Both Gold-streak and Leaf nodded.
She looked at Jelly. “And you abandoned the hurrok when you saw I had Gold-streak?” A bump that might have been a head lifted in Jelly’s mass. Stiffly, it shook its new head.
“Or did Gold-streak call to you?” inquired the girl.
Jelly nodded.
The badger chuckled. “Ozorne mastered Stormwing magic,” he remarked, “but he created the darkings here.”
“Are you sure?” inquired Numair. “That cave may have been in the mortal realms.”
“He did it here,” Broad Foot said firmly. “We gods can always tell the difference.”
“Here, life is forbidden to remain a slave of its creator,” explained the badger. “It’s why so many children and servants of gods act against the interests of those who gave them life. The darkings are forming their own ideas and ways to communicate, and they’re getting names.”
“They’re his blood,” argued Numair. “Blood will bind anything. How can they refuse when he commands?”
“I don’t know, but they can.” Daine looked at the gold-tinted blot. “This morning I heard Ozorne say, ‘Number fourteen, report.’ I thought I dreamed it, but I didn’t. Gold-streak was still in my pack then, so Ozorne couldn’t see where we were. Gold-streak refused to tell him!”
Gold-streak nodded vigorously.
“That’s why Ozorne sent Leaf, because he couldn’t make you tell, and Jelly chose to be with you, not Ozorne.”
Both Leaf and Gold-streak nodded.
Daine picked up Jelly. “You were brave to jump off that hurrok,” she told it gently. “Why don’t you talk to Leaf and Gold-streak a bit, and hear what they have to say?” The darking nodded, then—abruptly—rubbed its head against her thumb before she put it down. The three came together in a shadowy pool. Daine realized that she was exhausted.
“We’d best turn in,” Numair said, eyes on her. “We’ve had a long day.”
“Doubtless tomorrow will be longer still.” The girl dug in her pack for her blanket.
“We will stand guard,” the badger said. “Broad Foot and I have things to discuss.”
Daine’s last awareness was of the badger and the duckmole rocking to and fro, their heads together as they conferred mind to mind.
Rattail, whom Daine was now sure spoke with the Dream King’s voice, awaited her when she fell asleep. Again she called the girl’s attention to the changing creature that was Uusoae, the Queen of Chaos, surrounded by the Great Gods who kept her captive. The fiery barrier between her and them blazed. Daine couldn’t see her under that bright light, but she could feel the creature’s changes, and wished very much that she could not.
Behind the Great Gods, multicolored liquid ran, not as puddles that spread and merged, but as a stream that whirled in a circle, seeming to flow both right and left at the same time. Watching it made the girl feel giddy. Suddenly columns leaped from the stream, rising and curving over the gods. If the columns met at the peak of the circle, the gods would be under a bowl of Chaos light, just as Uusoae was under a bowl of light.
White fire winked into existence at the backs of the gods. Instantly the columns turned to spinning drills, trying to bore their way through. The second barrier flickered.
“I hope you don’t expect me to get excited over all this,” Daine remarked, finding that she could speak for the first time. “Or that you mean the gods want my help.” Part of her quivered at speaking so lightly of the gods; she rudely stepped on that fright. “I can’t help the gods against Chaos—I have troubles of my own, back home. It’s not as if they came to our aid, when the barrier between us and them gave way at Midwinter.”
“Why in the name of Father Universe would they meddle in that?” demanded Rattail. “The barrier was made by human mages, who never asked permission to do it.”
“I still don’t understand why you’re showing me all this,” the girl told her stubbornly. “It’s like I’m being asked for help. Forget it. I’ve none to give.”
A paw cuffed her soundly on the ear, knocking her over. Suddenly she was pup-sized; Rattail towered over her as she had over her own wolf pups. “You cannot have been attending to the duckmole, then,” the wolf told her sternly. “Look there!” Planting her nose on Daine’s behind, she scooted the girl forward.
Before them was the image that Daine had just seen, with the columns of shifting light connecting over the heads of the gods. They spread to cover the outer barrier. Mouths, distorted with jagged, sharp, and weirdly angled teeth, opened throughout the cover of Chaos light, and sank within it.
