The Gates of Night_ The Dreaming Dark - Keith Baker [51]
Daine took one last glance across the river, where he could see the shadow of the great serpent twined around the pillar, then he scooped up the injured crow and made his way into the forest.
Xu’sasar lived in a world without shadows. According to Qaltiar tales, the first drow had been imbued with the essence of night itself, which accounted for the jet-black skin of Xu’sasar’s people and the magical powers of her race. One of those mystical gifts was the ability to see in darkness with the ease that outlanders saw during the day. She was just as comfortable in the utter gloom of a deep cavern as she was in the dappled light of a moonlit forest. As a child she learned to recognize the spectrum of gray shades that reflected the light others saw. When hunting, she needed to know when she was standing in shadow and stepping into the light. Nonetheless, the only true darkness she had ever known was the magical shadows that were part of her own blood—the mystical darkness a drow could project into the world.
For Xu’sasar, the night held no fear. Outlanders feared the darkness, but Xu’sasar had to be taught to recognize the shadows. The night was her dominion, her time to stalk and hunt. Given the choice, she would be dancing through the deepest, darkest woods of the final lands, searching for the most fearsome threats that the realm had to offer.
But the choice wasn’t hers.
“Not my place to say, I’m sure,” Huwen had said. “But if I was a creature what walked on my legs, I’d take the path, you see? You might be running into something coming the other way, yes, but there’s far worse in the deep woods. You’ve crossed the river now, and you’ve come to the heart of the night. Even I don’t know all of what’s out there, and I know enough.”
Xu’sasar should have killed the creature with her first blow. She wanted to show her respect for Daine, to give the outlander the chance to make a decision. She hadn’t expected him to make the wrong one. Did the outlanders know nothing of the final lands? This was a bird of ill omen, surely sent to test and trick them.
And now they were following the path it had suggested for them.
Xu’sasar led the way, searching the trees for any sign of motion. The others followed close behind. This road was cobbled with disks of densewood, irregular circles of many sizes, likely harvested from fallen boughs. The path was wide enough for two giants to stand side by side, and it reminded Xu’sasar of the ancient roads in her homelands of Xen’drik. She tried to remember how many times she had used such roads as the foundations for ambushes, leaping out from the sheltering jungle and scattering unwary explorers with a swift and furious assault.
“She’s got some colorful ideas, that one,” said the crow. “If I had friends in wait, you think I’d do something as obvious as this? I’m so clever I’m stupid, is that it?”
Daine was just behind Xu’sasar, his black-feathered burden in his hands. Xu’sasar turned swiftly. “Stay out of my mind,” she said. “There is still time for you to suffer. You might even live long enough to reach your shelter.”
“So you’re making the decisions now, are you?” Huwen said. “Here I thought you were this one’s hou—Oww!”
Daine prodded the bird’s injured wing, silencing the creature. “Stay out of your mind?” he asked.
“It feeds on secrets,” Xu’sasar replied. “How do you suppose it learned the things it knows? There is still time to kill it and let the knowledge die with it.”
The crow managed a chuckle. “You don’t know nearly as much as you think, girl. You have a few dozen threads, and you think you’ve seen a tapestry. For every two things you know, you’ve got a vast gap in between. Me? I’m no deceiver, no servant of some great evil. I just live here. Everyone’s got to live somewhere, don’t they? This is my patch.”
Daine tightened his grip on the black bird. “And the mind reading? Is that a thread of truth?”
“Oh, well, that,” Huwen said. “I suppose it is. I like the taste of thought, a bit of sorrow, a colorful secret. That’s just what I am. So I have a few memories when I