The White Rose

by Glen Cook

  “Make up your mind.” I took two steps. Another would have me climbing him.

  “I have considered. This thing you ephemera fear, in the ground so far from here, would be a peril to my creatures if it rose. I sense no significant strength in those who resist it. Therefore …”

  I hated to interrupt, but I just had to scream. You see, something had me by the ankle. It was squeezing so hard I felt the bones grinding. Crushing. Sorry about that, old-timer.

  The universe turned blue. I rolled in a hurricane of anger. Lightning roared in Father Tree’s branches. Thunder rolled across the desert. I yelled some more.

  Bolts of blue hammered around me, crisping me almost as much as my tormentor. But, at last, the hand turned me loose.

  I tried to run away.

  One step and down I went. I kept on, crawling, while Father Tree apologized and tried to call me back.

  Like Hell. I would crawl through the menhirs if I had to …

  My mind filled with a waking dream. Father Tree delivering a message direct. Then the earth got quiet, except for the wish as menhirs vanished.

  Big hoopla from the direction of the Hole. A whole gang charged out to find the cause of the uproar. Silent reached me first. “One-Eye,” I said. “I need One-Eye.” He is the only one beside me with medical training. And contrary though he is, I could count on him to take medical instructions.

  One-Eye showed up in a moment, along with twenty others. The watch had reacted quickly. “Ankle,” I told him. “Maybe crushed. Somebody get some light up here. And a damned shovel.”

  “A shovel? Are you off your gourd?” One-Eye demanded.

  “Just get it. And do something for the pain.”

  Elmo materialized, still buckling buckles. “What happened, Croaker?”

  “Old Tree wanted to talk. Had the rocks bring me over. Says he wants to help us. Only while I was listening, that hand got ahold of me. Like to ripped my foot off. The racket was the tree saying, ‘Now stop that. That’s not polite.’”

  “Cut his tongue out after you fix his leg,” Elmo told One-Eye. “What did it want, Croaker?”

  “Your ears gone? To help with the Dominator. Said he thought it over. Decided it was in his own best interest to keep the Dominator down. Give me a hand up.” One-Eye’s efforts were paying dividends. He had sponged one of his wild jungle glops onto my ankle-it had swollen three times normal size already-and the pain was fading.

  Elmo shook his head.

  I said, “I’ll break your damned leg if you don’t get me up.” So he and Silent hoisted me, but supported me.

  “Bring them shovels,” I said. A half dozen had appeared.

  They were entrenching tools, not real ditchdiggers. “You guys insist on helping, get me back over to the tree.”

  Elmo growled. For a moment I thought Silent might say something. I eyed him expectantly, smiling. I had been waiting twenty-some years.

  No luck.

  Whatever vow he had taken, whatever it was that had driven him to abstain from speech, it had put a steel lock on Silent’s jaw. I have seen him so pissed he could chew nails, so excited he lost sphincter control, but nothing has shaken his resolution against talking.

  Blue still sparkled in the tree’s branches. Leaves tinkled. Moonlight and torchlight mixed into weird shadows the sparks sent dancing … “Around him,” I told my body slaves. I had not seen it myself, so it must be beyond that trunk.

  Yep. There it was, out twenty feet from the base of the tree. A sapling. It stood about eight feet tall.

  One-Eye, Silent, Goblin, those guys gobbled and gaped like startled apes. But not old Elmo. “Get a few buckets of water and soak the ground good,” he said. “And find an old blanket we can wrap around the roots and the dirt that comes up with them.”

  He caught right on. Damned farmer. “Get me back downstairs,” I said. “I want to see this ankle myself, in better light.”

  Going back, with Elmo and Silent carrying me, we encountered the Lady. She put on a suitably solicitous act, fussing all over me. I had to endure a lot of knowing grins.

  Only Darling knew the truth even then. With maybe a little suspicion on Silent’s part.

