Bleak Seasons (20 page)

Lady is cold and hard and committed and deadlier than a sword with a will of its
own, but these guys just can’t seem to help themselves. It started with the Old
Man way back but the parade goes on. The fever cost Blade big.

Despite what may have happened with Blade I am convinced that Lady is the
Captain’s woman absolutely. Whatever happened, Croaker took it to heart. He
drove a good man over to the enemy and became something as cold as Lady himself.

Half the time, anymore, Croaker is this living wargod so fierce that when he
barks even the Prince and the Radisha jump. Aloud, Lady wondered what Howler’s
raids were meant to accomplish. Swan blurted Bucket’s answer. “He wanted to pick
off Black Company guys. That’s obvious.”

“Isi?” Lady asked. “Is there more?”

One of the Nar replied, “Mogaba wouldn’t test himself against lesser men.

Longshadow might want to remove those so he can better manipulate Mogaba’s
obsessions. Or he might be trying to initiate the final battle by being a
continuous irritant.”

The Prince nodded to himself. Now he was watching Lady with that gleam in his
eye.

Was it the fatal lure of evil?

“Perhaps he does want to bring Croaker to the front.”

How many times over the centuries has Lady stood like that, about to loose fire
and sword? She said, “We do need to move this headquarters nearer to the action.

The communications lag has become unacceptable. Swan. Hand me that map there.”

Swan plucked a map off a sideboard cluttered with mystic paraphernalia. His
caution indicated that he found that stuff obscure and wanted it to stay that
way.

The map portrayed the far south. A large blank space on its left was labelled
Shindai Kus, which was a desert. Beyond the unmapped nether edge of the desert
was additional blank space labeled Ocean.

Beginning in the Shindai Kus, running east and curving northward, are mountains
generically refered to as the Dandha Presh. They become rougher and rougher as
they swerve around to form, eventually, the eastern limits of the Taglian
territories. The range changes its local name frequently. It is supposed to be
impassable east of the Shindai Kus except through the high pass at
Charandaprash.

Longshadow, Shadowcatch and Overlook lie on the far side of the Dandha Presh.

Mogaba’s army was the cork in the pass bottlenecking the road south. For ages a
common subject when officers were not listening was how badly would we get
whipped if we took a crack at Mogaba.

A racket apparently arose outside because Swan jumped to the window. “A
courier,” he announced. I could hear no sound from outside that room. In fact,

when I did glance out the window I could see nothing but greyness. Strange.

Lady elbowed Swan aside. “Can’t be good news. Get him before he talks too much.”

Swan returned quickly. “It’s not too bad. Seems a really huge mob of Shadar and
Vehdna fanatics were chasing Blade and had the bad luck to catch him.”

What? That wasn’t news. I knew about it. The Shadowmaster knew about it . . . Of
course. Lady did not have a Smoke or a screaming-nut sidekick with a flying
carpet. And I had known for just a little while. Maybe it seemed longer because
I learned it so far away.

“What are you babbling?” Lady demanded.

“Blade wiped out over five thousand religious goofs who were after him to punish
him for his religious excesses.” Blade was pretty hard on temples and priests
when he had the opportunity.

His religious attitude had a lot to do with his running away, too. He had made
thorough, blood-bitter enemies of all Taglian priests long before his falling
out with the Old Man. The devout considered his fall from favor a blessing from
heaven.

I was confident that the priests secretly looked forward to all of our fates
becoming gifts from the angels.

“Five thousand?”

“Maybe more. Maybe up to seven thousand.”

“Loose on their own? How could that happen?” Neither the ruling family nor we
liked having huge groups of armed men not under our control blundering around
righting wrongs. “Out. All of you, out of here. Come back in two hours.”

Lady started murmuring the instant she was alone. “That damned Croaker.” She
grabbed stuff off the sideboard. “He’s out of his mind.”

I learned that you got damned focused out there with Smoke. Time could rush past
if you let yourself become introspective.

Fragments of all that was happening to me came to me in no rational order and I
almost got lost trying to piece the puzzle together.

