Despite my exoneration by the tree, I never quite regained my
former status with my comrades. Always there was a certain reserve,
perhaps as much from envy of my apparent sudden female wealth as
from trust slow to heal. I cannot deny the pain it caused me. I had
been with those guys since I was a boy. They were my family.
I did take some ribbing about getting onto crutches in order to
get out of work. But my work would have gone on had I had no legs
at all.
Those damned papers. I had them committed to memory, set to
music. And still I did not have the key we sought, nor what the
Lady hoped to find. The cross-referencing was taking forever. The
spelling of names, in pre-Domination and Domination times, had been
free-form. KurreTelle is one of those languages where various
letter combinations can represent identical sounds.
Pain in the damned fundament.
I do not know how much Darling told the others. I was not at the
Big Meeting. Neither was the Lady. But word came out: The Company
was moving out.
One day to get ready.
Topside, near nightfall, on my crutches, I watched the
windwhales arrive. There were eighteen of them, all summoned by
Father Tree. They came with their mantas and a whole panoply of
Plain sentient forms. Three dropped to the ground. The Hole puked
up its contents.
We began boarding. I got a ration because I had to be lifted,
along with my papers, gear, and crutches. The whale was a small
one. I would share it with just a few people. The Lady. Of course.
We could not be separated now. And Goblin. And One-Eye. And Silent,
after a bloody sign battle, for he did not want to be separated
from Darling. And Tracker. And the child of the tree, for whom
Tracker was guardian and I was in loco parentis. I think the
wizards were supposed to keep an eye on the rest of us, though
little they could have done had a situation presented itself.
Darling, the Lieutenant, Elmo, and the other old hands boarded a
second windwhale. The third carried a handful of troops and a lot
of gear.
We lifted off, joined the formation above.
A sunset from five thousand feet is unlike anything you will see
from the ground. Unless you are atop a very lonely mountain.
Magnificent.
With darkness came sleep. One-Eye spelled me under. I still had
a good deal of swelling and pain.
Yes. We were outside the null. Our whale flew the far flank from
Darling. Specifically for the Lady’s benefit.
Even then she did not give herself away.
The winds were favorable and we had the blessing of Father Tree.
Dawn found us passing over Horse. It was there the truth finally
surfaced.
Taken came up, all in their fish-carpets, armed to the
gills.
Panic noises wakened me. I got Tracker to help me stand. After
one glance at the fire of the rising sun, I spied the Taken
drifting into guardian positions around our whale. Goblin and them
expected an attack. They howled their hearts out. Somehow One-Eye
found a way for it all to be Goblin’s fault. They went at
it.
But nothing happened. Almost to my surprise, too. The Taken
merely maintained station. I glanced at the Lady. She startled me
with a wink. Then: “We all have to cooperate, whatever our
differences.”
Goblin heard that. He ignored One-Eye’s ranting for a
moment, stared at the Taken. After a bit he looked at the Lady.
Really looked.
I saw the light dawn. In a more than normally squeaky voice, and
with a truly goofy look, he said, “I remember you.” He
remembered the one time he had had a sort of direct contact with
her. Many years ago, when he tried to contact Soulcatcher, he had
caught her in the Tower, in the Lady’s
presence . . .
She smiled her most charming smile. The one that melts
statues.
Goblin threw a hand in front of his eyes, turned away from her.
He looked at me with the most awful expression. I could not help
laughing. “You always accused
me . . . ”
“You didn’t have to go and do it, Croaker!”
His voice climbed the scale till it became inaudible. He sat down
abruptly.
No lightning bolt splattered him across the sky. After a time he
looked up and said, “Elmo is going to crap!” He
giggled.
Elmo was the most unremitting of them all when it came to
reminding me of my romances about the Lady.
After the humor went out of it, after One-Eye had been through
it, too, and Silent had had his worst fears confirmed, I began to
wonder about my friends.
One and all, they were westward bound on Darling’s say-so.
They had not been informed, in so many words, that we were allied
with our former enemies.
Fools. Or was Darling? What happened once the Dominator was
down and we were ready to go after each other
again? . . .
