by Glen Cook
There was little evidence of the great battle fought below. Where once trenches, palisades, earthworks, and siege engines had stood, and burned, and tens of thousands had died, there was parkland. A single black stone Stella marked the site, five hundred yards from the Tower.
The crash and roar returned. I remembered the Rebel horde, relentless, like the sea, wave after wave; smashing upon unyielding cliffs of defenders. I recalled the feuding Taken, their fey and fell deaths, the wild and terrible sorceries …
“It was a battle of battles, was it not?”
I did not turn as she joined me. “It was. I never did it justice.”
“They will sing of it.” She glanced up. Stars had begun to appear. In the twilight her face seemed pale and strained. Never before had I seen her in any but the most self-possessed mood.
“What is it?” Now I did turn, and saw a group of soldiers some distance away, watching, either awed or aghast.
“I have performed a divination. Several, in fact, for I did not get satisfactory results.”
“And?”
“Perhaps I got no results at all.”
I waited. You do not press the most powerful being in the world. That she was on the verge of confiding in a mortal was stunning enough.
“All is flux. I divined three possible futures. We are headed for a crisis, a history-shaping hour.”
I turned slightly toward her. Violet light shaded her face. Dark hair tumbled down over one cheek. It was not artifice, for once, and the impulse to touch, to hold, perhaps to comfort, was powerful. “Three futures?”
“Three. I could not find my place in any.”
What do you say at a moment like that? That maybe there was an error? You accuse the Lady of making a mistake.
“In one, your deaf child triumphs. But it is the least likely chance, and she and ail hers perish gaining the victory. In another, my husband breaks the grasp of the grave and reestablishes his Domination. That darkness lasts ten thousand years. In the third vision, he is destroyed forever and all. It is the strongest vision, the demanding vision. But the price is great.… Are there gods, Croaker? I never believed in gods.”
“I don’t know, Lady. No religion I ever encountered made any sense. None are consistent. Most gods are megalomaniacs and paranoid psychotics by their worshipers’ description. I don’t see how they could survive their own insanity. But it’s not impossible that human beings are incapable of interpreting a power so much greater than themselves. Maybe religions are twisted and perverted shadows of truth. Maybe there are forces which shape the world. I myself have never understood why, in a universe so vast, a god would care about something so trivial as worship or human destiny.”
“When I was a child … my sisters and I had a teacher.”
Did I pay attention? You bet your sweet ass I did. I was ears from my toenails to the top of my pointy head. “A teacher?”
“Yes. He argued that we are the gods, that we create our own destiny. That what we are determines what will become of us. In a peasantlike vernacular, we all paint ourselves into corners from which there is no escape simply by being ourselves and interacting with other selves.”
“Interesting.”
“Well. Yes. There is a god of sorts, Croaker. Do you know? Not a mover and shaker, though. Simply a negator. An ender of tales. He has a hunger that cannot be sated. The universe itself will slide down his maw.”
“Death?”
“I do not want to die, Croaker. All that I am shrieks against the unrighteousness of death. All that I am, was, and probably will be, is shaped by my passion to evade the end of me.” She laughed quietly, but there was a thread of hysteria there. She gestured, indicating the shadowed killing ground below, “I would have built a world in which I was safe. And the cornerstone of my citadel would have been death.”
The end of the dream was drawing close. I could not imagine a world without me in it, either. And the inner me was outraged. Is outraged. I have no trouble imagining someone becoming obsessed with escaping death. “I understand.”
“Maybe. We’re all equals at the dark gate, no? The sands run for us all. Life is but a flicker shouting into the jaws of eternity. But it seems so damned unfair!”
Old Father Tree entered my thoughts. He would perish in time. Yes. Death is insatiable and cruel.
“Have you reflected?” she asked.
“I think so. I’m no necromancer. But I’ve seen roads I don’t want to walk.”
“Yes. You’re free to go, Croaker.”
Shock. Even my heels tingled with disbelief. “Say what?”
“You’re free. The Tower gate is open. You need but walk out it. But you’re also free to remain, to reenter the lists in the struggle that envelops us all.”
There was almost no light left except for some sun hitting very high clouds. Against the deep indigo in the east a squadron of bright pinpricks moved westward. They seemed headed toward the Tower.
I gabbled something that made no sense.
“Will she, nill she, the Lady of Charm is at war with her husband once more,” she said. “And till that struggle is lost or won, there is no other. You see the Taken returning. The armies of the east are marching toward the Barrow-land. Those beyond the Plain have been ordered to withdraw to garrisons farther east. Your deaf child is in no danger unless she comes looking for it. There is an armistice. Perhaps eternally.” Weak smile. “If there is no Lady, there is no one for the White Rose to battle.”
She left me then, in total confusion, and went to greet her champions. The carpets came down out of the darkness, settling like autumn leaves. I moved a little nearer till my personal guardian indicated that my relationship with the Lady was insufficiently close to permit eavesdropping.
The wind grew more chill, blowing out of the north. And I wondered if it might not be autumn for us all.
