The Return of the Black Company

by Cook, Glen

  “Still?”

  “Still. The poor idiot is a living testimonial to the fact that everything takes longer and costs more. Even magic can’t get you around that. But he’s a lot closer to being finished than he was when you left. And if he does get done before we get him we can bend over and kiss our butts goodbye. It’ll be the end of the world. His plan is to pull his hole in behind him and loose the dogs of hell—then come out later and collect up the pieces of whatever is left.”

  I grumbled, “I’ve heard this one before.” I never took it entirely serious despite the characters involved. But it did sound like Croaker believed Longshadow was capable of doing it. Maybe his adventures with Smoke had shown him something I had missed so far.

  So the end of the world was imminent, either at the hands of Kina and her Deceivers or at those of Longshadow. Either way, only the Black Company could prevent the tragedy.

  Yeah. Sure.

  I wanted to tell Croaker, old buddy, we’re only the Black Company. We’re just a gang of misfits who can’t make it in life except as hired swords. Sure, we got ourselves into an asskicking contest with some bizarro creeps now but there ain’t nobody going to care in a hundred years. We are entangled in an affair of honor because of promises we made and stuff like the Stranglers snatching your kid. But don’t try to sell anybody on saving the world.

  I was scared the Old Man might be developing a case of the big head, like Longshadow, Mogaba, the Howler, Kina, all the devils of our time. One of the Annalist’s duties is to remind the Captain that he is not a demigod. But I was out of practice. Hell, I could not deflate Uncle Doj when he got going.

  “I need an edge, Hagop,” Croaker said. “I need it bad. Tell me you found something. Anything.”

  “I found Murgen’s turnip seeds.”

  “Damnit.…”

  “The best suggestion they had was that we might try to trace the survivors of the Circle of Eighteen.”

  Well. That was interesting.

  Croaker stopped pacing. He looked at me as though I might be able to tell him something. I saw his focus fade. He was remembering the Battle at Charm.

  The Circle of Eighteen raised huge rebel armies to pull Lady down. The culminating battle at Charm had been the bloodiest in recorded history.

  The Circle did not win.

  Croaker said, “We killed Harden and Raker. Lady turned Whisper to Taken. That accounts for three.”

  “A lot more just got lost when we whipped them,” I observed. My “we” drew smiles from Otto, Hagop and the Old Man. I was maybe twelve at the time and had not yet even heard of the Black Company.

  Hagop said, “We were too damned thorough back then, boss. We went out looking for and flat could not find any Rebel veterans to interrogate. We couldn’t even find names for seven of the Eighteen. But there were people at the Tower who were junior officers then who claimed they had witnessed the deaths of all of the Eighteen except one called Trinket, those who became Taken, and one of the ones whose names we couldn’t find out.”

  “Trinket.” Croaker resumed pacing. He mused, “I remember Trinket. But just the name. We were at the Stair of Tear. We got word that Trinket was surrounded. In the east. We were busy with Harden. I don’t know if I even mentioned it in the Annals.”

  Ha! A chance to show off. “You did. One sentence. That’s it, though. You said Whisper had taken Rust and Trinket was surrounded.”

  “Whisper. Yes. She’d been Taken only a little while.” He had been there to help set up the Taking. “That’s one for Lady. She would know if there was anything between those two.”

  “Trinket was female,” Hagop told us. “What’s Longshadow?”

  Croaker frowned.

  I said, “He never gets all the way naked but I’m pretty sure Longshadow is a he. Physically.”

  The Old Man offered me a daggers look. Damn! But the Taglians were way off in a corner sulking. None of them caught my slip. Hagop was not on the list of three, either, though. I hastened to amend myself. “But Smoke is the only one who ever saw him in the flesh. And he ain’t talking.”

  “He still alive?” Hagop asked.

  “Barely,” Croaker said. “We keep him alive. Men have come back from comas before. That’s it, Hagop? All that time and travel. That’s all you got me?”