Whoa, Croaker. Darling learned to play cards from Raven. Raven
was a cutthroat player.
It was the Forest of Cloud by nightfall. I wonder what they made
of us in Lords. We passed right over. The streets filled with
gawkers.
Roses passed in the night. Then the other old cities of our
early years in the north. There was little talk. The Lady and I
kept our heads together, growing more tense as our strange fleet
neared its destination and we drew no nearer unearthing the nuggets
we sought.
“How long?” I asked. I had lost track of time.
“Forty-two days,” she said.
“We were in the desert that long?”
“Time flies when you’re having fun.”
I gave her a startled look. A joke? Even an old cliche? From
her?
I hate it when they go human on you. Enemies are not supposed to
do that.
She had been crawling all over me with it for a couple
months.
How can you hate?
The weather stayed halfway decent till we got to Forsberg. Then
it became clabbered misery.
It was solid winter up there. Good, briskly refreshing winds
loaded up with pellets of powder snow. A nice abrasive for a tender
face like mine. A bombardment to clear out the lice on the backs of
the whales, too. Everybody cussed and fussed and grumbled and
huddled for warmth that dared not be provided by man’s
traditional ally, fire. Only Tracker seemed untouched.
“Don’t anything bother that thing?” I asked.
In the oddest voice I ever heard her use, the Lady replied,
“Loneliness. If you want to kill Tracker the easy way, lock
him up alone and go away.”
I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. Whom did
I know who had been alone a long time? Who, maybe, just maybe, had
begun to wonder if absolute power were worth the absolute
price?
I knew beyond the glimmer of doubt that she had enjoyed every
second of pretend on the Plain. Even the moments of danger. I knew
that had I had the hair on my ass, there in the last days, I could
have become more than a pretend boyfriend. There was a growing and
quiet desperation to her in that time as going back to being the
Lady approached.
Some of that I might have appropriated out of ego, for a very
critical time faced her. She was under a lot of stress. She knew
the enemy we faced. But not all was ego. I think she actually did
like me as a person.
“I got a request,” I said softly, in the middle of
the huddle, banishing thoughts caused by a woman pressed against
me.
“What?”
“The Annals. They’re all
that’s left of the Black Company.” Depression had set
in fast. “There was an obligation undertaken ages ago, when
the Free Companies of Khatovar were formed. If any of us get
through this alive, someone should take them back.”
I do not know if she understood. But: “They’re
yours,” she said.
I wanted to explain, but could not. Why take them back? I am not
sure where they are supposed to go. Four hundred years the Company
drifted slowly north, waxing, waning, turning over its
constituents. I have no idea if Khatovar still exists or if it is a
city, country, a person, or a god. The Annals from the earliest
years either did not survive or went home already. I have seen
nothing but digests and excerpts from the earliest
century . . . No matter. Part of the
Annalist’s undertaking has always been to return the Annals
to Khatovar should the Company disband.
The weather worsened. By Oar it seemed actively inimical, and
may have been. That thing in the earth would know we were
coming.
Just north of Oar all the Taken suddenly dropped away like
rocks. “What the hell?”
“Toadkiller Dog,” the Lady said. “We’ve
caught up with him. He hasn’t reached his master yet.”
“Can they stop him?”
“Yes.”
I crutched over to the side of the whale. I do not know what I
expected to see. We were up in the snow clouds.
There were a few flashes below. Then the Taken came back. The
Lady looked displeased. “What happened?” I asked.
“The monster got crafty. Ran into the null where it
brushes the ground. The visibility is too poor to go after
him.”
“Will it make much difference?”
“No.” But she did not sound entirely confident.
The weather worsened. But the whales remained undaunted. We
reached the Barrowland. My group went to the Guards compound.
Darling’s put up at Blue Willy. The boundary of the null fell
just outside the compound wall.
Colonel Sweet himself greeted us. Good old Sweet who I thought
was dead for sure. He had a gimp leg now. I cannot say he was
convivial. But then, it was a time when nobody was.
The orderly assigned us was our old friend Case.
