Glen Cook - Black Company 3-3 - Water Sleeps

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Water Sleeps

WATER SLEEPS

by Glen Cook

The Eighth Chronicle of the Black Company

In those days the Black Company did not exist. This I know because there were

laws and decrees that told me so. But I did not feel entirely insubstantial.

The Company standard, its Captain and Lieutenant, its Standardbearer and all

the men who had made the Company so terrible, had passed on, having been

buried alive at the heart of a vast desert of stone. "Glittering stone," they

whispered in the streets and alleys of Taglios, and "Gone to Khatovar," they

proclaimed from on high, the mighty making what they had been so determined to

prevent for so long over into a great triumph once the Radisha or Protector or

somebody decided that people ought to believe that the Company had fulfilled

its destiny.

Anyone old enough to remember the Company knew better. Only fifty people had

ventured out onto that plain of glittering stone. Half of those people had not

been Company. Only two of those fifty had returned to lie about what had

happened. And a third who had come back to retail the truth had been killed in

the Kiaulune wars, far away from the capital. But the deceits of Soulcatcher

and Willow Swan fooled no one, then or now. People simply pretended to believe

them because that was safer.

They might have asked why Mogaba needed five years to conquer a Company that

had passed on, squandering thousands of young lives to bring the Kiaulune

domains under the Radisha's rule and into the realm of the Protector's twisted

truths. They might have mentioned that people claiming to be Black Company had

held out in the fortress Overlook for years after that, until the Protector,

Soulcatcher, finally became so impatient with their intransigence that she

invested her own best sorceries in a two-year project that reduced that huge

fortress to white powder, white rubble and white bones. They might have raised

these points. But they remained silent instead. They were afraid. With cause,

they were afraid.

The Taglian empire under the Protectorate is an empire of fear.

During the years of defiance, one unknown hero won Soulcatcher's eternal

hatred by sabotaging the Shadowgate, the sole gateway to the glittering plain.

Soulcatcher was the most powerful sorcerer alive. She might have become a

Shadowmaster to eclipse those monsters the Company had pulled down during its

earlier wars on Taglios' behalf. But with the Shadowgate sealed she could not

conjure killer shadows more powerful than the few score she had controlled

when she worked her treachery on the Company.

Oh, she could open the Shadowgate. One time. She did not know how to close it

again, though. Meaning everything inside would be free to wriggle out and

begin tormenting the world.

Meaning that for Soulcatcher, party to so few of the secrets, the choice must

be all or very little. The end of the world or making do.

For the moment she is making do. And pursuing continuous researches. She is

the Protector. Fear of her steeps the empire. There are no challenges to her

terror. But even she knows this age of dark concord cannot endure.

Water sleeps.

In their homes, in the shadowed alleyways, in the city's ten thousand temples,

nervous whispers never cease. The Year of the Skulls. The Year of the Skulls.

It is an age when no gods die and those that sleep keep stirring restlessly.

In their homes, in the shadowed alleyways or fields of grain or in the sodden

paddies, in the pastures and forests and tributary cities, should a comet be

seen in the sky or should an unseasonable storm strew devastation or,

particularly, if the earth should shake, they murmur, "Water sleeps." And they

are afraid.

They call me Sleepy. I was withdrawn as a child, hiding from the horrors of my

childhood inside the comfort and emotional safety of daydreams and nightmares.

Any time I did not have to work, I went away in there to hide. The evil could

not touch me there. I knew no safer place till the Black Company came to

Jaicur.

My brothers accused me of sleeping all the time. They resented my ability to

get away. They did not understand. They died without ever understanding. I

slept on. I did not waken fully till I had been with the Company for several

years.

I keep these Annals today. Somebody must and no one else can, though the

Annalist title never devolved upon me formally.

There is precedent.

The books must be written. The truth must be recorded even if fate decrees

that no man ever reads a word I write. The Annals are the soul of the Black

Company. They recall that this is who we are. That this is who we were. That

we persevere. And that treachery, as it ever has, failed to suck the last drop

of our blood.

