She Is the Darkness: Book Two of Glittering Stone: A Novel of the Black Company (40 page)

I wakened in the alcove where Smoke used to be stored. It was dark. I had no
idea how long I had been out. The meeting was over, that was certain. I did not
hear a sound.

I started to clamber out of there, found I was incredibly weak. My legs betrayed
me when I tried to stand. I pitched forward through the curtain masking the
alcove.

There was a sudden mouselike scurry. I lifted my head. The little bit of light
betrayed the rodent.

Thai Dei was stuffing papers back into piles while trying to appear innocent.

Maybe he was. He could not read.

“There you are. I got worried.” He helped me up. “What happened?”

My knees were watery. “I had one of those attacks like I used to have when we
were in Dejagore and Taglios.”

“Why did they . . . ? They all trooped out of here hours ago. Even the guards
went away.”

“What time is it?” The meeting had begun early in the morning.

“Be sunset in an hour.”

“Shit. A whole day shot, then.” Thai Dei helped me stay standing. I did not
shake him off. I looked for food. Food always helped after a long ghostwalk with
Smoke.

This was not the same. At least cold, tough, burnt mutton did not help. And
there was nothing else available.

What I wanted was something alcoholic. A few amateurs had arisen to take
One-Eye’s place. Best known were Willow Swan and Cordy Mather, who had stayed
around despite being free to go back north. Cordy no longer had that fire in his
belly where the Radisha was concerned. But their product was no good. And, if I
wanted some, I had to acquire it through intermediaries since we all had to
pretend to observe the rules.

But I had a suspicion, of late, about where One-Eye could have hidden his
manufacturing equipment. There was a small, reinforced cubby in my old dugout
where I had kept the Annals and the odd private item. It had survived disasters
unscathed. Mother Gota had helped build it.

We climbed up out of Croaker’s dugout, me still wobble-kneed and griping, “I
wish the hell he’d move into the fucking fortress.” The experimentation was all
over but our crowd was still scattered through the hills, roughing it. An hour
of light remained. “Where is everybody?” I did not see a soul closer than the
ruins of Kiaulune. That gave me a little shock of fright. Had I returned to the
world I left when the seizure took me? Was I caught in another layer of dream?

“They all went away. Even the guards.” Thai Dei repeated the news as though he
was talking to someone both deaf and dense. “Else I could not have entered the
Liberator’s shelter.”

It had been a while since anybody called the Old Man that. “I take it Uncle Doj
went to keep an eye on them.”

Thai Dei did not reply.

I headed for my former home. “Compared to the bunker we moved to over there this
dump was a palace.”

Lady and the Old Man had turned my palace into a prison. The downhill side
entrance that we put in for Mother Gota and Uncle Doj now opened into an
exercise area fenced with captured spears. Lisa Bowalk lay in a cage there,

muzzle on paws, exposed to the elements, dully resigned. The Prahbrindrah Drah
paced, avoiding glittering spearpoints and the reach of the shapeshifter’s
claws. He seemed patient, counting his condition only a temporary setback.

Neither Longshadow, Howler, nor Narayan Singh were outside. Singh’s absence was
not surprising. He was punished if he ventured into the light. But the former
Shadowmaster was not and he hated the darkness inside. He feared what might be
lurking there.

The poor old boy had lost all his self-confidence. He spent most of his time
shivering, rocking and whimpering to himself. He was losing weight. Which was
hard to believe.

The stench was awful. Those people had no friends now. They lived worse than
animals in the crudest zoo or feedlot. Passersby were encouraged to torment
Longshadow and the living saint of the Deceivers.

Howler had not earned his final standing on Lady’s shitlist. He was treated with
indifference yet fed the best table scraps.

Smoke would be inside somewhere, too. He and the prince were treated best.

Bowalk was fed and otherwise ignored as long as she behaved.

A sign that could be read by only a few actually insisted that the Prahbrindrah
Drah was an honored guest. Somebody’s little joke.