Despite my exoneration by the tree, I never quite regained my
former status with my comrades. Always there was a certain reserve,
perhaps as much from envy of my apparent sudden female wealth as
from trust slow to heal. I cannot deny the pain it caused me. I had
been with those guys since I was a boy. They were my family.
I did take some ribbing about getting onto crutches in order to
get out of work. But my work would have gone on had I had no legs
at all.
Those damned papers. I had them committed to memory, set to
music. And still I did not have the key we sought, nor what the
Lady hoped to find. The cross-referencing was taking forever. The
spelling of names, in pre-Domination and Domination times, had been
free-form. KurreTelle is one of those languages where various
letter combinations can represent identical sounds.
Pain in the damned fundament.
I do not know how much Darling told the others. I was not at the
Big Meeting. Neither was the Lady. But word came out: The Company
was moving out.
One day to get ready.
Topside, near nightfall, on my crutches, I watched the
windwhales arrive. There were eighteen of them, all summoned by
Father Tree. They came with their mantas and a whole panoply of
Plain sentient forms. Three dropped to the ground. The Hole puked
up its contents.
We began boarding. I got a ration because I had to be lifted,
along with my papers, gear, and crutches. The whale was a small
one. I would share it with just a few people. The Lady. Of course.
We could not be separated now. And Goblin. And One-Eye. And Silent,
after a bloody sign battle, for he did not want to be separated
from Darling. And Tracker. And the child of the tree, for whom
Tracker was guardian and I was in loco parentis. I think the
wizards were supposed to keep an eye on the rest of us, though
little they could have done had a situation presented itself.
Darling, the Lieutenant, Elmo, and the other old hands boarded a
second windwhale. The third carried a handful of troops and a lot
of gear.
We lifted off, joined the formation above.
A sunset from five thousand feet is unlike anything you will see
from the ground. Unless you are atop a very lonely mountain.
Magnificent.
With darkness came sleep. One-Eye spelled me under. I still had
a good deal of swelling and pain.
Yes. We were outside the null. Our whale flew the far flank from
Darling. Specifically for the Lady’s benefit.
Even then she did not give herself away.
The winds were favorable and we had the blessing of Father Tree.
Dawn found us passing over Horse. It was there the truth finally
surfaced.
Taken came up, all in their fish-carpets, armed to the
gills.
Panic noises wakened me. I got Tracker to help me stand. After
one glance at the fire of the rising sun, I spied the Taken
drifting into guardian positions around our whale. Goblin and them
expected an attack. They howled their hearts out. Somehow One-Eye
found a way for it all to be Goblin’s fault. They went at
it.
But nothing happened. Almost to my surprise, too. The Taken
merely maintained station. I glanced at the Lady. She startled me
with a wink. Then: “We all have to cooperate, whatever our
differences.”
Goblin heard that. He ignored One-Eye’s ranting for a
moment, stared at the Taken. After a bit he looked at the Lady.
Really looked.
I saw the light dawn. In a more than normally squeaky voice, and
with a truly goofy look, he said, “I remember you.” He
remembered the one time he had had a sort of direct contact with
her. Many years ago, when he tried to contact Soulcatcher, he had
caught her in the Tower, in the Lady’s
presence . . .
She smiled her most charming smile. The one that melts
statues.
Goblin threw a hand in front of his eyes, turned away from her.
He looked at me with the most awful expression. I could not help
laughing. “You always accused
me . . . ”
“You didn’t have to go and do it, Croaker!”
His voice climbed the scale till it became inaudible. He sat down
abruptly.
No lightning bolt splattered him across the sky. After a time he
looked up and said, “Elmo is going to crap!” He
giggled.
Elmo was the most unremitting of them all when it came to
reminding me of my romances about the Lady.
After the humor went out of it, after One-Eye had been through
it, too, and Silent had had his worst fears confirmed, I began to
wonder about my friends.
One and all, they were westward bound on Darling’s say-so.
They had not been informed, in so many words, that we were allied
with our former enemies.
Fools. Or was Darling? What happened once the Dominator was
down and we were ready to go after each other
again? . . .
