Focus on that, he thought. Not the other thing. That was too terrifying to face, and they weren’t likely to come up with answers until Tarrant had the strength and the leisure to investigate the matter. He forced himself to turn to Karril and he asked, “Will you come with us?” Not only because the Iezu would be a valuable guide in this land-doubly valuable if they really couldn’t Work-but because, at that moment, Karril was part and parcel of their triumph, and he wanted him there.
The Iezu looked at Tarrant, and something unspoken seemed to pass between them. At last he shook his head. “I can’t. I’m sorry. My family ...” He gazed out into the valley, toward Shaitan, where the other Iezu gathered. “There are so many questions to be answered now. My place is with them for as long as I can stay here.” He looked back at Tarrarit, as if expecting him to say something, but the Hunted remained silent. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “But you really don’t need me now.”
“I understand,” Damien assured him. He turned to Tarrant, but the Hunter’s eyes were fixed on Shaitan “We can stay here a while if you think you need more rest, but we’re low on supplies, so it can’t be too long. You tell me.” When Tarrant said nothing, he pressed, “Ready to go home yet?”
“Do what you think is best,” the Hunter said quietly.
He knew that tone of voice. God damn it, he knew it all too well. He knew what it meant when the Hunter shifted from the plural pronoun to the singular, too, and damn it to Hell! This wasn’t the place for that kind of game, or the time for it, or ... or anything!
“We’re going home, right?” His tone was half plea, half growl. “Calesta’s dead. The Forest’s so far gone by now that you can’t change what happens there one way or the other. Right? The whole goddamn world’s at peace and I didn’t figure we’d both still be part of it, so I don’t have the kind of food and water it would take for two people to go off and do something stupid. Whatever that stupid thing happened to be.—Are you listening to me, Gerald?”
The adept’s eyes remained fixed on Shaitan, as if something there were so fascinating he dared not turn away even for a moment. “She’s a starfarer" he breathed. “Not just the descendant of an alien species stranded on this world-like we are-but an individual born and bred on another planet, with memories of foreign stars and the technology needed to get to them.” At last he turned away from that view and faced Damien again. “What was the point of all my work, if not to give us the stars? Why have men rallied to the Church’s banner for the past thousand years, if not for that dream?” He turned back to Shaitan and inhaled deeply, as if tasting its potential in the air. “This place is a gateway. This creature, this mother of aliens ... is mankind’s future. Her technology may be too alien for us to use directly, but perhaps between us we can forge something that will serve both species.”
“And her children will, no doubt, be happy to act as go-betweens to-” He saw the quick look that passed between Tarrant and Karril and felt something tighten in his gut. “What is it? What’s wrong with that?”
Karril said quietly, “We can’t stay here.”
Tarrant nodded. “The Iezu were bred to interact with humans, and must do so for their own survival. There’s no food here to sustain them, nor anything else that they require. And even if they could stay, what would become of the temples they’re nurtured, the cults that have declared them gods, the human symbionts they must support? Oh, some of them will remain here for a time, but will those few be enough? When will the critical mass of this gathering be weakened enough that the mother’s voice loses its coherency, and humanity loses its most valuable ally?”
Speechless, Damien turned to Karril for support. But the Iezu only nodded sadly, as if to say, Yes, he’s right. It’s only a matter of time. “So what?” he demanded. “You’re going to stay here? There’s no food here for you either, Gerald, do I have to remind you of that? And what the hell are you going to do for them, anyway?”
“I’m not going to stay,” he said quietly.
He forced himself to breathe in deeply. “Well. That’s something, anyway.”
“Humanity will need a means of translation. So will the Iezu for that matter, at least the ones most human in aspect.”
“So what do you propose to do? Work some kind of translating pattern? You know that’s impossible right now. You said yourself that until you had a chance to test the currents you wouldn’t know why they had failed to respond to us, much less be able to Work them again. So what then?”
“A Working isn’t what’s needed now. Not as much as a sound understanding of who and what the Iezu are, and how their mother’s need was expressed through each of them They are her true language, Vryce, her cries of desperation rendered in fae and flesh. What form did each one first appear in? What pattern did their learning take?” He looked at Karril. “At what point dial they first express emotions outside of their aspect, and what prompted that change?”
“You’re talking about a complete family history,” Damien challenged. “Going back-what-nearly a thousand years?”
“Nearly that,” Karril agreed.
“No one’s going to have that kind of information just sitting around. If you want those kinds of facts, you’ll have to do research, and for that you need to go back to where there are people and libraries and loremasters to help you.” Ciani had kept notes on everything, he remembered suddenly. Perhaps other adepts did the same. “We can look for some sorcerer who specializes in demon lore—”
And then it hit him. Just like that. One moment blissful ignorance, and the next, stunning truth. “Shit,” he whispered. “No.”
Tarrant said quietly. “I’m afraid so.”
“There’s a war on in the Forest. Have you forgotten that? More enemies than you can count, all focused on your destruction—”
“And they mean to burn the Forest to the ground when they’re done, and all my possessions along with it. Which means that in a few days’ time my notebooks will be ash, and the Iezu’s history lost forever.”
“We can work a Remembering-” he began.
And then he remembered what the fae was like now. How hard it was to Work. And he knew that they dared not count on being able to use it in the future, not for a matter this complex.
“Shit,” he muttered. “Shit.”
“I told you I have a tunnel, Vryce. It comes in under my keep, to a chamber so well warded that even if my enemies gain access to the building itself, they will never find its entrance. We’ll come in and take what we want and be gone again before the Church ever realizes we’re there, I promise you.”
“And do you know for a fact that your wards still work?” he demanded. “Have you thought of that?”
“I tested one which I carry, and its effect is unchanged. Apparently past Workings still maintain their power.” His pale eyes glittered redly in the dying sunlight; even without the fae his gaze had tremendous power. “So what do you say, Vryce? Must I go there alone? Because with or without you, I cannot allow those notes to burn. Too much of mankind’s future depends on them.”
Shit.
He turned away from them both, struggling to think it out clearly. The last thing he needed now was a trek to the Forest, least of all while the Patriarch and his soldiers were tearing the place apart. The last thing Tarrant needed now was a fresh exertion, when his newly healed flesh was still struggling with the transition from undeath to life. The last thing anyone here needed was to risk all that they had won for a handful of books-books, God damn it! Even if those books were the key to humanity’s future, and that of the Iezu. Even if those books might allow both species to return to the stars.