Gate of Darkness, Circle of Light

by Tanya Huff

  “Fine.” Daru’s voice worked like sharpened steel on the words. “You do that. You go save the world. I’m trying to save the people on it!”

  Roland barely got the receiver away from his ear in time as Daru slammed down her end so hard it could be clearly heard throughout the room. Even Tom looked up from his meal. “She, uh, can’t come tonight,” he said, hanging up.

  “But I already told you that.”

  “Yeah.” He pushed the phone back under the couch. “I know.”

  Rebecca swiveled around to face Evan again. “What will we do without Daru?” she asked anxiously. All their plans had been made for four people.

  “Roland will have to come with us.”

  “To see the littles?”

  “Yes.”

  “No.” Roland raised his hands as Evan’s gray eyes and Rebecca’s brown ones fixed on him. They’ve the same kind of single-minded intensity, he realized. Once you’ve got their attention it’s a little overwhelming. Until Evan arrived, he’d never understood how Rebecca’s simplicity could be strength. Now he wondered how he could have missed it. “I’m not spending the evening talking to things in bushes and down sewers. I’ll stick to the original plan and see what I can hear on the street.”

  “I don’t like you being alone,” Evan said, making one of his disconcerting shifts into Evantarin, Adept of the Light.

  “Daru’s alone,” Roland reminded him.

  “So why put two of you in danger.”

  “Is Daru in danger?” Rebecca demanded.

  “Alone, we are all easier prey for the Darkness.”

  “Fortune cookie platitudes again,” Roland scoffed.

  Evan’s eyes narrowed. “But truth nevertheless.”

  “Look, if I’m alone, too, Daru’s chances are fifty percent better because he might just come after me.”

  They were both on their feet now, bodies leaning forward, chins up, and teeth showing.

  “And if he does?”

  “You can fight him for my body.”

  “That’s not funny, Roland!”

  “It wasn’t meant to be.”

  “You’re not supposed to be fighting each other.” Rebecca pushed between them. “Stop it. Now.” She glared from one to the other, her expression daring them to continue.

  Evan spoke first. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I don’t want you hurt.”

  Roland drew a long shuddering breath. “I don’t want me hurt either. But I’ve been with you all day. I need some time to myself.” His voice begged Evan to understand.

  Understanding, unexpectedly, came from Rebecca. “Caring for someone makes more bits and pieces than you can deal with sometimes. Doesn’t it?”

  Caring? Was that it? Is there more here than just sexual attraction? He might be able to handle caring. He managed a grin, a nod, and a shaky, “Yes.”

  Evan sighed but all he said was, “Be careful.”

  The heat of the day seeped back out of concrete and asphalt, keeping the temperature high even though night had fallen. A hundred heads bobbed up and down as the current on the sidewalk swept them from one patch of bright light to the next, and a dozen different stations blared from car radios as drivers cruised up and down the strip. Sweat and perfume mingled with car exhaust into the distinctive smell of a summer night in the city.

  The streets feel different. As Roland joined the surging crowds heading south on Yonge, he could feel the difference against his skin. Others felt it, too, for the laughter had a brittle edge and the crowds surged back and forth with a kind of jerky desperation.

  You don’t want to know, he told them silently. You really don’t want to know what it is. Trouble was, he knew. Knew that somewhere in the city Darkness moved. And should it move on him tonight, he’d be facing it alone. He searched the faces that swept past, in and out of his vision in a kaleidoscope of eyes and mouths and noses, cheeks and chins, smiles and frowns, brown, black, white, yellow in a thousand combinations.

  Fuck it! He dropped his gaze to the ground, his stomach tying itself in knots. I wouldn’t know him if I saw him.

  Rebecca was with Evan. Daru was nice and safe in her office. He was all alone.

  “I must be out of my fucking mind,” he muttered.

  A pair of teenage girls stared and swung wide around him.

