Passing Through Darkness- The Complete Cycle

by Malcolm McKenzie

  She shrugged. “I’ll keep the troops drilling. The Shadowed Hand can start teaching everyone else the basics of how the Darkness works, and how to deal with someone that uses it. Lago will get back from the Green Heart whenever he gets back. At least this little venture of yours should probably hold everyone together until we find out what happens, one way or the other.”

  One way or the other. “I don’t know how long this will take, but do send envoys to Rockwall and the Monolith too. Now that the demons have showed their hand, maybe it’ll prod someone in power to actually get off their fat butt and do something useful.”

  “Maybe. I’ll try.” She didn’t look convinced.

  “If we’re not back by winter… well. You should probably assume you’re looking at a spring campaign. It’ll be a pretty good bet that they’ve murdered us, and that should justify a preemptive strike. Hit them with everything we’ve got. And keep someone close to Melaret. She’s probably still feeling vulnerable and if she thinks Gurath’s going to back her more than we’ve been doing, she could turn.”

  She nodded. “Go teach your grandmother to suck eggs. I’ve got your authorization to do what I think is needed, then?”

  The look on her face was so intense that I hesitated for a moment. “Give us until winter. And then yes. Do what you think is needed.”

  Silence stretched uncomfortably. Her dark eyes were on me, her brows slightly raised. “So…” I continued. “You’ve killed a Hellguard. Gurath’s lieutenant. Just in case the need should arise, how exactly did you manage that?”

  The brunette Overlord leaned back in her chair and put her booted feet up on the map table. Though the two weren’t physically similar, she looked so much like Yoshana in that pose that I struggled not to stare.

  “Demons die like anyone else. Of course, it helps if you outnumber them three to one, command the Darkness, and shoot them in the back at extreme range when they’re not expecting it.”

  “In other words…”

  “There’s no chance you’ll be able to defeat Gurath. If the issue comes up, you’d better hope you’ve made peace with God, because you’re going to be seeing him soon.”

  “Yes, Minos?” Father Roric asked as I stepped into his office.

  “Father? I think I’m ready for that confession.”

  5. Down the River

  We let Legion sit until the next morning. I’d made up my mind, but I wasn’t in a rush to get going. Nor did I particularly care to start my travels with the wraith at night.

  There was daily mass in the basilica. I usually went just once a week, but this seemed like a time to make an exception. Tess went too, of course. So did Dee, though I noticed he didn’t take communion. I wasn’t sure the occultist worshipped any god but his own intellect.

  The Metropolitan himself offered the mass. So at least we were being sent off in style. With my confession of the day before, the eucharist felt somehow more potent than usual. I could hope, anyway. Because we really were going to be walking into the valley of the shadow of death.

  Railes had set up small tents for the ambassador’s party under a huge tarp stretched across poles. There was a little table with benches in the center. Legion and its guards sat on the benches, utterly still. The Shadowed Hand surrounded them, each soldier holding a bared sword and a burning torch. The Hidden Moon Clan in particular looked as tense as wolves circling a bear.

  If the embodied wraith was disturbed by the surrounding troops, it hid the fact well. Its usual, slightly mocking smile remained pasted in place. When we approached it stood languidly, inhumanly gracefully, a characteristic I’d seen before in the possessed.

  “And so, Judge Minos? Will you be joining me to visit my master?”

  “Yes, ambassador, I will. So will Prophetess, her bodyguard, and Doctor John Dee.” I nodded to the three of them.

  The wraith frowned. “The paleo and the occultist are not necessary.”

  “They will still be coming with me. Unless your master is afraid of them.” Interesting that the wraith hadn’t objected to Tess.

  The smile was back. “My master fears nothing, of course.”

  “Of course. Although he seems to have feared war enough to have desired peace, and feared personal violence enough to send you instead of coming himself.”

  Legion gave me a hard look. “My master will not be pleased by insolence.”

  “Don’t take us for idiots, ambassador. Your master has his own agenda, and I’m certain human welfare doesn’t figure highly on it. The welfare of humans in general, or specific humans in particular, like for example mine. I’ll go with you. So will Prophetess. That puts two leaders of Our Lady’s armies in his power. But Roshel is staying behind to command those armies, and she doesn’t like the Hellguard. If Prophetess or I fail to return, she’ll roll through the Darklands like a plague.”

  The Overlord’s smile was pure malevolence.

  Railes spoke up. “If any of them don’t make it back, wraith, I promise you this - whatever else happens, you won’t survive.”

  Had Roshel’s expression been frightening before? Now her grin would reduce small children to tears. I thought I was glad she was on my side. I dissected that idea for a second - I thought I was glad, or I thought she was on my side? Maybe better not to examine the notion too closely after all. A very dangerous person was about to step out of others’ shadows and put her own mark on the world.

  A range of emotions played across the ambassador’s face. Rage and hate were certainly there, but for just a moment, I thought I also saw fear. Then it controlled its expression again. Legion was very sophisticated for a cloud of the Darkness, and again I reflected that it was a mistake to underestimate the creature.

  “Shall we go, then?” the ambassador asked brightly.

