younger, we fought our deadliest encounter with the things that had given the Shadowmasters their names there. More than a decade later you could still see places where rock had melted. If you went exploring some of the narrow gulches scarring the hillsides, you could find clutches of human bones that had come back to the surface with time.
“This is a place of dark memory,” Doj remarked. He had been here for that battle, too. And so had Gota, who had stopped complaining long enough to deal with her memories also.
She really did have a lot of pain these days.
The white crow streaked overhead. It dropped down the slope ahead, vanished into the ragged foliage of a tall mountain pine. We saw that bird almost every day now.
There was no doubt it was following us. Swan swore that it had tried to strike up a conversation with him once when he was out in the brush relieving himself.
When I asked what it wanted, he said, “Hey, I got the hell out of there, Sleepy. I’ve got problems enough. I don’t need to get known as a guy who gossips with birds, too.”
“It might’ve had something interesting to say.”
“Without a doubt. And if it
Right now Swan looked down the slope and said, “It’s hiding from something.”
“But not from us.” I looked back up the slope. The ground appeared untouched up there. There was no sign of other travelers. Below me, downhill, the meandering track appeared occasionally upon the slope and along the shore, both of which were deserted. This was no longer a popular route. “I could retire beside that lake,” I told Swan.
“Must not be the best place or somebody would’ve beaten you to it.”
He had a point. This country was far emptier now than it had been twenty years ago. Then there had been villages around the lake.
“There you go,” Swan said, looking back.
“What?” I looked. It took a moment. “Oh. The bird?”
“Not just a bird. A crow. The regular kind of crow.”
“Your eyes are better than mine. Ignore it. If we don’t pay it any special attention, it shouldn’t have any reason to concentrate on us.” My heartbeat was rising, though.
Maybe it was just a feral crow and had nothing to do with Soulcatcher. Crows are not fastidious about their dining.
Or maybe the Protector had, at last, begun looking for us outside of Taglios.
White crow in hiding, black crow in the air, searching. What did it mean?
Not much we could do about it, whatever. Though Uncle Doj had a calculating eye whenever he looked up at the black crow.
It lost interest after a while. It went away. I told the oth- ers, “That shouldn’t be a problem. Crows are smart, for birds, but one by itself can’t remember a lot of instructions or carry much information back. If it is one of hers.” We had to assume that it was. Crows were much less common than they used to be. Those remaining always seemed to be under Soulcatcher’s control. Her control was probably why they were dying out.
If this one was a scout for the Protector, it would be days yet before it could report.
Doj observed, “If it was suspicious, we can expect to have shadows around in a few days.”
That would be Soulcatcher’s best means of scouting us. Shadows traveled faster than crows, could be given much more complex instructions and could bring back far more information. But could Soulcatcher control them so far away? The original Shadowmasters had had major difficulties managing their pets over long distances.
We passed along the shores of Lake Tanji. Each of us seized an opportunity to bathe in the icy water. The old road then led us on to the Plain of Charandaprash, where the Black Company had won one of its greatest triumphs and the Great General had suffered his most humiliating defeat-through no fault of his own. Though a capricious history would not recall the blame due his cowardly master, Longshadow. Wreckage from that battle still lay scattered across the slopes. A small garrison watched over the approaches to the pass through the Dandha Presh. It showed no interest in clearing any mess or, even, in monitoring traffic. Nobody looked my group over. Nobody asked questions. We were assessed an unofficial toll and warned that the donkey might find the footing treacherous in the high pass because there was still ice on the rocks up there. We did learn that there had been heavier traffic than usual lately. That told me that Sahra’s group had encountered no insuperable difficulties and was ahead of us, as it should be, even with all the old men and reluctant companions.
The mountains were far colder and more barren than the highlands we had crossed. I wondered how the Radisha was handling it, about her thoughts concerning the empire she had acquired, mostly thanks to the Company. Doubtless her eyes had been opened some.
They needed a lot of opening. She had spent most of her life cooped up inside the Palace.
The white crow turned up every few days but its darker kinfolk did not. Maybe the Protector was preoccupied elsewhere.
I wished I had Murgen’s talent for leaving his body. I had not had so much as a good dream since leaving the Grove of Doom. I knew exactly as little as everyone else. And that was extremely frustrating after having had easy access to secrets from afar for so long.
Nights in the mountains get really cold. I told Swan I was tempted to take up his suggestion that we go off somewhere and set up housekeeping in our own tavern and brewery. When it got really cold, a few lesser sins did not seem to matter.
57
The timing of events in Taglios is uncertain because the principal reporter, Murgen, had maintained such a casual relationship with the concept for the last decade and a half. But his sketchy descriptions of events in the city following our departure are of more than passing interest.
At first the Protector suspected nothing. The stay-behinds planted smoke buttons and started rumors but with a declining enthusiasm the Taglian peoples began to sense. At the same time, though, the populace developed an abiding suspicion that the Protector had done away with the reigning Princess. The people became less tractable by the hour.
The arrival of the Great General and his forces guaranteed the peace. Moreover, it freed the Protector to go hunting enemies instead of spending her time making sure her friends remained intimidated enough to continue supporting her. In just days she found the Nyueng Bao warehouse on the waterfront, empty now except for a few cages occupied by missing members of the Privy Council, none of whom were in shape to resume their duties. An armamentarium of booby traps came with the prodigal ministers, of course, but none of those were clever enough to inconvenience Soulcatcher herself. Quite a few Greys were not so fortunate. The Protector took rather a heartless view of those who did fall victim to the Company legacy. “Better to get the dimwits winnowed out now, when the broader risk is minimal,” she told Mogaba. The Great General’s attitude complemented hers precisely.
Questions asked in the neighborhood produced no information of substance, however vigorously they were put. The Nyueng Bao merchants had been careful to maintain a veil around themselves and their businesses. They had even employed the magical in their quest for greater anonymity. Wisps of confusion spells persisted yet.
“I smell those two wizards,” Soulcatcher muttered. “But you promised me that they were dead, didn’t you, Great General?”
“I saw them die myself.”
“You’d better hope you don’t irritate me so much you don’t survive to see them die again, for real.” Her voice was that of a spoiled child.
The Great General did not respond. If Soulcatcher frightened him, he showed no sign. Neither did he betray any anger. He waited, reasonably confident that he was too valuable to become the victim of an evil caprice. Perhaps, in his heart of hearts, he thought the Protector was not equally valuable.
“There’s no trace of them,” Soulcatcher mumbled later, in a voice academically cool. “They’re gone. Yet the