  He considered stopping and busking for a while at Gerrard but the smell from the pizza place combined with his case of nerves had him swallowing convulsively, so he kept moving south. At Edward, an old man sat playing the accordion, badly, and at Dundas, at the north end of the Eaton Centre, an entire four-piece band, complete with amplifiers, raised the ambient noise at the corner by about a hundred decibels. The lyrics they screamed tied sex to pain and Roland tried not to listen as he pushed his way through the gathered crowd. He passed junkies and rummies, runaways and hookers, heading for the relative security of his usual spot at Queen.

  Across the street, he saw two kids, no more than fifteen, buy a small package from an older man in a black leather jacket. They did it openly, knowing no one would bother interfering. Roland gritted his teeth and walked on. And I’m one of the good guys. He tightened his grip until the plastic handle of the case cut into his palm. And we wonder who asked the Darkness in. Every fucking one of us. Anger, even anger at himself, made him feel stronger, so he held onto it.

  A man stood on Roland’s corner. Long dirty hair hung lank and greasy down his back, bare feet stuck out from under stained and filthy jeans, and a dark red cross, recently painted, gleamed damply on his soiled T-shirt. “The end,” he cried, his voice surprisingly deep and resonant, “is near!”

  “I don’t need this,” Roland groaned. “I really don’t need this. Not tonight.” Eyes forward, refusing to see the crazy, he stepped over a puddle of vomit—the smell lost in a hundred others—and headed for the other spot he frequented.

  The large open area at the Bay Street end of the Simpson’s Building held a dispirited looking flower seller, a hotdog vendor, and a steady stream of tourists heading for both old and new City Hall. Roland set his guitar case carefully on the pavement, lifted out Patience, and left the case lying open. He checked the tuning, watched a young woman walk by, her breasts moving almost languidly under her loose tank top, and, suddenly melancholy, began softly playing “If.”

  While he sang, voice and fingers on automatic, passing conversations flowed over and through him.

  “… doesn’t start until nine-forty, I checked the paper.”

  “Of course, he says it was just a business lunch.”

  “Look Marge, I’ll make a deal with you. You let me keep the beard and you can get your ears pierced.”

  “… coming on top of that chambermaid’s suicide this morning, too.”

  The two men were walking slowly and Roland strained his ears to catch the rest.

  “Well this wasn’t a suicide. Just some junkie who scored big.”

  “A bellboy shoots most of a gram of heroin into his arm and it’s an accident? I think there’s something going on at the King George.”

  “Yeah? But who can tell with junkies?”

  Who indeed? Roland mused, letting the song trail off. Had they seen the bellboy that afternoon? Talked to him perhaps? Could they have saved him? He pushed those thoughts away and tried to bury his feelings in sarcasm. At least he’s marking his trail. It didn’t work. Sarcasm was too frail a crutch to support the load he carried now. And we’re always one body behind.

  “And just what do you think you’re doing?”

  Roland turned and came guitar to belly with one of the fattest cops he’d ever seen. The guy looked like he’d stepped out of a bad Burt Reynolds comedy right down to the little piggy eyes gleaming out from within folds of fat.

  “I asked you a question, boy.”

  He even sounded like he came out of a bad Burt Reynolds comedy, but Roland felt no urge to laugh. Give these types a nightstick and the right to use it, and they did.

  “Is there a problem

, officer?” He kept his voice level, calm, empty of any possibility of insult. If Darkness had sent this man, it had barely taken a touch.

  “If there wasn’t a problem, would I be wasting my time talking to you? You’re blocking the sidewalk. Move on.” And under the first layer of words, ran the second. Go on, you no-good hippy, argue. You aren’t worth shit and we both know it.

  Years ago, Roland might have protested. Pedestrian traffic moved easily around him and no one had complained. Years ago, Roland had ended up spending the night in jail with three busted ribs. He squatted, laid Patience away, and snapped the guitar case closed.

  The cop stood, watching him, until the curve of Bay Street hid his bulk.

  With the roar of the subway vibrating the entire western slope of the Don Valley, Evan and Rebecca crawled through a hole clipped in the fence and scrambled up under the massive cement support of the Bloor Viaduct.

