Raker Read online

  "Then Silent is due a chapter, isn't he?"

  He sputtered. He grumbled. He cursed. "You want to play a hand?" They had only three players, one of whom was Raven. Tonk is more interesting with four or five.

  I won three hands straight.

  "Don't you have anything to do? A wart to cut off, or something?"

  "You asked him to play," a kibitzing soldier said.

  "You like flies, Otto?"

  "Flies?"

  "Going to turn you into a frog if you don't shut your mouth."

  Otto was not impressed. "You couldn't turn a tadpole into a frog."

  I snickered. "You asked for it, One-Eye. When's Soulcatcher going to show?"

  "When he gets here."

  I nodded. There is no apparent rhyme or reason to the way the Taken do things. "Regular Cheerful Charlie today, aren't we? How much has he lost, Otto?"

  Otto just smirked.

  Raven won the next two hands.

  One-Eye swore off talking. So much for discovering the nature of his project. Probably for the best. An explanation never made could not be overheard by the Rebel's spies.

  Six hairs and a block of limestone. What the hell?

  For days Silent, Goblin, and One-Eye took turns working that stone. I visited the stable occasionally. They let me watch, and growl when they wouldn't answer questions.

  The Captain, too, sometimes poked his head in, shrugged, and went back to his quarters. He was juggling strategies for a spring campaign which would throw all available imperial might against the Rebel. His rooms were impenetrable, so numerous were the maps and reports.

  We'd had only limited contact with the Rebel since arriving. We'd hurt him some, but nothing like we meant to when the weather turned.

  Cruel it may be, but most of us enjoy what we do - and the Captain more than anyone. This is a favorite game, matching wits with a Raker. He is blind to the dead, the burning villages, the starving children. As is the Rebel, who boasts, that he is rescuing people from tyranny. Two blind armies, able to see nothing but one another.

  VI

  Soulcatcher came in the deep hours, amidst a blizzard which beggared the one Elmo endured. The wind wailed and howled. Snow had drifted against the northeast corner of the fortress, battlement-high, and was spilling over. Wood and hay stores were becoming a concern. Locals said it was the worst blizzard in history.

  At its height, Soulcatcher came. The boom-boom-boom of his knock wakened all Meystrikt. Horns sounded. Drums rolled. The gatehouse watch screeched against the wind. They couldn't open the gate.

  Soulcatcher came over the wall via the drift. He fell, nearly vanished in the loose snow in the forecourt. Hardly a dignified arrival for one of the Ten.

  I hurried to the main hall. One-Eye, Silent, and Goblin were there already, with the fire blazing merrily. The Lieutenant appeared, followed by the Captain. Elmo and Raven came with the Captain. "Send the rest back to bed," the Lieutenant snapped.

  Soulcatcher came in, removed a heavy black greatcloak, squatted before the fire. A calculatedly human gesture7 I wondered.

  Soulcatcher's slight body is always sheathed in black leather, throat to toe. He wears a head-hiding black morion, black gloves, and black boots. Only a couple of silver badges break the monotony of his apparel. The only color about him is the uncut ruby forming the pommel of his dagger. A five-taloned claw clutches the gem to the handle of the weapon.

  Small, soft curves interrupt the flatness of Soulcatcher's chest. There is a feminine flair to his hips and legs. Three of the Taken are female, but which are which only the Lady knows. We call them all he. Their sex won't ever mean a thing to us.

  We wear Soulcatcher's badges, though he is only a patron, not our master. His protection helps when we have to deal with others of the Taken.

  He claims to be our friend, our champion. Even so, his presence brought a different chill to the hall.

  The cold of him has nothing to do with climate. Even One-Eye shivers when he is around.

  And Raven? I don't know. Raven seems incapable of feeling, except for Darling. Someday that great stone face will break. I hope I'm there to see it.

  Soulcatcher turned his back to the fire. "So." High-pitched. "Fine weather for an adventure." Baritone. Strange sounds followed. Laughter. Soulcatcher had made a joke.

  Nobody laughed.

  We were not supposed to laugh. Soulcatcher turned to One-Eye. "Tell me." This in tenor, slow and soft, with a muffled quality, as if it were coming through a thin wall. Or, as Elmo says, from beyond the grave.

