Passing Through Darkness- The Complete Cycle

by Malcolm McKenzie

  More villagers were visible, tending to their daily tasks. They didn’t seem terribly interested in us, which I found a little odd. A third man, dressed like the other two, began to push the inner gate shut. But Furat stopped in its path.

  “Thank you for your hospitality. Now that we’re all safe inside, shall we make introductions and set the terms of trade? I’m Hafnum Furat, and my companion is Minos.”

  The villager with Furat’s gun turned. He was a big-boned man of middle height, but gaunt. He looked small next to Furat. Maybe that’s why he stepped closer to me instead. I wished he hadn’t. Even amid the surrounding stench, his breath stood out as uniquely foul.

  “T’m Jiddas. Soultree Post’n here. Lucky t’are’n here t’come’n, ayuh.”

  Furat smiled and nodded like he understood. Maybe he did. “I feared the post had fallen. We met a girl named Talith who said it had.”

  Jiddas spat in the dirt. “Hoor’d lie sooner’n tell t’truth. What’s’n come’n ’er?”

  Furat looked him straight in the eye. “I killed her.”

  The villager nodded, a single bob of his head. “No more’n deservin’. T’woulda turnt ’er out, but she’s’n gone ’ersel’. Darkness in ’er, that’n. Loved it, ’er. Lived in’t three year gone now.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Inna soon enough.”

  “Well. I’m glad there’s no hard feelings. Let’s discuss terms of trade, shall we? We’ve got salt, cotton, twine…”

  Furat had explained to me that trinkets and baubles would be of no value to the natives of the Sorrows - anything we could give them, they could find better in the ruins of the Last Days. The villagers’ ornaments proved him right. But perishables, or cloth that would have rotted over the centuries, would be valuable.

  My mind, however, was turning over the phrase “t’woulda turnt ’er out” in combination with the lone tree in the clearing.

  Jiddas grinned, showing his handful of brown teeth. “Bide a bye. Trades ’n’ salts ’n’ this’n’thats, times ’n’ times comin’. But first t’dog t’ll have.”

  “No,” Furat said flatly.

  The villager grinned more broadly and waggled Furat’s pistol. “Ayuh, t’dog t’ll have, or one’n yous. Gods’n restless, needin’ feedin’. Bad times t’pick fra visitin’.” He shrugged. “Normals, one’n us’all turnt out. Fra satisfy gods, t’see. If’n visitors, one’n yous. Better. But spirit dog? Seein’ gods? Best. Keepin’ her, yous’n goes. One’n us’all turnt out ’stead. Trade, t’see? Fair. Dog, or one’n yous’n.”

  “I’m afraid those terms aren’t acceptable,” Furat said.

  Jiddas shrugged again. “Shouldna be comin’ bad times. Shouldna be turnin’ over t’guns. Fair deal, t’think.”

  Blood was pounding in my temples, adrenaline flooding my veins. Sam didn’t know what was being said, but she sensed Furat’s tension. She growled.

  Keeping my voice very level, trying not to let it crack, I said, “Because of who I represent, I can’t be any less generous than the general of the Darkness Radiant under similar circumstances. Let us go, and no harm will come to you.”

  The other villagers had closed in as well. All three laughed. Jiddas turned the pistol on me and said, “Harm’n yous t’see -”

  There is a technique called iaido. My katana didn’t take his hand all the way off as it cleared its sheath, and the backswing caught in his vertebrae and didn’t sever his head. With the Darkness in me it would have been different, as it had been with the Select Lalos. Yoshana could have cut him into four parts and sheathed her blade before his head hit the ground.

  But dead was dead. Some things I needed to relearn without the Darkness in me. Killing wasn’t one of them.

  The man with the sharp knife lunged at me as I tried to pull my blade loose from Jiddas’ spine. Sam leapt at him and her jaws snapped closed on his wrist. I heard bones crack even over his scream. Then my blade was free. The dog was in the way of the most obvious strokes, so I brought the sword straight down on his head. I’d have to sharpen it when this was over - splitting a skull was terrible for the edge - but that was a problem for later.