  “Look at the plants!” Rebecca yelled over the shriek of the rails.

  The plant life covered the ground with luxuriant greens in spite of the almost constant noise and vibration from the Viaduct above and the exhaust fumes wafting up from Bayview Avenue below. Even the recent scorching temperatures seemed to have had no effect on it.

  “The troll takes care of it. It’s what he does.” The subway passed and her last word rang out into relative silence. She giggled and added in a lower voice, “He takes care of the bridge, too.”

  Evan glanced up the length of the huge pillar to where steel girders angled away into the night then he dropped his gaze back to the ground. The troll was their last hope for information. None of the gray folk they’d met and warned had been able to offer anything in return. Many had simply shrugged the warnings off. Most of the gray folk in this city were young, with scant concern for anything outside their immediate sphere. The older, more traditional creatures, were few and growing fewer.

  A tree, standing where no tree should be, caught and held his gaze. He cleared his mind and the troll graciously inclined his head.

  The troll’s manner gave the impression of height—although he wasn’t really very tall—and bulk—although he wasn’t very large.

  Rebecca smiled and stepped forward. “Lan,” she laid her hand on his arm and the moss he wore bent under her touch, “this is Evantarin. He’s my friend.”

  The troll thought about that for a moment, while another subway train screamed by up above. His whiteless eyes studied the Adept, then he nodded again.

  “There is a Darkness in the land,” Evan began, but the troll held up a gnarled hand. “If you know,” Evan asked, “why haven’t you gone to safety? Trolls are enough in the Light that destroying you would add to its power.”

  The troll smiled. “I am safe,” he said, his voice rolling out as slow and sure as a river moving to the sea. “This small Darkness will not try to destroy me. It knows I am too strong. It will not waste strength it needs to deal with you. And if the barriers break and the large Darkness comes, I will not leave my garden.”

  “We’re trying to stop the Darkness, Lan,” Rebecca told him earnestly, pleased he wanted to talk. Sometimes when she visited, they just sat quietly for hours. “Evan says trolls are wise. Do you know anything that will help?”

  “I know how to help things grow. I know bridges.” He bent and straightened a tiny seedling twisted by the wind. “I have not thought of other things in many years.”

  “Perhaps it’s time,” Evan said softly.

  The troll raised his head and looked down the length of the viaduct, across the two huge arches and the smaller supporting ones at each end, then he dropped his gaze back to Evan.

  Under the troll’s steady regard, Evan’s chin went up and he tossed his hair back off his face.

  The troll held up a cautioning hand. “You need not show me your glory, Adept. I have walked in the Light. Lady …” Evan started, hearing his name for Rebecca from the troll. “There is a small bird tucked up in the ivy. It has fallen from its nest and I am too heavy to climb up and put it back.”

  “Would you like me to, Lan?” Rebecca gave a little bounce.

  “If you would.”

  “I’ll be right back, Evan.” She scrambled farther up the slope and disappeared around the base of a bridge support, obviously familiar with the ivy the troll spoke of.

  They waited while another train passed, cocooned by the noise, then the troll said, “If you win, take her with you.”

  “What?”

  “In another time, where she could grow roots, her innocence would not matter, but this time uproots her constantly. It is cruel to her and I wish her to be at peace. Do this and I will be in your debt.”

  Completely taken aback, Evan turned and walked a few steps away. Men and women had gone through the barriers in the past, although none in recent memory. He held Rebecca up against the world he came from and she slipped into place, barely rippling the image. Perhaps she draws me so because she reminds me of home. He shuddered as he thought of how he would feel, trapped in this world, and he marveled that her clarity had stayed unblemished for so long.

  “It must be her choice,” he said softly. “But if we win, I will ask her to come with me.”

  “If you lose, Adept, it will no longer be a problem.”

