The White Rose

Thirty-Nine A guest at Charm

A colonel of the Lady’s household force came for me. He was almost polite. Even back when, her troops never were sure of my status. Poor babies. I had no niche in their ordered and hierarchical universe.

The Colonel said, “She wants you now.” He had a dozen men with him. They did not look like an honor guard. Neither did they act like executioners.

Not that it mattered. I would go if they had to carry me.

I left with a backward glance. Raven was holding his own.

The Colonel left me at a doorway into the inner Tower, the Tower inside the Tower, into which few men pass, and from which fewer return. “March,” he said. “I hear you’ve done this before. You know the drill.”

I stepped through the doorway. When I looked back I saw only stone wall. For a moment I became disoriented. That passed and I was in another place. And she was there, framed by what appeared to be a window, though her parts of the Tower are completely ensheathed within the rest. “Come here.”

I went. She pointed. I looked out that non-window on a burning city. Taken soared above it, hurling magicks that died. Their target was a phalanx of windwhales that were devastating the city.

Darling was riding one of the whales. They were staying within her null, where they were invulnerable.

“They are not, though,” the Lady said, reading my thoughts. “Mortal weapons will reach them. And your bandit girl. But it does not matter. I’ve decided to suspend operations.” I laughed. “Then we’ve won.”

I do believe that was the first time I ever saw her piqued with me. A mistake, mocking her. It could make her reassess emotionally a decision made strategically.

“You have won nothing. If that is the perception a shift of focus will generate, then I will not break off. I will adjust the campaign’s focus instead.”

Damn you, Croaker. Leam to keep your big goddamn mouth shut around people like this. You will jack-jaw your way right into a meat grinder.

After regaining her self-control, she faced me. The Lady, from just two feet away. “Be sarcastic in your writing if you like. But when you speak, be prepared to pay a price.” “I understand.”

“I thought you would.” She faced the scene again. In that far city-it looked like Frost-a flaming windwhale fell after being caught in a storm of shafts hurled by ballistae bigger than any I’d ever seen. Two could play the suck-in game. “How well did your translations go?” “What?”

“The documents you found in the Forest of Cloud, gave to my late sister Soulcatcher, took from her again, gave to your friend Raven, and took from him in turn. The papers you thought would give you the tool of victory.” “Those documents. Ha. Not well at all.”

“You couldn’t have. What you sought isn’t there.”

“But...”

“You were misled. Yes. I know. Bomanz put them together, so they must hold my true name. Yes? But that has been eradicated-except, perhaps, in the mind of my husband.” She became remote suddenly. “The victory at Juniper cost.”

“He learned the lesson Bomanz did too late.”

“So. You noticed. He has information enough to pry an answer from what happened... No. My name isn’t there. His is. That was why they so excited my sister. She saw an opportunity to supplant us both. She knew me. We were children together, after all. And protected from one another only by the most tangled web that could be woven. When she enlisted you in Beryl she had no greater ambition than to undermine me. But when you delivered those documents...”

She was thinking aloud as much as explaining.

I was stricken by a sudden insight. “You don’t know his name!”

“It was never a love match, physician. It was the shakiest of alliances. Tell me. How do I get those papers?”

“You don’t.”

“Then we all lose. This is true, Croaker. While we argue and while our respective allies strive to slash one another’s throats, the enemy of us all is shedding his chains. All this dying will be for naught if the Dominator wins free.”

“Destroy him.”

“That’s impossible.”

“In the town where I was born there is a folk tale about a man so mighty he dared mock the gods. In the end his might proved sheer hubris, for there is one against whom even the gods are powerless.”

“What’s the point?”

“To twist an old saw, death conquers all. Not even the Dominator can wrestle death and win every time.”

“There are ways,” she admitted. “But not without those papers. You will return to your quarters now, and reflect. I will speak to you again.”

I was dismissed that suddenly. She faced the dying city. Suddenly, I knew my way out. A powerful impulse drove me toward the door. A moment of dizziness and I was outside.

The Colonel came puffing along the corridor. He returned me to my cell.

I planted myself on my bunk and reflected, as ordered.

There was evidence enough that the Dominator was stirring, but... The business about the documents not holding the lever we had counted on-that was the shocker. That I had to swallow or reject, and my choice might have critical repercussions.

