The Return of the Black Company

by Glen Cook

  “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.

  * * *

  Smoke seemed unchanged. As always. I wondered what he would remember if, as sometimes happened, one day he just woke up from his coma. I hear tell people have done that even after being under years longer than Smoke has.

  I filled my stomach with water before I left the apartment. I took in more fluid when I reached Smoke. I went to work.

  * * *

  Drifting. Quick check of all the villains. Mogaba and Longshadow, Howler and Narayan Singh and the Daughter of Night were all acceptably located, either at Overlook or Charandaprash. Blade was skirting the Shindai Kus with maybe twelve hundred men, trying to get behind the Prahbrindrah Drah, but the Prince had a screen of light cavalry out far enough to give him plenty of warning.

  The man had a knack.

  * * *

  Before I carried out my obligation to look for Soulcatcher I took Smoke back in time to see just how early I could find and spy upon some of the principals. I wanted to see what had happened that night I had been held captive and tortured. I wanted to unveil the details of Mogaba’s defection.

  I found that I could not go back that far.

  I recalled that raft on the lake, Mogaba cursing in the darkness. That had to be it. He should not have been there. What honest mission could have taken him ashore? Had he changed allegiances while still holding Dejagore for the good guys? Was his deal already made when Croaker faced him down? Did he meet the Howler out there, far enough away that Goblin and One-Eye would not detect the sorcerer’s flying carpet?

  Maybe. And if he had that might explain why even Sindawe and Ochiba were willing to abandon him.

  All of us would be dead already and the war long since lost had Longshadow been in a position to seize that moment.

  The cold claws of death may have come closer than ever I had suspected.

  I wish I could have had eyewitness evidence, though.

  * * *

  Smoke can be tricked. And he can be driven by a sufficiently-determined will.

  From the frontiers of past time I raced toward the night of my despair. I did not drive him to the center of its evil, though. Instead, I slowed and drifted into an earlier hour, as the Stranglers first approached the Palace and in best Deceiver form used two of their number, disguised as holy prostitutes of Bashra out to perform their obligated random acts of joy, to get close to the Guards.

  But that was not the history I wanted to review. I brought him forward to the moments of my own interlude upon the sallyport steps. I watched myself emerge from the Palace, vacantly settle to the stone. The seizure lasted scarcely a minute, for all the time I spent amongst the horrors of yesteryear.

  Now the slick move. The focus upon the woman in the shadows across the way, behind the hairy Shadar. The lock onto her despite Smoke’s increasing anxiety and spiritual wriggling.

  I never got to know Smoke in full life but, by most accounts, he had been a pure chickenshit, inalterably opposed to anything that might involve even the most minor risk to anyone in the court wizard or fire marshal rackets. Cowardice must have run right down to the foundations of his being because he writhed like a worm on a fishhook the whole time I watched Soulcatcher loot his library.

  She had no trouble with confusion spells. She had none with Stranglers, either, though she did encounter a band. They just gaped at her briefly, then decided their best interests ought to lead them elsewhere.

  She seemed unaware of my scrutiny, unlike that time in the wheatfield. Could it be that even she was unaware of the secret of Smoke?

  Wouldn’t that be lovely?

  I watched her for a long time, even after she departed the Palace. Smoke resisted every second.

  Then I went back and had a drink and a snack before I tackled the more interesting business of tracking Goblin down and, to slake my own curiosity, having a look at the final falling out between Croaker and Blade. I had been unable to find witnesses to the actual explosion.

  96

  To track Goblin I went back to the last time I saw the runt myself, then followed him forward in time.

  Soon after having helped me out of one of my plunges into yesterday Goblin walked out of his quarters carrying one modest bag, hiked to the waterfront, boarded a barge manned by trustworthy Taglians who had become professional soldiers, and drifted down the river. Right now—approximately today—he was in the heart of the delta, transferring the barge’s cargo, himself and most of the Taglians, to a deep-sea vessel wearing flags and pennons entirely unknown to me. Off on the sodden shore flocks of Nyueng Bao children and a handful of lazy adults watched as though this business of outsiders was the greatest entertainment they had encountered in years. Despite my familiarity with the tribe they all looked inscrutably alien in their native context, more so than they had in Dejagore where we all had been out of place.

  For no reason clear to me I had never visited Sahra’s world. I just welcomed her into mine and savored the miracle.

  Goblin’s behavior was less interesting than his whereabouts, which I had now established. So why not see what life was like for the Nyueng Bao? Uncle Doj insisted that the delta was paradise.

  Possibly, if you were of the mosquito clan. I swear. The fact that I was a disembodied point of view was all that kept me from being devoured. Goblin was candyass enough to protect himself and his crew with potent spells, augmented by bad smells. But the Nyueng Bao had to deal with bloodsucking buzzards able to carry off small children. I reminded myself that I had seen all the bugs I wanted coming south through One-Eye’s home jungle and it was likely that Sarie’s people could manage excellently without the presence of Sarie’s husband.

