Soulcatcher kept
reminding me that she was in touch with the demon. That, in fact,
as long as she remained attached to the white crow she would be
little more than Shivetya’s tool. This information did not
seem newsworthy or particularly important until I suffered the
visit from the Washene, the Washane and the Washone.
I had not been especially sensitive to them in the past. I knew
them better from description than encounter. This time around made
clear why that was.
Their ugliness invaded my dreams but only as a sense of presence
little more concrete than that of the Unknown Shadows. Golden
glimmers of hideous beast-mask faces in the corner of dream’s
eye, and scattered single syllable fragments of attempted
communication, were all that I recalled after I awakened, sweating
and shaking and filled with undirected terror.
Shivetya’s gaze, directed my way, seemed more amused than
ever.
I soon learned that his amusement had limits.
I had made him a promise. He could look inside me and see that I
intended to keep it. But he could also see that I meant to stall
for as long as it took me to arrange my own life to my
satisfaction.
He had been patient for ten thousand years. Now, suddenly, his
patience began to wilt.
I became aware of it first while I was sleeping. On a night when
the Nef were almost getting through, my dreams filled unexpectedly
with a presence that pushed in like a whale driving through a pod
of dolphins. A big, unseen thing that approached like the darkness
itself but without containing a thread of evil. Just a vast, slow
thing that was.
I knew what it was and understood that it was trying to make a
mind-to-mind contact the way it had with others before me. But my
mind had a hard shell around it. It was difficult for ideas to get
through.
Good thing Goblin and One-Eye were no longer around. They could
have gotten hours of joy out of a straight line like that.
A couple sleeps more, though, and my mind had become a sieve. Me
and Shivetya were yukking it up like a couple of old tonk buddies.
The white crow was put out because she did not have a job
translating anymore. I guess the demon had the sheer mental brute
force to make contact with anyone.
I learned from the golem in the way that Baladitya had learned
before me. I learned by being taken inside the demon’s living
dream, where past was almost indistinguishable from present. Where
the wondrous pageant of the plain’s history, and the history
of the worlds it connected, were all remembered, in as much detail
as Shivetya had cared to witness at the time. There was a great
deal about the Black Company. He had chosen the Company as the
instrument of his escape a very long time ago, long before Kina
chose Lady to become her instrument inside the enemy force and the
vessel that would birth the Daughter of Night, who was the intended
instrument of her own liberation. Long before any of us were the
least aware of all the pitfalls we were going to encounter on our
road to Khatovar. But Shivetya chose better than did Kina. The
Goddess failed to look closely enough at Lady’s character.
Lady was too damned stubborn and selfish to be anyone’s tool
for long.
There were just seven of us when some inexplicable urge made me
decide to retrace the Company’s olden journeys. And of those
seven, now there is just me.
Soldiers live.
The Black Company is in Suvrin’s hands now. Such as it is.
It is headed south now, according to Shivetya’s dreams,
satisfactorily avenged, planning to cross the glittering plain back
to the Land of Unknown Shadows. There are only a handful of
Taglians and Dejagorans and Sangelis left to miss our world. The
Company will become a new thing in a new world. And pudgy little
Suvrin will be its creator.
Never before had there been anyone of the Black Company who had
survived so long that he could see how vast are the changes time
will sculpt even upon a band determined to stay one with its
past.
When my thoughts ranged those bleak marches Shivetya always
filled my head with ripples of amusement. Because those were almost
invisible changes when compared with those that he had witnessed in
his time. He had seen empires, civilizations, entire races, come
and go. He remembered the gods themselves, the ugly builders of the
plain, and all the powers that had come into and changed his estate
and then had faded away again. He even recalled a time when he was
not alone in the fortress with no name, a time when his devotion to
duty caused his mates to nail him to his throne so they could
desert without him interfering.
At long last I began to understand what had happened to Murgen
in those long ago days when he had had so much trouble clinging to
his place in time. Murgen was crazy, some, and Soulcatcher was
involved, some—those were the days when Soulcatcher had found her
way onto the plain—and Murgen never had a clue himself what was
happening but behind everything else was Shivetya, carefully
setting up his path into retirement. And, of course, Shivetya does
not see time like the rest of us. Unless we demand his attention
right here at the vanguard he floats everywhere, everywhen,
reexperiencing rather than remembering.
Gods, how I envied him! The entire histories of sixteen worlds
were his to know. Not just to study and interpret but pretty much
to live whenever the mood took him.
I did have a question. The question of supreme importance if I
was going to set the demon free. He had to answer it to my
satisfaction if he wanted me to fulfill our agreement.
What would happen to the glittering plain if he was no longer
here to manage it?
