She Is The Darkness

92

The stars were out. The campfire was low. Thai Dei and I and some of my pals were mellow on One-Eye's beer and filled to the nostrils with roast pig. I flipped a bone into the fire. It began to crackle. "This is living," Bucket rumbled, punctuating with a belch.

"If you like to camp out," I said. "The weather's right. Me, you give me my druthers, I'd be living like we did in Taglios. Without all the work."

"What work? I never seen you lift a finger."

"I had to keep Sarie smiling."

"Rub it in, shithead."

Rudy asked, "That guy snore like that all the time?"

He meant Thai Dei, who was splashed against the outside wall of our bunker, snorting and roaring, out cold. He had put away a lot, for him. The other Nyueng Bao were shunning him.

"Only when he's had a good time."

"First time, huh?"

"That I know about. But I wasn't there the night he got married."

Somebody said, "You got the Old Man's ear. Whyn't you whisper some sweet nothings about us heading on up the mountain?"

"Why would I want to do that?"

" 'Cause when we get to Khatovar all the travelling and fighting and shit will be over." Pause. "Won't it?"

I did not know. "I don't have a clue. You go twenty feet on up the hill and you've gotten to the limit of what I know."

"I thought everything was in them old books."

Everything was. But I did not have the right old books. I glanced at Thai Dei. It was starting to look like he had the right idea. "I've had all the fun I can stand, guys." I unfolded sore knees, got up, headed for bed. As I stepped over Thai Dei I said, "Don't wake me up for anything less than a shadow breakout. And make sure you leave some pig for Uncle."

It was a good thing the bunker roof was low enough to make me get down on my hands and knees inside. I did not have as far to fall.

I tripped over Sleepy first, then over One-Eye's spear, which I had no idea why we had brought along but we had and which I had left lying in the middle of the rock floor.

I fell onto my pallet without crippling myself.

I know I went dreamwalking but do not remember where I went. I have vague recollections of Sarie and a trivial brush with a Soulcatcher as eager to avoid me as I was to avoid her. I woke up with a headache, a big thirst, a desperate need to hit the latrine and a very short temper.

"Oh, cut the bullshit, you old fraud," I told Uncle Doj after I slithered out of the shack. He was giving an indifferent Thai Dei Nyueng Bao hell, using all the buzzwords that get trotted out when somebody cuts loose and makes an ass of himself. "Damn, it's bright out here. Thai Dei, get your ass up. Drink some water. Shit." I put away some water myself. I was a little green. If it did not rain soon I would have to have some more carried up.

"Standardbearer."

"Uh?" I found myself surrounded by Isi and Ochiba. "You guys pop out of the ground or something?"

"We've been waiting," Isi said.

"Your people are stubborn about protecting your rest," Ochiba added.

Their manner was disturbing, somehow. "Good for them. What's up?" Obviously, they had not trekked over for the exercise.

Isi had more of the Jewel Cities dialect than Ochiba but even he did not speak it well. Still, he got the message through. "The Captain and Lieutenant want you should know that prisoner Smoke is perished."

"Perished? Perished like in dead?"

"As a stone," Ochiba managed.

I recalled some pretty frisky stones, met long before these stiffnecks joined the gang. I did not mention them. Nobody cares about the Plain of Fear nowadays.

"Murdered," Isi added, because he thought I had missed the point.

My mouth hung open. Finally, I said, "Come on over here where we can talk." I grabbed a crow killer and led them across the slope far enough that no one could eavesdrop. "Let's have some details." The weapon proved needless. The black birds were not out.

"His throat was cut," Isi said.

How could that happen? "How could that happen? Somebody would have to climb over Singh and Longshadow and Howler... he wasn't out of the kennel somewhere, was he?" I would have been even more shocked if he had been killed in Croaker's dugout.

"He was imprisoned."

"I presume we don't have whoever did it." My first suspect in any sneak killing would be Narayan Singh or some tag-end member of his brotherhood. But the Deceivers did not spill blood. Narayan certainly would not, even in self-defense.

"No."

"Do we know who did it?"

"No."

