Soldiers Live

  Shukrat nodded.

  While I waited to see if she got it I told Arkana, “I might turn out to be pretty good at this fatherly advice stuff.”

  “You’re definitely long-winded enough.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “For the record, I think you’re right. What you said to her.”

  “You know what she’s talking about?”

  “She warned me. In case I wanted to watch out for General Singh. Not long after you warned me about it. I had to go see what you were excited about, didn’t I?”

  The girl rose in my estimation every damned day.

  The force gathering at Mukhra was much more of a threat than that at Vehdna-Bota. It would mean major new trouble if Aridatha, as the new Great General, was unable to sell the concept of peace to Mogaba’s old allies.

  132

  Taglios:

  Wife and Child

  Lady was sitting beside Booboo again. Or still. I pulled up a stool opposite her. “Want me to take over for a while? Give you a chance to get out and about and stretch your legs? The Green Dragon Banner Company have a wicked lamb stew going. Don’t ask me where they found sheep in this madhouse.”

  She lifted her face. There were tear tracks on her cheeks. “Help me, Croaker. I can’t stop thinking about how much was taken away from me when Narayan Singh stole her. How much that one event changed my life.”

  It changed all our lives. It affected everyone in this end of this world and hundreds of thousands in at least two others. But she was completely self-involved right now.

  “Get up and get out of here,” I told her. “Go get something to eat. Go flying. It’s a beautiful, cool day. There’re signs that things are going to start greening up soon. Go take it in. I want you to get hold of yourself before I go. I don’t want to leave you here if you don’t think you’re all right.”

  “Go? Where are you going?”

  “It’s almost time to release the first contingent of the Children of the Dead. Some of us are going to scout the way south and across the plain. And get the guys at the shadowgate busy collecting supplies. Why don’t you come along? It’ll get your mind off things.”

  “No. I couldn’t. There isn’t anyone here who can take care of her.”

  Damn! Now I saw where she was vulnerable. I saw the door the darkness would use to get in. If it had not done so already.

  Clever me, though. I knew how to close that door. Forever. And I had just set myself up to take care of it without interference.

  “Go get some stew. Strut around. Make the soldiers hate me for being lucky enough to have you.” There was a time when every man did. When every man responded to Lady the way women did to Aridatha Singh. But those days were gone. And so were all those men but me.

  I glanced down at Booboo, then up at the silent white crow standing in the open window. It certainly seemed to run in the blood.

  The white crow was around a lot now, but was quiet about it. So far I had not forgotten to look around before I said anything I did not want overheard. I needed to keep my fingers crossed for the future, though.

  Lady dithered.

  I said, “If you don’t get going I’ll call some guys in here and have them hold you down while I paddle you.”

  For a moment the Lady I love peeked out of the dark place. She flashed a smile, said, “Promise? That might be fun.”

  Once she left I collected Booboo’s hand and indulged in a little of the same despair. The girl’s fingers were cold as death. But she was breathing.

  The white crow found it all amusing. “You’ve become sickeningly domestic, lover.”

  I growled something.

  “Ah, I know. You were so stubborn when I had you. But it might be fun to see what happened if somebody said you weren’t, after all these years.”

  I grumbled.

  “Well, maybe not fun for you.” And, after a moment, in a different, sorrowful, almost little girl voice, “It could have been something amazing.”

  No doubt. And fatal besides, probably.

  133

  Glittering Stone:

  A Dangerous Game

  Only four of us flew south. Five if you counted that ragged-ass lazy crow riding the tip of Goblin’s flying post. The little man was flying independently but his movements were limited by a tow rope and a safety harness, each of which connected him to a different companion. We told him it was for his safety while he was learning to manage the post but even dead he was smart enough to see through that. We did not want him haring off if the Khadidas regained control.

  Goblin was much stronger now. He could manage most self care without assistance and many other uncomplicated tasks as well. He had a vocabulary of maybe thirty words. He could lay One-Eye’s spear down for minutes at a time without risk of wakening the demon within.

  We were blazing along through blue skies, cloaks streaming thirty yards behind, at an altitude low enough to panic livestock and send children running to tell skeptical parents. The girls whooped and shrieked, having a wonderful time. Whomever’s turn it was not to mind Goblin soared and dove.

  Spring was going to spring soon. With these kids that might become an adventurous season.

  With spring would come the rainy season, too. Lots of wet and lots of ferocious weather.

  I made a couple of brief side trips. The main one was a brief look at Dejagore, where life had settled into a semblance of normalcy and nobody was mourning the passing of one of the city’s most famous daughters. Probably not one in a thousand people outside the garrison knew that Sleepy called Dejagore home.

  The other side trips involved looking for evidence of the Nef in places where I thought I might have seen them before. I found nothing.

  Since there had been no sign of those ghosts of the glittering stone, outside my own glimpses, I was pretty sure what I had seen had not been the genuine articles.

  Tobo had expressed a suspicion that, had I not been imagining things, what I had seen were some of his hidden folk trying out disguises.