We no longer exist. The Protector tells us so. The Radisha swears it. Mogaba,

that mighty general with his thousand dark honors, sneers at our memory and

spits on our name. People in the streets declare us no more than an evil,

haunting memory. But only Soulcatcher does not watch over both shoulders to

see what might be gaining ground.

We are stubborn ghosts. We will not lie down. We will not cease to haunt them.

We have done nothing for a long time but they remain afraid. Their guilt

cannot stop whispering our name.

They should be afraid.

Somewhere in Taglios, every day, a message appears upon a wall, written in

chalk or paint or even animal blood. Just a gentle reminder: Water Sleeps.

Everyone knows what that means. They whisper it, aware that there is an enemy

out there more restless than running water. An enemy who will, somehow,

someday, lurch forth from the mouth of his grave and come for those who played

at betrayal. They know no power that can prevent it. They were warned ten

thousand times before they gave in to temptation. No evil can preserve them.

Mogaba is afraid.

Radisha is afraid.

Willow Swan is so afraid he barely functions, like the wizard Smoke before

him, whom he indicted and tormented for his cowardice. Swan knew the Company

of old, in the north, before anyone here recognized it as more than a dark

memory of ancient terror. The years have seen no calluses form on Swan's fear.

Purohita Drupada is afraid.

Inspector-General Gokhale is afraid.

Only the Protector is not afraid. Soulcatcher fears nothing. Soulcatcher does

not care. She mocks and defies the demon. She is mad. She will laugh and be

entertained while being consumed by fire.

Her lack of fear leaves her henchmen that much more troubled. They know she

will drive them before her, into the grinding jaws of destiny.

Occasionally a wall will carry another message, a more personal note: All

Their Days Are Numbered.

I am in the streets every day, either going to work, going to spy, listening,

capturing rumors or launching new ones within the anonymity of Chor Bagan, the

Thieves' Garden even the Greys have not yet been able to extirpate. I used to

disguise myself as a prostitute but that proved to be too dangerous. There are

people out there who make the Protector seem a paragon of sanity. It is the

world's great good fortune that fate denies them the power to exercise the

fullest depth and sweep of their psychoses.

Mostly I go around as a young man, the way I always did. Rootless young men

are everywhere since the end of the wars.

The more bizarre the new rumor, the faster it explodes out of Chor Bagan and

the more strongly it gnaws the nerves of our enemies. Always, always, Taglios

must enjoy a sense of grim premonition. We must provide them their ration of

omens, signs and portents.

The Protector hunts us in her more lucid moments but she never remains

interested long. She cannot keep her attention fixed on anything. And why

should she be concerned? We are dead. We no longer exist. She herself has

declared that to be the reality. As Protector, she is the great arbiter of

reality for the entire Taglian empire.

But: Water Sleeps.

In those days the spine of the Company was a woman who never formally joined,

the witch Ky Sahra, wife of my predecessor as Annalist, Murgen, the

Standardbearer. Ky Sahra was a clever woman with a will like sharp steel. Even

Goblin and One-Eye deferred to her. She would not be intimidated, not even by

her wicked old Uncle Doj. She feared the Protector, the Radisha and the Greys

no more than she feared a cabbage. The malice of evils as great as the deadly

cult of Deceivers, their messiah the Daughter of Night and their goddess Kina,

intimidated Sahra not at all. She had looked into the heart of darkness. Its

secrets inspired in her no dread. Only one thing made Sahra tremble.

Her mother, Ky Gota, was the incarnation of dissatisfaction and complaint. Her

lamentations and reproaches were of such amazing potency that it seemed she

must be an avatar of some cranky old deity as yet undiscovered by man.

Nobody loves Ky Gota except One-Eye. And even he calls her the Troll behind

her back.

Sahra shuddered as her mother limped slowly through a room gone suddenly

silent. We were not in power now. We had to use the same few rooms for

everything. Only a short while ago this one had been filled with loafers, some

Company, most of them employees of Banh Do Trang. We all stared at the old

woman, willing her to hurry. Willing her to overlook this opportunity to

socialize.

Old Do Trang, who was so feeble he was confined to a wheelchair, rolled over

to Ky Gota, evidently hoping a show of concern would keep her moving.

