But the Lady obtained new slaves. Feather. Whisper. Journey. Feather and the last of the old ones, the Limper, went down at Juniper, when we overcame the Dominator’s bid for his own resurrection. Two are left. Whisper. Journey.
The flying carpet wobbled because it had reached the boundary where Darling’s null was enough to overpower its buoyancy. The Taken turned away, falling outward, got far enough to recover complete control. “Pity it didn’t come straight in,” I said, “And come down like a rock.”
“They’re not stupid,” Goblin said. “They’re just scouting us now.” He shook his head, shuddered. He knew something I did not. Probably something learned during his venture outside the Plain.
“Campaign heating up?” I asked.
“Yep. What’re you doing, bat-breath?” he snapped at One-Eye. “Pay attention.”
The little black man was ignoring the Taken. He stared at the wild wind-carved bluffs south of us.
“Our job is to stay alive,” One-Eye said, so smug you knew he had something to get Goblin’s goat. “That means don’t get distracted by the first flashy show you see.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Means while the rest of you are eyeballing that clown up there another one sneaked up behind the bluffs and put somebody down.”
Goblin and I glared at the red cliffs. We saw nothing.
“Too late,” One-Eye said. “It’s gone. But I reckon somebody should go collect the spy.”
I believed One-Eye. “Elmo! Get over here.” I explained.
“Beginning to move,” he murmured. “Just when I was hoping they’d forgotten us.”
“Oh, they haven’t,” Goblin said. “They most certainly haven’t.” Again I felt he had something on his mind.
Elmo scanned the ground between us and the bluffs. He knew it well. We all do. One day our lives may depend on our knowing it better than someone hunting us. “Okay,” he told himself. “I see it. I’ll take four men. After I see the Lieutenant.”
The Lieutenant does not come up for alerts. He and two other men camp in the doorway to Darling’s quarters. If ever the enemy reaches Darling, it will be over their bodies.
The flying carpet went away westward. I wondered why it had gone unchallenged by the creatures of the Plain. I went to the menhir that had spoken to me earlier. I asked. Instead of answering, it said, “It begins, Croaker. Mark this day.”
“Yeah. Right.” And I do call that day the beginning, though parts of it started years before. That was the day of the first letter, the day of the Taken, and the day of Tracker and Toadkiller Dog.
The menhir had a final remark. “There are strangers on the Plain.” It would not defend the various flyers for not resisting the Taken.
Elmo returned. I said, “The menhir says we might have more visitors.”
Elmo raised an eyebrow. “You and Silent have the next two watches?”
“Yep.”
“Be careful. Goblin. One-Eye. Come here.” They put their heads together. Then Elmo picked four youngsters and went hunting.
The Plain of Fear
I went up top for my watch. There was no sign of Elmo and his men. The sun was low. The menhir was gone. There was no sound but the voice of the wind.
Silent sat in shadow inside a reef of thousand-coral, dappled by sunlight come through twisted branches. Coral makes good cover. Few of the Plain’s denizens dare its poisons. The watch is always in more danger from native exotica than from our enemies.
I twisted and ducked between deadly spines, joined Silent. He is a long, lean, aging man. His dark eyes seemed focused on dreams that had died. I deposited my weapons. “Anything?”
He shook his head, a single minuscule negative. I arranged the pads I had brought. The coral twisted around us, branches and fans climbing twenty feet high. We could see little but the creek crossing and a few dead menhirs, and the walking trees on the far slope. One tree stood beside the brook, taproot in the water. As though sensing my attention, it began a slow retreat.
The visible Plain is barren. The usual desert life—lichens and scrub brush, snakes and lizards, scorpions and spiders, wild dogs and ground squirrels—is present but scarce. You encounter it mainly when that is inconvenient. Which sums up Plain life generally. You encounter the real strangeness only when that is most inopportune. The Lieutenant claims a man trying to commit suicide here could spend years without becoming uncomfortable.
