We’re going to start strapping you down, Pop,” Arkana told me as she towed me into camp. She had been on a routine patrol kite-clearing when the explosion happened. In rushing to see the results she almost got knocked out of the sky by a daredevil swinging from a flying fence post.
“Just get me down. Fast. Preferably right in front of the Captain’s tent.” Sleepy had to know. Now. And somebody needed to go watch the Palace. If the whole damned thing caved in . . . If Mogaba and his henchmen died in the disaster. . . . If the Khadidas and the Daughter of Night escaped in the resulting chaos. . . .
Some hearty fires were burning over there now. A strong glow silhouetted the city wall now.
I kept having to explain as more notables reached the Captain’s tent. And I kept urging Sleepy to make whatever move she was considering making right away. Never again would the other side be as confused and disordered as they must be now. She agreed but pointed out that our bunch were not terribly well organized right now, either.
The Captain dealt with the problem of interruptions in the most amazing fashion I could imagine. After delegating Suvrin to begin preparing an attack, she told me, “Take me up there. Show me what’s happened.”
“You?”
“Me. I’ll keep my eyes closed until there’s something to see. Before we leave I’ll throw an old blanket over my seat so I won’t get your post all wet.”
I shook my head, disconsolate. “I wish Swan was still around. A straight line like that shouldn’t go to waste. Let’s do it.”
“Wait. Suvrin.” She issued more instructions. So he would have something to do in his spare time.
Her absence would slow nothing down.
“Tie yourself on good,” I told Sleepy. “I might decide to do a few loops while we’re up there.”
She growled like a whole pack of angry rats. Made it clear that if she fell off I might as well just keep on going.
“All right. But coming home hanging underneath like a carp on a stringer is a lot better than the alternative.”
“If you don’t mind a little embarrassment.”
“I don’t mind at all if I’m alive to get red in the face.” Something you learn as you get older. Or, at least, you should.
We were passing over the gateway complex when I realized that I had gone right back up without having paused to check on my wife.
Was I not a little old to feel guilty about everything? She would not be going anywhere any time soon.
It was not possible to get dangerously close to the Palace. The fires were huge now. The heat was intense, even through the Voroshk clothing. And the higher you flew the more turbulent the air became. There were no kites anywhere nearby anymore.
I figured Mogaba would give up on the kites soon. They were not doing us any harm.
Sleepy clung to the post with white knuckles. I wondered if we would need a chisel to break her grip once we got back on the ground. But she did manage to keep her voice sounding normal. “What in the world is burning? That place isn’t anything but a big old stone pile.”
The flames were not limited to the Palace now. Several fires were burning nearby. The entire area was crawling with people, most being gawkers who just got in the way of the soldiers, officials and volunteers actually trying to accomplish something.
“Somebody’s still thinking,” I told Sleepy. “They’ve put troops around the place.” I dropped lower and moved close enough to spot Aridatha Singh out working two thin lines of soldiers, one facing outward, holding the mobs back, the other, stronger, facing inward. The latter were more heavily armed. Anyone leaving the palace was going to get a good hard look. “I hope they got those guys in place before the Khadidas and the girl got away.”
“Back to the gate. If we’re ever going to invade this city, now is the time.”
“You found enough boats yet?”
She tensed up. She did not answer for a moment. “You figured it out.”
“Logic suggests that it makes no sense to storm those walls with no more men than we have. Particularly when Taglios has almost no defenses on the river side.” A point which would have occurred to the Great General, too.
“There is no easy way in,” Sleepy told me. “The defenses on the river side just aren’t as obvious.” She proceeded to explain about log booms and chains that controlled traffic, forcing it into narrow channels well-ranged by massed artillery ashore. A barge loaded with attackers could be pounded into driftwood and fish food in minutes.
I said, “I see where this is going.”
“Do you really? Will I attack by day or by night?”
“It’s dark now but by the time you can get anybody to the point of attack the sun will be up.”
“Take me back. I have to get things moving faster.”
Ghopal Singh looked terrible. He had been close enough to the fire to have had his beard singed. He had blisters on both face and hands. His turban was gone. The rest of him was rags and smoke smell.
“You’ll never pass inspection,” Mogaba told him.
Singh’s sense of humor was moribund. “We’ve got it controlled inside. It’ll burn itself out. Out there in the city . . . Pray for unseasonable rain.”
“Good luck doesn’t always work out, does it?”
Grudgingly, Singh said, “No way we could know what would happen if a fireball hit one of those flying things.”
“No. Of course not. Here comes Aridatha. Like a crow. There’ll be more bad news.” Mogaba glanced eastward. Not even close to dawn yet. Why was this night stretching out so long? “You’ve got a spot of ash on your right trouser leg, Aridatha.”
The commander of the City Battalions actually paused to deal with the matter before he realized that the Great General was teasing him. More or less. Aridatha said, “They’re trying to take advantage of the confusion. I’m getting reports about ghosts and terrors at work around the South Gate and the river forts.”
“They’re really coming?” Ghopal Singh could not believe the enemy would assault Taglios with so few soldiers. He had expected them to just sit tight in hopes they could forge alliances with disaffected elements inside the wall. “Where?”
“The river,” Mogaba predicted. “They’ve had time to scout. That’s where we’re the weakest.”
“Maybe they just want us to think . . . ”
“They can’t get a strong force into place for a while yet. When they attack from the air we’ll know they’re on their way and where they think they can get through.”
Minutes later word came that enemy commandos were atop the wall half a mile west of the South Gate, ferried there by flying carpet. They were being reinforced rapidly. Neither the City Battalions nor the Greys had much strength in that area. The bulk of the Second Territorial was on the waterfront. The garrison of the barbican was responding to the threat as best it could.
Mogaba looked to the east. Once the light came the enemy would lose the advantage of his unseen allies. Then the city’s defenders could exploit their big advantage in numbers.
Ten minutes later news came that swimmers armed with small fireball projectors had cut the chains and broken the booms at the upstream end of the city. Firebombs were falling amongst the artillery engines.
“You were right,” Ghopal said, “It’ll be the river.”
“Possibly. Where are their wizards?” Mogaba wanted to know. He understood that the post riders need not be sorcerers. “If we don’t see wizards we have to remain skeptical about their commitment to any particular attack. All I see now are diversions.”
“Shall we go out there?” Aridatha asked.
“Out where? Would you care to bet that other attacks won’t break out sometime soon? This is the best place for us to be. We’re central.” It had occurred to him that he was being watched. That the Captain’s plans might hinge on his own behavior. Whatever he did might direct enemy efforts where he was not. It was what he would have done, given their resources. “We’ll stay central. Let’s get a tighter cordon around the parts of the Palace where the girl might be. That’ll let us free up some more of these men.”
Hundreds had been freed up already, because the gawkers had begun to melt away when fires elsewhere proved too fierce to contain. As soon as there was a specific defense to mount Mogaba would send reinforcements.
News came of fierce aerial attacks on the South Gate complex itself. Massive volleys of fireballs were riddling the stonework with thousands of holes. The sheer profligate expenditure of fireballs awed everyone.
“That’s the point, you know,” Mogaba said. “This Captain is more willing to fight than her predecessors were but when she does she rachets the level of violence as high as she can. She wants to stun her enemies so they’ll be too numb to react while she overwhelms them.” A glance around told Mogaba that the Captain’s technique was enjoying some success right here, right now. And neither General Singh was eager for a lecture on the subject of combat psychology.
So Mogaba just noted, “And we’ll be at a disadvantage until we know which probe will become the real attack.”
And that, he suspected, had not yet been determined on the other side, either. She could just be trying to find out where she could get the best return for her investment. They never liked wasting their men, the Company Captains.
“At this point we’ll let the district commanders respond to their own crises. We’ll reinforce them only to stop a disaster. What I need from you two is regular gauges of the mood of the mob. So far they don’t seem to care but we wouldn’t want any unwelcome surprises.”
Ghopal offered, “I’d say the masses favor us. It wasn’t us who started all those fires.”
Mogaba glanced eastward. There was a little color over there but he felt no elation. Ghopal had reminded him of the oppressive amount of work ahead once he suppressed the enemy’s attacks. Fires would leave tens of thousands homeless and destitute in a city where a third of the population already enjoyed that distinction.
Maybe he should just walk away and leave all the problems to Sleepy.
It became clear to me that Sleepy wanted control of the South Gate itself. She was flinging people and material around everywhere and using up those of us able to fly, but when you did the numbers over half of our efforts were taking place within a half mile of the barbican. And the barbican itself had suffered immensely from above. Parts looked like slag pierced by ten thousand holes.
I had better information than Mogaba did. But I knew that the Great General would catch on soon enough. He possessed a well-honed instinct for things warlike.
How flexible was the Captain’s planning? Could she shift her point of attack fast once Mogaba did catch on? I did not know. Whatever level of planning had gone into this, I had not been invited to participate. Only Suvrin had a real grasp of the whole picture. And I was not that sure about him. This Sleepy was as close as I used to be when it came to sharing her thoughts.
That seemed to go with the job. My predecessors had been the same way. Someday it would hurt us.
It was just past noon. Striking suddenly from all directions and enjoying maximum support from above and from Tobo, our troops pushed into the barbican complex. The defense seemed doomed once the assault teams got inside and got the outer gates open.
