“You're an idiot. It's none of my business. I don't care what you people do to each other; Thaddeus and what's-his-name can kill each other if they like. Even if I did care, I haven't had anything to do with Thaddeus in… in centuries, probably. Ask a machine, I don't know. He hasn't wanted anything to do with me since I left Alpha Imperium. Anything I could say would probably just annoy him."
Shadowdark's image started to fade, then returned to solidity long enough to say something the floater translated as, “By the way, don't bother me again. I won't answer."
The face vanished.
“Damn,” Geste said. “It's impossible.” He reached out and grabbed an invisible support, then leaned forward and rested his head on his arm.
Bredon was baffled. “Who is this Shadowdark?” he asked, directing his question somewhere between Geste and the floater. “Is he a Power?"
Geste waved wearily at the floater without raising his head. “You tell him,” he said. “I need to think.” He paused, then lifted his eyes to the “window” for a moment and added, “And while you're telling him and I'm thinking, take us home."
Chapter Nine
“…He looked up from where he lay, and saw a man dressed in black, with a strange black hat upon his head and a raven on his shoulder, standing at the edge of the clearing."
"Of course, he knew immediately that this was Rawl the Adjuster. He struggled to sit up, but he could not. It took all his strength to call, ‘Hello! Can you help me?'
"Rawl heard him and paused. He looked the situation over for a moment, then came and sat beside the storyteller. ‘What do you need?’ he asked.
"And the storyteller explained how he had counted the Powers, and that although he had always been told that there are twenty-eight Powers in the world, yet when he thought through every tale he knew, every legend, every little incident, and noted down each and every mention, however trivial or obscure, he came up with a list of only twenty-seven names. He told the Adjuster how this had troubled him, and how he had gone seeking through the world, to see if anyone could tell him who the twenty-eighth Power is. He told how he wandered on, ever more despairing as first wakes, then seasons, and finally whole years went by without an answer, until at last he had found himself in his present sorry state.
"'Is that all?’ Rawl asked. ‘All you want is to know the names of all twenty-eight immortals?'
"'Yes,’ the storyteller replied. ‘That's all. Tell me the twenty-eighth name, and I shall die content.'
"'There's no need for you to die at all,’ Rawl told him, ‘for I can easily heal your wounds and send you back to your village sound and well.'
"'I would rather know the name,’ the storyteller said.
"'I'll tell you that, too,’ Rawl answered. ‘I suppose that it would be Shadowdark.'
"'Shadowdark?’ the storyteller asked.
"'Yes, Shadowdark. He is the oldest of us all, and the most reclusive. He speaks to no one, either mortal or immortal. He lives simply, in the forest not too far from here, and if you did not know who he was you would have no reason to think him anything but a very tall and ugly mortal man-very tall and very ugly.'
"'You say he is near here?’ the storyteller asked.
"'Yes,’ Rawl replied, ‘but you dare not seek him out. If you saw him and thought him mortal, it would be of no matter, but if you saw him and knew him for what he is, you would die instantly…"
– from the tales of Kithen the Storyteller
“Sir, I'm afraid that you must rephrase your question if you want a coherent answer. Shadowdark is a Power, as you use the term, but I cannot tell you who he is without further specification."
After a moment's consideration Bredon accepted that. Not all Powers had neat, clearly-defined roles like the Lady of the Seasons. He tried to choose his next question carefully, making it specific enough for the familiar spirit, or whatever it was, to answer, but general enough to give him as much information as possible in its implications. “Why does he speak a strange language?” he asked. “And why does Geste call him ‘sir'?"
“I assume, sir, that Shadowdark speaks Alphan English because he feels most comfortable with that language, and that Mr. Geste addresses him as ‘sir’ because of the great difference in their ages and because Shadowdark has held much higher social status and rank in times past than Mr. Geste has ever achieved."
This answer brought a flood of new questions to mind; Bredon suppressed all but one.
“How can one Power be older than another? I thought they were all immortals, created at the beginning of time."
“No, sir, I'm afraid you have misunderstood the situation. The people you call the Powers are effectively immortal, yes, but they were not created at the beginning of time. They were born over a period of several thousand years. The person who now uses the name Shadowdark was the first, and is now approximately seven thousand years old. I use an approximation because years differ in length on different worlds, but are close enough on most of the worlds Shadowdark has lived on to make such approximations possible. Thaddeus the Black is the second-oldest of Shadowdark's surviving children, and the oldest of those children currently on Denner's Wreck. These two are more than two thousand years older than any of the other Powers. Mr. Geste was born almost six thousand years after Shadowdark. He is the second-youngest of the Powers, followed only by Imp."
Bredon struggled with this for a moment.
“You said Shadowdark had lived in other worlds?” he asked. “And had a higher rank than Geste? I don't understand that. I thought that the Powers were the Powers, and had always been what they are now."
“No, sir,” the floater replied with inhuman patience and calm. “The people you call the Powers came to this world, which you call simply ‘the world’ but which they know by the ancient catalogue name ‘Denner's Wreck,’ four hundred and sixty-two years ago. Prior to that they had lived on a variety of other worlds before gathering on Terra and choosing to investigate the lost colony on Denner's Wreck. As for Shadowdark's rank, at one time he was an emperor, absolute master of more than twenty worlds, before he grew bored with power and abdicated. Mr. Geste has never held any rank or office higher than his current position as freeholder."
Bredon was growing ever more confused. The floater's explanations were clear enough, but simply did not fit with what he thought he knew about the universe or the Powers. An emperor ruling twenty worlds? The universe as he understood it only held three inhabited worlds-the one in the sky whence mankind had come, the one he lived in now, and the one the Powers had come from, where the gods ruled and where his soul would go when he died, to either serve the gods or to be fed to the demons in the wilderness called Hell.
“I don't understand,” he admitted.
The floater was silent for a moment; Bredon glanced out the window in the surrounding bubble of darkness and saw only more darkness. He could only distinguish the window from the rest of the bubble by the presence of stars in the sky beyond.
Geste, almost invisible in the gloom, was still sunk in thought.
“I am afraid,” the floater said at last, “that explaining the situation will take a considerable length of time. Your ignorance of history and cosmology presents a significant barrier to comprehension of the present situation."
Bredon asked, “What did you say?"
“I said you don't know enough to understand my explanations,” the floater explained.
“Oh.” Bredon started to protest, to defend himself, then stopped. The thing was probably right, he realized. He was not stupid, but he was very ignorant indeed.