  The World’s Biggest Bookstore stayed open late and drew a steady stream of customers, although nothing like the crowds that still jostled together a block away on Yonge. Roland pulled Patience up to his chest and just let his fingers run over the strings for a moment, soothing his jangled nerves with her familiarity. His wariness of police could tip easily over into an irrational fear if he let it and he had no intention of allowing it.

  Unfortunately, suspecting that Darkness sat just out of sight playing on his insecurities made it worse.

  “I said get in the car!”

  Roland opened his mouth to explain that his jacket had snagged and he couldn’t free it with his hands cuffed behind him when the nightstick came down on his shoulders. He tried to twist away and fell back against the cop, knocking him to the ground. Back, ribs, legs, head; he lost track of the blows …

  Resisting arrest, they’d said in court. Attacking a police officer. And the cop’s partner, who’d done nothing except watch, did nothing again. Because of his youth, he was given a suspended sentence. He’d just turned fifteen.

  “You got a reason to be blocking the sidewalk?”

  Guitar strings cut into Roland’s fingers as his hands clenched and he turned. A trickle of sweat, that had nothing to do with the heat, rolled down his side. There were two of them, standing close enough that he could smell soap and aftershave.

  The larger, red-haired cop pulled out his occurrence book. He knew fear when he saw it and in his business, fear meant guilt.

  Daru sighed and pushed the file across the desk. She’d finished off what paperwork she could, but a stack, at least as large, still waited on court dates and personal visits. Her week was already full, but that wouldn’t stop new problems from occurring, new people from needing help, new battles from having to be fought.

  Switching off her desk lamp, she was suddenly aware that only the emergency lights remained on.

  “Ten-forty?” she snapped at her watch, as though it were somehow at fault. Her voice echoed in the silence and when it died away, she realized the only sound she could hear was the beating of her own heart.

  “Sounds like I’m the last one off the floor again.” She stood, scooped up her purse and headed out of her cubicle for the elevators, threading her way carefully through cluttered narrow corridors which seemed even more cluttered and narrow in the dim light. The quiet was so complete that she wondered if she might not be the very last person in the entire building.

  She pushed the elevator button and waited. And waited. Occasionally they turned the elevators off at night, leaving her with a long walk down seven flights of badly lit stairs. She hated those stairs; the lines of sight extended only half a flight up and half a flight down and the tiniest noise echoed and reechoed off the cement walls, creating imaginary dangers and masking any real ones. The chime of the arriving elevator made her jump and, stepping inside, she chided herself for being startled by a sound she heard a hundred times a day.

  The underground garage was brightly, almost garishly, lit, angles standing out in sharp relief. Daru squinted and, ignoring the signs that instructed pedestrians to keep to the walkways, strode diagonally across the empty lot to the section where she had parked her car. She rounded a corner, stopped and swore. The lights were out.

  She leaned back around the corner. Through the open door of the elevator, a patch of cooler yellow spilled out into the white glare of the fluorescents. I should go up to the lobby and tell security. But as she watched, the doors closed, and she could hear the machinery hum as the elevator began to climb. Behind her, the darkness waited.

  No more than thirty feet away, her beat up hatchback sat, a shadow in the dark. By the time the elevator returned, she could be in the car and on her way home. She took a step, and then another, surprised at how quickly she moved into a complete absence of light. Surely the brightness from the rest of the garage should spill over.

  She found the car with her shins. “Damnit!”

  The word dropped into the darkness and disappeared.

  With one hand on the car, and the other fumbling in her purse for her keys, Daru moved around to the driver’s door and searched for the handle. I’ve opened the stupid thing a thousand times … ah, there. Keeping her thumb against the edge of the lock, she brought the keys forward and stabbed them into the hole. They jammed halfway and her violent tug to free them flung them to the ground.

  Biting back profanity, Daru dropped to her knees and began to pat the concrete.

  Then she froze, arms extended, fingers spread, suddenly aware she was no longer alone. She felt the hair on the back of her neck lift, and she held her breath, senses straining. And heard a soft, almost silken sound. And then again, closer.

  And she remembered that Darkness walked the city.

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