The Many Deaths of the Black Company

by Glen Cook

  Tolerance of such seekers was common to all Taglians. The welfare of the soul and the spirit were of grave concern to most. The Gunni, indeed, considered the seeking of enlightenment to be one of the four key stages of an ideally lived life. Once a man successfully raised up and provided for his children, he should put all things material, all ambition and pleasure, aside. He should go into a forest to live as a hermit or become a mendicant seeker or in some other way should live out his final years looking for the truth and purifying his soul. Many of the greatest names in Taglian and southern history are those of kings and rich men who chose just such a path.

  But human nature being human nature …

  The Greys did not, however, let the dervish follow his quest into Chor Bagan. A sergeant intercepted him. His associates surrounded the holy man. The sergeant said, “Father, you cannot go in that direction. This street has been closed to traffic by order of Minister Swan.” Even dead, Swan had to take the blame for Soulcatcher’s policies.

  The dervish apparently failed to notice the Greys till he actually collided with the sergeant. “Huh?”

  The younger Greys laughed. Men enjoy seeing their prejudices confirmed. The sergeant repeated his message. He added, “You must turn right or left. We’re rooting out the evils infesting what lies straight ahead.” He possessed a touch of wit.

  The dervish looked first right, then left. He shivered, then announced, “All evil is the result of metaphysical error,” in a raspy little voice and started along the street to the right. It was a very strange street. It was almost empty of humanity. In Taglios that was something seldom seen.

  A moment later the Shadar sergeant squealed in surprise and pain. He began slapping his side.

  “What’s the matter?” another Grey asked.

  “Something bit me…” He squealed again, which indicated that he was in a great deal of agony, for Shadar were proud of their ability to endure pain without outcry or even flinching.

  Two of the sergeant’s men tried to lift his shirt while a third clung to his arm in an effort to keep him immobile. He shrieked again.

  Smoke began to boil out of his side.

  The Greys were so startled they backed away. The sergeant went down. He went into convulsions. Smoke continued to boil up. It assumed a form none of the Greys wanted to see.

  “Niassi!”

  The demon Niassi began to whisper secrets no Shadar wanted to hear.

  Grinning to himself, Goblin slipped into Chor Bagan. He disappeared long before anyone wondered if there might not be a connection between the sergeant’s discomfort and the veyedeen dervish.

  Greys arrived from all directions. Officers barked and cursed and drove them back to their stations before the denizens of Chor Bagan seized the opportunity to escape. Obviously this was a distraction meant to give their prey the chance to run.

  A crowd had begun to gather, too. Among them was a Nyueng Bao boy who picked his moment, cut a purse and fled past the Greys, one of whom recalled him from the evening when one of their own got stoned. Discipline began to collapse.

  The Grey officers tried. And managed rather well, considering. Only a few people escaped Chor Bagan. And a half-dozen slipped inside, among them a skinny little old man in the all-enveloping yellow of a leper.

  One-Eye was not pleased. He was sure strategy had had nothing to do with it being him who had to assume the yellow. Goblin was up to something wicked.

  The six raiders approached the target tenement from front and rear, in loose teams of three. One-Eye was around front. People cleared off fast when they saw the yellow. Lepers were held in absolute terror.

  None of the men wanted to carry out a raid in broad daylight. It was not the Company way. But darkness was denied us till Soulcatcher pulled her shadows back off the streets. And the consensus of the Annalists and wizards was that it was less likely that the Daughter of Night could summon Kina’s help during daylight. Daytime also offered a better chance of taking her by surprise.

  Each team paused to make sure every man still wore his yarn bracelet before they stormed into the tenement. Each wizard set loose an array of previously prepared low-grade confusion spells that buzzed through the ramshackle structure like a swarm of drunken mosquitoes. The attackers passed inside, stepping over and around frightened, shivering families who, till now, had considered themselves wildly fortunate to have a roof over their heads, even if that meant renting floor space in a hallway. Both teams posted a man who would make sure no one went outside. Another two men met at the foot of the rickety stair. They would prevent movement up or down. Goblin and One-Eye met at the cellar entrance and shared a few complaints about being desperately undermanned, then a few exaggerated courtesies as each offered the other the opportunity to go down into the enemy’s den first.

