Jack Of Shadows Read online

  "In that case, you would have been the Baron's, or back in Glyve."

  "A moot point," said Jack, glancing over his shoulder. "That tapestry is going pretty well now, so I can be moving along. In, say-perhaps a season, perhaps less-who knows?-whenever you finish your Shield duty-you will doubtless seek me. Do not be discouraged if you do not succeed at once. Persist. When I am ready, we will meet. I will take Evene back from you. I will take High Dudgeon away from you. I will destroy your bats. I will see you wander from offal to the grave and back again, many times. Goodbye, for now."

  He turned away and stared along the length of his shadow.

  "I will not be yours, Jack," he heard her say. ''Everything I said before was true. I would kill myself before I would be yours."

  He breathed deeply of the incensed air, then said, "We'll see," and stepped forward into shadow.

  6

  THE SKY LIGHTENED AS, sack over shoulder, he trudged steadily eastward. The air was chill and snakes of mist coiled among gray grasses; valleys and gulches were filled with fog; the stars pierced a ghostly film of cloud; breezes from a nearby tarn lapped moistly at the rocky land.

  Pausing for a moment, Jack shifted his burden to his right shoulder. He turned and considered the dark land he was leaving. He had come far and he had come quickly. Yet, farther must he go. With every step he took toward the light, his enemies' powers to afflict him were lessened. Soon, he would be lost to them. They would continue to seek him, however; they would not forget. Therefore, he did what must be done-he fled. He would miss the dark land, with its witcheries, cruelties, wonders and delights. It held his life, containing as it did the objects of his hatred and his love. He knew that he would have to return, bringing with him that which would serve to satisfy both.

  Turning, he trudged on.

  The shadows had borne him to his cache near Twilight, where he stored the magical documents he had accumulated over the years. He wrapped these carefully and bore them with him into the east. Once he achieved Twilight he would be relatively safe; when he passed beyond it, he would be out of danger.

  Climbing, he worked his way into the Rennsial Mountains, at the point where the range lay nearest Twilight; there, he sought Panicus, the highest ridge.

  Mounting above the mist, he saw the dim and distant form of Morningstar outlined against the Everdawn. There on his crag, couchant, unmoving, he faced the east. To one who did not know, he would have seemed a wind-sculpted pinnacle atop Panicus. Indeed, he was more than half of stone, his cat-like torso a solid thing joined with the ridge. His wings lay folded flat upon his back, and Jack knew-though he approached him from the rear-that his arms would still be crossed upon his breast, left over right, that the breezes had not disturbed his wire-like hair and beard, that his lidless eyes would still be fixed upon the eastern horizon.

  There was no trail and the last several hundred feet of the ascent required the negotiation of a near-vertical face of stone. As always, for the shadows were heavy here, Jack strode up it as he would cross a horizontal plane. Before he reached the summit, the winds were screaming about him; but they did not drown out the voice of Morningstar, which rose as from the bowels of the mountain beneath him.

  "Good morning, Jack."

  He stood beside his left flank and stared high into the air, where Morningstar's head, black as the night he had left, was haloed by a fading cloud.

  "Morning?" said Jack.

  "Almost. It is always almost morning."

  "Where?"

  "Everywhere."

  "I have brought you drink."

  "I draw water from the clouds and the rain."

  "I brought you wine, drawn from the grape."

  The great, lightning-scarred visage turned slowly toward him, horns dipping forward. Jack looked away from the unblinking eyes whose color he could never remember. There is something awful about eyes which never see that which they were meant to look upon.

  His left hand descended and the scarred palm lay open before Jack. He placed his wineskin upon ii. Morningstar raised it, drained it, and dropped it at Jack's feet. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, belched lightly, returned his gaze to the east.

  "What do you want, Shadowjack?" he asked.

  "Of you? Nothing."

  "Then why do you bring me wine whenever you pass this way?"

  "You seem to like it."

