Tobo finished
interviewing the black raven that was not really a bird, sent it
racing back to Croaker. He found his mother and Sleepy with
Sleepy’s usual fellow travelers studying a map of the
territories north of the Dandha Presh. They were trying to
determine the most favorable route northward, once the force
finished crossing the mountains. Little colored patches represented
the last known positions of the Protector and of Narayan Singh.
Sleepy asked, “News from Croaker?”
“He’s finished it. He’s on his way. But it
turned stranger than he expected.” He relayed the full
report.
Sleepy told him, “You’ll have to go back. We
can’t risk the chance of another gang of sorcerers getting
loose over here.”
“I suppose.” Tobo had no enthusiasm for that.
“I don’t like it. Why didn’t he just kill them
after he had their flying things and that remarkable
clothing?”
“Because he doesn’t do things like that.” Not
to mention the fact that dead people are not real cooperative when
it comes time for them to share their knowledge.
“No. He lets people get away with stuff, then hunts them
down thirty years later.” She made a growling noise.
“How can I keep moving if I don’t have you
here?”
“If Croaker is on this side all the Unknown Shadows will
be on this side, too. The Black Hounds will be running out front in
no time. A day or two later we’ll be able to see what’s
going on anywhere we want to look.” Sleepy needed that
reassurance. She was worried about everything going on out where
she had no ability to see. Reminding her that most people,
including most captains, went through whole lives far more blind
than she had ever been, did nothing to improve her temper.
Sleepy was spoiled. Throughout her association with the Company,
one way or another, we had owned some ability to find out what was
happening far away from us. You let anybody have something for a
little while, they soon consider it their birthright. Sleepy was
very much no exception to that rule.
Goblin crabbed, “I understand that you need Tobo here
before you can let the prisoners leave the plain. But why
shouldn’t the rest of us go ahead? We aren’t getting
anything useful done just sitting here.”
“You’re getting done what I want you to get done.
Now be quiet. Before I gag you.”
I became impatient myself before Tobo finally appeared. He was
subject to the constraints of normal travel. We had no flying
carpets anymore, though there was hope that the Howler might create
some once he was reawakened. (Nobody had yet tried.) And now there
was the possibility we might gain the secrets of the Voroshk flying
posts.
Tobo came in astride the superhorse that had attached itself to
Sleepy. Bred originally to serve the Lady of the Tower up north, a
number had come south with the Company. This was the last known
survivor.
“How long do those things live, hon?” I asked Lady
as Tobo approached.
“Maybe forty years. At the extreme. This one is pushing
the limit.”
“Looks pretty spry.” Despite having run forty miles
the animal looked almost fresh.
“I did good work in those days.”
“And you miss them now?”
“Yes.” She would not lie to me. She did not love me
any less for missing being what once she had been, either. Near as
I can tell, she never regrets anything she does, good or evil. I
wish I could be that way.
Tobo dismounted right outside the shadowgate. I passed him
through. He got straight to business, though he smiled and waved to
his father and uncle and Doj. “You have five prisoners? All
major wizards?”
“I don’t know about that. They could be complete
no-talents, far as I can tell. But they did go flying around on
fenceposts wearing a kind of super-fabric that Goblin says can be
manipulated by thoughts. This comes across as a ‘You’d
better be careful, Croaker’ kind of sign.”
“We can communicate with them?”
“We have two brothers whose father studied and managed
Bowalk while she was in Khatovar. The father could force Bowalk to
resume human shape for an hour or two sometimes, but he
couldn’t keep her there. He thought the problem was a
deadman-loop Shapeshifter built into the shape-changing spells.
Shifter didn’t trust her. The loop activated when One-Eye
killed him.
“Anyway, this Voroshk’s kids picked up some of
Bowalk’s native tongue from being around her, which has been
for all of their lives. When the Voroshk blew up the shadowgate one
of them got the bright idea that he could talk us into taking them
to safety somewhere else. He rounded up some friends who were just
as scared and came to us. He assumed we all spoke the same language
as the forvalaka. He had some strange notion that we would
recognize the innate superiority of the Voroshk and take his bunch
in as honored guests. He couldn’t imagine it being any other
way because that’s the only way it could be in Khatovar.
