The Return of the Black Company (97 page)

“Rudy, I ain’t in the mood for it.” I wanted to keep an eye and ear on Lady and the Captain, who had moved away once Rudy intruded.

“Don’t let me get to you, son. I’m just thinking about what a wonderful night it’s going to be.” Behind us the Nyueng Bao had their heads together contemplating those possibilities. A lot of bamboo was in evidence. Sparkle had a team erecting a community cookfire that would be elevated above the surface of the plain. Lady had an idea the road would not like being burned. She had suggested, during the hike, that it might be alive in its own way.

I wished there was a way to look inside her mind. She had been focused completely since coming onto the plain. Her speculations would be interesting. And she was sharing them with the Old Man, now. And Rudy was keeping me away.

“Hold on there,” Croaker told Sparkle. “Go ahead and set it up. But don’t start a fire. We’ll eat cold if we can.”

Shit. We had not eaten well since we left Taglios but plain water and jerky were a step beyond bad.

“Rudy. You got work to do?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Let me see you doing it.” Croaker turned around, leaned close to Lady again, stared through the stands of pillars. I was willing to bet he was trying to face down his doubts. Right out there might be the culmination of many hellish years that had begun by what, I suspect sometimes, might have been the momentary whim of a man who had had no idea what to do next and who had big trouble changing his mind in public.

I began to prowl the perimeter of the camping circle. Wherever I looked the view was the same. With an overcast sky that was disorienting.

“Standardbearer? You all right?”

“Sindawe. I’m sorry. I guess I’m more distracted than I thought. I never noticed you coming.”

“The place has that effect, doesn’t it?” I got the impression he would have been ghostly pale had he been capable. “There’s something I thought you should see.”

“All right.” I followed him through the press of animals and men all trying to set up camp without pushing one another out of the circle or damaging the road.

“There,” Sindawe told me, indicating the road where it left the circle on the southern side, a fact I determined only because I could see parts of the huge structure down that way.

“A hole?” That was all I saw. A hole in the road, two inches across and a foot deep. Maybe more. The light was not good enough to betray its bottom.

“Yes. A hole. It may be a huge leap of faith, or just my imagination, but it strikes me that it would be a perfect place to set the standard.”

“Sure does.” Had I been past this point before? Had there been a hole? I could not recall. The opportunity to put the damned pole down for a while sure was attractive, though. And grew more so as I stared.

I dropped the butt of the standard into the hole. It went in a foot and a half. “That’s good,” I muttered. “Perfect place for it, too. Assuming the Old Man don’t have some notion of his own.” I stretched. I had not lugged the standard all day but I had carried it more than anybody else.

Sindawe grunted. He sounded nervous.

I felt it, too. Another earth tremor. “Hope it’s not building up to a big one.”

I looked down at the base of the Lance. The road had hold of it solidly. But when I put it in there, there had been half an inch to spare.

I tried to pull it out.

No go.

It was not vibrating anymore.

“Shit.”

Sindawe tried to pull it out. He stopped before he got a hernia.

“No problem,” I grouched. “If I have to, I’ll just cut it off. Tomorrow.”

I checked the Old Man and his woman. They still stood shoulder to shoulder, staring southward, now only exchanging the rare word or two. Even with their helmets off they looked pretty spooky.

Thai Dei materialized to tell me he had our camp set and food prepared. His expression was so bland I knew that he was angry. Here I was out gallivanting around, having a good time, while he was home working his fingers to the bone.

“I wish you’d grow tits and lose the sausage, we’re going to be married.”

Another feeble tremor stirred the stone beneath us. I murmured, “And the earth shakes when they walk.”

“What?” Thai Dei asked.

“Something from a story I heard when I was a kid. About ancient gods called titans. I was just thinking how far I’ve come since then.” And maybe we were giants.

