Book 2 - She Is The Darkness by Glen Cook Page A

his discomfort. Maybe
One-Eye was not taking care of his physical needs well enough. I
had best check. After I ran my circuit.
    I went out and watched the Taglian brushfire crackle through
feeble Shadowlander defenses. The southerners were still groggy
from the earthquake. Many places their collapse was so swift it had
no chance to become a rout.
    Confused reports began to reach Mogaba at Charandaprash. He
relayed them to Longshadow. The Shadowmaster remained convinced
that we could not manage a major winter offensive, that this was
just another of Croaker’s clever attempts to direct attention
away from what he was really doing.
    Longshadow was getting his reports without help from Howler. The
misshapen, tortured little sorcerer seemed to be on vacation. I
could not find him.
    Narayan Singh and the Daughter of Night were holed up in a
Strangler tagalong encampment near Mogaba’s main force at
Charandaprash. I am not sure why but the child caught my interest.
I began to roam back and forth in time, studying her. I grew
troubled. I had found something the Old Man needed to know.
    His daughter had some way of scrying distant events, though not
as intimately as Smoke did. So far nobody, not even Singh, was
listening to her, but they would when Narayan realized that all her
vague oracles hit their marks.
    She seemed to go into a trance each time. I wanted to study that
more closely but Smoke rebelled. And this time I am not sure I
blamed him. That child had an aura about her that made you shudder
and think of tombs and things best left buried even out there in
the emotionless space that Smoke walked.
    Lady was far to the south of Dejagore, pushing herself and her
soldiers. She looked extremely haggard, though hardly showing her
age since she makes One-Eye look like a pup. Willow Swan, with the
Royal Guards, was in her train, as was the Prahbrindrah Drah, who
claimed he had to be there in order to coordinate his efforts with
hers. I do not think he fooled anyone but himself. Lady was short
enough of temper that she did not put up with any moon eyed crap
from anybody.
    Swan was troubled. The Prince was baffled. I eavesdropped on
several conversations where they tried to reason out what was
bothering Lady. They came up with no ideas and Lady offered no
clues herself. Once again she was content to keep the bleakness and
pain of her interior world to herself.
    I supposed after a life as long as hers, as alone, as tormented
when she was the wife of the Dominator, coming out and petitioning
the help of lesser beings seemed pointless, though she was one of
us maggots herself, now. More or less.
    In defiance of all that was known by amateurs and experts alike,
her lost powers had been coming back for years. She was not the
Lady who had built the empire up north, so strong she kept ten like
the Howler on leashes, as hounds to bay before her and do her dark
bidding, but she was strong enough to trouble Howler and Longshadow
and, I am sure, her sister Soulcatcher.
    That was another wedge that had come between Croaker and Lady.
The Old Man does not trust the side of her that loves the darkness.
She had been too intimate with it for too long.
    He fears losing her. I am afraid he is driving her away because
he is not dealing with his fears very well.
    Lady was becoming the terror of all who resisted her advance,
that was certain. That advance was crueler than the earthquake
wherever anyone fought back.
    I found my Company brethren in the thick of the action
everywhere, leading this band or that. Their Nyueng Bao bodyguards
stayed busy. Though they were weak after years of being hunted down
by Croaker and Lady, the Deceivers were aptly named. Those who
remained alive were the most skilled of their kind and they shunned
no opportunity to strike at the Company in honor of their
goddess.
    Though Mogaba had several thousand horsemen moving north they
were not yet involved in the fighting. Of Shadowlander forces in
the regions being swamped only