He’s vain, stupid and arrogant. They all seem to be. The
other brother more so. He won’t even talk.”
Tobo smiled a little unpleasantly, perhaps recalling similar
attitudes amongst Hsien’s warlords. “I expect
they’ve all suffered one disappointment after another.”
“Absodamnlutely. Life has become an unimaginable hell for
these kids. I have to remind them over and over that they’re
still alive.”
“Let’s go meet them, shall we?” The kid looked
like he was excited by the challenge.
As we approached the refugees I warned Tobo,
“They’re all gorgeous but I really don’t think
they have a brain between them. At least they show every sign of
being slow learners.”
We stopped several yards from Khatovar’s forlorn children.
They huddled together beside the road as Black Company men and
mules began to move out through the shadowgate. Only one of the
girls had ambition enough to look up. The little one. The one we
had taken prisoner.
She stared at Tobo for half a minute. Then she murmured
something to her companions. They looked up, too. Only the
ringleader and his brother betrayed their native arrogance. And it
had not been that long or arduous a journey.
They seemed to sense something in Tobo that was not apparent to
me. It awakened hope. Several babbled questions in their own
language.
“When they stop yammering tell them who I am. Don’t
feel like you have to be entirely honest, either.”
“A little exaggeration couldn’t hurt?”
“Hardly ever.”
The interview lasted longer than I anticipated. Tobo was
remarkably patient for his age. He worked hard to make the Voroshk
understand that they were no longer in the land of their fathers,
that here it did not matter who they were or who their parents had
been. In our world they were going to have to sing for their
supper.
We broke for a snack. The Voroshk and their guards were the only
people left on the plain side of the shadowgate. I told Tobo,
“I admire your patience.”
“Me, too. Already I want to kick some of them. And
it’s not really all patience, anyway. I’m trying to
learn more about them by reading what they don’t say and what
they do let slip. You’re right. They don’t seem very
bright. Though I’m guessing that’s as much because of
the way they were educated as it is any natural stupidity. They
have no idea whatsoever of their own past. None! Never heard of the
Free Companies. Never heard of the Lance of Passion. Didn’t
know that some really great wizards from Khatovar erected the
standing stones that are all over the plain, at great peril to
themselves from shadows. Didn’t even recognize the name
Khatovar, though they do know Khadi as some vague, old-time demon
that nobody cares about anymore.”
“How do you know that? About the memorial
stones.”
“Baladitya got it from Shivetya. You did notice that the
runes on the flying logs are almost identical to the ones on the
standing stones?”
“I didn’t notice that, no. Mostly I’ve kept
busy watching Goblin. The little shit speaks a bit of the language.
He’s been sneaking around talking to them.”
Tobo chewed and nodded and looked thoughtful. “You ask him
about it?”
“Hardly. I don’t trust that guy, Tobo. One-Eye told
me not to just before he passed.”
“Nobody is going to trust Goblin for a long time, Croaker.
And he knows that as well as anybody else does. He’ll be the
carefulest Goblin you ever saw. You won’t even recognize
him.”
“We’re talking about Goblin here. He can’t
help himself.”
“He got into most of what he got into because One-Eye
dragged him along. Think about it, Croaker. If he’s somehow
turned into Kina’s tool, his assignment will be a long-term
one. ‘Bring on the Year of the Skulls’ kind of stuff.
He won’t get himself killed trying something
trivial.”
I grunted. That made perfect sense on a rational level but I
remained unconvinced. Goblin was Goblin. I had known him for a long
time. The things he did did not always make sense, even to him. I
asked, “What’ll we do with the Voroshk?”
“I’m going to educate them.”
Damn! I did not like the way he said that.
