She Is The Darkness

53

"That was a stroke of luck, you showing up just then," I told One-Eye. "I needed to get away." I relayed what Mother Gota had told me.

"How would she know that?"

I told him about spotting her and Uncle Doj during the night. "Maybe they spotted me, too."

"Thai Dei could've told them."

"I guess."

"You think it's important?"

"They make a special point of making sure I know, I'd better check it out. I didn't notice anything when I did my routine snooping."

One-Eye grunted. He looked thoughtful. "Goes to show you. No matter how well set up we are we're going to miss stuff because we don't know what to watch for."

Which was true. Things could be right there in the open and even with the advantage Smoke gave me I could miss them if I did not know to look.

There just was not enough time to look everywhere all the time.

I suggested, "Why don't you take some of your magic potion over to my in-laws? Screw up their thinking for a while."

"Thought they didn't touch the stuff."

"They're not supposed to. But I've seen Thai Dei take a tummy-warmer a time or three, to be sociable, and his mother would've developed a taste for it if Uncle Doj hadn't been there most of the time we were in Taglios. She'd sneak a few pints whenever he was away. She hasn't had a chance since we've been on the road."

"Very interesting." The little black man started rustling around. "Tell you what. I'll just go over there and keep them company while you're out. I'll tell them you're working."

He left before I finished my preparations. He lugged a slimy old wooden bucket with him. I muttered, "I got to get him to talk to Swan." Willow Swan made bad beer, too, but he did know a little about the brewer's art. Compared to One-Eye's product Willow's was ambrosia.

There was very nearly a warmth to Smoke when I took hold of him, as though some part of him sensed that he was no longer alone and was pleased. I took him directly to Overlook, sliding backward in time as we went, avoiding the ruins where the fires burned so I would not see myself. I had to shuffle forward and backward to find Mother Gota's crows. They were visible only briefly and were never obvious. They streaked in from the north, high above the fortress, then plummeted into Overlook like falling stones. There were no more than a dozen so any message they carried, either direction, would be severely limited. I expected greater numbers from what my mother-in-law had said.

I followed the last one down. The flock did not go near Longshadow's glowing towertop, where the Shadowmaster labored late over some esoteric text. They plunged into the darkness of a courtyard and entered the fortress through a door standing just a crack ajar. They muttered among themselves, uncomfortable with where they were. A sharp cry, broken off, nearly spooked them.

A voice whispered. I could see nothing but the vaguest shape in the darkness but recognized the Howler's aborted cry. I did not understand a word he said. I did not understand the crows, who took turns making noises that might have constituted a message. For me the critical piece of information was not included in the body of the message but in the existence of the message.

Soulcatcher and Howler were communicating.

I ran back in time another hour. Howler did nothing but sit there and wait. I jumped forward, planning to bracket him till I found something else interesting.

I had to advance only a few minutes beyond the arrival of the crows.

They stayed only briefly. Then Howler rustled back into the darkness. I drifted along behind him, tracking him by ear and by smell. Even in the ghostworld Howler had an air about him.

He stayed in darkness, away from routes Longshadow might use, till he reached a particular door. He knocked, which surprised me. Howler was the kind of guy who just invited himself in.

Narayan Singh opened the door a crack. Howler fought down a shriek. He was developing a talent for silence. Singh stepped back and allowed him to enter. Howler slipped in like a diminutive Deceiver on a deadly skulk. "It's time," he whispered.

Time for what?

Singh knew. He went to the Daughter of Night immediately. The kid was hunched up in front of a small fire, fanatically transcribing that first Book of the Dead. Looked to me like she was almost done. But who knew how long a book it was?

Singh seemed unsure how to approach the girl. He seemed unsure about a lot lately. He was close to superfluous and knew it.

Lady always would have a use for him, though.

He got the girl's attention. Gods, she was getting spooky! There was an aura about her, something you might call a glow of darkness. In that light her eyes seemed to shimmer like those of a big cat stealing toward your dying campfire. You were drowsing and she was hungry.

"It's time," Narayan told her, his whisper barely strong enough to stir the air.

The child nodded curtly. She made a tiny gesture. Narayan bowed, backed away.

