She resembled Lady though she had even finer features and a more sensual air. Croaker claims he resisted her seductions. Publicly I believe him. But I do not know how he managed. I would have trouble despite my devotion to Sarie.
Maybe it was just his age.
Catcher’s hideout was illuminated by a lamp that hung from the ceiling of the cave. It was a cousin of our shadow-repellent candles. It was not bright but its light left no place for any little death to hide.
“What did you say?” The voice Catcher used was that of a man whose throat had been smashed and could speak in only a hoarse whisper. Except this whisper was heavy with malice, a voice in keeping with the old, dread repute of the Ten Who Were Taken. It contained the compassion of a serpent, the sympathy of a spider.
The Daughter of Night did not react. From her response Soulcatcher might not have been there at all.
Catcher giggled like a girl sharing whispers about boys. “Defiance is pointless. Stubbornness is meaningless. There is no one to help you.” That was the voice of despair. It rasped, too, but it was the last speech of an old man dying of cancer. “You are mine to do with as I please. It pleases me that you tell me what you just said.”
The child raised her eyes. There was no love for her auntie there.
Soulcatcher laughed.
She was a cruel thing at times.
She made a gesture. The child shrieked, thrashed in agony. She fought her cries, not wanting to give her tormenter the pleasure, but her body could not be controlled by her will, powerful as that was.
“You think your mother was here? You have no mother, neither my sister nor Kina.” This voice was that of an accountant reporting the week’s profits. “I am your mother now. I am your goddess. I am your only reason for living.”
I moved my viewpoint slightly so I could see them better. Maybe my movement disturbed the lamp’s flame. Maybe a breath of wind crept in from outside. Whatever, Catcher shut up and gave a lot more attention to her surroundings.
After a minute during which she just turned slowly, in silence, she mused, “There’s something here. And you sensed it right away.” The girlish giggle returned. “Right away. And you thought it might be Kina. But it isn’t, is it?”
Soulcatcher made a sudden gesture with her gloved left hand, fingers dancing too fast to follow. The brat collapsed, unconscious. Catcher settled with her back to the cave wall, dragged a pair of ragged leather sacks closer. I could smell nothing out there but I bet she reeked as bad as Howler. She was vain enough to guarantee herself incredible beauty and sensuality but not vain enough to waste much time on personal hygiene.
Maybe the smell would help me push her away if memories of Sahra did not do the trick.
She almost caught me. It did not look like she was doing anything but stirring through her trash. And my thoughts distracted me. I saved myself because she was used to living alone, or with crows. She reasoned aloud, “If it was the freak goddess I’d smell her. And she’d try to do something stupid. But somebody else has been prowling around, too. Let’s find out who. Maybe it’s my beloved sister.” The voice that spoke those last few words was powerfully vicious.
Her hands sprang out of one leather sack, sudden as a snake’s strike, but I was on the move, cleverly not toward the entrance. Her all but invisible net of black thread whooshed past two feet away. As soon as it fell I headed toward the exit. I did not know if she could catch me for real but I had no urge to find out.
Soulcatcher laughed. This was no giggle. This was fullblown, malicious adult amusement. “Whatever you are, I can’t fool you. Can I?”
She sure could. That was why I was getting out while I could. Like all the Ten must have been, she was way more scary than would seem at first exposure. The madness leaked through only slowly.
Catcher made a series of gestures employing every finger on each hand. She spoke in one of those tongues sorcerers favor, this one probably that of her childhood. I felt a truly ugly presence approaching as I was about to slip my ghostly nose into the crack that would take me outside.
A shadow wriggle in. It cringed. It shuddered. It responded to Catcher’s will. I did not hang around to find out what she wanted it to do.
It was enough to know that Soulcatcher had discovered a way to manipulate shadows. Which meant that with the last Shadowmaster barely finished kicking, a new queen of the darkness was about to rise.
She is the darkness.
82
“Was I right?” Croaker asked.
