The Return of the Black Company (73 page)

“What? No way, chief. I just got the place cleaned up.”

I took another drink, then sat down beside Smoke.

63

The light in Longshadow’s crystal chamber seemed brilliant enough to hurt fleshly eyes. Magically created, it came from everywhere at once and left no place at all where a wild shadow might lurk. The few furnishings up there were smooth and rounded and left no little pockets or crevasses or corners where even a pinhead of untamed darkness might come to life.

No feral shadow was going to sneak up on him.

Longshadow seemed to have changed clothing and even bathed in preparation for the night’s events. Certainly he wore a new mask, black and silver with inlays of cyan, cardinal, and a particularly intense dark green. The patterns on the mask altered every time I looked. I told myself when I got a minute I ought to go back and have a look at Longshadow making himself over. He had not done anything like this ever before.

Narayan Singh and the girl arrived only moments before I did. I determined that by a quick dip into the past. Longshadow asked, “Where is Howler?”

Singh shrugged. The girl reacted as though Longshadow had not spoken at all. Singh said, “We have not seen him in days.” Which was an outright lie.

“He should be here. I warned him to be here. For his own safety.”

The girl sat down on the floor, cross-legged. She paid the Shadowmaster no mind whatsoever. Singh probably had had to badger her to get her to leave her writing.

Curious, I did a dash back in time. And got surprised. I found the child hurrying Singh. “We must be there in time.”

I went back some more. I found the child in that trancelike state where she claimed to be in touch with Kina. Certainly the odor of Kina was strong. I got out of there before I attracted her attention. She had not paid me much mind lately and I liked that just fine.

I took a couple of quick dips into times nearby and concluded that Narayan and his ward had responded to Longshadow’s summons because Kina had told them to respond.

Interesting. But what did it mean?

When I got back to present time I found the Howler puffing his way up the last spiral of stairs to Longshadow’s chamber. The Shadowmaster had sensed his approach and had faced the entrance. The smelly little wizard appeared, let out a shriek before the Shadowmaster could start giving him a hard time. It sounded almost amused.

Longshadow turned away although he had been suffering a bad case of the nags lately. He seemed to be in such a good mood that he was willing to overlook petty transgressions. He said, “Good. We’re all here. Now we go ahead with the game the way I should have played it from the beginning.” He sounded slightly puzzled, as though, suddenly—like every man and woman in the army besieging him—he wondered why he had done so little for so long. He acted as if a powerful psychic wind had torn away a dense fog that had gripped his mind for ages.

I suspected that was close to the truth. I could not identify the villain but I was sure that one of our nastier female players, most likely Kina, had reached him somehow long ago and had been blunting his sword ever since. If I was right I had to admire the subtlety of it. Longshadow had not worked it out. That might be because the manipulation had been limited to dumbing him down and exaggerating his natural prejudices and bullheadedness .

I recalled that he had had a few sharp spells. Things had not gone well for us during those interludes.

“Close the door, Deceiver.” The Shadowmaster’s voice was strong. “There must be no interruptions.”

Howler seated himself on a tall stool. I gathered that it had been brought in for him specifically, back when he first attached himself to the Shadowmaster. He did not use it often but no one else used it ever. He and Longshadow were not the sort of colleagues who watched over one another’s shoulders, sharing suggestions and expertise.

The Shadowmaster had done some housekeeping. Usually his chamber contained an arsenal of magical gewgaws, all laid out strategically. Most of those were absent tonight. Maybe Longshadow did not want to test the honesty of his guests.

After some nervous shuffling Narayan Singh assumed a protective stance beside the Daughter of Night. I noted a triangle of black silk peeping from the top of his loincloth. He had dressed formally tonight, then. That would be his strangling cloth, his rumel.

“In more normal times,” Longshadow said, “I would go out to the Shadowgate personally and employ the traps there to collect the shadows I want to use. To obtain the best effect they have to be trained. Once they are properly trained they will leave their friends alone. The skrinsa can employ them without troubling me. But these are not normal times.”

