by Glen Cook
28
“Loose,” I suggested. The ballista offered its distinctive thump. Silence spread along the wall. The black shaft darted across the night. The occasional spark floated behind it. One-Eye said five seconds of flight. The truth was more like four but they took forever.
There was ample firelight to illuminate the Shadowmaster. Shortly he would disappear behind one of the enfilading towers. He stared back at the hills as he rode. Those bizarre riders out there were on the plain now, daring someone, anyone, to answer their challenge.
I gasped.
Widowmaker carried the Lance. The standard itself was not apparent but that was the lance on which it had ridden from the day the Black Company left Khatovar. Every single Annalist has kept close track although the reason for doing so has been forgotten. I focused on Shadowspinner in time to see One-Eye’s treasure arrive.
Later Goblin told me Spinner sensed the threat as the missile hit the peak of its arc. Whatever he did then, it was the right thing. Or he was lucky. Or a higher power decreed that this was not his night to die.
The spear changed course by scant inches. Instead of striking Shadowspinner it hit his mount’s shoulder. And ripped through the beast as though it was no more substantial than air. The wound glowed red, flickered. The red spread. Shadowspinner bellowed in rage as the animal threw him. He fell in a heap, lay there twitching long enough for One-Eye to start nagging Loftus about hitting him with a barrage of regular shafts, then he scuttled off like a crab to escape the stallion’s pounding hooves.
I recognized that animal then. It was one of those magically bred monster horses Lady brought south with the Company, out of her old empire. They vanished during the battle.
The horse screamed and screamed.
A normal animal would have perished in moments.
I stared at those two riders out there. They walked toward the city slowly, offering their challenge. Now I could see that they, too, were mounted on Lady’s stallions. I told Goblin, “But I saw them killed.”
One-Eye grumbled, “We got to check this boy’s eyes.”
Goblin said, “I told you before, that’s not Lady. You look real close, you can see differences in the armor.”
The troops were seeing that. There was a stir among the Taglians.
“And you don’t know about the other one? What’re they talking about over there?”
“No. It could be the Old Man.”
Sparkle went to see why the Taglians were excited.
Shadowspinner’s horse collapsed but continued screaming and kicking. Wisps of greenish steam rose from its wound. That continued to grow. The beast’s death was a long time coming.
The sorcerer would have died more slowly and gruesomely still had One-Eye’s shaft struck home.
Sparkle came to say, “They’re all excited because that armor is an exact match for some goddess named Kina in her battle avatar. That’s the way she’s always portrayed in paintings about her war with the demons.”
I had no idea what he was talking about, only that Kina was some sort of death goddess in these parts.
I wondered when the Shadowmaster would snipe back at One-Eye.
“He won’t,” Goblin assured me. “The moment he gave it attention enough to be effective those two out there would cut his legs off.”
I watched Shadowspinner limp out of sight.
His embarrassment spurred his soldiers to increase their efforts again. Somebody would pay for his indignity in pain. Understandably they preferred that we pick up that tab.
Some of them seemed to recognize the Lifetaker armor, too. I heard the name Kina shouted more than once below the wall.
“Thai Dei. Time for a message to your grandfather. I want to bring part of my force through his area so I can help drive the southerners out of the city.”
The Nyueng Bao stepped out of the shadows just long enough to listen. He stared at those riders, troubled. Then he grunted, descended to the street and trotted off into the night.
“Listen up, people. We’re going to go save our fearless dick-head leader. Bucket...”
29
I stepped into a dark alleyway, planning to set up shop behind a southern company with Goblin to do his hoodoo on them. And it was like I stepped off the edge of the world, into an abyss without bottom. Like some great psychic flyswatter slapped me down into the void. Goblin barked something in the instant it took to go but I did not understand him.
I had that moment to feel seasick, to be bewildered, to wonder who had ambushed me with what sorcery, and why it seemed to twist me like a wet rag being wrung out.
Had Mogaba taken his treachery to another level?
30
Something had hold of me. It pulled so virulently there was no resisting it. I lost track of who I was and where. I knew only that I was asleep and did not want to wake up.
“Murgen!” a far voice called. The pull strengthened. “Murgen, come on! Come home! Fight it, Kid! Fight it!” I fought.
But it was that voice I fought. It wanted me to come somewhere that much of me did not want to go. Pain awaited me there.
The pull redoubled as the force dragged at me with inescapable power.
“That did it!” somebody shouted. “We have him back now.”
I knew that voice...
It was like coming out of a coma except that I remembered where I had been in every detail. Dejagore. Every little ache, every horror, every fear. But already the sharp edges were going dull. The ties were slipping. I was here now.
Here? Which when and where was here? I tried opening my eyes. My lips would not respond. I tried to move. My limbs refused to be troubled.
“He’s all here.”
“Pull that curtain.” I heard heavy cloth being moved. “Will it keep getting harder? I thought we were supposed to be over the worst. That he couldn’t recede so far that we would have this much trouble bringing him home.”
Oh! That voice belonged to Croaker. The Old Man. Only the Old Man is dead, because I saw him killed. Or did I? Didn’t I just leave Widowmaker, alive long past his time?
