by Glen Cook
“Yeah.” Such dense sarcasm he put into the word!
Stupid. If we chose Charm as the customary demarcation point between east and west, Tally lay two thousand plus miles away. Three months’ travel under perfect conditions. The country between was anything but perfect. In places roads just didn’t exist. I thought six months sounded too optimistic. But I was worrying before the fact again. I had to wait and see.
It turned out to be something even the Captain and Lieutenant hadn’t anticipated. We waited in trepidation while Goblin pulled himself together. The Captain had his map case open, sketching a tentative route to Frost. He grumbled because all westbound traffic had to cross the Plain of Fear. Goblin cleared his throat.
Tension mounted. He did not lift his eyes. The news had to be unpleasant. He squeaked, “We’ve been recalled. That was the Lady. She seemed disturbed. The first leg goes to Frost. One of the Taken will meet us there. He’ll take us on to the Barrowland.” The others frowned, exchanged puzzled looks. I muttered, “Shit. Holy Shit.”
“What is it, Croaker?” the Captain asked.
They didn’t know. They paid no attention to historical things. “That’s where the Dominator is buried. Where they all were buried, back when. It’s in the forest north of Oar.” We’d been to Oar seven years ago. It was not a friendly city.
“Oar!” the Captain yelled. “Oar! That’s twenty-five hundred miles!”
“Add another hundred or two to the Barrowland.”
He stared at the maps. “Great. Just great. That means not just the Plain of Fear but the Empty Hills and the Windy Country too. Just fandamntastic great. I suppose we’ve got to get there next week?”
Goblin shook his head. “She didn’t seem rushed, Captain. Just upset and wanting us headed the right way.”
“She give you any whys or wherefores?”
Goblin smirked. Did the Lady ever? Hell, no.
“Just like that,” the Captain muttered. “Out of the blue. Orders to hike halfway around the world. I love it.” He told the Lieutenant to begin preparations for movement.
It was bad news, mad news, insanity squared, but not as bad as he made out. He had been preparing since receiving the courier letter. It wasn’t that hard to get rolling. The trouble was, nobody wanted to roll.
The west was far nicer than anything we’d known out here, but not so great anybody wanted to walk that far.
Surely she could have summoned a closer unit?
We are the victims of our own competence. She always wants us where the going threatens to become toughest. She knows we will do the best job.
Damn and double damn.
Chapter Eleven: JUNIPER: NIGHT WORK
Shed had given Krage only nine of ten leva. The coin he held back bought firewood, wine, and beer to replenish his stocks. Then other creditors caught wind of his prosperity. A slight upturn in business did him no good. He met his next payment to Krage by borrowing from a moneylender named Gilbert. He found himself wishing somebody would die. Another ten leva would put him in striking distance of getting through the winter. It was a hard one, that winter. Nothing moved in the harbor. There was no work in the Buskin. Shed’s only bit of good fortune was Asa. Asa brought wood whenever he got away from Krage, in a pathetic effort to buy a friend. Asa arrived with a load. Privately, he said, “Better watch out, Shed. Krage heard about you borrowing from Gilbert.” Shed went grey. “He’s got a buyer for the Lily lined up. They’re rounding up girls already.”
Shed nodded. The whoremasters recruited desperate women this time of year. By the time summer brought its sailors, they were broken to their trade.
“The bastard. Made me think he’d given me a break. I should have known better. This way he gets my money and my place. The bastard.” “Well, I warned you.” “Yeah. Thanks, Asa.” Shed’s next due date came on like a juggernaut. Gilbert refused him another loan. Smaller creditors besieged the Lily. Krage was aiming them Shed’s way.
He took Raven a complimentary drink. “May I sit?” A hint of a smile crossed Raven’s lips. “It’s your place.” And: “You haven’t been friendly lately. Shed.”
“I’m nervous,” Shed lied. Raven irritated his conscience. “Worried about my debts.” Raven saw through the excuse. “You thought maybe I could help?” Shed almost groaned. “Yes.”
Raven laughed softly. Shed thought he detected a note of triumph. “All right, Shed. Tonight?”
