She Is the Darkness: Book Two of Glittering Stone: A Novel of the Black Company (20 page)

The storm lingered a long time. A couple times I almost became lost just getting
from my shelter to One-Eye’s wagon or Croaker’s shelter. The blizzard brought
air so cold we had to move Smoke into Croaker’s place to keep him from freezing.

The soldiers suffered badly, though mostly through their own failure to provide
themselves with adequate shelter. Captives had warned them that winter here
would be much harsher than any they had ever known.

Once again I got to know the joys of sharing quarters with Mother Gota.

Thai Dei insisted she had to get in out of the weather and I have been
developing a soft streak as I get older. I allowed it.

She behaved uncharacteristically for Ky Gota. She kept her own counsel most of
the time. She stayed out of the way. She helped Thai Dei dig out cold earth and
carry it away so we would have more room. She did not say a disparaging word
about all the time I spent writing. She worked hard, though I never had been
able to criticize her on that account, ever.

She made me nervous. She was almost human. Though she made very little effort to
be pleasant or friendly.

The Captain, though, was sharing space with One-Eye and Smoke for the duration.

He was much less happy than I was. And I was not happy because I was getting
almost no chance to travel with Smoke. When I did stumble over there they would
not let me go ghostwalking long enough to do more than check something specific,

which was always something on a list they had prepared but claimed not to have
had time to check for themselves.

Croaker did not ghostwalk much but he did not let the blizzard and its aftermath
keep him from working on other stuff.

Over there in Overlook, Longshadow and Howler were putting in hours as long as
ours. And when he was not with his ally Howler, the Shadowmaster had his head
together with Narayan.

Singh seemed to have perked up now that he had an almost friend. The Daughter of
Night seemed content to ignore everybody and live entirely within herself.

Fighting continued inside the fortress. I almost had to envy our guys who were
trapped in there. They were scared all the time but they were warm and most of
the time they had enough to eat.

Fresh snow fell every three days. Harsh winds never stopped blowing. I began to
worry about the wood we needed to keep going. The snow was so deep it was almost
impossible to get around. Nobody knew how to make snowshoes. Probably only three
or four Old Crew guys besides me knew what snowshoes were.

I thought it was a great time for Longshadow to send out some of his pet shadows
but he failed to grab the advantage. He was not confident that Howler could
withstand Lady by himself, nor, I suspect, did he want to turn his back on his
partner for long.

The dreams intensified. They diversified as well. I went to the plain of death
and the caves of ice and I went to the Nyueng Bao delta swamps to see Sahra and
into the hills and mountains behind us where I caught glimpses of Goblin and
Mogaba in huddled hiding places trying to wait out the weather.

Those dreams all seemed very real.

Even more real seemed my dreams of Soulcatcher, whose lonesome misery was epic.

The place she had chosen to hole up seemed to pull snow and wind both, till the
former was deeper than she was tall.

The first two times I suffered these dreams I took them passively. The third
night my own presence there seemed so real that I tried tinkering with reality.

The dream did not change but my place within it did.

I experimented much more next night.

The morning afterward, after a not entirely inedible breakfast prepared by
Mother Gota, I slogged through the snow to visit the Captain.

“Had to get away?” he asked.

“They’re not being bad. The old woman’s even fixing food that’s palatable. If
you’re not real picky.”

“What’s up? Where’s your shadow?”

“I guess he didn’t want to deal with the snow.” The snow was the first thing I
had seen that made Thai Dei want to back down. This winter was his first
extensive experience with the white stuff.

“None of us do. Anything from the old guy?”

“In this weather? You’re kidding.” He was still sure that Uncle Doj was up to
something. Maybe I ought to dream about him. “What I wanted you to know is, my
dreams are getting really strange.” I explained.

“Is it your imagination or are you really going out?”

“It feels like being out there with Smoke. Almost. I don’t have any feeling of
control. So far.”

Croaker grunted. He looked thoughtful, seeing some possibilities. I saw a few
myself.

“What I thought was, I could make a quick circuit with Smoke to see how closely
reality conforms to what I dreamed.” I had little trouble accepting the
possibility because I had been experiencing such unusual dreams for so long.

“Do it. Without wasting any time.”

“What’s your hurry? This snow isn’t going anywhere for a while.”

Croaker grunted again.

He was turning into a genuine old fart.

The flight with Smoke showed me nothing I had not seen in my dreams. It did not
show me Soulcatcher. Smoke still refused to get close. But I passed high
overhead and saw that she was indeed caught in a side canyon where the snow was
extremely deep.