“A good storm would help with the smell,” I said. I glanced at the sky. Relief
seemed unlikely anytime soon.

Thai Dei grunted. He raised a hand.

Something was up. He was on his toes, nostrils flaring. His head moved in little
jerks as he tried to hear something.

I froze. This was his business. His expertise.

I heard it, too, now. Scratching from within the dugout. Months had gone by and
still I had no clear idea why Longshadow and Singh remained among the living.

They kept farting around, Croaker and Lady would regret not having disposed of
them quickly.

Lady thought they might be useful. Someday. Somehow. Somewhere.

“Better find out what it is,” I said. With no enthusiasm whatsoever. This kind
of thing always meant trouble. “What happened to Uncle Doj?” He might be handy
to have around if something happened. I was not carrying anything but a little
three-ball bamboo stick.

Thai Dei stepped over to the headquarters company woodpile now serviced by
Shadowlander peasant contractors and selected a yard of kindling with a burly
knot at one end. He gestured me forward.

I slipped down and yanked on the door of my former home.

Narayan Singh, the living saint of the Deceivers, tumbled into the twilight. He
had been kept inside for a long time. He was naturally dark-skinned but had
acquired a pasty, maggoty coloration. Maybe Lady was doing more than just
keeping him locked up in his own filth. She could be subtle when she wanted. She
just did not want that often.

Thai Dei bopped him on the noggin.

Poor old Narayan. His life had not gone well for a long time. And the son of a
bitch had earned every second of pain. Bet his goddess snickered whenever she
thought about him.

Half of his torment would be the waiting, knowing that someday Lady would take
time to offer him some specialized, personalized, unloving attention.

“Let’s be real careful,” I told Thai Dei.

Thai Dei grunted. He wore the ultimate Nyueng Bao stone face. To Tan had not
been forgotten.

“Don’t even think about it, Thai Dei. Lady would roast you. Besides, there’re
more of them inside. And they’re all worse than Singh.”

I meant worse trouble but it did not turn out that way. Both Longshadow and
Howler wore hobbles and metal gags. Longshadow had not eaten well since his
capture. A starved sorcerer is a tame sorcerer, I guess. Covered with filth,

Howler and the Shadowmaster barely had the strength to crawl into the light
after they thought Narayan had opened the way.

Even famine had not yet tamed them completely. A point worth keeping in mind.

Thai Dei remarked, “They were supposed to seal off the kennel side.”

“Don’t look like anybody bothered. Keep an eye on them. Without breaking
anything. Or anybody. I’ll be right back out.”

Thai Dei grunted again. In deep disappointment.

“We’ll get our turn,” I promised.

Smoke was still inside. He had looked so bad for so long he did not look much
worse now. His clothing had decayed into rotten rags. He was chained. One chain
trailed back into the darkness.

The others had been chained, too. The guys had shown that much sense before they
took off wherever they went. Somehow, the villains managed to get loose. I
wondered if they would have dragged Smoke any farther had they had the strength
and time to manage a successful getaway.

Might have been amusing to watch them return to a world that had changed
completely during their holidays.

I stepped over the little wizard, found a small lamp and got it burning. Except
for the stink and mess everything was pretty much as we had left it. A ragged
shawl belonging to Ky Gota still lay tangled on a three-legged chair liberated
from Kiaulune ages ago. There was no evidence that the prisoners had spent any
time in this part of the dugout.

Following Smoke’s chain, I discovered that the one side had been walled off. But
the carpenters had done a poor job using salvage lumber that had not stood up to
someone’s patient ministrations.

I ducked through the hole.

The stench was a lot thicker on the other side. I had seen less filthy pigsties.

The prisoners had not explored their prison thoroughly. They had not found my
little cubby. But someone else had and had decided to take advantage of it.

One-Eye’s lost manufacturing equipment and finished product had been stuffed
into the hole, along with what looked like a bunch of treasures harvested from
the ruined city. Mother Gota had enjoyed collecting junk during her nocturnal
rambles.

