Glen Cook - Shadow of all Night Falling

Ragnarson reached the command post atop the gate tower, quickly surveyed bin Yousif's assault. Haroun had brought up ladders and grapnels, but his attack teams were retreating already. Just a probe. Had Haroun found a weak point? Would he exploit it before Turran finished doing his sums and cleansed his castle? Ragnarson knew he didn't have much time to get Haaken's information. His margin was getting damned narrow. Self-preservation demanded that he plant his feet firmly somewhere, soon.

"Congratulations," said Turran. "Your drills paid off."

"He wasn't serious, just probing. Will you excuse me?" Awaiting no answer, he hurried down to Haaken's hiding place. "The gag!" he snapped on entering. Kildragon removed it. "Well, Haaken, you remembered anything?"

"Yes," Blackfang grumbled. "There was this old codger who looked like he was in charge. I figured to put him in the ground when the odds looked right. So when he wanders off by himself, I go after him. I swear, I never made a sound, but when I'm ten feet away, he jumps around, points a finger, and the next thing I know for sure Elana's waking me up. Bragi, he was some sort of spook-pusher."

"That's it? That's all?" Bragi tried shaking his brother, but Haaken had lost consciousness again.

"Don't get excited," Elana told him. "He already told me most of it. He said the old man kept talking to himself. That he remembers him standing over him, looking sick, and muttering something like, 'Varth, you're doing it again. Should've stayed in Fangdred. Should've never left the Dragon's Teeth. This's all it gets. More blood on your hands.'"

"The Dragon's Teeth, eh? Ah! The Old Man of the Mountain? Sonofabitch!" His last word was a bellow.

"What?"

"I've got it. The Old Man of the Mountain. Gold of llkazar, paying us and Haroun. A sorcerer named Varthlokkur. The things Rolf said Nepanthe raved about in Iwa Skolovda. There's a Varthlokkur in The Wizards of llkazar. Legends are, he lives with the Old Man of the Mountain. Add it up. If this's the same one, we're in it big. He's supposed to be the greatest wizard ever."

"So what?" Kildragon asked, unimpressed. "So we know who he is. We don't know why he dragged us in."

"Power, probably. There're things here he'd want bad. The Horn of the Star Rider. The weather control things." Ragnarson shook his head. The theory seemed inadequate. Yet nothing else came to mind.

Slowly, in a dark mood, Saltimbanco stalked the icy corridors. The question of the old man occupied but a tiny portion of his attention. The remainder went to Nepanthe, to dark arguments and fierce recriminations. A bitter conflict was rehearsing in his head. He felt down, trapped, frustrated, and obliquely angry. He loved, and was continually thwarted. Nepanthe also loved, he knew, but her strange fears and little-girl dreams stood between them like a barrier as impenetrable as time.

It occurred to him that, if he permitted it, the nonsense could go on forever. Elana had described her argument with Nepanthe, which had done little good. Nepanthe remained the same distant, fearful, dreaming woman-child. Well, he had decided, there had to be an end. There would be an end. He was done being an emotional \ handball. Purpose hardened. His stride quickened.

Outside, the first white flecks of winter fell. Time, it seemed, had finally rallied to the Storm King banner. The snow was weeks early.

In the Bell Tower he learned that Nepanthe was in the Lower Armories. Through a window he saw the snow, suddenly realized how near the end had come. He hoped the old man held no grudges, and Nepanthe likewise. When Haroun came, when Ravenkrak fell, he would have to show his true colors-and might then be trapped between parties thinking him traitor. Would the old man pay as promised? He'd have trouble if he didn't. Haroun had an army, and was notoriously short on patience. And Nepanthe. Would she hate him? Would she reject him forever?

These thoughts, and a thousand as grim, stalked his soul as he awaited the woman. Settled in that fireside chair, engrossed in worry, he remained unaware of her entry till she spoke. He glanced up. "Hello."

Her face was colorless. She was suffering her own worries. He almost relented. But the hardness grew within him. It would permit no further vacillation. There must be resolution. A beginning or ending.

"Nepanthe," he said, voice edged with a steeliness previously unshown. "We are going where? Same nowheres? Or would you grow up?"

His hardness and obvious tension so startled Nepanthe that she could stammer only, "I... well..."

His determination hardened further. Through clenched teeth, he growled, "You must make big decision in day. By supper tomorrow. A set wedding day, or no. If no, despairing self is going over wall. Cannot endure off-again, on-again love. Ravenkrak falls before end of month."

"What?"

"Set wedding day, or no. Is ultimatum. No more games. Answer by tomorrow." He strode out, dark and angry.

"Wait! You've got to give me time!"

"Am!" He slammed the door behind him.

Nepanthe stared at it as if it were a dragon astride her road to freedom. Everything was falling apart. She couldn't marry! Couldn't he understand? She loved him, yes, but the truth was, she wasn't ready to accept him as more than someone to lean on when things got rough. She didn't want him to be a someone she owed a responsibility. Biting her lip, she turned toward her bedchamber.

Anina blocked the door. "Tough, ain't it?"

Nepanthe stared, surprised again.

"Ah, well." Anina laughed weakly. "You'll give him the gate now." She returned to the bedroom, came out shortly. She carried a bag.

"Where're you going?" Nepanthe demanded. "I need help dressing for supper."

"Find somebody else. My man doesn't want me around you anymore." That man was Rolf, maneuvering in Mocker's favor. Nepanthe was crushed. Even Rolf, her faithful commander and aide since those first days in Iwa Skolovda...

For the second time in minutes, her door slammed in her face. Another in her mind opened, releasing fears. She threw herself on her bed, wept and thought. She didn't go to supper. Nor did she sleep that night.

As dawn arrived grayly through falling snow, she stood at a window staring toward Haroun's camp, seeing nothing. Her eyes looked inward on rage at the world and people pushing her. What right had they?...

She began pacing. Slowly, as her anger grew, her face reddened. Long-forgotten tears dribbled from the corners of her eyes. "Damn-damn-damn! Why won't they leave me alone? I don't want anybody. I want to be myself!" And a little voice, mocking back in a corner of her mind which seldom allowed its denizens free of shadow, chuckled wickedly, You're a liar! "I don't want to be chained!" Ha! What're your dreams, if not chains that bind? What're the people and things with which you surround yourself, if not walls that keep you in? Run, and all life ahead will be a wasteland as desolate as the past. What'll you do when your bright tomorrows have all become the skeletons of yesterdays? Weep? Why? You won't know what you've missed, only that you were never complete.

It was a night worse than any from those nightmare-haunted years before Saltimbanco's coming. She wept till tears would come no more, destroyed things, screamed, raged-and could discover no escaping a decision.

Strange, that. She didn't worry the goods and bads of the decision Saltimbanco had thrust upon her, but whether or not it should be made. Decisions were anathema. Each became another brick in the wall of the cell of reality. Each committed her.

Next noon hunger finally drew Saltimbanco to the Great Hall. There he found Turran, Valther, and Brock, directing soldiers who were dismantling the plank-and-trestle tables. He seized a half-loaf and some wine before it could be spirited away, wandered over to the Storm Kings. "Self, am wondering what is happening." All the excitement and anguish of the news of Ridyeh's death seemed banished. He was glad, but wondered why.