Shadow Games

Chapter Five: CHAINS OF EMPIRE

Lady kept her promise. I had the Annals in hand within hours of entering the Tower, while its denizens were still overawed by her return. But...

"I want to go on with you, Croaker." This while we watched the sun set from the Tower's battlements the second evening after our arrival.

I, of course, replied with the golden tongue of a horse seller. "Uh... Uh... But... " Like that. Master of the glib and facile remark. Why the hell did she want to do that? She had it all, there in the Tower. A little careful faking and she could spend the rest of her natural life as the most powerful being in the world. Why go riding off with a band of tired old men, who did not know where they were going or why, only that they had to keep moving lest something—their consciences, maybe—caught them up?

"There's nothing here for me anymore," she said. As if that explained anything. "I want... I just want to find out what it's like to be ordinary people."

"You wouldn't like it. Not near as much as you like being the Lady."

"But I never liked that very much. Not after I had it and found out what I really had. You won't tell me I can't go, will you?"

Was she kidding? No. I would not. It had been the surface understanding, anyway. But it was an understanding I expected to perish once she reestablished herself in the Tower.

I was disconcerted by the implications.

"Can I go?"

"If that's what you want."

"There's a problem."

Isn't there always if there's a woman involved?

"I can't leave right now. Things have gotten confused here. I need a few days to straighten them out. So I can leave with a clear conscience."

We had not encountered any of the troubles I expected. None of her people dared scrutinize her closely. All the labors of One-Eye and Goblin were wasted effort with that audience. The word was out: the Lady was at the helm again. The Black Company was in the fold once more, under her protection. And that was enough for her people.

Wonderful. But Opal was only a few weeks away. From Opal it was a short passage over the Sea of Torments to ports outside the empire. I thought. I wanted to get out while our luck was holding.

"You understand, don't you, Croaker? It'll only be a few days. Honest. Just long enough to shape things up. The empire is a good machine that works smooth as long as the proconsuls are sure someone is in charge."

"All right. All right. We can last a couple days. As long as you keep people away. And you keep out of the way yourself, most of the time. Don't let them get too good a look at you."

"I don't intend to. Croaker?"

"Yeah?"

"Go teach your grandmother to suck eggs." Startled, I laughed. She kept getting more human all the time. And more able to laugh at herself.

She had good intentions. But he—or she—who would rule an empire becomes slave to its administrative detail. A few days came and went. And a few more. And a few more still.

I could entertain myself skulking around the Tower's libraries, digging into rare texts from the Domination or before, unravelling the snarled threads of northern history, but for the rest of the guys it was rough. There was nothing for them to do but try to keep out of sight and worry. And bait Goblin and One-Eye, though they did not have much luck with that. To those of us without talent the Tower was just a big dark pile of rock, but to those two it was a great throbbing engine of sorcery, still peopled by numerous practitioners of the dark arts. They lived every moment in dread.

One-Eye handled it better than Goblin. He managed to escape occasionally, going out to the old battlefield to prowl among his memories. Sometimes I joined him, halfway tempted to take up Lady's invitation to open a few old graves.

"Still not comfortable about what happened?" One-Eye asked one afternoon, as I stood leaning on a bowstave over a marker bearing the name and sigil of the Taken who had been called the Faceless Man. One-Eye's tone was as serious as it ever gets.

"Not entirely," I admitted. "I can't pin it down, and it don't matter much now, but when you reflect on what happened here, it don't add up. I mean, it did at the time. It all looked like it was inevitable. A great kill-off that rid the world of a skillion Rebels and most of the Taken, leaving the Lady a free hand and setting her up for the Dominator at the same time. But in the context of later events... "

One-Eye had started to stroll, pulling me along in his wake. He came to a place that was not marked at all, except in his memory. A thing called a forvalaka had perished there. A thing that had slaughtered his brother—maybe—way back in the days when we first became involved with Soulcatcher, the Lady's legate to Beryl. The forvalaka was a sort of vampirous wereleopard originally native to One-Eye's own home jungle, somewhere way down south. It had taken One-Eye a year to catch up with and have his revenge upon this one.

"You're thinking about how hard it was to get rid of the Limper," he said. His voice was thoughtful. I knew he was recalling something I thought he had put out of mind.

We were never certain that the forvalaka which killed Tom-Tom was the forvalaka that paid the price. Because in those days the Taken Soulcatcher worked closely with another Taken called Shapeshifter and there was evidence to suggest Shifter might have been in Beryl that night. And using the forvalaka shape to assure the destruction of the ruling family so the empire could take over on the cheap.