He replaced my guards with his own cronies, Taglians led by a
senior sergeant called Riverwalker. All these guards were fluent in
the language of Hsien and possessed a working knowledge of Nyueng
Bao, which was a close cousin of the language spoken in the Land of
Unknown Shadows.
Tobo instructed the guards, then the prisoners. Through me.
Explaining the facts of life. “These men will be your teachers.
They will teach you languages and the skills you will need to get
along in this world. They will expose you to our religions and laws
and the ways we have for getting along with one another.”
The boy doing the translating started to protest.
Riverwalker smacked him in the back of the head hard enough to
knock him down.
Tobo continued, “You have to understand that you’re
guests. You bought passage out of Khatovar with your knowledge.
Your lives will be as comfortable as we can make them so long as
you cooperate. But we are at war with ancient and powerful enemies.
We won’t be inclined toward patience with anyone who
doesn’t cooperate. Our patience will be especially short with
people we consider dangerous. Do you understand?”
Tobo waited for me to finish translating. I asked an extra time
to make sure the kids really grasped the gravity of the situation.
Youngsters have a hard time getting it when the cruel and deadly
applies to them personally. They also tend to agree to almost
anything just to stop hearing about it.
Tobo had me tell them, “The rest of today and tonight you
can rest. Tomorrow you’ll begin an intensive education in
Taglian. While we’re hurrying to catch up with the rest of
our army. I’ll travel with you and will help you as much as I
can.”
The leader boy wanted to argue again. He had not listened
closely enough to what he was translating. Riverwalker knocked him
down again. Tobo told me, “That one’s going to be
trouble.”
“There’s a good chance they all will be. They
couldn’t get along at home.” They had to be misfits.
Shifting languages, I told the kids, “If you make yourselves
more trouble than you’re worth these people will kill you.
Come on. I think I see some chow waiting to make our
acquaintance.”
One of the girls said something in her own language. The
captive, not the one who had come along with the boys.
I responded to the whine. “Tell her she can’t go
home. It’s too late for that.”
Meantime, Tobo remarked, “But everybody here is running
away from something.”
“Some,” I stipulated. “How soon do you think
we’ll get a chance to sit down somewhere? I’ve got a
lot of writing to catch up on.”
Tobo laughed. “You’d better stage a coup, you want a
chance to sit down. Sleepy won’t take time off until the
corpses are piled high enough to make fences.”
The Voroshk seemed to enjoy their evening meal. They were hungry
enough to appreciate anything. We started teaching them Taglian
nouns. Tobo studied both them and the wonders they had brought with
them. He seemed less impressed by their flying posts than he was by
the clothing they were no longer permitted to wear.
He told me, “Those posts look like a variation on the same
sorcery Howler uses to operate his flying carpets. I should be able
to work it out eventually. If I can get around some spells
that’re meant to make the posts destroy themselves if they
fall into the wrong hands.”
I told him about the two I had seen explode.
“Pretty potent self-destruct, then. I’ll be
careful.”
“Be careful of those girls, too. I think the little
one’s already staked you out.”
Come morning the leader kid could not be wakened. He was alive,
all right, but no one could rouse him. “What did you
do?” I asked Tobo, whispering, having leapt to a conclusion
involving Tobo wanting the potential troublemaker out of the way
without us losing access to his post and clothing.
“I had nothing to do with it.”
Lady examined the boy after I did. She said, “This looks a
lot like the coma Smoke went into for so long.”
I agreed. But Soulcatcher had been responsible for that, we
believed. And there was no way this could be her doing. The Unknown
Shadows knew every move she made. And would turn aside any monsters
she sent against us. I wondered aloud, “Were any of your
invisible friends around here last night? Maybe they saw
something.”
“I’ll check.”
By dint of ferocity I got the unconscious kid’s brother to
admit that he could communicate. I made him understand that they
needed to bind his brother onto one of their posts. Otherwise he
would get left behind when we moved out.
The kids were terrified.
“Handy disaster,” Lady remarked.
“Yeah. But for whom?”