She was leading me for her own ends. Of course. I conceived numerous possibilities, none pleasant, but all making a sort of sense...

She’d said it. If the Dominator broke out, we were all in the soup, good guys and bad.

I fell asleep. There were dreams, but I do not recall them. I awakened to find a hot meal freshly delivered, sitting atop a desk that had not been there before. On that desk was a generous supply of writing materials.

She expected me to resume my Annals.

I devoured half the food before noting Raven’s absence. The old nerves began to rattle. Why was he gone? Where to? What use did she have for him? Leverage?

Time is funny inside the Tower.

The usual Colonel arrived as I finished eating. The usual soldiers accompanied him. He announced, “She wants you again.”

“Already? I just came back from there.”

“Four days ago.”

I touched my cheek. I have been affecting only a partial beard of late. My face was brushy. So. One long sleep. “Any chance I could get a razor?”

The Colonel smiled thinly. “What do you think? A barber can come in. Will you come along?”

I got a vote? Of course not. I followed rather than be dragged.

The drill was the same. I found her at a window again. The scene showed some corner of the Plain where one of Whisper’s fortifications was besieged. It had no heavy ballistae. A windwhale hovered overhead, keeping the garrison in hiding. Walking trees were dismantling the outer wall by the simple mechanism of growing it to death. The way a jungle destroys an abandoned city, though ten thousand times faster than the unthinking forest.

“The entire desert has risen against me,” she said. “Whisper’s outposts have suffered an annoying variety of attacks.”

“I suspect your intrusions are resented. I thought you were going to disengage.”

“I tried. Your deaf peasant isn’t cooperating. Have you been thinking?”

“I’ve been sleeping is what I’ve been doing. As you know.”

“Yes. So. There were matters which demanded attention. Now I can devote myself to the problem at hand.” The look in her eye made me want to run... She gestured. I froze. She told me to back up, to sit in a nearby chair. I sat, unable to shake the spell, though I knew what was coming.

She stood before me, one eye closed. The open eye grew bigger and bigger, reached out, devoured me...

I think I screamed.

The moment had been inevitable since my capture, though I had held a foolish hope otherwise. Now she would drain my mind like a spider drains a fly...

I recovered in my cell, feeling as though I had been to hell and back. My head throbbed. It was a major undertaking to rise and stagger to my medical kit, which had been returned after my captors removed the lethals. I prepared an infusion of willow inner bark, which took forever because I had no fire over which to heat the water.

Someone came in as I nursed and cursed the first weak, bitter cup. I did not recognize him. He seemed surprised to see me up. “Hello,” he said. “Quick recovery.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“Physician. Supposed to check you once an hour. You weren’t expected to recover for a long time. Headache?”

“Goddamn well right.”

“Cranky. Good.” He placed his bag next to my kit, which he glanced through as he opened his. “What did you take?”

I told him, asked, “What do you mean, good?”

“Sometimes they come out listless. Never recover.”

“Yeah?” I thought about whipping him just for the hell of it. Just to vent my spleen. But what was the point? Some guard would come bouncing in and make my pains the worse. Too much like work, anyway.

“Are you something special?”

“I think so.”

A flicker of a smile. “Drink this. Better than the bark tea.” I downed the drink he offered. “She is most concerned. Never before have I seen her care what became of one subjected to the deep probe.”

“How about that?” I was having trouble keeping my foul mood. The drink he’d given me was good stuff, and fast. “What was that concoction? I could use it by the barrel.”

“It’s addictive. Rendered from the juice of the top four leaves of the parsifal plant.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Rather scarce.” He was examining me at the time. “Grows in some place called the Hollow Hills. The natives use it as a narcotic.”

The Company had been through those terrible hills once upon a time. “Didn’t know there were natives.”

“They’re as scarce as the plant. There’s been talk in council of growing it commercially after the fighting ends. As a medicinal.” He clucked his tongue, which reminded me of the toothless ancient who had taught me medicine. Funny. I hadn’t thought of him in ages.

Funnier still, all sorts of old odd memories were streaking to the surface, like bottom fish scared toward the light. The Lady had stirred my mind good.

