Glen Cook - Shadows Linger

“Scare?”

“Yeah. Some people have disappeared around the neighborhood. Five or six in the last week. After dark. Not the kind usually grabbed by the press gangs. So people have been staying inside. We aren’t getting the usual night

traffic.”

The temperature seemed to drop forty degrees. Shed sat rigid as a board, eyes vacant, the old fear sliding through him like the passage of snakes. His fingers rose to the shape of the amulet hidden beneath his shirt. “Hey, Marron, what’s the matter?” “That’s how it started in Juniper,” he said, unaware that he was speaking. “Only it was just the dead. But they wanted them living. If they could get them. I have to go.” “Shed? What the hell is wrong?” He came out of it momentarily. “Oh. Sorry, Selkirk. Yeah. We have a deal. But there’s something I have to do first. Something I need to check on.” “What?”

“Nothing to do with you. With us. We’re ready to go. I’ll bring my stuff up tomorrow and we can get together with the people we need to close the deal legally. I just have something else to do right now.”

He went out of the place practically running, not sure what he could do or where he could start, not even if he was sane in his assumption. But he was sure that what had happened in Juniper would reoccur in Meadenvil. And a lot faster if the creatures were doing their own collecting. He touched his amulet again, wondering how much protection it afforded. Was it puissant? Or just a promise? He hurried to his rooming house, where people were patient with his questions, knowing he was from out of town. He asked about Raven. The murder had been the talk of the town, what with a foreign policeman having been charged on the accusation of his own men. But nobody knew anything. There was no eyewitness to Raven’s death except Asa. And Asa was in Juniper. Probably dead.

The Black Company would not have wanted him turning witness against them.

He shed an impulse to contact the survivors. They might want him out of the way, too.

He was on his own with this.

The place where Raven had died seemed a likely place to start. Who knew where that was? Asa. Asa was not available. Who else? How about Bullock?

His guts knotted. Bullock represented everything he feared back home. In a cage here, but still very much a symbol. Could he face the man?

Would the man tell him anything?

Finding Bullock was no problem. The main prison did not move. Finding the courage to face him, even from beyond bars, was another matter. But this entire city lay under a shadow.

Torment racked Shed. Guilt cut him apart. He had done things that left him unable to endure himself. He had committed crimes for which there was no way of making restitution. Yet here was something...

“You’re a fool, Marron Shed,” he told himself. “Don’t worry about it. Meadenvil can look out for itself. Just move on to another city.”

But something deeper than cowardice told him he could not run. And not just from himself. A creature from the black castle had appeared in Meadenvil. Two men who had had dealings with the castle had come here. That could not be coincidence. Suppose he moved on? What was to keep the creatures from turning up again, wherever he went?

He had made a deal with a devil. On a gut level he sensed that the net in which he had been taken had to be unwoven strand by strand.

He moved the every-day, cowardly Shed to a throne far behind his eyes and brought forward the Shed who had hunted with Krage and eventually killed his tormentor.

He did not recall the cock-and-bull story he used to get past the wards, but did bullshit his way in to see Bullock.

The Inquisitor had lost none of his spirit. He came to the bars spitting and cursing and promising Shed an excruciating death.

Shed countered, “You ain’t never going to punish nobody but maybe a cockroach in there. Shut up and listen. Forget who you were and remember where you are. I’m the only hope you got of getting out.” Shed was amazed. Could he have been half as firm without the intervening bars?

Bullock’s face went blank. “Go ahead. Talk.”

“I don’t know how much you hear in here. Probably nothing. I’ll run it down. After you left Juniper, the rest of the Black Company showed up. They took over. Their Lady and what-not came to town. They attacked the black castle. I don’t know how that turned out. What word there is makes it sound like the city was wiped out. During the fighting some of the Company guys grabbed a ship and got out on account of their masters were going to turn on them. Why I don’t know.”

Bullock stared at him, considering. “That’s the truth?”

“From what I’ve heard second-hand.”

“It was those Black Company bastards got me in here. Framed me. I only had a fight with Raven. Hell, he almost

killed me.”

“He’s dead now.” Shed described what Asa had seen. “I have a notion what killed him and why. What I need to know is where it happened. So I can make sure. You tell me that and I’ll try to get you out.”

“I only know approximately. I know where I caught up with him and which way him and Asa went when they got away. That should pin it down pretty close. Why do you want to know?”

“I think the castle creatures planted something on Raven. Like a seed. I think that’s why he died. Like the man who brought the original seed to Juniper.”

Bullock frowned.

“Yeah. Sounds tall. But listen to this. The other day I saw one of the creatures near where I’m staying. Watching me. Wait! I know what they look like. I met them. Also, people are disappearing. Not too many yet. Not enough to cause a big stink. But enough to scare people.”

Bullock moved to the back of his cell, settled on the floor, placed his back against the wall. He was quiet for more than a minute. Shed waited nervously. “What’s your interest, innkeeper?” “Repayment of a debt. Bullock, the Black Company kept me prisoner for a while. I learned a lot about that castle. It was nastier than anybody guessed. It was a doorway of sorts. Through which a creature called the Dominator was trying to get into the world. I contributed to the growth of that thing. I helped it reach the point where it attracted the Black Company and its sorcerer friends. If Juniper has been destroyed, it’s as much my fault as anybody’s. Now the same fate threatens Meadenvil. I can do something to stop it. If I can find it.”

Bullock sniggered. Sniggers turned into chuckles. Chuckles became laughter.

“Then rot here!” Shed shouted, and started to leave. “Wait!” Shed turned.

Bullock stifled his mirth. “Sorry. It’s so incongruous. You, so righteous. I mean, I really believe you mean it. All right, Marron Shed. Give it a shot. And if you manage it and you get me out of here, I might not drag you back to Juniper.”

“There’s no Juniper to drag me to, Bullock. Rumor says the Lady planned to loot the Catacombs after she finished the black castle. You know what that means. All-out rebellion.”

Bullock’s humor vanished. “Straight down the Shaker Road, past the twelfth mile marker. Left on the first farm track, under a dead oak tree. You go at least six miles on that. Way past the farms. That’s wild country. You better go armed.”

“Armed?” Shed grinned a big, self-conscious grin. “Marron Shed never had guts enough to learn to use a weapon. Thanks.”

“Don’t forget me, Shed. My trial comes up first week next month.” “Right.”

Shed dismounted and began leading the rented mule when he reached a point he estimated to be six miles from the Shaker Road. He went on another half-mile. The track was little more than a game trail, winding through rugged country densely covered with hardwood. He saw no evidence man ever traveled this way. Odd. What had Raven and Asa been doing out here? He could think of no reason that made sense. Asa had claimed they were running from Bullock. If so, why hadn’t they kept on going down the Shaker Road?