to yourself. In the Black Company you were overshadowed by your captain and Senjak. It was necessary for you to have command in order to demonstrate your scope and genius. When you did have an opportunity all your efforts were sabotaged and suborned. You came to me because the Black Company would not allow you the opportunity you need.”
Mogaba nodded. He did not seem pleased with himself, though. And that surprised me. I had thought him too self-centered to entertain moral doubts.
“Go. Conquer the world, General. I’ll enjoy helping you. But you have to crush the Black Company first. You have to stop the Taglians. Because you will have nothing if I fall. Will the Strangler be much help, really?”
“He could be. He talks big about his goddess getting involved but I won’t count on that. I’ve never seen the gods actually take a hand in mortal affairs.”
Odd. Mogaba’s god was Narayan’s goddess, more or less. Had Mogaba lost his faith? Maybe Dejagore had scarred him deeply, too.
“Use them up. Leave none over to turn on us later.” In my imagination the Shadowmaster was always this huge stinking devil incarnate, a colorful lunatic the magnitude of the worst Taken back in the north. But the real Longshadow was just a mean-spirited old man blessed with too much power.
He told Mogaba, “If this becomes the Year of the Skulls I want it to be our year. Not theirs.”
“Understood. What do you think of the child?”
Longshadow grunted uncomfortably.
“Spooky, right? A thousand years old. Her mother in miniature, only worse. More intense, with a deeper darkness inside.”
He could be right. The kid definitely looked weird and evil from my ghost’s eye view.
The Shadowmaster mused, “We may have to hurry her into the embrace of her goddess.”
Mogaba shrugged. He turned to go. “Anyone else you want to see alone?”
“Howler. Wait!”
“What?”
“Where is the Lance of Passion?”
“Wherever Croaker is, I imagine. Or the Standardbearer. That’s still that serpent Murgen, I believe.”
I love you too, Mogaba.
“We must take possession. Might that not be a task for the Deceivers? Even destroying the Black Company may not be enough in the long run. And one other thing for the Deceivers. Have them find out why Senjak wants all that bamboo.”
“Bamboo?”
Was there an echo?
“She has been stripping the Taglian territories for months. Wherever her soldiers go they loot bamboo.”
“That is curious. I will find out.” I followed Mogaba for a moment. Once he was clear of the parapet he muttered, “Bamboo. I have to humor a lunatic.”
I tried to travel south of Overlook. Smoke went only a short way before he balked. Well.
I would find out sooner than I wanted, I supposed. After we settled Longshadow and Overlook the plain was next on the list of obstacles blocking our path to Khatovar.
52
I returned to the chamber with Smoke and our stinky pet Strangler. I was hungry and thirsty but also so excited I shook. I had not uncovered much of resounding import, but, gods! The potential!
I drank from the pitcher, cleared my throat, lifted the corner of the cloth covering the prisoner. “You in there? Want a drink? Want to tell me?” He was asleep. “Be that way.”
So what now? Help had not arrived. I gnawed on one of Mother Gota’s stones. That eased my hunger. That was all I wanted at the moment.
What now? Keep going out until somebody came to reclaim me? See Lady? Look for Goblin? Hunt for Blade? How about finding out where Soulcatcher was hiding? She had to be out there somewhere, though we had not stubbed our toes on her lately. No place was free of crows if a member of the Company was around.
Soulcatcher is patient. That is her scariest trait.
It was kid-in-the-candy-shop time.
I decided to look for Soulcatcher. She was the oldest mystery going right now.
Smoke jumped right out, but then he stalled. His soul, or ka, or whatever, became more agitated as I grew more insistent. “All right! She always was more trouble than I want to deal with, anyway. Let’s find her goofy sister.”
Lady did not intimidate Smoke at all.
I found her in the citadel at Dejagore, in the conference chamber with four men, leaning over a map. The frontier markings on the map lay far south of Dejagore. Earlier boundaries were noted and identified by date.
She needed a new map. Her old one was too busy. She had won too many skirmishes.
Lady is a beauty even fresh from the field. She looks way too young for Croaker although she is far older than One-Eye. One-Eye never mastered any youth sorcery.
Two of Lady’s companions were Company men, Gea-Xle Nar anxious to show the world that Mogaba and his traitors were mutants, that their like would not be seen again. I did not buy that. Neither did Lady or the Old Man. We were confident that Mogaba had left somebody behind. Croaker once told me, “Watch out for somebody to start pointing fingers. That’ll be the traitor.”
A third man was the Prahbrindrah Drah, the ruling Prince of Taglios. He was about as nondescript, for a Taglian, as a man could be and still be breathing. He put in the last four years learning the arts of war. He commanded a full division now, the right wing of the field army. Lady and the Old Man took pains to entangle him deeply in their war machine so he had a personal stake to maintain there.
The last man was the improbable Willow Swan. When I focused on him Smoke became agitated, which proved to me Smoke’s self was partially aware on some plane. He and Swan had gotten on like rats and mice.
These days Swan is the captain of the Royal Guards detachment assigned to Dejagore.
Swan wears his cornsilk hair longer than Lady does her shoulder-length black hair. Sometimes Willow braids his but at the moment it was pulled back into a ponytail. Lady’s hair was back in a tail, too. Usually she lets it hang free. She did keep it combed and clean when she could.
A soldier by accident, Swan did not want to be a hero. His Guards existed outside the army and functioned mainly as military police. He and they owed their allegiance directly to the Prince and his sister.
Lady said, “Howler has quit attacking outposts.”
“You said he ain’t stupid,” Swan replied.
“I got too close when I missed him. That scared him off for good.”
One of the Nar observed, “Our raids must trouble them.” “They trouble me, Isi. And I authorized them.” Lady shivered momentarily.
“They are effective.” “Beyond a doubt.”
The Prince asked, “But would the Liberator approve?” Lady’s smile revealed glistening white teeth that were almost too perfect. She had mastered the cosmetic sorceries early. “He doesn’t approve. Definitely. But he won’t interfere. I’m the one who is here and I’m relying on my own experience.”
The Prince asked, “Will Longshadow unleash Mogaba?” The Nar brigadiers tensed. Mogaba shamed them greatly by letting pride and vanity seduce him away from the ancient ideals of the Nar. Not to mention he was going to be blue-assed hell in a fight.
Swan asked, “You take any prisoners down there?” “Yes. And what they knew would fit into a thimble with room left for a stork’s nest. Nobody responsible down there ever sits around the campfire swapping secrets with the troops.”
Swan stared at her while her gaze was directed elsewhere. He saw a woman five and a half feet tall, blue- eyed, 110 perfectly arranged pounds. She was big for this part of the world. She looked like she might turn twenty soon. That old black magic. Swan was transparent.