“About the standard?”
“What else?” He seemed exasperated. Maybe it was a strain, sharing quarters with Lady and the loon crew of Smoke, Singh and Longshadow.
“Probably. You could sure feel it. And nothing got by.” I was worn out. My inner thigh ached again after the long walk over. “But I can’t prove that wasn’t because of Lady’s gimcrackery.”
“The Lance did something, though?”
“Oh, yeah. Everybody felt something. Some probably even decided it had something to do with the standard.” Thai Dei had remained outside, as he always did when I visited the Old Man, so I was not shy about describing the skirmish between Uncle Doj and Mother Gota.
“Which was about this Noose constellation?”
“That started it. I think that was just an excuse. Their conflict runs a lot deeper.”
“And this all just started?” He smiled to himself, like me, probably, jumping straight back to Gota’s business with One-Eye.
“And where is our pet hedge wizard?” I asked. He was not out riding Smoke, which is what I had expected him to do while I was away. Lady had the little fire chief all tied up.
Croaker shrugged. “Out of my hair, which is all I want right now.”
Probably off tending his distillery, which had not been found in his dugout when the rescue crews turned the place inside out, looking more for that than for poor old One-Eye.
I said, “I had a dream. Or maybe I was out of myself. It almost turned into a nightmare.”
“Uhm?”
“Catcher’s figured out how to run the shadows. Just like our boy in the cage, there.” Longshadow, though, was unconscious. More so than Smoke, who insisted on groaning every few minutes.
Croaker sighed. “I’m disappointed but I’m not surprised. It was a logical step for her. And she’s had time to work on it.”
“You going to do something about it?”
“Haven’t I already?”
“You lost me, boss.”
“She’s figured out how to manage a few shadows. Close up. But I control the source of the shadows. And I don’t have to get near her. Though I’m going to.”
“I wouldn’t get overconfident where she’s concerned. You never know with her. Remember how she planted that demon Frogface on us.”
“I take nothing for granted, Murgen.” He glanced at his woman, lying motionless beside Smoke. “But I try not to let paranoia cripple me.”
He would get an argument on that from a lot of people. On the other hand, though, he had overthrown the Shadowmasters and seemed well positioned to have us survive the perfidy of our allies.
But, Soulcatcher? I did not doubt that Smoke had been right every time he insisted She is the darkness!
83
One-Eye caught me outside Croaker’s place. “Her Worship still at it?”
“Uh... You mean...?” Thai Dei’s were only one pair of uninitiated ears nearby.
“You know what I mean, Kid.”
“She is.”
“Damn! I can’t get ten minutes at a time now that she’s started playing. Damned woman must be worried about her weight.”
Took me a minute to figure that out. Then I laughed, remembering how hungry I used to get. “That could do it. If she gets totally hooked.”
One-Eye grumbled something and stomped off. He did not go any farther than his dugout, though. He began fussing around the remains like a dog trying to dig a rabbit out of its warren, killing time while he waited to wa
lk the ghost. I went about the business I had, mostly stalling because I had no desire to go back over to the Shadowgate. After ten minutes of slinging mud and trash One-Eye stomped back to me. “I found that little shit Goblin yesterday. Last night. He was just about to jump on the Prahbrindrah Drah. I want to know how that came out.”
“Uhm.” Yes. I hoped he took the Prince prisoner if they had them an asskicking contest. I would rather have his sister scared of us than mad at us. Mad she would be if we sent her little brother to his funeral ghat.
She was not the kind to jump into the flames after him.
“That bastard was getting pretty good when he turned on us,” One-Eye said. “There’s no guarantee the runt can take him.”
“You worried about Goblin? You?”
“Worried? Me? Hell, no. I don’t care what happens to the little shit. But if he croaks the Prahbrindrah Drah we’re gonna be in shit so deep we’ll have to look up to see the horizon.”
“I don’t think we can get in much deeper than we already are. They can only kill us once. And they’ve already let us know they intend to try.”
