Soldiers Live

133

Glittering Stone: A Dangerous Game

Only four of us flew south. Five if you counted that ragged-ass lazy crow riding the tip of Goblin's flying post. The little man was flying independently but his movements were limited by a tow rope and a safety harness, each of which connected him to a different companion. We told him it was for his safety while he was learning to manage the post but even dead he was smart enough to see through that. We did not want him haring off if the Khadidas regained control.

Goblin was much stronger now. He could manage most self care without assistance and many other uncomplicated tasks as well. He had a vocabulary of maybe thirty words. He could lay One-Eye's spear down for minutes at a time without risk of wakening the demon within.

We were blazing along through blue skies, cloaks streaming thirty yards behind, at an altitude low enough to panic livestock and send children running to tell skeptical parents. The girls whooped and shrieked, having a wonderful time. Whomever's turn it was not to mind Goblin soared and dove.

Spring was going to spring soon. With these kids that might become an adventurous season.

With spring would come the rainy season, too. Lots of wet and lots of ferocious weather.

I made a couple of brief side trips. The main one was a brief look at Dejagore, where life had settled into a semblance of normalcy and nobody was mourning the passing of one of the city's most famous daughters. Probably not one in a thousand people outside the garrison knew that Sleepy called Dejagore home.

The other side trips involved looking for evidence of the Nef in places where I thought I might have seen them before. I found nothing.

Since there had been no sign of those ghosts of the glittering stone, outside my own glimpses, I was pretty sure what I had seen had not been the genuine articles.

Tobo had expressed a suspicion that, had I not been imagining things, what I had seen were some of his hidden folk trying out disguises.

He believed some would do that just for the hell of it. The folklore of the Land of Unknown Shadows supported his contention. In fact, that sort of prank was a huge favorite.

So, probably, the Nef were less of a problem than I had feared. But a problem even so. Unless they were trapped in the Voroshk world.

Panda Man, at the shadowgate, robbed me of that foolish hope. "They're out there begging and whining every night, Captain."

"Looks like you guys have made yourselves right at home." They had built themselves a tiny hamlet, complete with women and livestock, most of both showing signs of gravidity.

"Best duty we ever had, Captain."

"Well, now is when it starts getting tough." I spun out a gaggle of orders. Then me and my daughters, my pal the white crow and my dead friend, passed through the shadowgate. Though I could see nothing I thought I could sense the pressure of the Nef inside.

The plain boasted a thousand patches of dirty snow. Old snow lay drifted against the standing stones on their west sides. The air was bitterly cold. The place was getting its weather from somewhere other than my native world. And it had an air of neglect. As though the residents had given up housekeeping and maintenance.

The neglect was less evident inside the nameless stronghold. The stench of human waste was gone. Evidently Baladitya had cleaned up after Shivetya's Voroshk guests. But there was a taint of wasted human.

"We need some light," I told the girls. Still competing with one another in some ways, both hastened to create those little will-o'-the-wisp glowing balls that seem to be the first trick any sorcerer learns.

The source of the odor was obvious instantly. Baladitya had fallen asleep at his worktable and had not yet awakened. The chill, dry air had done a lot to preserve him.

I was unhappy but not surprised. Baladitya must have been an antique when I was born.

Arkana and Shukrat made appropriate noises expressing sorrow.

"This isn't good," I muttered, staring at the copyist's remains. "I was counting on him to help me talk to Shivetya."

From somewhere in the darkness the white crow said, "Hi, there, soldier. Looking for a good time?"

Fumbling around after oil with which to refill Baladitya's empty lamps, I said, "Ah, yes. You. All is not lost. But neither is it found."

"What?" That voice was a high-pitched squeak. I wondered how she managed to produce so many of those, even when using a bird to do her talking.

"Trust." I recalled a time when anything she said scared the shit out of me. I guess familiarity does breed... something. I was almost comfortable with her. "Why on earth would you expect me to trust anything you say?"

It helped my courage, knowing she was buried and in a sort of undying coma.

"Shivetya won't let me lie."

Right. Call me a cynic. But I had a notion that the golem might have been with us more than Kina had, over the years. A notion that it would be impossible to untangle his manipulations from hers. A suspicion that he might be just as much a deceiver as she was when it came to maneuvering toward the end of the world.

"Right, then. Got your word, do we? I'm comfortable with that. Let's get started. Does the Goddess know we're here? Does she know what's in my mind?"

"Her attention is elsewhere."

