The Many Deaths of the Black Company

by Glen Cook

  “Ma’am?” Narita was barely able to croak her response. In a moment, she would lose control of her bladder.

  “You just pushed something into your left sleeve. Something off the altar.” A single white candle, almost consumed, still burned in the tiny shrine to ancestors. “Come here.” Soulcatcher extended her gloved right hand.

  Narita could not resist. She stepped toward the dark woman, so trim and evilly feminine in her leather. Idly, Narita hated her for maintaining that sleek body.

  “Give it to me.”

  Reluctantly, Narita removed the Ghanghesha from her sleeve. She began to babble about not wanting her friend to get into trouble, making no sense at all, failing to realize that if she had not tried to conceal the Ghanghesha, the Protector would have overlooked it entirely.

  Soulcatcher stared at the little clay figurine. “The cleaning woman. It belongs to the cleaning woman. Where is she?”

  Far, mocking laughter.

  “She’s a day employee, ma’am. She comes in from outside.”

  “Where does she live?”

  “I don’t know, ma’am. I don’t think anybody does. Nobody ever asked. It never mattered.”

  One of the other staffers offered, “She was a good worker.”

  Soulcatcher continued to examine the Ghanghesha. “Something’s odd here.… Now it does matter. To me. Find out.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t care! Be creative! But do it.” Soulcatcher hurled the clay figurine to the floor. Shards flew in every direction.

  A wisp of a ghost of darkness curled up and stood like a rampant cobra a foot high for an instant. Then it struck. At the Protector.

  The staffers squealed and began trampling one another, trying to get away. They had not seen a shadow before but they knew what a shadow could do.

  The laughter was closer now, louder and lasting longer.

  Soulcatcher offered a convincing squeal of surprise and fright, like a young woman who has just stepped on a snake. Her apparel and the handful of generalized protective spells that always surrounded her saved her from becoming a victim of her own cruelest weapon.

  Even so, for a minute she was like a child swatting mosquitoes as the shadow enthusiastically strove to terminate their relationship. Failing to reclaim control of the shadow, Soulcatcher destroyed it. The necessity told her that a pretty clever mind had prepared it, probably hoping that she would be too angry to pay close attention for just that instant needed.…

  “Woman! Come back here!” The Protector extended a hand in the direction Narita had fled. Somehow, a single strand of the woman’s hair had become entwined through Soulcatcher’s fingers. Those fingers shimmered momentarily. The air became charged. The other staffers whimpered and wished they had even had the nerve to try to run.

  Narita reappeared slowly, taking short zombie steps. “Here!” Soulcatcher said. She pointed at a spot on the Anger Chamber floor. “The rest of you. Go away. Quickly.” She did not have to add any encouragement. “Fat woman. Tell me everything about the creature who always carried the Ghanghesha.”

  “I’ve told you everything I know,” Narita whined.

  “No. You have not. Start talking. She may have kidnapped the Radisha.”

  Soulcatcher regretted mentioning that the instant the words left her helmet.

  The laughter sounded like it was coming from just out in the hallway, a diabolic snickering. The Protector’s head twitched toward that direction. She sensed no threat. It could wait a minute.

  “Her name is Minh Subredil.” It took Narita only another thirty seconds to relate everything she knew about Minh Subredil, her daughter Shikhandini and her sister-in-law Sawa.

  “Thank you,” Soulcatcher snarled. “You’ve been most unhelpful. And for that, I shall provide an appropriate reward.” She gripped the fat woman’s throat in her right hand, squeezed.

  As Narita went limp, that laughter sounded once more. There might have been a word there, too. Ardath? Or perhaps Silath? Or might it have been…? No matter. Soulcatcher would not listen to that, just to the mockery. She hurled herself toward the sound but when she burst into the hallway, there was nothing to see.

  She started to call for Guards, for Greys, but recalled that she had just slain the one person other than herself who knew for sure that the Radisha had disappeared.

