The Many Deaths of the Black Company (Chronicle of the Black Company) (129 page)

She was seen. Family closed in fast. And deprived her of her post and clothing. She became a prisoner of her relatives, who began formulating big breeding plans immediately.

The Shadowgate disaster had left the Voroshk with few women of childbearing age.

Arkana got elected to become queen ant for a whole new mob.

She would do what she had to do to survive. She would bide her time once again. Her uncles had confiscated her key to the Shadowgates but were unaware what it was. And she was not talking. They were the sort of men who would abandon the disaster they had created and go coursing off in search of new worlds to conquer. So much easier than rebuilding.

It was a good thing Shivetya had power enough to will the shattered gate to heal itself, though that might imply that the nonfunctional gates had failed because of benign neglect. In fact, recalling what Tobo and Suvrin had reported concerning their explorations, all the Shadowgates were crippled somehow.

Shivetya did not like anyone very much these days.

I let him know, “I have a couple of things left to do.” Since my mind was no longer a mystery, he knew what already. And he did have a little patience left.

A pretty indulgent partner in crime, that old devil.

145

Glittering Stone: Then Shukrat Came

Shukrat arrived while I was sleeping, dropping in through the hole in the roof. So entangled with Shivetya was I now that I knew she was there without noticing or paying much mind. My friend the white crow came and did the wake-up dirty deed. I sat up, rewarding the bird with some rude remark or other.

“Just trying to be helpful. You aren’t leaving me much to do these days.”

“Funny how being a prisoner reduces your options, isn’t it? What goes around comes around and all that? But we can still be friends, can’t we? Hi, cuter daughter. You finally got here.”

Shukrat was exhausted but game. “So what’s going on, Pop? Where’s Arkana?”

“Well. Arkana got a wild hair, ran off home and now is knee-deep in shit.” I explained.

Shukrat’s reaction was, “Yuch!”

“Hey, you could be the most popular girl in town yourself if you give them the chance.”

“They might try. They’ll be sorry if they do. I didn’t waste all my time with Tobo playing games. How come you know all that if she took your key and you can’t go out poking around?”

“Shivetya and I have been getting to know one another. There isn’t much else to do around here when you’re waiting for your slower child to start wondering if you haven’t maybe gotten yourself into some trouble.”

“I see you did some writing, too.”

“I’m running short on time, daughter,” I said, revealing a secret never even shared with my wife. “I’ve had so much luck, for so long, that the law of averages is overdue to catch up. Any day. There’s only one risk left that I’m willing to take. So I want to have all my shit in order before something happens. I want to check out knowing I did everything the Company could ask, and then some.” My expectation that I do not have much time left has become an ever more powerful influence on my thinking since our return from the Land of Unknown Shadows. It has approached the level of obsession since I have been back here in the fortress with no name.

Shukrat proceeded with normal, journey-ending business while we talked, unloading her flying post. She swung down a large hemp sack that rattled as she said, “Let me get some rest, first, then we’ll go rescue Scruffy Butt. Not because I give a damn what they do to her, you understand. Just as a favor to my Pop.”

“I understand. I appreciate it. Maybe she can do the same for you, someday.”

“Oh, yeah, that would be good.”

“What’s in the sack?”

She thought about being evasive, realized that there was no point. “Snail shells. Tobo didn’t want me to travel unprotected. He worries about me.”

“How is he?”

“He has good days and he has bad days. More bad than good. In his health and in his mind. It scares me. Nobody can tell me if he’s going to make it. Or if he’ll be sane if he does. I’m afraid it might all depend on his mother.”

“What? Sahra turned up?”

“No. She’s definitely dead. I think. But her ghost, and her mother’s ghost and her grandmother’s ghost, keep following him wherever he goes. Whenever his fever gets to him he sees them. And they talk to him. They nag him, he says. He doesn’t like it. But my opinion is, he damned well ought to start listening to them. Because he gets these brain fevers every time he starts to do something that his mother wouldn’t have liked while she was alive. Even if it’s only something like forgetting to clean his teeth.”

