'Last Descension Day, Gregor stole a magical artifact called the Dawnstone from Lord Galm. The Dawnstone was the only object in Nekropolis capable of emitting actual sunlight, and Gregor planned to use it to disrupt the Renewal Ceremony. Umbriel does more than provide the shadowy half-light that illuminates the city. The Shadowsun's power keeps Phlegethon burning and maintains the city in this dimension. Gregor planned to use the Dawnstone to kill Father Dis, and without his power, the five Darklords wouldn't be able to recharge Umbriel on their own. The Shadowsun would fade away, Phlegethon would go out, and the deadly energies of this dimension would pour into the city, destroying everyone in it. And Gregor would've succeeded if Devona and I hadn't stopped him.
Afterward, Dis paid Gregor a visit and used his vast power to erase him from existence, along with every other Watcher in the city. Or so I thought.'
'All true,' Shamika said. A slight smile then moved across her lips. 'But it's not the whole story.'
I kept my gun trained on her. 'Then why don't you tell us the rest of it?'
Before Shamika could go on, Bogdan interrupted. 'Do we really need to keep standing here in the hallway like this, with you waving your gun around like some kind of zombie cowboy, ready to shoot first and ask questions later?'
'I am not waving it around,' I said. 'I'm holding it rock-steady. And in point of fact, I'm asking questions now, and I have yet to fire a single bullet.' Still, I understood what the warlock was trying to get at. Shamika hadn't made a threatening move toward any of us in the time I'd known her, and she was cooperating with my interrogation. And if she really was a Watcher, even the special ammunition in my gun probably wouldn't do much more than tickle her. What finally broke the tension for me, though, was the tiny breeze that blew through my hair. Rover was back – small and weak, but he was still alive, if that word can be applied to a creature made entirely from magic – and he was recovering. I made a decision.
'I guess we're not going to find Devona standing around like this.' It was awkward using my left hand, but I managed to holster my gun. Then I bent down and picked up the spent reverser. The talisman would be useless until Devona could get it recharged, but I didn't want to leave it lying around. The damn things were incredibly expensive, and Devona only owned a couple. I vowed to hold onto this one and give it back to her when I saw Devona again. And I would see her again, even if I had to open a Kongar-sized can of whup-ass on the entire city to make it happen.
'You can still call me Shamika if you like. It's a good name, isn't it? I got it from a woman who works as a chef at the Six-Legged Cafe. I figured that since she cooks insects, and my people resemble insects…' She grinned as if she was making a joke, but when none of us reacted, her smile fell away. 'I thought it was kind of funny. I guess I don't fully understand humor yet.'
We were back in the great room. I stood at my usual place by the illusory fire, Varney once again leaned on the wall opposite me, but this time only Shamika sat on the couch. Bogdan was standing over next to me. We'd taken a moment to check on Tavi. The lyke was still unconscious, but the lower half of his body had begun to regenerate. The healing was proceeding at a glacial pace, and it might be days before he was whole again, if not longer, but at least he was healing.
Varney's optic implant had completely repaired itself by now, and his cybernetic eye glowed red. I had no doubt it functioned as a weapon as well as a camera, and though I'd chosen to holster my gun, I suspected Varney was – not to make a pun – keeping his eye on Shamika.
'But you don't look like an insect,' Varney said. 'You look human.'
'I can look like whatever I want,' Shamika said. 'We didn't have any form before the Darklords arrived. We were one vast shadowy creature, stretching for hundreds of miles in all directions. But when the Darklords saw us moving and rippling in the dark, one of them thought we resembled a carpet of black insects, and so we took that form.'
'Insects with obsidian gems for eyes?' Bogdan said.
'It was Varvara, wasn't it?' I said. 'She was the Darklord who accidentally gave you form, and you gained gem-like eyes because she thought of a demonic version of an insect.'
'That's right,' Shamika said. 'We kept that form for many years, even after we began to become aware of the Darkfolk as Others. Insects can go anywhere in a city. There are thousands of places to hide, and when insects are spotted, no one pays them much attention. It was a perfect guise to wear while we conducted our observations. But we are not limited to that form.'