  I drifted through the area, curious about how she had lived before we met. Hamlet, rice paddies, water buffalo, fishing boats, the same yesterday, last year, last century and tomorrow. Everyone I saw looked like someone I might have met in Dejagore or among the Nyueng Bao serving with the Company now.

  What?

  I was sweeping along like a darting swallow. I glimpsed a face looking up in a hamlet miles back from the river where Goblin and his crew were sweating their guts out. My heart flipped. For the first time out there with Smoke I enjoyed a really strong emotion. If I had been in my body I would have wept crocodile tears.

  Man-eating crocs adorn the delta, too.

  I whipped back, around, hunting that face so much like Sahra’s that it could have belonged to her twin. Down there somewhere, near that old temple.

  No. I guess not. Wishful thinking, Murgen. Plain wishful thinking. Probably just another Nyueng Bao girl newly a woman, endowed with that incredible beauty they have for four or five years between childhood and the steep slope into despair.

  I pressed in once more, wanting desperately to find even the simulacrum of Sahra. And, of course, I found nothing. The pain became so great I withdrew from that region entirely and went looking for a place and time where the gods held me in higher favor.

  97

  I had to fall backward in time, tumbling smugly toward the one era in my life when I was totally happy, when perfection was the order of the universe. I went to the hour that was my pole star, my center, my altar. I went to the moment every man who ever lived dreams of, that one instant when all wishes and fantasies have the potential to come true and you have only to recognize that and grab it within a he
artbeat to make your life complete. For me that moment came almost a year after the end of the siege of Dejagore. And I almost wasted it.

  Nyueng Bao were almost always a part of my life then. A scant three weeks following Croaker’s showdown with Mogaba, and Mogaba’s consequent flight, while us survivors were still creeping north toward Taglios, pretending to be triumphant heroes who had liberated a friendly city and rid the world of a bunch of villains, I awakened one morning to find myself under the dubious and permanent protection of Thai Dei. He was no more talkative than ever but in a few words he insisted that he owed me big and he was going to stick to me forever. I thought that was just hyperbole.

  Boy, was I thrilled. I was not in a mood to cut his throat so I let him hang on. And he did have a sister I wanted to see a lot more than I wanted to see him, though I never found the nerve to tell him that.

  Even so …

  Back in the city, established in the Palace, in my tiny room with my papers and books and Thai Dei sleeping on a reed mat outside my door, him insisting that To Tan was in good hands with his grandmother, I lived a life of confusion, trying to figure out what had happened to us all and to make sense of Lady’s writings. I was not thinking with absolute clarity when I received a gentleman name of Bahn Do Trang, who was a relative of one of the pilgrims of Dejagore. He had a message for me. It was so cryptic it could have qualified as one of the great goofball sybilline pronouncements of all time.

  “Eleven hills, over the edge, he kissed her,” brother Bahn told me, all splashed up with a huge and un-Nyueng Bao grin. “But the others were not for hire.”

  To which I offered this countersign, “Six blue birds in a peppermint tree, warbling limericks of apathy.”

  Death of the grin. “What?”

  “That’s my line, Pop. You told the guys downstairs you had a critical message for me. Against my better judgment I let you come up here and right away you start spouting nonsense. Tamal!” I yelled at the orderly who assisted me and several others who worked out of rooms nearby. “Show this clown the way to the street.”

  Do Trang wanted to argue, looked at my sidekick, thought better of making a fuss. Thai Dei watched the old boy closely but did not look like he wanted the honor of flinging him out on his enigmatic ass personally.

  Poor Bahn. It must have been important to him. He seemed stricken.

  Tamal was a huge Shadar man-bear, all hair and growl and bad breath. He would have liked nothing better than to pummel a Nyueng Bao all the way to the street and thence to the edge of the city. Bahn went without protest.

  Less than a week later I received the identical message as a handwritten note that looked like it had been inscribed by a six-year-old. One of Cordy Mather’s Guards brought it up. I read it, told him, “Give the old fool a beating and tell him not to bother me again.”

  The Guard gave me a funny look. He glanced at Thai Dei, then whispered, “Ain’t old, ain’t a him, but probably is a fool, Standardbearer. Was I you I’d take the time.”

  I got it. At last. “I’ll just box his ears myself, then. Thai Dei, try to keep the bad guys out. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  He did not listen, of course, because he could not bodyguard me from a distance, but I did confuse him long enough to get a headstart. I got down there and got my hands on Sahra before he caught up or got ahead of me. After that he had little say. And my clever lady had brought To Tan to distract him.

  Thai Dei did not talk much but that did not make him stupid. He knew he could not win with the cards he held right now.

  “Clever,” I told Sahra. “I thought I’d never see you again. Hi, kiddo,” I said to To Tan, who did not remember me. “Sahra, honey, you gotta promise me. No more of that cryptic stuff like Grandpa Dam. I’m just a simpleminded soldier.”

  I led Sahra inside and up to my little hole in the wall. For the next three years I marvelled every morning when I wakened to find her beside me and almost every time I saw her during the day. She became the center of my life, my anchor, my rock, my goddess, and every damned one of my brothers envied me almost to the borders of hatred—though Sahra converted them all into devoted friends. She could give Lady lessons on softening the hearts of hard men.

