Water Sleeps

16

I've got it!" I shouted, running back to the corner where Murgen's friends and family were trying to torment him into taking a broader interest in the world of the living. "I found it! I've got it!"

"I hope you ain't gonna give it to me," One-Eye grumbled.

My excitement was so loud and intense even Murgen, who was caught in the mist and being a real pain about his situation, paused to study me.

"I had a feeling, an intuition the other day, that the answer was in the Annals. In Murgen's Annals. And I'd just overlooked it. Maybe because it had been so long since I read them and I wouldn't have thought to look for it back then."

"And, behold!" One-Eye sneered. "There it was. In ink of gold on myrex-tinted paper, with little scarlet arrows saying, ‘Here it is, Little Girl. The secret of the—' "

"Stuff it, dustbag," Goblin snapped. "I want to hear what Sleepy found." Though it would have been him doing the sarcasm if One-Eye had not beat him to it.

"It's the whole thing with the Nyueng Bao. Well, maybe not all of it," I said as Sahra scowled at me. "But the part with Uncle Doj and Mother Gota and why they came out of the swamp when they didn't have a debt of honor like your brother, Sahra." Sahra's brother Thai Dei was under the glittering plain with Murgen, serving as his bodyguard because of what Murgen and the Company had done to help the Nyueng Bao during the siege of Jaicur. "Sahra, you must know some of this."

"That may be true, Sleepy. But you'll have to tell us what you're talking about first."

"I'm talking about whatever it was that The Thousand Voices stole from the Temple of Ghanghesha sometime between the end of the siege and when Uncle Doj and your mother invited themselves to come stay with you here in Taglios. Murgen touches on it over and over, lightly, but I don't think he ever really caught on completely. Whatever it was that The Thousand Voices stole, Uncle Doj called it ‘the Key.' From other internal evidence, I think it had to be another key to the Shadowgate, like the Lance of Passion." The Thousand Voices was what the Nyueng Bao called Soulcatcher. "I think if we had that key, we could open the way for the Captured."

If I was guessing right here, I had created a whole new line of inquiry: Why the Nyueng Bao?

Sahra began shaking her head slowly.

"Am I wrong? What is the Key, then?"

"I'm not saying you're wrong, Sleepy. I'm saying I don't want you to be right. There are things I wouldn't want to be true."

"What? Why?"

"Myths and legends, Sleepy. Ugly myths and legends. Some of them I'm not supposed to know. And I know I don't know them all. Probably none of the worst. Doj was their curator and keeper. As you are for the Black Company. But Doj never shared his secrets. Tobo, find your grandmother. Bring her here. Get Do Trang, too, if he's here."

Bewildered, the boy shuffled away.

A spectral whisper came out of the device where Murgen waited. "Sleepy may be right. I recall suspecting something like that and wondering if I could find a good history of the Nyueng Bao so I could figure it out. You'll need to question Willow Swan, too."

I said, "I'll do that later. Separately. Swan doesn't need to know what's happening. Are you paying attention now, Standardbearer? Do you have any idea where we're at and what we're doing?"

"I do." His tone was resigned, though. Like mine when I know I have to get up in the morning, want to or not.

"Tell me about the Temple of Ghanghesha, then. Both of you. Why would this Key have been kept there?"

Sahra did not want to talk about it. Her whole body said she was caught up in a ferocious internal struggle.

"Why is this so hard?" I asked.

"There is old evil in my people's past. I'm only vaguely familiar with it. Doj knows the whole truth. The rest of us just understand that our ancestors were guilty of a great sin and until we expiate it, our whole race is condemned to live in bitter destitution in the swamp. The temple was a holy place long before some Nyueng Bao began to adopt Gunni beliefs. It protected something. Possibly the Key you mentioned. The thing Uncle Doj has been looking for."

"Where did the Nyueng Bao come from, Sahra?" That question had intrigued me since childhood. Each few years hundreds of those strange people would pass through Jaicur on pilgrimage. They were quiet and orderly and stayed to themselves. And a year after they arrived from the north, they would pass through again, going back that way. Even at the height of the power of the Shadowmasters, that cycle had continued. Nobody knew where they went. Nobody ever cared.

"Out of the south somewhere, a long time ago."

"From beyond the Dandha Presh?" I could not imagine subjecting little children and old folks to the rigors of a journey of that magnitude. The pilgrimage had to be very important indeed.

"Yes."

"But there are no pilgrimages anymore." The one that had ended up with hundreds of Nyueng Bao dying in Jaicur was the last of which I was aware.

