Glen Cook: Bleak Seasons

On the surface it would seem those two live only for the war.

I drifted back to One-Eye’s factory. I was reluctant to leave Smoke. I knew if I delayed much longer I would return to find my body exhausted, starved, and extremely thirsty. The smart way to use Smoke was to take short journeys mixed with lots of times out for snacks and drinks. But that was hard to recall out there, especially when there was so much pain waiting back in my own slice of reality.

This time I discovered a room I had overlooked earlier. In it Vehdna workers moved lazily amongst a dozen ceramic tubs. Some carried buckets from which they scooped fluid into the tubs a cup at a time. The fluid came from a vat a man kept stirring when he was not adding water or some white powder.

I saw little remarkable about those tubs. The solution got added at one end. At the other end fluid trickled down a glass tube into a large earthenware jug. Once filled each jug got stopped and carried carefully to storage on shelves well out of the way. Unlike wines, they were shelved upright. Curiously, the lamps in the room burned unusually bright.

I studied one tub, noted that small bubbles kept rising at the end where the workers added the fluid. At the far end, well below the surface, were dozens of short rods caked with a silvery white substance. On the floor of the tub were several handleless glass cups. Using ceramic tools a gloved worker moved a cup under a rod, scraped stuff off into the cup. Once that settled he used wooden tongs to lift the cup from the tub. He carried it with considerable care but, nevertheless, managed to stumble.

The stuff off the rod blazed fiercely when exposed to the air.

I had to get back to my flesh. I had to eat. Soon enough I would have to pack because real soon all of us would be headed south. The war’s next stage was gathering momentum.

Otto and Hagop were back, after innumerable frustrating delays on the last river leg, which should have been the easiest part of their journey. They were concealed in the same Shadar waterfront warehouse that I had used to hold the captives from the Grove of Doom. One-Eye collected me from my quarters. He and I and my brown shadow headed for the river. The Old Man beat us there. He could drop everything when he really wanted. “You all right, Murgen?” “I’m handling it.”

“He’s spending too much time with Smoke,” One-Eye said. “That don’t sound healthy. Would you look at these guys?” He meant Otto and Hagop, though the others of their expedition were confined to the warehouse, too, and were not enthusiastic about being kept away from their families. It had been almost three years.

Neither Otto nor Hagop looked much different. I told Hagop, “I’d almost given up on you guys.” We shook hands. I shook with Otto, too. “I thought your luck finally ran out.” “We came close, Murgen. We used up a lot.” “So,” the Old Man said. “What took so long?” “Actually, there ain’t that much to tell.” Hagop looked at Croaker oddly, as though to make sure he was talking to the real Old Man. Croaker was in his Shadar disguise. “We went, we did what we could, we came back.” Like a fourteen-thousand-mile round trip was routine? In the Company we do not brag about the big stuff. “We didn’t do a lot of sightseeing.”

While Hagop talked Otto made a circuit of the doors and windows. He asked, “We need to worry about spies?”

“This is Taglios,” Croaker replied. By which he meant that everyone is always watching everyone else, looking for an edge. “We figured you guys would have then all squared away by now.”

“That’s a lot of squaring. Shadowlander spies, yeah, they aren’t a problem. Lady and Goblin and One-Eye took care of them.”

I said, “We still have the priesthoods.”

“And we’ve had a little Deceiver trouble lately.”

Something in my face warned Hagop against pursuing that. Not now. “How goes the war, then?”

“Slowly,” Croaker told him. “We can talk about that later. You do us any good up there?”

“Not much, to be honest.”

“Damn!”

“We did get a bunch of stuff for the Annals. Murgen, you might want to work it in. It’s stuff about what other people were doing that will help make better sense of what we did. I figure you could work it in between stuff that Croaker wrote. That way them that comes after us can see both sides. Huhm?”

“Maybe you ought to take over.” Sourly.

“Learn me how to read and write. I’m too old for this other shit.”

“Might do that,” I glanced at Croaker. “Long as you don’t edit me.”

The Old Man grinned.

Hagop chuckled. “The gods forfend, Murgen. Not me. Hey. I found out all about what happened after we left up there, too. You wouldn’t believe the excitement. The Limper came back one more time. Don’t worry. It’s all settled now. The empire is boring these days.”

“Sounds like I wish I was back home.”

Croaker asked, “Did you actually get into the Tower?”

“We spent six months there. Mainly getting the runaround at first.”

“And?”

“We finally convinced them that Lady was getting her powers back. They got cooperative then. Folks in the Tower these days like not having her around.”

“Gee. That’ll break her heart,” I said. Hagop grinned. “Yeah. They won’t send us any help. Say they don’t want to make any new enemies. I think it’s mostly because they don’t want Lady getting nostalgic for her good old days and heading back north.”

Croaker said, “We figured that. There’s nothing in this for them but keeping Lady away. What did you get?”

“They opened their records. Lent us translators. Even opened graves when we asked.”

“They would have an interest in who was buried there themselves.”

“Damned if they didn’t. They had to change their linens after we told them who all turned up alive down here. See, they had a major scare when the Limper came back and damned near took them apart.”

I said, “That guy had a bigger boner for us than Soulcatcher does.” No way did we need to add the Limper to our list of enemies. “What about my turnip seeds?”

Hagop said, “They made sure of Limper this time. Absolutely sure. I got your seeds. Turnips and parsnips and even some seed potatoes if they haven’t spoiled.”

Croaker said, “They would make sure of Limper.” He watched Otto prowl. Otto was restless, uncomfortable. “So they let you poke around and even gave you some help with it. What did you learn?” That had been the point. To see if they knew anything way up north that we could use here.

“Not much. It don’t seem likely that Longshadow was ever one of the Taken.”

I was confident of that. I was sure he would have betrayed himself to Howler by now if they had been allies in the past. “Those potatoes. Did you get the little kind like I...”

Hagop glowered at me, told the Old Man, “There is the remotest chance that he could be the Faceless Man, Moonbiter, or Nightcrawler although everybody up there was sure those three really did bite the dust. It was just that we couldn’t come up with any bodies.”

“How about one of the later Taken?” Croaker mused.

“Five actually survived. Journey, Whisper, Blister, Creeper and Learned. But Lady stripped all five of their powers. In front of witnesses.”

“But Lady has been getting her powers back,” I argued.

“A point. On the other hand, we know the exact day when the Shadowmasters appeared. Even the hour, I gather. All the later Taken were still in business up north. In fact, most of them weren’t even Taken yet.”

I traded glances with the Old Man. He began pacing. He said, “When Soulcatcher held me captive she told me one of the Shadowmasters who died at Dejagore wasn’t ever one of the Taken.”