The Many Deaths of the Black Company

by Glen Cook

  “Just calm down. Tell us what you know.”

  Murgen proceeded to report everything Soulcatcher said and did after she ducked our snipers. He would not tell us how he knew. I do not think he could.

  Sahra said, “She does know that we have Singh and the girl.”

  “But did she guess why? The Company has an old grudge with those two.”

  “She’ll need to see bodies to be convinced there was nothing more to it than that. She’s still not completely satisfied that Swan is dead. A very suspicious woman, the Protector.”

  “A Narayan corpse would be easy—if we could make it credible. There’re a million skinny, filthy little old men with green teeth out there. But we’d sure come up short on beautiful twenty-year-old women with blue eyes and skin paler than ivory.”

  “The Greys will definitely become more active now,” Sahra said. “Whatever she suspects or doesn’t, the Protector wants no one going about any tricky business in her city.”

  “A point the Radisha might argue. Which reminds me of something that’s been knocking around the back of my head. Listen to this and tell me what you think.”

  21

  As the Bhodi disciples made their way through the crowds, more than one onlooker reached out to slap their backs. The disciples took that with poor grace. It told them that many of the witnesses were there to be entertained.

  The rite proceeded as before, but more quickly as it was evident that the Greys anticipated trouble and had instructions to head it off.

  The kneeling priest in orange burst into flames just as the Greys began manhandling his assistants out of the way.

  A gout of smoke leaped upward. A Black Company skull formed inside it, an evil eye seeming to stare deep into the souls of all the witnesses. A voice filled the morning. “All their days are numbered.”

  And the wooden curtain-wall shielding the reconstruction came to life. Glowing lime characters as tall as a man proclaimed “Water Sleeps,” and “My Brother Unforgiven.” They crawled slowly back and forth.

  Soulcatcher herself materialized on the ramparts overhead. Her rage was palpable.

  A second and larger cloud of smoke burst off the burning disciple. A face—the best representation of the Captain’s that One-Eye and Goblin could manage—told the awed and silent thousands, “Rajadharma! The Duty of Kings. Know you: Kingship is a Trust. The King is the most exalted and conscientious servant of the people.”

  I began to slide away from there. This was sure to sting the Protector into some impulsive and self-defeating response.

  Or maybe not. She did nothing obvious, though a sudden breeze came along. It blew the smoke away. But it fanned the flames consuming the Bhodi disciple. The smell of burning flesh spread out downwind.

  22

  When Master Santaraksita wanted to know why I was late, I told the truth. “Another Bhodi disciple set himself on fire in front of the Palace. I went to watch. I couldn’t help myself. There was sorcery involved.” I described what I had seen. As so many of the actual eyewitnesses also had, Santaraksita seemed both repelled and intrigued.

  “Why do you suppose those disciples are doing that, Dorabee?”

  I knew why they were doing it. It took no genius to fathom their motives. Only their determination remained a puzzle. “They’re trying to tell the Radisha that she’s not fulfilling her obligations to the Taglian people. They consider the situation so desperate that they’ve chosen to send their message by a means that can’t be ignored.”

  “I, too, believe that to be the case. The question remains: What can the Radisha do? The Protector won’t go away just because some people believe she’s bad for Taglios.”

  “I have a great deal to do today, Sri, and I’m starting late.”

  “Go. Go. I must assemble the bhadrhalok. It’s possible we can present the Radisha with some means of shaking the Protector’s grip.”

  “Good luck, Sri.” He would need it. Only the most outrageous good luck since the beginning of time was going to give him and his cronies the tools to undo Soulcatcher. Chances were good the bhadrhalok had no idea how dangerous an opponent they had chosen.

  I dusted and mopped and checked the rodent traps and after a while noticed that most everyone had gone away. I asked old Baladitya the copyist where everyone was. He told me that the other copyists had ducked out as soon as the senior librarians had gone off to their bhadrhalok meeting. They knew that the bhadrhalok would do nothing but it would take them hours of grumbling and talking and arguing to get it done, so they made themselves a holiday.

