Shadow Games: The Fourth Chronicles of the Black Company: First Book of the South (19 page)

Nothing but some of my share of the rest.

“That’s it?” Swan asked.

“What else is there? You expect me to jump in just because you’re a sweet guy?

Swan, I’m headed for Khatovar. I’ll do what I have to do to get there. You made
your pitch. Now’s the time to back off and let the customer think.”

He babbled to his prince. The more the evening went on, the more I was tempted
to issue a flat rejection. Croaker was getting old and cranky and not thrilled
with the idea of learning yet another language.

The Prahbrindrah Drah nodded to Swan. He agreed with me. They rose. I did
likewise, and gave the Prince a shallow bow. He and Swan walked away, pausing
here and there to speak to other midnight diners. No telling what he said. Maybe
what they wanted to hear. The faces I could see were smiling.

I got myself comfortable, leaned back to watch One-Eye at play. He had a swarm
of bugs zipping around his victim’s head. I asked Lady, “What do you think?”

“It’s not my place to think.”

“Where would you be inclined to stand?”

“I’m a soldier of the Black Company. As you’re inclined to remind me.”

“So was Raven. So long as it suited his convenience. Don’t play games with me.

Talk to me straight. Do you know these Shadowmasters? Are they Taken you sent
down here to start building you a new empire?”

“No! I salvaged Shifter and sent him south, just in case, when the fury of the
war and Stormbringer’s enmity were enough to explain his disappearance. That’s
all.”

“But Howler . . . ”

“Had his own escape planned. Knows of my condition and nurtures ambitions of his
own. Obviously. But the Shadowmasters . . . I know nothing. Nothing. You
should’ve asked more about them.”

“I will. If they’re not Taken they sound close enough as makes no difference. So
I want to know. Where do you stand?”

“I’m a soldier of the Black Company. They’ve already declared themselves my
enemies.”

“That’s not a definitive answer.”

“It’s the best you’re going to get.”

“I figured. What about Shifter and his sidekick?” I hadn’t seen them since
Thresh, but had the feeling they were just around the corner. “If it’s as bad as
it looks we’ll need all the resources we can muster.”

“Shifter will do what I tell him.”

Not the most reassuring answer, but I did not press. Again, it was the best I
was going to get.

“Eat your dinner and stop pestering me, Croaker.”

I looked down at food now so old it was no longer palatable.

Smirking, Frogface ambled off to help his master soften the will of an assassin.

One-Eye overdid it. He has that way when he has an audience. He gets too
exuberant. Our prisoner expired from sheer terror. We gained nothing from him
but notoriety.

As though we needed that.

It was late. Willow yawned as he tumbled into his chair. Blade, Cordy, and the
Woman looked at him expectantly. Like the Prahbrindrah couldn’t talk for
himself. “We talked.”

“And?” the Radisha demanded.

“You maybe expected him to jump up and down and yell, ‘Oh, goodie!’ ”

“What did he say?”

“He said he’d check it out. Which is about the best you could expect.”

“I should have gone myself.”

The Prahbrindrah said, “Sister, the man wouldn’t have listened at all had not
someone just tried to kill him.”

She was astonished.

Willow said, “Those guys aren’t stupid. They knew we was up to something way
back when they let us hook up with them at the Third Cataract. They been
watching us as close as we been watching them.”

Smoke drifted in with all the racket of his namesake. It was a big room in the
cellar of a friend of the Radisha, near the olive grove. It smelled moldy
although it was open to the night in places. Smoke came a few steps into the
light cast by three oil lamps. His face puckered into a frown. He looked around.

“What’s the matter?” Cordy asked. He shivered visibly. Swan got a creepy
feeling, too.

“I’m not sure. For a moment . . . like something was staring at me.”

The Radisha exchanged looks with her brother, then with Willow. “Willow. Those
two odd little men. One-Eye and Goblin. Fact or fraud?”

“Six of one and half a dozen of the other. Right, Blade? Cordy?”

Cordy nodded. Blade said, “The little one. Like a child. Frogface. That’s
dangerous.”

