Soldiers Live tbc-10

by Glen Charles Cook

  Playing deaf, One-Eye took a long drink of his product, closed his eye, nodded off. Lady whispered, “It’s probably best if he naps.”

  “Not very lively bait.”

  “Carrion’s good enough to draw this thing. What it wants to kill really only exists inside itself. One-Eye is just its symbol.” She rubbed her eyes.

  I winced. She looked so old, my love. Grey hair. Wrinkles. Jowls developing. Broadening in the beam. The deterioration had been swift since Sleepy rescued us.

  Lucky for me there was no mirror handy. I really do not like to look at that fat, old, bald guy who goes around claiming to be Croaker.

  The shadows in the room were restless. They made me nervous. From the beginning of our association with Taglios, shadows have been cause for terror. A shadow in motion meant death could have hold of you any moment. Those sad but cruel monsters off the plain had been the lethal instruments by which the Shadowmasters had earned their fame and had enforced their wills. But here, in the Land of Unknown Shadows, the hidden folk who lurked in the dark were shy but not ordinarily unfriendly—if treated with respect. And even those manifestations owning a history of wickedness and malice now worshipped Tobo and harmed no mortal closely associated with the Company. Unless that mortal was dim enough to irk Tobo somehow.

  Tobo lived as much in the world of the hidden folk as he did in ours.

  In the distance the spectral cat Big Ears again mouthed his unique call. Native legend says only the creature’s prospective victims ever hear that chilling cry. A couple of the Black Hounds bayed. Legend suggests you do not want to hear their voices, either. Interviews with locals lead me to believe that before Tobo arrived only ignorant peasants really believed in most such perils of the night and the wild. Educated folk at Khang Phi and Quang Ninh had been stunned by what the boy had summoned from the shadows.

  I glanced at the spear above the door. One-Eye had worked on that for decades. It was as much work of art as weapon. “Hon. Didn’t One-Eye start crafting that spear because of Bowalk?”

  She paused in her knitting, stared up at the spear, mused, “Seems to me Murgen wrote that One-Eye intended to use it on one of the Shadowmasters but ended up sticking Bowalk with it instead. During the siege. Or was that?...”

  My knees creaked as I rose. “Whatever. Just in case.” I took the spear down. “Damn. It’s heavy.”

  “If the monster does get this far, try to keep in mind that we’d rather catch it than kill it.”

  “I know. It was my bright idea.” The wisdom of which I had begun to doubt. I thought it might be interesting to see what would happen if we could force it to change back into the woman it had been before it had become fixed in its cat shape. I wanted to ask her questions about Khatovar.

  Always assuming that the invader was the dread forvalaka, Lisa Daele Bowalk.

  I sat down again. “Sleepy says she’s ready to send spies and scouts across.”

  “Uhm?”

  “We’ve been avoiding the facts a long time.” This was hard. It had taken me an age to work up to it. “The girl... Our child...”

  “Booboo?”

  “You, too?”

  “We have to call her something. The Daughter of Night is so unwieldy. Booboo works without being an emotional calthrop.”

  “We have to make some decisions.”

  “She’ll...”

  Black Hounds, Cat Sith, Big Ears and numerous other hidden folk began to give voice. I said, “That’s inside the wall.”

  “Headed this way.” She set her knitting aside.

  One-Eye’s head rose.

  The door exploded inward before I finished turning to face it.

  A plank floated toward me in slow motion, slapped me across the belly hard enough to set me down on the floor on my butt. Something huge and black with blazing angry eyes followed the board but lost interest in me in midleap. Still falling backward onto my back I scored its flank with One-Eye’s spear. Flesh parted. Rib bones appeared. I tried to thrust on into the beast’s belly but did not have enough leverage. It screamed but could not alter its momentum.

  Burning pain seared deep into my left shoulder, not three inches from the side of my neck. The forvalaka was not responsible, though. Friendly fire was. My sweet wife had discharged a fireball projector while I was between her and her target. There was plenty of fire left, though, when that ball, its flight path altered, clipped the panther’s tail two inches from its root.

