Popularly, the File of Nine is seen as a cabal of secret masters who control everything. The File of Nine would love that to be true but, in reality, they have very little power. Their situation leaves them with few tools they can use to enforce their will. Any real effort to impose anything would betray their identities. So they mostly issue bulls and pretend to speak for Hsien. Sometimes people listen. And sometimes they listen to the monks of Khang Phi. Or to the Court of All Seasons. So each must be wooed.
The Black Company is feared mainly because it is a joker in the warlord deck. It has no local allegiance. It could jump any direction for any alien reason. Worse, it is reputed to include powerful wizards assisting skilled soldiers led by competent commanders and sergeants, none of whom are at all handicapped by excesses of empathy or compassion.
What popularity the Company enjoys essentially arises from its capacity to deliver the last Shadowmaster to the justice of Hsien. And among peasants, from the fact that nervous warlords have reined in their squabbles amongst themselves considerably while they have this unpredictable monster crouched, growing rapidly, to their south.
All the lords and leaders of Hsien, in the last, would prefer that the Company went away. Our presence places too much strain on the state of things as they are and always have been.
I attached myself to the deputation headed for Khang Phi even though I was not yet completely recovered. I would never be one-hundred percent again. I had some blurring in my right eye. I had acquired some truly intimidating burn scars. I would never regain the full range of motion in the fingers of my right hand. But I was convinced that I could be an asset in our negotiations for the shadowgate secrets.
Only Sahra agreed with me. But Sahra is our foreign minister. Only she has the patience and tact to deal with such fractious folk as the File of Nine — part of whose problem with us is that our women do more than cook and lie on their backs.
Of course, of Lady, Sleepy, Sahra and the Radisha I suspect only Sahra can heat water without burning it. And she may have forgotten how by now.
The Company on the move, bound for the intellectual heart of Hsien, was a terror to behold, judging by the response of peasants along the way. And that despite the fact that our party, guards included, numbered just twenty-one. Human souls.
Tobo’s shadowy friends surrounded and paced us, in such numbers that it was impossible for them to remain unseen all the time. Old fears and superstitions exploded in our wake, then terror ran ahead far faster than we could travel. People scattered when we approached. It made no difference that Tobo’s night pals were well-behaved. Superstition completely outweighed any practical evidence.
Had we been more numerous we would not have gotten past Khang Phi’s gate. Even there, among supposed intellectuals, the fear of the Unknown Shadows was thick enough to slice.
Sahra had had to agree, long ago, that neither Lady nor One-Eye nor Tobo would enter the Repose of Knowledge. The monks were particularly paranoid about sorcerers. Hitherto it had suited Sleepy to comply with their wishes. And none of those three were part of our party when we arrived at the Lower Gate of Khang Phi.
There was a strange young woman in our midst. She used the name Shikhandini, Shiki for short. She could easily arouse almost any man who did not know she was Tobo in disguise. Nobody bothered to tell me what or why but Sahra was up to something. Tobo was, obviously, an extra card she wanted tucked up her sleeve. Moreover, she suspected several of the Nine of harboring evil ambitions which would soon flower.
What? Men of power possessed of secret agendas? No! That does not seem possible.
Khang Phi is a center of learning and spirituality. It is a repository for knowledge and wisdom. It is extremely ancient. It survived the Shadowmasters. It commands the respect of all the Children of the Dead, throughout the Land of Unknown Shadows. It is neutral ground, a part of no warlord’s demesne. Travelers bound toward Khang Phi, or returning home therefrom, are in theory immune.
Theory and practice are sometimes at variance. Therefore we never let Sahra travel without obvious protection.
Khang Phi is built against the face of a mountain. It rises a thousand whitewashed feet into the bellies of permanent clouds. The topmost structures cannot be seen from below.
At the same site in our world a barren cliff broods over the southern entrance to the only good pass through the mountains known as the Dandha Presh.