Shed pictured his mother being carted off by the Custodians. He swallowed his self-disgust. “Yeah.”
“All right. But this time you’re a helper, not a partner.” Shed swallowed and nodded. “Put the old woman to bed, then come back downstairs. Understand?”
“Yes,” Shed whispered.
“Good. Now go away. You irritate me.”
“Yes, sir.” Shed retreated. He couldn’t look anyone in the eye the rest of that day.
A bitter wind howled down the Port valley, freckled with flakes of snow. Shed huddled miserably, the wagon seat a bar of ice beneath him. The weather was worsening. “Why tonight?” he grumbled.
“Best time.” Raven’s teeth chattered. “We’re not likely to be seen.” He turned into Chandler’s Lane, off which innumerable narrow alleyways ran. “Good hunting territory here. In this weather they crawl back in the alleys and die like flies.”
Shed shivered. He was too old for this. But that was why he was here. So he wouldn’t have to face the weather every night.
Raven stopped the wagon. “Check that passageway.”
Shed’s feet started aching the instant he put weight on them. Good. At least he felt something. They weren’t frozen.
There was little light in the alley. He searched more by feel than sight. He found one lump under an overhang, but it stirred and muttered. He ran.
He reached the wagon as Raven dumped something into the bed. Shed averted his eyes. The boy couldn’t have been more than twelve. Raven concealed the body with straw. “That’s one. Night like this, we ought to find a load.”
Shed choked his protests, resumed his seat. He thought about his mother. She wouldn’t last one night in this.
Next alley he found his first corpse. The old man had fallen and frozen because he couldn’t get up again. Aching in his soul,
Shed dragged the body to the wagon.
“Going to be a good night,” Raven observed. “No competition. The Custodians won’t come out in this.” Softly: “I hope we can make the hill.” Later, after they had moved to the waterfront and each had found another corpse, Shed asked, “Why’re you doing this?” “I need money, too. Got a long way to travel. This way I get a lot, fast, without much risk.”
Shed thought the risks far greater than Raven would admit. They could be torn apart. “You’re not from Juniper, are you?”
“From the south. A shipwrecked sailor.”
Shed did not believe it. Raven’s accent was not at all right for that, mild though it was. He hadn’t the nerve to call the man a liar, though, and press for the truth.
The conversation continued by fits and starts. Shed didn’t uncover anything more of Raven’s background or motives.
“Go that way,” Raven told him. “I’ll check over here. Last stop, Shed. I’m done in.”
Shed nodded. He wanted to get the night over. To his disgust, he had begun seeing the street people as objects, and he hated them for dying in such damned inconvenient places.
He heard a soft call, turned back quickly. Raven had one. That was enough. He ran to the wagon.
Raven was on the seat, waiting. Shed scrambled up, huddled, tucked his face away from the wind. Raven kicked the mules into motion.
The wagon was halfway across the bridge over the Port when Shed heard a moan. “What?” One of the bodies was moving! “Oh. Oh, shit, Raven....”
“He’s going to die anyway.”
Shed huddled back down, stared at the buildings on the north bank. He wanted to argue, wanted to fight, wanted to do anything to deny his part in this atroc
ity.
He looked up an hour later and recognized nothing. A few large houses flanked the road, widely spaced, their windows dark. “Where are we?”
“Almost there. Half an hour, unless the road is too icy.”
Shed imagined the wagon sliding into a ditch. What then? Abandon everything and hope the rig couldn’t be traced? Fear replaced loathing.
Then he realized where they were. There wasn’t anything up here but that accursed black castle. “Raven....”
“What’s the matter?”
“You’re head for the black castle.”
“Where’d you think we were going?”
“People live there?”
“Yes. What’s your problem?”
Raven was a foreigner. He couldn’t understand how the black castle affected Juniper. People who got too close disappeared. Juniper preferred to pretend that the place did not exist.
Shed stammered out his fears. Raven shrugged. “Shows your ignorance.”
Shed saw the castle’s dark shape through the snow. The fall was lighter on the ridge, but the wind was more fierce. Resigned, he muttered, “Let’s get it over with.”
