Shadows Linger (6 page)

the Lady and Taken have been content to communicate through messengers.

The fit lasted only seconds. That was customary. Then Goblin relaxed,

whimpering. It would be several minutes before he recovered enough to relay the
message. We three looked at one another with card-playing faces, frightened
inside. I said,

“Somebody ought to tell the Captain.”

“Yeah,” One-Eye said. He made no move to go. Neither did Silent.

“All right. I'm elected.” I went. I found the Captain doing what he does best.

He had his feet up on his worktable, was snoring. I wakened him, told him.

He sighed. “Find the Lieutenant.” He went to his map cases. I asked a couple
questions he ignored, took the hint and got out.

He had expected something like this? There was a crisis in the area? How could
Charm have heard first?

Silly, worrying before I heard what Goblin had to say.

The Lieutenant seemed no more surprised than the Captain. “Something up?” I
asked.

“Maybe. A courier letter came after you and Candy left for Tally. Said we might
be called west. This could be it.”

“West? Really?”

“Yeah.” Such dense sarcasm he put into the word!

Stupid. If we chose Charm as the customary demarcation point between east and
west, Tally lay two thousand plus miles away. Three months' travel under perfect
conditions. The country between was anything but perfect. In places roads just
didn't exist. I thought six months sounded too optimistic. But I was worrying
before the fact again. I had to wait and see.

It turned out to be something even the Captain and Lieutenant hadn't
anticipated. We waited in trepidation while Goblin pulled himself together. The
Captain had his map case open, sketching a tentative route to Frost. He grumbled
because all westbound traffic had to cross the Plain of Fear. Goblin cleared his
throat.

Tension mounted. He did not lift his eyes. The news had to be unpleasant. He
squeaked, “We've been recalled. That was the Lady. She seemed disturbed. The
first leg goes to Frost. One of the Taken will meet us there. He'll take us on
to the Barrowland.” The others frowned, exchanged puzzled looks. I muttered,

“Shit. Holy Shit.”

“What is it, Croaker?” the Captain asked.

They didn't know. They paid no attention to historical things. “That's where the
Dominator is buried. Where they all were buried, back when. It's in the forest
north of Oar.” We'd been to Oar seven years ago. It was not a friendly city.

“Oar!” the Captain yelled. “Oar! That's twenty-five hundred miles!”

“Add another hundred or two to the Barrowland.”

He stared at the maps. “Great. Just great. That means not just the Plain of Fear
but the Empty Hills and the Windy Country too. Just fandamntastic great. I
suppose we've got to get there next week?”

Goblin shook his head. “She didn't seem rushed, Captain. Just upset and wanting
us headed the right way.”

“She give you any whys or wherefores?”

Goblin smirked. Did the Lady ever? Hell, no.

“Just like that,” the Captain muttered. “Out of the blue. Orders to hike halfway
around the world. I love it.” He told the Lieutenant to begin preparations for
movement.

It was bad news, mad news, insanity squared, but not as bad as he made out. He
had been preparing since receiving the courier letter. It wasn't that hard to
get rolling. The trouble was, nobody wanted to roll.

The west was far nicer than anything we'd known out here, but not so great
anybody wanted to walk that far.

Surely she could have summoned a closer unit?

We are the victims of our own competence. She always wants us where the going
threatens to become toughest. She knows we will do the best job.

Damn and double damn.

JUNIPER: NIGHT WORK
Shed had given Krage only nine of ten leva. The coin he held back bought
firewood, wine, and beer to replenish his stocks. Then other creditors caught
wind of his prosperity. A slight upturn in business did him no good. He met his
next payment to Krage by borrowing from a moneylender named Gilbert. He found
himself wishing somebody would die. Another ten leva would put him in striking
distance of getting through the winter. It was a hard one, that winter. Nothing
moved in the harbor. There was no work in the Buskin. Shed's only bit of good
fortune was Asa. Asa brought wood whenever he got away from Krage, in a pathetic
effort to buy a friend. Asa arrived with a load. Privately, he said, “Better
watch out, Shed. Krage heard about you borrowing from Gilbert.” Shed went grey.

“He's got a buyer for the Lily lined up. They're rounding up girls already.”

