his entire family was no more than long overdue justice being done. Or so he had told himself, fool that he was.

In retrospect, he suspected that he had either temporarily lost his mind, not very surprising all things considered, or one of Calesta's siblings had taken revenge for his demise. How else could one explain that he had left the adept at the mercy of that half-crazed child, knowing full well that he would find none? It was outrageous, a most heinous deed baffling all descriptions.

Heaving a sigh from the bottom of his soul, Damien gazed down on his blood-smeared hands. After several days of digging through the rubble which had once been the Hunter's proud stronghold like a vulking numole, they were densely covered with cuts and blisters, but his physical discomfort paled against the pain racking his soul. It went without saying that nothing could atone for his latest transgression. All the rivers on Erna combined couldn't wash away his guilt, nor could they raise Gerald from the dead like the biblical Lazarus. He was lost to him for all eternity, would never again shoot a scathing remark in his direction or smile that special half-smile turning his already striking features into something straight out of a fairy tale. But if he could only recover the man's mortal remains and grant them a decent burial after crying his eyes out over them, he might learn to live with the shadows of the past one day. It was but a faint hope, but everything he had.

So far, all his efforts had been to no avail. The Neocount of Merentha had died deep down in the bowels of his keep, and there was no chance in hell to gain entrance to the below-ground vaults. He had tried it roundabout a dozen times over the last days, but tons of black volcanic stone and numarble had barred his every advance, no matter from which direction he had started his excursions into the depths of the earth. If no miracle occurred, and he harboured serious doubts that it would, Gerald's mutilated corpse would lay amidst the remnants of his irrecoverable books and notes until the world came to an end and the stars fell from the sky. Somehow, it was a fitting last resting place for a human being so utterly devoted to the accumulation of knowledge.

Very much to his dismay, even Tarrant's charred skull was nowhere to be found. Whether it had been demolished in the cataclysm that had ravaged the keep or one of the crusaders had deemed it a nice souvenir he very likely would never know. Maybe it was better that way. Seeing those empty silver eyes staring at him in wordless accusation had been horror incarnate already; coming across the grisly trophy in Jaggonath one day, displayed for everybody to sneer at it or worse, would destroy him utterly.

Forced to admit his defeat at long last, the former priest knelt down on the barren ground and started to recite the Prayer for the Dead, the last service he could render his ally against all odds, his friend, the very man who had sacrificed an existence spanning almost a millennium in order to save humankind from eternal slavery and had been so poorly rewarded for his bravado. Not for the first time since the adept's meaningless second - or rather third - death he thought of his sword, but decided against taking the easy way out in the end. It wasn't fear that stilled his hand, nor was he held back by religious compunctions. Not by a long shot. But Gerald wouldn't appreciate his committing suicide. If they were to meet again in heaven or, more likely, in hell, that epitome of pragmatism would only cast him one of his notorious killing glances and call him a complete and utter fool, too soft-hearted for his own good.

Imagining Tarrant telling him off like a small boy, making his afterlife a misery with his remonstrances, the former priest smiled through his tears. But all of a sudden the ghost of a motion at the periphery of his vision caught his attention, and he whirled around, his springbolt at the ready. "Kindly lower your weapon. You won't need it, anyway," a male voice said quietly. "I mean you no harm, Damien Kilcannon Vryce. And if I did, such human toys couldn't hurt me."

The man watching him with a glimmer of amusement in his mossy green eyes seemed to be in his late thirties. Tall and powerfully built, he was certainly someone to be reckoned with, but it was his bearded face that gave Damien some food for thought. He couldn't quite put a finger on it yet, but he was sure that he had seen those ruggedly handsome features not altogether unlike his own before. "Who the hell are you?" he blurted out, too crestfallen to waste time on any polite preliminaries. "Why are you skulking around here? And how comes you know my name?"

The stranger chuckled. "My, my! So many questions. For a start, let me tell you that I've every right to visit the place where somebody once dear to me passed into a new state of being. Maybe more than you."

"Somebody dear to you, my ass. I suppose you aren't referring to the Hunter. Can't imagine that the bastard had many friends."

"Only two I know of. You and that Iezu, Karril. Helpful but quite a pain in the neck sometimes, if you ask me. But that's not the point now. You'd better guard your tongue when talking about Gerald Tarrant, Mer Vryce. Whatever mistakes he might have made, he was a great man in his lifetime, a rare combination of scholar, religious visionary and mighty warrior and an inspiration to most he came in contact with. Hence, I'd rather you showed the premier of your Order a bit more respect. Without him to write almost every one of the holy scriptures of our faith, the sad mess left of the Church at the end of the dark ages would have sunk into oblivion long ago."

