She Is the Darkness: Book Two of Glittering Stone: A Novel of the Black Company (28 page)

“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” Croaker told me. “Yet.” He watched me suck down
a quart of sugar water. “It looks like the Old and New Divisions are swapping
places without any problems. And we haven’t seen any evidence that many shadows
are getting through. And I think Lady can get her situation under control. So
whatever kind of stunt Soulcatcher is pulling it isn’t gonna go all her way.”

There were some unspoken yets in there that were pretty damned big.

Croaker asked, “How are you holding up? Should I have One-Eye come take over?”

“He’s probably more use wherever he is now.”

“I don’t know. He’s being One-Eye. A few minutes ago he was running around
waving a fancy black spear and mumbling incoherently. I do believe he was a bit
tipsy.”

“Shit.” One-Eye drunk and in a mood to show off his talents seldom bodes well
for anyone. “That’s the spear he made while we were trapped in Dejagore. He was
drunk the last time he tried to use it.”

“The one he made to kill Shadowspinner?”

“To kill Shadowmasters in general, but yes.”

“We don’t want him killing this Shadowmaster. Not yet.”

“He’s probably worried about the shapeshifter. You can tell him she’s no threat.

Goblin’s got her under control.”

“You’re sure you don’t need a break?”

“I’m fine.” I got back into the alcove with Smoke. Croaker called, “Your in-laws
understand about the shadows?”

“Thai Dei saw them at Lake Tanji. They’ll keep their heads down.”

Smoke and I went straight up half a mile so I could get an idea of who was doing
what to whom, where and when.

Everybody was doing something to somebody. The night was alive with trails of
fire down around the Shadowgate. It looked as though some of the Old Division
were still there giving their replacements a hand.

There were a few fireballs flying around in Kiaulune and the wastes between the
ruins and Overlook, though not so many as I had expected. Maybe I had gotten the
warning to Lady too late.

I headed downward. Below me the ruins and surrounding area began to develop a
case of measles as ruby dots took life. In moments those gave birth to red
threads that slithered through the night in search of other measles.

Whatever it was, Lady was behind it. It encouraged a lot of yelling and running.

The people getting excited all proved to belong to the Prince’s division.

Lady’s men were rounding them up and disarming them. Those who chose to remain
loyal to her, of course.

The worm had turned real fast.

The Prince himself exercised the better part of valor, accompanied by his staff,

his bodyguards and anyone else who could run fast enough to keep up. Lady had
impressed them quickly and thoroughly and the survivors fully understood that
their futures might be much more pleasant if welcomed somewhere else.

There were a lot of dead people around. Most appeared to be stubborn Taglian
loyalists.

The rubies grew larger and brighter. The threads connected, then contracted into
straight, rigid lines. Seen up close those hummed and crackled and popped
ferociously when some fool touched them. Said fool always fell down stone dead.

The red light smelled bad. It took me a moment to recognize the odor because I
was not expecting it.

The ruby light exuded the smell of Kina. Lady was drawing upon the goddess to
create her sorcery.

The lines of power she laid down carved the area into triangles of isolation
that could be escaped but only by using great caution. The lines kept the
Prince’s faithful from supporting one another. Consequently, Lady was emerging
triumphant although she was outnumbered dramatically. She was a nasty old bitch.

I closed in on her. She had reached a state where she was happy with the way
things were going. I presumed. It was hard to read her emotional state when she
was buttoned up inside the Lifetaker costume. She told Isi and Ochiba, “That
should take care of that. For a while.”

Isi said, “I guess this means no more warm barracks and no more combat pay.”

There had been no pay for anybody since the battle at Charandaprash. Not that
there was anything to spend pay on. Unless One-Eye’s brewing scheme was more
successful than I believed.

“I suspect our contract has been terminated, yes. And the Captain is likely to
be put out because all its terms have not yet been met.”

That was true, though the Prince and his sister had been cautioned repeatedly
against failing to fulfill their end of the bargain. And right now those
warnings had to be weighing heavily on the Prince’s mind. He had cast his
fortune with Soulcatcher, for whatever reason, and the snake had turned in his
hand. How many times had he heard Croaker tell what had happened to past
employers who had turned on the Company?

Plenty. Catcher must have done some strong selling to make him turn on us. She
must have been convinced that she could handle Lady.

