Shadow Games: The Fourth Chronicles of the Black Company: First Book of the South (5 page)

I turned on all the outward arrogance I could muster. And inside I echoed to the
whimper of a kid with stage fright.

I settled in in the Camelia Grotto, out of sight of the crowd. Shadows played
about me. The staff came to enquire after my needs. They were revolting in their
obsequiousness.

A disgusting little part of me gobbled it up. A part just big enough to show why
some men lust after power. But not for me, thank you. I am too lazy. And I am, I
fear, the unfortunate victim of a sense of responsibility. Put me in charge and
I try to accomplish the ends to which the office was allegedly created. I guess
I suffer from an impoverishment of the sociopathic spirit necessary to go big
time.

How do you do the show, with the multiple-course meal, when you are accustomed
to patronizing places where you take whatever is in the pot or starve? Craft.

Take advantage of the covey hovering about, fearful I might devour them if not
pleased. Ask this, ask that, use a physician’s habitual intuition for the hinted
and implied, and I had it whipped. I sent them to the kitchens with instructions
to be in no haste, for a companion might join me later.

Not that I expected Lady. I was going through the motions. I meant to keep my
date without its other half.

Other guests kept finding excuses to pass by and look at the new man. I began to
wish I had brought my escort along.

There was a rolling rumble like the sound of distant thunder, then a hammerclap
close at hand. A wave of chatter ran through the Gardens, followed by grave-dead
silence. Then the silence gave way to the rhythm of steel-tapped heels falling
in unison.

I did not believe it. Even as I rose to greet her, I did not believe it.

Tower Guards hove into view, halted, parted. Goblin came hup-two-threeing
between them, strutting like a drum major, looking like his namesake freshly
scrounged from some especially fiery Hell. He glowed. He trailed a fiery mist
which evaporated a few yards behind him. He stepped down into the Grotto and
gave the place the fish-eye, and me a wink. He then marched up the far side
steps and posted himself facing outward.

What the hell were they up to now? Expanding on their already overburdened
practical joke?

Then Lady appeared, as fell and as radiant as fantasy, as beautiful as a dream.

I clicked my heels and bowed. She descended to join me. She was a vision. She
extended a hand. My manners did not desert me, despite all the hard years.

Wouldn’t this give Opal fuel for gossip?

One-Eye followed Lady down, wreathed in dark mists through which crawled shadows
with eyes. He inspected the Grotto, too.

As he turned to go back the way he had come, I said, “I’m going to incinerate
that hat.” Tricked out like a lord, he was, but still wearing his ragpicker’s
hat.

He grinned, assumed his post.

“Have you ordered?” Lady asked.

“Yes. But only for one.”

A small horde of staff tumbled past One-Eye, terrified. The master of the
Gardens himself drove them. If they had been fawning with me, they were
downright disgusting with Lady. I have never been that impressed with anyone in
any position of power.

It was a long, slow meal, undertaken mostly in silence, with me sending
unanswered puzzled glances across the table. A memorable dining experience for
me, though Lady hinted that she had known better.

The problem was, we were too much on stage to take any real enjoyment from it.

Not only for the crowd, but for one another.

Along the way I admitted I had not expected her to appear, and she said my
storming out of the Tower made her realize that if she did not just drop
everything and go she would not shake the tentacles of imperial responsibility
till someone freed her by murdering her.

“So you just walked? The place will be coming apart.”

“No. I left certain safeguards in place. I delegated powers to people whose
judgment I trust, in such fashion that the empire will acrete to them gradually,

and become theirs solidly before they realize that I’ve deserted.”

“I hope so.” I am a charter member of that philosophical school which believes
that if anything can go sour, it will.

“It won’t matter to us, will it? We’ll be well out of range.”

“Morally, it matters, if half a continent is thrown into civil war.”

“I think I have made sufficient moral sacrifice.” A cold wind overswept me. Why
can’t I keep my big damned mouth shut?

“Sorry,” I said. “You’re right. I didn’t think.”

“Apology accepted. I must confess something. I’ve taken a liberty with your
plans.”

“Eh?” One of my more intellectual moments.