  “That’s the way she goes sometimes, boss.” He grinned. “Oh. I almost forgot. They did give me a coffin full of papers and stuff that might have belonged to some of the people who maybe could have turned into Longshadow—if he was ever one of the Eighteen. The stuff is all packaged and labeled in case some wizard decides he wants to use them.”

  Croaker’s face lit up like a bonfire. “You shithead.” Grinning, he yelled, “Otto, send them guys home, why don’t you? Bonharj, the rest of you, what the hell are you doing hanging around here? Your people want to see you.” He told me, “Guess we ought to ship that stuff down to Lady. She’ll know what to do with it.”

  Otto hustled the Taglians out of the warehouse. They seemed baffled by the Liberator’s sudden generosity. Me too.

  Hagop said, “Now how about you guys telling what’s been happening?”

  I said, “A whole lot. But nothing big and dramatic. We keep nibbling them to death.”

  “Is Mogaba really the head honcho of Longshadow’s army?”

  “Absolutely. He’s one kickass sonofabitch, too, only Longshadow won’t let him run loose. He has to mess with us secondhand, mostly, letting Blade do his dirty work.”

  “Huh? Blade? Like in Blade of Blade and Mather and Swan?”

  “Oh. Yeah.” I glanced at the Old Man, whose expression had gone stony. “Yeah. Blade defected while you were gone.”

  “Let’s get back to the Palace, Murgen,” Croaker said. “We have work to do.”

  92

  Croaker did not say much as we walked, though he did snarl at people who dared stare at the Shadar and his white-devil companion. We northerners are so few that even after years few of the commoners have yet seen any of us. And, of course, we have done very little to dispel our evil reputation.

  Some intellectuals inside the priesthoods have argued that the friendship of today’s Black Company is as deadly to Taglios as was the enmity of its remote forbears.

  Their complaint may have merit.

  We were coming up to the Palace. Croaker kept grumbling to himself, mostly because so little had come of the expedition. That had been his pet and his expectations had run away with him. He asked, “How long are your in-laws going to hang around?”

  I was not going to make him happy. “For the duration. They want their slice of Narayan Singh.” The Old Man still distrusted Uncle Doj.

  “They know about Smoke?”

  “Of course not! Damnit…!”

  “Keep it that way. You find his library again yet?”

  I had mentioned having stumbled onto that. “Not yet.” Fact was, I had made no more than a token effort. I had too much else on my mind.

  “Try a little harder.” He knew. “Don’t spend so much time with Smoke. And I think it might be useful to look at those old Annals before we head south.”

  “How come you never looked for the library yourself? You’ve had years.”

  “I heard it got destroyed the night that Smoke got mauled. Now it looks like that must have happened in some other room. The Radisha wouldn’t mislead me about something like that. Would she? Nah.”

  We paused while a Vehdna cavalry regiment passed in review outside the Palace. It had come from upcountry somewhere and was just paying its respects before taking the field. The robes and turbans of the troopers were clean and gaudy. Their lances were all brightly pennoned. Their spearheads gleamed. Their mounts were beautiful, admirably trained and perfectly groomed.

  “Too bad pretty don’t win wars,” I said. The Black Company is not pretty.

  Croaker grunted. I glanced at him. And surprised what might have been a teardrop in the corner of his eye.

  He knew what awaited all thos
e brave young men.

  We crossed behind the horsemen, stepping carefully.

  * * *

  One-Eye met us in the hallway outside Croaker’s apartment. “What’s the word?”

  Croaker shook his head. “No magic answers.”

  “We always get to do it the hard way.”

  I told him, “I’m supposed to look for that library room I found the other night. You got something to help keep me from getting confused?”

  He looked at me like that might be a tall order. “I already gave you something.” He indicated the yarn on my wrist.

  “That was for your spells. There’s probably still a bunch of Smoke’s left over, too.”

