She Is The Darkness

49

One-Eye is supposed to be my backup as Annalist, at least till Sleepy gets back and learns the ropes. Those few times I have handed him the job, or Croaker did when he was doing the Annals, he proved conclusively that we need Sleepy desperately. The old fart cannot live beyond the moment most of the time. Not that I blame him at his age.

So I was surprised when he bothered to tell me, well after the fact, that he had witnessed something interesting while he was out scouting with Smoke. No, he never wrote anything down and he could not recall all the details now but better late than never, right?

Maybe. Old Smoke was not anchored in time.

He and I drifted back to a moment not many hours after Narayan had visited Howler on the wall and their little chat got interrupted by Lady's gang of insensitive brutes.

Singh and the Daughter of Night had reached safety in her quarters. The child did not talk much. Narayan was obviously extremely uncomfortable in her presence now, though she was a tiny thing even for her age. She ignored him, settled at a small worktable and turned up the wick on a small oil lantern. The stunner, for me, was seeing her set about the same sort of work that I did almost every day.

Astounded, I watched as her little hand slowly, laboriously recorded words in a language I did not recognize and which, I discovered, she did not read. For as soon as I saw what she was doing I darted around through time looking for an explanation. The writing got started a week ago.

It was the middle of the night. Narayan had stayed up late, praying, calming his soul, trying to reach the state the Daughter of Night achieved when she touched the goddess. He had tried a hundred times. He failed this time as well.

Failure no longer ached inside him. He was resigned. He just wished he could be allowed to understand.

Hardly had he fallen into his dark dreams before the Daughter of Night was tugging at his shoulder. "Wake up, Narayan. Wake up."

He cracked an eyelid. The child was more animated than he had seen since before she learned that she was to be the instrument of Kina, the hands of the goddess in this world.

He groaned. He wanted to swat her, wanted to tell her to go back to her pallet, but he remained wholly dedicated to his goddess, prepared to execute her will. The will of the Daughter had to be considered an extension of the will of the Mother, however difficult that might make life.

"Yes? What is it?" He rubbed his face and groaned.

"I need writing materials. Pens. Ink. Brushes. Inkstones. Penknives. Whatever is involved. And a big bound book of blank pages. Quickly."

"But you can't read or write. You're too little."

"My mother will guide my hand. But I must begin my task quickly. She fears we may not have much time left here, in safety."

"What are you going to do?" Narayan asked, wide awake now and completely baffled.

"She wants me to make copies of the Books of the Dead."

"Make copies? They've been lost for thousands of years. Even the priests of Kina doubt that they exist anymore. If they ever did."

"They exist. In another place. I have seen them. They will exist again. She will tell me what to write down."

Narayan considered the notion for a while. "Why?"

"The Books must be brought back into this world to help us bring on the Year of the Skulls. The first Book is the most important. I don't know its title. But by the time I finish writing it down I will be able to read it and to use it to bring forth the other Books. I will be able to use those to open the way for my mother."

Narayan gulped air. He was illiterate. Most Taglians were. Like many who were illiterate, he was possessed of a vast awe of those who did read and write. He had seen great sorceries since associating himself with Longshadow, yet considered literacy the greatest witchery of all. "She is the Mother of All Night," he murmured. "There is None Greater."

"I want those materials, Narayan." That was no four-year-old talking.

"I will find them."

Back in the hours after their escape from Lady's soldiers, while fighting persisted only a short distance away, the child wrote slowly and Narayan paced and shivered. Finally, she looked up, considered him with those disturbing eyes. "What has happened, Narayan?" She seemed to see right through him.

"Events have surpassed my understanding. The small, smelly one called me to the wall to show me the heads of my brothers displayed on spears. A gift from your birth mother." He picked at himself, reluctant to go on. I thought maybe the worst torture we could visit on him when we caught him would be a bath. "I cannot fathom what purpose moved the Goddess when she allowed all those faithful sons to fall into the woman's hands. Almost none of our people remain alive."

The child snapped her fingers. Singh shut up instantly.

"She killed them? The woman who gave this flesh life?"

"Apparently. I made a bad mistake in not making sure of her when I brought you away to your true mother."

Not once did the child ever call Lady her mother. She never mentioned her father at all.

"I am sure my mother had an overpowering reason for allowing that to happen, Narayan. Have the slaves clear out. I will consult her." Several Shadowlander women attended the child most of the time. She treated them like furniture. They were not in fact slaves.

Singh shooed the women while keeping one eye on the girl. She really did seem disconcerted by his complaints.

Singh shut the door behind the last servant. The woman had made no effort to conceal her relief at being away from the little monster. The people of Overlook did not like the Daughter of Night. Narayan settled into a squat. The child was in a trance already.

Whatever other place she went off to she did not stay long. She grew pale while she was there, though, and when she returned she was more troubled than when she had gone.

The odor of death filled the ghostworld while she was away. I gutted it out. Kina did not come.

The girl told Singh, "I don't understand this, Narayan. She says none of it was her doing. She neither caused their deaths nor allowed them to happen." The child sounded like she was quoting, though when she did speak she always sounded older than her years. "She was unaware that it had happened."

Now they both faced a crisis of faith.

"What?" Narayan was startled, frightened. Fear was a constant of life these days.

"I asked her, Narayan. And she didn't know. The deaths were news to her."

"How could that be?" You could see the fear shove its cold claws deeper into the Deceiver's guts. Now the enemies of the Deceivers could murder them wholesale without their goddess even knowing? Then what protection did the Children of Kina possess?

"What fell powers do these killers from the north command?" the child asked. "Are Widowmaker and Lifetaker more than created images? Can they be true demigods walking the earth in the guise of mortals, powerful enough to spin cobwebs of illusion before my mother's eyes?"

You could see the doubts gnawing at both of them. If those red and yellow rumel men out there could be taken so easily and killed without alerting their protectress, what could save a living saint or even a Deceiver messiah?

"If that is the case," Singh said, "we had better hope this place is as impregnable as that madman Longshadow wants to believe. We had better hope that he can exterminate all the Taglians already inside."

"I do not think he's finished, Narayan. Not yet." But she did not explain what she meant.