“Couldn’t sleep. Been thinking about how the Barrowland has gotten so blighted even self-respecting Resurrectionists don’t come here anymore. You? You’re not taking the night patrol yourself, are you?”
“Couldn’t sleep either. That damned comet.”
Bomanz searched the sky.
“Can’t see it from here. Have to go around back. You’re right. Nobody knows we’re here anymore. Us or those things in the ground over there. I don’t know what’s worse. Neglect or plain stupidity.”
“Uhm?” Something was gnawing at the Monitor.
“Bo, they’re not replacing me because I’m old or incompetent, though I guess I’m enough of both. They’re moving me out so somebody’s nephew can have a post. An exile for a black sheep. That hurts, Bo. That really hurts. They’ve forgotten what this place is. They’re telling me I wasted my whole life doing a job any idiot can sleep his way through.”
“The world is full of fools.”
“Fools die.”
“Eh?”
“They laugh when I talk about the comet or about Resurrectionists striking this summer. They can’t believe that I believe. They don’t believe there’s anything under those mounds. Not anything still alive.”
“Bring them out here. Walk them through the Barrowland after dark.”
“I tried. They told me to quit whining if I wanted a pension.”
“You’ve done all you can, then. It’s on their heads.”
“I took an oath, Bo. I was serious about it then, and I’m serious now. This job is all I have. You’ve got Jasmine and Stance. I might as well have been a monk. Now they’re discarding me for some young …” He began making strange noises.
Sobs? Bomanz thought. From the Monitor? From this man with a heart of flint and all the mercy of a shark? He took Besand’s elbow. “Let’s go look at the comet. I haven’t seen it yet.”
Besand got hold of himself. “You haven’t? That’s hard to believe.”
“Why? I haven’t been up late. Stancil has done the night work.”
“Never mind. Slipping into my antagonistic character again. We should’ve been lawyers, you and I. We’ve got the argumentative turn of mind.”
“You could be right. Spent a lot of time lately wondering what I’m doing out here.”
“What are you doing here, Bo?”
“I was going to get rich. I was going to study the old books, open a few rich graves, go back to Oar and buy into my uncle’s drayage business.” Idly, Bomanz wondered how much of his faked past Besand accepted. He had lived it so long that he now remembered some fraudulent anecdotes as factual unless he thought hard.
“What happened?”
“Laziness. Plain old-fashioned laziness. I found out there’s a big difference between dreaming and getting in there and doing. It was easier to dig just enough to get by and spend the rest of the time loafing.” Bomanz made a sour face. He was striking near the truth. His researches were, in fact, partly an excuse for not competing. He simply did not have the drive of a Tokar.
“You haven’t had too bad a life. One or two hard winters when Stancil was a pup. But we all went through those. A helping hand here or there and we all survived. There she is.” Besand indicated the sky over the Barrowland.
Bomanz gasped. It was exactly what he had seen in his dreams. “Showy, isn’t it?”
“Wait till it gets close. It’ll fill half the sky.”
“Pretty, too.”
“Stunning, I’d say. But also a harbinger. An ill omen. The old writers say it’ll keep returning till the Dominator is freed.”
“I’ve lived with that stuff most of my life, Besand, and even I find it hard to believe there’s anything to it. Wait! I get that spooky feeling around the Barrowland, too. But I just can’t believe those creatures could rise again after four hundred years in the ground.”
“Bo, maybe you are honest. If you are, take a hint. When I leave, you leave. Take the TelleKurre stuff and head for Oar.”
“You’re starting to sound like Stance.”
“I mean it. Some idiot unbeliever kid takes over here, all Hell is going to break loose. Literally. Get out while you can.”
“You could be right. I’m thinking about going back. But what would I do? I don’t know Oar anymore. The way Stance tells it, I’d get lost.-Hell, this is home now. I never really realized that. This dump is home.”
“I know what you mean.”
