Passing Through Darkness- The Complete Cycle

by Malcolm McKenzie

  I couldn’t help it. I let my eyes move up and down her body. “You look pretty good to me.”

  She punched my arm. “That’s not what I mean!”

  She did look good, though. She looked warm, and human. What I felt for her was more than just physical attraction - although I had to admit there was a lot of that. I wanted to hold her, to protect her - much as I did with Prophetess. But Prophetess was far away and had no need for me, while Roshel was right here.

  “I know,” I said. “It’s not really what I meant either.”

  She was very close, and it was all I could do not to suggest maybe the two of us should go scouting along a trail in a different direction. I thought I caught a hint of amusement from Yoshana, but that might have been my imagination.

  By the end of the day, the ground was definitely sloping up.

  “I think we’re coming out of the High Valley,” Yoshana said. “So we’re only a few days from the Darklands. Hellguard territory.”

  We were making our camp among the trees. We had no roof and only a tiny fire, but we were all happy to be free of the ruins.

  “So the Darklands are going to be the easy part compared to this, right?” I said brightly. “That’s what you said.”

  “I lied,” the Overlord replied flatly. “This was bad. Trying to kill a demon in his own stronghold will be worse.”

  I hadn’t really expected it to be simple, but my guts still knotted. I suppose I had thought that an enemy Yoshana could face head on would be easy prey for her.

  She did her mind reading trick again. “I may be able to control the Darkness as well as some of the Hellguard. But not as well as the strongest. They were bred specifically for it. And they’ve had centuries to master that skill. Plus, physically they’re… big. And tough. Yashuath more than most.”

  “Bred for it? By who?” The origins of the demons were obscure in the Books of the Fall, and I’d never learned much more about them from any other sources. The traditions of the Select didn’t say much other than that the Hellguard were immortal, and didn’t like us.

  Yoshana raised an eyebrow. “Education really doesn’t amount to much outside of the Shield, does it? They’re soldiers. Created by the ancients in the Last Days.”

  “Soldiers?”

  She frowned. I’m sure she wasn’t used to repeating herself. I stammered, “It’s just - I mean, I didn’t think they had literally crawled up out of hell, but you’re saying they were made the way they are on purpose?”

  “The Darkness was a deliberate creation, and so were the Hellguard. They were made to be complementary to each other. The ancients lost control of both. Now we’re living with the consequences.”

  Grigg interjected, “They can be fought. And beaten. But Yoshana’s right, they’re incredibly tough.”

  “And these creations have been around since the Fall?”

  “Since before it. They’ve got all the physical and mental enhancements of a Select, and then some. Plus complete mastery of the Darkness. For all practical purposes, they’re immortal.”

  My stomach turned over again. “But we’re going to kill one.”

  The smile on Yoshana’s face was as wild as any I’d seen. “Not just any one - one of their leaders. But if we can catch him alone, there’s four of us that can use the Darkness, and only one of him. You’ve learned an incredible amount in a very short time. You’ve got a lifetime to practice and perfect your skills, but there are really only two big things left for you to learn.”

  A lifetime to practice… that might not be very long at all.

  But she was continuing. “First, and you have to be ready for this, the Darkness can be used in much more subtle ways than you know. You’ve already figured out it can effectively read thoughts. It can also influence them.”

  My skin crawled. “What do you mean?”

  “Call it an aura. What do you feel toward Roshel?”

  I reddened.

  “No need to be embarrassed. Her aura creates attraction. It’s a very basic response.” She locked eyes with me. “Me, I prefer something even more visceral.”

  “Fear,” I murmured.

  She nodded. I looked from one Overlord to the other, and then at Grigg. “What about him?”

  Yoshana’s grin, which had faded, widened again. “It’s more complex than ours, but I’m surprised you haven’t figured it out.”

  I shook my head. She chuckled. “Trustworthiness. How do you think we got you here?”

  Grigg looked into the fire, not meeting my eyes. How much of my feelings were the product of their manipulation?