The weather changed eventually. The snow melted. We came out of our shelters
like a bunch of groundhogs. So did the rest of the world. But most everyone was
interested in recovering, not in getting into fights.

Fighting did continue inside Overlook, though mostly Longshadow’s soldiers were
satisfied to keep Lady’s troops bottled up. Those men were in no hurry to get
themselves killed now they were cut off from the outside. They had control of
stores enough for a long time and complete confidence that Lady would make every
effort to relieve them.

She would. I used Smoke to look in on some of her planning. She had expected any
men who got inside to be cut off for a while. She had chosen shock units and
commanders she believed would be able to handle the hardship.

The Prince’s division was fighting in the ruins of Kiaulune and in the hills
north of us, where Mogaba persisted in harassing the shit out of us. Lady’s
division held the ground between the city and Overlook. One of the Captain’s
divisions was around the other side, astride the road to the Shadowgate. The
other remained in reserve.

Spring was a real threat on the horizon.

I asked Croaker, “You think the Prahbrindrah Drah is maybe going to get tired of
getting the honors in all these fights?”

He gave me a startled look. “Am I that obvious?”

“About what?” I looked around. Only Thai Dei was close enough to hear anything.

“You just . . . It could be his division is the most incompetent.”

“And least reliable?”

“This army will suffer a lot of casualties before we get to Khatovar, Murgen.

Correct me if I’m wrong. It seems to me it would be in the Company’s interest if
most of those happened outside our own ranks.”

“Uhm?”

“I trust my Old Division. A lot of those men want to join the Company. Most of
them would fight the Prince if I gave the order.”

Lately a lot of Taglians wanted to join the Company. I think most of the
applications were genuine. Guys who take the oath always stick. They never take
the oath lightly.

The oath is always administered in secret. Recent recruits have been asked to
keep their new allegiances to themselves. No one outside the Company had any
idea how strong we really were. Some people inside were getting the mushroom
treatment, too, if their name was something like Lady. The Old Man was turning
paranoia into a fine art. “I understand that. What I’m wondering is, how come
Lady is getting the hurt, too?” If something did not end up on the Prince’s back
usually it went to her.

Croaker’s shrug told me he was not quite sure himself. “I guess I don’t want her
in any position where she has to deal with too much temptation.”

“And the New Division?”

“I wouldn’t ask them to face off with the Prince. They probably won’t ever be
ready to take our side in a civil scrimmage.” He looked me in the eye. This
campaign had elevated him to a new level of hardness. This was like trading
looks with Kina. I did not look away.

Croaker explained, “I’ll deliver on my promises.” He meant that our employers
would not deliver. The Radisha, especially, was determined to screw us. The
Prince had been out here long enough to become one of the gang. We never did get
a chance to work our magic on his sister.

I said, “I spend a lot of time wishing I’d stayed a farm boy.”

“You still having trouble with the nightmares?”

“Every night. But it’s not like it’s a direct attack. I always work my way
through and use the opportunity to scout around. Sure as hell ain’t pleasant,

though, I’ll tell you that.” Kina, or somebody or something who wanted me to
think she was Kina, was in my dreams all the time. My own conviction was that it
was Kina, not Catcher. She was still trying to promise me Sahra back.

I wished she would do something about the odor.

“She trying to work Lady, too?”

“Probably.” Almost certainly. “Or maybe Lady is working her.”

“Uhm.” He was not listening. He was concentrating on Overlook now. Fireballs had
begun zipping around over there.

Several fireballs flashed in the ruins of Kiaulune, too. The people Mogaba had
in there were stubborn. The man really could find good soldiers and could
motivate them. The Prahbrindrah Drah had begun razing parts of the ruined city,

building by building, salvaging burnables where he could.

It was still cold. At the moment there were eight inches of snow on the ground,

atop a couple of inches of hard-packed sleet. This was spring? How many more
storms would we have to endure before the weather gave up delivering unpleasant
surprises? Longshadow’s surviving crystal turrets sure looked comfy. I wondered
why he had not bothered us much lately.

I checked the smoke rising from Kiaulune. I hoped the Prince would save a few
nice places where us special folks could hole up in comfort after he rooted out
the last partisans.

I was tired of living like a badger.

“What’s going on in there?” Croaker asked, indicating Overlook.