Bomanz looked at that great silver blade in the sky. Soon now …
“What’s going on out there? Who is that?” came from Bomanz’s back door. “You clear off, hear? I’ll have the Guard after you.”
“It’s me, Jasmine.”
Besand laughed. “And the Monitor, mistress. The Guard is here already.”
“Bo, what’re you doing?”
“Talking. Looking at the stars.”
“I’ll be getting along,” Besand said. “See you tomorrow.”
From his tone Bomanz knew tomorrow would be a day of normal harassments.
“Take care.” He settled on the dewy back step, let the cool night wash over him. Birds called in the Old Forest, their voices lonely. A cricket chirruped optimistically. Humid air barely stirred the remnants of his hair. Jasmine came out and sat beside him. “Couldn’t sleep,” he told her.
“Me either.”
“Must be going around.” He glanced at the comet, was startled by an instant of deja vu. “Remember the summer we came here? When we stayed up to see the comet? It was a night like this.”
She took his hand, entwined her fingers with his. “You’re reading my mind. Our first month anniversary. Those were fool kids, those two.”
“They still are, inside.”
Chapter Eleven: THE BARROWLAND
For Corbie the unravelling came quickly now. When he kept his mind on business. But more and more he became distracted by that old silk map. Those strange old names. In TelleKurre they had a ring absent in modern tongues. Soulcatcher. Stormbringer. Moonbiter. The Hanged Man. They seemed so much more potent in the old tongue.
But they were dead. The only great ones left were the Lady and the monster who started it all, out there under the earth.
Often he went to a small window and stared toward the Barrowland. The devil in the earth. Calling, perhaps. Surrounded by lesser champions, few of them recalled in the legends and few the old wizard identified. Bomanz had been interested only in the Lady.
So many fetishes. And a dragon. And fallen champions of the White Rose, their shades set to eternal guard duty. It seemed so much more dramatic than the struggle today.
Corbie laughed. The past was always more interesting than the present. For those who lived through the first great struggle it must have seemed deadly slow, too. Only in the final battle were the legends and legacies created. A few days out of decades.
He worked less now, now that he had a sound place to live and a little saved. He spent more time wandering, especially by night.
Case came calling one morning, before Corbie was fully wakened. He allowed the youth inside. “Tea?”
“All right.”
“You’re nervous. What is it?”
“Colonel Sweet wants you.”
“Chess again? Or work?”
“Neither. He’s worried about your wandering around at night. I told him I go with you and all you do is look at the stars and stuff. Guess he’s getting paranoid.”
Corbie smiled a smile he did not feel. “Just doing his job. Guess my life looks odd. Getting past it. Lost in my own mind. Do I act senile sometimes? Here. Sugar?”
“Please.” Sugar was a treat. The Guard could not provide it.
“Any rush? I haven’t eaten.”
“He didn’t put it that way.”
“Good.” More time to prepare. Fool. He should have guessed his walks would attract attention. The Guard was paranoid by design.
Corbie prepared oats and bacon, which he shared with Case. For all they were well paid, the Gu
ard ate poorly. Because of ongoing foul weather the Oar road was all but impassable. The army quartermasters strove valiantly but often could not get through.
“Well, let’s see the man,” Corbie said. And: “That’s the last bacon. The Colonel better think about farming here, just in case.”
“They talked about it.” Corbie had befriended Case partly because he served at headquarters. Colonel Sweet would play chess and talk old times, but he never revealed any plans.
“And?”
“Not enough land. Not enough fodder.”
“Pigs. They get fat on acorns.”
“Need herdsmen. Else the tribemen would get them.”
“I guess so.”
The Colonel ushered Corbie into his private quarters. Corbie joked, “Don’t you ever work? Sir?”
“The operation runs itself. Been rolling four centuries, that’s the way it goes. I have a problem. Corbie.”
Corbie grimaced. “Sir?”
“Appearances, Corbie. This is a world that lives by perceptions. You aren’t presenting a proper appearance.”
“Sir?”