I did not pursue his remark about raising the weed commercially, though that was at odds with my notion of the Lady. The black hearts don’t worry about relieving pain.

“How do you feel about her?”

“The Lady? Right now? Not very charitable. How about you?” He ignored that. “She expects to see you as soon as you recover.”

“Does a bear shit in the woods?” I countered. “I get the idea I’m not exactly a prisoner. How about I get some air on the roof? Can’t hardly run away from there.”

“I’ll see if it’s permitted. Meantime, take some exercise here.”

Hah. The only exercise I get is jumping to conclusions. I just wanted to get somewhere outside four walls. “Am I still among the living?” I asked when he finished examining me.

“For the time being. Though with your attitude I am amazed you survived in an outfit like yours.”

“They love me. Worship me. Wouldn’t harm a hair on my head.” His mention of the outfit put my mood on the downswing. I asked, “You know how long it’s been since I was captured?”

“No. I think you’ve been here more than a week. Could be longer.”

So. Guess at least ten days since my capture. Give the boys the benefit of the doubt, have them moving light and hard, and they had maybe covered four hundred miles. Just one giant step out of many. Crap.

Stalling was pointless now. The Lady knew everything I did. I wondered if any of it had been of any use. Or much of a surprise.

“How is my friend?” I asked, suffering a sudden guilt.

“I don’t know. He was moved north because his connection with his spirit was becoming attenuated. I’m sure the subject will arise when next you visit the Lady. I’m finished. Have a nice stay.”

“Sarky bastard.”

He grinned as he left.

Must run in the profession.

The Colonel stepped in a few minutes later. “I hear you want to go to the roof.”

“Yeah.”

“Inform the sentry when you would like to go.” He had something else on his mind. After a pause he asked, “Isn’t there any military discipline in your outfit?”

He was irked because I had not been sirring him. Various smart remarks occurred. I stifled them. My status might not remain enigmatic. “Yes. Though not so much as in earlier days. Not enough of us left since Juniper to make that stuff worth the trouble.”

Sly shot, Croaker. Put them on the defensive. Tell them the Company fell to its current pitiful state laboring for the Lady. Remind them that it was the empire’s satraps who turned first. That must be common knowledge by now, among the officer corps. Something they should think about occasionally.

“Pity, that,” the Colonel said.

“You my personal watchdog?”

“Yes. She sets great store by you for some reason.”

“I wrote her a poem once,” I lied. “I also got the goods on her.”

He frowned, decided I was bullshitting.

“Thanks,” I said, by way of extending an olive branch. “I’ll write for a while before I go.” I was way behind. Except for a bit at Blue Willy I had done nothing but jot an occasional note since leaving the Plain.

I wrote till cramps compelled me to stop. Then I ate, for a guard brought a meal as I sanded my last sheet. Done gobbling, I went to the door, told the lad there I was ready to go topside. When he opened up I discovered I was not locked in.

But where the hell could I go if I got out? Silly even thinking of escape.

I had a feeling I was about to take on the official historian job. Like it or no, it would be the least of many evils.

Some tough decisions stared me in the eye. I wanted time to think them over. The Lady understood. Certainly she had the power and talent to be more foresighted than a physician who had spent six years out of touch.

Sunset. Fire in the west, clouds in raging flame. The sky a wealth of unusual colors. A chill breeze from the north, just enough to shiver and refresh. My guardian stayed well away, permitting the illusion of freedom. I walked to the northern parapet.

There was little evidence of the great battle fought below. Where once trenches, palisades, earthworks, and siege engines had stood, and burned, and tens of thousands had died, there was parkland. A single black stone Stella marked the site, five hundred yards from the Tower.

The crash and roar returned. I remembered the Rebel horde, relentless, like the sea, wave after wave; smashing upon unyielding cliffs of defenders. I recalled the feuding Taken, their fey and fell deaths, the wild and terrible sorceries...

“It was a battle of battles, was it not?”

I did not turn as she joined me. “It was. I never did it justice.”

“They will sing of it.” She glanced up. Stars had begun to appear. In the twilight her face seemed pale and strained. Never before had I seen her in any but the most self-possessed mood.

“What is it?” Now I did turn, and saw a group of soldiers some distance away, watching, either awed or aghast.