Tobo finished
interviewing the black raven that was not really a bird, sent it
racing back to Croaker. He found his mother and Sleepy with
Sleepy’s usual fellow travelers studying a map of the
territories north of the Dandha Presh. They were trying to
determine the most favorable route northward, once the force
finished crossing the mountains. Little colored patches represented
the last known positions of the Protector and of Narayan Singh.
Sleepy asked, “News from Croaker?”
“He’s finished it. He’s on his way. But it
turned stranger than he expected.” He relayed the full
report.
Sleepy told him, “You’ll have to go back. We
can’t risk the chance of another gang of sorcerers getting
loose over here.”
“I suppose.” Tobo had no enthusiasm for that.
“I don’t like it. Why didn’t he just kill them
after he had their flying things and that remarkable
clothing?”
“Because he doesn’t do things like that.” Not
to mention the fact that dead people are not real cooperative when
it comes time for them to share their knowledge.
“No. He lets people get away with stuff, then hunts them
down thirty years later.” She made a growling noise.
“How can I keep moving if I don’t have you
here?”
“If Croaker is on this side all the Unknown Shadows will
be on this side, too. The Black Hounds will be running out front in
no time. A day or two later we’ll be able to see what’s
going on anywhere we want to look.” Sleepy needed that
reassurance. She was worried about everything going on out where
she had no ability to see. Reminding her that most people,
including most captains, went through whole lives far more blind
than she had ever been, did nothing to improve her temper.
Sleepy was spoiled. Throughout her association with the Company,
one way or another, we had owned some ability to find out what was
happening far away from us. You let anybody have something for a
little while, they soon consider it their birthright. Sleepy was
very much no exception to that rule.
Goblin crabbed, “I understand that you need Tobo here
before you can let the prisoners leave the plain. But why
shouldn’t the rest of us go ahead? We aren’t getting
anything useful done just sitting here.”
“You’re getting done what I want you to get done.
Now be quiet. Before I gag you.”
I became impatient myself before Tobo finally appeared. He was
subject to the constraints of normal travel. We had no flying
carpets anymore, though there was hope that the Howler might create
some once he was reawakened. (Nobody had yet tried.) And now there
was the possibility we might gain the secrets of the Voroshk flying
posts.
Tobo came in astride the superhorse that had attached itself to
Sleepy. Bred originally to serve the Lady of the Tower up north, a
number had come south with the Company. This was the last known
survivor.
“How long do those things live, hon?” I asked Lady
as Tobo approached.
“Maybe forty years. At the extreme. This one is pushing
the limit.”
“Looks pretty spry.” Despite having run forty miles
the animal looked almost fresh.
“I did good work in those days.”
“And you miss them now?”
“Yes.” She would not lie to me. She did not love me
any less for missing being what once she had been, either. Near as
I can tell, she never regrets anything she does, good or evil. I
wish I could be that way.
Tobo dismounted right outside the shadowgate. I passed him
through. He got straight to business, though he smiled and waved to
his father and uncle and Doj. “You have five prisoners? All
major wizards?”
“I don’t know about that. They could be complete
no-talents, far as I can tell. But they did go flying around on
fenceposts wearing a kind of super-fabric that Goblin says can be
manipulated by thoughts. This comes across as a ‘You’d
better be careful, Croaker’ kind of sign.”
“We can communicate with them?”
“We have two brothers whose father studied and managed
Bowalk while she was in Khatovar. The father could force Bowalk to
resume human shape for an hour or two sometimes, but he
couldn’t keep her there. He thought the problem was a
deadman-loop Shapeshifter built into the shape-changing spells.
Shifter didn’t trust her. The loop activated when One-Eye
killed him.
“Anyway, this Voroshk’s kids picked up some of
Bowalk’s native tongue from being around her, which has been
for all of their lives. When the Voroshk blew up the shadowgate one
of them got the bright idea that he could talk us into taking them
to safety somewhere else. He rounded up some friends who were just
as scared and came to us. He assumed we all spoke the same language
as the forvalaka. He had some strange notion that we would
recognize the innate superiority of the Voroshk and take his bunch
in as honored guests. He couldn’t imagine it being any other
way because that’s the only way it could be in Khatovar.