  Goblin finally accepted on the basis of superior youth, quickness and alleged intelligence. He launched a couple of luminary floating stars into the pit, where the darkness was blacker than Kina’s heart.

  “Here!” Goblin said. “Ha! We’ve got—”

  Something like a flaming tiger burst out of nowhere. It leaped at Goblin. A shadow drifted in from the side. It flicked something long and thin that looped around the little wizard’s neck.

  One-Eye’s cane came down on Narayan’s wrist hard enough to crack bone. The living saint of the Strangler lost his rumel, which flew across the cellar.

  One-Eye’s off hand tossed something over Goblin’s head, toward the source of the tiger. A ghostly light floated up like a wisp of luminescent swamp gas. It moved suddenly, enveloping a young woman. She began to slap at herself, trying to wipe it off.

  Goblin did something quick, while she was distracted. She collapsed. “Goddamn! Goddamn! It worked. I’m a genius. Admit it. I’m a fucking genius.”

  “Who’s a genius? Who came up with the plan?”

  “Plan? What plan? Success is in the details, runt. Who came up with the details? Any damned fool could’ve said let’s go catch them two.”

  Both men tied limbs as they nattered.

  One-Eye said, “Plan the details on this. We got to get out of here with these people. Through all the Greys in the world.”

  “Already covered. They’ve got so much trouble they won’t have time to worry about any damned lepers.” He started trying to get a yellow outfit over the head of the Daughter of Night. “Remind me to warn them back at the shop that this one can put together an illusion or two.”

  “I know that’s the way its supposed to go.” One-Eye began dragging Narayan Singh into another yellow outfit. In a moment Goblin would trade his brown for yellow, too. Upstairs, the four Company brothers, all of Shadar origin, were turning themselves into Greys. “I’m saying it ain’t got a prayer of working.”

  “That because I planned it?”

  “Absolutely. You’re beginning to catch on. Welcome to reality.”

  “It goes to shit in our hands, you can blame it on Sleepy, not me. It was her idea.”

  “We got to do something about that girl. She thinks too damned much. Will you quit farting around? Them goddamn Greys out there are going to have time to go home for lunch.”

  “Don’t hit him so hard. You want him to walk out of here under his own power.”

  “You talking to me? What the hell you doing with … get your hand out of there, you old pervert.”

  “I’m putting a control amulet over her heart, you dried-up old turd. So she won’t embarrass us before we get her home.”

  “Oh, yeah. Sure you are. But why don’t I look on the bright side? At least you’re interested in girls again. She built as nice as her mother?”

  “Better.”

  “Watch your mouth. The place might be haunted. And I got a suspicion maybe some of those ghosts can talk to each other, no matter what Murgen claims.” One-Eye began to bully the groggy Narayan Singh up the steps.

  * * *

  “I do believe this is going to work,” One-Eye crowed. The combination of Greys and lepers se
emed the perfect device for exiting the Thieves’ Garden—particularly now that the real Greys were running around distracted.

  “I don’t want to break your heart, old-timer,” Goblin said. “But I think we done been fished.” He was looking over his shoulder.

  One-Eye looked back. “Shit!”

  A small flying carpet dropped toward them, accompanied by crows making no sounds at all. Soulcatcher. And her very stance suggested mischievous glee.

  She threw something.

  “Spread out!” Goblin barked. “Don’t let those two get away.” He faced the descending carpet, heart in this throat. If it came to a direct face-off, he was going to get splattered like a stomped egg. He extended a gloved hand, caught the falling black globule, whipped his arm in a circle and launched the missile back into the sky.

  Soulcatcher shrieked, outraged. The people of Taglios did not have that kind of nerve. She drove the carpet to one side, avoiding the black globe. And well she moved when she did.

