Glen Cook - Soldiers Live

Sleepy stepped past Santaraksita, took position beside Sahra. In passible local dialect she said, “I am Captain of the Black Company. I will speak.” Facing a warlord wearing a mask surmounted by a crane’s head, she continued, “Tran Thi Kim-Thoa, you are Last Entered of the File.” The warlords stirred. “You are young. Possibly you know no one whose life and pain would regain meaning if Maricha Manthara Dhumraksha came back here to atone for his sins. I understand that. Youth is always impatient with the pasts of its elders—seven when that past crushes down upon youth’s shoulders.”

She paused.

Seven silk-clad butts shifted nervously, filling an extended silence with soft rustles. All us Company people grinned, baring our fangs. Exactly like those rock apes around Outpost, trying to intimidate one another.

Sleepy had named the newest of the Nine. His identity would be no secret to the other eight. They had chosen him when last there was an opening in their circle. He would be ignorant of their identities—unless some of the older warlords had chosen to reveal themselves. Each warlord normally knew only those elected to the File after themselves. By naming the Last Entered, Sleepy offered another threat while endangering just the one Unknown.

Sleepy beckoned. “Croaker.” I stepped forward. “This is Croaker. He was Captain before me and Dictator to All the Taglias. Croaker, before us we have Tran Huu Dung and six others of the File of Nine.” She did not specify this Tran’s position in the File. His name caused another stir, though.

She beckoned Swan. “This is Willow Swan, a longtime associate of the Black Company. Willow, I present Tran Huu Nhan and six others of the File of Nine. Tran is a common patronym in Hsien. There are a lot of Trans among the Nine, none of them related by blood.”

The next name she offered, after introducing Willow Swan, was Tran Huu Nhang. I began to wonder how they kept themselves sorted out. Maybe by weight. Several of the File carried some surplus poundage.

When Sleepy named the last of the Trans of the File, Tran Lan-Anh, their spokesman, the First, interrupted her with a request for time to confer. Sleepy bowed, offered him no further provocation. We knew that he was Pham Thi Ly of Ghu Phi, an excellent general with a good reputation among his troops, a believer in a unified Hsien, but old enough to have lost his zest for struggle. By the slightest of nods Sleepy let him know that his identity was no secret, either.

Sleepy announced, “We have no interest in coming back to Hsien once we return to the plain.” As though that was some dear secret we had held clutched close to our hearts forever. Any spy among us would have reported that we just wanted to go home. “Like the Nyueng Bao who fled to our world, we came here only because we had no choice.” Doj would not have accepted her assessment of Nyueng Bao history, brief as it might be. In his eye his immigrant ancestors had been a band of adventurers similar to the forebrethren of the Black Company, who had gone forth from Khatovar. “We’re strong now. We’re ready to go home. Our enemies there will cringe, unmanned by the news of our coming.”

I did not believe that for an instant. Soulcatcher would be pleased to see us. A good squabble would relieve the tedium of her daily grind. Being an all-powerful ruler actually takes most of the fun out of life. In the heyday of her dark empire, my wife had made that discovery, too. Management trivia consumes you.

Lady hated it enough to walk away. But misses it now.

Sleepy said, “We lack only the knowledge to repair our shadowgate, so that our world isn’t overrun by the Host of the Unforgiven Dead.”

Our spokespeople never fail to harp on that point. It remains central to every statement of our purpose. We would wear the Nine down. They would give in so they would not have to hear about it anymore. They were, however, extremely paranoid about the risk of another otherworld invasion.

If they were hard asses they could try to outstubborn us, hoping we would give up, go home, and have our shadowgate fall apart behind us. That would end our threat permanently.

The power of the File lies in the anonymity of its members. When warlords get together to plot they are restrained by the possibility that among them is one of the Nine. The File publishes any schemes it uncovers, thereby focusing the wrath of warlords not included in the plan. It is a clumsy system but it has kept conflict limited for generations by making it difficult to forge alliances.

Sleepy could expose the File. If they were betrayed, chaos would come baying right behind. Few warlords like having their ambitions held in check—though restraints had to be imposed on all those other villains.

The Unknowns did not like being bullied, either. Those whose names had been betrayed soon grew so angry the elder monk placed himself between parties as a reminder of where we were.

Being an old soldier, I began a swift inventory of resources available for a fight if some warlord was dim enough to force one. I was not reassured. Our greatest asset was missing.

Where did Shiki go? When did she go? Why?

I needed to keep a closer eye on my surroundings. An oversight this big could turn fatal.

One masked warlord bounded out of his chair. He yipped and slapped his buttocks. We gaped. Silence fell. The man began to gather his dignity. A trill of faint high-pitched laughter sparkled in the silence. Something with humming diamond wings darted about too fast to be made out clearly. It left the room before anybody could react.

Sahra observed, “Most of the Hidden Realm will follow us when we leave. Possibly so much of it that Hsien will no longer be the Land of Unknown Shadows.”

Master Santaraksita murmured in her ear. That irked the warlords and the old referee elder, too. The monk was particularly unhappy because the ladies kept spinning those implied threats. But he was cautious. The Company was up to something new. This was frightening. Had the outsiders run out of patience? All Hsien nurtures some fears of the sleeping tiger of the Abode of Ravens. And we make a point of encouraging them.

When I looked around again there was Shikhandini. How?...

I studied her, expecting to see some deviltry suggested by her stance or expression. There was nothing there. The kid was stone cold indifferent.

Sahra waved Santaraksita away. He scurried over to Sleepy, murmured some more. Sleepy nodded but did not do anything else. That left the old scholar looking like he was about to panic.

Shiki’s disappearance and reappearance made it more obvious than ever that there was something going on. Obvious to the former Captain, anyway. And the former Captain had been told nothing beforehand.

The ladies were into one of their schemes. And that would be the real reason they wanted Shiki along. Shiki brought an awesome array of weapons into the game.

And they had had me convinced that they just wanted the magic handy in case somebody suffered an impulse to be unpleasant, which happens all too frequently when we are around.

The Radisha and the Prahbrindrah Drah still mourn their treacherous impulses.

I told Swan, “This business was a lot more fun when I was the one scheming and being mysterious.”

The First of the File said, “Will you do us the courtesy of withdrawing for a moment, Captain? Ambassador? I believe a consensus may be within reach.”

While we waited in the antechamber, Swan asked, “Why did he bother asking us to leave? After what happened? Does he really think we won’t know what’s going on in there?” Things moved in the corners of my vision. Strings of shadow snaked over the walls until I tried to look at them directly. Then, of course, nothing was visible.