Bleak Seasons

25

I played the game the way I thought the Nyueng Bao would want. Ever since childhood I have suspected you get along better if you respect people's ways and wishes regardless of your apparent relative strengths.

That doesn't mean you let people walk on you. It doesn't mean you eat their pain for them. You need to demand respect for yourself, too.

Dejagore's byways are close and fetid. Typical of a fortified city. I went to an obscure intersection where under normal circumstances I could expect to be seen by Nyueng Bao watchers. They are a cautious people. They watch all the time. I announced, "I would see the Speaker. Harm is headed his way. I would have him know what I know."

I didn't see anybody. I didn't hear anybody. I expected nothing else. Someone who strolled into my territory would see and hear nothing, either, but death would be nearby.

The only sounds came from fighting several blocks away.

I waited.

Suddenly, in that instant when my attention finally wandered, Ky Dam's son materialized. He made no more noise than a tiptoeing moth. He was a wide, short man of indeterminate age. He carried an unusually long sword but it remained sheathed across his back. He stared at me hard. I stared back. It cost me nothing. He grunted, indicated that I should follow. We walked no more than eighty yards. He indicated a doorway. "Keep smiling," I told him. I couldn't resist. He was always around somewhere, watching. I never saw him smile. I pushed the door inward.

Curtains hung two feet inside. Very weak light slipped through a rent. I closed the door carefully once I understood that I would be entering alone, before I parted the curtains. Wouldn't do to let light splash into the street.

The place turned out to be about as pleasant as you can get in a city.

The Speaker sat on a mat on a dirty floor near the one candle offering light. There were about a dozen people visible, of all ages and sexes. I saw four children, all small, six adults of an age to be their parents, and one old woman of granny age who glowered like she had a special bunk in Hell reserved for me even though she'd never seen me before. I saw nobody who could pass as her husband. Maybe he was the guy outside. Then there was a woman as old as Ky Dam, a fragile flower time-diminished to little more than skin-covered sticks, though an agile intelligence still burned in her eyes. You would get nothing past this woman.

Of material things I saw little but the clothing the people wore, a few ragged blankets, a couple of clay cups and a pot maybe used for cooking. And more swords nearly as long and fine as that carried by the Speaker's son.

In the darkness beyond the candlelight someone groaned. It was the sound of someone delirious.

"Sit," Ky Dam invited. A second mat lay unrolled beside the candle. In the weak light the old man seemed more frail than when he visited the wall.

I sat. Though I wasn't used to it and my tendons weren't supple enough, I tried to cross my legs.

I waited.

Ky Dam would invite me to speak when it was time.

I tried to concentrate on the old man, not the people staring at me, nor the smell of too many folks living in too small a space, of their strange foods, nor even the odor of sickness.

A woman brought tea. How she made it I don't know. I never saw any fire. I didn't think about that at the moment, though, so startled was I. She was beautiful. Even in dirt and rags, incredibly beautiful. I brought the hot tea to my lips and scalded them to shock myself back to business.

I felt sorrow instantly. This one would pay dearly when the southerners took the town.

A small smile touched Ky Dam's lips. I noticed amusement on the face of the old woman, too, and recognized there a similar beauty only externally betrayed by time. They were used to my initial reaction. Maybe it was some kind of test, bringing her out of the shadows. Almost too softly to be heard, the old man said, "She is indeed." Louder, he added, "You are wise beyond your years, Soldier of Darkness."

What was this Soldier of Darkness crap? Every time he addressed me he stuck me with another name.

I tried a formal head bow of acknowledgment. "Thank you for that compliment, Speaker." I hoped he would realize that I was incapable of keeping up with the subtleties of proper manners amongst the Nyueng Bao.

"I sense in you a great anxiety held in check only by chains of will." He sipped tea calmly but eyed me in a way that told me hastiness would be tolerated if I thought it really necessary.

I said, "Great evils stalk the night, Speaker. Unexpected monsters have slipped their leashes."

"So I surmised when you were kind enough to permit me atop your section of wall."

"There is a new beast loose. One I never expected to see." In retrospect I realize we were speaking of two different things. "One I do not know how to handle." I strove to keep my Taglian pronunciations clear. Men conversing in a tongue native to neither sorely tempt the devils of misunderstanding.

He seemed puzzled. "I do not understand you."

I glanced around. Did all his people live like this all the time? They were packed in way tighter than we were. Of course, we could enforce our claims to space with our swords. "Do you know about the Black Company? Do you know our recent history?" Rather than await an answer I sketched our immediate past. Ky Dam was one of those rare people who listened with every ounce of his being.

I finished. The old man said, "Time has, perhaps, made of you shadows of the Soldiers of Darkness. You have been gone so long and have journeyed so far that you have strayed from your Way completely. Nor are the followers of the warrior prince Mogaba hewing any nearer the true path."

I did not hide my thoughts well, Ky Dam and his woman found me amusing again. "But I am not one of you, Standardbearer. My knowledge has drifted far from the truth as well. Perhaps there is no real truth today because there is no one who knows it anymore."

I didn't have a clue what the hell he was talking about. "You have wandered long and far, Standardbearer. But you may yet come home again." His expression darkened momentarily. "Though you wish that you had not. Where is your standard, Standardbearer?"

"I don't know. It vanished during the big battle on the plain outside. I jammed its butt into the earth when I decided to put on my Captain's armor in order to pretend that he had not fallen, so the troops would rally, but... "

The old man raised a hand. "I think it may be very close tonight."