  He believed some would do that just for the hell of it. The folklore of the Land of Unknown Shadows supported his contention. In fact, that sort of prank was a huge favorite.

  So, probably, the Nef were less of a problem than I had feared. But a problem even so. Unless they were trapped in the Voroshk world.

  Panda Man, at the shadowgate, robbed me of that foolish hope. “They’re out there begging and whining every night, Captain.”

  “Looks like you guys have made yourselves right at home.” They had built themselves a tiny hamlet, complete with women and livestock, most of both showing signs of gravidity.

  “Best duty we ever had, Captain.”

  “Well, now is when it starts getting tough.” I spun out a gaggle of orders. Then me and my daughters, my pal the white crow and my dead friend, passed through the shadowgate. Though I could see nothing I thought I could sense the pressure of the Nef inside.

  The plain boasted a thousand patches of dirty snow. Old snow lay drifted against the standing stones on their west sides. The air was bitterly cold. The place was getting its weather from somewhere other than my native world. And it had an air of neglect. As though the residents had given up housekeeping and maintenance.

  The neglect was less evident inside the nameless stronghold. The stench of human waste was gone. Evidently Baladitya had cleaned up after Shivetya’s Voroshk guests. But there was a taint of wasted human.

  “We need some light,” I told the girls. Still competing with one another in some ways, both hastened to create those little will-o’-the-wisp glowing balls that seem to be the first trick any sorcerer learns.

  The source of the odor was obvious instantly. Baladitya had fallen asleep at his worktable and had not yet awakened. The chill, dry air had done a lot to preserve him.

  I was unhappy but not surprised. Baladitya must have been an antique when I was born.

  Arkana and Shukrat made appropriate noises expressing sorrow.

 
“This isn’t good,” I muttered, staring at the copyist’s remains. “I was counting on him to help me talk to Shivetya.”

  From somewhere in the darkness the white crow said, “Hi, there, soldier. Looking for a good time?”

  Fumbling around after oil with which to refill Baladitya’s empty lamps, I said, “Ah, yes. You. All is not lost. But neither is it found.”

  “What?” That voice was a high-pitched squeak. I wondered how she managed to produce so many of those, even when using a bird to do her talking.

  “Trust.” I recalled a time when anything she said scared the shit out of me. I guess familiarity does breed... something. I was almost comfortable with her. “Why on earth would you expect me to trust anything you say?”

  It helped my courage, knowing she was buried and in a sort of undying coma.

  “Shivetya won’t let me lie.”

  Right. Call me a cynic. But I had a notion that the golem might have been with us more than Kina had, over the years. A notion that it would be impossible to untangle his manipulations from hers. A suspicion that he might be just as much a deceiver as she was when it came to maneuvering toward the end of the world.

  “Right, then. Got your word, do we? I’m comfortable with that. Let’s get started. Does the Goddess know we’re here? Does she know what’s in my mind?”

  “Her attention is elsewhere.”

  The girls took over filling and lighting the lamps. They were good girls. They had learned to do for themselves. And they watched their daddy at work with respect and awe. Or, at least, they wondered what I was doing, talking to a crow that looked diseased. And having the crow talk back, like it was intelligent.

  I told Arkana, “If you could read and write Taglian you’d understand all about this because you’d be able to keep up with the Annals.”

  “No thanks, Pop. Not even a good try. I said no yesterday, I’m telling you no today, and all you’re going to hear is no again tomorrow. I’m not going to get pulled any deeper into your mob than I already am.”

  Which is what Suvrin used to say. Suvrin, who started out as a prisoner of war.

  Shukrat said, “Don’t even even bother to look over here.”

  I had not considered Shukrat. I would not. But I did think Arkana might work out. If she would give it a chance. She had a personality suitable to be one of the gang.

  “Recruiting season over?” the crow demanded.

  “For now.” I peered into the darkness, trying to make out more details of the golem. There was not enough light. But the demon seemed to be asleep.

  Or at least uninterested. Which puzzled me, since I was there to set him free.

  I shrugged. His indifference would not slow me down.

  I collected Goblin. I led him well out onto the floor of Shivetya’s vast hall, away from other ears. Had I brought a lamp along I would have been able to see how lovingly the floor detailed the features of the plain outside.

  I reviewed for the little man. “Kina is a very slow thinker. We need to get this done before she understands that we’re already here, that we intend to strike, and that we do have a weapon puissant enough to do the job.” One-Eye’s spear shimmered all the time here. Filaments of fire slithered over it in unpredictable patterns, excitedly. The edges of its head groaned as they sliced the air itself. It seemed to sense that it had come home.

  No one could argue that the spear was not a masterpiece of a peculiar sort of art. No one could deny that in creating his masterwork One-Eye had reached a level of inspiration seen nowhere else in his long but rather pathetic life.

  Many an artistic masterpiece has fallen into that same category: the sole triumph of the genius of its creator.

  “Once we reach the black veil across the stairwell she’ll start to realize her danger. You’ll have to move fast. Get up as much speed as you can so you can drive the spear as deep as you can. The Lance of Passion wasn’t potent enough. But it wasn’t made for godslaying. One-Eye’s spear is. You could name it Godslayer. You know. You were there during most of the years he worked on it. When we were in Hsien it became his whole career.”

