She Is the Darkness: Book Two of Glittering Stone: A Novel of the Black Company (43 page)

“It ain’t my fucking idea,” I told Rudy. For the third time. “You don’t like it,

go join Goblin and One-Eye. Wherever they are.”

“I just never thought we’d really do it.”

“Nobody but the Old Man did. Me included. But he says we’re going, we’re going.

That’s the way it works.”

“Never said I wouldn’t go,” Rudy grumbled, more to himself than to me. He went
off to scream at his sergeants. He would need to decide who to leave in charge
while we were gone.

I was working on that myself. I had sought recommendations as soon as I got back
from the Old Man’s place. We would learn a lot about our southern recruits. The
Old Man wanted to leave no Old Crew or Nar behind.

Ochiba, Isi and Sindawe were the only surviving Nar.

Bucket came by. In practical terms, he was my assistant. He did most of the
work. I did not interfere unless he got headed in a direction I knew would get
the Captain after me. He said, “You really squeezed Rudy’s nuts.”

“The man is driving me bugfuck. What do you want?” More than Rudy was making me
cranky. Sleepy was getting worse.. Thai Dei was being a pain in the ass because
I had not bothered to visit Uncle Doj while we were across the valley.

“Hey, Murgen, it’s all right to be scared. But you don’t need to make everybody
else miserable because you are.”

I started to bark but realized that would not change the fact that he was right.

I grabbed up a stone and threw it as far as I could, as if the fear would fly
away with it. The rock clattered around amongst some boulders. Half a dozen
crows flapped into the air, cursing in their native tongue. “Shit.”

“Not a good sign,” Bucket agreed. “We haven’t seen any of those for a while.

Want we should take them out?”

“They weren’t close enough to hear anything. But have somebody check the area.”

I considered the sun. There were a few hours of daylight left. I had time to
start the recon that needed doing before we took a bigger gang up the mountain.

Bucket sent men to the crow site. One held up what might have been a ground
squirrel when it was alive. He held his nose with his free hand. Bucket told me,

“Maybe they weren’t spying at all.”

“All things are possible,” I said. “But some are more likely than others. Thai
Dei. I know you got some pretty determined ideas about what you owe me but you
really don’t need to take risks just because I do.”

The Nyueng Bao squatted not far away, sword sheathed across his back, waiting, a
ragged little man who did not look dangerous at all. He looked me in the eye,

grunted his go-ahead-and-explain grunt.

“I’m going through the Shadowgate. Wait! It’s all right. I’ve got the key. The
Lance. As long as I’ve got that I should be all right.” If Croaker really had
guessed correctly.

I would have felt more confident had I had a chance to study those earliest
Annals.

Thai Dei climbed to his feet wearily, like his knees hurt him. He sighed, made a
“let’s go” gesture.

“Look,” I said, “you don’t have to.”

He gestured again.

I would get nowhere arguing. Thai Dei was two steps beyond being stubborn. All
Nyueng Bao are at least one step beyond. My wife . . .

I grabbed the shaft of the standard, started kicking rocks away from its base.

It had stood undisturbed, right there, for half a year, becoming a fixture
nobody much noticed anymore.

“Wait,” Bucket said. “Use your noggin, Murgen. You can’t just tighten your jaw
and go charging up there. Take some bamboo. Take a canteen. Take a loaf of bread
and some jerky. And let me set some guys up to cover your ass.”

“All right. You’re right.” This business had me more rattled and scared than I
realized.

I let Bucket take over. He did not have to go through the Shadowgate so he could
remain calm and rational.

The Standardbearer is always the first guy into any Company scrape.

I was as far uphill as any of us had gone. The standard shivered in my hands. I
leaned on it and stared at the ruins, trying to pick the path I wanted to
follow. Bucket stood a few paces behind me, relaying instructions to Rudy. Rudy
was posting observers. I did not want to be out of sight for an instant, ever.

If the boogies got me the rest needed to know how, when, why and where.

“Anytime you’re ready,” I growled. I had a feeling I was not going to get less
frightened for a while.

