Passing Through Darkness- The Complete Cycle

by Malcolm McKenzie

  “That’s all I’m asking.”

  “You’re asking a lot.”

  Lago and the cavalry company were on their way. Roshel and I were planning our attack on the assumption his embassy would be successful. Despite knowing what “assume” makes out of “you” and “me.”

  “I don’t understand why you’re insisting on a southern approach,” I complained. “It puts us up against the Shield’s biggest concentration of forces, and the Green Heart isn’t going to love twenty thousand of our troops tramping across their territory. If we hit straight through the Sorrows into the Darklands we have surprise, we don’t even engage their main force, and we can burn down some of those goddamned Darkness-infested woods while we’re at it.”

  “It’s a question of numbers, Minos.”

  “Numbers? We can leave five thousand men in garrison at Our Lady and another five thousand in Stephensburg and have twenty thousand to deploy. What am I missing? How many men does it take to burn some trees?”

  “To start with, we can’t indiscriminately set the Sorrows on fire, appealing as that might be. First, because they could burn for months and completely block our advance. And second because it might make the Darkness flee into inhabited areas.”

  “Okay. Fine. Stipulated. We can still hack our way through safely enough. That place is a pit, but there’s nothing in there that can take down twenty thousand men with swords, guns, and torches.”

  “What about our supply line? We can’t live off the land in there. And supply caravans will get torn to shreds going through.”

  “Fine, so we leave a force behind to secure a passage.”

  “And that’s where the numbers come in. The Sorrows is two hundred miles wide. Assume we need to leave a squad of half a dozen men every hundred feet to secure the path and reinforce each other. Do the math.”

  I did. About sixty squads of six men each, every mile, times two hundred miles… “Oh.” It would take seventy thousand troops just to secure the supply corridor. Even stretching the intervals past the point of safety, we just didn’t have the manpower.

  I understood her, but I still protested, “But if we join up with the Green Heart on the Paint and push across, we’re going to have a hell of a fight on our hands, even if we outnumber them two to one.”

  “You’re not wrong. And don’t forget they’ll command the Darkness and we won’t. Not a lot of Overlords survived the Battle of the Paint, but if they bring up Hellguards, we’ll need some kind of counter or they’ll go right through us.”

  I remembered the effect Pious had produced on my troops when he’d been infected - and he hadn’t even known what he was doing. I thought of my own success against the Monolith. A Hellguard would be far more terrible than Pious or me - and there were hundreds of them.

  “Maybe I’m starting to see why God hasn’t been telling Tess this is a good idea. It’s not going to be easy.”

  “And stopping Yoshana was? It’s not going to be easy, but it needs doing.”

  “I do think it needs doing, Father. Don’t you?”

  For reasons I didn’t quite understand, I was once again meeting with Father Roric. The lean priest drummed his fingers on the wooden desk and locked his eagle stare on me.

  “Just to be clear, I take it this is not a confession?”

  I swallowed and shook my head. I still hadn’t arranged for the sacrament.

  “Some of the saints confessed daily,” he went on. “I can’t imagine what they got up to on such a regular basis. But perhaps they were guilty of uncharitable thoughts toward those under their spiritual care. I suppose I could confess to that more frequently myself.”

  His eyes narrowed further. I felt like a mouse must feel right before it gets seized in a raptor’s talons and has its head bitten off.

  Roric leaned back. “This is a very ambitious plan of yours. Justified in your mind, I suppose, by the suffering it will alleviate?”

  “Or the suffering that will occur if we do nothing.”

  He steepled his fingers, then rummaged through his books. He seized a thin volume bound in black leather and flipped pages. “Ah. Here.”

  He looked down at the page, then met my eyes. “The great failing of progressives is a lack of humility. The great failing of conservatives is a lack of compassion. Both are grave sins.”

  I wasn’t sure what he meant, or how it was relevant, and said so.

