Real fear found us
the morning after next, just when it seemed we had every reason to
be positive. We had made good time the day before, there were no
crows around yet, and it looked like we would reach the Grove of
Doom before the afternoon rains, which meant we could complete our
business there and get clear before night fell. I was happy.
A band of horsemen appeared on the road south of us, headed our
way. As they drew nearer, it became evident that they were
uniformly clad. “What should we do?” River asked.
“Just hope they aren’t looking for us. Keep
moving.” They showed no interest in travelers ahead of us,
though they forced everyone off the road. They were not galloping
but were not dawdling, either.
Uncle Doj drifted nearer the donkey not carrying Gota. Ash Wand
lay hidden amidst the clutter of tent and tent poles that formed
that animal’s burden. Several precious fireball projectors
were among the bamboo tent poles, too.
We had very few of those left now. We would have no more until
we fetched Lady out of the ground. Goblin and One-Eye could not
create them themselves—though Goblin admitted privately that the
opposite would have been the case even just ten years ago.
They were too old for almost anything that required flexible
thought and, especially, physical dexterity. The mist projector
was, in all probability, the last great contribution they would
make. And most of the nonmagical construction on that had been
accomplished using Tobo’s young hands.
I caught a glint of polished steel from the horsemen.
“Left side of the road,” I told River. “I want
everybody over there when we have to get out of their
way.”
But I spoke too late. Point-man Iqbal had already jumped off to
the right. “I hope he has sense enough to get back across
after they pass by.”
“He isn’t stupid, Sleepy.”
“He’s out here with us, isn’t he?”
“That’s a fact.”
The band of horsemen turned out to be what I expected: the
forerunners of a much larger troop which, in turn, proved to be the
vanguard of the Third Territorial Division of the Taglian Army.
The Third Territorial Division was the Great General’s
personal formation. Which meant that God had chosen to bring us
face-to-face with Mogaba.
I tried not to worry about what sort of practical joke God was
contemplating. Only He knows His own heart. I just made sure my
whole crowd was on the left side of the road. I got us loosened up
even more. Then I worried about which of us might be recognizable
by Mogaba or any veterans who had been around long enough to recall
the Kiaulune and Shadowmaster wars.
None of us were memorable. Few of us went back far enough to
have crossed paths with the Great General. That is, except Uncle
Doj, Mother Gota, Willow Swan . . . right! And
Narayan Singh! Narayan had been a close ally of the Great General
in the days before the last Shadowmaster war. Those two had had
their wicked heads together innumerable times.
“I will need to alter my appearance.”
“What?” The skinny little Deceiver had materialized
beside me, startling me. If he could sneak up like
that . . .
“This will be the Great General, Mogaba. Not so? And he
might recognize me even though it has been years since last we
stood face-to-face.”
“You astonish me,” I admitted.
“I do what the goddess desires.”
“Of course.” There is no God but God. Yet every day
I had to deal with a goddess whose impact on my life was more
tangible. There were times when I had to struggle hard not to
think. In Forgiveness He is Like the Earth.
“Suppose you just borrow some clothing and get rid of your
turban?” Though doing nothing struck me as the perfect
solution with him. As noted before, Narayan Singh resembled the
majority of the poor male Gunni population. I thought Mogaba would
have trouble recognizing him even if they had been lovers. Unless
Narayan gave himself away. And how could he do that? He was the
Master Deceiver, the living saint of the cult.
“That might work.”
Singh drifted away. I watched him, suddenly suspicious. He could
not be unaware of his own natural anonymity. Therefore he must be
trying to create a predisposed pattern of thought inside my
mind.
I wished I could just cut his throat. I did not like what he did
to my thinking. I could easily become obsessed with concerns about
what he was really doing. But we needed him. We could not collect
the Key without him. Even Uncle Doj did not know exactly what we
were seeking. He had never actually seen, or even known about, the
Key before it was stolen. I hoped he would recognize it if he saw
it.
I might spend a little time thinking how we could get around my
having given him such solid guarantees that he was willing to
travel with us and trust us not to murder the Daughter of Night
while they were separated.
The cavalry finished clattering past. They had paid us no heed,
since we had not insisted on getting in their way. Behind them a
few hundred yards came the first battalion of infantry, as neat,
clean and impressive as Mogaba could keep them while on the march.
I received several offers of temporary marriage but otherwise the
soldiers were indifferent to our presence. The Third Territorial
was a well-disciplined, professional division, an extension of
Mogaba’s will and character, nothing like the gangs of ragged
outcasts that constituted the Company.
