Nightside 05 - Paths Not Taken

on my forehead. I didn't want to go out like this. Swallowed up by the dark, reduced to some broken, screaming thing. "Tommy?"
    Give the man his due, he tried. He stepped forward and tried to reason with the Shadow Men. But his voice was uncertain, and I could feel his gift sputtering on and off. The Shadow Men oozed forward, taking their time, black lakes of evil intent. They didn't listen to Tommy. They didn't care about his logic, they didn't care about anything but dragging down the man who'd dared defy them. They had come for me, and not even Walker's orders would have turned them aside by then.
    So I did the only thing left to me, and fired up my gift. I didn't want to. I blaze so very brightly in the dark when I open up my mind to find things, and my Enemies can See exactly where I am. They might send the Harrowing after me again, or worse still, the future Suzie. But I had no choice. I opened up my inner eye, my private eye, and used my gift to find the Time Tower's defences. I could See the many layers of magical protection radiating from the squat stone structure, like a dark rainbow, and it was the easiest thing in the world to reach out and grab them, and pull them to me.
    I only meant to use them as a screen, to hide the three of us from the Shadow Men, but the Tower's defences had other ideas. They slammed into me, a cascade of terrible forces far beyond mortal ken, and I cried out as horrible pain racked my whole body. The defences forced their way into me, and focussed through me; then they leapt out to blast all the Shadow Men in the Square with a brilliant, incandescent, and overwhelming light that shone from me like a balefire against the night.
    I screamed again and again as the power burned in and through me, and the light shone brighter, brighter, filling the whole Square. And everywhere the living Shadows fell back, shrivelling up and fading away under the onslaught of that terrible light. Suzie and Tommy had their heads turned away and their hands pressed over their eyes, but I don't think it was helping them much. They were crying out, too. The light rose up one last time, and the Shadow Men were gone, all gone, small patches of darkness blasted away by a light beyond bearing. The Tower's defences looked out through my eyes, checking that the Square was secure, then they withdrew, yanking themselves out of me with painful abruptness. I fell forward into my knees, shaking and shuddering. And all I could think was;
    / don't think I'll try that again.
    Suzie knelt beside me, not touching me, but giving me what support she could through her presence.
    "I didn't know you could do that," said Tommy. He was looking dazedly about him. "You destroyed the Shadow Men! All of them! I didn't think anyone could do that!"
    "I'm full of surprises," I managed to say, after a while.
    "I'll say," Suzie said dryly. "First the Reasonable Men, now the Shadow Men. Soon Walker won't have anyone left to send after you."
    "Sounds like a plan to me," I said.
    I rose shakily to my feet and wiped the sweat off my face with a handkerchief that had seen better days. Tommy actually winced at the sight of it. I put it away, and we all looked at the Time Tower. Suzie looked at me.
    "Why do they call it a Tower when it manifestly isn't?"
    "Because that isn't the Tower," I said. Even my brief contact with the Tower's defences had been enough to fill my head with all kinds of information I hadn't possessed before. "That building is how you access the Tower, which isn't exactly here, as such. Old Father Time brought the Tower with him from Shadows Fall, but it's only connected to the Nightside by his will. It exists ... somewhere else. Or maybe somewhen else. That stone thing only contains the Tower's defences. And trust me when I say you really don't want to know what powers them. I know, and I'm seriously considering scrubbing out my frontal lobes with steel wool."
    "All right," said Tommy, in the tone of voice usually reserved for calming the demented and potentially dangerous. "How do we get to the Tower?"
    "Through the door," I said. "That's what it's for."
    I led the way over and tried the brass door handle. It turned easily in my hand, and the door swung open. This was a good sign. If Old Father Time didn't want to talk to you, the handle wouldn't budge. Inside the door was an elevator, with only the one button on its control panel. The three of us stepped inside, and I hit the button. The door swung shut, and the elevator