If One-Eye had not avenged Tom-Tom on the right creature it was far too late for tears. Shifter was another of the victims of the Battle at Charm.

"I'm thinking about Limper," I admitted. "I killed him at that inn, One-Eye. I killed him good. And if he hadn't turned up again, I'd never have doubted that he was gone."

"And no doubts about these?"

"Some."

"You want to sneak out after dark and dig one of them up?"

"What's the point? There'll be somebody in the grave, and no way to prove it isn't who it's supposed to be."

"They were killed by other Taken and by members of the Circle. That's a little different than getting worked on by a no-talent like you."

He meant no talent for sorcery. "I know. That's what keeps me from getting obsessed with the whole mess. Knowing that those who supposedly killed them really had the power to do them in."

One-Eye stared at the ground where once a cross stood with the forvalaka nailed upon it. After a while he shivered and came back to now. "Well, it doesn't matter now. It was long ago, if not very far away. And far away is where we'll be if we ever get out of here." He pulled his floppy black hat forward to keep the sun out of his eyes, looked up at the Tower. We were being watched.

"Why does she want to go with us? That's the one I keep coming back to. What's in this for her?"

One-Eye looked at me with the oddest expression. He pushed his hat back, put his hands on his hips, cocked his head a moment, then shook it slowly. "Croaker. Sometimes you're too much to be believed. Why are you hanging around here waiting for her instead of heading out, putting miles behind?"

It was a good question and one I shied off anytime I tried to examine it. "Well, I guess I kind of like her and think she deserves a shot at some kind of regular life. She's all right. Really."

I caught a transient smirk as he turned to the unmarked grave. "Life wouldn't be half fun without you in it, Croaker. Watching you bumble through is an education in itself. How soon can we get moving? I don't like this place."

"I don't know. A few more days. There're things she has to wrap up first."

"That's what you said—"

I am afraid I got snappish. "I'll let you know when."

When seemed never to come. Days passed. Lady remained ensnared in the web of the administrative spider.

Then the messages began pouring in from the provinces, in response to edicts from the Tower. Each one demanded immediate attention.

We had been closed up in that dread place for two weeks.

"Get us the hell out of here, Croaker," One-Eye demanded. "My nerves can't take this place anymore."

"Look, there's stuff she's got to do."

"There's stuff we've got to do, according to you. Who says what we got to do has to wait on what she's got to do?"

And Goblin jumped on me. With both feet. "We put up with your infatuation for about twenty years, Croaker," he exaggerated. "Because it was amusing. Something to ride you about when times got boring. But it ain't nothing I mean to get killed over, I absodamnlutely guarantee. Even if she makes us all field marshals."

I warded a flash of anger. It was hard, but Goblin was right. I had no business hanging around there, keeping everyone at maximum risk. The longer we waited, the more certain it was that something would go sour. We were having enough trouble getting along with the Tower Guards, who resented our being so close to their mistress after haying fought against her for so many years.

"We ride out in the morning," I said. "My apologies. I was elected to lead the Company, not just Croaker. Forgive me for losing sight of that."

Crafty old Croaker. One-Eye and Goblin looked properly abashed. I grinned. "So go get packed. We're gone with the morning sun."

She wakened me in the night. For a moment I thought...

I saw her face. She had heard.

She begged me to stay just one more day. Or two, at the most. She did not want to be here any more than we did, surrounded and taunted by all that she had lost. She wanted to go away, to go with us, to remain with me, the only friend she'd ever had—

She broke my heart.

It sounds sappy when you write it down in words, but a man has to do what a man has to do. In a way I was proud of me. I did not give an inch.

"There is no end to it," I told her. "There'll always be just one more thing that has to be done. Khatovar gets no closer while I wait. Death does. I value you, too. I don't want to leave... Death lurks in every shadow in this place. It writhes in the heart of every man who resents my influence." It was that kind of empire too, and in the past few days a lot of old imperials were given cause to resent me deeply.

"You promised me dinner at the Gardens in Opal."

I promised you a lot more than that, my heart said. Aloud, I replied, "So I did. And the offer still stands. But I have to get my men out of here."

I turned reflective while she turned uncharacteristically nervous. I saw the fires of schemes flickering behind her eyes, being rejected. There were ways she could manipulate me. We both knew that. But she never used the personal to gain political ends. Not with me, anyway.

