Water Sleeps

27

N arayan seemed thoroughly puzzled by my continued interest. I do not believe he remembered me at all. But he now knew that I was female and had been the young man Sleepy that he had encountered, only rarely, ages ago.

"You've had time to reflect. Have you decided to help us yet?"

He looked at me with pure venom, yet without obvious personal hatred. I was just a particularly unpleasant obstacle delaying the inevitable triumph of his goddess. He had gotten his mind back into a rut.

"All right. I'll see you again tomorrow night. Your son Aridatha has a leave day coming up. We'll bring him around to visit you."

There was a guard watching the Daughter of Night. "What're you doing here, Kendo?"

"Keeping an eye on—"

"Go away. And don't come back. And spread the word. Nobody guards the Daughter of Night. She's too dangerous. Nobody even goes near her unless Sahra or I tell them to. And then they don't do it alone."

"She don't look—"

"She wouldn't, would she? Start hiking." I went to the cage. "How long would it take for your goddess to create all the right conditions for the birth of another like you? If I decide to kill you?"

The girl's gaze rose slowly. I wanted to cringe away from the power in her eyes but I held on. Maybe she should be getting even more opium than she was already.

"Reflect upon your value. And upon my power to destroy it." I felt puffed up. That was the kind of thing the devas, or lesser gods, blathered at one another on the fringes of the epics spun by the professional storytellers.

She glared. There was so much power in her eyes that I decided Kendo ought to spend a little time in private with Goblin and One-Eye, making sure he had not been taken in already.

"I think that without you there never will be a Year of the Skulls. And I know that you're still alive only because I want something from Narayan, who loves you like a father." Singh was her father, for all practical purposes. Croaker had been denied the chance by cruel Fortune. Or, more accurately, by the will of Kina.

"Keep well, dear." I left. I had a lot of reading to get done. And some writing if I got the chance. My days were always full and all too often they got confused. I decided to do things, then forgot. I told others to do things, then forgot that, too. I was beginning to look forward to the time when our successes—or sufficiently spectacular failures—forced us out of town. I could sneak off somewhere where nobody knew me and just loaf for a few months.

Or for the rest of my life if I wanted.

I had no trouble understanding why every year a few more of our brothers gave up and faded away. I only hoped a little notoriety would bring them back.

I studied the pages Sahra had brought out for me but the translation was difficult, the subject matter was uninspiring, and I was tired. I kept losing my concentration. I thought about Master Santaraksita. I thought about going back up to the Palace, armed. I thought about what Soulcatcher would do now that she knew she did not have us trapped inside the Thieves' Garden. I thought about getting old and being alone and had a suspicion that that fear might have something to do with why some brothers remained with the Company no matter what. They had no other family.

I have no other family.

I will not look back. I am not weak. I will not relax my self-control. I will persevere. I will triumph over myself and will conquer all adversity.

I fell asleep rereading my own recollections of what Murgen had reported about the Company's adventure on the glittering plain. I dreamed about the creatures he had encountered there. Were they the rakshasas and nagas of myth? Did they have anything to do with the shadows, or with the men who evidently created the shadows from hapless prisoners of war?