He’s vain, stupid and arrogant. They all seem to be. The
other brother more so. He won’t even talk.”
Tobo smiled a little unpleasantly, perhaps recalling similar
attitudes amongst Hsien’s warlords. “I expect
they’ve all suffered one disappointment after another.”
“Absodamnlutely. Life has become an unimaginable hell for
these kids. I have to remind them over and over that they’re
still alive.”
“Let’s go meet them, shall we?” The kid looked
like he was excited by the challenge.
As we approached the refugees I warned Tobo,
“They’re all gorgeous but I really don’t think
they have a brain between them. At least they show every sign of
being slow learners.”
We stopped several yards from Khatovar’s forlorn children.
They huddled together beside the road as Black Company men and
mules began to move out through the shadowgate. Only one of the
girls had ambition enough to look up. The little one. The one we
had taken prisoner.
She stared at Tobo for half a minute. Then she murmured
something to her companions. They looked up, too. Only the
ringleader and his brother betrayed their native arrogance. And it
had not been that long or arduous a journey.
They seemed to sense something in Tobo that was not apparent to
me. It awakened hope. Several babbled questions in their own
language.
“When they stop yammering tell them who I am. Don’t
feel like you have to be entirely honest, either.”
“A little exaggeration couldn’t hurt?”
“Hardly ever.”
The interview lasted longer than I anticipated. Tobo was
remarkably patient for his age. He worked hard to make the Voroshk
understand that they were no longer in the land of their fathers,
that here it did not matter who they were or who their parents had
been. In our world they were going to have to sing for their
supper.
We broke for a snack. The Voroshk and their guards were the only
people left on the plain side of the shadowgate. I told Tobo,
“I admire your patience.”
“Me, too. Already I want to kick some of them. And
it’s not really all patience, anyway. I’m trying to
learn more about them by reading what they don’t say and what
they do let slip. You’re right. They don’t seem very
bright. Though I’m guessing that’s as much because of
the way they were educated as it is any natural stupidity. They
have no idea whatsoever of their own past. None! Never heard of the
Free Companies. Never heard of the Lance of Passion. Didn’t
know that some really great wizards from Khatovar erected the
standing stones that are all over the plain, at great peril to
themselves from shadows. Didn’t even recognize the name
Khatovar, though they do know Khadi as some vague, old-time demon
that nobody cares about anymore.”
“How do you know that? About the memorial
stones.”
“Baladitya got it from Shivetya. You did notice that the
runes on the flying logs are almost identical to the ones on the
standing stones?”
“I didn’t notice that, no. Mostly I’ve kept
busy watching Goblin. The little shit speaks a bit of the language.
He’s been sneaking around talking to them.”
Tobo chewed and nodded and looked thoughtful. “You ask him
about it?”
“Hardly. I don’t trust that guy, Tobo. One-Eye told
me not to just before he passed.”
“Nobody is going to trust Goblin for a long time, Croaker.
And he knows that as well as anybody else does. He’ll be the
carefulest Goblin you ever saw. You won’t even recognize
him.”
“We’re talking about Goblin here. He can’t
help himself.”
“He got into most of what he got into because One-Eye
dragged him along. Think about it, Croaker. If he’s somehow
turned into Kina’s tool, his assignment will be a long-term
one. ‘Bring on the Year of the Skulls’ kind of stuff.
He won’t get himself killed trying something
trivial.”
I grunted. That made perfect sense on a rational level but I
remained unconvinced. Goblin was Goblin. I had known him for a long
time. The things he did did not always make sense, even to him. I
asked, “What’ll we do with the Voroshk?”
“I’m going to educate them.”
Damn! I did not like the way he said that.