I dragged out a jug, popped its cork. Damn, that stuff smelled nasty! Some kind
of distilled spirits . . . I took a long pull that left my eyes running. The
stuff tasted worse than it smelled.

After a second throat burning draught I raised my lamp high, trying to get some
light in there past the clutter. I had left a few treasures of my own, though
nothing important enough to have dragged on over to the Shadowgate yet. I did
not recall what all I had stashed.

“Ah! What’s this?” I snaked an arm in through the junk.

As I closed my fingers on ragged burlap I managed to elbow a stack of
earthenware bottles piled on their sides. One-Eye evidently had meant to revisit
them long ago because even an ignoramus like me knows you do not leave bottled
beer horizontal forever.

It took only that nudge to get the bottles banging against one another, then
blasting their contents all over me and the inside of the dugout. I snagged one
spewing bottle and got some of its contents inside me. Not bad, but a little
yeasty.

“I’m all right!” I shouted in response to Thai Dei’s inquiry from outside. “I
found One-Eye’s treasure.” In more ways than one, I discovered. The object
wrapped in burlap was that wonderful wizard killer spear he had whittled while
we were trapped in Dejagore. The gold and silver inlays alone were worth a
fortune.

More evidence that the little wizard had not planned to stay away forever. He
did not know I knew but he had continued working on that spear secretly, always
improving it, making it ever more his masterwork.

“And what’s this?” There was another object in burlap, behind the spear. Had the
little shit been making knockoffs of his own artwork?

No. This was a bow, with arrows. I did not recognize it immediately because I
had not seen it in more years than I wanted to count, but it was the weapon Lady
had given Croaker way back when she was still The Lady. I thought the boss lost
it a long time ago.

Croaker always had another secret.

I had to wonder if he had not had some part in One-Eye’s desertion.

It was always possible that he did not know what had become of the bow.

I collected spear and bow and as many stoneware containers as I could lug. I
could send Thai Dei in for more beer and . . .

I could not carry my lamp and plunder, too. I used to live here. I could find my
way around without a lamp. Besides, there was a glimmer of twilight still
leaking in through the doorway.

The alcohol was taking effect. As I stepped over him I told Smoke, “I wouldn’t
have your luck on a bet, chief.”

Smoke opened his eyes.

I jumped. It had been five or six years . . . And he did not appear to be in a
friendly mood.

I discovered that I just wanted to get out and indulge my taste for beer.

Thai Dei helped me with my burdens. Somehow, one bottle of beer stuck to his
hand. I noted that his charges were all healthy still, though Narayan Singh
might have acquired a fresh crop of bruises.

“Where the hell is everybody?” I grumbled again. “I’ve got stuff to do. But we
can’t go off and leave these characters alone. They’re bound to get into some
kind of mischief.” Longshadow, Howler and Singh were not volunteering to go back
into captivity.

I took another long drink.

The quiet really bothered me. It might indicate yet another less-than-brilliant
attempt to subdue Soulcatcher. She had grudges enough against us as it was.

I had seen the ground that had suffered Lady’s barrage. It bore no resemblance
to its springtime self. Rocks as big as houses had had holes punched right
through them. Most of the busted-up trees had burned. There had been rockslides
and cave-ins. In places the rock appeared to have become plastic. It had sagged
like candle wax. Catcher’s cave could not be found.

The only bodies found so far were those of crows. There was no evidence that
Soulcatcher or her prisoner had suffered any serious discomfiture.

Live crows laughed amongst the tortured rocks.

Thai Dei grunted. These days he was positively garrulous, sometimes mouthing as
many as two entire sentences in an hour. But this time he needed no words. He
just put his beer in his other hand and pointed into the gathering darkness.

The missing folks were returning in a mob, coming from the direction of
Catcher’s disaster. Why would they all charge off into the foothills? Because
the Old Man realized my seizure must have been caused by Lady’s rascal sister?

No. He would not bother for something that trivial.

But he would go to all that trouble to round up Sleepy.

