Only four of us
flew south. Five if you counted that ragged-ass lazy crow riding
the tip of Goblin’s flying post. The little man was flying
independently but his movements were limited by a tow rope and a
safety harness, each of which connected him to a different
companion. We told him it was for his safety while he was learning
to manage the post but even dead he was smart enough to see through
that. We did not want him haring off if the Khadidas regained
control.
Goblin was much stronger now. He could manage most self care
without assistance and many other uncomplicated tasks as well. He
had a vocabulary of maybe thirty words. He could lay
One-Eye’s spear down for minutes at a time without risk of
wakening the demon within.
We were blazing along through blue skies, cloaks streaming
thirty yards behind, at an altitude low enough to panic livestock
and send children running to tell skeptical parents. The girls
whooped and shrieked, having a wonderful time. Whomever’s
turn it was not to mind Goblin soared and dove.
Spring was going to spring soon. With these kids that might
become an adventurous season.
With spring would come the rainy season, too. Lots of wet and
lots of ferocious weather.
I made a couple of brief side trips. The main one was a brief
look at Dejagore, where life had settled into a semblance of
normalcy and nobody was mourning the passing of one of the
city’s most famous daughters. Probably not one in a thousand
people outside the garrison knew that Sleepy called Dejagore
home.
The other side trips involved looking for evidence of the Nef in
places where I thought I might have seen them before. I found
nothing.
Since there had been no sign of those ghosts of the glittering
stone, outside my own glimpses, I was pretty sure what I had seen
had not been the genuine articles.
Tobo had expressed a suspicion that, had I not been imagining
things, what I had seen were some of his hidden folk trying out
disguises.
He believed some would do that just for the hell of it. The
folklore of the Land of Unknown Shadows supported his contention.
In fact, that sort of prank was a huge favorite.
So, probably, the Nef were less of a problem than I had feared.
But a problem even so. Unless they were trapped in the Voroshk
world.
Panda Man, at the shadowgate, robbed me of that foolish hope.
“They’re out there begging and whining every night,
Captain.”
“Looks like you guys have made yourselves right at
home.” They had built themselves a tiny hamlet, complete with
women and livestock, most of both showing signs of gravidity.
“Best duty we ever had, Captain.”
“Well, now is when it starts getting tough.” I spun
out a gaggle of orders. Then me and my daughters, my pal the white
crow and my dead friend, passed through the shadowgate. Though I
could see nothing I thought I could sense the pressure of the Nef
inside.
The plain boasted a thousand patches of dirty snow. Old snow lay
drifted against the standing stones on their west sides. The air
was bitterly cold. The place was getting its weather from somewhere
other than my native world. And it had an air of neglect. As though
the residents had given up housekeeping and maintenance.
The neglect was less evident inside the nameless stronghold. The
stench of human waste was gone. Evidently Baladitya had cleaned up
after Shivetya’s Voroshk guests. But there was a taint of
wasted human.
“We need some light,” I told the girls. Still
competing with one another in some ways, both hastened to create
those little will-o’-the-wisp glowing balls that seem to be
the first trick any sorcerer learns.
The source of the odor was obvious instantly. Baladitya had
fallen asleep at his worktable and had not yet awakened. The chill,
dry air had done a lot to preserve him.
I was unhappy but not surprised. Baladitya must have been an
antique when I was born.
Arkana and Shukrat made appropriate noises expressing
sorrow.
“This isn’t good,” I muttered, staring at the
copyist’s remains. “I was counting on him to help me
talk to Shivetya.”
From somewhere in the darkness the white crow said, “Hi,
there, soldier. Looking for a good time?”
Fumbling around after oil with which to refill Baladitya’s
empty lamps, I said, “Ah, yes. You. All is not lost. But
neither is it found.”
“What?” That voice was a high-pitched squeak. I
wondered how she managed to produce so many of those, even when
using a bird to do her talking.
“Trust.” I recalled a time when anything she said
scared the shit out of me. I guess familiarity does
breed . . . something. I was almost comfortable
with her. “Why on earth would you expect me to trust anything
you say?”
It helped my courage, knowing she was buried and in a sort of
undying coma.
“Shivetya won’t let me lie.”
Right. Call me a cynic. But I had a notion that the golem might
have been with us more than Kina had, over the years. A notion that
it would be impossible to untangle his manipulations from hers. A
suspicion that he might be just as much a deceiver as she was when
it came to maneuvering toward the end of the world.
“Right, then. Got your word, do we? I’m comfortable
with that. Let’s get started. Does the Goddess know
we’re here? Does she know what’s in my mind?”
“Her attention is elsewhere.”