  He pointed a thin finger at me. “Within almost every person, and certainly every society, there are two warring forces. A movement toward change, what we could call progressivism. And a desire for things to remain as they are, which we can call conservatism. Your enterprise, a bold assault on evil in its very citadel, goes to the core of the ancients’ progressive tendency. The idea that man can perfect himself on earth through his own efforts. That man can eliminate suffering. A profoundly arrogant view. But a profoundly compassionate one. The conservative view, that suffering is inherent in our condition, and that precipitate action may worsen the situation, shows far more humility. But it can also show a complacent lack of compassion for those who are suffering. Lack of humility is a failure to love God above ourselves, while lack of compassion is a failure to love our brothers as much as ourselves. Each is a violation of one of Christ’s two great commandments.”

  Roric paused to see if I had a response. I didn’t. He continued, “I understand that to alleviate suffering is a worthy goal - indeed, among the worthiest. And the Hellguard have indeed caused much suffering, and may yet cause more. But as you walk the line between a failure of humility and a failure of compassion, perhaps you should consider the task you propose to take on. Good and evil are so intertwined in this world that we cannot pluck out the weeds without destroying the grain. So intertwined that the line between good and evil passes through each human heart. Yours, mine… even Yoshana’s. Even Gurath’s, because as you’ve pointed out, the Hellguard are themselves human. Looking always and only at the evil that is outside us means not wanting to recognize the sin that is also inside us.”

  I had to object. “You’re saying I should do nothing in the face of evil? Didn’t someone say the audacity of the wicked feeds on the cowardice and omission of the good?”

  He blew out air in exasperation. “Yes. Pope Leo the Thirteenth, among others. I am not advocating inaction in the face of evil. But to launch a crusade to eradicate the enemy without, while ignoring the enemy within… to see the speck in our brother’s eye while ignoring the plank in our own… to seek to purge the world of evil while ignoring its presence in our own hearts… that is an error of which Jesus himself warned us. Repeated over and over, throughout the centuries, by Pope Francis the First and Alexander Solzhenitsyn before the Fall, by Saint Siles after. It’s a basic idea that proves frightfully difficult for people to grasp.”

  I scratched my chin with my index finger, then chewed the knuckle. Inspiration failed to come. I ventured, “So what you’re saying is that I’m lacking in humility.”

  The priest shrugged. “As I said, most people show a mixture of progressive and conservative tendencies. I believe Prophetess disagrees with you on this matter. Perhaps in this case she is excessively conservative, and is lacking in compassion.”

  “There’s just about zero chance of that.”

  He shrugged again. “Then perhaps you should indeed consider the alternative.”

  “It’s a priest’s job to make you feel bad about yourself,” Roshel growled. “It’s a general’s job to win wars. So how about you get back to doing that?”

  I glared at the beautiful Overlord. She was still stunningly attractive even without the aura of glamor the Darkness had given her. She was also an opinionated pain in my neck, much like another woman of my acquaintance. They were both effective leaders, and being stuck between them was no fun at all.

  “If you’re going to back down every time someone accuses you of arrogance, you’re never going to accomplish anything.”

  “I’m never going to be a factor, y
ou mean? The last time you used that line on me I wound up infected with the Darkness as part of a secret plan to kill Prophetess.”

  She had the decency to look away.

  “I didn’t know about that,” she said softly. Then the fire was back. “But the fact remains, Yoshana got things done. I get things done. You get things done when you show some spine. So are we going to get things done or not?”

  I took a long, ragged breath. I’d agonized over Father Roric’s words all night. But the fact was, I hadn’t cobbled together our unlikely coalition and pressured Tess into supporting it - or at least not opposing it - just to throw it all away. Roshel wasn’t wrong. Rallying against the Hellguard was something that needed doing, and I seemed to be the one to do it.

