“That lump? What could he offer?”
Croaker shrugged. “You been in Dejagore?” He contained an old anger. The imp, supposedly helping the Black Company, had been absent in the final debacle there. “What’s the news?”
The imp stood only two feet tall though he had the proportions of an adult. He glanced at Soulcatcher, received some intangible permission. “That Mogaba is one bad actor, chief. He’s giving the Shadowmasters’ boys all the trouble they ever wanted. Making them look like fools. Eating them up a nibble at a time. ’Course, it can’t last. He keeps getting into it with your old buddies One-Eye, Goblin, and Murgen. They don’t like the way he operates. He don’t like them all the time telling him about it. You get a split there, or Shadowspinner breaks loose, you got a whole new game.”
Croaker settled with his meal. “Shadowspinner breaks loose?”
“Yeah. He got hurt in the fight, you know. His old buddy from down south, Longshadow, got a whammy in on him while he was down. Keeps him from using his talents. Them Shadowmasters was a lovely bunch, all the time trying to slide around behind each other even when they was up to their asses in alligators. Longshadow, he’s got a notion he can play Shadowspinner just loose enough to let him wipe Dejagore, then squish the clown and make himself king of the world.”
In a voice little more than a whisper the sorceress said, “He has the Howler to consider, now. And me.”
The imp’s grin faded. “You ain’t as secret as you think, boss. They know you’re down here. They all did, from the beginning.”
“Damn!” She paced. “I thought I’d been more careful.”
“Hey! Not to worry. None of them got the faintest where you are now. And maybe when we get done with them they’ll wish they was nicer to you in the old days. Eh? Eh?” He laughed, childlike.
Croaker had encountered Frogface first in Gea-Xle, far to the north. One-Eye, one of the Company wizards, had bought him there. Everyone but One-Eye had doubted the imp’s provenance and loyalty, though Frogface had made himself useful.
Croaker asked Soulcatcher, “You have something planned?”
“Yes. Stand up.” He did. She rested one gloved hand against his chest. “Uhm. You’ve healed enough. And I’m running out of time.”
Nervous excitement flooded him. He knew what she wanted and did not want to do it. “I thought that was why he was here. Do you trust him enough to have him watch me?”
“Hey, chief,” the imp said, “you hurt my feelings. Sure she does. I done hitched my star.”
“One word from me and he spends eternity in torment.” Her voice was a merry little girl’s. She could be chilling in her choices.
“That too,” the imp said, all of a sudden surly. “It’s a hard life, Cap. Nobody don’t never trust me. Don’t never give me no slack. One teensy slip-up and it’s roast forever. Or worse. You mortals got it made, man.”
Croaker snorted. “What do you think one slip-up will get me?”
“It only hurts for a little while for you.”
Soulcatcher said, “Enough banter. Croaker, calm yourself. Get yourself ready for surgery. The imp and I will ready everything else.”
* * *
Nude and headless, the sorceress floated four feet off the floor, shoulders elevated. Her unboxed head sat on a stone table nearby, eyes alert. Croaker scanned the body. It was perfect though pale and waxy. He’d seen only one to compare. Her sister’s.
He glanced at the imp, perched on the head of a stone monster that protruded from the wall. The imp winked. “Show us what you got, Cap.” Croaker was not reassured.
He glanced at his hands. They were steady, a legacy of surgeries performed on a dozen battlefields under terrifying conditions.
He stepped to the table. The sorceress had gathered the best surgical instruments the world had to offer. “This will take a while, imp. If I tell you to do something, you do it now. Understood?”
“Sure, chief. Might help if I knew what you were going to do.”
“I’ll start by removing the scar tissue. That’ll be delicate. You’ll have to help control bleeding.” He didn’t know if there would be bleeding or not. He’d never carved on somebody who should have been dead fifteen years ago. He could not believe this operation was possible. But Catcher being alive was impossible.