I guess each of us, at some time, finds one person with whom we are compelled toward absolute honesty, one person whose good opinion of us becomes a substitute for the broader opinion of the world. And that opinion becomes more important than all our sneaky, sleazy schemes of greed, lust, self-aggrandizement, whatever we are up to while lying the world into believing we are just plain nice folks. I was her truth object, and she was mine.

There was only one thing we hid from one another, and that was because we were afraid that if it came into the open it would reshape everything else and maybe shatter that broader honesty.

Are lovers ever honest?

"I figure it'll take us three weeks to reach Opal. It'll take another week to find a trustworthy shipmaster and to work One-Eye up to crossing the Sea of Torments. So twenty-five days from today I'll go to the Gardens. I'll have the Camelia Grotto reserved for the evening." I patted the lump next to my heart. That lump was a beautifully tooled leather wallet containing papers commissioning me a general in the imperial armed forces and naming me a diplomatic legate answerable only to the Lady herself.

Precious, precious. And one good reason some longtime imperials had a big hate on for me.

I am not sure just how that came about. Some banter during one of those rare hours when she was not issuing decrees or signing proclamations. Next thing I knew I had been brought to bay by a pack of tailors. They fitted me out with a complete imperial wardrobe. Never will I unravel the significance of all the piping, badges, buttons, medals, doodads, and gewgaws. I felt silly wearing all that clutter.

I didn't need much time to see some possibilities, though, in what at first I interpreted as an elaborate practical joke.

She does have that kind of sense of humor, not always taking this great dreadfully humorless empire of hers seriously.

I am sure she saw the possibilities long before I did.

Anyway, we were talking the Gardens in Opal, and the Camelia Grotto there, the acme of that city's society see-and-be-seen. "I'll take my evening meal there," I told her. "You're welcome to join me."

Hints of hidden things tugged at her face. She said, "All right. If I'm in town."

It was one of those moments in which I become very uncomfortable. One of those times when nothing you say can be right, and almost anything you do say is wrong. I could see no answer but the classic Croaker approach.

I began to back away.

That is how I handle my women. Duck for cover when they get distressed.

I almost made it to the door.

She could move when she wanted. She crossed the gap and put her arms around me, rested a cheek against my chest.

And that is how they handle me, the sentimental fool. The closet romantic. I mean, I don't even have to know them. They can work that one on me. When they really want to drill me they turn on the water.

I held her till she was ready to be let go. We did not look at one another as I turned and went away. So. She hadn't gone for the heavy artillery.

She played fair, mostly. Give her that. Even when she was the Lady. Slick, tricky, but more or less fair.

The job of legate comes with all sorts of rights to subinfeudation and plunder of the treasury. I had drafted that pack of tailors and turned them loose on the men. I handed out commissions. I waved my magic wand and One-Eye and Goblin became colonels. Hagop and Otto turned into captains. I even cast a glamor on Murgen, so that he looked like a lieutenant. I drew us all three months' pay in advance. It all boggled the others. I think one reason One-Eye was anxious to get moving was an eagerness to get off somewhere where he could abuse his newfound privileges. For the time being, though, he mostly bickered with Goblin about whose commission carried the greater seniority. Those two never once questioned our shift in fortunes.

The weirdest part was when she called me in to present my commissions, and insisted on a real name to enter into the record. It took me a while to remember what my name was.

We rode out as threatened. Only we did not do it as the ragged band that rode in.

I travelled in a black iron coach drawn by six raging black stallions, with Murgen driving and Otto and Hagop riding as guards. With a string of saddle horses trailing behind. One-Eye and Goblin, disdaining the coach, rode before and behind upon mounts as fey and magnificent as the beasts which pulled the coach. With twenty-six Horse Guards as escort.

The horses she gave us were of a wild and wonderful breed, hitherto given only to the greatest champions of her empire. I had ridden one once, long ago, during the Battle at Charm, when she and I had chased down Soulcatcher. They could run forever without tiring. They were magical beasts. They constituted a gift precious beyond belief.

How do these weird things happen to me?

A year earlier I was living in a hole in the ground, under that boil on the butt of the world, the Plain of Fear, with fifty other men, constantly afraid we would be discovered by the empire. I had not had new or clean clothing in a decade, and baths and shaves were as rare and dear as diamonds.

Lying opposite me in that coach was a black bow, the first gift she ever gave me, so many years ago, before the Company deserted her. It was precious in its own right.

How the wheel turns.