Soldiers Live

142

Glittering Stone: Bitter Desserts

Soon after we placed Booboo in the cave of the ancients, a scant few yards from her aunt, I was stricken by a series of horrible thoughts.

What got me nervous in the first place was the way the imprisoned Soulcatcher's gaze seemed to follow me everywhere as we brought the girl in and settled her, while Arkana set the stasis spells on her—as relayed to her by the white crow.

Paranoia struck deep.

Soulcatcher had control of the bird. And she knew all the ins and outs of the sorcery necessary to lock someone into the ice caverns—or to release a prisoner. She could let herself go.

The bird was not right there when that thought hit me. Else she would have known that I had realized the possibility. I covered up before it noticed.

I stood in the weak, sourceless, pale cold light and stared for a long time, without really seeing. My baby. Hard to believe.

"I never knew you, darling." A tear rolled down. I thought of all the cold, hard men I had known and wondered what they would think if they could see me now, having turned into a maudlin old man.

They might be envious of the fact that I had hung around long enough to become an old man.

The white crow came flapping in from wherever it had been, landed on my right shoulder. Wings slapped my face, stinging. "Goddamnit!" It had not taken the liberty before.

I do not know how long I wallowed in self-pity before the bird stirred me. Far longer than I realized at the time. The crow brought me back to this world of real trials and deep pain. "Arkana. We'd better head back now." My separation from Lady would be more than a week long before we reached Taglios.

It was going to be longer than that.

Arkana did not respond.

"Arkana?"

Arkana was not there.

The flying posts were not there.

Emotion is the mind killer.

In my worry about my women I had forgotten that my adopted daughter was the one Voroshk with a brain. The one who had said she was going to bide her time and pick her moment.

That moment had come and gone, it seemed. There was nobody down in that cavern but me and the scruffy white bird.

She had not been completely cruel. She took the key to the shadowgates so the gimp old man had no way to get away but she did not make him climb all the way up out of that hole. Only part of the way. She left my flying post just far enough up to give herself a few hours' head start. Just long enough that I had no chance to catch her.

Shivetya manna makes a tiresome diet, however good you feel for the first few hours after you eat. Self-pity and self-accusation make bitter desserts. And a crow haunted by your oldest and dearest enemy makes for a somewhat less than ideal partner in exile.

After the anger faded and the despair subsided I helped myself to Baladitya's writing materials and went to work on bringing the Annals up to date.

There was no time in that place so I do not know how long that took. It seemed longer than it probably was. I began to worry because nobody came to see why we had failed to return. I feared that meant there was no one who could come. The most likely someones who might not be able to come being Tobo or Lady.

But Shukrat was healthy. How come she did not show up?

With no one else there I found myself talking to the crow more and more. And more as time went by, in an effort to defeat the gathering despair.

Shivetya watched from his huge wooden throne, evidently amused by my predicament. While I was amused by Soulcatcher's.

She did have the knowledge to get herself out of the ice cavern. She just did not have the hands. And I thought that was delicious.

I was five or six sleeps into my exile when the Nef returned, first appearing inside my dreams.