  Chapter Forty-Seven: SHADOWS IN SHADOWLAND

  There was no time inside the Barrowland, only shadow and fire, light without source, and endless fear and frustration. From where he stood, snared in the web of his own device, Raven could discern a score of Domination monsters. He could see men and beasts put down in the time of the White Rose to prevent those evils from escaping. He could see the silhouette of the sorcerer Bomanz limned against frozen dragon fire. The old wizard still struggled to take one more step toward the heart of the Great Barrow. Didn’t he know that he had failed generations ago?

  Raven wondered how long he had been caught. Had his messages gotten through? Would help come? Was he just marking time till the darkness exploded?

  If there was a clock to count the time, it was the growing distress of those set to guard against the darkness. The river gnawed ever closer. There was nothing they could do. No way for them to summon the wrath of the world.

  Raven thought he would have done things differently had he been in charge back when.

  Vaguely, Raven recalled some things passing nearby, shades like himself. But he knew not how long ago, or even what they were. Things moved at times, and one could tell nothing certain. The world had a whole different look from this perspective.

  Never had he been so helpless, so frightened. He did not like the feeling. Always he had been master of his destiny, dependent upon no one …

  There was, in that world, nothing to do but think. Too much, too often, his thoughts came back to what it meant to be Raven, to things Raven had done and not done and should have done differently. There was time to identify and at least confront all the fears and pains and weaknesses of the inside man, all of which had created the ice and iron and fearless mask he had presented to the world. All those things which had cost him everything he had valued and which had driven him into the fangs of death again and again, in self-punishment …

  Too late. Far too late.

  When his thoughts cleared and coagulated and he reached this point, he sent shrieks of anger echoing through the spirit world. And those who surrounded him and hated him for what he might have triggered, laughed and reveled in his torment.

  Chapter Forty-Eight: FLIGHT WEST

  Despite my exoneration by the tree, I never quite regained my former status with my comrades. Always there was a certain reserve, perhaps as much from envy of my apparent sudden female wealth as from trust slow to heal. I cannot deny the pain it caused me. I had been with those guys since I was a boy. They were my family.

  I did take some ribbing about getting onto crutches in order to get out of work. But my work would have gone on had I had no legs at all.

  Those damned papers. I had them committed to memory, set to music. And still I did not have the key we sought, nor what the Lady hoped to find. The cross-referencing was taking forever. The spelling of names, in pre-Domination and Domination times, had been free-form. KurreTelle is one of those languages where various letter combinations can represent identical sounds.

  Pain in the damned fundament.

  I do not know how much Darling told the others. I was not at the Big Meeting. Neither was the Lady. But word came out: The Company was moving out.

  One day to get ready.

  Topside, near nightfall, on my crutches, I watched the windwhales arrive. There were eighteen of them, all summoned by Father Tree. They came with their mantas and a whole panoply of Plain sentient forms. Three dropped to the ground. The Hole puked up its contents.

  We began boarding. I got a ration because I had to be lifted, along with my papers, gear, and crutches. The whale was a small one. I would share it with just a few people. The Lady. Of course. We could not be separated now. And Goblin. And One-Eye. And Silent, after a bloody sign battle, for he did not want to be separated from Darling. A
nd Tracker. And the child of the tree, for whom Tracker was guardian and I was in loco parentis. I think the wizards were supposed to keep an eye on the rest of us, though little they could have done had a situation presented itself.

  Darling, the Lieutenant, Elmo, and the other old hands boarded a second windwhale. The third carried a handful of troops and a lot of gear.

  We lifted off, joined the formation above.

  A sunset from five thousand feet is unlike anything you will see from the ground. Unless you are atop a very lonely mountain. Magnificent.

  With darkness came sleep. One-Eye spelled me under. I still had a good deal of swelling and pain.

  Yes. We were outside the null. Our whale flew the far flank from Darling. Specifically for the Lady’s benefit.

  Even then she did not give herself away.

  The winds were favorable and we had the blessing of Father Tree. Dawn found us passing over Horse. It was there the truth finally surfaced.

