Chronicles of the Black Company

by Glen Cook

  One-Eye made a sound like a cawing crow.

  We rolled the wagon at midnight. The stablekeeper called us madmen. One-Eye gave him one of his famous grins. He drove. The rest of us walked, surrounding the wagon.

  There had been changes. Something had been added. Someone had incised the stone with a message. One-Eye, probably, during one of his unexplained forays out of headquarters.

  Bulky leather sacks and a stout plank table had joined the stone. The table looked capable of bearing the block. Its legs were of a dark, polished wood. Inlaid in them were symbols in silver and ivory, very complex, hieroglyphical, mystical.

  “Where did you get the table?” I asked. Goblin squeaked, laughed. I growled, “Why the hell can’t you tell me now?”

  “Okay,” One-Eye said, chuckling nastily. “We made it.”

  “What for?”

  “To sit our rock on.”

  “You’re not telling me anything.”

  “Patience, Croaker. All in due time.” Bastard.

  There was a strangeness about our square. It was foggy. There had been no fog anywhere else.

  One-Eye stopped the wagon in the square’s center. “Out with that table, boys.”

  “Out with you,” Goblin squawked. “Think you can malinger your way through this?” He wheeled on Elmo. “Damned old cripple’s always got an excuse.”

  “He’s got a point, One-Eye.” One-Eye protested. Elmo snapped, “Get your butt down off there.”

  One-Eye glared at Goblin. “Going to get you someday, Chubbo. Curse of impotence. How does that sound?”

  Goblin was not impressed. “I’d put a curse of stupidity on you if I could improve on Nature.”

  “Get the damned table down,” Elmo snapped.

  “You nervous?” I asked. He never gets riled at their fussing. Treats it as part of the entertainment.

  “Yeah. You and Raven get up there and push.”

  That table was heavier than it looked. It took all of us to get it off the wagon. One-Eye’s faked grunts and curses did not help. I asked him how he got it on.

  “Built it there, dummy,” he said, then fussed at us, wanting it moved a half inch this way, then a half inch that.

  “Let it be,” Soulcatcher said. “We don’t have time for this.” His displeasure had a salutary effect. Neither Goblin nor One-Eye said another word.

  We slid the stone onto the table. I stepped back, wiped sweat from my face. I was soaked. In the middle of winter. That rock radiated heat.

  “The bags,” Soulcatcher said. That voice sounded like a woman I would not mind meeting.

  I grabbed one, grunted. It was heavy. “Hey. This is money.”

  One-Eye snickered. I heaved the sack into the pile under the table. A damned fortune there. I had never seen so much in one place, in fact.

  “Cut the bags,” Soulcatcher ordered. “Hurry it up!”

  Raven slashed the sacks. Treasure dribbled onto the cobblestones. We stared, lusting in our hearts.

  Soulcatcher caught One-Eye’s shoulder, took Goblin’s arm. Both wizards seemed to shrink. They faced table and stone. Soulcateher said, “Move the wagon.”

  I still had not read the immortal message they had carved on the rock. I darted in for a look.

  LET HE WHO WOULD CLAIM THIS WEALTH

  SEAT THE HEAD OF THE CREATURE

  RAKER

  WITHIN THIS THRONE OF STONE

  Ah. Aha. Plainspoken. Straightforward. Simple. Just our style. Ha.

  I stepped back, tried to guess the magnitude of Soulcatcher’s investment. I spied gold amidst the hill of silver. One bag leaked uncut gems.

  “The hair,” Soulcatcher demanded. One-Eye produced the strands. Soulcatcher thumbed them into the walls of the head-sized cavity. He stepped back, joined hands with One-Eye and Goblin.

  They made magic.

  Treasure, table, and stone began to shed a golden glow.

  Our archfoe was a dead man. Half the world would try to collect this bounty. It was too big to resist. His own people would turn on him.

  I saw one slim chance for him. He could steal the treasure himself. Tough job, though. No Rebel Prophet could out-magic one of the Taken.

  They completed their spell-casting, “Somebody test it,” One-Eye said.

  There was a vicious crackle when Raven’s daggertip pricked the plane of the tablelegs. He cursed, scowled at his weapon. Elmo thrust with his sword. Crackle! The tip of his blade glowed white.

