Passing Through Darkness- The Complete Cycle

by Malcolm McKenzie

  One of the nodes penetrated me, gripping my solid core. I lashed at it wildly. Wet and cold splashed my face.

  “What?” I gasped.

  Gunfire cracked behind me.

  “We’ve got to go!” Sesk barked. I let him pull me stumbling back through the covering line of my troops. As the light of the enemy’s torches played over him I could see there was something wrong with his face, but I wasn’t sure what.

  “Odd thing is it didn’t bleed at all,” Sesk said. “Can’t say it don’t hurt, though.”

  I couldn’t take my eyes off the furrows gouged into his left cheek. “I’m sorry,” I repeated, for perhaps the fourth time.

  The hunter shrugged. “You warned us. Cat figured throwing water in your face might wake you up, but we needed to turn you around first. I got off pretty easy compared to all the Monolith troops you killed.”

  The attack had been chaos, but Sesk figured we’d killed several dozen and started a huge panic before the Paladins blocked me with torches. Consumed by the Darkness as I was, I hadn’t been able to reason a way past the obstacle, and the assault had stalled.

  It had been a distraction anyway, designed to sow confusion while we concentrated troops on our western flank and punched into their lines.

  Unfortunately the Monolith’s superior discipline had told. I’d hoped they would break, but they hadn’t. Our best guess was that once again we’d gotten the better of the casualty ratio, but their lines had held. My last bolt was shot. I’d sacrificed what was left of my self-control and nearly killed a friend, and we were still just as trapped.

  The Shadowed Hand was sitting in a wide ring around me on our rooftop. Other than Cat, Sesk, and Luco, none dared get too close, even though I looked sane now. But they were morbidly curious. My tunic was a mass of holes, my skin a moonscape of scars where the Darkness had done enough to keep me alive but hadn’t worried about appearances. I had no sense for how many times I’d been stabbed, slashed, or shot. I didn’t want to know.

  I lay on my back, a bedroll pillowed under my head. I was exhausted. If I asked it to, the Darkness could sustain me until my body tore itself apart, and then it could put me back together. I preferred it the way it was now, quiet. If I let it out again, I wasn’t sure a canteen full of water to the face would bring me back to myself.

  “Any other ideas, boss?” Sesk asked.

  “Just one. If by some chance we live, I know a girl named Quilla Farr in a village south of here called Brambledge who’d probably like to meet you.”

  Over the next days the Darkness was a throbbing ache rather than a boiling rage. I had no illusions, though. The time would come in one of Hake’s staff meetings when Raji would push me a little too far, and I would kill him. I didn’t want to - it would be the final loss of my humanity. But then again, it wasn’t like any of us had much longer to live anyway.

  There were no more assaults by either side. The Monolith cavalry would ride around our square occasionally, making sure we weren’t breaking out to the north or east. We’d shoot arrows at them, but they had figured out our range and the only loss they took was a horse putting its foot wrong and coming up lame. Every now and then the opposing lines would fire a volley at each other, just because it seemed appropriate.

  Mostly we waited. Our sharpest-eyed scouts stood on the rooftops and watched to the west, the east, and the south. We hoped against all reasonable expectation that the first troops we saw would be Rockwall reinforcements. A lot of the men and some of the officers found a new devotion to prayer. I’d never had that habit, and certainly wasn’t in a position to start now.

  It was the fifth day after our unsuccessful attack that one of our lookouts shouted, “Force approaching!”

  The man was looking east.

  “Coming in from the Hawks’ Nest,” Raji observed. “We’re screwed.”

  As sick as I was of hearing that phrase from him, it was hard to disagree.

  Oblivious to how undignified it might look, the whole command group crammed itself onto the roof of a four story building to watch the newcomers coming toward us.

  “Only good news is there’s not very many of them,” Thonn said. “Doesn’t look like more than a hundred men.”

  “Cavalry, though,” Raji noted sourly.

  Thonn shook his head. “Mounted infantry, I think.”

