"Are you crazy?" Tobo yelled. "I wouldn't go down there. I'm nervous just being this close."
"Then go back upstairs. Shukrat. Answer a couple of technical questions for me before you leave. Please?"
The black barrier that had frustrated Blade so was back in place. It put a terrible pressure on my mind. But the flying post did not notice it at all. The post kept moving. The Voroshk costume I wore stirred slightly, enclosing me more securely within its protection.
Although I know the names now I refuse to call post and costume by their proper, clunkily cumbersome Voroshk titles.
I passed through the barrier. Lady made a funny little sound as she came through behind me, like she did when we made love.
The scene was pretty much the way it had been described by others. What seemed to be a vast, open cavern without evident bounds, illuminated by no evident light source, and that extremely feeble. All that could be seen was a huge, ugly sprawl of flesh the color of polished eggplant. It did not move, even to breathe.
Kina looked like Shivetya's homely big sister. Kina looked like the embodiment of all the dark attributes I had heard assigned her, under all her many names, since first I became aware of her existence. Kina looked like many dark things.
My memories of the next few minutes are completely unreliable.
Almost immediately the great hairless head turned our way. Kina's mouth was open, exposing ugly dark fangs. She seemed to have a snake or lizard tongue. I did not recall that having been reported before in any of the conflicting myths, though her tongue was supposed to be long, the better to lap up demon blood.
The eyes of the Goddess began to open.
The immensity of her will smashed at me like a tidal wave breaking. The lights went out. For me.
"Looks like you were lucky this time," Tobo told me. "Your post got you out of there."
I wanted to tell him luck had nothing to do with it. I planned it that way. I set it up with the help of his girlfriend. But I barely had energy enough to keep breathing.
I did manage to gasp, "Lady?" Had to check on my honey.
"Better off than you are. Sleeping right now. Said to tell you to just rest. Here's some Shivetya manna. It'll give you a kick in the ass. If you can keep it down."
I managed to roll my head until I could see the demon.
Shivetya was looking back at me. A white crow was strutting around on his shoulder. Not my white raven. The demon revealed a few teeth in what he might have thought was a smile. Bizarre. I did not recall him ever having moved before.
He must have seen the inside of my head. Must know I thought I had a notion about how to get to Kina.
I hoped the Goddess could not look inside my head, too.
Someday. Down the road. If I could get all the pieces to fall into place.
The white crow sneered. I believe they can do that, those birds.
Tobo understood that something was happening but did not catch on. I think my new daughters understood better than he did.
96
The Shadowgate: Bad News, Bad News
I was outside the shadowgate gossiping with Panda Man and Spook, who were telling me that keeping an eye on the gate was the best duty they had ever endured. The work was easy and the locals were friendly. If the damned ugly spooks from the plain did not keep nagging you...
Tobo and Shukrat came through.
Almost immediately Tobo let out a cry of despair. He shouted, "There's been a battle!" A moment later he shot into the air, headed north, black cloth streaming behind him. An instant later still Shukrat shot off in his wake, gaining slowly.
Panting, Lady asked, "Does that mean we should be worried?"
"That would be my guess. The little shit must've gotten something from the hidden folk."
"And it was bad enough to set him off like that." She looked as troubled as I felt.
No good could come of any battle fought while we were away.
She asked, "Aren't you going to rush off and see what happened, too?"
"Don't see the point." I jerked a thumb in the direction of the carpet, which was creaking and sagging under the weight of people we dared not trust. "There isn't anything I could do, anyway. Look at that." A ripple, a distortion in the fabric of reality, seemed to be running over the face of the earth, chasing after Tobo and Shukrat. "The hidden folk following their hero."
"Why were they here?"
"Waiting around for Tobo."
"But they should've been with Sleepy. They don't do us any good hanging around the shadowgate when... oh. They don't care if they do us any good."
"Exactly. What they care about is Tobo. Anything they do that benefits the rest of us they do just to please him. Which is why two-thirds of the time I don't have the two ravens that're supposed to be my permanent shoulder-ornaments and messengers and far-seeing eyes. They keep forgetting to stick with me. They wander off to find the kid. Bet you they turn up before we catch up with Sleepy, though."
"Sounds like a sucker bet to me."
After crossing the Dandha Presh I steered a course mimicking that Sleepy had followed heading north. When Lady asked why I was not heading straight north as fast as we dared push the carpet, I told her, "Because I thought I saw something I shouldn't have on the way down. I have to check on it. I'm hoping it was my imagination." But my brief conversation with the guards at the shadowgate suggested that the nightmare might be real.
She was curious but did not ask. At the speeds we could make airborne a bit of circuitous flight would not delay us much.
I found what I was seeking on the path Sleepy had taken from Gharhawnes, at almost exactly the point where she had doubled back to get behind Dejagore. By then my confederates were extremely crabby.
"There!" I told Lady, catching just a glimpse of something moving fast inside a stand of scrubby oaks.
"There what?" She had not seen.
"The Nef."
"The Nef? The Nef are in the Voroshk world. Trapped there."
"Not according to Spook and Panda Man. They say the Nef come around every night."
"All right. But how would they get through the shadowgate?"
"I don't know." I was flying in a circle now, giving up altitude. Once down to treetop level I cruised back and forth. I spotted nothing. Nor did I find a sign when I descended lower still and began to glide between the tree trunks.
I never found a thing. Not even a hint of a thing.
People began to yell down at me.
All right. They had a point. There were things we needed to do way north of where we were now.
97
Beside the Cemetery: Among the Dead
It had been over for more than a day but the surgeons remained hard at work. Men still lay in long rows awaiting attention, moaning, screaming, some delirious. And some dead. A burial detail walked the rows, picking up those who had gone. Too many of those had died alone amidst the hundreds, without comfort.
The glory of war.
The ultimate fear. Mine, anyway.
I checked quickly to make sure that everyone was conforming to my decrees concerning cleanliness and sepsis. A few of the wounded would stand a better chance if the surgeons and their helpers cleaved to the rules. Even when they were exhausted, as they were now, and the temptation to cut corners became overwhelming.
Beyond our wounded lay those from Mogaba's army. They were likely to get no treatment at all, except what they could manage for themselves. I was sure that our medical supplies were as strained as our medical staff was. It looked like this was a much bigger fight than I had expected. Or, at least, a more desperate encounter with more casualties than expected in a short time.