One-Eye snorted. No way would he admit that he was worried about Goblin though Goblin’s absence obviously made him crazy. He had not been able to feud with anyone for ages. Nobody else would play.
I asked, “Why don’t you play a few tricks on Uncle Doj if you’re suffering some compulsion to mess with somebody who can mess right back?”
Thai Dei developed a sudden interest in our banter. One-Eye did not cheer up. He did ask, “You figure Lady was right about him? He don’t look the part.”
“And you do?” Like a derelict in a slum alley does. “You think she’s ever been wrong about something like that?”
“She’s still healthy,” One-Eye grumped.
Thai Dei wanted to know what we were talking about but could see no way to get anything out of us without giving something away himself. If he’d just been the kind who chatters incessantly he could have asked anything and nobody would have thought anything about it.
I chuckled.
Puzzled, One-Eye asked, “You going back over there?”
“Got to. Boss says.”
One-Eye glared at the distant plateau. “Damned Tals! Just had to stab us in the back. I was all set to retire as soon as we finished Longshadow. But they just had to fuck me up. And now I got to go on up there. Which I’m looking forward to like I’m looking forward to getting a hot poker shoved up my poop chute. Whoa! Here’s my chance.” He scampered toward Croaker’s dugout.
Lady had come up to the light. She looked more haggard than ever. She must have been walking the ghost for all she was worth. She leaned on a post while she spoke softly to one of the messengers waiting for an assignment. He hurried off toward her camp. She looked at me, frowned as though she was having trouble remembering who I was. Maybe she was. I was supposed to be somewhere else.
I decided to go there even though it was no resort for tired professional soldiers.
84
Mother Gota would not talk to Uncle Doj. Mother Gota would not talk to her darling baby boy. But Mother Gota and silence had been strangers for decades. So Mother Gota talked to me.
She was not happy about the way her life was going, though she refused to get specific in front of a Soldier of Darkness, family or not.
I was in a karma-building cycle, apparently. I endured her crabbing, nodding and grunting in the right places while I made notes concerning recent events. I said, “You could always go home. Just pack up and go back to the swamp. Let Uncle boil his own bitterroot.” The root was a recent discovery. Shadowlander fugitives had been caught eating it. It was a common weed that was not completely inedible if you boiled its roots for six or eight hours before you ground them into meal that tasted like soggy white oak sawdust. A lot was getting eaten because there was little else to be found close by. Croaker still had not authorized anyone to begin exploiting Overlook.
Uncle Doj had discovered bitterroot long ago. He had not eaten much else since Charandaprash. How had he found that much time to spend sitting in one place? Maybe he cured twenty pounds of root at a time.
“You, Bone Warrior, you would have me abandon my duty?”
Hell, yes. Anything to get you out of my hair. But I did not say that aloud. I just asked, “What duty is that?”
She opened her mouth to tell me but Nyueng Bao caution took over. She gulped like a fish out of water, then, as always when pressed, told me, “I go get some wood.” That in Taglian instead of Nyueng Bao, which was good enough for me as long as I asked no questions.
“Good idea.”
Thai Dei came to stand by me as I watched her go. I said, “Soon the Company will return to the road to Khatovar. Your people need to decide what to do when that happens.” I reached for a rock.
I thought I made no giveaway motion but the crow was ready. It just hopped over the whistling stone and offered me one mocking caw for my trouble. The black birds remained scarce but there was always one near me and a dozen around Croaker’s headquarters. Catcher was lying low but she had not stopped watching.
A nearby Taglian, maybe thinking he could curry favor, aimed a bamboo pole at the crow. “Save that for a shadow!” I snapped. “We’re not out of this yet.” Interesting. The would-be sniper wore a ragged, crudely drawn Company badge. I saw no one armed with bamboo who did not sport some version of our badge. The management had stopped pretending to be fair.
