Dreams of Steel

Croaker closed his eyes. He could not yet reason closely. He understood only that he was in no immediate danger. The plot was easily voided. He would become a tool of no value, broken.

He put it out of mind. First he had to heal. Time enough later to do what had to be done.

More laughter. This from a woman adult and knowing. “Remember when we campaigned together, Croaker? The trick we played on Raker? The fun we had tormenting Limper?”

He grunted. He remembered. Everything but the fun.

“Remember how you always thought I could read your mind?”

He remembered that. And the terror it had inspired. That old fear crept back.

“You do remember.” She laughed again. “I’m so glad. We’re going to have such fun. The whole world thinks we’re dead. You can get away with anything when you’re dead.” Her laugh gained an edge of madness. “We’ll haunt them, Croaker. That’s what we’ll do.”

He’d regained enough strength to walk. With help. His captor made him walk, forced him to gain strength. But still he slept most of the time. And dreamed terrible dreams when he did.

The place anchored the dreams. He didn’t know that. His dreams told him it wasn’t a good place, that the very trees and earth and stone remembered evils done there.

He felt they were true dreams but found no supporting evidence while he was awake. Unless he counted the ominous crows. Always there were the crows, tens and hundreds and thousands of crows.

Standing in the doorway to their shelter-a half-ruined stone structure, buried in vegetation, in the heart of a dark wood-he asked, “What is this place? The wood where I chased you a few months ago?”

“Yes. It’s the holy grove of those who worship Kina. If we cleared the creepers you could see carved representations. Once it was important to the Black Company, who took it from the Shadar. The ground is filled with bones.”

He turned slowly, looked into her empty cowl. He wouldn’t look at the box she carried. He knew what must be in it. “The Black Company?”

“They made sacrifices here. One hundred thousand prisoners of war.”

Croaker blanched. That wasn’t something he wanted to hear. He had a long romance with the history of the Company. There was no place in that for a wicked past. “Truth?”

“Truth, my love. I’ve seen the books the wizard Smoke concealed from you in Taglios. They include the missing volumes of your A

His stomach knotted. “To what? To whom? Why?” She hesitated. He knew she wasn’t being honest when she said, “That wasn’t clear. Your lieutenant Mogaba might know, though.”

It wasn’t what she said but the way she said it, the voice she used. He shuddered. And he believed. Mogaba had been strange and secretive throughout his association with the Company. What was he doing to the Company’s traditions now?

“Kina’s disciples come here twice a year. Their Festival of Lights comes in a month. We have to finish before then.”

Troubled, Croaker asked, “Why are we here?” “We’re recovering our health.” She laughed. “Where we won’t be bothered. Everyone shuns this place. Once I’ve nursed you back you’re going to help me.” Still amused, she pushed back her cowl. She had no head. She lifted that box she always carried, a battered

thing a foot to a side, opened a little door. A face looked out. It was a beautiful face, like the face of his lover, though less careworn and lacking life’s animation.

Impossible.

His stomach knotted again. He recalled the day that head had been struck from its body, to lie in the dust staring up at him and Lady. Her sister. It had been a blow well-earned. Soulcatcher had betrayed the Lady. Soulcatcher had meant to supplant her sister as ruler of the empire.

“I can’t do anything like that.”

“Of course you can. And you will. Because it will keep both of you alive. We all want to live, don’t we? I want her to live because I want her to hurt. I want to live because I want to watch her hurt. You want to live because of her, because you revere the Company, because...” Gentle laughter. “Because where there’s life there’s hope.”

Chapter Twelve

Thunder stampeded. Silver lightning lashed the wine-dark clouds, cracked the umber sky. A mold-grey horde howled across a basalt plain, toward the golden chariots of the gods.

A figure stepped from the line, ten feet tall, polished ebony, naked, lifting each foot knee-high to the side, then swinging the leg forward and stamping down. The earth shook.

The figure was female, perfection but hairless, wore a girdle of children’s skulls. Her face was protean, one moment radiant dark beauty, the next a nightmare of burning eyes and vampire fangs.

The figure seized a demon and devoured him, rending, tearing, flinging entrails. Demon blood spurted and sprayed. It burned holes in the face of the plain. The figure’s jaws distended. She swallowed the demon’s head whole. A lump ran down her neck like a mouse bulging a snake’s throat.

The horde beset her. And could do her no harm. She devoured another screaming devil, then another and another. With each she grew and waxed more terrible.

“I am here, Daughter. Open to me. I am your dream. I am power.”

The voice floated like gossamer in golden caverns where old men sat beside the way, frozen in time, immortal, unable to move an eyelid. Mad, some covered by fairy webs of ice, as though a thousand spiders had spun with threads of frozen water. Above, an enchanted forest of icicles hung from the cavern roof.

“Come. I am what you seek. You are my child.”

But the footing was treacherous, making it impossible to advance or retreat.

The voice called, summoned, with infinite patience.

This time I remembered both dreams when I wakened. I still shivered with the chill of those caverns. The dream was different every time, I thought, and yet was the same. A summoning.

I’m not stupid. I’ve seen enough incredibilities to know the dreams were more than nightmares. Something had singled me out. Something was trying to recruit me, to what cause I couldn’t yet guess. The method was ancient. I’ve used it a thousand times. Offer power, wealth, whatever the desire is, dangling the lure till the fish bites, never revealing the cost.

Did this thing know me? Unlikely. I was receptive so it was trying to pull me.

I wouldn’t accept it as a god, though it might want to be thought one. I’ve met only one god, Old Father Tree, master of the Plain of Fear. And he’s no god in the accepted sense, only a being of immense longevity and power.

This world has shown me just two beings stronger than I. My husband, the Dominator, whom I cast into oblivion. In a thousand years he may be remembered as a dark god.

And Father Tree, greater than ever I could have been, who has roots anchoring him. He can project his power outside the Plain of Fear only through his servants.

Croaker told me about a third power that lies buried under Father Tree, imprisoned while the tree survives. The tree is immortal by human standards.

Where there are three great powers there could be more. The world is old. Yesterday is shrouded. Those who become great in one age often do so by mining the secrets of ages past. Who knows how many great evils lie beneath this haunted earth?

Who knows but what the gods of all men in all ages are but echoes of those who followed a path like mine and have, nevertheless, fallen victim to implacable time?

Not a thought to soothe the soul. Time is the enemy whose patience can’t be exhausted.

“Mistress? Are you troubled?” Narayan’s grin was absent. He showed genuine concern.

“Oh.” He’d come up quietly. “No. A bad dream that lingered. Nightmares are the coin we pay for doing what we have to do.”