  “We are. But we need some option besides forcing a crossing of the Paint at Goat Hill. I’m not going to be responsible for slaughtering thousands in the biggest battle since the Fall. We lost too many men at the Cleansing and Darkness Falling. I’m damned if I’m going to set up an even bigger, bloodier round of that if I can avoid it. Maybe we should try to gather more forces, an army overwhelming enough to force a surrender. I’ll admit it, what you said about facing the Darkness scared me. We could send Hake to see if he can drum up support from Rockwall. Maybe after Lago comes back, we can send him to the Monolith.”

  “It’ll take far too long, Minos. And you told me that when you tried bringing the Monolith and Rockwall into your war against the Darkness Radiant, they preferred to sit it out. What makes you think this time would be different?”

  I opened my mouth and shut it. She was probably right. “Fine. But we still need a better option. Maybe if we sailed a fleet down the Muddy and swung around the coast, and came up behind them east of Seafields?”

  Roshel made a face. “I don’t think there are enough ships left in the world to transport twenty thousand men, and again, we’re looking at too much time to build them. But crossing the Paint doesn’t mean we have to cross at Goat Hill. There’s two hundred miles of that river between Heartfield and Seafields. We can cross just about anywhere.”

  “Fair enough. And the Sorrows aren’t as infested with the Darkness that far south. We could maybe even cross through north of Heartfield.”

  “Maybe. That’s dangerous, though. Heartfield has a decent sized Shield garrison in it last I heard. Threading the needle between that and the Darkness would be tricky.”

  I stared at the unit counters on the map. “We need to understand the situation on the ground better. Is there anyone with you who knows that territory well?”

  She frowned. “Maybe. But I don’t want to widen our planning circle too much. The more people know, the more likely it is our plans will get back to Gurath.”

  That was like a punch in the gut. “You think there are spies in our army?”

  Roshel laughed bleakly. “I’ve never seen an army so loyal that it didn’t have a traitor or two in it. You of all people should know that - you turned me and Grigg against Yoshana.”

  I didn’t have much to say to that, except, “Let’s find some experts on the terrain down there. As few as possible.”

  The planning circle widened accordingly, then widened some more. As the discussions began to look more interesting, more of the senior officers became involved, and we could hardly keep them away from a map table set up in the middle of our headquarters. And with every new participant came at least one new opinion. Every option Roshel and I had considered was debated again, repeatedly.

  Other approaches were brought up and discarded, including marching the entire army north through the Ice Fields and striking the enemy from the least expected direction. It didn’t seem like the most terrible of ideas, since the heat of summer rendered the frozen north almost inhabitable. Until someone pointed out that it would also make the uncharted ice floes on the frozen lakes too thin to reliably support a man’s weight - much less twenty thousand men’s weight. The thought of losing our entire force into a freezing, watery grave shut down that plan.

  Days dragged into weeks as decisions got put off, but it was still sooner than expected when a soldier burst in gasping, “Emissaries to see you, Judge Minos!”

  I looked around the room. “It’s early for Lago to be back, isn’t it? Unless things went badly.”

  The soldier stammered out, “It’s not BlackShield Lago, Judge Minos.”

  4. Uninvited Guests

  “Well, whoever it is, I suppose you’d better show them in. And somebody had better go get Tess. They may want to see her too.”

  “I’m here,” she piped up. I’d been so engrossed in the map I hadn’t seen her come in. But she, her brother Kafer, Furat, Mist, and a number of others were sitting around a table in the back. Roshel’s comment about spies came back to me, and I made a mental note to set a stricter policy on who was able to wander into headquarters.

  “It’s you we’re here to see, Judge Minos.”

  The voice was oddly sibilant. The four expressionless men behind the speaker wore dark leather armor I’d seen before - but not on this side of the Sorrows. The speaker’s tunic seemed impossibly white for someone who’d traveled any distance over dusty roads.

  Sam launched herself at the emissary, planted herself six feet away, and burst into barking so loud, deep, and furious that her sides shook.