How much control would she have? How much would she participate? His would be the least part here, physical preparation for the mating of head and neck. The rest, tying nerve to nerve and blood vessel to blood vessel, would be up to her.
It wouldn’t work. It couldn’t.
He went to work. Soon he was concentrating enough to forget the price of failure.
21
Longshadow watched the upper limb of the sun slide below the horizon. He barked an order. A wrinkly little brown man whispered, “Yes, my lord.” He scurried out of the crystal room. Longshadow remained motionless, watched the day fade.
“Welcome the enemy hours.” It was summertime. Longshadow preferred summers. The nights were shorter.
He was less troubled, less fearful, now. Those nights after the Stormgard debacle had included a crisis of confidence now past. He was not cocky but was sure of himself now. Everything he touched was turning to gold, unfolding to perfection. The Howler was on his way from the swamps, undetected. The siege of Stormgard continued to enervate Shadowspinner’s armies. Spinner remained impotent. She seemed to have faded, content to avenge herself on Dorotea Senjak. Senjak was playing her own game unaware that she was playing his. Soon, now, she would stumble. He had just one move to make. And it was time.
Each seventy feet along Overlook’s wall stood a tower topped by crystal. Inside each cylinder was a large curved mirror. Fires came to life within those towers. The flames burned brightly. The mirrors hurled light onto the old road descending from the plain of glittering stone. No shadow could move there unseen.
His confidence was back. He could leave the night watch to others. He had other business to conduct. There were reports to receive, orders to send, communiques to issue. He turned his back on the outside world, approached a crystal sphere on a pedestal at the heart of the chamber.
The sphere was four feet in diameter. Channels wormholed through it to a hollow at the heart. Shimmers of light rippled over its surface. Snakes of light wriggled through the channels inside. Longshadow rested withered hands on the sphere. Surface light absorbed them. His hands sank into the globe slowly, as though melting through ice. He grasped serpents of light, manipulated them.
A port opened where the sphere rested on the pedestal, unsealing one channel. Darkness oozed in. It came reluctantly, compelled, fighting every inch. It hated the light as the Shadowmaster hated darkness. It filled the heart of the sphere.
Longshadow spoke to it. The light on the sphere rippled, crept up his arms. The sphere vibrated. A sound weaker than a whisper came off it. Longshadow listened. Then he sent the shadow away and summoned another.
To the fourth such shadow he said, “Take this message to Taglios: ‘Create the agent.’”
As the shadow oozed away, fleeing the light, the Shadowmaster suddenly felt that he was no longer alone. Frightened, he tried to turn to look at the road from the plain.
Nothing moved there. The shadowtraps were holding. What, then?
Something inky, glossy, flashed through the nearest beam. “Huh?” No shadow, that. A crow! A lot of crows. What were crows doing here?
It was night. Crows didn’t fly at night.
It came, then.
There had been crows around Overlook for weeks, seldom behaving as crows should. “Hers!” He cursed, stamped angrily, childishly. She’d been watching all along. She knew everything!
Fear fled before rage. He’d never had much self-control. He tried to yank his arms free, forgetting there should be no quick movement in the sphere. The crows seemed to laugh at him.
Hell. They swarmed over the surrounding walls, cawing mockingly.
He ripped a hand out of the s
phere. Bloody sparks crackled between his fingers. There would be an end to those cackling devils! She wouldn’t spy on him again!
He hurled a bolt. A dozen crows exploded. Blood and feathers splattered the tower. The survivors cawed uproariously.
Sense penetrated rage. Something was wrong. They wanted him to attack them.
Diversion?
The sphere!
A gap remained where he’d freed his hand. The hole penetrated to the core. A darkness was slithering through already.
He screamed.
He clamped down on his fear, removed his other hand slowly. He closed the deadly gap carefully, but not before the shadow escaped.
It darted through the doorway, out of the chamber, down into the bowels of Overlook, fleeing the light.
There was a shadow loose in the fortress!
