68

This time when I returned to flesh I was wiped out completely. I had just enough strength to grab some sugar water. I consumed my resources a lot faster, apparently, when I had to fight Smoke all the time.

Croaker was talking to somebody on the other side of the curtain. I did not recognize the voice so I did not include myself in the discussion.

The subject seemed to be a rapid deterioration in our fortunes due to a sudden increase in the number of shadows getting past the troops below the Shadowgate. Shadows were turning up everywhere now, though not yet in disastrous numbers.

The man reporting to Croaker was a courier who had come all the way around Overlook from the Old Division. Mission completed now, he did not want to go back out into the night even when Croaker offered him one of One-Eye’s amulets.

“You’re perfectly safe now,” Croaker told him. “The shadows won’t know you’re around.”

“I don’t trust—”

“Don’t test my temper, soldier. I’ll call the guards.”

Smoke groaned. It was a for real, out-loud, full-throated kind of groan.

Croaker started to snarl at the messenger again. The ground shook as though somebody had dropped a seven-ton boulder next door. Dirt rained down. Some got into my food. Some went down the back of my neck. I was too tired to care much, or even to wonder what was happening. Croaker pulled the hangings aside. “What was that?”

“The old fart made a noise.”

“He didn’t make the earth shake, did he?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know about that. I do know Lady wants to take one more crack at Overlook.” I explained the situation there. “Wouldn’t it be something if we could just round them all up? If we ended up getting the best of everybody because they couldn’t stop feuding among themselves?”

“We’ve been doing that for the last five years. More or less. I don’t like the idea of her going in there again. She ought to hunker down till morning. A place like Overlook could turn into a death trap if the shadows infest it.”

I said, “We’d really better worry about Longshadow’s health. If the well-being of the Shadowgate depends on his well-being.”

“Uhm?”

“A lot of the insane stuff he did the last several years he did because Soulcatcher and Kina were manipulating him. But he was paranoid about the shadows twenty years before any of us showed up in these parts. He’s convinced they’re out to get him. What if he’s right? What if they do get him? I don’t know what happens to a man when the shadows come, except that he dies horribly. If one of them kills Longshadow, will that break open the Shadowgate? Would that be why they want to get him so bad?”

“I don’t know. I’d have to ask One-Eye.”

“Where is that little shit? He should have been hanging around here instead of playing tonk.”

“Tonk?”

“A while ago he was bitching because he wanted to get back to his burrow. He’d suckered somebody into coming over to play.”

“He was bullshitting you, then, Murgen. There’s nobody in this army stupid enough to play cards with him anymore. Maybe he was going to get drunk. Why don’t you run over there and—”

“I’m wiped. That’s one reason I wanted to see One-Eye. I don’t have anything left to give.”

Croaker sighed. He started to settle his winged Widowmaker helmet onto his head. “What should he look for?”

“He’ll want to keep track of Lady and what’s happening in Longshadow’s chamber. He’ll have to fight Smoke every step to do it, though. The little shit is really turning into his old chickenshit self. He don’t want to get near this or that or . . . Never mind. Tell him if he sees something Lady ought to know about, he can sort of warn her by getting his point of view down right in front of her and screaming. She won’t pick up anything word for word but she’ll understand that there’s something she needs to know. Then she’ll pick up the gist of it.”

Croaker frowned. He was really worried about Lady going back into Overlook. He asked, “Can you make it back to your place?”

The sugar water had given me strength enough to attack some hard rolls and fragments of a scrawny chicken that had not been able to outrun the headquarters cooks. “Yeah. Now. I wish we’d brought more cattle. I’d cut somebody’s throat for a good hunk of rare beef.”

“One-Eye is supposed to have woven a network of spells around here to make the area proof against shadows. But I want you to take this amulet, too. Just in case.”

It is never wise to count on One-Eye one hundred percent. Sometimes he gets sloppy. Sometimes he forgets. Sometimes he is too lazy.

Croaker said, “Bring the standard when you come back. Then I can give that amulet to somebody else.”

“Still want me to go past One-Eye’s hole? I’m better now.”

“I’ll handle it. Get some rest. If you’ve turned into the religious sort while I wasn’t looking, beg your gods to get us through the rest of the night.” Fortunately, there was not a lot of night left. The shadows would have to go into hiding before long. The tables would turn. Soldiers would spend the daylight hours hunting them.

During our conversation we had heard several remote screams. “Yeah.” As I was about to leave I observed, “Shouldn’t most of the stupid ones, the ones who didn’t want to do the work or to inconvenience themselves, be dead by now?”

“I expect so. I imagine the shadows are learning from their successes, though. And their failures.”

Shaking, I went out into the night.

Clouds masked the stars. I could see nothing but the occasional flight of a fireball and the glow atop Overlook’s remaining lighted towers.

I listened for crows and owls and bats, for rats and mice. I heard none of those. There was no noise anywhere that was not of human origin. Shadows found nonhuman life nearly as tasty as human. And a whole lot less difficult about being hunted.

A breeze had begun to blow. I sniffed the air, considered the overcast. Looked like we were going to get some rain.

I descended into my own dugout. Inside I found Thai Dei huddled beside the fire, pallid for a Nyueng Bao, obviously frightened. Weird. I had trouble picturing him being scared of anything.

I told him, “We’ll be fine here. This candle will keep out any shadows that get through the spells One-Eye spread around outside.” I did not mention the standard. He did not need to know. I tossed him the amulet Croaker had given me. “For insurance. You wear that, you can go anywhere safely.”

“I’ll go nowhere till the sun is high in the sky.”

“I like your attitude. Shows good sense. I’m exhausted. I need to get some rest before I collapse.” I looked around.

“Where’s your mother?”

Thai Dei shook his head. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t know where to start looking if I could summon the courage to rid myself of the cold water that has replaced my bones.”

“She isn’t out there with Uncle Doj, is she?” Concerned, tired, I spoke without thinking.

Thai Dei was not so frightened and worried that he missed my slip. “Uncle Doj?”

Why pretend? “Oh, I know he’s prowling around out there. I saw him the other night. Him and Mother Gota were prancing through the ruins of Kiaulune. Doing who knows what the hell why. Or maybe hell knows what the who. What’s he up to? I’m sure he wasn’t looking for plunder Mogaba’s and the Prince’s men missed.”

Thai Dei just looked at me. Maybe a hint of a smile tried to break through. It did not last. “Will that candle last all night?”

Evidently he could become mildly talkative if he was scared and worried.

“It’ll last a lot of nights. I’m going to crap out. If it makes you more comfortable, put on the amulet and sit next to the candle. Just don’t move it. It has to block the doorway.”

Thai Dei grunted. He had the amulet on his wrist already and was back at full worry.

I said, “We’ll look for your mother first thing.” Now that there was a chance she was dead I was concerned. Result of a whole lot of boyhood teaching that insisted that even the most hated member of your family was immeasurably precious. And there was some truth to that. Who will watch your back if not family?

It is the same here in the Company. The most loathsome, most despicable of my brothers has to be of more value to me than any outsider. On one level we are a big, ugly family.

There are, of course, rare exceptions, bullies and assholes so bad they have just got to be fragged. That has not happened in a long time.

I would look for my mother-in-law even though I had wished her away at least a hundred thousand times.

I was not yet all the way horizontal when sleep overcame me.

69

I dreamt. Of course. Awake or asleep I spent most of my life in dreamlands.

I was in the place of bones. Some great force troubled the plain. The bones themselves drifted on tides and currents. Scattered skeletons pulled themselves together, rose up and wandered aimlessly for seconds or minutes before falling apart again. Skulls turned to stare wherever I floated. Crows cawed drunkenly from perches in the few enwintered trees, afraid to fly because their equilibrium was all off and every straight flight nevertheless warped groundward where the stricken bird flopped and struggled amongst the bones like a moth caught in a spider’s web. Dark clouds scurried across what had always been iron-grey skies. The wind was icy. Gusts made the bones rattle.

The smell of Kina was strong but I did not see her.

There was something behind me, though. I just could not turn fast enough to find out what.

Turning did inform me that I had some control, which I exercised immediately by wishing myself out of that place. Naturally, the move failed to be an improvement.

I went to the caverns of ice and old men. Those ancients made no sound but they were bickering. Something was in the wind. The smell of Kina was strong there, too, but she was nowhere to be seen.

Some of those old boys had their eyes open. They watched me as I passed.

Again I had the feeling that there was something behind me but saw nothing when I looked back.

I did have control. I followed the tunnel, eventually reached the place where the Books of the Dead rested upon their lecterns. The first, which the Daughter of Night had been transcribing, was now open to a page near the beginning.

The stink of Kina was particularly strong there.

I had no business in that place. There was nothing I wanted there.

Except out.

I tried to recall how I had gotten away last time. By just wanting to do it badly enough, I guess.

Darkness came.

It reminded me of something Narayan Singh said one time:

“Darkness always comes.”

It seemed I was in the darkness a long time. Fear began to build. I reflected on just how right Narayan had to be.

Though it might wear a thousand different names in a thousand different times, and might come from a thousand different directions, darkness always comes.

When the light came back I found myself way up high above everything again. So high up, I was above the clouds that had been moving in as I headed for bed, leaving me at the mercy of those unfamiliar stars.

I picked out the ghoulish dagger constellation in the north, took a guess at the direction I had followed before, put on all the speed I could and dived into the clouds. In moments I was down where treetops whisked right under where my love handles would have hung had I had any belly at all. I thought I could learn to enjoy this if I could just get rid of the feeling that something was close behind me and gaining.

There were no lights down there this time. The whole world smelled of fear, as though every rock and animal and tree sensed something dire about to happen. I located a village. The entire population was wide awake, despite the hour. They huddled in frightened clumps, babies clutched tightly, livestock gathered into their homes with them. They did not talk much. The children whimpered.

How could they know what was happening at Overlook? Was there some prophecy or something that said tonight was the night the Shadowgate would go down? Had there been signs and portents unseen by me? Did they know anything at all? Maybe their terror had nothing to do with Shadowmasters or the Black Company.

I streaked onward. Far, far ahead the occasional spark flipped into the sky. Those had to be the home fires burning.

The quarrel with the shadows was not over.

It was a long night.

The Shadowgate had not collapsed. Not yet. Longshadow was still alive.

I recalled having no problems getting close to any she is the darkness when I did not have Smoke along. I headed for the flickering remnant of Longshadow’s crystal chamber.

Soulcatcher was on her feet and in nasty form, carping at Howler. The screaming wizard hardly knew where he was. “Come on, you worthless ball of rags!” Catcher raged in a fishwife’s voice. “We’ve got to get out of here before my beloved sister realizes the lovely chance she’s missing!”

Her darling sister was on her way already, thanks to me. I was surprised she was taking so long. She seemed to have grown cautious in the last hour. Of course, she did have to slither through a long tunnel, then wander around a dark fortress, then make a long climb, all the while making sure no little shadows jumped on her back.

Howler let out a groggy, interrogative sort of cry. He was not yet clear on where he was or how he had gotten there. He concentrated on getting his feet back under him.

Catcher had to keep her back clean, too. She cast some little spell that sent a worm of light slithering into all the dark places in that tossed salad of a chamber. It rooted out several tiny shadows. They evaded the light easily. Soulcatcher cursed. “Damned thing isn’t fast enough!” The shadows darted at Longshadow, who was in far worse shape than Howler. He was, however, more in touch with what was happening around him. He whispered a cantrip before the darknesses reached his shell. The little shadows spun and went after the invaders.

This battle would not end while he was alive, apparently. He was a stubborn shit.