"The Shadowmaster and the Kiaulune wars made the next few times impossible. There's supposed to be a pilgrimage every four years. Each Nyueng Bao De Duang has to make the pilgrimage at least once as an adult. For a while the lack was no problem. But now the Protector will not permit the people to meet their obligations," Banh Do Trang rasped from his wheelchair, having arrived in time to catch the drift of my interrogation. "There are things we do not discuss with those who aren't Nyueng Bao."

I got the feeling he was saying the same thing twice at one time, one way for my benefit and another for Sahra's. This could be ticklish. We dared not offend Banh Do Trang, whose friendship we needed. If we lost him, we also risked losing Sahra, whose value to the Company could not be calculated.

Nothing is ever simple and straightforward.

I told the old man the way I had it figured. Ky Gota waddled in just as I started. My eyes widened as One-Eye gallantly offered her his seat. It is a world just chock-full of wonders. The little wizard went and got another seat, which he set next to Gota's. The two of them sat there leaning on their canes like a couple of temple gargoyles. A ghost of ancient beauty peeked out of the wide, permanent scowl that Gota used for a face.

I explained the situation. "But here's the mystery. Where is the Key today?"

Nobody volunteered that information.

"I'd think that if The Thousand Voices still had it, she'd be running down to Kiaulune every month to round up a new gaggle of killer shadows. It if could open the Shadowgate safely. And if Uncle Doj had it, he wouldn't be roaming around looking for it. He'd be back in the swamp blithely letting the rest of us go to al-Sheil in a handcart. Am I wrong? Mother Gota? You know the man. You must be able to offer something."

Able, perhaps. Willing, of course not. The big thing that stands out, to my ear, about the Company's sojourn in the south, is the stubborn silence of so many people. About everything. Like if we even discovered our own birthdays, that would be something we could use against them. The fact that the Company now consists almost entirely of native soldiers has not helped at all. Our life does not attract the knowledgeable, educated portion of the population. If a priest offered to sign on, we would send him downriver, knowing for certain that he was a spy.

"You got the damned gimmick?" One-Eye asked.

"Who?"

"You, Little Girl. The villainess, you. I didn't forget that you were Soulcatcher's guest for a while, when she caught you on the road coming back from running that message for Murgen. I haven't forgotten that when our sweet old Uncle Doj rescued you it was incidental. He was looking for his missing trinket, the Key. Not so?"

"That's all true. But I didn't bring anything away from that. Except a few new scars and the rags on my back."

"What we need to know then is has Soulcatcher been looking for the Key?"

"We don't know for sure. But she does fly down south occasionally and patrols the old ground like she's looking for something." We knew that, courtesy of Murgen. Though till now, her behavior had made no sense.

"So who else could've snatched this prize?" One-Eye did not press Gota for any information. The way to get around Gota was to ignore her. In time, she would insist that she be noticed.

I remembered a pale, ragged little girl who, though just four years old, had seemed ageless, silent and patient, confidently unfrightened by her captivity. The Daughter of Night. She never spoke to me once. She acknowledged my existence only when she had to, because if she irritated me too much, I might take all of what little food Soulcatcher allowed us. I should have strangled her then. But at that time I did not know who she was.

At that time I was having trouble remembering who I was. Soulcatcher had drugged me and gone down inside me and found half what made me me, then had tried being me in order to infiltrate the Company. I still wonder how well she really knows me. Certainly I do not want her to find out that I survived the Kiaulune wars. She might have the emotional weapons to crush me.

"Narayan came to get the Daughter of Night," I mused aloud. "But I caught only glimpses of him. An extremely skinny little man in a filthy loincloth who didn't look anything like the terrible monster he was supposed to be. It didn't occur to me it was him till I realized I wasn't going to be released, too. Since I couldn't see what they were doing, I don't know if they took anything with them. Murgen, you saw them then. I have it written down that you did. Did they take anything away that might have been this key?"

"I don't know. Believe it or not, you really do miss some things out here." He seemed piqued.

I realized I had not bothered to hear what he had to report. I asked.

"Not much useful," Sahra told me, cutting Murgen off before he could retell everything from the beginning.

"Can you find them now?" I foresaw trouble. There was an unwilling connection to Kina. If the dark goddess was stirring again, he would have to be careful not to attract divine attention. "We have these priorities regarding the Daughter of Night: Kill her. Failing that: Kill her sidekick. Failing that: Make sure she can't copy the Books of the Dead, which I'm sure she'll start doing again as soon as she develops a reliable connection with Kina. Finally: Recapture anything she and Singh might have carried off when Narayan rescued her."

