Glen Cook: The Black Company

The streets were speckled with puddles as we walked to the waterfront. Runoff still chuckled in the gutters. By noon the air would be leaden again, and more humid than ever. Tom-Tom awaited us on a boat he had hired. I said, “How much did you pocket on this deal? This scow looks like it’d sink before it cleared the Island.”

“Not a copper, Croaker.” He sounded disappointed. He and his brother are great pilferers and black-marketeers.

“Not a copper. This here is a slicker job than it looks. Her master is a smuggler.”

“I’ll take your word. You’d probably know!” Nevertheless, I stepped gingerly as I boarded. He scowled. We were supposed to pretend that the avarice of Tom-Tom and One-Eye did not exist.

We were off to sea to make an arrangement. Tom-Tom had the Captain’s carte blanche. The Lieutenant and I were along to give him a swift kick if he got carried away, Silent and a half dozen soldiers accompanied us for show. A customs launch hailed us off the Island. We were gone before she could get underway. I squatted, peered under the boom. The black ship loomed bigger and bigger. “That damned thing is a floating island.”

“Too big,” the Lieutenant growled. “Ship that size couldn’t hold together in a heavy sea.”

“Why not? How do you know?” Even boggled I remained curious about my brethren.

“Sailed as a cabin boy when I was young. I learned ships.” His tone discouraged further interrogation. Most of the men want their antecedents kept private. As you might expect in a company of villains held together by its now and its us-against-the-world gone befores.

“Not too big if you have the thaumaturgic craft to bind it,” Tom-Tom countered. He was shaky, tapping his drum in random, nervous rhythms. He and One-Eye both hated water.

So. A mysterious northern enchanter. A ship as black as the floors of hell. My nerves began to fray.

Her crew dropped an accomodation ladder. The Lieutenant scampered up. He seemed impressed.

I’m no sailor, but the ship did look squared away and disciplined.

A junior officer sorted out Tom-Tom, Silent, and myself and asked us to accompany him. He led us down stairs and through passageways, aft, without speaking.

The northern emissary sat crosslegs amidst rich cushions, backed by the ship’s open sternlights, in a cabin worthy of an eastern potentate. I gaped, Tom-Tom smouldered with avarice. The emissary laughed.

The laughter was a shock. A high-pitched near giggle more appropriate to some fifteen year old madonna of the tavern night than to a man more powerful than any king. “Excuse me,” he said, placing a hand daintily where his mouth would have been had he not been wearing that black morion. Then, “Be seated.”’

My eyes widened against my will. Each remark came in a distinctly different voice. Was there a committee inside that helmet?

Tom-Tom gulped air. Silent, being Silent, simply sat, I followed his example, and tried not to become too offensive with my frightened, curious stare.

Tom-Tom wasn’t the best diplomat that day. He blurted, “The Syndic won’t last much longer. We want to make an arrangement...” Silent dug a toe into his thigh. I muttered, “This is our daring prince of thieves? Our man of iron nerve?” The legate chuckled. “You’re the physician? Croaker? Pardon him. He knows me.”

A cold, cold tear enfolded me in its dark wings. Sweat moistened my temples. It had nothing to do with heat. A cool sea breeze flowed through the sternlights, a breeze for which men in Beryl would kill.

“There is no cause to fear me. I was sent to offer an alliance meant to benefit Beryl as much as my people. I remain convinced that agreement can be forged-though not with the current autocrat. You face a problem requiring the same solution as mine, but your commission puts you in a narrow place.”

“He knows it all. No point talking,” Tom-Tom croaked. He thumped his drum, but his fetish did him no good. He was choking up.

The legate observed, “The Syndic is not invulnerable. Even guarded by you.” A great big cat had Tom-Tom’s tongue. The envoy looked at me. I shrugged. “Suppose the Syndic expired while your company was defending the Bastion against the mob?”

“Ideal,” I said. “But it ignores the question of our subsequent safety.”

“You drive the mob off, then discover the death. You’re no longer employed, so you leave Beryl.”

“And go where? And outrun our enemies how? The Urban Cohorts would pursue us.”

“Tell your Captain that, on discovery of the Syndic’s demise, if I receive a written request to mediate the succession, my forces will relieve you at the Baition. You should leave Beryl and camp on the Pillar of Anguish.”

The Pillar of Anguish is an arrowhead of a chalk headland wormholed with countless little caverns. It thrusts out to sea a day’s march east of Beryl. A lighthouse/watchtower stands there. The name comes from the moaning the wind makes passing through the caverns.

“Thai’s a goddamned deathtrap. Those bugger-masters would just besiege us and giggle till we ate each other.” “A simple matter to slip boats in and take you off.” Ding-ding. An alarm bell banged away four inches behind my eyes. This sumbitch was running a game on us. “Why the hell would you do that?”

“Your company would be unemployed. I would be willing I0 assume the commission. There is a need for good soldiers in the north.”

Ding-ding. That old belt kept singing. He wanted to take us on? What for?

Something told me that was not the moment to ask. I shifted my ground. “What about the forvalaka?” Zig when they expect you to zag.

“The thing out of the crypt?” The envoy’s voice was that of the woman of your dreams, purring “come on.” “I may have work for it too.” “You’ll get it under control?”

“Once it serves its purpose.”

I thought of the lightning bolt that had obliterated a spell of confinement on a plaque that had resisted tampering for a millenium. I kept my suspicions off my face, I’m sure. But the emissary chuckled. “Maybe, physician. Maybe not. An interesting puzzle, no? Go back to your captain. Make up your minds. Quickly. Your enemies are ready to move.” He made a gesture that dismissed us.

“Just deliver the case!” the Captain snarled at Candy, “Then get your butt back here.”

Candy took the courier case and went.

“Anybody else want to argue? You bastards had your chance to get rid of me. You blew it.”

Tempers were hot. The Captain had made the legate a counter-proposal, been offered his patronage should the Syndic perish. Candy was running the Captain’s reply to the envoy. Tom-Tom muttered, “You don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t know who you’re signing with.”

“Illuminate me. No? Croaker. What’s it like out there?” I had been sent to scout the city.

“It’s plague all right. Not like any I’ve seen before, though. The forvalaka must be the vector.”

The Captain gave me the squinty eye.

“Doctor talk. A vector is a carrier. The plague comes in pockets around its kills.”

The Captain growled, “Tom-Tom? You know this beast.”

“Never heard of one spreading disease. And all of us who went into the tomb are still healthy.”

I chimed in, “The carrier doesn’t matter. The plague does. It’ll get worse if people don’t start burning bodies.”

“It hasn’t penetrated the Bastion,” the Captain observed. “And it’s had a positive effect. The regular garrison have stopped deserting.”

“I encountered a lot of antagonism in the Groan. They’re on the edge of another explosion.”

“How soon?”

“Two days? Three at the outside.”

The Captain chewed his lip. The tight place was getting tighter. “We’ve go! to...”