“Well, he didn’t listen. But it can’t do anything but get better now. We’re around the corner. Over the hump. Unless he wants to stay lost.”
I got an eye open.
I was in a dark place. I’d never seen it before but it had to be in the Palace at Trogo Taglios. Home. Never have I seen that kind of stone used anywhere else. And there was nothing astonishing about not being able to recognize parts of the Palace. The princes of Taglios all add on a bit during their reigns. Supposedly only the old royal wizard Smoke ever knew his way around the whole place. And Smoke isn’t with us anymore. I don’t know what happened to him afterward but several years ago he got torn up when a supernatural creature he disagreed with tried to eat him. Handy, because about then was when we discovered that he had been seduced by Longshadow and had gone over to the Shadowmasters.
I was amazed at me. Although I had a headache like the mother of all hangovers my mind, suddenly, was crystal clear.
“He’s got an eye open, chief.”
“Can you hear me, Murgen?” I tried my tongue, blurted fluent gibberish. “You had another one of your spells. We’ve been trying to bring you back for two days.” Croaker sounded put out. Like I was inconveniencing him on purpose? “All right. You know the drill. Let’s get him up and walking.”
I remembered doing this part several times before. I was less confused now, more able to grasp quickly the distinction between past and present.
They got my feet under me. Goblin got under my right armpit. Croaker wrapped his arm around me from the left, lifted. I said, “I remember what to do.”
They did not understand. Goblin asked, “You got a grip on when you are, Murgen? Ain’t going to drift off into the past on us again?”
I nodded. I could communicate that way. Maybe I could use the deaf and dumb speech.
“Dejagore again?” Croaker asked.
I had the connecti
ons all made inside. Even plenty I didn’t want made. I tried talking again. “Same night. Again. Later on.”
“Set him down. He’ll be all right now,” Croaker said. “Murgen. You get any clues this time? Anything we can latch onto to break you out of this cycle? I need you here. I need you full time.”
“Not one damned thing.” I paused to catch my breath. I was adapting faster this time. “I don’t even know when it hit me. I was just there, suddenly, like a poltergeist or something, with no thoughts of any future at all. Then after a while I was just Murgen with no awareness, no anomalies like I get now.”
“Anomalies?”
Startled, I turned. One-Eye had materialized from somewhere. I saw that curtain still stirring. It closed off half the room.
“Huh?”
“What do you mean by anomalies?”
When I concentrated I really didn’t know what I meant. I shook my head. “I don’t know. It’s gotten away from me. When am I?”
Croaker and the wizards dealt a hand of significant looks between them. Croaker asked, “Do you remember the Grove of Doom?”
“Sure. I’m still shivering.” A chill did touch me. Then I recalled the key thing. I had no memories of having visited this room before but I should have had them. Because I was still in my yesterdays. I just wasn’t as far away as I had been at Dejagore, which was years ago.
Then I tried to remember the future.
I remembered too much. I whimpered.
“Do we need to get him up again?” Goblin asked.
I shook my head. “I’m solid. Let’s think. How long between this spell and the last one? How long since we got back from the grove?”
Croaker said, “You got back three days ago. I told you to bring your prisoners to the Palace. You tried. You lost the shadowweaver along the way, in circumstances so questionable I issued orders for all Company people to stay especially alert.”
“He was old. He just died of fright,” One-Eye said. “Ain’t nothing mysterious about that.”
My headache was not improving. I had vague recollections of those events but they were not as clear as my memories of other events immediately before previous seizures. “I don’t recall much of it.”
“The red-hand Deceiver got here all right. We meant to start questioning him that night. But you went back to your apartment, supposedly just walked through the doorway and collapsed. Your mother-in-law, uncle, wife and brother-in-law all agree. Probably the first, last and only time that will happen.”
“Probably. The old lady is like One-Eye. She disagrees just to be disagreeable.”
“Hey! Kid...”
“Quiet,” Croaker told him. “So you just fell down and went rigid. Your wife got hysterical. Your brother-in-law came for me. We took you out of there to ease the stress on your family.”
Ease the stress? Those people never heard of the word. Besides, Sarie was the only one of them I considered family.
Goblin said, “Open your mouth, Murgen.” He turned my face to the best light and stared down my throat. “No damage in here.”
I knew what they thought. Epilepsy. I had considered that myself. I had asked about it of anyone who would listen. But no epileptic I ever heard of got bounced into the past from a seizure. Into a past that was never exactly like the past I had lived already.
“I told you it isn’t a disease,” Croaker growled. “When you find the answer it will be right there inside your own field and you’ll probably feel stupid about not having seen it earlier.”
“If there’s anything to be found we’ll find it,” One-Eye promised. Which left me wondering what he had up his sleeve. Then I knew that I had to know already because they were going to tell me pretty soon. But I could not recall that future clearly enough to grasp it.
Sometimes it was spooky being me.
“Was that headless character there again?” Croaker asked.
After figuring out what he meant I said, “Yes. But he was faceless, boss. Not headless. He had a head.”
“Might represent the source of the problem,” One-Eye suggested. “You ever remember any features, anything at all, tell somebody. Or get it written down right away.”
