Dreams of Steel

Chapter Seventy-Three

Soulcatcher sat in the middle of a field, disguised as a stump. Crows circled, their shadows scooting over wheat stubble. An unknown city loomed in the distance.

The imp Frogface materialized. "They're up to something."

"I've known that since they started blocking the crows. What they're up to is what I want to know."

The imp grinned, described what he had seen.

"Either they've forgotten to take you into account or they're counting on you feeding me incorrect information." She started moving toward the city. "But if they wanted to feed me false information they would confuse the crows, too. Wouldn't they?"

The imp said nothing. No answer was expected.

"Why do this during the daytime?"

"Longshadow is scared to death of what might break out if he tried during the night."

"Ah. Yes. But they won't move till nightfall. They'll want their sending at full strength."

Frogface muttered something about just how much did he have to do to earn his freedom?

Soulcatcher laughed, a merry little girl's laugh. "Tonight, I think, you'll have done with me. If you can do a creditable illusion of me."

"What?"

"Let's have a look around this city first. What's its name?"

"Dhar. New Dhar, really. Old Dhar was levelled by the Shadowmasters for resisting too strongly back when they first conquered this country."

"Interesting. What do they think of the Shadowmasters?"

"Not much."

"And a new generation is at hand. This could be amusing."

When darkness fell the great public square at the heart of New Dhar was strangely empty and silent, except for the cawing and fluttering of crows. All who approached developed chills and dreads and decided to come another time.

A woman sat on the edge of a fountain paddling her fingers through the water. Crows swarmed around her, coming and going. From the shadows at the square's edge another figure watched. This one seemed to be a gnarled old crone, folded up against a wall, her rags clutched tightly against, the evening cool. Both women seemed content to stay where they were indefinitely.

They were patient, those two.

Patience was rewarded.

The shadow came at midnight, a big, dreadful thing, a terrible juggernaut of darkness that could be sensed while still miles away. Even the untalented of New Dhar felt it. Children cried. Mothers shushed them. Fathers barred their doors and looked for places to hide their babies and wives.

The shadow roared into the city and swept toward the square. Crows squawked and dipped around it.

It bore straight down on the woman at the fountain, dreadful and implacable.

The woman laughed at it. And vanished as it sprang upon her.

Crows mocked.

The woman laughed from the far side of the square.

The shadow surged, struck. But the woman was not there. She laughed from behind it.

Frogface, pretending to be Soulcatcher, led the shadow around the city for an hour, took it into places where it would destroy and kill and be recognized and fire hatreds long and carefully banked. The shadow was tireless and persistent but not very bright. It just kept coming, indifferent to what effect it had on the population, waiting for its quarry to make a mistake.

The crone on the edge of the square rose slowly, hobbled to the palace of Longshadow's local governor, entered past soldiers and sentries apparently blind. She hobbled down to the strongroom where the governor stored the treasures he wrested from the peoples in his charge, opened a massive door none but the governor supposedly could open. Once inside she became not a crone but Soulcatcher in a rnerry mood.

She had studied the shadow carefully while Frogface led it about. That shadow had to travel all the distance between two points. Frogface did not. He could stay ahead forever as long as he remained alert,

Her studies had shown her how she might contain it.

She spent an hour preparing the vault so it would keep the shadow in, then another arranging a peck of little spells that should distract it so that, by the time someone released it, it would have forgotten why it had come to New Dhar.

She stepped outside, closed the door till it stood open only a crack, arranged an illusion that made her look like one of the governor's soldiers. Then she sent a thought spinning toward Frogface.

The imp came prancing, enjoying himself, taunting his hunter into the trap. Soulcatcher shoved the door shut behind it, sealed it up. Frogface popped into existence beside her, grinning. "That was almost fun. If I didn't have business in my own world I'd almost want to hang around another hundred years. Never a dull moment with you."

"Is that a hint?"

"You bet it is, sweetie. I'm going to miss you all, you and the Captain and all your friends. Maybe I'll come back and visit. But I got business elsewhere."

Soulcatcher giggled her little girl's giggle. "All right. Stay with me till I'm out of the city. Then you're free to go. Wow! I bet this place blows up! I wish I could see Longshadow's face when he gets the news." She laughed. "He isn't half as bright as he thinks. You have any friends over there who might want to work for me?"

"Maybe one or two with the right sense of mischief. I'll see."

They walked on laughing like children who had pulled a prank.