She Is the Darkness: Book Two of Glittering Stone: A Novel of the Black Company (35 page)

At first I thought it must have been just the flake of flint biting my ass that
had brought me back. That bastard hurt. But as I shuffled it out from under me I
sensed movement against the starry background south of me. A voice inquired,

“Are you awake now, Standardbearer?”

Sindawe. “No doubt about it. And I was having such a wonderful dream, too.”

“Since the Old Man wants you to keep an eye on us I thought it would be useful
if you saw what’s happening.” Unlike most Nar, Sindawe had a sense of humor. It
included a major irreverence for authority, though he represented authority
himself. He must have driven Mogaba to distraction back when they were best
friends. Unless Mogaba started out the same way and grew out of it. A lot of
sour old farts start out as all right guys.

I had to roll onto my hands and knees to find the leverage to get up. “Stiff as
a log,” I grumbled.

“Buy a better mattress.”

“What I need is a better body. Like one that’s about fifteen years younger. All
right. What’s going on?”

“Thought you’d want to see what’s happening at the Shadowgate.”

“Nothing bad, apparently, or you wouldn’t be hunking around in the dark.” There
were no fires tonight. There were no other bold souls wandering around like
Sindawe, either. But the most remarkable lack was that of flying fireballs. Over
here. There was an occasional pop on the far side of Overlook.

Sindawe headed uphill, though that was not necessary. I could feel the Lance. It
seemed to be awakening. I could see the sparks as the shadows tested my leather
ropes. I sensed frustrated motion beyond the sparks.

I felt no fear at all.

Always before there had been fear anytime there were shadows near enough to be
sensed.

The shadows grew more energetic. So did the sparks. They began to crackle and
pop. The soldiers showed remarkable restraint. Not one man went bugfuck and
sprayed the hillside with fireballs. They felt no fear, either. Or maybe they
were just veteran enough to understand that you can fool yourself. Especially
after a trial like last night.

The stupid and the nervous would be over yonder in that trench that the
survivors had so grudgingly dug.

“Sky’s clearing,” I observed, maybe just for something to say. Over the rise
ahead that was as clear as it was when my ghostwalks took me up above the
clouds.

“Uhm.” Sindawe seldom wasted words on small talk.

“Recognize any of those constellations?” I did not. It was like I was looking at
a completely foreign sky.

“Too many stars to see any patterns.”

“The Noose,” said a voice from behind me. I started. I had heard no one come up.

And I would not have expected this speaker to move quietly.

“Mother?” The sparks from the Shadowgate generated just enough light to reveal
where she stood. A form that may have been Thai Dei loomed behind her, staring
into the southern night.

“It was in my mother’s book. Part of a fairy tale nobody understood. That nobody
knew where it came from anymore. Thirteen stars that form a noose.”

I saw nothing of the sort. I said so. Mother Gota must have been stunned into
another century, so out of character had she become. She grabbed me by the arm,

pulled my head down, made me sight along her pointing arm. Finally, I admitted,

“I see something that looks like a bottom-up water ladle right there above what
must be the skyline.”

“That is it, you fool Stone Soldier. Three stars are hidden by the earth.” She
remained particularly intense.

“You recognized it, with three stars missing, from a description in a childhood
story?”

A particularly brilliant burst amongst the leather ropes revealed the woman
staring at me bedecked in an expression of profound bewilderment. It also
revealed Uncle Doj behind her.

He wore a look of exasperation which vanished the instant he realized I could
see him.

“Gota. There you are. Nephew. What is this display?”

From much closer than I would have believed he could be, Thai Dei said, “The
Soldiers of Darkness have stopped the leak of death.” He spoke in rapid Nyueng
Bao. He used several words that were not clear to me. I counted on context to
unravel their meanings.

Uncle Doj told Mother Gota, “I have cautioned you about your tongue—”

“I’ll caution you, you mountebank.” I think “mountebank” is what she meant.

Wrapped up in the word she chose was a root meaning “fraud,” with a superlative
prefix hung out front.

It sounded like a cousin word to “priest.” Blade would have been amused. I was
amused.

Gota had restrained herself with Doj in the past. Compared to how she had
berated everyone else. She deferred to Uncle usually, albeit with poor grace.

Now they squabbled like children.