  “How can you tell the difference?”

  “There’s a way a cavalry trooper sits a horse, and a way some ground pounder with a sore butt does. These guys aren’t comfortable in the saddle.”

  Hake shook his head. “Makes no sense. Why would the Hawks send one infantry company? That’s not going to change the situation here.”

  “The Hawks aren’t famous for being that bright, sir,” Captain Selles remarked.

  The oncoming column drew to a halt a mile away, as if they could hear us discussing them. After a time, a single horseman detached himself from the main group and came closer.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Hake demanded.

  “Looks like a white flag, sir.”

  “What the hell is this?” The general considered. “Whatever’s going on, let’s figure it out before the Monolith does. Get a patrol out there to see what these people want.”

  “I’ll go, sir,” I volunteered.

  “You will not,” Hake snapped. “We want to talk to them, not kill them. At least for now.”

  That hurt. I had engineered the negotiations with Prince Jeral without a death on either side. But then, that was perhaps not the same version of me that had entered into full communion with the Darkness. I nodded, silent.

  Which made it all the more ironic when half an hour later a scout came puffing up the stairs and declared, “Captain Minos? They want to talk to you.”

  11. Together Again

  The lanky figure that followed the soldier through the door might have been the last person I had ever expected to see on a battlefield.

  “What on earth are you doing here?” I burst out.

  “What a welcome. I am the herald of the Order of Thorns,” Doctor John Dee declared.

  “That’s - what, that’s Tolf out there?”

  “Do you know these people, Captain?” Hake demanded.

  “Commander Tolf, yes,” Dee said, with a self-satisfied grin. “And Prophetess herself.”

  As I tried to digest that, Hake asked again, “Captain, what is the situation? What is the nature of this force?”

  I held up one hand to forestall more questions, pinching the bridge of my nose with the other. I suddenly had the beginnings of the kind of headache I only associated with Prophetess. After a moment, I was able to say, “Sir, the Order of Thorns is a military force attached to the Universal Church at Our Lady. Specifically, it’s the personal guard of a woman named Genia Carter, who calls herself Prophetess.”

  It was Dee’s turn to goggle. Apparently he hadn’t figured out her name yet. One point to me. I was briefly able to match his smirk and said, “I can find out things too, you know.”

  “Informative and yet unhelpful,” General Hake snapped. “What are they doing here? Are they allies or enemies?”

  “That’s a very fair question, General, which takes us back to where we started. Dee, what are you doing here?”

  “Depends on exactly what you choose to believe, Captain Minos.” Dee put a great deal of emphasis on my title. His grin was back. “Either looking for allies, or looking for you.”

  “What?”

  “Minos, I’m not giving anything away when I say in front of your friends here that we have sources inside Stephensburg. They tell us Yoshana will march on Our Lady next spring.”

  My headache was getting worse. “If Yoshana’s allowed you to know that, you should be seriously considering the possibility that she’s either marching on you already or intends to wait until hell freezes over. No one knows better than me how deceptive she is, but you should have gotten a pretty good idea yourself. Weren’t you the one who told me she’d always be t
wo steps ahead? Before you decided it would be a good idea for me to go off on a false peace mission where you couldn’t conceive of any possible downside?”

  Hake and the rest of the command staff had taken several steps away from me. I realized the Darkness had risen into a thin, smoky sheen over my body. I hadn’t thought I would be angry at Dee - but I was.

  I went on, not really able to stop. Or not wanting to. “And of course she’s going to attack, you idiot. Didn’t I tell you that? Didn’t I tell you before I ever went off with her that the Order of Thorns needed to be an army, not a few dozen half-trained soldiers who’d never seen a fight, all worshipping Prophetess like a bunch of damn puppies? Didn’t I tell you the same thing again when I came back from that seething hell in the Sorrows, after I turned on the whole damn world’s most dangerous military leader for you? And if I remember correctly, you told me to get out.”

  The cloud was all around me now.