  The monster’s scream continued. It flung its head back while still airborne. Its whole frame was in the position heralds call rampant.

  It hit One-Eye.

  The old man made no obvious effort to defend himself. His chair went over. It shattered into kindling wood. One-Eye skidded along the dirt floor. The forvalaka ploughed into Gota, tipping the table on which she had been laid out. Lady loosed another fireball. It missed. I fought to get around onto my hands and knees, then to get the head of the spear up, between me and the monster. It fought for its footing while trying to turn at the same time. It slammed into the far wall. I got my feet under me, started to stumble around.

  Lady missed again.

  “No!” I shrieked. My feet tangled. I came close to landing on my face again. I tried to do three things at once and, naturally, did none of them well. I wanted to get hold of One-Eye, I wanted to get my spearhead back up, I wanted to get the hell out of that house.

  Lady did not miss again. But this fireball was a puny one, a near dud. It hit the monster right between the eyes. And just ricocheted off, taking a few square inches of skin along with it, leaving a patch of skull bone exposed.

  The forvalaka screamed again.

  Then One-Eye’s still blew up. Which is what I had expected from the moment Lady’s fireball had gone through the wall.

  8

  Taglios:

  Trouble Follows

  Mogaba knew there was trouble seconds after he left his rooms, so austerely furnished in shabby regrets. Palace staffers pushed to the sides of the corridors as he passed. Without exception they were scuttling away from the Privy Council Chamber. They must have heard rumors that had not yet reached his ears. Rumors they were sure would displease the Protector, which meant that, soon, someone would be making life unpleasant for someone else and these people hoped to be well out of the way before he started.

  “Pride,” he said, in a normal, conversational voice to a young Grey runner trying to ease past without attracting notice. “Pride is what did me in.”

  “Yes sir.” Color drained from the young Shadar’s face. He did not yet have a beard to hide behind. “I mean, no sir. I’m sorry...”

  Mogaba was gone, indifferent to the apprentice soldier. Similar incidents occurred each time he passed through the Palace. He spoke to almost everyone. Those who had watched the habit develop understood that he was talking to himself and did not expect any reply. He was pursuing a running debate with his own guilts and ghosts—unless he was spouting proverbs and aphorisms, most of the meanings fairly obvious but a few convolute and obscure. He was particularly fond of “Fortune smiles. And then betrays.” He just could not get into bed comfortably with the truth that he had made that bed himself. He still had difficulty separating “ought to be” from “the way things really are.” He was no fool, though. He knew he had problems.

  He was certain that he had a much more solid grip on reality than did his employer, though.

  Soulcatcher, however, took the view that she was a virtual free agent and refused to be wedded to any particular reality. She believed in creating her own by making her imaginings come true.

  Some were quite mad. Few, however, lasted beyond the heated moment of conception.

  Mogaba heard crows arguing ahead. Crows infested the Palace these days. Soulcatcher was fond of crows. She allowed no one to harass or harm them. Of late bats had made a claim on her affections as well.

  When the crows became vocal the few servants still around started moving much faster. Unhappy crows meant u
nhappy news. Unhappy news was guaranteed to produce an extremely unhappy Protector. When Soulcatcher was unhappy she did not care who suffered the consequences. But someone surely would.

  Mogaba stepped into the council chamber and waited. She would talk to him when she was ready. Ghopal Singh of the Greys and Aridatha Singh of the City Battalions—no relation: Singh was the most common surname in Taglios—were there already. Which meant that Soulcatcher must have been haranguing them about their failure to root out enough enemies, again, before the bad news arrived.

  Mogaba exchanged glances with both men. As he believed himself to be, they were good men trapped by impossible circumstances. Ghopal had a flair for enforcing the law. Aridatha was equally talented at keeping the peace without enraging the populace. Both men managed despite Soulcatcher, who loved both chaos and despotism and inflicted each with verve and ferocity, driven by the dictates of whimsy.

