She Is The Darkness

97

One-Eye's elixir did not kill the fear, it only pushed it away briefly.

The fear was amazing. It was not the sort that paralyzes, nor was it strong enough to impair my thinking, but it was there all the time, unfocused, not growing numb the way an ongoing battlefield fear will eventually if nobody pops up to wale away at you with a piece of nicked up iron. I did not like it. It abraded my temper.

I glared at Sleepy. "You ever going to be good for anything but turning food into shit?"

Sleepy just sat there in the gathering darkness, on what used to be Mother Gota's pallet, staring into infinity. Not only was he not coming back from whatever fairy kingdom had captured his mind, he could hardly move anymore. He did very little of anything. When he did it seemed to hurt him a great deal. If he kept on without exercising he was going to have to hope one of his Company brothers liked him enough to carry him.

I liked him better than anybody but Bucket, but I did not like him that much. See you when we get back, little guy.

We are not a march-or-die outfit. Not quite. We try to take care of our own. But there is an underlying assumption that our own will try to manage for themselves first. There are plenty of precedents for ending the misery of a brother who becomes too great a burden or risk to the rest of the Company.

Sleepy did not respond. He never did. I rolled onto my pallet. I tried not to think about having to go up the mountain again tomorrow. The heebie-jeebies got worse if I did.

I felt Soulcatcher somewhere nearby. The darkness was total, though. I could not find her. Maybe it was my good fortune that she was not interested in finding me. Though she did not seem interested in anything at the moment.

I was ghostwalking. I knew it. But in total darkness there were no landmarks. I could not find my way anywhere.

I drifted.

Only gradually did I become aware that I was not alone.

Somebody was watching me. Or something was.

The scrutiny of that other intensified as I became more aware of it. The darkness around me remained total but in some other way I began to fathom it.

Red eyes, yellow fangs, skin so much blacker than the darkness that it seemed to gleam negatively... Kina. Destroyer. Queen of Deception. Mother... Not exactly evil incarnate—the Shadowlanders insist that one of her avatars is creative—but for goddamn sure she was a power big enough to scare the shit out of me if she took an interest.

She had. Her crimson eyes bored a hole right through my ghostly soul. Her great ugly face shriveled in upon itself like a skinned apple drying out, then in upon itself some more, till there was nothing left but a ruby point. That point began to move. At the same time I had a growing feeling that someone was trying to warn me about something.

Kina? Trying to communicate? With me? But she had her own agents in the world.

Or did she?

Narayan Singh was a prisoner. The Daughter of Night was a prisoner, or maybe dead. There had been no sign of her lately. And Lady had declared her independence long ago. Now she was just a mystic parasite.

Maybe I was the only one out there in the world that the goddess could touch.

I followed the red dot. It led me to the plain of old bones. I spread my wings and braked, settled onto a branch in a leafless tree. Incompletely decomposed corpses lay strewn amongst the bones this time. I took wing again and glided close above them. Scarab beetles scattered, frightened by my shadow. Never before had I seen anything but a few crows out there.

A tower of darkness loomed on the horizon, a tall black thunderstorm filled with muttering blood-colored lightnings. I flapped heavy wings, headed that way. It seemed like the right thing to do.

For a moment the cloud revealed an evil vampire face and lots of arms. Those reached out to welcome me.

After a moment of disorientation I was gliding above a land where only a few sparks of light marked human habitation. I tilted my head. I had very good eyes—even in the dark. But I did not recognize where I was until I dropped low enough to make out Overlook's battlements masking the stars south of me.

I could not have been more than a hundred feet off the unseen ground when the earth began to boil and spawn a thousand minnows of light. The air slammed against me, flipped me over on my back. Then came the roar.

I was really there. I was no imaginary crow. I was the white beast itself.

I righted myself just in time to see a spray of fireballs headed my way. I dodged them.

I was back in the middle of last night.

I got down low where rocks and whatnot would protect me from the growing storm of fireballs. I did not forget what they could do to stone if they were the new jumped-up variety. And I had several opportunities to see what they could do, up close, like I was some poor sucker on the wrong side of the Company. Every time I found a nice perch, zow! Crackling bacon.

The people I saw were all running with tremendous enthusiasm. Most were not fast enough or had gotten too late a start. Some never got up out of the underground at all. Smothering earth did the job on them.

The movement of colorfully glittering steel caught my eye.

