Jack Of Shadows (8 page)

"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 communication. 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.

When I rule, things will be different, he decided. Cities will not be planned so chaotically that they come to this.

Rule?

The thought had come unbidden into his head.

Well, why not? he asked himself. If I can obtain the power I seek, why not use it for everything that is desirable? After I have obtained my vengeance, I will have to come to terms with all those who are against me now. It might as well be as a conqueror. I am the only one who needs no fixed place of power. I shall be able to defeat the others on their own grounds once I hold the Key That Was Lost, Kolwynia. This thought must have been with me all along. I will reward Rosalie for having suggested the means.-And I must add to my list. After I have had my revenge upon the Lord of Bats, Benoni, Smage, Quazer and Blite, I will deal with the Baron and see that the Colonel Who Never Died has cause to change his name.

It amused him that, among others, he bore within his sack those very manuscripts which had aroused the Bat Lord's anger. For a time, he had actually considered the notion of offering to barter them for his freedom. The only reason he had not was the realization that the other would either accept and fail to release him, or- what would be worse-would keep the bargain. The necessity of returning stolen goods would be the greatest loss of face he had ever suffered. And this could only be expunged by doing what he was now doing: pursuing the power that would grant him satisfaction. Without the manuscripts, of course, this would be more difficult, and...

His head swam. He had been right, he decided, when he had spoken with Morningstar. Consciousness, like the noise of the double-hundred statues of Deadfoot, was a thing of discord and contradiction, giving rise to headaches.

Far to his right, the daysiders' satellite came into view once more. The world brightened as

he moved forward. Smudges in distant fields, he saw the first beginnings of green ahead. The clouds burned more brightly in the east. The first bird song he had heard in ages reached his ears, and when he sought out the singer on its bough, he saw bright plumage.

A good omen, he decided later, to be met with song.

He stamped out his fire and covered it over, along with the bones and the feathers, before he continued toward day.

HE HAD FELT the beginnings of its slow approach at some point near to the middle of the semester. How, he was not certain. In this place, he seemed limited to the same sensory channels as his fellows. Still, groping, turning, hiding, correcting its passage, coming on again, it sought him. He knew that. As to its nature, he had no inkling. Recently, though, at times such as this, he felt that it was drawing near.

He had walked the eight blocks from the campus to The Dugout, passing high buildings with windows like slots in punch cards, moving along thoroughfares where, despite the passage of years, the exhaust from the traffic still came noxious to his nostrils. Turning, he had made his way up streets where beer cans rolled on the sidewalks and garbage spilled from the spaces between buildings. Passive-faced people, by windows, on stairs, in doorways, watched him as he walked. A passenger liner shattered the air high above him; from farther yet, the ever-unmoving sun sought to nail him, shadowless, to the hot pavement. Children at play about an opened fire hydrant had paused at their games to watch him as he went by. Then there had come the false promise of a breeze, the gurgling of the water, the hoarse complaint of a bird beneath some eaves. He had tossed his cigarette into the gutter and seen it swept on past him. All this light and I have no shadow, he thought. Strange how nobody's ever noticed. Where, precisely, did I leave it?

In places where lights were dim there was a change. It seemed to him that a certain quality either came into or departed the world. It was in .the nature of an underlying sense of interconnectedness, which was not present in day's full glare. With it came small feelings and some impressions. It was as if, despite his deafness to them, the shadows still attempted to address him. It was in this way that he knew, upon entering the dark bar, that that which had been seeking him was now drawing near.

The heat of perpetual day dropped away as he moved to the rear of The Dugout. Touched here and there with auburn highlights, he saw her dark hair in the rosy glow of candle-light through glass. Threading his way among tables, he felt relaxed for the first time since he had left his class.

He slid into the booth across from her and smiled.

"Hi, Clare."

She stared, her dark eyes widening.

"John! You always do that," she said. "Suddenly you're just-there."

He continued to smile, studying her slightly heavy features, pinch marks where her glasses had been, a small puffiness beneath her eyes, some stray strands of hair reaching for her brow.

"Like a salesman," he said. "Here comes the waiter."

"Beer."

"Beer."

They both sighed, leaned back, and stared at one another.

Finally, she laughed.

"What a year!" she announced. "Am I glad this semester's over!"

He nodded.

"Largest graduating class yet."

"And the overdue books we'll never see..."

"Talk to someone in the front office," he said. "Give them a list of names-"

"The graduates will ignore billings."