  "I do."

  "You are perhaps my only friend," said Jack. "You have nothing that I wish to steal. I have nothing that you really need."

  "It may be that you pity me, bound as I am to this spot."

  "What is pity?" asked Jack.

  "Pity is that which bound me here, to await the dawn."

  "Then I'll have none of it," said Jack, "for I've a need to move around."

  "I know. The one-half world has been informed that you have broken the Compact."

  "Do they know why?"

  "No."

  "Do you?"

  "Of course."

  "How?"

  "From the shape of a cloud I know that a man in a distant city will quarrel with his wife three seasons hence and a murderer will be hanged before I finish speaking. From the falling of a stone I know the number of maidens being seduced and the movements of icebergs on the other side of the world. From the texture of the wind I know where next the lightning will fall. So long have I watched and so much am I part of all things, that nothing is hidden from me."

  "You know where I go?"

  "Yes."

  "And what I would do there?"

  "I know that, too."

  "Then tell me if you know, will I succeed in that which I desire?"

  "You will succeed in that which you are about, but by then it may not be what you desire."

  "I do not understand you, Morningstar."

  "I know that, too. But that is the way it is with all oracles, Jack. When that which is foreseen comes to pass, the inquirer is no longer the same person he was when he posed the question. It is impossible to make a man understand what he will become with the passage of time; and it is only a future self to whom a prophecy is truly relevant."

  "Fair enough," said Jack. "Only I am not a man. I am a darksider."

  "You are all men, whatever side of the world you call home."

  "I have no soul, and I do not change."

  "You change," said Morningstar. "Everything that lives changes or dies. Your people are cold but their world is warm, endowed as it is with enchantment, glamourie, wonder. The lightlanders know feelings you will not understand, though their science is as cold as your people's hearts. Yet they would appreciate your realm if they did not fear it so and you might enjoy their feelings but for the same reason. Still, the capacity is there, in each of you. The fear need but give way to understanding, for you are mirror images of one another. So do not speak to me of souls when you have never seen one, man."

  "It is as you said-I do not understand."

  Jack seated himself upon a rock and, as did Morningstar, stared into the east.

  After a time, "You told me that you wait here for the dawn," he said, "to see the sun rise above the horizon."

  "Yes."

  "I believe that you will wait here forever."

  "It is possible."

  "Don't you know? I thought you knew all things."

  "I know many things, not all things. There is a difference."

  "Then tell me some things. I have heard daysiders say that the core of the world is a molten demon, that the temperature increases as one descends toward it, that if the crust of the world be pierced then fires leap forth and melted minerals build volcanoes. Yet I know that volcanoes are the doings of fire elementals who, if disturbed, melt the ground about them and hurl it upward. They exist in small pockets. One may descend far past them without the temperature increasing. Traveling far enough, one comes to the center of the world, which is not molten- which contains the Machine, with great springs, as in a clock, and gears and pulleys and counterbalances. I kn
ow this to be true, for I have journeyed that way and been near to the Machine itself. Still, the daysiders have ways of demonstrating that their view is the correct one. I was almost convinced by the way one man explained it, though I knew better. How can this be?"

  "You were both correct," said Morningstar. "It is the same thing that you both describe, although neither of you sees it as it really is. Each of you colors reality in keeping with your means of controlling it. For if it is uncontrollable, you fear it. Sometimes then, you color it incomprehensible. In your case, a machine; in theirs, a demon."

  "The stars I know to be the houses of spirits and deities-some friendly, some unfriendly and many not caring. All are near at hand and can be reached. They will respond when properly invoked. Yet the daysiders say that they are vast distances away and that there is no intelligence there. Again...?"

  "It is again but two ways of regarding reality, both of them correct."

  "If there can be two ways, may there not be a third? Or a fourth? Or as many as there are people, for that matter?"

  "Yes," said Morningstar.

  "Then which one is correct?"

  "They all are."

