Soldiers Live (Glittering Stone) Read Online Free PDF Page A

word?”
    “The demon has his own agenda.”
    She would know. She had been in direct communion with that Steadfast Guardian.
    What I knew of the golem’s designs made me concerned for Lady. Shivetya, that ancient entity, created to manage and watch over the plain—which was an artifact itself—wanted to die. He could not do so while Kina survived. One of his tasks was to ensure that the sleeping Goddess did not awaken and escape her imprisonment.
    When Kina ceased to exist, my wife’s tenuous grasp on those magical powers critical to her sense of self-worth and identity would perish with her. What powers Lady boasted, she possessed only because she had found a way to steal from the Goddess. She was a complete parasite.
    I said, “And you, believing the Company dictum that we have no friends outside, don’t value his friendship.”
    “Oh, he’s perfectly marvelous, Croaker. He saved my life. But he didn’t do it because I’m cute and I jiggle in the right places when I run.”
    She was not cute. I could not imagine her jiggling, either. This was a woman who had gotten away with pretending to be a boy for years. There was nothing feminine about her. Nor anything masculine, either. She was not a sexual being at all, though for a while there had been rumors that she and Swan had become a midnight item.
    It turned out purely platonic.
    “I’ll reserve comment. You’ve surprised me before.”
    “Captain!”
    Took her a while, sometimes, to understand when someone was joking. Or even being sarcastic, though she had a tongue like a razor herself.
    She realized I was ribbing her. “I see. Then let me surprise you one more time by asking your advice.”
    “Oh-oh. You’ll have them sharpening their skates in hell.”
    “Howler and Longshadow. I’ve got to make decisions.”
    “File of Nine nagging you again?” The File of Nine—“File” from military usage—was a council of warlords, their identities kept secret, who formed the nearest thing to a real ruling body in Hsien. The monarchy and aristocracy of record were little more than decorative and, in the main, too intimate with poverty to accomplish much if the inclination existed.
    The File of Nine had only limited power. Their existence barely assured that near-anarchy did not devolve into complete chaos. The Nine would have been more effective had they not prized their anonymity more than their implied power.
    “Them and the Court of All Seasons. The Noble Judges really want Longshadow.” The imperial court of Hsien—consisting of aristocrats with less real world power than the File of Nine but enjoying more a demonstrative moral authority—were obsessively interested in gaining possession of Longshadow. Being an old cynic I tended to suspect them of less than moral ambitions. But we had few dealings with them. Their seat, Quang Ninh City, was much too far away.
    The one thing the peoples of Hsien held in common, every noble and every peasant, every priest and every warlord, was an implacable and ugly thirst for revenge upon the Shadowmaster invaders of yesteryear. Longshadow, still trapped in stasis underneath the glittering plain, represented the last possible opportunity to extract that cathartic vengeance. Longshadow’s value in our dealings with the Children of the Dead was phenomenally disproportionate.
    Hatreds seldom are constrained to rational scales.
    Sleepy continued, “And hardly a day goes by that I don’t hear from some lesser warlord begging me to bring Longshadow in. The way they all volunteer to take charge of him leaves me nurturing the sneaking suspicion that most of them aren’t quite as idealistically motivated as the File of Nine and the Court of All Seasons.”
    “No doubt. He’d be a handy tool for anybody who wanted to adjust the power balance. If anyone was fool enough to believe he could manage a puppet Shadowmaster.” No world lacks its villains so self-confident that they don’t believe they can get the best end of a