The shape resolved into battlements, spires, towers. Not a light shown anywhere. Raven halted before a tall gate, went forward on foot. He banged a heavy knocker. Shed huddled, hoping there would be no response.
The gate opened immediately. Raven scrambled onto the wagon’s seat. “Get up, mules.”
“You’re not going inside?”
“Why not?”
“Hey. No way. No.”
“Shut up, Shed. You want your money, you help unload.”
Shed stifled a whimper. He hadn’t bargained for this.
Raven drove through the gate, turned right, halted be-neath a broad arch. A single lantern battled the darkness clotting the passageway. Raven swung down. Shed followed, his nerves shrieking. They dragged the bodies out of the wagon and swung them onto stone slabs nearby. Then Raven said, “Get back on the wagon. Keep your mouth shut.” The one body stirred. Shed grunted. Raven pinched his leg savagely. “Shut up.”
A shadowy shape appeared. It was tall, thin, clad in loose black pantaloons and a hooded shirt. It examined each body briefly, seemed pleased. It faced Raven. Shed glimpsed a face all of sharp angles and shadows, lustrous, olive, cold, with a pair of softly luminous eyes. “Thirty. Thirty. Forty. Thirty. Seventy,” it said. Raven countered, “Thirty. Thirty. Fifty. Thirty. One hundred.”
“Forty. Eighty.” “Forty-five. Ninety.” “Forty. Ninety.” “Done.”
They were dickering! Raven was not interested in quibbling over the old people. The tall being would not advance his offer for the youth. But the dying man was negotiable.
Shed watched the tall being count out coins at the feet of the corpses. That was a damned fortune! Two hundred twenty pieces of silver! With that he could tear the Lily down and build a new place. He could get out of the Buskin altogether.
Raven scooped the coins into his coat pocket. He gave Shed five. “That’s all?”
“Isn’t that a good night’s work?”
It was a good month’s work, and then some. But to get only five of....
“Last time we were partners,” Raven said, swinging onto the driver’s seat. “Maybe we will be again. But tonight you’re a hired hand. Understand?” There was a hard edge to his voice. Shed nodded, beset by new fears.
Raven backed the wagon. Shed felt a sudden chill. That archway was hot as hell. He shuddered, feeling the hunger of the thing watching them.
Dark, glassy, jointless stone slid past. “My god!” He could see into the wall. He saw bones, fragments of bones, bodies, pieces of bodies, all suspended as if floating in the night. As Raven turned toward the gate, he saw a staring face. “What kind of place is this?”
“I don’t know, Shed. I don’t want to know. All I care is, they pay good money. I need it. I have a long way to go.”
Chapter Twelve: THE BARROWLAND
The Taken called the Limper met the Company at Frost. We’d spent a hundred and forty-six days on the march. They were long days and hard, grinding, men and animals going on more by habit than desire. An outfit in good shape, like ours, is capable of covering fifty or even a hundred miles in a day, pushing hell out of it, but not day after week after month, upon incredibly miserable roads. A smart commander does not push on a long march. The days add up, each leaving its residue of fatigue, till men begin collapsing if the pace is too desperate.
Considering the territories we crossed, we made damned good time. Between Tome and Frost lie mountains where we were lucky to make five miles a day, deserts we had to wander in search of water, rivers that took days to cross using makeshift rafts. We were fortunate to reach Frost having lost only two men.
The Captain shone with a glow of accomplishment-till the military governor summoned him.
He assembled the officers and senior noncoms when he returned. “Bad news,” he told us. “The Lady is sending the Limper to lead us across the Plain of Fear. Us and the caravan we’ll escort.”
Our response was surly. There was bad blood between the Company and the Limper. Elmo asked, “How soon will we leave, sir?” We needed rest. None had been promised, of course, and the Lady and the Taken seem unconscious of human frailties, but still....
“No time specified. Don’t get lazy. He’s not here now, but he could turn up tomorrow.”
Sure. With the flying carpets the Taken use, they can turn up anywhere within days. I muttered, “Let’s hope other business keeps him away a while.”
