She Is The Darkness

59

I came back to flesh every few minutes to report the whereabouts of those Company brothers I could locate. The Old Man sent warnings to those he could, telling them to get over to the division at the Shadowgate.

Wagons were on the move soon, leaving Lady's crude factories with stocks of bamboo her workers had been able to reload. The supply seemed woeful to me.

I darted everywhere. When I thought it would not hurt I fluttered northward. Swarms of crows came and went from the ravine where Soulcatcher holed up. I skipped backward in time, watched the Old Man and, sure enough, I found a time when he whispered to those two huge crows of his and they promptly flapped off to gossip with the crazy sister. I could not get Smoke anywhere near her, of course, and anytime I pushed even a little I got that tickling she is the darkness sensation.

I got a ghost of the same thing when I swarmed off to see what the Daughter of Night was doing, though Smoke showed no reluctance to move a little closer. The child was writing furiously, her little face contorted in pain. She was working on a different volume. This one she had only just begun.

"Oh, shit!" She finished the first one already? Croaker needed to know that. We might be in deeper shit than I had thought.

Where was the Book? I did not see it anywhere. I had better find out.

I took a dive into the past.

I found the Daughter of Night crying. I found Narayan Singh stunned by that. He had not seen that before and did not know how to comfort her, though he had had children of his own in another time, another world, before the Black Company came to Taglios.

I pushed back farther, to discover the cause of this bizarre circumstance. I could think of a hundred unlikely candidates I expected to see cry before that grim midget broke down.

It started when she and Singh returned to their apartment after having escaped it only a step ahead of Lady's raiders. Though forewarned the child had been too busy writing to pay close attention and had waited almost too long.

Their exit had been so hasty they had had to leave the Book behind.

So, I thought, some lad from Lady's gang realized it was important and decided to take it back to the boss. I would have suspected Swan or Blade had they been inside Overlook.

I was surprised again when I did identify the culprit.

Howler. The little snake managed to slither into those quarters while supposedly driving our men back, while Narayan and the girl were suffering the effects of a mild disorientation spell not fifty feet away. He made the Book vanish.

The screaming wizard must have feared that he could be seen from afar because he pulled a bunch of stunts and used a handful of spells, over the next several hours, to make sure the Book got lost to everybody but himself.

He left a blank book behind. It was a twin of the one he took.

Curious. How did Howler know about the Book? I checked my memories against whatever Smoke could find fast. Yep. Neither the kid nor Singh mentioned it to anybody. Longshadow's people did tell him that they had asked for writing stuff but the Shadowmaster had not passed that on to Howler.

I knew about the Book. I had told Croaker about it. Howler had visited Soulcatcher. The Old Man communicated with Catcher.

Could it be?

If I got a chance to dream my way around there again I might try to find out... Shit! I could see only what was happening right now.

I ripped out of there, went back to my flesh. I was starving and thirsty when I came out.

"About time," One-Eye told me.

I guzzled water. "Where's Croaker?"

"Out making sure everybody knows they need to keep their shelters buttoned up tight tonight. Trying to get those shadow repellent candles out where we're thin on bamboo poles."

"Oh." I ate for a few minutes. My manners were not upper-class. Then I asked, "You got any idea what's going on between the Captain and Soulcatcher?"

"I didn't know anything was."

I groaned, drank some more water. "You blind?"

He shrugged. "What did I miss?"

"Those two have been swapping information all along. That don't sound that smart to me."

"You figure the Old Man ain't smart enough to deal with her?"

That was exactly what I figured. Soulcatcher was a slippery old fish when Croaker's grandfather was wetting his diapers. "Me? Doubt the Captain in any way? How could I do such a thing?"

"Not you. You're a veritable worshipper of the cow flops he walks on. You got a reason to be in a panic? Soon as we get straightened out here I want to get back to my hole. I've got some suckers coming over for a game of tonk."

That was One-Eye. The world was coming to an end and his main interest was cheating somebody at cards. "Tell the boss Howler snatched the copy of the book his kid was writing. He left her a blank so she could start over." I took a deep drink while One-Eye stared at me dumbly, waiting for me to explain what I meant. I told him, "He'll understand."

"Everybody's got to keep secrets from everybody else. So the only people who know what's going on are their enemies."

I grunted as I turned back to Smoke. One-Eye had a point.

As we neared Lady I sensed Smoke's she is the darkness emotion, not very strongly. He must have a thing about females in general since he seemed to respond the same to all of them.

Lady had received word but she did not seem troubled. Longshadow loosing his pets had been a concern of hers for years. Her men were trained. What needed preparing was kept at a state of near readiness all the time. Her division might succumb but not through their own failings.

That had been Lady's way from the dawn of time.

I yielded to temptation and sped off to the north. I told myself I wanted to see if I could find Goblin and Mogaba. It would be good to know how exposed they might be in the coming mess. But I wanted to go on, past there, a long way. All the way to the wellsprings of my heart.

I might not get to see her again, ever. This might be the last night of my life.