  Furat had seized his pistol and my carbine from Jiddas’ corpse. “Come on!” he shouted.

  We raced into the entryway, Sam barking behind us. Furat tossed me my weapon, flung aside the heavy bar on the outer door, and dragged the heavy wooden barrier open. Without looking back we ran for the woods, past the tree where the villagers sometimes sacrificed visitors or each other to the Darkness wraiths they called gods.

  We were thirty yards short of reaching cover when an arrow came looping down to land three feet in front of me. I turned, sighted on the face glaring at us above the palisade, and fired. The villager fell, and I ran on.

  In the shelter of the trees, Furat panted, “Didn’t want to see if you could convert them?”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  We slogged east through the forest, and I turned Furat’s sarcastic words over in my head. We weren’t particularly afraid of pursuit - the villagers had seemed to fear leaving their compound, and we’d demonstrated we weren’t easy prey. So I had as much chance to think as I ever got in the Sorrows.

  I had literally killed more men than I could count when the Darkness was in me. In the two berserk furies it had brought, I could recall no precise number for the enemies I had cut down. It was a lot.

  But these were the first I had killed since being freed from the Darkness. And I had felt no regret.

  Jiddas and the villager with the knife I had struck down in the heat of combat. They could just as easily have killed me. The last one with the bow… He could have hit me. But after he missed, I could likely have reached the woods before he shot again. I had not, perhaps, needed to shoot him.

  Had he deserved to die? Yoshana would certainly have said so. He and his kind were robbers and murderers, and he had been trying to kill me. But in Father Roric’s formulation of just war, had I taken his life only as a last resort? Or had I been angry and wanted vengeance?

  “Furat?” I asked.

  “Hmm?”

  “Why do those people live there? I mean, they aren’t infected. Yeah, they get a few nice things from foraging or looting, like jewels or knives, but they live like savages walled up in a stinking compound. Why don’t they just leave?”

  He trudged on for a while before answering. “I dunno. History suggests people get used to living in the most godforsaken places you could imagine. Just inertia, I guess. Why do you ask?”

  “It would help if I could convince myself they were malevolent fiends instead of people in a bad spot trying to get by.”

  “Huh. Well in that case, every single person in that village chose to move there because they’re depraved, perverted monsters who enjoy human suffering.”

  “Not even close to true, is it?”

  “Nope.”

  Sam started growling an hour or so later. Before, she had always stopped when she sensed something. This time, she danced nervously, straining at her leash.

  “It’s behind us,” I murmured.

  Furat nodded. “So much for them not following us.”

  I shook my head. “Not the villagers. They didn’t bother her. They’re not infected. How much you want to bet it’s whatever they’re afraid of?”

  “No bet.”

  This wasn’t good. I muttered, “We can’t outrun it in here. Give me your grenade.”

  “I’ve only got the one left.”

  “I know. I’ll make it count. You and Sam keep going. Make for that little rise over there, see with that big tree on it? Wait under the tree.”

  He frowned at me. “What are you doing?”

  “Setting a trap. As it happens, I’m pretty good at ambushing things in the woods.” I didn’t mention that skill had depended heavily on my mastery of the Darkness. He didn’t need to know.

  I could tell he wasn’t fully convinced, but neither did he see a lot of options. He continued toward t
he low hill, pulling the dog behind him. I went four paces into the undergrowth, climbed a tree, and waited.

  Not a minute later I spotted a shape creeping along our trail, low to the ground. It was only when it passed directly below me that I realized it was a man, hunched over. And it was only after the first had passed that I realized there were two more. They were almost totally silent, as stealthy as Cat. They were even harder to spot, because they wore loose clothing mottled to resemble the foliage around us.

  Maybe I was feeling bad about the man I’d shot. Maybe Prophetess was rubbing off on me. But instead of firing as the third man passed by, I called, “Hello down there.”

  The three spun, sinuous and catlike… I might even say Cat-like. Hah. Their eyes widened as they looked up and saw me.

  They were cleaner than the villagers or paleos. But their faces were tattooed with strange patterns. My hair stood up as I saw the patterns were moving. But then, there was a reason Sam hadn’t liked them.