  Taken came up, all in their fish-carpets, armed to the gills.

  Panic noises wakened me. I got Tracker to help me stand. After one glance at the fire of the rising sun, I spied the Taken drifting into guardian positions around our whale. Goblin and them expected an attack. They howled their hearts out. Somehow One-Eye found a way for it all to be Goblin’s fault. They went at it.

  But nothing happened. Almost to my surprise, too. The Taken merely maintained station. I glanced at the Lady. She startled me with a wink. Then: “We all have to cooperate, whatever our differences.”

  Goblin heard that. He ignored One-Eye’s ranting for a moment, stared at the Taken. After a bit he looked at the Lady. Really looked.

  I saw the light dawn. In a more than normally squeaky voice, and with a truly goofy look, he said, “I remember you.” He remembered the one time he had had a sort of direct contact with her. Many years ago, when he tried to contact Soulcatcher, he had caught her in the Tower, in the Lady’s presence …

  She smiled her most charming smile. The one that melts statues.

  Goblin threw a hand in front of his eyes, turned away from her. He looked at me with the most awful expression. I could not help laughing. “You always accused me …”

  “You didn’t have to go and do it, Croaker!” His voice climbed the scale till it became inaudible. He sat down abruptly.

  No lightning bolt splattered him across the sky. After a time he looked up and said, “Elmo is going to crap!” He giggled.

  Elmo was the most unremitting of them all when it came to reminding me of my romances about the Lady.

  After the humor went out of it, after One-Eye had been through it, too, and Silent had had his worst fears confirmed, I began to wonder about my friends.

  One and all, they were westward bound on Darling’s say-so. They had not been informed, in so many words, that we were allied with our former enemies.

  Fools. Or was Darling? What happened once the Domi-nator was down and we were ready to go after each other again? …

  Whoa, Croaker. Darling learned to play cards from Raven. Raven was a cutthroat player.

  It was the Forest of Cloud by nightfall. I wonder what they made of us in Lords. We passed right over. The streets filled with gawkers.

  Roses passed in the night. Then the other old cities of our early years in the north. There was little talk. The Lady and I kept our heads together, growing more tense as our strange fleet neared its destination and we drew no nearer unearthing the nuggets we sought.

  “How long?” I asked. I had lost track of time.

  “Forty-two days,” she said.

  “We were in the desert that long?”

  “Time flies when you’re having fun.”

  I gave her a startled look. A joke? Even an old cliche? From her?

  I hate it when they go human on you. Enemies are not supposed to do that.

  She had been crawling all over me with it for a couple months.

  How can you hate?

  The weather stayed halfway decent till we got to Forsberg. Then it became clabbered misery.

  It was solid winter up there. Good, briskly refreshing winds loaded up with pellets of powder snow. A nice abrasive for a tender face like mine. A bombardment to clear out the lice on the backs of the whales, too. Everybody cussed and fussed and grumbled and huddled for warmth that dared not be provided by man’s traditional ally, fire. Only Tracker seemed untouched. “Don’t anything bother that thing?” I asked.

  In the oddest voice I ever heard her use, the Lady replied, “Loneliness. If you want to kill Tracker the easy way, lock him up alone and go away.”

  I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. Whom did I know who had been alone a long time? Who, maybe, just maybe, had begun to wonder if absolute power were worth the absolute price?

  I knew beyond the glimmer of doubt that she had enjoyed every second of pretend on the Plain. Even the moments of danger. I knew that had I had the hair on my ass, there in the last days, I could have become more than a pretend boyfriend. There was a growing and quiet desperation to her in that time as going back to being the Lady approached.

  Some of that I might have appropriated out of ego, for a very critical time faced her. She was under a lot of stress. She knew the enemy we faced. But not all was ego. I think she actually did like me as a person.

  “I got a request,” I said softly, in the middle of the huddle, banishing thoughts caused by a woman pressed against me. “What?” “The Annals. They’re all that’s left of the Black Company.” Depression had set in fast. “There was an obligation undertaken ages ago, when the Free Companies of Khatovar were formed. If any of us get through this alive, someone should take them back.”

