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CHILD OF DARKNESS

An introduction to "Child of Darkness"

This is the first complete story I ever wrote. You should know that, although I've fantasized about Jame and her world ever since childhood, I only got up the courage to commit said stories to paper after college. That was when I decided that I either had to realize my life-long ambition to be a writer or I had to do something else with my life. So I started writing, rather like someone throwing herself head first over a cliff.

If I had waited to know everything about this epic, I would never have written about it at all.

As it was, I tackled Jame as best I could, putting her in a familiar context—college, during the Vietnam protests, which in science fiction terms translated into a post-WWIII dystopian world. The rationale for this was that there must be more worlds down the Chain of Creation and that Jame, in fleeing Perimal Darkling, had over-shot Rathillien and crash-landed in the next world down the Chain—a world created by the Kencyrath's failure to stop Perimal Darkling in Rathillien. It was, if you like, an alternate history. I don't know if it will ever come to exist.

P. C.

 

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"The moon is blue, Sam," said Tania's voice on the 'phone.

"Oh God," I said. "Tonight? D'you know what it's like outside—or in here, for that matter? There are uncracked text tapes stacked to the ceiling, I have a decade of post-holocaust pounce and counter-pounce to get straight, my lecture notes up to the midquarter have disappeared and the farking exam is in two days! Complications I don't need!"

"It's still blue. Please, Sam."

I threw the recorder at the bed, missed, hit the wall. Sounds of chaos in a plastic shell. So much for the rest of the notes.

"Awright, awright . . . hey! Who says?"

"Jame," she said, and clicked off.

Samuel!, I thought to myself, what the hell? First St. John tells us to sit snug for the night, which makes sense on finals' eve, and now Jame is calling the pack out via Tania, who's using the emergency code for the first time since—when? The cafeteria riots? What gives?

Only one way to find out.

Next-of-kin updated with dorm security, I set off at a trot on the rim walk, bound for St. John's apartment on the other side of the central forest, staying close to the security posts.

Hard to b'lieve there used to be a stu b'hind each of those visored stone faces. Get boxed once too often and the brain goes like mashed pseudo-spuds. Admin loves veggies. Just re-psych 'em a bit, pump in loyalty to the government, and turn 'em loose to guard the buildings. Instant camp-cop. I could have been sliced n' diced in front of one and he wouldn't have lifted a paw to help me. But he would have reported the tom with the blade. Maybe only failing exams and wasting Admin property will get you boxed, but murder loses you credits. Therefore, killings on the walk are rare, even if pouncings aren't.

Not that it was any night to trust logic. Prefinal weeks are always hairy, and this one had been worse than any since that blue moon night six quarters ago when a whole norm pack had disappeared without a trace in the forest and Mang the Knifer, come to collect Jame Talissen for Sid Dillon's harem, made the mistake of trying to tomcat some for himself. That was when our Jame started their private war on a high note by somehow slashing him 'cross the face in four places at once and putting out his right eye. On a night just like this . . .

Sam, my boy, I said to myself, these are fine thoughts for a lone tom out rim walking on finals' eve. Switch channels b'fore you go wobbly. Click back to the call.

Ours wasn't so much a pack as "an interdependent defense unit" (St. John's term). If we were rallying, tonight of all nights, it was b'cause one of us had hit grief. Question was, who?

Ammie? Our weakest link, poor kit. Last finals, she came in a point too low on an exam—first time in her life—and the punishment box they stuffed her into turned out to be defective. Mishaps will eventuate, says Admin. Huh. St. John loved her b'fore the accident, still did afterward, so far as we could tell. As for Ammie, everything but St. John just sort of faded out of her world. Poor pretty kitten. Maybe poor St. John too.

But if it was Ammie, why didn't St. John call himself, and why pull in the entire pack?

Figured the other way, what emergency could Jame have that she'd want us involved in? She was of the pack, but didn't always run with it, if you get what I mean. If she was a tom's friend, she'd stand by him 'til the sky fell; but if she needed help herself, would she go to him for it? Not our Jame. A strange, wild kitten, that, even for a Kennie. Half-feral, St. John used to say. No one handed her grief for the fun of it.

So this was serious.

So what did you expect, microceph? And here you are tooling 'long the scenic route when a packmate—never mind which one—needs you.

So I cut off the pavement, down the slope, and into the trees. Like I said, it was no night for logic.

Spent the first mile dodging packs. This being exam eve, most of them were prowling the woods for game or holding circuses in their own territory. When one of those toms knows that, barring a miracle, he's in for a full tour in the box come next week for failing every exam on the sheet tomorrow, no way is he going to waste time cracking texts the night before the ceiling falls. All he wants is to forget, and friend, if he latches onto you as a diversion, you've had it.

The farther in I got, though, the quieter it b'came. First, the distant cry of packs faded out, then the wind, then even the insect hum. Dark, silent, spooky. Me, I'm a city-bred tom, used to prowling the levels from the top where most people live down to the haunted substrats and their piles of bones. Had never even seen a tree b'fore I hit campus. Was just deciding to take my chances back in pack territory when I stumbled into the clearing at the forest's center. Lordy, it felt good to be under open sky again. Over the treetops, the lights of the taller buildings ringed the forest. They were real to me, y'see; the clearing and woods weren't, what with their silence like a sponge and the ground littered with growing patches of mist.

Then I saw it, coming up between the horns of the science complex and by God, Tania was right: it was livid as a drowned man's skin and pocked with white mold. The clearing got brighter and brighter, 'til it seemed to glow. The moon, the blue moon.

Something cold touched my ankles. The mist was flowing sluggishly out of the tree shadows and into the clearing, and it glowed too. But there was no wind . . .