“You really believe he’s being haunted by his female ancestors?”

“Doesn’t matter if I do, Pop.
He
believes it. Even when he’s fever-free and completely sane he’ll say his mother intends to stay around until he no longer needs her guidance. Then she’ll be free to join Murgen. Tobo really resents the implication that he isn’t mature and his behavior is keeping her from her rest. And Sahra, apparently, is just as resentful of his immaturity, because she’d rather be somewhere besides here baby-sitting a grown man.”

“Why do I get the feeling there’s something more?”

“Because you’re right. There is more. He thinks those women might run out of patience. He’s afraid they’ll just drag him along with them.”

“You mean kill him?”

“No! His mother, Pop. Not kill him. Take him along. Out of his body. The way they say his father used to do. Only they wouldn’t let him come back. If that happened his body would die eventually. And before you tell me Sahra wouldn’t let her baby die, you need to remember this ghost isn’t the Sahra you knew. This Sahra has been on the other side for a while, running with ghosts who have been there a lot longer than she has. And at least one of those was able to see Tobo’s various potential futures way back before Murgen and Sahra ever got together.”

Sounded to me like Shukrat was just as much a believer as Tobo was.

“All right. Rest, little girl. I’ll come up with a plan while you do.”

Look at me. Manly man. Older than dirt, limping, one bad eye, short one hand, reads and writes, but a manly man for all that.

146

The Voroshk World: Stronghold Rhuknavr

The Voroshk Shadowgate was being watched from the other side. Shukrat’s uncles hoped she would find her way home, too, and they were eager to obtain another breeder.

We did not work hard to avoid being discovered by the watchers. But we did come by night and Shukrat did leak some of her most unusual companions through to distract the sentries.

Tobo did not stint when he gave her Unknown Shadows to help her out in her adventures down this way. Unlike when he gave me those two wanna-be ravens that were never around and had not been seen now in months. He assigned her some of the biggest, the darkest, the smartest, that would stand by her and do what she said.

The Black Hounds darted around and over the two watchers, keeping them from flying just long enough for us to get through the Shadowgate and add ourselves to the equation. Shukrat was able to put them both to sleep despite the state of high excitement the Unknown Shadows had aroused.

In moments we understood why.

“They’re just kids!” I said, while undressing one. “This one can’t be more than eleven or twelve.”

The one Shukrat stripped was even younger. “These two are the youngest Tologev brothers. Somebody really is desperate if he’s sending kids this young out alone when there’re still shadows roaming around.”

I thought that was just fine. The thinner the Voroshk were spread, the better.

The two boys we left behind, up in trees for their own safety. We confiscated their posts and clothing.

*   *   *

It was a long flight. We did not show ourselves during the day. Along the way Shukrat showed me the ruins of Khatovar. I did not feel inclined to explore. I did not have time. There were changes going on inside me. I had to hold them off until I got Arkana free.

The white crow mocked me and accused me of cheating on Lady. She refused to believe I was not. I no longer argued. She was still bitter because she had not been able to take me away from her sister.

Arkana was being held in a minor Voroshk fortress called Rhuknavr. We flew in low, to within a mile, then awaited midnight while floating high up in the tops of trees that were old when Khatovar fell. We put out a dozen shadowtraps Shukrat had crafted according to Shivetya’s instructions. Once she released the Unknown Shadows, though, the traps were not necessary.

At my insistence Shukrat made doubly sure that the Unknown Shadows clearly understood we were about to butt heads with people who had considerable experience dealing with creatures of darkness. Their advantage over the killer shadows was that they were not just driven clumps of hunger and hatred. They were cunning and wicked and able to reason, although unfortunately weak on the concept of cooperation.

I asked Shukrat, “You think we might have better luck in the daytime, after everybody inside there relaxes?”

“They’re not that alert. They haven’t had an incident here for a long time.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just do. Now that I’m close enough to feel them.” Meaning, probably, that she was hiding the whispers of the Unknown Shadows already.

“Uhm? Are you close enough for them to feel you?”