Soulcatcher cuffed Howler around the ears. The fishwife’s shrill insisted, “Come on! This place is going to be your death if we don’t get“ She sensed imminent danger. Lady was not far away now. “It’s her.” New voice. Baffled, frightened, childlike. “How does she dare? She can’t have any real powers anymore. It doesn’t work that way.”

Lady was in the stairwell now. She did not seem afraid of a confrontation with her little sister at all.

She carried a bundle of short bamboo poles.

So did the dozen men behind her. They would be able to launch a small blizzard of fireballs. Those at the rear of the party backed up the steps. They kept poles ready to discharge at anything coming up behind them. The smell of fear grew stronger than the lingering perfume of Kina.

Soulcatcher thumped Howler a few more times, trying to get him to come alert. He remained too groggy to be much use.

She turned to the doorway. With some small but well-chosen spell she sealed it, then resumed trying to get Howler into shape for a flying escape.

The small shadows had gone into hiding again.

The door began to glow. Its surface rippled colorfully, according to the hue of the fireballs hitting its far side.

Soulcatcher produced a knife and slit Howler’s clothing. I did not understand till she found what she was looking for. That proved to be a piece of silk, four feet by six when she spread it, and a little bundle of sticks. The silk rectangle became almost rigid when she spoke a certain word. It floated up off the floor like it was floating on the surface of a gently rippling pool. Soulcatcher broke the bundle of sticks and assembled them into a framework on which she stretched the silk. She muttered as she worked. The whole thing seemed much too fragile but in a minute she grabbed the Daughter of Night and clambered aboard. The carpet sagged but held their weight.

Sputtering, jerking like he was having a seizure, Howler staggered toward his stolen emergency conveyance. I wondered if this was his final secret or if he still had more flying tricks up his sleeves. I bet it was something like that piece of silk that got him out of dying, back when they thought he had crashed at high speed into the side of the Tower at Charm.

Soulcatcher did something incredibly violent. Most of the tower top vanished inside a globe of white light. The flare was so brilliant it betrayed every shadow slithering through the night but temporarily blinded half the men trying to exterminate them.

When the light faded a third of the tower’s crystal roof no longer existed. Soulcatcher snagged Howler by the hair, dragged him onto the carpet, said some word that started the tiny thing moving.

It began to sink almost immediately. It barely cleared the turret. Then it went down, down, toward the unfriendly folks and unfriendlier shadows hunting one another amongst the rocks below. Catcher did not want to go down there but the carpet was overloaded. It was designed to help the runt get out of a tight spot, not him and all his friends and neighbors.

The smell of Kina grew stronger again. The whirlwind of rage was coming back for one more try.

The goddess did not want her daughter carried off.

The brat’s eyes were closed inside her egg. That had proven to be flexible and slick when Soulcatcher was slinging it around. The kid’s face bore that serene expression she got when she was communing with Kina.

Lady and her cohorts burst into the chamber where Longshadow and Narayan Singh still groaned and twitched. Fireballs routed the small shadows instantly. Seconds later a stream of fireballs reached down for Catcher and her companions. None hit home but they did alert our troops that something was on the fly. Anything that flew would not be friendly.

Kina’s interest and anger heightened fast. A hurricane screamed in the ghostworld. Her stench leaked over into the real world. Men heaved up their last meals. The sky darkened more than the night and clouds insisted.

The earth shook.

The throne shudders and slips a thousandth of an inch. The tortured figure groans. Its blind eyes flutter.

One crow cackles.

The bird fails to recall that it dares not rest. Its claws touch down atop the sleeper’s head. Before its wings finish folding it begins to scream. Small shadows have found it. They squabble over its life force joyfully.

The earth shivers. There is no silence anymore. Stone is broken. It continues to break. The light in the abyss is brighter. Pastel, gossamer mists rise like the questing tentacles of a sea anemone.

There is color. There is life, of a sort. There is light.

There is death. The crow shrieks out its pained outrage.

And dies.

Death will find a way. Darkness will find a way inside. Darkness always comes.

70

It took me a while to realize that the shaking was neither imaginary nor metaphorical. The earth was shaking. This was a genuine badass earthquake as nasty as the one that had destroyed Kiaulune and much of the Shadowlands back before we headed south. Panic filled the air of the ghost world, apparently a divine panic on Kina’s part. Her stink took on a whole new air.

Who ever heard of a god being scared?

Fireballs continued to scar the night.

I watched Lady and her people stagger around as they collected Singh and Longshadow. They were extremely careful with both. Lady knew just how dangerous each could be. She had been both in her time.

She wanted to hurl some special farewell after her sister but before she could get a spell woven an aftershock rattled the fortress. Pieces began to fall off the battered tower. Lady decided it might be an opportune time to head downstairs and get out to ground where things were less likely to fall on her.

I decided it would be a good time to get back out and talk to Croaker. Then I recalled that I was not riding Smoke now so I did not have that kind of control. I could not force myself awake.

I decided to stick with Soulcatcher and her companions. It would be useful to know where she settled down to regain control enough to surround herself in mists and repulsions again.

For a second, as I went over the lip of the tower into the abyss of night, I thought I felt Smoke whiningly trying to shy away from the tower. Maybe I was getting too accustomed to bejng close to that little chickenshit.

The smell of Kina grew stronger, faded, grew stronger, as though the goddess was hunting blindly. Her anger never abated.

Soulcatcher managed to nag Howler awake enough to lend a hand keeping the carpet aloft. As soon as he had half his wits collected they began bickering. They must have gotten loud because the fireballs began streaking much closer.

Those things had a power that extended beyond the mortal plane, that was sure. I found out the hard way, by giving in to a childish temptation. I allowed one to go zipping through what, roughly, was my body space.

The pain was terrible. I felt what the shadows must feel when hit. But the fireball did not attach itself to me the way it did the shadows though its momentum did drop dramatically enough for me to notice even in my agony.

I was not going to pull that damnfool trick again.

Catcher and Howler almost evaded me after I began to watch the fireballs too closely. But those that darted up after Howler’s racket kept her trail warm.

She was heading for that same canyon where she had holed up all winter. It was unlikely that she would stay there long, though. We knew where it was.

I caught up. I could make some time out there when I concentrated.

Maybe I got too close. Soulcatcher seemed, suddenly, to realize that she was being watched. She stopped the carpet and spun it around. Even in the darkness I could feel the intensity of her glare. “Howler!” she snapped. “Do you feel something strange?”

Bad move, that. It encouraged the stinky little wizard to open his mouth. A grand howl ripped out when he did. Catcher had stopped right above some of the Prahbrindrah Drah’s fugitives. They were very nervous men.

The first fireballs up illuminated the carpet well enough for other snipers to take better aim. Hardly had Howler gotten his mouth under control than a fireball winged him. He shrieked again. And lost his concentration.

The carpet began to slide toward the ground. Soulcatcher cursed in a cranky old man’s voice, fought it. A fireball nearly parted her raven hair. Enraged, she opened her mouth to pronounce some deadly retribution.

The carpet began to fall.

Catcher shrieked in frustration, threw out a booted foot and pushed Howler off the edge of the carpet. He yelled angrily. Catcher grumbled an unfriendly goodbye. The carpet stopped falling. Muttering control spells, Catcher got it moving again. The boys on the ground never stopped sniping.

A fireball passed through the carpet between Soulcatcher and the Daughter of Night.

Kina, while unable to catch up and hammer Catcher, seemed to be aware of events. A whirlwind of rage filled the shadow world. A glimmer of the multiarmed idol began to show through on our side. It never coalesced completely but did materialize enough to send the Taglian loyalists running whatever direction they happened to be facing.

Howler howled. He plummeted toward the earth. He always was a lucky little shit and his luck held now. First he plunged through the branches of some heavy evergreens. They whipped the pudding out of him but slowed his fall. Then he smashed into a hillside still covered with unmelted snow. That was deep enough that he vanished into it.

I had not one doubt that he would be up and dancing like a dervish before lunchtime. And likely in a mood to show Soulcatcher just how much he loved her.

I sniffed around for a few minutes, marking the spot. Howler did nothing. I figured I had better go try to wake up. This looked like a once-in-a-lifetime chance either to recruit a first-line wizard or to put him out of our misery forever.

I suspected Croaker would prefer the latter option. We had had too many unfriendly encounters with the Howler over the years.

Did I mention Howler’s luck? I could not wake up. Evidently my spirit had no power over my body when that wanted to sleep. It looked like I had to keep wandering, want to or not.

I recalled last year when I had gone off without even being asleep. When Soulcatcher somehow pried me loose by means unknown and for a purpose I never divined. Which she might do to me again. Particularly if anything I had done lately had caught her attention.

There was a good chance the whole thing had been just a game to her, something to while away some time while fragments of her scheme fell into place. Or maybe she had been experimenting. Or both things, and maybe more. What we know for sure about Catcher is that she walks in chaos and her motives are changeable.

I must be driven. I figured that as long as I had to stay out there I ought to keep scouting around. Working in my sleep. Ought to have the Old Man double my pay. How much is two times a stab in the back?

The Prince was making good time. He was headed straight up the road north, which was the only reason I found him. A whole mob of his guys were running with him. And they did keep moving briskly.

Shadows larked around them like wolves on the hunt for dangerous game. It was a running fight. The Prince’s men did not have many bamboo poles but whenever one of the crowd began shrieking he died of fireballitis before the attacking shadows could finish their cruel work.

I wasted no time looking for Mogaba or Goblin. Too much work to find them. Maybe after it got light. Which it ought to be starting by now, only the clouds were so heavy.

I headed back toward Overlook.

Everywhere I went I saw evidence of the latest earthquake: landslides, toppled trees, a collapsed bridge the southerners had rebuilt after the last quake, then had cast down so we could not use it so Cletus and his brothers had had to put it up again. And lots of shelters knocked over or fallen in. And cracks in the ground. And even some damage to Overlook, up where Longshadow had bickered with his pals and then everybody had quarreled with Kina.

As I closed in a large block of white stone slipped out of Longshadow’s tower and plunged toward the foot of the wall. Several more followed quickly. The tower seemed to wobble slightly, as if made of gelatin instead of stone. Then I realized I was seeing an aftershock in progress. Or maybe a temblor even bigger than the last.

Shit! Was the whole damned fortress going to come tumbling down? Lady and her crew were still inside. No. Not possible. No earthquake was going to lay Overlook low. It was just too massive. Practically speaking, there was hardly anywhere for it to fall since it was more stone than empty volume.

Longshadow’s workbenches and mystery engines began to shift.

71

A jet of white fire spurted skyward, ripped open the bellies of the low-hanging clouds. Even in the ghostworld I could hear the roar of energy being released. Crystal near the jet vanished in blue puffs. Farther away it melted and ran like candle wax. It dripped. I saw a glob plummet into a pail of water, sizzle. Right then I decided that if I survived I would climb that tower if it survived and claim that marble as a souvenir.

The jet faded from white to yellow to red, then went dark, but the heat was still there, squirting away less violently, for a while. The Shadowmaster had had a lot of power stashed atop that tower.

Everything burnable in the remains of the chamber was now on fire. Several small shadows scuttled hither and yon. They seemed unwilling to leave despite the disaster. Maybe they were domesticated.

The first raindrops fell. Those passing through the invisible energy jet sizzled into steam.

I was thinking about going down inside the fortress to check on Lady, and having no luck convincing myself, when one of the shadows decided it might be happier hitting the trail. The trail it chose was the one Lady had to have taken with her prisoners.

An entire section of my mind devoted itself to speculating about the futures of Longshadow and Narayan Singh. Narayan’s prospects, I feared, were particularly bleak.

I followed the shadow.

I did not want to do that. But I felt compelled. It might sneak up on Lady and the guys. It might be devoted to its master. It might want to help him get away.

I sort of chuckled at the image of Longshadow trying to run, busted up the way he was.