Next thing I knew, I was 'cross the open space and half way through the woods on the other side. Seems I ran straight through Duley's boo-juice loonies somewhere en route without even noticing, much less saying hello—something I'd normally do, they being 'bout the only decent norm pack on campus. Didn't stop at all 'til my knees gave out on the steps of St. John's dorm.

* * *

TWO MINUTES LATER and fifteen stories up, Tania met me at the apartment door, stricken-eyed.

"What is it?" I said, hearing my voice skitter upward. "What's happened?"

Lancaster popped up b'hind her. "Quiet!" he hissed at me, loud enough to loosen plaster.

There was a thud in the other room and the sound of bare feet running. Tania shrank back against me as Ammie burst through the inner doorway. The smile on her face looked as if it were held up by poor tape, and in her hand was a med-kit needler with the three-inch hypo out, gleaming cold.

For a second, we just stared. Then Lancaster screeched and dove for cover b'hind the sofa, nearly colliding with Miri who'd been perched there and was now en route out the window, anti-grav pack whining. Ammie spun 'round once, lost world eyes skimming the room. Then she focused on the open hall door (with Tania and me still in it) and started for it, the needle in her hand tracing a silver arc b'fore her.

Jame appeared in the bedroom door, rubbing her elbow.

"Watch the door!" she called to me.

I took a deep breath and pushed Tania ahead of me into the room, keeping both hands on her shoulders in case I had to shove her clear. Wasn't necessary. Soon as the light hit my face, Ammie pulled up short, her smile crumbling. The needler hit the floor. A moment later she was down too, hands over her face, sobbing. Then Jame was on her knees beside her, arms 'round her shoulders. They stayed like that for a minute b'fore Jame picked up the instrument and got Ammie back on her feet.

I couldn't help b'cause of Tania. When Ammie folded, so did she, or would have if I hadn't caught her. Soon as the two kittens had disappeared into the bedroom, I put her in the room's only chair, liberated, like the sofa, from some stu lounge. She was shaking fit to fall apart. We were always afraid that campus life would kill her sooner or later. No empath, even one who only felt for half the population, had ever lasted through graduation. We might have lost her then and there if the crying in the other room hadn't suddenly died.

Jame came out of the bedroom, sheathing the needler.

"What kind of circus was that?" I asked her. "And who took the bite out of your elbow?"

"The floor," she said, glancing down at raw skin. "Ammie heard you at the door, pounced for the needler, and knocked me off the bed. You needn't laugh. Not now, anyway. St. John is dead."

"You don't know that!" It was Lancaster, up from b'hind the furniture and shriller than ever. "Two anonymous messages, and for that you call us out on finals' eve? Dammit, I have a final tomorrow afternoon!"

"And I have one in the morning," says Jame, cold as the Dean's heart. "The pack comes first. Sam, are you all right?" Guess I looked pretty green. "W-what happened?"

"He answered a call from the Under-Earth hours ago," said Miri from the window ledge, breathless as always, "and then someone 'phoned Jame and Ammie to say he was dead, so when Ammie heard you she must have thought he'd come home after all, and grabbed the needler to take to him like she always does with shiny things, and that's all we know . . . all!"

Jame had been leaning 'gainst the wall, gloved fingertips pressed 'gainst her eyes. Now she looked up. "Where are the rest of us?"

"Tsuma is in sanctuary at the library," said Tania's small, bleached-out voice from the bottom of the chair. "The Spider is on duty at the comp center. St. John is . . . "

"WE DON'T KNOW THAT!"

It was nearly a scream. Seeing that Jame had never learned to suffer nerps gladly, and looked ready to explode in this one's face, I jumped in fast: "So what do we do now?"

"First," glaring at Lancaster, "we don't panic. Second, we verify. Tsuma and the Spider are safe enough for now. You two stay here until we get back. Miri, if you go out, keep to the air."

"And me?" I said, afraid I was going to get left parked under a table somewhere.

"If you're willing, you run with me. To verify." The half smile turned grim. "Alive or dead, St. John is coming home tonight."

* * *

TEN MINUTES LATER we were in the forest, traveling fast. We didn't meet any interference that trip, for a wonder: no hunting packs, and still no noise. Every time we came to one of those slow mist streams, Jame either detoured 'round or jumped over it. That made me feel better 'bout getting the fur up b'fore.

Watching how that kitten moved made me wonder how anyone could not know she was a Kennie, but then people didn't know much 'bout the Kencyrath in those days. Most folks thought it was just one of the mutie groups that popped up after the war. Me, I guessed different. Splintered as humanity had b'come, the Kencyrath was . . . something else again, with its own caste system, fight form, and even god. I'd run with enough Kennies in the city to know that much. Still, Jame Talissen threw me. Everything I'd come to expect in a Kennie she had: the lithe build, night-sighted eyes, and fine hands; the parallel streaks of honor and violence. But every trait was stronger or stranger in a way I couldn't quite nail down. It made me wonder if I really knew the Kennies at all.

I was thinking 'bout that and watching Jame when my foot sank into a patch of mist and I pitched forward flat on my face. Jame was crouching b'side me quick as a blink. Concern disappeared b'hind that solemn mask she usually wore to hide laughter, soon as she saw I was all right.

"Gotta watch that, Samuel," she said. "It's much too early for broken necks. Save that for later. C'mon."

She took my hand. We ran the rest of the way to the Pit.

The Pit. Just a gaping hole in the ground from the top. At night, just another big, black shadow. Easy enough to step right over the edge. Plenty of toms bought a straight ticket to the Under-Earth that way and arrived terminally zonkers. Not necessary. Not if you knew the footholds. Jame did, and so did St. John. They'd been drug runners to the Under-Earth for twelve quarters, altogether. Wasn't the sort of job they could do by daylight, either, what with all the rules 'gainst helping the Earthers in any way, most of all by smuggling in bootleg medicine swiped from the Center. Would have been a force ten box for sure if they'd ever been caught.