“I cancelled your passage aboard that merchantman.”

“What? Why?”

“It wouldn’t be seemly for a legate of the empire to travel aboard a broken-down
grain barge. You are too cheap, Croaker. The quinquireme Soulcatcher built, The
Dark Wings, is in port. I ordered her readied for the crossing to Beryl.”

My gods. The very doomship that brought us north. “We aren’t well loved in
Beryl.”

“Beryl is an imperial province these days. The frontier lies three hundred miles
beyond the sea now. Have you forgotten your part in what made that possible?”

I only wanted to. “No. But my attention has been elsewhere the past few
decades.” If the frontier had drifted that far, then imperial boots tramped the
asphalted avenues of my own home city. It never occurred to me that the southern
proconsuls might expand the borders beyond the maritime city-states. Only the
Jewel Cities themselves were of any strategic value.

“Now who’s being bitter?”

“Who? Me? You’re right. Let’s enjoy the civilized moment. We’ll have few enough
of them.” Our gazes locked. For a moment there were sparks of challenge in hers.

I looked away. “How did you manage to enlist those two clowns in your charade?”

“A donative.”

I laughed. Of course. Anything for money. “And how soon will The Dark Wings be
ready to sail?”

“Two days. Three at the most. And no, I won’t be handling any imperial business
while I’m here.”

“Uhm. Good. I’m stuffed to the gills and ripe for roasting. We ought to go walk
this off, or something. Is there a reasonably safe place we could go?”

“You probably know Opal better than I do, Croaker. I’ve never been here before.”

I suppose I looked surprised.

“I can’t be everywhere. There was a time when I was preoccupied in the north and
east. A time when I was preoccupied with putting my husband down. A time when I
was preoccupied with catching you. There never was a time when I was free for
broadening travel.”

“Thank the stars.”

“What?”

“Meant to be a compliment. On your youthful figure.”

She gave me a calculating look. “I won’t say anything to that. You’ll stick it
all in your Annals.”

I grinned. Threads of smoke snaked between my teeth.

I swore I’d get them.

Willow figured you could pick Smoke for what he was in any crowd. He was a
wrinkled, skinny little geek that looked like somebody tried to do him in black
walnut husk stain, only they missed some spots. There were spatters of pink on
the backs of his hands, one arm, and one side of his face. Like maybe somebody
threw acid at him and it killed the color where it hit him.

Smoke had not done anything to Willow. Not yet. But Willow did not like him.

Blade did not care one way or another. Blade didn’t care much about anybody.

Cordy Mather said he was reserving judgment. Willow kept his dislike back out of
sight, because Smoke was what he was and because he hung out with the Woman.

The Woman was waiting for them, too. She was browner than Smoke and most anyone
else in town, as far as Willow knew. She had a mean face that made it hard to
look at her. She was about average size for Taglian women, which was not very
big by Swan’s standards. Except for her attitude of “I am the boss” she would
not have stood out much. She did not dress better than old women Willow saw in
the streets. Black crows, Cordy called them. Always wrapped up in black, like
old peasant women they saw when they were headed down through the territories of
the Jewel Cities.

They had not been able to find out who the Woman was, but they knew she was
somebody. She had connections in the Prahbrindrah’s palace, right up at the top.

Smoke worked for her. Fishwives didn’t have wizards on the payroll. Anyway, both
of them acted like officials trying not to look official. Like they did not know
how to be regular people.

The place they met was somebody’s house. Somebody important, but Willow had not
yet figured who. The class lines and heirarchies did not make sense in Taglios.

Everything was always screwed up by religious affiliation.

He entered the room where they waited, helped himself to a chair. Had to show
them he wasn’t some boy to run and fetch at their beck. Cordy and Blade were
more circumspect. Cordy winced as Willow said, “Blade says you guys want to kick
it up ’bout Smoke’s nightmares. Maybe pipe dreams?”

“You have a very good idea why you interest us, Mr. Swan. Taglios and its
dependencies have been pacifistic for centuries. War is a forgotten art. It’s
been unnecessary. Our neighbors were equally traumatized by the passage—”

Willow asked Smoke, “She talking Taglian?”