“Nothing’s changed. I don’t understand Longshadow. Not even a little. It’s like
he’s determined to destroy himself. He’s in some kind of emotional slough where
he just can’t exercise any initiative. You’ve been there, I expect. I have, I
know. You know what needs doing but you just can’t move. It doesn’t seem like
it’s worth the effort. It’s the same sort of paralysis that came over Smoke
those last few weeks before he got knocked into his coma.”

Croaker looked thoughtful. “How about you? You feeling like you’re getting
enough rest? With these dreams?”

“It isn’t bothering me yet.” I lied. Though I did not need sleep. I needed an
emotional respite. I needed a few weeks alone somewhere with my wife.

“Where are your in-laws?” The eternal question. Uncle Doj was still missing.

“Good question. And before you ask, I still don’t have a clue what they’re up
to. If they’re up to anything.”

“I worry about so many Nyueng Bao being so close to us.”

“Bad can’t happen, Captain. Not ever. They’re with us as a debt of honor.”

“As you always tell me, you had to be there.”

“That’d sure help you understand.”

He glared at the great white fortress, “You think we could let refugees get
through?”

“Huh?”

“Put another burden on Longshadow. More mouths to feed.”

“He wouldn’t let them in.” I was still amazed that Longshadow had provided
himself with such a small garrison. There were never more than a thousand people
inside Overlook, including servants and families and those refugees who had
gotten in before the destruction of the scaffolding. There was no mundane way
the fortress could have been defended against multiple attacks.

But Longshadow had not planned to deal with the mundane. He had expected to be
safe behind countless adamantine spells for as long as he liked.

“I don’t think it’ll be much longer, Murgen. Not much longer at all.”

Fireballs flew around over there. A rising breeze lifted some of those box kites
the quartermasters had dragged all the way from Taglios. In this sort of wind
they could lift twenty-five pounds to the top of the wall.

That was not what Croaker had brought them along for, he said. But he did not
expound.

“I admire your confidence, boss. Yeah. Next year in Khatovar.”

“Next year in Khatovar” had become the sarcastic slogan of the Old Crew these
past few years. Most would just as soon have faded away and gone back north. The
constant stress of being in service to Taglios suited nobody but Lady. Despite
her bouts with exhaustion she seemed to thrive emotionally where raging paranoia
was the only sane way of facing reality.

Croaker was not amused. His goals for the Company were not acceptable butts for
humor.

His sense of humor had been assassinated by this campaign. Or, at least, it had
gone as comatose as Smoke.

“Thai Dei. How about we go for a walk?” When the Old Man got in a mood it never
hurt to be somewhere else.

One-Eye is supposed to be my backup as Annalist, at least till Sleepy gets back
and learns the ropes. Those few times I have handed him the job, or Croaker did
when he was doing the Annals, he proved conclusively that we need Sleepy
desperately. The old fart cannot live beyond the moment most of the time. Not
that I blame him at his age.

So I was surprised when he bothered to tell me, well after the fact, that he had
witnessed something interesting while he was out scouting with Smoke. No, he
never wrote anything down and he could not recall all the details now but better
late than never, right?

Maybe. Old Smoke was not anchored in time.

He and I drifted back to a moment not many hours after Narayan had visited
Howler on the wall and their little chat got interrupted by Lady’s gang of
insensitive brutes.

Singh and the Daughter of Night had reached safety in her quarters. The child
did not talk much. Narayan was obviously extremely uncomfortable in her presence
now, though she was a tiny thing even for her age. She ignored him, settled at a
small worktable and turned up the wick on a small oil lantern. The stunner, for
me, was seeing her set about the same sort of work that I did almost every day.

Astounded, I watched as her little hand slowly, laboriously recorded words in a
language I did not recognize and which, I discovered, she did not read. For as
soon as I saw what she was doing I darted around through time looking for an
explanation. The writing got started a week ago.

It was the middle of the night. Narayan had stayed up late, praying, calming his
soul, trying to reach the state the Daughter of Night achieved when she touched
the goddess. He had tried a hundred times. He failed this time as well.

Failure no longer ached inside him. He was resigned. He just wished he could be
allowed to understand.

Hardly had he fallen into his dark dreams before the Daughter of Night was
tugging at his shoulder. “Wake up, Narayan. Wake up.”

He cracked an eyelid. The child was more animated than he had seen since before
she learned that she was to be the instrument of Kina, the hands of the goddess
in this world.

He groaned. He wanted to swat her, wanted to tell her to go back to her pallet,

but he remained wholly dedicated to his goddess, prepared to execute her will.

