Darkwalker: A Tale of the Urban Shaman (48 page)

It seemed like an eternity that I stood frozen in place, sword still extended in the follow-through from the cut. I had killed Hannah Caine, I had killed a monster. Two monsters, my mother and my half-brother. Blood will tell, my Pa had said. What kind of son kills his own mother? My childhood fears were confirmed. I was a monster, just like them.

I lowered the sword. Some part of my mind half expected to see her hands begin groping toward the head. Some atavistic fear whispered that I could cut the body into small pieces and each piece would still live, still creep after me, reaching out to claim revenge. But it did not happen. The body lay still, spilling a torrent of blood out onto the wooden floor. Slowly the torrent became a pulse, and then a trickle. The dark red pool spread across the dusty floorboards. Oddly, it didn’t seem to eat the wood as it had the steel.

When I looked up I saw for a moment the image of the spirit I had always thought of as my mother. “Who or what the hell are you?” I cried. “Are you my mother? Or was she?” The figure simply spread her hands, shook her head, and vanished. I was left staring at a paneled wall. What the hell did that mean?

My legs were shaking. I fell to my knees. My head pounded, and the lightning flashes were back. My back ached. My arm and thigh throbbed from Caine’s cuts, as did the bay gator bite on my lower leg. My skin burned from the scaledust, and every breath was a labored bellows feeding a hot furnace. I looked down to see one arm and one leg soaked in blood. The leg was near useless. I tried to focus through the haze. I should bind up the cuts Caine gave me. How much blood had I lost? Was I going into shock? I wasn’t shivering yet. I couldn’t let that happen. Couldn’t relax into a nice, oblivious shock state. Not yet. There was more to be done still. For a moment I couldn’t remember what.

I knew I had promises to keep. What had I promised? I had promised I would look after Auden’s family sword, right. I already blew that one. That sword lay now with only its tip inside the creature’s chest. Most of the blade was now corroded through. I looked at the Osoto in my hand. It, too, had begun to sizzle from the blood. Small pieces dropped from its edge as it corroded. I wiped it on Caine’s robe, careful not to get her blood on myself; if it dissolved metal, what would it do to flesh? Even the pressure of wiping it proved too much for the blade. Its temper and integrity had been undermined by the creature’s caustic blood. It snapped off halfway down. I wiped the broken end again and held it up. The blood seemed to have stopped eating the metal.

Promises to keep, right. And miles to go before I sleep, or something like that. What promises? Roth’s daughter. Of course. I was here to get Rochelle Roth. Using the broken sword like a cane, I struggled to my feet. Fortunately, the blade held my weight. I turned, swaying, to see Rochelle Roth standing in the doorway, staring at me. I wondered that she didn’t run screaming away. My face and hands must have looked like raw hamburger; I was dirty, disheveled, and bleeding. Surely I looked more like a monster to her than her Hannah Caine had.

“
You killed my teacher,” she said. “Will you now kill me, too?”

“
No,” I said, “of course not. I’m here to take you home.”

“
Ah, yes,” she said. “The hero come to rescue the princess. Just like in the fairy tales. I suppose you expect to marry me, and rule my father’s kingdom.”

“
What?” I said, none too brightly. “No. But I think your father will be here with the city guard soon.”

Hannah Caine had been right. It was about a half an hour.

53. WOLF

We went to all the funerals, of course. Gage wouldn’t hear of a mass funeral, and Roth didn’t fight him on that, so it took days. We performed the Chant for the Dead, and the Passage to the Crows, where the soul of the dead is offered into the keeping of the Crows for transport to the Land of the Dead. Morgan said she’d be okay doing the Passage for Robles, but I did it myself. I felt like I owed her that, at least. We’d already done the ceremony for Rok, although there would be another one when his ashes arrived in New Frisco.

