Bleak Seasons

42

"Got something for you, Kid." I started awake. "What... ?" What happened? I don't drift off that way.

One-Eye had a big shit-eating grin on but it evaporated when he looked at me closer. He darted in, grabbed my chin, turned my head right and left. "You just have one of your spells?"

"Spells?"

"You know what I mean."

Not exactly. I just had their word for the fact that I went spooky sometimes.

"You've got a kind of psychic shimmer. Maybe I caught you just in time."

He and Goblin kept talking about doing experiments to find out what is happening but there never seemed to be time to actually do anything. "What do you have?"

"The work parties broke into the old catacombs this morning."

"Longo told me."

"Everybody's charging around in there, all excited."

"I can imagine. Find any treasure yet?"

One-Eye looked put-upon. For such a blackhearted toad he can manage a truly impressive show of self-righteous injury.

"I take it not."

"We found some books. A whole pile. All sealed up neat and everything. Looks like they've been there since the Shadowmasters first came."

"Makes sense since they always burned the books and the priests. You find any priests lurking down there?"

"Not hardly. Look, I got to get back." Before somebody grabbed a treasure out from under him, no doubt. "I got a couple guys lugging them books up for you."

"Gods forfend you should have lifted anything yourself."

"You got a serious attitude problem, Kid. I'm an old man." One-Eye did a fade. He has that knack when he is about to find himself in an indefensible position.

A city seldom is buttoned up so tight that no news gets in from outside. Sometimes it seems almost mystical but the word does come through. In Dejagore rumor seldom brought in anything Mogaba wanted to hear.

I was studying the discovered books, so intrigued I was letting duties slide. They were written in Jaicuri but the written form thereof is almost identical to written Taglian.

Goblin stepped in. "You doing all right? No more dizziness?"

"No. You guys worry too much."

"No, we don't. Look, some new rumors are going around. There's supposedly a relief column headed our way. Blade, of all people, is in charge."

"Blade? He isn't... He's never run anything bigger than a reduced company. Before we ever got here. Fighting guerrilla style against amateurs."

"I don't make them up, I just report them. He did do well."

"So did Willow Swan and Cordy Mather. But that was accident and luck and Shadowlander stupidity more than anything those three actually did. Why on earth is he commanding an army?"

"He's supposedly Lady's second in command. Not much doubt anymore that she survived. She's also pissed off. And putting together a new army."

"Bet Mogaba's jumping for joy. Running around hollering, ‘We're saved! We're saved!' "

"You might say he's jumping."

Over the following few days we heard a thousand wild stories. If a tenth were true some really bizarre changes were underway out there in the world.

"You heard the latest?" Goblin asked me one night when I took a rare break from the books to examine that outer world from the wall. "Lady ain't Lady after all. She's the incarnation of some goddess named Kina. A real badass, too, apparently."

"She would be. Thai Dei. You know Kina, don't you? Tell us about her." Thai Dei wasn't allowed into our warrens but he always turned up whenever I came up for air.

He forgot all three words of Taglian he had admitted to knowing. The name of that goddess scrubbed his brain clean.

I said, "That's what happens when you mention Kina to any of these people. I can't even get our prisoners to talk about her. You would think she belonged to the Black Company."

"Must be a real charmer," Bucket opined.

"Oh, she is. She is. There's one." I meant a shooting star. We were keeping count. Also of enemy watchfires. The southerners had scattered in small unit encampments around the plain recently. I guess they were afraid we might sneak away.

"You know something about her, then?" Goblin asked.

"From those books you guys found." The men were bitter. The books and some sealed jars filled with grain were the only treasures they unearthed. The Gunni were the majority religion in Jaicur and the Gunni do not bury their dead. They burn them. The minority Vehdna do bury their dead but do not include any grave goods. Where their dead are bound they have no need of luggage. In paradise everything is provided. In hell, too. "One was a compilation of Gunni myths, in variants from all over. The guy who recorded them was a religious scholar. His book wasn't meant to get out where it might confuse ordinary people."

"I'm confused and there ain't nothing ordinary about me," Bucket observed.

"So what's the scoop, Murgen? How come they won't tell us about this bitch? Whoa! Did you see that one? It exploded."

"All right," I told them. "The Gunni religion is the most common one around here."

"I think we know that, Murgen," Goblin said.

"Just making the point. Most people down here believe in Kina. Even if they're not Gunni, they believe. Here's the story. The Gunni have Lords of Light and Lords of Darkness. They've been doing their lording since the beginning of time."

"Sounds like standard stuff."

"It is. Only the value systems are different from what we knew back home. The balance between darkness and light is more dynamic here, and isn't weighted the same emotionally as our struggle between good and evil. Moreover, Kina is a sort of self-elevated outside agency of decay and corruption that attacks both darkness and light. She was created by the Lords of Light to help defeat a horde of really nasty demons they couldn't handle any other way. She helped by eating the demons. Naturally, she got fat. And apparently wanted dessert because she tried to eat everybody else, too."

"She was stronger than the gods who created her?"

"Guys, I didn't make this stuff up. Don't ask me to rationalize it. Goblin, you've been everywhere. You ever seen a religion that can't be picked to shreds by any nonbeliever with brains enough to tie his own bootlaces?"

Goblin shrugged. "You're as cynical as Croaker was."

"Yeah? Good for me. Anyway, there's a lot of typically murky mythological stuff about mothers and fathers and vicious, hideous, probably incestuous carryings-on amongst the other gods while Kina kept getting stronger. She was real sneaky. That's one of her attributes. Deceit. But then her main creator, or father, tricked her and put a sleep spell on her. She's still snoring away somewhere but she can touch our world through her dreams.

"She's got her worshippers. All Gunni deities do. Big, little, good, bad, indifferent, they all have their temples and priesthoods. I can't find out much about Kina's followers. They're called Deceivers. The soldiers won't talk about them. They flat refuse, like naming Kina might actually waken her. Which, I gather, is the holy mission of her worshippers."

"Too weird for me," Bucket grumbled. Goblin said, "That explains why Lady scares the shit out of everybody whenever she dresses up. If they really think she's turned into this goddess."

"I figure we should find out everything we can about this Kina."

"Crack plan, Murgen. How? If nobody will talk?" Yeah. Even the boldest Taglians threatened to get the vapors if I pressed. It was obvious that they were not just terrified of this goddess. They were scared of me, too.

One-Eye brought heartening news. "This stuff about the relief force is gold, boss. Every night now Spinner is sneaking troops out through the hills like he don't think we can see them go if it's dark."

"Could he be giving up the siege?"

"The troops are all headed north. Home ain't north."

I did not offer another alternative. One-Eye would not have come if he was not sure.

Of course, One-Eye being sure never meant that One-Eye was right. He was One-Eye.

I thanked him, sent him to do a small chore, found Goblin and asked him what he thought. The little wizard seemed surprised I would bother. "Did One-Eye stutter or something?"

"No. But he's One-Eye."

Goblin could not contain his big frog grin. That made perfect sense to him.

Nobody relayed the news to Mogaba. I thought it would go easier for everybody if he didn't know. But Mogaba heard rumors, too.

Dejagore was a nightmare town filled with factions only loosely united in defiance of the besiegers. Mogaba's forces were the strongest. The Jaicuri were most numerous. We Old Crew, with our auxiliaries, were less numerous and less powerful. But boy were we strong in our righteousness.

And then there were the Nyueng Bao. The Nyueng Bao remained an enigma.