  Soulcatcher's voice changes every time he speaks, as if there are a hundred people taking turns talking. Spooky, but you get used to it - till you catch the voices arguing with one another.

  There was no bluster or showman in One-Eye now. "We'll start from the beginning. Captain?"

  The Captain said, "One of our informants caught wind of a meeting of the Rebel captains. One-Eye, Goblin, and Silent followed the movements of known Rebels...."

  "You let them run around loose?"

  "They lead us to their friends."

  "Of course. One of the Limper's shortcomings. No imagination. He kills them where he finds them - along with everyone else in sight."

  Again that weird laughter. "Less effective, yes?" There was another sentence, but in no language I know.

  The Captain nodded. "Elmo?"

  Elmo told his part as he had before, word for word. He passed the tale to One-Eye, who sketched a scheme for taking Raker. I didn't understand, but Soulcatcher caught it instantly. He laughed a third time.

  I gathered we were going to unleash the dark side of human nature.

  One-Eye took Soulcatcher to see his mystery stone. We moved closer to the fire. Silent produced a deck. There were no takers.

  Sometimes I wonder how the regulars stay sane. They're around the Taken all the time. Soulcatcher is a sweetheart compared to the others.

  One-Eye and Soulcatcher returned, laughing. "Two of a kind," Elmo muttered, in a rare statement of opinion.

  Soulcatcher recaptured the fire. "Well done, gentlemen. Very well done. Imaginative. This could break them in the Salient. We start for Roses when the weather breaks. A party of eight, Captain, including two of your witchmen." Each sentence was followed by a break Each was in a different voice. Weird.

  I have heard those are the voices of all the people whose souls Soulcatcher has caught.

  Bolder than my wont, I volunteered for the expedition. I wanted to see how Raker could be taken with hair and a block of limestone. The Limper had failed with all his furious power.

  The Captain thought about it. "Okay, Croaker. One-Eye and Goblin. You, Elmo. And pick two more."

  "That's seven, Captain."

  "Raven makes eight."

  "Oh. Raven. Of course."

  Of course. Quiet, deadly Raven would be the Captain's alter ego. There is a bond between those men which surpasses understanding. It is a more than brothers thing.... Guess it bothers me because Raven scares the hell out of me. More than do the Taken.

  Soulcatcher strikes me as an ancestral Raven. They are of a size, and Raven has that same air of the ice-hearted and impassive.

  Raven caught the Captain's eye. His right eyebrow rose. The Captain replied with a ghost of a nod. Raven twitched a shoulder. What was the message? I could not guess.

  Something unusual was in the wind. Those in the know found it delicious. Though I could not guess what it was, I knew it would be slick and nasty.

  VII

  The storm broke. Soon the Roses road was open. Soulcatcher fretted. Raker had two weeks' start. It would take us a week to reach Roses. One-Eye's planted tales might lose their efficacy before we arrived.

  We left before dawn, the limestone block aboard a wagon. The wizards had done little but carve out a modest cavity the size of a large melon. I could not fathom its value. One-Eye and Goblin fussed over it like a groom over a new bride. One-Eye answered my questions with big grins. Bastard.

/>   The weather held fair. Warm winds blew out of the south. We encountered long stretches of muddy road. And I witnessed an outrageous phenomenon. Soulcatcher got down in the mud and dragged that wagon with the rest of us. That great lord of the empire.

  Roses is the queen city of the Salient, a teeming sprawl, a free city, a republic. The Lady hasn't seen fit to revoke its traditional autonomy. The world needs places where men of all stripes and stations can step outside the usual strictures.

  So. Roses. Owning no master. Filled with agents and spies and those who live on the dark side of the law. In that environment, One-Eye claimed, his scheme had to prosper.

  Roses' red walls loomed over us, dark as old blood in the light of the setting sun, when we arrived.

  VIII

  Goblin ambled into the room we had taken. "I found the place," he squeaked at One-Eye.

  "Good."

  Curious. They had not exchanged a cross word in weeks. Usually an hour without a squabble was a miracle.

  Soulcatcher shifted in the shadowed corner where he remained planted like a lean black bush, a crowd softly debating with itself. "Go on."

  "It's an old public square. A dozen alleys and streets going in and out. Poorly lighted at night. No reason for any traffic after dark."