  “Excellent,” Soulcatcher said. “Take the wagon away.”

  Elmo detailed a man. The rest of us fled to the room Goblin had rented.

  At first we crowded the window, willing something to happen. That palled fast. Roses did not discover the doom we had set for Raker till sunrise.

  Cautious entrepreneurs found a hundred ways to go after that money. Crowds came just to see. One enterprising band started tearing up the street to dig under. Police ran them off.

  Soulcatcher took a seat beside the window and never moved. Once he told me, “Have to modify the spells. I didn’t anticipate this much ingenuity.”

  Surprised at my own audacity, I asked, “What’s the Lady like?” I had just finished one of my fantasy sketches.

  He turned slowly, stared briefly. “Something that will bite steel.” His voice was female and catty. An odd answer. Then, “Have to keep them from using tools.”

  So much for getting an eyewitness report. I should have known better. We mortals are mere objects to the Taken. Our curiosities are of supreme indifference. I retreated to my secret kingdom and its spectrum of imaginary Ladies.

  Soulcatcher modified the ward sorceries that night. Next morning there were corpses in the square.

  One-Eye wakened me the third night. “Got a customer.”

  “Hunh?”

  “A guy with a head.” He was pleased.

  I stumbled to the window. Goblin and Raven were there already. We crowded one side. Nobody wanted to get too close to Soulcatcher.

  A man stole across the square below. A head dangled from his left hand. He carried it by its hair. I said, “I wondered how long it would be before this started.”

  “Silence,” Soulcatcher hissed. “He’s out there.”

  “Who?”

  He was patient. Remarkably patient. Another of the Taken would have struck me down. “Raker. Don’t give us away.”

  I do not know how he knew. Maybe I would not want to find out. Those things scare me.

  “A sneak visit was in the scenario,” Goblin whispered, squeaking. How can he squeak when he whispers? “Raker has to find out what he’s up against. He can’t do that from anywhere else.” The fat little man seemed proud.

  The Captain calls human nature our sharpest blade. Curiosity and a will to survive drew Raker into our cauldron. Maybe he would turn it on us. We have a lot of handles sticking out ourselves.

  Weeks passed. Raker came again and again, apparently content to observe. Soulcatcher told us to let him be, no matter how easy a target he made of himself.

  Our mentor might be considerate of us, but he has his cruel streak. It seemed he wanted to torment Raker with the uncertainty of his fate.

  This berg is going bounty-crazy,” Goblin squealed. He danced one of his jigs. “You ought to get out more, Croaker. They’re turning Raker into an industry.” He beckoned me into the corner farthest from Soulcatcher, opened a wallet. “Look here,” he whispered.

  He had a double fistful of coins. Some were gold. I observed, “You’re going to be walking tilted to one side.”

  He grinned. Goblin grinning is a sight to behold. “Made this selling tips on where to find Raker,” he whispered. With a glance toward Soulcatcher, “Bogus tips.” He put a hand on my shoulder. He had to stretch up to do it. “You can get rich out there.”

  “I didn’t know we were in this to get rich.”

  He scowled, his round, pale face becoming all wrinkles. “What are you? Some kind of …?”

  Soulcatcher turned. Goblin croak
ed, “Just an argument about a bet, sir. lust a bet.”

  I laughed aloud. “Really convincing, Chubbo. Why not just hang yourself?”

  He pouted, but not for long. Goblin is irrepressible. His humor breaks through in the most depressing situations. He whispered, “Shit, Croaker, you should see what One-Eye is doing. Selling amulets. Guaranteed to tell if there’s a Rebel close by.” A glance toward Soulcatcher. “They really work, too. Sort of.”

  I shook my head. “At least he’ll be able to pay his card debts.” That was One-Eye all over. He had had it rough at Meystrikt, where there was no room for his usual forays into the black market.

  “You guys are supposed to be planting rumors. Keeping the pot boiling, not.…”

  “Sshh!” He glanced at Soulcatcher again. “We are. Every dive in town. Hell, the rumor mill is berserk out there. Come on. I’ll show you.”

