by Glen Cook
Time ambled. Slow and grey and limping, Corbie became a town fixture. He spoke seldom, but occasionally enlivened the lie sessions at Blue Willy with a wooly anecdote from the Forsberg campaigns. The fire blazed in his eyes then. No one doubted he had been there, even if he saw those days a little walleyed.
He made no true friends. Rumor said he did share the occasional private chess game with the Monitor, Colonel Sweet, for whom he had done some special small services. And of course, there was the recruit Case, who devoured his tales and accompanied him on his hobbling walks. Rumor said Corbie could read. Case hoped to learn.
No one ever visited the second floor of Corbie’s home. There, in the heart of the night, he slowly unravelled the treacherous mare’s nest of a tale that time and dishonesty had distorted out of any parallel with truth.
Only parts were encrypted. Most was hastily scribbled in TelleKurre, the principal language of the Domination era. But scattered passages were in UchiTelle, a TelleKurre regional vulgate. Times were, when battling those passages, Corbie smiled grimly. He might be the only man alive able to puzzle through those sometimes fragmentary sentences. “Benefit of a classical education,” he would murmur with a certain sarcasm. Then he would become reflective, introspective. He would take one of his late night walks to shake revenant memory. One’s own yesterday is a ghost that will not be laid. Death is the only exorcism.
He saw himself as a craftsman, did Corbie. A smith. An armorer cautiously forging a lethal sword. Like his predecessor in that house, he had dedicated his life to the search for a fragment of knowledge.
The winter was astonishing. The first snows came early, after an early and unusually damp autumn. It snowed often and heavily. Spring came late.
In the forests north of the Barrowland, where only scattered clans dwelt, life was harsh. Tribesmen appeared bearing furs to trade for food. Factors for the furriers of Oar were ecstatic.
Old folks called the winter a harbinger of worse to come. But old folks always see today’s weather as more harsh than that of yore. Or milder. Never, never the same.
Spring sprung. A swift thaw set the creeks and rivers raging. The Great Tragic, which looped within three miles of the Barrowland, spread miles beyond its banks. It abducted tens and hundreds of thousands of trees. The flood was so spectacular that scores from town wandered out to watch it from a hilltop.
For most, the novelty faded. But Corbie limped out any day Case could accompany him. Case was yet possessed of dreams. Corbie indulged him.
“Why so interested in the river, Corbie?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because of its grand statement.”
“What?”
Corbie swung an encompassing hand. “The vastness. The ongoing rage. See how significant we are?” Brown water gnawed at the hill, furious, fumbling forests of driftwood. Less turbulent arms hugged the hill, probed the woods behind.
Case nodded. “Like the feeling I get when I look at the stars.”
“Yes. Yes. But this is more personal. Closer to home. Not so?”
“I guess.” Case sounded baffled. Corbie smiled. Legacy of a farm youth.
“Let’s go back. It’s peaked. But I don’t trust it with those clouds rolling in.”
Rain did threaten. Were the river to rise much more, the hill would become an island.
Case helped Corbie cross the boggy parts and up to the crest of the low rise which kept the flood from reaching cleared land. Much of that was a lake now, shallow enough to be waded if some fool dared. Under grey skies the Great Barrow stood out poorly, reflecting off the water as a dark lump. Corbie shuddered. “Case. He’s still there.”
The youth leaned on his spear, interested only because Corbie was interested. He wanted to get out of the drizzle.
“The Dominator, lad. Whatever else did not escape. Waiting. Filling with ever more hatred for the living.”
Case looked at Corbie. The older man was taut with tension. He seemed frightened.
“If he gets loose, pity the world.”
“But didn’t the Lady finish him in Juniper?”
“She stopped him. She didn’t destroy him. That may not be possible. … Well, it must be. He has to be vulnerable somehow. But if the White Rose couldn’t harm him.…”
“The Rose wasn’t so strong, Corbie. She couldn’t even hurt the Taken. Or even their minions. All she could do was bind and bury them. It took the Lady and the Rebel …”
“The Rebel? I doubt that. She did it.” Corbie lunged forward, forcing his leg. He marched along the edge of the lake. His gaze remained fixed on the Great Barrow.