I got the impression that their quarrel had nothing to do with what they really
wanted to fight about. Even so, the tiff was interesting where I could follow
it.

Thai Dei’s special mission in life is to poop parties. He embarrassed those two
silent long enough to get in the news that they were quarreling amidst all the
Bone Warriors in the world, at least one of whom understood their blather.

Doj responded instantly. He shut his mouth and went for a walk. I said, “I hope
some nervous type don’t pick him off in the dark.” Thai Dei went after him.

Gota shut up only because Doj’s departure left her to carry both sides of the
argument. She considered starting up with me. But she recalled that, whatever I
was to her daughter, I was a Soldier of Darkness, too. Anyway, I was not Nyueng
Bao and only the worms of the earth are lower than that.

I was in a peckish mood myself, having been wakened prematurely. I said, “I
rather enjoyed that.”

Gota made a sputtery noise as she stalked away.

Of the general darkness I asked, “Anybody know anything about a constellation
called the Noose? Or any stories about it?”

Nobody knew anything. Naturally.

Over the next several days I asked the question of everybody I ran into and
always got a negative answer. Even Narayan Singh, a logical resource for
information about nooses, seemed unfamiliar with the constellation. He did not
say so in so many words, of course, but Lady was familiar with Deceiver lore and
knew nothing, nor was she able to pry anything out of the living saint.

Poor guy seemed destined to be the living martyr Narayan Singh. The heartline of
his existence consisted of unrelenting terror.

After assuring myself that the Shadowgate was holding, I ambled back down to my
bunker. The standard seemed almost aglow with power. Something noteworthy was
going on there. I would have to go see Croaker. If my inner thigh healed enough.

If I ever got any sleep.

My in-laws were no problem. None had gone back to our nasty little bunker. I had
its stone floor and stink to myself.

I was asleep about the time I chunked my head onto my rock pillow.

For a while I just slept. In fact, I am convinced that I dreamed normal dreams,

though I cannot recall them now. Then, gradually, my spirit slipped its moorings
again, in a kind of tattered, fuzzy way that might have indicated difficulty
letting go. I felt no resistance. But I was not trying to go anywhere, I was
just drifting.

I floated upward. It did take an effort of will but I faced southward, trying to
find the noose of stars that had gotten Mother Gota exercised. Yes. There they
were. But I had to climb a thousand feet to see them all and even then they were
not easily discerned. They had dropped dramatically in a very short time.

In fact, when I reflected on it, I could not understand how they might have
risen high enough for me to see from the Shadowgate.

I did not let that trouble me, though. My attention was caught by something on
the plain of stone. For an instant I saw a ghost of pale light out there, about
where I glimpsed that lump of darkness sometime before. Was there something out
there?

I did not go look. It never occurred to me to try. In retrospect I cannot
understand why. How could the impulse not arise? How could I not actively engage
the choice of investigating or not investigating? I do not know. I just sort of
went hmm and continued on about my normal ghosttime ratkilling.

I rejected impulses to search for Mogaba and Goblin. I can be lazy even when all
the work I have to do is think. Finding them would take a lot of to-ing and
fro-ing and calculating. And then I might not accomplish anything. So I decided
to spy on Soulcatcher instead. By now she should be recovered enough to be
grumbling and scheming and maybe doing something interesting.

Or she might just be laying around sleeping.

Soulcatcher was just laying around sleeping. Surrounded by woods where every
branch and twig boasted a complement of crows. It looked like every crow in the
world had gathered around her hideout.

It was unlikely they would starve for a while.

They had been living well. Already the earth beneath them was buried under their
droppings. Shadows drifted below, whimpering because the crows would not come
down to play.

Like a shadow myself I wormed into Catcher’s cave. I encountered the spells she
had woven to keep the darkness at bay. For a time those resisted me, too, but I
was different enough to find a way through.

Catcher was sleeping? How often did that happen?

The Daughter of Night was not asleep. And she was a sensitive child. She felt me
arrive. She sat up on her bed of damp pine needles. “Mother?”

Catcher was a light sleeper. She sprang erect, alert, turning as she sought
danger. She wore the mask that had been one of her trademarks in the old days.

Mostly she had done without it lately, but seldom did I see her in public. And
never in the flesh.

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.