Disclaimer: The Coldfire Trilogy is SO not mine. It all belongs to the wonderful C.S. Friedman, who must surely be divine.
Warning: Not quite slash? And inappropriate (or perhaps strangely appropriate) humor. Maybe OOC... but I'm trying to write from Tarrant's POV. Give me a break. Please?
Summary: There are times when you really can't focus... but having a channel to a human soul that keeps sneaking up to poke you can explain some of that away.
Notes: Well, the fiction gods said, "What's all this Damien Vryce crap? We want to know what Gerald Tarrant is thinking!"
And I replied, "Then you have got to find a better writer than me, my dearly divine."
Then they hit me with sticks until I gave in, crying out unto the heavens, "May the God of Erna have mercy on my soul!"
This falls into place around Crown of Shadows, just as Almea's shadow joins our fantastic duo.
Sometimes one just had to laugh at the sheer impossibility of the task at hand and at the pure despair born in the realization that it would surely be attempted anyway. The whole journey, through Canopy to rakhlands, through the Black Lands and now Shaitan, had taught that lesson much too well.
And it was being taught yet again, as Tarrant followed his perfect foil and the shadow of his long-dead wife.
Almea, he thought again, mouthing the name and tasting it on his lips. It had been so sweet once, and now it was bitter. Almea. Did you love me so much then, as he says? Did you pray for my redemption, rather than my hell?
It didn't seem possible, but he wasn't quite an expert on humanity anymore, despite Damien's assistance. Sometimes he thought he could feel the other man's soul reaching down that damned channel and trying to climb around inside him, and it felt like an itch. Or perhaps that was the closest he could imagine it to be.
He had been pure darkness, pure ice, pure evil... and now he was existing on borrowed time, letting himself become more and more corrupted by the humanity of one man's soul in every moment. He'd passed the threshold of sanity long ago, broaching it in the rakhlands but shattering it on Novatlantis. Too much contact, too much corruption...
But he understood the attraction of decadence.
They walked for miles along the blistered, scorching land, Almea then Damien then himself. And Tarrant wondered at that; that perfect placement. He analyzed the pattern that was in most probable certaintly not there: from the humanity in a ghost, to a human that could have all of Hell thrown in his face and he would surely spit in its face once again, to the rapid humanization of a man who had been a demon so long, but now had nothing to lose.
Not a one of us has anything to lose. Gerald Tarrant smirked. How comforting.
Because it wasn't exactly true. He barely spared any mind to the tortured landscape around him, allowing his senses to keep him following in Damien's footsteps. He could feel the shape of the other man's mind, his fear and determination, and he had to bite back his instinctive hunger.
Oh, he had plenty to lose. He knew he could find another way to survive this. But he was going to die here, with everything to lose.
Not a thing worth having if you can't give it up, he thought vaguely, finally feeling some of the struggle in this harsh place getting to him as his legs twinged, just enough to be noticed. And I gave up life long ago. I can give up unlife easily, for revenge and for one last chance at redemption. Because I do believe it; if I give everything for this place, for my world, won't her God have pity on me?
And I can give up the rest; I can give up the taste of his mind at any time.
A slight tickle up his spine, another reaching strand of a bright, growing soul begged to disagree, and his mind supplied him with a treacherous hope.
"Only death can sever that kind of link- and sometimes not even that."
And the highly innappropriate image of himself as a pale ghost, tethered to Damien's mind for a small eternity, forced to bobble along behind him nearly made him laugh, even in such a place as this.
He walked on, wondering idly if Damien was having any trouble in the terrorized terrain, when the ex-priest was suddenly seized in a choking fit. The first trillings of alarm faded as his cold, focused mind struck out swiftly into Damien's, and he waited with a smile hiding somewhere behind his face.
"You can drink through the veil," he said, keeping all mirth hidden from the scowling man staring at him like Tarrant had purposely set him up for that. And hadn't he?
Just a way to keep a priest- no, ex-priest- on his toes. Surely.
And when that itch invaded his undead flesh once again, Gerald accepted it as his due punishment and walked on.
(Quotes from Black Sun Rising, p.304, and Crown of Shadows, p.405)