  The Radisha had shut herself away from the world. That was all anybody really needed to know. The Princess could live forever right there in her Anger Chamber. She did not need to venture forth ever again. She had her good friend the Protector to handle the boring chores of managing her empire for her.

  More laughter, apparently from nowhere and everywhere. Soulcatcher stamped away. This was not over yet.

  * * *

  A white crow dropped out of the murk near the ceiling of the hallway, flapped heavily, landed beside the fat woman. It held its beak poised beneath her nostrils momentarily, as though checking for breath. Then it flapped away suddenly, sharp ears having caught the sound of a stealthy footfall.

  A shivering Jaul Barundandi eased into the chamber. He knelt beside the woman. He took her hand. He remained there, tears streaking his cheeks, until he heard the Protector returning, arguing with herself in a variety of voices.

  40

  “What do you know about that?” I said to Sahra. “Narita tried to cover for you. And then Barundandi got all broken up about what happened to her.”

  Sahra waggled a finger. She was thinking. “Murgen. What do you know about that white crow?”

  Murgen hesitated before responding. “Nothing.” Which meant he was telling an approximate truth but he had some definite ideas. Sahra and I both knew him that well.

  Sahra said, “Suppose you tell me what you think is going on, then.”

  Murgen faded away.

  “What the heck is that?” I snapped at One-Eye. “You were supposed to rig this thing so he has to do what he’s told.”

  “He does. Most of the time. He could be carrying out a previous instruction.”

  But the old fool sounded to me like he had no idea what Murgen was doing.

  * * *

  Soulcatcher worked quickly, then summoned the staff members who had been present when she had broken into the Anger Chamber. “The continuing excitement was too much for this poor woman. I’ve tried to resurrect her but her soul refuses to respond. She must be happy where she is now.” There were no witnesses to contradict her, though remote laughter mocked her. “I did find the Radisha. She’d fallen asleep. She has retreated into the Anger Chamber and does not wish to be disturbed again. Not for a long time. I should have honored her wishes before. We would have avoided this disaster.” She indicated the fat woman.

  Even the staffers who had looked into the Anger Chamber earlier and had seen nothing had to admit that someone was inside now, moving around angrily, muttering the way the Radisha did and looking very much like the Radisha in glimpses caught through cracks in the poorly restored door.

  The Protector suggested, “Let’s all turn in for the night. Tomorrow we’ll begin repairing the mess I made.” She watched her audience intently, feeling for anyone who could cause trouble.

  The staff departed. They were relieved just to be away from Soulcatcher.

  Soulcatcher sat down and thought. There was no way to tell what was going through her mind till she began muttering in a committee of voices. Then it was clear that she was trying to work out the mechanics of the abduction. She seemed willing to give considerable weight to the possibility that the Radisha had stage-managed the whole thing herself.

  A very suspicious woman, the Protector.

  One by one she found and questioned each of the people who had dealt with Minh Subredil, Sawa and Shikhandini, beginning with Jaul Barundandi and finishing with Del Mukharjee, the man Barundandi usually trusted to collect the kickbacks from the outside workers. “You will cease that,” the Protector informed Mukharjee. “You and anyone else involved. If it happens again, I will put
you into a glass ball and hang you above the service postern with your whole body turned inside out. I’ll add a couple of imps to feed on your entrails for the six months it will take you to die. Do you understand?”

  Del Mukharjee understood the threat just fine. But he had no idea whatsoever why the Protector would want to interfere with his livelihood.

  The Protector had a passion about corruption.

  In time the Protector reasoned that three women had come into the Palace and three women had gone away again. It seemed very likely that the three who had departed were not the three who had entered. And no one the Radisha’s size had gone out since.

  Which meant that someone with some answers might still be inside.

  Chuckling wickedly, Soulcatcher began to look for evidence that someone had slipped off into the untenanted wilds of the Palace.

  * * *

  Goblin was asleep on a dusty old bed. Occasionally his snores would turn to sneezes and snorts when too much dust got into his nostrils.