"You don't say so," the warrior knight muttered under his breath. When his vis-à-vis, who obviously possessed an excellent hearing sense, shot him a disapproving look, he raised his shoulders in a half shrug. "Sorry for sounding snappish again, but your vulking 'visionary' used to remind me of his accomplishments at least once a day, so I might be forgiven for reacting not altogether favourable to your admonishments. However, you speak as if you had known him in person. Back then in the Revival period, before his fall. But that's outright impossible."

"Is that so?" The man, or what he had taken for a man, glided soundlessly closer, and for the first time Damien realized that there wasn't a single speck of dust on his flowing robes of an age long gone by. Even his soft brown leather boots were immaculately clean as if he had dropped right from the sky instead of covering the ground on mortal feet. Perhaps he had. Only the Lord in His wisdom knew what kind of creature had chosen to violate his guilt-ridden solitude, but by now he was rather sure that human descent was playing but a minor part in it, if at all. "I'm asking you for the last time," he growled. "Who - or rather what - are you? I'm not in the mood for fencing words with one of the faeborn, as you might be able to understand under the given circumstances."

"Oh, but I am human. In a way. You could say I'm everything that's left of the patron of your Order save a few documents and paintings. One of them adorns the great hall of Merentha Castle, but another found a permanent home in the Patriarch's private office. A pity that Gerald worked a Conserving. I've never been vain, but the wretched painter made me look like the bloody king of fools. Disgusting."

"Just wait a minute and let me get this right. You want me to believe that you're King Gannon? The main figurehead of the Revival and founder of the Order of the Golden Flame?"

The stranger bowed with a flourish. "The very same. At your service."

"But that's absurd! Gannon's body crumbled into dust centuries ago."

"You're telling me nothing new, Mer Vryce. It goes without saying that I'm not the real thing. The only one who has ever crossed such an ocean of time is Gerald, and he paid a high price for it. I'm rather like those spectres you encountered on Mount Shaitan. To one of them you came pretty close."

"Almea," Damien breathed, goosebumps erupting all over his body. How could he ever forget the mad race to their supposed meeting with eternity and the ghostly apparition of the woman Tarrant had so cruelly murdered in order to strike his bargain with the Unnamed? And yet she had loved him, right to the bitter end.

"Yes. Sweet, beautiful, forgiving Almea. She was a credit to my court and the most loyal and loving wife you can possibly imagine. When she found out about us at long last, she conducted herself with the utmost dignity and just asked to be the only female in her husband's life. What a woman! Almost made me reconsider my sexual orientation," Gannon, or whoever the creature truly was, added with a twinkle in his eyes.

"Us," Vryce said flatly, not quite sure whether he had landed himself in a madhouse all of a sudden. "Like in 'Gerald and you'.

The broad grin flashed at him revealed two rows of perfect, reassuringly human teeth. "I gather that he never cared to mention our long standing love affair then. It doesn't really surprise me. He was a hard nut to crack right from the beginning. Getting him to talk about his feelings was worse than pulling teeth, if I may say so. But let me assure you that his restraint didn't extend to the horizontal. I could tell you a tale or two..."

"Spare me. I'm not in the least interested in your kiss and tell stories."

"Your loss, Reverend Vryce. As Gerry always abhorred such a breach of etiquette, I wouldn't have gone into detail, anyway. The only thing you should remember when the time comes is that he preferred to keep his options open in sexual matters and found great pleasure in taking my cock up his pretty ass. That knowledge might come in handy one day."

Damien blinked. "You're speaking in riddles, man! Just in case it has escaped your notice so far, Gerry, good gracious, won't roll around in the hay anymore. He's gone. Dead as a doornail. Why don't you just get that into your thick head?"

"But you didn't see him die, did you?"

"No, but I saw his severed head being tossed into the flames like a vulking log, may God help me. I don't know about your perception of reality, or lack thereof, but that counts for 'dead' in my book alright. You can't possibly imagine what it was like to see those glassy eyes staring into nothingness, to smell his burning hair... There isn't a single night I don't have nightmares about it. I should have protected him from that crazy son of a bitch, or at least gone down fighting at his side instead of... of..." His voice breaking, the warrior knight couldn't force another word past the lump growing in his throat.

