Shadows Linger

He was caught between Resurrectionists and the Lady, all of whom were manipulating him. His accident was their premeditated event. The records say his wife survived. She said he went into the Barrowland to stop what was happening. No one believed her at the time. She claimed he carried the Lady’s true name and wanted to reach her with it before she could wriggle free.

Silent, One-Eye and Goblin will tell you the direst fear of any sorcerer is that knowledge of his true name will fall to some outsider. Bomanz’s wife claimed the Lady’s was encoded in papers her husband possessed. Papers that vanished that night. Papers that I recovered decades later. What Raven snatched may contain the only lever capable of dumping the empire.

Back to the Barrowland in its youth. Impressive construction. Its weather faces were sheathed in limestone. The moat was broad and blue. The surrounding countryside was park-like... But fear of the Dominator faded, and so did appropriations. A later painting, contemporary with Bomanz, shows the countryside gone to seed, the limestone facings in disrepair, and the moat becoming a swamp. Today you can’t tell where the moat was. The limestone has disappeared beneath brush. The elevations and barrows are nothing but humps. That part of the Great Barrow where the Dominator lies remains in fair shape, though it, too, is heavily overgrown. Some of the fetishes anchoring the spells keeping his friends away still stand, but weather has devoured their features.

The edge of the Barrowland is now marked by stakes trailing red flags, put there when the Lady a

That hadn’t been true of the old Taken. Too, the commander of the Guard, called the Monitor, bragged up his command’s past, which stretches back as far as the Company’s. We swapped lies and tales over many a gallon

of beer.

During the fifth week someone discovered something. We peons were not told what. But the Taken got excited. Whisper started lifting in more of the Company. The reinforcements told harrowing fables about the Plain of Fear and the Empty Hills. The Company was at Lords now, only five hundred miles distant.

At the end of the sixth week Whisper assembled us and a

A thrill of fear. I didn’t want her getting interested again.

“Where’re we headed?” Elmo asked. Professional to the core, the son-of-a-bitch. Not a single complaint.

“A city called Juniper. Way beyond the western bounds of the empire. It’s co

Juniper? Never heard of it. Neither had anyone else. Not even the Monitor. I scrounged through his maps till I found one showing the western coast. Juniper was way up north, near where the ice persists all year long. It was a big city. I wondered how it could exist there, where it should be frozen all the time. I asked Whisper. She seemed to know something about the place. She said Juniper benefits from an ocean current that brings warm water north. She said the city is very strange-according to Feather, who’d actually been there.

I approached Feather next, only hours before our departure. She couldn’t tell me much more, except that Juniper is the demense of a Duke Zimerlan, and he appealed to the Lady a year ago (just a while before the Captain’s courier letter would have left Charm) for help solving a local problem. That someone had approached the Lady, when the world’s desire is to keep her far away, argued that we faced interesting times. I wondered about the co

The negative was that Juniper was so far away. I was pleased that I would be there when the Captain learned he was expected to head there after resting in Oar, though.

Could be I’d hear his howl of outrage even from that far. I knew he wouldn’t be happy.

Chapter Thirteen

Juniper

The Enclosure

Shed slept badly for weeks. He dreamt of black glass walls and a man who hadn’t been dead. Twice Raven asked him to join a night hunt. Twice he refused. Raven did not press, though they both knew Shed would jump if he insisted. Shed prayed that Raven would get rich and disappear. He remained a constant irritant to the conscience.

Damnit, why didn’t Krage go after him?

Shed couldn’t figure why Raven remained unperturbed by Krage. The man was neither a fool nor stupid. The alternative, that he wasn’t scared, made no sense. Not to a Matron Shed. Asa remained on Krage’s payroll, but visited regularly, bringing firewood. By the wagonload, sometimes. “What’re you up to?” Shed demanded one day. “Trying to build credit,” Asa admitted.

“Krage’s guys don’t like me much.”

“Hardly anybody does, Asa.”

“They might try something nasty...”

“Want a place to hide when they turn on you, eh? What’re you doing for Krage? Why is he bothering with you?”

Asa hemmed and hawed. Shed pushed. Here was a man he could bully. “I watch Raven, Shed. I report what he does.”

Shed snorted. Krage was using Asa because he was expendable. He’d had two men disappear early on. Shed thought he knew where they were. Sudden fear. Suppose Asa reported Raven’s night adventures? Suppose he’d seen Shed...

Impossible. Asa couldn’t have kept quiet. Asa spent his life looking for leverage.

“You’ve been spending a lot lately, Asa. Where are you getting the money?”

Asa turned pale. He looked around, gobbled a few times. “The wood, Shed. Selling the wood.”

“You’re a liar, Asa. Where’re you getting it?”

“Shed, you don’t ask questions like that.”

“Maybe not. But I need money bad. I owe Krage. I almost had him paid off. Then he started buying my little debts from everybody else. That damned Gilbert! ... I need to get ahead enough so I don’t have to borrow again.”

The black castle. Two hundred twenty pieces of silver. How he had been tempted to attack Raven. And Raven just smiled into the wind, knowing exactly what he was thinking. “Where’re you getting that money, Asa?”

“Where did you get the money you paid Krage? Huh? People are wondering, Shed. You don’t come up with that kind of money overnight. Not you. You tell me and I’ll tell you.” Shed backed down. Asa beamed in triumph.

“You little snake. Get out before I lose my temper.” Asa fled. He looked back once, face knotted thoughtfully. Damnit, Shed thought. Made him suspicious. He ground his rag into a tacky mug.

“What was that?”

Shed spun. Raven had come to the counter. His look brooked no crap. Shed gave him the gist.

“So Krage hasn’t quit.”

“You don’t know him or you wouldn’t ask. It’s you or him, Raven.”

“Then it has to be him, doesn’t it?”

Shed gaped. “A suggestion, Shed. Follow your friend when he goes wood-gathering.” Raven returned to his seat. He spoke to Darling animatedly, in sign, which he blocked from Shed’s view. The set of the girl’s shoulders said she was against whatever it was he was proposing. Ten minutes later he left the Lily. Each afternoon he went out for a few hours. Shed suspected he was testing Krage’s watchers.

Darling leaned against the door frame, watching the street. Shed watched her, his gaze sliding up and down her frame. Raven’s, he thought. They’re thick. I don’t dare. But she was such a fine looking thing, tall, lean of leg, ready for a man... He was a fool. He did not need to get caught in that trap, too. He had troubles enough. “I think today would be good for it,” Raven said as Shed delivered his breakfast. “Eh? Good for what?” “For a hike up the hill to watch friend Asa.” “Oh. No. I can’t. Got nobody to watch the place.” Back by the counter, Darling bent to pick something off the floor. Shed’s eyes widened and his heart fluttered. He had to do something. Visit a whore, or something. Or get hurt. But he couldn’t afford to pay for it. “Darling couldn’t handle it alone.”