I had no sympathy for the guy.

I tried sensing Lady’s presence ahead, could not. And I could not go anywhere in a straight line, of course. I still could not walk through walls. Which meant I suffered the same constraints as shadows. Did that mean I could go anywhere shadows could? Did it mean shadows could go anywhere I could?

That was troubling.

There was no light inside Overlook, nor any sound or landmarks. I changed my mind about finding Lady quickly.

I can have nightmares about darkness and tight places even when I am awake.

I turned back. Insofar as I was aware there had been no branchings to make me lose my way.

I ran into a shadow head-on.

There was no source of light but the forge where the torturer heated his instruments. That flickered, illuminating the creased, weathered bronze face of the frightened little man who had not become a soldier because he wanted to but because he believed he owed his gods a service when they demanded it. Like all his own people (and as their enemies did also), he hoped his own gods were strongest and would prevail.

It was one slice of nightmare two seconds long, filled with information so alien most would never make sense to me. I was not sure I should assume that the shadow I had encountered actually connected with a man who had been tortured to death after having been captured in some religious war. No religion in these parts worked that way. Not even the Deceivers did, though they had tortured some victims, in ages past, in the Grove of Doom, during their Festival of Lights.

My encounter with the shadow had not been that bad, really. I did not think collisions would be troublesome as long as I was ghostwalking. But it probably would have been a fatal meeting had it come while I was in my own body.

The incident did leave me goofy and disoriented. I floated back up to the remnants of the crystal chamber. The place had cooled down. The light had gone dead. But there was another light in the world now, despite the overcast. Daylight was coming at last.

Just as I realized that night’s siege was ending a final small volley of fireballs erupted near the Shadowgate. Then the world went still. And for a few minutes nobody and nothing was killing anybody or anything anywhere within sight.

I looked south and reflected that there was no Smoke to keep me from going over there and taking a peek. And shadows did not bother me in this state. And if they did try, why, they behaved like rodents. No matter how big and ferocious, they stayed close to the surface. They wanted to be able to get into hiding quickly. And I could fly.

I started southward. I really did. But something happened.

The earth shook again.

Lightning struck Overlook only a dozen feet away.

Thai Dei woke me up.

The effect was, I headed south but something grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and I spun northward like a leaf snatched up by a dust devil.

“I don’t want to get up,” I told the hand abusing my repose. “I’m tired. I worked all night.” I was tired. I had worked all night. Hard. I did want to roll over and snooze for another eight hours.

Thai Dei poked me again. And then there was the other problem. Maybe a bigger problem.

My feet were wet.

I pushed myself up onto one elbow as Thai Dei told me, “You must get up!”

“I hate to admit it. You’re right. I gotta get up.” I had to get up because rainwater was running in in a stream, turning the floor to mud.

I banged my head against a log. “What the hell?” The overhead had fallen halfway in. The far wall had collapsed. The only reason I could see anything was that Thai Dei had brought a candle, the shadow repeller, when he came to visit. “What happened?”

“Earthquake.”

Oh. Yeah. It had not occurred to me that I could become a disaster victim, too.

By the time I got my knees under me I saw that Thai Dei must have done a lot of work just to get to me. I was in a pocket. Most of our dugout must have fallen in. “Mother Gota?” I asked. I had shifted to Nyueng Bao without thinking.

“I don’t know.” He responded in the same language. “She never came home.” His voice had an uncharacteristic edge. The strain was getting to him. Every few years he cracked and stopped being the ice man for minutes at a time.

“How’d you get in?”

“Where the roof fell in.”

I had to duckwalk to look at the hole. Yeah. I could see where he had squeezed his way in. There was some ugly grey sky out there. It was drizzling still. Thai Dei was about half my size, though. “I’m going to have to stay down here for a couple months before I can get through that. I shouldn’t have put on all that weight after we got out of Dejagore.” We had looked bad back then. Like walking skeletons, most of us.

I wondered if that had anything to do with my dreams. “Take the candle. I’ll go up and make the hole bigger.” My bodyguard. This was about the first time he ever had a real chance to save my ass and it was from being smothered by a vicious sod roof.

He pushed himself up into the opening. He wiggled. He squirmed. He dropped back down. “You need to push me.”

“Too many snacks while we were sitting around here bullshitting. Go.” I set the candle aside very carefully. It had become very important to me. I did not want to be down there in that tight, cold, wet place without a light.

I grabbed his legs and pushed. There must have been enough water in the hole to lubricate it. He popped through. I chuckled at a mental image of the earth giving birth to that ugly little man, like some clay devil in the Gunni myths.

I heard voices. Something blocked the dirty light. Croaker called, “Hey, deadbeat, you still breathing down there?”

“I’m fine. I was thinking about taking a nap.”

“You might as well. We’re going to be a while getting you out.”

“All right. I’ll be fine.” As long as the candle lasted.

I looked at it. It had a lot of life left. Those things were designed to last.

I began to think about what Thai Dei had had to do to come down into a place where shadows might be hiding just to see how I was doing. And that made me wonder that much more about the landscape of his interior world. Maybe I was a sloppy thinker. Or maybe just not yet experienced enough at being Nyueng Bao. I could not even work out how to treat Thai Dei like he was several different, distinct characters.

He and the Nyueng Bao believed he owed me a debt so great he had devoted his life to protecting me. He would lay that, and maybe even his soul, down for me. But at the same time he would willingly lie to and deceive the foreigner who was a cause for shame on his family. And, certainly, he would tell a Soldier of Darkness nothing that might cast any light upon Nyueng Bao attitudes toward the Black Company.

Come to think of it, not even my darling, beloved Sarie had gone that far. She could always change the subject without appearing to have done so.

I said something into the hole but nobody answered. Well, screw them. I was tired.

I sat down in the deepening mud and did go back to sleep. I did not go anywhere. I did not do anything but sleep.

72

I was a terrible mess when prisoners from the Prince’s division hauled me out of the ground. Otto and Hagop, who belonged with the Old Division and whom I had not seen since Charandaprash, came to stare down at me. “Looks like one a them mole-rat things they got down here,” Otto said.

“Only filthier. It wasn’t raining, Ott, I’d say get a bucket a water and throw it on him.”

“Comics,” I muttered. “You just gave away why you signed on. Your only way to get out of town ahead of an audience turned ugly.”

“His disposition’s improved since the last time we saw him,” Hagop observed. “He don’t let these little setbacks bother him anymore.”

“How you guys been keeping? We don’t get a lot of personal news over here.”

Hagop frowned. Otto said, “A nick here, a ding there. Nothing serious.” Practically ever since I met them one or both had been recovering from some kind of wound. It was what they were known for. They were icons, practically. Otto and Hagop could not be killed, only injured, and as long as they stayed alive the Black Company would survive.

Hagop said, “We was sent over with a bunch of stuff for the Old Man and some stuff for you to put in the Annals. Names.”

“Oh.” Croaker and I always tried to record the names of our fallen brethren the best we could. A lot of guys counted on it. Once they were gone it would be the only evidence that they had ever lived. It was immortality of a sort.

“Lot a names,” Hagop persisted. “Hundreds. Last night was not a good night for the Old Division.”

“You going to be able?” Otto asked. “Is everything buried down there in the mud?”

“It is. But I was more careful with the Annals and that stuff than I was with me. I kept them in a room with logs for the walls and floor and ceiling, with drainage and everything. Just in case. I figured the Shadowmaster would be the problem, though. Hundreds of names? Really? Any I know?”

“They’re just all on a list.”

“I’ll have to add them on at the back of the volume I’m doing now.” If there were hundreds they would be recent enlistees, their names likely unknown to me. They would be recorded on a payroll somewhere but that had nothing to do with me.

Thai Dei materialized. I had not noted his absence till he did. He said, “My mother was all right.” He did not sound real sure about that, though.

“Uhm?”

“They found her in the wizard’s hole when they dug him out. Which was why they were so long getting to you. Your Captain knew you were all right. He did not know if the wizard was dead or alive.”

He meant One-Eye, I realized. Well, of course, if the quake had been bad enough to overcome the fine craftsmanship Thai Dei and I put into our place, then One-Eye’s place could not be anything but a rainwater pool by now.

“She was in One-Eye’s dugout?”

Embarrassed, whispering because there were other Nyueng Bao around, Thai Dei admitted, “They were both dead drunk. Passed out in their own vomit. Didn’t even know the roof had fallen in till the rescuers pulled them out.”

“I’m sorry,” I told him. “But I’m just going to have to laugh.” It came on me hard. It was more than just picturing those two getting plotzed together. It was the release of all the stress from last night.

Otto and Hagop stared at the slopes to the south, restraining their own amusement.

I suffered another laugh seizure. I realized that, before lunch, word would be all over what was left of the army. Undoubtedly it would suffer severe exaggaration and would evolve into some prurient epic before it reached our most remote outpost.

The slope that had been the home of the headquarters group had turned into thirty acres of pockmarks. Hardly a dugout had survived. Prisoners were digging in a dozen different places.

I spotted one familiar face, then another, directing rescue teams. “So. She didn’t stay mad at them.”

“What?” Thai Dei asked.

“Nothing. Just thinking out loud.” Speak of the devil. There she came out of the Old Man’s bunker. Which had survived unscathed. Croaker was right behind her. Neither looked rested.

But they sure looked pleased with themselves.

I grumbled inarticulately, deep in my throat. My wife was half a world away.

Croaker ambled over. “Time for your annual bath, Murgen.”

“If I just stand here in the rain long enough . . . ”

Lady stared a hole through me. She wanted to interrogate me. But not now, not here, not in front of so many people who did not need to hear my answers because half of them did not themselves know where their loyalties lay.

I asked, “How bad did we get hurt last night?”

Croaker shuddered. Maybe some cold rainwater got inside his collar. “I don’t know yet. Lady has almost two thousand people she still can’t account for.”

“They keep turning up, though,” she said, joining us. “I imagine we’ll find most of them eventually.” Probably dead.

I said, “Otto and Hagop say we lost a big chunk of the Old Division.”

Croaker nodded. “They brought a list. It’s way longer than I hoped. We still don’t have anything useful from the other divisions. The New Division is still disorganized and the Prince’s fell apart completely. Did you have something you wanted to say in private? You have that look.”

“Yes.” Smoke rose from the crude chimney of Croaker’s shelter. Warm sounded good. I would make up something to tell him if I had to.

I joined him in the warmth with no remorse and little sympathy for the guys I had left out in the rain.

Lady followed us inside. She wore a smug but hungry look.

Lady had one of Croaker’s rough maps spread before the fire.

“Can you pinpoint where he went down?” She meant the Howler. “Maybe we can still catch him if he was hurt bad.”

“What’s that?” the Old Man asked when I mumbled.

“Uh . . . I said, you never stop tempting trouble, do you?” Lady did not turn me into a toad. Nor even one of Otto’s ugly little mole-rats. She was in a good mood this morning, as opposed to last night.

Smoke groaned. He startled me, though it was his second groan since I had come into Croaker’s shelter. I glanced that way. The curtain was open. Longshadow and Narayan Singh had been stacked in the alcove with the stricken wizard. I could not imagine Lady and the Old Man fooling around with that crew piled up only a few feet away, but it was obvious that they had taken complete advantage of their opportunity.

I was mildly surprised Lady would turn her prisoners over even to her old man. Longshadow represented a great opportunity to gain power. And Singh . . . Lady owed Singh a lot. But so did the Captain.

Maybe they would make a family project out of Narayan.

She asked fewer questions than I expected, mainly about Smoke’s limitations. I did not mention that I was developing an ability to travel without the comatose wizard. She did not ask. Croaker, though, noted that I knew about Howler even though I had been in my own bunker during the Taken’s run of bad luck.