  Her luck had served her yet again. A screaming fireball ripped right through the space she had vacated, the same kind of fireball that had eaten all those holes in the Palace wall and had set the bodies of so many men burning like bad fat candles. She continued to dive. Two more fireballs barely missed her. She put a tenement between herself and the sharpshooters. She was extremely angry but did not let rage cloud her thinking.

  Above her, her crows began bursting like soundless fireworks. Blood, flesh and feathers rained down.

  In seconds she figured it out, conversing with herself in a committee of voices.

  They had not been hiding inside Chor Bagan after all. She could not have caught anyone trying to slip away like this if they had not come in to retrieve something they did not want found. “They’re here in the city. But we haven’t found them. We haven’t seen a trace or heard a rumor that they didn’t want to reach our ears. Until now. That takes wizardry. That bold little one. That was the toad man. Goblin. Though the Great General of the Armies Mogaba assures us that he saw the body himself. Who else is alive? Could the Great General himself be less trustworthy than he would like us to believe?”

  That was not possible. Mogaba had no other friends. He was committed in perpetuity.

  Soulcatcher brought her carpet to earth, stepped off, folded its light bamboo frame, rolled the carpet around that, surveyed the street. They had come down this way. From up there. What could they have wanted desperately enough to have exposed themselves so thoroughly? Anything they thought that important would be something she was bound to find very interesting herself.

  * * *

  It took just one whispered word of power to illuminate the cellar. The squalor was appalling. Soulcatcher turned slowly. A man and his daughter, apparently. An old man and a young woman, anyway. One lamp. Discarded clothing. A few handfuls of rice. Some fish meal. Why the writing instruments and ink? What was this? A book. Somebody had just begun writing in it in an unfamiliar alphabet. She caught a spot of black movement in the corner of her eye. She whirled, crouching, fearing an attack by a rogue shadow. The skildirsha maintained an especially potent hatred for those who dared command them.

  A rat fled, dropping the object of its curiosity. Soulcatcher knelt, picked up a long strip of black silk with an antique silver coin sewn into one corner. “Oh. I see.” She began to laugh like a young girl catching on late to the meaning of an off-color joke. She collected the book, surveyed the scene once more before leaving. “Dedication sure doesn’t pay.”

  Once in the street again, she reassembled her carpet, unconcerned about snipers. Those people would be long gone and far away. They knew their business. But crows should be tracking them.

  She froze, staring upward but not really seeing the white crow on the peak of the tenement roof. “How did they find out where those two were?”

  19

  “What happened?” Sahra demanded as soon as she came in, before she began shedding Minh Subredil’s rags.

  I was still Dorabee Dey Banerjae myself. “We lost Murgen somehow. Goblin thought they had him anchored, but he went away while we were all out and I don’t know how to get him back.”

  “I meant what happened in the Thieves’ Garden. Soulcatcher was out there. Whatever she tried to pull didn’t work out but she came back a different person. I didn’t get to hear everything she told the Radisha but I do know she found something or figured out something that changed her whole attitude. Like everything suddenly stopped being fun.”

  I said, “Oh. I don’t know. Maybe Murgen can tell us. If we can get him back here.”

  Goblin joined us. He was pushing a sleeping One-Eye in Banh Do Trang’s spare wheelchair. He announced, “They’re resting peacefully. Drugged. Narayan was distraught. The girl took it pretty calmly. We need to worry about her.”

  “What’s wrong with him?” I asked, indicating One-Eye.

  “He’s worn out. He’s an old man. I want to see you have half the energy he does when you get to be half his age.”

  Sahra asked, “Why do we need to worry about the girl?”

  “Because she’s her mother’s daughter. She doesn’t have much skill with it yet because she hasn’t had anybody to teach her, but she’s got the natural ability to become a substantial sorceress. Maybe even as powerful as her mother but without Lady’s rudimentary sense of ethics. It reeks off her—”

  “’Tain’t the only thing she reeks of, neither,” One-Eye chirped. “First thing you do with that little honey, you throw her in a vat of hot water. Then throw in a couple, four lumps of lye soap and let her soak for a week.”

