Disclaimer: All characters and places belong to C. S. Friedman, and I don't make any profit from this story. I merely play with some of her ideas.

Summary: A short introspection at the moment when Hell on Earth becomes literal during COS.

A Trip to Hell

He quickly strides through Jaggonath's darkened streets, Working a continuous Obscuring so that none might bother him. As a result, those few stragglers still lurking outside so long after sunset ignore him, sticking to shadows and alcoves instead. Even if they could accost him, he would be more than capable of dealing with them. Effortlessly.

Too effortlessly.

There is little that can truly challenge him, here in Jaggonath, except for an earthquake – or a certain demon. Anything else is a nuisance, and tonight, especially, he has no nerve for dealing with such. He already is tense enough to affect the currents around him, spawning half-formed shadows of agitation. But before they can take full shape, his mere presence leeches them of their sustenance in a never-ending cycle.

He refuses to think of his visit to a vexingly equanimous Patriarch, lest it fans his anger anew. 'His Holiness' has turned out to be exceedingly stubborn, resisting the temptation of his intricately Worked crystal with despicable grace. Not that he cannot appreciate the man's character – when he had created his Church, he had envisioned exactly that kind of man as head – but at the moment, such pertinacity is most untimely. Too much hinges on this decision.

He has done everything in his power to ensure that the Patriarch cannot forget the existence of his Worked crystal, to ensure that the Patriarch will decide. The gem is enfolded in Compulsions and Coercions to draw both eye and mind of one single man, but, to his dismay, he has promised that he will not compromise the Patriarch's free will. And he has been regretting this decision ever since he had so carelessly given it.

Every few minutes, he forms a Divining to anticipate the most likely future. And every time, those visions where the Patriarch refuses his offer become fewer. But there are still too many for his liking. Perhaps Reverend Vryce will be more successful in convincing the man.

However, he knows he cannot depend on this, either. If Vryce talks to his Excellency, the most likely future will be quite detrimental to both of their survival. In some cases though, it will be the deciding factor for the Patriarch to accept the offered knowledge.

Long years of meticulous selfcontrol keep any expression of irritation limited to an acceleration of his already quickened step, all other creatures on the streets unconsciously shying away from the Obscured predator in their midst.

It would have been much simpler if he had not bothered with asking the Patriarch. It would have been well within his power to force that kind of revelation on the unaware adept against his will. And if it hadn't been for the priest, he wouldn't have hesitated doing so. But he has promised. And once he has given his word, he doesn't go back on it, no matter the consequences. It is what has allowed him to keep his free will, away from being a mindless servant to his contractor.

However, there are some concessions he has to make, to keep the contract. There are certain terms he has to fulfill to sustain his unlife, lest the punishment clause comes into effect. And, for the first time in centuries, he has begun stretching those terms more and more.

He is dismayed by how close the priest and he have become on their journey through half the known world and more than three quarters of the unknown. However, he is unsettled even more by the ease he has been led to endanger his carefully balanced existence with.

Never in all those years has he come as close to breaking his contract as now. He is walking a very fine edge of those conditions he agreed to centuries ago, and he has come to a point where the interpretation of keeping to his terms or not has been reduced to a matter of semantics.

He was allowed to continue the experiment of his Church because he had managed to convince his contractor of its potential to believe in an unnamed evil. And over the years, this artificial faith had indeed fed and shaped those forces he had bargained with into a semblance of those nightmarish images his followers hadn't been able to resist designing. It also helped that he hadn't hesitated to ruthlessly squash all those attempts of invading his Forest, making himself into a focus for all negative emotions of the Church.

So far, he has kept a very careful tally of his destructive activities so that his Church will only be affected to its benefit. In humans, strong faith needs constant stimulation, and he has been the evil they have united against. He has provided grounds for them to test their convictions on, retaliating only in equal measure.

But it is his foremost duty to create suffering, fear, and general mayhem amongst the population. Acts of creation and protection, like ensuring the Church's continued existence, run very much counter to his contract. And the Church's ultimate goal, creating a second Earth here on Erna, implies the destruction of his contractor, a creature whose whole existence relies on fae.

But now that the demon has come into play, his own place in the service of the Unnamed has become endangered. The demon has no compunctions about reforming Erna into a pit of eternal suffering, pleasing his contractor much more than he ever could. After all, he had chosen unlife because he wanted to see the success of his Church, clinging to those vestiges of humanity throughout his transition from life to unlife so that he would not destroy his own creation in a fit of uncontrolled rage. The demon does not have any such restraints, and, if left unchecked, will suffocate his Church.

But he himself has changed as well. There were times when he would never have thought of catering to a priest's sensitivities, let alone helping a patriarch become aware of his adepthood. Not in order to cause mental anguish, but to prevent a future of Church-induced suffering.

He admits that his recent behavior cannot have pleased his contractor, making the possibility of It choosing the demon over him even more likely. Frowning deeply, he resolves to thoroughly cleanse himself of those excrescences of humanity Vryce has infected him with - once the demon is subverted. It is the only way for both his and his Church's continued existence.

Those mercurial forces that have remade and reshaped his body are not likely to respond well to reasonable explanations about long-term benefits to his actions, but they probably can be appeased by an offering of suitable size. Once the demon is dead, he will have to reinforce his dark nature beyond all current doubts, perhaps sacrificing a few towns to the Unnamed. It will be a small price to pay, especially when considering that Calesta would have sacrificed everything.

