The Books of the South: Tales of the Black Company (Chronicles of the Black Company)
Page 83
Epilogue
No matter how many times I walked around it, the hole into the tree god’s “abyss” still looked like a piece of black silk suspended a yard above the ground. It refused to have more than two dimensions.
Darling brought the little chest containing the silver spike, threw it through. It took both of us to do the coffin that contained all that had been left in the big pot when, after a week of cooking, it had been allowed to boil dry. The black circle vanished as though a stage magician had sucked the cloth up his sleeve.
We went and got clean for what seemed like the first time in years, then Darling showed me around the rabbit warren that had been home for the Black Company and Rebel movement for so many years. Fascinating. And repellent. That people should put themselves through such hell … I wished them better times than mine, wherever they were.
Somehow we ended up doing what men and women seem unable to avoid. Afterward, she dressed in the clothing of a peasant woman, without a hint of mail or a single hidden blade.
“What goes?” I asked.
She signed, “The White Rose is dead. There is no place for her anymore. No need.”
I didn’t argue. I never was on that side.
For want of anything better to do we got Old Father Tree to give us a ride to where we could check out the progress of the potato industry.
It hadn’t changed a whole lot, except the people I knew had got older.
The grandkids wouldn’t believe a word of our stories but they’d fight anybody who didn’t agree that we told the most exciting lies in the world.
TOR BOOKS BY GLEN COOK
An Ill Fate Marshalling
Reap the East Wind
The Swordbearer
The Tower of Fear
THE BLACK COMPANY
The Black Company (The First Chronicle)
Shadows Linger (The Second Chronicle)
The White Rose (The Third Chronicle)
Shadow Games (The First Book of the South)
Dreams of Steel (The Second Book of the South)
The Silver Spike
Bleak Seasons (Book One of Glittering Stone)
She Is the Darkness (Book Two of Glittering Stone)
Water Sleeps (Book Three of Glittering Stone)
Soldiers Live (Book Four of Glittering Stone)
Chronicles of the Black Company
(Comprising The Black Company,
Shadows Linger, and The White Rose)
The Books of the South
(Comprising Shadow Games,
Dreams of Steel, and The Silver Spike)
THE INSTRUMENTALITIES OF THE NIGHT
The Tyranny of the Night
Lord of the Silent Kingdom
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in these novels are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE BOOKS OF THE SOUTH: TALES OF THE BLACK COMPANY
Copyright © 2008 by Glen Cook
Shadow Games, copyright © 1989 by Glen Cook
Dreams of Steel, copyright © 1990 by Glen Cook
The Silver Spike, copyright © 1989 by Glen Cook
All rights reserved.
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
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Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7653-2066-7
ISBN-10: 0-7653-2066-5
First Edition: June 2008
eISBN 9781466831117
First eBook edition: October 2012