We were a military nil anyway. We could not get together and
fight our weight in lepers today, let alone deal with formations
like the Third Territorial. Croaker’s heart would be broken
when we dragged him out of the ground.
My optimism began to fade. With the soldiers hogging the road,
we traveled much slower. The landmarks showing the way to the Grove
of Doom were in sight but still hours away. The cart and the
animals could not be pushed on muddy ground.
I began to watch for a place to sit out the rain, though I did
not recall any good site from previous visits to the area. Uncle
Doj was no help when I asked. He told me, “There is no
significant cover closer than the grove.”
“Someone should go scout that.”
“You have reason for concern?”
“We’re dealing with Deceivers.” I did not
mention that Slink and the band from Semchi were supposed to meet
us there. Doj did not need to know. And Slink might have gotten
slowed down if he had to duck around Mogaba’s army and
patrols.
“I’ll go. When I can leave without arousing
curiosity.”
“Take Swan. He’s the most likely to give us
away.” The Radisha was a risk, too, though thus far she had
shown no inclination to yell for help. But Riverwalker was close
enough to grab her by the throat if she even took a deep
breath.
She was not stupid. If she intended to betray us, she meant to
wait till she could manage it with some chance of surviving the
attempt.
Uncle Doj and Willow Swan managed to drift away without
attracting attention, though Uncle had to go without Ash Wand. I
joined River and the Radisha. I noted, “This country is a lot
more developed than it used to be.” When I was young, most of
the land between Taglios and Ghoja was deserted. Villages were
small and poor and supported themselves on minimal tracts of land.
There were no independent farms in those days. Now the latter
seemed to be everywhere, founded by confident and
independence-minded veterans or by refugees from the tortured lands
that once lay prostrate under the heels of the Shadowmasters. Many
of the new farms crowded right up to the road right-of-way. They
made getting off the road difficult at times.
The force moving north numbered about ten thousand, men enough
to occupy miles and miles of roadway even without the train and
camp followers coming on behind. Soon it was obvious we would not
reach the Grove of Doom before the rains came and might not get
there before nightfall.
Given any choice at all, I did not want to be anywhere near the
place after dark. I had gone in there by night once before, ages
ago, as part of a Company raid meant to capture Narayan and the
Daughter of Night. We murdered a lot of their friends but those two
had gotten away. I remembered only the fear and the cold and the
way the grove seemed to have a soul of its own that was more alien
than the soul of a spider. Murgen once said that being in that
place at night was as bad as walking through one of Kina’s
dreams. Though of this world, it had a powerful otherworldly
taint.
I tried to ask Narayan about it. Why had his predecessors chosen
that particular grove as their most holy place? How had it been
different from other groves of those times, when humanity’s
impact on the face of the earth had been so much less?
“Why do you wish to know, Annalist?” Singh was
suspicious of my interest.
“Because I’m naturally curious. Aren’t you
ever curious about how things came to be and why people do the
things they do?”
“I serve the goddess.”
I waited. Evidently he deemed that an adequate explanation.
Being somewhat religious myself, I could encompass it even though I
did not find it satisfying.
I offered a snort of disgust. Narayan responded with a smirk.
“She is real,” he said.
“She is the darkness.”
“You see her handiwork around you every day.”
Not true. “Untrue, little man. But if she ever gets loose,
I think we will.” This discussion had become terribly uncomfortable suddenly. It put me in the position of admitting the
existence of a god other than my god, which my religion insisted
was impossible. “There is no God but God.”
Narayan smirked.
Mogaba did the one good thing he had ever done for me. By
turning up in person he saved me the rigorous and embarrassing
mental gymnastics necessary to reconfigure Kina as a fallen angel
thrown down into the pit. I knew it could be done. Elements of Kina
myth could be hammered into conformity with the tenets of the only
true religion, given a quick coat of blackwash, and I would have
completed a course of religious acrobatics elegant enough to spark
the pride of my childhood teachers.
Mogaba and his staff traveled three quarters of the way toward
the rear of the column. The Great General was mounted, which was a
surprise. He was never a rider before. The greater surprise,
though, was the nature of his steed.
It was one of the sorcerously bred black stallions the Company
had brought down from the north. I had thought they were all dead.
I had not seen one since the Kiaulune wars. This one not only was
not dead, it was in outstanding health. Despite its age. It also
appeared bored by the business of travel.
“Don’t gape,” Riverwalker told me.
“People get curious about why other people are
curious.”
