She Is The Darkness

99

Croaker arrived soon after I finished my breakfast mush. He had not slept in. "You went in yesterday? How was it?"

"Just a few yards. Thai Dei, too. He insisted. We had ropes tied to our butts. Sit down here and check out the view across the way." I had my back to Sleepy. I did not want my lips read. I made gestures like I was talking about something else while I whispered my news.

Croaker chuckled. "Now isn't that interesting. We'll just play along for now. I won't even tell Lady. Though I got to tell you, everybody but you already suspected."

"Shit. That's why you were such a bunch of assholes. You didn't trust me not to give it away. What's the plan for today?"

"Try the road all the way to the top. I'll go with you. Save the talk till we get on the other side."

"Good idea." I let everything wait till later. "You eaten?"

He glanced at my battered tin bowl. "You live like kings over here, don't you?"

"Absolutely. Only the best for the cream of the legion."

"I'll pass. This time." He looked up the mountain and sighed. "One-Eye had the right idea. I'm too old for this shit."

"It's not that bad." It was not. When I call the slope a mountain I mean it metaphorically. The road could be made usable by wagons with very little work and the rim of the plateau could not have been more than a thousand feet higher than the Shadowgate. And probably not that far.

"Let me know when you're ready." The Old Man massaged his right knee. He noticed me noticing. "Little rheumatiz. But it only hurts when I walk on it."

Buy a horse, I thought but did not say. "How old are you really?"

"You're as young as you think you are," he replied, his expression branding that one a load of old manure. "Lady keeps me young."

I wondered if there might not be a touch of truth in that one. She did a great job of keeping herself slim, sleek and fresh.

"Grab the standard and let's go."

"You want to take a couple guys along? Just in case?"

"Your guy will follow us. Want him or not. Grab a couple others. Rudy and Bucket will do."

"You going to ride?" He had ridden over on his big stallion. "I always figured you'd go whole hog when you went up there. The full Widowmaker rig and whatnot."

"Next time. Let's go." He was nervous.

I hollered for Rudy and Bucket. They showed up quickly, like maybe they had been lurking nearby, expecting a summons. Their Nyueng Bao shadows drifted along behind them. The whole bunch were ready to travel.

I said, "Looks like it'll be me holding up the parade." I was pleased the guys had shown some initiative.

I crawled back into my bunker, noting as I went that Thai Dei too was ready to climb the mountain.

I needed only a moment to collect some jerky, roasted oats and a canteen. On my way out I told Sleepy, "Don't go away, pal. I'll be back in time for supper." Gods and devils of the earth willing.

I grabbed the standard. We crossed over the boundary a man at a time. The vibration seemed less dramatic this time. Thai Dei too seemed less touched. But the others turned pale and became very jumpy. The chill was no less strong. I shivered.

In a moment the road was clear before me, the polished jet thread wandering up the slope. "You see the way?" I lowered the head of the standard till the iron head touched that thread. I do not know why I did that.

A vibration went through me that was a dozen times stronger than that coming through the Shadowgate. I gasped. I shuddered. Maybe I sputtered and foamed at the mouth.

"What's wrong with you?" Croaker demanded.

I pushed the standard into his hand. "You just do what I did." I stepped away. Looking up the slope I realized I was seeing it in a different way. I saw the same old dirty, barren slope with its glistening black thread but also saw a ghost of what it must have been like in an age long gone, when the road was new and the slope, while nearly as barren, had not had such a godsforsaken look.

Human ghosts moved there, too, though they were even more insubstantial than the road and slope and unfallen fortifications around us.

Croaker reacted exactly the way I had. But he must have had a clue or two more. As soon as he regained control he passed the standard to Bucket and told him to repeat the process.

The standard passed from Bucket to Rudy and from Rudy to Thai Dei. Thai Dei thought about it for more than a minute before he went ahead. He did so only when the Old Man told him, "You don't follow through, you don't go up the hill." Thai Dei did not want to do that either but had no choice. He was trapped by his own character as well as, I suspected, the task Uncle Doj had laid upon him.

Once Thai Dei made his move the other Nyueng Bao followed. Croaker told them, "It doesn't mean you're committed to the Company, boys."

A moment later I observed, "Now that we've got that out of the way what say we climb the mountain?" Good Standardbearer me, I took up the Lance and started trudging.

It felt good to be headed home.

What?

I looked at the others. Nobody appeared to be having trouble keeping touch with reality. Maybe it was another aspect of the dreaming and falling into nightmares.

Thai Dei hung close to my back. He was not comfortable at all this morning. He had his sword out and ready.

The black ribbon widened as it climbed the slope. It also seemed to take on depth. Its surface, though flat, assumed an appearance of concavity. If you touched it, it felt hard and cold yet seemed almost soft underfoot.

The slope steepened a bit. I huffed and puffed. Then the going became easier, the road less timeworn. The horizon line stopped retreating as fast as I chased it.

"Stop!" Croaker yelled.

I stopped. I looked back. The Old Man was a hundred yards behind me. Even Thai Dei was having trouble keeping up.

I looked across the valley. Already I was high enough to look down on all Overlook but the broken tooth that used to be Longshadow's crystal-capped tower. Men were at work inside the fortress, scurrying little dots. They were Lady's guys, many having been with her since the Company's big disaster outside Dejagore. I guess the Captain finally had something in mind for the old stone shack.

Croaker was puffing badly when he caught up. "Man, I'm really out of shape."