“You’re set,” Bucket yelled. “Tie a rope to your ass and go be a hero.”

Be a hero. Not something I ever wanted. I gave him the high sign with both
hands, grabbed the standard before it could topple. “See you in hell,

mudsucker.” I headed up the hill.

Thai Dei shouldered a bundle of bamboo and followed. He did a better job of
hiding his fear but he let them tie a rope to his belt, too. In case he had to
be hauled back through the gate.

The standard almost hummed in my hands.

I knew the precise instant when I crossed over. It felt like I had fallen into a
cold pond that was nothing but surface. The chill ran over me, then was behind
me, yet I was in a place where it was cold all the time. You might be able to
fry eggs on the rocks but it was cold.

I took only a few steps. I paused. I waited. Minutes passed. The cold did not go
away. I stared up the slope. And, gradually, the road became more clear, a thin
black line like polished coal meandering up the hill like the trail of a snake
just barely not drunk enough to wander off into the barren wilds. I waited some
more. Nothing jumped out at me. No shadows came to wriggle up my legs.

The standard seemed very much at home. It seemed to pull me uphill.

“You all got a good fix on me?” I yelled at Bucket.

“Got ahold of the rope, too, buddy.” Bucket’s reply and laugh sounded like they
had come to me through a long metal tunnel.

“I got a rope for you, Bucket.” I took another three steps. Thai Dei dragged
after me. The man lacked enthusiasm.

Nothing happened. I took a few more steps. The road up the hill gleamed like
polished darkness, calling me onward. The fear began to drain away. Fast.

Thai Dei said something but I did not catch it.

The rope tautening stopped me.

I had moved farther uphill without realizing it. I had reached the end of my
tether. Bucket gave me a tug. “Far enough for now, Murgen.”

Yeah. I was way past where I had intended to go. But there was nothing to be
afraid of Bucket gave me another tug, with greater vigor.

I backed downhill reluctantly. Thai Dei said something again. I looked back.

Then I understood what he wanted.

He pointed northward.

The world looked kind of shimmery, as though we were seeing it through a curtain
of heat.

“Let’s go, Murgen!” Bucket yelled. “We want you back and the gateway sealed up
before it gets dark.” He gave my tether another yank.

The man was getting nervous.

Still reluctant, I stepped across the boundary. This time was like stepping into
summer out of winter.

Thai Dei sighed. He was pleased. The hill held no attraction for him.

My world had changed. Just the slightest. I could still see the penstroke of
polished darkness meandering down what once had been a road. Dirt and fallen
stone concealed most of it but adequate evidence remained if one but had the
eye.

I felt I was a different man after having crossed that line.

“You all right?” Rudy asked. “You look strange.”

“It’s strange over there. The same but different.”

“Huh?”

“I can’t explain. That’s the way it feels. You’ll understand once you go up
there.”

Bucket joined us, wrapping rope into a coil. “You all right? You look like you
saw a ghost.”

“It’s just weird over there.”

“Weird? How? You didn’t do anything that strange. Except kind of forget
yourself. And your sidekick didn’t do that. He just stood there and shivered.”

“That’s part of it. It feels cold. Only not physically cold. More like the cold
Blade would claim you’ll find in a priest’s heart.”

I must have looked puzzled. Bucket said, “You’re telling me you had to be there
to understand.”

I told Thai Dei, “The man acts as dumb as a stump but he’ll fool you sometimes.

You got it exactly, Bucket. Get some fresh dust up here. And make sure those
ropes are all taut and the shadowtraps are all set. I want a full complement
of—”

“Calm down,” Rudy told me. “You set it all up before. Remember?” Soldiers were
at work making sure of our protection already. My fuss was a waste of worry.

“Tell you straight up, that was scary. It’s gonna take me a while to wind down.

You got a messenger ready to go? I’ll jot a report for the Old Man. Then I’m
going to crawl into my bunker and get intimately acquainted with my last jug of
One-Eye’s medicine.” I had one jug of the little wizard’s most potent distillate
squirreled away for use in a medical emergency.

This seemed like an emergency to me.

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.