  A squawk had him bouncing up so suddenly he almost collapsed from light-headedness. He spun around. He saw nothing. He heard soft laughter, then a bizarre, squawking voice that sounded almost familiar. “Wake up. Wake up. She is coming.”

  “Who’s coming? Who’s talking?”

  There was no response. He did not feel any strong sorcerous presence. It was a puzzle.

  Goblin had a good idea who might be coming, though. Not many women were likely to be hunting him here in the middle of the night.

  He was ready. His little pack was carrying the two books Sleepy most wanted to save. Taking all three was physically impossible. His traps were set. All he had to do was move on into the now-empty part of the Palace that had been occupied by the Black Company back when its staff and leadership had been quartered there. There were ways to get out unnoticed. He and One-Eye had found them in olden times. The trouble was, he had no desire to be on the streets after dark, amulet or no.

  * * *

  Soulcatcher gave up most of her sense of touch when she chose to wrap every inch of her body in leather and helmet. She never noted the touch of or resistance of the strand of spider silk stretched across the corridor. But she did have a marvelously well-developed sense for personal danger. Before the Ghanghesha hit the floor, she was moving to defend herself. It was such reflexes that made it possible for creatures like her, her sister Lady, and the Howler, to have survived for so long. This time she had the proper controlling spells ready, hung about her, sparkling like spanking-new tools.

  The shadow trapped inside the figurine barely got its bearings before it was attacked itself, seized and constrained, then twisted and crushed down into a whining, seething ball completely enclosed inside one of the Protector’s gloved hands. A merry young voice called, “You’ll have to do better than that.”

  Soulcatcher continued to move forward, amused by the idea of tossing the shadow back into someone’s face. The trail began to grow indistinct, then disorienting. Experimentation showed her the cause was external. The corridor had been strewn with cobwebs of spells so subtle that even she might not have noticed had she just been hurrying along. “Oh, you clever devils. How long has this been here? Ah. A very long time indeed, I see. You were still in favor when you started this. Have you been hiding here all along? I certainly couldn’t find you in the city if you never were out there.”

  In another voice entirely, she asked, “What have we here? It smells like somebody very frightened is hiding behind this door. And he didn’t even bother to lock it. How stupid does he think I am?”

  She shoved the door with her toe.

  A clay Ghanghesha plummeted from its place atop the door. Soulcatcher giggled. She was even quicker to recapture this shadow, which she squeezed down inside her other hand. Then she pushed into the room.

  There was no one there anymore. That was easy to sense. But there was a curious feel to the place. It demanded an investigation.

  She generated a small light, stood in place, turned slowly while she read the history of the room for subtle clues. A great deal had happened there. Much of the recent history of the Black Company had been shaped in that room. It retained a strong smell of old fear she identified eventually with the long-dead Taglian court wizard, Smoke.

  All this she debated with herself in a committee of argumentative voices. In the end, she seemed entertained. Most of the time life was a great entertainment for Soulcatcher.

  “And what do we have here?” Something with inked characters on it peeped from beneath a dusty old bed where someone had been lying until minutes ago. Thoughtlessly, she reached for the object, opening her hand to grasp it. “Damn! That was stupid!” She wasted several minutes regaining control of the shadow. It was very agile this time. She stuffed it into the hand restraining the other. The two were extremely unhappy in there. One thing shadows seemed to hate more than the living was other shadows.

  What Soulcatcher had found was a book with half the pages torn out. It was alone. “So this is what became of those. I was never quite sure who took them. I wonder if they got any use out of them?”

  As she was about to depart, the Protector glanced at the damaged book once more. “Been taking these pages a few at a time. That would take a long time. Which means they’ve been coming in and out of the Palace for a long time. Which therefore suggests that the Radisha didn’t engineer her own disappearance. Oh, well. She’s gone. It amounts to the same thing. Let’s catch our little rat and let him play with our little friends.”

