The Many Deaths of the Black Company (Chronicle of the Black Company) (124 page)

I told Arkana, “If you could read and write Taglian you’d understand all about this because you’d be able to keep up with the Annals.”

“No thanks, Pop. Not even a good try. I said no yesterday, I’m telling you no today, and all you’re going to hear is no again tomorrow. I’m not going to get pulled any deeper into your mob than I already am.”

Which is what Suvrin used to say. Suvrin, who started out as a prisoner of war.

Shukrat said, “Don’t even bother to look over here.”

I had not considered Shukrat. I would not. But I did think Arkana might work out. If she would give it a chance. She had a personality suitable to be one of the gang.

“Recruiting season over?” the crow demanded.

“For now.” I peered into the darkness, trying to make out more details of the golem. There was not enough light. But the demon seemed to be asleep.

Or at least uninterested. Which puzzled me, since I was there to set him free.

I shrugged. His indifference would not slow me down.

*   *   *

I collected Goblin. I led him well out onto the floor of Shivetya’s vast hall, away from other ears. Had I brought a lamp along I would have been able to see how lovingly the floor detailed the features of the plain outside.

I reviewed for the little man. “Kina is a very slow thinker. We need to get this done before she understands that we’re already here, that we intend to strike, and that we do have a weapon puissant enough to do the job.” One-Eye’s spear shimmered all the time here. Filaments of fire slithered over it in unpredictable patterns, excitedly. The edges of its head groaned as they sliced the air itself. It seemed to sense that it had come home.

No one could argue that the spear was not a masterpiece of a peculiar sort of art. No one could deny that in creating his masterwork One-Eye had reached a level of inspiration seen nowhere else in his long but rather pathetic life.

Many an artistic masterpiece has fallen into that same category: the sole triumph of the genius of its creator.

“Once we reach the black veil across the stairwell she’ll start to realize her danger. You’ll have to move fast. Get up as much speed as you can so you can drive the spear as deep as you can. The Lance of Passion wasn’t potent enough. But it wasn’t made for godslaying. One-Eye’s spear is. You could name it Godslayer. You know. You were there during most of the years he worked on it. When we were in Hsien it became his whole career.”

Goblin had been there. But that Goblin had been alive, not a ghost still trapped in the flesh it had worn in life. At least part of the time this Goblin was an agent of the very monster this Goblin was going to kill. Or maim. Or just irritate.

As the doubts began to circle round me like Tobo’s hidden realm friends I kept right on talking, explaining yet again why he was the only one of us who could make the strike. And he really did find my arguments compelling. Or else his mind was made up and the hopes and wishes of others no longer mattered.

The Goblin thing climbed back aboard his flying post.

I pushed my own forward, so I could see the tip of his and make doubly sure I knew which one he was riding. “Let’s go downstairs, then,” I said. “I’ll be right behind you. Your post is spelled to come back on its own if you’re unconscious.” He knew. He had been there when Shukrat fixed it to do that. “If that doesn’t work I’ll swoop in and grab you, drag your ass away. If you want, I even brought an extra hundred yards of line to hook onto your safety harness. We can tie it to your belt.”

The little man looked at me like he thought I was trying too hard. He had been working himself up for a suicide mission, convinced that the destruction of his flesh was the only way he could rid himself of his parasite and find rest himself.

I played the whole scam by ear. I had no real idea what Goblin really wanted or what he hoped to achieve with the false life he had been given. I had not been able to guess much about him when he was alive. The only thing I knew for sure was that he was working crippled. Doing without One-Eye was, for him, like doing without one of his limbs.

And he did want to hurt Kina. That was never in doubt.

A long, difficult discussion ended up with me chagrined a bit as I finally got the message that Goblin was not deeply interested in backup that would pull him out if things went sour. He wanted backup that would make sure the job got done even if he failed.

I do not know why I had so much trouble recognizing and understanding Goblin’s program. Possibly because I was concentrating on getting things to go forward exactly the way I wanted. Goblin had told me almost everything before, one time or another, when I had been focused enough to ask.