Shed nodded. The whoremasters recruited desperate women this time of year. By
the time summer brought its sailors, they were broken to their trade.

"The bastard. Made me think he'd given me a break. I should have known better.

This way he gets my money and my place. The bastard.“ ”Well, I warned you."

“Yeah. Thanks, Asa.” Shed's next due date came on like a juggernaut. Gilbert
refused him another loan. Smaller creditors besieged the Lily. Krage was aiming
them Shed's way.

He took Raven a complimentary drink. “May I sit?” A hint of a smile crossed
Raven's lips. “It's your place.” And: “You haven't been friendly lately. Shed.”

“I'm nervous,” Shed lied. Raven irritated his conscience. “Worried about my
debts.“ Raven saw through the excuse. ”You thought maybe I could help?” Shed
almost groaned. “Yes.”

Raven laughed softly. Shed thought he detected a note of triumph. "All right,

Shed. Tonight?"

Shed pictured his mother being carted off by the Custodians. He swallowed his
self-disgust. “Yeah.”

“All right. But this time you're a helper, not a partner.” Shed swallowed and
nodded. “Put the old woman to bed, then come back downstairs. Understand?”

“Yes,” Shed whispered.

“Good. Now go away. You irritate me.”

“Yes, sir.” Shed retreated. He couldn't look anyone in the eye the rest of that
day.

A bitter wind howled down the Port valley, freckled with flakes of snow. Shed
huddled miserably, the wagon seat a bar of ice beneath him. The weather was
worsening. “Why tonight?” he grumbled.

“Best time.” Raven's teeth chattered. “We're not likely to be seen.” He turned
into Chandler's Lane, off which innumerable narrow alleyways ran. “Good hunting
territory here. In this weather they crawl back in the alleys and die like
flies.”

Shed shivered. He was too old for this. But that was why he was here. So he
wouldn't have to face the weather every night.

Raven stopped the wagon. “Check that passageway.”

Shed's feet started aching the instant he put weight on them. Good. At least he
felt something. They weren't frozen.

There was little light in the alley. He searched more by feel than sight. He
found one lump under an overhang, but it stirred and muttered. He ran.

He reached the wagon as Raven dumped something into the bed. Shed averted his
eyes. The boy couldn't have been more than twelve. Raven concealed the body with
straw. “That's one. Night like this, we ought to find a load.”

Shed choked his protests, resumed his seat. He thought about his mother. She
wouldn't last one night in this.

Next alley he found his first corpse. The old man had fallen and frozen because
he couldn't get up again. Aching in his soul,

Shed dragged the body to the wagon.

“Going to be a good night,” Raven observed. “No competition. The Custodians
won't come out in this.“ Softly: ”I hope we can make the hill.” Later, after
they had moved to the waterfront and each had found another corpse, Shed asked,

“Why're you doing this?” “I need money, too. Got a long way to travel. This way
I get a lot, fast, without much risk.”

Shed thought the risks far greater than Raven would admit. They could be torn
apart. “You're not from Juniper, are you?”

“From the south. A shipwrecked sailor.”

Shed did not believe it. Raven's accent was not at all right for that, mild
though it was. He hadn't the nerve to call the man a liar, though, and press for
the truth.

The conversation continued by fits and starts. Shed didn't uncover anything more
of Raven's background or motives.

“Go that way,” Raven told him. “I'll check over here. Last stop, Shed. I'm done
in.”

Shed nodded. He wanted to get the night over. To his disgust, he had begun
seeing the street people as objects, and he hated them for dying in such damned
inconvenient places.

He heard a soft call, turned back quickly. Raven had one. That was enough. He
ran to the wagon.

Raven was on the seat, waiting. Shed scrambled up, huddled, tucked his face away
from the wind. Raven kicked the mules into motion.

The wagon was halfway across the bridge over the Port when Shed heard a moan.

“What?” One of the bodies was moving! “Oh. Oh, shit, Raven. . . .”

“He's going to die anyway.”

Shed huddled back down, stared at the buildings on the north bank. He wanted to
argue, wanted to fight, wanted to do anything to deny his part in this atrocity.

He looked up an hour later and recognized nothing. A few large houses flanked
the road, widely spaced, their windows dark. “Where are we?”