"Of what? Deserting him in his hour of need?" Gannon finished his sentence for him. "A foul deed indeed, but none of your own making. Have you ever considered that Gerald wanted you to go? Made you go, for whatever secret reason of his? You aren't the only one who had to face up to that kind of experience, by the way. How do you think he managed to trick me into outlawing private sorcery? Back then, I didn't realize it, but he must have been fiddling around with my mind, or I would have never agreed on throwing him to the wolves in sheep's clothes calling themselves religious authorities, no matter how much he was harping on about dreading to cause a schism in his most treasured creation."

"But he couldn't," Vryce whispered dejectedly. "Influence me, I mean. The fae was already unWorkable at the time. He was utterly powerless, tired to the bone and defeated, and I abandoned him to his fate like the vilest of cowards. There is no excuse for my behaviour."

"I still have to see the day Gerald hasn't one last ace up his sleeve. The intricacies of sorcery have never been my cup of tee, but if I'm not very much mistaken, his trump card was the channel. 'A path of least resistance for the fae that might even outlast death itself', yes?"

When Damien's head came up with a start, the shadow of Tarrant's royal lover chuckled softly. "Don't look at me like a dying duck in a thunderstorm, my dear Reverend. If I learned one thing in almost two decades at his side, it's that he wasn't prone to doing something without a reason. Maybe he wanted to save you, maybe he had an altogether different motive for getting you out of the picture. Who knows? But you mustn't torment yourself with baseless guilt pangs any longer. It's outright pointless."

"That's all well and good for you to say! You don't have to live with the memories, ask yourself what could have been if you hadn't been so..."

"Didn't you listen to me?" Gannon cut him short, a flash of impatience passing across his handsome features. "I know exactly how you feel. Do you really think that living in ignorance of what had become of my lover was easy for me? That I danced with joy when I saw him as a mindless monster barely remembering his own name years later, his fangs dripping with blood and his claws buried in his latest victim? Poor Captain Moffat. He was a good soldier, a little bit narrow-minded perhaps, but loyal to his very bones. It's no use to cry over spilled milk, though, as my mother was wont to say. If wishing could make it so, I'd opt for Gerald growing old at my side. Or at least for him choosing a less stubborn man as my successor."

"As your... that's a bad joke, right?" Damien ground out between clenched teeth.

"Not in the least. As I've already pointed out, he was as uptight as they came even in his youth, but back in his mortal body, he would have definitely made advances at you in the near future if that lunatic Andrys hadn't brought your blossoming hanky-panky to a premature end. Well, it wasn't meant to be. But whatever you might think about me and my lacking grasp of reality, thank you very much, you'd better believe me in one respect: Of course it's a purely hypothetical mind game, but if something of Gerald's essence had survived his encounter with his last living descendant, he'd get in touch with you one fine day. Not out of a sense of duty or honour, but because he has - had a hell of a crush on you."

His legs threatening to give way under him, Vryce flopped down onto one of the larger pieces of numarble littering the ground. "I don't know what to believe anymore," he muttered. "There's no denying that you've got some insider information. Too much for my peace of mind, actually. Not a great many laymen have ever seen King Gannon's portrait in the Patriarch's hallowed halls, I suppose. It doesn't do you justice, but a certain likeness is there. If you were a Iezu, you could of course have just assumed the man's guise, but your words have a ring of truth that isn't easily dismissed. But just in case you are what you profess to be: How the heck can you be so sure about Tarrant's feelings for me? Did you talk to him before Andrys killed him?"

Gannon snorted. "Kindly don't make a fool of yourself, Mer Vryce. When matters came to an end, I wasn't existent yet. I'm totally in the dark about the precise mechanisms of my creation, but I wouldn't be too surprised if some of Gerald's last thoughts were on me. There have always been rumours about your life passing before your inner eye shortly before you draw your last breath, haven't they? The mortal man I once was beheld something else entirely, but that's none of your concern."

"But the fae doesn't react to brain activity any longer! However much the bastard might have longed for you to hold his hand when the end was drawing near, the chimeras of his subconscious had no chance in hell to manifest themselves."

"Am I sensing a hint of jealousy?" Finding himself the target of a truly murderous glower, Gannon raised a placating hand. "Peace, my friend. My mouth always had the bad habit of running away with me, an inherent character trait apparently not even kicking the bucket and returning as a bloody spectre can cure. Instead of being at loggerheads over a dead man, we'd better continue our little mind game, just for the fun of it. What if Gerald made a sacrifice in the very face of death, a sacrifice so powerful that it allowed for a final Working? In this case, his thought processes could have very well spawned what you're talking to now. While we're at it, I wouldn't rule out that a faeborn copy of yours is prowling around in this area, preaching the gospel to the trees and rocks. But be that as it may, perhaps we should both be grateful that he didn't picture me stark naked in those last desperate moments. Your brain can do strange things to you."

