Shadows Linger: A Novel of the Black Company (Chronicles of The Black Company) by Glen Cook Read Free Book Online

private. Each had an overabundance of pride.
    We stepped outside. As we often did when no one could intercept our signs, we discussed old times. He, too, was privy to the secret for which the Lady would obliterate nations.
    Half a dozen others suspected once, and had forgotten. We knew, and would never forget. Those others, if put to the question, would leave the Lady with serious doubts. We two, never. We knew the identity of the Lady’s most potent enemy—and for six years we had done nothing to apprise her of the fact that that enemy even existed as more than a Rebel fantasy.
    The Rebel tends to a streak of superstition. He loves prophets and prophecies and grand, dramatic foretellings of victories to come. It was pursuit of a prophecy which led him into the trap at Charm, nearly causing his extinction. He regained his balance afterward by convincing himself that he was the victim of false prophets and prophecies, laid upon him by villains trickier than he. In that conviction he could go on, and believe more impossible things.
    The funny thing was, he lied to himself with the truth. I was, perhaps, the only person outside the Lady’s inner circle who knew he had been guided into the jaws of death. Only, the enemy who had done the guiding was not the Lady, as he believed. That enemy was an evil greater still, the Dominator, the Lady’s one-time spouse, whom she had betrayed and left buried but alive in a grave in the Great Forest north of a far city called Oar. From that grave he had reached out, subtly, and twisted the minds of men high in Rebel circles, bending them to his will, hoping to use them to drag he Lady down and bring about his own resurrection. He failed, though he had help from several of the original Taker in his scheme.
    If he knew of my existence, I must be high on his list. He lay up there still, scheming, maybe hating me, for I helped betray the Taken helping him.… Scary, that. The Lady was medicine bad enough. The Dominator, though, was the body of which her evil was but a shadow. Or so the legend goes. I sometimes wonder why, if that is true, she walks the earth and he lies restless in the grave.
    I have done a good deal of research since discovering the power of the thing in the north, probing little-known histories. Scaring myself each time. The Domination, an era when the Dominator actually ruled, smelled like an era of hell on earth. It seemed a miracle that the White Rose had put him down. A pity she could not have destroyed him. And all his minions, including the Lady. The world would not be in the straits it is today.
    I wonder when the honeymoon will end. The Lady hasn’t been that terrible. When will she relax, and give the darkness within her free rein, reviving the terror of the past?
    I also wonder about the villainies attributed to the Domination. History, inevitably, is recorded by self-serving victors.
    A scream came from Goblin’s quarters. Silent and I stared at one another a moment, then rushed inside.
    I honestly expected one of them to be bleeding his life out on the floor. I did not expect to find Goblin having a fit while One-Eye desperately strove to keep him from hurting himself. “Somebody made contact,” One-Eye gasped. “Help me. It’s strong,”
    I gaped. Contact. We hadn’t had a direct communication since the desperately swift campaigns when the Rebel was closing in on Charm, years ago. Since then, the Lady and Taken have been content to communicate through messengers.
    The fit lasted only seconds. That was customary. Then Goblin relaxed, whimpering. It would be several minutes before he recovered enough to relay the message. We three looked at one another with card-playing faces, frightened inside. I said, “Somebody ought to tell the Captain.”
    “Yeah,” One-Eye said. He made no move to go. Neither did Silent.
    “All right. I’m elected.” I went. I found the Captain doing what he does best. He had his feet up on his worktable, was snoring. I wakened