  Goblin had been there. But that Goblin had been alive, not a ghost still trapped in the flesh it had worn in life. At least part of the time this Goblin was an agent of the very monster this Goblin was going to kill. Or maim. Or just irritate.

  As the doubts began to circle round me like Tobo’s hidden realm friends I kept right on talking, explaining yet again why he was the only one of us who could make the strike. And he really did find my arguments compelling. Or else his mind was made up and the hopes and wishes of others no longer mattered.

  The Goblin thing climbed back aboard his flying post.

  I pushed my own forward, so I could see the tip of his and make doubly sure I knew which one he was riding. “Let’s go downstairs, then,” I said. “I’ll be right behind you. Your post is spelled to come back on its own if you’re unconscious.” He knew. He had been there when Shukrat fixed it to do that. “If that doesn’t work I’ll swoop in and grab you, drag your ass away. If you want, I even brought an extra hundred yards of line to hook onto your safety harness. We can tie it to your belt.”

  The little man looked at me like he thought I was trying too hard. He had been working himself up for a suicide mission, convinced that the destruction of his flesh was the only way he could rid himself of his parasite and find rest himself.

  I played the whole scam by ear. I had no real idea what Goblin really wanted or what he hoped to achieve with the false life he had been given. I had not been able to guess much about him when he was alive. The only thing I knew for sure was that he was working crippled. Doing without One-Eye was, for him, like doing without one of his limbs.

  And he did want to hurt Kina. That was never in doubt.

  A long, difficult discussion ended up with me chagrined a bit as I finally got the message that Goblin was not deeply interested in backup that would pull him out if things went sour. He wanted backup that would make sure the job got done even if he failed.

  I do not know why I had so much trouble recognizing and understanding Goblin’s program. Possibly because I was concentrating on getting things to go forward exactly the way I wanted. Goblin had told me almost everything before, one time or another, when I had been focused enough to ask.

  Personally uninclined toward mortal self-sacrifice, I had trouble overriding my cynical nature — particularly as regarded someone as self-indulgent as Goblin had been for so long.

  Goblin brandished One-Eye’s spear and told me what I had already told him but had not done. “Time to go downstairs, Croaker.” He got it all out in a single, bell-tone clear sentence.

  I patted myself down. Final check. Still not sure I was ready for this.

  134

  Taglios:

  Best Served Cold

  The only check on Tobo was Lady, who could not maintain her level of interest. The only check on Lady was the wonder boy. And he had other things on his mind. And altogether too much of that touched by the darkness.

  No Shukrat, no Croaker, no Lady paying attention. Nights in the city lost their traditional noisome urban charm. Some people began to compare the new age to a time when the Protector had loosed her murderous shadows upon the city, for no more obvious reason than existed behind the unleashing of the horrors out there now.

  The fact that there were few actual deaths went unremarked.

  The Unknown Shadows enjoyed themselves greatly, tormenting the living. As did Tobo, who found himself free to do anything he wanted.

  Except in his dreams.

  A woman had begun to haunt those. A beautiful Nyueng Bao woman who seemed to be the embodiment of sorrow. He understood in his heart that this was his mother as she had appeared when she was young, before she had met his father. Usually she was not alone. Sometimes she was accompanied by a young, unbent Nana Gota. And sometimes by another woman, always gentle, always with a smile, forged of steel tougher than that of Uncle Doj’s s
word Ash Wand. This woman, who had to be his great grandmother, Hong Tray, never spoke. She communicated more with a disapproving eye than Sahra could say in a hundred words.

  His vengeances were unacceptable to all these women who had created and formed him.

  Tobo could not determine if he was being touched by the ghosts of his ancestors — a possibility entirely in keeping with Nyueng Bao beliefs — or if the women were the product of some conscience-stricken cellar of his mind. The darkness within him was strong enough to make him want to defy them.

  None of them wanted to be avenged.

  Sahra’s ghost warned, “You won’t just hurt yourself, darling. If you go on you’ll be running into a trap. Put aside your pain. Embrace your true destiny and let it lift you up.”

  Hong Tray studied him with eyes like cold steel marbles, agreeing that he had come to a crossroads. That he was about to make a choice that would shape the rest of his life.

  He knew, of course, that the words the ghost women spoke, and the ghosts themselves, had to be metaphors.

  He had no trouble with his conscience when he was awake. So he tried to avoid sleep.

  Sleep deprivation clouded his judgment even further.

  The hidden folk always reported the same thing: Aridatha Singh would not leave his offices. He worked day and night, seldom doing more than catnap, as he tried to hold the Taglian world together by the weight of his own will. The struggle to maintain control ought to have beaten him down and have shredded his spirit in days. Most men would have started cutting throats to more swiftly facilitate reconstruction and assuage frustration. Aridatha just beat people down with reason and public opinion. He treated with no one in secret. He made sure the world knew when someone refused to handle the city’s business publicly.