The girls took over filling and lighting the lamps. They were
good girls. They had learned to do for themselves. And they watched
their daddy at work with respect and awe. Or, at least, they
wondered what I was doing, talking to a crow that looked diseased.
And having the crow talk back, like it was intelligent.
I told Arkana, “If you could read and write Taglian
you’d understand all about this because you’d be able
to keep up with the Annals.”
“No thanks, Pop. Not even a good try. I said no yesterday,
I’m telling you no today, and all you’re going to hear
is no again tomorrow. I’m not going to get pulled any deeper
into your mob than I already am.”
Which is what Suvrin used to say. Suvrin, who started out as a
prisoner of war.
Shukrat said, “Don’t even even bother to look over
here.”
I had not considered Shukrat. I would not. But I did think
Arkana might work out. If she would give it a chance. She had a
personality suitable to be one of the gang.
“Recruiting season over?” the crow demanded.
“For now.” I peered into the darkness, trying to
make out more details of the golem. There was not enough light. But
the demon seemed to be asleep.
Or at least uninterested. Which puzzled me, since I was there to
set him free.
I shrugged. His indifference would not slow me down.
I collected Goblin. I led him well out onto the floor of
Shivetya’s vast hall, away from other ears. Had I brought a
lamp along I would have been able to see how lovingly the floor
detailed the features of the plain outside.
I reviewed for the little man. “Kina is a very slow
thinker. We need to get this done before she understands that
we’re already here, that we intend to strike, and that we do
have a weapon puissant enough to do the job.” One-Eye’s
spear shimmered all the time here. Filaments of fire slithered over
it in unpredictable patterns, excitedly. The edges of its head
groaned as they sliced the air itself. It seemed to sense that it
had come home.
No one could argue that the spear was not a masterpiece of a
peculiar sort of art. No one could deny that in creating his
masterwork One-Eye had reached a level of inspiration seen nowhere
else in his long but rather pathetic life.
Many an artistic masterpiece has fallen into that same category:
the sole triumph of the genius of its creator.
“Once we reach the black veil across the stairwell
she’ll start to realize her danger. You’ll have to move
fast. Get up as much speed as you can so you can drive the spear as
deep as you can. The Lance of Passion wasn’t potent enough.
But it wasn’t made for godslaying. One-Eye’s spear is.
You could name it Godslayer. You know. You were there during most
of the years he worked on it. When we were in Hsien it became his
whole career.”
Goblin had been there. But that Goblin had been alive, not a
ghost still trapped in the flesh it had worn in life. At least part
of the time this Goblin was an agent of the very monster this
Goblin was going to kill. Or maim. Or just irritate.
As the doubts began to circle round me like Tobo’s hidden
realm friends I kept right on talking, explaining yet again why he
was the only one of us who could make the strike. And he really did
find my arguments compelling. Or else his mind was made up and the
hopes and wishes of others no longer mattered.
The Goblin thing climbed back aboard his flying post.
I pushed my own forward, so I could see the tip of his and make
doubly sure I knew which one he was riding. “Let’s go
downstairs, then,” I said. “I’ll be right behind
you. Your post is spelled to come back on its own if you’re
unconscious.” He knew. He had been there when Shukrat fixed
it to do that. “If that doesn’t work I’ll swoop
in and grab you, drag your ass away. If you want, I even brought an
extra hundred yards of line to hook onto your safety harness. We
can tie it to your belt.”
The little man looked at me like he thought I was trying too
hard. He had been working himself up for a suicide mission,
convinced that the destruction of his flesh was the only way he
could rid himself of his parasite and find rest himself.
I played the whole scam by ear. I had no real idea what Goblin
really wanted or what he hoped to achieve with the false life he
had been given. I had not been able to guess much about him when he
was alive. The only thing I knew for sure was that he was working
crippled. Doing without One-Eye was, for him, like doing without
one of his limbs.
And he did want to hurt Kina. That was never in doubt.
A long, difficult discussion ended up with me chagrined a bit as
I finally got the message that Goblin was not deeply interested in
backup that would pull him out if things went sour. He wanted
backup that would make sure the job got done even if he failed.
I do not know why I had so much trouble recognizing and
understanding Goblin’s program. Possibly because I was
concentrating on getting things to go forward exactly the way I
wanted. Goblin had told me almost everything before, one time or
another, when I had been focused enough to ask.
Personally uninclined toward mortal self-sacrifice, I had
trouble overriding my cynical nature—particularly as regarded
someone as self-indulgent as Goblin had been for so long.
Goblin brandished One-Eye’s spear and told me what I had
already told him but had not done. “Time to go downstairs,
Croaker.” He got it all out in a single, bell-tone clear
sentence.
I patted myself down. Final check. Still not sure I was ready
for this.