A lot of this I passed through in a sort of a daze. And I was avoiding anything stronger than aspirin, since my natural state of shock was altering enough. One of the things you learn as a Railwalker, and as a Brick especially, is to manage to seem normal and attentive when you’re actually in an altered state. Falling down with your eyes rolling up may be impressive in a shamanic healing, but it doesn’t encourage confidence in your order if it happens in a public ceremony like a wedding or funeral, or a Blessing of the Crops. So you drill, and you learn to present as normal when you’re far from it. I was like a zombie, going through the motions, but only the closest ones—Morgan, Roth, maybe Weldt—realized this. Morgan knew what was up with me, of course, but I had not told the city boss or his advisor what killing Hannah Caine had really meant to me. Hell, I wasn’t sure myself.

And of course, that face kept appearing in shadows and reflected in windows, and overlaid on the faces of people who looked nothing like the spirit I had believed was my mother’s.

I’m not given to a lot of wallowing in guilty feelings. I’ve done things I wasn’t proud of. The earliest ones were done out of youthful stupidity, the later ones out of the belief that it was somehow for the greater good. In my career as a Railwalker I’d killed a number of men, a couple of women, some animals, and several creatures not entirely of this world, some of which weren’t even in the
Concordance Monstrum
. I remember all of their faces, even those of the animals and the unknown creatures. I remember all their names, at least all the ones that had names that I heard. Their souls are passed on and any shades have been dispersed, so when they do haunt me now I know it’s not coming from them, but from inside my own mind.

I don’t allow them to haunt me much. I can’t afford to. You let yourself dwell on that sort of thing too much, you’ll drive yourself mad. Now and then, though, you have to let those faces come out of the shadows. You have to think about them and remember. It’s what keeps you from allowing yourself to take life lightly, to kill because it’s expedient rather than truly necessary. To remember that it’s always a choice, and you take responsibility for it, accept the consequences.

I knew I’d be seeing that face loom out of the shadows more frequently than the others. Hannah Caine, Helena Crichton, Goodnight Irene, the Amazing Vanishing Mother, Demon Goddess, Vengeful Wife and Spurned Woman. I wondered how often, if ever, it would be overlaid by the face of the Fairy Godmother, or whatever she was, who appeared to me over the years.

And what about her, anyway? Was she a figment of my imagination? A spirit of some sort, masquerading as my mother? A Rydell fragment of herself my mother had thrown off? If she ever showed up again, I supposed, I could try to ask her. Not that she had ever given me time or opportunity for questions.

I watched Morgan tapping away at the keyboard of her portable unit. She was sitting cross-legged on the couch, the unit on her lap, our satchels packed at her feet. Now I thought I understood why she’d tried to persuade me to leave once the Beast was dead. She had already known—or had a strong suspicion—that Helena Crichton was also my mother. She’d been trying to avoid having to tell me, hoping to protect me from the knowledge. She’d thought that if we called the case closed, left the city, went on with our lives, I might never have to know what kind of monster dear old Mom had become. That’s what she’d meant when she’d said, “We’ve lost enough.” With Rok gone, even in the midst of her own grief, she’d tried to save me from this further loss.

But you can’t protect people by denying them knowledge, or denying them an informed choice. Morgan had realized that. That’s why she’d told me at the last.

I’d said we’d talk about this later, but I realized now there wasn’t any need. Ultimately she’d done the right thing, and that was what counted.

“
We’re to return to New Frisco ASAP,” Morgan announced, looking up from the screen. “They’ve convened a Raven Parliament. You are requested to attend.”

“
They want me to give evidence?” I asked.

Morgan frowned. “There’s only twenty-two other names on the list,”

The Raven Parliament consists of twenty-three members: a Murder of seventeen Ravens a Pentangle of five Senior Ravens, and the Elder Raven. If someone had appointed me a Raven, no one had told me about it yet. I thought of my late-night conversation with Roth. And I wondered... Did he know something I didn’t? Did he have a contact inside the order?

“
By the way, Roth wants to see you before we go.”