In spite of his inner turmoil, Damien couldn't help but returning the infectious smile. "Agreed. But all this still doesn't explain how the hell you could have shared in his... whatever. It simply doesn't make any sense."

"Not that we know of. If I were to make an educated guess, I'd say that my 'birth' and the transfer of his emotions were purely accidental, but does it really matter?" Gannon's fingers came to rest on his shoulder and gave it an affectionate squeeze. "In a way, the past never dies," he went on, a strange light shining in his eyes. "But whatever happened deep down beneath us that fateful day, Gerald Tarrant's spirit has moved on, and there's nothing here for you save crumbling ruins and bad memories. The dry season has come to an end, and soon this will be a flaming hell not made for mortal bodies. If I were you, I'd return to Black Ridge Pass and watch the Forest burn for a while. Not all tourists are bothersome pests, and you might meet some interesting people."

"And what about you?"

Gannon shrugged. "I don't have the faintest idea. Unlike those shadows from Shaitan, there seems to be no limit to my sphere of activity. It's a whole new world out there, beckoning for exploration. Maybe I'll crash your wedding one day. Once again: who knows?"

Registering the expression of utmost horror on Damien's face, the king chuckled softly. "Breathe, Mer Vryce. It was nothing but a joke. Gerald and I, we always shared a certain dark humour. A sense for the absurd. It helps when the going gets tough. Farewell, now, and good luck to you. I don't have any intention of besetting you again. But keep in mind what I've told you, and don't muck things up when the chance to pick up the pieces should raise its head one day. That's the only advice I can give you."

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Nineteen days later, Vryce was leaning against the railing of the narrow wooden deck hastily constructed to accommodate the crowds gloating over the burning of the Forest, a mug of ale in his hand. At least that part of Gannon's predictions had come true. A fortnight ago, the crusaders had finally begun the destruction of the unique ecosystem the Hunter had so painstakingly created, setting fire to it in a dozen places along its border so that the purifying flames would burn all those degenerated life-forms inhabiting it to a crisp instead of allowing them to flee to adjacent regions. If the shadow of Tarrant's former lover hadn't cautioned him against lingering, he would have doubtlessly shared their fate.

It had been a close call. After the man, or what counted for 'man' in his particular case, had vanished into thin air without leaving a trace of his existence behind, his first impulse had been continuing the search for whatever was left of his companion and to hell with the consequences, but he had thought better of it. Just as Gannon had implied and the Prince of Jahanna himself had pointed out back in the rakhlands, urging them to leave poor Zen's corpse for the carrion eaters, there was nothing here to do honour to. Gerald's immortal soul had already departed to a place where he couldn't follow him yet; whether his new abode was heaven or hell remained to be seen. He could only pray that the nature of the One God was indeed Mercy and His Word forgiveness just as the Prophet of the Law had taught a millennium ago.

Damien sighed into his mug. A strange sense of urgency making his entire body twitch with restlessness, he had very nearly ruined his mare on his way back to Black Ridge Pass, but the interesting encounters he'd been promised were a long time coming. Sick and tired of idle talk all around him, the self-appointed ambassadors to the Iezu, trigger-happy tourists, tabloid artists and all the other buggers eager to get a piece of the action, he was just asking himself for the umpteenth time what on Earth and Erna he was doing here - and whether coming to terms with the adept's death would allow him to move forward with his own life at long last - when a single pistol shot and the resulting conversation changed everything.

The tale the spoiled brat in his glove-soft black leather pants, embroidered doeskin vest and crimson silk shirt chose to regale him with sounded like the weirdest cock-and-bull story he had ever heard, but deep down in his heart he knew that every word was true. Joy welled up inside him, gratefulness that the One God in His wisdom had granted His prophet a second chance against all odds and a wild, desperate yearning threatening to pulverize the last fortifications of his waning self-control.

He didn't return the polite farewell words directed at him, just stood there as if rooted to the spot, his hands balled into white-knuckled fists to prevent them from reaching out and pulling the object of his desire into a hug. If this beautiful, black-haired chit of a boy truly had been Gerald Tarrant in another life, another era, he had taken a hell of a risk when approaching him. He surely deserved a new beginning, free from the ghosts of the past and the fear that a single imprudent word might be his undoing. His own wishes, the foolish flutters of his fallible human heart, were of no importance whatsoever in comparison.