Personally uninclined toward mortal self-sacrifice, I had trouble overriding my cynical nature—particularly as regarded someone as self-indulgent as Goblin had been for so long.

Goblin brandished One-Eye’s spear and told me what I had already told him but had not done. “Time to go downstairs, Croaker.” He got it all out in a single, bell-tone clear sentence.

I patted myself down. Final check. Still not sure I was ready for this.

134

Taglios: Best Served Cold

The only check on Tobo was Lady, who could not maintain her level of interest. The only check on Lady was the wonder boy. And he had other things on his mind. And altogether too much of that touched by the darkness.

No Shukrat, no Croaker, no Lady paying attention. Nights in the city lost their traditional noisome urban charm. Some people began to compare the new age to a time when the Protector had loosed her murderous shadows upon the city, for no more obvious reason than existed behind the unleashing of the horrors out there now.

The fact that there were few actual deaths went unremarked.

The Unknown Shadows enjoyed themselves greatly, tormenting the living. As did Tobo, who found himself free to do anything he wanted.

Except in his dreams.

A woman had begun to haunt those. A beautiful Nyueng Bao woman who seemed to be the embodiment of sorrow. He understood in his heart that this was his mother as she had appeared when she was young, before she had met his father. Usually she was not alone. Sometimes she was accompanied by a young, unbent Nana Gota. And sometimes by another woman, always gentle, always with a smile, forged of steel tougher than that of Uncle Doj’s sword Ash Wand. This woman, who had to be his great grandmother, Hong Tray, never spoke. She communicated more with a disapproving eye than Sahra could say in a hundred words.

His vengeances were unacceptable to all these women who had created and formed him.

Tobo could not determine if he was being touched by the ghosts of his ancestors—a possibility entirely in keeping with Nyueng Bao beliefs—or if the women were the product of some conscience-stricken cellar of his mind. The darkness within him was strong enough to make him want to defy them.

None of them wanted to be avenged.

Sahra’s ghost warned, “You won’t just hurt yourself, darling. If you go on you’ll be running into a trap. Put aside your pain. Embrace your true destiny and let it lift you up.”

Hong Tray studied him with eyes like cold steel marbles, agreeing that he had come to a crossroads. That he was about to make a choice that would shape the rest of his life.

He knew, of course, that the words the ghost women spoke, and the ghosts themselves, had to be metaphors.

He had no trouble with his conscience when he was awake. So he tried to avoid sleep.

Sleep deprivation clouded his judgment even further.

*   *   *

The hidden folk always reported the same thing: Aridatha Singh would not leave his offices. He worked day and night, seldom doing more than catnap, as he tried to hold the Taglian world together by the weight of his own will. The struggle to maintain control ought to have beaten him down and have shredded his spirit in days. Most men would have started cutting throats to more swiftly facilitate reconstruction and assuage frustration. Aridatha just beat people down with reason and public opinion. He treated with no one in secret. He made sure the world knew when someone refused to handle the city’s business publicly.

Obstructionists were becoming known. The mood of people displaced by strife and fire was not forgiving of traditional factionalism.

The unthinkable happened. Several men of high caste were beaten savagely. Shadar were seen in the crowds, encouraging the violence. No one wondered, though, and Aridatha Singh did not appear to be aware of that personally.

*   *   *

It was deep night but a light traffic continued to and from the City Battalions barracks containing Aridatha Singh’s headquarters. A dark fog slowly gathered around the place. People grew sleepy. Shadows scampered among the shadows. For an instant, here and there, little people or little animals were visible briefly—had anyone been awake to see them.

Tobo came walking through it all, so tired his eyes were crossing, so sure of himself that he had not brought his flying post nor had he armored himself in Voroshk black. So sure of himself that he did not double-check reports from his Unknown Shadows.

He expected to walk in, complete his revenge, and be gone with no one the wiser. Aridatha Singh’s fate would become a great and terrible mystery.

The hidden folk could tell him nothing about Singh’s office. They could not get inside it. It was kept sealed airtight. But the sentries outside were snoring.