  "But to see it as it is, beneath it all! Is this possible?"

  Morningstar did not reply.

  "You," said Jack. "Have you looked upon reality?"

  "I see clouds and falling stones. I feel the wind."

  "But by them, somehow, you know other things."

  "I do not know everything."

  "But have you looked upon reality?"

  "I-Once... I await the sunrise. That is all."

  Jack stared into the east, watching the pink-touched clouds. He listened to falling stones and felt the wind, but there was no wisdom there for him.

  "You know where I go and what I would do," he said, after a time. "You know what will happen, and you know what I will be like a long while from now. From up here on your mountain you can see all these things. You probably even know when I will die my final death and the manner of its occurrence. You make my life seem futile, my consciousness a thing that is merely along for the ride, unable to influence events."

  "No," said Morningstar.

  "I feel that you say this only so that I will not be unhappy."

  "No, I say it because there are shadows across your life which I cannot pierce."

  "Why can't you?"

  "It may be that our lives are in some way intertwined. Those things which affect my own existence are always hidden from me."

  "That's something, anyway," said Jack.

  "...Or it may be that, obtaining what you seek, you will place yourself beyond predictability."

  Jack laughed.

  "That would be pleasant," he said.

  "Perhaps not so pleasant as you would think."

  Jack shrugged.

  "Whatever, I have no choice but to wait and see."

  Far to his left and below-too far to hear its steady roar-a cataract plunged hundreds of feet and vanished from sight behind a rocky spur. Much farther below, a large stream meandered across a plain and wound its way through a dark forest. Farther still, he could see the smoke that rose above a village on its bank. For a moment, and without knowing why, he longed to walk through it, looking into windows and yards.

  "Why is it," he asked, "that the Fallen Star who brought us knowledge of the Art, did not extend it to the daysiders as well?"

  "Perhaps," said Morningstar, "the more theologically inclined among the lightlanders ask why he did not grant the boon of science to the darksiders. What difference does it make? I have heard the story that neither was the gift of the Fallen One, but both the inventions of man; that his gift, rather, was that of consciousness, which creates its own systems."

  Then, panting and wheezing, with a great beating of dark green vanes, a dragon collapsed upon their shelf of stone. The wind had covered the sounds of its coming. It lay there, exhaling brief flames at a rapid rate. After a time, it rolled its apple-like red eyes upward.

  "Hello, Morningstar," it said in silken tones. "I hope you do not mind my resting here a moment. Whoosh!" It exhaled a longer flame, illuminating the entire crag.

  "You may rest here," said Morningstar.

  The dragon noticed Jack, fixed him with his gaze, did not look away.

  "I'm getting too old to fly over these mountains," it said. "But the nearest sheep are by that village on the other side."

  Jack placed his foot within Morningstar's shadow as he asked, "Then why don't you move to the other side of the mountain?"

  "The light bothers me," it replied. "I need a dark lair." Then, to Morningstar, "Is it yours?" it said.

  "Is what mine?"

  "The man."

  ''No. He is his own."

  "Then I can save myself a journey and clean your ledge for you as well. He is larger than a sheep, though doubtless less tasty."

  Jack moved entirely within the shadow as the dragon exhaled a fountain of flames in his direction. These vanished as he inhaled, and Jack breathed them back at the dragon.

  It snorted in surprise and beat with a pinion at its eyes, which suddenly watered. A shadow crept toward it then and fell across its face. This dampened a fresh attempt at incineration.

  "You!" it said, glimpsing the shadow-garbed figure. "I thought you a twilighter come to trouble dear Morningstar. But now I recognize you. You are the infamous creature who pillaged my hoard! What did you do with my pale gold diadem of turquoise stones, my fourteen finely wrought silver bracelets, and my sack of moon-bars which numbered twenty-seven?"

  "Now they are a part of my hoard," said Jack, "and now you had best be going. Though you are larger than a piece of mutton, and doubtless less tasty, I may break my fast upon you."