No. They were not. And when he mentioned the shadowweavers I began to wonder if he knew just how bad off he was when it came to followers. At no time had he ever had much contact with those who managed the daily business of his fortress. He gave orders. They got executed. Only a handful of his people had survived Lady’s last attack. They continued to care for him. Howler had seen to that.

He no longer had any shadowweavers to manage any trained shadows he might have.

On the other hand …

At one time there had been a crystal chamber atop a tower every seventy feet along Overlook’s southern wall. Inside each was a mirror that could be used to cast the light there in a beam onto the ground surrounding the road down from the Shadowgate. It had taken a couple of men to aim each mirror.

Longshadow did something by moving small figurines in a collection on a table, as though making multiple moves in a board game. He said a single word.

The lights in the surviving tower tops waxed brilliant. Light beams reached out across the night. Like accusing fingers they swung to point in the general area of Croaker’s Old Division. They did not light up the slope nearly as well as they had in former times but I was impressed. They did their jobs without the aid of one human hand.

The others there were impressed, too. Narayan seemed a little troubled, the Howler suddenly restless. Longshadow did not notice. He moved on to his next step. He said, “The lights are unnecessary to coming events. I just thought it would be amusing if our enemies watched one another scream their lives out.”

He giggled.

Howler sat up straight as a spear, suddenly alert. He did not like the way things were going.

Maybe Longshadow was not as big a fool as everyone thought.

I spent a moment too long watching the girl for a reaction. Smoke did his
she is the darkness
reaction and started to back off. I held him. We were about to witness some excitement.

Longshadow stepped up to the big crystal sphere standing on a pedestal at the center of the chamber. His audience watched carefully, nervously. This was not something he had done in front of witnesses before. I doubted they knew what the sphere was.

The globe was four feet in diameter. What looked like little tunnels followed wormtracks in to a hollow place at its center. As Longshadow stepped closer shimmering light rippled over its surface, like oil on water but much more intense. Snakes of cold fire wriggled through the channels inside. It was a hell of a show.

Longshadow raised his spidery hands. Carefully, he removed his gloves and pushed up his sleeves. The skin he revealed seemed both translucent and pus-colored, with speckles of blue beneath, like cheese. He had a fine crop of liver spots. There was almost no flesh on him at all.

The Shadowmaster rested his hands on the surface of the sphere. The lights inside became excited. The surface shimmer climbed his fingers, covered his hands. His fingers sank into the globe like hot rods slowly melting their way into ice. He grabbed the worms of light and began twisting.

He began to talk in a conversational sort of voice, of course using a language that nobody recognized—though the Daughter of Night frowned and leaned forward as though she was able to puzzle out a word here and there.

The Shadowmaster summoned a shadow. I could not see it. It was inside the pedestal supporting the globe. But I felt it. There was not much to it but it was very, very cold.

The Howler dropped to the floor and leaned closer to watch. Narayan and the Daughter of Night stared, bemused. The kid took a few steps forward. Singh moved closer to the door, for a better angle of view.

Longshadow spoke for several minutes, his eyes closed tightly. As he finished the brightness inside the globe began to fade. He opened his eyes and stared out southward as he had done ten thousand times before, watching the area illuminated by the mirrors.

She is the darkness!

I was not looking at the brat.…

Not that darkness.

A very special darkness. A surprise darkness that should not have caught me that far off guard, considering.

Soulcatcher.

She stepped in through a door opened by Narayan Singh as though she had been about to knock.

Longshadow was not ready for this. Not at all. He was surrounded, totally betrayed, before he realized Catcher had arrived.

I clung there with all the power I had to resist Smoke’s terror. The little shit whined and repeated
she is the darkness!
like that was some mantra against the fangs of the night.

“The game ends,” Soulcatcher said in the booming, basso voice of a crier in an amphitheater. Then she giggled like a teenaged girl. “It’s been hard work but worth it. I really like my new house.” Both those sentences arrived in the voice of a little old man who keeps account books.