“Where did you find him?” I asked Sparkle, who was leading the mule dragging the
travois onto which Sleepy was strapped. It was obvious that the kid had had it
rough. His weight was down. His wardrobe was not much fresher than Narayan
Singh’s. Whom I mentioned to the Old Man as soon as I found him. “It was pure
luck that we showed up when we did. We got them under control. But you’ve got to
do something. Or they’re going to become a major bite in the ass someday. Where
did Sleepy come from?”

“A patrol spotted him in the hills not far from Lady’s tear-up. He didn’t know
who he was.”

I grunted. I laid a narrow look on the kid as he passed. “It took this whole mob
to bring him in?”

“Took them all to hunt him down. You all right now? What happened?”

“I had one of my seizures. Like I used to have when I went back to Dejagore.”

He frowned, tossed off orders right and left. Soldiers scattered to resume
chores they should not have abandoned.

“Did you know that One-Eye had your bow?”

“My bow? What bow?”

“The one Lady gave you as a present.”

“No. I didn’t. Though maybe I told him to put it away for me one time. Or
something. I haven’t seen it in so long I’d forgotten it.” He sniffed the air.

“What else did you find?” I still smelled of beer.

“All kinds of treasures. And circumstantial evidence that One-Eye wasn’t
planning to stay away forever.”

Croaker grunted. It was getting too dark to read his expressions well. Was he
irked because I had figured something out? Or was he considering the
possibilities?

I said, “I can’t believe that finding Sleepy would cause so much excitement.”

“Lady hoped we could catch Catcher all goofed up, too.”

“But we already knew she was all right. She was sending shadows down. She was
messing with me.” Maybe she was just tickling me because I was there when her
big sister yanked her pigtails.

“We didn’t know. We suspected. If Sleepy had been her prisoner and wandered
away, then maybe she wasn’t in control after all. There isn’t anybody around
here who wouldn’t love to add Catcher to our zoo. And, too, there was the chance
that . . . the girl . . . ”

Yeah. There was the chance they could grab their daughter back. Maybe when
nobody was looking. “Where’s Lady?”

“Still out there.” His tone told me I had used my quota of questions in that
area.

“Sleepy said anything useful?” I asked.

“He hasn’t said anything. He doesn’t act like he’s all there.”

“Just what this outfit needs. Another goofball.”

“You finding One-Eye’s stash reminds me. You stumbled over either one of our
prodigal conjuremen lately?”

“I don’t dream that much, boss. When I do, it’s always in real time. Which means
only after dark, when they can hide a lot better. And they do have to be hiding
if they’re still in this part of the world. I don’t even find campfire traces
anymore.”

“One-Eye would know who was looking and how,” Croaker mused. “Tell you the
truth, Murgen, I don’t miss them that much nowadays. It was a stroke of genius,

if I do say so myself, to split them up. I couldn’t have survived the last
couple of years, working twenty-hour days, with them squabbling around me all
the time.”

“You’d think if they’d joined forces there would’ve been forest fires and
avalanches to mark the occasion.”

“We do keep having earthquakes.”

“I’m worried about them, boss. Because of the spear.”

“Spear? What spear?”

“The black spear. I told you I found it. The one One-Eye made while we were in
Dejagore. He didn’t take it with him. But he hasn’t come back for it.”

“And?”

“He would. Using some sneak spell if he had to. It was important to him. He
didn’t brag but he considered it his masterpiece. He wouldn’t just throw it
away—no matter how many times he’s been through the Company having to cut and
run.”

“You saying he’s coming back?”

“I’m saying I think he planned to. He might not have been one hundred percent
serious about eloping. Wouldn’t be the first time a man wasn’t completely honest
with a woman.”

Croaker looked at me like he was trying to figure out what was really going on
inside my head. Then he shrugged, said, “Could be. You men. Take Sleepy into my
shelter. Leave him on the examining table.”

“Good idea,” I said. “See how bad he’s been treated.”

