“His father? He has a father?” Bredon asked.
“Of course he has a father,” Geste snapped, annoyed. “And he had a mother once, too, but she's dead. We all have parents, like anyone else. Where did you think we came from?"
“I don't know, I… I…” Bredon trailed off into silence, and Geste ordered the floater to call Shadowdark.
A moment of silence ensued, during which time Bredon tried, and failed, to gather the courage to ask more questions. He was consumed with curiosity about what was happening around him, and with concern for Lady Sunlight, but Geste was obviously worried and irritable and in no mood to answer his inquiries.
Instead, he watched the battle around the High Castle. It continued unabated, and as far as he could tell neither side was gaining any advantage.
“My apologies, sir,” the floater said at last, “but Lord Shadowdark was outside, unattended. A messenger was sent."
An instant later another floating face appeared.
Bredon had thought he was beyond surprise, but this face shocked him. The other Powers had all looked young or perhaps middle-aged, and had been clean and strong and handsome in different ways. None had seemed all that different from mortal humans.
Shadowdark's face was misshapen and pale, the left side bloated while the right sagged, both sides hideously wrinkled, more like some bizarre fungus than the face of an old man. Gruesome scars puckered the skin in a dozen places, tangled among the wrinkles. Patches of black stubble were scattered along his cheeks and jaw, but he had no real beard. Straight black hair hung limply past his shoulders.
He spoke, harshly making a demand, but the words were strange.
Geste replied, using equally strange words, and Bredon realized that for the first time in his life he was hearing another language spoken.
“What is he saying?” he asked, interrupting Geste.
Geste waved him away.
“If I may be permitted to translate, sir, I would be glad to do so,” the floater said.
Geste glanced up. “Go ahead,” he said. Then he continued speaking in the foreign tongue, ignoring both Bredon and the floater.
The floater explained, “Lord Shadowdark demanded to know who was calling him, and why, and Mr. Geste identified himself, and apologized for the intrusion. Mr. Geste is now describing the situation he found at the High Castle.” It paused, and then said, in a flawless imitation of Geste's own voice, “…I hoped that you might be able to intervene. Thaddeus thinks very little of the rest of us, rightfully considering us to be relative youngsters lacking experience, but I am sure that he still respects you. He may well feel some degree of filial devotion, even after so long a time. If you would consent to speak to him, to attempt to make peace between Brenner and himself, we would consider it a great favor, and would gladly repay you however we could."
Shadowdark spoke, and the floater said, in a voice that failed to duplicate Shadowdark's in anything but pitch, “You told these stinking machines to drag me in here for that?"
“Yes, sir,” Geste and the floater's imitation of Geste replied, in two different tongues.
“You're an idiot. It's none of my business. I don't care what you people do to each other; Thaddeus and what's-his-name can kill each other if they like. Even if I did care, I haven't had anything to do with Thaddeus in… in centuries, probably. Ask a machine, I don't know. He hasn't wanted anything to do with me since I left Alpha Imperium. Anything I could say would probably just annoy him."
Shadowdark's image started to fade, then returned to solidity long enough to say something the floater translated as, “By the way, don't bother me again. I won't answer."
The face vanished.
“Damn,” Geste said. “It's impossible.” He reached out and grabbed an invisible support, then leaned forward and rested his head on his arm.
Bredon was baffled. “Who is this Shadowdark?” he asked, directing his question somewhere between Geste and the floater. “Is he a Power?"
Geste waved wearily at the floater without raising his head. “You tell him,” he said. “I need to think.” He paused, then lifted his eyes to the “window” for a moment and added, “And while you're telling him and I'm thinking, take us home."
Chapter Nine
“…He looked up from where he lay, and saw a man dressed in black, with a strange black hat upon his head and a raven on his shoulder, standing at the edge of the clearing."
"Of course, he knew immediately that this was Rawl the Adjuster. He struggled to sit up, but he could not. It took all his strength to call, ‘Hello! Can you help me?'
"Rawl heard him and paused. He looked the situation over for a moment, then came and sat beside the storyteller. ‘What do you need?’ he asked.
"And the storyteller explained how he had counted the Powers, and that although he had always been told that there are twenty-eight Powers in the world, yet when he thought through every tale he knew, every legend, every little incident, and noted down each and every mention, however trivial or obscure, he came up with a list of only twenty-seven names. He told the Adjuster how this had troubled him, and how he had gone seeking through the world, to see if anyone could tell him who the twenty-eighth Power is. He told how he wandered on, ever more despairing as first wakes, then seasons, and finally whole years went by without an answer, until at last he had found himself in his present sorry state.
"'Is that all?’ Rawl asked. ‘All you want is to know the names of all twenty-eight immortals?'
"'Yes,’ the storyteller replied. ‘That's all. Tell me the twenty-eighth name, and I shall die content.'
"'There's no need for you to die at all,’ Rawl told him, ‘for I can easily heal your wounds and send you back to your village sound and well.'
"'I would rather know the name,’ the storyteller said.
"'I'll tell you that, too,’ Rawl answered. ‘I suppose that it would be Shadowdark.'
"'Shadowdark?’ the storyteller asked.
"'Yes, Shadowdark. He is the oldest of us all, and the most reclusive. He speaks to no one, either mortal or immortal. He lives simply, in the forest not too far from here, and if you did not know who he was you would have no reason to think him anything but a very tall and ugly mortal man-very tall and very ugly.'
"'You say he is near here?’ the storyteller asked.
"'Yes,’ Rawl replied, ‘but you dare not seek him out. If you saw him and thought him mortal, it would be of no matter, but if you saw him and knew him for what he is, you would die instantly…"
– from the tales of Kithen the Storyteller
“Sir, I'm afraid that you must rephrase your question if you want a coherent answer. Shadowdark is a Power, as you use the term, but I cannot tell you who he is without further specification."
After a moment's consideration Bredon accepted that. Not all Powers had neat, clearly-defined roles like the Lady of the Seasons. He tried to choose his next question carefully, making it specific enough for the familiar spirit, or whatever it was, to answer, but general enough to give him as much information as possible in its implications. “Why does he speak a strange language?” he asked. “And why does Geste call him ‘sir'?"
“I assume, sir, that Shadowdark speaks Alphan English because he feels most comfortable with that language, and that Mr. Geste addresses him as ‘sir’ because of the great difference in their ages and because Shadowdark has held much higher social status and rank in times past than Mr. Geste has ever achieved."
This answer brought a flood of new questions to mind; Bredon suppressed all but one.
“How can one Power be older than another? I thought they were all immortals, created at the beginning of time."
“No, sir, I'm afraid you have misunderstood the situation. The people you call the Powers are effectively immortal, yes, but they were not created at the beginning of time. They were born over a period of several thousand years. The person who now uses the name Shadowdark was the first, and is now approximately seven thousand years old. I use an approximation because years differ in length on different worlds, but are close enough on most of the worlds Shadowdark has lived on to make such approximations possible. Thaddeus the Black is the second-oldest of Shadowdark's surviving children, and the oldest of those children currently on Denner's Wreck. These two are more than two thousand years older than any of the other Powers. Mr. Geste was born almost six thousand years after Shadowdark. He is the second-youngest of the Powers, followed only by Imp."