Read Online Book 2 - Shadows Linger by Glen Cook - Free Book Online Page A

much was obvious. The Lady
definitely anticipated a breakout attempt.
    I spent my free time reviewing the Guard’s records,
especially for the period when Bomanz lived here. He spent forty
years in the garrison town, disguised as an antique digger, before
he tried to contact the Lady and unintentionally freed her. He
interested me. But there was little to dig out, and that little was
colored.
    Once I’d had his personal papers, having stumbled onto
them shortly before Whisper’s Taking. But I passed them on to
our then mentor Soulcatcher for transportation to the Tower.
Soulcatcher kept them for her own reasons, and they fell into my
hands again, during the battle at Charm, as the Lady and I pursued
the renegade Taken. I didn’t mention the papers to anyone but
a friend, Raven. The Raven who deserted to protect a child he
believed to be the reincarnation of the White Rose. When I got a
chance to pick up the papers from where I hid them, they were gone.
I guess Raven took them with him.
    I often wonder what became of him. His declared intent was to
flee so far no one could find him again. He did not care about
politics. He just wanted to protect a child he loved. He was
capable of doing anything to protect Darling. I guess he thought
the papers might turn into insurance someday.
    In the Guard headquarters there are a dozen landscapes painted
by past members of the garrison. Most portray the Barrowland. It
was magnificent in its day. It had consisted of a central Great
Barrow on a north-south axis, containing the Dominator and his
Lady. Surrounding the Great Barrow was a star of earth raised above
the plain, outlined by a deep, water-filled moat. At the points of
that star stood lesser barrows containing five of The Ten Who Were
Taken. A circle rising above the star connected its inward points,
and there, at each, stood another barrow containing another Taken.
Every barrow was surrounded by spells and fetishes. Within the
inner ring, around the Great Barrow, were rank on rank of
additional defenses. The last was a dragon curled around the Great
Barrow, its tail in its mouth. A later painting by an eyewitness
shows the dragon belching fire on the countryside the night of the
Lady’s resurrection. Bomanz is walking into the fire.
    He was caught between Resurrectionists and the Lady, all of whom
were manipulating him. His accident was their premeditated event.
The records say his wife survived. She said he went into the
Barrowland to stop what was happening. No one believed her at the
time. She claimed he carried the Lady’s true name and wanted
to reach her with it before she could wriggle free.
    Silent, One-Eye and Goblin will tell you the direst fear of any
sorcerer is that knowledge of his true name will fall to some
outsider. Bomanz’s wife claimed the Lady’s was encoded
in papers her husband possessed. Papers that vanished that night.
Papers that I recovered decades later. What Raven snatched may
contain the only lever capable of dumping the empire.
    Back to the Barrowland in its youth. Impressive construction.
Its weather faces were sheathed in limestone. The moat was broad
and blue. The surrounding countryside was
park-like . . . But fear of the Dominator
faded, and so did appropriations. A later painting, contemporary
with Bomanz, shows the countryside gone to seed, the limestone
facings in disrepair, and the moat becoming a swamp. Today you
can’t tell where the moat was. The limestone has disappeared
beneath brush. The elevations and barrows are nothing but humps.
That part of the Great Barrow where the Dominator lies remains in
fair shape, though it, too, is heavily overgrown. Some of the
fetishes anchoring the spells keeping his friends away still stand,
but weather has devoured their features.
    The edge of the Barrowland is now marked by stakes trailing red
flags, put there when the Lady announced she was sending outsiders
to investigate. The Guards themselves, having lived there always,
need no markers