Croaker grunted. “You stay out here,” he told Thai Dei, who was standing over
his captives with his beer-drinking hand tucked up behind him. “You come with
me, Murgen.” Like Thai Dei needed reminding that the Old Man did not want him in
his house. “Jamadar Subadir. See that those prisoners are put away properly. And
make certain that the rest of our guests haven’t exceeded themselves, too.”

I said, “The Prince never tried anything.” The Prahbrindrah Drah did not have to
suffer the indignity of shackles. Our Taglians would not have tolerated that.

I spied Uncle Doj watching from some shadows, arms crossed. I wondered why he
stayed with us. Narayan Singh? Hardly. His persistence nudged my paranoia level
whenever I thought about him.

Croaker, of course, was more enduringly suspicious than I was.

We descended into the Old Man’s dugout.

He told the men carrying Sleepy, “That’s good. The Standardbearer and I will
take care of him now. Hold on, Sparkle. I want you to double-check on those men
I told to deal with the prisoners. We haven’t given enough consideration to the
possibility of treachery amongst our own people.”

Sparkle asked, “You want I should look for anything in particular?”

“Just keep your eyes open.” Croaker turned to me. “I agree with you. We need to
drown the whole bunch of them.”

“But Lady has a use for them.”

“Waste not, want not. She says. I keep reminding myself that she’s supposed to
be smarter and more experienced than me. Let’s get him undressed. You start at
that end.”

Sleepy was awake but showed no interest in conversation. Or in anything else. I
asked, “Where’s my horse, Sleepy?”

Croaker chuckled. “Good question, Murgen. You might want to pursue it. Unless
you prefer to walk to Khatovar.”

I asked Sleepy several questions. He answered none of them. His eyes would track
me and the Old Man but I could not tell if he understood anything.

Croaker said, “We could use Smoke to backtrack him and find out where he’s been
and how he lost the beast.”

I grunted. We could have Lady sock the little shit with a knockout spell and
make him useful for a while. The hard part would be getting her to agree not to
hog him all for herself. “He was wide awake today. Smoke was. You might better
make sure she knows.”

Croaker began poking and prodding Sleepy. “Lot of bruises. Must’ve gotten
pounded around good.” Sleepy took it silently, without flinching.

“If he was in Catcher’s cave . . . I saw it happen from ten miles away. It was—”

“I saw enough.” Something was bothering him. He had that air people get when
they have something difficult to say and are not morally convinced of their
right to say it. Which troubled me. Croaker had no trouble barking at anybody
but his old lady. “Been catching up on your Annals, Murgen.”

Oh-oh.

“And I hate to say this, but I don’t like them very much.”

“As I recall, you weren’t going to dictate what I write.”

“That’s right. I’m not going to now. You got the job. You do it. I’m just saying
I don’t like what I’ve been reading. Though you have gotten a lot better in some
ways. You seen this man naked before?”

“No. Why? Should I have?” I had a feeling he was harboring a big beef with my
Annals. Since he was one of probably no more than three people who would read
them during my lifetime I supposed I could get into closer touch with the needs
of my audience. Or at least pretend to. He could not fire me. Unless he wanted
the job back himself. The only candidate lay before us, still untrained,

unpolished, unclothed and quite probably unsane. “So what am I doing wrong?”

“You could start by not being so being polite. Look at your pal. What’s
missing?”

Sleepy was not a boy.

I forgot about the Annals. “I’ll be damned.”

“You didn’t know?”

“Never suspected. I thought he was kind of short and skinny . . . But he always
was. He was barely out of diapers when he latched on to us in Dejagore. I
figured him for maybe thirteen. He wasn’t as sane as he is now. I remember
Bucket throwing one of his uncles off the wall for raping him.” I kept right on
saying “him” because it was hard to think of Sleepy as anything else despite the
lack of evidence right there in front of me.

“Good soldier?”

He knew. “The best. Always makes up for his smallness and lack of strength by
using his head.” Which was something Croaker particularly appreciated.