  “I hope you weren’t planning on killing and eating us,” I continued. “Because then I might have to shoot you all.”

  “Gray man,” the one in the lead said softly. “You are enemies of Soultree Post? You and the big man, and the spirit dog?”

  “They weren’t very hospitable,” I said. It was interesting that the infected native was far easier to understand than the villagers had been.

  “We too are their enemies.”

  Furat had quietly approached from behind when they’d turned to face me. “The enemy of my enemy… is the enemy of my enemy,” he said. “Doesn’t make you our friends.”

  Sam growled, deep in her throat.

  “We mean you no harm,” said the man I was now thinking of as the leader.

  “And yet here you are, sneaking after us.” Furat’s pistol was centered on the native’s head. “Want to explain that? It needs to be some persuasive reason why I shouldn’t shoot you.”

  The man straightened from his crouch. So did the other two. I could see that their clothes, while worn and patched, showed signs of careful upkeep. Each had a machete sheathed at the waist.

  The leader spread his hands. “My clan is not strong. We take only as much of the Power as we can control. It is not so much. We look for what can help us.”

  “Like stealing weapons from travelers, for example?”

  He shrugged. “Or finding allies. You are strong. More use as friends than prey.”

  Furat frowned, clearly unconvinced. “Not so strong as all that.” I remembered what he had said before, that mercy was for the strong. If he felt threatened, I was sure he would open fire. I wasn’t sure he was wrong.

  The native looked back up at me. “You have a spirit dog. More, one of you is a gray man. The gray men are strong. It is known.”

  He took slow, careful steps toward my tree. “I am Midnight Owl. May I approach you, gray man?”

  “How about you and your buddies back off and let me climb down from this tree, and then you can approach me. I don’t have to tell you what happens if my friend thinks you’re up to something.” Midnight Owl nodded. If they had only a little of the Darkness in them, it would heal wounds but not save them from the heavy bullets of Furat’s pistol or my carbine. I was reasonably confident they didn’t control anywhere near as much as I had - if they did, they probably wouldn’t have fallen for my ambush in the first place or would have tried to fight their way out.

  Still, I was very careful descending the tree. There were only a handful of seconds when I couldn’t bring the carbine to bear. They didn’t try to take advantage of that vulnerability.

  “These are River Mist and Blood Fang,” the leader said, gesturing to the other natives. “May I approach you now, gray man?”

  “Carefully.” I held the carbine at waist height, pointed toward him. It was an awkward position and the recoil would hurt if I fired, but at this range I wouldn’t miss.

  His footfalls were as soft as Cat’s. I had been right before - the patterns on his face shifted subtly, the Darkness visible on his skin. When he was two paces from me, he stretched out his hand. The marks on his face faded. What he extended toward me wasn’t thick enough to see, but I knew it was there.

  He drew back with a little whistling intake of breath. “It has been in you,” he said, and then he bowed. The other two did the same.

  “You are very strong, gray man. You have been a shadow warrior. Why no longer?”

  “I did bad things when it was in me.”

  Midnight Owl nodded. “The Power is a fearsome thing. You know. You have held it and cast it out. You are strong. No one I know has done this.”

  I didn’t feel a need to mention I hadn’t done it myself, that I had tried and failed, that it had taken Prophetess to cleanse me. I was warming to the man. He understood what I had been, more than anyone else. Well - more than anyone who didn’t currently want to kill me.

  “Gray man, if you took up the Power again, you could lead our clan. Together we would be strong.”

  I turned that over in my head. Furat let out an exasperated grunt. “You are not seriously considering this.”

  “We still need guides. And I could use rangers that are as quiet as paleos and can heal themselves.” I addressed Midnight Owl. “I have a mission. I need to find someone at the far side of the Sorrows. Then I have a war to fight. If you help me, when I’ve won I’ll do what I can for your clan.”

  I was vague even in my own head on that last point. I wasn’t going to come back and set myself up as some kind of bandit chieftain in the Sorrows. On the other hand, there was Yoshana to defeat before I even had to think about making good on the promise.