We sent down slow and easy that night, past the soil layer with its tree roots groping out like frozen snakes, past the plastisteel shell that supports the whole campus, down into the stagnant air of the Under-Earth.

Heights freak me, so I didn't rubberneck, much as I would have liked to. See, this was my first trip Earthside. The place used to be a living museum—y'know, a community preserved the way it had been back maybe two hundred years ago, b'fore the world went mad. Everything else like it had been razed to make way for new layers of the city. This town held out as long as it could. Then the 'versity made its proposition: the town would have its protection and patronage, plus access to the woods the 'versity meant to plant topside, if the locals would let their whole valley be roofed over and the new school built on top. Maybe greed got them; maybe they were just plain tired of fighting the zoning board. Anyway, they agreed. The dome was put up and an artificial sun was hung under it. Things went fine 'til the war. Then the school was knocked out of business, the access tube in the Pit destroyed, the sun extinguished, and the people Earthside died by the thousands, in the dark.

But not all of them. A few survived, and their descendants, warped by decades of darkness, radiation, and interbreeding, were the ones we called the Firsters. Weren't many of them left, and those weren't what you'd call the best of company.

I was running over that in my mind and wondering if I shouldn't be climbing up that pile of debris twice as fast as I was coming down it when my foot hit solid earth and I knew it was too late for second thoughts, however intelligent. We'd arrived.

All I could see at first was more debris and some big rectangular holes in the ground, each one with a faint, cold light gleaming up from its depths. We were standing 'mid the ruins left when the houses nearest the bottom of the Pit had been razed to make the huge mound down which we'd just climbed. Only the basements were left. Beyond, however, rose the phosphorescent outline of buildings.

Minutes later we were trekking down main street b'tween rows of black decaying houses and skeletons of trees straining up into the darkness. Dome was so far up, it couldn't be seen. Everywhere there were little streams of water like luminous slugs crawling through the dark weeds, and the death light of fungus, and the choking smell of rot. Everywhere, the mist bubbling up in the hollows slow and thick as pus, doors gaping black, glowing veins of mold on sagging walls, dust-dim windows showing items the peelings signs above never promised to sell, curtains held together with spider webs, eyes.

I saw the faces at the windows, white and still as the dead, watching us pass. They b'longed to the toms, yeah, and the kittens too, who had opted out. When they saw they didn't stand a chance of ever graduating free and clear and that the only alternatives left were a) to contract out to the government, thereby b'coming twenty year slaves, b) to hang on here 'til the box turned their brains to mush and the psych people got hold of them, or c) to die, and b'come med center property, they chose to drop out and down. Earthside, they never had to worry 'bout another exam, the box, the packs, or stuffing their kids under the bed every time there was a noise in the hall. It also meant they would never walk free in the topside world again. Since one of the 'versity's main purposes was to keep all the younglings under its thumb 'til they could be tied into the new society one way or another, isn't surprising that Admin didn't feel kindly to the ones that skipped out by going Under-Earth. The Earthers were nothing but vermin to it, and we all knew that sooner or later it would move 'gainst them. That was in those watching eyes, too: suspicion, hate, anger. The weight of it bit into my shoulders.

"Has it occurred to you that this isn't the safest place to be?" I asked Jame.

"Relax. No one's going to pounce us."

"Su-u-ure. I bet St. John told himself the same thing."

"St. John must not have had an escort. We do. Look."

I looked, and then, back b'hind the rows of houses, I saw them. Kids, dozens of Earther kids, white faces, huge eyes, skinny bare legs, skimming through the ruins of backyards, never making a sound, never taking their eyes off of us. They looked hungry. I tried to ignore them.

Then we came to the edge of town, with the rank, rolling fields freckled with corpse lights stretching out before us up to the mountain that ran into darkness to meet the horizon of the dome. Last house out was a big, brick one, nearly invisible under luminous mold. Its door stood open.

"We're expected," Jame told me. "Don't say a word once we're inside. He's been having one holy hell of a time lately, and there's no telling what he might do if you cross him."

Only one tom she could mean by that: Rimmon, lord of the Under-Earth. St. John had told me 'bout him. He'd been one of the brightest toms on campus with less than a quarter to go when he killed Sid Dillon's brother by accident in a pack clash. After that, it was either turn Earther or zonker, so he came b'low. Took up mushrooming, then organizing. Pretty soon, he had the whole territory under his paw. Drove out the Firsters, gave the place the first order it had had since the war. Then he caught the optic rot and went blind. He wasn't such a bad tom, according to Jame, but pain made him unpredictable, and sometimes vicious.

At first, it looked as if the house was empty. Just big rooms soft with dry rot, lit by murals of luminous lichen. Then there he was motionless in a corner, a tall skeleton of a man all in black, stretched out on a pile of silver grey rat skins. A scarf was wound tight 'round his eyes. Threads of mycelium crept out from under it and down over cheekbones near sharp enough to cut the paper white skins stretched over them. The minute I saw him, I guessed something St. John hadn't told me. Jame clinched it when she gave him a formal salute and said in Kens, "Honor to you, lord."

"And to you, Shanir," said the Highborn. Clipped words, the last one almost spat out. Jame went wary-eyed. "So, my runner found you."

"No runner, just a voice on the 'phone. Is it true, then?"

"Yes. I didn't know he was Earthside 'til one of my hunters found him. This was in his back." He reached into the furs, keeping his head still as a skull nailed on a post, and drew out a knife. Heavy blade, notched hilt, ugly.

Jame took it. Something in her face b'tween skin and bone seemed to twist. "And the body?" she asked, very softly.