  I do not know if she understood. But: “They’re yours,” she said.

  I wanted to explain, but could not. Why take them back? I am not sure where they are supposed to go. Four hundred years the Company drifted slowly north, waxing, waning, turning over its constituents. I have no idea if Khatovar still exists or if it is a city, country, a person, or a god. The Annals from the earliest years either did not survive or went home already. I have seen nothing but digests and excerpts from the earliest century … No matter. Part of the Annalist’s undertaking has always been to return the Annals to Khatovar should the Company disband.

  The weather worsened. By Oar it seemed actively inimical, and may have been. That thing in the earth would know we were coming.

  Just north of Oar all the Taken suddenly dropped away like rocks. “What the hell?”

  “Toadkiller Dog,” the Lady said. “We’ve caught up with him. He hasn’t reached his master yet.” “Can they stop him?” “Yes.”

  I crutched over to the side of the whale. I do not know what I expected to see. We were up in the snow clouds.

  There were a few flashes below. Then the Taken came back. The Lady looked displeased. “What happened?” I asked.

  “The monster got crafty. Ran into the null where it brushes the ground. The visibility is too poor to go after him.”

  “Will it make much difference?”

  “No.” But she did not sound entirely confident.

  The weather worsened. But the whales remained undaunted. We reached the Barrowland. My group went to the Guards compound. Darling’s put up at Blue Willy. The boundary of the null fell just outside the compound wall.

  Colonel Sweet himself greeted us. Good old Sweet who I thought was dead for sure. He had a gimp leg now. I cannot say he was convivial. But then, it was a time when nobody was.

  The orderly assigned us was our old friend Case.

  Chapter Forty-Nine: THE INVISIBLE MAZE

  The first time Case appeared he rode the edge of panic. Me doing a kindly uncle act did not soothe him. The Lady doing her bit almost kicked him over the edge into hysteria. Having Tracker lurking around in natural form was no help either.

  One-Eye, of all people, calmed him down. Got him onto the subject of Raven and how Raven was doing, and that did the job.
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br />   I had my own near case of hysteria. Hours after we put down, before I even got set up for it, the Lady brought Whisper and Limper to double-check our translations.

  Whisper was supposed to see if any papers were missing. Limper was supposed to plumb his memory of olden times for connections we may have missed. He, it seems, was much into the social whirl of the early Domination.

  Amazing. I could not imagine that hunk of hatred and human wreckage ever having been anything but nastiness personified.

  I got Goblin to keep an eyeball on those two while I broke away to look in on Raven. Everyone else had given him a look-see already.

  She was there, leaning against a wall, gnawing a fingernail, not looking anything like the great bitch who had tormented the world for lo! so many years. Like I said before, I hate it when they go human. And she was human and then some. Flat-assed scared.

  “How is he?” I asked, and when I saw her mood: “What’s the matter?”

  “He’s unchanged. They’ve taken good care of him. Nothing is the matter that a few miracles won’t cure.”

  I dared raise a questioning eyebrow.

  “All the exits are closed. Croaker. I’m headed down a tunnel. My choices grow ever more narrow, and each is worse than the other.”

  I settled on the chair Case used while watching over Raven, began playing doctor. Needlessly, but I liked to see for myself. Half-distracted, I said, “I expect it’s lonely, being queen of the world.”

  Slight gasp. “You grow too bold.”

  Didn’t I? “I’m sorry. Thinking out loud. An unhealthy habit known to be the cause of bruises and major hemorrhaging. He does look sound. You think Limper or Whisper will help?”

  “No. But every angle has to be tried.”

  “What about Bomanz?”

  “Bomanz?”

  I looked at her. She seemed honestly puzzled. “The wizard who sprung you.”

  “Oh. What about him? What could a dead man contribute? I disposed of my necromancer … You know something I don’t?”