The White Rose

Chapter Nine: THE PLAIN OF FEAR

The Lieutenant himself stirred me out. "Elmo's back, Croaker. Eat some breakfast, then report to the conference room." He was a sour man getting sourer every day. Sometimes I regret having voted for him after the Captain died in Juniper. But the Captain wished it. It was his dying request.

"Be there soonest," I said, piling out without my customary growl. I grabbed clothing, stirred papers, silently mocked myself. How often did I doubt voting for the Captain himself? Yet when he wanted to resign, we did not let him.

My quarters look nothing like a physician's den. The walls are floor to ceiling with old books. I have read most, after having studied the languages in which they are written. Some are as old as the Company itself, recounting ancient histories. Some are noble genealogies, stolen from widely dispersed old temples and civil offices. The rarest, and most interesting, chronicle the rise and growth of the Domination.

The rarest of all are those in TelleKurre. The followers of the White Rose were not gentle victors. They burned books and cities, transported women and children, profaned ancient works of art and famous shrines. The customary afterglow of a great conflagration.

So there is little left to key one into the languages and thinking and history of the losers. Some of the most plainly written documents I possess remain totally inaccessible.

How I wish Raven were with us still, instead of dwelling among the dead men. He had a passing familiarity with written TelleKurre. Few outside the Lady's intimate circle do.

Goblin stuck his head in. "You coming or not?"

I cried on his shoulder. It was the old lament. No progress. He laughed. "Go blow in your girlfriend's ear. She might help."

"When will you guys let up?" It had been fifteen years since I wrote my last simpleminded romance about the Lady. That was before the long retreat which led the Rebel to his doom before the Tower at Charm. They do not let you forget.

"Never, Croaker. Never. Who else has spent the night with her? Who else goes carpet-flying with her?"

I would rather forget. Those were times of terror, not romance.

She became aware of my annalistic endeavors and asked me to show her side. More or less. She did not censor or dictate, but did insist I remain factual and impartial. I recall thinking she expected defeat, wanted an unbiased history set down somewhere.

Goblin glanced at the mound of documents. "You can't get any handle on it?"

"I don't think there is a handle. Everything I do translate turns out a big nothing. Somebody's expense record. An appointment calendar. A promotions list. A letter from some officer to a friend at court. Everything way older than what I'm looking for."

Goblin raised an eyebrow.

"I'll keep on trying." There was something there. We took them from Whisper, when she was a Rebel. They meant a lot to her. And our mentor then, Soulcatcher, thought them of empire-toppling significance.

Thoughtfully, Goblin remarked, "Sometimes the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Maybe you should look for what ties it all together."

The thought had occurred to me. A name here, there, elsewhere, revealing the wake of someone through his or her earlier days. Maybe I would find it. The comet would not return for a long time.

But I had my doubts.

Darling is a young thing yet, just into her middle twenties. But the bloom of youth has abandoned her. Hard years have piled on hard years. There is little feminine about her. She had no chance to develop in that direction. Even after two years on the Plain none of us think of her as Woman.

She is tall, maybe two inches under six feet. Her eyes are a washed-out blue that often seems vacant, but they become swords of ice when she is thwarted. Her hair is blonde, as from much exposure to the sun. Without continuous attention it hangs in straggles and strings. Not vain, she keeps it shorter than is stylish. In dress, too, she leans toward the utilitarian. Some first-time visitors are offended because she dresses so masculine. But she leaves them with no doubts that she can handle business.

Her role came to her unwanted, but she has made peace with it, has assumed it with stubborn determination. She shows a wisdom remarkable for her age, and for one handicapped as she is. Raven taught her well during those few years he was her guardian.

She was pacing when I arrived. The conference room is earth-sided, smokey, crowded even when empty. It smells of long occupation by too many unclean men. The old messenger from Oar was there. So were Tracker and Corder and several other outsiders. Most of the Company were present. I finger-signed a greeting. Darling gave me a sisterly hug, asked if I had any progress to report.

I spoke for the group and signed for her. "I am sure we don't have all the documents we found in the Forest of Cloud. Not just because I can't identify what I'm looking for, either. Everything I do have is too old."

Darling's features are regular. Nothing stands out. Yet you sense character, will, that this woman cannot be broken. She has been to Hell already. It did not touch her as a child. She will not be touched now.

She was not pleased. She signed, "We will not have the time we thought."

My attention was half elsewhere. I had hoped for sparks between Tracker and the other westerner. On a gut level I had responded negatively to Tracker. I found myself with an irrational hope for evidence to sustain that reaction.