"Gone. It was being held for you near the Pit, but the camp-cops staged a surprise raid and snatched it."

"He doesn't miss a twist," Jame said bitterly. "St. John dead, Ammie threatened, and now this. He's playing mouse with me. Well, we can play a game or two ourselves."

She bent over and whispered something in Rimmon's ear. The tom's head jerked back, anger or surprise, couldn't tell which, turning to a hiss of pain as his hands shot up to the bandage. Jame's gloved fingers were over his in a second. No emp could have reacted faster.

"It can't be done," he said, voice taut. "Not even by you, not even tonight, not even with the help of that filthy book. Don't try, Jame. You, of all people, know there are worse things than death."

That was too much for me. "Listen," I said to both of them, "will someone please tell me what's going on? I haven't scanned even half of all this."

The eyeless face lifted and turned on me.

"So . . . the little friend can talk."

Then he was speaking to me in Kens, so low I could hardly hear. Was as if the air 'round me was thickening, pressing in, and the darkness of the room b'gan to blur. Call it sorcery or high psi. All I know is that the words were in my ears, in my brain, and I was going blind.

Jame caught my arm. "Stop it!" I heard her say, sharp as bones breaking. "Is it his fault he can see and you can't? Leave him alone!"

Rimmon laughed, and the pressure was gone so suddenly that my knees almost buckled. Jame steadied me.

"Idiot," she hissed in my ear. "I told you to keep quiet." Then, to Rimmon, "Well? Will you do it?"

His mouth relaxed into a wry grimace. "If I can't hinder, I may as well help." The hands sketched a ritual gesture of submission, half mocking. "As you will, Shanir."

Again the salute, colder this time. "You honor me, lord. Honor be to you. C'mon, Sam."

She'd just turned to go when Rimmon's hand shot out and clamped on her elbow, and I nearly went for his throat, like a Pekinese after a cobra.

"If things go wrong tomorrow," he said to her in a low voice, "come back to me. Here you'll be welcome, and safe."

His whisper followed us out of the dark room, dry, rustling, almost gentle: "Be careful, Shanir."

* * *

"YOU KNOW WHO KILLED St. John, don't you?" I said to Jame as we headed back through the dead city, again with our escort keeping pace.

No answer, to that or any other question I bounced off her, all the way to the Pit and up the mound of debris. Don't think she even heard me.

Then, topside, with the black woods leaning in on us and the full moon staring down, "Samuel," she says, "I have an errand for you. Go to my room and find the Book Bound in Pale Leather. Bring it to St. John's apartment. If I'm not back in two hours, try to burn it, then do what you can for Ammie." She was almost under the trees b'fore I got back enough wits to shout after her.

"Hey! At least tell me what's going to happen tomorrow!" For a second she hesitated, slim and white in the shadows. Then, "Dissection exams," she said, and was gone.

Sweet Trinity, of course. Where do zonkers go? To the morgue. Why? So that med students, like Jame, can cut them, like for a dissection exam. Jame had some bad enemies high up, those days, as well as some unlikely friends. They'd give her St. John to cut, and she wouldn't, and then it would be the box for sure. They'd make sure she never left it sane, like poor Ammie.

* * *

IT TOOK ME MAYBE FIVE MINUTES to reach Jame's dorm, and longer to find the book, which turned out to be tucked all nice and snug in her bed. When the room's cool air hit it, the little white hairs studding its pale binding bristled. I picked it up, and nearly dropped it again: the damn thing seemed to have a pulse. Not liking the feel of it at all, I found an old knapsack and gingerly poked the book into it.

I was headed back for St. John's by the rim path with that damned book heavy on my back when memory suddenly zapped me. Only one tom on campus sported a blade like the one that had killed St. John, notched for every cat he'd cut: Mang. Right then and there, I knew damn farking well where Jame had gone.

Guess I just stopped thinking then. In fact, guess I just plain panicked b'cause the next thing I knew, I was tearing through the forest, crashing into bushes, falling over roots, swearing with all the spare breath I had at Jame, Mang, myself, the whole farking campus—in short making one hell of a racket.

Oh, I paid for it, all right. You don't just go galloping through the central forest on finals' eve.

First thing I heard was the distant whine of anti-gravs. Then eyes of light blinked at me b'tween the trees. B'fore I could take cover, they were on top of me and I was on the ground fighting for breath in a circle of screaming plats and roars of laughter. Just when I thought I'd start screaming myself, something grabbed me by the collar, jerked me up on my toes. The plats skidded to a stop, all their lights on me, or rather, on us, b'cause I was dangling, half strangling, from the fist of a farking giantess.

Which figured. All Tungia women are huge, and Mama's platform racers seldom rode with anyone not of Tungia stock. Nor did they have much use for any tom, there being no Tung males, unless he was at least as big as St. John.

"What're you doin' out so late, tomkin?" said a big, lazy voice. "Jame Talissen should keep her squire in on a night like this."

Then my eyes cleared and I saw that it was Mama herself who had hold of me. Mad as I was at being called "tomkin," much less anyone's squire, this was one Tung I didn't mind seeing. Like I said, our Jame had the damnest friends. So I spilled the whole story to this one, but fast. When I got to the solo raid I thought Jame was making on Sid Dillon's headquarters, Mama gave a rumbling chuckle.

"Trust little sister to go after the biggest game," she said.

"B-but she's going to get cooled!"

Mama cocked her head and stared at me, amused. "You got to learn 'bout Jame Talissen," she said. "Now there's one kitten with claws. But if that's Mang's blade, she may finally be takin' on too much, and if Jame don't help me cram for the English exam Tuesday morning, sure as Dillon's a one-balled tom I'll be boxed come Wednesday morning. So okay." She slapped me on the back, damn near knocking me off my feet. "We go see 'bout rescuing the hellcat . . . if she needs it."

