The Many Deaths of the Black Company

“Come here, Tobo.” He was carrying the Key. He was supposed to be up at the head of the column but had hung back so he could watch the fireworks. He was the only one of us who did not have the sense to be frightened. Because he was not up where he belonged, all progress had come to a halt above us. He wore a hangdog look as he approached. He expected to be chastised. And he would be, later. “Hold up the Key.”

  “But won’t that—”

  “The Company isn’t a debating club, Tobo. Show her the Key. Today.”

  He hoisted the Key overhead angrily. The morning sunlight blazed off the golden pick.

  Soulcatcher did not show much excitement. But I had not meant the demonstration for her benefit, really. I wanted Narayan Singh to know what he had let slip through his fingers.

  It was the Key, of course, but it was also some ancient and holy relic of Kina’s Strangler cult. In their glory days every Deceiver company priest had carried a replica. I muttered, “You win some, you lose some, Narayan. In the excitement you got the girl back. But I’ve got this. And I can carry it. You’ve got the Daughter of Night and you can take her anywhere you want to. If you can carry her and her cage.” Goblin and One-Eye had crafted a masterpiece of wicked sorcery. She could not even escape by destroying the cage. Whatever happened to it would happen to her.

  I was not pleased about having to leave the cage behind but the Shadowgate had been decidedly stubborn in resisting its passage. That could have been overcome by sheer muscle power but I had not been able to get enough men onto it fast enough to force it through before the fireballs started flying.

  Good luck, Baby Darkness, dragging all that iron around whilst you pursue your wickedness.

  I hoped Singh had left the Book of the Dead hidden on the other side of the Dandha Presh so it would be a long time before the girl and it embraced one another. Long enough for me to get where I wanted to go and accomplish what I wanted to accomplish.

  “That’s good, Tobo. Now get back up front and get this mob moving. Swan. Tell me about the camping circles. And give me your best guess about how soon we’re likely to run into trouble because of breaks in the protection of the road.”

  “I don’t remember them ever being more than a few hours apart. And although we used them as camping places, I think that they were actually crossroads. That’s easier to tell at night.” Ominously, he added, “You’ll see. Everything is different at night.”

  I did not like the sound of that.

  I was still in the rear guard and only halfway to the crest when Soulcatcher found out what had happened to her flying carpet. The sound of her anger reached us despite the dampening effect of whatever barrier stood between us and the rest of the world. The earth shivered at the same time.

  Uncle Doj was not far away, standing at the edge of the road, watching for evidence of his success. I said, “She seems displeased with the prospect of having to walk home.” My friend the horse stood behind me, looking over my shoulder. It made a sound that could have passed for a snicker if it had not been a horse making it.

  Doj indulged in a rare smile. He was thoroughly pleased with himself.

  Willow Swan asked me, “What did you do now?”

  “Not me. Doj. He totally obliterated her means of transport. She’s on her own two hooves, now. She’s a hundred miles from her only friend. And Goblin’s already fixed up one of her feet so she can’t run or dance.”

  “What you’re telling me, then, is that you’ve created another Limper.”

  He was old enough to remember that nemesis of the Company. I could not contradict him. I did lose my smile. I had read those Annals often because they had been recorded by the Captain himself when he was young. “Nah, I don’t think so. Soulcatcher doesn’t have the concentrated venom and nearly divine malice that possessed the Limper. She doesn’t get obsessed the way he did. She’s more chaos walking while he was malevolence incarnate.”

  I showed Swan my crossed fingers. “I’d better dash up front and pretend that I know what I’m doing. Tobo?”

  “He went ahead without you,” Doj said. “You upset him.”

  I noted that the column had resumed moving, which meant that Tobo was on the plain already, carrying the Key like a protective talisman.

  I needed to give a lot of thought to the fact that that artifact, evidently considered a holy of holies by the Stranglers, may actually have been brought off the plain into my world by the ancestors of the Nyueng Bao. I had to spend some thought on what the Key might mean to the last informed priest of the Nyueng Bao.