  Yoshana laughed out loud. “It’s not mind control, Minos. Like I said, it’s subtle, and it has to build on something real. Roshel really is attractive. Grigg really is trustworthy. And of course, I really am terrifying.”

  Her face hardened. “But the demons can use it too. They deceived me. And I’m not easily deceived. So you need to watch for that.”

  Then her tone lightened again. “And speaking of deception, here’s the second thing I wanted to show you.”

  Her skin began to change color. “When Grigg first met me, I looked as human as Roshel. You perhaps noticed that my natural appearance stands out a bit. Sometimes it’s better to be less conspicuous. But since I’m traveling with two Select, let’s try something different.”

  The mahogany tone of her flesh leached away, leaving gray behind. Her hair remained white, but her eyes darkened - iris and sclera fading to black.

  She was obviously Select.

  “I suppose my mother must have looked like this,” she mused. “Seems appropriate for killing a demon.”

  It was harder than usual to still my mind that night. Disturbing thoughts spun around my head like a pack of dogs chasing each others’ tails. My most basic emotions had been manipulated by Yoshana, and Roshel, and Grigg. I shouldn’t have been surprised at that, but it was still somehow disappointing. How much of what I felt toward any of them was real? Of course, we all showed the face we wanted to the world, but this was different. Wasn’t it?

  And whatever I thought about my allies, what about my enemies? Yoshana had as much as said her terrible rush to make me into a weapon had been not just to survive the Sorrows, but to defeat Yashuath.

  But then, that had been her stated goal from the beginning. And Grigg had said as much - as dangerous and deceitful as Yoshana might be, she was humanity’s best hope against the demons. Immortal soldiers, bred to use the Darkness, physically and mentally stronger than Yoshana herself… maybe I should be glad the Overlord was as subtle and ruthless as a snake. Nothing less would let us survive this confrontation.

  Again I allowed the Darkness to spread beyond my body before preparing myself for sleep. Roshel was on watch, and the bars of the cage tasted of her - warmer, softer than Yoshana’s aura. If that was an illusion, it was convincing.

  I played the same game with Roshel that I had with the more senior Overlord, easing a tendril of Darkness through the gaps in the dome to explore the night beyond. Roshel didn’t detect me either, and a quick reconnaissance of the surrounding area revealed no threats.

  I pulled my senses back in to myself. I had come too far to turn back. I breathed deeply, quieted my thoughts, and let myself fall from meditation into sleep.

  The going was slow the next day. We continued uphill, and the woods were thick. Joav’s bad leg was on the same side as his bad arm. Yoshana had closed his shoulder and leg just as she had done with his arm after the first battle with the natives, but they still clearly pained him. Twice before midday he fell and had to be helped up. He never complained, but the tightness around his mouth and eyes spoke volumes.

  At times I was impatient, eager to be free of this forest of the damned - because if any place deserved that superstitious epithet, the Sorrows did. Then I remembered where we were going, and wasn’t sorry to be delayed.

  After lunch, Grigg took me aside.

  “You know how to use that thing?” he asked, pointing at
the carbine slung across my back.

  “Point it at someone you don’t like and pull the trigger?”

  “Heh. Good start. Maybe more than you know. For instance, don’t ever point it at anyone or anything you’re not willing to kill. Even if you don’t think you’ve got a round chambered. Which you don’t, by the way.”

  I hadn’t known that, and must have looked surprised.

  “A little safer that way. You won’t shoot yourself or me if you fall and somehow jostle the trigger. Slower in a fight, of course, ’cause you have to work the bolt.”

  “Do you keep a round chambered?”

  “Of course I do.”

  I was a little offended, but the truth was I had almost no experience with firearms. Grigg probably wasn’t wrong that I was as much of a threat to myself as to our enemies.

  “Go ahead and unsling it,” he said. “Now work the bolt. Good. Now it’s ready to fire. Butt against your shoulder, and line up the sights. It’s heavy enough it won’t kick much, and at the kind of range you’re going to be dealing with, you won’t need to worry about wind or drop. Sight on the big knot on that birch tree. Squeeze the trigger, don’t jerk it.”