Mogaba did not respond. The streets near the gate complex did empty as civilians decided this seemed like a good time not to be visible. Bands of Taglian wounded retreated deeper into the city. Still no one came forward to reinforce or relieve the defenders of the barbican. Soldiers from Mogaba’s own Second Territorial began saying unkind things about their boss.
Something was not right here. Mogaba was way too passive. The man had to know that he had to do something before the night returned and the Company waxed far more powerful by grace of the Unknown Shadows.
Somehow, we had to be doing what Mogaba wanted us to do if he was doing nothing to prevent us from doing it.
Yeah. You can drive yourself crazy trying to work your way around all the angles of that kind of stuff.
Sleepy sent everybody but Tobo off to intensify the attack on the upriver waterfront defenses. Evidently we had gained a good foothold there, cheaply, so the Captain wanted to expand it.
I had begun to suspect that Sleepy really did have no fixed plan. Other than to seize whatever Mogaba was willing to let go.
An hour later, when loyalist troops did respond to the threat on the waterfront, the South Gate again became the focus of our attack.
I hoped she decided soon. I was worn out. And we still had hours of daylight left.
I was right in the first place. She chose the gate.
Back when the men on the walls finally broke into the gate houses a signal had gone up, to alert the Captain and Lieutenant. There were two gate houses and both had to be cleared. One had proven much more stubborn than the other. In the interim every man not engaged elsewhere gathered outside, ready to attack.
Now Sleepy signalled the advance. The officers all had orders to push through the barbican and drive straight on to the heart of the city. They had guides to show them the way. The Captain wanted the Palace captured swiftly. She believed we would face little resistance in the rest of Taglios once its symbolic heart had fallen. Word was out already that the Prahbrindrah Drah was on his way, to reclaim his family’s dominion.
Me, I would have had the Prince in my hip pocket first, ready to flash in front of the mob right now. I would have him lead the charge. But nobody asked me how I would handle things anymore.
Mogaba received the news about the South Gate in grim, expressionless silence. He asked no questions, just looked to the west to see how much daylight he had left. He turned to Aridatha and Ghopal. The latter nodded slightly.
Once a messenger had departed, the Great General asked, “Are they continuing their attack on the waterfront?”
Aridatha responded. “At last report they were stepping it up.”
“Send another company. Their main force will head straight here. With all their sorcery supporting it. A counterattack down there should have an excellent chance of succeeding.”
“And what should I do about the invaders?” Aridatha asked.
“We’ve had that set for months. Just follow the plan. Let it unfold.”
Aridatha nodded, plainly wishing there was some way to reduce the bloodshed. He was less pessimistic about the outcome of this conflict than was the Great General. But he feared the price would be so crippling that victory would be the greater evil for the city as a whole.
Mogaba told him, “I want you to return to your own headquarters now. Continue to direct your troops from there.”
“But . . . ”
“If this goes badly and you’re here with me when they come you’ll have to pay a crueler price than necessary. Do as I say. Ghopal, you take over here. No one goes into the Palace. No one comes out. If the enemy gets this far make sure they know about the Khadidas and the Daughter of Night. I expect you to stay out of the way yourself. The best people to get the information to are the two wearing the fiery armor. Widowmaker and Lifetaker. They’ll listen to you. They’re the girl’s natural parents. Aridatha, why are you still standing there? You have your instructions.”
Ghopal asked, “What’ll you be doing?”
“Readying a pair of counterattacks that’ll make these strange foreign soldiers wish that they’d never left the land where they were born.” The Great General projected immense confidence.
He did not feel a bit of it inside.
Nevertheless, his stride was that of an arrogant conquerer as he walked away from the Palace, a gaggle of messengers and functionaries scurrying behind him. He spun off orders as he went.
Mogaba spotted the white crow watching from a cornice stone. He beckoned. “Come down here.” He patted his shoulder.
The bird did as it was bid, startling Mogaba’s entourage.
The Great General asked, “Are you who I think you are?”
There were some tasks too important to entrust to anyone but family. The responsible captains at the South Gate were always related to Ghopal Singh, though they were officers in the City Battalions. They were all men who dared not be disloyal because their pasts were all tangled up with the Greys, the Great General, and the Protectorate.
Also, they were men who were mentally disciplined enough to retreat without running away. They were men who had prepared themselves and their followers for this day. Though, originally, they had expected the Protector herself to be entering their killing zone.
The passage through the barbican seemed a maze from inside, though there were only a half dozen turns. From above it did not look that bad. Until huge blocks of stone fell out of the walls, blocking the way ahead of and behind the Captain, trapping her, her staff and another dozen men.
The falling blocks initiated a train of mechanical events, the first of which was the launching of a storm of poisoned darts. Horses screamed and men cursed. And, as I sent my flying post downward to try to get the Captain out of there, burning oil sprayed from ports in the walls.
So this was how they had planned to get rid of Soulcatcher.
The heat drove me back. The black Voroshk clothing could not stand up to much of that.
Sleepy had chosen to place herself at the middle of the invading column. Which meant our forces had just been split in two.
A massive counterattack was sure to develop.
I pushed myself up beside Arkana, who was numb with the horror. “Get ahold of yourself! I want you to find Suvrin. Tell him I’ll take charge on the city side. He can build steps to get the rest of the men past that mess. He can use the lumber meant for siege engines. Go on! Get going!”
Once again I did not have to whack her to bring her out of her stupor.
Once again Mogaba had dealt us one off the bottom of his deck. This time our chances of surviving did not look good.
We should have been prepared for it. He had told us that there were arrangements in place.
Sometimes you just do not hear what is being said.
I checked the sun before I reached the ground.
We would have to hang on for a bit longer than what inspired me with optimism.
“It won’t be long,” I insisted to the commanders on the ground. “We need to put ourselves into a position to hang on until nightfall. Once darkness comes . . . ”
“The Unknown Shadows.”
“The Hidden Realm.”
Shouts. A scatter of arrows fell.
“Push a company along the wall that direction,” I directed. “I want those steps under our control when the others start joining us.” I had to show an optimism I did not feel. I hoped Suvrin would press his half of the attack.
No man could question the courage of the soldiers from Hsien. They mauled the City Battalions badly. They mauled reinforcements from the Second Territorial. Unfortunately, the City Battalions and Mogaba’s Second Territorial elite mauled them right back. It did not take long to see that Sleepy might have taken too big a bite. The Great General seemed to have plenty of reserves, though he was parsimonious when it came to investing them.
Vigorous support from Arkana, Shukrat and Tobo kept us from being overwhelmed.
Once Tobo woke up enough to begin thinking more than mechanically the tide began to turn. Once he recalled that he was good for something more than dropping rocks and fire-pots. Once he added his sorcerous skills to the girls’ weaker ones we got stinging insects, painful worms of fire, lemon and lime snowflakes that pitted armor and flesh.
Nevertheless, the enemy kept us confined until darkness came.
Darkness always comes.
The Great General took charge of the riverfront defenses personally. He found morale abysmal when he arrived, accompanied by reserves from the Second Territorial. The long succession of military disasters had the soldiers suspecting that defeat was inevitable and that they were being wasted in a hopeless cause.
The Great General himself led his own lifeguard in a counterattack of such fury and finesse that the enemy soon lost everything that it had taken them all day to capture.
The invaders got no support from above. The Great General interpreted that to mean that they were in desperate straits at the South Gate.
There was not a lot of communication between forces. Nobody knew what anybody else was doing, really. The best anyone could do was cling to the plans and hope the enemy did not get too much enjoyment from his advantages.
Mogaba’s opponents tried reinforcing themselves with recent recruits. That did them little good. Those men entered the fighting in groups too small to make any difference.
The last attackers fled in the barges they had used to make their initial landings, drifting downriver because they did not have enough men healthy enough to row against the current. All the barges were overburdened, one so much so that it shipped water at the slightest rocking. It did not remain afloat long.
Mogaba treated himself to a long breather. He turned his mind off completely, closed his eyes, let the cold winter air chill him.
When he was calm and breathing normally again he allowed himself to return to the moment.
He could get the best of this thing yet. If he could get these men to the South Gate and get in a hard blow he might damage the enemy enough to earn his own people a fair chance of making it through the night. If he succeeded, victory would be his. They would not be able to survive everything he would throw at them tomorrow.
He opened his eyes.
The white crow stared at him from a perch on a broken cartwheel scarcely a foot from his face.
The crow started talking.
That bird was a much better messenger and spy than the crows he had known in earlier days.
The Great General listened for a long time. And wondered if the mind behind the bird was aware of his disloyalty.
He would not bring it up first.
The Great General dragged himself upright, ignoring the complaints of aching muscles. “Sergeant Mugwarth. Spread the word. All officers. Round up every man who can walk. We’re moving up to relieve the South Gate.”
The enemy’s aerial advantage betrayed the trap before it could close. Mogaba left the soldiers to their work and hastened toward the Palace. He arrived as dusk began to deepen shadows. The view from that eminence included half a dozen fires still burning. Smoke and trickles of fire still attended the fallen parts of the Palace, too.
Awaiting him was the news that the enemy had reduced most of the defenses at the downriver end of the city. Their forces there had been augmented by the survivors from upriver. These outsiders were stubborn fighters.