  It was not an opportunity to be refused. I began examining books, even going so far as to penetrate the restricted stacks. Baladitya knew nothing. He could not see three feet in front of his face.

  23

  Jaul Barundandi partnered Minh Subredil with a young woman named Rahini and sent them to work in the Radisha’s own quarters, under the direction of a woman named Narita, a fat, ugly creature possessed by an inflated conception of her own importance. Narita complained to Barundandi, “I need six more women. I’m supposed to clean the council chamber again after I complete the royal suite.”

  “Then I suggest you pick up a broom yourself. I’ll be back in a few hours. I expect to see progress. I’ve given you the best workers available.” Barundandi went elsewhere to be unpleasant to someone else.

  The fat woman took it out on Subredil and Rahini. Subredil did not know who Narita was. The woman had not worked in the royal chambers before. As Subredil steered a mop around, she whispered, “Who is this woman who is so bitter?” She stroked her Ghanghesha.

  Rahini glanced right and left but did not raise her eyes. “You must understand her. She is Barundandi’s wife.”

  “You two! You aren’t being paid to gossip.”

  “Pardon, ma’am,” Sahra said. “I didn’t understand what to do and didn’t want to trouble you.”

  The fat woman scowled for a moment but then turned her displeasure in another direction. Rahini smiled softly, whispered, “She’s in a good mood today.”

  As the hours passed and her knees and hands and muscles began to ache, Sahra realized that she and Rahini had been delivered to Barundandi’s wife more for who they were than for the work they could do. They were not bright and they were not among the more attractive workers. Barundandi wanted Narita to believe that these were the kind of women he always employed. Elsewhere, no doubt, he and his chief assistants would take full advantage of their bit of power over the unfortunate and the desperate.

  It was not a good day for exploring. There was more work than three women could possibly complete. Sahra got no chance to collect additional pages from the hidden Annals. Then, not many hours after the day started, conditions within the Palace became much less relaxed. The high and the mighty began to show themselves, moving rapidly here and there. Rumor came, apparently passing right through stone walls. Another Bhodi disciple had burned himself to death outside and the Radisha was completely distraught. Narita herself confided, “She’s very frightened. Many things are happening over which she has no control. She has gone to the Anger Chamber. She does so almost every day now.”

  “The Anger Chamber?” Sahra murmured. She had not heard of this before, but till recently she never worked this close to the heart of the Palace. “What is that, ma’am?”

  “A room set aside where she can tear her hair and clothing and rage and weep without having her emotions poison surroundings used for other purposes. She won’t come out until she can face the world in complete calm.”

  Subredil understood: It was a Gunni thing. Only Gunni would come up with an idea like that. Gunni religion personified everything. It had a god or goddess or demon, a deva or rakshasa or yaksha or whatever for everything, usually with several aspects and avatars and differing names, none of whom were seen much nowadays but who had been very busy way back when.

  Only an extremely wealthy Gunni would come up with a conceit like an Anger Chamber—a Gunni cursed with a thousand
rooms she did not know how to use.

  Later in the day Subredil contrived to be allowed to service the freshly evacuated Anger Chamber. It was small and contained nothing but a mat on a polished wooden floor and a small shrine to ancestors. The smoke was thick and the smell of incense was overpowering.

  24

  “A good thing I didn’t have any pages on me, too,” Sahra told me. “The Greys started searching us going out. That woman Vancha tried to steal a little silver oil lamp. She’ll spend all morning tomorrow being ‘punished’ by Jaul Barundandi.”

  “Does Barundandi’s boss know what he does?”

  “I don’t think so. Why?”

  “We could trick him into betraying himself. Get him tossed out.”

  “No. Barundandi is the devil we know. An honest man would be harder to manipulate.”

  “I loathe the man.”