  Not till Uncle Doj and Mother Gota came to visit did I find out that Sahra had done more than just defy the customs of the Nyueng Bao. She had ignored the express orders of her tribal elders to come make herself the wife of a Soldier of Darkness. Confident little witch.

  Those toothless old men put no value on the wishes of the “witch” Ky Hong Tray.

  I think I have a realistic picture of who and what I am so I am amazed that Sahra ever thought as much of me as I thought of her.

  98

  I sipped water, ate, and reflected that this was one time when I had no trouble leaving Smoke’s world. There was no attenuation of the pain if I went out there to see Sarie.

  What was I doing here?

  There was one mystery yet to be illuminated before I allowed Croaker to drag me off into the next fun phase of our great adventure. I wanted to know what had happened between him and Blade.

  * * *

  Smoke and I zigzagged back and forth through time, quartering the temporal reaches, tacking into the winds of time, following a search pattern, looking for anomalies in the relationship between Blade and my boss. I knew about when the blowup happened so, instead, for the time being, I sought contributory evidence.

  You can cover a lot of time fast riding Smoke. It did not take long to establish, beyond a doubt, that Blade’s relationship with Lady was never anything but proper, however charged with wishful thinking on his end. Lady never acknowledged Blade’s mooneyes—nor those of anyone else. She seemed too accustomed to them to pay them any mind.

  So what did happen?

  I worried it like a wild dog trying to dig a rodent out of its hole. Smoke was no help at all. There were places, times, angles that he just refused to go see. I tried tricking him several ways, just to find out why he could not or would not go where I wanted him to go. None of that did any good.

  Maybe I was baying down the wrong trail.

  The actual headbutting had been less than wildly explosive and made only marginal sense when viewed from another point in time. All I could find out that made sense was that Blade and Croaker were sipping some potent home brew before they started getting crazy.

  Verbal sniping turned into angry implications which became threats on the Old Man’s part. And the beer continued to flow.

  I have to say that Croaker was definitely the bad guy. Or fool. He kept on and on while Blade did his best not to let himself be baited.

  That only infuriated Croaker. He spouted threats that left Blade no choice but to run.

  I backed away, embarrassed for my Captain. I had not thought that he could be such a complete asshole. I did not understand why he was so insecure about Lady. I felt for Blade, deeply, and had to think less of one of my heroes.

  Now that I reflected on it, I recalled occasional bestowals of unpleasantries upon Willow Swan that had not gotten out of hand. And Croaker had even exchanged cross words with the Prahbrindrah Drah once.

  I sensed a pattern. It was not one I wanted to see. But it was obvious if you looked for it.

  Croaker was obsessed with his woman. He would alienate anyone who offered her too much attention, however costly that might be.

  Shit. Why? She was not Sarie.

  We had lost Blade already. I do not have a lot of use for Willow Swan, who is much too pretty and too blond, but I would really hate to have the Company on the wrong side of the Prince just because one man could not be sure of his woman.

  More scales fell from my eyes, leaving disappointment behind.

  I needed to take this up with the brain trust, the oldest of the old, One-Eye, Otto and Hagop. Goblin was too far away and Lady both too far and disqualified by being too intimately involved. A Captain who thought with his balls instead of his brains could get a lot of people killed.


  I do not worship any gods myself, though I guess some are real in their own ways. I have to believe that all of them get regular belly-laughs because one of them was ingenious enough to create human sexuality. Even greed and lust for power do not come close to generating the stupidities that us being male and female do.

  But by giving it half a thought I can think of as many glories that spring from the same dichotomy.

  Say, Ky Sahra.

  Gods, Murgen. You need to get away from this half-dead old man. You are a hired sword. A soldier. You should not be playing philosophical games. Not even with yourself.

  99

  I popped out of contact with Smoke. “It’s time, One-Eye. She’s gone.”

  The little wizard tossed a friendly miniature owl into the darkened hallway. Untouched by confusion spells it headed for that part of town where it imagined it nested. It did not look for any particular human. That was not its mission. But plenty of humans looked for it. When it fluttered past them two dozen Black Company veterans and their Nyueng Bao bodyguards rushed a building that had deserved razing a generation before the Shadowmasters entered this quarter of the world.

  I had tracked Soulcatcher back to that building from her raid on Smoke’s library. She felt so safe there she was almost contemptuous of security precautions. She had managed to get by undisturbed there for years.

  She was going to be one unhappy player when she discovered that she was less in control than she imagined.

  I watched, pleased, while Black Company soldiers took the building by the numbers and in a manner so professional that not one Captain ever would have found cause for complaint. The men now even had the knack of getting their jobs done without stumbling over the Nyueng Bao, who were worse than a herd of cats when it came to getting underfoot. You just had to use them like they were your shadows.

  Hardly anyone not directly involved noticed my guys. They got inside, spread out, dug deep, found what I wanted, gathered it up and got back out long before Soulcatcher discovered that she had been outmaneuvered.