Everyone always wanted Gota to go somewhere else.

This time his sacrifice worked. She had to be in a lot of discomfort, though,

not to take time to harangue all who were younger than she.

Silence persisted till the old merchant returned. He owned the place and let

us use it as our operational headquarters. He owed us nothing, but

nevertheless, shared our danger out of love for Sahra. In all matters his

thoughts had to be heard and his wishes had to be honored.

Do Trang was not gone long. He came back rolling wearily. The man behind the

liver spots seemed so fragile it had to be a miracle that he could move his

chair himself.

Ancient he was, but there was an irrepressible twinkle in his eyes. He nodded.

He seldom had anything to say unless someone else said something incredibly

stupid. He was a good man.

Sahra told us, "Everything is in place. Every phase and facet has been double-

checked. Goblin and One-Eye are sober. It's time the Company speaks up." She

glanced around, inviting comments.

I did not think it was time. But I had said my piece when I was planning this.

And had been outvoted. I treated myself to a shrug of despair.

There being no new objections, Sahra said, "Start the first phase." She waved

at her son. Tobo nodded and slipped out.

He was a skinny, scruffy, furtive youngster. He was Nyueng Bao, which meant he

had to be a sneak and a thief. His every move had to be watched. In

consequence he was so generally observed that no individual examined in detail

what he actually did so long as his hands did not stray toward a dangling

purse or some treasure in a vendor's stall. People did not look for what they

did not expect to see.

The boy's hands stayed behind his back. While they were there, he was not

considered a threat. He could not steal. No one noticed the small, discolored

blobs he left on any wall he leaned against.

Gunni children stared. The boy looked so strange in his black pajama clothing.

Gunni raise their children polite. Gunni are peaceable folk, in the main.

Shadar children, though, are wrought of sterner stuff. They are more bold.

Their religion has a warrior philosophy at its root. Some Shadar youths set

out to harass the thief.

Of course he was a thief! He was Nyueng Bao. Everyone knew all Nyueng Bao were

thieves.

Older Shadar called the youngsters off. The thief would be dealt with by those

whose responsibility that was.

The Shadar religion has its streak of bureaucratic rectitude, too.

Even such a small commotion attracted official attention. Three tall, grey-

clad, bearded Shadar peacekeepers wearing white turbans advanced through the

press. They looked around constantly, intently, oblivious to the fact that

they traveled in an island of open space. The streets of Taglios are packed,

day and night, yet the masses always find room to shrink away from the Greys.

The Greys are all men with hard eyes, seemingly chosen for their lack of

patience and compassion.

Tobo drifted away, sliding through the mob like a black snake through swamp

reeds. When the Greys inquired about the commotion, no one could describe him

as anything but what prejudice led them to presume. A Nyueng Bao thief. And

there was a plague of those in Taglios. These days the capital city boasted

plenty of every kind of outlander imaginable. Every layabout and lackwit and

sharpster from the length and breadth of the empire was migrating to the city.

The population had tripled in a generation. But for the cruel efficiencies of

the Greys, Taglios would have become a chaotic, murderous sink, a hellfire

fueled by poverty and despair.

Poverty and despair existed in plentitude but the Palace did not let any

disorder take root. The Palace was good at ferreting out secrets. Criminal

careers tended to be short. As did the lives of most who sought to conspire

against the Radisha or the Protector. Particularly against the Protector, who

did not concern herself deeply with the sanctity of anyone else's skin.

In times past, intrigue and conspiracy had been a miasmatic plague afflicting

every life in Taglios. There was little of that anymore. The Protector did not

approve. Most Taglians were eager to win the Protector's approval. Even the

priesthoods avoided attracting Soulcatcher's evil eye.

At some point the boy's black clothing came off, leaving him in the Gunni-

style loincloth he had worn underneath. Now he looked like any other

youngster, though with a slightly jaundiced cast of skin. He was safe. He had

grown up in Taglios. He had no accent to give him away.

It was the waiting time, the stillness, the doing nothing that there is so

much of before any serious action. I was out of practice. I could not lean

back and play tonk or just watch while One-Eye and Goblin tried to cheat each

other. And I had writer's cramp, so could not work on my Annals.