The predominant colors are reds and browns, rust, ochre, blood- and wine-shaded sandstones like the bluffs, with here and there the random stratum of orange. The corals lay down scattered white and pink reefs. True verdance is absent. Both walking trees and scrub plants have leaves a dusty grey-green, in which green exists mainly by acclamation. The menhirs, living and dead, are a stark grey-brown unlike any stone native to the Plain.
A bloated shadow drifted across the wild scree skirting the cliffs. It covered many acres, was too dark to be the shadow of a cloud. “Windwhale?”
Silent nodded.
It cruised the upper air between us and the sun, but I could not spot it. I had not seen one in years. Last time Elmo and I were crossing the Plain with Whisper, on the Lady’s behalf. … That long ago? Time does flee, and with little fun in it. “Strange waters under the bridge, my friend. Strange waters under.”
He nodded, but he did not speak. He is Silent.
He has not spoken in all the years I have known him. Nor in the years he has been with the Company. Yet both One-Eye and my predecessor as Annalist say he is quite capable of speech. From hints accumulated over the years, it has become my firm conviction that in his youth, before he signed on, he swore a great oath never to speak. It being the iron law of the Company not to pry into a man’s life before he enlisted, I have been unable to learn anything about the circumstances.
I have seen him come close to speaking, when he was angry enough, or amused enough, but always he caught himself at the last instant. For a long time men made a game of baiting him, trying to get him to break his vow, but most abandoned the effort quickly. Silent had a hundred little ways of discouraging a man, like filling his bedroll with ticks.
Shadows lengthened. Stains of darkness spread. At last Silent rose, stepped over me, returned to the Hole, a darkly clad shadow moving through darkness. A strange man, Silent. Not only does he not talk; he does not gossip. How can you get a handle on a guy like that?
Yet he is one of my oldest and closest friends. Go explain that.
“Well, Croaker.” The voice was as hollow as a ghost’s. I started. Malicious laughter rattled through the coral reef. A menhir had slipped up on me. I turned slightly. It stood square on the path Silent had taken, twelve feet tall and ugly. A runt of its kind.
“Hello, rock.”
Having amused itself at my expense, it now ignored me. Stayed as silent as a stone. Ha-ha.
The menhirs are our principal allies upon the Plain. They interlocute for the other sentient species. They let us know what is happening only when it suits them, however.
“What’s happening with Elmo?” I asked.
Nothing.
Are they magic? I guess not. Otherwise they would not survive inside the nullity Darling radiates. But what are they? Mysteries. Like most of the bizarre creatures out here.
“There are strangers on the Plain.”
“I know. I know,”
Night creatures came out. Dots of luminescence fluttered and swooped above. The windwhale whose shadow I saw came far enough eastward to show me its glimmering underbelly. It would descend soon, trailing tendrils to trap whatever came its way. A breeze rose.
Sagey scents trickled across my nostrils. Air chuckled and whispered and murmured and whistled in the coral. From farther away came the wind-chimes tinkle of Old Father Tree.
He is unique. First or last of his kind, I do not know. There he stands, twenty feet tall and ten thick, brooding beside the creek, radiating something akin to dread, his roots planted on the geographical
center of the Plain. Silent, Goblin, and One-Eye have all tried to unravel his significance. They have gotten nowhere. The scarce wild human tribesmen of the Plain worship him. They say he has been here since the dawn. He does have that timeless feel.
The moon rose. While it lay torpid and pregnant on the horizon I thought I saw something cross it. Taken? Or one of the Plain creatures?
A racket rose around the mouth of the Hole. I groaned. I did not need this. Goblin and One-Eye. For half a minute, uncharitably, I wished they had not come back. “Knock it off. I don’t want to hear that crap.”
Goblin scooted up outside the coral, grinned, dared me to do something. He looked rested, recuperated. One-Eye asked, “Feeling cranky, Croaker?”
“Damned straight. What’re you doing out here?”
“Needed some fresh air.” He cocked his head, stared at the line of cliffs. So. Worried about Elmo.
“He’ll be all right,” I said.
“I know.” One-Eye added, “I lied. Darling sent us. She felt something stir at the west edge of the null.”
