The night felt like a palpable presence to Janyn as he and Tera approached the Red Dog, a cloak of blackness that wrapped around him like Tera's mantle. The lights shining from the windows lit the tavern up brilliantly in comparison, unlike the nearby shops and houses which had only one or two lights burning if any. The day's rain had turned the hard-packed dirt road into mud that sucked at his boots; the combined effect of it and the heavy night air made it feel like Janyn had to overcome a tangible force to approach the tavern. Some superstitious corner of his mind wondered if it was a portent, while the more logical side of his intuition marked it as being because for the first time on this job he was about to enter a situation while anticipating violence, expecting it.
Perhaps even seeking it.
Yet even though Ned Crain was a boil on Morovan society needing to be lanced, Janyn still felt frustrated. As Tera had pointed out, this was a sideshow. It would prove nothing as regarded the murders he'd been hired to solve, even if it would remove his client's enemy.
"Do you have a plan?" he asked.
"We do not creep in like serpents," Tera stated. "We enter openly and boldly, and let the unrighteous declare themselves that they may be purged."
He was almost sorry he'd spoken.
They went inside. The bar was much more crowded than it had been during their earlier visit; several tables were occupied as were about half the stools at the bar. The bartender with the drooping purple moustache now had the assistance of two women in low-cut blouses and short skirts in delivering drinks, and there was a buzz of conversation. None of those things, though, made the place look any less dingy and depressing to the hunter. The customers were all rough-dressed men and women who had to work hard to survive; spending some few meseta on cheap ale and liquor was the only pleasure they could afford. Neither barmaid was attractive; their skin cast back the lamplight from a sheen of oil and sweat, their hair hung in lank strands, and there was no laughter in their eyes, only sullen frowns on their faces to confirm that they, too, were working hard and joylessly.
Ned Crain was at the same table as before, again flanked by two men. There was a look of smug pleasure on his face, but it died at once when he saw Tera and Janyn enter the tavern.
The magistrate wasted no time in declaring their purpose.
"Ned Crain! By my authority as a Kadary Magistrate, you are hereby placed under arrest for the attempted murder of Dolan Brent and for criminal conspiracy. Give yourself over to custody." The formal phrases rolled easily off her tongue, somehow suited to her, and stilled the room.
"Are you serious?" Crain said with a mocking tone. Janyn found the notion of Tera being anything but serious almost laughable, himself.
"Come with us or we will take you by force," was her response.
"I see. I have choices, do I?" He rose to his feet. "Now let me see. I think I'll...Get them!" he suddenly roared, obviously hoping to catch them by surprise.
It was so obvious. With his type, it always was. The only real question was how many of the men and women in the bar were his, would aid in his defense. His two bodyguards, of course, and in addition there were two others, one at a table and one at the bar. Knives were out, and thick batons of wood, truncheonlike clubs. One had a hook, almost like would be used on a boat, not that there was one within miles.
Janyn crashed his forearm into the man who'd come lunging up from the table on his left side. The thug reeled back, crashing into the table and into the wall. Simultaneously Janyn's right hand plucked a dagger from his waist and whipped it up in an underhanded throw. One of the thugs went down with the blade in his chest, clearing the way to Crain. A general stampede seemed to engulf the fight, not interfering but flowing around it on the way to the door like a river rushing around a rock outcropping.
The rush of the crowd momentarily caught up the man on Tera's side, all but swallowing him. She, however, did not lose track of him, pointing and launching a Wat technique. The chilling bolt struck him down, freezing organs and blood within him.
That left two.
Crain's corner table had a serious strategic flaw. While it gave a perfect vantage point for seeing who was where in the tavern, it had no secondary route of escape. Crain and his bodyguard were pinned in the corner by Janyn and Tera; the only way out was through them. The pairs faced one another, virtually alone now. The customers had gone, one barmaid with them. The second barmaid was cowering beneath a table, while the taverner had taken cover behind the bar. There was no cover, no rescue, for Crain and his lackey, save by going through the hunter and magistrate.
Tera glared hard at the man, and for a moment Janyn thought she was just trying to intimidate them into surrender, but then both staggered as if struck dizzy. The yet-nameless thug's eyes rolled up in their sockets and he fell with a thud, while Crain staggered like a drunk and thumped the side of his head with his hand as if trying to knock out whatever fog clouded it.
She'd spoken no word, made no gesture of command, so Janyn could only assume this was one of the arts her church had taught her. Had he been expecting it, he could have easily disarmed, even captured Crain while he was shaking off its effects, but since he'd been caught by surprise he was late with his attack.
Then suddenly he jerked backwards, breaking off his strike when he saw something that he should not have seen. The shadows clustered in the roof corners that lamp and candle could not reach were weeping, streams of darkness flowing down the wall like the raindrops had on the outside earlier that day. Crain, of course, had no idea what was happening behind him and so launched an attack, and it was only Janyn's combat-seasoned reflexes that let him parry the swinging club with his sword and twist his abdomen away from the knife in Crain's other hand. His sword-edge had bitten into the wooden truncheon with the force of the blows, and he used that as a lever to rip the weapon free of Crain's hand.
The flowing darkness coalesced into a poll at the base of the wall, then suddenly rose up, a manlike figure of living shadow, pure darkness given form except for two burning eyes.
"By the Holy One!" Tera whispered in shock or surprise.
Janyn backpedaled, not wanting to give ground but considering it idiotic to be caught up in a bladefight while a new and unknown threat was taking shape. Crain himself caught on at last and turned his body sideways from Janyn so he could glance back without having to turn his hand all the way around.
