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

supports his view of the Company as the terror of the ages,
though there aren’t any specifics. But I do have to wonder
because there just aren’t any contemporary accounts from
independent observers.”
    “Something happened. Even if these books we have now are
fabrications. What’re you thinking?”
    For a moment Croaker seemed tired of fighting. “Murgen,
there’s something going on that’s more than you and me
and Lady, the Taglians and the Shadowmasters and all that. Strange
things are happening and they don’t add up any other way. I
started to wonder when you kept falling into the past.”
    “I think Soulcatcher had something to do with
that.”
    “She may well have. She’s got her fingers in
everywhere else. But I don’t think she’s all of it. I
think we’re all—even Soulcatcher—being manipulated. And
I’m even beginning to think that it’s been going on for
ages. That if we had the true firsts of the missing Annals and
could read them we might see ourselves and what’s happening
in a whole different way.”
    “Are you talking about the thing Lady goes on about in her
book? Kina? Because I’ve seen her myself, a couple of times,
when I was out walking the ghost. Or what I think was her based on
myth and what Lady wrote.”
    “Kina. Yes. Or something that wants us to think it’s
Kina.”
    “Wouldn’t that be the same thing, as far as
we’re concerned?”
    “Uhm. I think she’s having those dreams
again.”
    I thought so myself. “Looked like that to me, too.
She’s getting pretty haggard.”
    “I thought a lot about this during the trip down here. Not
much to do but think when you’re riding all day. My guess is,
things have started going too fast for Kina. This is a critter
that’s used to shaping long, slow shadow plays, manipulations
that can take decades to unfold. Maybe even generations in our
case. Her big scheme might have begun way back before our
fore-brethren headed north. But now we’re coming home to
roost and everything is happening too fast for her. The more she
tries to guide events the more hamhanded she gets.”
    “For instance?”
    “Like what she did to Smoke.”
    “I really figured that was something Soulcatcher
did.” Although there had been no evidence to pin that on her,
either.
    “I suppose that’s possible, too. It’s even
possible they were both after him and they got in each
other’s way.”
    I recalled what I could of the incident from Lady’s book.
I decided to stick with my Soulcatcher theory. Deceiver mythology
did not credit Kina with that much ability to reach into the
mundane world. The whole point of the cult was to bring on a time
of such dramatic horror that the walls preventing Kina from
touching our world could be ripped down from our side.
    I explained that.
    Croaker just shrugged. “Listen to this. I’m almost
certain there wasn’t supposed to be any Black Company left
after Dejagore. Except for Lady. She was the only one who was
supposed to survive. And her number was supposed to be up when the
Stranglers took our baby.”
    I considered that. “If that guy Ram hadn’t fallen
for Lady . . . ”
    “That would’ve been the end of everything. Kina
would’ve had her Daughter of Night over on this side and the
Year of the Skulls beginning to unfold without anyone to
interfere.”
    I looked interested. That was easy. I was. I wanted him to keep
going. Before he finished I might actually have some idea why he
did everything he did.
    He said, “The wild cards messed up Kina’s
hand.”
    “Wild cards? You mean Soulcatcher?”
    “She’s the biggest. But there’s Howler and
there was Shifter and there’s still Shifter’s
apprentice out there somewhere. All of them not part of the
plan.”
    It was a hypothesis. It was well beyond any thinking I had done.
Or in a different direction.
    “You be careful, Murgen. Stay in close touch with your
feelings. Don’t let the ghostwalking seduce you. This thing
manipulates us through our