The will of the Daughter had to be considered an extension of the will of the
Mother, however difficult that might make life.

“Yes? What is it?” He rubbed his face and groaned.

“I need writing materials. Pens. Ink. Brushes. Inkstones. Penknives. Whatever is
involved. And a big bound book of blank pages. Quickly.”

“But you can’t read or write. You’re too little.”

“My mother will guide my hand. But I must begin my task quickly. She fears we
may not have much time left here, in safety.”

“What are you going to do?” Narayan asked, wide awake now and completely
baffled.

“She wants me to make copies of the Books of the Dead.”

“Make copies? They’ve been lost for thousands of years. Even the priests of Kina
doubt that they exist anymore. If they ever did.”

“They exist. In another place. I have seen them. They will exist again. She will
tell me what to write down.”

Narayan considered the notion for a while. “Why?”

“The Books must be brought back into this world to help us bring on the Year of
the Skulls. The first Book is the most important. I don’t know its title. But by
the time I finish writing it down I will be able to read it and to use it to
bring forth the other Books. I will be able to use those to open the way for my
mother.”

Narayan gulped air. He was illiterate. Most Taglians were. Like many who were
illiterate, he was possessed of a vast awe of those who did read and write. He
had seen great sorceries since associating himself with Longshadow, yet
considered literacy the greatest witchery of all. “She is the Mother of All
Night,” he murmured. “There is None Greater.”

“I want those materials, Narayan.” That was no four-year-old talking.

“I will find them.”

Back in the hours after their escape from Lady’s soldiers, while fighting
persisted only a short distance away, the child wrote slowly and Narayan paced
and shivered. Finally, she looked up, considered him with those disturbing eyes.

“What has happened, Narayan?” She seemed to see right through him.

“Events have surpassed my understanding. The small, smelly one called me to the
wall to show me the heads of my brothers displayed on spears. A gift from your
birth mother.” He picked at himself, reluctant to go on. I thought maybe the
worst torture we could visit on him when we caught him would be a bath. “I
cannot fathom what purpose moved the Goddess when she allowed all those faithful
sons to fall into the woman’s hands. Almost none of our people remain alive.”

The child snapped her fingers. Singh shut up instantly.

“She killed them? The woman who gave this flesh life?”

“Apparently. I made a bad mistake in not making sure of her when I brought you
away to your true mother.”

Not once did the child ever call Lady her mother. She never mentioned her father
at all.

“I am sure my mother had an overpowering reason for allowing that to happen,

Narayan. Have the slaves clear out. I will consult her.” Several Shadowlander
women attended the child most of the time. She treated them like furniture. They
were not in fact slaves.

Singh shooed the women while keeping one eye on the girl. She really did seem
disconcerted by his complaints.

Singh shut the door behind the last servant. The woman had made no effort to
conceal her relief at being away from the little monster. The people of Overlook
did not like the Daughter of Night. Narayan settled into a squat. The child was
in a trance already.

Whatever other place she went off to she did not stay long. She grew pale while
she was there, though, and when she returned she was more troubled than when she
had gone.

The odor of death filled the ghostworld while she was away. I gutted it out.

Kina did not come.

The girl told Singh, “I don’t understand this, Narayan. She says none of it was
her doing. She neither caused their deaths nor allowed them to happen.” The
child sounded like she was quoting, though when she did speak she always sounded
older than her years. “She was unaware that it had happened.”

Now they both faced a crisis of faith.

“What?” Narayan was startled, frightened. Fear was a constant of life these
days.

“I asked her, Narayan. And she didn’t know. The deaths were news to her.”

“How could that be?” You could see the fear shove its cold claws deeper into the
Deceiver’s guts. Now the enemies of the Deceivers could murder them wholesale
without their goddess even knowing? Then what protection did the Children of
Kina possess?

“What fell powers do these killers from the north command?” the child asked.

“Are Widowmaker and Lifetaker more than created images? Can they be true
demigods walking the earth in the guise of mortals, powerful enough to spin
cobwebs of illusion before my mother’s eyes?”

You could see the doubts gnawing at both of them. If those red and yellow rumel
men out there could be taken so easily and killed without alerting their
protectress, what could save a living saint or even a Deceiver messiah?

“If that is the case,” Singh said, “we had better hope this place is as
impregnable as that madman Longshadow wants to believe. We had better hope that
he can exterminate all the Taglians already inside.”

“I do not think he’s finished, Narayan. Not yet.” But she did not explain what
she meant.