There was no doubt who was in charge here, who ruled and who obeyed. Nor any doubt that she was herself controlled by a determined power. She extended her writing hand to Narayan for help rising. It was a claw she could not relax. Her legs were too stiff to unfold on their own. For a moment I pitied her, forgetting she was no true child.

Howler returned to the corridor. He drifted along ahead of Singh and the girl, scouting. Those two insisted on a lamp, which troubled Howler deeply. He muttered and fussed the whole time they were doing their sneak.

By a tortuous route that avoided Longshadow, the garrison and the enclave still held by Lady's soldiers, Howler led them to an unguarded piece of wall overlooking Kiaulune. Fires were burning down there. I was down there with Thai Dei, cold and disappointed with myself for having been dumb enough to insist on the eyewitness view.

I did not tag along in real time. I skipped forward, compressing events. Howler's destination was a small carpet concealed atop a domeless tower otherwise not in use. It was a new carpet, smaller than those we had seen before, black as the night around us. More evidence that you cannot know everything that is happening unless you want to spend every minute watching. I had not seen Howler working on this carpet.

With no words exchanged the three lifted it, walked to the edge of the parapet, lockstepped right off into space. They clambered aboard as they fell. Narayan moaned softly, eyes closed. The Daughter of Night was not impressed.

Howler took control in time not to smear them all over the rocks and wreckage below. He began sliding gently along just a few feet above the ground, trying to keep solid objects between himself and Overlook.

I took a quick look at Longshadow.

The Shadowmaster was restless. He had left his studies to stare vaguely toward Kiaulune. He sensed that something was happening but could not determine what.

Howler was playing around behind his ally's back.

I almost lost the little shit. I had to go back to the moment I left him to pick him up again. Soon afterward he drifted past a band of Mogaba's guerrillas in the ruins. The guerrillas did not see him but sensed him and panicked, thinking one of the Shadowmaster's pets was on the prowl. The racket they made drew the attention of nearby Taglians. The soldiers saw something shadowy drifting through the darkness. They wasted no time getting off a volley of fireballs.

Howler changed tactics.

He put on a burst of speed and employed a spell of concealment neither of which he wanted to do that near Overlook. I would have lost him then had not chance favored me.

A wild fireball clipped the corner of the invisible carpet, which began to smolder. The spell of concealment did not include the glow as long as I stayed close.

Howler hauled ass. But he did stay so low that brush scraped the underside of his carpet. At one point he ploughed through some tents and clotheslines in one of the Prahbrindrah Drah's division camps. He was less concerned about being noticed by our side than by his own.

The race brought on a mild sense of exhilaration. I did not notice it immediately. Then it hit me that I was feeling more emotion than usual. Eventually I realized what I was feeling was some feeble spillover from Smoke.

Sometime during the flight we passed close enough to Uncle Doj and Mother Gota to be noticed but I saw no sign of them. We also swept over my own headquarters close enough to startle the sentries and horses.

I was not entirely surprised when Howler headed for a certain snow-choked canyon. Smoke did not notice until we were close enough to watch Howler land in front of a waiting Soulcatcher amidst an explosion of terrified crows.

In my amusement at the birds I relaxed just a little bit. And Smoke rebelled. She is the darkness.

What?

That was not me. But it did not happen again.

I backed out and up and away, content to go back to my flesh with the knowledge that Howler and Soulcatcher were up to some treachery that included Narayan Singh and the Daughter of Night.

The mood Smoke exuded now, if so feeble a thing could be called a mood, was terror.

And terror was out there roving the night, though it was not the terror that haunted my spirit steed.

I caught a whiff of corruption as I moved toward my flesh. I saw nothing. I stopped, experimented, moved in a direction away from the invisible source.

Maybe it caught a whiff of me. The stench grew stronger suddenly. I felt a sensation as of something onrushing. Light flickered in the ghostworld. I saw Kina's hideous face for an instant, looking directly toward me. But her eyes were blind. Her nostrils flared as though she was trying to catch my wind.

Smoke's terror might have been what she smelled. He fled in total panic. She is the darkness.

It was more feeble this time but it was there. It was not my imagination.