“Then let’s just forget we didn’t see something here. Don’t even let Sleepy know
you know.” He resumed his examination.

It would not be the first time a woman had been with the Company disguised as a
man. The Annals recalled several instances where amazing discoveries had been
made about one of our forebrethren, usually after they got themselves killed
somehow.

Still . . . It would be uncomfortable, knowing.

“What I don’t like about your Annals is that they’re more about you than they
are about the Company.”

“What?” I did not understand.

“I mean you focus everything on yourself. Except for a few chapters you adapted
from Lady’s dispatches or Bucket or One-Eye or somebody, you never report
anything that doesn’t involve you or that you didn’t see yourself. You’re too
self-absorbed. Why should we give a rat’s ass about your recurring nightmares?

And, except for Dejagore, your sense of place is usually pretty weak. If I
weren’t here myself I’d have a lot of trouble picturing this whole end of the
world.”

My first reaction, of course, was to defend my babies from the butcher. But I
kept my mouth shut. You gain nothing by arguing with your critics. You get more
satisfying results teaching pigs to sing. With fewer ulcers.

You have to trust your own muse. Even if she has a clubfoot and is subject to
unpredictable seizures.

I think the Old Man said something like that himself a time or two over the
years.

I did not mention it.

“You could work on writing a little more sparely, too.”

“Sparely?”

“You tend to go on a lot longer than you need to. At times.”

“I’ll try to keep that in mind. You think we ought to put something on her?”

It was plain he had plenty more to say about my Annals but was uncomfortable
about it. He was willing to accept a change of subject. “Yes. There’s no
permanent physical damage. Lady’s got some old things stored in that black
chest. They’ll be a little big, probably, but—”

“Thought we weren’t going to know anything about Sleepy being a girl.”

“When’s the last time you saw Lady in a dress?”

“Good point.” I opened the chest. “Though there’s still never any doubt.”

Croaker grunted. He was studying Sleepy intently, frowning.

“New wearing off?” I asked.

He smiled weakly. “Sort of. You’ll understand someday.”

I picked some things. “Not what I want to hear, boss.” Always way back there,

however much I loved my wife, was a niggle when I recalled that she was the
daughter of Ky Gota.

He chuckled. “Get some pants on her before my dearly beloved walks in.”

We finished just in time, too. Lady arrived in a foul humor. “I found nothing
useful. Nothing. How is he?”

“Beat up, starved and suffering from extended exposure. Otherwise, he’s fine.

Physically.”

“But absent mentally?” Lady stared at the kid. There was nothing in Sleepy’s
eyes.

Croaker grunted. “In a coma with his eyes open.”

“Speaking of sleepers,” I said, “our favorite fireman was wide awake today. And
the way he looked at me, he’s all home in here.”

I swear Sleepy’s cheek twitched. But maybe it was just a trick of the lamp.

“Not good,” Lady said. “And I was looking forward to a quiet evening at home.”

“What’re we going to do with Sleepy?”

The Captain had an answer all set. “You’re going to take him with you. And get
to work teaching him your trade.” For an instant a shadow crossed his face, as
though all thoughts of the future brought despair.

“I can’t—” Move a girl into my bunker?

“Yes you can.” Because Sleepy was just one of the guys. Wasn’t he? “And keep me
posted on his progress.”

Lady comes home and he starts to give me the rush. How do you figure that? “Get
your ass up,” I told Sleepy. “We’re going over to my house. We’re gonna figure
out what you did with my horse.”

Sleepy did not respond.

Thai Dei and I ended up lugging him across on a litter, along with the treasures
we had exhumed. I would like Sleepy a whole lot less before we got to the other
side.

As we passed the prison kennel the shapeshifter began to rumble and growl. She
roared a leopardlike challenge as we drew abreast. “Ah, go fuck yourself,” I
said. Sleepy was getting heavy already.

The big cat howled and tried to push her claws between the cruel spears
confining her. “I think maybe she could use a few drinks,” I told Thai Dei.