determination. She shows a wisdom remarkable for her age, and for one handicapped as she is. Raven taught her well during those few years he was her guardian.
She was pacing when I arrived. The conference room is earth-sided, smokey, crowded even when empty. It smells of long occupation by too many unclean men. The old messenger from Oar was there. So were Tracker and Corder and several other outsiders. Most of the Company were present. I finger-signed a greeting. Darling gave me a sisterly hug, asked if I had any progress to report.
I spoke for the group and signed for her. “I am sure we don’t have all the documents we found in the Forest of Cloud. Not just because I can’t identify what I’m looking for, either. Everything I do have is too old.”
Darling’s features are regular. Nothing stands out. Yet you sense character, will, that this woman cannot be broken. She has been to Hell already. It did not touch her as a child. She will not be touched now.
She was not pleased. She signed, “We will not have the time we thought.”
My attention was half elsewhere. I had hoped for sparks between Tracker and the other westerner. On a gut level I had responded negatively to Tracker. I found myself with an irrational hope for evidence to sustain that reaction.
Nothing.
Not surprising. The cell structure of the movement keeps our sympathizers insulated from one another.
Darling wanted to hear from Goblin and One-Eye next. Goblin used his squeakiest voice. “Everything we heard is true. They are reinforcing their garrisons. But Corder can tell you better. For us, the mission was a bust. They were ready. They chased us all over the Plain. We were lucky to get away. We didn’t get no help, either.”
The menhirs and their weird pals are on our side, supposedly. Sometimes I wonder. They are unpredictable. They help or don’t according to a formula only they understand.
Darling was little interested in details of the failed raid. She moved on to Corder. He said, “Armies are gathering on both sides of the Plain. Under command of the Taken.”
“Taken?” I asked. I knew of only the two. He sounded like he meant many.
A chill then. There is a longtime rumor that the Lady has been quiet so long because she is raising a new crop of Taken. I had not believed it. The age is sorrowfully short of characters of the magnificently villainous vitality of those the Dominator took in olden times: Soulcatcher, the Hanged Man, Nightcrawler, Shapeshifter, the Limper, and such. Those were nastymen of the grand scope, nearly as wild and hairy in their wickedness as the Lady and Dominator themselves. This is the era of the weak sister, excepting only Darling and Whisper.
Corder responded shyly. “The rumors are true, Lord.”
Lord. Me. Because I stand near the heart of the dream. I hate it, yet eat it up. “Yes?”
“They may not be Stormbringers or Howlers, these new Taken.” He smiled feebly. “Sir Tucker observed that the old Taken were wild devils as unpredictable as the lightning, and the new ones are the predictable tame thunder of bureaucracy. If you follow my meaning.”
“I do. Go on.”
“It is believed that there are six new ones, Lord. Sir Tucker believes they are about to be unleashed. Thus the great buildup around the Plain. Sir Tucker believes the Lady has made a competition of our destruction.”
Tucker. Our most dedicated agent. One of the few survivors of the long siege of Rust. His hatred knows no bounds.
Corder had a strange look. A green-around-the-edges look. A look that said there was more, and all bad. “Well?” I said. “Spit it out.”
“The names of the Taken have been enscribed on stellae raised in their respective demenses. At Rust the army commander is named Benefice. His Stella appeared after a carpet arrived by night. He has not actually been seen.”
That bore investigation. Only the Taken can manage a carpet. But no carpet can reach Rust without crossing the Plain of Fear. The menhirs have reported no such passage. “Benefice? Interesting name. The others?”
“In Thud the Stella bears the name Blister.”
Chuckles. I said, “I liked it better when the names were descriptive. Like the Limper, Moonbiter, the Faceless Man.”
“At Frost we have one called the Creeper.”
“That’s better.” Darling gave me a cautionary look.
“At Rue there is one called Learned. And at Hull, one called Scorn.”
“Scorn. I like that, too.”
“The western bounds of the Plain are held by Whisper and Journey, both operating from a village called Spit.”
Being a natural mathematical phenom, I summed and said, “That’s five new ones and two old. Where is the other new one?”
“I don’t know. The only other is the commander over all. His Stella stands in the military compound outside Rust.”
The way he said that abraded my nerves. He was pale. He started shaking. A premonition gripped me. I knew I would not like what he said next. But, “Well?”
“That Stella bears the sigil of the Limper.”
Right. So right. I did not like it at all.
The feeling was universal.
“Oh!” Goblin shrieked.
One-Eye said, “Holy shit,” in a soft awed tone that was all the more meaningful for its reserve.
I sat down. Right there. Right in the middle of the floor. I folded my head in my hands. I wanted to cry. “Impossible,” I said. “I killed him. With my own hands.” And saying it, I did not believe it anymore, though I had had faith in that fact for years. “But how?”
“Can’t keep a good man down,” Elmo chided. That he was shaken was evidenced by the smart remark. Elmo says nothing gratuitously.
The feud between the Limper and the Company dates to our arrival north of the Sea of Torments, for it was then that we enlisted Raven, a mysterious native of Opal, a man of former high estate who had been done out of his titles and livings by minions of the Limper. Raven was as tough as they come, and utterly fearless. The robbery sanctioned by Taken or not, he struck back. He slew the villains, among them the Limper’s most competent people. Then our path kept crossing the Limper’s. Each time something worsened the weather between us...
In the confusion after Juniper, Limper thought to settle with us. I engineered an ambush. He charged in. “I would have bet anything I killed him.” I tell you, at that moment I was as rattled as ever I have been. I was on the precipice of panic.
One-Eye noticed. “Don’t get hysterical, Croaker. We survived him before.”
“He’s one of the old ones, idiot! One of the real Taken. From times when they had real wizards. And he’s never really been allowed to go full speed at us before. And with all that help.” Eight Taken and five armies to assault the Plain of Fear. Seldom were there more than seventy of us here in the Hole.
My head filled with terrible visions. Those Taken might be second-rate, but they were so many. Their fury would fire the Plain. Whisper and the Limper have campaigned here before. They are not ignorant of the Plain’s perils. In fact, Whisper battled here both as a Rebel and as Taken. She won most of the most famous battles of the eastern war.
Reason reasserted itself but did little to brighten tomorrow. Once I thought, I reached the inescapeable conclusion that Whisper knows the Plain too well. Might even have allies out here.
Darling touched my shoulder. That was more calming than any words from friends. Her confidence is contagious. She signed, “Now we know,” and smiled.
Still, time has become a hanging hammer about to fall. The long wait for the comet has been rendered irrelevant. We have to survive right now. Trying for a bright side, I said, “The Limper’s true name is somewhere in my document collection.”
But that recalled my problem. “Darling, the specific document I want is not there.”
She raised an eyebrow. Unable to speak, she has developed one of the most expressive faces I’ve ever seen.
“We have to have a sit-down. When you have time. To go over exactly what happened to those papers while Raven had them. Some are missing. They were there when I turned them over to Soulcatcher. They were there