  “No.” Soulcatcher was talking more and more. I had hopes of inveigling a real conversation.

  “Your loss. I know a bookmaker taking bets on when Raker will lose his head. You got inside dope, you know.”

  “Scoot out of here before you lose yours.”

  I went to the window. A minute later Goblin scampered across the square below. He passed our trap without glancing its way.

  “Let them play their games,” Soulcatcher said.

  “Sir?” My new approach. Brown-nosing.

  “My ears are sharper than your friend realizes.”

  I searched the face of that black morion, trying to capture some hint of the thoughts behind the metal.

  “It’s of no consequence.” He shifted slightly, stared past me. “The underground is paralyzed by dismay.”

  “Sir?”

  “The mortar in that house is rotting. It’ll crumble soon. That would not have happened had we taken Raker immediately. They would have made a martyr of him. The loss would have saddened them, but they would have gone on. The Circle would have replaced Raker in time for the spring campaigns.”

  I stared into the plaza. Why was Soulcatcher telling me this? And all in one voice. Was it the voice of the real Soulcatcher?

  “Because you thought I was being cruel for cruelty’s sake.”

  I jumped. “How did you …?”

  Soulcatcher made a sound which passed as laughter. “No. I didn’t read your mind. I know how minds work. I am the Catcher of Souls, remember?”

  Do the Taken get lonely? Do they yearn for simple companionship? Friendship?

  “Sometimes.” This in one of the female voices. A seductive one.

  I half-turned, then faced the square quickly, frightened.

  Soulcatcher read that, too. He went back to Raker. “Simple elimination was never my plan. I want the hero of Forsberg to discredit himself.”

  Soulcatcher knew our enemy better than we suspected. Raker was playing his game. Already he had made two spectacular, vain attempts on our trap. Those failures had ruined his stock with fellow-travellers. To hear tell, Roses seethed with pro-Empire sentiment.

  “He’ll make a fool of himself, then we’ll squash him. Like a noxious beetle.”

  “Don’t underestimate him.” What audacity. Giving advice to one of the Taken. “The Limper.…”

  “That I won’t do. I’m not the Limper. He and Rakerare two of a kind. In the old times.… The Dominator would have made him one of us.”

  “What was he like?” Get him talking, Croaker. From the Dominator it is only one step to the Lady.

  Soulcatcher’s right hand rolled palm upward, opened, slowly müde a claw. The gesture rattled me. I imagined that claw ripping at my soul. End of conversation.

  Later on I told Elmo, “You know, that thing out there didn’t have to be real. Anything would have done the job if the mob couldn’t get to it.”

  Soulcatcher said, “Wrong. Raker had to know it was real.”

  Next morning we heard from the Captain. News, mostly. A few Rebel partisans were surrendering their weapons in response to an amnesty offer. Some mainforcers who had come south with Raker were pulling out. The confusion had reached the Circle. Raker’s failure in Roses worried them.

  “Why’s that?” I asked. “Nothing has really happened.”

  Soulcatcher replied, “It’s happening on the other side. In people’s minds.” Was there a hint of smugness there? “Raker, and by extension the Circle, looks impotent. He should have yielded the Salient to another commander.”

  “If I was a bigtime general, I probably wouldn’t admit to a screwup either,” I said.

  “Croaker,” Elmo gasped, amazed. I do not speak my mind, usually.

  “It’s true, Elmo. Can you picture any general—ours or theirs—asking somebody to take over for him?”

  That black morion faced me. “Their faith is dying. An army without faith in itself is beaten more surely than an army defeated in battle.” When Soulcatcher gets on a subject nothing deflects him.

  I had a funny feeling he might be the type to yield command to someone better able to exercise it.

  “We tighten the screws now. All of you. Tell it in the taverns. Whisper it in the streets. Burn him. Drive him. Push him so hard he doesn’t have time to think. I want him so desperate he tries something stupid.”

  I thought Soulcatcher had the right idea. This fragment of the Lady’s war would not be won on any battlefield. Spring was at hand, yet fighting had not yet begun. The eyes of the Salient were locked on the free city, awaiting the outcome of this duel between Raker and the Lady’s champion.