  It wasn’t quite that simple, of course. We still had to pack - and what we packed depended on where exactly we were going and how we were getting there.

  “We will ride south to Eeltown and take ship on the Shining River, down the Big Muddy River to Delta City. I have arranged passage there to my master’s territory.”

  That presumably meant sailing around the continent’s southern coast from Delta City to Seafields, formerly in the Green Heart, now under the Hellguard’s control. I did some quick calculations in my head. We would be sailing downriver, and along the coast the wind would be at our backs. It would still take weeks. Going the opposite direction would have taken far longer. And Legion had known Yoshana was dead - almost certainly before the creature began its embassy.

  “That’s not the way you came here.”

  The ambassador’s smile widened, showing fangs. “No. The way I came is not a way you can travel.”

  That probably meant the wraith and its guards had passed through the Sorrows. I didn’t know how the wild Darkness of the forest would react to a semi-tamed cloud like Legion, but there would likely be risk to its guards at least. Which might imply that the Hellguard had discovered a relatively safe route. That was worth knowing.

  How many troops could the Darklanders filter through the Sorrows? Were we at risk of being hit from behind, perhaps after Roshel deployed our forces south? If so, the wraith had let slip an important piece of information. Which wasn’t likely. Still…

  I exchanged a glance with Roshel. The significance wasn’t lost on her. The Overlord’s grasp of the tactical considerations was almost certainly better than mine.

  “We’ll pack accordingly then, ambassador,” was all I said. “We’ll rejoin you here in two hours and we can be on our way.”

  I waited until we were nearly back at our headquarters before I spoke to Railes. “You got that, right?”

  “That they’ve got a way through the forest? Yeah. Not a surprise.”

  “It was to me. We’ve been counting on the Sorrows being a barrier to them.”

  Roshel repeated my own musings back to me. “I doubt they can get very many men through at a time, or they would have done it already. And that thing wouldn�
��t have let such a big secret slip. It’s not stupid.”

  “Agreed, but not my point. Railes, I was worried about assassins before. I’m more worried now.” I turned to Roshel. “You might want to sleep with one eye open. And a lot of oil lamps around you.”

  Cat had thrown an oil lamp at Roshel to stop the Overlord from murdering Prophetess in her bed, back when we’d been enemies. Roshel’s eyes widened, then she laughed. “That would be a really ironic way to go.”

  “I’d say you have it coming, but still, let’s try to avoid it, shall we?”

  “Oh, no argument here.”

  Kafer made such a pain of himself that I nearly had Railes lock him up. His first words to Tess after finding out about our journey to the Darklands had been, “You’re not going.” After she explained to her brother in no uncertain terms that she was in fact going, his next argument was - predictably - that he was coming with us. Tess wasn’t having any of that either.

  I choked back the urge to shout at him, or better still throttle him. He was just worried about his sister. Instead I told him, “I need you here. I need someone I can trust to keep a close eye on Roshel.”

  Kafer’s face lit up. There weren’t a lot of adult males who wouldn’t be happy to keep a close eye on Roshel. He nodded eagerly. “You can count on me.”

  “Tricky, you,” Cat declared as Tess’ brother headed off to make whatever preparations he thought necessary for guarding the brunette Overlord. I wasn’t entirely sure whether it was an accusation or a compliment. Knowing the paleo, it was probably a bit of both.

  “You ready?” I asked her. True to form, she carried only the glassy knife I’d given her, a thin cloak, and a water skin. I traveled light, but Cat took it to extremes. It wasn’t that she couldn’t carry more; there was an amazing wiry strength in her slight body. She just didn’t believe in owning things. The curiosity that had earned her the name “Cat” had taught her to read and set her apart from her people, but in many ways she followed their traditions. At least she’d stopped trying to eat people.

  “Ready, me. Always.” She patted the blade at her hip.

  “Worried?” I spoke softly. Tess was just out of earshot.

  “No.” I was more relieved than I’d care to admit. The paleo’s instincts were good. She continued, “Die now, die later. Die sometime, everyone.”

  Not so relieved anymore. I studied her, looking her up and down. She stood just a little taller than five feet and couldn’t have weighed much more than a hundred pounds for all her toughness. Her hair was long and dark, her skin strangely light for someone who got as much exposure to the sun as she did. I didn’t know exactly how old she was and suspected she might not either, but I guessed it wasn’t more than sixteen.

  “Railes is worried about you. I told him I’d take care of you.”

  “Good man, him.” She’d said it before. I supposed it was true in the ways that mattered. Cynically, I imagined that was especially the case if you were a woman who listed “murder” as the top skill on your résumé.

  “Minos!” Dee was bubbling with enthusiasm, which was pretty much his normal state, often at wildly inappropriate times. The lanky occultist was in many ways the polar opposite of Cat - tall, verbose, and utterly useless in a fight. He would be invaluable in chronicling the events to come, if we survived them. He wouldn’t be helpful at all in actually helping us survive. Although he was extremely adept at saving his own skin by running away.

  “Are we ready to go?” he asked.

  “I suppose we are.”