102

I knew I was dreaming because there was a full moon and no clouds overhead. But there was some sort of haze between me and the world because the moon was just the center of a cloud of light drifting across the sky, never rising directly overhead the way it had in the land of my childhood. The ghostly, bluish light betrayed the restless shadows prowling the bounds of the circle, flowing over and around one another in hundreds. From a thousand miles away, it seemed, I heard Longshadow whimper without respite.

One large shadow pressed against the edge of the circle not far from where I watched. Something kept it from entering. It spread out upon that invisible surface. I remembered the time I touched a shadow while ghostwalking.

I began to find traces of the fear that had been missing since I climbed up onto the plain.

That one shadow seemed to be obsessed with me. I turned away and tried to forget it.

I looked up. Vaguely fishlike silhouettes moved back and forth against the diffuse moonlight. This must be the kind of view you would have if you were a crab on the bottom of the sea.

I do not know if it was a true dream. It felt that way. If it was, it would seem that shadows could rise above the surface.

The schooling shadows suddenly shot off as though impelled by a single will.

The moon was past its zenith. Maybe that was why.

Or maybe they were afraid of the creatures who appeared upon the black road, coming from the direction we were headed. They were the shape of men from the waist down and on their right sides. Their heads and left sides were masked by shawls that looked like they were made of polished brass fish scales. There were three of them. They felt like powerful ghosts.

My big shadow buddy did not run away with the others. I began to have some sense of it, as I had had with that other. It was terrified.

I caught one little flash of an instant in a place of torture, of pain beyond pain, while priests chanted.

I rose from my pallet. I went to stand beneath the standard, facing the ghosts. They let the shawls fall from their faces.

I do not know why. I thought,
You motherfuckers are
too
ugly. Get the fuck off my road. And quit messing with my sleep.
I had a feeling if they conformed to legend or whatnot they would be something like the Lady’s Ten Who Were Taken, demons or sorcerer kings who had been enslaved by some power greater and darker than they.
Go on. Get out of here. You’re dead. Stay that way
. I reached for the Lance, felt it come alive in my ghostly hand.
Go on
.

Three ugly beast masks inclined slightly toward the surface of the road. At least I think they were masks. I hope they were. Anybody that ugly for real should not have been allowed to climb out of the cradle.

They folded their hands before them. They began to withdraw. They did so without moving their feet.

Weird.

They flickered into nonexistence as they dwindled into the distance.

I stalked the perimeter of the circle. The shadows began to return. My pet matched my movements, always pressing against the barrier. I sensed a great hunger there.

I was surprised to find four roads leading out of the circle, matching the primary arms of the compass rose.

How come the east and west arms were not visible in the waking world?

The Shapechanger’s roar reached into the ghostworld. Goats and bullocks protested. The men on watch, already scared shitless from watching shadows search for a break in the barrier, cursed all the beasts. Some went to beat the panther. Somebody yelled, “What the fuck is that?” and pointed toward the standard. The lack of light made it unclear. I drifted that way swiftly.

A white crow perched on the crosspiece, apparently sleeping. Which brought up a hundred questions immediately.

Was there another me up there watching from a time yet to come? Was the bird Kina’s creature? Or Soulcatcher’s? How had it gotten here, by night, from the world beyond the Shadowgate? I had seen huge shadows circling above … but I saw no such thing when I looked at the moon now. In fact, that untimely moon was no longer there. What I did see was a fingernail clipping of moon just beginning to rise.

More questions.

The panther roared again, this time in startled pain. They were paying her back for scaring the animals.

I drifted past where Croaker and Lady had made their beds. He was snoring. She was wide awake. She sensed my passage somehow. Her gaze followed me inaccurately. I lost her after a few yards. I wriggled between the cages. Longshadow was awake, too. He was sobbing quietly and shaking. I do not think there was anything left of the once dreadful, insane sorcerer.

Howler was awake, too. I realized, belatedly, that he had not been making much noise lately.

As I watched he tried to get off one of his ferocious yowls but nothing came out.

What had Lady done to him?