  Soulcatcher observed, “It’s no longer necessary to kill Raker. His credibility is dead. Now we’re destroying the confidence of his movement.” He resumed his vigil at the window.

  Elmo said, “Captain says the Circle ordered Raker out. He wouldn’t go.”

  “He revolted against his own revolution?”

  “He wants to beat this trap,”

  Another facet of human nature working for our side. Overweening pride.

  “Get some cards out. Goblin and One-Eye have been robbing widows and orphans again. Time to clean them out.”

  Raker was on his own, hunted, haunted, a whipped dog running the alleys of the night. He could trust no one, I felt sorry for him. Almost.

  He was a fool. Only a fool keeps betting against the odds. The odds against Raker were getting longer by the hour.

  I jerked a thumb at the darkness near the window. “Sounds like a convening of the Brotherhood of Whispers.”

  Raven glanced over my shoulder, said nothing. We were playing head to head Tonk, a dull time-killer of a game.

  A dozen voices murmured over there. “I smell it.” “You’re wrong.” “It’s in from the south.” “End it now,” “Not yet.” “It’s time.” “Needs a while longer.” “Pushing our luck. The game could turn.” “ ‘Ware pride.” “It’s here. The stench of it runs before it like the breath of a jackal.”

  “Wonder if he ever loses an argument with himself?”

  Still Raven said nothing. In my more daring moods I have been trying to draw him out. Without luck. I was doing better with Soulcatcher,

  Soulcatcher rose suddenly, an angry noise rising from deep inside him.

  “What is it?” I asked. I was tired of Roses. I was disgusted with Roses. Roses bored and frightened me. It was worth a man’s life to go into those streets alone.

  One of those spook voices was right. We were approaching a point of diminishing returns. I was developing a grudging admiration for Raker myself. The man refused to surrender or run.

  “What is it?” I asked again

  “The Limper. He’s in Roses.”

  “Here? Why?”

  “He smells a big kill. He wants to steal the credit.”

  “You mean muscle in on our action?”

  “That’s his style.”

  “Wouldn’t the Lady …?”

  “This is Roses. She’s a long way off. And she doesn’t care who gets him.”

  Politics among the Lady’s viceroys. It is a stran
ge world. I do not understand people outside the Company.

  We lead a simple life. No thinking required. The Captain takes care of that. We just follow orders. For most of us the Black Company is a hiding place, a refuge from yesterday, a place to become a new man.

  “What do we do?” I asked.

  “I’ll handle the Limper.” He began seeing to his apparel.

  Goblin and One-Eye staggered in. They were so drunk they had to prop each other up. “Shit,” Goblin squeaked. “Snowing again. Goddamned snow. I thought winter was over.”

  One-Eye burst into song. Something about the beauties of winter. I could not follow him. His speech was slurred and he had forgotten half the words.

  Goblin fell into a chair, forgetting One-Eye. One-Eye collapsed at his feet. He vomited on Goblin’s boots, tried to continue his song. Goblin muttered, “Where the hell is everybody?”

  “Out carousing around.” I exchanged looks with Raven. “Do you believe this? Those two getting drunk together?”

  “Where you going, old spook?” Goblin squeaked at Soulcatcher. Soulcatcher went out without answering. “Bastard. Hey. One-Eye, old buddy. That right? Old spook a bastard?”

  One-Eye levered himself off the floor, looked around. I don’t think he was seeing with the eye he had. “S’right.” He scowled at me. “Bassard. All bassard.” Something struck him funny. He giggled.

  Goblin joined him. When Raven and I did not get the joke, he put on a very dignified face and said, “Not our kind in here, old buddy. Warmer out in the snow.” He helped One-Eye stand. They staggered out the door.

  “Hope they don’t do anything stupid. More stupid. Like show off. They’ll kill themselves.”

  “Tonk,” Raven said. He spread his cards. Those two might not have come in for all the response he showed.

  Ten or fifty hands later one of the soldiers we had brought burst in. “You seen Elmo?” he demanded.

  I glanced at him. Snow was melting in his hair. He was pale, scared. “No. What happened, Hagop?”

  “Somebody stabbed Otto. I think it was Raker, I run him off.”