  He breathed another flame, and the dragon drew back.

  "Desist!" said the dragon. "Give me leave to rest here but another moment, and I will depart."

  "Now!" said Jack.

  "You are cruel, shadow man." The dragon sighed. "Very well."

  It stood, balancing its bulk with its long tail, then waddled and wheezed its way to the edge of the ridge. Glancing back, it said, "You are hateful," and then pushed itself over and was gone from sight.

  Jack moved to the edge and watched it fall. When it seemed that it would be dashed to death upon the mountain's slope, its wings spread and caught the air; it rose then and glided in the direction of the village in the forest near the stream.

  "I wonder as to the value of consciousness," said Jack, "if it does not change the nature of a beast."

  "But the dragon was once a man," said Morningstar, ''and his greed transformed him into what he is now."

  "I am familiar with the phenomenon," said Jack, "for I was once, briefly, a pack-rat."

  "Yet you overcame your passion and returned to manhood, as may the dragon one day. By virtue of your consciousness you recognized and overcame certain of those elements which made you subject to predictability. Consciousness tends to transform one. Why did you not destroy the dragon?"

  "There was no need to," Jack began. Then he laughed. "It's carcass would have smelled up your cliff."

  "Was it not that you decided that there was no need to kill that which you did not need to eat, or that which was no real threat to you?"

  "No," said Jack, "for now I am just as responsible for the death of a sheep and depriving some village man of future meals."

  It took Jack several seconds to recognize the sound which followed, a grinding, clicking noise. Morningstar was gnashing his teeth. A cold wind struck him then, and the light dimmed in the east.

  "...Perhaps you were right," he heard Morningstar saying softly, as though not addressing him, "about consciousness..." and his great, dark head was lowered slightly.

  Uncomfortable, Jack looked away from him. His eyes followed the white, unblinking star which had always troubled him, as it moved on its rapid way from right to left in the east.

  "The ruler of that star," he said, "has resisted all spells of co
mmunication. It moves differently from the others and faster. It does not twinkle. Why is this?"

  "It is not a true star, but an artificial object placed into orbit above Twilight by the dayside scientists."

  "To what end?"

  "It was placed there to observe the border."

  "Why?"

  "Do they fear you?"

  "We have no designs upon the lands of light."

  "I know. But do you not also watch the border, in your own way?" asked Jack.

  "Of course."

  "Why?"

  "To be aware of what transpires along it."

  "That is all?" Jack snorted. "If that object is truly above Twilight, then it will be subject to magic as well as to its own laws. A strong enough spell will affect it. One day, I will knock it down."

  "Why?" asked Morningstar.

  "To show that my magic is superior to their science-for one day it will be."

  "It would seem unhealthy for either to gain supremacy."

  "Not if you are on the side that obtains it."

  "Yet you would use their methods to enhance your own effectiveness."

  "I will employ anything that serves my ends."

  "I am curious as to what the result will be, ultimately."

  Jack moved to the eastern edge of the pinnacle, swung himself over it, found a foothold, and looked upward.

  "Well, I cannot wait here with you for the sun to rise. I must go chase it down. Good-bye, Morningstar."

  "Good morning, Jack."

  Like a peddler, sack upon his shoulder, he trudged toward the light. He moved through the smashed city of Deadfoot, not even glancing at the vine-webbed shrines of the useless gods, its most noted tourist attraction. Their altars never bore offerings worth stealing. Wrapping a scarf tightly about his head, he hurried up the famous Avenue of the Singing Statues. Each of these, noted individualists in life, commenced his own song at the sound of a footstep. Finally, after running (for it was a long thoroughfare), he emerged with temporary deafness, shortness of breath and a headache.

  Lowering his fist, he halted in the middle of a curse, at a loss for words. He could think of no calamity to call down upon the deserted ruin which had not already been visited upon it.