He replaced my guards with his own cronies, Taglians led by a
senior sergeant called Riverwalker. All these guards were fluent in
the language of Hsien and possessed a working knowledge of Nyueng
Bao, which was a close cousin of the language spoken in the Land of
Unknown Shadows.
Tobo instructed the guards, then the prisoners. Through me.
Explaining the facts of life. “These men will be your teachers.
They will teach you languages and the skills you will need to get
along in this world. They will expose you to our religions and laws
and the ways we have for getting along with one another.”
The boy doing the translating started to protest.
Riverwalker smacked him in the back of the head hard enough to
knock him down.
Tobo continued, “You have to understand that you’re
guests. You bought passage out of Khatovar with your knowledge.
Your lives will be as comfortable as we can make them so long as
you cooperate. But we are at war with ancient and powerful enemies.
We won’t be inclined toward patience with anyone who
doesn’t cooperate. Our patience will be especially short with
people we consider dangerous. Do you understand?”
Tobo waited for me to finish translating. I asked an extra time
to make sure the kids really grasped the gravity of the situation.
Youngsters have a hard time getting it when the cruel and deadly
applies to them personally. They also tend to agree to almost
anything just to stop hearing about it.
Tobo had me tell them, “The rest of today and tonight you
can rest. Tomorrow you’ll begin an intensive education in
Taglian. While we’re hurrying to catch up with the rest of
our army. I’ll travel with you and will help you as much as I
can.”
The leader boy wanted to argue again. He had not listened
closely enough to what he was translating. Riverwalker knocked him
down again. Tobo told me, “That one’s going to be
trouble.”
“There’s a good chance they all will be. They
couldn’t get along at home.” They had to be misfits.
Shifting languages, I told the kids, “If you make yourselves
more trouble than you’re worth these people will kill you.
Come on. I think I see some chow waiting to make our
acquaintance.”
One of the girls said something in her own language. The
captive, not the one who had come along with the boys.
I responded to the whine. “Tell her she can’t go
home. It’s too late for that.”
Meantime, Tobo remarked, “But everybody here is running
away from something.”
“Some,” I stipulated. “How soon do you think
we’ll get a chance to sit down somewhere? I’ve got a
lot of writing to catch up on.”
Tobo laughed. “You’d better stage a coup, you want a
chance to sit down. Sleepy won’t take time off until the
corpses are piled high enough to make fences.”
The Voroshk seemed to enjoy their evening meal. They were hungry
enough to appreciate anything. We started teaching them Taglian
nouns. Tobo studied both them and the wonders they had brought with
them. He seemed less impressed by their flying posts than he was by
the clothing they were no longer permitted to wear.
He told me, “Those posts look like a variation on the same
sorcery Howler uses to operate his flying carpets. I should be able
to work it out eventually. If I can get around some spells
that’re meant to make the posts destroy themselves if they
fall into the wrong hands.”
I told him about the two I had seen explode.
“Pretty potent self-destruct, then. I’ll be
careful.”
“Be careful of those girls, too. I think the little
one’s already staked you out.”
Come morning the leader kid could not be wakened. He was alive,
all right, but no one could rouse him. “What did you
do?” I asked Tobo, whispering, having leapt to a conclusion
involving Tobo wanting the potential troublemaker out of the way
without us losing access to his post and clothing.
“I had nothing to do with it.”
Lady examined the boy after I did. She said, “This looks a
lot like the coma Smoke went into for so long.”
I agreed. But Soulcatcher had been responsible for that, we
believed. And there was no way this could be her doing. The Unknown
Shadows knew every move she made. And would turn aside any monsters
she sent against us. I wondered aloud, “Were any of your
invisible friends around here last night? Maybe they saw
something.”
“I’ll check.”
By dint of ferocity I got the unconscious kid’s brother to
admit that he could communicate. I made him understand that they
needed to bind his brother onto one of their posts. Otherwise he
would get left behind when we moved out.
The kids were terrified.
“Handy disaster,” Lady remarked.
“Yeah. But for whom?”