  “That’s because he’s loathsome. Not unlike other men in similar positions of petty power. But we’re not here to reform Taglios, Sleepy. We’re here to find out how to release the Captured. And to torment our enemies when doing that doesn’t jeopardize our primary mission. And we did a great job of that today. The Radisha was crushed by our messages.”

  Sahra told me what she had discovered. Then I told her about my own small triumph. “I got into the restricted stacks today. And I found what I think might be the original of one of the Annals we’ve got hidden in the Palace. It’s in terrible shape but it’s all there and it’s still readable. And there may be more volumes. I only got through part of the restricted stack before I had to go help Baladitya find his slippers so his grandson could lead him home.”

  I had the book right there on the table. I patted it proudly. Sahra asked, “Won’t it be missed?”

  “I hope not. I replaced it with one of the moldy discards I’ve been saving.”

  Sahra squeezed my hand. “Good. Good. Things have gone well lately. Tobo, would you find Goblin? I have an idea to run past him.”

  I said, “I’ll see how our guests are doing. Somebody might be ready to whisper confidences in my ear.”

  But only Swan wanted my ear and he did not have confidences in mind. In his way he was as incorrigible as One-Eye, yet he had a style that did not offend me. I do not think Swan had an evil bone in him. Like so many people, he was a victim of circumstance, struggling to keep his head up in the turbulence of the river of events.

  Uncle Doj was displeased with his circumstances even though he was not a prisoner. “We can certainly get along without that book,” I told him. “I doubt that I could read it, anyway. Mostly I want to make sure it doesn’t get back to the Deceivers. What we really need is your knowledge.”

  Doj was a stubborn old man. He was not yet ready to make deals or to look for allies.

  Before I left I asked, “Will it all die with you? Will you be the last Nyueng Bao to follow the Path? Thai Dei can’t if he’s buried under the glittering plain.” I winked. I understood Doj better than he thought. His problem was not a conflict with his morality, it was a matter of control. He wanted to do everything his way, no strings.

  He would come around if I kept reminding him of his mortality and his lack of a son or an apprentice. Nyueng Bao are famous for their stubbornness but even they will not sacrifice all their hopes and dreams rather than adjust.

  I visited Narayan just long enough to offer a reminder that our interest did not lie in harming him. But the only reason we had for keeping the Daughter of Night healthy was our hope of his cooperation. “You can be stubborn for a while yet. We have several tasks to wrap up before you become our main interest and we concentrate on murdering your dreams.”

  That was my whole focus with each of our prisoners. Make them put their hopes and dreams on the line. Maybe I could weasel my way into history, as famous or infamous as Soulcatcher and Widowmaker, as Stormshadow and Longshadow, remembered forever as the Dreamkiller.

  I had a vision of myself drifting through the night like Murgen, disembodied but dragging along a bottomless bag of black night into which I stuffed all the dreams I stole from restless sleepers. I was a real old-time rakshasa, there.

  The Daughter of Night did not look up when I went to view her. She was in a cage Banh Do Trang used for keeping large animals of the deadliest sort. Sometimes leopards, but mostly tigers. A fully grown male tiger was worth a fortune in the apothecary market. She was shackled as well. The cats never were. In addition, I believe, a little opium and nightshade were used to season her food. Nobody wanted to underestimate her potential. Her family had a dire history. And she had a goddess on her shoulder.

  Reason told me to kill her right now, before Kina wakened as much as she could. That would buy me the rest of my lifetime free of the end of the world. It would take the dark goddess generations to create another Daughter of Night.

  Reason also told me that if the girl died, the Captured would spend the rest of time in those caverns under the glittering plain.

  Reason told me, after a moment watching her, that she was not just ignoring me. She did not know I was there. Her mind was elsewhere. Which was not a comfortable feeling at all. If Kina could turn her loose, the way Murgen was loose.…

  25

  Master Santaraksita paused to tell me, “It was good of you to care for Baladitya yesterday, Dorabee. I had forgotten him in my eagerness to assemble the bhadrhalok. But you should be careful or his grandson will begin expecting you to walk the old man home for him. He tried it with me.”

