Glen Cook - Shadows Linger

“Too many men under arms on too many frontiers,” the Captain mused. “Too much expansion too fast for too long. The empire can’t take the strain. The effort in the Barrowland ate up her reserves. And it’s still going. If she whips the Dominator, look for things to change.”

“Maybe we made a mistake, eh?”

“Made a lot. Which one are you talking about?”

“Coming north, over the Sea of Torments.”

“Yes. I’ve known that for years.”

“And?”

“And we can’t get out. Not yet. Someday, maybe, when our orders take us back to the Jewel Cities, or somewhere where we could leave the empire and still find ourselves in a civilized country.” There was an almost bottomless yearning in his voice. “The longer I spend in the north, the less I want to end my days here, Croaker. Put that in your Annals.”

I had him talking, a rare occurrence. I merely grunted, hoping he would continue filling the silence. He did. “We’re running with the darkness, Croaker. I know that don’t make no never-mind, really. Logically. We’re the Black Company. We’re not good or evil. We’re just sol-diers with swords for sale. But I’m tired of having our work turned to wicked ends. If this looting thing happens, l may step aside. Raven had the right idea back at Charm. He got the hell out.”

I then set forth a notion that had been in the back of my mind for years. One I’d never taken seriously, knowing it quixotic. “That doesn’t contribute anything, Captain. We also have the option of going the other way.” “Eh?” He came back from whatever faraway place ruled him and really looked at me. “Don’t be silly, Croaker. That’s a fool’s game. The Lady squashes anybody who tries.” He ground a heel into the earth. “Like a bug.”

“Yeah.” It was a silly idea, on several levels, not the least of which was that the other side could not afford us. I could not picture us in the Rebel role anyway. The majority of Rebels were idiots, fools or ambitious types hoping to grab a chunk of what the Lady had. Darling was the outstanding exception, and she was more symbol than substance, and a secret symbol at that.

“Eight years since the comet was in the sky,” the Captain said. “You know the legends. She won’t fall till the Great Comet is up there. You want to try surviving twenty-nine years on the run from the Taken? No, Croaker. Even if our hearts were with the White Rose, we couldn’t make that choice. That’s suicide. Getting out of the empire is the way.”

“She’d come after us.”

“Why? Why shouldn’t she be satisfied with what she’s had of us these ten years? We’re no threat to her.”

But we were. We very much were, if only because we knew of the existence of the reincarnation of the White Rose. And I was sure that, once we left the empire, either Silent or I would spill that secret. Of course, the Lady did not know that we knew.

“This chatter is an exercise in futility,” the Captain said. “I’d rather not talk about it.”

“As you wish. Tell me what we’re going to do here.”

“The Lady is coming in tonight. Whisper says we’ll begin the assault as soon as the auspices are right.”

I glanced at the black castle.

“No,” he said. “It won’t be easy. It may not be possible, even with the Lady helping.”

“If she asks about me, tell her I’m dead. Or something,” I said.

That won a smile. “But, Croaker, she’s your...”

“Raven,” I snapped. “I know things about him that could get us all killed. So does Silent. Get him out of Duretile before she gets here. Neither one of us dares face the Eye.”

“For that, neither do I. Because I know you know something. We’re going to have to take our chances, Croaker.”

“Right. So don’t put notions into her head.”

“I expect she’s forgotten you long since, Croaker. You’re just another soldier.”

The Lady hadn’t forgotten me. Not even a little. Shortly after midnight a grim Elmo rousted me out. “Whisper is here. Wants you, Croaker.”

“Eh?” I hadn’t done anything to arouse her ire. Not for weeks.

“They want you over to Duretile. She wants you. Whisper is here to take you back.”

Ever seen a grown man faint? I haven’t. But I came close. I may have come close to having a stroke, too. My blood pressure must have soared. For two minutes I was vertiginous and unable to think. My heart pounded. My guts ached with fear. I knew she was going to drag me in for a session with the Eye, which sees every secret buried in a man’s mind. And yet I could do nothing to evade her. It was too late to run. I wished I had been aboard the ship to Meadenvil with Pawnbroker.

Like a man walking to the gallows, I went out to Whisper’s carpet, settled myself behind her, and dwindled into my thoughts as we rose and rushed through the chill night toward Duretile.

As we passed over the Port, Whisper called back, “You must have made quite an impression back when, physician. You were the first person she asked about when she got here.”

I found enough presence of mind to ask, “Why?”

“I suspect because she wants her story recorded again. As she did during the battle at Charm.”

I looked up from my hands, startled. How had she known that? I’d always pictured the Taken and Lady as uncommunicative among themselves.

What she said was true. During the battle at Charm the Lady had dragged me around with her so the events of the day would be recorded as they happened. And she did not demand special treatment. In fact, she insisted I write stuff as I saw it. There was just the faintest whiff of a hint that she expected to be toppled sometime, and, once she was, expected maltreatment by historians. She wanted a neutral record to exist. I hadn’t thought about that for years. It was one of the more curious anomalies I’d noted about her. She did not care what people thought of her, but was frightened that the record would be bastardized to suit someone else’s ends.

The tiniest spark of hope rose from that. Maybe she did want a record kept. Maybe I could get through this. If I could remain nimble enough to avoid the Eye.

The Captain met us when we landed on Duretile’s northern wall. A glance at the carpets there told me all the Taken were on hand. Even Journey, whom I had expected to remain in the Barrowland. But Journey would have a grudge to soothe. Feather had been his wife.

A second glance told me the Captain was silently apologetic about my situation, that there were things he wanted to say but dared not. I fed him a tiny shrug, hoped we would get a moment later. We did not. Whisper led me from the wall directly into the Lady’s presence.

She hadn’t changed an iota since I had seen her last. The rest of us had aged terribly, but she remained twenty forever, radiantly gorgeous with stunning black hair and eyes into which a man could fall and die. She was, as always, such a focal point of glamor that she could not be physically described. A detailed description would be pointless anyway, as what I saw was not the true Lady. The Lady who looked like that hadn’t existed for four centuries, if ever.

She rose and came to greet me, a hand extended. I could not tear my eyes away. She rewarded me with the slightly mocking smile I recalled so well, as though we shared a secret. I touched her hand lightly, and was astonished to find it warm. Away from her, when she vanished from mind except as a distant object of dread, like an earthquake, I could think of her only as cold, dead, and deadly. More on the order of a lethal zombie than a living, breathing, even possibly vulnerable person.

She smiled a second time and invited me to take a seat. I did so, feeling grotesquely out of place amidst a company which included all but one of the great evils of the world. And the Dominator was there in spirit, casting his