“I’ll send Blade,” she decided. “He’s levelheaded. He can get a job done without getting himself or Howler killed.”

I wanted to ask how Blade and Swan had slithered back into her favor but management decisions were none of my business. I had had Lady explain that to me already, emphatically, regarding another matter.

She left to offer Blade his opportunity.

While she was away Croaker asked, “Where’s the standard?”

“Buried in my dugout.”

“Uhm. How about the Annals and stuff?”

“They’re in there, too. But they should be all right for now. If we have another quake, or a lot more rain, though . . . I don’t know.”

“We’ll go after that as soon as we’ve got our people dug out.”

“How come she brought Singh and the Shadowmaster here?”

He understood. “Because I’m the physician. And they’re both about half a heartbeat short of dying. Maybe if she’d had somebody of her own handy, whom she trusted . . . ” He let it trail off. He would never trust his woman completely, where ambition might enter the equation.

“She’s probably less risk than you think. I think I figured it out last night.”

“What?”

“Her relationship to Kina. How it works and why it exists. I think I got it.”

“You have time to think when you’re out playing spook?”

“Some.”

“So tell me about my sweetie and Kina.”

“Begin with the premise that she’s pretty damned bright.”

“Oh. Yeah.” He smiled at some private thought.

“Not to mention pretty strong-willed.”

“You going to waste my time with understatements? Or are you going to get on with it?”

“Onward. I think that, a long time ago, before we ever got to Gea-Xle, when she first showed unexpected signs of regaining some power, she understood that some force down here meant to use her. And she let it happen. And that lulled that force into thinking that it had claimed a slave when in fact what it really got was a parasite.”

Several possible responses stirred behind Croaker’s eyes. But he said only, “Go on.”

“That’s pretty much it. While the goddess was using her, Lady was limpeting herself to Kina so she could suck off power she could use herself. I think she’s burrowed in so deep Kina can’t get rid of her without crippling herself. I think Lady may even have some control over what the goddess does. Kina got real upset last night. The Daughter of Night was being threatened directly. But when she tried to help the kid, even though she managed to get really destructive, her efforts never quite hit their mark.”

“And you think Lady . . . ?”

“Yes. He’s right.” Lady stepped into the weak light. No telling how long she had been behind us, listening. She was the darkness when it came to moving quietly. “That doesn’t leave this place. So long as they think I’m the real thing the end results will be the same as if I were.”

I discovered some interesting mold formations developing on the wall in front of me. I gave them my devoted attention.

Croaker said, “If you’re like some kind of leech or something, how come Kina hasn’t tried to get rid of you?”

“Most of Kina is asleep. The part that isn’t is interested only in bringing on the Year of the Skulls. And she’s pretty stupid besides. She didn’t understand what I’d done till recently. She may ponder it for years before she decides to do something about it.”

I said, “She does seem to look at time in a different way.”

Lady continued, “I’m concerned that my beloved sister may have solved the puzzle, too. Or will now that she has the girl. The girl knows.”

I said, “Catcher’s hiding out in the same place she has ever since she got here.” The Old Man knew where that was.

Croaker said, “I’d love to take a crack. But we’ve only got ten hours to get ready for another night.”

I understood. But boy would it have been nice to get Catcher tucked safely into the past.

Twenty minutes of speculation did nothing to unravel Catcher’s ultimate motives. Not even Lady could guess what Catcher really wanted or what she might do next.

“She was that way when she was four years old,” Lady said. “Hell. She was born unpredictable.”

I must have looked too interested. The story stopped there.

I did not overlook the fact that neither Croaker nor Lady ever referred to their child in any way that might suggest that she was anything but an unnatural monster entirely unconnected to them.

73

I watched Wheezer direct the winkling out of a small shadow that had worked its way up close to the perimeter of One-Eye’s safe zone before going into hiding from the light. Lady had modified One-Eye’s amulets so that they could be used to detect shadows. Our guys were rooting them out with great enthusiasm particularly considering that most of those guys were exhausted. I said, “I can’t believe that old boy isn’t dead yet.”

On cue Wheezer tried to hawk up a lung. He was ancient when he joined the Company years ago and was dying of consumption even then. The only thing good that could be said about his situation was that he somehow managed to stay alive.

Thai Dei grunted. He did not care about Wheezer. Although he was supposedly helping excavate our bunker he spent more attention on his mother, who snored ferociously in the shelter of a tent that had belonged to somebody who had not survived the night. His face was stone. His eyes were ice. If another Nyueng Bao came anywhere near him his hackles rose. He was just waiting for somebody to say something, anything, that he could interpret as an insult so he could spend his embarrassment in a good fight.

When they dug Gota and One-Eye out not only were they passed out drunk, they were on the same pallet wearing less than their usual apparel.

So that was his tonk game, eh?

I worked hard not to crack a smile. Thai Dei might decide I was truly family after all and take it out on me.

I hoped he would not confront One-Eye. One-Eye would have a murderous hangover when he woke up. One-Eye with a hangover is not somebody to annoy.

Croaker was sorely exercised, I knew. The little wizard had rendered himself useless at a time when his talents were needed desperately.

Everywhere you looked people were scurrying to rebuild and to get ready for another night with a leaky Shadowgate. Lady and the Old Man hoped Longshadow would help improve that situation but no good news had been reported yet. They were having trouble getting him out of his shell.

They had no time to concentrate. Messengers came and went continuously, interrupting constantly.

“Another dozen shovels full and I think we can get it open,” I told Thai Dei. I had conscripted a door somebody else had stolen from the ruins. I had used it to close off the little workroom I had managed to complete just in time for the earthquake.

One of Croaker’s guards appeared. “The Captain wishes to see you, Standardbearer.”

“Wonderful. I’ll be right back, Thai Dei.” I clambered up out of the muddy hole and headed for Croaker’s dugout. I ducked inside. The crowd had thinned out. Amazing. “What you need, boss?” He and Lady had Longshadow stretched out on a table made out of another stolen door. The Shadowmaster was too long for it. His feet hung off.

Lady had managed to eliminate the sorcerer’s protective shell.

“Fellow just came in from Blade’s bunch, Murgen. They’ve found Howler. He’s still buried in the snow. They don’t know if he’s unconscious or dead.”

“He’s been there long enough he should’ve froze to death.” But he was one of the Taken. They did not die easily. Especially not Howler. I glanced at Lady.

She told me, “I can’t tell from here.”

Croaker said, “They also caught Cordy Mather and his gang. They asked what to do about them.” He was poking and squeezing Longshadow’s limbs, looking for broken bones, I guess. He told Lady, “This man hasn’t eaten right for a long time.”

“Maybe he was worried about poison.” She stared down at the Shadowmaster’s mask. She started to reach.

“You sure you’ve cancelled all of his spells?” the Old Man asked.

“You can’t ever be sure with somebody you don’t know. Murgen. Did you ever see him with this off?”

The messenger from Blade pricked up his ears. He was collecting stories to share with the guys.

“No. How would I manage that? I never saw him before right now.”

She took the hint.

Croaker said, “What I want, Murgen, is for you to round up some men, including One-Eye—even if you have to carry him—and go help Blade.” And maybe keep an eye on him, eh, chief? Him and Mather being such good buddies? “Be careful with Howler but bring him in if you can.”

I grunted unhappily. Lady took hold of Longshadow’s mask.

The Old Man asked me, “You found out anything more about the planting season around here?”

I gave him a baffled look. That was an odd shift of subject. But he did that. His mind sometimes ran a dozen directions at once.

He continued, “We’ve got to get crops planted if we mean to stay here. That or pull a Mogaba and start eating each other.”

Lady pulled the Shadowmaster’s mask away.

Longshadow arced as though stabbed. His eyes opened. But he could do nothing else. He had been constrained and silenced by a master.

I asked, “Why don’t we move into his place? There’re supplies in there. Some. And Overlook is sure a whole hell of a lot drier inside than here. I don’t recognize him.” The Shadowmaster’s face was gaunt and oriental but pale as lard. There were just a few teeth in his open mouth, supporting Croaker’s assessment of his diet. He looked like a guy who had suffered repeated bouts with rickets or scurvy or something like that.

“Neither do I,” Lady said. She sounded badly disappointed. I do believe she really expected him to be one of the Taken, or at least someone she had encountered in the past.

I asked, “Is this a problem?”

“I was hoping for a break. Something to make life easier.”

“You picked the wrong husband. Boss, can I get out there and back before dark?”

The messenger nodded. “Easy. It’s only four miles. There’s road most of the way and it’s still in good shape.”

Smoke groaned again. There was a taint of fear there this time. Lady frowned his way. He was a problem she wished she had time to explore.

“Get a move on,” Croaker told me. “It’ll get dark eventually.”

Darkness always comes. “I love walking in the rain.” I beckoned the messenger, went back outside. A walk in the rain would not be that awful. I could not get any more wet.

I told Thai Dei, “The Captain wants us to go collect some prisoners.”

74

There are disadvantages to traveling wet. You get a lot of chafing, for example. By the time I caught up with Blade I had blisters on my feet and a raw spot inside my right thigh that burned awfully. And I still had to go back the other way.

Thai Dei was no happier than I was. None of the guys tagging along were cheerful. They had to take turns carrying One-Eye. The runt’s most ambitious effort yet had been to roll onto his side to puke over the edge of his litter.

I had had a notion about sneaking on up to peek into Soulcatcher’s ravine. It was a notion that died stillborn about the time we left the road for the forest. A few hundred yards of slip sliding around in the mud and pine needles and, in the shady places, snow, on steepening hillsides, quickly convinced me that this was no day to demonstrate individual initiative.

One thing I could be sure of. Soulcatcher would be around later.

I flopped down beside Blade. “Have a good trip down?” I asked Mather. “Sorry we couldn’t reserve better weather for you.”

Blade chuckled. So did Willow Swan, who observed, “This is about as good as it gets, Cordy. We did save the best for you.”

“I knew you were my pals.”

I asked, “Where’s our boy Howler?” None of this country looked the same as it had during the night, from the air.

Swan pointed uphill, southward, toward where some tall evergreens held on to a thick clot of shadow. “Buried in some snow up there.”

The guys with me dropped One-Eye’s litter. The little wizard moaned but did not yet have enough ambition to curse or threaten anyone.

I asked, “What did you guys do to convince Lady she could let you run around loose?”

Blade chuckled. “She convinced him. By pointing out that anybody who doesn’t stay close and friendly won’t have any protection from the shadows.”

I grunted. “It’s a realization that’s going around as people begin to examine their consciences.” It was the kind of question that has led many men to select options for which they may be excoriated later, by people with full bellies sitting in front of cozy fires. “Anybody got any grease? Even anything that will pass for grease?”

My old pal Thai Dei was lugging a glob of lard. In case we had to do some cooking. Nyueng Bao never ceased to amaze. Though their religion had to be an offshoot of the Gunni, somehow they did eat meat and, unlike the Vehdna, that did include pork. The swamp did not allow them to become too picky. Thai Dei must have lugged that lard for years, using it over and over . . .  No matter. Lard was exactly what I needed.

I dropped my trousers, treated the insides of my thighs to a generous spread. “This’ll keep me going for a while.”

One-Eye began thrashing on his litter, fighting his blanket and complaining about being wet. His problem was trivial. It was not raining anymore.

He threw up over the side again, hacking and gagging, then settled down to sleep.

“That looks pretty raw already,” Swan told me.

“Kiss it better,” Mather suggested.

“Some reunion. Our old pal Cordy got above himself since he’s been hobnobbing with the Woman—”

I said, “Let’s go do our wizard mining.”

Blade said, “I really don’t want to do this.”