“No. Because I’m alone. And because I’m dressed. And because they aren’t trying to feel for me.”

“I see.” If it was not our unseen associates it must be something like the way I had begun to sense Shivetya. “Bird. Pay attention.” It was not my intent to waste any resource. The white crow was a valuable resource. “So where is my other baby, Shukrat? Be as exact as you can because my feathered friend needs to know how to get there to tell her that we’re coming and she should be ready to go.”

The crow squawked like it had just found a snake raiding its nest. It protested so vigorously that the surrounding night fell into an uneasy silence.

“Good for you nobody in these parts would recognize Taglian. What’s the big squawk? You infiltrated how many places at other times?”

The crow continued to mutter something to the effect of, that was different. The difference mainly being whose idea the infiltration was. She understood that I was getting real thick with Shivetya, though, and the golem might have a great deal to say about whether or not she ever got out of the cave of the ancients. Once she got the frustration worked out she was ready to go.

I had Shukrat describe the interior of Rhuknavr the best she could. Which was not that well. She had not been there in ten years. The crow would have to locate Arkana on her own. Shukrat could not pin her down.

I said, “You just tell her we’re coming and she should be ready. And, if she can manage it, she might put a sleep spell on anybody near enough to touch.”

The crow left. We waited. I stared at the sky. I found this one far stranger than that of the Land of Unknown Shadows. There was no large moon here, apparently. At least none tonight nor during the nights I spent here before. But there were scores of little ones, the biggest maybe a fifth the size of my own. All the moons seemed terribly busy, scampering hither and yon. When I mentioned them to Shukrat she began telling me about her world’s unique breed of astrology, which relied upon the motions of all those moons. Even after ages of study those moons still presented the occasional surprise.

“Once, when I was little, two of them banged off of each other. None of the others have moved quite the same way since. And it rained down pieces for years. Only about a hundred miles from here there’s a place where a really big piece hit. I was at Junkledesag, which is over that way another eighty miles, and it was still awful. There were earthquakes and noise like the end of the world. There was a fire in the sky that took all night to fade away. It was like when one of the
rheitgeistiden
explodes, only a million times worse. It knocked a huge hole in the ground. Now the hole is kind of a lake.”

The white crow dropped out of the night. “Ready.”

“Easier than you expected, eh?”

The bird grunted sullenly.

“Show us the way, Fearless Feathered Explorer.”

*   *   *

The next stage was anticlimactic. Only three or four actual Voroshk occupied Rhuknavr. In behavior so human I do not know why I did not foresee it, a small faction of survivors were concealing Arkana’s return from the rest. For what little advantage controlling a viable breeder gave.

We left our posts nuzzling the fortress beside an unglazed hall-end window. The interior was too tight for flight. The crow showed the way to Arkana’s chamber. There were no bars anywhere but there was a sleeping, non-Voroshk sentry slumped on a stool in the hallway. There had been a pretense that Arkana was a guest.

The girl jumped on me the moment we entered. “I knew you’d come.”

“Did you?”

“I hoped you would. All right? I’m sorry. I was stupid. I just wanted … I had to … Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

“Why not save your talking until we’re out of here? The point of sending the bird ahead was so you’d be ready.” The critter named flapped out the room’s one small window.

She grabbed odds and ends. Not much. “I don’t know where my
rheitgeistide
and
shefsepoke
are.”

“We brought something for you. Let’s go.”

All went well until we were sliding out the window. Then a child, rubbing sleep from her eyes, wandered into the hallway, presumably disturbed by some sound. She stared for a moment, then folded, touched by a sleep spell from one of the girls.

Nothing happened immediately. But in time the child would tell somebody. Unless she had a habit of sleepwalking.

Comfortably aloft and heading south, I asked Arkana, “Are you pregnant?”

She took no offense. “No. They hadn’t worked out who got to be first. Though every time I turned around somebody was trying to sneak in. Like they thought I couldn’t possibly resist them. I passed out enough bruises that even Gromovol would’ve figured out that that kind of shit could get somebody hurt—but these guys were real optimists.”