“I think we can afford to stare some. Mogaba will feel
like he deserves it.” Mogaba looked every bit the Great
General and mighty warrior. He was tall and perfectly proportioned,
well-muscled, well-clad, well-groomed. But for the dust of silver
in his hair, he looked little older than he had been when first I
saw him, right after the Company captured Jaicur from Stormshadow.
He had had no hair then, having preferred to shave his head. He
seemed in a good humor, not a condition I had associated with him
in the past, when all his schemes had come to frustration as the
Captain just seemed to bumble around and do the one thing that
would undo all his efforts.
As the Great General came abreast, his mount suddenly snorted
and tossed its head, then shied slightly, as though it had stirred
up a snake. Mogaba cursed, although he was never in any danger of
losing his seat.
Laughter dropped out of the sky. And a white crow fell right
behind it, alighting precariously atop the pole carried by the
Great General’s personal standardbearer.
Cursing still, Mogaba failed to note that his steed turned its
head to watch me as I passed.
The darned thing winked.
I had been recognized. The beast must be the very one I had
ridden so long ago, for so many hundreds of miles.
I began to get nervous.
Someone amongst Mogaba’s personal guard launched an arrow
at the crow. It missed. It fell not far from Runmust, who shouted
angrily before he thought. Now the Great General vented his spleen
upon the archer.
The horse continued to watch me. I fought an urge to run. Maybe
I could get through this yet . . .
The white crow squawked something that might have been words but
were just racket to me. Mogaba’s mount jumped enough to
freshen the well of vituperation. It faced forward and began to
trot. The ultimate effect was to divert attention from us
southbound scrubs.
Everybody but Iqbal’s Suruvhija stared at the ground and
walked a little faster. Soon we were past the worst danger. I
drifted over beside Swan, who was still so nervous he stuttered
when he tried to crack a joke about pigeons coming to roost on the
Great General while he was still alive.
Laughter passed overhead. The crow, up high, was almost
indistinguishable against the gathering clouds. I wished I had
someone along who could advise me about that thing.
For a generation, crows have not been good omens for the
Company. But this one seemed to have done us a favor.
Could it be Murgen from another time?
Murgen would be watching, I was sure, but that crow had no way
to communicate. So maybe so . . .
If so, this encounter would have been an adventure for him, too,
what with him knowing that if we got caught, his chances for
resurrection plummeted to zero.
Real fear found us
the morning after next, just when it seemed we had every reason to
be positive. We had made good time the day before, there were no
crows around yet, and it looked like we would reach the Grove of
Doom before the afternoon rains, which meant we could complete our
business there and get clear before night fell. I was happy.
A band of horsemen appeared on the road south of us, headed our
way. As they drew nearer, it became evident that they were
uniformly clad. “What should we do?” River asked.
“Just hope they aren’t looking for us. Keep
moving.” They showed no interest in travelers ahead of us,
though they forced everyone off the road. They were not galloping
but were not dawdling, either.
Uncle Doj drifted nearer the donkey not carrying Gota. Ash Wand
lay hidden amidst the clutter of tent and tent poles that formed
that animal’s burden. Several precious fireball projectors
were among the bamboo tent poles, too.
We had very few of those left now. We would have no more until
we fetched Lady out of the ground. Goblin and One-Eye could not
create them themselves—though Goblin admitted privately that the
opposite would have been the case even just ten years ago.
They were too old for almost anything that required flexible
thought and, especially, physical dexterity. The mist projector
was, in all probability, the last great contribution they would
make. And most of the nonmagical construction on that had been
accomplished using Tobo’s young hands.
I caught a glint of polished steel from the horsemen.
“Left side of the road,” I told River. “I want
everybody over there when we have to get out of their
way.”
But I spoke too late. Point-man Iqbal had already jumped off to
the right. “I hope he has sense enough to get back across
after they pass by.”
“He isn’t stupid, Sleepy.”
“He’s out here with us, isn’t he?”
“That’s a fact.”
The band of horsemen turned out to be what I expected: the
forerunners of a much larger troop which, in turn, proved to be the
vanguard of the Third Territorial Division of the Taglian Army.
The Third Territorial Division was the Great General’s
personal formation. Which meant that God had chosen to bring us
face-to-face with Mogaba.
I tried not to worry about what sort of practical joke God was
contemplating. Only He knows His own heart. I just made sure my
whole crowd was on the left side of the road. I got us loosened up
even more. Then I worried about which of us might be recognizable
by Mogaba or any veterans who had been around long enough to recall
the Kiaulune and Shadowmaster wars.
