by Glen Cook
“What about Shivetya? What’s his take on this?”
“I’ll find out. I’ll send a messenger in just a minute.”
One of the soldiers from Hsien—Panda Man, I think—asked, “What about the men with Longshadow? If he hasn’t left the plain. One is my cousin.”
Tobo drew a long, deep breath. “My work is never done.”
Lady said, “If you’re going to do something you’d better do it fast. They have a key. It’s at risk.”
“Damn! You’re right. Captain, I’m going to borrow your ravens. Lady, lean out the gate and yell for Big Ears and Cat Sith. They’ll hear you. Tell them I want them. It’s an emergency.”
“One damned thing after another,” I grumbled. “It never lets up.”
“But you’re alive,” Swan said.
“Don’t you be jumping around on the other side of your own argument.” We amused ourselves with some good-natured bickering while Tobo sent supernatural messengers off to Shivetya, the guards at the Hsien Shadowgate, Longshadow’s keepers, and our folks up north.
Along the way Murgen asked his son, “What’s to keep those jokers up there from just flying off the plain? I remember times when crows came and went.” And he used to do so himself, all the time
“They could do that because they come from our world. Crows from any other world we wouldn’t have seen at all. Even if they were there. Yes. The Voroshk can fly out any time they want. But when they do they’ll end up in Khatovar. Every time. If they want to get off the plain into another world they’ll have to come onto it through their Shadowgate and leave it through another Shadowgate. Shivetya restructured it that way.”
It can be confusing. I guess that happens where realities overlap, with a deathless demigod in the middle who feels compelled to make it hard for the human species to realize its darkest potential.
45
Nijha: The Stronghold Falls
There were fewer than fifty soldiers to hold Nijha’s walls, most of them injured already and all of them thoroughly terrified after having endured a night overrun by the Unknown Shadows.
The defenders were accorded the honors of war and allowed to march out without their weapons, taking their families and what possessions they could carry. They were admonished to clear the road whenever the Black Company passed.
* * *
If the Nijha stronghold had surrendered any faster Sleepy would have worried that she was walking into a trap. As it was, she did send Doj in first to make sure Soulcatcher had left her no special little gifts.
She had not.
* * *
“Put Narayan somewhere where he can’t embarrass me,” Sleepy ordered after the stronghold had been declared secure. “I’ll decide what to do with him in a day or two.” She would have preferred handing him over to Lady and Croaker right away. “Battalion, regiment, and brigade commanders and all senior staff are to assemble in the local headquarters building in one hour.”
Sahra asked, “You think there’ll be room? I really thought this place would be bigger.”
“So did I. Even though we knew it was a glorified remount station. Gosh, I wish Tobo was here instead of down there.”
“So do I.” Sahra hated having her whole family so far away. She had become accustomed to having a real family again during our years in Hsien. “I’ve been thinking. Wouldn’t it be reasonable to keep Tobo and Murgen from going to the same dangerous places?”
“Like the Shadowgate?”
“Like that. Or anywhere else where one bad blow could take them both away.”
Sleepy understood Sahra’s agony. Sahra had lost two children and one husband to malignant fortune already. The husband did not trouble her much. His removal had improved her life. But rare is the mother who will not ache forever over the loss of her little ones.
All part of the wondrous cruel experience of the siege of Jaicur, or Dejagore, that has twisted so many members of the Company and burdened them with vulnerabilities and obsessions that will shape their minds and souls for as long as they survive.
“That’s a good idea,” Sleepy said. “Although you can count on getting resistance from the men. Can you imagine Runmust and Iqbal being willing to go anywhere where they’re not elbow to elbow with each other?”
Sahra sighed. She shook her head slowly. “If the Gunni are right about the Wheel of Life then I must have been something more wicked than a Shadowmaster in a previous life. This one never stops punishing me.”
“Let me tell you, it’s harder being Vehdna. You don’t have other lives to blame it on. You just go crazy trying to figure out why God is so angry with you in this one.”
Sahra nodded. The moment had passed. She was in control again. “You’d think I would’ve made my peace with this life by now, wouldn’t you?”
Sleepy thought that she had, about as well as she could, but did not say so. She did not want to push Sahra back onto the path of self-examination. That could get tiresome fast.
“We have a major staff meeting. I want your help. I want you to think in broader terms. I’m rethinking my strategy. The distances are turning out to be too great for a headlong rush. We’re getting weaker fast while our enemies are getting stronger. I want your thoughts on different approaches.”
“I’ll be all right. I have to have these spells once in a while just to get by.”
46
Nijha: The Darkness Always Comes
Darkness came to Nijha. With it came an almost supernatural silence. Within the crude walls the senior commanders were clustered with Sleepy and Sahra. Outside, the soldiers were cooking, repairing harnesses and equipment, or, mainly, just sleeping the sleep of the exhausted. A night’s rest was never enough to recover fully from a hard day’s march. Weariness accumulated, and more so when a force covered a lot of miles in a hurry.