“No shit. Me neither. Tell you what. Why don’t we let Swan and Mather get him? We’ll stay right here so somebody can get word back to camp in case anything goes wrong.”

Mather said, “This guy is definitely starting to sound like an officer. You get a couple field promotions during the campaign?”

“I’m a god.” I let Thai Dei help me up. He had not sprawled on the ground. His muscles were still loose. He started heading the direction Swan had indicated earlier.

Blade asked, “What about your pet?” He chucked a pinecone at One-Eye. One-Eye barely twitched.

“He’s got liabilities enough.” Let sleeping sorcerers lie.

One-Eye sat up. He slurred, “I heard that, Kid.” Then he collapsed again.

I said, “I think I’ll leave him here and take the other one back on the stretcher.” An idea which proved popular immediately. Not even One-Eye came out against it. He was busy snoring again.

There was no evidence that Howler had moved an inch since his fall. There was just the hole where he had gone into the snow and at its bottom, about eight feet deep, a bundle of dark rags. A light dust of loose snow had blown in on top of him.

“Hey! Lookit here!” a soldier called from maybe thirty feet away, up the slope past Howler.

“What you got?” I asked. I was not walking ten feet if I did not have to.

“Looks like a dead wolf.”

I worked my way up there. “Sumbitch, guys! He found a dead wolf.” I knelt. “Looks like it got caught by a shadow.” Evidence on the slope suggested that it had been sneaking toward Howler when bad luck got in its way. Then it had tried to run. It had not been alone, of course, but the tracks indicated a very small pack.

“I didn’t know they had wolves down here,” somebody said.

“Now you do.” The death of the wolf did not seem critical.

Except to tell us that a shadow had been around here last night and might still be hiding somewhere nearby. “Be careful if you’re anywhere that’s dark.”

I went back down to check Howler. He had not moved. Of course.

“He alive?” Swan asked.

Blade suggested, “Get a long stick and poke him.”

I said, “Let’s dig him out.”

“That smart?”

“He won’t do anything till we get him out of the hole.” I would not have in his position. Always let some other fool do the work if he insists.

The snow was old snow. Its surface had melted and refrozen numerous times. It was hard and heavy. Luckily, Howler was not really eight feet under. He had passed through eight feet of snow but that snow lay on a steep hillside and was only about four feet thick going in at the most direct angle.

I had a notion. “Don’t scatter that stuff too far. We might want to use some.”

“There ain’t exactly a shortage,” Swan grumbled.

Thai Dei, I noted, never offered to help. He stood back with his hand on his sword, alert, one eye cocked toward One-Eye. Perhaps his impulses were evil.

His vigilance proved unnecessary. As the more daring men brushed snow off Howler one of them announced, “He’s froze solid.”

A huge sigh of relief ripped through the crowd.

“Excellent!” I observed. “Here’s what we’ll do, then.”

An hour later we had the little wizard tied to a carrying pole, packed inside a layer of snow six inches thick. “Just to keep him from spoiling on the way,” I told the guys, some of whom had had to give up ragged bits of clothing to help keep the snow around Howler. They all whined and groaned and groused and wanted to know why we could not just pack him in with the other one.

They were going to break One-Eye’s heart. They did not love him anymore.

75

“Use this salve,” Croaker told me. “And try to keep it as clean and dry as you can.”

“I was walking bowlegged before we got back.” I scowled at One-Eye, who was seated on the floor near Croaker’s fire, not saying a word. He looked like he wished we would let him fall asleep for a year, so the pain would go away. He was still in such bad shape that he did not have energy enough to complain.

Mother Gota was more resilient. Her youth, I suppose. She and Uncle Doj had been working on the family dugout when Thai Dei and I returned from our adventure. Nobody, including Uncle Doj, had anything to say. I ignored his long absence. I had no time for Nyueng Bao mystery games. I left them stirring the mud in an effort to get a shelter up before night fell again.

Lady had Howler on the door table, examining him. She concluded, “He should recover.”

I asked, “You get issued nine lives when you get Taken? That little shit is starting to look stubborner than the Limper was.” We killed that asshole half a dozen times. We thought. And he just kept coming back.

Lady said, “No. But anybody who has the drive to become a wizard of his level is the sort who wastes no opportunity to further prepare for any imaginable possibility.”

I asked the Old Man, “What’s it look like out there?” There had been dramatic changes in the few hours I was away. Besides the passage of the rain. Most of the survivors had been collected either in the vicinity of the headquarters group or directly below the Shadowgate. A lot of manhours had gone into locating every surviving piece of workable bamboo. Lady’s reloading factory was hard at work, too, but the effort there was little more than symbolic of the leadership’s commitment to continue the struggle.

“Looks better than I thought it would. Lady got Longshadow stabilized. That should mean we’re back to the slow leakage we had before he got hurt. If he mends all right we’ll have him shut it down in a couple of days.”

“We going to be able to control him?”

“Oh yeah. You’ve seen statues of dead generals that had more freedom of action than she’s left him.”

Lady looked up from her work. She wore the tiniest of smiles but it betrayed the confident amusement of an old, old evil. She is the darkness. Smoke was for sure right about that.

I said, “Wouldn’t we be better off if we moved into Overlook?”

“Maybe. And we might do that. Once we get straightened out and know where everybody is. And figure out where, for right now, their loyalties lie.”

“Speaking of which. Uncle Doj is back. He’s out there helping my mother-in-law and acting like he was never gone.”

“I heard.”

“I’m wondering how he managed to survive. Especially last night.”

Lady looked at me like I had sparked a surprise thought. She said, “Watch Howler. Call me if he moves. I’ll be right outside.” She hurried out the doorway.

I looked at Croaker. He shrugged. “I don’t ask anymore.”

“She looks pretty ragged.”

“Don’t we all? But maybe we’ll get to rest up now. If we get the Shadowgate under control there won’t be anybody to aggravate us for a long time. If ever.”

Mogaba was out there. But he had no patron anymore. That meant that nobody could cover his ass magically. He would have to back off. And the Prahbrindrah Drah might not live long enough to become a problem. He had to evade both shadows and Goblin to reach friendly territory. And even so-called-friendly territory would not be very friendly if he could not pull together a band big enough to look out for itself. Peasants are notoriously cruel to fleeing soldiers when they catch them at a disadvantage. Possibly that is because soldiers are so cruel to peasants when the advantage lies in their hands, though many from the hyperrefined warrior classes have insisted it springs from the beastly nature of the peasantry.

“Can you get over to the Shadowgate?”

“Me? Now?”

“You. Now. Before dark. Carrying the standard. To test my theory about what it is. And to help cover the troops there if I’m right.”

“I can try. But I’m in pretty lousy shape.”

“You could ride.”

That was asking for another set of galled spots entirely but he was right.

With a slightly nasty smile he observed, “You could have your understudy do it for you if you had one.”

So he knew Sleepy was missing. I needed to check on the kid first chance I got.

Lady pushed back inside. She was not a big woman but she had a big presence. I was always surprised when I saw her after a separation because I always remembered her about a foot taller. She told me, “Your friend Doj isn’t just a priest from some obscure cult. He’s a sorcerer. Very minor. Less than One-Eye in ability. But he’s carrying something—an amulet, an artifact, what exactly I couldn’t determine—that protects him from shadows.”

Croaker looked at me like I ought to have known all about that years ago. “I don’t know, boss. This’s the first I’ve heard about it.” Though I had always suspected that Uncle Doj might be able to do something besides crochet with a sword. In fact, his skills with a blade always did seem almost magically augmented. How could a guy pull off something like that attack on the Deceivers at Charandaprash without getting swamped by sheer weight of numbers?

I do not know why but I told Lady, “My wife isn’t dead. The Deceivers never touched her when they raided our apartment. Thai Dei and Doj and some cousins took her away, then told me she was dead. They also convinced her that I was dead while they were taking her back to the swamp. They’ve got her stashed in a temple there now, where she won’t embarrass them by being pregnant. Doj and Gota don’t want us two together. They only ever put up with it at all because Gota’s parents insisted.” Sarie, her family and the Nyueng Bao were not something I had discussed with Lady before. I never talked with her much about anything except stuff that needed to go into the Annals or the stuff that she had written there that needed clarification.

She checked Howler again while she listened to my chatter. She suggested, “Tell me all about this. I’ve always had a feeling that there was something going on.”

Yeah? Right. Her and everybody else smart enough not to eat dirt.

Croaker went to the doorway and stuck his head out. He popped back inside. “Hey. Why didn’t you say it’d stopped raining? Maybe I can get these assholes to move a little faster now.” Out he went. I felt for him. He looked even more worn out than I felt.

I said, “I did tell him.”

“He doesn’t always listen. Talk to me about the Nyueng Bao.”

I talked. Lady listened. She asked sharp questions. I returned the favor at times, when we touched on anything I thought I wanted to know.

She said, “I want to know about your dreams, too.”

“They’re different than yours. I think.”

“I know. How they’re different might mean a lot.”

We talked a long time. But not long enough for me to get out of trekking over to the Shadowgate with the goddamn standard.

76

Horses were in short supply. Most that had not gotten eaten had been killed by shadows the previous night. And were getting eaten now. I ended up borrowing Lady’s mount. Croaker never said a word. He did not have to. Down the road somewhere I was going to pay.

Thai Dei got up behind me. Lady’s stallion, which was used to lugging only her hundred and a few pounds, plus armor occasionally, glared over his shoulder. I told the beast, “It’s only for a little ways. I promise.”

The Old Division and some of Lady’s troops had moved into camp below the Shadowgate. Tensions were obvious as we rode in. A lot of faces were less than friendly. These were men who had stayed with the Company mainly because their chances of survival were better with us than away from us. Twilight was not far off, though, so no one was inclined to belligerence.

I decided not to tell anybody why I had brought the standard.

Word spread fast. Company brothers came out to see if there was anything special in the wind. I ran into people I had not seen for months. Some, even, whom I had not seen since we had left Taglios.

Sindawe and Isi appeared. They thought something big had to be up since I had come out of my hole. I could see how they might have gotten that odd notion. My job had kept me close to Smoke for a long time.

Ochiba materialized. He and the other two Nar were the senior officers outside the Shadowgate. All the most senior Taglians had deserted. They had respected their obligations to their prince.

I suspected they would regret choosing to maintain their honor. If they had not done so already, last night.

Sindawe caught the stallion’s reins. Thai Dei and I dismounted. Everybody waited for me to say something. I just shrugged. I pulled my pants away from my burning thigh. Riding had been no improvement. Just as I had predicted. “Don’t ask me why I’m here. The Old Man said to come. So I came. What he’s up to is his secret.”

“So what else is new?” Big Bucket asked. “He ever does say what’s what, nobody will believe him.”

I glanced around. The ground there was harder than it was back across the way. It was also dryer. Most of the shelters, therefore, were aboveground. The camp gave poverty and squalor a bad name. I saw the ensigns and pennons of battalions that had, a year ago, been renowned for their spit and polish. I asked, “Is morale really this bad?”

“It is over here.”

“From what I hear the New Division suffered fewer casualties than anybody last night.”

Sindawe observed, “You’ve been in this business most of your life, Standardbearer. You know morale can have little to do with the facts of a situation. Perceptions are more critical.”

Absolutely. People want to believe what they want to believe, good, bad, or indifferent, and do not confuse them with facts.

I said, “We maybe shouldn’t mention it to these guys but I think he expects to head on up there soon.”

Bucket glared up the unwelcoming slope. “You’re shitting me.”

“You didn’t believe him when he said that’s where we’re going? He’s never made a secret of the fact that we’re headed for Khatovar. It’s what we’ve been doing since we left the Barrowland.” Half a lifetime ago, it seemed. Before he ever joined up.

