"Circumstances seem to have dictated a shift to the option you mentioned,
Croaker. Unless you can outrun the Taken back to the South." I could hear the
sardonic chuckle that went with the comment.
One-Eye wanted to know what had become of the Company treasure chest. Way, way
back in our service to the Lady we had grabbed off a fortune in coin and gems.
It had traveled with us through the years, through good times and bad-our final,
secret insurance against tomorrow.
Silent told us it was up in Duretile with the old man. There had been no chance
to get it out.
One-Eye broke down and wept. That chest meant more to him than all vicissitudes
past, present or promised.
Goblin got down on him. Sparks flew. The Lieutenant was about to take a hand
when someone shoved through the door. “You guys better come topside and see
this.” He was gone before we could find out what he meant.
We hurried up to the main deck.
The ship was a good two miles down the Port, riding the current and tide. But
the glow from the black castle illuminated both us and Juniper as brightly as a
cloudy day.
The castle formed the base of a fountain of fire reaching miles into the sky. A
vast figure twisted in the flames. Its lips moved. Long, slow words echoed down
the Port. “Ardath. You bitch.” I had been right.
The figure's hand rose slowly, lazily, pointed toward Duretile.
“They got enough bodies inside,” Goblin squeaked. “The old bastard is coming
through.”
The men watched in rapt awe. So did I, able only to think we were lucky to
escape in time. At the moment I felt nothing for the men we had left behind. I
could think only of myself.
“There,” somebody said softly. “Oh, look there.”
A ball of light formed on Duretile's wall. It swelled rapidly, shedding many
colors. It was gorgeous, like a giant moon of stained glass rotating slowly. It
was at least two hundred yards in diameter when it separated from Duretile and
drifted toward the black castle. The figure there reached, grabbed at the globe,
was unable to affect it.
I giggled.
“What's so damned funny?” the Lieutenant demanded.
“Just thinking how the people of Juniper must feel, looking up at that. They've
never seen sorcery.”
The stained glass ball rolled over and over. For a moment it presented a side I
hadn't noticed before. A side that was a face. The Lady's face. Those great
glassy eyes stared right into me, hurting. Without thinking I said, “I didn't
betray you. You betrayed me.”
Swear to the gods there was some form of communication. Something in the eyes
said she had heard, and was pained by the accusation. Then the face rolled away,
and I did not see it again.
The globe drifted into the fountain of fire. It vanished there. I thought I
heard the long, slow voice say, “I have you, Ardath.”
“There. Look there,” the same man said, and we turned to Duretile. And upon the
wall where the Lady had begun moving toward her husband there was another light.
For a while I could not make out what was happening. It came our way, faltering,
rising, falling.
“That's the Lady's carpet,” Silent signed. “I have seen it before.”
“But who? ...” There was no one left who could fly one. The Taken were ail over
at the black castle.
The thing began to move faster, converting rickety up-and-down into
ever-increasing velocity. It came our way, faster and faster, dropping lower and
lower.
“Somebody who doesn't know what they're doing,” One-Eye opined. “Somebody who is
going to get killed if. . . .”
It came directly toward us, now not more than fifty feet off the water. The ship
had begun the long turn which would take her around the last headland to the
open sea. I said, “Maybe it was sent to hit us. Like a missile. To keep us from
getting away.”
“No,” One-Eye said. "Carpets are too precious. Too hard to create and maintain.
And the Lady's is the only one left. Destroy it and even she would have to walk
home."
The carpet was down to thirty feet, swelling rapidly, sending an audible murmur
ahead. It must have been traveling a hundred fifty miles an hour.
Then it was on us, ripping through the rigging, brushing a mast, and spinning on
to impact on the sound half a mile away. A gout of spray arose. The carpet
skipped like a flat stone, hit again, bounced again, and smashed into the face
of a cliff. The spell energies ruling the carpet degenerated in a violet flash.
And not a word was spoken by any member of the Company. For as that carpet had
torn through the rigging, we had glimpsed the face of its rider.
The Captain.