Someone in the darkness let off a whoop, and the plats came on with a tooth-jarring whine. Mama jerked me up b'hind her on her machine. Wasn't much standing room, b'lieve me, or any power to spare. Somehow, though, we made it without bumping ground or breaking necks to the fire-gutted gym Dillon's pack used as a rally point. The lower windows were boarded up, so we had to climb up a fire escape to the fourth level to get a good look-see inside.

Sure enough, there was Jame, standing alone in the circle of a spotlight, with the pack all 'round her in the shadows and Dillon himself lounging in his big chair up on the balcony. The notched knife was in his hands.

"Eh," said Mama in my ear. "That's big game, all right. Listen, tomkin, I'm gonna try something." She pulled an enormous knife out of her belt and shoved it into my hands. "You stay put," she said, and disappeared down the ladder. I used the thing's point to pry open the window.

Dillon was laughing, gently tilting the blade back and forth so that the light blazed off of it. A soft, almost pretty face that tom had, but the laughter made something nasty of it.

"Vicious, but not stupid," he said, still smiling at the knife. "Oh my, oh my. Your faith in my intelligence is touching, love, but vicious? You're half right, though: I didn't have anything to do with cooling St. John." Then, to the shadows below: "Mang, its your blade and your score. You want to say something?"

The pack made room for him. He stepped out into the circle of light and grinned at Jame. I could see the four parallel scars running down his face, and the drooping eyelid. She turned to meet him, moving smooth on her feet as silk on ice, into the first patterns of the Senethar fight form.

"Seems to me," she said in a low voice, "we've gone beyond the conference stage. Wouldn't you say so, Mang?"

"Could be, kitten, could be. But I still want to talk."

It was the slow drawl of a tom who has the whip hand and enjoys it. He was circling her now, thumbs hooked in his belt, head cocked sideways, still with that damn insolent grin on his ruined face.

"Haven't seen much of you lately. If I was the suspicious sort, I might think you didn't like me anymore, but I know better than that. You been waitin' just like me, waitin' for another nice moonlit night, waitin' to be free."

His hand stretched out, nails jagged and black, as though to stoke her face. She glided out of his reach, almost but not quite in a wind blowing move. His fingers slid through her hair as she turned. He laughed, a mean, oily, not quite sane sound.

"I must have been right, 'cause now that you're free, here you are. How's life been treatin' you, kitten? You got any griefs? 'Cause if things aren't just right, I want to fix them. This is our night, pretty eyes."

"It was St. John's night too, before some brave tom knifed him in the back, and Ammie's until a 'phone call caved in her world," said Jame, still turning with him, slow and easy in the patterns of the form. Her voice was steady, even pleasant, 'cept for an odd, throaty undertone getting stronger by the minute. "So many games, and it's still so long 'til dawn. Why do I get this feeling that we've barely begun?"

" 'Cause you're smart, baby, just like I always said. This is just the start. How many in that pack you run with? Eight? Nine. One for each scar and four for the eye, and you know who goes first? Yeah, St. John's bonkers mouse. Only you won't be there to see it."

He snapped his fingers. Something flashed down to him, to be caught with the sharp slap of steel on flesh. From the balcony, a low, hungry laugh. The blade with the notched hilt burned bright in his hand.

All 'round them, there was a rustling in the shadows, a swaying forward as the eyes moved in. They thought they had her. They could almost taste the blood. Jame looked at Mang over the weaving point of the knife and b'gan to smile.

"Oh brave, brave tom," she said, and her voice was a deep rumbling purr that made my very bones shake. "I was going to save you for someone else, I really was, but not now. Come dance with me, lover. This is our night."

And she b'gan to take off her gloves.

It occurred to me then that I'd never seen her hands without them. When the first one came off, I understood at last how she'd scarred Mang so badly. By the time the second one had hit the floor, I knew that, whatever Jame Talissen was, she wasn't quite human, and it didn't matter at all.

They circled and circled while the pack strained forward and Dillon stared down, sharp, white teeth gleaming in the shadows, tongues licking dried lips. Death was a flicker of steel and ten long, curved fingers; a ragged leer and a half smile as thin and inhuman as the edge of any blade.

Then he lunged, and the lights went out.

For a second, there was silence. Then the big room turned into a madhouse. Could hear Mang shrieking "Get her! Get her!" in the dark. I jammed the point of Mama's knife under the window and wrenched it open. Wasn't thinking at all as I scrambled through and started down the wall. Window ledges are good as a ladder to a city bred tom. My heart was banging so hard I could hardly breathe. Then I was on the edge of the crowd. Something bumped 'gainst my arm and I slashed at it. It shrieked. Pushing my way toward the center of the room, I stumbled 'gainst someone else and raised the blade again in a dead panic. A hand caught my wrist in mid-air and Jame's voice hissed in my ear, "You idiot!"

She half dragged me through the pack and straight to the only door, something only a Kennie could have managed. It was locked. Jame swore under her breath, then suddenly stopped and gave a fierce little chuckle. I heard her scratch lightly 'gainst the wood panels. It swung open at once. She shoved me through. A Tung shut it after us and went back to leaning 'gainst it casual as if it were a tree trunk.

Jame turned on me. "You idiot!" she said again, really mad. "You could have gotten us both killed!"

That was when I saw the thin line of blood angling down her cheek just b'low the right eye to the edge of the chin.

"Hey, I didn't cut you, did I?"

"The way you were swinging," she said sourly, touching the red line with a fingertip, "it's a miracle you didn't decapitate me. But no, this isn't your work. The next time you pull the switch on me, don't do it in the middle of an attack, huh? It's damn distracting."