  Sahra and I exchanged glances. If she was bad enough to offend One-Eye, she had to be ripe indeed.

  Goblin grinned from ear to ear but eschewed temptation.

  I said, “I hear you ran into the Protector.”

  “She was on a roof or somewhere waiting for something to happen. She didn’t get what she expected. A couple of fireballs and she ducked and stayed ducked.”

  “You made it home without being followed?” I knew the answer because I knew they knew the stakes. They would not have come anywhere near here had they had the slightest doubt that that was safe.

  I had to ask, even knowing that if they had failed, the warehouse would be buried in Greys already.

  “We were ready to deal with the crows.”

  “All but one,” One-Eye grumbled.

  “What?”

  “I saw a white one up there. It didn’t try to follow us, though.”

  Once again Sahra and I exchanged glances. Sahra said, “I’m going to change and relax and get something to eat. Let’s meet in an hour. If you could find it in your heart, Goblin, you might try to get Murgen back here.”

  “You’re the necromancer.”

  “You’re the one who claimed he anchored him. One hour.”

  Goblin began grumbling to himself. One-Eye chuckled and made no offer to help. He asked me, “You ready to kill your librarian yet?”

  I did not tell him so but I was slightly more open to the suggestion tonight. Surendranath Santaraksita seemed to suspect that Dorabee Dey Banerjae was something more than he pretended. Or maybe I was just paranoid enough to hear things Santaraksita never intended to say. “You don’t worry about Master Santaraksita. He’s being very good to me. Today he told me I can look at any book I want. Unless it’s in the restricted stacks.”

  “Woo!” One-Eye breathed. “Somebody finally found the way to her heart. Who’d’a thunk a book would do it? Name the first one after me, Little Girl.”

  I waved a fist under his nose. “I’d knock out your last tooth and call you Mushy but I was brought up to respect my elders—even if they’re rambling, demented and senile.” For all its One True God focus, my religion contains a strong taint of ancestor worship. Every Vehdna believes his forefathers can hear his prayers and can intercede with God and his saints. If he feels he has been properly treated. “I’m going to follow Sahra’s example.”

  “You holler if
you want to get in practice for your new boyfriend.” His cackle ended abruptly as Gota limped around me. When I glanced back, One-Eye appeared to be sound asleep again. Must have been some other old fool running his mouth.

  * * *

  During the siege of Jaicur, I announced that never again would I be picky about what I ate. That I would respond to anything offered me with a smile of gratitude and a spoken “Thank you.” But time has a way of wearing away at such vows. I was nearly as sick of rice and smoked fish as Goblin and One-Eye were. Breaking the tedium with the occasional supper of rice and fish meal did not seem to help. I am confident that it is their diet that makes the Nyueng Bao such a humorless people.

  I ran into Sahra, who had bathed and let her hair down and relaxed, looking a decade younger, so that it was easy to see how, a decade earlier still, she could have been every young man’s fantasy. “I still have a little money I took off somebody who picked the wrong side down south,” I told her, waving a tiny piece of fish caught between two bamboo chopsticks. Nyueng Bao refuse to adopt innovative utensils that have been in common use amongst everyone else in this part of the world for centuries. Those who did the cooking in Do Trang’s complex were all Nyueng Bao.

  “What?” Sahra was completely baffled.

  “I’ll give it up. If we can buy a pig with it.” Vehdna are not supposed to eat pork. But I made the mistake of being born female, so I probably do not have a seat reserved in Paradise anyway. “Or anything else that doesn’t go through the water like this.” I made a wiggly motion with one hand.

  Sahra did not understand. Food was a matter of indifference to her—so long as she got some. Fish and rice forever were perfectly fine. And she was probably right. There are plenty of people out there who have to eat chhatu because they cannot afford rice. And others cannot afford any food at all. Though Soulcatcher seemed to be thinning those out now.