None of us were memorable. Few of us went back far enough to
have crossed paths with the Great General. That is, except Uncle
Doj, Mother Gota, Willow Swan . . . right! And
Narayan Singh! Narayan had been a close ally of the Great General
in the days before the last Shadowmaster war. Those two had had
their wicked heads together innumerable times.
“I will need to alter my appearance.”
“What?” The skinny little Deceiver had materialized
beside me, startling me. If he could sneak up like
that . . .
“This will be the Great General, Mogaba. Not so? And he
might recognize me even though it has been years since last we
stood face-to-face.”
“You astonish me,” I admitted.
“I do what the goddess desires.”
“Of course.” There is no God but God. Yet every day
I had to deal with a goddess whose impact on my life was more
tangible. There were times when I had to struggle hard not to
think. In Forgiveness He is Like the Earth.
“Suppose you just borrow some clothing and get rid of your
turban?” Though doing nothing struck me as the perfect
solution with him. As noted before, Narayan Singh resembled the
majority of the poor male Gunni population. I thought Mogaba would
have trouble recognizing him even if they had been lovers. Unless
Narayan gave himself away. And how could he do that? He was the
Master Deceiver, the living saint of the cult.
“That might work.”
Singh drifted away. I watched him, suddenly suspicious. He could
not be unaware of his own natural anonymity. Therefore he must be
trying to create a predisposed pattern of thought inside my
mind.
I wished I could just cut his throat. I did not like what he did
to my thinking. I could easily become obsessed with concerns about
what he was really doing. But we needed him. We could not collect
the Key without him. Even Uncle Doj did not know exactly what we
were seeking. He had never actually seen, or even known about, the
Key before it was stolen. I hoped he would recognize it if he saw
it.
I might spend a little time thinking how we could get around my
having given him such solid guarantees that he was willing to
travel with us and trust us not to murder the Daughter of Night
while they were separated.
The cavalry finished clattering past. They had paid us no heed,
since we had not insisted on getting in their way. Behind them a
few hundred yards came the first battalion of infantry, as neat,
clean and impressive as Mogaba could keep them while on the march.
I received several offers of temporary marriage but otherwise the
soldiers were indifferent to our presence. The Third Territorial
was a well-disciplined, professional division, an extension of
Mogaba’s will and character, nothing like the gangs of ragged
outcasts that constituted the Company.
We were a military nil anyway. We could not get together and
fight our weight in lepers today, let alone deal with formations
like the Third Territorial. Croaker’s heart would be broken
when we dragged him out of the ground.
My optimism began to fade. With the soldiers hogging the road,
we traveled much slower. The landmarks showing the way to the Grove
of Doom were in sight but still hours away. The cart and the
animals could not be pushed on muddy ground.
I began to watch for a place to sit out the rain, though I did
not recall any good site from previous visits to the area. Uncle
Doj was no help when I asked. He told me, “There is no
significant cover closer than the grove.”
“Someone should go scout that.”
“You have reason for concern?”
“We’re dealing with Deceivers.” I did not
mention that Slink and the band from Semchi were supposed to meet
us there. Doj did not need to know. And Slink might have gotten
slowed down if he had to duck around Mogaba’s army and
patrols.
“I’ll go. When I can leave without arousing
curiosity.”
“Take Swan. He’s the most likely to give us
away.” The Radisha was a risk, too, though thus far she had
shown no inclination to yell for help. But Riverwalker was close
enough to grab her by the throat if she even took a deep
breath.
She was not stupid. If she intended to betray us, she meant to
wait till she could manage it with some chance of surviving the
attempt.
Uncle Doj and Willow Swan managed to drift away without
attracting attention, though Uncle had to go without Ash Wand. I
joined River and the Radisha. I noted, “This country is a lot
more developed than it used to be.” When I was young, most of
the land between Taglios and Ghoja was deserted. Villages were
small and poor and supported themselves on minimal tracts of land.
There were no independent farms in those days. Now the latter
seemed to be everywhere, founded by confident and
independence-minded veterans or by refugees from the tortured lands
that once lay prostrate under the heels of the Shadowmasters. Many
of the new farms crowded right up to the road right-of-way. They
made getting off the road difficult at times.
The force moving north numbered about ten thousand, men enough
to occupy miles and miles of roadway even without the train and
camp followers coming on behind. Soon it was obvious we would not
reach the Grove of Doom before the rains came and might not get
there before nightfall.