Who knows what he was doing? Trying to join us? Probably. I suspect he went to
the wall planning to disable the carpet so it could not be used to pursue us.
Maybe he planned to throw himself off the wall afterward, to avoid being
questioned later. And maybe he had seen the carpet in action often enough to
have been tempted by the idea of using it himself.
No matter. He had succeeded. The carpet would not be used to chase us. He would
not be exposed to the Eye.
But he had failed his personal goal. He had died in the North.
His flight and death distracted us while the ship moved down the channel till
both Juniper and the north ridge dropped behind the headland. The fire over the
black castle continued, its terrible flames extinguishing the stars, but it
shrank slowly. Oncoming dawn lessened its brilliance. And when one great shriek
rolled across the world, announcing someone's defeat, we were unable to
determine who had won.
For us the answer did not matter. We would be hunted by either the Lady or her
long-buried spouse.
We reached the sea and turned south, with sailors still cursing as they replaced
lines torn by the Captain's passage. We of the Company remained very silent,
scattered about the deck, alone with our thoughts. And only then did I begin to
worry for comrades left behind.
We held a long service two days out. We mourned everyone left behind, but the
Captain especially. Every survivor took a moment to eulogize him. He had been
head of the family, patriarch, father to us all.
MEADENVIL: PATHFINDING
Fair weather and good winds carried us to Meadenvil in good time. The ship's
master was pleased. He had been well-paid beforehand for his trouble, but was
eager to shed a manifest of such vile temper. We had not been the best of
passengers. One-Eye was terrified of the sea, a grand victim of seasickness, and
insisted everyone else be as scared and sick as he. He and Goblin never let up
on one another, though the Lieutenant threatened to throw the pair of them to
the sharks. The Lieutenant was in such a foul temper himself that they took him
half seriously.
In accordance with the Captain's wishes, we elected the Lieutenant our commander
and Candy to become second. That position should have fallen to Elmo. . . . We
did not call the Lieutenant Captain. That seemed silly with the outfit so
diminished. There weren't enough of us left to make a good street gang.
Last of the Free Companies of Khatovar. Four centuries of brotherhood and
tradition reduced to this. A band on the run. It did not make sense. Did not
seem right. The great deeds of our forebrethren deserved better of their
successors. The treasure chest was lost, but the Annals themselves had, somehow,
found their way aboard. I expect Silent brought them. For him they were almost
as important as for me. The night before we entered Meadenvil harbor, I read to
the troops, from the Book of Woeg, which chronicled the Company's history after
its defeat and near destruction in the fighting along the Bake, in Norssele.
Only a hundred four men survived that time, and the Company had come back. They
were not ready for it. The pain was too fresh. I gave it up halfway through.
Fresh. Meadenvil was refreshing. A real city, not a colorless berg like Juniper.
We left the ship with little but our arms and what wealth we'd carried in
Juniper. People watched us fearfully, and there was no little trepidation on our
part, too, for we were not strong enough to make a show if the local Prince took
exception to our presence. The three wizards were our greatest asset. The
Lieutenant and Candy had hopes of using them to pull something that would
provide the wherewithal to move on, aboard another ship, with further hopes of
returning to lands we knew on the southern shore of the Sea of Torments. To do
that, though, meant an eventual overland journey at least partly through lands
belonging to the Lady. I thought we would be wiser to move down the coast,
confuse our trail, and hook on with someone out here, at least till the Lady's
armies closed in. As they would someday.
The Lady. I kept thinking of the Lady. It was all too likely that her armies now
owed allegiance to the Dominator. We located both Pawnbroker and Kingpin within
hours of going ashore. Pawnbroker had arrived only two days before us, having
faced unfavorable seas and winds during his journey. The Lieutenant started on
Kingpin immediately. “Where the hell you been, boy?” It was a sure thing Kingpin
had turned his assignment into an extended vacation. He was that sort. “You were
supposed to come back when ...”
“Couldn't, sir. We're witnesses in a murder case. Can't leave town till after
the trial.“ ”Murder case?”