For the first time since his liberation Goblin found himself unsupervised, overlooked, forgotten. He did not trust his observations for a while. These were sneaky people. Possibly they were testing him.
Eventually it became evident that he really was running free, unmonitored. This was early in the game and way remote but no better opportunity was ever likely to arise.
* * *
Narayan stirred warily, though his despair was such that he could generate little concern about his own continued well-being. Already he had been separated farther, if not longer, from the Daughter of Night than ever before since her birth. If he lost her there would be no reason to go on. It would be time to go home to Kina. There would be nothing more he could do. And there was little chance he would get any opportunity ever again, anyway. He was alive now only because these people were saving him as a plaything for the girl’s birth parents. Again.
His days and hours were numbered and once again his faith was being tested sorely.
He heard a faint, breathy sound that seemed vaguely familiar. And it should be, he thought. His heart began to hammer. That was a Deceiver recognition sign meant for use in darkness exactly like this, where the usual hand signals would not work. He murmured countersigns. The effort set off a coughing fit.
The exchange continued until Narayan was satisfied that he had been located by a religious brother. He asked, “Why have you come? It won’t be possible to rescue me.” He used the secret Deceiver cant, which amounted to the final test. It would, at least, advise him of the status of his visitor. Not many recent converts were yet that advanced in their studies.
“The Goddess herself has sent me to relay her love and her esteem and her appreciation of all your sacrifices. She bid me to assure you that your rewards will be great. She wants you to understand that her resurrection is nearer than any nonbeliever suspects. She wants you to know that your efforts and your trials and your steadfast faith have made the difference. She wants you to know that her enemies soon will be overwhelmed and devoured. She wants you to know that she’s watching over you and that you’ll stand at her side when we celebrate the Year of the Skulls. She wants you to know
that of all those who have ever served her, even of her many saints, you were her most favored.”
47
The Shadowgate: The Repairmen
The encampment below the Shadowgate became the hub of a flood of Unknown Shadow traffic as Tobo tried to head off the Voroshk threat. He remained especially worried about Longshadow’s keepers till Shivetya somehow assured him that they were invisible to Voroshk eyes.
“Do you trust him?” Lady asked. She being the most naturally paranoid of any of us at the Shadowgate. “He might try to make a better deal with the Voroshk.”
“What better deal? We’re going to give him what he wants. Without trying to control him or even to get much out of him.”
“Bet he thinks we’re too good to be true, then.” She was in a mood.
I asked, “What happened to the golden pickax? The Deceiver key to the Shadowgates.”
After a pause to make up his mind about what to admit, Tobo said, “I left it with Shivetya. We may need it again. When it’s time to kill Kina. I couldn’t think of any other place where it would be safer from her followers.” He was troubled as he looked the rest of us over. He was thinking he should have kept that to himself. The golden pickax was an extremely holy Strangler relic that could also be used to help set Kina free.
He was afraid that at least one of us was sure to tell somebody what we had just heard.
* * *
It was a long night followed by what promised to be a longer day.
For the uninvolved members of the band these were trying times. There was nothing for them to do but play cards and wonder if the people of the New City would be crazy enough to attack us.
Panda Man and Spook mostly watched the game. They did not do well when they played. Tonk is one of the simplest games ever invented, rules-wise, but a huge part of it is the table talk that goes along with the actual picking up, discarding and laying down of cards. A group accustomed to one another is an entirely different animal from one where the players barely speak the same language. Wherever the Company stops for fifteen minutes a tonk game soon develops. The tradition began ages before my time. It will persist long after I am gone.
Gone. I tried to imagine what life might have been like had I left the Company sometime in the past. My imagination was not up to the task. I confess. I do not have the strength of personality to abandon everything I know, even when all that is just a meandering, unhappy path that, too often, wanders through the outlying marches of hell.
I was a zombie most of the day, carrying that hod for my young bricklayer while most of me was elsewhere, boldly adventuring across those fields of might-have-been.
Sometime late in the afternoon I told Lady, “I probably should tell you this more often. I love you and I’m glad Fate conspired to bring our lives together.”
I stunned her into silence. I know Swan and Murgen gaped and spent some time trying to figure out if I thought I was dying.
* * *
The Voroshk had not overlooked us. They were cautious. They showed themselves briefly several times during the day. Their customary arrogance seemed in abeyance.
Once I left my own preoccupations behind I asked Tobo, “What do you suppose they’re up to?” We had talked about it before but I am never entirely comfortable taking a sorcerer’s motives at face value.
“Looking for hope. Or anything that will give them an edge. I expect that, right now, their world is more like hell than almost anything any priest ever imagined. Most of the surviving shadows from the plain must be running loose there. One family of sorcerers, however wonderful their weapons, just has no chance to stop what’s happening. Not before the devastation reaches the scale of an end of the world catastrophe.”
Once upon a time I might have felt bad for the Voroshk and the people of Khatovar. This time when I examined my soul I found not much more than indifference within me.