  There was no particular ceremony to our departure. We just met up with Legion’s group and set off. But as we followed the wraith and its bodyguards through the inner gate that led out to the lake and fields beyond the rectory, we found what seemed like every inhabitant of Our Lady lining the sides of the path. Someone had found a bagpipe, and as we walked by the assembly burst loudly into the strains of “Amazing Grace.”

  “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.”

  My heart swelled. “You see that?” I challenged the ambassador. “You really think you and your master can stand against that?”

  “’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved. How precious did that grace appear, the hour I first believed.”

  Legion seemed taken aback, though its bodyguards were as impassive as ever.

  “If we could live ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise, as when we first begun.”

  Only when we’d passed through the outer gate and the music had faded behind us did the wraith answer. “Yes. Of course we do.”

  And even though we were still within the calm streets of the surrounding town, and the summer sun shone down warm on us, I shivered.

  There were horses again. It was more than a day’s walk - or ride - to Eeltown, and I supposed I should have been grateful I wasn’t going to be limping along for sixty miles. But my knee didn’t really appreciate being in a saddle, either. After a few hours, neither did my backside. Like Roshel had said, riding was more fun when the Darkness healed the saddle sores.

  Of course neither the embodied wraith or its unspeaking bodyguards showed any sign of discomfort. They’d provided their own mounts, and I didn’t want to ask where they’d come from. I doubted those horses had crossed the Sorrows. I had to believe it would have been easier for the ambassador to buy them in the Source than to murder their previous owners and steal them. Hell would have plenty of currency to provide its servants. Or so I told myself.

  Legion set a steady pace, brisk but unhurried. The road was straight and flat, and the horses were happy enough to amble along it. Tess and I trailed behind the wraith and its soldiers, content to be by ourselves. “It reminds me of the old days. When the two of us first came up here,” she said.

  “Except the paleos we met were trying to kill us, instead of just sticking to you like a burr.” Cat’s mount was a few paces behind and to Tess’ right. Her knife was sheathed, but it would come out faster than thought at the first sign of danger.

  “And Dee didn’t have anyone else to bother.” The occultist was up ahead, chattering away at the ambassador, apparently completely unfazed to be addressing a human body animated by a cloud of the Darkness. The wraith, in turn, seemed perfectly happy to answer Dee’s questions.

  “The masters call these creatures the soulless,” Legion was saying, waving its hand to encompass the dark-armored guards. If they were offended by that term, they gave no sign. There was nothing to suggest they even knew they were the topic of conversation. Dee said as much.

  “They understand my words,” Legion replied. “But they have no will of their own and so they do not react. They do not feel indignation, or anger, or even fear. Even the instinct of self-preservation is gone. They are like machines. They follow orders, no more.”

  I shuddered. We’d killed some of them when I’d crossed into the Darklands with Yoshana, Roshel, Grigg, and Erev. Yoshana had captured one, then killed him. The man had remained impassive even as he died.

  I shuddered again, remembering other events from that journey. I’d left Erev crippled when I’d fled Yoshana’s company. He’d hunted me down and shot me in the leg so he could finish me off at his leisure. Cat had stabbed him to death from behind instead. The paleo girl’s ferocity could be disconcerting, but I wasn’t sorry to have her at my back.

  My knee twinged in memory of the bullet.

  “You okay?” Tess asked.

  “Eh. Not the most pleasant topic of conversation up there.” Which was true enough, even if it wasn’t the whole story.

  “So they’re born that way?” Dee was asking.

  “No. Not born. Made. The Darkness is thick in our home. When the soulless are of a certain age, their minds are circumcised with the Darkness. The will is removed. It is inconvenient in many ways. They must be given strict orders for even the most basic
tasks. If they are not told when to eat, they will starve. But it keeps them free from the Darkness.”

  “I don’t understand. Then the body you inhabit…?”

  “One of the soulless, yes. It is different. Small clouds of my substance are attracted to the will. They seek out a master to serve, but most humans are too weak to control us, because the human will is too weak to control itself. We follow the deep, strong instincts, rather than the conscious mind. The host turns, follows its darker thoughts. But in many ways, with a small cloud, the host remains the master.”

  That had been true for me, when the Darkness had been in me. It was hard even to formulate in my mind the right words for it. Had I commanded it? Had I been infected with it? Yes, to both, and no. It had been part of me, usually yielding to my will, but sometimes it had seemed the larger part.

  “Such a pairing is dangerous,” Legion went on. “A weak host controlled by its darkest drives is a danger to itself and those around it.”

  I’d seen that, with the first person Tess had freed from the Darkness, a girl in a village called Brambledge. Later I’d experienced it much more personally.

  The wraith continued, “Clouds are not attracted to the soulless, for they have no will. But there is a second form of possession. True possession. When we are larger, and stronger, we have enough will of our own to control the shells of the soulless. That is what you see here.”

  It grinned and spread its arms. “This is our destiny. As we grow and add to our substance, we become greater, and can control more. One day, this accumulation of us that you see here, this I that you may call Legion, will be strong enough to control the uncircumcised as well, and eradicate their will. So I may move to a greater shell, with more potential. You, perhaps.”