I thought of murals I'd seen on the walls of the Nightspire depicting images of the Darkfolk's origins and evolution. The Darkfolk had begun as amorphous shadow creatures that were psycho-reactive, and as humans evolved, the Darkfolk took on shapes and attributes inspired by humanity's fears and nightmares. The Shadowings evolved naturally, but humans had turned them into the Darkfolk. From what Shamika was saying, it sounded like something similar had happened in this dimension. Only in this case, it was the Darkfolk who had unwittingly turned the native life form into the Watchers.
A couple more pieces of the puzzle fell into place for me then. 'When you got blasted outside Overhexed, I saw you fall apart, just like I did. Except that you were separated into your component pieces, and all you had to do was reassemble them. And those chiranha you called upon to deal with Magilla. They weren't really chiranha at all, were they? They were more components of you that took on the form of chiranhas.'
'Right on both counts,' Shamika said. 'Since I'm not really Arcane, I can't perform any magic. I know lots about magic,' she hastened to add. 'I know all kinds of things from my years observing the Darkfolk. I just can't work any spells. So I used my abilities to fake magic powers.'
'Why masquerade as a human?' I asked. 'And why pose as Papa Chatha's niece in particular?'
I remembered when we'd been in Papa's workroom, and Dis appeared and froze time for everyone but him and me. He'd given Shamika a look then, almost as if he'd known who and what she was, but he hadn't said anything to me about it. Maybe he'd just sensed something odd about her but hadn't been able to put his finger on it. Then again, he was Father Dis, the single most powerful creature among all the Darkfolk that had ever existed. I had a hard time believing he hadn't recognized Shamika as a Watcher. But if he had, why hadn't he done anything about it? Why hadn't he at least warned me?
'I told you that Gregor and I are different manifestations of the same consciousness. Gregor is the part of us that fears Otherness. I am the part that is intrigued by it. Where he observes in order to gain knowledge to destroy the Darkfolk, I observe simply because I wish to learn more about you. I take on humanoid form so that I can move freely among you and interact.' She smiled playfully, looking like the teenage girl she resembled. 'It's a lot more fun that way. As for why I posed as Papa Chatha's niece… well, that's more complicated.' Her smile faded. 'Dis did destroy every one of us in Nekropolis after Gregor's plot to stop the Renewal Ceremony failed. Dis killed us all – both those who were Gregor and those who were me. But even though Dis is a god by your standards, even his power has limits, and only those Watchers within the city were slain. So we waited a bit and then more of us simply moved in.' A ghost of her smile returned. 'Just like real insects, we're damn hard to get rid of.'
'But if Dis destroyed you both, how do you still have your memories?' I asked.
'We're not the same as you. Our memories aren't stored within a single body or even a thousand bodies for that matter.' She pointed to the stump of my right wrist. 'It's more like your injury. You've lost a hand, but you haven't lost the essence of who you are. It was the same with us.'
I was about to ask Shamika another question when I had the strangest sensation that my right hand was moving – except of course I had no right hand. It was with Devona, wherever she was. I chalked the sensation up to the phantom limb syndrome that amputees often experience and decided to leave it at that. But it was a really weird feeling.
Thinking of Devona made me realize something else, and I felt a surge of new hope.
'If you and Gregor are different aspects of the same mind, that means you know what he knows,' I said, 'which means you know what happened to Devona!'
'I'm sorry, Matt, but it doesn't work like that. I wish it did. Gregor and I might technically be the same mind, but our different… viewpoints, for lack of a better word, have caused us to become separated. Right now, we're more like one mind suffering from multiple personality disorder, and our separate personalities can't and won't communicate.' She smiled sadly. 'In fact, Gregor views me as the ultimate proof of the contaminating effects of Otherness. Where once we were one, now we're two. He blames the Darkfolk for this schism in our shared being, and it's only strengthened his determination to see you all destroyed.'