“What is it?” the Woman asked. “The oddest child I’ve ever seen. There were
times when it acted a hundred years old.”

“Maybe ten thousand,” Smoke said. “An imp. I dared not investigate lest it
recognize me as more than a silly old man. I don’t know its capacities. But
definitely a supernatural entity of great efficacy. My question is how an adept
of a capacity as limited as the One-Eye creature obtained control. I’m superior
to him in talent, skill, and training, but I can neither summon nor control such
a thing.”

Sudden squeaks and flutters came from the darkness. Startled, everyone turned.

Bats hurtled into the light, peeping, diving, dodging. A sudden larger shape
flashed through, dark as a chunk of night. It ripped a bat on the fly. Another
shape flung through a second later, dropping another bat. The others got away
through a barred but otherwise unclosed ground-level window.

“What the hell?” Willow squawked. “What’s going on?”

Blade said, “Couple of crows. Killing bats.” He sounded perfectly calm. As if
crows killing bats in a basement at midnight, around his head, was something
that happened all the time.

The crows did not reappear.

“I don’t like it, Willow,” Cordy said. “Crows don’t fly at night. Something’s
going on.”

Everyone looked at everyone else and waited for somebody to say something.

Nobody noticed the pantherine shadow settle outside the window, one eye peeking
inside. Nor did anybody realize that a child-sized figure lounged atop an old
crate beyond the light, grinning. But Smoke began to shiver and turn in slow
circles, again with that feeling of being watched.

The Prahbrindrah said, “I recall saying it wouldn’t be a good idea to meet this
close to the grove. I recall suggesting we get together in the palace, in a room
that Smoke has sealed against prying. I don’t know what just happened, but it
wasn’t natural and I don’t want to talk here. Let’s go. The delay can’t hurt.

Can it, Smoke?”

The old man shuddered violently, said, “It might be most wise, my Prince. Most
wise. There is more here than meets the eye . . . Henceforth we must assume we
are under surveillance.”

The Radisha was irked. “By who, old man?”

“I don’t know. Does it matter, Radisha? There are those who are interested. The
High Priests. These soldiers you wish to use. The Shadowmasters. Perhaps forces
of which we are unaware.”

They all looked at him. “Explain that,” the Woman ordered.

“I cannot. Except to remind you that those men successfully fought their way
through river pirates who have held the river closed for some time. None of them
would say much about it, but a word here and a word there added together
suggested that there was sorcery of the highest order involved, on both sides.

And theirs was sufficient to force the blockade. But, except for the imp, there
was nothing of that sort evident when we joined them. If they had it, where did
it go? Could it be that well hidden? Maybe, but I doubt it. Maybe it travels
with them without being with them, if you see what I mean.”

“No. You’re up to your old tricks. Being deliberately vague.”

“I’m vague because I have no answers, Radisha. Only questions. I wonder, more
and more, if the band we see isn’t an illusion cast for our benefit. A handful
of men, hard and tough and skilled in their murderous ways, to be sure, but
nothing that should terrify the Shadowmasters. There aren’t enough of them to
make a difference. So why are the Shadowmasters concerned? Either they know more
than we do or they see better than we do. Remember the history of the Free
Companies. They weren’t just bands of killers. And these men are determined to
reach Khatovar. Their captain has tried everything short of violence to unearth
information about the way.”

“Hey, Smoke! You said go someplace else and talk,” Blade said. “So how about we
go?”

Swan agreed. “Yeah. This dump gives me the creeps. I don’t get you guys,

Radisha. You and the Prince claim you run Taglios, but you go around hiding out
in holes like this.”

“Our seats aren’t secure.” She started moving. “We rule with the consent of the
priests, really. And we don’t want them knowing everything we’re doing.”

“Every damned lord and priest who was anybody was up in that grove tonight. They
know.”

“They know what we told them. Which is only part of the truth.”

Cordy eased in close to Willow. “Keep it down, man. Can’t you see what’s up?

They’re playing for a lot more than just turning back the Shadowmasters.”

“Uhm.”