  “So I got out. And I found someone who had a use for my talents. So yes, I’m a captain now. And in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m busy being in the middle of a war here. And this -” I made a fist, and the Darkness thickened around it - “is what I am. And maybe Prophetess was right, and it’s taken my soul. And as it turns out, the trade wasn’t that great, because it’s looking like we’re all going to die here.”

  Everyone except Dee was up against the edge of the roof trying to get as far from me as possible. To my very great surprise, the occultist held his ground.

  “She wants to talk to you, Minos. She told us we were coming west to find allies, but she’s been on your trail the whole time.”

  Tears of frustration trickled down my face. The Darkness clawed them away. “It’s a little late, Dee.”

  Hake spoke up, in as tentative a voice as I’d ever heard from him. “Late or not, a hundred men who might be on our side can’t hurt. Let’s have them join us here before the Monolith gets to them.”

  “Just so, General,” Dee said brightly. I shook my head. I might have killed the prattling fool, yet the terror of my rage washed off him like water off a duck’s back. He lifted his eyebrows at me. “I think she might tell you it’s never too late. You remind me of one of my favorite Canticles of Holy Mary, about a knight who tried to sell his wife to the devil. In the end, Holy Mary herself takes the lady’s form and goes to meet the devil, whose plot is of course foiled. The knight repents and becomes a devoted servant of Mary, just as his wife was.”

  I tried to wrap my mind around a point in his babble. The Darkness had subsided, but the headache was back. “What’s that supposed to mean, Dee? I’m the knight, and the Darkness is the devil? Then who’s Prophetess? Is she Mary? Or my wife?”

  The occultist just smiled. “I’ll leave that to you to decide.”

  The man was ridiculous. It was hard to stay angry at him, and I felt myself begin to relax. Then abruptly the dark wolf came roaring back, wounded and angry. The Darkness poured from my eyes, and my nose, and my mouth, and I heard myself snap, “I’ll think about that. But while you’re being biblical, how about you and Prophetess think about Psalm Eighty-eight?”

  Dee’s eyebrows went up again. “I’m not sure that off the top of my head…”

  “‘You have turned my friends and neighbors against me. Now Darkness is my one companion left.’”

  My treacherous guts churned like an angry sea as I waited alone on the first floor to see Genia Carter, the farm girl who called herself Prophetess. I’d been less nervous going to war. I thought even Yoshana wouldn’t disturb me as much. At least my feelings toward the Overlord were clear.

  The person who stepped through the door was silhouetted by the light outside, but I knew the figure. I’d spent months as close to her as to my own shadow. She moved inside, blinking in the dim light. She found me standing in the center of the room.

  I didn’t know what to say.

  She spoke first, but I didn’t expect the words. “Minos, I’m sorry.”

  My mouth opened, but no sound came out.

  “I was wrong to send you away when you needed me the most. But I was afraid for you.”

  When my voice came, it was little more than a whisper. “I think you mean you were afraid of me.”

  “No. Never that. I was afraid you might do something and you wouldn’t be able to forgive yourself for it.”

  Hardened warriors had backed away from the grin I showed her. “Well, I’ve done those things now. But not in your service. So I suppose that’s for the best. I guess you were right about what I’d become.”

  The Darkness began to leak out. It was visible even in the shadowed room. She held her ground.

  “And what you’ve become, what you’ve done… are you proud of that?” she asked.

  The flow of the Darkness became a roaring in my ears. I wanted to scream, I’ve done what I had to do. I’ve become what you and Yoshana turned me into.

  But all I said was, “No.”

  And I was shocked to see tension ease out of her shoulders and a smile appear on her face. “Good. That’s so good. Pride isn’t just the worst sin because it’s the one that all others flow from. It’s also the one that’s hardest to repent. If you’re proud of what you’ve done, you can’t ask God’s forgiveness for it.”

  I raised my hands, and the Darkness swirled around them. “I don’t think your God’s going to forgive this.”

  To my continuing surprise, her smile broadened. “Now that’s pride. God’s mercy is infinite. Your sin is only human. You don’t have the capacity to sin beyond God’s ability to forgive, as long as you repent.”