“Send reinforcements?” Ghopal asked.
Mogaba thought a moment. Those foreigners ought to be near their limits. “Yes, actually. These are all your men here, around the Palace, aren’t they?”
“I thought that would be best. Makes them all men I can trust.”
“Let Aridatha’s soldiers take their place. Send yours to the waterfront. And gather up any of your brothers and cousins who’re still alive, I want them here.”
“What? . . . ”
“Do it. Quickly. Quickly. And round up all those captured fireball throwers.”
“I think we used most of them up.”
“That means they’re some of them left. I want them all.”
Darkness came. And soon after it did messages reached the Great General informing him that his enemies, inside both their footholds, were hunkering down for the night rather than pressing forward when their shadowy allies could come out to play.
The Great General refused to let the night intimidate him. By his example he inspired those around him. And it did seem that the enemy’s spooks meant to do little more than yell “Boo!”
The Great General reorganized the city’s defenses, shifting almost all responsibility into Aridatha Singh’s hands. Then he led Ghopal Singh and the man’s kinsmen, armed with fireball throwers, toward the waterfront conflict.
Ghopal asked, “What’re we doing?”
“This is a false peace,” Mogaba replied. “They lost their Captain this afternoon. The trap in the gate worked to perfection. They lost most of their command staff, too.” He did not explain how he knew that. “They’ll need to work out who’s in charge and what they’re going to do now. They might even decide to go away.” He shivered, told himself it was the winter air.
But he knew that Croaker had survived the day. He knew the Company would not be going away. He knew the succession there had been assured and the new Captain would attempt to complete the work of the old.
I’m not ready to take over,” Suvrin argued.
“And I’m too old to come back,” I countered. “And the only other qualified person is in a coma.” Lady was not, literally, in a coma, but, practically speaking, the effect was the same. She had nothing to contribute.
Suvrin grumbled under his breath.
“Sleepy picked you. She thought you could handle it. She’s been giving you opportunities to get a feel for the job.” Sleepy was a big part of the problem. Her death, so sudden and cruel, had stricken everyone. Most of us were still in a daze.
I said, “We take too much time here; we’ll give the Children of the Dead too much time to think. We don’t want them looking at how bad the numbers thing has gone since they’ve been on our side of the glittering plain.”
A moment of self-loathing followed. That was exactly the sort of thinking I found repugnant in the Company’s employers.
Suvrin reflected briefly. “We can’t spend time grieving, can we? We have to go ahead. Or call it off.”
“No decision there. Go ahead. I’ve tried to get messages to Aridatha Singh. He seems like a good man, willing to put Taglios first. He might be willing to spare the city some pain.”
“If you can convince him that the Great General isn’t going to eat us alive. The way Tobo tells it, Mogaba isn’t particularly worried.”
“He will be. Once we get settled in here I just might take the girls general hunting.”
Suvrin still showed some of that pudgy, baby-fat look he had always had. He needed to get busy and develop the hardened, piratical look of a Captain.
He yielded to his hidden desires. “All right. I’ll be the Captain. But I reserve the right to quit.”
“Excellent. I’ll spread the word, then I’ll go smack Mogaba around.” My hatred for the Great General was no longer virulent, though. It was more like a bad habit these days.
“I’m the Captain now, right? Completely in charge?”
“Yeah.” Spoken with a twinge of suspicion.
“My first directive as Captain, then, is that you should stop putting yourself at risk.”
“Huh? What? But . . . ”
“Croaker, you’re the only one left who can keep the Annals. You’re the only one left who can read most of them. You didn’t finish teaching me and you haven’t trained anyone else. I don’t intend to lose our connection with our heritage. Not at this last stage. Therefore, henceforth, you’re not going anywhere that’ll put you at risk.”
“You sonofabitch. You jobbed me. You can’t do that.”
“I’m the Captain. Sure I can. I just did. I’ll have you restrained if that’s what it takes.”
“You won’t have to.” Because I buy into the whole Company mystique, like a religion. Because I cannot defy orders just because I do not like them. Ha-ha. How long would it take to find a way to weasel around this if I felt a genuine need? “But I wanted Mogaba.”
“We’ll catch him for you. Then you can skin him or whatever you want.”
I went out and spread the word that we had a new Captain and that the officers should attend him. Then I looked for Arkana, who was off somewhere wasting a valuable part of her life sleeping.
As I stumbled around, shivering because things unseen were everywhere in the night, I realized that Suvrin, unwittingly, had given me orders of critical importance. If I kept running around, getting into the middle of everything, and I got myself killed for my trouble, more than the Annals would die with me. So would the little plan I had worked out for fulfilling our commitment to Shivetya.
I had not shared that with anyone, and would not unless I was convinced I was dying.
Words never spoken cannot be overheard by sleeping Goddesses.
Guided and masked by the folk of the hidden realm, Arkana penetrated Aridatha Singh’s headquarters undetected, flying post and all. The general was alone. He had collapsed of exhaustion an hour earlier. Solicitous subordinates had put him to bed. They had left sentries outside his door to keep him from being disturbed.
Arkana got in through an open window, lying flat upon her post. She was not especially nervous. She was confident that she could manage any trouble that came her way, at least for the moments it would take her to escape.
She had been instructed to flee at the first sign of trouble. She believed in those instructions with the fervor of a new convert.
Once inside she dismounted and turned her post so she could get away without any delay. She kept herself tethered to the post so it could drag her out even if she was not in the saddle. Even if she was unconscious. Maybe even if three guys were hanging onto her, trying to keep her from going.
She found a lamp and lit it. Then she awakened Aridatha Singh.
The general did not waken quickly. But he did so quietly and cautiously, understanding that he was in a dangerous situation. Maybe it was the Unknown Shadows. The sense of their presence was strong. Because they were all around.
Singh rose into a cross-legged sitting position. He moved slowly, keeping his hands in sight. He asked his question by expression alone.
Arkana strained to ignore his looks. She had been warned . . . She was not an idiot like Gromovol. “The Captain wants to know if you received the Annalist’s messages. The Captain wants to know if you’re ready to spare Taglios the agonies of further conflict.” She enunciated carefully, having no desire to be misunderstood.
“Of course I do. But how do I get you people to go away?” He could not tell much about his visitor because of the Voroshk clothing.
“Here’s an idea. You can have your soldiers lay down their arms.” As one of the Voroshk that sort of statement directed at an outsider would not have troubled Arkana at all. But here, tonight, she was just another refugee and freelance. And a very young one at that, with limited confidence in herself. Maybe Croaker’s confidence was misplaced.
That clever old man. He had set her up so she would risk her freedom rather than let him down.
That was a characteristic of old men. All old men in her experience, anyway.
Aridatha said, “There’s little I’d like more than to end this fighting before even one more person gets hurt. But I have no control when it comes to making the choice between war and peace. I’ve undertaken obligations. I’ve given my word. Right now Taglios is in the keeping of the Great General. If he gives the order to stop fighting I’ll do so instantly.”
And he said no more. That was as clearly as he could speak. Even that much clarity troubled his conscience.
“That’s your firm response, then?” Arkana’s confidence had begun to swell.
“There is no other position open to me. Your Captain will understand.”
“Your honor could get you killed. And there’d be no one to sing your praises.” Arkana departed before Singh could figure out what that meant. He thought it sounded like something foreign that did not translate well.
Aridatha was a little less exhausted than he had been before he collapsed. But he did not fall asleep again for a long while, and not because of the potent sense of alien presence still filling his bedroom. He kept hearing the visitor’s last words and remembering his father. Narayan Singh. A man of high honor, within his own world. Now without a soul to sing his praises. Unless maybe his beloved Goddess sang him lullabies within her terrible dreams.
And Narayan’s murderer was still hiding somewhere inside the remains of the Palace.
Mogaba did not participate much in the fighting. He told Ghopal, “The spirit is willing but this body is just too damned old and tired. I’ll just sit here and tell you what to do.” But mostly he visited with the white crow, which had begun scouting for him despite the presence of unfriendly ghosts. The bird could see those ghosts quite clearly, for it warned him regularly when it was time to keep his mouth shut.
When Mogaba suggested that the unseen things did not seem to be helping the invaders much the crow told him that the folk of the hidden realm were completely devoted to making their master happy. What little they did contribute they did in response to the will of their messiah, Tobo, whom they worshipped almost as a god. As Thi Kim. Which, in the canonical language of the priests who had created the Unknown Shadows, meant One Who Walks with the Dead.
Startled, the Great General demanded, “You mean to tell me that Thi Kim isn’t Nyueng Bao?”
The title came from a language closely akin to the Nyueng Bao of four centuries ago.
“So Deathwalker is the half-breed kid?”
Not Deathwalker. One Who Walks with the Dead.
Mogaba was too tired to wonder much about the difference. “Go find Aridatha Singh,” Mogaba said. “I want to know what he’s doing.”
The bird was not pleased about being given orders. But it went.
Mogaba called for Ghopal immediately. He asked, “What’re your feelings toward this city?” He knew but wanted to hear it from the man’s own mouth.
Ghopal shrugged. “I’m not sure I understand. Like everyone who lives here I love it and I hate it.”