Somewhere, a scream. The shadow was hunting.
Longshadow forced an icy calm. It was one lone shadow, small, controllable.
Outside, the crows made merry.
He stifled rage. They would not provoke him again. “Your hour will come,” he promised. “Fly to the bitch. Report your failure. I live. I still live!”
22
When the watchful eye lapses those who are watched invariably sense the instant of freedom.
A prodigious wail escaped the little thing called the Howler. It gobbled at the men carrying it. They raced forward, carried it into the camp of the Shadowmaster Shadowspinner while the watcher in the south was diverted.
The Howler remained just long enough to make contact, speak briefly, exchange views, reach an understanding by which he stood to evade the inevitable treachery of Longshadow, sure to surface the instant the threat from Taglios evaporated.
He was long gone when Longshadow’s seekers found him again. The only evidence of his visit was an improvement in Shadowspinner’s condition. Spinner kept that well hidden.
23
The breeze had shifted. It came from the northeast now, carrying smoke from across the river. I asked Narayan, “Could we confiscate their wood?” There had been suicides all morning.
“Unwise, Mistress. Interfering might start a rebellion. Your grip isn’t that tight.”
And likely would never be, unpleasant as I found that truth. “Just wishful thinking. Tinkering with customs isn’t my mission.”
Nor his. I had not pressed Narayan about that. I could guess, though. It was implicit in his beliefs. He wanted to bring on the Year of the Skulls. He wanted Kina free. He wanted to become immortal, a Deceiver saint.
“It’s all far away, Mistress. What do we do today?”
“We’re approaching that point where assembling an army begins snowballing.”
“Snowballing?”
I’d used Forsberger for “snowballing,” not thinking. I did not know the Taglian for snow. It did not snow here. Narayan had never seen snow. “It starts growing of its own momentum. In another week, ten days, I’d guess, we’ll begin getting more recruits than we can handle.”
“Even with the Radisha against us?” He was convinced the woman was an enemy.
“That could work for us if we appeal to resentment of the powers that be.”
Narayan understood. Such resentments brought recruits to the Deceivers. “There’s less of that than you hope. This isn’t your land. My people are very fatalistic.”
They were. But they had their handles. There would not be two thousand men under my standard now otherwise. “They’ll respond to the right spark. True?”
“We all will, Mistress.”
“Absolutely. I’ve provided that spark for you and your friends, haven’t I? But how about a spark to fire the masses? One that will make them forget their fear of the Black Company and their objections to a woman commander?” I understood why the Company was feared now. For his sake maybe it was best Croaker had gone before he figured it out. It would have broken his heart.
Narayan had no suggestions.
I said, “We need an electrifying rumor to hand your brotherhood, to whisper everywhere.”
“Word should have reached all the jamadars now, Mistress.”
“Wonderful, Narayan. So every band captain has heard that your Strangler messiah is come. Assume they all believe because the news came from you, famous and honored master Strangler.” My tone was getting sarcastic. “How many men will that bring to a standard that needs thousands? I’d rather have your friends stay where they are, as our hands and knives in hiding. Are there other legends I can exploit? Are there other fears?”
“The Shadowmasters are scary enough, at least in the country, where they remember last year.”
True. We were getting volunteers from across the river already, men who’d had no chance to enlist before we marched on Dejagore. The men we had taken down had come from the city or were slaves we had liberated after overrunning Ghoja. The country folk, intimate with the terror of the Shadowmasters, should prove a rich source of manpower. And would be hardier than city folk. But I might have to gather my harvest quickly.
Around here power emanated from the palace and the temples of Trogo Taglios. A few frightened men there could issue bulls and dictates forbidding the faithful from joining me.
“Do you have friends in the city?”
“Not many. None that I know personally. Sindhu may know some.”
“Ram came from the city.”
“Yes. And a few others. What’re you thinking?”