  "Sounds perfect," One-Eye said.

  "It is. I rented a room overlooking it."

  "Let's take a look," Elmo said. We all suffered from cabin fever. An exodus started. Only Soulcatcher stayed put. Perhaps he understood our need to get away.

  Goblin was right about the square, apparently. "So what?" I asked. One-Eye grinned. I snapped, "Clam-lips! Play games."

  "Tonight?" Goblin asked.

  "I'm getting frustrated," I announced. "What's going on? All you clowns do is play cards and watch Raven sharpen his knives." That went on for hours at a time, the movement of whetstone across steel sending chills down my spine. It was an omen. Raven doesn't do that unless he expects things to get nasty.

  One-Eye made a sound like a cawling crow.

  IX

  We rolled the wagon at midnight. The stablekeeper called us madmen. One-Eye gave him one of his famous grins. He drove. The rest of us walked, surrounding the wagon.

  There had been changes. Something had been added. Someone had incised the stone with a message. One-Eye, probably, during one of his unexplained forays out of quarters.

  Bulky leather sacks and a stout plank table had joined the stone. The table looked capable of bearing the block. Its legs were of a dark, polished wood. Inlaid in them were symbols in silver and ivory, very complex, hieroglyphical, mystical.

  "Where'd you get the table?" I asked. Goblin squeaked, laughed. I growled, "Why the hell can't you tell me now?"

  "Okay," One-Eye said, chuckling nastily. "We made it."

  "What for?"

  "To sit our rock on."

  "You're not telling me anything."

  "Patience, Croaker. All in due time." Bastard.

  There was a strangeness about our square. It was foggy. There had been no fog anywhere else.

  One-Eye stopped the wagon in the square's center. "Out with that table, boys."

  "Out with you," Goblin squawked. "Think you can malinger your way through this?" He wheeled on Elmo. "Damned old cripple's always got an excuse."

  "He's got a point, One-Eye." One-Eye protested. Elmo snapped, "Get your butt down off there."

  One-Eye glared at Goblin. "Going to get you someday, Chubbo. Curse of impotence. How's that sound?"

  Goblin was not impressed. "I'd put a curse of stupidity on you if I could improve on Nature."

  "Get the damned table down," Elmo snapped.

  "You nervous?" I asked. He never gets riled at their fussing. Treats it as part of the entertainment.

  "Yeah. You and Raven get up there and push."

  That table was heavier than it looked. It took all of us to get it off the wagon. One-Eye's faked grunts and curses did not help. I asked him how he got it on.

  "Built it there, dummy," he said, then fussed at us, wanting it moved a half inch this way, a half inch that.

  "Let it be," Soulcatcher said. "We don't have time for this." His displeasure had a salutory effect. Neither One-Eye nor Goblin said another word.

  We slid the stone onto the table. I stepped back, wiped sweat from my face. I was soaked. In the middle of winter. That rock radiated heat.

  "The bags," Soulcatcher said. That voice sounded like a woman I wouldn't mind meeting.

  I grabbed one, grunted. It was heavy. "Hey. This's money."

  One-Eye snickered. I heaved the sack into the pile under the table. A damned fortune there. I'd never seen so much in one place, in fact.

  "Cut the bags," Soulcatcher ordered. "Hurry it up!"

  Raven slashed the sacks. Treasure dribbled onto the cobblestones. We stared, lusting in our hearts.

  Soulcatcher caught One-Eye's shoulder, took Goblin's arm. Both wizards seemed to shrink. They faced table and stone. Soulcatcher said, "Move the wagon."

  I still had not read the immortal message they had carved on the rock. I darted in for a look.

  LET HE WHO WOULD CLAIM THIS WEALTH SEAT THE HEAD OF THE CREATURE RAKER WITHIN THIS THRONE OF STONE.

  Ah. Aha. Plain-spoken. Straightforward. Simple. Just our style. Ha.

  I stepped back, tried to guess the magnitude of Soulcatcher's investment. I spied gold amidst the hill of silver. One bag leaked uncut gems.

  "The hair," Soulcatcher demanded. One-Eye produced the strands. Soulcatcher thumbed them into the walls of the head-sized cavity. He stepped back, joined hands with One-Eye and Goblin.