"Wasn't the tomkin's fault," said a voice behind us, and there was Mama. "Never mind the scratch—did you score?"

"Did you give me a chance to? Just the same, it was a pretty good try, considering that all the help was left footed. Sam, sorry I snapped at you, but these fits of heroism you've been having recently are beginning to scare the hell out of me."

"You should talk! What kind of bonkers idea was that anyway, taking on a whole pack single-handedly? Suicidal you've been b'fore, but never stupid."

"I know, I know," she said, looking disgusted. "I think we're all going crazy. Mang pounces St. John, I pounce a pack, and you, apparently, pounce anything that moves. Where is it all going to end?"

"Awright," said Mama. "Next play. Want us to step in on Dillon?" Her face lit up. "Be the biggest crash since Melba fell outta bed."

"Be spectacular, all right," Jame agreed. "Who am I to hinder great deeds? Fine time crash or not, Mang is going to want out. Keep the whole pack corked up here until the moon hits zenith, say, about three hours from now, then start the party. But make sure that he gets away."

I yelped. She hit me in the ribs with her elbow.

"I want to arrange for him to meet someone, and I need the extra time. How does that scan?"

"Rocky," Mama said, frowning, "but okay. Most of the time, you know what you're doin. Just don't get singed. And hang on to that squire of yours," she added, b'ginning to grin again. "He's small, but he's prime."

* * *

JAME WOULDN'T TAKE the offered plat, wouldn't even let Mama send one of her people with us. She said she wanted to move fast, without the risk of cracking up on one or being held back by the other. Well, we moved all right. By then, I'd learned that the nastier things got, the quicker our kitten liked to tackle them. Just the same, by that time I'd been fed one more mystery than I could swallow. That was why, on top of a long slope with a pool of seething mist at the bottom, I caught her arm and made her stop.

"Does this seem like the right time or place for a conference?" she demanded.

"Right place or not, if I don't clear up some of these things now I may never get another chance. Maybe being used for target practice doesn't bother you, but me, I'm the sensitive type. I figure I've got a right to know b'fore someone gets lucky and cools me for good."

"They wouldn't take pot shots if you didn't bounce around begging for it," she said sourly. "All right, ask, and ask fast."

My chance at last. Samuel, I says to myself, blow this and I'll never talk to you again.

"So okay. Tonight I've seen your hands and Rimmon has called you 'Shanir.' That's a term I've run into before. Every time I asked 'bout it though, your people mumbled something 'bout children of darkness and changed the subject fast."

" 'Name not the thing of power,' " said Jame, probably quoting from Book of the Law, " 'lest it destroy you.' "

"Is that what you are, a 'thing of power?' "

"Tonight we find out. All right, this is how it goes: the norms have the muties; the Kencyrath have the Shanir, only the latter aren't something new. Just the opposite. To be one is to be of the Old Blood, to have certain traits that most Kencyr have lost, to be closer to certain forces."

"Ah ha," I said. "Then that would mean . . .

But that was as far as I got, b'cause at that moment part of the sky fell on us with a shriek.

It was Miri. Her people may be light enough to lift off with an anti-grav pack, but their brains are 'bout as solid as their bones. Our pigeon had gotten her fields crossed and was flying more or less upside-down. Jame made a leap for her right leg, I for her left, and b'tween us we pulled them down. Beams realigned, Miri shot straight up in the air.

"Firsters," she shrieked down at us. "Firsters!"

"You and your damn tea parties," said Jame to me. "Where?" she shouted up as the Arian mutie cartwheeled out of control high 'bove us.

"Everywhere! Everywhere!" the answer came tumbling down.

I looked 'bout, breath snagged in my throat, and saw that she was pretty near right: we were almost surrounded. On three sides, silent figures had appeared under the trees, like twisted shadows. Mama, Rimmon, Dillon, you could take your chances with any of them. Not with a Firster. Victims of something that wasn't their fault, hunted by everyone, you could almost feel sorry for them. But not on a moonlit slope in the deep woods with the odds seven to one at best. No way.

"The senethar," Jame said in my ear. "Let's see how much you remember." I didn't know much to remember. So far, Jame had only taught me the first six figures of the water flowing form, and I'd never used any of them 'cept in practice.

No time to panic. Here came a Firster swinging a jagged piece of metal. I slipped out of the upward arc, caught his hand as it shot past me, and made him continue the swing up over his own shoulder. For a second he was down flat, staring up at me with eyes as pale and dead as the moon. Then he was scrambling to his feet again, making a whoofing noise. I'd forgotten that none of the first six figures are designed to take a tom out for good. So I kicked him b'tween the eyes. Jame had just finished with another two, and b'lieve me, they weren't 'bout to get up again.

More were coming, a good dozen.

"Too many, Samuel," I heard her say through her teeth. "Jump for it!" She was pointing down the slope toward the pool of mist.

I turned and started to run. Didn't think my feet could keep up with me at first. And the pool. You got any idea how ungodly wide something like that looks when you've got legs the length of mine? Well, I couldn't stop, and Jame had said jump, so I did.

Of course, I didn't make it. Not all the way, at least. My feet hit the mist and the next thing I knew I'd whopped belly down on the rim of land on the far side, with my legs thrashing 'round in what felt like a complete void. And cold? Friend, it was like the edge of outer space. Jame shot over me, diving headfirst into a rolling fall. The next second she was hauling on my jacket. A real quick kitten, that, but not very strong. I wasn't coming free half fast enough, and my legs were getting too numb with the cold to help.

A Firster came at us down the hill at a lurching gallop. One uneven stride took him from the far rim of the pool to nearly dead center. He sank in up to the waist, then, with a squeal, dropped out of sight like someone had pulled the ground out from under him. The scream seemed to go on and on, rapidly fading away into the whiteness.