But just before the 'youth' who wasn't young by any stretch of the word turned away from him and started to walk back towards the pass with a consummate grace he remembered so well, Damien thought he saw a spark of disappointment flaring up in those dark, fathomless eyes, and everything fell into place. Gannon's spectre might have had a point there in a lot of respects, but in this regard he had been thoroughly and utterly wrong. His creation and insight into Tarrant's emotional life wasn't a mere twist of fate. Just a very few things within the cunning bastard's sphere of influence were, if at all.

Grinning all over his face with relief, the warrior knight made his choice without thinking twice. "Easy, stranger," he called out after him. "We've still got some unfinished business."

Gerald, or whatever his name was now, stopped dead in his tracks, his shoulders set in a tense line under the layers of silk and leather. "As far as I'm concerned, there's no need for further talks. I've told you everything I possibly could without jeopardizing everything. You certainly understand that, do you?"

"Of course I do, but talking till we're blue in the face isn't quite what I'm having in mind, anyway. It's high time to move our interactions to the physical plane, don't you think?"

With that, he crossed the distance between them in five long strides, wrapped his arms around a slender waist without giving a damn for the surprised gasp escaping the adept's throat and kissed him square on the mouth. For a few seconds, Tarrant's new incarnation indulged him, but then he disentangled himself from his embrace and stepped back. "What has come over you, Vryce? Have you lost your wits?" he snapped, his brows knitted into a tight frown.

"Astoundingly enough, I haven't. But I had a very interesting conversation lately. Met a spectre of King Gannon at what's left of the vulking keep. The bloke was in a rather talkative mood, I dare say, let me in on some details about his private life I wouldn't have imagined in my wildest dreams. Who would have thought that the Neocount's duties to king and country went far beyond gracing his court and winning his battles for him? It was quite an eye-opener, to put it mildly, but what really left me speechless was the revelation that his precious 'Gerry' was having the hots for me in his existence as the Hunter. Under different circumstances, I'd have dismissed the idea as outright ludicrous, but he didn't sound as if he were joking."

It seemed to him that the smooth, olive-coloured cheeks acquired a rosy glow. "Presumably not. But for God's sake, did he really say 'Gerry'? I can't remember how often I... how often his lover told him that he wasn't altogether fond of being addressed thus. Or so I've heard."

"Can't understand why. After getting over the initial shock, I think it's quite cute. My mother used to call me 'Dumpling' when I was just out of my diapers. As far as nicknames go, it can't get much worse."

"You've no idea, Vryce," the adept retorted drily. "Anything else he told you?"

"Merely that he believed both his creation and his knowledge of Gerald's feelings for me to be purely coincidental. I don't agree with him, though. Let's pretend for a minute that the Neocount of Merentha truly sacrificed his identity in order to save his naked life, just as you've suggested. Not only had he to give up his title, name and looks, but also the one human being he was loath to loose. Theoretically. On the practical side, I deem it very well possible that such a sly old fox deviced a contingency plan at the eleventh hour. It wouldn't have been the first time."

"Just so. But why employing Gannon's spectre in the first place? If something of your ally's essence had indeed survived, he could have confessed his infatuation with you in person, couldn't he?"

"Yeah, but being straightforward was never among the scheming bastard's virtues. Presumably, it's much more fun to push people around like pawns on a chess board."

The adept raised a disapproving eyebrow. "As I'm in no way connected to Gerald Tarrant, I naturally can't say for sure, but I don't think that manipulating you for the 'fun' of it was his predominant intention. Maybe he wanted to grant you some time to sort out your own feelings or give you an incentive to take the initiative in case he survived what was to come. After all, without Gannon briefing you on his preferences in bed, you'd still consider the man a staunch heterosexual and therefore forever out of reach. From this point of view, his course of action was perfectly logical."

"Not to mention that passing the buck to me would have saved him from the indignity of being rejected outright if I decided that I'd be better off without him," Damien retorted with a mischievous grin. "But letting him walk out of my life again isn't a mistake I'd care to make. Ever."

Dark eyes met his hazel ones, sparkling with a so very human emotion the former Hunter might never voice, and Vryce bent down and kissed him for the second time. From far, far away a low, wistful sigh seemed to reach his ears, and he sent a silent thank-you at the address of the being who had made all this possible. Then the man in his arms pressed himself tighter against him and parted his lips with his tongue, and he stopped thinking altogether.