  The sound of the blast made my ears ring, but Grigg had been right - the weapon thudded back against my shoulder, but not enough to hurt. Wood chips flew a few inches below and to the right of the knot.

  “Not bad. Remember, if you’re going to fire again, you need to work the bolt again. Now reload. You’ve got a seven-shot internal magazine in the stock. Unscrew the ring and load another shell point first.”

  “I can’t help but notice that I’ve got one bandolier and everyone else has two.”

  He laughed. “That’s because we stripped your second one to reload everyone else’s. Not that we don’t think you’re any good with a rifle…”

  “…But you don’t think I’m any good with a rifle.”

  Grigg nodded.

  “Okay, fair enough. Can I take a few more shots?”

  “Normally I’d say of course, but there’s nowhere we can resupply until this is over, and we’ve got no way of knowing how many rounds we’re going to need. Sorry.”

  I could only nod. No way of knowing how many rounds we’re going to need. One more unwelcome reminder of what lay ahead.

  The sun wasn’t yet low when we crested a ridge and saw the land beyond falling away before us. Miles and miles lay ahead, but it was literally all downhill from here.

  Literally, yes. Figuratively, not so much.

  “We can camp here,” Yoshana said. “The sight lines are good. We can’t make the river by nightfall, but this should be our last night in the Sorrows.”

  “And then?” Grigg asked.

  And then? Were they making this up as they went along?

  “Then we go into the Darklands, interrogate some natives, find Yashuath, kill him, and go home. It’s not complicated.”

  The big Select shook his head. “I figured you’d have a little more of a plan by now.”

  “We’ve got the necessary force, now we just find the right point to apply it. Boldness in war has its own prerogative. It is a genuinely creative force.”

  Grigg groaned. “Oh, God. Not Clausewitz again.”

  “You Select really need to read someone besides Sun Tzu.”

  “Oh, come on. You of all people should value Sun Tzu’s appreciation of intelligence and deception. The only reason you like Clausewitz with his ‘hey diddle diddle, straight up the middle’ is because it gives you an excuse to be reckless when you want to.”

  “As the great man said, genius amounts to admitting that rules are not only made for idiots, but are idiotic in themselves. You of all people should appreciate the concept of friction in war, and that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. I like treachery and deceit as much as the next person -”

  Grigg snorted rudely, and Yoshana glared at him and continued, “But sometimes the simplest way is best.”

  “Even when you have a force of six people attacking an enemy superior in every way?”

  “Men - always obsessed with size. It’s not about the size of your force. It’s about what you do with it.”

  Roshel whispered to me, “This is always entertaining to watch. You notice how they just completely switched sides? Clausewitz always emphasized massing an overwhelming force, and now Yoshana’s arguing against that.”

  “I heard that,” the white-haired Overlord snapped. “It’s about the force you bring to bear at the critical point. Any idiot can read Clausewitz and say you just need the biggest army you can get. That’s not what he meant at all.”

  “I’m pretty sure it is,” Grigg retorted.

  Erev and Joav were both lying down, heads on their bedrolls, eyes closed.

  “Heard this argument too many times before,” Roshel whispered.

  “I heard that too,” Yoshana said.

  It really was entertaining to watch the banter, but something gnawed at me. “You said we interrogate some natives. Are there humans in the Darklands? I can’t imagine we’re going to interrogate the demons.”

  “Of course there are humans,” Yoshana replied. “In a sense. The Hellguard aren’t going to grow crops, feed pigs, clean up garbage, all that. They have slaves.”

  “Human slaves.”

  “Yes… and no. The name notwithstanding, the Darklands aren’t as infested with the Darkness as the Sorrows. But there’s a fair amount of it loose in the air. Enough to be a real possession risk for the weak-minded. So the Hellguard… protect… their slaves from it. They call it circumcising the mind. They use the Darkness to remove the slaves’ will. With no fears or desires, there’s nothing for the Darkness to manipulate. And of course, it makes the slaves far more docile. They’re as intelligent as anyone else, but have no more self will than your rifle.”

