Jack Of Shadows (4 page)

Resisting a strong impulse to close his eyes and lower his head to his chest, he heaped the rags he had gathered into a mound before him. With his left hand aching upon its hilt, he moved his blade beside the pile and struck it with the flint. The sparks danced upon the dry cloth, and he continued to strike them even after the smoldering had begun.

When the first flame arose, he used it to light the candle stub some dead man had carried.

He held it before him and there were shadows.

He set it upon the ground, and he knew that his shadow lay upon the boulder now.

What are you doing, dinner?

Jack rested in his gray realm, his head clear once more, the old, familiar tingle beginning in his fingertips and toes.

I am the stone who gets blood from men! Answer me! What are you doing?

The candle flickered, the shadows caressed him. He placed his right hand upon his left shoulder and the tingling entered there and the numbness departed. Then, wrapping himself in shadows, he rose to his feet.

"Doing?" he said. "No. Done. You have been my guest. Now I feel it only fair that you reciprocate."

He moved away from the boulder and turned to face it. It reached out for him as it had before, but this time he moved his arms and the shadows played upon its surface. He extended his being into the twisting kaleidoscopic pattern he had created.

Where are you?

"Everywhere," he said. "Nowhere."

Then he sheathed his blade and returned to the boulder. As the candle was but a stub, he knew that he must act quickly. He placed the palms of his hands upon the spongy surface.

"Here I am," he said.

Unlike the other darkside Lords, whose places of power were fixed geographical localities where they reigned supreme, Jack's was more a tenuous one, and liable to speedy cancellation, but it existed wherever light and objects met to make a lesser darkness.

With the lesser darkness about him, Jack placed his will upon the boulder.

There was, of course, resistance as he reversed their previous roles. The power that had compelled him fought back, became the victim itself. Within himself, Jack stimulated the hunger, the open space, the vacuum. The current, the drain, the pull was reversed.

...And he fed.

You may not do this to me. You are a thing.

But Jack laughed and grew stronger as its resistance ebbed. Soon it was unable even to protest.

Before the candle bloomed brightly and died, the mosses had turned brown and the glow had departed. Whatever had once lived there lived no longer.

Jack wiped his hands on his cloak, many times, before he departed the valley.

THE STRENGTH HE had gathered sustained him for a long while, and Jack hoped that soon he might quit the stinking realm. The temperature did not diminish further, and there came one light rainfall as he was preparing to sleep. He huddled beside a rock and drew his cloak over his head. It did not protect him completely, but he laughed even as the waters reached his skin. It was the first rainfall he had felt since Glyve.

Later, there were sufficient pools and puddles for him to clean himself as well as to drink and to refill his flask. He continued on rather than sleep, so his garments might dry more quickly.

It brushed past his face so rapidly that he barely had time to react. It happened as he

neared a shattered tower that a piece of the darkness broke away and dropped toward him, moving in a rapid, winding way.

He did not have sufficient time to draw his blade. It passed his face and darted away. He managed to hurl all three stones which he carried before it was out of sight, coming close to hitting it with the second one. Then he bowed his head and cursed for a full half-minute. It had been a bat.

Wishing for shadows, he began to run.

There were many broken towers upon the plain, and one at the mouth of a pass led between high hills and into the range of mountains they faced. Because Jack did not like passing near structures-ruined or otherwise-which might house enemies, he attempted to skirt it at as great a distance as possible.

He had passed it and was drawing near the cleft when he heard his name called out.

"Jack! My Shadowjack!" came the cry. "It's you! It really is!"

He spun to face the direction from which the words had come, his hand on the hilt of his blade.

"Nay! Nay, my Jackie! You need no swords with old Rosie!"

He almost missed her, so motionless did she stand: a crone, dressed in black, leaning upon a staff, a broken wall at her back.

"How is it that you know my name?" he finally asked.

"Have you forgotten me, darlin' Jack? Forgotten me? Say you haven't..."

He studied the bent form with its nest of white and gray hair.

A broken mop, he thought. She reminds me of a broken mop.

Yet...

There was something familiar about her He could not say what.

He let his hand drop from the weapon. He moved toward her.

"Rosie?"

No. I could not be...

He drew very near. Finally, he was staring down, looking into her eyes.

"Say you remember, Jack."

"I remember," he said.

And he did.

"...Rosalie, at the Sign of the Burning Pestle, on the coach road near the ocean. But that was so long ago, and in Twilight..."

"Yes," she said. "It was so long ago and so far away. But I never forgot you, Jack. Of all the men that tavern girl met, she remembered you the best. -What has become of you, Jack?"

