Glen Cook Black Company 10 Soldiers Live

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donated them to Khang Phi as infants. These had surpassed a particular
milestone on their path to becoming monks. We were unlikely to see anyone
younger.
Swan picked up a stone two inches in diameter. "I'm going to throw this when
we get up top. I want to watch it fall."
Parts of Swan never grew up. He still skips stones across ponds and rivers. He
tried to teach me the art coming to Khang Phi. My hand and fingers will no
longer conform to the shape of a proper skipping stone. There is a lot they
cannot accomplish anymore. Managing a pen while writing is chore enough.
I miss One-Eye.
"Just don't bomp some asshole warlord on the noggin. Most of them don't like
us much already." They were afraid of us. And they could find no way to
manipulate us. They kept giving us provisions and letting us recruit in hopes
we will go away eventually. Leaving Longshadow behind. We did not inform them
that local financing would not be needed to underwrite our campaign beyond the
plain.
After four hundred years it has become a given: You keep everybody outside
just a little bit nervous. And you do not tell them anything they do not need
to know.
Longshadow. Maricha Manthara Dhumraksha. He has several other names here as
well. None indicate popularity. As long as we have the ability to deliver him
in chains the warlords will tolerate almost anything. Twenty generations of
ancestors cry out for justice.
I suspect Longshadow's wickedness has grown with the retelling, thereby making
giants of the heroes who drove him out.
Though they are soldiers themselves the warlords do not understand us. They
fail to recognize the fact that they are soldiers of a different breed, drawn
on by a smaller destiny.
Chapter 14
The Land of Unknown Shadows: Khang Phi
Swan and I stood looking out a window outside the conference hall where we
would engage the File of Nine in negotiations. Eventually. It took them a
while to sneak into Khang Phi, then change their disguises so their identities
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would remain unknown. We saw nothing below but mist. Swan did not waste his
stone. I said, "I thought I was back in shape. I was wrong. I ache all over."
Swan said, "They say some people here go their whole lives without ever moving
more than a floor or two after they finish their apprenticeship and get their
assignments."
"Kind of people that balance out you and me," I said. Swan had not traveled as
far as I had but at a world's remove an extra few thousand miles does not seem
important. I tried to make out the rocky ground we had traversed approaching
Khang Phi. The mist just seemed darker when I looked down.
"Thinking about taking the easy way back down?" Swan asked.
"No. I'm thinking being isolated like this might leave you with a very limited
worldview." Not to mention the impact of the scarcity of females in Khang Phi.
The few there are belong to an order of celibate nuns who care for the donated
infants, the very old and the very sick. The rest of the population consists
of monks, all of whom were donated and all of whom are sworn to chastity, too.
The more fanatic brothers render themselves physically incapable of yielding
to temptation. Which makes most of my brothers shudder and consider them more
bizarre than Tobo's shadowy friends. No soldier likes the thought of losing
his best friend and favorite toy.
"A narrow view can be as much a strength as a weakness, Liberator," a voice
observed from behind us. We turned. Sleepy's friend, Surendranath
Santaraksita, was joining us. The scholar has gone native, adopting local garb
and assuming the Khang Phi haircut--which is no hair at all--but only a deaf
and blind man would take him for a local monk. His skin is more brown and less
translucent than that of any native and his features are shaped more like mine
and Swan's. "That mist and their narrowness of vision allows the monks to
avoid forming worldly attachments. Thus their neutrality remains beyond
reproach."
I did not mention Khang Phi's one-time role as an apologist for and
collaborator with the reign of the Shadowmasters. That embarrassing dab of
history was being expunged by the acids of time and relentless lie.
Santaraksita was happy. He was convinced that in this place learned men did
not have to prostitute themselves to temporal powers in order to remain
scholars. He believed even the File of Nine deferred to the wisdom of the
eldest monks. He was unable to see that if the Nine acquired more power Khang
Phi's relationship to the File would soon lapse into subservience. Master
Santaraksita is brilliant but naive.
"How's that?" I asked him. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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