She Is The Darkness

67

"You smelled the Kina smell? You're sure?" The Old Man did not seem interested in details of how Lady had visited disaster upon the Prahbrindrah Drah. The fact of her success was enough.

"Yes. But the goddess wasn't there. I've felt her close up often enough to know when she's been around. Especially tonight."

"She wants instructions?"

"She may. But she was fishing for a reaction, really. She suspects."

"She probably knows. Have you been back to the Shadowgate? Are we holding?"

"No, I haven't. I assume we're doing all right. There aren't so many fireballs flying around as there were a while ago. That seems to be because there's a lack of targets, not a lack of bamboo. Once in a while there's still a big barrage, though."

"You need One-Eye to spell you?"

"I'm all right for now."

"Be careful. And watch out coming back. I'm sending for Lady. She might be here."

I tried to take Smoke south. He would not go. I tried to get back into Overlook to spy on Catcher and Howler and Longshadow but Smoke refused to get anywhere near them, either. She is the darkness! He would not be fooled and he would not be bullied. He was gaining substance again. And that substance was in keeping with what I knew about his chickenshit character. Which suggested that we might not be getting a lot of use out of the old boy in days to come.

He would go upward. So I took the opportunity to survey the situation from above once more.

The distribution of fireworks suggested our situation was not bad now. The Shadowgate had held. The Prahbrindrah Drah was headed north. He showed good hustle and a fair amount of thought as well. He left messages for his scattered troops, confident that we would be much too busy to chase them hard. He had no actual plan yet, though, other than to get clear and reassemble his division. He was not pleased by the way the tables had turned so suddenly. He had been promised that Lady would be handled. He had taken a major princely step when he had set aside his emotional disinclination to buy that.

If he had thought he had some chance with Lady he might not have pursued his treachery.

Not that his action came as any great surprise, except in its timing.

Longshadow's pinky nail pet had ruined the whole conspiracy's timing.

Smoke did not seem keen on getting close to Lady, now, either, though he did let himself be bullied.

We needed to find a way to encourage Smoke to be more cooperative. Maybe red-hot branding irons.

Shadows definitely were leaking through. I arrived about the same time as the first reached the vicinity of Lady's force. This was no onslaught like the one at Lake Tanji, though. The only evidence was an occasional scream.

Lady's mood had blackened since my last visit. She stamped around angrily. Pink fires jumped off her Lifetaker armor. They flew around like sparks in a forge. She had become unhappy in a big way but I could not make out why. She looked like she wanted to take it out on Willow Swan and Blade. They received a few choice words each time she passed. But their behavior remained impeccable. They offered her no excuse to strike.

I failed to see why Blade was a prisoner, anyway.

The smell of Kina was strong around Lady but I got no sense that the goddess herself was anywhere close by. I had expected great horrors splattered all over the region after her wild response to Longshadow's assault on the Daughter of Night.

Lady paused in her pacing. She listened. She cursed.

Horrors were coming but these nightmares were not spewing forth from Kina's forehead.

The cries of men attacked by shadows became increasingly frequent.

"Idiots!" Lady growled. "They won't listen and they won't protect themselves."

Then the smell of Kina began to grow stronger, too.

I tried to grab Smoke in a spectral hammerlock, to force him back to Longshadow's crystal chamber.

From the first moment I saw it with ghostly eyes, that chamber had blazed with the intense cold light of a brilliant star. It made a landmark more easily seen than any beacon or lighthouse. But tonight, now, the light was flickering.

Smoke whimpered she is the darkness sheisthedarkness sheisthedarkness! like some protective mantra and fought me tough, but this time I enforced my will upon him. Apparently I could if I worked up a strong enough case of emotion. And sustained it. Smoke never stopped resisting.

He did not seem to need tons of energy, the way I did. Maybe he fed off me like some vampirish spirit.

The crystal chamber was a shambles. In one corner, still tied to his chair, the Shadowmaster lay trapped inside a cocoon of glimmering force, unconscious and in terrible shape. I guessed he had several broken bones. His clothing was torn all to hell. Clotted blood had splashed the inner face of his defensive shell. Must have been some major excitement in my absence. He must have tried another trick or two. And had paid the price for trying. Maybe he was close to death. Maybe that was why there was so much more screaming going on outside Overlook.

I thought the Daughter of Night was gone altogether but then I spotted her hiding inside her own egg of protection. Hers was eggplant black and just barely translucent. She had curled into a fetal ball but she did not appear to be injured.

Howler looked like he had tried to rape a tiger. He was making noise continuously but not of the usual sort. This was more like a continuous whine punctuated by the occasional rattle of air in a punctured lung. Soulcatcher was trying to doctor him but she was in bad shape herself. She looked like she had wrestled the same tiger, with only marginally more positive results. Right now she had no time for anything going on outside the chamber.

The smell of Kina remained strong there.

I dislocated Smoke's ghostly knuckles and applied pressure till he moved back toward the moment when he had dragged me away. We never got there. Kina arrived first, making a second, surprise visit that caught everyone off guard.

When I got close enough to feel Kina's presence, to catch glimpses, I became unfocused. Smoke made a run for it. I regained control, dove right back in there.

We bounced in and away, in and away. I caught several more glimpses of an animate darkness that, seen from the corner of my invisible eye, looked like a miniature version of the many-armed goddess. Kina concentrated on enveloping the brat in the dark shell that surrounded her now. Howler and Soulcatcher took their lumps in a minute of vain resistance in which they caught the goddess's attention about like an annoying yellow jacket buzzing around an outdoor lunch catches the attentions of picnickers.

Longshadow grabbed the chance to employ a ready protective catechism to create the egg enveloping him now. Most of the damage he suffered was accidental and collateral and happened during the scrimmage between Kina and the others.

Narayan Singh appeared to be splashed all over the floor. I could not tell if he was alive.

I let Smoke pull away, drove him toward Lady. She ought to resemble a bouquet of posies on his fear scale now.

I positioned myself right in front of her, at eye level, as I had done before. That took some doing. She would not stand still. She continued to mutter curses about the screaming, which had become more common.

Longshadow had to be teetering on the brink of eternity.

I shrieked.

Lady froze.

I glared into the eyeholes of her ugly black helmet. Those glowed with an unnatural intensity. If something so unnatural initially could become more unnatural. She whispered, "You're there again."

I tried to bellow. "Your pal Kina whipped their asses upstairs. They're all down right now. There'll never be a better time to get them."

Lady turned slightly. She stared up at Longshadow's personal tower. The light in the crystal chamber was feeble, guttering like a spent lamp.

The fate Longshadow feared so much might catch up with him yet.

Lady shouted at Isi and Sindawe.

She did not get my message exactly but she did hit on the notion that right now might be a good time to take one last whack at the Shadowmaster.