"Ah, my Rosalie! I was beheaded-wrong fully, I hasten to add-and I am just now re turning from Glyve.-But what of you? You're not a darksider. You're mortal. What are you doing in the horrid realm of Drekkheim?"

"I am the Wise Woman of the Eastern Marches, Jack. I'll admit I was not very wise in my youth-to be taken in by your ready smile and your promises-but I learned better as I grew older. I nursed an old bawd in her failing years and she taught me something of the Art. When I learned the Baron had need of a Wise Woman to guard this passage to his kingdom, I came and swore allegiance to him. 'Tis said he is a wicked man, but he has always been good to old Rosie. Better than most she's known.-It is good that you remembered me."

Then she produced a cloth parcel from beneath her cloak, unfastened it and spread it open upon the ground.

"Sit and break bread with me, Jack," she said. "It will be like old times."

He removed his sword belt and seated himself across the cloth from her.

"It's been a long while since you ate the living stone," she said; and she passed him bread and a piece of dried meat. "So I know that you are hungry."

"How is it that you know of my encounter with the stone?"

"I am, as I said, a Wise Woman-in the technical sense of the term. I did not know it was your doing, but I knew that the stone had been destroyed. This is the reason I patrol this place for the Baron. I keep aware of all that occurs and of all who pass this way. I report these things to him."

"Oh," said Jack.

"There must have been something to all your boasting-that you were not a mere darksider, but a Lord, a Power, albeit a poor one," she said. "For all my figuring has told me that only one such could have eaten the red rock. You were not just jesting then when you boasted to that poor girl about that thing. Other things, perhaps, but not that thing..."

"What other things?" he asked.

"Things such as saying you would come back for her one day and take her to dwell with you in Shadow Guard, that castle no man has ever set eyes upon. You told her that, and she waited many years. Then one night an old bawd took ill at the inn. The young girl-who was no longer a young girl-had her future to think about. She made a bargain to team a better trade."

Jack was silent for a time, staring at the ground. He swallowed the bread he had been chewing, then, "I went back," he said. "I went back, and no one even remembered my Rosalie. Everything was changed. All the people were different. I went away again."

She cackled.

"Jack! Jack! Jack!" she said. "There's no need for your pretty lies now. It makes no difference to an old woman the things a young girl believed."

"You say you are a Wise Woman," he said. "Have you no better way than guessing to tell the truth from a lie?"

"I'd not use the Art against a Power-" she began.

"Use it," he said; and he looked into her eyes once more.

She squinted and leaned forward, her gaze boring into his own. Her eyes were suddenly vast caverns opened to engulf him. He bore the falling sensation that came with this. It vanished seconds later when she looked away from him, turning her head to rest upon her right shoulder.

"You did go back," she said.

"It was as I told you."

He picked up his bread and began to chew noisily, so as not to appear to notice the moisture which had appeared upon her cheek.

"I forgot," she finally said. "I forgot how little time means to a darksider. The years mean so little to you that you do not keep proper track of them. You simply decided one day that you would go back for Rosie, never thinking that she might have become an old woman and died or gone away. I understand now, Jackie. You are used to things that never change. The Powers remain the Powers. You may kill a man today and have dinner with him ten years hence, laughing over the duel you fought and trying to recall its cause. Oh, it's a good life you lead!"

"I do not have a soul. You do."

"A soul?" she laughed. "What's a soul? I've never seen one. How do I know it's there? Even so, what good has it done me? I'd trade it in a twinkling to be like one of you. It's beyond my Art, though."

"I'm sorry," Jack said.

They ate in silence for a time. "There is a thing I would like to ask you," she said.

"What is that?"

"Is there really a Shadow Guard?" she asked Him. "A castle of high, shadow-decked halls, invisible to your enemies and friends alike, where you would have taken that girl to spend her day with you?"

"Of course," he told her; and he watched her eat. She was missing many teeth and had a tendency to smack her lips now. But suddenly, behind her net of wrinkles, he saw the face of the young girl she had been. White teeth had flashed when she had smiled, and her hair had been long and glossy, as the darkside sky between stars. And there had been a certain luster in eyes the blue of dayside skies he had looked upon. He had liked to think it was only there for him.

She must not have much longer to live, he thought. As the girl's face vanished, he regarded the sagging flesh beneath her chin.

"Of course," he repeated, "and now that I've found you, will you accompany me back? Out of this wretched land and into a place of comforting shadows? Come spend the rest of your days with me, and I will be kind to you."

She studied his face.

"You would keep your promise after all these years-now that I'm an ugly old lady?"

"Let us go through the pass and journey back toward Twilight together."

"Why would you do this for me?"

"You know why."

"Quickly, give me your hands!" she said.

