“Everybody loves me. It’s my winning personality. Does that mean you’ll sell me my horse back?”
“Oh, just take the miserable animal. It eats too much and I can’t do anything with it here.”
“Thanks, Furat. I really appreciate it. Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Yeah. Get out of here in the morning.”
The outpost was wonderfully defensible against most enemies, but against Yoshana it was just a deathtrap with no back door. When I said, “No problem,” I meant it.
The dun gelding didn’t seem especially pleased to see me.
“I didn’t miss you either,” I muttered. I certainly wasn’t looking forward to leading the balky animal down the stairs. I had the tools now to calm his mind with the Darkness as Roshel had done, but I wasn’t sure I could do it without harming the beast.
“Good luck,” Furat said. He hadn’t exactly been hurrying me, but I had no doubt he’d be glad to see me go.
“Thanks again,” I replied. “Yoshana may come here, if she manages to kill Yashuath. Tell her I went west.”
“Got it. You’re going south?”
“No, I’m going west. She’ll get it out of you one way or the other. It’ll go easier if you just tell her the truth.”
“If she catches you…”
“That would be bad.”
Maybe the Darkness transmitted some of my urgency to my mount. We reached ground level uneventfully, and trotted through the tunnel that took us from the dark forests of the Sorrows back into the wide, green fields of the Source. The flowers of spring dotted the landscape. I breathed deep, inhaling their scent and the clean smell of the grass. Out of the Darklands, out of the Sorrows, in the bright, warm sunlight, I could almost forget that hell might be riding behind me. Almost.
I made good time. I slept in the open most nights, stretching the thin webs of Darkness that Seven had showed me. Sometimes I killed a rabbit or squirrel, and ate the meat raw. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t dare take the time to cook them, or send up the resulting column of smoke. I had no idea how far behind me Yoshana might be, but I wasn’t going to take chances. I didn’t even boil water, trusting instead that the Darkness could scour away any contaminants. It must have worked, because I didn’t get sick.
On the third day I rode into a walled town. My horse was tiring from the pace, and I felt something in his stride that hinted at the beginning of lameness. I traded him for another mount, sweetening the deal with silver earned from selling the carbine. The hostler still tried to cheat me. I could sense the abscess in the first animal he offered, and the deception in his mind.
I thickened my probes, allowing them to become visible. “Yoshana wouldn’t be pleased,” I said mildly.
The man blanched whiter than my hair and babbled apologies. The second horse he produced was finer than the one I was giving up. He waved away the payment I had offered.
“If I’d known you were on the general’s business…” he stammered.
“No harm done,” I said, and rode on. I had to smile. If she ever found out, would Yoshana be angry I had taken her name in vain, or amused at its power - even when it was being used against her interests?
“I am going to miss those guys,” I commented to the horse, a massive black gelding. Of course, if they caught me, they wouldn’t miss me - I was pretty sure Yoshana’s first shot would hit me right between the eyes. Or not - she might cripple me so she could tear me apart at her leisure.
“Let’s see how fast you can go,” I suggested to my new steed.
I passed within half a mile of Icefall. A heavy garrison of Darkness Radiant troops inhabited the place, their odd double crescent banner flying from its towers. Soldiers drilled in the courtyard. I went no closer, and they didn’t challenge me.
I was less than a week from Our Lady, if I kept my current pace. Logic suggested that no pursuit was breathing down my neck. I was making good time, and even if Yoshana, Grigg, and Roshel knew exactly where I was going, they wouldn’t find it easy to overtake me. Still, it was all I could do not to urge my mount to a gallop - which would just wear out the horse and slow me down in the end.
One night I forgot to meditate. I watched myself as if from above as my blade sank into a paleo’s filthy throat, into another’s chest. I stamped on the knee of a third as he lay prone, and ground my heel until the bones were pulped. Darkness poured out of me, and I charged into a mass of humanoid shapes, sword tearing, Darkness rending. My enemies fell before me, wounded, dying. Until only a dark cloud remained before me.