“Almost there. Half an hour, unless the road is too icy.”

Shed imagined the wagon sliding into a ditch. What then? Abandon everything and
hope the rig couldn't be traced? Fear replaced loathing.

Then he realized where they were. There wasn't anything up here but that
accursed black castle. “Raven. ...”

“What's the matter?”

“You're head for the black castle.”

“Where'd you think we were going?”

“People live there?”

“Yes. What's your problem?”

Raven was a foreigner. He couldn't understand how the black castle affected
Juniper. People who got too close disappeared. Juniper preferred to pretend that
the place did not exist.

Shed stammered out his fears. Raven shrugged. “Shows your ignorance.”

Shed saw the castle's dark shape through the snow. The fall was lighter on the
ridge, but the wind was more fierce. Resigned, he muttered, “Let's get it over
with.”

The shape resolved into battlements, spires, towers. Not a light shown anywhere.

Raven halted before a tall gate, went forward on foot. He banged a heavy
knocker. Shed huddled, hoping there would be no response.

The gate opened immediately. Raven scrambled onto the wagon's seat. "Get up,

mules."

“You're not going inside?”

“Why not?”

“Hey. No way. No.”

“Shut up, Shed. You want your money, you help unload.”

Shed stifled a whimper. He hadn't bargained for this.

Raven drove through the gate, turned right, halted be-neath a broad arch. A
single lantern battled the darkness clotting the passageway. Raven swung down.

Shed followed, his nerves shrieking. They dragged the bodies out of the wagon
and swung them onto stone slabs nearby. Then Raven said, "Get back on the wagon.

Keep your mouth shut." The one body stirred. Shed grunted. Raven pinched his leg
savagely. “Shut up.”

A shadowy shape appeared. It was tall, thin, clad in loose black pantaloons and
a hooded shirt. It examined each body briefly, seemed pleased. It faced Raven.

Shed glimpsed a face all of sharp angles and shadows, lustrous, olive, cold,

with a pair of softly luminous eyes. “Thirty. Thirty. Forty. Thirty. Seventy,”

it said. Raven countered, “Thirty. Thirty. Fifty. Thirty. One hundred.”

“Forty. Eighty.” “Forty-five. Ninety.” “Forty. Ninety.” “Done.”

They were dickering! Raven was not interested in quibbling over the old people.

The tall being would not advance his offer for the youth. But the dying man was
negotiable.

Shed watched the tall being count out coins at the feet of the corpses. That was
a damned fortune! Two hundred twenty pieces of silver! With that he could tear
the Lily down and build a new place. He could get out of the Buskin altogether.

Raven scooped the coins into his coat pocket. He gave Shed five. “That's all?”

“Isn't that a good night's work?”

It was a good month's work, and then some. But to get only five of. ...

“Last time we were partners,” Raven said, swinging onto the driver's seat.

“Maybe we will be again. But tonight you're a hired hand. Understand?” There was
a hard edge to his voice. Shed nodded, beset by new fears.

Raven backed the wagon. Shed felt a sudden chill. That archway was hot as hell.

He shuddered, feeling the hunger of the thing watching them.

Dark, glassy, jointless stone slid past. “My god!” He could see into the wall.

He saw bones, fragments of bones, bodies, pieces of bodies, all suspended as if
floating in the night. As Raven turned toward the gate, he saw a staring face.

“What kind of place is this?”

“I don't know, Shed. I don't want to know. All I care is, they pay good money. I
need it. I have a long way to go.”

THE BARROWLAND
The Taken called the Limper met the Company at Frost. We'd spent a hundred and
forty-six days on the march. They were long days and hard, grinding, men and
animals going on more by habit than desire. An outfit in good shape, like ours,

is capable of covering fifty or even a hundred miles in a day, pushing hell out
of it, but not day after week after month, upon incredibly miserable roads. A
smart commander does not push on a long march. The days add up, each leaving its
residue of fatigue, till men begin collapsing if the pace is too desperate.

Considering the territories we crossed, we made damned good time. Between Tome
and Frost lie mountains where we were lucky to make five miles a day, deserts we
had to wander in search of water, rivers that took days to cross using makeshift
rafts. We were fortunate to reach Frost having lost only two men.