The girls took over filling and lighting the lamps. They were good girls. They had learned to do for themselves. And they watched their daddy at work with respect and awe. Or, at least, they wondered what I was doing, talking to a crow that looked diseased. And having the crow talk back, like it was intelligent.

I told Arkana, "If you could read and write Taglian you'd understand all about this because you'd be able to keep up with the Annals."

"No thanks, Pop. Not even a good try. I said no yesterday, I'm telling you no today, and all you're going to hear is no again tomorrow. I'm not going to get pulled any deeper into your mob than I already am."

Which is what Suvrin used to say. Suvrin, who started out as a prisoner of war.

Shukrat said, "Don't even even bother to look over here."

I had not considered Shukrat. I would not. But I did think Arkana might work out. If she would give it a chance. She had a personality suitable to be one of the gang.

"Recruiting season over?" the crow demanded.

"For now." I peered into the darkness, trying to make out more details of the golem. There was not enough light. But the demon seemed to be asleep.

Or at least uninterested. Which puzzled me, since I was there to set him free.

I shrugged. His indifference would not slow me down.

I collected Goblin. I led him well out onto the floor of Shivetya's vast hall, away from other ears. Had I brought a lamp along I would have been able to see how lovingly the floor detailed the features of the plain outside.

I reviewed for the little man. "Kina is a very slow thinker. We need to get this done before she understands that we're already here, that we intend to strike, and that we do have a weapon puissant enough to do the job." One-Eye's spear shimmered all the time here. Filaments of fire slithered over it in unpredictable patterns, excitedly. The edges of its head groaned as they sliced the air itself. It seemed to sense that it had come home.

No one could argue that the spear was not a masterpiece of a peculiar sort of art. No one could deny that in creating his masterwork One-Eye had reached a level of inspiration seen nowhere else in his long but rather pathetic life.

Many an artistic masterpiece has fallen into that same category: the sole triumph of the genius of its creator.

"Once we reach the black veil across the stairwell she'll start to realize her danger. You'll have to move fast. Get up as much speed as you can so you can drive the spear as deep as you can. The Lance of Passion wasn't potent enough. But it wasn't made for godslaying. One-Eye's spear is. You could name it Godslayer. You know. You were there during most of the years he worked on it. When we were in Hsien it became his whole career."

Goblin had been there. But that Goblin had been alive, not a ghost still trapped in the flesh it had worn in life. At least part of the time this Goblin was an agent of the very monster this Goblin was going to kill. Or maim. Or just irritate.

As the doubts began to circle round me like Tobo's hidden realm friends I kept right on talking, explaining yet again why he was the only one of us who could make the strike. And he really did find my arguments compelling. Or else his mind was made up and the hopes and wishes of others no longer mattered.

The Goblin thing climbed back aboard his flying post.

I pushed my own forward, so I could see the tip of his and make doubly sure I knew which one he was riding. "Let's go downstairs, then," I said. "I'll be right behind you. Your post is spelled to come back on its own if you're unconscious." He knew. He had been there when Shukrat fixed it to do that. "If that doesn't work I'll swoop in and grab you, drag your ass away. If you want, I even brought an extra hundred yards of line to hook onto your safety harness. We can tie it to your belt."

The little man looked at me like he thought I was trying too hard. He had been working himself up for a suicide mission, convinced that the destruction of his flesh was the only way he could rid himself of his parasite and find rest himself.

I played the whole scam by ear. I had no real idea what Goblin really wanted or what he hoped to achieve with the false life he had been given. I had not been able to guess much about him when he was alive. The only thing I knew for sure was that he was working crippled. Doing without One-Eye was, for him, like doing without one of his limbs.

And he did want to hurt Kina. That was never in doubt.

A long, difficult discussion ended up with me chagrined a bit as I finally got the message that Goblin was not deeply interested in backup that would pull him out if things went sour. He wanted backup that would make sure the job got done even if he failed.

I do not know why I had so much trouble recognizing and understanding Goblin's program. Possibly because I was concentrating on getting things to go forward exactly the way I wanted. Goblin had told me almost everything before, one time or another, when I had been focused enough to ask.

Personally uninclined toward mortal self-sacrifice, I had trouble overriding my cynical nature—particularly as regarded someone as self-indulgent as Goblin had been for so long.

Goblin brandished One-Eye's spear and told me what I had already told him but had not done. "Time to go downstairs, Croaker." He got it all out in a single, bell-tone clear sentence.

I patted myself down. Final check. Still not sure I was ready for this.