“Our enemies have reorganized their chain of command. Right now they’re resting. But they’ll resume their attack while there’s yet darkness enough to conceal their hidden allies. I’m sure now that our forces will survive the night with more than enough strength left to be able to counterattack tomorrow. I think we’ll be able to hurt them badly when we do attack but their damned sorcerers will save them and when night comes again their allies will finish us.” The Great General said all this without having seen any proof that the Unknown Shadows were capable of doing anything lethal. “And I think Taglios will suffer a great deal more destruction during that time. I believe that, eventually, both sides will be so weakened that, no matter who wins, neither will be able to restrain the religious factions, nor be able to contain the ambitions of the gang lords, priests or anyone else likely to take advantage of a state of disorder. We might even see rioting between the followers of the different major religions.”
Ghopal nodded in the darkness, unseen. As chief Grey managing unofficial ambition had been his task. He had been particularly hard on criminal gangs. Mogaba had not dug for details but knew that something in Ghopal’s past drove him to shatter criminal enterprises.
“What’re you trying to say?” Ghopal asked.
“I’m saying that if we continue this war the way we are now, we can win—probably—but we’ll destroy Taglios in the process. And, even if we do lose, the results will be anarchy and destruction.”
“And?”
“And our enemies don’t care. They didn’t come here for the city’s benefit. They came to get you and me. And the Khadidas and the girl. Especially the Daughter of Night.”
Mogaba felt Ghopal’s growing suspicion.
The white crow would be back soon, too.
“I think we should walk away, Ghopal. And save Taglios the agony. The garrisons in the eastern provinces are loyal. We can continue the struggle from there.”
Ghopal was not fooled. Neither did he raise the objection that they had little hope of success against an enemy seated in the capital, armed with a crew of wizards and well-supplied with funds.
Ghopal had known his commander a long time. The Great General was a stubborn warlord, imbued with no weakness whatsoever. Unless that was his secret love for his adopted city, that he had revealed several times lately. Ghopal found he had no trouble believing that the Great General could walk away rather than let Taglios be destroyed as a monument to his ego. This Mogaba was not the arrogant youngster who had held Dejagore against the worst the Shadowmasters had been able to deliver. “Where would we go?”
“Agra. Or possibly Mukhra in Ajitsthan.”
“Vehdna strongholds, both. A band of heretic Shadar aren’t likely to be welcomed. Particularly if the strife puts any more strain on religious tolerance.”
’That could happen,” Mogaba admitted. “Or it might not.”
“Nor have we mentioned families.” Family was extremely important to the Shadar. “I have only my brothers and cousins. But most of my brothers and cousins have wives and children.”
Mogaba said, “I suppose they could stay here, cut off their beards and pretend to be people who haven’t been getting much sun. Ghopal, I’m being completely unfair. I’m putting this all squarely on your shoulders. Stay and fight? Or go away and spare the city?”
As if to punctuate his remarks a mushroom of fire rose above the heart of the city. For an instant it resembled a gigantic, glowing brain. Flying shapes hurtled across its face.
Mogaba said, “That respite is over.”
It was driving me crazy, having to hang back over friendly territory, observing an aerial assault on a cluster of buildings anchoring a defense stubbornly blocking our advance toward the Palace. We had brought the knowledge of war to this end of the world and we had taught our students too well. These Taglians refused to yield even in the face of sorcery and the Unknown Shadows.
Someone had pointed out that the troops of the City Battalions were mainly Vehdna and Shadar. Both religions assure swift access to rivers of wine and acres of eager virgins for the man who falls in battle. Though originally that only meant warriors who perished in the name of God.
I wondered what the Vehdna paradise was like for Sleepy.
We had not yet been able to identify her body. The corpses in that passage had been burned that badly.
“Why don’t we go around these guys?” I wondered. And the answer was, they would not let us. They had an interlocking defense nicely laid out. The only way past was through. Or over.
Over we could do.
Over we did go, twenty insanely courageous Children of the Dead at a time, with a Tobo so tired he was cross-eyed doing the lifting.
The Unknown Shadows supported their pal from every possible direction, sometimes so blatantly that I could see them clearly from where I hovered, doing nothing whatsoever that was useful to the cause.
I had a wife in the camp outside the city. It had been a while since I had gone to see how she was doing. That might be considered doing something useful.
So I did leave my brethren to go visit my wife. While a fight was going on. A fight that would, no doubt, be completely unique amongst all the fights ever fought, so that somebody really should be right there to record every nuance of its unique ebb and flow.
Lady remained unchanged. She lurked halfway between life and death. She kept talking to herself in her sleep. What I saw did not inspire me with hope. What I heard only confused me. Mostly it was incoherent. Such individual words as were recognizable did not fall together at all sensibly.
A few minutes of that reminded me why I always resisted visiting till I had forgotten the despair a visit inspired.
Only two unmarried second-cousins of Ghopal chose to leave the city with the Great General and the commander of the Greys. Because they had families the rest all chose to take their chances with the invaders.
Mogaba understood. In the coming confusion scores of his allies would be finding new looks, new races to be, while the conquerers scoured the city for enemies. Many would somehow fail ever to have heard of the Greys, let alone have contributed to that organization’s criminal oppressions.
“Here,” Mogaba said, leading the way out onto an ancient, rickety dock. “This one will do.” He indicated an eighteen-foot boat that, from its aroma, had been bringing in fish since sometime early in the last century.
Mogaba invited himself aboard. Ghopal and the others followed warily. Shadar and large bodies of water had a relationship somewhat like that between cats and bathtubs. Mogaba said, “Untie those ropes. You really do know how to row, don’t you?” Ghopal had made the claim.
Singh grunted. “But not competitively.”
To Mogaba’s astonishment they stole the boat without a challenge. He was amazed that a vessel so large had been untenanted. There should have been at least one family aboard. But tonight the entire waterfront was silent and unpopulated, as though the riverside nights were too terrible to endure.
Mogaba’s internal struggle waxed and waned. He reminded himself that it was fast becoming too late to change his mind, to give in to his prideful, arrogant side. That weakness had brought about these terrible end days. How different his life and the world would have been had he been able to control his interior demons during the siege of Dejagore.
He would hardly be a hated and lonely old man whose memories were all of serving faithfully and well a parade of despicable masters.
The white crow found them while they were trying to work out the mechanics of raising the boat’s lateen sail. There was a good breeze blowing, capable of carrying them up the river far more swiftly than could their incompetent rowing.
The bird settled in the rigging. “What are you doing? I did not give you permission to flee. Why are you running away? No battle has been lost.”
The Shadar gawked. Mogaba thumped himself on the chest. “No. A great war has been won. Here. At last. Now I go somewhere where I will do no more harm anymore forever.”
Ghopal looked from him to the crow and back, gradually gaining understanding of both. He grew increasingly agitated and afraid as he did so.
The bird was capable of a range of voices, though it was only a haunted crow. “Turn this vessel shoreward. Now. I will tolerate no disobedience.”
“You hold no terror for me anymore, old whore,” Mogaba replied. “You hold no power over me. I won’t be your toy or cats-paw tonight or ever again.”
“You have no idea how much you will regret this. I won’t be imprisoned forever. You will be the first chore on my list when I return. Ghopal Singh. Turn this disgusting tub around . . . awk!”
Ghopal had whacked the bird with the flat of his oar. Flailing, losing feathers, shrieking, it flung from the rigging into the fetid, muddy river. The retiring commander of the Greys observed, “That bird has an amazingly fowl vocabulary.” He grinned. Then he began digging through the bag he had carried aboard. He really needed a sip of wine. His kinsmen scowled. “Glower all you want, you magpies! I’m my own man now!”
The tenor of the bird’s incessant natter changed suddenly, becoming pure corvine terror. It flapped in panic as the surface of the river lifted it up.
The rising water tilted the boat precariously. Ghopal lost his grasp on his bottle. One of his cousins took a wild swing with his oar, swatting a gallon of water out of the thing taking form. His effort had no enduring effect.
“Holy shit!” Ghopal said from flat on his back. “What the hell is that?” He was staring over Mogaba’s shoulder.
A thing loomed against the light of fires burning in the city. A thing resembling a huge duck capable of a grin filled with wicked, glistening teeth. And the thing was not alone.
“Oh, man,” one of Ghopal’s cousins sighed. “They’re all around us. What are they?”
Mogaba sighed himself. He did not say that the monsters were not the sort of things people saw and lived to describe.
Aridatha Singh had just gotten back to sleep when fiery pain pierced the back of his right hand. He leapt up and flung his arm out. He thought his lamp had somehow spilled burning oil and feared his cot would be on fire. But the lamp was not burning.
Not fire. Something had bitten him, then. Or maybe clawed him. And he had thrown it across the room, where it was struggling feebly and making incoherent chicken noises. Those people were attacking him directly now? He shouted for the sentries.
Once light filled the room he discovered that his visitor was an albino crow. One of the men threw a blanket over the bird and wrapped it up. Another examined Aridatha’s hand. “That’s one ragged looking critter, General. You might want to see a physician. It might be diseased.”
“Send for soap and hot water . . . It doesn’t look like the skin is broken much . . . What is that?”
The blanket with the bird inside had begun talking.
“It’s talking,” the soldier said, so utterly amazed that he could do nothing but state the obvious.
“Seal the window. Close the door. Get yourselves ready to hit it with something when we turn it loose.” He recalled that one of the Company chieftains sometimes carried ravens on his shoulders. And one of those was white.