Might be worth a few minutes trying to find out what kind of a deal they made.

Lady’s bunch had a gang of prisoners seated in neat lines, cross-legged. None
seemed inclined to protest their situation.

Willow Swan and Blade were among the captives. They seemed depressed.

I guess Sindawe was right when he said she did not trust them.

I almost wished I was there in person.

“I hear Cordy’s supposed to get here tomorrow,” Swan muttered to Blade. “Nothing
like timing.”

Blade grunted.

“Why the hell did the fool go and do something like this?”

It took me a moment to realize that Swan meant the Prahbrindrah Drah, not Cordy
Mather.

Blade grunted again. Swan seemed to understand.

“Why the hell didn’t he tell me? I’m supposed to be the goddamned commander of
his goddamned bodyguard.”

“Because you’re always over here watching her body instead?”

“So I’m sorry. He don’t appeal to me. You suppose this crap is happening all
over? Or did just the Prince go bugfuck?”

“No talking over there,” Lady said, not unkindly. She asked, “Anyone have any
thoughts concerning what we can do about our friends in there?”

“Stay out of their way?” Isi asked. He was turning into a real comedian.

“I think we need instructions from the Captain.” Lady turned around slowly,

studying the air almost as if she sensed an extra presence.

It was, I suspected, a direct experiment meant to illuminate her suspicions.

Nevertheless, Croaker did need to know her situation.

“You smelled the Kina smell? You’re sure?” The Old Man did not seem interested
in details of how Lady had visited disaster upon the Prahbrindrah Drah. The fact
of her success was enough.

“Yes. But the goddess wasn’t there. I’ve felt her close up often enough to know
when she’s been around. Especially tonight.”

“She wants instructions?”

“She may. But she was fishing for a reaction, really. She suspects.”

“She probably knows. Have you been back to the Shadowgate? Are we holding?”

“No, I haven’t. I assume we’re doing all right. There aren’t so many fireballs
flying around as there were a while ago. That seems to be because there’s a lack
of targets, not a lack of bamboo. Once in a while there’s still a big barrage,

though.”

“You need One-Eye to spell you?”

“I’m all right for now.”

“Be careful. And watch out coming back. I’m sending for Lady. She might be
here.”

I tried to take Smoke south. He would not go. I tried to get back into Overlook
to spy on Catcher and Howler and Longshadow but Smoke refused to get anywhere
near them, either. She is the darkness! He would not be fooled and he would not
be bullied. He was gaining substance again. And that substance was in keeping
with what I knew about his chickenshit character. Which suggested that we might
not be getting a lot of use out of the old boy in days to come.

He would go upward. So I took the opportunity to survey the situation from above
once more.

The distribution of fireworks suggested our situation was not bad now. The
Shadowgate had held. The Prahbrindrah Drah was headed north. He showed good
hustle and a fair amount of thought as well. He left messages for his scattered
troops, confident that we would be much too busy to chase them hard. He had no
actual plan yet, though, other than to get clear and reassemble his division. He
was not pleased by the way the tables had turned so suddenly. He had been
promised that Lady would be handled. He had taken a major princely step when he
had set aside his emotional disinclination to buy that.

If he had thought he had some chance with Lady he might not have pursued his
treachery.

Not that his action came as any great surprise, except in its timing.

Longshadow’s pinky nail pet had ruined the whole conspiracy’s timing.

Smoke did not seem keen on getting close to Lady, now, either, though he did let
himself be bullied.

We needed to find a way to encourage Smoke to be more cooperative. Maybe red-hot
branding irons.

Shadows definitely were leaking through. I arrived about the same time as the
first reached the vicinity of Lady’s force. This was no onslaught like the one
at Lake Tanji, though. The only evidence was an occasional scream.

Lady’s mood had blackened since my last visit. She stamped around angrily. Pink
fires jumped off her Lifetaker armor. They flew around like sparks in a forge.

She had become unhappy in a big way but I could not make out why. She looked
like she wanted to take it out on Willow Swan and Blade. They received a few
choice words each time she passed. But their behavior remained impeccable. They
offered her no excuse to strike.

I failed to see why Blade was a prisoner, anyway.