One-Eye stopped nodding off long enough to clap his hands lazily. "Tear 'em up, Little Girl. Tear 'em up."

"Sarky old reprobate." One-Eye snickered.

Goblin said, "You want another angle, find out from your library pals who makes bound blank books. Go to them and find out who's ordered some recently. Or bribe them to let you know when anybody does."

"Gosh," I said. "Somebody who actually uses his brain to think. The delight of the world is that its wonders never cease. Where the devil did Murgen go?"

Sahra said, "You just told him to find Narayan Singh and the Daughter of Night."

"I didn't mean right this second. I wanted to know if he found out anything about Chandra Gokhale we can use."

"Pressure getting to you, Little Girl?" One-Eye's tone was so sweet I wanted to pop him. "Relax. Now's the time when you don't want to force anything."

A couple of men from the duty crew, Runmust Singh and a Shadowlander dubbed Kendo Cutter by his squad mates, invited themselves into the staff meeting. Kendo reported, "There's all kinds of screaming going on out there tonight. I sent out word everybody should hole up someplace where there's plenty of light."

Sahra said, "The shadows are hunting."

I said, "We'll be all right here. But just to be safe, Goblin, why don't you make the rounds with Kendo and Runmust? We don't want any surprise. Sahra, will Soulcatcher let the shadows run completely wild?"

"To make her point? You're the Annalist. What do the books say about her?"

"They say she's capable of anything. She has no connection with the humanity of anyone else. It must be very lonely to be her."

"What?"

"We agree our next target should be Chandra Gokhale?"

Sahra eyed me oddly. That had been decided already. Unless some better opportunity fell into our laps, we would eliminate the Inspector-General, without whom the tax system and the bureaucratic side of government would stumble and stagger. He also seemed the most vulnerable of our enemies. And his removal would leave the Radisha more isolated than ever, cut off by the Protector on one hand, the priests on the other, and unable to turn anywhere because she was the Radisha, the Princess unapproachable, in some respects a demi-goddess.

It had to be lonely to be her, too.

Subtlety and finesse.

I asked, "What did we do today to frighten the world?" Then I realized that I knew the answer. It had been part of the plan for capturing Swan. All the brotherhood would have avoided any risks. Tonight there would be shows from buttons previously planted. There would be more again tomorrow night. Smoke-and-light shows proclaiming "Water sleeps," or "My brother unforgiven," or "All their days are numbered." There would be more, somewhere, every evening from now on.

Sahra mused, "Someone who wasn't one of us brought in another prayer wheel and mounted it on a memorial post outside the north entrance. It hadn't been noticed yet when I left."

"Same message?"

"I presume."

"That's scary. That could be a potent one. Rajadharma."

"It has the Radisha thinking already. That monk burning himself definitely got her attention."

Story of my life. Here I spend months working out every tiny detail of a marvelous plan and I get upstaged by a lunatic with a fire fetish.

"So those Bhodi nuts found a good message. You think we could steal some of their thunder?"

One-Eye chuckled evilly.

"What?" I demanded.

"Sometimes I amaze myself."

Goblin, about to leave with Runmust and Kendo, observed, "You been amazed at yourself for two hundred years. Mainly 'cause nobody else bothers to get interested in insects."

"You better not go to sleep any time soon, Frogface—"

"Gentlemen?" Sahra said. Gently. Yet she grabbed the attention of both wizards. "Can we stick to business? I need some sleep."

"Absolutely!" Goblin said. "Absolutely! If the old fart has an idea, let's get it out here before it dies of loneliness."

"You may continue your assignment."

Goblin stuck out his tongue but left.

"Amaze the rest of us, One-Eye," I suggested. I did not want him dozing off before he shared his wisdom.

"Next time one of those Bhodi loons lights himself up, we have the smoke and flames carry our message. ‘Water Sleeps.' And a new one I thunk up, ‘Nor Even Death Destroy.' You got to admit, that's got a nice religious ring to it."

"Indeed," I agreed. "What the heck does it mean?"

"Little Girl, don't you start in on me."

The ghost of evils past whispered, "I found them."

Murgen was back.

I did not ask who. "Where?"

"The Thieves' Garden."

"Chor Bagan? The Greys have it under siege."

And they were still serious about getting the place cleaned out, Murgen said.