Right then and there, I knew I wanted to get my legs out of that pool.

"C'mon, c'mon," Jame hissed as she tugged at me. "Can't count on them all to fall in . . . "

Bare feet pounded down the grassy incline b'hind us.

More than that there was the sound of heavier feet crashing through the forest toward us and of shouts. If it was more Firsters, we'd had it.

Then, just as the mist finally let go of my feet and the two of us went down in a heap, Duley staggered out of the trees above with a whoop. The rest of his pack wasn't far b'hind. Soon as I was sure that while others' grief was just b'ginning, ours had been postponed indefinitely, I turned to Jame, pointed to the mist pool, and said, "What's down there?"

It came out in a squeak.

She rolled over on the grass and looked at me. "You're getting hysterical, Sam."

"St. John is dead, you turn out to be a Kennie's nightmare," I said, hearing my voice go up like a slide whistle, "my legs are frozen, and I've just seen a tom fall through what ought to be solid ground into what certainly isn't the Under-Earth. Of course I'm hysterical! I repeat: 'What is down there?' "

"If I tell you, will you stop screaming?"

"YES!"

So she told me, lying there in the long grass with the massacre of what turned out to be the last Firsters on campus going on up-slope, and me fighting the cold and the jeebies, lying b'side her. She told me that our Earth was only one in a series of overlapping threshold worlds that held together the multi-dimensional Chain of Creation. That thing down there, b'low the mist, b'low the frost, was what had destroyed the Kencyrath's home world. They called it Perimal Darkling.

"P-p-perimal w-what?"

"Darkling. Not that it is, exactly. Everything in it is mixed up: light and dark, heat and cold, life and death. Nasty, but fascinating . . . Anyway, the Shanir drew it to the surface so that it could be fought, but when it came it was too strong for them. The barriers fell, and everyone had to run. Where we ran to was here. What we arrived in the middle of was war. What triggered the madness that triggered the war was Perimal Darkling moving one world closer. Of course, all my people blamed the Shanir. They still do, perhaps with reason."

"T-that was decades ago," I said, glad to find that my teeth had almost stopped rattling. "Seems to m-me, we had a touch of that same madness six quarters ago, and again tonight. Why?"

She shot me a side-long look, both rueful and bleak. "Clever, Sam. Because twice now, that bastard Mang has stirred up all the Shanir darkness in me, and that in turn has called up the ancient enemy. I'm to blame for everything that's happened tonight—and I will pay, darkness against darkness, the only way a Shanir can. Any more questions? Then let's get on with it."

* * *

HALF AN HOUR LATER, I was sitting on the floor in St. John's apartment with Mama's big knife 'cross my knees and my back to the wall next to the bedroom door. The numbness in my legs had 'bout worn off. Was alone 'cept for Ammie, asleep in the next room, and Tania ditto, locked in the closet.

Had been a pretty grim scene when we got back. Ammie had fought clear of the sedative twice since we'd left and was coming up again as Jame helped me through the door. While she was in the bedroom putting the kitten under again and Lancaster stalked back and forth muttering, I folded myself into a corner and tried to put my head back together. All I could think of was the time I'd found Ammie sitting on the bed b'side a sleeping St. John with all those bright, useless bits of scrap metal spread out 'round her on the blanket like broken keys to the past. She was playing with them and chattering happily at him. Didn't bother her a bit that he was too zoned out to pay attention. She just wanted him to be there. Always.

Then Lancaster said my god now what and I realized that the moaning I'd been hearing was coming from the chair b'side me, not from the bedroom. There was Tania, looking like an out-patient from the morgue, carrying on the way Ammie had been when we came in. Psychic shock, said Jame, and put her down fast. Seems the poor kitten had been locked into Ammie's grief so long that she couldn't tell it from her own anymore. So we made her as comfortable as possible in the closet and locked her in. Not even sleep could ease those lines out of her face.

Turn 'em both over to the psych people, said Lancaster.

Be damned if she would, Jame said, what with psych finals starting the next morning. She picked up the knapsack with the Book Bound in Pale Leather still inside. I tried to stand up.

"You stay put this time," she said, pushing me back down. "Keep watch. Lancaster will run with me—worse luck. We'll be back soon; before Mang, anyway, if Mama can only manage to hold him a bit longer."

"What're you going to do?" I demanded.

"Take advantage of the night's qualities," she says, one gloved hand on that weird, warm book. "life and death overlap tonight, remember? And I made a promise: one way or the other, St. John is coming home."

Then she swung the knapsack over her shoulder and herded Lancaster out the door, bound for the morgue. Twenty minutes to get there, I thought. Twenty minutes to get back. And in b'tween, what? No idea, or at least none that I wanted to think through. Anyway, all I could do was wait and hope, like Mama, that Jame knew what she was doing.

A pale bar of moonlight was creeping toward me 'cross the floor. I watched it thinking 'bout all that had happened that night, 'bout St. John, Ammie, Jame and all the rest. It had been a good pack, but now it was bound to change, maybe even to fall apart. Without St. John, we were nothing but a bunch of strays again, misfits with nothing to hold us together but some scraps of friendship and the will to survive. Only Jame was fit to take over, but she never would on a permanent basis. Which was probably a good thing. Our unit was only set up for self-defense, and Jame, near as I could tell, lived in an atmosphere of perpetual violence. Running with her even for one night had pulled my muscles and nerves to pieces. Jame as a pack leader would have run us all to bloody tatters in a week.

'Til I started thinking 'bout that, I didn't realize how tired I'd become. Was so peaceful there and felt so good to be sitting down that I thought I'd close my eyes for a second, just to rest them.