  I stared at her, dumbfounded.

  She asked, “Do you want that stuff out of you?”

  The cloud coiled around me, angry. It was almost limitless strength at almost limitless cost. I had already learned it was not something to be easily set aside.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “Good,” she repeated happily. “Then we’ll get rid of it.”

  I choked out a disbelieving laugh. “Tess, this isn’t like the little cloud that possessed the miller’s daughter in Brambledge. What’s in me is a whole different order.”

  “And by the grace of God I’ve faced Yoshana and lived. You don’t think you’ve become more terrible than her, do you?”

  I recalled that Grigg and I had stepped in front of Prophetess to keep Yoshana from killing her, and Grigg had fought the Overlord, Darkness against Darkness. I wasn’t sure it was entirely accurate for Prophetess to claim she’d faced Yoshana. What I said was, “It’s maybe not the best time. I’ve got a battle to fight here.”

  “And the Darkness has been winning it for you?”

  I had to concede her a rueful smile. “It’s more that we’re waiting to die.”

  Prophetess said, “It seems like a shame for two armies to destroy each other in front of me just when I need one.”

  “Dee said that. You weren’t trying to recruit the Hawks, were you? They’re the most incompetent band of cutthroats on the face of the earth.”

  “We were trying to decide between heading south to propose an alliance with Rockwall or west to propose an alliance with the Monolith.”

  I snorted. “The Monolith are Josephites. I don’t think they’d welcome an alliance with the Universal Church.”

  “Dee says the Monolith are also pragmatists. He thought they might prefer to fight Yoshana in the Source rather than on their own borders once she gets done with us.”

  I nodded slowly. “There’s something to be said for that. Well, there is conveniently a Monolith army here, likely with another one on the way. They just have to eliminate an annoying Rockwall brigade with a Select sorcerer in it.”

  She looked me in the eyes. “That is why I’m here, you know. We were sitting outside the Hawk’s Nest arguing about which way to go when we heard about a terrifying army commanded by a Select wielding the powers of hell.”

  “‘Commanded by’ is overstating the case a little. I am kind of glad we got to be
called terrifying, though.”

  She snorted, again the girl who’d never been quite as impressed with me as I might have wanted. “Really, Minos. The Shadowed Hand? A little dramatic for you.”

  “Says the woman who leads the Order of Thorns.” I hadn’t failed to notice the circle of roses and thorns stitched on her tunic.

  She blushed. “Dee and Tolf think the symbol is important for morale.”

  “They’re not wrong. A lot of war is in your mind, and your enemy’s.” An idea surfaced in my head. I turned it over in my brain, examining it from different angles. “Are you sure you can get this stuff out of me?”

  “If you want to be free of it, I can cast it out.”

  I didn’t need the Darkness to sense the doubt under the assurance she projected. I knew her too well. But she might be the only chance for the brigade. And for me.

  12. Clothed in the Sun

  “You’re sure you can do this?” I repeated as we approached the meeting place.

  “I told you I can do it if you want me to,” Prophetess said. “I’m not worthy that the Lord should enter under my roof, but at a word of his my soul shall be healed. Yours too. All you have to do is reach up and grasp the hand he holds out to you.”

  “I’m just saying it’s probably going to be briefly embarrassing and permanently fatal if it doesn’t work.”

  “How about you shut up, Minos,” General Hake growled. “You’re not making me feel any better about staking my entire command on this scheme of yours.”

  “To be fair, General, I don’t think the brigade is going to be any worse off than it was before if this goes badly. Except for you and me both being dead.”

  “Well, I don’t suppose our tactics were winning for us anyway, so no great loss there. Other than personally.”

  “That’s how I figured it.”

  It was somehow liberating to put my fate in someone else’s hands. The Monolith had demanded to set the meeting place. Since we were both the party requesting the parley and in the weaker tactical position, we had accepted that condition, along with the limitation on our numbers.