“We had a visitor last month. From Charm.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Neither did anyone else. Except me. What you might call a prolonged surprise inspection. They happen occasionally.” Sweet settled behind his worktable, pushed aside the chess set over which they had contested so often. He drew a long sheet of southern paper from a cubby at his right knee. Corbie glimpsed printing in a crabbed hand.
“Taken? Sir?”
Corbie never sirred anyone except as an afterthought. The habit disturbed Sweet. “Yes. With the Lady’s carte blanche. He did not abuse it. But he did make recommendations. And he did mention people whose behavior he found unacceptable. Your name was first on the list. What the hell are you doing, wandering around all night?”
“Thinking. I can’t sleep. The war did something. The things I saw … The guerrillas. You don’t want to go to sleep because they might attack. If you do sleep, you dream about the blood. Homes and fields burning. Animals and children screaming. That was the worst. The babies crying. I still hear the babies crying.” He exaggerated very little. Each time he went to bed he had to get past the crying of babes.
He told most of the truth and wound it into an imaginative lie. Babies crying. The babies who haunted him were his own, innocents abandoned in a moment of fear of commitment.
“I know,” Sweet replied. “I know. At Rust they killed their children rather than let us capture them. The hardest men in the regiment wept when they saw the mothers hurling their infants down from the walls, then jumping after them. I never married. I have no children. But I know what you mean. Did you have any?”
“A son,” Corbie said, in a voice both soft and strained, from a body almost shaking with pain. “And a daughter. Twins, they were. Long ago and far away.”
“And what became of them?”
“I don’t know. I would hope they’re living still. They would be about Case’s age.”
Sweet raised an eyebrow but let the remark slide past. “And their mother?”
Corbie’s eyes became iron. Hot iron, like a brand. “Dead.”
“I’m sorry.”
Corbie did not respond. His expression suggested he was not sorry himself.
“You understand what I’m saying, Corbie?” Sweet asked. “You were noticed by one of the Taken. That’s never healthy.”
“I get the message. Which was it?”
“I can’t say. Which of the Taken are where when could be of interest to the Rebel.”
Corbie snorted. “What Rebel? We wiped them out at Charm.”
“Perhaps. But there is that White Rose.”
“I thought they were going to get her?”
“Yeah. The stories you hear. Going to have her in chains before the month is out. Been saying that since first we heard of her. She’s light on her feet. Maybe light enough.” Sweet’s smile faded. “At least I won’t be around next time the comet comes. Brandy?”
“Yes.”
“Chess? Or do you have a job?”
“Not right away. I’ll go you one game.”
Halfway through, Sweet said, “Remember what I said.
Eh? The Taken claimed he was leaving. But there’s no guarantee. Could be behind a bush someplace watching.” “I’ll pay more attention to what I’m doing.” He would. The last thing he wanted was a Taken interested in him. He had come too far to waste himself now.
Chapter Twelve: THE PLAIN OF FEAR
I had the watch. My belly gnawed, weighted by lead. All day dots had traversed the sky, high up. A pair were there now, patroling. The continuous presence of Taken was not a good omen.
Closer, two manta pairs planed the afternoon air. They would ride the updrafts up, then circle down, taunting the Taken, trying to lure them across the boundary. They resented outsiders. The more so these, because these would crush them but for Darling-another intruder.
Walking trees were on the move beyond the creek. The dead menhirs glistened, somehow changed from their usual dullness. Things were happening on the Plain. No outsider could comprehend their import fully.
One great shadow clung to the desert. Way up there, daring the Taken, a lone windwhale hovered. An occasional, barely perceptible bass roar tumbled down. I’d never heard one talk before. They do so only when enraged.
A breeze muttered and whimpered in the coral. Old Father Tree sang counterpoint to the windwhale.
A menhir spoke behind me. “Your enemies come soon.” I shivered. It recalled the flavor of a nightmare I have been having lately. I can recall no specifics afterward, only that it is filled with terror.