Case feared Corbie was obsessed with the Barrowland. As a Guard, he had to be concerned. Though the Lady had exterminated the Resurrectionists in his grandfather’s time, still that mound exerted its dark attraction. Monitor Sweet remained frightened someone would revive that idiocy. He wanted to caution Corbie, could think of no polite way to phrase himself.
Wind stirred the lake. Ripples ran from the Barrow toward them. Both shivered. “Wish this weather would break,” Corbie muttered. “Time for tea?”
“Yes.”
The weather continued chill and wet. Summer came late. Autumn arrived early. When the Great Tragic did at last recede, it left a mud plain strewn with the wrecks of grand trees. Its channel had shifted a half mile westward.
The woodland tribes continued selling furs.
Serendipity. Corbie was near done renovating. He was restoring a closet. In removing a wooden clothes rod he fumbled. The rod separated into parts when it hit the floor.
He knelt. He stared. His heart hammered. A slim spindle of white silk lay exposed. … Gently, gently, he put the rod back together, carried it upstairs.
Carefully, carefully, he removed the silk, unrolled it. His stomach knotted.
It was Bomanz’s chart of the Barrowland, complete with notes about which Taken lay where, where fetishes were located and why, the puissance of protective spells, and a scatter of known resting places of minions of the Taken who had gone into the ground with their captains. A cluttered chart indeed. Mostly annotated in TelleKurre.
Also noted were burial sites outside the Barrowland proper. Most of the ordinary fallen had gone into mass graves.
The battle fired Corbie’s imagination. For a moment he saw the Dominator’s forces standing firm, dying to the last man. He saw wave after wave of the White Rose horde give themselves up to contain the shadow within the trap. Overhead, the Great Comet seared the sky, a vast flaming scimitar.
He could only imagine, though. There were no reliable histories.
He commiserated with Bomanz. Poor foolish little man, dreaming, seeking the truth. He had not earned his dark legend.
Corbie remained fixed over the chart all night, letting it seep into bone and soul. It did little to help him translate, but it did illuminate the Barrowland some. And even more, it illuminated a wizard so dedicated he had spent his entire adult life studying the Barrowland.
Dawn’s light stirred Corbie. For a moment he doubted himself. Could he become prey to the same fatal passion?
The Plain of Fear
The Lieutenant himself stirred me out. “Elmo’s back, Croaker. Eat some breakfast, then report to the conference room.” He was a sour man getting sourer every day. Sometimes I regret having voted for him after the Captain died in Juniper. But the Captain wished it. It was his dying request.
“Be there soonest,” I said, piling out without my customary growl. I grabbed clothing, stirred papers, silently mocked myself. How often did I doubt voting for the Captain himself? Yet when he wanted to resign, we did not let him.
My quarters look nothing like a physician’s den. The walls are floor to ceiling with old books. I have read most, after having studied the languages in which they are written. Some are as old as the Company itself, recounting ancient histories. Some are noble genealogies, stolen from widely dispersed old temples and civil offices. The rarest, and most interesting, chronicle the rise and growth of t
he Domination.
The rarest of all are those in TelleKurre. The followers of the White Rose were not gentle victors. They burned books and cities, transported women and children, profaned ancient works of art and famous shrines. The customary afterglow of a great conflagration.
So there is little left to key one into the languages and thinking and history of the losers. Some of the most plainly written documents I possess remain totally inaccessible.
How I wish Raven were with us still, instead of dwelling among the dead men. He had a passing familiarity with written TelleKurre. Few outside the Lady’s intimate circle do.
Goblin stuck his head in. “You coming or not?”
I cried on his shoulder. It was the old lament. No progress. He laughed. “Go blow in your girlfriend’s ear. She might help.”