  I swallowed. “That’s obscene.”

  “That’s what we’re fighting against. It’s why they kidnap women from outside, or take them as tribute. Apparently they like their concubines to have some fight left in them. Until they eventually die giving birth to an Overlord, of course.”

  My throat was thick. “Are you sure we only need to kill one of them?”

  Her smile was a terrible thing.

  Yoshana’s mother had been a Select, like me. Like my mother. The Hellguard truly were devils, stripping the very humanity from their slaves, subjecting captive women to torture and death. Yoshana was right - the demons were more than some abstract terror. They were a foulness that had to be burned from the earth.

  For the first time, Yoshana practiced kata before we slept. It was amazing to watch, a flowing symphony of movement with the grace of a dancer and the speed of a viper. The Darkness flowed like water on her blade, coiling around her, shifting in a perfect counterpoint to her steps and cuts. Her pace quickened as she went on, until by the end she was moving faster than my eye could follow. All I could see was a lethal blur. It was as beautiful and terrifying as a storm.

  And then she was done, the blade sheathed, the Darkness gathered into her, and she folded effortlessly into a lazy, cross-legged seat on the ground.

  I was glad she was on my side.

  Once more I tested our cage before settling into my meditation that night. Grigg had first watch, and I could feel his calm strength. He didn’t notice me as I eased my senses beyond the dome, quickly scanned the night, and pulled them back. I smiled to myself. I was no match for Grigg or Roshel - much less their mistress - in most ways, but I would find a way to make myself useful.

  As I withdrew my probes, I brushed against a strand that felt like Yoshana. I flinched away reflexively. No surprise, I suppose, that she might deploy a layer of her own protection even within the dome, especially this close to the Darklands. Or was she perhaps spying on me, testing my feelings, trying to understand my resolve as we entered the critical phase of the mission?

  Let her test. I was committed.

  With a goal fixed in my mind, it was easy to quiet my th
oughts and sink into sleep.

  The next morning Joav was dead.

  His eyes were closed, and there was a small, peaceful smile on his face. That was telling because Erev was kicking him, trying to wake him up.

  Yoshana gently pushed Erev aside and knelt over Joav. A cloud of Darkness crawled over the body.

  “No infection. It looks like his heart just stopped in the night.” She heaved a ragged sigh. “We pushed him too hard.”

  “What choice did we have?” asked Roshel. “He would have died if we’d left him behind. At least he saw the mission through to the edge of the Sorrows. I think he would have wanted that.”

  We had no shovels, so we heaped stones over Joav as a cairn instead. The sunrise painted the underside of the clouds pink as we looked down from his grave to the east. He couldn’t see it, but it was a beautiful place to rest.

  “Lucky bastard,” Erev muttered thickly. “We’ll wind up strewn around in pieces in some godawful ruin down there while he’s up here in the sunlight laughing at us.”

  I awkwardly clapped the soldier on the shoulder. It was like hitting leather wrapped around wood. “He was a good man.”

  Erev nodded, weathered face looking not just hard but old for the first time. “Yeah. He was.”

  The sun was directly overhead when we saw the river, and not long after that we made out the town off to the right. We angled toward it.

  Even from a distance it was a strange place, the buildings crawling up the riverbanks as if they had spawned in the water and clawed their way up onto the land. Some had crumbled and been swept away by the current, but most remained, clinging like barnacles in a position I would have thought too precarious to last decades, much less centuries. Equally oddly, the town spread no more than a few hundred yards from either side of the river; a strange, aquatic creature that didn’t dare stray too far from its origin.

  Across the river stretched a bridge. And on the far side of it burned a pair of fires.

  So it wasn’t abandoned after all.

  “Hellguard outpost protecting the crossing,” Grigg murmured.