  71

  Something beside the road caught my attention just before I reached the crest and got my first close look at the glittering plain. It was a small frog, mostly black but with stripes and whorls of dark green upon its back. It had eyes the color of fresh blood. It clung to a slightly tilted slab of grey-black rock. It wanted to go somewhere, anywhere, but its right hind leg was injured and when it tried to jump, it just sort of spun around in place. “Where the heck did that come from? There isn’t supposed to be anything alive up here.” I had been looking forward to having the clouds of flies that followed the animals get thinned out when they buzzed out beyond the safe zones and encountered killer shadows.

  Swan said, “It won’t be alive for long. The white crow dropped it. I think it was bringing it along for a snack.” He pointed.

  At the white crow. Bolder than ever, the bird had made itself at home on the back of my friend the mystic stallion. The horse seemed content with the situation. Perhaps even a little smug when it looked at me.

  “I just remembered,” Swan said. “For what it’s worth. Last time we came up here Croaker made everybody who belonged to the Company touch their badges and amulets to the black stripe that runs down the middle of the road. Right after he touched the stripe with the lancehead on the standard. Maybe none of that amounts to anything. But I’m a superstitious kind of guy and I’d be more comfortable—”

  “You’re right. So be quiet. I recently reread everything Murgen had to say about his trip and he thought it might be a good idea, too. Tobo! Hold up!” I did not believe the boy would actually hear me over the clatter generated by the column but did expect that people would pass the word. I looked at the hapless frog once more and marveled that the crow was smart enough to let it go. Then I hastened to overtake our fledgling wizard.

  The column stopped. Tobo had gotten my message. He had chosen not to ignore it. Maybe he had caught something from the white crow.

  His mother and grandmother both were right there with him where he waited, making sure he did sensible things. He was exasperated by the delay. He was already far ahead of everyone but Sahra and Gota.…

  Ah! As I recalled, Murgen had had the same trouble with the Lance of Passion.

  My first glimpse of the plain awed me. Its immensity was indescribable. It was as flat as a table forever. It was grey on grey on grey, with the road just barely darker. There was no doubt whatsoever that this was all one vast artifact.

  “Hang on, Tobo. Don’t go any farther,” I called. “We almost forgot something. You need to take the Key and touch it to the black stripe that runs down the middle of the road.”

  “What black stripe?”

  Swan said, “It doesn’t show up nearly as well this time. But it’s there if you look.”

  It was. I found it. “Come back this way. You can see it back here.”

  Tobo backtracked reluctantly. Maybe I should have Gota carry the Key. She could not move fast enough to outrun the rest of us.

  I stared on, beyond Tobo, feeling a faint touch of that passion to hurry myself. I was getting close to my brothers now.… Dark-grey clouds were beginning to gather down there. Murgen had mentioned a nearly permanent overcast that, nevertheless, did not always seem to have been around during his nights. I could make out no hint of the ruined fortress that was supposed to be a few days ahead of us. I did see plenty of the standing stones that were one of the outstanding features of the plain.

  ??
?I see it!” Tobo shouted, pointing downward. The little idiot swung the pickax, burying the point in the road surface.

  The earth shuddered.

  This was no devastating quake like those some of us recalled from years ago, when half the Shadowlands had been laid waste. It was just strong enough to be sensed and set tongues wagging and animals protesting.

  The morning sun must have touched the plain oddly, somehow, because all the standing stones began to sparkle. People oohed and aahed. I said, “I guess this is why they call it glittering stone.”

  Swan demurred. “I don’t think so. But I could be wrong. Don’t forget what I said about the Company badges.”

  “I haven’t forgotten.”

  Tobo pried the pick out of the road’s surface. The earth shifted again, as gently as before. When I joined him he was staring downward, baffled. “It healed itself, Sleepy.”

  “What?”