A life misspent making war left me wondering if the place had not begun its existence as a fortress. It certainly commanded that end of the pass. I looked for the fields necessary to sustain its population. And they were there, clinging to the sides of the mountains in terraces like stairsteps for splay-legged giants. Ancient peoples carried the soil in from leagues away, a basket at a time, generation after generation. No doubt the work goes on today.
Master Santaraksita, Murgen and Thai Dei met us outside the ornate Lower Gate. I had not seen them for a long time, though Murgen and Thai Dei attended the funeral ceremonies for Gota and One-Eye. I missed them because I was unconscious at the time. Fat old Master Santaraksita never went anywhere anymore. That elderly scholar was content to end his days in Khang Phi, pretending to be the Company’s agent. Here he was among his own kind. Here he had found a thousand intellectual challenges. Here he had found people as eager to learn from him as he was eager to learn from them. He was a man who had come home.
He welcomed Sleepy with open arms. “Dorabee! At last.” He insisted on calling her Dorabee because it was the first name he had known her by. “You must let me show you the master library while you’re here! It absolutely beggars that pimple we managed in Taglios.” He surveyed the rest of us. Merriment deserted him. Sleepy had brought the ugly boys along. The kind of guys he believed would use books for firewood on a chilly night. Guys like me, who bore scars and were missing fingers and teeth and had skin colors the likes of which were never seen in the Land of Unknown Shadows.
Sleepy told him, “I didn’t come for a holiday back in the stacks, Sri. One way or another I’ve got to get that shadowgate information. The news I’m getting from the other side isn’t encouraging. I need to get the Company back into action before it’s too late.”
Santaraksita nodded, looked around for eavesdroppers, winked and nodded again.
Willow Swan leaned back, looked up, asked me, “Think you can make it to the top?”
“Give me a few days.” Actually, I am in better shape now than I was that evil night. I have lost a lot of weight and have put on muscle.
I still get winded easily, though.
Swan said, “Lie all you want, old man.” He dismounted, handed his reins to one of the youngsters beginning to swarm around. They were all boys between eight and twelve, all as silent as if they had had their vocal cords cut. They all wore identical pale brown robes. Parents unable to provide for them had donated them to Khang Phi as infants. These had surpassed a particular milestone on their path to becoming monks. We were unlikely to see anyone younger.
Swan picked up a stone two inches in diameter. “I’m going to throw this when we get up top. I want to watch it fall.”
Parts of Swan never grew up. He still skips stones across ponds and rivers. He tried to teach me the art coming to Khang Phi. My hand and fingers will no longer conform to the shape of a proper skipping stone. There is a lot they cannot accomplish anymore. Managing a pen while writing is chore enough.
I miss One-Eye.
“Just don’t bomp some asshole warlord on the noggin. Most of them don’t like us much already.” They were afraid of us. And they could find no way to manipulate us. They kept giving us provisions and letting us recruit in hopes we will go away eventually. Leaving Longshadow behind. We did not inform them that local financing would not be needed to underwrite our campaign beyond the plain.
After four hundred years it has become a given: You keep everybody outside just a little bit nervous. And you do not tell them anything they do not need to know.
Longshad
ow. Maricha Manthara Dhumraksha. He has several other names here as well. None indicate popularity. As long as we have the ability to deliver him in chains the warlords will tolerate almost anything. Twenty generations of ancestors cry out for justice.
I suspect Longshadow’s wickedness has grown with the retelling, thereby making giants of the heroes who drove him out.
Though they are soldiers themselves the warlords do not understand us. They fail to recognize the fact that they are soldiers of a different breed, drawn on by a smaller destiny.
14
The Land of Unknown Shadows:
Khang Phi
Swan and I stood looking out a window outside the conference hall where we would engage the File of Nine in negotiations. Eventually. It took them a while to sneak into Khang Phi, then change their disguises so their identities would remain unknown. We saw nothing below but mist. Swan did not waste his stone. I said, “I thought I was back in shape. I was wrong. I ache all over.”