Red, flaming eyes blinked open in the seething mass. A white-fanged mouth leered. “Good,” hissed Yoshana. “But it’s all mine. You’re mine.”
The Darkness abandoned me, flooding back to its mistress. And then it reached for me.
Shivering, sweat-soaked, I saddled my horse by the moonlight and climbed onto his back. “Come on, you lazy beast. Let’s get moving.”
I never fully recovered from that dream. I didn’t dare sleep long enough, and mental stillness eluded me. I cleared my mind well enough at night to avoid a recurrence of the nightmare, but I still woke before dawn every day, uneasy at the best of times, seized with a vague terror at the worst.
“Patience,” Seven had said. Easy enough for an immortal demon safe in his haunted clearing. Harder when three of my former friends, each stronger than I, might be hours behind me, coming for my head.
Or they might be dead in the Darklands, their mission failed because I’d abandoned them. That thought troubled me almost as much as the idea of them catching me.
Fear and guilt made wonderful distractions. I had lost all track of time when the edges of the town around Our Lady rose in front of me.
Unlike the citadel itself, and most of what was left of human civilization, the town wasn’t walled. My horse plodded along unchallenged down its cobbled streets. We drew a few stares, but no one commented aloud at the sight of an exhausted Select on a weary, black horse.
Our Lady’s massive wood and iron gate stood open. With winter past, pilgrims and trade flowed freely. A guard I vaguely recognized was controlling the traffic.
“My God! Minos?” he exclaimed.
I slid out of the saddle, landing unsteadily on my feet. “Can someone feed and stable him?” I asked, patting the horse’s nose. “He’s come a long way.”
“Tolf!” the guard was shouting. “Somebody get Tolf!”
I stepped into the walled enclosure and leaned against a fence rail. The lakes that provided a source of water inside the walls shimmered in the sunlight. Some kind of crop was just beginning to sprout in the big northwest field. Past the lakes, the golden dome of the rectory gleamed like a beacon.
I began to drift off.
The sky darkened, black clouds roiling and swirling, drawn to the light of Our Lady’s dome like moths to a flame. The darkness swept down from the sky and through the gates, unopposed, and where it passed, every living thing died.
“Minos! I thought for sure you were dead!”
My eyes snapped open. Tolf clapped me on the shoulders, then grabbed me in a fierce embrace.
“Oh ye of little faith,” I muttered, shivering despite the warmth of the day.
“Tell me all about it! Come on, let’s go find Prophetess.” He tugged me down the path toward the heart of the Universal Church’s citadel.
I looked around as we went. “Where are the troops?” I asked. Nothing seemed changed. The cream-colored brick of the buildings gleamed where the vines hadn’t taken over. The first shoots of crops poked up in the fields. It was the image of peace, of a world free from the shadow of war. I had been expecting to see legions of the Order of Thorns marching around the walls. My brief vision, that half-waking nightmare, tainted the bright sunlight with danger.
“What do you mean? There are guards in the barracks, same as ever.”
“But the Order? It’s been months.”
“Well, sure, Minos, but nothing’s happened. It’s not like w
e’re under attack.”
“Nothing’s happened because Yoshana’s been with me, you idiot. And now if she’s still alive, she’s going to be coming here. Killing Yashuath was first on her list. Prophetess is next.”
Tolf went white. “I’ll call up the Ministry of Defense.”
The Ministry seemed to be no more than a fancy name for the usual suspects. Dee was there, of course. So was the captain of the guard, a man named Marek. Father Juniper was there. And so was Father Roric.
Tolf caught my expression. He whispered, “If we’re going to be launching a crusade, we need to be on solid ground. Theologically speaking. The Metropolitan insisted.”
The Advocate for Justice peered at me like I was an oddly-shaped beetle. Like Tolf, he seemed surprised to see me alive. Unlike Tolf, he didn’t look especially pleased.
Dee was effusive, though. “The stories you must have for us! I can’t wait to hear it all. I have so -”
Prophetess walked in behind me. “Sorry I’m late. I was just -”
The way her face lit up made the pain of the past few weeks worthwhile. She charged and flung her arms around me. Tolf chuckled.