Suddenly everything sagged inward; Daine felt the white-light barriers evaporate within her very bones. Shapes thrashed under the rippling, glimmering Chaos stuff as it fell inward. At the center was Uusoae, born from the muck that she commanded, her eyes—when she had them—shining with triumph. She opened a mouth with swords for teeth and sprouted a hundred arms. They lashed out, seizing animals and two-legger gods from seemingly empty air, carrying each to the Chaos queen’s jaws. She ate, and ate, and ate. Blood of all colors streamed over her chin and body and was soaked up, to add its colors to the muck in which she stood. The last two struggling figures she raised to her lips were Sarra and the badger.
With a gasp, Daine sat up, eyes open. Her curls and skin were dripping sweat. Sometime in the night she had thrown off the cover. It lay beneath her, dragged into folds and ridges. Her back and head ached.
“Numbers eleven, twenty-seven, fourteen, report!” That voice was Ozorne’s; the girl looked around for the darkings. “How dare you defy me!” The commands issued from Daine’s pack, where the blots had spent the night. “If you will not show what I wish—”
Crimson light shone through openings in the pack. The darkings keened, tiny voices shrill. He was hurting them! She yanked the flap open, furious; black tentacles streaked with red veins reached out to pull it shut again. The darkings wanted her to stay out. Rather than listen, she went to the pool to clean up. It took her longer than usual; she was trembling with rage, and dropped things. The sky in the east was just turning pink.
“Did you hear me?” Numair stood on the rise near their camp, wearing only his breeches, hair tousled. “It’s how our enemies seem to know every move!”
Daine rubbed her face with her hands. “I didn’t hear.”
“It’s the darkings. They’re the answer.”
She felt a powerful urge to yank him into the pond, just for being awake and chatty, let alone for having poked up the fire and set tea water on to boil. Mastering the urge—barely—the girl returned to her pack.
The darkings came out. She cuddled them, asking if they were all right. All three nodded, but Jelly quivered more than ever, and even Gold-streak and Leaf were trembly.
The badger waddled over to her. “Did you dream?”
Daine glared at him. “I dreamed, all right,” she said grimly. “Amazingly clear dreams, like all the ones I’ve been having here. Amazing and long, since I don’t remember sleeping much
!”
Numair scooped up the darkings. “It’s these little fellows,” he said. “Or ladies,” he added, squinting at them. “It’s impossible to tell if you have a sex.”
There was a splash; Broad Foot climbed out of the pool, a small fish in his bill. The resurrected fish god that had supplied his breakfast leaped from the water, splashing him. “What about the darkings?” he asked.
“They don’t just spy on us,” Numair said. “I thought Ozorne had created a number far in excess of his needs, if they were solely to keep an eye on Daine or me. Your kinfolk are with our leaders, aren’t they?” he asked the darkings. “The King, the Queen—”
“In the north,” Daine said, realizing what he meant. “I heard in a dream that the Scanrans got away clean. Somehow they knew the Yamani fleet was coming.”
“As I woke, I heard that yesterday the Seventh Riders tried to use a secret exit from Legann,” Numair added quietly. “The enemy was waiting. Three of the Riders are dead.”
Daine clenched her teeth. She had friends in the Seventh Riders. Their commander, Evin Larse, had pulled a roll from her ear the first time she’d eaten in the Rider mess. She looked a question at Numair.
“I don’t know who they were, magelet,” he said gently, smoothing a wet curl off her forehead. “No one mentioned names.”
She nodded, and made herself think about the immediate problem. “The darking spies tell Ozorne. And other darkings with his commanders pass it on,” she whispered. “That—dung-fouled, mold-eating—” She faced the badger, eyes blazing. “You could put an end to it!”
“The Great Gods don’t like the People’s gods to intervene in human affairs,” the badger replied. “We are to keep to the doings of our own children.”
“You’ve always said I mean as much as your own kits.” She knelt beside him. “Badger, please! I can’t help them at home whilst I’m here—but you can! Please!”
The badger fluffed out his fur, snorted, and stamped.
“What good is knowing that your friends have eavesdroppers?” asked Broad Foot. “The darkings are very good at hiding.”