Darkness Falls

by Shadowy Star

May 2007

Disclaimer: I don’t own the Coldfire trilogy. It belongs to C.S. Friedman. I do own this story. Do not archive or translate or otherwise use the story without permission.

A/N: To each light, there has to be a darkness… He will see to that.

Andrys entered the living room. The servants had already drawn shut the thick long curtains over the windows of the first floor. They also had lit the candles and a small fire that now threw tiny bright sparks to the roof of the fireplace, pieces of cedar wood cracking cheerfully against the winter’s cold outside the walls of Merentha Castle.

He made his way through the room, blowing out most of the candles, letting only those on his desk burn. The shadows in the corners grew deeper.

Out of one of them, a voice came.

“Can’t you stand the light?”

His heart racing, he jumped to his feet, sending his fine-ornamented, velvet-holstered chair to the floor. A surge of memories, dark as night, red as blood, swept over him, raged against the walls of his conscious, tried to break through to his soul. He fought desperately, putting all he had into that. He succeeded, somehow.

The voice was deep, its timbre rich and dark, not the light, mocking tones that still haunted his dreams. Yet, it seemed familiar but he just couldn’t put a finger on it.

Relieved, he allowed himself to relax a little.

“Or did you finally learn that not every darkness can be banished?” the voice went on, an impersonal curiosity in it.

With that, a cloaked shape stepped forwards, making its appearance from the shadowed corner near the large, floor-to-ceiling window.

“Wwwhho are you?” Andrys stammered. “What are you?”

“How easy you forget,” the other said, a tiny, cold smile gracing his full lips, the upper part of his face still hidden in the shadows of the cloak’s hood. “Then again, you were so eager to forget…” Again that distance in his tone, and maybe pity, and something else Andrys had no name for. “You got anything you wanted. All you had to do was to take it from somebody else. Your title, the money, this castle… All this at the cost of an identity.”

Andrys stared at the other man without comprehension. Was he a demon? God knew, he’d seen enough demons for the rest of his life.

The man moved then, his hand coming forward in a single, fluid motion and removing the hood of his dark brown cloak.

Andrys froze. “I remember…” he breathed. “You were there…” Little wonder the voice sounded familiar…

The fire’s golden light put a warmth into the man’s hazel brown eyes they didn’t no longer possess.

“You could have chosen differently, you know that,” the man continued. “But you always choose the easy way, don’t you?”

“You don’t understand!” Andrys snapped furiously. “You of all people should–”

“Of all people, I understand perfectly,” the other man interjected, his voice still laced with something far beyond of anything Andrys could read or ever hope to comprehend. “I was there – as you said.”

“What do you want?” Andrys asked. “Revenge?”

“This is not about vengeance,” the other said softly, almost gently. Slowly approaching Andrys’ position. “Not even about reversal. Just about balance.”

Andrys took a step back, and another, and another, until he felt the edge of his desk biting sharply into his lower back. He didn’t quite understand where this was leading but he was sure no good thing would result of it.

His eyes were still wide with incomprehension when the sharp point of a sword pierced his heart, its blade easily burying itself to a flame-ornamented hilt into his chest.

Damien Kilcannon Vryce retrieved his sword, sadly looking down at the dead body of the last Neocount of Merentha. With the dark eyes closed the young man looked almost exactly like his ancestor.

“This was foreordained, you know. Without darkness, there can’t be no light,” he said, resheathing his sword in a single fluid motion. He’d been light to a Tarrant’s darkness and now darkness to another Tarrant’s light. Would there be someone to bring light to his own darkness? he asked himself.

He turned away and leapt out of the window without making a sound, his feet sure in the darkness, the night welcoming him and keeping him safe.