Realization, and resulting terror, feeble as it was out there, brought me back
to the present in the place I was watching when I lost my concentration. Hours
had passed.

Lady was still grumbling about the Old Man. “What’s the matter with him? How
could he believe those damned rumors?”

She was angry. She had managed some mystic scrying of the distant battlefield as
it appeared after the event. All that carnage had left her more upset. “Damned
fool!” It was the worst disaster for Taglian arms since Dejagore.

From some hidden recess in the sideboard she produced a piece of black cloth. I
was startled, despite having studied her Annals closely. That was the silk rumel
of a master Strangler. She began exercising with the killing scarf.

Maybe that helped her relax.

She was upset because she had been left out of something. Usually she was the
Captain’s partner.

Got you a clue, woman, I thought. Lately he is cutting everybody out.

Lady’s scarf flashed. She was good. I wondered. Was there still some connection
with Kina?

Did Croaker fear there might be?

They were not called Deceivers for nothing.

She calmed herself. She sent for her council. Once they gathered she said,

“There were survivors from that battle. Some are still there burying the dead.

Catch me a few.”

Croaker never came to the hidden room. Neither did One-Eye, nor even the Radisha
to torment our prisoner. Nobody wakened me.

I drifted back there almost without design, perhaps summoned by my body. I had
been gone a long time. Longer than the subjective time spent out there. My
stretch of introspection must have extended farther than it had seemed.

My stomach was roaring. But Mother Gota’s baked rocks were all gone.

The Strangler had gotten the cloth off himself again. He watched me wide-eyed. I
got the feeling he had been about to do something that I would regret.

I discovered that he had managed to work one hand free. “You naughty boy.” I
took a long pull off the pitcher of water, then fixed him up again. Then I tried
to decide whether to risk the labyrinth once more, in an effort to get to some
of Mother Gota’s lethal chow, or to stay and take yet another look at the wide
world through Smoke’s eyes while I awaited help.

“Water.”

“Sorry, pal. I don’t think so. Unless maybe you want to tell me what your
buddies are up to.” My belly grumbled again.

The Strangler did not answer. Weak as he was, his will remained firm. Even
ignoring my own presence it seemed somebody should have come to feed him.

It was late. Maybe Mother Gota was asleep and Sarie would handle my meal. She
did not cook like she was out for vengeance.

I was at the doorway, trying to make up my mind. Was there some way to mark my
passage? Some way to follow footprints in the dust? But there was no light. This
part of the Palace was not in regular use. No one maintained any candles or
torches. The lamp in the chamber behind me would be the only light available.

Unless I waited till daylight, when the sun would steal in through random cracks
and tiny windows.

I glanced back at the lamp. It had been burning a long time. No one had been by
to fuel it. I ought to see about refilling it before I did anything else.

There was a metallic sound from far, far away, come around a hundred corners and
down the rambling halls. It chilled me despite Taglios’s natural heat and
humidity.

“Water.”

“Shut up.” I found a beaker of lamp oil, cocked my head while I worked. The
metallic sound did not repeat itself.

I had not covered the Strangler again. When I glanced at him I discovered his
deathshead face stretched in a grin. It was the grin of Death.

Spilling oil, I flung myself out of there.

I got lost again. Fast.

Lost in the Palace was not a matter for panic so I didn’t. I confess to a
certain amount of frustration, though.

You would think my situation vulnerable to the application of common sense. I
sure thought so.

One good rule proved to be not to enter any corridor dustier than the one I was
using. Another was to avoid apparent shortcuts religiously. They never led
anywhere I wanted to go. Most important was, don’t yield to emotion or
frustration.

The Palace is the only place in the world where you can step through a doorway
and end up on a different floor. I found out the hard way. And it was not any
sort of elf magic. It came from the place being a conglomeration of ages and
ages of add-ons built upon very uneven ground.