I refused to be unsettled by the sneaky stone. Much.
What are they? Where did they come from? Why are they different from normal stones? For that matter, why is the Plain ridiculously different? Why so bellicose? We are here on sufferance only, allied against a greater enemy. Shatter the Lady and see how our friendship prospers.
“How soon?”
“When they are ready.”
“Brilliant, old stone. Positively illuminating.”
My sarcasm did not go unnoticed, just unremarked. The menhirs have their own flare for sarcasm and the sharp-edged tongue.
“Five armies,” said the voice. “They will not wait long.”
I indicated the sky. “The Taken cruise at will. Unchallenged.”
“They have not challenged.” True. But a weak excuse. Allies should be allies. More, windwhales and mantas usually consider appearance on the Plain sufficient challenge. It occurred to me the Taken might have bought them off.
“Not so.” The menhir had moved. Its shadow now fell across my toes. I finally looked. This one was just ten feet tall. A real runt.
It had guessed my thought. Damn.
It continued telling me what I already knew. “It is not possible to deal from a position of strength always. Take care. There has been a call to the Peoples to reassess your acceptance on the Plain.”
So. This overtalkative hunk was an emissary. The natives were scared. Some thought they could save themselves trouble by booting us out.
“Yes.”
“The Peoples” doesn’t properly describe the parliament of species that makes decisions here, but I know no better title.
If the menhirs are to be believed-and they lie only by omission or indirection-over forty intelligent species inhabit the Plain of Fear. Those I know include menhirs, walking trees, windwhales and mantas, a handful of humans (both primitives and hermits), two kinds of lizard, a bird like a buzzard, a giant white bat, and an extremely scarce critter that looks like a camel-centaur put together backward. I mean, the humanoid half is behind. The creature runs toward what most would take as its fanny.
No doubt I have encountered others without recognizing them.
Goblin says there is a tiny rock monkey that lives in the hearts of the great coral reefs. He claims it looks like a miniat
ure One-Eye. But Goblin is not to be trusted where One-Eye is concerned.
“I am charged with delivering a warning,” the menhir said. “There are strangers on the Plain.”
I asked questions. When it did not answer I turned irritably. It was gone. “Damned stone …”
Tracker and his mutt stood in the mouth of the Hole, watching the Taken.
Darling interviewed Tracker thoroughly, I’m told. I missed that. She was satisfied.
I had an argument with Elmo. Elmo liked Tracker. “Reminds me of Raven,” he said. “We could use a few hundred Ravens.”
“Reminds me of Raven, too. And that’s what I don’t like.” But what good arguing? We cannot always like everyone. Darling thinks he is all right. Elmo thinks so. The Lieutenant accepts him. Why should I be different? Hell, if he is from the same mold as Raven, the Lady is in trouble.
He will be tested soon enough. Darling has something in mind. Something preemptive, I suspect. Possibly toward Rust.
Rust. Where the Limper had raised his Stella.
The Limper. Back from the dead. I did everything but burn the body. Should have done that, I guess. Bloody hell.
The scary part is wondering if he is the only one. Did others survive apparent certain death? Are they hidden away now, waiting to astound the world? “
A shadow fell across my feet. I returned to the living. Tracker stood beside me. “You look distressed,” he said. He did show one every courtesy, I must admit.
I looked toward those patroling reminders of the struggle. I said, “I am a soldier, grown old and tired and confused. I have been fighting since before you were born. And I have yet to see anything gained.”
He smiled a thin, almost secretive smile. It made me uncomfortable. Everything he did made me uncomfortable. Even his damned dog made me uncomfortable, and it did nothing but sleep. Much as it loafed, how had it managed the journey from Oar? Too much like work. I swear, that dog won’t even get in a hurry to eat.
“Be of good faith, Croaker,” Tracker said. “She will fall.” He spoke with absolute conviction. “She hasn’t the strength to tame the world.”
There was that scariness again. True or not, the way he expressed the sentiment was disturbing.