Raven thought he would have done things differently had he been in charge back when.
Vaguely, Raven recalled some things passing nearby, shades like himself. But he knew not how long ago, or even what they were. Things moved at times, and one could tell nothing certain. The world had a whole different look from this perspective.
Never had he been so helpless, so frightened. He did not like the feeling. Always he had been master of his destiny, dependent upon no one...
There was, in that world, nothing to do but think. Too much, too often, his thoughts came back to what it meant to be Raven, to things Raven had done and not done and should have done differently. There was time to identify and at least confront all the fears and pains and weaknesses of the inside man, all of which had created the ice and iron and fearless mask he had presented to the world. All those things which had cost him everything he had valued and which had driven him into the fangs of death again and again, in self-punishment...
Too late. Far too late.
When his thoughts cleared and coagulated and he reached this point, he sent shrieks of anger echoing through the spirit world. And those who surrounded him and hated him for what he might have triggered, laughed and reveled in his torment.
Forty-Eight
Flight west
Despite my exoneration by the tree, I never quite regained my former status with my comrades. Always there was a certain reserve, perhaps as much from envy of my apparent sudden female wealth as from trust slow to heal. I cannot deny the pain it caused me. I had been with those guys since I was a boy. They were my family.
I did take some ribbing about getting onto crutches in order to get out of work. But my work would have gone on had I had no legs at all.
Those damned papers. I had them committed to memory, set to music. And still I did not have the key we sought, nor what the Lady hoped to find. The cross-referencing was taking forever. The spelling of names, in pre-Domination and Domination times, had been free-form. KurreTelle is one of those languages where various letter combinations can represent identical sounds.
Pain in the damned fundament.
I do not know how much Darling told the others. I was not at the Big Meeting. Neither was the Lady. But word came out: The Company was moving out.
One day to get ready.
Topside, near nightfall, on my crutches, I watched the windwhales arrive. There were eighteen of them, all summoned by Father Tree. They came with their mantas and a whole panoply of Plain sentient forms. Three dropped to the ground. The Hole puked up its contents.
We began boarding. I got a ration because I had to be lifted, along with my papers, gear, and crutches. The whale was a small one. I would share it with just a few people. The Lady. Of course. We could not be separated now. And Goblin. And One-Eye. And Silent, after a bloody sign battle, for he did not want to be separated from Darling. And Tracker. And the child of the tree, for whom Tracker was guardian and I was in loco parentis. I think the wizards were supposed to keep an eye on the rest of us, though little they could have done had a situation presented itself.
Darling, the Lieutenant, Elmo, and the other old hands boarded a second windwhale. The third carried a handful of troops and a lot of gear.
We lifted off, joined the formation above.
A sunset from five thousand feet is unlike anything you will see from the ground. Unless you are atop a very lonely mountain. Magnificent.
With darkness came sleep. One-Eye spelled me under. I still had a good deal of swelling and pain.
Yes. We were outside the null. Our whale flew the far flank from Darling. Specifically for the Lady’s benefit.
Even then she did not give herself away.
The winds were favorable and we had the blessing of Father Tree. Dawn found us passing over Horse. It was there the truth finally surfaced.
Taken came up, all in their fish-carpets, armed to the gills.
Panic noises wakened me. I got Tracker to help me stand. After one glance at the fire of the rising sun, I spied the Taken drifting into guardian positions around our whale. Goblin and them expected an attack. They howled their hearts out. Somehow One-Eye found a way for it all to be Goblin’s fault. They went at it.
But nothing happened. Almost to my surprise, too. The Taken merely maintained station. I glanced at the Lady. She startled me with a wink. Then: “We all have to cooperate, whatever our differences.”
Goblin heard that. He ignored One-Eye’s ranting for a moment, stared at the Taken. After a bit he looked at the Lady. Really looked.
I saw the light dawn. In a more than normally squeaky voice, and with a truly goofy look, he said, “I remember you.” He remembered the one time he had had a sort of direct contact with her. Many years ago, when he tried to contact Soulcatcher, he had caught her in the Tower, in the Lady’s presence...
She smiled her most charming smile. The one that melts statues.
Goblin threw a hand in front of his eyes, turned away from her. He looked at me with the most awful expression. I could not help laughing. “You always accused me...”
“You didn’t have to go and do it, Croaker!” His voice climbed the scale till it became inaudible. He sat down abruptly.
No lightning bolt splattered him across the sky. After a time he looked up and said, “Elmo is going to crap!” He giggled.
Elmo was the most unremitting of them all when it came to reminding me of my romances about the Lady.
After the humor went out of it, after One-Eye had been through it, too, and Silent had had his worst fears confirmed, I began to wonder about my friends.
One and all, they were westward bound on Darling’s say-so. They had not been informed, in so many words, that we were allied with our former enemies.
Fools. Or was Darling? What happened once the Domi-nator was down and we were ready to go after each other again?...
Whoa, Croaker. Darling learned to play cards from Raven. Raven was a cutthroat player.
It was the Forest of Cloud by nightfall. I wonder what they made of us in Lords. We passed right over. The streets filled with gawkers.
Roses passed in the night. Then the other old cities of our early years in the north. There was little talk. The Lady and I kept our heads together, growing more tense as our strange fleet neared its destination and we drew no nearer unearthing the nuggets we sought.
“How long?” I asked. I had lost track of time.
“Forty-two days,” she said.
“We were in the desert that long?”
“Time flies when you’re having fun.”
I gave her a startled look. A joke? Even an old cliche? From her?
I hate it when they go human on you. Enemies are not supposed to do that.
She had been crawling all over me with it for a couple months.
How can you hate?
The weather stayed halfway decent till we got to Forsberg. Then it became clabbered misery.
It was solid winter up there. Good, briskly refreshing winds loaded up with pellets of powder snow. A nice abrasive for a tender face like mine. A bombardment to clear out the lice on the backs of the whales, too. Everybody cussed and fussed and grumbled and huddled for warmth that dared not be provided by man’s traditional ally, fire. Only Tracker seemed untouched. “Don’t anything bother that thing?” I asked.
In the oddest voice I ever heard her use, the Lady replied, “Loneliness. If you want to kill Tracker the easy way, lock him up alone and go away.”
I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. Whom did I know who had been alone a long time? Who, maybe, just maybe, had begun to wonder if absolute power were worth the absolute price?
I knew beyond the glimmer of doubt that she had enjoyed every second of pretend on the Plain. Even the moments of danger. I knew that had I had the hair on my ass, there in the last days, I could have become more than a pretend boyfriend. There was a growing and quiet desperation to her in that time as going back to being the Lady approached.