I found Roth sitting alone in the conference room where we’d first met. The westering sun cast gold highlights on the edges of things in the room. The large circle on the opposite wall positively glowed. Before Roth, on the conference table, lay the hilt of the ancient sword I’d used to kill Hannah Caine.

“
You know what this sword is?” asked Roth. The hilt and what remained of the blade threw off sparks of fire from the evening sun.

“
I’m an expert at using them, not at appraising them. I can tell it’s the oldest piece I’ve ever seen, probably an Osoto.”

“
It’s older than that,” said Roth. “It’s an original Isao Suddeth. Look at the menuki here.” He pointed to the side of the handle. “Suddeth used very simple, stylized shapes, we think in reaction to having used the traditional, intricate carvings for so many years. They went out of use in the second century, and sword makers went back to the older style. And the tsuba,” he indicated the round hand guard, which was decorated with a bas relief of crows and leaves. “Those leaves are sugar maple, which only grows in the northeast. Take this hilt apart, and I’d be willing to bet you’ll find the tang of the blade stamped with Suddeth’s mark. It’s not Ravenwing, but it’s of that period. Possibly belonged to one of the First Five.”

“
I didn’t know you were such an expert on antique swords.”

“
Everybody needs a hobby.” Roth laughed. “Look at this. There’s a story in these engravings. You see this face here? With the runes under it?”

I’d seen it. I could read the runes. “It says ‘memory,’” I said.

“
It means ‘remember.’ And the face is a mask. Just before the Crash there was a class war developing. It was the corrupt government officials, the puppets of the petrobarons and wallbankers who created the economic disasters of the period. This mask was a symbol of the folks who rose up against them.

“
It’s important for a city boss, or a leader of any kind, to have a clear sense of history,” he said. “Look at the great disasters of the past and eight out of ten times you’ll see that a crucial component in making the disaster is a leader who’s not thinking straight, one who makes decisions on the basis of what benefits themselves and their cronies, rather than what’s best for their community. Consider in our own era the fall of Redmond, the collapse of Charlotte, even what happened here with the Takeover. If Crichton’s priority had been what was good for Bay City, the People’s Movement would never have been necessary.”

“
But don’t you think,” I asked, “that it’s possible for a leader to have his constituents’ best interests at heart, and still make the wrong decisions?”

“
Of course. Anyone can make a mistake. Hell, I’ve made some major mistakes myself. And they do come back to bite me in the arse.” He lifted the hilt of the sword. “Case in point. My actions with Hannah Caine, Helena Crichton that was, were driven by tunnel vision, concern for my immediate objectives, without considering the price of those objectives. If I had counted the human cost of those actions, even just the cost to Helena Crichton herself, it might have prevented much of what has happened here.

“
It’s all about your people, Railwalker, about your relationships, your community. When I began the People’s Movement, I sought out associates who weren’t afraid to argue with my decisions. That’s what keeps a leader honest, keeps the power from going to your head. But your associates can only help you with that if you clue them in. I said nothing to anyone about my affair with Helena Crichton. It was a secret from even my closest friends. No one ever had the chance to tell me I was being an arsehole.”

“
Sometimes you have to figure that out for yourself,” I said.

He nodded. “Your partner has told you you’ve been called to New Frisco?”

“
Yeah. There’s a Parliament.”

“
You know they’ll ask you to fill a post. Probably Warden of the West.”

He paused to let that sink in. It did. He was right. Morgan had called it. Dahlia was even older than Traveler, and she wanted to retire, and she was looking at me to replace her. I’d never wanted any sort of office. But Morgan was right, I had to admit. The alternatives were not pretty. If Kane or Groute became Warden, they’d be one step away from Elder Raven.

“
Your Prof, Morgan,” said Roth. “Does she say you frankly?”

“
Yeah.” I laughed. “She lets me know when I’m being an arsehole, that’s for sure.”

“
Good,” said Roth. “Good enough. Keep her with you if you can, and seek out others like her for your staff as Warden. You need the ones who’ll call you on your shit.