Escape was no longer an option for the bird. Aridatha directed, “Turn it loose now.”
The crow looked like someone had tried to drown it, then had decided to pluck it featherless instead. It was in terrible shape.
The bedraggled beast cocked its head right, left, surveying the chamber. It made an obvious effort to put aside its anger, to collect its pride and dignity.
Aridatha did not think this was the raven he had seen with that man Croaker. This one seemed smaller, yet more substantial.
The bird studied Singh first with one eye, then with the other. Then it eyed the sentries. It seemed to be awaiting something.
“You have something to say, say it,” Aridatha suggested.
“Send them out.”
“I don’t think so.” He motioned two soldiers into positions where they would be better able to swat the crow.
“I am not accustomed to . . . ”
“Nor am I in the habit of taking back chat from birds. I assume you bring a message. Deliver it. Or I’ll wring your neck and go on about my business.”
“I fear you will live to regret this, Aridatha Singh.”
In that moment, with the bird’s voice changing, Singh understood that he was in touch with the Protector. But her enemies had buried her beneath the glittering plain. Had they not? “I await your message. If it’s just a threat I’ll have Vasudha step on your head.”
“Very well. Until the day, Aridatha Singh. Aridatha Singh, you are now my viceroy in Taglios. Mogaba and Ghopal are no more. I will instruct you as to what steps to take . . . .”
“Excuse me. The Great General and General Singh have been killed?”
“They tried to do something foolish. For their trouble the enemy’s shadow creatures destroyed them. Which elevates you to . . . ”
Aridatha turned his back on the crow. “Jitendra. Get that word out. I want every company to disengage. The only exception is to be where the enemy won’t let them. And get the word across the lines that I’m prepared to discuss terms.”
The white crow flew into a cursing rage.
“Throw the blanket on that thing again, Vasudha. We may have some use for it later but I don’t want to listen to its nagging now.”
“You could get you a wife if you needed that, General.”
Already there were stories on the street about how the Great General had sacrificed himself in order to void the strictures of all the oaths and vows binding him and his allies. Because he had wanted to spare the city further devastation by the invading rebels and outlanders. Amazing. We had just started taking charge and already people were nostalgic for the good old days of the Protectorate.
Hard to blame them, I suppose. It was a generation ago that the Prahbrindrah Drah last saw the inside of his capital city.
Let them feel however they wanted. As long as they stayed out of my way.
Tobo and I drifted above the Palace, studying the ruin. Smoke still found its way out of the rock pile. Every few hours a little more caved in. A third had collapsed already. That third included almost all of the occupied modern sector. Maybe the abandoned parts had been constructed from sterner stuff. They had survived generations of neglect.
Even during the worst fighting Aridatha had used volunteers from the City Battalions to keep sifting the ruins for survivors to rescue and bodies to deliver to distraught relatives. He continued in that role, now reinforced by units formerly committed to the fighting. Elsewhere, whole battalions now engaged the more stubborn fires instead of invaders.
I asked Tobo, “You really think they’re still in there somewhere?” I meant Booboo and Goblin.
“I know they are. The hidden folk have seen them. They just can’t remember how to get to them.”
“Strange as it may seem, I need them out of there alive. Without them I can’t keep my promise to Shivetya.”
Tobo grunted. I had not included him in my planning. In fact, the inner circle still consisted of a council of one. Me. And I intended to keep it that way. Nothing spoken, nothing betrayed.
“I think Arkana’s in love.” Below, the Voroshk girl had come up with another excuse to consult Aridatha Singh.
Tobo grunted again. He was better than he had been but victory had given him no satisfaction. He would be a long time getting over the loss of his mom and dad.
I asked, “Have you found any trace of Mogaba or Ghopal Singh?” Aridatha said they were dead. He claimed to have been told so by the white crow—not an entirely reliable witness.
The boy studied me before responding. “They drowned. While trying to escape upriver. By boat. Evidently the boat capsized.”
“I see.”
My tone made him stare at me intently. I could not see his expression, of course. The Voroshk apparel concealed that. And mine masked my features. We continued to dress up because some people did not approve of our conquest. Incidents abounded.
Mostly, though, Taglios had heaved a huge collective sigh and began getting on with the business of life. Thus far there had been almost no retribution against those who had served the displaced regime. Most people seemed of the opinion that the Greys had done more good than harm, since they had repressed criminal behavior with a ferocity greater than they had shown to enemies of the Great General and the Protector.
In general, the masses of people were entirely indifferent to who ruled Taglios and its dependencies. The who seldom touched their lives deeply, one way or another.
The human species never ceases to amaze me. I would have bet more people would have cared a lot more. But from the inside nothing is ever what it looks like from without.
Rajadharma graffiti continued to appear. Some folks are never satisfied. Thi kim is here was turning up now, too. I had not pressed the kid on that. He did not want to talk about it.
I would let it ride even though that mystery was not yet solved to my satisfaction. There had to be more to his relationship with the Unknown Shadows than had become obvious so far.
I left the boy and circled the Palace. Our men had replaced the City Battalions on that perimeter. They made a colorful line. City troops were clearing rubble, particularly in areas where Tobo’s friends believed people were trapped. A number remained alive, caught inside interior rooms that had not collapsed. Now thirst was their implacable enemy.
All was going as it should. It seemed. But I was not comfortable. I had a sense of there being a wrongness somewhere. Intuition. Based upon subconscious cues.
I drifted away from the Palace, waving in passing to Shukrat, who just had to see Tobo after having completed a courier run to the approaching Prahbrindrah Drah and Radisha. Once out of sight I put on speed and headed for the river.
I started at the downstream end of the waterfront. I drifted upstream. The boats were out. As they would have been had the fighting still been under way. I asked a few questions of terrified fishermen, not at all sure what I might find. The current had had ample time to carry bodies and wreckage down to the delta swamps.
Or perhaps not.
There is a miles-long sandbar just off the curve of the north bank. It has been there so long that it is an island now, with grass on its flanks, brush above that and trees along its highest parts. The channel on its north side is narrow, shallow and choked with mud. An overturned boat lay in the mouth of that channel. One dead man sprawled in the mud. A dozen Taglians clad only in loincloths were trying to right the boat preparatory to dragging it off the bar. None of those men showed the least interest in the corpse. But it was obviously Shadar and they were all Gunni.
The scavengers had a definite interest in not being anywhere around when people came swooping out of the sky in a billowing black cloud. A couple jumped into the channel and swam for the north bank. Others ran into the growth on the island’s spine. A few tried to make it back to the boat that had brought them. It had beached a hundred yards down the bar.
The dead Shadar appeared to have been an officer of the Greys. I discovered a second corpse underneath the boat, also Shadar. There were disturbed crows in and above the nearby trees, which was interesting because we saw so few of those birds anymore.
I made a couple of lazy passes overhead, to finish scaring the birds away, before dropping carefully through the branches.
Mogaba was recognizable only because of the unique color of the bits of skin left to him. Ghopal Singh I identified only by deduction. They had been tortured. Terribly, and for a long time. Mogaba maybe for days. His corpse was not that old.
I slid downstream behind the island and eventually rejoined my own people. I searched out Arkana. “We need to talk, adopted daughter.” I jerked a thumb. Somewhere up high, in the brilliant noonday sun.
She picked up on my concern. She drove upward a thousand feet, tending south, as though we were going to check on the Prahbrindrah Drah’s progress. In fact, a sizable dust cloud could be seen to the south.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I think Tobo may be out of control. Or so close to it as makes no difference. If we’re not careful we might all be sorry his mother isn’t here to scold him. And that Sleepy and Murgen are gone. He may be a grown man but he still needs direction.” I told her what I had found on the sandbar.
“Why tell me? You don’t let anybody in on anything, Pop.”
“Because I’ve seen you making moon eyes at General Singh. And he was a partner with the Great General and Ghopal Singh. If Tobo’s really unhinged he might go after Aridatha next.”
“Why do you blame Tobo?”
I led her through my reasoning, which relied heavily on my assessment of the character of the Great General. “Mogaba knew Aridatha wanted to spare Taglios from the fighting. He wanted that himself. He couldn’t surrender, though. And Aridatha’s sense of honor wouldn’t let him desert Mogaba. So Mogaba decided to arrange it so Aridatha wouldn’t be encumbered. And Tobo got him.”
“You didn’t say why you blame Tobo.”
“Because only Tobo could’ve known what Mogaba was doing and where he would be doing it. There was something badly wrong on the river that night. All the waterfront people felt it and ran off to hide in the city.”
“All right. Suppose it’s true. What’re you going to do?”
“I just did it. I told you to be careful. And now I’m going to see if my wife’s gotten any better since this morning.” I knew Lady would not have done so. I had begun to lose hope for her.
I took Lady out for a picnic. With a little help from my adopted daughters. In the vain hope that some sunlight and fresh air would make a difference when even Tobo’s best effort could not shake the enchantment holding her. According to the boy wizard I was supposed to consider myself lucky. If she had not been Lady, had been some ordinary person, she would have been long dead. He assured me this was not the spell that had claimed Sedvod and still gripped Soulcatcher. I could not see any obvious difference—except that Lady was getting no worse.
His best advice was to take my questions to the perpetrator once we found him.