"Someday they'll want transcripts. When they ask, hit them with notices that they won't be sent until they pay their fines."

She leaned forward.

"That's a good idea!"

"Of course. They'll cough up if it means a job to them."

"You missed your calling when you went into anthropology. You should have been an administrator."

"I was where I wanted to be."

"Why do you speak in the past tense?" she asked.

"I don't know."

"What's happened?"

"Nothing, really."

But the feeling was there. It was near.

"Your contract," she said. "Was there some sort of trouble?"

"No," he said. "No trouble."

The drinks arrived. He raised his and sipped it. Beneath the table, his leg brushed against hers as he crossed them. She did not move away; but then, she never did. From me or anyone else, thought Jack. A good lay, but too eager to get married. She's been impatient with me all semester. Any day now...

He dismissed the thoughts. He might have married her had he met her sooner, for he had no qualms about leaving a wife behind when he returned to where he must. But he had just met her this semester, and things were close to completion.

"What of the sabbatical you've been mentioning?" she asked. "Any decision on that yet?"

"I don't know. It depends on some research I'm doing right now."

"How far along is it?"

"I'll know after I've used some computer time I have coming."

"Soon?"

He glanced at his wristwatch and nodded.

"That soon?" she said. "If the indications are favorable...?"

He lit a cigarette.

"Then it could be this coming semester," he said.

"But you said that your contract was-"

"-in good order," he said. "But I didn't sign it. Not yet."

"You once told me you thought Quilian doesn't like you."

"He doesn't. He's old-fashioned. He thinks I spend too much time with computers and not enough in libraries."

She smiled.

"So do I."

"At any rate, I'm too popular a lecturer not to be offered a renewal."

"Then why didn't you sign it? Are you asking for more money?"

"No," he said. "But if I do ask for a sabbatical and he refuses, it will be fun to tell him to shove his contract. Not that I wouldn't sign one and walk out, if it would benefit my-research. But I would enjoy telling Doc Quilian where to put his offer."

She sipped her beer.

"Then you must be near to something important."

He shrugged.

"How did your seminar wind up?" he asked.

She laughed.

"You certainly stick in Professor Weather-ton's craw. He devoted most of the lecture to dismembering your Darkside Customs and Philosophies course."

"We disagree on many points, but he's never been darkside."

"He intimated that you haven't either. He agrees that it is a feudal society, and that some of its Lords may actually believe they possess direct control over everything in their realms. He dismisses the whole notion of their being loosely united in a Compact, based on a premise that the sky will fall if they do not maintain some sort of Shield by means of cooperating in magical endeavors."

"Then what keeps everything on that side of the world alive?"

"Somebody asked that question, and he said it was a problem for physical scientists, not social theorists. His personal opinion, though, was that it involved some sort of high altitude bleed-off from our force screens."

He snorted.

"I'd like to take him on a field trip sometime. His buddy Quilian, too."

"I know you've been darkside," she said. "In fact, I think your connection with it is even stronger than you say."

"What do you mean?"

"If you could see yourself now, you would know. It took me a long while to realize what it was, but when I noticed what gave you a strange appearance in places like this, it seemed obvious-it's your eyes. They are more light sensitive than any eyes I have ever seen before. As soon as you get out of the light and into a place like this, your pupils become enormous. There is only a faint line of color around them. And I noticed that the sunglasses you wear most of the time are far darker than ordinary ones."

"I do have an eye condition. They are quite weak, and bright lights irritate them."

"Yes, that's what I said."

He returned her smile.

He crushed out his cigarette, and as though this were a signal, a soft, sickening music slithered from out of a speaker set high on the wall above the bar. He took another drink of beer.

"I suppose Weatherton got in a few shots at the resurrection of bodies, too?"

"Yes."

And if I die here? he wondered. What will become of me? Will I be denied Glyve and return?

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Your nostrils flared. Your brows contracted."

"You study features too much. It's that awful music."

"I like looking at you," she said. "But let's finish and go to my place. I'll play you something different. There is a thing I want to show you and ask you about, too."

"What is it?"

"I'd rather wait."

"All right."

They finished their drinks, and he paid. They departed, his feelings of apprehension subsiding as they moved into the light he filtered.

They climbed the stairs and entered her third-floor apartment. Just over the threshold. she halted and made a small noise in the back of her throat.

He pushed past her, moving quickly to the left. Then he halted.

"What is it?" he asked, searching the room with his eyes.