I woke with a jolt in a pool of radiance. The moon was glaring at me over the window ledge, decaying mountains flecked with jade, valleys in suffocated blue. The room was humming with light. I lay on my side listening. Something had jerked me out of a deep six sleep. The whoosh of the tube? Had Jame come back? Was she standing there in the hall? Why didn't she come in? Then the sound, a weak scratching at the door. I scrambled to my feet and stood there swaying, Mama's knife clenched in my hand.

Silence.

Then it began again: scree . . . scree . . . screeee . . .

A shadow fell 'cross me and I heard plastiglass shatter.

"Well, well," said Mang, opening the broken window and stepping in from the outside ledge. "If it ain't the dwarf."

The door lock snapped with a sharp click. Another of Dillon's toms grabbed my knife hand b'fore I could turn 'round and twisted 'til the blade dropped.

"Think I wasn't smart enough to give the slip to a buncha Tungs, or to go out one window blow and climb up?" Mang grinned at me, broken-toothed. "We were expectin' a warmer welcome, though. Where's the hellcat?" He grabbed my wrist and bent it. I think I screamed when it snapped. "You, wait outside," he said to the other tom, "I got some business here." Then he pulled the metal bands over his knuckles.

I stumbled back a step. The sudden pain had driven the shock out of my mind with a fire wind, and I knew damn farking well, as soon as I saw those bands, that if I didn't do something I was going to be beaten to death in the next few minutes.

The first swing, a rush of air breaking on the gleam of steel. I tried to use the fourth figure of the water flowing form, and found out fast it couldn't be done one-handed. The initial side step got me out of the way, but set me up like a picture for the reverse blow. The band caught me 'cross the mouth and almost lifted me off my feet. I staggered back, tasting blood. He came at me again, with that mad fixed grin on his face and a thread of saliva hanging from the corner of his mouth.

Think, dammit, I said to myself, backpedaling like mad. It's your growth that's retarded, not your head. You can't use a water flowing technique b'cause the only ones you know take two hands. Fire leaping you don't know from a hole in the wall. Wind blowing . . .

And there it was. The toughest form on the sheet, one not even Jame had mastered yet, but I did know this 'bout it: there was no contact. You found the lines of force and flowed 'round them. Like moonlight. Like a shadow. A long shot, lord, yes, but I knew my only chance when I saw it. So I took a deep breath and tried to relax.

For the first few minutes, it actually worked. That tom was a mass of mean muscle, all right, but he counted on scoring with every punch. The more he missed, the wilder he got. I was no master, though, and my legs had the strength of wet cardboard to start with. I knew my luck had 'bout run out.

Then I heard the sound in the other room, the squeak of bedsprings. Ammie was surfacing. I'd slept through the time when she should have been doped again.

The noise snapped my concentration. Next thing I knew, Mang had tagged me fit to cave in my chest, and my legs had turned to pulp. I was down flat b'side the bedroom door, fighting to breathe, when it opened. Didn't need to look up to know that Ammie was standing there.

Mang chuckled. The notch blade was in his hand, burning cold as death. He was coming toward . . . us? No. To get at me, he would have to bend; he wasn't. It was Ammie he wanted.

I was trying to get up and failing when something soft hit the hall door. It slid down the length of the outer surface. Wasn't even sure I'd heard it 'til I saw Mang swing 'round, the knife weaving in front of him. The door opened. Dillon's other tom fell into the room. His hands were over his face and blood was streaming out b'tween his fingers B'hind him I saw boots spattered red, the hem of a med tunic, a pair of hands with scythe-curved fingers dripping scarlet, and finally Jame Talissen's slow smile like a bitter sharp edge of a blade.

Then she stepped aside. Someone stood b'hind her, too big to be Lancaster, not Mama either . . . who? Couldn't see the face, but Mang must have. The knife with the notched hilt slipped out of his hand and clattered on the tiles. He started to back up, slowly, making a gurgling noise. The square of the broken window framed his shoulders, moonlight flooding in 'bout them.

The knife was burning silver on the floor. I wanted that piece of honed steel. Now, b'fore Mang recovered and made a move for it. My good hand groped for it through the mist gathering b'hind my eyes.

Ammie got there first. She slipped past me on bare feet and scooped up that blade so fast that for a moment I thought I'd dreamed it; but there she was with it balanced on her palms, moving fast toward Mang. To this day, I don't know if she meant to pounce him with it or simply to return the damned thing. Mang didn't wait to find out. He jerked back another step as the kitten swept down on him. The back of his knees caught the edge of the window frame. For a second he was there, bending backward in a slow arc. Then he was gone. Not a sound. Nothing but hands circling in the air and plunging away. Ammie watched 'til the body must have hit bottom. Then she threw the knife out after him.

Was as if everything was b'ginning to move away from me. I saw Ammie turn, spot the large, shadowy figure in the doorway, and run toward it with a cry of joy. Then the darkness came rushing in.

* * *

WHEN I CAME TO AGAIN, it was early morning. The blue moon had set at last and thin sunlight was pouring through the broken window. First thing I saw was Lancaster, sitting on the floor with his head on his knees, like a man who's been sick and expects to be sick again. Second thing was the open bedroom door. Ammie was gone. The closet door was open too, but Tania was still there, asleep in a tangle of blankets. For the first time since I'd known her, she was smiling.

A hand brushed 'cross my cheek and I saw that it was Jame who was supporting my head. She was leaning 'gainst the wall and looked half zonkers with exhaustion. When she saw I was awake, she gave me a tired smile.

"It's all right, Samuel," she said, brushing more hair off my face. "Everything's all right. Mang is dead. St. John and Ammie have gone down to the Under-Earth. Rimmon promised to find a place for them where they'll be safe, and together."

I stared at her. Hurt like hell to speak, but finally I got it out.

"B-but St. John is dead!"

"Of course," she said, and smiled.

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Framed