Grimly, Isi observed, “I don’t think you’ll find anyone here who actually believed we’d get this far.” And he had not been with the Company as long as Bucket had.

Isi was not exaggerating. I do not think anyone but the Old Man ever really believed in Khatovar. The rest of us went along because we had nowhere else to go and nothing else to do but follow the standard. Every day was a gift, of sorts, and it did not much matter where the long night caught up. I said, “The last human obstacle went down last night. Lady has Longshadow wrapped up like a birthday present.”

I glanced around again. Everywhere I looked men were hard at work. It was not something special suddenly put on for me but I did garner plenty of resentful stares just for being a guy from headquarters. Me turning up could only mean more demands, more work, more hardship.

The light was getting strange. There was not a lot of daylight left. “What are they doing over there?” I asked, indicating a work gang apparently digging a defensive trench. Against shadows that would be as useful as teats on a bull.

“Burying last night’s dead,” Bucket told me.

“Oh. Look. You stick with me. Unless you’ve got something critical going. The rest of you go ahead with whatever you were doing.”

Sindawe told me, “Isi or I would be better guides, Standardbearer. We’re in charge so we don’t do much.” He said that with such a straight face I almost thought he meant it.

I walked over to the mass grave.

They were digging a trench because that was the most efficient way to get bodies under the hard ground. I knelt, ran my fingers through what they had broken loose. Despite the rain earlier the hardpan was dry just inches beneath the surface. “It didn’t rain much over here?” I asked.

“Mostly it just gets cold,” Isi said.

I stared up the slope, past the Shadowgate. The ground grew more barren by the yard. There was some plant life up there but it was stunted, desertlike growth.

The corpses the soldiers were planting bore the stamp of shadow death, they were all shriveled up, with skin darkened several shades. Each dead man’s mouth was open in a screaming rictus. The bodies were curled. They could not be straightened.

Crows circled but the soldiers kept them back.

I felt the hard soil again, eyed the slope. The rock itself looked like hardened mud, lying in hundreds of thin layers being gnawed away slowly by time. “I guess it wouldn’t rain a lot up there, either, then. Or there would be more gullies and obvious washes.” I wondered if erosion would create ways for shadows to escape from beyond the Shadowgate. Evidently not. Otherwise the world would have been overrun a long time ago.

I had never found any record of a time when the Shadowgate had not been there. It was ancient beyond reckoning but even so had not found its way into native religion in any form I recognized. Except, possibly, in the infrequently used idiom common to many southern languages, “Glittering stone,” which seemed to mean an inexplicable possession of dark madness, a sort of demonically savage insanity complicated by congenital stupidity. One of those things Taglians will not discuss with outsiders, however pressed.

Until the rise of the Shadowmasters there had been very little historical mention of the land beyond Kiaulune, except that it tied in somehow with the rise of the Free Companies of Khatovar over four hundred years ago.

Though not religious myself I bowed and offered a short Gunni prayer for the dead before I ventured uphill for a closer look at the source of our trouble. Thai Dei beamed at me. I must have done right.

77

“Help me plant this thing,” I told Thai Dei as I set up the standard a few yards downhill from a working party of soldiers. Thai Dei piled rocks around the foot of the lance until it would stand by itself. Then we walked uphill a little farther.

Once upon a time there had been an actual fortress with outbuildings and a genuine gate here. I had not been able to see that in my ghostworld ventures. There were little more than grass-grown foundations left now. Everything had fallen ages ago. But the stone had not been carried away until recently, when some of our bolder soldiers had taken some from the safe side for use in constructing shelters. Which suggested that, chickenshit as they were about the terrors lurking in the past, they were fearless heroes compared to the people who used to live near the place.

Made me wonder again about how any fear could persist so strongly for so long. And then wonder if maybe Kina was not somehow connected to that effect. Maybe her nightmares leaked over into the dreams of everybody who heard the name Khatovar.

So why was I not dribbling down my leg?

Maybe I am too stupid to be scared about the right things.

The stone that had been used to construct the fortress was not a native rock. It was a greyish sandstone not only foreign to that slope, it was unlike any stone I had seen back in the direction from which we had come. It was not like the stone Longshadow had imported to build Overlook, either.

I glanced back at Overlook. The setting sun was sneaking in under the clouds, firing the south face of the fortress. That was one wall that Longshadow had gotten completed. The metal signs and seals on its face flamed and fairly thundered with power despite the fallen estate of their creator. “Now that’s impressive,” I said.

“But it doesn’t do us any good up here,” Isi observed. Glumly, Bucket nodded agreement. Sindawe, I noted, had faded away, gone back to whatever he had been doing before I arrived.

“What are these guys doing?” The working parties were marking the slope and ruins with colored chalk dusts, augmenting similar markings that had suffered from the rain.

“Defining the bounds of the gate. Different colors mean different things. I haven’t learned them all myself. I understand the different dusts will glow their particular colors in the dark if they’re excited by the proximity of fireballs. Apparently they define areas of threat and the level of danger to be expected in each.”

“That what they do?” I asked Bucket.

He shrugged. “Close enough.”

I grunted, moved up closer to the workers. As I did I began to feel a vibration or hum that began way down deep inside me. It grew stronger faster. I asked, “Who’s the expert here?”

A dirty little man, irritated at being interrupted, unbent his back. I stifled a grin. He was Shadar despite being small and in charge of a Gunni work party. He had a beard big enough for the usual six feet plus of his coreligionists. He was not a Company man. I had noticed that over here pledged brothers all wore something to identify themselves, usually some crude version of the fire-breathing skull we had adopted from Soulcatcher twenty years ago. Maybe they thought that might help protect them from whatever came through the Shadowgate.

“How may I instruct you, Standardbearer?”

Oh, that man was talented. Without venturing one inch from absolute propriety he let me know exactly how he would like to instruct me, right after I bent over and grabbed my ankles.

“I’d like to know what you’ve determined about the layout here. Especially where the gate itself used to be, if you know, and where the weakest spots are.”

“You want to know where the shadows are getting through?”

“Did the man stutter, hairball?” Bucket demanded.

I made a calming gesture. “Easy. Yes. Where they’re getting through.”

“Everywhere between those two yellow splashes.” The little Shadar scowled at Bucket. “The red area is what must have been the actual original gateway.”

“Thank you. I’ll try not to trouble you much more.”

The Shadar muttered, “Will miracles never cease?” as I went to walk over the ground. Bucket thought about adjusting the man’s attitude, decided it was not worth the trouble. Not now. But there would be later, when I was not around.

A few rods below the Shadowgate there were torch racks and the remains of bonfires that had been used to produce light the night before. There were crude bunkers where soldiers had lain waiting for the shadows, protected only by repellent candles and their luck with the bamboo poles. There were two rickety ten-foot towers somebody had thrown up to provide plunging fire.

I pushed forward into the buzz until I no longer felt comfortable, which was right at the edge of the red chalk dust. From there I could make out the remains of the fallen gate. It must have been truly substantial in its time. It looked like it had been wide enough to permit passage of four men marching abreast. There was no sign that there had ever been a moat or a ditch or anything such, though. And a ditch is the oldest form of defense work there is. It persists today below every wall that is not some engineering monstrosity like the ramparts surrounding Overlook and Dejagore.

The implication was that the forgotten builders had not been concerned about threats from downhill.

There were still some strong spells on the Shadowgate. You could feel them growl if you pushed against them hard enough.

I did not press my luck.

I mused, “Why is the road in halfway decent shape when everything else here is almost completely gone?” The farther uphill you looked the better preserved the old road was.

Nobody offered an opinion. Chances were nobody gave a rat’s ass. It was bad enough they just had to be there.

I strolled back down to the standard. Somehow, vaguely, it seemed to have come alive. I felt a vibration from it, too. That seemed to center on the head of the lance. Which would fit with Croaker’s theories about the Lance of Passion.

Thai Dei, Bucket and Isi felt what I felt but did not know what it was. I told Thai Dei, “I want to move the standard up where it’ll be the first thing a shadow runs into when it comes through the gate. Let them know the boys are back.” I told Isi, “Tonight shouldn’t be as rough. Lady thinks she’s got Longshadow under control. She might even get the Shadowgate shut down completely before dark.” Which I doubted because that was not very far off anymore.

The relief on Isi’s face was almost comical.

A couple of soldiers caught part of what I said and scattered to start rumors that, no doubt, would grow fat in the retelling. Bucket grumbled, “I can’t wait to see the twist that gets put on that by the time it comes back around.”

Hum! We did not want any Taglians still loyal to the Prahbrindrah Drah to become too confident of their safety. “That’s only might,” I said. “And even if she shuts it down tighter than a virgin’s twat there’s still a shitload of shadows that got out of there last night and are still hiding under rocks and stuff waiting for sunset.” Darkness always comes. “We’re not out of the woods yet. Not by a long way.”

I made sure I was overheard saying that, too.

I will teach you to fear the darkness. Who said that? Lady’s first husband, maybe, back before my time. Certainly somebody who learned a lesson of his own way back in one of the old Annals.

I added, “We’re going to face it every night for a long time to come.”

“We’re really going up there?” Bucket asked, pointing, when nobody but Thai Dei could hear him. He did not consider the question a major secret, though, or he would have asked in a language unfamiliar to Thai Dei.

“Maybe. I don’t know how soon, though. The Old Man keeps talking about getting crops in so we don’t need to kill ourselves foraging.” While I talked I tried to figure how big a circle of influence the standard would cast. With Thai Dei’s help I replanted it an estimated half radius from the Shadowgate, mid-line on the old road. Then I went back down and talked a couple of Vehdna into letting us take over their frontline bunker. Funny. They hardly argued about it.

Lady’s horse had followed me around the whole while, staying out of the way but missing nothing. I told him, “Thanks a bunch. You can go back to your boss now.” I always talk to mine as an equal. You treat the critters right, they’ll do any damned thing. Even run somebody all the way to Taglios. Or back.

The horse argued less than the Vehdna soldiers did. Off he trotted.

I wondered how Sleepy was doing.

He could not have run far yet. It had not been that long since everything turned to shit.

78

Chalk dust bands defined fields of fire for the soldiers, so they could pick off shadows more efficiently. But, though they glowed, the dusts did not betray the shadows perfectly.

Lady had given me some tools and instructions on how to use them. I was supposed to resist any temptation to take shortcuts.

A lot of soldiers came to watch. The Taglians were awed because a man who was neither priest nor sorcerer could read. They made me feel like a freak.

Essentially, Lady’s directions had me lay down strips of leather rope in semicircles around the most dangerous passthrough, which was where the original gate had stood. More ropes went down as spokes.

Everything had to be done just so. None of which took into account the presence of the standard. If Lady understood that the standard was special she never made much of it.

I scuttled around inside the bunker we had appropriated. It was barely three feet from floor to ceiling. There was room for four men and a pile of bamboo. The place stank. No one had gone out after dark, no matter how pressing the need. As a shelter it was a feeble improvement over sitting out in the rain.

I told everyone watching, “When a shadow crosses one of the leather ropes it’ll make a spark so we’ll not only know that one is there, we can follow its movements. As long as we stay calm we can pick them off without wasting any fireballs.”

The situation there was grim. A repeat of last night meant not many guys would see another sunrise.

“Not much of a mattress,” I told Thai Dei, patting the ground. “Why don’t you get some rest?” Whatever happened, I had to sleep later so I could prowl. If that worked for me again.

I crawled outside, settled on a comfortable block from the old wall. I studied the roof of my new home. It had been fashioned from a tent taken from the Shadowlanders. Everywhere around me I saw a wealth of plunder taken from our enemies. So much that in another month we would be as gaunt and disease-ridden as we were when we broke the siege of Dejagore.

