Bleak Seasons

62

Bucket wakened me. "One of Mogaba's guys is here, Murgen. Says His Majesty wants to see you."

I groaned. "Does it have to be so bright out there?" I had not bothered to go down into the warrens.

"He's pissed off. We've been pretending you were here but couldn't talk to him. Goblin and One-Eye put doubles of you on the wall sometimes so the Nar could see you."

"And now you have the real Murgen back you want to throw him to the wolf."

"Uh... Well... He didn't ask for nobody else." Meaning he did not want Goblin or One-Eye. He wanted to stay away from those two.

"Find my bitty buddies and tell them I need them. Now." The wizards turned up at their own leisure, of course. I told them, "Put me in a litter and lug me over to the citadel. We're going to admit that you've been lying about me but only because I was totally sick. What we were doing on that raft last night was taking baths. You thought it would be cute to pop off a few fireballs while I had my pants down."

One-Eye started to complain but before he could start I growled, "I'm not face Mogaba without backup. He don't have any reason to be nice anymore."

"He won't be in a good mood," Goblin predicted. "There's been rioting. Food shortages are getting really bad. He won't turn one grain of rice loose. Even his handpicked Taglian sergeants have started to desert."

"It's all falling apart for him," I said. "He was going to take over and show the world wonders but his followers can't match his iron will."

"And we're some kind of philanthropic brotherhood?" One-Eye muttered.

"We never kill nobody who don't ask for it. Come on. Let's do it. And be ready for anything. Both of you."

But first we went up to the battlements, both so I could see this world by daylight and so the Nar at the North Gate could see me looking sick before I presented myself that way.

The water level was just eight feet below the ramparts, higher than Hong Tray's prediction. "Any flooding inside?"

"Mogaba sealed the gates somehow. He has Jaicuri working parties bucket-brigading what seepage there is."

"Good for him. How about down below?"

"There's some seepage in the catacombs. Not a lot. We could keep up by hauling it up in buckets."

I grunted. I stared at Shadowspinner's lake. I saw more corpses than I could count. "Those didn't float up from the mounds, did they?"

Goblin told me, "Mogaba threw people off the wall during the riots. And some might be from rafts that turned over or broke up."

I squinted. I could just make out a mounted patrol beyond the water. A raft with Jaicuri piled high had been caught by daylight. The people aboard were trying to move away from the waiting patrol by paddling with their hands.

Thai Dei turned up so we knew his people were watching. I figured he would want me to visit the Speaker. But he said nothing. I told my bearers, "Take me to his worship."

As we approached I observed, "The citadel looks like something out of a spook story." And it did, with the sky overcast behind it and crows swarming around. Dejagore was a paradise for crows. They were going to get too fat to fly. Maybe we would get fat eating them.

The Nar at the entrance would not let One-Eye and Goblin inside. "So take me home," I told them.

"Wait!"

"Stick it, buddy. I got no need to put up with Mogaba's crap. The Lieutenant is alive. So is the Captain, probably. Mogaba ain't shit nowhere but inside his own head anymore."

"You could have at least argued until we were rested up."

One-Eye started shuffling sideways so he could turn and head back down the steps.

Ochiba caught us before we reached street level. He was cast in the same mold as all Nar. His face remained neutral. "Apologies, Standardbearer. Won't you reconsider?"

"Reconsider what? I don't especially want to see Mogaba. He's been eating magic mushrooms or chewing lucky weed or something. I been shitting my guts out for over a week. I ain't in no shape to play games with no homicidal lunatic."

Something fluttered behind Ochiba's dark eyes. Maybe he agreed. Maybe there was another war going on inside him, a struggle between keeping faith with Gea-Xle's greatest Nar ever and keeping faith with his own humanity.

I was not going to pursue it. Any hint of outside interest would push waverers in the direction of "That's the way it's always been."

That was the top two, then, quietly questioning Mogaba's way. If these guys doubted him things were probably worse than I thought.

"As you wish." Ochiba told the sentries, "Let the litterbearers in."

Nobody missed the significance of who my litterbearers were. It was a pretty direct statement.

I felt comfortably confrontational.