I hate this obscurity crap old people and wizards like to perpetrate. I am convinced that they do it only because it gives them a feeling of power. Screw the missing standard. It was not germane, now, tonight. I said, "The Nar chieftain wants to be Captain of the Black Company. He does not approve of the ways of those of us from the far north."

I paused but the old man had dried up. He waited. I said, "Mogaba is flawless as a warrior but he has shortcomings in some areas of leadership."

Ky Dam then proved to be less than the totally inscrutable and eternally patient old-timer you are led to expect in these situations.

"You came to warn me that he has chosen to lessen his problems by letting southerners do his knifework, Standardbearer?"

"Huh?"

"One of my grandsons was in a position to overhear while Mogaba debated tonight's actions with his lieutenants Ochiba, Sindawe, Ranjalpirindi and Chal Ghanda Ghan. Because Taglian conspirators were present the Nar failed to squabble in their native tongue though Mogaba showed limited facility with the Taglian."

"Excuse me? Sir?"

"What your honor compels you to report to me, although you only harbor suspicions now, is far worse than you fear. Overruling strong objections by his Nar lieutenants, Mogaba set forth a plan for tonight which will allow southerners who reach the ramparts and do not dally there to have their ways behind the wall. Taglian legionnaires will discourage them from attacking any direction but through our quarter into yours."

"You knew already? That what you're saying? Before I got here you had an actual witness?"

"Thai Dei."

A young man rose. He was an unpleasant-looking skinny little guy who held a toddler in his arms.

Ky Dam said, "He does not speak Taglian well but he understands it good enough. He overheard the plot being hatched. He overheard the arguments of those who found it dishonorable. He saw an angry Mogaba go so far as to continue during the visit of a man believed to be an instrument of the Shadowmasters."

That hit me. It meant that, as of that moment, there existed a tacit agreement between Mogaba and Shadowspinner good until me and mine had been obliterated. "This is cruel treachery indeed, Speaker."

Ky Dam nodded. Then he told me, "There is more, Stone Soldier. Both Ranjalpirindi and Ghanda Ghan are intimates of the Prahbrindrah Drah. Speaking with the Prince's voice they assured Mogaba that, once the siege has been broken and your band has been eliminated, the Prince will announce his personal support of Mogaba's captaincy of your company. In exchange Mogaba will abandon your previous Captain's quest to become chief warlord of Taglios. With all powers necessary to prosecute the war against the Shadowlands."

"Man, that was some job of eavesdropping." Thai Dei almost smiled.

"And some job of treachery put together by Brother Mogaba."

I could see why Ochiba and Sindawe would argue against it. It was a betrayal almost beyond comprehension.

Mogaba had, indeed, gone through some dark changes since Gea-Xle.

I asked, "What does he have against you people?"

"Nothing, Politically he should be indifferent to us. We have never been a factor in Taglian affairs. But we mean nothing to him in any other way, either. He is eager to spend us like found coin. If the southerners attack you after fighting his forces, then us, huge numbers of his enemies and us resource gulping undesirables will have been eliminated."

"Once I admired this man greatly, Speaker."

"Men change, Standardbearer. And this one more than most. He is an actor and but one wicked purpose impels all his acting."

"Speaker?"

"This Mogaba is the center of, and the reason for, everything that Mogaba does. Mogaba will sacrifice his best friend upon an altar to himself, though probably not even a god could convince the friend that that possibility exists. Mogaba's every wicked order draws another veil off the black blotch devouring his soul. He has changed as the most perfect pomegranate will change when the mold gets inside its skin."

Here we go, talking old-timer sideways again.

"Standardbearer! Though I know of the black danger to my people already I am honored that you believed us worthy of a warning, however pressing your other concerns. That was an act of generosity and friendship. We do not forget those who have extended their hands."

"Thank you. I am pleased by your response." You'd better believe. "And if Mogaba allows you to be attacked... "

"The problem is upon us already, Stone Soldier. Southerners are dying right now, only yards away. Once it became evident that we were trapped here we all learned every nuance of the ground upon which we might fight. This is not our swamp but the principles of battle remain the same. We have been prepared for this night for many weeks. It remained to be seen only who would chose to become our enemy."

"Huh?" I could be stupid as a stone when I ran into something cold.

"You should rejoin those who look to you for leadership. Do so secure in the knowledge that you have the friendship of the Nyueng Bao."

"An honor."

"Or curse." The old man chuckled.

"Does that mean your people will actually talk to mine?"

"That might be a little too much." He chuckled again. His wife smiled, too. What a wild joker he was! The man was a laugh riot. He said, "Thai Dei. Go with this man. You may speak if spoken to, but only as my mouth. Bone Warrior. This is my grandson. He will understand you. Send him to me if you have a need to communicate. Do not be frivolous."

"I understand." I tried to get up, embarrassed myself by failing to get my legs untangled. One of the kids laughed. I dared glance around for a reaction from the dream woman who brought the tea, sure I was not fooling Ky Dam. A baby slept in her lap. A toddler dozed under her left arm. She was awake, watching. She looked tired, frightened, confused and determined. About like the rest of us. Whenever that moaning came from the darkness she winced and looked that way. The pain was a part of her.

I bowed myself out. The Nyueng Bao Thai Dei led me back to familiar territory.