“How much longer before you’ve finished making all your modifications?” Lady demanded. She was anxious to head north. From oblique remarks I gathered that she wanted to rejoin the main force before disaster struck it. What she could do to avert a disaster was beyond me. She did not have enough magic currently to start a fire without adding flint and steel to the mix.
“Ten minutes, tops,” Tobo replied. “There’s this one last braided strand that needs reweaving and we’ll have us not just a completely healthy Shadowgate, it’ll be the toughest there ever was. Tough enough that what happened to the Khatovar gate can’t happen here. In fact, it’s already all those things. What this spell rope is going to do is create a little pocket of darkness that’s invisible from outside so killer shadows can be turned into invisible sentries. They’ll be there ready to jump out at anybody who tries to get through who isn’t already approved by us or Shivetya.”
“Neat,” I said. Lady scowled. She was determined to believe that we were placing too much trust in the golem.
She seemed unable to recognize that trust was not a large part of this equation.
She said, “We’re going to have company in a minute.”
I looked up. Two Voroshk sorcerers were coming down the slope, following the old road, inside what would have been protection if they had not blown up their own Shadowgate. A third post-rider remained a dot above the horizon, a remote witness. I asked, “You think they did more damage getting through the barrier and onto the road?”
After only a glance, Tobo said, “No. I think they came in the far end and flew here, following the roads. The other one paced them from above.”
Admirable stupidity, I thought. The two at ground level had no chance of getting back out before dark. Did they think we would protect them from the night? If so they were huge daydreamers.
The Voroshk dismounted a hundred yards away. They walked toward us like walking was a foreign experience. Riding the flying fencepost had to be a huge status symbol back in Khatovar. So huge, walking was never done where your inferiors could see you.
“How long now?” Lady asked Tobo.
“Fifteen seconds. After that I’ll fake it for a bit. Then we all step back through the gate. Are Dad and the others alert?”
Alert was not strong enough a word. A variety of missile weapons were ready. So was one fireball projector but it would not see use while the Voroshk remained on the plain side. The barriers could be damaged by fireballs. Arrows and crossbow bolts, however, could pass through and the wounds they made would heal in moments.
Not that arrows were likely to accomplish much against these chunky old men.
They did seem overweight. They projected an aura of fatness behind the constant stirring of their black cloaks.
“There. I think that should do it,” Tobo said.
Click. Click. Click. That swiftly we three backed through the Shadowgate into our own world. Tobo sealed the way. We waited. The kid said, “One of these will be the father of our two troublemakers.”
Probably. The Voroshk did appear interested in communicating. They knew someone on our side spoke the language of the forvalaka.
Their luck was in. Of all the Black Company people who could have been there with Tobo they got me and Lady.
They would get no happiness out of that, though. Their kind rubbed me the wrong way. I would make nothing easy for them.
48
The Shadowgate: The Warlords of the Air
These Voroshk, who actually introduced themselves—as Nashun the Researcher and the First Father—both spoke the language of Juniper. Nashun the Researcher had by far the best command. Neither had social skills of a sort likely to put a smile on the face of many mothers. It was clear that the demonstration of manners toward persons outside the family was an exercise with which they had little familiarity.
After the introductions I stated the obvious. “You people sure got yourselves into big trouble.”
You could feel the Voroshk closing their eyes and sighing inside all that black material.
“We will survive,” the boss Voroshk declared. He
strained to keep anger and arrogance out of his voice. He had less success with confidence, which made me wonder if he did not really mean it.
“No doubt. What I saw of your family’s capabilities impressed me. But honestly, you realize that your family’s survival will require more than just fending off the shadows.”
Nashun made a dismissive gesture with one gloved hand. “We come to you because we want our children back.”
He spoke clearly and slowly enough that Lady caught that. She made a surprised little noise that might have been half a laugh.
“You’re out of luck. They may prove useful. Nor have we any incentive to give them back.”
Their anger seemed a palpable force.
Tobo felt it. He said, “Warn them that any power they use to try to break through will bounce back at them. Tell them that the harder they try the worse they’ll get hurt.”
I translated. Our visitors were not impressed by anything a boy said. Neither did they experiment. They did recall events at their own Shadowgate. The Researcher said, “We are prepared to make an exchange.”
“What do you have to trade?”
“You still have people on this plain.”
“Go for it. They’re covered. When the dust settles you’ll be picking up dead family members.” Of that I was confident. Because Tobo trusted Shivetya completely. “You’re powerful but ignorant. Like an ox. You don’t know the plain. It’s alive. It’s our ally.”
Smoke should have rolled out of their ears. Goblin sometimes did that in the old days. But these men had no sense of humor.
Their desperation overcame their anger.
“Explain,” Nashun hissed.
“You know nothing about the plain but you’re arrogant enough to believe that your power will be supreme there. In a realm of the gods. Evidently you don’t even know your own world’s history. The people you’re facing, that you believe you can threaten, are spiritual descendants of soldiers sent out from Khatovar five hundred years ago.”