Shadow Games

She shivered in my grasp like a captive mouse. “What is it?” I whispered.

“Shh,” she said. And that was the best thing she could have said. But she could not leave it there. She had to add, “I never ... I never did this...”

Well, shit. She sure knew how to distract a man, and put a thousand reservations into his mind.

That moon climbed the sky. We began to relax with each other. Somehow, there were fewer rags separating us.

She stiffened. The mist went out of her eyes. She lifted her head and stared past me, face slack.

If one of those clowns had sneaked up to watch I was going to break his kneecaps. I turned.

We did not have company. She was watching the flash of a distant storm. “Heat lightning,” I said.

“You think so? It doesn’t seem much farther off than the Temple. And we never saw a storm the whole time we were crossing that country.”

Jagged lightning bolts ripped down like a fall of javelins.

That feeling I had discussed with One-Eye redoubled.

“I don’t know, Croaker.” She began gathering her clothing. “The pattern seems familiar.”

I followed her lead, relieved. I am not sure I would have been able to finish what we started. I was distracted now.

“Another time will be better, I think,” she said, still staring at that lightning. “That is too distracting.”

We returned to camp to find everyone awake yet totally uninterested in the fact that we had been away together. The view was not as good from below, but flashes could be seen. They did not let up.

“There’s sorcery out there, Croaker,” One-Eye said.

Goblin nodded. “The heavy stuff. You can feel the screaming edges of it from here.”

“How far away?” I asked.

“About two days. Close to that place we stopped.”

I shivered. “Can you tell what it’s about?”

Goblin said nothing. One-Eye shook his head. “All I can tell you is I’m glad I’m here and not there.” I agreed, even in my ignorance of what was happening.

Murgen blanched. He pointed over the book he was studying, which he held out like a protective fetish. “Did you see that?”

I was looking at Lady and brooding about my luck. The others could sweat the little stuff, like some bloody sorcerers’ duel fifty miles away. I had troubles of my own.

“What?” I grumbled, knowing he wanted a response.

“It looked like a giant bird. I mean, like one with a twenty-mile wingspan. That you could see through.”

I looked up. Goblin nodded. He had seen it, too. I looked to the north. The lightning ended, but some pretty fierce fires had to be burning up there. “One-Eye. Your new buddies there got any idea what’s going on?”

The little black man shook his head. He had the brim of his hat pulled forward, cutting his line of sight. That business up there-whatever it was-had him rattled. By his own admission he is the greatest wizard ever produced by his part of the world. With the possible exception of his dead brother, Tom-Tom. Whatever that was out there, it was alien. It did not belong.

“Times change,” I suggested.

“Not around here, they don’t. And if they did, these guys would know about it.” Wheezer nodded vigorous agreement although he could not have understood a word. He hawked and spat a brown glob into the fire.

I had a feeling I was going to have as much fun with him as I did with One-Eye. “What is that crap he’s all the time chewing? It’s disgusting.”

“Qat,” One-Eye said. “A mild narcotic. Doesn’t do his lungs any good, but when he’s chewing it he doesn’t care how much they hurt him.” He said it lightly, but he meant it.

I nodded uncomfortably, looked away. “Quieting down up there.”

No one had anything to say to that.

“We’re all awake,” I said. “So get packing. I want to move out as soon as we can see to walk.”

I did not get a bit of argument. Wheezer nodded and spat. Goblin grunted and started getting his things together. The others followed his example, Murgen putting the book away with a care that I approved. The boy might make an A

When I was not looking that way, or tormenting myself with glances at Lady, I tried to get an estimate of the reactions of the newer men. We had encountered no sorcery directly yet, but the Company has a way of stumbling into its path. They seemed no more uncomfortable than the old hands.

Glances at Lady. I wondered if what seemed inevitable on the one hand and foredoomed on the other would ever cease crackling between us. So long as it did it would distort everything else in our relationship. Hell. I liked her fine as a friend.

There is nothing so unreasonable and irrational and blind-and just plain silly-looking-as a man who works himself into an obsessive passion.

Women do not look as foolish. They are expected to be weak. But they are also expected to become savage bitches when they are frustrated.

Chapter Thirteen

Willow’s last night little

Willow, Cordy Mather, and Blade still had their tavern. Mainly because they had the countenance of the Prah-brindrah Drah. Business wasn’t good now. The priests found out they couldn’t control the foreigners. So they put them off limits. A lot of Taglians did what the priests told them.

“Shows you how much sense people have,” Blade said. “They had any, they would take the priests to the river and hold them under an hour to remind them they drone like termites.”

Willow said, “Man, you got to be the sourest son of a bitch I ever seen. I bet if we hadn’t dragged you out, those crocs would of thrown you back. Too rancid to eat.”

Blade just gri

Willow asked Cordy, “You reckon it was priests that throwed him in?”

“Yeah.”

“Good house tonight. For once.”

“Yeah.”

“Tomorrow’s the day.” Willow took a long drink. Cordy’s brew was getting better. Then he stood up and hammered the bar with his empty mug. In Taglian he said, “We who are about to die salute you. Drink and be merry, children. For tomorrow, and so forth. On the house.” He sat down.

Cordy said, “You know how to cheer a place up, don’t you?”

“You figure we got anything to be cheerful about? They’ll screw it up. You know they will. All those priests mucking about in it? I tell you right out, I get my chance there’s a couple accidentally ain’t going to come back from out there.”

Cordy nodded and kept his mouth shut. Willow Swan was a lot more bark than bite.

Swan grumbled, “Up the river if this works out. I’ll tell you something, Cordy. These feet get to moving that direction they’re just going to keep on shuffling.”

“Sure, Willow. Sure.”

“You don’t believe me, do you?”

“I believe everything you tell me, Willow. If I didn’t, would I be here, up to my neck, wallowing in rubies and pearls and gold doubloons?”

“Man, what do you expect of someplace nobody ever heard of six thousand miles past the edge of any map anybody ever seen?”

Blade came back. “Nerves getting you guys?”

“Nerves? What nerves? They didn’t put no nerves in when they made Willow Swan.”