Uttuku

The Books of Darkness

by Robert N. Stephenson

Chapter 2

The Ta’ibah

Diana Arlyn is an author of gothic fiction best-sellers. A hard drinker with bipolar disorder, she falls in love with a mysterious woman, and the turbulent relationship draws Diana unwillingly into a legend.

Diana is haunted by questions: why did the woman pick her, of all people, and how can the Ta’ibah, the hunter of darkness, know so much about her? She is also haunted by the ghost of a dead author. She must find out what he wants, recover a lost book that belongs to someone who wants to kill her, and ultimately survive the darkness.

I know who took it. I know who he gave it to. They were now both dead. My casting led me part way. I forgot caution and his life energy was sucked dry before I could act. I still had a connection, weak and difficult to trace. To control a ghost isn’t a difficult task, to trace it to its place of haunting another matter entirely. I could send commands and only hope what I want will come to me.

The Dark One wanted his prize, I owed him that much. I owed him my very existence. I stared up at the window, the cold winter air off the sea keeping the beach deserted. No one could see me unless I want them to, still I hid beneath the jetty. She could see me, she has part of what made me inside.

The window stared back, empty, a sheet of glass like all the others in the wall. Clouds, heavy and ready for storming, are reflected in their surface, a mosaic of the sky.

I am a Ta’ibah, a creature of darkness who can hold onto light when I have need to, to allow me, afford me a presence in the world of sun and artificial light. I cannot enter Sarina’s world though, because of what she is, or more to the point, what I am not. Her kind are alive, and are also alive with the energy, the light of the living, the humans. To go against her would be like standing within the heart of a sun. To get the symbol of the Uttukes back I must find a way, and she is too old to fall for simple tricks.

The wind whipped around me, through me, its cold like the outer darkness, the stuff that keeps me in the world. Rain would fall soon, wet the glass and fracture the view. She would wake, look down and know I watched and waited. She will not give it up easily, too wise in the manner of her kind. I know it now, wish I’d known it a long time before. He wants me to watch her, look for a weakness. He needs me to penetrate the only thing that stands between him and completeness.

The cold reminded me of of old Paslenov, his dedication, the hardships of living and assisting something beyond his full comprehension. I knew he wanted to help, thought his actions would please me, perhaps even honour me. If I could mourn death I would for him; my feelings as a Ta’ibah are strange, often disconnected images of times passed and events that can seem jumbled together like a child’s puzzle. Paslenov deserved better than what he got. Those responsible would be punished by a hand only he would appreciate. It would be difficult to revenge in a manner befitting the old man; human ways always were hard to manage. As I wait, watch, let the rain blanket me with its sleeting, I will also plan for restitution for the closest thing the darkness could call friend.

Proceed to Chapter 3...

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