Only four of us
flew south. Five if you counted that ragged-ass lazy crow riding
the tip of Goblin’s flying post. The little man was flying
independently but his movements were limited by a tow rope and a
safety harness, each of which connected him to a different
companion. We told him it was for his safety while he was learning
to manage the post but even dead he was smart enough to see through
that. We did not want him haring off if the Khadidas regained
control.
Goblin was much stronger now. He could manage most self care
without assistance and many other uncomplicated tasks as well. He
had a vocabulary of maybe thirty words. He could lay
One-Eye’s spear down for minutes at a time without risk of
wakening the demon within.
We were blazing along through blue skies, cloaks streaming
thirty yards behind, at an altitude low enough to panic livestock
and send children running to tell skeptical parents. The girls
whooped and shrieked, having a wonderful time. Whomever’s
turn it was not to mind Goblin soared and dove.
Spring was going to spring soon. With these kids that might
become an adventurous season.
With spring would come the rainy season, too. Lots of wet and
lots of ferocious weather.
I made a couple of brief side trips. The main one was a brief
look at Dejagore, where life had settled into a semblance of
normalcy and nobody was mourning the passing of one of the
city’s most famous daughters. Probably not one in a thousand
people outside the garrison knew that Sleepy called Dejagore
home.
The other side trips involved looking for evidence of the Nef in
places where I thought I might have seen them before. I found
nothing.
Since there had been no sign of those ghosts of the glittering
stone, outside my own glimpses, I was pretty sure what I had seen
had not been the genuine articles.
Tobo had expressed a suspicion that, had I not been imagining
things, what I had seen were some of his hidden folk trying out
disguises.
He believed some would do that just for the hell of it. The
folklore of the Land of Unknown Shadows supported his contention.
In fact, that sort of prank was a huge favorite.
So, probably, the Nef were less of a problem than I had feared.
But a problem even so. Unless they were trapped in the Voroshk
world.
Panda Man, at the shadowgate, robbed me of that foolish hope.
“They’re out there begging and whining every night,
Captain.”
“Looks like you guys have made yourselves right at
home.” They had built themselves a tiny hamlet, complete with
women and livestock, most of both showing signs of gravidity.
“Best duty we ever had, Captain.”
“Well, now is when it starts getting tough.” I spun
out a gaggle of orders. Then me and my daughters, my pal the white
crow and my dead friend, passed through the shadowgate. Though I
could see nothing I thought I could sense the pressure of the Nef
inside.
The plain boasted a thousand patches of dirty snow. Old snow lay
drifted against the standing stones on their west sides. The air
was bitterly cold. The place was getting its weather from somewhere
other than my native world. And it had an air of neglect. As though
the residents had given up housekeeping and maintenance.
The neglect was less evident inside the nameless stronghold. The
stench of human waste was gone. Evidently Baladitya had cleaned up
after Shivetya’s Voroshk guests. But there was a taint of
wasted human.
“We need some light,” I told the girls. Still
competing with one another in some ways, both hastened to create
those little will-o’-the-wisp glowing balls that seem to be
the first trick any sorcerer learns.
The source of the odor was obvious instantly. Baladitya had
fallen asleep at his worktable and had not yet awakened. The chill,
dry air had done a lot to preserve him.
I was unhappy but not surprised. Baladitya must have been an
antique when I was born.
Arkana and Shukrat made appropriate noises expressing
sorrow.
“This isn’t good,” I muttered, staring at the
copyist’s remains. “I was counting on him to help me
talk to Shivetya.”
From somewhere in the darkness the white crow said, “Hi,
there, soldier. Looking for a good time?”
Fumbling around after oil with which to refill Baladitya’s
empty lamps, I said, “Ah, yes. You. All is not lost. But
neither is it found.”
“What?” That voice was a high-pitched squeak. I
wondered how she managed to produce so many of those, even when
using a bird to do her talking.
“Trust.” I recalled a time when anything she said
scared the shit out of me. I guess familiarity does
breed . . . something. I was almost comfortable
with her. “Why on earth would you expect me to trust anything
you say?”
It helped my courage, knowing she was buried and in a sort of
undying coma.
“Shivetya won’t let me lie.”
Right. Call me a cynic. But I had a notion that the golem might
have been with us more than Kina had, over the years. A notion that
it would be impossible to untangle his manipulations from hers. A
suspicion that he might be just as much a deceiver as she was when
it came to maneuvering toward the end of the world.
“Right, then. Got your word, do we? I’m comfortable
with that. Let’s get started. Does the Goddess know
we’re here? Does she know what’s in my mind?”
“Her attention is elsewhere.”