  They made magic.

  Treasure, table, and stone began to shed a golden glow.

  Our archfoe was a dead man. Half the world would try to collect this bounty. It was too big to resist. His own people would turn on him.

  I saw one slim chance for him. He could steal the treasure himself. Tough job, though. No Rebel Prophet could out-magick one of the Taken.

  They completed their spell-casting. "Somebody test it," One-Eye said.

  There was a vicious crackle when Raven's daggertip pricked the plane of the tablelegs. He cursed, scowled at his weapon. Elmo thrust with his sword. Crackle, The tip of his blade glowed.

  "Excellent," Soulcatcher said. "Take the wagon away."

  Elmo detailed a man. The rest of us fled to the room Goblin had rented.

  X

  At first we crowded the window, willing something to happen. That palled fast. Roses did not discover the doom we'd set for Raker till sunrise.

  Cautious entrepreneurs found a hundred ways to go after that money. Crowds came just to see. One enterprising band started tearing up the street to dig under. Police ran them off.

  Soulcatcher took a seat beside the window and never moved. Once he told me, "Have to modify the spells. I didn't anticipate this much ingenuity."

  Surprised at my own audacity, I asked, "What's the Lady like?" I'd just finished one of my fantasy sketches.

  He turned slowly, stared briefly. "Something that will bite steel." The voice was female and catty. An odd answer. Then, "Have to keep them from using tools."

  So much for getting an eyewitness report. I should have known better. We mortals are mere objects to the Taken. Our curiosities are of supreme indifference. I retreated to my secret kingdom and its spectrum of imaginary Ladies.

  Soulcatcher modified the ward sorceries that night. Next morning there were corpses in the square.

  One-Eye wakened me the third night. "Got a customer." "Hunh?"

  "A guy with a head." He was pleased.

  I stumbled to the window. Goblin and Raven were there already. We crowded one side. Nobody wanted to get too close to Soulcatcher.

  A man stole across the square below. A head dangled from his hand. He carried it by its hair. I said, "I wondered how long it'd be till this started."

  "Silence," Soulcatcher hissed. "He's out there."

  "Who?"

  H
e was patient. Remarkably patient. Another of the Taken would have struck me down. "Raker. Don't give us away."

  I don't know how he knew. Maybe I wouldn't want to find out. Those things scare me.

  "A sneak visit was in the scenario," Goblin whispered, squeaking. How can he squeak when he whispers? "Raker was to find out what he's up against. He can't do that from anywhere else." The fat little man seemed proud.

  The Captain calls human nature our sharpest blade. Curiosity and a will to survive drew Raker into our cauldron. Maybe he would turn it on us. We have a lot of handles sticking out.

  Weeks passed. Raker came again and again, apparently content to observe. Soulcatcher told us to let him be, no matter how easy a target he made of himself.

  Our mentor might be considerate of us, but he has his cruel streak. It seemed he wanted to torment Raker with the uncertainty of his fate.

  XI

  This burg is going bounty-crazy," Goblin squealed. He danced one of his jigs. "You ought to get out more, Croaker. They're turning Raker into an industry." He beckoned me into the corner farthest from Soulcatcher. "Look here," he whispered.

  He had a double fistful of coins. Some were gold. I observed, "You're going to be walking tilted to one side."

  He grinned. Goblin grinning is a sight to behold. He has the widest mouth on the continent. Opens up like a frog's, practically. "Made this selling tips on where to find Raker," he whispered. With a glance toward Soul-catcher: "Bogus tips." He put a hand on my shoulder. He had to stretch to do it. "You can get rich out there."

  "Didn't know we were in this to get rich."

  He scowled, his round, pale face becoming all wrinkles. "What are you? Some kind of...?"

  Soulcatcher turned. Goblin croaked, "Just an argument about a bet, sir. Just a bet."

  I laughed aloud. "Really convincing, Chubbo. Why not just hang yourself?"

  He pouted, but not for long. Goblin is irrepressible. His humor breaks through in the most depressing situations. He whispered, "Shit, Croaker, you should see what One-Eye is doing. Selling amulets. Guaranteed to tell if there's a Rebel close by." A glance at Soulcatcher. "They really work, too. Sort of."