“Sure. Raven's dead. Pawn says you know that. Well, we fixed it so that Bullock
guy took the rap. Only we've got to hang around and get him hanged.”
“Where is he?” I asked.
“In jail.”
The Lieutenant reamed him good, cussing and fussing while passersby nervously
eyed the hard guys abusing each other in a variety of mystery tongues.
I suggested, "We ought to get off the street. Keep a low profile. We got trouble
enough without attracting attention. Lieutenant, if you don't mind, I'd like a
chat with Kingpin. Maybe these other guys can show you places to hole up. King,
come with me. You, too." I indicated Silent, Goblin and One-Eye.
“Where we going?” Kingpin asked. "You pick it. Someplace where we can talk.
Serious like."
“Right.” He led the way, setting a brisk pace, wanting to put distance between
himself and the Lieutenant. “That really true? What happened up there? The
Captain dead and everything?“ ”Too damned true.”
He shook his head, awed by the idea of the Company having been destroyed.
Finally, he asked, “What do you want to know, Croaker?”
“Just everything you found out since you been here. Especially about Raven. But
also about that guy Asa. And the tavern-keeper.”
"Shed? I saw him the other day. At least I think I did. Didn't realize it was
him till later. He was dressed different. Yeah. Pawn told me he got away. The
Asa guy, too. Him I think I know where to find. The Shed guy, though. . . .
Well, if you really want him, you'll have to start looking where I thought I saw
him.“ ”He see you?"
That idea caught Kingpin by surprise. Apparently, it hadn't occurred to him to
wonder. He isn't the brightest fellow sometimes. “I don't think so.”
We went into a tavern favored by foreign sailors. The customers were a polyglot
lot and as ragged as we were. They spoke a dozen languages. We settled in at a
table, used the language of the Jewel Cities. Kingpin did not speak it well, but
understood it. I doubted that anyone else there could follow our discussion.
“Raven,” I said. “That's what I want to know about, Kingpin.”
He told us a story which matched Asa's closely, the edges being about as uneven
as you would expect from someone who hadn't been an eyewitness.
“You still think he faked it?” One-Eye asked.
“Yeah. It's half hunch, but I think he did. Maybe when we go look the place
over, I'll change my mind. There a way you guys could tell if he's in town?”
They put their heads together, returned a negative opinion. “Not without we had
something that belonged to him to start with,“ Goblin opined. ”We don't got
that.”
“Kingpin. What about Darling? What about Raven's ship?” “Huh?” "What happened to
Darling after Raven supposedly died? What happened to his ship?''
“I don't know about Darling. The ship is tied up down at its dock.”
We exchanged glances around the table. I said, “That ship gets visited if we
have to fight our way aboard. Those papers I told you about. Asa couldn't
account for them. I want them to turn up. They're the only thing we got that can
get the Lady off our back.”
“If there is a Lady,” One-Eye said. “Won't be much pumpkin if the Dominator
broke through.”
“Don't even think that.” For no sound reason I had convinced myself that the
Lady had won. Mostly, it was wishful thinking, I'm sure. “Kingpin, we're going
to visit that ship tonight. What about Darling?”
“Like I said. I don't know.”
“You were supposed to look out for her.”
“Yeah. But she kind of vanished.”
“Vanished? How?”
“Not how, Croaker,” One-Eye said, in response to vigorous signing from Silent.
“How is irrelevant now. When.”
“All right. When, Kingpin?”
“I don't know. Nobody's seen her since the night before Raven died.”
“Bingo,” Goblin said in a soft, awed voice. “Damn your eyes, Croaker, your
instincts were right.”
“What?” Kingpin asked.
“There's no way she would have disappeared beforehand unless she knew something
was going to happen.”
“Kingpin,” I said, “did you go look at the place they were staying? Inside, I
mean.”
“Yeah. Somebody got there before me.”
“What?”
"The place was cleaned out. I asked the innkeeper. He said they didn't move out.
They was paid up for another month. That sounded to me like somebody knew about
Raven getting croaked and decided to clean his place out. I figured it was that
Asa. He disappeared right after."