My anxiety reached the point where I elected to pursue what seemed the wimp
route. I decided to go down to ground level, find one of the Palace’s thousand
postern doors, which can be opened only from the inside, and get out into the
street. Out there I would know where I was. I would walk around to the entrance
I used regularly. Then I would be home.

It is really dark in there in the middle of the night. I found that out after I
stumbled descending a stair and dropped my lamp.

It broke, of course. And for a while there was a lot of light down below. But
soon the fire burned out.

Oh, well. It was a certainty that there would be a door to the street below. The
stairwell curved down against an exterior wall. I had leaned out a window to
make sure before I ever entered it.

Descending an ancient stair that spirals isn’t easy when there are no handrails
and you cannot see what you are doing. Nevertheless, I got to the bottom without
breaking any bones, although I did slip a couple of times and endured one long
spell of vertigo after passing through the smoke from the burned lamp fuel.

Eventually the stair ended. I felt around for a door. As I did so I frowned.

What was I doing? Took me a moment to reach back into my head and bring up the
answer.

I found the door, felt around for a release. I found an old fashioned wooden
latch bar, which was not what I expected at all.

I yanked, pushed. The door swung outward.

Wrong answer to your problem, Murgen.

Within that fastness nothing moves, though at times mists of light shimmer as
they leak over from beyond the gates of dream. Shadows linger in corners. And
way down inside the core of the place, in the feeblest throb of the heart of
darkness, there is life of a sort.

A massive wooden throne stands upon a dais at the heart of a chamber so vast
only a sun could light it all. Upon that throne a body sprawls, veiled by shoals
of shadow, pinioned by silver knives driven through its feet and hands.

Sometimes that body sighs softly in its sleep, impelled by bitter dreams acrawl
behind its sightless eyes.

This is survival of a sort.

In the night, when the wind no longer licks through its unglazed windows, nor
prances along its untenanted halls, nor whispers to its million creeping
shadows, that fortress is filled with the silence of stone.

No will.

No identity. At home in the house of pain.

There you are! Where have you been? Welcome back to the house of pain!

The house of pain. I went there but do not remember the journey or the visit.

I was on hands and knees on broken pavement. My palms and knees hurt. I lifted a
hand. My palm was torn. Blood oozed from a dozen abrasions. My mind was numb. I
raised my other hand, began picking out bits of paving brick.

Fifty yards away the side of a building glowed olive, pulsating. A circle of
masonry blew outward. Shadows sprang out of the darkness. With weapons bare they
scrambled through the hole. Shouts and the clang of metal came from inside.

I got up and wandered that direction, vaguely interested but not sure why, not
even thinking definable thoughts.

“Hey!” A shadow at that hole stared at me. I did not yell so that must have been
the shadow. “That you, Murgen?”

I kept walking, head spinning. My course curved to the right. I banged into the
side of a building. After that I had a sure means of navigation. Like a drunk I
steered by keeping one hand on the wall.

“Here he is!” The shadow pointed at me.

“Candles?”

“Yeah. You all right? What did they do to you?”

I had little pains everywhere. I felt like I had been stabbed and cut and
burned. “Who? Nobody did anything . . . ” Did they? “Where am I? When?”

“Huh?”

A man leaned through the side of the building. He wore a scarf wrapped around
his face. Only his eyes were visible. He studied me momentarily, popped back
inside. Somebody in there yelled.

People jumped into the street. Some carried bloody weapons. All were masked. A
couple grabbed my arms and took off.

We scurried through darkened streets in a nighted city and no one would answer
my panted questions so for a while I had no idea when I was, or where. Then we
crossed an open space from which I glimpsed the citadel of Dejagore.

That answered my most immediate questions.

But a new crop sprouted. Why were we outside the Company’s part of town? How had
I gotten there? Why didn’t I have any memories of this? I recalled sitting with
Ky Dam, secretly lusting after his granddaughter . . .

The men accompanying me removed their wraps and masks. They were Company. Plus
Uncle Doj and a couple of Nyueng Bao sprites. We ducked into an alleyway that
led to Nyueng Bao territory. “Slow down,” I gasped. “What’s going on?”