“As you wish, Mr. Swan.” Willow caught a hint of mischief in the Woman’s eye.

“When the Free Companies came through they kicked ass so damned bad that for
three hundred years anybody who even looked at a sword got so scared he puked
his guts up.”

“Yeah.” Swan chuckled. “That’s right. We can talk. Tell us.”

“We want help, Mr. Swan.”

Willow mused, “Let’s see, the way I hear, around seventy-five, a hundred years
ago people finally started playing games. Archery shoots, whatnot. But never
anything man to man. Then here come the Shadowmasters to take over Tragevec and
Kiaulune and change the names to Shadowlight and Shadowcatch.”

“Kiaulune means Shadow Gate,” Smoke said. His voice was like his skin, splotched
with oddities. Squeaks, sort of. They made Willow bristle. “Not much change.

Yes. They came. And like Kina in the legend they set free the wicked knowledge.

In this case, how to make war.”

“And right away they started carving them an empire and if they hadn’t had that
trouble at Shadowcatch and hadn’t got so busy fighting each other they would’ve
been here fifteen years ago. I know. I been asking around ever since you guys
started hustling us.”

“And?”

“So for fifteen years you knew they was coming someday. And for fifteen years
you ain’t done squat about it. Now when you all of a sudden know the day, you
want to grab three guys off the street and con them into thinking they can work
some kind of miracle. Sorry, sister. Willow Swan ain’t buying. There’s your
conjure man. Get old Smoke to pull pigeons out of his hat.”

“We aren’t looking for miracles, Mr. Swan. The miracle has happened. Smoke
dreamed it. We’re looking for time for the miracle to take effect.”

Willow snorted.

“We have a realistic appreciation of how desperate our situation is, Mr. Swan.

We have had since the Shadowmasters appeared. We have not been playing ostrich.

We have been doing what seems most practical, given the cultural context. We
have encouraged the masses to accept the notion that it would be a great and
glorious thing to repel the onslaught when it comes.”

“You sold them that much,” Blade said. “They ready to go die.”

“And that’s all they would do,” Swan said. “Die.”

“Why?” the Woman asked.

“No organization,” said Cordy. The thoughtful one. “But organization wouldn’t be
possible. No one from any of the major cult families would take orders from
somebody from another one.”

“Exactly. Religious conflicts make it impossible to raise an army. Three armies,

maybe. But then the high priests might be tempted to use them to settle scores
here at home.”

Blade snorted. “They ought to burn the temples and strangle the priests.”

“Sentiments my brother often expresses,” the Woman said. “Smoke and I feel they
might follow outsiders of proven skill who aren’t beholden to any faction.”

“What? You going to make me a general?”

Cordy laughed. “Willow, if the gods thought half as much of you as you think of
yourself, you’d be king of the world. You figure you’re the miracle Smoke saw in
his dream? They’re not going to make you a general. Not really. Unless maybe for
show, while they stall.”

“What?”

“Who’s the guy keeps saying he only spent two months in the army and never even
learned to keep step?”

“Oh.” Willow thought for a minute. “I think I see.”

“Actually, you will be generals,” the Woman said. “And we’ll have to rely
heavily on Mr. Mather’s practical experience. But Smoke will have the final
say.”

“We have to buy time,” the wizard echoed. “A lot of time. Someday soon
Moonshadow will send a combined force of five thousand to invade Taglios. We
have to keep from being beaten. If there’s any way possible, we have to beat the
force sent against us.”

“Nothing like wishing.”

“Are you willing to pay the price?” Cordy asked. Like he thought it could be
done.

“The price will be paid,” the Woman said. “Whatever it may be.”

Willow looked at her till he could no longer keep his teeth clamped on the big
question. “Just who the hell are you, lady? Making your promises and plans.”

“I am the Radisha Drah, Mr. Swan.”

“Holy shit,” Swan muttered. “The prince’s big sister.” The one some people said
was the real boss bull in those parts. “I knew you was somebody, but . . . ” He
was rattled right down to his toenails. But he would not have been Willow Swan
if he had not leaned back, folded his hands on his belly, put on a big grin, and
asked, “What’s in it for us?”