Glen Cook: Soldiers Live

Just for my own pleasure, privately, when the girls were not paying attention, I tripped the codes that would kill Arkana’s post. We were too far from Rhuknavr for me to tell if it worked. I hoped not, now. Because after I did it I remembered the sleepy little girl in the hallway.

She would haunt me for a while.

It was closer than it really needed to be, us getting through the shadowgate ahead of trouble. The key gave me some grief, probably because I was in too much of a hurry.

“Now what?” Shukrat asked once we were safe from the men and naked boys cursing us from the other side of the barrier.

I said, “I guess you two can go back to the army. I’m going to stay here. On the plain. With Shivetya. There’s a job I’ve got to do. A promise I have to keep.”

Nobody spoke again until we were close to the fortress with no name. Then Shukrat asked, “What about Lady?”

“If she’s in good enough health you can bring her down here to me and I’ll do what I can to help her. If she’s not, leave her the fuck alone. Her main problem is she’s got to heal herself.”

Both girls looked at me like I was some really stinky monster that had just popped up in the middle of a bunny farm ripping the fur out of cute and tender throats.

“Look, I love my wife just one whole hell of a lot. There isn’t any way I can explain it to you. But the fact is, love her is about all I can do. She’s insane. By any standard but her own. And there’s nothing I can do to change that. If you were familiar with the Annals you would know that.”

Arkana sneered. “You don’t ever give up, do you?”

She caught me off balance that time. “Actually, no. I wasn’t thinking about finding somebody to keep the Annals. I was trying to clarify my relationship with my wife.”

But did I know what that was myself? Even after all these years? Possibly more important, did she have any idea?

All that seemed to matter less and less as we drew closer to the fortress with no name.

I stood before the golem Shivetya, basking in his mild impatience. I was impatient myself. But the distractions of the world still had their hold on me.

That part of Gunni philosophy is solidly founded. Before you can achieve more than the lowest possible order of spiritual focus you have to learn to put all worldly distractions aside. All of them. Right now. Never mind what. Otherwise there will always be that one more critical thing that just absolutely has to be handled before you can move forward.

My one more thing was Lady. My wife. Who continued to wobble on the brink of the abyss without ever quite slipping over. To me it was evident that the missing medicine now was any will to battle on. And the white crow agreed with me.

“Let me work on her,” the bird told me. “Ten minutes and I’ll have her so pissed off she’ll melt mountains trying to get close enough to spank me.”

“No doubt. But I like things the way they are. Except for how long it’s taking.”

Suvrin seemed to be taking forever making any headway coming south. Though he was covering ground much faster than we had headed north. Nobody was trying to slow him down.

I whiled my time exploring the expansive wonders of Shivetya’s memories—but avoiding those including Khatovar. Khatovar was a dessert I meant to save until there were no distractions at all. Khatovar was a special treat for a time when every flavor could be savored.

Eventually, I yielded to the inevitable and sent the girls to bring Lady to me. Maybe my big pal on the wooden throne could give me a hint or two how to goose her into getting going again.

The Nef appeared almost as soon as the girls popped out of the hole in the roof. They were in a black humor, eager for a fight, and because I could not communicate with them my mood soon turned just as dark. I hunted up One-Eye’s spear. If it could handle a Goddess it ought to be able to polish off three obnoxious, nagging spooks.

Shivetya stopped me. He could communicate with the Nef. He indicated that he would calm them down with an explanation of what we were doing here. His liberation would not sentence them to extinction. In fact, they were about to enter a new phase of existence. They were going to get work maintaining the glittering plain. There were scores of odd jobs and cleanups that needed special attention.

Shivetya and I were now so connected I could see the plain in my mind almost at will and the rest of the world, through his eyes, with only a little more effort. For a while I watched the girls race northward, each occasionally finding a moment to have fun flying.

I slept for a few hours. Or a week. When I awakened I picked up a lamp and walked over to the throne. I carried One-Eye’s spear under my other arm, on the bad hand side. Shivetya and I stared at each other for a while.

“Is it time?” I asked. And, “You think we’re ready to manage without the daggers, now? Yeah? Just one more little thing, then. I need to leave a note for my girls.” That turned into a letter. Trust the Annalist to go on and on.

A very clear thought. Have you finished now? Are you certain you are done?

“It’s time.”

My bridesmaids, the Nef, drifted in out of the darkness. They seemed more substantial than ever before. They like me just fine, now.

I am putting the pen down.

We saw lights from way out. What was that? There are no lights on the glittering plain. We climbed a thousand feet. By then the lights were gone except for what came out of the hole in the dome over the top of the demon’s throne room. Before we got there that went away, too.

Then we were too busy getting Lady and Tobo through the hole to worry about anything else. Rheitgeistiden are trouble when their riders are not helping.

When we got to the floor we found only one oil lamp burning on that old man’s — that scholar from Taglios’s — worktable. Croaker left a note. And, that clever old fart, he wrote it in our language. Not very good, but good enough to understand.

I guess he did have the gift for tongues like he always said.

Arkana took the lamp and used it to fire up a couple of lanterns. We went off to look for Croaker. She said, “You know, he was always teasing us but after a while I did start feeling almost like he was my dad.” We never ever talk about our real fathers. We would never get along.

“Yeah. He looked out for you. Maybe more than you know.”

“You, too.”

We found Croaker sitting beside the wooden throne. “Hey. He’s still breathing.”

“I don’t think... Shit. Look. Those knives are all gone from the demon.” Actually, they were laying all over the floor.

So just then the demon’s eyes open and so do Croaker’s and both of them look pretty confused and it is only then that I really understand what Croaker was trying to tell us in his letter. It was not some confused religious good-bye, he just did not have enough of the right words to tell us that he and the demon had it worked out to trade places. So Shivetya got to become a mortal for as long as Croaker’s body would last and Croaker got to be a big, old, wise sea dragon swimming all around in the ocean of history. So both of them got to go to heaven. And the Nef were happy. And the plain went on. And the white crow kept bitching, riding around on the Croaker body’s shoulder. And Arkana and I got in a running fight about who was going to go on keeping the Annals, because both of us hate to write.

So we take turns. When the little tramp will get away from Tobo long enough to pick up a pen and do her part.