"I'm coming over." I headed back into camp, "Shiner! Rudy! Spiff! Kloo! Bucket!" I bellowed and my officers and sergeants reacted like they thought we were about to suffer an unexpected visit from Mogaba and the entire Taglian army. I was loud. My hangover etched my entire universe in uncompromising blacks and whites.

"Sorry," I said, not meaning it. "It's not as bad as I sound. A minor emergency across the way. I'm going over. Raise the state of alert a notch. Tell them to drop the tonk games till they get their gear in shape." I drank another pint of water, then donated an equal quantity to the earth spirits. "Ochiba. Isi. Let's go."

Thai Dei shook the embrace of gravity, grabbed a bamboo pole he used as a staff. He stumbled after me, stubbornly keeping pace.

Thai Dei defined who and what he was against a bevy of inflexible standards that ignored his own desires, his likes and dislikes, and his pain.

Uncle Doj cancelled the Mother Gota show, straightened his apparel, touched the hilt of Ash Wand to make sure the sword had not deserted him, then trudged along after us. That morning he looked very tired and very old.

"There was no need for you to come over," Croaker grumbled. He looked old and tired himself this morning. "There's nothing you can do."

"I knew Smoke better than anybody. I thought maybe—"

"Wasting time. Unless you were so close you can raise his ghost."

I wondered. "It doesn't make sense."

"Sure it does. Somebody doesn't want us to spy on them." I started to protest that Smoke was a big secret, thought better of that. The Old Man did not want a debate. Instead, I asked, "What did the others have to say?"

Questions would have been asked, perhaps with great vigor. "Nobody saw nothing. Nobody knows nothing. But I think Howler has an idea. And I think he's scared somebody might find out and come after him."

"Then the smart thing to do would be for him to tell us what he knows." Torture would not get it out of the little shit. He was older than Lady and had been screaming in pain before she met him.

"So Lady told him. He's considering the angles."

"This might be a chance to get him on our side."

"Like I said, Murgen. You didn't need to come over. We're almost as smart as you. Just takes us a little longer to work these things out."

"No doubt. Did you hear Bowalk carrying on last night?"

"The changer? No. What're you talking about?"

"She went bugfuck when Thai Dei and I went past the cage last night." I told him.

"She does that sometimes. Lady thinks it might be her animal side getting stronger. She might be trying to attract a boyfriend."

Uncle Doj, I noted, had gone to the cage soon after our arrival, independently, after a few words with JoJo. He did not understand anything Croaker and I were saying.

"Thai Dei said that's what it sounded like."

"Guy might not be as dumb as he looks." The Old Man focused on Uncle Doj while he talked. I was not sure who he meant. He asked, "How is our foundling?"

"Sleepy? Sleeping."

"Over here we burn comedians for firewood."

"What? I made a statement. The kid sleeps. He eats if you put stuff in his hands and show him what to do. He stares a lot. But mostly he just sleeps."

"All right. Go back. Get to work. Start thinking uphill a little more. I don't know if it's nerves or premonition or if I'm just getting antsy but I find myself more and more in a mood to travel on whether or not someone pushes us into it."

"The Radisha will be pleased."

"I doubt that. All that paranoia about the Company came from somewhere. She didn't buy it as bad as Smoke did but she bought it and she still believes it. I don't believe the source that sold her has ceased to exist. I don't think she really believes Soulcatcher when Catcher tells her she can weasel out of her infernal bargain without getting hurt." He was thinking of Kina. These days the popular wisdom was that Kina had put the fear of the Company into the minds of the Taglians and their rulers. We always suspected that they did not plan to keep their half of our agreement and help us reach Khatovar once the Shadowmasters had been overcome.

The Kina hypothesis was attractive but I had a nit to pick. If the Mother of Deceptions was determined to bring on the Year of the Skulls why would she keep the Company away? Did she see the Shadowmasters as tools better suited to achieving the necessary level of destruction?

I shrugged, told Thai Dei, "I guess we're just not wanted here."

"What the hell?" Croaker barked.

The shapechanger had begun trying to get to Uncle Doj. Uncle poked her with his swordtip till she settled down.

"Dream for me, Murgen," Croaker said as I started down the hill. "Right now I'm feeling blind and vulnerable. I need to know what's going on out there."