Yating had moved up beside me. He brought a tiny ball of light to his hand. "I think we had better be able to at least see where we put our feet. I'll drop the spell if it seems to be creating a problem."
"Yes. Good idea," I said. I would have just kept walking into the darkness, and maybe that was not the best idea. "I don't know what I'm doing."
"You are going to see if you can learn something," Sylph said from the other side of Yating, hardly more than a shadow moving in the faint light. Lycan walked by me, and King Pixie sat on my shoulder. "And I think we are learning something already.
I looked ahead. A shape had moved apart from the rest of the dark. As we neared, I realized it was mirroring our group. I hoped that was a good sign and not a plan to hit us with equal force.
We stopped hardly more than four yards from each other. They were shapes like us, but not mirrors. The darkness had sent out four of their own. I didn't think they saw or sensed King Pixie, and that might be good.
"Danger," a voice whispered.
And that reminded me of Lady Snow's story about how she had lost her daughter. I wondered, suddenly, what had driven her to Boston's harbor and where she might be now.
"You are not the enemy," I said softly. "It comes behind you, doesn't it?"
"We hold, we hold," two or three voices said. "Chaos. Oblivion -- but we hold."
"Destruction," I said. "You are standing between us and destruction."
"We hold, we hold," they repeated. "But it builds. It pushes. Chaos, oblivion, destruction."
"We need to work together to stop it," I said. "I need to see what we face."
"To go through us."
"Yes."
Our dark counterparts stopped for a moment, still and silent. We waited, saying nothing more. I did look beyond them, though, to the wall of black that stood behind them. I wasn't sure we would survive going any closer to that mass of darkness, but I could come up with no other idea for finding out what we needed to know.
I glanced right and left. "If either of you has any better idea --"
"None," Sylph said. The other two nodded.
If the Dark Ones disagreed, then the best we could probably do was stand on this side and just wait for our chance to fight. That struck me as a bad idea, though it might give us time to bring in more forces, to be prepared. Could we convince the humans to work with us as well? That didn't seem likely. Humans overreacted to anything out of their usual understanding. They would band together to stand up against terrorists. They might even take on aliens?
Magic, though? They'd have to first decide it was real, and by the time that conversation was over, they'd likely have lost the war. We had to do something that would not require the cooperation of the humans.
I realized we couldn't keep this madness fully from them, though. The ones already in the tunnels might not fully realize all that was going on. There would be questions, and more questions, theories, and conspiracies -- and it was bound to get messy.
I sensed a shift in the group before us, though I couldn't say they actually turned their attention from us.
Behind them, a dark tunnel appeared in the mass of darkness. I thought I could see something brighter at the far end -- but that end was a long, long way away.
"We have our answer. King Pixie, would you to tell the queen --"
The pixie took off from my shoulder. I sensed the others' notice, and I thought I felt a little touch of surprise this time. Maybe even wonder. I suspected they thought I had sent a piece of myself back to talk to the others.
We had no time to discuss anything more, though. The others began to back away. They never turned, just started moving in the direction opposite of how they'd arrived. I took a step forward to follow and almost told the others to stay behind.
They wouldn't have listened to me anyway.
It grew colder as we neared the darkness. Not overpowering cold, but chilly. I was a bit uncomfortable, but I imagined the others had been too warm when they came to greet us, so this was only fair. If it got too cold, we would have to back away. I wouldn't dare use any warming magic for fear of the harm it would do to our maybe allies.
I wanted to tell the others one more time that they should stay back, but the press of time came over me. I knew that if we didn't move soon, then we'd never survive. Maybe that just came from my panic, but given the situation, I didn't think it an unlikely guess.
We followed the others, down the deserted human road, past the abandoned cars and locked doors. A few people may have looked from windows. We were going to have a mess here later.
If this world survived.
I found myself almost gasping as we neared the edge of the darkness. My hands began to tremble, and I couldn't decide if it was because of the cold or my nerves.
"No turning back," I said as I glanced left and right.
"None," Lycan agreed.
We went on ahead and into the tunnel. King Pixie had not returned, and I was glad of it. He might have frozen too quickly, being so small.
It would take us a little longer.
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