The smell of Kina was strong around Lady but I got no sense that the goddess
herself was anywhere close by. I had expected great horrors splattered all over
the region after her wild response to Longshadow’s assault on the Daughter of
Night.

Lady paused in her pacing. She listened. She cursed.

Horrors were coming but these nightmares were not spewing forth from Kina’s
forehead.

The cries of men attacked by shadows became increasingly frequent.

“Idiots!” Lady growled. “They won’t listen and they won’t protect themselves.”

Then the smell of Kina began to grow stronger, too.

I tried to grab Smoke in a spectral hammerlock, to force him back to
Longshadow’s crystal chamber.

From the first moment I saw it with ghostly eyes, that chamber had blazed with
the intense cold light of a brilliant star. It made a landmark more easily seen
than any beacon or lighthouse. But tonight, now, the light was flickering.

Smoke whimpered she is the darkness sheisthedarkness sheisthedarkness! like some
protective mantra and fought me tough, but this time I enforced my will upon
him. Apparently I could if I worked up a strong enough case of emotion. And
sustained it. Smoke never stopped resisting.

He did not seem to need tons of energy, the way I did. Maybe he fed off me like
some vampirish spirit.

The crystal chamber was a shambles. In one corner, still tied to his chair, the
Shadowmaster lay trapped inside a cocoon of glimmering force, unconscious and in
terrible shape. I guessed he had several broken bones. His clothing was torn all
to hell. Clotted blood had splashed the inner face of his defensive shell. Must
have been some major excitement in my absence. He must have tried another trick
or two. And had paid the price for trying. Maybe he was close to death. Maybe
that was why there was so much more screaming going on outside Overlook.

I thought the Daughter of Night was gone altogether but then I spotted her
hiding inside her own egg of protection. Hers was eggplant black and just barely
translucent. She had curled into a fetal ball but she did not appear to be
injured.

Howler looked like he had tried to rape a tiger. He was making noise
continuously but not of the usual sort. This was more like a continuous whine
punctuated by the occasional rattle of air in a punctured lung. Soulcatcher was
trying to doctor him but she was in bad shape herself. She looked like she had
wrestled the same tiger, with only marginally more positive results. Right now
she had no time for anything going on outside the chamber.

The smell of Kina remained strong there.

I dislocated Smoke’s ghostly knuckles and applied pressure till he moved back
toward the moment when he had dragged me away. We never got there. Kina arrived
first, making a second, surprise visit that caught everyone off guard.

When I got close enough to feel Kina’s presence, to catch glimpses, I became
unfocused. Smoke made a run for it. I regained control, dove right back in
there.

We bounced in and away, in and away. I caught several more glimpses of an
animate darkness that, seen from the corner of my invisible eye, looked like a
miniature version of the many-armed goddess. Kina concentrated on enveloping the
brat in the dark shell that surrounded her now. Howler and Soulcatcher took
their lumps in a minute of vain resistance in which they caught the goddess’s
attention about like an annoying yellow jacket buzzing around an outdoor lunch
catches the attentions of picnickers.

Longshadow grabbed the chance to employ a ready protective catechism to create
the egg enveloping him now. Most of the damage he suffered was accidental and
collateral and happened during the scrimmage between Kina and the others.

Narayan Singh appeared to be splashed all over the floor. I could not tell if he
was alive.

I let Smoke pull away, drove him toward Lady. She ought to resemble a bouquet of
posies on his fear scale now.

I positioned myself right in front of her, at eye level, as I had done before.

That took some doing. She would not stand still. She continued to mutter curses
about the screaming, which had become more common.

Longshadow had to be teetering on the brink of eternity.

I shrieked.

Lady froze.

I glared into the eyeholes of her ugly black helmet. Those glowed with an
unnatural intensity. If something so unnatural initially could become more
unnatural. She whispered, “You’re there again.”

I tried to bellow. “Your pal Kina whipped their asses upstairs. They’re all down
right now. There’ll never be a better time to get them.”

Lady turned slightly. She stared up at Longshadow’s personal tower. The light in
the crystal chamber was feeble, guttering like a spent lamp.

The fate Longshadow feared so much might catch up with him yet.

Lady shouted at Isi and Sindawe.

She did not get my message exactly but she did hit on the notion that right now
might be a good time to take one last whack at the Shadowmaster.