Given any choice at all, I did not want to be anywhere near the
place after dark. I had gone in there by night once before, ages
ago, as part of a Company raid meant to capture Narayan and the
Daughter of Night. We murdered a lot of their friends but those two
had gotten away. I remembered only the fear and the cold and the
way the grove seemed to have a soul of its own that was more alien
than the soul of a spider. Murgen once said that being in that
place at night was as bad as walking through one of Kina’s
dreams. Though of this world, it had a powerful otherworldly
taint.
I tried to ask Narayan about it. Why had his predecessors chosen
that particular grove as their most holy place? How had it been
different from other groves of those times, when humanity’s
impact on the face of the earth had been so much less?
“Why do you wish to know, Annalist?” Singh was
suspicious of my interest.
“Because I’m naturally curious. Aren’t you
ever curious about how things came to be and why people do the
things they do?”
“I serve the goddess.”
I waited. Evidently he deemed that an adequate explanation.
Being somewhat religious myself, I could encompass it even though I
did not find it satisfying.
I offered a snort of disgust. Narayan responded with a smirk.
“She is real,” he said.
“She is the darkness.”
“You see her handiwork around you every day.”
Not true. “Untrue, little man. But if she ever gets loose,
I think we will.” This discussion had become terribly uncomfortable suddenly. It put me in the position of admitting the
existence of a god other than my god, which my religion insisted
was impossible. “There is no God but God.”
Narayan smirked.
Mogaba did the one good thing he had ever done for me. By
turning up in person he saved me the rigorous and embarrassing
mental gymnastics necessary to reconfigure Kina as a fallen angel
thrown down into the pit. I knew it could be done. Elements of Kina
myth could be hammered into conformity with the tenets of the only
true religion, given a quick coat of blackwash, and I would have
completed a course of religious acrobatics elegant enough to spark
the pride of my childhood teachers.
Mogaba and his staff traveled three quarters of the way toward
the rear of the column. The Great General was mounted, which was a
surprise. He was never a rider before. The greater surprise,
though, was the nature of his steed.
It was one of the sorcerously bred black stallions the Company
had brought down from the north. I had thought they were all dead.
I had not seen one since the Kiaulune wars. This one not only was
not dead, it was in outstanding health. Despite its age. It also
appeared bored by the business of travel.
“Don’t gape,” Riverwalker told me.
“People get curious about why other people are
curious.”
“I think we can afford to stare some. Mogaba will feel
like he deserves it.” Mogaba looked every bit the Great
General and mighty warrior. He was tall and perfectly proportioned,
well-muscled, well-clad, well-groomed. But for the dust of silver
in his hair, he looked little older than he had been when first I
saw him, right after the Company captured Jaicur from Stormshadow.
He had had no hair then, having preferred to shave his head. He
seemed in a good humor, not a condition I had associated with him
in the past, when all his schemes had come to frustration as the
Captain just seemed to bumble around and do the one thing that
would undo all his efforts.
As the Great General came abreast, his mount suddenly snorted
and tossed its head, then shied slightly, as though it had stirred
up a snake. Mogaba cursed, although he was never in any danger of
losing his seat.
Laughter dropped out of the sky. And a white crow fell right
behind it, alighting precariously atop the pole carried by the
Great General’s personal standardbearer.
Cursing still, Mogaba failed to note that his steed turned its
head to watch me as I passed.
The darned thing winked.
I had been recognized. The beast must be the very one I had
ridden so long ago, for so many hundreds of miles.
I began to get nervous.
Someone amongst Mogaba’s personal guard launched an arrow
at the crow. It missed. It fell not far from Runmust, who shouted
angrily before he thought. Now the Great General vented his spleen
upon the archer.
The horse continued to watch me. I fought an urge to run. Maybe
I could get through this yet . . .
The white crow squawked something that might have been words but
were just racket to me. Mogaba’s mount jumped enough to
freshen the well of vituperation. It faced forward and began to
trot. The ultimate effect was to divert attention from us
southbound scrubs.
Everybody but Iqbal’s Suruvhija stared at the ground and
walked a little faster. Soon we were past the worst danger. I
drifted over beside Swan, who was still so nervous he stuttered
when he tried to crack a joke about pigeons coming to roost on the
Great General while he was still alive.
Laughter passed overhead. The crow, up high, was almost
indistinguishable against the gathering clouds. I wished I had
someone along who could advise me about that thing.
For a generation, crows have not been good omens for the
Company. But this one seemed to have done us a favor.
Could it be Murgen from another time?
Murgen would be watching, I was sure, but that crow had no way
to communicate. So maybe so . . .
If so, this encounter would have been an adventure for him, too,
what with him knowing that if we got caught, his chances for
resurrection plummeted to zero.