Bleak Seasons

94

Croaker looked up, puzzled, when I laid the white feather in front of him and said, "The books are gone. And there are Deceivers lost in there. At least one dead one and one still alive."

"Gone?" He plucked the feather off the document he was studying.

"Somebody took them."

His distress was apparent only because his hand began to shake. "How?"

"They just walked in off the street and carried them away." I did not for a moment consider the possibility that someone inside the Palace had visited Smoke's books.

He said nothing for a while. "What perfect timing." Another silence. "What's this feather?"

"Maybe a message. Maybe just a lost feather. I found one like it when I discovered that the Widowmaker armor had disappeared from hiding in Dejagore."

"A white feather?"

"From an albino crow." I ran through my catalog of encounters, real and possibly imagined.

His hand shook again. "You never actually met her. But you recognized her? She was here the night the Deceivers struck? And you never said anything?"

"I forgot that. That was the worst night of my life, Captain. That night has twisted everything else around me... "

He gestured for silence. He thought. I stared. He was nothing like the Croaker who had been Company physician and Annalist when I joined up. After a while, he muttered, "That must be it."

"What?"

"The voice you encountered whenever you were pulled back to Dejagore. Think. Was it inconsistent?"

"I don't think I understand."

"Did it seem like it might be different people talking all the time?"

Now I got it. "I don't think so. It did seem to have different attitudes and styles sometimes."

"The bitch. The sneaking bitch. Always playing another game. I won't swear this for sure, Murgen, but I think the root mystery behind you tumbling all over time must have been Soulcatcher playing."

Not a wholly original theory to me. Soulcatcher rated high on my own suspects list. Motive was my big stumbling block. I could not figure a "why Murgen?" for anybody, Soulcatcher included.

"Where is she now?" Croaker asked.

"I don't have the foggiest."

"Can you find out?"

"Smoke balks every time I try to head her way."

Croaker considered that. "Try again."

"You're the boss."

"As long as it suits everybody's convenience. You sure your in-laws won't go home?"

"They're going wherever I go."

"Tell them we'll be on the road before the end of the week."

"I look forward to that like a case of the piles." I took my white feather and stomped off for a session with the fire marshall.