"You're the one wants to take this walk. It'll suck that belly right off you." He was not fat. Yet. But he had not been missing any meals lately. "You see the road clearly?" Just to make sure I was not suffering some vision with my eyes open. I am no longer ever quite sure of my place in reality, never unsuspicious that there might not be an objective reality at all. Everything could be dreams inside of dreams, the illusions of souls rolling forever in a Swegah where now and then a few collided and joined in an almost common fantasy.

You notice, nobody ever sees things exactly the same?

"The black path? I don't remember reading anything about that in the Annals."

"We never read anything by anybody who ever actually saw any of this. We've never read anything by anybody who was closer than two generations to this place. By then the Company had a different set of concerns."

Croaker grunted.

To make sure we held this illusion in common I polled everybody. Even the Nyueng Bao agreed we were following a ribbon of blackness. They did not like that. They were frightened by it but accepted it. The entire world, outside Man's natural swamp realm, was a frightening place.

"Everybody got their breath? Let's trudge on." I really wanted to get to that plain. I tried to remember what it looked like at night, from up high and far away, but the view had been pretty obscure. I wondered why I never tried to go exploring. I wondered what Kina had to do with the plain. Could this be the plain where she fought the great battle of her legend? I wondered if we would find out why no Taglian would talk about the place, why, when it was mentioned, most walked off shaking their heads and muttering, "Glittering stone." I wondered how that phrase could have found its way into a language as an idiom for "madness." Especially inasmuch as we were now certain that the Taglian terror of the Company and the Year of the Skulls had been artificially induced.

There was not that much more to the slope but I was gasping for air, staring down at the dark guide a step in front of me and pushing for that just one more step when the footing suddenly stopped insisting that I keep climbing. I stumbled, got my balance, overcame an urge to run ahead, halted while the others caught up.

I examined the plain while I waited.

"Glittering stone" was apt. The jet path became a wide and perfectly preserved road here and curved gently off into a region of tall, square pillars, each of which glittered as though splattered with polished gold coins. To either side of the road the plain consisted of dark grey basaltic stone cut smooth, showing only the slightest evidence of aging. Nothing grew there. Nothing. Not even a lichen. Not a fly or an ant. The place was unnaturally clean. No dust, no dirt, no leaves.

The morning sun had set the pillars sparkling but clouds were moving in from the west. We would have an overcast sky soon. Maybe rain before the evening.

"Hold up, Murgen!" Croaker yelled. "Goddamnit, if you don't stop charging off I'm going to nail your feet to the ground."

I looked down. My feet were moving again. I stopped. I looked back. The others were a hundred yards behind again, right at the rim. Except for Thai Dei. My brother-in-law was an island in between, drawn by his obligation to me but held back by his reluctance to follow the black road.

"Get your ass back here!" Croaker bellowed. "The fuck you think this is? Some kind of race to the edge of the world?"

I went back. It was like walking against the wind. The vibration of the standard seemed to change, to become almost plaintive. When I got there I told him, "Captain, take this thing for a while. It's going to carry me off."

He felt it right away. But he was stronger than me, I guess. He planted the damned thing and stared ahead. "You bring something to write on?"

"Yes, I did."

"Something to write with, too?" He was reminding me of a time when I had done everything right but remember to bring a pen.

"I'm all set, boss. Long as this wind don't blow me away."

"You still afraid?"

"Huh?"

"You said that before you were afraid all the time after you came back."

I frowned. I felt no fear at all. Now. "Out there, I guess. I'm fine here." I looked back at the world. From where we stood you could see only the mountains beyond the broad valley containing Overlook and the ruins of Kiaulune. Not only did there seem to be a heat shimmer between us and them, there was a haze, too. The world seemed very remote.

I mentioned that to Croaker.

"I don't see it," he said. "There's always a haze over a forest in the summer. Unless it's just rained."

I shrugged. These days I was not as uncomfortable with the fact that I was different. I had suffered various incarnations of weirdness for too long. "You going up the road?" It stretched so invitingly before us.

"Not today. What's that?"

"What?" I saw nothing but the standing stones. They seemed to be arranged in no special order, spaced well apart from one another.

"Past the stones." He pointed. "Let your gaze follow the road. When you can't make it out anymore just lift your eye to the top of the stones. You'll see it. Your eyes are younger than mine."

I saw something. Just a looming something.

"It looks like a fortress," Thai Dei said. The Old Man and I had not been using a secret language. His companions both grunted assent. Rudy and Bucket just looked troubled.

"I'll take your word for it," I said. I recalled having seen what might have been a light out there during one of my ghost-walks. "Reckon that's Khatovar?"

"I couldn't say from here. But if it's a fortress and that's all it is then it stands a good chance of being a big-ass disappointment."

Yeah. If you were counting skipping through the gates of paradise when you got to the end of the road. I did not know anybody who was. Unless it was him.

"How far would you guess that is, Thai Dei?" Croaker asked.

The Nyueng Boa shrugged. "Many miles. Perhaps a walk of days."

Ugh. That gave me a chance to consider what it might mean to spend the night on the plain, inside the Shadowgate, in the land whence the Shadowmasters' deadly pets had come.

The Old Man said, "This is enough for today. We'll go back and set up the major probe."

Thinking about shadows, I found, encouraged me to resist the call of the black road.

I paused on the brink, took one last look at the glittering pillars before I left the mountain.

It is immortality of a sort.

"What?"

"You say something?" Croaker asked. He was fifty feet ahead of me already.

"No. Just thinking out loud. I think."