He extended his hands and she seized them, turning both palms upward. She leaned far forward and scrutinized them.

"Ah! It is no use!" she said. "I cannot read you, Jack. The hands of a thief make too many twists and turns and manipulations. The lines are all wrong-though they are magnificently ruined hands!"

"What is it that you see but do not wish to tell me, Rosalie?"

"Do not finish eating. Take your bread and run. I am too old to go with you. It was sweet of you to ask. That young girl might have liked Shadow Guard, but I am content to spend my days where I am.-Go now. Hurry! And try to forgive me."

"Forgive you for what?"

She raised and kissed each of his hands.

"When I saw the approach of him whom I had hated all these years, I sent a message by means of my Art and resolved to detain you here. Now I know that I did wrong. But the Baron's guard must already be hurrying in this direction. Enter the pass and stop for nothing. You may be able to elude them on the other side. I will try to raise a storm to obscure your trail."

He sprang to his feet, drew her to hers.

"Thank you," he said. "But what did you see in my palm?"

"Nothing."

"Tell me, Rosalie."

"It does not matter so much if they capture you," she said, "for there is a Power greater than the Baron that you would face, and face him you will. What happens then is crucial. Do not let your hatred lead you to the machine that thinks like a man, only faster. There is too much power involved, and such power and hatred would not go well together."

"Such machines only exist dayside."

"I know. Go now, Jackie boy. Go!"

He kissed her forehead.

"I will see you again one day," he said, and turning, he dashed toward the pass.

As she watched him go she was suddenly aware of the chill that had descended upon the land.

Beginning low and rising steadily, the foothills soon lowered above him. He ran on, seeing

them give way to high, slanting walls of stone. The pass widened, narrowed, and widened again. Finally, he pushed his panic away, held it at arms' length and slowed to a walk. It would serve no purpose to tire himself quickly; a steady, slower pace would allow him to cover more ground before fatigue overtook him.

He breathed deeply and listened for the sounds of pursuit. He heard nothing.

A long, black snake flowed along the wall at his right, vanished into a cleft in the rock, and did not reappear. Above him, a shooting star burnt its sudden way through the sky. Veins of minerals glittered like glass in the starlight.

He thought of Rosalie and wondered what it would have been like to have had parents, to have been a child, to have depended on others to assure his welfare. He wondered what it was like to be old and know that you were going to die and not return again. He grew tired of these thoughts after a time just as he had grown tired of everything. He felt a strong desire to lie down, wrap his cloak about him and sleep.

He did things to keep awake. He counted his paces-a thousand, then a thousand more; he rubbed his eyes; he hummed several songs all the way through; he reviewed spells and incantations; he thought of food; he thought of women; he thought of his greatest thefts; he counted a thousand more paces; he rehearsed tortures and ignominies; and finally he thought of Evene.

The high walls soon began to descend.

He moved among foothills, similar to those where he had entered. There were still no sounds of pursuit-indicating, he hoped, that he would not be caught in the pass. Once he struck open country again there would be more places where he could hide himself.

There came a rumble from overhead, and he looked up to see that the stars were partly obscured by clouds. They had gathered quickly, he realized; and he remembered Rosalie's promise to try to raise a storm to obscure his trail. He smiled as the lightning flashed, the thunder boomed and the first small drops began to strike about him.

When he emerged from the pass, he was drenched once more. The storm showed no sign of abating. The visibility was poor, but it appeared that he had entered upon a rock-strewn plain similar to the one he had left on the other side of the mountains.

He deviated over a mile from what he felt to be his course; that is, the most expedient route of departure from the Baron's realm. Then he sought and found a group of boulders. He encamped on the driest side of the largest and slept.

He was awakened by the sound of hoofbeats. He lay there listening and determined that it

came from the direction of the pass. He drew his blade and held it at his side. The rain still fell, but lightly now; the occasional peal of thunder that he heard came from a great distance.

The hoofbeats grew fainter. He pressed his ear to the ground, sighed, and then smiled. He was still safe.

Despite the protest of his aching muscles, he rose to his feet and continued on his way. He resolved to travel for as long as the rain continued to obscure as much of his trail as possible.

His boots sucked holes in the dark mud, and his clothing stuck to his body. He sneezed several times and began to tremble from the cold. Noticing a strange ache in his right hand, he looked down to see that he was still gripping his blade. He dried the weapon on the underside of his cloak and replaced it in the sheath. Through breaks in the cloud-cover, he made out familiar constellations. By these he adjusted his course eastward.

Eventually, the rain ceased. There was nothing but mud all about him. However, he continued to walk. His clothing began to dry, and the exercise expelled something of the chill he had taken.