The girls left me alone with my honey. I held her hand and rambled on about a thousand things: recollections, current affairs, hopes. I shared my suspicions and concerns about Tobo, too, which might have been dangerous since I had no idea what might be listening.
Nothing I did helped her even a little, nor did it seem to do me any good. I fought the good fight against despair.
A squeaky clean, thoroughly polished corporal from Hsien trotted up. “Captain’s compliments, sir, and could you come to the Palace? They think they may have located the Khadidas and the Daughter of Night.”
“Damn! Yes. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Tell them not to mess with anything. Tell them to be very careful. Those two are extremely dangerous.”
They knew that, of course. And Tobo would be right there to remind them. But repetition never hurts. Not when it helps get you through the deadly times.
Shukrat and Arkana came running. “What’s up?” Shukrat asked.
As I explained I reflected on how much better the girls were getting along. They seemed to have shed the conflicts they had brought into Captivity.
As we three got Lady ready to go back to my tent I asked Arkana, “Will you want to go home someday?”
“What?”
“Home. Where you were born. The world I used to call Khatovar. Do you want to go back? I think I could make it happen.”
“But it’s all destroyed.”
“Not really. The First Father and Nashun the Researcher said so, but that was just to excuse their cowardice.”
“I’m not sure I want to believe that.”
“Good. Excellent. That’s the way I want my kids to be. Skeptical. That’s the truth according to Shivetya. And I’m not a hundred percent sure of our demonic friend myself.”
“Why didn’t you ask me if I want to go?” Shukrat demanded.
“Because you don’t want to go. You just want to be where Tobo is.”
“That isn’t exactly a secret. It isn’t a crime, either. But I’m not bereft of my senses. You’ll sure never see me do some die-for-love kind of thing. If you guys do go, tell me. I’ll decide what I want to do then.”
I did not make it to the Palace. Shukrat beat me there and came right back with instructions to head for the South Gate. The Prahbrindrah Drah was about to arrive and Suvrin wanted somebody there to greet the man we had been touting as the city’s legitimate ruler.
Per instructions I rounded up a few men from the City Battalions, along with a handful of their officers, and off I went, grumbling all the way. I expected the Prince’s home-coming would be a huge disappointment for him and his sister.
Taglios did not care.
I told several people to spread the word, to try to get something going.
That did very little good. The route inward from the gate was never more than sparsely populated with spectators and the rare feeble cheer we did hear came from really old people.
I hate to waste pomp and pageantry. Not that we did put much on. Aridatha got to bring out his marching band, a little late. Never would have been better. They were terrible. And not just because what passes for music here is so alien. I have spent half my life in this end of the world. I asked Singh, “Those guys practice much?”
“They’ve been too busy being soldiers.”
Aridatha had an attitude I appreciated. Each one of his men was expected to be a soldier first, and whatever else secondarily.
Singh said, “I do have to tell you, this Prince doesn’t look very impressive. I hope he’s a better ruler than he is a showman.”
I was no longer sure bringing the Prince back would be good for Taglios, myself. There had been big changes in the city and bigger changes in the man. They might have nothing in common anymore.
I shrugged. “He’s old. If he hasn’t got what Taglios needs Taglios won’t have to put up with him for long.”
In the old days the Prince and I had gotten along well. Until he had turned on us. As an officer in my command he had shown a hunger for learning and a lust for doing the best thing. So I told him straightaway, when we met inside the South Gate, that his first order of business, now that he was back in business, had to be the establishment of a generally acceptable line of succession. Otherwise chaos would follow his demise.
“Rajadharma, old buddy. Let’s get the job done.”
My remarks earned me a tired growl and not much more. The Prince seemed used up and worn out. His sister showed more spark but had a lot more years on her because she had not shared the stasis of the Captivity with her brother. Chances were, nowadays, that she would go first, despite being the younger.
She could not be titular ruler, anyway. When she did exercise the power, during all those years, there had been a pretense of a regency, in place until the legitimate ruler could resume control. Because the Prahbrindrah Drah was still alive somewhere. Neither custom nor law allowed a woman to rule in her own right.
Arkana came to meet me with the news. “They’ve definitely found the Khadidas and the Daughter of Night, Pop.” She was a willing participant in that charade now and, more and more, helping herself to a job as my personal assistant. Now, if I could just teach her written Taglian . . . I suspect the frequency with which I crossed the path of Aridatha Singh had something to do with all that. Singh, I noted, had not failed to recognize what a tasty morsel my little girl was, either, though Voroshk protective apparel seldom flattered.
Tobo remained patient enough to wait until I reached the Palace. Barely. And only out of impatient courtesy, because that was my real daughter and my former friend in there.
My real daughter. A grown woman, whom I had never seen. Arkana, known less than a year, was more daughter to me in life. And Narayan Singh was more a father to Booboo.
Aridatha was there and interested. I wondered why. Then I recalled that he had seen Booboo a few times before and those women have a way of getting under your skin without ever trying.
It did not occur to me that he might be thinking more about the Khadidas.
At first the Prince was put out by everyone’s sudden loss of interest in him . . . then he got a good look at what had happened to the Palace.
He moaned aloud, a textbook cry of anguish. He managed some respectable gnashing of teeth.
Suvrin stepped in. The little pudgeball could be weasel-slick handling people when he wanted. Which might be the ideal leadership skill for the times. I turned to Arkana, gave her special instructions. She flew off to my rooms in the building we had taken for our headquarters. Once upon a time it had been a Greys barracks.
Most of the Greys have vanished. We all pretended not to notice that there are a disproportionate number of Shadar in the City Battalions, say compared to when we were duking it out with them in the streets.
Aridatha was sharing his own good fortune. Though there was less popular inclination toward vengeance than I had expected. And that little focused entirely on individuals.
The Radisha Drah also let out a disconsolate wail on discovering the state of the Palace. She and her brother remained still and silent for minutes. Then she slew the silence with another cry of pain. I told Suvrin, “I hope they don’t decide that this is all our fault and they just have to get even.” I did not think they would be that stupid, after having survived what they had suffered for having turned on us before, but with royalty you never know. They think differently than real people. The real world never quite seems to reach them.
Smoke still trickled out of the ruins, here and there. While we watched a small avalanche of weakened masonry cascaded down.
The Prince observed, “The stonework must have suffered more than we thought during the earthquake.”
“Hunh?” That had happened so long ago that I had forgotten it. “You’re probably right. Plus the Protector never wasted a copper on maintenance while she was in charge.” I approached Tobo, who continued to prance about impatiently. “Where are my treasures?”
As I asked, Arkana swooped down, black cloth popping and crackling in the wind. She carried One-Eye’s spear and his ugly old hat. The hat still smelled of the ugly old man who had worn it.
“Right there where the red flag is.”
Poles with colored streamers indicated points where the Unknown Shadows had detected something human under the rubble. There were just two red ribbons. The rest were black. There would be no rush to dig there. The red streamer not indicated by Tobo was the focus of frenzied activity.
I asked, “What’s over there?”
“Ten to twelve people trapped in one of the treasury strong rooms. We’re sending water and soup down through bamboo pipes. They’ll be all right.”
“Uhm.” I could imagine the nightmares they would suffer for the rest of their lives. “Just hang onto that stuff,” I told Arkana. I studied the stone around the base of the red-streamer pole. “Tobo, are they conscious down there?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I’d hate to think they’re just waiting to do something obnoxious when we dig them out.”
He said, “We can just leave them there. Without water they’ll die.”
“It’s a solution.” But not one that interested me. Only Booboo would really suffer. “Suvrin, may I?” When he nodded I beckoned some men who were standing around awaiting instructions. If the girl was aware I was sure we would get a dose of “love me” real quick. Which meant only people in Voroshk clothing should do the final digging.
The Khadidas and Daughter of Night had crawled into a corner of their hiding place when the collapse came. The walls had held up just enough. But they had not had time to collect food and water.
Sadly, my baby did have a lamp and supplies and did make a valiant attempt to keep right on enscribing the Books of the Dead, perhaps in hope of lending Kina enough strength to save her. She could not have had much hope otherwise.
I thought a lot about what Booboo had been through in her near quarter century. About what had been done to her and what she believed she was. The loving part of me thought it might be a priceless mercy if she was saved the cruelty of reawakening.
It never got beyond being a notion. No argument I could present would ever convince Lady that that was appropriate. She wanted a little Lady so badly.
I discovered the Radisha beside me. It was amazing how much she had aged. She even carried a cane. “It’s true, you know,” she said in a weary voice.
“What’s that?” Though I knew what she was going to say.
“The coming of the Black Company did mean the end of Taglios. Just not the way we imagined.”
“All we ever wanted was to pass on through.”
She nodded, keeping her bitterness contained.
“You think we were hard on Taglios? Consider how happy the Shadowmasters must be.”
“But you haven’t finished with Taglios,” the Prahbrindrah Drah observed, joining us. “I’ve just heard what happened to Lady. How is she?”
“Stable.” He was another of those men who had been infatuated with my wife at one time. “And you’re right. In a way. As long as people try to push us around people get hurt. But that shouldn’t last much longer. We’re close to where we have to go.” I stepped forward, spoke to the men digging, first in the language of the Children of the Dead, then in Taglian. “We’re getting close. Hold up till those of us who are protected can help. Tobo! Girls. They’re almost through over here.”
