Shadows Linger Read Online Free PDF Page A

went back to work and did not look up again.
    A face formed in the flames before frog-faced little Goblin. He did not see it.
    His eyes were closed. I looked at One-Eye. His eye was sealed, too, and his face
     was all pruned, wrinkles atop wrinkles, shadowed by the brim of his floppy hat.
    The face in the fire took on detail.
    “Eh!” It startled me for a moment. Staring my way, it looked like the Lady.
    Well, like the face the Lady wore the one time I actually saw her. That was
     during the battle at Charm. She called me in to dredge my mind for suspicions
     about a conspiracy among the Ten Who Were Taken. ... A thrill of fear. I have
     lived with it for years. If ever she questions me again, the Black Company will
     be short its senior physician and Annalist. I now have knowledge for which she
     would flatten kingdoms.
    The face in the fire extended a tongue like that of a salamander. Goblin
     squealed. He jumped up clutching a blistered nose.
    One-Eye was draining another beer, back to his victim. Goblin scowled, rubbed
     his nose, seated himself again. One-Eye turned just enough to place him at the
     corner of his vision. He waited till Goblin began to nod.
    This has been going on forever. Both were with the Company before I joined,
    One-Eye for at least a century. He is old, but is as spry as men my age.
    Maybe spryer. Lately I've felt the burden of time more and more, all too often
     dwelling on everything I've missed. I can laugh at peasants and townies chained
     all their lives to a tiny corner of the earth while I roam its face and see its
     wonders, but when I go down, there will be no child to carry my name, no family
     to mourn me save my comrades, no one to remember, no one to raise a marker over
     my cold bit of ground. Though I have seen great events, I will leave no enduring
     accomplishment save these Annals.
    Such conceit. Writing my own epitaph disguised as Company history.
    I am developing a morbid streak. Have to watch that.
    One-Eye cupped his hands palms-down on the countertop, murmured, opened them. A
     nasty spider of fist size stood revealed, wearing a bushy squirrel tail. Never
     say One-Eye has no sense of humor. It scuttled down to the floor, skipped over
     to me, grinned up with a One-Eye black face wearing no eye-patch, then zipped
     toward Goblin.
    The essence of sorcery, even for its nonfraudulent practitioners, is
     misdirection. So with the bushy-tailed spider.
    Goblin was not snoozing. He was lying in the weeds. When the spider got close,
    he whirled and swung a stick of firewood. The spider dodged. Goblin hammered the
     floor. In vain. His target darted around, chuckling in a One-Eye voice.
    The face formed in the flames. Its tongue darted out. The seat of Goblin's
     trousers began to smoulder.
    “I'll be damned,” I said.
    “What?” the Captain asked, not looking up. He and the Lieutenant had taken
     opposite ends of an argument over whether Heart or Tome would be the better base
     of operations.
    Somehow, word gets out. Men streamed in for the latest round of the feud. I
     observed, “I think One-Eye is going to win one.”
    “Really?” For a moment old grey bear was interested. One-Eye hadn't bested
     Goblin in years.
    Goblin's frog mouth opened in a startled, angry howl. He slapped his bottom with
     both hands, dancing. “You little snake!” he screamed. “I'll strangle you! I'll
     cut your heart out and eat it! I'll. . . . I'll. . . .”
    Amazing. Utterly amazing. Goblin never gets mad. He gets even. Then One-Eye will
     put his twisted mind to work again. If Goblin is even, One-Eye figures he's
     behind.
    “Settle that down before it gets out of hand,” the Captain said.
    Elmo and I got between the antagonists. This thing was disturbing. Goblin's
     threats were serious. One-Eye had caught him in a bad temper, the first I'd ever
     seen. “Ease up,” I told One-Eye.
    He stopped. He, too, smelled trouble.
    Several men growled. Some heavy bets were down. Usually, nobody