Free Book 4 - Soldiers Live by Glen Cook

who created the plain. Shivetya brought them into
existence because he longed for a connection with something
approximating those whose artifice had wrought the great engine and
its pathways between the worlds, because he was lonely.
    Shivetya has lost his will to live. If he should perish,
whatever he has created himself will go with him. The Nef are not
yet prepared to embrace oblivion, despite the endless horror and
tedium existence upon the plain imposes.
    Blade spread his hands at his sides in a gesture of
helplessness. “You guys need to polish your communication
skills.” Not a sound came from the Nef but their growing
frustration became palpable. Which had been a constant from the
first time anyone had dreamt of them.
    Blade stared. He did try to understand. He considered the
ironies of the Black Company’s adventure across the
glittering plain. He was an atheist himself. His journey had
brought him face-to-face with a complete ecology of supernatural
entities. And Tobo and Sleepy, whom he considered reliable
witnesses otherwise, claimed actually to have seen the grim Goddess
Kina who, myth suggested, lay imprisoned a mile beneath his
feet.
    Sleepy, of course, faced her crises of faith. A devout
Vehdna monotheist, she never, ever encountered any worldly
sustenance for her beliefs. Though supportive evidence is thin, the
Gunni religion only creaks badly under the burden of the knowledge
we have unearthed. The Gunni are polytheists accustomed to having
their gods assume countless aspects and avatars, shapes and
disguises. So much so that, in some myths, those gods seem to be
murdering or cuckolding themselves. The Gunni have the flexibility
to look at every discovery, as Master Santaraksita has, and declare
new information to be just another way of proclaiming the same old
divine truths.
    God is god, whatever his name. Blade has seen those sentiments
inlaid in the wall tiles in several places in Khang Phi.
     
    Whenever anyone strays far from Shivetya, a ball of earthy brown
glow tags along. It hovers above and behind one shoulder or
another. The ball does not shed much light but in what otherwise
would be utter darkness they are sufficient. They are the
golem’s doing. Shivetya has powers he has forgotten how to
use. He might be a small god himself if he was not nailed to his
ancient throne.
    Blade descended nearly a thousand steps before he encountered
anyone headed upward. This soldier carried a heavy pack.
“Sergeant Vanh.”
    The soldier grunted. Already he was winded. No one made more
than one trip a day. Blade gave Vanh the bad news because he might
not run into him again for days. “Had a message from the
Captain. We have to step it up. She’s almost ready to
move.”
    Vanh mumbled the sorts of things soldiers always do. He
continued his climb. Blade wondered how Sleepy planned to haul off
the mountain of treasure already accumulated up top. It was, for
sure, enough to finance a pretty good war.
    Another thousand steps downward, repeating his message several
times. He left the stair at the level everyone called the Cave of
the Ancients because of the old men interred there. Blade always
stopped to visit his friend Cordy Mather. It was a ritual of respect.
Cordy was dead. Most of the others confined in the cave remained
alive, enmeshed in stasis spells. Somehow, during the long
Captivity, Mather had shed the spells confining him. And success
had cost him his life. He had not been able to find his way
out.
    Most of the old men in the cave meant nothing to Blade or the
Company. Only Shivetya knew who they were or why they had been
interred. Certainly they had irked someone armed with the power to
confine them. Several corpses, though, had been Company brothers
when still alive. Several others had been captives before
Soulcatcher buried the Company. Death had found them because,
evidently, Cordy Mather had tried to wake them up. Touching the
Captured without sorcerous precautions inevitably caused the death
of