The shadow figure's right arm raised, and a spike of burning light took shape, as if the dark creature was holding a sword of fire in its hand. It swept its arm up to strike an overhand blow at Crain, and Tera took the first step against it, hurling another Wat technique. The freezing bolt burst against the shadow figure, as if it struck a solid body, but had no visible effect. The creature's hand was not stayed; the burning sword swept down, cutting into Crain's body.
The crooked carter screamed and staggered backwards as Janyn moved in past him. No blood flowed, the hunter realized, from the injury dealt, but there was time to worry about that later.
He hoped.
His sword crashed against the burning blade, parrying the first two strikes, but he couldn't ready a counter. It wasn't that the shadow figure was especially skilled, but it didn't seem to have to follow the rules of nature. Its arms rippled in strange ways, curved and bent in odd places. The heat from its blade was palpable; sweat beaded on Janyn's face as he continued to battle. The light shed by the sword seemed to wash across the creature, revealing that its face was not just a featureless black pool but a perfect silhouette whose black-on-black coloring made it impossible to recognize from across the room.
When Janyn saw its face, though, he made the mistake of meeting the shadow figure's eyes. The blue-white fires seemed to draw him in, capture all his attention, and try as he might, he could not turn his head away--or, as he realized in horror, could he move in any other way. His arms would not raise his sword, his legs not correct his footwork, and in another instant he felt himself crumple to the floor. He thought he was finished, but his opponent seemed to have no further interest in him once he was down. Instead, it moved on past, and from that point only the further screams of Ned Crain, punctuated by Tera's voice as she hurled two more Wats, presumably at the shadow figure, told Janyn what had happened. After an eternity of subjective time, though only a minute or two in reality, he regained control of himself and regained his feet.
The shadow figure was gone. Crain lay on the floor, his body ripped and slashed with bloodless wounds that had been burned by the searing fire of the monster's sword. In her corner, the barmaid was whimpering mutely, hands across her face. Tera's hands were clenched into fists at her side and she wore a furious scowl.
With a heavy sigh, Janyn sheathed his blade.
"We had it all wrong," he said dully. Crain was a bastard, an extortionist and murderer, he told himself, but it wasn't any consolation. The ruin before him had once been a man, cut down by an unnatural horror. It wasn't even a biomonster kill; this was something...else, something vile, something evil that he'd been powerless to stop.
Maybe that was it, he told himself. Not the fact of Crain's death--hadn't Janyn himself not just killed one of Crain's lackeys, a lesser evil, during the fight?--but that he'd been beaten, swept aside in the creature's single-minded pursuit of its victim.
Tera, too, was obviously angry and frustrated, but she shook it off, literally shaking her head as if the simple movement could toss away her emotions, and perhaps its did. Certainly when she spoke it was crisp and matter-of-fact as she ticked the points off on her skeletal fingers.
"There were no signs of forced entry because the creature can obviously twist and distort its form as it likes, possibly even becoming two-dimensional like a genuine shadow, and so enter by means impossible for a more substantial entity. Likewise, it left no traces of itself in terms of footprints, hair, clothing fibers and so on because it has a very tenuous physical reality. The wounds were cauterized not because the blade was heated for purposes of torture but because the nature of the weapon itself is to be red-hot; this was merely incidental rather than being relevant as to motive. Lastly, there was no sign of a struggle at either crime scene because the darkside's paralyzing gaze made it impossible for the targets to resist."
Janyn pounced on the one thing in Tera's listing that gave him some kind of hope.
"You said...'darkside'? You know what that thing is? It has a name?" Names were powerful, not mystically or symbolically but in the mind. A name, a label, was a defining feature. A "darkside" had certain qualities and attributes, things it could and could not do. It was not the terrifying, alien Unknown.
She nodded.
"I believe so. It fits the description of a creature of legend. The darkside is hatred given form, rage come to life. It is the spirit of a person's fury animated by unholy magic to go forth and wreak vengeance on the ones who its creator despises."
"So are you saying that someone called that thing up? That it's a weapon of murder?"
Tera snarled in sudden anger and Janyn actually jerked back at the vehement outburst, thinking she was mad at him, but that was not the case.
"I'm sorry; I spoke imprecisely and gave you a false impression. The darkside is not under anyone's conscious control, though I suppose a powerful Esper could have done so. It's more of...a reaction to unholy forces. The dark power is there, around us, a taint on the mystic environment like alkali in the soil or poison in a well. We reach into that power to perform techniques, but in this case the darkside is conjured forth without will, without intent. The power reacts to the strong, violent emotions; the subconscious shapes it, gives it form. You'll notice that it appears at night only, and so far at regular every-other-day intervals?"
"I see," Janyn mused, counting the timing out in his own mind. "A rational plan of murder wouldn't use such a rigid chronology."
"It's unlikely. Probably it takes a day to 'recharge,' to gather strength to reappear, just as we have to rest before regaining our own full ability to use techniques. I suspect it appears at night because it arises from its creator's dreams, when the subconscious has full sway."
"So even though the darkside is killing those its creator hates, fixating on them, really, the one whose emotions created it is not actually guilty of anything. He doesn't control the creature." Janyn was sure, now, that was what she meant, but he wanted her to say it.
"As far as my knowledge goes, yes, that is so." Her eyes narrowed. "Your concern with the creator's guilt or innocence seems pointed, Janyn. Do you suspect your client, because the victims have been his enemies?"
He shook his head.
"No, not exactly."
"Then what?"
"I know Brent gave rise to that thing. I got a very close look at it by the light of its own sword. The darkside is wearing Brent's face."