Swan said, “They say some people here go their whole lives without ever moving more than a floor or two after they finish their apprenticeship and get their assignments.”
“Kind of people that balance out you and me,” I said. Swan had not traveled as far as I had but at a world’s remove an extra few thousand miles does not seem important. I tried to make out the rocky ground we had traversed approaching Khang Phi. The mist just seemed darker when I looked down.
“Thinking about taking the easy way back down?” Swan asked.
“No. I’m thinking being isolated like this might leave you with a very limited worldview.” Not to mention the impact of the scarcity of females in Khang Phi. The few there are belong to an order of celibate nuns who care for the donated infants, the very old and the very sick. The rest of the population consists of monks, all of whom were donated and all of whom are sworn to chastity, too. The more fanatic brothers render themselves physically incapable of yielding to temptation. Which makes most of my brothers shudder and consider them more bizarre than Tobo’s shadowy friends. No soldier likes the thought of losing his best friend and favorite toy.
“A narrow view can be as much a strength as a weakness, Liberator,” a voice observed from behind us. We turned. Sleepy’s friend, Surendranath Santaraksita, was joining us. The scholar has gone native, adopting local garb and assuming the Khang Phi haircut — which is no hair at all — but only a deaf and blind man would take him for a local monk. His skin is more brown and less translucent than that of any native and his features are shaped more like mine and Swan’s. “That mist and their narrowness of vision allows the monks to avoid forming worldly attachments. Thus their neutrality remains beyond reproach.”
I did not mention Khang Phi’s one-time role as an apologist for and collaborator with the reign of the Shadowmasters. That embarrassing dab of history was being expunged by the acids of time and relentless lie.
Santaraksita was happy. He was convinced that in this place learned men did not have to prostitute themselves to temporal powers in order to remain scholars. He believed even the File of Nine deferred to the wisdom of the eldest monks. He was unable to see that if the Nine acquired more power Khang Phi’s relationship to the File would soon lapse into subservience. Master Santaraksita is brilliant but naive.
“How’s that?” I asked him.
“These monks are so innocent of the world that they don’t try to impose anything on it.”
“Yet the File of Nine presume to speak from here.” The File enjoy issuing bulls which are, more often than not, ignored by the population and warlords.
“They will, yes. The Elders want them to. In hopes that a little wisdom will rub off before their power becomes more than symbolic.”
I said nothing about leading horses to water. I made no observations concerning the wisdom of backing a cabal of secret masters in preference to one strongman or the remnant aristocracy of the Court of All Seasons. I did admit, “It does look like they’re trying to do what’s best for Hsien. But I don’t trust anybody who’ll bet their pot on guys who hide behind masks.” No need to tell him the File have no secrets from us. Little that they do or discuss goes unremarked by Tobo’s familiars. None of their identities are secrets to us.
We operate on the assumption that both the File and the other warlords have placed spies among our recruits. Which explains why there is little resistance to our recruiting amongst the Children of the Dead.
It is not difficult to identify most of the spies. Sleepy shows them what she wants them to see. Being a spiteful, vengeful little witch, I am sure she plans to use those spies cruelly at some later time.
She worries me. She has her own old hatreds to redress but their objects escaped life unpunished a long time ago. But there is always the chance she might choose somebody else to take the heat, which would not be to the Company’s advantage.
I asked Santaraksita, “What did you want?”
“Nothing special.” His face went coolly neutral. He is Sleepy’s friend. I make him uncomfortable. He has read my Annals. Despite what Sleepy has dragged him through he cannot yet come to grips with the cruel realities of our sort of life. I am sure that he will not go home with us. “I did hope to see Dorabee again before you went into conference. It could be important.”
“I don’t know what happened to her. Shiki’s missing, too. They were supposed to meet us here.” Local mores made it impossible for women to share quarters with men. Even Sahra has to room separately from Murgen, though they are legally married. And Shikhandini’s presence saddled Sahra with special obligations. She wanted the holy men distracted but not to the point where they went berserk. Just enough, maybe, so they would give way on a subtle point or two. Though distraction would not be Shiki’s principal mission.