“I have performed a divination. Several, in fact, for I did not get satisfactory results.”

“And?”

“Perhaps I got no results at all.”

I waited. You do not press the most powerful being in the world. That she was on the verge of confiding in a mortal was stunning enough.

“All is flux. I divined three possible futures. We are headed for a crisis, a history-shaping hour.”

I turned slightly toward her. Violet light shaded her face. Dark hair tumbled down over one cheek. It was not artifice, for once, and the impulse to touch, to hold, perhaps to comfort, was powerful. “Three futures?”

“Three. I could not find my place in any.”

What do you say at a moment like that? That maybe there was an error? You accuse the Lady of making a mistake.

“In one, your deaf child triumphs. But it is the least likely chance, and she and all hers perish gaining the victory. In another, my husband breaks the grasp of the grave and reestablishes his Domination. That darkness lasts ten thousand years. In the third vision, he is destroyed forever and all. It is the strongest vision, the demanding vision. But the price is great... Are there gods, Croaker? I never believed in gods.”

“I don’t know, Lady. No religion I ever encountered made any sense. None are consistent. Most gods are megalomaniacs and paranoid psychotics by their worshipers’ description. I don’t see how they could survive their own insanity. But it’s not impossible that human beings are incapable of interpreting a power so much greater than themselves. Maybe religions are twisted and perverted shadows of truth. Maybe there are forces which shape the world. I myself have never understood why, in a universe so vast, a god would care about something so trivial as worship or human destiny.”

“When I was a child... my sisters and I had a teacher.”

Did I pay attention? You bet your sweet ass I did. I was ears from my toenails to the top of my pointy head. “A teacher?”

“Yes. He argued that we are the gods, that we create our own destiny. That what we are determines what will become of us. In a peasantlike vernacular, we all paint ourselves into corners from which there is no escape simply by being ourselves and interacting with other selves.”

“Interesting.”

“Well. Yes. There is a god of sorts, Croaker. Do you know? Not a mover and shaker, though. Simply a negator. An ender of tales. He has a hunger than cannot be sated. The universe itself will slide down his maw.”

“Death?”

“I do not want to die, Croaker. All that I am shrieks against the unrighteousness of death. All that I am, was, and probably will be, is shaped by my passion to evade the end of me.” She laughed quietly, but there was a thread of hysteria there. She gestured, indicating the shadowed killing ground below. “I would have built a world in which I was safe. And the cornerstone of my citadel would have been death.”

The end of the dream was drawing close. I could not imagine a world without me in it, either. And the inner me was outraged. Is outraged. I have no trouble imagining someone becoming obsessed with escaping death. “I understand.”

“Maybe. We’re all equals at the dark gate, no? The sands run for us all. Life is but a flicker shouting into the jaws of eternity. But it seems so damned unfair!”

Old Father Tree entered my thoughts. He would perish in time. Yes. Death is insatiable and cruel.

“Have you reflected?” she asked.

“I think so. I’m no necromancer. But I’ve seen roads I don’t want to walk.”

“Yes. You’re free to go, Croaker.”

Shock. Even my heels tingled with disbelief. “Say what?”

“You’re free. The Tower gate is open. You need but walk out it. But you’re also free to remain, to reenter the lists in the struggle that envelopes us all.”

There was almost no light left except for some sun hitting very high clouds. Against the deep indigo in the east a squadron of bright pinpricks moved westward. They seemed headed toward the Tower.

I gabbled something that made no sense.

“Will she, nihil she, the Lady of Charm is at war with her husband once more,” she said. “And till that struggle is lost or won, there is no other. You see the Taken returning. The armies of the east are marching toward the Barrowland. Those beyond the Plain have been ordered to withdraw to garrisons farther east. Your deaf child is in no danger unless she comes looking for it. There is an armistice. Perhaps eternally.” Weak smile. “If there is no Lady, there is no one for the White Rose to battle.”

She left me then, in total confusion, and went to greet her champions. The carpets came down out of the darkness, settling like autumn leaves. I moved a little nearer till my personal guardian indicated that my relationship with the Lady was insufficiently close to permit eavesdropping.

The wind grew more chill, blowing out of the north. And I wondered if it might not be autumn for us all.