Making Up My Mind
She never once demanded anything. Even her hints were so oblique they left everything to me to work out. Two days after our evening on the ramparts I asked the Colonel if I might see her. He said he would ask. I suspect he was under instructions. Otherwise there would have been arguments.
Another day passed before he came to say the Lady had time for me.
I closed my inkwell, cleaned my quill, and rose. “Thank you.” He looked at me oddly. “Is something wrong?”
“No. Just.…”
I understood. “I don’t know either. I’m sure she has some special use for me.”
That brightened the Colonel’s day. That he could comprehend.
The usual routine. This time I entered her demesne as she stood at a window opening on a world of wet gloom. Grey rain, choppy brown water, and hulking to the left, shapes barely discernible, trees clinging precariously to a high river bank. Cold and misery leaked out of that portraiture. It had a too familiar smell.
“The Great Tragic River,” she said. “In full flood. But it’s always in flood, isn’t it?” She beckoned. I followed. Since my last visit a large table had been added. Atop it was a miniature of the Barrowland, a representation so good it was spooky. You almost expected to see little Guards scurrying around the compound.
“You see?” she asked.
“No, Though I’ve been there twice, I’m not familiar with much but the town and the compound. What am I supposed to see?”
“The river. Your friend Raven evidently recognized its import.” With one delicate finger she sketched a loop well to the east of the river’s course, which curved into the ridge where we had camped.
“At the time of my triumph in Juniper the river’s bed lay here. A year later the weather turned. The river flooded continuously. And crept this way. Today it’s devouring this ridge. I examined it myself. The ridge is entirely earthen, without bones of stone. It won’t last. Once it goes, the river will cut into the Barrowland. All the spells of the White Rose won’t keep it from opening the Great Barrow. Each fetish swept away will make it that much easier for my husband to rise
.”
I grunted. “Against Nature there is no defense.”
“There is. If one foresees. The White Rose did not. I did not when I attempted to bind him more securely. Now it’s too late. So. You wanted to speak to me?”
“Yes. I have to leave the Tower.”
“So. You didn’t have to come to me about that. You’re free to stay or go.”
“I’m going because there’re things I have to do. As you well know. If I walk, I’ll probably get them done too late. It’s a long hike to the Plain. Not to mention risky. I want to beg transportation.”
She smiled, and this smile was genuine, radiant, subtly different from previous smiles. “Good. I thought you would see where the future lies. How soon can you be ready?”
“Five minutes. There is one question. Raven.”
“Raven has been hospitalized at the compound at the Barrowland. Nothing can be done for him right now. Every effort will be made when an opportunity arises. Sufficient?”
I could not argue, of course.
“Good, Transport will be available. You will have a unique chauffeur. The Lady herself.”
“I.…”
“I, too, have been thinking. My best next step is to meet your White Rose. I’m going with you.”
After gulping quarts of air, I managed, “They’d jump all over you.”
“Not if they don’t know me. They wouldn’t, unless they were told.”
Well, no one was likely to recognize her. I am unique in having met her and lived to brag on it. But … Gods, the heaps and bales of buts, “If you entered the null, all your spells would fall apart.”
“No. New spells wouldn’t work. Spells in place would be safe.”
I did not understand and said so.
“A simple glamor will fade on entering the null. It is being actively maintained. A spell which changes and leaves changed, but which isn’t active on entering the null, won’t be affected.”
Something off in the badlands of my mind tickled me. I could not run it down. “If you turned into a frog and hopped in there, you’d stay a frog?”
“If the transformation was actual and not just an illusion.”
“I see.” I hung a red flag on that, told me to worry it later.
“I will become a companion acquired along the way. Say, someone who can help with your documents.”
There had to be levels of deceit. Or something. I could not imagine her putting her life into my hands. I do believe I gawked.
She nodded. “You begin to understand.”
“You trust me too much.”
“I know you better than you know yourself. You’re an honorable man, by your own lights, with enough cynicism to believe there can be a lesser of two evils. You have been under the Eye.”
I shuddered.
She did not apologize. We both knew an apology would be false.
“Well?” she asked.
“I’m not sure why you want to do this. It makes no sense.”
“There is a new situation in the world. Once there were only two poles, your peasant girl and I, with a line of conflict drawn between. But that which stirs in the north adds another point. It can be seen as a lengthening of the line, with my point near the middle, or as a triangle. The point that is my husband intends destroying both your White Rose and myself. I submit that she and I ought to eliminate the greater danger before.…”
“Enough. I see. But I don’t see Darling being that pragmatic. There’s a lot of hatred in her.”
“Perhaps. But it’s worth a try. Will you help?”
Having been within a stone’s throw of the old darkness and seen the ghosts astalk on the Barrowland, yes, I would do most anything to keep that dread spook from shedding his grave. But how, how, how trust her?
She did that trick they all have, of seeming to read my mind. “You will have me within the null.”
“Right. I’ll need to think some more.”
“Take your time. I can’t leave for some time.” I suspect she wanted to establish safeguards against a palace revolution.