The big edge we held over our enemies now was that we were still around. We could pretend to be an army still. Mogaba’s band was the best they had left.

What would Mogaba do when he heard about Longshadow’s disaster?

“Speaking of disasters.” Real bad news was headed my way.

At the bottom of the slope, where the road southward gave up its final pretense and became an eroded dirt track, Uncle Doj stood staring up at the Shadowgate. If he had come any later it would have been too dark to pick him out. Mother Gota was fifty yards behind him, still moving, bitching so loudly that I caught snatches from where I sat. Both carried packs, which suggested that they planned to move in with me again. They had become professional squatters.

I flipped a stone at a crow. It was not a serious effort and the crow showed slight enthusiasm about getting out of the way. He just leaned. There were not a lot of the birds around now that dusk was thickening, though at their most numerous they had remained uncommon all day. Curious. I had seen nothing to explain the absence of the usual flocks. Nobody had started roasting them.

Maybe they were all off taking care of Mom.

I sat by the entrance to the bunker. “Thai Dei. How come your mother and Uncle Doj are over here?”

Thai Dei peeked outside, looked down the long slope, muttered in salty Nyueng Bao, went back in and lay down. You would have thought he had no respect for his elders.

He did not answer my question.

I checked the amulet I had not returned to Croaker. I considered the height of my shadow-repellent candle. We should be all right.

I hoped.

Somebody a lot smarter than me once said, “Put no trust in wizards.”

I shut my eyes and waited.

“Murgen, you know a couple guys name of Wobble and Leadbeater?”

I opened my eyes. “Rudy. You ugly son of a bitch. Where’d you come from? I ain’t seen you in half a year. How the fuck are you?”

“What is that? It’s been so long I forget how. But I still got all my limbs and I’m still breathing.”

“Makes you a winner in the soldiering game. Yeah. I remember Wobble. He was Jaicuri. Everybody he ever knew died during the siege of Dejagore. He just stuck with us after we came out of the city. He was a stonemason by trade. He was with us when we caught the Deceivers in the Grove of Doom.”

“That’s the guy. He made a good showing at Charandaprash, too.”

“And the other one? Leadbeater? I didn’t know him.”

“He was some kind of Shadowlander. A prisoner of war who started out doing scutwork and gradually turned into one of us. Only took the oath maybe a month ago.”

I knew but I had to ask. “What about them?”

“They didn’t make it last night. I had to tell you. On account of you always want to put all that stuff in the Annals.”

“Thank you. Though I don’t know if I like this or not.”

“What?”

“Only time half you guys talk to me anymore is if somebody gets his ass skragged. Then you come around because you want me to remember them.”

“Get away from headquarters, Murgen. Get out here in the field. Stop being one of them and turn back into one of us.”

Damn! Apparently I had crossed over from labor to management without noticing. “You maybe got a point. We’re in for some changes now that the Shadowmasters are wrapped up. I’ll keep that in mind.”

Red Rudy grunted. He was not convinced. He headed back to his command, though, satisfied that he had done his duty.

I scrunched down into myself more tightly, shivering. A cold wind was blowing off the plateau. It was probably my imagination but I thought there was a whiff of Kina in it. It recalled the persistent wind stalking the place of bones. It made the standard sway. I thought about piling more rocks at its foot but could not find the ambition.

I thought about a warm fire, too, but on this side of Overlook, after last night, wood was scarce. Stocks were being used for cooking only. Not that there was much to cook anymore but bitterroot.

You will learn to live without the light. That was in one of the older Annals somewhere, too.

A pair of boots positioned themselves in front of me. Uncle Doj. I knew because Mother Gota was just down the slope, puffing and complaining. She would never catch up unless he waited, wobble-walking the way she did.

“Uncle,” I said without looking up. “To what do I owe this dubious pleasure, after all these months?”

“You should plant your standard closer, Soldier of Darkness. You should be able to lay your hand on it at any time. Otherwise you are likely to lose it.”

“I don’t think so. But one of the Prahbrindrah Drah’s loyalists, a Deceiver, hell, maybe even some minor, he-thinks-his-talent-is-a-secret kind of wizard, anybody, can take a crack. And end up in that ditch over there before they know what bit them.” I was bullshitting but he would not recognize it. I had not done that in the past. “It knows who the good guys are.”

Mother Gota hobbled up. She carried a load as big as she was, everything useful that could be salvaged from our former home and the ruins of Kiaulune. That included an accumulation of firewood.

I decided not to be totally abrasive. While the wood lasted. There are cooks in this world worse than Mother Gota. Among them are her favorite son and son-in-law.

Uncle Doj, being both male and what passes for exalted caste amongst Nyueng Bao, carried Ash Wand and a quite unprepossessing pack.

Mother Gota shed her load, dropped to hands and knees and started to crawl into the bunker. As she met my gaze I could not help grinning. She began muttering curses that, no doubt, were directed at the sort of evil fate that would unleash an earthquake at such an inopportune moment.

The earth moved. One-Eye would hear about that for however many more centuries he hung around.

I said, “Let Thai Dei rest. It’s going to be another long night.” As I edged over Uncle Doj glimpsed the little bamboo tube I had tucked in my belt behind me.

The cold wind was getting stronger. The cloth of the standard popped and cracked.

Uncle Doj peered up the darkening slope, eyed the bunker, glared at me like he was developing serious reservations about having left his swamp. I said, “Sometimes you have to live like this when you do what we do.” Mother Gota crept back outside, still muttering, verbalizing what Uncle Doj was thinking. I reminded them, “You invited yourselves along.”

Uncle Doj opened his mouth but overcame the urge to bicker. He settled on the other side of the bunker entrance, Ash Wand across his lap. Gota proceeded to scout the neighborhood, collecting stones. Our neighbors did not object despite rocks beginning to look like the only measure of wealth at this end of the world.

I shut my eyes. Softly, just to be a pain in the ass, I whistled an air Sarie liked to hum when she was happy.

As it always does, darkness came.

79

They let me sleep. And sleep I did despite the cold and the wind, the cooking smells and my own snoring. As nightfall waxed complete I slipped my moorings to my flesh, slowly. For a while I was like tatters stirring in a ghostly breeze. I made no real effort to go, nor any more to stay. Uncle’s Doj’s return, with all its unhappy reminders, had inspired a great lethargy.

My heart’s inclination was the breeze that carried me north. I loafed over mountains and across wildernesses, past all the conquered cities. I found Sleepy on the road from Taglios to Dejagore. He understood that he would be in no danger if he kept moving. No agent of the Radisha could outrun the steed he rode.

The Radisha remained distraught about his escape. It was critical to the conspiracy that every Company brother be caught or killed. If even one escaped the plague would return. Like Narayan Singh, she knew. Darkness always comes. She had seen it happen already, after the disaster at Dejagore.

She was terrified. She was convinced that the Year of the Skulls would commence shortly if any part of the grand plan failed. She had a great deal to say about Soulcatcher and none of it was complimentary. To get herself shut of a dreaded ally she might have taken on another who was far worse.

She remembered Catcher’s tricks and treats of a few years ago. She knew damned well that Soulcatcher was less predictable than any natural disaster.

The latest quakes had been felt in Taglios though no damage had been done there. Some people were afraid they meant that the gods, or some great power, were displeased by what had been done to the Black Company.

Croaker had mentioned the Company habit of paying back treachery so often that already some people were preparing for the vengeance storm. Again, that had to do with the terror of the Company name that no one would, or possibly could, explain.

Could that just have stolen into every heart from some shadowy source, never having possessed any substance? Was it a good old-fashioned Kina deceit?

I really needed to get my nose into those old Annals hidden in that room where . . . Oh oh.

The Radisha had Guards and soldiers searching for Smoke systematically. One-Eye’s confusion spells would not withstand so determined an effort. They could not confuse all the senses of that many men all the time.

She could not expect to find Smoke alive. She would just want to know what had become of him. I did not want her looking, though. She might find my books.

Stupid, stupid. I could have had Sleepy collect them while he was up there. If I had invested a little forethought and had done a little planning I could have had him kill several birds. I had to start thinking that way. We had no options to squander anymore.

The Radisha was closeted with the most powerful priests. Each time I visited Taglios, even if only one day had passed, it seemed the priests had gained influence while the wealthy merchants and manufacturers, many of whom owed their fortunes to the existence and efforts of the Company, had faded farther from favor. Unless they were priests clever enough to have used their positions to mercantile advantage during the development of the Taglian armies. It would be interesting to see how well the new bourgeoisie had been able to shed old ways of thinking as the ecclesiastical peril grew. Was there one native-born Taglian with balls big enough to respond?

The Radisha’s effort to screw us had put her in bed with men she loathed and at odds with people who thought her way.

The meeting looked like another arm-twisting session. The priests wanted further concessions from the state in return for ecclesiastical support.

You could see the Radisha thinking that Lady had had the right idea when she massacred so many of their predecessors.

I was in a wicked mood. I dropped to a point beside the Woman’s ear. “Boo!”

She jumped. She moved away and stared at the empty air, color gone from her face. The room fell silent. The priests looked troubled. They, too, had sensed something. It struck dark sparks of terror inside them. I tried an evil laugh. Some of that got through, too. I felt the black dread fill the room.

The Radisha shivered as if the temperature had dropped to midwinter.

It was already planting season around Taglios.

I whispered in the Radisha’s ear, “Water sleeps.” She did not catch that but did not need to to become more frightened.

It is a saying of my people. Even Water sleeps. But Enemy never rests.

Sarie was asleep when I reached the temple of Ghanghesha. Just enough light leaked into her room to show that she was there. I floated for a while, enjoying being near her. I did not disturb her. She needed her sleep.

Me, I was immune to that stuff.

Why was there any light at all?

The priests had placed a pair of lanterns outside Sahra’s cell. Events the other night must have troubled them.

I had to be getting strong at reaching out of the ghostworld.

Was it a good idea to try? Did I want people all over the place knowing something was going on? It would not hurt to have them scared. Oh, no. But, on the other hand, they would take steps to mask all their deviltry.

I did a tour of the temple, seeking evidence of obvious attitude changes by the priests. I found nothing unusual, although the acolytes handling nighttime ceremonies were abnormally nervous. I went back to hover over my honey.

Damn, she was beautiful! Damn, it was going to be harder and harder not to mention my disappointment to Uncle Doj and Mother Gota. Hell. We might be getting to a time when raising questions would be appropriate. They were a long way from home. They had nowhere to ran.

Sarie opened her eyes. My anger melted away. Half a moment later she looked almost directly at me and smiled her wonderful smile. Fish and rice must be good for the teeth because she had the whitest, most perfect teeth I ever saw.

“Are you here, Mur? I feel you very close to me right now.”

“I’m here,” I said into her ear, with none of the wickedness I had shown the Radisha. Sarie probably did not catch any words but understood that she had gotten a response.

“I miss you a lot, Mur. I don’t feel like I’m one of my own people anymore.”

Because they will not let you be. Granny Hong Tray did not stay around to manage the results of her sybilline mutterings. Grandpa Ky Dam did not make it clear that Hong Tray’s pronouncements were forever.

Of course, the present situation might be exactly what the old lady had had in mind. She never wrote anything down for me, either.

The best of the diviner breed are never wrong because they never set anything in stone.

The moment with Sarie faded without my acquiescence. She looked troubled, as though she sensed me withdrawing. I wriggled but could not hold my position.

Something back in the real world insisted on gaining my attention.

As I drifted out of Sarie’s cell several priests invited themselves in. One demanded, “Who are you talking to, woman?”

“Ghosts,” my darling replied, showing her sweetest smile.

