Jack Of Shadows

"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 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 pi

"Well, I ca

"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 ru

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 pla

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 begi

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.

7

HE HAD FELT the begi

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 interco