  “When I hit it the pick went in sort of like the road was soft. And when I yanked it back out, the hole healed itself.”

  Swan remarked, “The center stripe is getting easier to see.”

  He was right. Maybe that was because of the brightening sunlight.

  The ground trembled again. Behind me, voices changed tone, becoming frightened as well as awed. I glanced back.

  A huge mushroom of dark rouge dust with black filigree highlights running through it boiled up from whence we had come. Its topmost surface seemed almost solid but as it rose and moved, the pieces of junk riding on it fell off.

  Goblin burst into laughter so wicked it must have carried for miles. “Somebody got into my treasure trove. I hope she learned a really painful lesson.” I was close enough for him to add a whispered, “I wish it could be fatal but there’s not much chance of that.”

  “Probably not.”

  “I’ll settle for crippling her other leg.”

  I said, “Sahra, there’s something I need you to do. You remember Murgen telling us how he kept getting ahead of everyone when he came up here? Tobo has been doing the same thing. Try to slow him down.”

  Sahra sighed wearily. She nodded. “I’ll stop him.” She seemed apathetic, though.

  “I don’t want him stopped, I just want him slowed down enough so everyone else can keep up. This could be important later.” I decided the two of us needed to have a long talk in private, the way we used to do before everything got so busy. It was obvious that she needed to get some things out where they could be lined up and swatted down and pushed away from her long enough for her heart to heal.

  She did need healing. And for that she had no one to blame but herself. She did not want to accept the world as it was. She seemed worn out from fighting it. And in those ways she had begun to look very much like her mother.

  I told her, “Put a leash on him if that’s what it takes.”

  Tobo glowered at me. I ignored him. I made a brief speech suggesting anyone who carried a Black Company badge should press it to the road’s surface right where Tobo had wounded it. The public readings aloud I had been doing had included Murgen’s adventures on the plain. Nobody questioned my suggestion or refused to accept it. The column began moving again, slowly, as we found ways to bless, if only secondarily, the animals and those who did not have Company badges. I stayed in place and said something positive to everyone who passed by. I was amazed at the number of women and children and noncombatants in general who had managed to attach themselves to the band without me really noticing. The Captain would be appalled.

  Uncle Doj was last to go by. That troubled me vaguely. A Nyueng Bao to the rear, more Nyueng Bao to the front, with the foremost a half-breed … But the whole Company was a miscegenation. There were only two men in this whole crowd who had belonged to the Company when it had arrived from the north. Goblin and One-Eye. One-Eye was almost spent and Goblin was doing his determined best, quietly, to pass on as many skills as he could to Tobo before the inevitable began to overhaul him as well.

  I walked past the slow-moving file, intent on getting back up near the point so I could be among the first to see anything new. I did not see or feel any particular mission in anyone I passed. It seemed that a quiet despair informed everyone. These were not good signs. This meant the euphoria of our minor successes had collapsed. Most of these people realized that they had become refugees.

  Swan told me, “We have an expression up north, ‘going from the frying pan into the fire.’ Seems like about what we’ve done here.”

  “Really?”

  “We got away from Soulcatcher. But now what?”

  “Now we march on until we find our buried brothers. Then we break them out.”

  “You’re not really as simple as you pretend, are you?”

  “No, I’m not. But I do like to let people know that things aren’t always as difficult as they want to make them.” I glanced around to see who might overhear. “I have the same doubts everyone else has, Swan. My feet are on this path as much because I don’t know what else to do as they are out of high ideals. Sometimes I look at my life and it seems pretty pathetic. I’ve spent more than a decade conspiring and committing crimes so I can go dig up some old bones in order to find somebody who can tell me what to do.”

  “Surrender to the Will of the Night.”

  “What?”