Not far off more interior brickwork surrendered to the seduction of gravity.
The soldiers created a precarious opening through which someone might wriggle. I asked for a lantern, meaning to be first inside, but Tobo seized it when it arrived. I did not argue. He was better equipped than I.
Seconds after the boy began to duckwalk a blast of urine-colored light ripped through the opening. It glanced off Tobo, hit a block of stone, scattered. It was a potent blast. Stone melted. And one stray ricochet found the Prahbrindrah Drah.
The results were ugly. And instantly fatal.
“That was it,” Tobo called back, unaware of the disaster. “That’s all he had. He’s out of it now. Croaker, help me drag them out.”
The Radisha began to wail.
The boy recognized the scope of the disaster immediately. The Taglian empire was, as of this moment, without an acceptable helmsman. Was without legitimate direction. “It’ll have to wait a minute,” I said. “The Prince is hurt. I want to get him to medical care right now.” Maybe, just one more time, we could pretend the supreme authority was fine but staying out of sight. Soulcatcher got away with it. The Great General got away with it. Why not my own band of opportunists?
I feared there had been too many witnesses, though Suvrin and Aridatha took up the pretense immediately and the Radisha herself joined me after only a few heartbeats. She put on a creditable show of threatening me with serious unpleasantness if her brother happened to die.
Now aware that political disaster threatened, Tobo launched some glitzy distraction. To which I paid little attention because I was desperate to get the Prince out of the public eye. There was a lot of flash behind me, and changing colors playing through the ruins. A big bunch of masonry went down. And Shukrat began helping Tobo pull the Khadidas out of the ground.
Aridatha’s men hauled the Prince’s litter away. The prince seen to, Arkana and I began to ease through the rubble toward the hole. I beckoned more stretcher-bearers. The thing being dragged into the light did not look dangerous. It looked like an old, worn-out version of a Goblin who was already dead.
“You want these now?” Arkana asked.
“Hang on just another minute. Get him over here, guys. On the stretcher. Easy. Easy! Tobo. Can you wake him up? Just for a second? Long enough for him to recognize me and what I’m doing?”
“Probably. If you want to risk it.” There was a choke in the boy’s voice. He looked at the spear and the ugly hat and wanted to believe that I had a way to reach the Goblin trapped inside the Khadidas. The Goblin who was always like an uncle to him.
“Oh, shit!” I said. “Wait! Wait!”
“What?”
“I just had an ugly thought. About how Kina might react through Lady if we drive the devil out of Goblin.”
Tobo sucked in a bucket of air, released it. “I don’t see how she could work that. But why take a chance? She is the Mother of Deception. Shuke, honey, do me a favor. Get the small carpet from my room. Just fold it up and bring it back. We’ll use that to haul them away.”
Shukrat jumped onto her post and zipped away. While he waited Tobo had an awning erected to keep potential rain off Goblin, then snaked back into the hole. He did not ask for help so I stood back with Aridatha and Arkana, insides turning over, awaiting my first glimpse of Booboo.
I asked Singh, “The fires under the rubble never go out. What the hell keeps burning?”
“Five hundred years worth of archives. Everything that belonged to the Inspector General of the Records. It’ll make for interesting times when we try to put things back together.”
Shukrat, the little darling, obviously knew her way around Tobo’s quarters. She was back with a small, folded flying carpet before the kid himself poked his head back out of the hole. With Arkana’s help she snapped the frame into position, stretched the fabric taut.
Arkana finally found nerve enough to speak to Aridatha directly, in a nonbusiness capacity. “You think it’s going to rain?”
You could see she wanted to melt like a slug freshly sprinkled with salt. All that work to find the nerve to speak and something that feeble was all she could get out. When fat raindrops had begun plunking down at random intervals nearly a minute before.
She was just a kid.
They had the Khadidas on the flying carpet now. And a couple of soldiers, one Taglian and one from Hsien, had hold of a pair of ankles.
“You all right, Pop?” Arkana asked, holding onto my left arm.
“She looks just like Lady did the first time we met.” In a time of terror. There was terror here, now, but of an entirely different sort.
“Then your wife must have had some filthy hygiene habits in her younger days.”
“Ah, but she was eager to learn. Tobo, can you make sure Booboo doesn’t wake up until I want her to?” I did not want to have to cope with her witchery. “And let’s keep these two away from each other from now on. We don’t need them getting their heads together.”
“We don’t need them, period,” someone muttered. Shukrat, I realized. Shukrat did not like the way Tobo kept eyeballing the Daughter of Night.
Nor did my other adopted offspring particularly approve of the contemplative stares of Aridatha Singh.
Tobo called, “Croaker, you want to wake up yourself? Just for a minute? So you can take a look at her? See if anything’s missing or broken?”
One of the city soldiers told another that everything looked just fine to him. A little soap and some clean clothes . . .
I never thought I would be a father and have to pretend not to hear such remarks.
The man was right. She was a beautiful child. Exactly like her mother. And like Lady’s, most of her beauty lay right on the surface. I had to remind myself not to be taken in by what I saw or by what I wanted to feel. My emotions would not be trustworthy. They might not be my own. The Mother of Deceit had not left the game.
I knelt beside my daughter. My emotions were engaged indeed. I felt a thousand years old and utterly powerless. It took a major application of will to touch her.
Her skin felt cold.
In moments I reported, “She’s got lots of bruises and scrapes but there isn’t any serious damage. Nothing permanent. She is dehydrated.” She shook each time I touched her, as though I was massaging her with pieces of ice. “She’ll recover, if we take care of her. Put her in with Lady.”
Tobo said, “You’ll need somebody to stay with her. Somebody who can control her.”
“I will.”
“I will.”
Shukrat and Arkana both volunteered.
Well. Were they that concerned about competition from a beat-up, unconscious woman who knew absolutely nothing about men?
I would bet Tobo was grinning when he said, “All right, ladies. Work yourselves out a schedule. Croaker, what do you plan to do about Goblin?”
Suvrin seemed a little irked. Events were going forward without consulting the new Captain of the Black Company. But in matters concerning Booboo and the Khadidas he was no expert.
“Stash him. I’ll wait till I’m well-rested to deal with him. Meantime, we need somebody to crawl into that hole and collect up all of Booboo’s scribblings. Somebody from Hsien, preferably. Somebody illiterate. We’ll take no chance anybody will read that stuff. I’ll take care of it. But right now I’m going to go take a nap. I’m totally exhausted.”
I was worried. I pranced from foot to foot like a little boy at a wedding who really needed to pee. It was another day and I still had not gotten started with Booboo and the Khadidas. Giving them and their Goddess any time at all was bound to lead to mischief.
But I had more immediate responsibilities. The fighting was over. Our obligation to the dead had to be handled now. And a huge city, with many dead of its own, had to be kept on a tight rein. Recent disasters would encourage plotters and conspirators.
The Children of the Dead knew how to put on a memorial for fallen comrades. Deep-voiced drums muttered and grumbled. Horns conjured forth the mood and gloom of a chilly, rainy morning despite a bright, cloudless winter sky. The soldiers paraded in all their brilliant colors, with all their thousands of banners. The locals were suitably impressed. We sent Sleepy off in more style than she could have hoped for while she lived. We said our good-byes to a great many people.
Then we stood back and rendered appropriate honors as Aridatha Singh directed equally large, if not nearly so dramatic, ceremonies honoring those who had fallen on behalf of the Protectorate. And when that was done we joined the local soldiers and the most important men of the city in honoring the Prahbrindrah Drah.
His funeral was the grandest I ever attended. I developed the distinct impression that all those leading men had gathered, however, to eyeball one another suspiciously rather than to mourn the passing of a ruler none had seen since they were young.
Aridatha Singh was popular with these men. Because Aridatha Singh had gathered to himself the loyalties of the survivors of the Second Territorial Division, the Greys, and the commanders of the rural garrisons nearest the city. Aridatha Singh had become the most powerful man in the Taglian Territories, despite having done little to acquire that power—except to be competent and a nice guy.
They say that when the hour comes, so will the man. Sometimes fate will even conspire to put a competent, honest man in the right place at the right time. Almost overnight the graffiti began giving Aridatha Mogaba’s old title, Great General.
Now, if he could just manage to get by without antagonizing the occupiers.
I tried to keep an eye on Tobo but that was difficult with a kid so talented.
The hours of ceremony ground me down. I wanted to put myself away for another long nap. But I refused to give the Queen of Darkness any further respite.
“These are them,” Arkana told me in perfectly colloquial bad Taglian, indicating eight bitty wooden kegs. “Eight different men took turns crawling in there and stuffing papers—and everything else they could find—into a keg. Which I had sealed up as soon as the man came out. By an illiterate cooper.”
“You are a treasure indeed, daughter dear. Gentlemen, let’s build us a bonfire.” I had brought a couple of carts loaded with wood purchased from a wood seller whose usual customers were people who needed firewood for funeral ghats. I had been surprised to find he had any stock left, considering recent events.
The gentlemen I spoke to all hailed from Hsien. They knew only that the eight kegs contained the hopes of life of a monster more blackhearted than the legendary Shadowmasters who had tortured the Land of Unknown Shadows. And that was all they needed to know.