Father Roric cleared his throat, injecting more disapproval into that small sound than most people could manage with a flung brick. “If this is just a reunion, I don’t believe we need the entire Ministry present.”
“I imagine Minos is going to brief us on what he’s learned about the leadership of the Darkness Radiant,” Father Juniper said mildly.
“Then perhaps he could proceed to do so?”
I patted Prophetess awkwardly on the back. She hadn’t let go. She stepped away and blinked at me with a teary smile.
Everyone’s eyes were on me. And somehow during the long ride from the Sorrows, I had failed to prepare for this moment. I should have had a narrative, a rousing speech, a stirring appeal. A plea for understanding. Instead, exhausted and anxious, I let the words pour out.
“Yoshana is in the Darklands. Or she was when I left her. She took her top lieutenants to assassinate the second in command of the Hellguard.”
Marek nodded. “She’s looking for revenge on them, for when they betrayed her in the Green Heart.”
“No. She’s looking for time. She wants to unify humanity under her banner. She believes… or at least she says, and I think she believes it… she believes she’s the only one who can bring mankind together to stop the demons and the Darkness.”
Roric gave a disgusted snort. “She’s a creature of the demons and the Darkness.”
I met his eyes. “Yes. I’ve spent two months closer to her than I am to you. I know what she is. And I know what she can do.”
Dee’s enthusiasm bubbled over. “You were actually with Yoshana herself this whole time?”
“Yes, Dee, and I’m guessing you’ll see her soon enough. She wants Prophetess dead. I heard that from her own lips. And this -” I waved my hand. “This Ministry isn’t going to stop her.”
“Hold on -” Tolf began.
“She can change her appearance, Tolf. I’ve seen it. She could walk right through that front gate and no one would even know it. Or she can make herself practically invisible. And if she were in this room right now, you’d all be dead before you could lift a finger. I’ve seen her. You don’t know what we’re fighting.”
“So what are you saying, Minos?” Tolf growled. “We give up? Because I’ll tell you I’m not going to do that.”
“No, we fight. But one thing Yoshana’s right about. It takes the Darkness to fight the Darkness.”
“What are you saying?”
“This.” A sphere formed in my hand, pulsing, twining through my fingers.
The response could have been no more extreme if I’d grown into a demon on the spot, complete with horns and tail. Tolf, Marek, Juniper, and Roric all scrambled away, stopping only when they hit the wall. Even Dee took three long steps back, though he then craned forward to peer at the Darkness in my palm.
Only Prophetess stayed where she was. “Minos,” she whispered.
“It’s the only way,” I said.
Marek had a knife at his belt. It was suddenly in his hand. The sphere of Darkness swelled.
“No,” I said. He froze.
“You brought that here?” Roric demanded. “What are you now?”
“I’m the one who’s going to keep Prophetess alive.”
Now she backed away. “Not like this.”
“Dammit, Tess! You don’t understand what I’ve seen. It’s a tool, and we have to use it.”
“No.”
“Tess, listen to reason. You have to let me explain.”
“Take no part in the fruitless works of darkness,” Roric intoned. “Rather expose them… For it is shameful even to mention the things done by them in secret… But everything by the light becomes visible… For everything that becomes visible is light…”
I whirled on him. “Do you think you can exorcise me?”
The sphere was a cloud. It loomed huge, filling the room. I hadn’t realized there was so much of it in me. I was far too strong to be stopped.
“Minos, get out!” Prophetess screamed.
“What?” I turned on her. The cloud seethed, boiling with my rage. After all I had been through. I had abandoned Yoshana and Grigg. I had abandoned Roshel. I had crossed the Sorrows alone to help this woman, risking my life, betraying my friends. And now she was rejecting me?
“Get out!”
The Darkness coiled to strike.
There’ll be no containing his rage, Yoshana had said.
I’d come all this way just to do her will.