  The native leader dipped his head. “We will help you. Blood Fang will go to gather our warriors. River Mist and I will lead you to the person you must find. Who is this person?”

  “Have you heard of a demon who calls himself Seven?”

  The native’s face went so pale the Darkness tattooed on his skin stood out like ink on paper.

  “This is not wise.” That was the phrase of the day. Midnight Owl wasn’t happy to seek out a Hellguard he knew only from terrifying legend. Furat wasn’t happy to be guided by Darkness-infested natives. Each had pulled me aside and quietly explained their misgivings. We were going forward anyway.

  Sam wasn’t happy either. The normally friendly dog didn’t like Midnight Owl or River Mist. She wouldn’t go near them, and if they moved in her direction, her lips would pull back into a snarl that showed a lot of big teeth. We kept her and the natives separated. They seemed to respect the dog, but if the situation escalated, the Darkness could easily push them into doing something we would all regret.

  They were excellent guides, though. They took the lead, and throughout the day seemed to know just where to go to avoid the Darkness and other terrors of the Sorrows. That night we camped near a stream, made a small fire, and shared most of the remaining rations Furat and I carried. We would need to find either food or Seven very quickly, or we’d start getting hungry. I didn’t think we’d enjoy being with Owl and Mist if they got hungry.

  They hadn’t spoken at all during our march, communicating by hand signals. It was only when Mist finally addressed us that I realized from her voice that she was a woman. The loose clothes obscured her figure, and she and Midnight Owl both had long hair and hard, sharp-featured faces. I didn’t assume her sex made her any less dangerous; Cat was one of the deadliest people I knew. Yoshana might be the deadliest of all.

  We set watches. I didn’t see evidence that the natives could extend wards as I’d learned to. They probably didn’t have either enough Darkness at their command or the willpower to control it at range. So two of us stayed awake in shifts. I shared the watch with Owl. Not that Furat and I didn’t fully trust our guides, but… we didn’t fully trust our guides.

  The hours crawled by uneventfully. I nudged Furat awake and Owl woke Mist. I wrapped myself in my cloak and, despite whatever misgivings I might have had, fell instantly asleep.


  I sat up. The sky above was still pitch black and I couldn’t say what had awakened me. Furat and Mist were slumped at their posts, dozing. I was about to poke Furat when something moved in the deeper darkness between the trees. As quietly as I could, I put my hand to my carbine.

  “No need for that,” came a soft voice. A figure stepped into the feeble glow of the dying fire. My breath caught as I recognized Roshel. She was wearing a sort of loose tunic, belted but slit up the sides. In the half light of the flames, her skin was as dark as her hair. Only her eyes shone brightly, reflecting red.

  “Or maybe I should be more honest and say no use for that,” she said. “Yoshana’s not pleased with what you’re up to.”

  “What does she plan to do about it?”

  “This.”

  Thick, black tentacles burst from the openings in her clothes. Gaping mouths ringed with fangs drooled ooze at the end of some, clusters of barbed stingers emerged from others. Long tendrils writhed from her mouth and eyes. They all reached toward me, extending to impossible lengths as they clawed toward my face.

  I jerked awake, bathed in cold sweat. River Mist turned and looked at me. “The Power calls you. It wants you back.”

  Sam opened one eye and growled softly.

  Had the dream really been the Darkness touching me in my sleep? I’d experienced horrific dreams of Roshel while it had been in me. And Mist had sensed something - although maybe she was just guessing from my reaction as I’d jolted upright.

  “Go to sleep,” she said. “I will guard you.”

  Furat was staring at us curiously.

  I shook my head. “I’ll take care of it.” I lay down again and closed my eyes. On impulse, I reached into my shirt and grasped the Saint Benedict medal Father Roric had given me, rubbing my thumb over the impressions in the disk. It helped a bit as I steadied my breathing and thoughts, beginning the meditation I’d used when I’d controlled the Darkness. If I could hold in check as much of it as had been in me, I would be able to shield myself from whatever little wisps of it were floating around loose in our camp.