"I'm sure I didn't leave the place like this. Those papers on the floor... I don't think that chair was over there. Or that drawer opened. Or the closet door..."

He moved back to her side, studied the lock for scratches, found none. He crossed the room then, and she heard a sound that could only be the clicking of a knife blade as he entered the bedroom.

After a moment he emerged, vanished into the other room, passed from there into the bathroom. When he reappeared, he asked her, "Was that window by the table opened the way it is now?"

"I think so," she said. "Yes, I guess it was."

He sighed. He examined the windowsill, then said, "A gust of wind probably blew your papers. As for the drawer and the closet, I'd bet you left them open yourself this morning. And you've probably forgotten about moving the chair."

"I'm a very orderly person," she said, closing the door to the landing; and when she turned she said, "But I guess you're right."

"Why are you nervous?"

She moved about the apartment, picking up papers.

"Where did you get that knife?" she asked him.

"What knife?"

She slammed the closet door, turned and glared at him.

"The one you had in your hand a minute ago!"

He extended his hands, palms forward.

"I have no knife. You may search me if you wish. You will not find a weapon."

She moved to the chest of drawers, closed the one which had been opened. Stooping, she opened a lower one and removed a newsprint-wrapped parcel.

"This is a part of it," she said. "Why am I nervous? This is why!"

She placed the parcel on the table and undid the strings which held it.

He moved to her side and watched as she unwrapped the papers. Inside were three very old books.

"I thought you'd taken those back already!"

"I intended to-"

"That was the agreement."

"I want to know where you obtained them and how."

He shook his head.

"We also agreed that if I were to recover them, you would not ask me those questions."

She placed the books side by side, then pointed at the spine of one and the cover of another.

"I am certain those were not there before," she said. "They are bloodstains, aren't they?"

"I don't know."

"I tried to wipe some of the smaller ones off with a damp tissue. What came off certainly looked like dried blood."

He shrugged.

"When I told you these books had been stolen from their cases in the Rare Books Room and you offered to recover them, I said, 'Okay'." She continued, "I agreed that if you could get them back. I'd see that it was an anonymous return. No questions. But I never thought this meant bloodshed. The stains alone would not have made me think that that is what happened. But then I began considering you and realized how little I actually know. That's when I began noticing things like your eyes and the quiet way that you move. I had heard that you were friendly with criminals-but then you had written some articles on criminology and were teaching a course on the subject. So it seemed in order at the time I heard it. Now I see you move through my rooms with a knife in your hand, presumably ready to kill an intruder. No book is worth a human life. Our agreement is off. Tell me what you did to get them."

"No," he said.

"I must know."

"You staged that scene when we walked in here just to see what I'd do, didn't you?"

She blushed.

Now I suppose she'll try to blackmail me into marrying her, he thought, if she thinks she can make this thing big enough.

"All right," he said, jamming his hands into his pockets and turning to stare out the window. "I found out who did it and had a talk with him. During the misunderstanding that followed, his nose got broken. He had the poor grace to bleed on the books. I couldn't get it all off."

"Oh," he heard her say; and then he turned and studied her face.

"That's all," he said.

He stepped forward then and kissed her. After a moment, she relaxed against him. For a time he massaged her back and shoulders, moved his hands to her buttocks.

Distraction complete, he decided, moving up along her rib cage and inward, slowly, toward the buttons of her blouse.

"I'm sorry." She sighed.

"That's all right," he said, unfastening them. "That's all right."

Later, while staring at a pillow through the curtain of her hair and analyzing his reactions to earlier events, he felt once again the nearing presence, this time so close that it almost seemed as if he were being watched. He glanced quickly about the room but saw nothing.

Listening to the sounds of traffic on the street below, he determined to be about his business soon, say in the space of a cigarette.

There came a sonic boom from overhead that rattled the window like a sudden hand.

Clouds, slowly gathering, obscured the sun somewhat. Knowing he was early, he parked his vehicle in the faculty lot and removed his heavy briefcase from the rear. The trunk of the car contained three heavy traveling bags.

He turned and began walking toward the far end of the campus. He felt a need to keep moving, to be ready to run if necessary. He thought of Morningstar at that moment, watching rocks and clouds and birds, feeling winds, rains, lightnings, and he wondered whether that one was instantly aware of every move he was making. He felt this to be so, and he wished that his friend were at hand to counsel him now. Did he know-or had he known for a long while- the outcome of what he was about to attempt?