The Darkness slammed back into me so hard it hurt and I fled, nearly blinded by angry tears.
12. The Outsider
I was more than half asleep, head down on the table. My back was to the door, but tendrils of Darkness ranged around me. The tavern wasn’t far from the citadel, and I hadn’t gone to any trouble to hide my trail. I wasn’t afraid of anyone in Our Lady. They couldn’t get close enough to hurt me.
If Yoshana caught up with me… well, she could have a good laugh before she finished me off.
“Hello, Father,” I said, not lifting my head. I sensed the priest stop in the doorway. I sensed his hesitation. The urge to back away and not return radiated from him like a stench.
He came in anyway.
I sat up and turned to face him. “You said I’d be all right.”
Father Juniper sighed. The bearded face seemed older than it had just hours earlier. “I’ve been wrong before. I’ll be wrong again. That’s part of being human. What happened out there? With Yoshana?”
I shrugged. “The Darkness? We were in the Sorrows. She and her lieutenants control the Darkness. She had four soldiers. Ordinary men but veterans, tough as they come. By the time we got out of that forest, three of them were dead. She said I needed to master the Darkness if I wanted to live. I believed her.”
He nodded. “That’s it?”
“It made me strong. You have no idea what I can do.”
He nodded again.
“I met a demon, you know. He didn’t seem…” I laughed bitterly. “He didn’t seem like a bad person.”
“But you left Yoshana.”
“Like I said. I overheard her say she needed Prophetess out of the way. That she would either convince her or kill her. That I would convince her or kill her.”
“You nearly did.”
“But I didn’t!” I took a deep, steadying breath. Around me the tendrils were thickening, coiling. I pulled them in. They were dangerous… and I didn’t like feeling the priest’s fear. “I left Yoshana and came here instead. But you’re all too stubborn to listen.”
Father Juniper gestured to a chair. “May I?”
“Sure.”
He sat. “You can’t have imagined we could embrace the Darkness. You may not think of it as the incarnation of sin, but you know the Church does.”
“I’m not asking anyone to use it but me. Your pre
cious consciences would be clear.”
“Really? When we allowed a man to be corrupted in our service? Set aside the moral issue for a moment. Think of the benefit that would bring to Yoshana’s cause. How could we claim to be any better than her when we used the Darkness ourselves? By adopting her methods, we would become nothing more than a pale imitation of the Darkness Radiant.”
“Then what was I supposed to do?”
The priest sighed. “Once you embraced the Darkness, every path led to Yoshana’s victory. Consider. If you had somehow convinced Prophetess not to oppose the Darkness Radiant, Yoshana wins. If you had killed Prophetess, Yoshana wins. If you had convinced Prophetess to use the Darkness as a tool, Yoshana wins.”
“So the best option is what we have now. Me leaving.”
“Yoshana still wins. Prophetess is deprived of a friend and protector.”
I glared. “Then there’s no option at all.”
“The serpent is ancient and cunning. Perhaps we were wrong to let you go. But free will is also part of God’s plan.” He hesitated, then said, “You asked me before if I would give you spiritual guidance. I’ll do it now, even though you haven’t asked for it. If the Darkness can be cast out of the possessed, it must be possible to cast it out of one who claims to control it.”
“You think Prophetess can exorcise me?”
“If anyone can.”
“And then? When Yoshana comes she cuts us apart? With all due respect, Father, she’ll probably kill the rest of you quickly. Whatever she does to me, it won’t be quick.”
“If she gave you the choice of killing Prophetess with your own hand, or being cut down, which would you choose?”
I scowled. “I like to think I’d die first.”
“Just so. Some things are worth dying for.”
“And some things are worth fighting for. A man once said the almighty gave us our lives, and I suppose he meant us to defend them.”
“So what will you do?” he asked.
“I’ll think of something.”
Father Juniper nodded and stood. He said, “Ever since man rejected the Light that was meant to show him the way, everything has become for us an obstacle and a danger; we live in the shadow of death.”
Passing Through Darkness- The Complete Cycle Page 37