Soulcatcher kept
reminding me that she was in touch with the demon. That, in fact,
as long as she remained attached to the white crow she would be
little more than Shivetya’s tool. This information did not
seem newsworthy or particularly important until I suffered the
visit from the Washene, the Washane and the Washone.
I had not been especially sensitive to them in the past. I knew
them better from description than encounter. This time around made
clear why that was.
Their ugliness invaded my dreams but only as a sense of presence
little more concrete than that of the Unknown Shadows. Golden
glimmers of hideous beast-mask faces in the corner of dream’s
eye, and scattered single syllable fragments of attempted
communication, were all that I recalled after I awakened, sweating
and shaking and filled with undirected terror.
Shivetya’s gaze, directed my way, seemed more amused than
ever.
I soon learned that his amusement had limits.
I had made him a promise. He could look inside me and see that I
intended to keep it. But he could also see that I meant to stall
for as long as it took me to arrange my own life to my
satisfaction.
He had been patient for ten thousand years. Now, suddenly, his
patience began to wilt.
I became aware of it first while I was sleeping. On a night when
the Nef were almost getting through, my dreams filled unexpectedly
with a presence that pushed in like a whale driving through a pod
of dolphins. A big, unseen thing that approached like the darkness
itself but without containing a thread of evil. Just a vast, slow
thing that was.
I knew what it was and understood that it was trying to make a
mind-to-mind contact the way it had with others before me. But my
mind had a hard shell around it. It was difficult for ideas to get
through.
Good thing Goblin and One-Eye were no longer around. They could
have gotten hours of joy out of a straight line like that.
A couple sleeps more, though, and my mind had become a sieve. Me
and Shivetya were yukking it up like a couple of old tonk buddies.
The white crow was put out because she did not have a job
translating anymore. I guess the demon had the sheer mental brute
force to make contact with anyone.
I learned from the golem in the way that Baladitya had learned
before me. I learned by being taken inside the demon’s living
dream, where past was almost indistinguishable from present. Where
the wondrous pageant of the plain’s history, and the history
of the worlds it connected, were all remembered, in as much detail
as Shivetya had cared to witness at the time. There was a great
deal about the Black Company. He had chosen the Company as the
instrument of his escape a very long time ago, long before Kina
chose Lady to become her instrument inside the enemy force and the
vessel that would birth the Daughter of Night, who was the intended
instrument of her own liberation. Long before any of us were the
least aware of all the pitfalls we were going to encounter on our
road to Khatovar. But Shivetya chose better than did Kina. The
Goddess failed to look closely enough at Lady’s character.
Lady was too damned stubborn and selfish to be anyone’s tool
for long.
There were just seven of us when some inexplicable urge made me
decide to retrace the Company’s olden journeys. And of those
seven, now there is just me.
Soldiers live.
The Black Company is in Suvrin’s hands now. Such as it is.
It is headed south now, according to Shivetya’s dreams,
satisfactorily avenged, planning to cross the glittering plain back
to the Land of Unknown Shadows. There are only a handful of
Taglians and Dejagorans and Sangelis left to miss our world. The
Company will become a new thing in a new world. And pudgy little
Suvrin will be its creator.
Never before had there been anyone of the Black Company who had
survived so long that he could see how vast are the changes time
will sculpt even upon a band determined to stay one with its
past.
When my thoughts ranged those bleak marches Shivetya always
filled my head with ripples of amusement. Because those were almost
invisible changes when compared with those that he had witnessed in
his time. He had seen empires, civilizations, entire races, come
and go. He remembered the gods themselves, the ugly builders of the
plain, and all the powers that had come into and changed his estate
and then had faded away again. He even recalled a time when he was
not alone in the fortress with no name, a time when his devotion to
duty caused his mates to nail him to his throne so they could
desert without him interfering.
At long last I began to understand what had happened to Murgen
in those long ago days when he had had so much trouble clinging to
his place in time. Murgen was crazy, some, and Soulcatcher was
involved, some—those were the days when Soulcatcher had found her
way onto the plain—and Murgen never had a clue himself what was
happening but behind everything else was Shivetya, carefully
setting up his path into retirement. And, of course, Shivetya does
not see time like the rest of us. Unless we demand his attention
right here at the vanguard he floats everywhere, everywhen,
reexperiencing rather than remembering.
Gods, how I envied him! The entire histories of sixteen worlds
were his to know. Not just to study and interpret but pretty much
to live whenever the mood took him.
I did have a question. The question of supreme importance if I
was going to set the demon free. He had to answer it to my
satisfaction if he wanted me to fulfill our agreement.
What would happen to the glittering plain if he was no longer
here to manage it?