“When will you guys let up?” It had been fifteen years since I wrote my last simpleminded romance about the Lady. That was before the long retreat which led the Rebel to his doom before the Tower at Charm. They do not let you forget.
“Never, Croaker. Never. Who else has spent the night with her? Who else goes carpet-flying with her?”
I would rather forget. Those were times of terror, not romance.
She became aware of my annalistic endeavors and asked me to show her side. More or less. She did not censor or dictate, but did insist I remain factual and impartial. I recall thinking she expected defeat, wanted an unbiased history set down somewhere.
Goblin glanced at the mound of documents. “You can’t get any handle on it?”
“I don’t think there is a handle. Everything I do translate turns out a big nothing. Somebody’s expense record. An appointment calendar. A promotions list. A letter from some officer to a friend at court. Everything way older than what I’m looking for.”
Goblin raised an eyebrow.
“I’ll keep on trying.” There was something there. We took them from Whisper, when she was a Rebel. They meant a lot to her. And our mentor then, Soul-catcher, thought them of empire-toppling significance.
Thoughtfully, Goblin remarked, “Sometimes the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Maybe you should look for what ties it all together.”
The thought had occurred to me. A name here, there, elsewhere, revealing the wake of someone through his or her earlier days. Maybe I would find it. The comet would not return for a long time.
But I had my doubts.
Darling is a young thing yet, just into her middle twenties. But the bloom of youth has abandoned her. Hard years have piled on hard years. There is little feminine about her. She had no chance to develop in that direction. Even after two years on the Plain none of us think of her as Woman.
She is tall, maybe two inches under six feet. Her eyes are a washed-out blue that often seems vacant, but they become swords of ice when she is thwarted. Her hair is blond, as from much exposure to the sun. Without continuous attention it hangs in straggles and strings. Not vain, she keeps it shorter than is stylish. In dress, too, she leans toward the utilitarian. Some first-time visitors are offended because she dresses so masculine. But she leaves them with no doubts that she can handle business.
Her role came to her unwanted, but she has made peace with it, has assumed it with stubborn determination. She shows a wisdom remarkable for her age, and for one handicapped as she is. Raven taught her well during those few years he was her guardian.
She was pacing when I arrived. The conference room is earth-sided, smoky, crowded even when empty. It smells of long occupation by too many unclean men. The old messenger from Oar was there. So were Tracker and Corder and several other outsiders. Most of the Company were present. I finger-signed a greeting. Darling gave me a sisterly hug, asked if I had any progress to report.
I spoke for the group and signed for her. “I am sure we don’t have all the documents we found in the Forest of Cloud. Not just because I can’t identify what I’m looking for, either. Everything I do have is too old.”
Darling’s features are regular. Nothing stands out. Yet you sense character, will, that this woman cannot be broken. She has been to Hell already. It did not touch her as a child. She will not be touched now.
She was not pleased. She signed, “We will not have the time we thought.”
My attention was half elsewhere. I had hoped for sparks between Tracker and the other westerner. On a gut level I had responded negatively to Tracker, I found myself with an irrational hope for evidence to sustain that reaction.
Nothing.
Not surprising. The cell structure of the movement keeps our sympathizers insulated from one another.
Darling wanted to hear from Goblin and One-Eye next.
Goblin used his squeakiest voice. “Everything we heard is true. They are reinforcing their garrisons. But Corder can tell you better. For us, the mission was a bust. They were ready. They chased us all over the Plain. We were lucky to get away. We didn’t get no help, either.”
The menhirs and their weird pals are on our side, supposedly. Sometimes I wonder. They are unpredictable. They help or don’t according to a formula only they understand.
Darling was little interested in details of the failed raid. She moved on to Corder. He said, “Armies are gathering on both sides of the Plain. Under command of the Taken.”
“Taken?” I asked. I knew of only the two. He sounded like he meant many.