  The woman seemed to materialize suddenly. It was a talent she used to disconcert lesser beings. A lesser man than Mogaba might have been numbed by the sight of her. The woman had a body the wonders of which seemed highlighted rather than concealed by the tight black leather she wore. Nature had blessed her with superb raw materials. Her vanity had driven her, over the centuries, to keep making improvements through cosmetic sorceries.

  “I’m not happy,” Soulcatcher announced. Her voice was petulant, that of a spoiled child. Today her look was younger than usual, as though she wanted to spark every young man’s fantasy. Although the preening crow on the tall chair back behind her was a distraction once she settled.

  “May I ask why?” Mogaba asked. His voice was calm, untroubled. Life in the Palace at Taglios consisted of a disorganized stumble from crisis to crisis. He no longer became emotionally involved. Soulcatcher would turn on him someday. He had made his peace with that already. He would face it calmly when it came. He deserved no better.

  “There is a huge Deceiver festival being celebrated in the Grove of Doom. Right now. Tonight.” This voice was cool, calm, rational. Masculine. You got used to the changes after a while. Mogaba seldom noticed anymore. Aridatha Singh, only recently promoted, still found the unpredictable chorus disconcerting. Singh was a sound officer and good soldier. Mogaba hoped he lasted long enough to become accustomed to the Protector’s quirks. Aridatha deserved better than he was likely to get.

  “That’s definitely not good news,” Mogaba agreed. “Seems I recall you wanting to harvest the timber there while obliterating every last trace of the holy place. Selvas Gupta talked you out of it. Said it would set a bad precedent.” Gupta had had secret encouragement from the Great General, who had not cared to waste manpower and time clearing a forest. But Mogaba loathed Selvas Gupta and his smugly holy attitude of superiority.

  Gupta was the current Purohita, or official court chaplain and religious adviser. Purohita was a post that had been forced upon the Radisha Drah twenty years earlier by the priesthoods at a time when the princess had been too weak to defy them. Soulcatcher had not yet abolished it. But she had little patience with the men who occupied it.

  Selvas Gupta had been Purohita for a year, which incumbency exceeded that of all his predecessors since the establishment of the Protectorate.

  Mogaba was confident that slimy little snake Gupta would not last out the week.

  Soulcatcher gave him a look which offered the impression that she was peering deep inside him, sorting his secrets and motives. Having paused just long enough to suggest that she was not being fooled, she said, “Get me a new Purohita. Kill the old one if he argues about it.” She had an ancient custom of being unpleasant toward priests who disappointed her. Which ran in the family. Her sister had slain hundreds in a single massacre a generation earlier. The exemplary demonstrations of both sisters, however, never seemed sufficient to convince the survivors that they ought to abandon their scheming. They were stubborn. It seemed likely that Taglios would come up short of priests before it ran short of conspiracies.

  The crow hopped down onto Soulcatcher’s shoulder. She lifted gloved fingers to offer it some tidbit.

  “Did you have a response in mind? Something involving my colleagues?” Mogaba nodded toward the Singhs in turn. He suffered little jealousy of either man and did respect each for his abilities. Time and persistent adversity had ground the rough edges off of his once potent sense of self-appreciation.

  “These gentlemen were here already, regarding another matter, when the news from the Grove arrived.” She offered the crow another morsel.

  Mogaba’s eyes narrowed the tiniest fraction. He was not to be made privy to that matter?

  But he was. Soulcatcher used a cackling crone’s voice. “The Greys found several slogans painted on walls today.” The crow cawed. Elsewhere, other crows began squabbling.

  “Not uncommon,” Mogaba replied. “Every idiot with a brush, a pot of paint and enough education to string five characters together seems to be compelled to say something if he discovers a blank piece of wall.”

  “These were slogans from the past.” This was the voice the Protector used when she was focused entirely on business. It was a male voice. A voice like Mogaba imagined his own to be. “Three said ‘Rajadharma .’”

  “I’ve heard the Bhodi cult is making a comeback, too.”

  Ghopal Singh added, “Two said ‘Water Sleeps .’ That’s not Bhodi. And they weren’t stray graffiti left over from four years ago.”