80

At first I thought it must have been just the flake of flint biting my ass that had brought me back. That bastard hurt. But as I shuffled it out from under me I sensed movement against the starry background south of me. A voice inquired, “Are you awake now, Standardbearer?”

Sindawe. “No doubt about it. And I was having such a wonderful dream, too.”

“Since the Old Man wants you to keep an eye on us I thought it would be useful if you saw what’s happening.” Unlike most Nar, Sindawe had a sense of humor. It included a major irreverence for authority, though he represented authority himself. He must have driven Mogaba to distraction back when they were best friends. Unless Mogaba started out the same way and grew out of it. A lot of sour old farts start out as all right guys.

I had to roll onto my hands and knees to find the leverage to get up. “Stiff as a log,” I grumbled.

“Buy a better mattress.”

“What I need is a better body. Like one that’s about fifteen years younger. All right. What’s going on?”

“Thought you’d want to see what’s happening at the Shadowgate.”

“Nothing bad, apparently, or you wouldn’t be hunking around in the dark.” There were no fires tonight. There were no other bold souls wandering around like Sindawe, either. But the most remarkable lack was that of flying fireballs. Over here. There was an occasional pop on the far side of Overlook.

Sindawe headed uphill, though that was not necessary. I could feel the Lance. It seemed to be awakening. I could see the sparks as the shadows tested my leather ropes. I sensed frustrated motion beyond the sparks.

I felt no fear at all.

Always before there had been fear anytime there were shadows near enough to be sensed.

The shadows grew more energetic. So did the sparks. They began to crackle and pop. The soldiers showed remarkable restraint. Not one man went bugfuck and sprayed the hillside with fireballs. They felt no fear, either. Or maybe they were just veteran enough to understand that you can fool yourself. Especially after a trial like last night.

The stupid and the nervous would be over yonder in that trench that the survivors had so grudgingly dug.

“Sky’s clearing,” I observed, maybe just for something to say. Over the rise ahead that was as clear as it was when my ghostwalks took me up above the clouds.

“Uhm.” Sindawe seldom wasted words on small talk.

“Recognize any of those constellations?” I did not. It was like I was looking at a completely foreign sky.

“Too many stars to see any patterns.”

“The Noose,” said a voice from behind me. I started. I had heard no one come up. And I would not have expected this speaker to move quietly.

“Mother?” The sparks from the Shadowgate generated just enough light to reveal where she stood. A form that may have been Thai Dei loomed behind her, staring into the southern night.

“It was in my mother’s book. Part of a fairy tale nobody understood. That nobody knew where it came from anymore. Thirteen stars that form a noose.”

I saw nothing of the sort. I said so. Mother Gota must have been stunned into another century, so out of character had she become. She grabbed me by the arm, pulled my head down, made me sight along her pointing arm. Finally, I admitted, “I see something that looks like a bottom-up water ladle right there above what must be the skyline.”

“That is it, you fool Stone Soldier. Three stars are hidden by the earth.” She remained particularly intense.

“You recognized it, with three stars missing, from a description in a childhood story?”

A particularly brilliant burst amongst the leather ropes revealed the woman staring at me bedecked in an expression of profound bewilderment. It also revealed Uncle Doj behind her.

He wore a look of exasperation which vanished the instant he realized I could see him.

“Gota. There you are. Nephew. What is this display?”

From much closer than I would have believed he could be, Thai Dei said, “The Soldiers of Darkness have stopped the leak of death.” He spoke in rapid Nyueng Bao. He used several words that were not clear to me. I counted on context to unravel their meanings.

Uncle Doj told Mother Gota, “I have cautioned you about your tongue—”

“I’ll caution you, you mountebank.” I think “mountebank” is what she meant. Wrapped up in the word she chose was a root meaning “fraud,” with a superlative prefix hung out front.

It sounded like a cousin word to “priest.” Blade would have been amused. I was amused.

Gota had restrained herself with Doj in the past. Compared to how she had berated everyone else. She deferred to Uncle usually, albeit with poor grace. Now they squabbled like children.

I got the impression that their quarrel had nothing to do with what they really wanted to fight about. Even so, the tiff was interesting where I could follow it.

Thai Dei’s special mission in life is to poop parties. He embarrassed those two silent long enough to get in the news that they were quarreling amidst all the Bone Warriors in the world, at least one of whom understood their blather.

Doj responded instantly. He shut his mouth and went for a walk. I said, “I hope some nervous type don’t pick him off in the dark.” Thai Dei went after him.

Gota shut up only because Doj’s departure left her to carry both sides of the argument. She considered starting up with me. But she recalled that, whatever I was to her daughter, I was a Soldier of Darkness, too. Anyway, I was not Nyueng Bao and only the worms of the earth are lower than that.

I was in a peckish mood myself, having been wakened prematurely. I said, “I rather enjoyed that.”

Gota made a sputtery noise as she stalked away.

Of the general darkness I asked, “Anybody know anything about a constellation called the Noose? Or any stories about it?”

Nobody knew anything. Naturally.

Over the next several days I asked the question of everybody I ran into and always got a negative answer. Even Narayan Singh, a logical resource for information about nooses, seemed unfamiliar with the constellation. He did not say so in so many words, of course, but Lady was familiar with Deceiver lore and knew nothing, nor was she able to pry anything out of the living saint.

Poor guy seemed destined to be the living martyr Narayan Singh. The heartline of his existence consisted of unrelenting terror.

After assuring myself that the Shadowgate was holding, I ambled back down to my bunker. The standard seemed almost aglow with power. Something noteworthy was going on there. I would have to go see Croaker. If my inner thigh healed enough. If I ever got any sleep.

My in-laws were no problem. None had gone back to our nasty little bunker. I had its stone floor and stink to myself.

I was asleep about the time I chunked my head onto my rock pillow.

81

For a while I just slept. In fact, I am convinced that I dreamed normal dreams, though I cannot recall them now. Then, gradually, my spirit slipped its moorings again, in a kind of tattered, fuzzy way that might have indicated difficulty letting go. I felt no resistance. But I was not trying to go anywhere, I was just drifting.

I floated upward. It did take an effort of will but I faced southward, trying to find the noose of stars that had gotten Mother Gota exercised. Yes. There they were. But I had to climb a thousand feet to see them all and even then they were not easily discerned. They had dropped dramatically in a very short time.

In fact, when I reflected on it, I could not understand how they might have risen high enough for me to see from the Shadowgate.

I did not let that trouble me, though. My attention was caught by something on the plain of stone. For an instant I saw a ghost of pale light out there, about where I glimpsed that lump of darkness sometime before. Was there something out there?

I did not go look. It never occurred to me to try. In retrospect I cannot understand why. How could the impulse not arise? How could I not actively engage the choice of investigating or not investigating? I do not know. I just sort of went hmm and continued on about my normal ghosttime ratkilling.

I rejected impulses to search for Mogaba and Goblin. I can be lazy even when all the work I have to do is think. Finding them would take a lot of to-ing and fro-ing and calculating. And then I might not accomplish anything. So I decided to spy on Soulcatcher instead. By now she should be recovered enough to be grumbling and scheming and maybe doing something interesting.

Or she might just be laying around sleeping.

Soulcatcher was just laying around sleeping. Surrounded by woods where every branch and twig boasted a complement of crows. It looked like every crow in the world had gathered around her hideout.

It was unlikely they would starve for a while.

They had been living well. Already the earth beneath them was buried under their droppings. Shadows drifted below, whimpering because the crows would not come down to play.

Like a shadow myself I wormed into Catcher’s cave. I encountered the spells she had woven to keep the darkness at bay. For a time those resisted me, too, but I was different enough to find a way through.

Catcher was sleeping? How often did that happen?

The Daughter of Night was not asleep. And she was a sensitive child. She felt me arrive. She sat up on her bed of damp pine needles. “Mother?”

Catcher was a light sleeper. She sprang erect, alert, turning as she sought danger. She wore the mask that had been one of her trademarks in the old days. Mostly she had done without it lately, but seldom did I see her in public. And never in the flesh.

She resembled Lady though she had even finer features and a more sensual air. Croaker claims he resisted her seductions. Publicly I believe him. But I do not know how he managed. I would have trouble despite my devotion to Sarie.

Maybe it was just his age.

Catcher’s hideout was illuminated by a lamp that hung from the ceiling of the cave. It was a cousin of our shadow-repellent candles. It was not bright but its light left no place for any little death to hide.

“What did you say?” The voice Catcher used was that of a man whose throat had been smashed and could speak in only a hoarse whisper. Except this whisper was heavy with malice, a voice in keeping with the old, dread repute of the Ten Who Were Taken. It contained the compassion of a serpent, the sympathy of a spider.

The Daughter of Night did not react. From her response Soulcatcher might not have been there at all.

Catcher giggled like a girl sharing whispers about boys. “Defiance is pointless. Stubbornness is meaningless. There is no one to help you.” That was the voice of despair. It rasped, too, but it was the last speech of an old man dying of cancer. “You are mine to do with as I please. It pleases me that you tell me what you just said.”

The child raised her eyes. There was no love for her auntie there.

Soulcatcher laughed.

She was a cruel thing at times.

She made a gesture. The child shrieked, thrashed in agony. She fought her cries, not wanting to give her tormenter the pleasure, but her body could not be controlled by her will, powerful as that was.

“You think your mother was here? You have no mother, neither my sister nor Kina.” This voice was that of an accountant reporting the week’s profits. “I am your mother now. I am your goddess. I am your only reason for living.”

I moved my viewpoint slightly so I could see them better. Maybe my movement disturbed the lamp’s flame. Maybe a breath of wind crept in from outside. Whatever, Catcher shut up and gave a lot more attention to her surroundings.

After a minute during which she just turned slowly, in silence, she mused, “There’s something here. And you sensed it right away.” The girlish giggle returned. “Right away. And you thought it might be Kina. But it isn’t, is it?”

Soulcatcher made a sudden gesture with her gloved left hand, fingers dancing too fast to follow. The brat collapsed, unconscious. Catcher settled with her back to the cave wall, dragged a pair of ragged leather sacks closer. I could smell nothing out there but I bet she reeked as bad as Howler. She was vain enough to guarantee herself incredible beauty and sensuality but not vain enough to waste much time on personal hygiene.

Maybe the smell would help me push her away if memories of Sahra did not do the trick.

She almost caught me. It did not look like she was doing anything but stirring through her trash. And my thoughts distracted me. I saved myself because she was used to living alone, or with crows. She reasoned aloud, “If it was the freak goddess I’d smell her. And she’d try to do something stupid. But somebody else has been prowling around, too. Let’s find out who. Maybe it’s my beloved sister.” The voice that spoke those last few words was powerfully vicious.

Her hands sprang out of one leather sack, sudden as a snake’s strike, but I was on the move, cleverly not toward the entrance. Her all but invisible net of black thread whooshed past two feet away. As soon as it fell I headed toward the exit. I did not know if she could catch me for real but I had no urge to find out.

Soulcatcher laughed. This was no giggle. This was fullblown, malicious adult amusement. “Whatever you are, I can’t fool you. Can I?”

She sure could. That was why I was getting out while I could. Like all the Ten must have been, she was way more scary than would seem at first exposure. The madness leaked through only slowly.

Catcher made a series of gestures employing every finger on each hand. She spoke in one of those tongues sorcerers favor, this one probably that of her childhood. I felt a truly ugly presence approaching as I was about to slip my ghostly nose into the crack that would take me outside.

A shadow wriggle in. It cringed. It shuddered. It responded to Catcher’s will. I did not hang around to find out what she wanted it to do.

It was enough to know that Soulcatcher had discovered a way to manipulate shadows. Which meant that with the last Shadowmaster barely finished kicking, a new queen of the darkness was about to rise.

She is the darkness.