“It might be wise to get established there now, before the Radisha, and especially that whimpering runt Smoke, can swing opinion against us.” I said we and us always but meant I and me. Narayan was not fooled much.
“We can’t leave Ghoja. Thousands more men will come here. We have to collect them.”
I smiled. “Suppose we split what we have? You take half, stay here, do the gathering, and I take half to the city?”
He reacted the way I expected. Almost panicky. He didn’t want me out of his sight.
“Or I could leave Blade. Blade is a man of respect, with a strong reputation down here.”
“Excellent idea, Mistress.”
I wondered who was manipulating whom. “Do you suppose Sindhu is a man of enough respect to leave with him?”
“More than enough, Mistress.”
“Good. Blade will have to know something about him. Something about your brotherhood.”
“Mistress?”
“If you’re going to use a tool you should know its capabilities. Only a priest demands we take things on faith.”
“Priests and functionaries,” Narayan corrected. “You’re right. Blade will take nothing on faith.”
He was the last man alive who would. That might come between us someday.
“Are any of your brotherhood cynical enough to be hiding inside other priesthoods?”
“Mistress?” He sounded hurt.
“I have few sources of information. If we had friends within the priesthoods…”
“I don’t know about Taglios, Mistress. It seems unlikely.”
I did miss the old days, when I’d had the unbridled use of my powers, when I could summon a hundred demons to spy for me, when I could recall the memories of a mouse that had been in the wall of a room where my enemies had congregated.
I’d told Narayan that I’d built an empire from beginnings as humble as ours. That was true, but I’d had more weapons. This time I often felt disarmed.
The weapons were coming back, but far too slowly.
“Send Blade to me.”
* * *
I took Blade for a walk up the river, east of the fortress. He was content to wait on me. He spoke only once, cryptically, as we approached a bankside tree where a fishing pole leaned. “Looks like Swan never got back.”
I had him explain. It didn’t mean much. I looked at the fortress. Swan and Mather were in there, nominal commanders of all Taglian forces below the river. I wondered how seriously they took that. They hadn’t been out much. I wondered if Blade was in touch
. He’d hardly had time. He’d been working hours longer than mine, teaching himself as he taught his men. I wondered why he made the effort. I sensed a deep reservoir of irrational hatred inside him.
I suspected he was a man who wanted to change the world.
Such men are easy to manipulate, easier than the Swans, who mostly just want to be left alone.
“I’m thinking of promoting you,” I told him.
He responded sardonically. “To what? Unless you’re promoting yourself, too.”
“Of course. You become legate of the Ghoja legion. I become general of the army.”
“You’re going north.”
He didn’t waste words and didn’t need many to extract a lot of information. “I should be in Taglios now. To guard my interests.”
“It’s a bad spot. In the crocodile’s jaws.”
“I don’t follow.”
“You need to be here to gather soldiers, to gain power. You need to be there to control the priests who can keep recruits away.”
“Yes.”
“You need trustworthy lieutenants. But you’re alone.”
“Am I?”
“Maybe not. Maybe I misinterpret the interest of Narayan and Sindhu.”
“Probably not. Their goals aren’t mine. What do you know about them?”
“Nothing. They aren’t what they pretend.”
I thought about that, decided he meant they weren’t what they pretended to be to the world. “Have you heard of the Deceivers, Blade? Sometimes called the Stranglers?”
“Death cult. Legendary, probably. The Radisha mentioned them and their goddess. The wizard is terrified of them. The soldiers say they are extinct. That isn’t true, is it?”
“No. A few still exist. For their own reasons they’re backing me. I won’t bore you with their dogma. It’s repulsive and I’m not sure it was related to me truthfully.”
He grunted. I wondered what went on inside his head. He hid himself well.
I’d met others like him. I will be stunned the day I meet someone entirely new.
“Go north without fear. I’ll manage Ghoja.”
I believed him.
I turned back. We walked toward camp. I tried to ignore the stench from across the river. “What do you want, Blade? Why are you doing this?”