  The runt thought about that. “Could be. Give me that.” His gaze fell on my amulet as I removed the yarn. “Jade?” He held my wrist momentarily.

  “I think so. It belonged to Sarie’s grandmother, Hong Tray. You never met her. She was the old Speaker’s wife.”

  “You been wearing this all these years and I never noticed?”

  “I never wore it till Sarie … Until the other night. Sarie wore it sometimes, though, when she wanted to dress up.”

  “Ah, yes. I recall.” He frowned like he was trying to remember something, then shrugged, went off into a shadow and muttered to the yarn for a while. When he returned he said, “That ought to get you through anybody’s confusion spells. Except maybe your own.”

  “What?”

  “You had any of your attacks lately?”

  “No. Not that I remember.” I offered the amendment because I had had them before without being aware of them. Apparently.

  “You had any new ideas about what caused them? Or who you kept running into when you went back to Dejagore?”

  “I was escaping from the pain of losing Sarie.”

  One-Eye laid one of his more intense stares upon me, just the way he had whenever he helped fish me out of the past. Evidently he was not convinced.

  I asked, “Is it suddenly important again?”

  “It never stopped being important, Murgen. There just hasn’t been time to pursue it.”

  Nor was there now.

  He said, “We just have to let you take charge of yourself, to watch out and do the right thing in a crunch.”

  One-Eye being totally serious? That was spooky.

  Croaker had lost interest. He was back at his charts and figures. But he did reiterate, “I want to see those books before we hit the road.”

  I can take a hint, sometimes. “I’m on my way, Boss.”

  93

  I stopped in to make sure Smoke was still breathing. I fed him while I was there. Keeping him fed and clean was now my cover for being there should someone like the Radisha ever penetrate One-Eye’s network of spells, much augmented since I had begun working with the old wizard. Then I tried to recall the various twists and turns I had taken the night I found Smoke’s library. My memories were not clear. That had been a time of stress and a lot had happened since.

  I did know it was on this same level. I had not gone downstairs or up. And it was in an area apparently undisturbed since Smoke’s own last visit. The dust and cobwebs were heavy and untouched.

  It did not take me long to reach desert territory. It was almost as though the deep interior of the Palace became a vast and dusty maze, needing no spells of confusion to protect it.

  I found the dead man only minutes after leaving Smoke. I smelled him first, of course, and heard the flies. That told me what would be coming up before I saw anything. Only the who was a mystery until the Strangler appeared at the limit of my lamplight. He had fled here to die of his wounds, trapped by darkness and confusing spells.

  I shuddered. That touched my deepest fears, the wellspring of my nightmares, my crushing dread of tight, dark places underground.

  I wondered if his fickle goddess had taken delight in his unhappy end.

  I moved around the corpse carefully, averting my eyes and pinching my nose. In death he continued to serve Kina’s corruption avatar.

  Soon afterward I discovered evidence that at least one more Strangler had become entangled in the confusion of the Palace. I nearly stepped in it, being alerted only when my approach startled the attendant flies.

  I paused. “Uh-oh.” That looked fairly fresh. Maybe there was still a madman in here willing to dance for his goddess.

  I started moving much slower and more carefully, one hand at my throat. I started imagining noises. All the ghost stories I ever heard came back to haunt me. Each few steps I paused, turned around completely, searching for the gleam of eyes betrayed by my lamp. Why did I decide to do this alone?

  I began to see signs of recent traffic. I knelt, discovered what appeared to be my own previous footprints in the dust. Someone had been through since, armed with a battery of candles. Drops of wax had fallen into the disturbed dust. And somebody had been through after that, possibly crawling, perhaps even eating what wax drops he could find.

  I listened to the silence. This deep within the Palace even vermin were scarce. They could only eat each other.

  Still cautious, I followed the trails of those who had come after me. My heart thumped like it was about to explode.

  I started sneezing. And once I did the sneezes just kept coming. I could hold off for half a minute sometimes, but that only made the next sneeze worse.

