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know what it is." "Then tell us," Ahlitah prompted him. "I'm not familiar with
the smells of the sea, but I know storms, and this reeks like no storm I have
ever encountered." The herdsman's mouth was set in a thin, tight line. "That
is because this is not a storm." Cat and swordsman exchanged a glance. "It's
clouds, Etjole," Simna avowed gently. "Racing black clouds usually herald the
coming of a storm." "These are not clouds, either. They are the substance of
what has engulfed this ship." Simna ibn Sind did not like the sound of that.
Especially Ehomba's use of the word "engulfed." "Then if not a storm, what?"
Tilting back his head slightly, the herdsman looked upward, scanning the sky
from side to side like someone standing at the bottom of a deep well searching
for a ray of light. Having overheard, several sailors had left their posts and
were hovering nearby, watching the rangy foreigner intently. "It has been
following me for a long time, gathering strength. I first saw it when I helped
the People of the Trees defeat the slelves." Simna's expression twisted in
confusion. "The what?" "It was before you and I met. You may have seen this
also, friend Simna, when we fought Corruption. It gyred through the winds that
helped to propel the
Dunawake, and its essence was everywhere in the shattered lands of the Queppa.
Especially in the
Wall." He was silent for a moment as he considered the lowing sky. "Ever since
the time when I was with the People of the Trees it has been tracking me,
waiting for the right moment." "The right
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to the naked eye there appeared to be only arching blackness. "The right
moment for what?" Ehomba was as somber and serious as the swordsman had ever
seen him. "To swallow." That conjured up an image even less palatable than the
one that had been induced by the herdsman's use of the word
"engulfed." "You mean this whatever-it-is is going to try and eat us?" "It
already has." With unshakable calm, Ehomba studied the ominous dark. "We are
inside it now. But it has not begun to swallow. It must be stopped before it
can." "Hoy, right, I am in agreement with you there, bruther." Wide-eyed but
undaunted, the swordsman beheld their surroundings anew. Had anything changed
since the black clouds had first enveloped them? Yes, everything had grown
even darker, black as the inside of a chunk of coal. And it was pressing tight
upon them, congealing like oil, a cloying, oleaginous mass that was acquiring
more weight and substance than was natural for an honest cloud even as they
spoke. A sailor struck out at a limb of murk as it threatened to crawl up his
arm. At the blow the gloom broke apart, but the pieces hung in the air, ebony
wisps floating in a sable duskiness. Around the ship, a deathless night was
descending, threatening to overwhelm and suffocate everyone on board. Sailors
brushed at themselves, and cursed in frustration, but their efforts were
proving increasingly futile. It was like trying to fight a cloud, a shadow,
and that shadow was growing stronger by the minute. Stronger, and all-
consuming. Simna flailed at the deepening gloom as if assailed by giant,
ephemeral black bugs. It was midmorning, but not a splinter of sunshine
penetrated the ambient obscurity that had enveloped them.
Ahlitah snapped at the lazily coiling lengths of deeper blackness that curled
around his muscular form like indigo snakes. They broke apart, re-formed, and
drew strength and sustenance from the deepening shadow all around them. "What
is it?" Like the rapidly panicking crew, Simna was brushing and slapping
furiously at the terrifying blackness. "By Gidan's eyeteeth, what is it?"
"Eromakadi." Ignoring the suffocating blackness that swirled around him and
threatened to invade his ears, his eyes, his mouth, Ehomba held tight to the
rigging. "Eater of light. It consumes the light around us as well as the light
that is life that emanates from us."
"From us?" Next to the swordsman, the litah was tiring as he struggled to do
battle against something without substance. His jaws were still mighty, his
teeth still sharp, but it is hard to take much of a bite out of an
evanescence. "Our thoughts, our souls, the way we project our animate being
into the world.
Life is light, Simna, and the eromakadi cannot stand light. Sometimes they are
weak and scattered, sometimes potent and powerful. The eromakadi are why bad
things happen to good people. Their allies are pestilence and war, bigotry and
ignorance. A tiny eromakadi will flock to a contemptuous sneer, a larger one
to a gang beating, a great and more powerful one still to a politician's lies.
This one has grown especially focused." Much of what his friend declaimed made
no sense to Simna. It was babble and gibberish of the most impenetrable
philosophical kind. But whatever it was, the darkness closing tight around
them was real enough. He had never been afraid before because his fears had
always assumed physical shape and form. Anything that would respond to a sword
could be dealt with. But this-it was like trying to fight air. As he spun
about and flailed madly against the insistent, encroaching gloom, he saw
Ehomba climb up onto the bowsprit and stand facing the silently boiling
blackness, alone. As the swordsman looked on, his lanky friend methodically
removed his clothing and let it fall to the deck behind him. Naked, a lean and
slender scarecrow of a man who looked even slimmer devoid of his simple
raiment, the herdsman braced himself against a pair of stays and spread his
arms wide as if invoking the sky. The frantic crew ignored him. Those among
them who saw what was happening thought he had gone mad, and not a few
expected to join the tall passenger in madness at any moment.
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Because the final blackness was closing in tight around them, suffocating
sight and sound and thought, if not yet heaving, straining lungs. Could a man
be suffocated while still breathing? Etjole Ehomba stood alone on the
bowsprit, detached from the rest of humanity. Stood there by himself, and
inhaled. His chest expanded. Simna could hear it, even above the cries and
wails of the raving crew. The sound was that of an ordinary man inhaling
deeply, but what happened next was anything but ordinary. Tiny wisps of
blackness began to drift backward, and not of their own volition. They
vanished into Ehomba's wide- [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]