  * * *

  Unlike Soulcatcher, Goblin could not see in the dark. But he had the advantage of knowing where he was going. He did manage to stay ahead and did slide out of one of the old hidden exits. There was a little light outside from a fragment of moon peeking through scurrying young clouds trying to catch up with Mother Storm. Goblin laid the last Ghanghesha on the cobblestones in plain sight, then ran. The books on his back beat against him, pounding the breath out of him. He muttered something about the good news being that it was all downhill from here. The bad news was that it was dark out, there were shadows on the prowl, and he was not so sure about the quality of his fifteen-year-old amulet. He had to hope that in a city this vast, none of the handful of nightstalkers would cross his path while he was huffing and puffing and concentrating on staying ahead of Soulcatcher.

  It did not occur to him that she might have recovered the shadows he had left in ambush, that they might be after him, too.

  * * *

  Soulcatcher stepped into the night close enough behind to glimpse a flicker of her quarry vanishing into the shadows between structures across the open area outside the Palace. She spied the abandoned Ghanghesha and several other small items that looked like they had been dropped in the rush to get away. She tossed her two shadows into the air and stomped her heel down on the clay figurine at the same time. This would set a pack of small deaths on the little man’s heels.

  By now, she was reasonably certain that she was chasing the wizard called Goblin.

  She screamed. The pain in her heel was beyond anything she had ever experienced. As she collapsed, trying to will her throat to seal itself, she watched three ferociously bright balls of light streak into the night in pursuit of the shadows she had sent to claim Goblin. Still fighting the incredible pain, she produced a dagger and used its tip to dip another fireball out of her heel. Already it had eaten all the way to the bone and in, and had done some damage as high as her ankle—despite her normal protection.

  “I’ll be crippled,” she snarled. “He lulled me. He set me up so I’d think this would be another easy shadowtrap.” None of her voices were amused now. “Clever little bastard will pay for this.”

  The fallen fireball burned its way into the cobblestones. Still ignoring her pain, Soulcatcher tried to stand. She discovered that she was not going to be able to walk. She was, however, not losing any blood. The fireball had cauterized her wound. “My beloved sister, if you weren’t already dead, I’d kill
you for inventing those damned things.”

  Laughter echoed down off the ramparts of the Palace.

  A flicker of white glided after Goblin.

  “I think I’ll kill somebody anyway.” Soulcatcher made her way toward the Palace entrance on hands and knees, muttering continuously. She had isolated her pain in a remote corner of her mind and was now concentrating on being angry about what this odyssey was doing to her beautiful leather pants and gloves.

  41

  “Can you believe that?” I asked. “She was as mad about ruining her outfit as she was about losing Goblin and getting hurt.”

  One-Eye chuckled, immensely relieved because Goblin had gotten away. “I believe it.”

  “What? You, too?”

  “It’s a northern thing. Everything she wears is leather. You people are all goofy about stuff like that. She probably has to fly five thousand miles every time she wants a new pair of pants. Means she’s really got to watch her waist and behind. Unlike some—hey! No punching! We’re all on the same side here.”

  “Do you believe this little pervert?” I asked Sahra.

  “You go ask Swan.” One-Eye showed me his tooth. The one he was about to lose. “He’ll tell you the woman’s got her good points.”

  Sahra remained all business. “What are we going to do if she just pretends the Radisha is all right? How many people normally see the Princess? Not many, I know. And there’s no Privy Council anymore. We’ve seen to them. Except for Mogaba.”

  “We’ve got to see about him, too,” One-Eye grumbled.

  “Let’s not overreach. The Great General will be harder to take than the others were.”

  I mused, “She wouldn’t actually have to keep the Radisha in hiding very long. Maybe two weeks, while she builds a new Council, handpicked to woof ‘Yes, ma’am!’ and ‘How high?’ when she tells them to jump.”

  One-Eye blew out a bushel of air. “She’s right. Maybe we should’ve considered that.”

  I said, “I did consider it. Having the Radisha under our control looked like the best deal. We can trot her out any time Soulcatcher gets too bizarre. And Soulcatcher will realize that. She won’t let temptation carry her too far. Not until she sorts us out.”