  The man recoiled, then lunged forward and hissed open-mouthed at the dog. Sam yelped, backed five steps, and growled deep in her throat. Her lips pulled back to show teeth I’d seen snap a man’s wrist.

  The emissary’s bared teeth were sharper than the dog’s.

  “Get her out of here, Furat,” Roshel snapped. “She can’t stop that thing.”

  “What is he?” a junior officer demanded. The man was now standing perfectly quietly, a slightly mocking smile on his face.

  “It’s a Darkness wraith animating a human body,” the Overlord said. I had no idea how she’d reached that conclusion, but the man certainly must have been infected to produce that reaction from Sam.

  Tess stepped forward. “We’ll speak to your ambassador but not to the Darkness. Cast it out of yourself so we can talk. I’ll help you."

  The man laughed, again showing pointed teeth. “There is no one in this meat to cast me out, girl. The half breed knows better.” It leered at Roshel.

  “I’ve exorcised darker powers than you,” Tess retorted.

  The creature laughed again. “When the meat had a will, perhaps. There is no volition in this shell but mine.”

  Furat had hooked a leash to Sam’s collar and was dragging her back. In a total breach of protocol, the big man had been wearing his pistol. He had it in his hand. “There’s more than one way to get you out of there.”

  The embodied wraith grinned. “That’s no way to treat an ambassador.”

  “Ambassador of what, exactly?” I demanded.

  It chuckled. “You know, Judge Minos. You recognize my attendants. Lord Gurath sends his greetings.”

  I shivered violently despite the summer heat. The wraith’s guards hadn’t moved once since they’d come in, not when the dog had rushed them, not when Furat had threatened them. Slaves of the Hellguard, their will circumcised, as Yoshana had put it. They would follow orders but had no initiative of their own, not even an instinct for self-preservation. The wraith must have taken over one of those empty bodies.

  “Your master might have come himself instead of sending something like you,” I said.

  It shrugged. The body was tall and healthy, its hair long and sleek and black. But the Darkness had been at work in more places than the teeth. I noticed the ambassador’s fingernails had lengthened and thickened into claws. The host brain evidently gave the creature a human intelligence, but I had no doubt it was as feral and vicious as any cloud in the Sorrows.

  “Why would my master make such a long trip for such an unpleasant reception? I was created to serve that purpose in his place.” Something that might have been resentment flashed across the creature’s face and was
gone.

  How would an intelligent wraith think, with no human will behind it? I imagined it would be an ugly mass of basic instincts, desires to feed, to grow, to dominate. Overlaid with the fear of something powerful enough to destroy it, like a Hellguard.

  I didn’t know what the thing or its master wanted, and I found myself reluctant to ask. I bought time while I calmed my thoughts. From the corner of my eye, I saw Furat dragging his angry dog away.

  “What should I call you, then, ambassador?”

  “Ambassador will do.”

  “You have no name?”

  It chuckled again. “Name. An individual distinction, as if your collection of cells were unique. What I am now, I was not before. I will become more than I am now. But if you must name me then I am Legion, for we are many.”

  Prophetess crossed herself. So did many of the officers present.

  Roshel made a rude noise. “Don’t give yourself airs, wraith. You’re no demon. I’ve controlled more of the Darkness than you are.”

  “You are wrong, half breed. And the one who may have done so is gone now.”

  Roshel’s eyes narrowed, then she waved her hand contemptuously. “Bark out the instructions your masters gave you, little dog.”

  The creature that called itself Legion snarled. I wondered if it would attack the Overlord. In a room full of our veterans its human body wouldn’t reach her alive, but we didn’t have the means on hand to stop a cloud of that size.

  Instead it shook itself, its mouth twisting back to a mocking grin that still showed fangs. “My message is for Judge Minos, unless the half breed now commands.”

  “I’m right here,” I said.

  “My master’s wishes are simple, Judge Minos. He asks that you accompany me to see him, so that the two of you may speak. And so avoid this war.”

  “Who says I’m planning a war against your master?”