"Tobo!" I called. "You want to go see it happen?"

Tobo was fourteen. He was the youngest of us. He grew up in the Black Company.

He had a full measure of youth's exuberance and impatience and overconfidence

in his own immortality and divine exemption from retribution. He enjoyed his

assignments on behalf of the Company. He was not quite sure he believed in his

father. He never knew the man. We tried hard to keep him from becoming

anyone's spoiled baby. But Goblin insisted on treating him like a favorite

son. He was trying to tutor the boy.

Goblin's command of written Taglian was more limited than he would admit.

There are a hundred characters in the everyday vulgate and forty more reserved

to the priests, who write in the High Mode, which is almost a second unspoken,

formal language. I use a mixture recording these Annals.

Once Tobo could read, "Uncle" Goblin made him do all his reading for him,

aloud.

"Could I do some more buttons, Sleepy? Mom thinks more would get more

attention in the Palace."

I was surprised he talked to her that long. Boys his age are surly at best. He

was rude to his mother all the time. He would have been ruder and more defiant

still if he had not been blessed with so many "uncles" who would not tolerate

that stuff. Naturally, Tobo saw all that as a grand conspiracy of adults.

Publicly. In private, he was amenable to reason. Occasionally. When approached

delicately by someone who was not his mother.

"Maybe a few. But it's going to get dark soon. And then the show will start."

"What'll we go as? I don't like it when you're a whore."

"We'll be street orphans." Though that had its risks, too. We could get caught

by a press gang and forced into Mogaba's army. His soldiers, these days, are

little better than slaves, subject to a savage discipline. Many are petty

criminals given an option of rough justice or enlistment. The rest are

children of poverty with nowhere else to go. Which was the standard of

professional armies men like Murgen saw in the far north, long before my time.

"Why do you worry so much about disguises?"

"If we never show the same face twice, our enemies can't possibly know who

they're looking for. Don't ever underestimate them. Especially not the

Protector. She's outwitted death itself more than once."

Tobo was not prepared to believe that or much else of our exotic history.

Though not as bad as most, he was going through that stage where he knew

everything worth knowing and nothing his elders said -- particularly if it

bore any vaguely educational hue -- was worth hearing. He could not help that.

It went with the age.

And I was my age and could not help saying things I knew would do no good.

"It's in the Annals. Your father and the Captain didn't make up stories."

He did not want to believe that, either. I did not pursue it. Each of us must

learn to respect the Annals in our own way, in our own time. The Company's

diminished circumstance makes it difficult for anyone to grasp tradition. Only

two Old Crew brothers both survived Soulcatcher's trap on the stone plain and

the Kiaulune wars afterward. Goblin and One-Eye are haplessly inept at

transmitting the Company mystique. One-Eye is too lazy and Goblin too

inarticulate. And I was still practically an apprentice when the Old Crew

ventured onto the plain in the Captain's quest for Khatovar. Which he did not

find. Not the Khatovar he was looking for, anyway.

I am amazed. Before long I will be a twenty-year veteran. I was barely

fourteen when Bucket took me under his wing . . . But I was never like Tobo.

At fourteen I was already ancient in pain. For years after Bucket rescued me,

I grew younger . . . "What?"

"I asked why you look so angry all of a sudden."

"I was remembering when I was fourteen."

"Girls have it so easy -- " He shut up. His face drained. His northern

ancestry became apparent. He was an arrogant and spoiled little puke but he

did have brains enough to recognize it when he stepped into a nest of

poisonous snakes.

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WaterSleepsWATERSLEEPSbyGlenCookTheEighthChronicleoftheBlackCompany1InthosedaystheBlackCompanydidnotexist.ThisIknowbecausetherewerelawsanddecreesthattoldmeso.ButIdidnotfeelentirelyinsubstantial.TheCompanystandard,itsCaptainandLieutenant,itsStandardbearerandallthemenwhohadmadetheCompanysoterrible,had...

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Glen Cook - Black Company 3-3 - Water Sleeps

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