Longshadow was caught, trapped, pinned like a butterfly on a collector’s display board. He was surrounded, outnumbered, and did not have a chance even if he was the greatest wizard who ever lived. Which he was not. Even so, he did not surrender.

He knew his value. His mind was not clouded. She dared not kill him because the Shadowgate would collapse.

I had to give in to Smoke. I had to get this news back fast.

I really needed to get it to Lady fastest but there was no way.

Longshadow moved slowly to pick up his gloves. As he began to pull one on, Soulcatcher said, “I think not.” Her voice was the velvet tenor of a tombstone salesman. “In fact, it’s time…”

Longshadow’s right pinky was crooked, as though it had been broken and badly set a long time ago. The nail looked like a bit of rotten, dried out, blackened spinach leaf.

The Shadowmaster flicked that little finger.

The nail flew off just as Catcher said, “… time.…”

I shook my ghostly head. You never see everything.

In one eyeblink that nail became a shadow filled with hatred for the light.

Smoke’s wriggling became irresistible.

64

I reached for a mug of water even as I sat up. Groggily, it dawned on me that I had been shoved into the cramped little alcove where the Old Man had been keeping Smoke since we sneaked him over from One-Eye’s pesthole. There were voices beyond the ragged hangings concealing me.

I took a long drink, stirred Smoke’s blankets around so he would be hidden, ran my fingers through my hair, stepped out of hiding.

The voices stopped instantly. Croaker looked about as angry as he could get. I told him, “It’s that important.” Which left a baffled look on the faces of Swan and Blade. “Good thing they’re handy. You guys go outside for a minute? Take the candle.”

“What the fuck are you doing?” Croaker demanded. He had to make a major effort to keep his voice down.

“Soulcatcher just took over Overlook.”

“Huh?”

“She walked in while Longshadow was cutting the shadows loose. Which he did, by the way. And she and Singh and the kid and Howler all jumped him. You needed to know right now. This changes everything. Lady should hear as soon as possible, too.”

“Uhn!” Croaker was still angry but I could see the changes taking place behind his eyes, see the focus of his anger shifting like a ship changing course. “The bitch. The deceitful, conniving, treacherous bitch.”

“Way she talked, she’s planning on moving into Overlook and making it home.”

“The bitch!”

“I wish I could tell you more. Smoke refused to stay around where she was at. Think you better tell Lady?”

“Of course I’d better tell her. Shut up. Let me think.”

“Hey in there!” Swan yelled from the other side of the hangings keeping the wind out. “You guys better come and see this.”

“Now what?” Croaker snarled.

“I’ll check it out. Write them a message they can take to Lady.”

“Damn it. It may be too late. She was going to try to sneak up on Longshadow herself.”

Shit. We were in the brown stuff deep. Maybe.

I made a wobble-legged dash for the open air. I slipped on the steps going up to ground level. The earth was still soggy, even up here on the hillside.

I did not have to ask Willow what troubled him.

The biggest fireworks show of all time was going on over by the Shadowgate. Maybe the dustup at Lake Tanji was a match but I got to see that one only from the inside. “Gods damn!” I swore. There were so many fireballs flying around that no expletive could do the event justice.

I flung myself back down the muddy steps.

Croaker was wriggling into his Widowmaker costume. I told him, “It’s started at the Shadowgate. You have to see it to believe it. I hope those guys have enough bamboo.”

“Lady gave them everything she could. It’ll be a matter of numbers. Which we’ve known from the beginning. If we have more fireballs than they throw shadows, we win. If we don’t, we end up sorry. But not for long.”

“Longshadow didn’t seem to do much. If that tells you anything positive.”

“It doesn’t. I don’t have any idea what he would or wouldn’t have to do to unleash some or all of the shadows. And there’s no way I can guess how he’d think about it. Except that he wouldn’t want to let go so many that they’d come after him, too. He’d want to be able to control the survivors after he got rid of us.”

“He doesn’t know that he doesn’t have any more shadowweavers. Singh and Howler have been feeding him very selective information lately. The true extent of what Lady accomplished the other day is a complete mystery to him.”