Master Santaraksita wrung his hands briefly, then folded his arms. His hands disappeared into the sleeves of his robe. He was worried. I looked closer. He knew something. I glanced at Swan. Swan shrugged.
Murgen and Thai Dei puffed into the room. Murgen demanded, “Where are they?” Thai Dei looked worried but said nothing. He would not. The man seldom says anything. It was a pity his sister could not learn from his example.
Thai Dei knew something, too.
“Haven’t shown yet,” Swan said.
“The File of Nine will be angry,” I added. “Are Sleepy and Sahra dealing some kind of game?”
Santaraksita backed away nervously. “The Unknowns aren’t here yet, either.”
My companions were a diverse bunch. Once Sleepy arrived we would include five races. Six counting Santaraksita as one of us. Sleepy believes our sheer diversity intimidates the File of Nine.
Sleepy entertains other notions even more strange.
I do not know why she thought cowing them would mean anything. All we needed from them was their permission to research the knowledge needed to mend and manipulate shadowgates. The monks of Khang Phi were willing to share that knowledge. The stronger we grow the more eagerly the monks want us gone. They are more frightened of the heresies we propagate than they are of any armies we might bring back later.
The latter dread keeps the warlords awake at night. But they do want us gone, too, because the stronger we grow here the more real and immediate a threat do they perceive. And I do not blame them for thinking that way. I would do so myself, in their boots. The entirety of human experiences argues on behalf of suspicion of strangers laden with weapons.
The womenfolk made their advent. Willow Swan spread his arms wide and declaimed dramatically, “Where have you been?” He struck a second pose and tried the line another way. Then he went with a third. Making fun.
Sahra told Thai Dei, “Your daughter kept flirting with the acolytes we encountered along the way.”
I glanced at Shiki, frowned. The girl seemed almost ethereal, not at all vampish. I blinked but the fuzzy quality did not go away. I blamed my damaged eye. The girl seemed more a distracted ghost than a boy in disguise having fun with a role.
; In Hsien’s eyes Thai Dei passed as Shiki’s father because it was well known that Sahra had just the one son. Her brother, Thai Dei, has managed to remain so obscure that even at the Abode of Ravens the locals never raise a question about the fact that the seldom-seen Shikhandini would have had to have been born while her father was buried beneath the plain. Nor did anyone seem much inclined to ask what had become of the girl’s mother. She could be dismissed with a few vague, angry mutters.
Shiki was always empty-headed, always in minor trouble, always considered a threat only to the equilibrium of young men’s minds.
Shiki solidified. She pouted. She said, “I wasn’t flirting, Father. I was just talking.” Her words should have been argumentative but just sounded flat, rote.
“You were told not to speak to the monks. That’s the law here.”
“But Father...”
The act never stopped once it started. There might be watchers. But it was an act. And a pretty good one, at least to those of us unaccustomed to dealing with very young women.
Master Santaraksita kept whispering to Sleepy. He must have said something she wanted to hear because her face lit up like a beacon. She did not bother to report to the Annalist, though. These Captains are all alike. Always playing their hands close to their chest. Except for me, of course. I was a paragon of openness in my time.
Thai Dei and his daughter continued to squabble till he issued some loud diktat in heated Nyueng Bao that left her sulking and silent.
15
The Land of Unknown Shadows:
The Secret Masters
An old, old monk opened the door to the meeting chamber. The task was a great chore for him. He beckoned with one frail hand.
This was my first visit to Khang Phi but I knew him by his robes, which were dark orange edged with black. They distinguished him as one of the four or five eldest of Khang Phi. His presence made it clear that Khang Phi’s monks were deeply interested in this meeting’s outcome. Otherwise some midlevel sixty-year-old would have handled the door and then would have hung on to manage the acolytes who were supposed to attend to the comfort of both us and the Nine. Master Santaraksita smiled. Maybe he had had something to do with this meeting having been invested with importance.