  I did not look into his eyes, though I did want to see what was there. There was a tightness in his voice that told me he had something on his mind. But I had taken too many liberties with Dorabee already. He would not stare into the eyes of the priestly caste. “I but did the right thing, Master. Are we not taught to respect and aid our elders? If we do not when we are young, who will respect and aid us when we ourselves become frail?”

  “Indeed. Nevertheless, you continue to amaze and intrigue me, Dorabee.”

  Uncomfortable, I tried to change the subject by inquiring, “Was the meeting of the bhadrhalok productive, Master?”

  Santaraksita frowned, then smiled. “You’re very subtle, Dorabee. No. Of course not. We’re the bhadrhalok. We talk. We don’t act.” For a moment he mocked his own kind. “We’ll still be debating what form our resistance should take when the Protector perishes of old age.”

  “Is it true what they say, Master? That she’s four hundred years old, yet fresh as a bride?” I did not need to know, I just needed conversation to nurture Santaraksita’s surprising interest in me.

  “That seems to be the common belief, handed down from the northern mercenaries and those travelers the Radisha adopted.”

  “She must be a great sorceress indeed, then.”

  “Do I detect a note of jealousy?”

  “Would we all not like to live forever?”

  He looked at me oddly. “But we shall, Dorabee. This life is only a stage.”

  Wrong thing to say, Dorabee Dey. “I meant in this world. I find myself largely content to remain Dorabee Dey Banerjae.”

  Santaraksita frowned slightly but let it go. “How are your studies coming?”

  “Wonderfully, Master. I’m especially fond of the historical texts. I’m discovering so many interesting facts.”

  “Excellent. Excellent. If there’s anything I can do to help…”

  I asked, “Is there a written Nyueng Bao language? Or was there ever?”

  That took him from the blind side. “Nyueng Bao? I don’t know. Why in the world would you—”

  “Something I’ve seen a few times near where I live. Nobody knows what it means. The Nyueng Bao down there won’t talk. But I never heard of them being literate.”

  He rested a hand on my shoulder for a moment. “I’ll find out for you.” His fingers seemed to be trembling. He murmured something unintelligible and hurried away.

  26

  Word was in that the Bhodi disciples were not happy with us for stealing their
thunder at the Palace gate. I wondered what they would think when the news arrived about our behavior at Semchi. That seemed to be coming together perfectly for us. Unless Soulcatcher was thinking farther ahead than we could detect.

  Murgen had Slink’s party well on the way to the village. And moving faster than the group the Protector had sent to destroy the Bhodi Tree. That group outnumbered our brothers but did not expect any resistance. In a few days it would turn really nasty down there.

  As the weather had here. Storm season had arrived. I had been delayed coming home by a ferocious thunderstorm that flooded some streets and sent down hail an inch in diameter. The kangali and other children went out and tried to gather up the ice, barking in pain every time a hailstone found unprotected skin. For a short while the air was almost tolerably cool. But then the storm moved on and the heat returned worse than it had been before. The stench of the city welled up. One storm was not enough to sluice it clean, only to turn everything over. In a few days the insects would be more miserable than ever before.

  I hugged my burden and told myself I would not have to stay in this cesspool much longer.

  * * *

  “One more to locate and I’ll have everything I need from the library.” My new acquisition lay open for public viewing. Of course no one could read it. Not even me. But I was confident that I now possessed another original of the three missing Annals. Perhaps the very first, since it was so alien. The other seemed to be inscribed in the same alphabet, much modified and somewhat like that used in the discarded volume I had rescued. If the language was the same, I would be able to figure it out eventually.

  One-Eye cackled. “Yeah. Everything but somebody to translate that stuff for you. Everything but your new boyfriend.” He insisted that Master Santaraksita was out to seduce me. And that Santaraksita would be brokenhearted if he succeeded and discovered that I was female.