  “Sounds like something Narayan Singh would say, doesn’t it? In my great-grandfather’s time it was the slogan of the Lady’s supporters. They believed that peace, prosperity and security would result inevitably if all power could be concentrated in the hands of the right strong-willed person. And it did turn out that way, more or less. In principalities that did ‘Surrender to the Will of the Night,’ particularly near the core of the empire, there were generations of peace and prosperity. Plague, pestilence and famine were uncommon. Warfare was a curiosity going on far, far away. Criminals were hunted down with a ferocity that overawed all but the completely crazy ones. But there was always bad trouble along the frontiers. The Lady’s minions, the Ten Who Were Taken, all wanted to build sub-empires of their own, which never lacked for external enemies. And they all had their own ancient feuds with one another. Hell, even peace and prosperity create enemies. If you’re doing all right, there’s always somebody who wants to take it away from you.”

  “I never pictured you as a philosopher, Swan.”

  “Oh, I’m a wonder after you get to know me.”

  “I’m sure you are. What are you trying to tell me?”

  “I don’t know. Killing time jacking my jaw. Making the trip go faster. Or maybe just reminding you that you shouldn’t get too distressed about the vagaries of human nature. I’ve been getting my roots ripped out and my life overturned and a boot in my butt propelling me into an unknown future, blindfolded, for so long now that I am getting philosophical about it. I enjoy the moment. In a different context I do Surrender to the Will of the Night.”

  Despite my religious upbringing, I have never cherished a fatalistic approach to life. Surrender to the Will of the Night? Put my life in the hands of God? God is Great, God is Good, God is Merciful, there is no God but God. This we are taught. But the Bhodi philosophers may be right when they tell us that homage to the gods is best served when seconded by human endeavor.

  “Going to get dark after a while,” Swan reminded me.

  “That’s one of those things I’ve been trying to avoid thinking about,” I confessed. “But Narayan Singh was right. Darkness always comes.”

  And when it did, we would find out just how wonderful a talisman our Key was.

  “Have you noticed how the pillars keep on glittering even though the sky has started to look like it’s going to rain?”

  “I have.” Murgen never mentioned this one phenomenon. I wondered if we had not done something never done before. “Did this happen last time you were up here?”

  “No. There was a lot of glitter when we had direct sunlight but none that seemed like it was self-generated.”

  “Uhm. And was it this cold??
?? It had been getting chillier all day.

  “I recall a sort of highland chill. Nothing intolerable. Whoa. Sounds like party time.”

  A whoop and holler had broken out at the head of the column. I could not determine a cause visually, being of the short persuasion. “What is it?”

  “The kid’s stopped. Looks like he’s found something.”

  72

  What Tobo had found were the remains of the Nar, Sindawe, who had been one of our best officers in the old days and, possibly, the villain Mogaba’s brother. Certainly those two had been as close as brothers until the siege of Jaicur, when Mogaba chose to usurp command of the Company. “Clear away from him, people,” I growled. “Give the experts room to take a look.” The experts being Goblin, who dropped to his knees and scooted around the corpse slowly, moving his head up and down, murmuring some sort of cantrips, touching absolutely nothing until he was certain there was no danger. I dropped to one knee myself.

  “He got a lot farther than I would’ve expected,” Goblin said.

  “He was tougher than rawhide. Was it shadows?” The body had that look.

  “Yes.” Goblin pushed gently. The corpse rolled slightly. “Nothing left here. He’s a dried-out mummy.”

  A voice from behind me said, “Search him, you retard. He might’ve been carrying a message.”

  I glanced back. One-Eye stood behind me, leaning on an ugly black cane. The effort had him shivering. Or maybe that was just the cold air. He had been riding one of the donkeys, tied into place so he would not fall if he dozed off, which he did a lot these days.

  I suggested, “Move him over to the side of the road. We need to keep this crowd moving. We have about eight more miles to go before we stop for the night.” I pulled that eight out of the air but it was a fact that we needed to keep moving. We were better prepared for this evolution than our predecessors had been but our resources remained limited. “Swan, when a mule with a tent comes along, cut it out of line.”

  “Uhm?”

  “We need to make a travois. To bring the body.”