Tobo shoved the door. It gave way only grudgingly, swinging inward. He stepped inside, panting. Across the room three men had fallen forward onto a worktable or lay sprawled in their chairs. “Not good,” Tobo muttered, unexcited by the presence of the potential witnesses.

“Not good at all,” Aridatha said, lifting his face off the desktop.

Tobo just had time to catch the swish of air behind him before something hit the back of his head with force enough to crack bone. He went down into the darkness knowing he had been betrayed, that he had walked into a trap. The Unknown Shadows scattered in every direction, going mad, making Taglios a city of nightmares.

Sahra, Gota and Hong Tray all awaited Tobo on the other shore of consciousness. All three told him that this was a disaster entirely of his own devising. He could have avoided it simply by doing the right thing.

He had been warned beforehand. He had not listened.

Sahra’s sorrow was deeper than ever Tobo had known it before.

135

Taglios: The Mad Season

Lady dealt with the temptation easily for several days after Croaker departed. She kept reminding herself that all she had to do was hang on till he got back. By then the Daughter of Night would not be the Deceiver messiah anymore. She would be just plain Booboo.

Sense told Lady to be patient. But emotion knew no patience. And emotion threatened to devour her. Despite her long history, emotion had stolen control.

She broke after only four days.

*   *   *

Lady took a quick look into the hallway to make certain no one was likely to intervene, then settled on a stool beside her daughter’s bed. She plucked the ends of strands of spells keeping the girl asleep and constrained. She worked quickly and deftly. She had been studying Booboo’s bonds all those four days.

Those spells unravelled almost as if they had a will of their own.

Lady proceeded with an uncharacteristically naive haste. That part of her that had grown hard and bitter in the real world mocked her for her childishness. This was the world. Her world. The real world. There was no reason to expect any good to come her way.

Booboo’s eyes snapped open with mechanical suddenness. The color was right but still they were not the family eyes. Nor were they Croaker’s eyes. They were eyes colder than Lady’s own in her cruelest hour. They were the eyes of a serpent, a naga, or a deity. For an instant Lady froze like a mouse caught in a snake’s stare. Then she said, “I’m an incurable romantic. The essence of romance is an unshakable conviction that next time will be different.” She tried to assert control while the girl was physically too weak to act.

The girl’s “love me” aura had touched Lady already, so subtly that she remained unaware of it until it was too late.

Lady had not worn her Voroshk costume. There was no shelter from the storm.

A vibration developed down deep inside her, at glacial speeds. As it built she watched the power of the Goddess slowly fill the Daughter of Night. The buzz within Lady included a trace of mirth. She understood that her unpracticed maternal emotions had been discovered and manipulated, ever so subtly, for a very long time. So subtly that she had not suspected. Worse, so subtly that she was not adequately prepared to respond to any disaster.

Nevertheless, she was a woman of incredible will, having had ages to practice employing it.

There was a countermove left.

In an instant Lady made the cruelest decision of her life. She would regret it forever but knew the choice she made would leave her with the least painful long-term wounds.

The Lady of Charm had centuries of practice making terrible decisions quickly, and just as many years of practice living with the consequences.

From her belt Lady drew a memento of her brief passage as Captain of the Black Company. The dagger’s pommel was a silver skull with one ruby eye. The ruby always seemed to be alive. Lady lifted the blade slowly, her gaze locked with that of the Daughter of Night. The sense of the presence of Kina grew ever stronger between them.

“I love you,” Lady said, responding to a question never asked, existing only within the girl’s heart. “I will love you forever. I will always love you. But I won’t let you do this thing to my world.”

Lady could do it, in spite of all. She had slain as dear before, when she was not yet as old as the child lying beneath her knife. And for less reason.

She felt a madness creep through her. She tried to concentrate.

She could kill because she was filled with a conviction that there was no better thing she could do.

Kina and the Daughter of Night both strove to crack Lady’s terrible will. But the dagger descended toward the girl’s breast, its progress inexorable. The Daughter of Night quickly became the hypnotized prey, unable to believe that Lady’s blade kept falling.