Red Rudy wandered over, stood leaning on a spear. He stared northward, silently watching something. Nobody else said anything, either. I took advantage of the silence to scribble a few more notes. Finally, Rudy mused, “Ever notice how, when the light is right, you can see where everybody’s going over there?”
“No.” I looked up.
He was right. Just now the light had every piece of metal beyond Overlook reflecting right at us. And a whole lot of metal was headed up the road I had walked with that useless One-Eye...” Oh, no. Whose bright idea was this?”
Somebody wanted to call on Soulcatcher.
“Thought you’d be interested.” Rudy collected his spear and strolled off. Probably to find a deep hole to pull in after him.
“What is happening?” Thai Dei asked.
I shrugged. “Maybe just the end of the world.”
Or maybe not. Maybe somebody in the headquarters bunker was playing mind games with her sister.
The sun moved on. Light no longer glimmered off the moving force. Nobody but Rudy seemed to understand what was happening but everybody sensed that something was. It became very quiet on my far hillside.
Nothing happened for a while. I made notes. I watched Mother Gota dwindle into the distance. Looked like she planned to do her wood gleaning farther afield.
Afternoon shadows crept across the far foothills. “That’s dark,” I said. Especially near where Soulcatcher was last seen. That darkness was swelling...
I gaped. That was no shadow. That was a cloud of darkness. It boiled out of the canyons and forests and masked the foothills...
Crows.
All the crows we had not seen for the past several days!
The darkness rose like a blast from a volcano. It began to spread.
“That’s got to be every crow in the world,” I breathed. The cloud just kept growing. Part seemed headed my way.
Suddenly, lightning sliced inside it. The wind began to blow. I began to lose track of where and when I was and what I was doing. Somebody asked, “What’s happening?”
A second voice asked, “What’s that smell?”
Kina. But I could not explain.
More lightnings ripped through the thunderhead of crows. Most of that darkness rushed my way. The stench of Kina became overpowering. There were sounds around me, heard as though from a great distance. They did not include the panic that seemed appropriate.
The darkness bent over and grabbed me, took me up like a mother lifts a frightened infant. The face of Kina was in the darkness but
it was not Kina who possessed me. She was angry. Again. She was disoriented.
She was not alone.
Lady was there, maybe riding Smoke, maybe in some other fashion. The lightning was her doing, evidently. She had Kina in one sorcerous hand while trying to spank her sister with the other.
Catcher was there, too. And she seemed amused, not troubled, although she was caught between a devil goddess and a sister who would roast her happily. Soulcatcher would go to the burning stake chuckling at the fire. The woman was completely mad.
The darkness wrapped me up. It devoured me. It tried to chew me up but found me unpalatable. It spit me out.
I staggered like a drunk. A voice in my head said, There you are, darling. I missed you. You have been away too long. Moonlight glinted off the corpse-strewn black water lapping at Dejagore’s wall. I imagined something stirring in those waters, something that wanted to grab me and pull me deep into the inky darkness, down amongst the naked bones. I looked to my left and there stood the long-dead Speaker of the Nyueng Bao, Ky Dam. His wife Hong Tray was with him. They smiled. The old woman made a finger sign I knew to be a blessing.
Darkness swallowed me.
Darkness had no stomach for me. It puked me up.
I was in a tree. My eyes saw strangely. I had to turn my head this way and that to see out of one or the other. Men of half a dozen races were slaughtering men of several others below me. The trees were repelled. They loved death but hated the shedding of blood.
I was in the Grove of Doom. In a tree?
I raised a hand to feel my eyes. White feathers blocked my vision.
I lost consciousness.
I went a hundred places. A hundred places came to me. I seemed to visit all times and all places of the past several years.
I was on the plain of bones. Darkness had come. A black wind blew the bones about. I tumbled like a leaf. Crows mocked me from the naked trees. I rolled over into a deeper night and in an instant was strolling up the sloped floor of the tunnel where the old men rested in their cocoons of spun ice.