The girls took over filling and lighting the lamps. They were
good girls. They had learned to do for themselves. And they watched
their daddy at work with respect and awe. Or, at least, they
wondered what I was doing, talking to a crow that looked diseased.
And having the crow talk back, like it was intelligent.
I told Arkana, “If you could read and write Taglian
you’d understand all about this because you’d be able
to keep up with the Annals.”
“No thanks, Pop. Not even a good try. I said no yesterday,
I’m telling you no today, and all you’re going to hear
is no again tomorrow. I’m not going to get pulled any deeper
into your mob than I already am.”
Which is what Suvrin used to say. Suvrin, who started out as a
prisoner of war.
Shukrat said, “Don’t even even bother to look over
here.”
I had not considered Shukrat. I would not. But I did think
Arkana might work out. If she would give it a chance. She had a
personality suitable to be one of the gang.
“Recruiting season over?” the crow demanded.
“For now.” I peered into the darkness, trying to
make out more details of the golem. There was not enough light. But
the demon seemed to be asleep.
Or at least uninterested. Which puzzled me, since I was there to
set him free.
I shrugged. His indifference would not slow me down.
I collected Goblin. I led him well out onto the floor of
Shivetya’s vast hall, away from other ears. Had I brought a
lamp along I would have been able to see how lovingly the floor
detailed the features of the plain outside.
I reviewed for the little man. “Kina is a very slow
thinker. We need to get this done before she understands that
we’re already here, that we intend to strike, and that we do
have a weapon puissant enough to do the job.” One-Eye’s
spear shimmered all the time here. Filaments of fire slithered over
it in unpredictable patterns, excitedly. The edges of its head
groaned as they sliced the air itself. It seemed to sense that it
had come home.
No one could argue that the spear was not a masterpiece of a
peculiar sort of art. No one could deny that in creating his
masterwork One-Eye had reached a level of inspiration seen nowhere
else in his long but rather pathetic life.
Many an artistic masterpiece has fallen into that same category:
the sole triumph of the genius of its creator.
“Once we reach the black veil across the stairwell
she’ll start to realize her danger. You’ll have to move
fast. Get up as much speed as you can so you can drive the spear as
deep as you can. The Lance of Passion wasn’t potent enough.
But it wasn’t made for godslaying. One-Eye’s spear is.
You could name it Godslayer. You know. You were there during most
of the years he worked on it. When we were in Hsien it became his
whole career.”
Goblin had been there. But that Goblin had been alive, not a
ghost still trapped in the flesh it had worn in life. At least part
of the time this Goblin was an agent of the very monster this
Goblin was going to kill. Or maim. Or just irritate.
As the doubts began to circle round me like Tobo’s hidden
realm friends I kept right on talking, explaining yet again why he
was the only one of us who could make the strike. And he really did
find my arguments compelling. Or else his mind was made up and the
hopes and wishes of others no longer mattered.
The Goblin thing climbed back aboard his flying post.
I pushed my own forward, so I could see the tip of his and make
doubly sure I knew which one he was riding. “Let’s go
downstairs, then,” I said. “I’ll be right behind
you. Your post is spelled to come back on its own if you’re
unconscious.” He knew. He had been there when Shukrat fixed
it to do that. “If that doesn’t work I’ll swoop
in and grab you, drag your ass away. If you want, I even brought an
extra hundred yards of line to hook onto your safety harness. We
can tie it to your belt.”
The little man looked at me like he thought I was trying too
hard. He had been working himself up for a suicide mission,
convinced that the destruction of his flesh was the only way he
could rid himself of his parasite and find rest himself.
I played the whole scam by ear. I had no real idea what Goblin
really wanted or what he hoped to achieve with the false life he
had been given. I had not been able to guess much about him when he
was alive. The only thing I knew for sure was that he was working
crippled. Doing without One-Eye was, for him, like doing without
one of his limbs.
And he did want to hurt Kina. That was never in doubt.
A long, difficult discussion ended up with me chagrined a bit as
I finally got the message that Goblin was not deeply interested in
backup that would pull him out if things went sour. He wanted
backup that would make sure the job got done even if he failed.
I do not know why I had so much trouble recognizing and
understanding Goblin’s program. Possibly because I was
concentrating on getting things to go forward exactly the way I
wanted. Goblin had told me almost everything before, one time or
another, when I had been focused enough to ask.
Personally uninclined toward mortal self-sacrifice, I had
trouble overriding my cynical nature—particularly as regarded
someone as self-indulgent as Goblin had been for so long.
Goblin brandished One-Eye’s spear and told me what I had
already told him but had not done. “Time to go downstairs,
Croaker.” He got it all out in a single, bell-tone clear
sentence.
I patted myself down. Final check. Still not sure I was ready
for this.