Bleak Seasons

86

The apartment was overrun with guards. What was going on? I was confused. Another fainting spell?

Smoke. Blood. The present. The hard present that breathed pain like a dragon breathes fire.

I became aware of the Captain's presence. He came from the back of the apartment shaking his head. He eyed Uncle Doj curiously.

Cordy Mather blew in looking like a man encountering the worst horror show of a long and unhappy lifetime. He went straight to the Old Man. I heard only "... dead men all over the place."

I could not catch Croaker's response.

"... were after you?"

Croaker shrugged.

"You just moved out last... "

A Guard rushed in. He whispered to Mather. Mather barked, "Listen up! We've still got some live ones out there. Be careful." He and the Old Man moved a little closer. "They're lost in the labyrinth. We'll need One-Eye to find them all."

"The excitement never ends, does it?" Croaker sounded really tired.

To no one special Uncle Doj announced, "They have only just begun to pay." His Taglian was excellent considering he had been unable to speak a word the day before.

Mother Gota came from the back, bent and moving slowly. Typically of Nyueng Bao women dealing with disaster she had brewed tea. This was quite possibly the worst day of her life. It would be a good pot.

The Captain gave Uncle Doj another searching look, then knelt beside me. "What happened here, Murgen?"

"I'm not sure. I walked in in the middle of it. Stabbed a guy. That one. Got thrown across a table. Tripped and fell through a hole in time. Maybe. Woke up on fire." I still had charred pages around me. My arm hurt like hell. "There were dead people all over. I lost it. Next thing I knew it was now."

Croaker caught Mather's eye. He used a rocking motion of his right hand to indicate Uncle Doj.

Cordy Mather asked Uncle for his story. He spoke perfect Nyueng Bao.

It was a night of a thousand surprises.

Uncle Doj said, "These Deceivers were skilled. They gave no warning. I wakened just an instant before two fell upon me." He explained how he had evaded death, breaking a neck and a spine in the process. He described his kills clinically, even critically.

He spoke harshly of both himself and Thai Dei. He was down on himself because he had allowed himself to be tempted into pursuing other Deceivers when they fled. Their flight proved to be a diversion. Thai Dei, who had not been drawn away, received criticism for showing the instant of hesitation that had cost him his broken arm.

"Cheap lesson for him," Croaker observed. Uncle Doj nodded, missing the Captain's sarcasm. He had to face the cruel cost of having allowed himself to be deceived.

There were fourteen corpses in my apartment, not including those of butchered Annals. Twelve had been Deceivers. One had been my wife and one my nephew. Six perished by Ash Wand, three at Thai Dei's hands. Mother Gota gutted two and I pigstuck one when I walked in.

Grasping my shoulder in what was meant to be a comforting gesture, Uncle Doj said, "A warrior does not slay women or children. That is the work of beasts. When beasts kill men all men are constrained to hunt and destroy them."

"Nice talk," Croaker said. "But the Deceivers never claimed to be warriors." He was not impressed by Uncle's speech.

Neither was Mather. "It's religion, Old Timer. Their Path. They are the priests of death. The sex or age of their sacrifices doesn't mean squat. Their victims all go straight to paradise and never have to take another turn around on the wheel of life, no matter how buggered up their karma was."

Uncle Doj's mood grew blacker by the minute. "I know tooga," he muttered. "No more tooga." Nobody was revealing any mysteries to him.

Cordy smiled wickedly at the swordmaster. "You guys probably won a high spot on their desirable victim list by killing so many of them. If you're a Deceiver there's big status to be gained by killing somebody who has killed a lot of people."

I heard Mather's blather but it did not register as sense. I muttered, "Tooga ain't no crazier than any other religion around here."

That seemed to offend everyone equally. Good.

Mather turned to fuss at his Guards. They had failed their trust. My own disaster was just one of several. Others were still happening.

Numbly, I said, "You can't defend against this kind of thing, Mather. These guys weren't commandos." I swatted the nearest corpse with the charred sheets I was holding. "They came in here expecting to make it to paradise by midnight. Probably didn't even have an escape plan." In a softer voice, I said, "Captain, you might better check on Smoke."

Croaker frowned like I had given away everything but asked only, "You need anything? Want somebody to stay?" He understood what Sarie meant to me.

"This is where I came from. When I kept falling back. I got family with me, Captain. If I start to go bugfuck in the head they'll cool me down. You really want to help? Fix Thai Dei's arm. Then go do what you got to do."

Croaker nodded. He made a small gesture that, in normal times meant "Go!" but which meant a good deal more now. "Narayan Singh is going to wake up some morning and realize that he has reaped the whirlwind. There is no safe place for him anymore."

I rose. Grimly, I set out for my bedroom. Behind me, Thai Dei groaned as Croaker set his arm. The Old Man paid him no other mind. He was busy issuing orders that meant a major intensification of the war.

Uncle Doj followed me.

The reality hurt less than the anticipation had. I indulged in the pointless gesture of removing the rumel from my wife's throat. I stood there with the scarf dangling, staring. This Strangler must have been a true master. Her neck was not broken, nor had her throat been bruised. She looked like she was sleeping. There was no pulse when I touched her, though. "Uncle Doj. Can I be alone?"

"Of course. But drink this first. It will help you to rest." He handed me something that smelled really nasty.

Did we do this already?

He went away. I laid down beside Sarie for the last time. I held her while the medicine began to course through me, calling forth sleep. I thought all the usual thoughts, nurtured the usual hatreds. I thought the unthinkable, that it might be best that this had happened before Sahra learned what it really meant to be Company.

I reminisced the great miracle. Ours was a match that never should have been. A match neither ever regretted for an instant, yet one created by a force so slight as the unspoken whim of an old woman cursed with hysterical, unreliable precognitive visions.

I thought both sanely and crazily and commenced the process of beatification that is inevitable after any untimely death. I slept. But even in Nod I could not escape the pain. I dreamed cruel dreams I could not reclaim when I awakened. It was almost as if Kina herself were mocking me, telling me that triumph was a costly deception.

Sarie was gone when I awakened, my head throbbing with a medicinal hangover. I stumbled around until I ran into Mother Gota. The old woman was fussing over some tea and talking to herself exactly the way she talked to the rest of the world.

"Where is Sahra?" I asked. "Tea. Please. What happened to her?"

Gota looked at me like I was mad. "She is dead." No pulling punches for her.

"I know that. Her body is gone."

"They have taken her home."

"What? Who?" Anger began to rise within me. How dare they... ? Who was they?

"Doj. Thai Dei. Her cousins and uncles. They have taken Sahra and To Tan home. I am here to watch over you."

"She was my wife. I... "

"She was Nyueng Bao before she was your wife. She is Nyueng Bao now. She will be Nyueng Bao tomorrow. Hong Tray's fantasies cannot change that."

I gained control before I exploded completely. Gota was right, from a Nyueng Bao point of view.

Also, there was not a lot I could do about it right now. Not without coming up with a lot more ambition than I had this morning. All I really wanted to do was sit around feeling sorry for myself.

I went back to our room with my tea. I settled on our bed, picked up the jade amulet that had belonged to Hong Tray. It seemed very warm this morning, more alive than I. I had not worn it for a long time. I slipped it onto my wrist now.

I could work my anger out on Uncle Doj when he got back.

If he came.