Whoa, Croaker. Darling learned to play cards from Raven. Raven
was a cutthroat player.
It was the Forest of Cloud by nightfall. I wonder what they made
of us in Lords. We passed right over. The streets filled with
gawkers.
Roses passed in the night. Then the other old cities of our
early years in the north. There was little talk. The Lady and I
kept our heads together, growing more tense as our strange fleet
neared its destination and we drew no nearer unearthing the nuggets
we sought.
“How long?” I asked. I had lost track of time.
“Forty-two days,” she said.
“We were in the desert that long?”
“Time flies when you’re having fun.”
I gave her a startled look. A joke? Even an old cliche? From
her?
I hate it when they go human on you. Enemies are not supposed to
do that.
She had been crawling all over me with it for a couple
months.
How can you hate?
The weather stayed halfway decent till we got to Forsberg. Then
it became clabbered misery.
It was solid winter up there. Good, briskly refreshing winds
loaded up with pellets of powder snow. A nice abrasive for a tender
face like mine. A bombardment to clear out the lice on the backs of
the whales, too. Everybody cussed and fussed and grumbled and
huddled for warmth that dared not be provided by man’s
traditional ally, fire. Only Tracker seemed untouched.
“Don’t anything bother that thing?” I asked.
In the oddest voice I ever heard her use, the Lady replied,
“Loneliness. If you want to kill Tracker the easy way, lock
him up alone and go away.”
I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. Whom did
I know who had been alone a long time? Who, maybe, just maybe, had
begun to wonder if absolute power were worth the absolute
price?
I knew beyond the glimmer of doubt that she had enjoyed every
second of pretend on the Plain. Even the moments of danger. I knew
that had I had the hair on my ass, there in the last days, I could
have become more than a pretend boyfriend. There was a growing and
quiet desperation to her in that time as going back to being the
Lady approached.
Some of that I might have appropriated out of ego, for a very
critical time faced her. She was under a lot of stress. She knew
the enemy we faced. But not all was ego. I think she actually did
like me as a person.
“I got a request,” I said softly, in the middle of
the huddle, banishing thoughts caused by a woman pressed against
me.
“What?”
“The Annals. They’re all
that’s left of the Black Company.” Depression had set
in fast. “There was an obligation undertaken ages ago, when
the Free Companies of Khatovar were formed. If any of us get
through this alive, someone should take them back.”
I do not know if she understood. But: “They’re
yours,” she said.
I wanted to explain, but could not. Why take them back? I am not
sure where they are supposed to go. Four hundred years the Company
drifted slowly north, waxing, waning, turning over its
constituents. I have no idea if Khatovar still exists or if it is a
city, country, a person, or a god. The Annals from the earliest
years either did not survive or went home already. I have seen
nothing but digests and excerpts from the earliest
century . . . No matter. Part of the
Annalist’s undertaking has always been to return the Annals
to Khatovar should the Company disband.
The weather worsened. By Oar it seemed actively inimical, and
may have been. That thing in the earth would know we were
coming.
Just north of Oar all the Taken suddenly dropped away like
rocks. “What the hell?”
“Toadkiller Dog,” the Lady said. “We’ve
caught up with him. He hasn’t reached his master yet.”
“Can they stop him?”
“Yes.”
I crutched over to the side of the whale. I do not know what I
expected to see. We were up in the snow clouds.
There were a few flashes below. Then the Taken came back. The
Lady looked displeased. “What happened?” I asked.
“The monster got crafty. Ran into the null where it
brushes the ground. The visibility is too poor to go after
him.”
“Will it make much difference?”
“No.” But she did not sound entirely confident.
The weather worsened. But the whales remained undaunted. We
reached the Barrowland. My group went to the Guards compound.
Darling’s put up at Blue Willy. The boundary of the null fell
just outside the compound wall.
Colonel Sweet himself greeted us. Good old Sweet who I thought
was dead for sure. He had a gimp leg now. I cannot say he was
convivial. But then, it was a time when nobody was.
The orderly assigned us was our old friend Case.