Glen Cook: Shadows Linger

I led him back to the fire and settled beside him. “What’s the matter? What happened?” I glimpsed the Captain from the corner of my eye. One-Eye stood before him, drained by a heavy-duty dressing down.

“I don’t know, Croaker.” Goblin slumped, stared into the fire. “Suddenly everything was too much. This ambush tonight. Same old thing. There’s always another province, always more Rebels. They breed like maggots in a cowpie. I’m getting older and older, and I haven’t done anything to make a better world. In fact, if you backed off to look at it, we’ve all made it worse.” He shook his head. “That isn’t right. Not what I want to say. But I don’t know how to say it any better.”

“Must be an epidemic.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Thinking out loud.” Elmo. Myself. Goblin. A lot of the men, judging by their tenor lately. Something was wrong in the Black Company. I had suspicions, but wasn’t ready to analyze. Too depressing.

“What we need is a challenge,” I suggested. “We haven’t stretched ourselves since Charm.” Which was a half-truth. An operation which compelled us to become totally involved in staying alive might be a prescription for symptoms, but was no remedy for causes. As a physician, I was not fond of treating symptoms alone. They could recur indefinitely. The disease itself had to be attacked.

“What we need,” Goblin said in a voice so soft it almost vanished in the crackle of the flames, “is a cause we can believe in.”

“Yeah,” I said. “That, too.”

From outside came the startled, outraged cries of prisoners discovering that they were to fill the graves they had dug.

Shed grew increasingly frightened as the days passed. He had to get some money. Krage was spreading the word. He was to be made an example.

He recognized the tactic. Krage wanted to scare him into signing the Lily over. The place wasn’t much, but it was damned sure worth more than he owed. Krage would resell it for several times his investment. Or turn it into whore cribs. And Marron Shed and his mother would be in the streets, with winter’s deadly laughter howling in their faces.

Kill somebody, Krage had said. Rob somebody. Shed considered both. He would do anything to keep the Lily and protect his mother.

If he could just get real customers! He got nothing but one-night chiselers and scroungers. He needed residential regulars. But he could not get those without fixing the place up. And that he couldn’t do without money.

Asa rolled through the doorway. Pale and frightened, he scuttled to the counter. “Find a wood supply yet?” Shed asked.

The little man shook his head, slid two gersh across the counter. “Give me a drink.”

Shed scooped the coins into his box. One did not question money’s provenance. It had no memory. He poured a full measure. Asa reached eagerly.

“Oh, no,” Shed said. “Tell me about it.”

“Come on, Shed. I paid you.”

“Sure. And I’ll deliver when you tell me why you’re so rocky.”

“Where’s that Raven?”

“Upstairs. Sleeping.” Raven had been out all night.

Asa shook a little more. “Give me that, Shed.”

“Talk.”

“All right. Krage and Red grabbed me. They wanted to

know about Raven.”

So Shed knew how Asa had come by money. He had tried to sell Raven. “Tell me more.”

“They just wanted to know about him.”

“What did they want to know?”

“If he ever goes out.”

“Why?”

Asa stalled. Shed pulled the mug away. “All right. They had two men watching him. They disappeared. Nobody knows anything.

Krage is furious.” Shed let him have the wine. He drained it in a single gulp.

Shed glanced toward the stair, shuddered. Maybe he had underestimated Raven. “What did Krage say about me?”

“Sure could use another mug, Shed.”

“I’ll give you a mug. Over the noggin.”

“I don’t need you, Shed. I made a connection. I can sleep over to Krage’s any time I want.”

Shed grunted, made a mask of his face. “You win.” He poured wine.

“He’s going to put you out of business, Shed. Whatever it takes. He’s decided you’re in it with Raven.” Wicked little smile. “Only he can’t figure where you got the guts to buck him.”

“I’m not. I don’t have anything to do with Raven, Asa. You know that.”

Asa enjoyed his moment. “I tried to tell Krage, Shed.

He didn’t want to hear it.”

“Drink your wine and get out, Asa.”

“Shed?” The old whine filled Asa’s voice.

“You heard me. Out. Back to your new friends. See how long they have a use for you.”

“Shed!...”

“They’ll throw you back into the street, Asa. Right beside me and Mom. Git, you bloodsucker.”

Asa downed his wine and fled, shoulders tight against his neck. He had tasted the truth of Shed’s words. His association with Krage would be fragile and brief.

Shed tried to warn Raven. Raven ignored him. Shed polished mugs, watched Raven chatter with Darling in the utter silence of sign language, and tried to imagine some way of making a hit in the upper city. Usually he spent these early hours eying Darling and trying to imagine a way to gain access, but lately sheer terror of the street had abolished his customary randiness.

A cry like that of a hog with a cut throat came from upstairs. “Mother!” Shed took the stairs two steps at a time.

His mother stood in the doorway of the big bunkroom, panting. “Mom? What’s wrong?”

“There’s a dead man in there.”

Shed’s heart fluttered. He pushed into the room. An old man lay in the bottom right bunk inside the door.

There had been only four bunkroom customers last night. Six gersh a head. The room was six feet wide and twelve long, with twenty-four platforms stacked six high. When the room was full, Shed charged two gersh to sleep leaning on a rope stretched down the middle.

Shed touched the old-timer. His skin was cold. He had been gone for hours.

“Who was he?” old June asked.

“I don’t know.” Shed probed his ragged clothing. He found four gersh and an iron ring. “Damn!” He could not take that. The Custodians would be suspicious if they found nothing. “We’re jinxed. This is our fourth stiff this year.”

“It’s the customers, son. They have one foot in the Catacombs already.”

Shed spat. “I’d better send for the Custodians.”

A voice said, “He’s waited this long, let him wait a little longer.”

Shed whirled. Raven and Darling stood behind his mother.

“What?”

“He might be the answer to your problems,” Raven said. And immediately Darling began flashing signs so fast Shed could not catch one in twenty. Evidently she was telling Raven not to do something. Raven ignored her.

Old June snapped, “Shed!” Her voice was heavy with admonition.

“Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll handle it. Go ahead with your work.” June was blind, but when her health permitted, she dumped the slops and handled what passed for maid service– mainly dusting beds between guests to kill fleas and lice. When her health confined her to bed, Shed brought in his cousin Wally, a ne’er-do-well like Asa, but with a wife and kids. Shed used him out of pity for the wife.

He headed downstairs. Raven followed, still arguing with Darling. Momentarily, Shed wondered if Raven was diddling her. Be a damned waste of fine womanflesh if someone wasn’t.

How could a dead man with four gersh get him out from under Krage? Answer: He could not. Not legitimately.

Raven settled onto his usual stool. He scattered a handful of copper. “Wine. Buy yourself a mug, too.”