Nothing.

Not surprising. The cell structure of the movement keeps our sympathizers insulated from one another.

Darling wanted to hear from Goblin and One-Eye next. Goblin used his squeakiest voice. "Everything we heard is true. They are reinforcing their garrisons. But Corder can tell you better. For us, the mission was a bust. They were ready. They chased us all over the Plain. We were lucky to get away. We didn't get no help, either."

The menhirs and their weird pals are on our side, supposedly. Sometimes I wonder. They are unpredictable. They help or don't according to a formula only they understand.

Darling was little interested in details of the failed raid. She moved on to Corder. He said, "Armies are gathering on both sides of the Plain. Under command of the Taken."

"Taken?" I asked. I knew of only the two. He sounded like he meant many.

A chill then. There is a longtime rumor that the Lady has been quiet so long because she is raising a new crop of Taken. I had not believed it. The age is sorrowfully short of characters of the magnificently villainous vitality of those the Dominator took in olden times: Soulcatcher, the Hanged Man, Nightcrawler, Shapeshifter, the Limper, and such. Those were nastymen of the grand scope, nearly as wild and hairy in their wickedness as the Lady and Dominator themselves. This is the era of the weak sister, excepting only Darling and Whisper.

Corder responded shyly. "The rumors are true, Lord."

Lord. Me. Because I stand near the heart of the dream. I hate it, yet eat it up. "Yes?"

"They may not be Stormbringers or Howlers, these new Taken." He smiled feebly. "Sir Tucker observed that the old Taken were wild devils as unpredictable as the lightning, and the new ones are the predictable tame thunder of bureaucracy. If you follow my meaning."

"I do. Go on."

"It is believed that there are six new ones, Lord. Sir Tucker believes they are about to be unleashed. Thus the great buildup around the Plain. Sir Tucker believes the Lady has made a competition of our destruction."

Tucker. Our most dedicated agent. One of the few survivors of the long siege of Rust. His hatred knows no bounds.

Corder had a strange look. A green-around-the-edges look. A look that said there was more, and all bad. "Well?" I said. "Spit it out."

"The names of the Taken have been enscribed on stellae raised in their respective demenses. At Rust the army commander is named Benefice. His Stella appeared after a carpet arrived by night. He has not actually been seen."

That bore investigation. Only the Taken can manage a carpet. But no carpet can reach Rust without crossing the Plain of Fear. The menhirs have reported no such passage. "Benefice? Interesting name. The others?"

"In Thud the Stella bears the name Blister."

Chuckles. I said, "I liked it better when the names were descriptive. Like the Limper, Moonbiter, the Faceless Man."

"At Frost we have one called the Creeper."

"That's better." Darling gave me a cautionary look.

"At Rue there is one called Learned. And at Hull, one called Scorn."

"Scorn. I like that, too."

"The western bounds of the Plain are held by Whisper and Journey, both operating from a village called Spit."

Being a natural mathematical phenom, I summed and said, "That's five new ones and two old. Where is the other new one?"

"I don't know. The only other is the commander over all. His Stella stands in the military compound outside Rust."

The way he said that abraded my nerves. He was pale. He started shaking. A premonition gripped me. I knew I would not like what he said next. But, "Well?"

"That Stella bears the sigil of the Limper."

Right. So right. I did not like it at all.

The feeling was universal.

"Oh!" Goblin shrieked.

One-Eye said, "Holy shit," in a soft awed tone that was all the more meaningful for its reserve.

I sat down. Right there. Right in the middle of the floor. I folded my head in my hands. I wanted to cry. "Impossible," I said. "I killed him. With my own hands." And saying it, I did not believe it anymore, though I had had faith in that fact for years. "But how?"

"Can't keep a good man down," Elmo chided. That he was shaken was evidenced by the smart remark. Elmo says nothing gratuitously.

The feud between the Limper and the Company dates to our arrival north of the Sea of Torments, for it was then that we enlisted Raven, a mysterious native of Opal, a man of former high estate who had been done out of his titles and livings by minions of the Limper. Raven was as tough as they come, and utterly fearless. The robbery sanctioned by Taken or not, he struck back. He slew the villains, among them the Limper's most competent people. Then our path kept crossing the Limper's. Each time something worsened the weather between us…

In the confusion after Juniper, Limper thought to settle with us. I engineered an ambush. He charged in. "I would have bet anything I killed him." I tell you, at that moment I was as rattled as ever I have been. I was on the precipice of panic.