Soulcatcher was the one I really wanted to examine. And she too was awake when I found her. She was still bundled and gagged to a point that would have driven me over the edge, but she seemed as madly merry as at her best moments. She sensed me as easily as her sister had. Her eyes tracked me. They seemed to laugh, filled with secret knowledge. In fact, I got the distinct feeling that if she wanted to badly enough she could slide out of her flesh and chase me around.

No. But she wanted me to think she could do that. She was messing around with me even in her present circumstances.

That troubled me not nearly so much as her confidence did. She was not at all afraid or even worried.

That had to be passed on to the Captain and Lieutenant.

I drifted near the boundary, wondering if I ought to go see Sarie or engage in any of the hundred tasks I pursued when I walked the ghostworld. I did not really
want
to do anything but sleep. My personal shadow splashed itself against the barrier. There was some emotion there. But I could not tell if the thing wanted to talk to me or to eat me. It made me feel the way I might have, had I acknowledged the existence of a beggar who then refused to let me get away.

I passed a nervous Nyueng Bao prowling on catlike feet, his sword ready. The swamp men were more troubled by our quest than were the few Taglians accompanying us, despite their traditional burden of fear of Khatovar.

Sleeplessness was a common problem. I paused to eavesdrop on the murmurs of Blade, Mather and Willow Swan. No sedition surfaced there, though. Swan, being Willow Swan, was telling ghost stories. I wish I could talk about the man more. He was a character.

The Prahbrindrah Drah was awake as well, among them but evidently not with them. He contributed nothing.

I drifted near the crow. It sensed me. It cawed softly once, opened one reddish eye momentarily, resumed napping. But it cawed again sharply when I considered testing the barrier’s ability to contain me.

Without knowing how I got the message, I understood that it insisted I go roaming only by flying above the plain.

The wings were there, available, but I did not choose to don them. I continued around the camp. No ghosts watched me from any of the roads. The east and west ways were growing tenuous while the route back north remained solid, unthreatening, even inviting. My shadow companion could not reach me there, either. The roads were protected, too.

I raced northward. I am not sure what I meant to do, though I had some notion of visiting Sarie one more time.

Long before I managed that I got yanked back to my flesh.

I did find something else to intrigue me, though, right in front of the Shadowgate, before I went.

103

Croaker was obnoxiously bright and cheerful next morning. Lady wore a secretive smile. They must have invented some kind of privacy for a few minutes. “Why’re you so grim?” Croaker demanded.

“Didn’t sleep for shit.”

“Nervous?” Half the guys were complaining about not having gotten any sleep.

“Ghostwalking.”

“Ah. And you saw something interesting or you wouldn’t be in a foul temper now.”

I talked about everything but the white crow. I underscored my belief that Catcher was in too good spirits for anybody in her situation. “She’s up to something.”

“She was born scheming,” Lady said. “She was manipulating people before she could talk. Don’t worry about it.”

“You eaten?” Croaker asked.

I nodded.

“Then let’s get them up and headed out.”

“Hang on while I provide you with one final taste of good cheer from my midnight walkabout. Those people we saw running toward my camp when we were climbing the hill yesterday? Guess who. You say anybody but Goblin, One-Eye and Gota, you’re wrong. I can’t go back in time to find out but I think it’s a safe bet they wanted to catch us before we came up here.”

Croaker lost his smile. “You overhear anything?”

“A lot of snoring. They were asleep. Goblin did mumble something but it wasn’t in any language I understand.”

“The road is open,” Lady observed. “You could go collect them.”

“Hardly practical,” Croaker said. “Even if one of us rode back the rest would have to stay here waiting. Half our supplies would get used just sitting.”

“We could all go back.”

Neither the Old Man nor I responded but nothing needed saying. She did not mean that, anyway. She was just listing options.

There was light enough to see the standing stones nearest us. The characters on them started to shine. They had not shone during the night. I wondered how they managed with so little light.

“I’m worried,” I told Croaker.

“So am I. But we have to make choices. You think we ought to cancel the expedition because the prodigals crawled out of their holes?” He asked Lady. “Do you?”