Behind them, something resembling a panther padded from one pool of darkness to
another, silent as death itself. Crows glided from one point of vantage to
another. A childlike figure tagged along behind, apparently openly but remaining
unseen. But no bats darted overhead.

Willow understood, with that one admonition. The Woman and her brother thought
the struggle with the Shadowmasters would preoccupy the priests and cults. While
they were distracted they would gather all the reins of the state . . .

He did not begrudge them. He had little use for priests.

He thought maybe Blade was on to something. Here, sure. They ought all to be
drowned so Taglios could be put out of its misery.

Each dozen or so paces he turned, looked back. The street was always empty
behind him. Yet he was sure something was watching.

“Creepy,” he muttered. And wondered how he’d gotten himself into this mess.

That Prahbrindrah Drah might have been one of the good guys but he was as slick
as any villian. Two days after our visit I couldn’t go out without being hailed
Guardian, Protector, and Deliverer. “What the hell is going on?” I asked
One-Eye.

“Trying to lock you in.” He glared at Frogface. The imp had not been much good
since that night. He couldn’t get near anybody—except Swan and his buddies, in a
dive they owned. And they didn’t talk business there. “You sure you want to go
to this library?”

“I’m sure.” Somehow the Taglians had gotten the idea I was a big healer as well
as some kind of messianic general. “What the hell is wrong with them? I can see
the Prince trying to sell them the load of sheep shit, but why are they buying
it?”

“They want to.”

Mothers thrust their babies at me to be touched and blessed. Young men clashed
anything metal and roared songs with a martial beat. Maidens threw flowers on my
path. And sometimes themselves.

“That’s nice, Croaker,” One-Eye said, as I disentangled myself from a daydream
about sixteen years old. “You don’t want her, toss her my way.”

“Take it easy. Before you give in to your baser instincts think about what’s
going on.”

He was reserved to an extreme that baffled me. I think he saw it all as
illusion. Or at least as a honeytrap. One-Eye is silly but he isn’t stupid.

Sometimes.

One-Eye chuckled. “Surrender to temptation. Lady can’t look over your shoulder
all the time.”

“I might. I just might. It is my duty not to disappoint these people when
they’re trying so hard to hustle us. Isn’t it?”

“There you go.” But he did not sound like he believed himself. He was
uncomfortable with his good fortune.

We went into the library. I found nothing. So much nothing I got even more
suspicious than I was. Frogface wasn’t much use, but he could eavesdrop. The
conversations he reported contributed to my concern.

It was a good time for the men. Even the supreme discipline of the Nar was not
proof against some temptations. Mogaba did not hold them on too tight a leash.

As Goblin howled one morning, “Heaven’s on fire, Croaker!”

Always there was this feeling of something happening just out of the comer of my
eye.

The geopolitical situation was clear. It was just as Swan had described. Meaning
that to reach Khatovar we would have to slice through seven hundred miles of
country ruled by the Shadowmasters. If Shadowmasters there were.

I had some slight doubts. Everyone I talked to, through Frogface, believed they
existed, but nobody provided any concrete evidence.

“Nobody has ever seen the gods, either,” a priest told me. “But we all believe
in them, don’t we? We see their handiwork . . . ” He realized that I had scowled
at his suggestion that everyone believed in gods. His eyes narrowed. He scurried
away. For the first time I had found me somebody less than thrilled with my
presence in Taglios. I told One-Eye it might be more profitable if we started
spying on the High Priests instead of the Prince and Swan, who knew when to keep
their mouths shut.

That we were being manipulated into going up against some heavyweight sorcerers
did not intimidate me. Much. We had been up against the best for twenty years.

What troubled me was my ignorance.

I did not know the language. I did not know the Taglian people. Their history
was a mystery and Swan’s bunch were no help tossing light into the shadows. And,

of course, I knew nothing about the Shadowmasters or the peoples they ruled.

Nothing but what I had been told, which could be worse than nothing. Worst of
all, I was not acquainted with the ground where any struggle would take place.

And I had too little time to learn all the answers.

Sundown of the third day. We moved to quarters farther south in the city,