Like a wraith, he enters the inn he and the priest are staying at, shrouded behind his Obscuring. It grates against his sense of propriety that circumstances force him to make due with such mediocre housing, not to mention the exceedingly unfriendly landlady who is wrapped in thoroughly warped self-images. He has no doubt that Vryce has paid handsomely for their rooms, despite their sub-standard quality.

Still keeping a tight leash on his temper, he soundlessly closes the door behind him and resets his Wardings. They keep overly curious servants and landladies out, and any signs of his unique existence in. It would be foolish to flaunt his decidedly inhuman presence while being plagued by a lack of ideas on how to reliably remove the demon.

All of a sudden, his head snaps around, movement in the periphery of his vision halting him in his tracks. Something is wrong. He becomes as still as only those truly undead can become, keenly observing the strange stir to the currents inside the apartment.

He feels that he is not alone, when by all rights he should be.

Increasingly restless swirls of fae draw his attention, their agitated surf coated with a peculiar shade of malignance. As tightly as he has Warded his rooms, there should have been no outside influence during his absence. But such a strong taint does not have natural causes, and his presence is not responsible for it.

He increases his Vision, frowning at what he Sees. To his fae-senses, it looks like thousands of maggots squirming through the currents, gorging themselves and multiplying with alarming speed.

They are not of his design, not of his creation.

With negligible effort, he focuses a complex Knowing at the stream of Dark fae-creatures on the ground. And then, just before his Working takes shape, sudden tendrils of an overwhelmingly malevolent presence snap into being around him. He can See the maggots writhing together, forming incongruous shapes while nullifying those fae he has shaped to repel the intruder. Flaring his nostrils, he becomes aware of a sulfuric, acidic stench that abruptly permeates the air behind him.

A profound weight of fear settles in his chest when he recognizes the odor. There is only one being that smells quite like it, that generates that kind of putrid feeling. And there can be only one reason for Its presence.

It seems that he has finally overplayed his hand.

He is frozen by sudden bonds of fae burrowing deeply into his flesh, through channels forged centuries ago. They fetter him, both in body and in mind, leaving him only enough sense to perceive how separate intentions flow together in a cresting tide that rushes through his blood, annihilating all resistance in its path.

Despite his centuries of experience, he cannot do anything during one of those rare moments when all warring factions of the Unnamed's existence unite into a single presence, terrifying beyond human comprehension. It tears through him with brutal, undirected force that crushes everything, shattering his thoughts in agony. Sweeping floods of suffering wash through him, bereaving him of all semblance of sanity, all patterns of Working. There is no room left for thought, much less defense. Only naked bones of existence.

He cannot tell how long he is transfixed in this state, when each and every second stretches into an eternity of hell. He is consumed by agony spreading from currents and fae-born creatures burying themselves deeper in his body, smothering his senses beneath a thick haze of red-hot pain.

An immeasurable amount of time later, the pain abates slightly when the unified entity drifts apart once again. It withdraws minutely so that he may realize Its judgment with all its ramifications. After all, mindless suffering is far less satiating than calculated horror, measured just short of the mind's ability to perceive.

And he knows what It wants. Has dreaded it ever since that one, careless move almost a year ago, when he single-handedly shifted the futures enough to guarantee that his Church could free itself of those hellish trappings the Prince from the Wastelands had spun around it.

He feels Its presence in the room, dissolving reality around him in favor of more hellish regions. And he is aware of what is going to come, not able to stop bottomless dread from rising in his throat. What is one supposed to feel when faced with an eternity of suffering, beginning right now?

It hardly relents in Its ferocious assault, Its merciless presence branding white-hot indentations of power into his thoughts, disrupting any Workings at the source. His mind is precariously balanced on a precipice of bottomless terror, his will barely clinging to enough fragments of sanity to fully appreciate his situation.

As It probably has intended.

He finally concedes that he might have made a mistake all those centuries ago, a rash decision spawned by his sudden confrontation with his own mortality. Trying to evade death forever has perhaps been his only foolishness, but it is the one he will pay for most severely now.

It still doesn't prepare him for the moment when his instinctual grasp of the fae suddenly eludes him, robbing him of the Sight that has defined him and set him apart from most humans. Not even the darkness aboard the ship headed for the Eastern Continent has been of similar vastness.

He struggles to keep afloat of the panic threatening to overwhelm him. He knows that this is the least he is going to suffer at the hands of the Unnamed, but he has been so intrinsically linked to the fae for nine hundred years that he cannot help but shudder in fear.

Then, the sun starts rising, burning him with its merciless rays, and the Unnamed laughs with Its many screeching voices.

Hell is illuminated by a bloated, yellowish sun, and suddenly everything falls into place.

He knows why he cannot Work. He knows where he is, surroundings familiar from countless hours of studying despite their strangeness.

The Unnamed hasn't been the first one to think of such a place for torture. He himself has created such visions to generate fear in the Priest during their long voyage over bottomless waters.

It is ironic that the very thing he has been striving to achieve with his Church will now be used against him.

Searing pain wracks his body as the first rays burn his skin, and all his centuries of experience with molding fae cannot help him because there are none in such a place.

It is even more ironic that he is going to suffer in the very same hell he has shown the Priest not so long ago.

Welcome to Earth.

A/N:

Argh, writing Tarrant is HARD!!! I hope I managed to capture some of his sophisticated and detached personality, but perhaps I only managed to overdo it? Especially as soon as the Unnamed comes into play, I have somehow failed to create the atmosphere of - well, looking forward to an eternity of hell. Somehow nothing I've tried conveys the aura of hopelessness that describes Tarrant's situation. I'm not content with the impression the story leaves, but I'm out of ideas how to fix it. Any tips / ideas would be welcome.

Sakiku