I did not want to encounter him again. We had done him wrong, frequently, way back. Before Charm we worked closely with a Taken called Soulcatcher. Catcher used us in several schemes to discredit Limper, both out of old enmity and because Catcher was secretly working on behalf of the Dominator. The Lady was taken in. She nearly destroyed the Limper, but rehabilitated him instead, and brought him back for the final battle.
Way, way back, when the Domination was aborning, centuries before the foundation of the Lady’s empire, the Dominator overpowered his greatest rivals and compelled them into his service. He accumulated ten villains that way, soon known as the Ten Who Were Taken. When the White Rose raised the world against the Dominator’s wickedness, the Ten were buried with him. She could destroy none of them outright.
Centuries of peace sapped the will of the world to guard itself. A curious wizard tried to contact the Lady. The Lady manipulated him, effected her release. The Ten rose with her. Within a generation she and they forged a new dark empire. Within two they were embattled with the Rebel, whose prophets agreed the White Rose would be reincarnated to lead them to a final victory.
For a while it looked like they would win. Our armies collapsed. Provinces fell. Taken feuded and destroyed one another. Nine of the Ten perished. The Lady managed to Take three Rebel chieftains to replace a portion of her losses: Feather, Journey, and Whisper-likely the best general since the White Rose. She gave us a terrible time before her Taking.
The Rebel prophets were correct in their prophecies, except about the last battle. They expected a reincarnated White Rose to lead them. She did not. They did not find her in time.
She was alive then. But she was living on our side of the battleline, unaware of what she was. I learned who she was. It is that knowledge which makes my life worthless should I be put to the question.
“Croaker!” the Captain snapped. “Wake up!” Everybody looked at me, wondering how I could daydream through whatever he’d said.
“What?”
“You didn’t hear me?”
“No, sir.”
He glowered his best bear glower. “Listen up, then. Be ready to travel by carpet when the Taken arrive. Fifty pounds of gear is your limit.”
Carpet? Taken? What the hell? I looked around. Some of the men grinned. Some pitied me. Carpet flight? “What for?”
Patiently, the Captain explained, “The Lady wants ten men sent to help Whisper and Feath
er in the Barrowland. Doing what I don’t know. You’re one of the ones she picked.”
Flutter of fear. “Why me?” It was rough, back when I was her pet.
“Maybe she still loves you. After all these years.”
“Captain....”
“Because she said so, Croaker.”
“I guess that’s good enough. Sure can’t argue with it. Who else?”
“Pay attention and you’d know these things. Worry about it later. We have other fish to fry now.”
Whisper came to Frost before the Limper. I found myself tossing a pack aboard her flying carpet. Fifty pounds. The rest I had left with One-Eye and Silent.
The carpet was a carpet only by courtesy, because tradition calls it that. Actually, it is a piece of heavy fabric stretched on a wooden frame a foot high when grounded. My fellow passengers were Elmo, who would command our team, and Kingpin. Kingpin is a lazy bastard, but he swings a mean blade.
Our gear, and another hundred pounds belonging to men who would follow us later, rested at the center of the carpet. Shaking, Elmo and Kingpin tied themselves in place at the carpet’s two rear corners. My spot was the left front. Whisper sat at the right. We were heavily bundled, almost to immobility. We would be flying fast and high, Whisper said. The temperature upstairs would be low.
I shook as much as Elmo and Kingpin, though I had been aboard carpets before. I loved the view and dreaded the anticipation of falling that came with flight. I also dreaded the Plain of Fear, where strange, fell things cruise the upper air.
Whisper queried, “You all use the latrine? It’s going to be a long flight.” She did not mention us voiding ourselves in fear, which some men do up there. Her voice was cool and melodious, like those of the women who populate your last dream before waking. Her appearance belied that voice. She looked every bit the tough old campaigner she was. She eyed me, evidently recalling our previous encounter in the Forest of Cloud.
Raven and I had lain in wait where she was expected to meet the Limper and lead him over to the Rebel side. The ambush was successful. Raven took the Limper. I captured Whisper. Soulcatcher and the Lady came and finished up. Whisper became the first new Taken since the Domination.