“Ah?”
“I don’t know what it was, Croaker.” Suddenly he was defensive. Pained. He would have known but for Darling. He stands where I would were I stripped of my medical gear. Helpless to do what he has trained at all his life.
“What’re you going to do?”
“Build a fire.”
“What?”
That fire roared. One-Eye got so ambitious he dragged in enough dead-wood to serve half a legion. The flames beat back the darkness till I could see fifty yards beyond the creek. The last walking trees had departed. Probably smelled One-Eye coming.
He and Goblin dragged in a fallen tree of the ordinary sort. We leave the walkers alone, except to right clumsies that trip on their own roots. Not that that happens often. They do not travel much.
They were bickering about who was dogging his share of work. They dropped the tree. “Fade,” Goblin said, and in a moment there was no sign of them. Baffled, I surveyed the darkness. I saw nothing, heard nothing.
I found myself having trouble remaining awake. I broke up the dead tree for something to do. Then I felt the oddness.
I stopped in midbreak. How long had the menhirs been gathering? I counted fourteen on the verges of the light. They cast long, deep shadows. “What’s up?” I asked, my nerves a bit frayed.
“There are strangers on the Plain.”
Hell of a tune they played. I settled near the fire, back to it, tossed wood over my shoulder, building the flames. The light spread. I counted another ten menhirs. After a time I said, “That’s not exactly news.”
“One comes.”
That was new. And spoken with passion, something I had not witnessed before. Once, twice, I thought I caught a flicker of motion, but I could not be sure. Firelight Is tricky. I piled on more wood.
Movement for sure. Beyond the creek. Manshape coming toward me, slowly. Wearily, I settled in pretended boredom. He came nearer. Across his right shoulder he carried a saddle and blanket held with his left hand. In his right he carried a long wooden case, its polish gleaming in the firelight. It was seven feet long and four inches by eight. Curious.
I noticed the dog as they crossed the creek. A mongrel, ragged, mangy, mostly a dirty white but with a black circle around one eye and a few daubs of black on its flanks. It limped, carrying one forepaw off the ground. The fire caught its eyes. They burned bright red.
The man was over six feet, maybe thirty. He moved lithely even in his weariness. He had muscles on muscles. His tattered shirt revealed arms and chest crisscrossed with scars. His face was empty of emotion. He met my gaze as he approached the fire, neither smiling nor betraying unfriendly intent.
Chill touched me, lightly. He looked tough, but not tough enough to negotiate the Plain of Fear alone.
First order of business would be to stall. Otto was due out to relieve me soon. The fire would alert him. He would see the stranger, then duck down and rouse the Hole.
“Hello,” I said.
He halted, exchanged glances with his mongrel. The dog came forward slowly, sniffing the air, searching the surrounding night. It stopped a few feet away, shook as though wet, settled on its belly.
The stranger came forward just that far. “Take a load off,” I invited.
He swung his saddle down, lowered his case, sat. He was stiff. He had trouble crossing his legs.
“Lose your horse?”
He nodded. “Broke a leg. West of here, five, six miles. I lost the trail.”
There are trails through the Plain. Some of them the Plain honors as safe. Sometimes. According to a formula known only to its denizens. Only someone desperate or stupid hazards them alone, though. This fellow did not look like an idiot.
The dog made a whuffling sound. The man scratched its ears.
“Where you headed?”
“Place called the Fastness.”
That is the legend-name, the propaganda name, for the Hole. A calculated bit of glamor for the troops in faraway places.
“Name?”
“Tracker. This is Toadkiller Dog.”
“Pleased to meet you, Tracker. Toadkiller.”
The dog grumbled. Tracker said, “You have to use his whole name. Toadkiller Dog.”
I kept a straight face only because he was such a big, grim, tough-looking man. “What’s this Fastness?” I asked. “I never heard of it.”
He lifted hard, dark eyes from the mutt, smiled. “I’ve heard it lies near Tokens.”
