Jack Of Shadows

He thought of the distant day when he had stood beside a rainpool and discussed his plight with his reflection there. He tried to see that dead self now-tired, thin, cold, hungry, sore- footed and smelling badly. All of the irritants were erased, except a small hunger just begi

"Morningstar," he said, opening the window and addressing the sky, "since you hear everything, hear this: I am no different than when last we spoke."

He laughed. "Is that good or bad?" he asked, the thought just occurring to him. He closed the window and considered the question. Not fond of introspection, he was nevertheless inquisitive.

He had noted changes in people during his stay at the university. It was most apparent in the students, and it occurred in such a brief time -that short span between matriculation and graduation. However, his colleagues had also altered in small ways which involved attitudes and sentiments. He alone had not changed. Is this something fundamental? he wondered. Is this part of the basic difference between a daysider and a darksider? They change and we do not. Is this important? Probably, though I do not see how. We have no need to change, and it seems that they do. Why? Length of life? Different approach to life? Possibly both. What value is there in change, anyway?

He turned off onto a seemingly deserted side road after the next news broadcast. This one had named him as wanted for questioning in co

Into the small fire he kindled, he tossed every piece of identification that he carried. While they burned, he opened his bag and refilled his wallet with fresh papers he had prepared several semesters earlier. He stirred the ashes and scattered them.

Carrying it across a field, he tore Quilian's raincoat in several places and tossed it into a gully where muddy waters rushed. Returning to the vehicle, he decided to trade it for another before very long.

Hurrying up the highway then, he reflected on the situation as he now understood it. The Borshin had killed Quilian and departed, doubt less as it had come, through the window. The reason for Quilian's presence there was known to the authorities, and Poindexter would verify his own presence on campus and his stated destination. Clare, and many others, could testify as to their disliking one another. The conclusion was obvious. Though he would have killed Quilian had the necessity arisen, he grew indignant at the thought of being executed for something he had not done. The situation reminded him of what had occurred at Igles, and he rubbed his neck half-consciously. The unfairness of it all smarted.

He wondered whether the Borshin in its frenzy of pain had thought it was slaying him or was merely acting to defend itself, knowing that he had escaped. How badly injured was it: He knew nothing of the creature' recuperative abilities. Was it even now seeking his trail, which it had followed for so long? Had the Lord of Bats sent it to find him, or was it following its own feelings, conditioned as it was to hate him? Shuddering, he increased his speed.

Once I'm back, it won't matter, he told himself.

But he wondered.

He obtained another vehicle on the far side of the next town he passed through. In it, he hurried toward Twilight, near the place where the bright bird had sung.

For a long while he sat on the hilltop cross-legged, reading. His clothing was dusty and there were rings of perspiration about the armpits; there was dirt beneath his fingernails, and his eyelids had a tendency to droop, close, spring open again. He sighed repeatedly and made notes on the papers he held. Faint stars shone above the mountains to the west.

He had abandoned his final vehicle many leagues to the east of his hilltop, continuing then on foot. It had been stalling and knocking for some time before it stopped and would not start again. Knowing then that he had passed the place where the rival Powers held truce, he stumbled on toward the darkness, taking only his briefcase. High places always suited him best. He had slept but once on his journey; and while it had been a deep, sound, dreamless sleep, he had begrudged his body every moment of it and vowed not to do it again until he had passed beyond the jurisdiction of men. Now that he had done so, there was but one thing more before he would allow himself to rest.

Scowling, he turned the pages, located what he sought, made a marginal notation, returned to the place of the original markings.

It seemed to be right. It seemed almost to fit...

A cool breeze crossed the hilltop, bringing with it wild scents that he had all but forgotten in the cities of men. Now it was the stark light of the Everyday, not the smells and noises of the city, not the files and ranks of faces in his classrooms, not the boring meetings, not the monotonous sounds of machinery, not the obscene brightness of colors that seemed a receding dream. These pages were its only token. He breathed the evening, and the back translation he had made from the print-out leaped toward his eyes and quickened within his mind like a poem suddenly understood.

Yes!

His eyes sought the havens and found the white, unblinking star that coursed them.

He rose to his feet with his fatigue forgotten. With his right foot he traced a brief pattern in the dirt. Then he pointed a finger at the satellite and read the words that he had written upon the papers he held.

For a moment nothing happened.

Then it stood still.

Silent now, he continued to point. It grew bright and began to increase in size.

Then it flared like a shooting star and was gone.

"A new omen," he said and then smiled.

9

WHEN THE DAMNED thing entered High Dudgeon, it swept from chamber to chamber in search of its Lord. When it located him at last, casting sulfur into a pool of mercury in the center of an octagonal room, it obtained his attention and suspended itself from the outstretched finger he offered. It conveyed to him then, in its own fashion, the news that it had borne.

With this he turned, performed a curious act involving a piece of cheese, a candle and a feather and departed the chamber.

He removed himself to a high tower and for a long while there regarded the east. Quickly then, he turned and studied the only other avenue in his keep-the westnorth.

Yes, there too! But it was impossible.

Unless, of course, it was an illusion...

He mounted a stair that wound widder-shins about the wall, opened a trapdoor, and climbed outside. Raising his head, he studied the great black orb bright stars all about it; he sniffed the wind. Looking downward, he regarded the massive, sprawled keep that was High Dudgeon, raised by his own power shortly after his creation upon this mountaintop. When he had learned the difference between the created and the born and had discovered that his power was centered at this point in space, he had sucked power up into him through the roots of the mountain and drawn it down in a whirlwind from the heavens, so that he had glowed, dazzling, like a struck lightning rod, and engaged in creation himself. If his power resided here, then this place was to be his home, his fortress. And so it was. Those who would do him ill had died and so had learned their lessons, or they darted the Ever-dark on leathery wings till they earned his favor. The latter he saw sufficiently well-tended so that upon their release into the manform, many had elected to remain in his service. The other Powers, perhaps as strong as he in their own ways, in their own spheres, had troubled him little once suitable boundaries had been established.