Somebody was headed the wrong way.

Uncle Doj had run toward the disaster as soon as it started happening. The old boy had made good time if what I saw was him. Maybe he was more spry than he pretended. I flapped upward, glided toward the reflections off Ash Wand.

A crow is damned ungainly when he is first getting himself airborne.

It was Uncle. And he was not eager to enjoy my company. Ash Wand snapped like a lightning stroke. Doj had more reach than I recalled from our drills. He almost got me. The crow's reflexes saved me. It dodged before the thought even occurred to me.

I got behind him, let the fires show where he was, stayed out of reach. When he found a place from which to watch and knelt there, I found myself a modestly prominent stone and perched, cursing the human plague that had devoured all the trees and other high places hereabouts. I watched the watcher.

Uncle was there just long enough to catch his breath and demonstrate his own fantastic reflexes by dodging a few fireballs before the earth opened and a pillar of dark green light emerged. Fireballs slid off it. Its color was so deep I doubted anyone much farther away could see it. It moved straight toward me. Which meant it would pass right by Uncle Doj.

Once it left the pit the green shielding melted away. The creature within emerged. Lucky me, I was a bird. Lucky Uncle, he was old. Else both of us would have drowned in our own drool. This was one gorgeous woman and she was not wearing a stitch.

Soulcatcher.

Even in a birdly state I did appreciate how long it had been since I had seen my wife.

Catcher began to shimmer, not putting on another shield but taking another face. The effort distracted her from her surroundings. She did not spot Uncle Doj, who had become one with the night as deftly as a Deceiver. I recognized form and face just as Uncle, from behind Catcher, brought Ash Wand whining down in a stroke that should have sliced her to her breastbone.

She was fast. She tried to dodge and throw up some sort of sorcerous defense. The air groaned. She cried out and plunged forward, not killed but certainly cut badly. Uncle jumped in to finish her off. Ash Wand flashed. Blood flew. Catcher bounced around. So did Uncle. Chance interceded. A bamboo pole in the holocaust began popping off. Two fireballs clipped Uncle good. Catcher bounced him around some while he was distracted but did not have the strength to finish him. Anyway, people were responding to the noise, though it would be hours before Doj was found.

Catcher dragged herself away, used her enfeebled power to control her bleeding and change her shape. By the time she reached her hidden clothing she had become Sleepy. Which explained why Sleepy was so useless. As long as he passed for insane he was less likely to endure a scrutiny close enough to reveal the fact that he was not my prodigal assistant.

I was angry in a major way. Where was the real kid?

I flapped down and landed on Uncle's chest. He was drowning in his own blood. I pecked and pulled and forced him to turn his head to the side. Then I went after Soulcatcher.

She had disappeared.

I did not find a trace. But I knew where she was headed. Sleepy would be inside my bunker, never having been missed, when I got up in the morning thinking I had suffered through a sleepless night.

Now I knew what had happened to Smoke, too. That twitch of cheek I had glimpsed on Sleepy had been Catcher realizing she could be found out if anybody took Smoke cruising along her backtrail.

I knew her secret now, anyway, though. Maybe Kina was a more powerful enemy than Catcher suspected. The goddess might even have a sense of irony, using a crow to stalk the mistress of crows.

I settled onto the roof of my bunker. Beneath me Thai Dei snorted and snored as badly as he had the night we decimated One-Eye's trove. Someone else down there was making a racket, too. Since Sleepy was out I figured it had to be me, which meant Sahra was right when she accused me of roaring like a starving bear.

I never believed her before.

Hard to believe we had gone to sleep after watching all the excitement across the way. Catcher must have sent a spell ahead or left a doozie behind.

I had a feeling I would not be comfortable looking at myself from outside so overcame the temptation to flap down and peek through the doorway.

Sleepy came out of the darkness.

For somebody who had been mauled and cut up Soulcatcher could move like a gazelle. No healthy, normal human could run that well. Maybe a little sorcery?

I had wondered how I would get out of the white crow. Catcher's swift approach was the key. The crow took off. I stayed behind. I floated and watched. And as Catcher slowed and had to begin to acknowledge her wounds I floated up and away and in a direction that could only be described as tomorrow. Catcher did not sense my presence even though it was she who had made it easy for me to slip the moorings of my flesh. Then it was the night I had left. And everybody, including me, was snoring away inside the bunker. And I was still free to wander the ghostworld.