Twice in one day? Was it the day of twos? No. Not bloody likely. I did not like the look of the man, either. Reminded me too much of our one-time brother Raven, Ice and iron. I donned my baffled face. It is a good one. “Tokens? That’s a new one on me. Must be somewhere way the hell out east. What are you headed there for, anyway?”
He smiled again. His dog opened one eye, gave me a baleful look. They did not believe me.
“Carrying messages.”
“I see.”
“Mainly a packet. Addressed to somebody named Croaker.”
I sucked spittle between teeth, slowly scanned the surrounding darkness. The circle of light had shrunk, but the number of menhirs remained undiminished. I wondered about One-Eye and Goblin. “Now there’s a name I’ve heard,” I said. “Some kind of sawbones.” Again the dog gave me that look. This time, I decided, it was sarcastic.
One-Eye stepped out of the darkness behind Tracker, sword ready to do the dirty deed. Damn, but he came quiet. Witchery or no.
I gave him away with a flicker of surprise. Tracker and his dog looked back. Both were startled to see someone there. The dog rose. Its hackles lifted. Then it sank to the ground again, having twisted till it could keep us both in sight.
But then Goblin appeared, just as quietly. I smiled. Tracker glanced over. His eyes narrowed. He looked thoughtful, like a man discovering he was in a card game with rogues sharper than he had expected. Goblin chuckled. “He wants in, Croaker. I say we take him down.”
Tracker’s hand twitched toward the case he had carried. His animal growled. Tracker closed his eyes. When they opened, he was in control. His smile returned. “Croaker, eh? Then I’ve found the Fastness.”
“You’ve found it, friend.”
Slowly, so as not to alarm anyone, Tracker took an oilskin packet from his saddlebag. It was the twin of that I had received only half a day before. He offered it to me. I tucked it inside my shirt. “Where’d you get it?”
“Oar.” He told the same story as the other messenger.
I nodded. “You’ve come that far, then?”
“Yes.”
“We should take him in, then,” I told One-Eye. He caught my meaning. We would let this messenger come face to face with the other. See if sparks flew. One-Eye grinned.
I glanced at Goblin. He approved.
None of us felt quite right about Tracker, I am not sure why.
“Let’s go,” I said. I hoisted myself off the ground with my bow.
/>
Tracker eyed the stave. He started to say something, shut up. As though he recognized it. I smiled as I turned away. Maybe he thought he had fallen foul of the Lady. “Follow me.”
He did. And Goblin and One-Eye followed him, neither helping with his gear. His dog limped beside him, nose to the ground. Before we went inside, I glanced southward, concerned. When would Elmo come home?
We put Tracker and mutt into a guarded cell. They did not protest. I went to my quarters after wakening Otto, who was overdue. I tried to sleep, but that damned packet lay on the table screaming.
I was not sure I wanted to read its contents.
It won the battle.
The Second Letter
Croaker: Bomanz peered through his transit, sighting on the prow of the Great Barrow. He stepped back, noted the angle, opened one of his crude field maps. This was where he had unearthed the TelleKurre axe. “Wish Occules’ descriptions weren’t so vague. This must have been the flank of their formation. The axis of their line should have paralleled the others, so. Shifter and the knights would have bunched up over there. I’ll be damned.”
The ground there humped slightly. Good. Less ground water to damage buried artifacts. But the overgrowth was dense. Scrub oak. Wild roses. Poison ivy. Especially poison ivy. Bomanz hated that pestilential weed. He started scratching just thinking about it.
“Bomanz.”
“What?” He whirled, raising his rake.
“Whoa! Take it easy, Bo.”
“What’s the matter with you? Sneaking up like that. Ain’t funny, Besand. Want me to rake that idiot grin off your face?”
“Ooh! Nasty today, aren’t we?” Besand was a lean old man approximately Bomanz’s age. His shoulders slumped, following his head, which thrust forward as though he was sniffing a trail. Great blue veins humped the backs of his hands. Liver spots dotted his skin.
“What the hell do you expect? Come jumping out of the bushes at a man.”
“Bushes? What bushes? Your conscience bothering you, Bo?”