Glen Cook - Shadows Linger

It was brief. One-Eye had given us the moment we needed. They were stubborn about it, but they died. The last to go looked up at Shed, smiled, and said, “Marron Shed. You will be remembered.” Shed started shaking. Asa said, “He knew you, Shed.” “He’s the one I delivered bodies to. Every time but one.”

“Wait a minute,” I countered. “Only one creature got away at Juniper. Don’t seem likely it would be the one who knew you...” I stopped. I had noticed something disturbing. The two creatures were identical. Even to a scar across the chest when I peeled back their dark clothing. The creature the Lieutenant and I had hauled down the hill, after having slain it before the castle gate, had had such a scar.

While everyone else was suffering post-combat shakes, One-Eye asked Hagop, “You see anything silver around Old Bones? When you were checking first?” “Uh...”

One-Eye held up Shed’s necklace. “It might have looked something like this. It was what killed him.”

Hagop gulped and dug into a pocket. He handed over a necklace identical to Shed’s, except that the serpents had no eyes.

“Yeah,” One-Eye said, and again held Shed’s necklace to the light. “Yeah. The eyes it was. When the time was right. Time and place.”

I was more interested in what else might come out of the black lump. I pulled Hagop around the side, found the entrance. It looked like the entrance to a mud hut. I supposed it wouldn’t become a real gate till the place grew up. I indicated the tracks. “What do they tell you?”

“They tell me it’s busy and we ought to get out of here. There’s more of them.”

“Yeah.”

We rejoined the others. One-Eye was wrapping Shed’s necklace in a piece of cloth. “We get back to town, I’m sealing this in something made of steel and sinking it in the harbor.”

“Destroy it, One-Eye. Evil always finds its way back. The Dominator is a perfect example.”

“Yeah. All right. If I can.”

Elmo’s rush into the black castle came to mind while I was getting everybody organized to get out of there. I had changed my mind about overnighting. We could get most of the way back before nightfall. Meadenvil, like Juniper, had neither walls nor gates. We would not be locked outside.

I let Elmo lie in the back of my mind till the thought ripened. When it did, I was aghast.

A tree ensures reproduction by shedding a million seeds. One certainly will survive, and a new tree will grow. I pictured a horde of fighters bursting into the guts of the black castle and finding silver amulets everywhere. I pictured them filling their pockets.

Had to be. That place was doomed. The Dominator would have known that even before the Lady.

My respect for the old devil rose. Crafty bastard.

It was not till we were back on the Shaker Road that I thought to ask Hagop if he had seen any evidence that anyone had left the clearing by another route.

“Nope,” he said. “But that don’t mean anything.”

“Let’s not spend so much time yakking,” One-Eye said. “Shed, can’t you make that damned mule go any faster?”

He was scared. And if he was, I was more so.

We made the city. But I swear I could sense something sniffing along our backtrail before we reached the safety of the lights. We returned to our lodgings only to find most of the men gone. Where were they? Off to take over Raven’s ship, I learned.

I had forgotten about that. Yes. Raven’s ship... And Silent was on Raven’s trail. Where was he now? Damn! Sooner or later Raven would lead him to the clearing... A way to find out if Raven had left it, for sure. Also a way to lose Silent. “One-Eye. Can you get hold of Silent?”

He looked at me strangely. He was tired and wanted to sleep.

“Look, if he follows Raven’s every move, he’s going to head out to that clearing.”

One-Eye groaned and went through several dramatic shows of disgust. Then he dug into his magic sack for something that looked like a desiccated finger. He took it to a corner and communed with it, then returned to say, “I got a line on him. I’ll find him.”

“Thanks.”

“Yeah. You bastard. I ought to make you come with me.”

I settled by the fire, with a big beer, and lost myself in thought. After a while, I told Shed: “We have to go back out there.”

“Eh?”

“With Silent.”

“Who’s Silent?”

“Another guy from the Company. Wizard. Like One-Eye and Goblin. He’s on Raven’s trail, tracing every move he made from the minute he arrived. He figured he could track him down, or at least tell from his movements if he was planning to trick Asa.”

Shed shrugged. “If we have to, we have to.”

“Hunh. You amaze me, Shed. You’ve changed.”

“I don’t know. Maybe I could have done it all along. I just know that this thing can’t happen again, to anybody else.”

“Yeah.” I did not mention my visions of hundreds of men looting amulets from the fortress at Juniper. He did not need that. He had a mission. I couldn’t make it sound hopeless.

I went downstairs and asked the landlord for more beer. Beer makes me sleepy. I had a notion. A possibility. I did not share it with anyone. The others would not have been pleased.

After an hour I took a leak and dragged off to my room, more intimidated by the thought of returning to that clearing than by what I hoped to accomplish now.

Sleep was a time coming, beer or not. I could not relax. I kept trying to reach out and bring her to me. Which meant nothing at all.

It was a weak fool’s hope that she would return so soon. I had put her off. Why should she? Why shouldn’t she forget me till her minions caught up and could bring me to her in chains?

Maybe there is a connection on a level I do not understand. For I wakened from a drowse, thinking I needed to visit the head again, and found that golden glow hanging above me. Or maybe I did not waken, but only dreamed that I did. I can’t get that straight. It always seems so dream-like in retrospect.

I did not wait for her to start. I started talking. I talked fast and told her everything she needed to know about the lump in Meadenvil and about the possibility the troops had carried hundreds of seeds out of the black castle.

“You tell me this when you are determined to be my enemy, physician?”

“I don’t want to be your enemy. I’ll be your enemy only if you leave me no option.” I abandoned debate. “We can’t handle this. And it has to be handled. All its like must be handled. There is evil enough in the world as it is.” I told her we had found an amulet upon a citizen of Juniper. I named no name. I told her we would leave it where she could be sure to find it when she arrived.

“Arrive?”

“Aren’t you on your way here?”

Thin smile, secretive, perfectly aware that I was fishing. No answer. Just a question. “Where will you be?”

“Gone. Long gone, and headed far away.”

“Perhaps. We shall see.” The golden glow faded.

There were things I wanted to say yet, but they had nothing to do with the problem at hand. Questions I wanted to ask. I did not.

The last golden mote left me with a whispered, “I owe you one, physician.”

One-Eye rambled into the place shortly after sunrise, looking a lot worse for wear. Silent came along behind him, looking pretty beaten himself. He had been on Raven’s trail without let-up. One-Eye said, “I caught him just in time. Another hour and he would have headed out. I conned him into waiting till daylight.”

“Yeah. You want to wake the troops? We get an earlier start today, we ought to be able to get back before dark.”

“What?”