A Town Called Horse
Fourteen days passed before we took air for Horse, a modest town lying between the Windy Country and the Plain of Fear, about a hundred miles west of the latter. Horse is a caravan stage for those traders mad enough to traipse through those two wildernesses. Of late, the city has been the logistical headquarters for Whisper’s operations. What skeleton forces were not on the road to the Barrowland were in garrison there.
Damned northbound fools were going to get wet.
We drifted in after an eventless passage, me with eyes agog. Despite the removal of vast armies, Whisper’s base was an anthive swirling around newly created carpets.
They came in a dozen varieties. In one field I saw a W formation of five monsters, each a hundred yards long and forty wide. A wood and metal jungle topped each. Elsewhere, other carpets in unusual shapes sat upon ground that looked to have been graded. Most were far longer than they were wide and bigger than the traditional. All had a variety of appurtenances, and all were enveloped in a light copper cage.
“What is all that?” I asked.
“Adaptation to enemy tactics. Your peasant girl isn’t the only one who can change methods.” She stepped down, stretched. I did the same. Those hours in the air leave you stiff. “We may get the chance to test them, despite my having backed off the Plain.”
“What?”
“A large Rebel force is headed for Horse. Several thousand men and everything the desert has to offer.”
Several thousand men? Where did they come from? Had things changed that much?
“They have.” That damned mind-reading trick again. “The cities I abandoned poured men into her forces.”
“What did you mean, test?”
“I’m willing to stop fighting. But I won’t run away from a fight. If she persists in heading west, I’ll show her that, null or no null, she can be crushed.”
We were near one of the new carpets. I ambled over. In shape it was like a boat, about fifty feet long. It had real seats. Two faced forward, one aft. In front there was a small ballista. Aft there was a much heavier engine. Clamped to the carpet’s sides and underbelly were eight spears thirty feet long. Each had a bulge the size of a nail keg five feet behind its head. Everything was painted blacker than the Dominator’s heart. This boat-carpet had fins like a fish. Some humorist had painted eyes and teeth up front.
Others nearby followed similar designs, though different artisans had followed different muses in crafting the flying boats. One, instead offish fins, had what looked like round, translucent, whisper thin dried seed pods fifteen feet across.
The Lady had no time to let me inspect her equipment and no inclination to let me wander around unchaperoned. Not as a matter of trust, but of protection, I might suffer a fatal accident if I did not stay in her shadow.
All the Taken were in Horse. Even my oldest friends.
Bold, bold Darling. Audacity. Becoming her signature, that. She had the entire strength of the Plain just twenty miles from Horse, and she was closing in. Her advance was ponderous, though, limited to the speed of the walking trees.
We went out onto the field where the carpets waited, arranged in formal array around the monsters I had spotted first. The Lady said, “I planned a small demonstration raid on your headquarters. But this will be more convincing, I think.”
Men were busy around the carpets. The big ones they were loading with huge pieces of pottery which looked like those big urn-planters with the little cup-holes in the upper half for small plants. They were fifteen feet tall; the planter sites were sealed with paraffin, and the bottom boasted a twenty foot pole with a crossbar on its end. Scores were being mounted in racks.
I did a fast count. More carpets than Taken. “All these are going up? How?”
“Benefice will handle the big ones. Like the Howler before him, he has an outstanding capacity for managing a large carpet. The other four bigs will be slav
ed to his. Come. This one is ours.”
I said something intelligent like, “Urk?!”
“I want you to see it.”
“We might be recognized.”
Taken circled the long, skinny boat-carpets. Soldiers were aboard them, in the second and third seats. The men facing aft checked their ballistae, munitions, cranked a spring-powered device apparently meant to help restretch bowstrings after missiles were discharged. I could see no apparent task assigned the men in the middle seats. “What’s the cagework for?”
“You’ll learn soon enough.”
“But.…”
“Come to it fresh, Croaker. Without preconceptions.”
I followed her around our carpet. I do not know what she checked, but she seemed satisfied. The men who had prepared it were pleased by her nod.
“Up, Croaker, Into the second seat. Fasten yourself securely. It’ll get exciting before it’s over.”
Oh yeah.
“We’re the pathfinders,” she said as she buckled into the front seat. A grizzled old sergeant took the rear position. He looked at me doubtfully, but said nothing. The Taken assumed the front seat aboard every carpet. The bigs, as the Lady called them, had crews of four. Benefice rode the carpet at the center point of the W.
“Ready?” the Lady shouted.
“Right.”
“Aye,” the sergeant said.
Our carpet began to move.
Lumbering is the only word to describe the first few seconds. The carpet was heavy and, till it managed some forward motion, did not want to lift.
The Lady looked back and grinned as the earth dropped away. She was enjoying herself. She began shouting instructions which explained the bewildering bunch of pedals and levers surrounding me.
Push and pull on these two in combination and the carpet began to roll around its long axis. Twist those and it turned right or left. The idea was to use combinations somehow to guide the craft.
“What for?” I shouted into the wind. The words ripped away. We had donned goggles which protected our eyes but did nothing for the rest of our faces. I expected a case of windburn before the game was played out.