A chill then. There is a longtime rumor that the Lady has been quiet so long because she is raising a new crop of Taken. I had not believed it. The age is sorrowfully short of characters of the magnificently villainous vitality of those the Dominator took in olden times: Soulcatcher, the Hanged Man, Nightcrawler, Shapeshifter, the Limper, and such. Those were nastymen of the grand scope, nearly as wild and hairy in their wickedness as the Lady and Dominator themselves. This is the era of the weak sister, excepting only Darling and Whisper.
Corder responded shyly. “The rumors are true, Lord.”
Lord. Me. Because I stand near the heart of the dream. I hate it, yet eat it up. “Yes?”
“They may not be Stormbringers or Howlers, these new Taken.” He smiled feebly. “Sir Tucker observed that the old Taken were wild devils as unpredictable as the lightning, and the new ones are the predictable tame thunder of bureaucracy. If you follow my meaning.”
“I do. Goon.”
“It is believed that there are six new ones, Lord. Sir Tucker believes they are about to be unleashed. Thus the great buildup around the Plain. Sir Tucker believes the Lady has made a competition of our destruction.”
Tucker. Our most dedicated agent. One of the few survivors of the long siege of Rust. His hatred knows no bounds.
Corder had a strange look. A green-around-the-edges look. A look that said there was more, and all bad. “Well?” I said. “Spit it out.”
“The names of the Taken have been enscribed on stelae raised in their respective demesnes. At Rust the army commander is named Benefice. His stela appeared after a carpet arrived by night. He has not actually been seen.”
That bore investigation. Only the Taken can manage a carpet. But no carpet can reach Rust without crossing the Plain of Fear. The menhirs have reported no such passage. “Benefice? Interesting name. The others?”
“In Thud the stela bears the name Blister.”
Chuckles. I said, “I liked it better when the names were descriptive. Like the Limper, Moonbiter, the Faceless Man.”
“At Frost we have one called the Creeper.”
“That’s better.” Darling gave me a cautionary look.
“At Rue there is one called Learned. And at Hull, one called Scorn,”
“Scorn. I like that, too.”
“The western bounds of the Plain are held by Whisper and Journey, both operating from a village called Spit.”
Being a natural mathematical phenom, I summed and said, “That’s five new ones and two old. Where is the other new one?”
“I don’t know. The only other is the commander over all. His ste
la stands in the military compound outside Rust.”
The way he said that abraded my nerves. He was pale. He started shaking. A premonition gripped me. I knew I would not like what he said next. But, “Well?”
“That stela bears the sigil of the Limper.”
Right. So right. I did not like it at all.
The feeling was universal.
“Oh!” Goblin shrieked.
One-Eye said, “Holy shit,” in a soft awed tone that was all the more meaningful for its reserve.
I sat down. Right there. Right in the middle of the floor. I folded my head in my hands. I wanted to cry. “Impossible,” I said. “I killed him. With my own hands.” And saying it, I did not believe it anymore, though I had had faith in that fact for years. “But how?”
“Can’t keep a good man down,” Elmo chided. That he was shaken was evidenced by the smart remark. Elmo says nothing gratuitously.
The feud between the Limper and the Company dates to our arrival north of the Sea of Torments, for it was then that we enlisted Raven, a mysterious native of Opal, a man of former high estate who had been done out of his titles and livings by minions of the Limper. Raven was as tough as they come, and utterly fearless. The robbery sanctioned by Taken or not, he struck back. He slew the villains, among them the Limper’s most competent people. Then our path kept crossing the Limper’s. Each time something worsened the weather between us. …
In the confusion after Juniper, Limper thought to settle with us. I engineered an ambush. He charged in. “I would have bet anything I killed him.” I tell you, at that moment I was as rattled as ever I have been. I was on the precipice of panic.
One-Eye noticed. “Don’t get hysterical, Croaker. We survived him before.”
“He’s one of the old ones, idiot! One of the real Taken. From times when they had real wizards. And he’s never really been allowed to go full speed at us before. And with all that help” Eight Taken and five armies to assault the Plain of Fear. Seldom were there more than seventy of us here in the Hole.