  Then I started hearing all sorts of sounds. And could not still myself long enough to reassure me that I was imagining these noises, too, or to get a fix on their source if they were genuine.

  Maybe it would be better to do this some other time.

  Then the broken door loomed out of the darkness. I stopped and studied it. I had a notion it was hanging a little differently. Disturbances in the dust suggested that someone had visited since I had done so myself.

  Cautiously, touching nothing, I rounded the door, stepped into the room.

  “Shit!”

  It had been torn apart. Few of the books, bound or scroll, remained on their shelves or in their cubbies. The undisturbed items, where I could decipher titles, were prosaic inventories or tax records or irregular city histories of little interest. I wondered why Smoke would bother with those. Maybe just to hide the good stuff? Maybe because he was fire marshall as well as court wizard?

  Whatever, the good stuff was gone. And by that I mean not only any long-missing volumes of the Annals that might have been lying around but also a number of what I had suspected to be magical texts when last I looked in.

  “Damn it! Damn it!” I wanted to throw things, to break things, to bounce rocks off villains’ heads. Even before I found the single fallen feather I had a good idea of what had happened.

  I collected that feather.

  On the way back I definitely heard sounds that did not spring from my imagination. I did not bother to investigate. The man tried to follow my light but could not keep up.

  94

  Croaker looked up, puzzled, when I laid the white feather in front of him and said, “The books are gone. And there are Deceivers lost in there. At least one dead one and one still alive.”

  “Gone?” He plucked the feather off the document he was studying.

  “Somebody took them.”

  His distress was apparent only because his hand began to shake. “How?”

  “They just walked in off the street and carried them away.” I did not for a moment consider the possibility that someone inside the Palace had visited Smoke’s books.

  He said nothing for a while. “What perfect timing.” Another silence. “What’s this feather?”

  “Maybe a message. Maybe just a lost feather. I found one like it when I discovered that the Widowmaker armor had disappeared from hiding in Dejagore.”

  “A white feather?”

  “From an albino crow.” I ran through my catalog of encounters, real and possibly imagined.

  His hand shook again. “You never actually met her. But you recognized her? She was here the night the Deceivers struck? And y
ou never said anything?”

  “I forgot that. That was the worst night of my life, Captain. That night has twisted everything else around me.…”

  He gestured for silence. He thought. I stared. He was nothing like the Croaker who had been Company physician and Annalist when I joined up. After a while, he muttered, “That must be it.”

  “What?”

  “The voice you encountered whenever you were pulled back to Dejagore. Think. Was it inconsistent?”

  “I don’t think I understand.”

  “Did it seem like it might be different people talking all the time?”

  Now I got it. “I don’t think so. It did seem to have different attitudes and styles sometimes.”

  “The bitch. The sneaking bitch. Always playing another game. I won’t swear this for sure, Murgen, but I think the root mystery behind you tumbling all over time must have been Soulcatcher playing.”

  Not a wholly original theory to me. Soulcatcher rated high on my own suspects list. Motive was my big stumbling block. I could not figure a “why Murgen?” for anybody, Soulcatcher included.

  “Where is she now?” Croaker asked.

  “I don’t have the foggiest.”

  “Can you find out?”

  “Smoke balks every time I try to head her way.”

  Croaker considered that. “Try again.”

  “You’re the boss.”

  “As long as it suits everybody’s convenience. You sure your in-laws won’t go home?”

  “They’re going wherever I go.”

  “Tell them we’ll be on the road before the end of the week.”

  “I look forward to that like a case of the piles.” I took my white feather and stomped off for a session with the fire marshall.

  95

  I did not go straight there. I stopped by the apartment, collected a flask of tea, a gallon of water, a basket of fried chicken and fried fish, rice and some of Mother Gota’s special baked rocks. I expected a long session. There were things I wanted to do beyond my expected swift rebuff in a search for Soulcatcher.