Croaker told me, “I don’t want this to happen to anybody else. Can you imagine managing a campaign when your people can fade out on you any minute, for days at a time?”
I felt confident that that would not happen. But I didn’t say so because they would press me on it and I did not feel like being poked and prodded. “I need something for a headache. Please. A hangover kind of headache.”
“Did you have this headache the other times?” Croaker demanded. “You never mentioned it.”
“It was there but not this bad. Just a minor discomfort. A four-beer hangover kind of headache, if it was beer brewed by Willow Swan and Cordy Mather. That mean anything?”
Croaker smiled at the reference to the world’s second worst beer. “Between me and Goblin we watched you almost every minute since you got back from the Grove of Doom. It seemed likely that this would keep happening. I didn’t want us to miss anything.”
And that keyed a serious question. Since while I am in this time I can remember the future occasionally how come I never remember the trips to the past that I am going to make?
And how could they watch me that closely? I never noticed them. And I try to stay alert. You never know when a Deceiver might pop out of a shadow swinging his strangling scarf.
“So what did you get?”
“We didn’t see a thing.”
“I am on the job now, though,” One-Eye said, preening.
“Now that really inspires me with confidence.”
“Everybody’s got to be a wiseass anymore,” One-Eye complained. “I remember when young people respected their elders.”
“That was in the days when they didn’t get a chance to know the old folks very well.”
“I have work to do,” Croaker said. “One-Eye, stick with Murgen when you can. Keep talking about Dejagore and what’s been happening to him. There’ll be clues there somewhere. Maybe we don’t recognize them yet. If we keep at it something will pop.” He left before I could say anything.
Something had passed between Croaker and One-Eye about and beyond me. And maybe we all had cause to be concerned. This time I could not remember much about where I was. Things seemed to be new, first time, yet some shaking, terrified little creature way back in the night warrens of my mind insisted I was still reliving yesterdays and the worst of those were yet to come.
One-Eye said, “I think we’ll just take you home now, Kid. Your wife will have the cure for what ails you.”
She might. She was a miracle. Even One-Eye, who seems incapable of offering respect to anyone, treated her and spoke to and of her, as though he considered her an honored lady.
She is, of course. But it is nice to have others confirm that.
“Now that’s the first thing you’ve said that I wanted to hear. Lead on, brother.” I didn’t know the way.
I cast a backward glance at Smoke and the covered Deceiver. What in the hell?
31
My in-laws make very little effort to improve anyone’s opinion of Nyueng Bao. Mother Gota, in particular, is a major pain in the ass. The old battleaxe barely tolerates even me and that only because the alternative is to lose her daughter entirely. She is very nasty toward the Old Man.
Still, Sarie and I rated enough for Croaker to insist we swap quarters when her folks showed up last month, in town slumming from their glamorous swamps. But they won’t make it back to paradise if Mother Gota doesn’t control her lip in the street.
The Old Man never reacts to her constant complaints. He told me, “I’ve had thirty years of Goblin and One-Eye. One crabby old woman hurting from gout and arthritis is nothing. You did say she’s only here for a few weeks, didn’t you?”
Right. I did say that. I wondered how those words would taste with soy sauce. Or maybe a lot of curry.
Now that Lady is i
n the south most of the time, emptying her cornucopia of rage onto the Shadowlands, Croaker has no need for a large apartment. Our old space was little more than a monk’s cell. There is just room enough for him, Lady when she visits, and a cradle that was given to Lady by a man named Ram who later died trying to protect her and her baby from Narayan Singh. Ram made that cradle himself. Most likely he died because, like almost every man who spends much time around Lady, he fell for the wrong woman.
Croaker gave me his apartment, all right, but it came with limitations. I could not turn it into the new home of the Nyueng Bao. Sahra and Thai Dei belonged. Mother Gota and Uncle Doj were welcome for visits. And not one freeloading cousin or nephew more.
People who accuse the Captain of using his position to feather his nest ought to take a close look at the nest. The Liberator, Mr. By Golly Military Despot of all the Taglians and their many conquests and dependencies, lives just the way he did back when he was only the Company physician and Annalist.
Also, he moved me to provide me adequate work space. He sets great store by these Annals.
My books are not coming out so good. I don’t always get stuff down the best way. In his time, when he was on the mark, Croaker was really good. I can’t help comparing my stuff to his. When he tried to be Captain and Annalist at the same time his work suffered. And Lady’s writing strikes me as too direct, too curt, and sometimes mildly self-indulgent. Neither was honest all the time and neither considered trying to be consistent with the other, with their predecessors, or even with their own earlier selves. If you read either one closely and you spot some of their slips, neither will admit any screwup. If Croaker says that it is eight hundred miles from Taglios to Shadowcatch and Lady calls it four hundred, who is correct? Both say they are. Lady says the discrepancy is because they grew up in different places and times where different weights and measures were in use.
What about character? They for sure see with different eyes there. You will never catch Croaker portraying a Willow Swan who is not bitching about something. Lady makes Swan energetic and rattle-mouthed and a lot more mellow. And the difference could be that both Croaker and Lady know Swan’s interest in Lady is not brotherly.