  A thrill, half fear, half excitement, coursed through Mogaba. He stared at the Protector. She said, “I want to know who’s doing it. I want to know why they’ve decided to do it right now.”

  Mogaba thought both Singhs looked cautiously pleased, as though glad to have potential real enemies to chase instead of just irritating people who would otherwise remain indifferent to the Palace.

  The Grove of Doom was outside the city. Everything outside was Mogaba’s province. He asked, “Was there some particular action you wished me to take in regard to the Deceivers?”

  Soulcatcher smiled. When she did that, just that way, every minute of her many centuries shone through. “Nothing. Not a thing. They’re scattering already. I’ll let you know when. It’ll be when they’re not ready.” This voice was cold but was filled with her evil smile. Mogaba wondered if the Singhs knew how seldom anyone saw the Protector without her mask. It meant that she meant to involve them in her schemes too deeply for them to escape the association.

  Mogaba nodded like a dutiful servant. It was all a game to the Protector. Or possibly several games. Maybe making a game of it was how you survived spiritually in a world where everyone else was ephemeral.

  Soulcatcher said, “I want you to help catch rats. There’s a shortage of carrion. My babies are going hungry.” She offered her black-winged spy another treat. This one suspiciously resembled a human eyeball.

  9

  An Abode of Ravens:

  The Invalid

  “Am I still alive?” I did not need to ask. I was. Pain was a dead giveaway. Every square inch of me hurt.

  “Don’t move.” That was Tobo. “Or you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

  I already wished I did not have to breathe. “Burns?”

  “Lots of burns. Lots of banging around, too.”

  Murgen’s voice said, “You look like they whipped your ass with a forty-pound ugly stick, then slow-roasted what was left over an open pit.”

  “I thought you were at Khang Phi.”

  “We came home.”

  Tobo said, “We kept you unconscious for four days.”

  “How is Lady?”

  Murgen told me, “She’s in the other bed. In a lot better shape than you.”

  “She ought to be. I didn’t shoot her. The cat get her tongue?”

  “She’s asleep.”

  “What about One-Eye?”

  Tobo’s response was barely audible. “One-Eye didn’t make it, Croaker.”

  After a while, Murgen asked, “You all right?”

  “He was the last.�
�

  “Last? Last what?”

  “The last one who was here when I joined. The Company.” I was the real Old Man now. “What happened to his spear? I’ve got to have his spear in order to finish this.”

  “What spear?” Murgen asked.

  Tobo knew what spear. “I have it at my place.”

  “Was it damaged by the fire?”

  “Not much. Why?”

  “I’m going to kill that thing. Like we should have a long time ago. You don’t let that spear out of your sight. I’ve got to have it. But right now I’m going to sleep for a while some more.” I had to go where the pain was not, just for a time. I had known One-Eye would leave us someday. I thought I was ready for that. I was wrong.

  His passing meant more than just the end of an old friend. It marked the end of an age.

  Tobo said something about the spear. I did not catch it. And the darkness came back before I remembered to ask what had become of the forvalaka. If Lady had caught or killed it I had gotten myself worked up for nothing... But I guess I knew it could not be that easy.

  There were dreams. I remembered everyone who had gone before me. I remembered the places and times. Cold places, hot places, weird places, always stressful times, swollen with unhappiness, pain and fear. Some died. Some did not. It makes no sense when you try to figure it out. Soldiers live. And wonder why.

  Oh, it’s a soldier’s life for me. Oh, the adventure and glory!

  It took me longer to recuperate than it had that time I almost got killed outside Dejagore. Even with Tobo applying his own best healing spells, learned from One-Eye, and urging his edge-of-the-eye friends to help as well. Some of those were supposed to be able to bring a fossil back to life. I felt like a fossil, like I had not enjoyed the advantage of the stasis that had frozen the others while we were prisoners under the plain. There was a lot of confusion inside me. I could no longer figure out how old I am. My best guess is fifty-six, give or take a few years, plus all that time underneath the earth. And fifty-six years, brother, was a pretty damned good run—particularly for a guy in my racket. I ought to appreciate every second, including all the misery.