The pyre went up quickly, the kegs scattered throughout it. A fraction of me bemoaned the fate of the latest incarnation of the Books of the Dead. I hate seeing any book destroyed. But I did not interfere when the oil splashed and the fireballs zipped in.
My reluctance might be Kina trying to manipulate me. I stayed there until I was confident that my natural daughter’s life’s work had been consumed completely by the flames. In some myths Hagna, god of fire, is Kina’s mortal enemy. In others, when she is in her Destroyer avatar, he is her ally.
The more I am exposed to the Gunni pantheon the more confused I become.
“What task now?” I wondered aloud. Everyone but Arkana and a few curious street kids, the near-feral ones called jengali, had moved along. A ragged, bemused white crow had been hanging around, too, but it had nothing to say. It had been doing a lot of sticking close and keeping its beak shut lately.
“Time to wake somebody up, Pop. Your wife, your daughter or the Khadidas.”
I surveyed the workmen clearing rubble. Most were civilians now, supervised by soldiers there just to keep them from stealing any treasures they unearthed.
The masonry had stopped collapsing. The fires had burned out. The popular consensus was that an all-new palace should be erected, once the old structures had been cleared away.
I could not imagine what treasures and surprises might surface if they did demolish and remove the whole rambling monster. No one ever knew the palace in its entirety. No one but a long-dead wizard named Smoke.
The death pyre of the Books of the Dead attracted more jengali, who wanted to take advantage of the warmth.
Shukrat glowered at Arkana. Seemed Arkana was not doing her share of Booboo watching. And Arkana did not care if Shukrat was pissed off.
I noticed a change in Lady. She did not seem to be in a sort of coma anymore. She seemed to be in a normal but deep sleep. I threw open a window. I am a firm believer in the health benefits of fresh air. The scruffy white crow appeared almost immediately. I asked, “How long has this been going on?” I had my back to Booboo. Cleaned and groomed and dressed in decent clothing she was quite the sleeping beauty. I tried not to look at her long. Seeing her still ripped at my heart.
“What?” Shukrat asked. She stuck her tongue out at Arkana.
“The snoring. Lady didn’t snore before.” I meant since she had fallen under the spell. Before, she had snored for as long as I had been sleeping with her. Though she refused to believe it.
Shukrat said, “She started right after we brought the Daughter of Night in. I didn’t think anything about it.”
“No reason you should.”
Arkana nodded. “I never noticed her not snoring.”
The white crow chuckled from the window sill. I asked, “Did she snore when she was a kid?”
The crow made a noise. The girls looked at me, then at the bird. No dummies, they realized right away that it was not just an albino with bad personal habits. Being sorceresses they soon understood that it was a genuine crow, too, rather than some creature whose usual form was no form, and out of sight.
“Assuming she is sleeping, she’s been there a long time. You’d think she would’ve wakened on her own.” I touched my wife gently. She did not respond. I shook her, much less tenderly. She groaned, muttered, rolled onto her side, pulled her knees up. I said, “Don’t give me that stuff. It’s time to get up.”
The girls smiled. They felt my relief.
She was just sleeping now, even if that had been going on for a long time and might go on for a while more.
“Come on, woman! We’ve got work to do. You’ve had enough sleep for ten people.”
“She’s sure been getting my share.”
Lady cracked an eyelid. At the same time she muttered something incoherent that sounded suspiciously like one of her traditional early morning threats.
I said, “All that rest hasn’t improved her disposition any. I’ll remember this next time she claims lack of sleep is why she’s cranky.”
“You want me to dump a bucket of cold water on her?” Arkana asked. She could be a presumptuous little witch.
“She does need a bath.”
Lady growled again, but this time in a lame attempt to be cheerful.
I told her, “Don’t even try to be nice.” The way the human body works, returning from a coma in a good humor is flat impossible.
Her throat was dry and tight. After we dealt with that, she asked, “Where are we? How long was I down this time?”
I had lost track.
“Fifteen days? At least. Probably more,” Shukrat said. “You were sleeping for all of us. We were all too busy.”
Lady examined her surroundings. She knew she had not been here before. She could not see Booboo from where she sat.
I told her, “The war is over. We won. Sort of. Aridatha Singh surrendered. We offered them good terms.”
Lady grunted, mind not working swiftly. “Mogaba let him do that?”
“The Great General isn’t with us anymore.”
“I need to talk to you about that, Pop,” Shukrat said. “I went out to that sandbar.”
I signed her to silence. Something from the hidden realm would be around somewhere. I continued talking to Lady. “A lot of people aren’t with us anymore. Including almost everybody who went to town with us the night you got hit. Sleepy, too, later on. In an ambush. Suvrin took over. He’ll be all right. He’ll grow into it. As long as we help him.”
Arkana added, “Don’t forget the Prince and General Chu. And Mihlos. I miss him.”
“Because he panted around behind you like a horny hound dog,” Shukrat sneered. “And you just led him on.”
“And who went out of her way to make sure she wiggled and jiggled whenever he was around?”
“Girls?”
“What?”
“I’m just jealous. Where were you when I was Mihlos’s age?”
Lady interrupted. “What else do I need to know?”
“The Palace fell down. We’ve occupied the city. Aridatha Singh is in charge now and gets Arkana wiggling and jiggling whenever he comes around. We don’t know how the succession will work out. We captured Booboo and the Khadidas. We destroyed the Books of the Dead. Again. Booboo is right over there. If you want to see her.” I extended a hand to help her rise. If she wanted. “She’s pretty.”
“I want. But I won’t be able to stand up by myself. I don’t think I’ll even be able to sit up for long without help.”
The crow snickered.
Lady gave the bird a long, hard look. Then she offered me its twin.
I asked, “How’s your connection with Kina?”
“What do you mean, how is my connection?”
“Did I stutter? Is it still there? Is it stronger? Is it weaker?”
“Why?”
“Because I want to know. Why not answer me?”
The girls were startled. They looked like they wished they were anywhere else. But they spread out.
“She didn’t take me over while I was sleeping, if that’s what you’re after. I did have some awful nightmares, though. It was like I was trapped inside her imagination for an age. But she ignored me. She had something on her mind.” She came close to grinding her teeth with each word. She did not want to open up. “The nightmare went away a while ago.”
I could understand. The only place I want to reveal myself, even a little, is here, where hardly anyone will ever notice.
“Did you have any sense of time? I’m thinking maybe something happening here changed what you were going through there.”
“Sense of time? It was forever. And no time at all. Kina doesn’t experience time the way we do. I don’t think. She sure doesn’t let it oppress her. Come on. Show me my baby. Before I collapse.” She strained to get up.
Shukrat and Arkana got hold of her arms and helped her up. Arkana asked, “She always this cranky when she wakes up, Pop?”
“You’re going to become part of the family, get used to it. You will if you don’t take it personal.” I chuckled when Lady asked me how I would like it if she stopped getting personal. “She’s not bad today.”
The crow hissed. Clearly, it did not care if Lady figured it out. In fact, what it said sounded like, “Sister, sister.” Which was the taunt Lady had employed a few years ago, when she was looking out from behind the eyes of another crow.
Curious, the white crows. There has been one around, off and on, since the siege of Dejagore. Back then Murgen had been the mind behind the bird’s eyes. Most of the time. Apparently. But was Shivetya the mind behind the crow-riding minds? Could he have had that much power to affect events outside the glittering plain?
That would explain a good deal. Maybe even Murgen’s former difficulties with his place in time. But that would mean that Soulcatcher was not responsible for much of what we believed were her crimes. I was not sure I wanted it to be that way.
The bird snickered. Like it could read my mind.
Soulcatcher always had had a knack for reading me.
“We lost Murgen, too,” I said as we moved into position facing one another over the unconscious girl.
“I understood that. From your having told me how many we lost. That would be everyone not wearing Voroshk clothing. Correct?”
“Except for one damned lucky soldier from Hsien who managed to be behind the right person at the right time. Lucky is now Tarn Do’s official nickname.”
“Must be in the blood,” Lady muttered, forcing herself to look at the girl. “The women of my blood are fated to spend most of their existence trapped and asleep.” She rested her weight more fully on the girls, extended a hand to touch Booboo’s cheek. She lapsed into the language of the Jewel Cities. “Asleep like this was the only way I ever saw my mother. She was the one they told the first Sleeping Beauty stories about. Her Prince Charming never came. My father did. And he was content with her the way she was.”
Now there was a slice of horror to lug around in the back of your brain: knowing that your mother was not even aware that you had been born.
And we like to whine about how cruel the world is today.
They were giants in the olden days.
We will be giants ourselves five hundred years from now.
“So this is our baby.” She stared. “Conceived on a battlefield.” Her emotions were plain upon her face. Never had I seen her looking more vulnerable.
“This is our baby.”
“Shall we wake her up?”
“I don’t think so. Not now, anyway. Life is insane enough right now without asking for more trouble.”
That did not set well. Not at all. Lady wanted to establish some kind of emotional dialog with this flesh of her flesh. For my part, I found that now I had been exposed directly, the emotional distress was fading away. I do not believe my thoughts were skewed by might-have-beens and wish-that-weres.
Lady did concede that it might not be a good plan to waken Booboo without Tobo there for backup.
She did not do anything untoward but she did have the girls breathing nervously for a while.