One-Eye noticed. "Don't get hysterical, Croaker. We survived him before."

"He's one of the old ones, idiot! One of the real Taken. From times when they had real wizards. And he's never really been allowed to go full speed at us before. And with all that help." Eight Taken and five armies to assault the Plain of Fear. Seldom were there more than seventy of us here in the Hole.

My head filled with terrible visions. Those Taken might be second-rate, but they were so many. Their fury would fire the Plain. Whisper and the Limper have campaigned here before. They are not ignorant of the Plain's perils. In fact, Whisper battled here both as a Rebel and as Taken. She won most of the most famous battles of the eastern war.

Reason reasserted itself but did little to brighten tomorrow. Once I thought, I reached the inescapeable conclusion that Whisper knows the Plain too well. Might even have allies out here.

Darling touched my shoulder. That was more calming than any words from friends. Her confidence is contagious. She signed, "Now we know," and smiled.

Still, time has become a hanging hammer about to fall. The long wait for the comet has been rendered irrelevant. We have to survive right now. Trying for a bright side, I said, "The Limper's true name is somewhere in my document collection."

But that recalled my problem. "Darling, the specific document I want is not there."

She raised an eyebrow. Unable to speak, she has developed one of the most expressive faces I've ever seen.

"We have to have a sit-down. When you have time. To go over exactly what happened to those papers while Raven had them. Some are missing. They were there when I turned them over to Soulcatcher. They were there when I got them back from her. I am sure they were there when Raven took them. What happened to them later?"

"Tonight," she signed. "I will make time." She seemed distracted suddenly. Because I mentioned Raven? He meant a lot to her, but you'd think the edge would be off by now. Unless there was more to the story than I knew. And that was plenty possible. I really have no idea what their relationship became in the years after Raven left the Company. His death certainly bothers her still. Because it was so pointless. I mean, after surviving everything the shadow threw his way, he drowned in a public bath.

The Lieutenant says there are nights she cries herself to sleep. He does not know why, but he suspects Raven is at the root.

I have asked her about those years when they were on their own, but she will not tell the tale. The emotional impression I get is one of sorrow and grave disappointment.

She pushed her troubles away now, turned to Tracker and his mutt. Behind them, the men Elmo caught on the bluff squirmed. Their turn was coming. They knew the reputation of the Black Company.

But we did not get to them. Nor even to Tracker and Toadkiller Dog. For the watch above shrieked another alert.

This was getting tiresome.

The rider crossed the stream as I entered the coral. Water splashed. His mount staggered. It was covered with foam. Never again would it run well. It hurt me to see an animal so broken. But its rider had cause.

Two Taken darted about just beyond the bound of the null. One flung a violet bolt. It perished long before it reached us. One-Eye cackled and raised a middle finger. "Always wanted to do that."

"Oh, wonder of wonders," Goblin squeaked, looking the other way. A number of mantas, big blue-blacks, soared off the rosy bluffs, caught updrafts. Must have been a dozen, though they were hard to count, maneuvering as they did to avoid stealing one another's wind. These were giants of their kind. Their wings spanned almost a hundred feet. When they were high enough, they dove at the Taken in pairs.

The rider halted, fell. He had an arrow in his back. He remained conscious just long enough to gasp, "Tokens!"

The first manta pair, seeming to move with slow stately grace, though actually they streaked ten times faster than a man can run, ripped past the nearer Taken just inside Darling's null. Each loosed a brilliant lightning bolt. Lightning could speed where Taken witchery would not survive.

One bolt hit. Taken and carpet reeled, glowed briefly. Smoke appeared. The carpet twisted and spun earthward. We sent up a ragged cheer.

The Taken regained control, rose clumsily, drifted away.

I knelt by the messenger. He was little more than a boy. He was alive. He had a chance if I got to work. "A little help here! One-Eye."

Manta pairs ripped along the boundary of the null, blasting away at the second Taken. This one evaded effortlessly, did nothing to fight back. "That's Whisper," Elmo said.

"Yeah," I said. She knows her way around.

One-Eye grumbled, "You going to help this kid or not, Croaker?"

"All right. All right." I hated to miss the show. It was the first I had seen so many mantas, the first I had seen them support us. I wanted to see more.

"Well," said Elmo, while calming the boy's horse and going through his saddlebags, "another missive for our esteemed annalist." He proffered another oilskin packet. Baffled, I tucked it under my arm, then helped One-Eye carry the messenger down into the Hole.