Water Sleeps

5

Sahra summoned me as soon as we arrived, not to chastise me for letting Tobo take stupid risks but to observe as she launched her next move. It might be time Tobo walked into something that would scare some sense into him. Life underground is unforgiving. It seldom gives you more than one chance. Tobo had to understand that in his heart.

After Sahra grilled me about events outside, she made sure Goblin and One-Eye were acquainted with her displeasure, too. Tobo was not there to defend himself.

Goblin and One-Eye were not cowed. No forty-something slip of a lass could overawe those two antiques. Besides, they put Tobo up to half his mischief.

Sahra said, "I'll raise Murgen now." She seemed unsure about that. She had not consulted Murgen much recently. We all wondered why. She and Murgen were a genuine romantic love match straight out of legend, with all the appurtenances seen in the timeless stories, including gods defied, parents disappointed, desperate separations and reunions, intrigues by enemies and so forth. It remained only for one of them to go down into the realm of the dead to rescue the other. And Murgen was tucked away in a nice cold underground hell right now, courtesy of the mad sorceress Soulcatcher. He and all the Captured lived on, in stasis, beneath the plain of glittering stone, in a place and situation known to us only because Sahra could conjure Murgen's spirit.

Could the problem be the stasis? Sahra got a day older every day. Murgen did not. Had she begun to fear she would be older than his mother before we freed the Captured?

Sadly, after years of study, I realize that most history may really pivot on personal considerations like that, not on the pursuit of ideals dark or shining.

Long ago Murgen learned to leave his flesh while he slept. He retained some of that ability but, sadly, it was diminished by the supernatural constraints of his captivity. He could do nothing outside the cavern of the ancients without being summoned forth by Sahra—or, conceivably, chillingly, by any other necromancer who knew how to reach him.

Murgen's ghost was the ultimate spy. Outside our circle none but Soulcatcher could detect his presence. Murgen informed us of our enemies' every plot—those that we suspected strongly enough to ask Sahra to investigate. The process was cumbersome and limited but still, Murgen constituted our most potent weapon. We could not survive without him.

And Sahra was ever more reluctant to call him up.

God knows, it is hard to keep believing. Many of our brothers have lost their faith and have drifted away, vanishing into the chaos of the empire. Some may be rejuvenated once we have had a flashy success or two.

The years have been painful for Sahra. They cost her three children, an agony no loving parent should have to bear. She lost their father as well but suffered little by that deprivation. No one who remembered the man spoke well of him. She suffered with the rest of us during the siege of Jaicur.

Maybe Sahra—and the entire Nyueng Bao people—had angered Ghanghesha. Or maybe the god with the several elephant heads just enjoyed a cruel prank at the expense of his worshipers. Certainly Kina got a chuckle out of pulling lethal practical jokes on her devotees.

Goblin and One-Eye were not usually present when Sahra raised Murgen. She did not need their help. Her powers were narrow but strong, and those two could be a distraction even when they tried to behave.

Those antiques being there told me something unusual was afoot. And old they are, almost beyond reckoning. Their skills sustain them. One-Eye, if the Annals do not lie, is on the downhill side of two hundred. His youthful sidekick lags less than a century behind.

Neither is a big man. Which is being generous. Both are shorter than me. And never were taller, even long before they became dried-up old relics. Which was probably when they were about fifteen. I cannot imagine One-Eye ever having been anything but old. He must have been born old. And wearing the ugliest, filthiest black hat that ever existed.

Maybe One-Eye goes on forever because of the curse of that hat. Maybe the hat uses him as its steed and depends on him for its survival.

That crusty, stinking glob of felt rag will hit the nearest fire before One-Eye's corpse finishes bouncing. Everyone hates it.

Goblin, in particular, loathes that hat. He mentions it whenever he and One-Eye get into a squabble, which is about as often as they see one another.

One-Eye is small and black and wrinkled. Goblin is small and white and wrinkled. He has a face like a dried toad's.

One-Eye mentions that whenever they get into a squabble, which is about as often as there is an audience but nobody to get between them.

They strain to be on their best behavior around Sahra, though. The woman has a gift. She brings out the best in people. Except her mother. Though the Troll is much worse away from her daughter.

Lucky us, we do not see Ky Gota much. Her joints hurt her too bad. Tobo helps care for her, our cynical exploitation of his special immunity from her vitriol. She dotes on the boy—even if his father was foreign slime.

Sahra told me, "These two claim they've found a more effective way to materialize Murgen. So you can communicate directly." Usually Sahra had to talk for Murgen after she raised him up. I do not have a psychic ear.

I said, "If you bring him across strong enough so the rest of us can see and hear him, then Tobo ought to be here, too. He's suddenly got a lot of questions about his father."

Sahra peered at me oddly. I was saying something but she did not get what I meant.

"Boy ought to know his old man," One-Eye rasped. He stared at Goblin, waiting to be contradicted by a man who did not know his. That was their custom. Pick a fight and never mind trivia like facts or common sense. The debate about whether or not they were worth the trouble they caused went back for generations.

This time Goblin abstained. He would make his rebuttal when Sahra was not around to embarrass him with an appeal to reason.

Sahra nodded to One-Eye. "But first we have to see if your scheme really works."

One-Eye began to puff up. Somebody dared suggest that his sorcery needed field-testing? Come on! Forget the record! This time—

I told him, "Don't start."

Time had caught up with One-Eye. His memory was no longer reliable. And lately he tended to nod off in the middle of things. Or to forget what had gotten him exercised when he roared off on a rant. Sometimes he ended up contradicting himself.

He was a shadow of the dried-up old relic he was when first I met him, though he got around under his own power still. But halfway through any journey, he was likely to forget where he was bound. Occasionally that was good, him being One-Eye, but mostly it was a pain. Tobo usually got the job of keeping him headed in the right direction when it mattered. One-Eye doted on the kid, too.

The little wizard's increasing fragility did make it easier to keep him inside, away from the temptations of the city. One moment of indiscretion could kill us all. And One-Eye never quite caught on to what it meant to be discreet.

Goblin chuckled as One-Eye subsided. I suggested, "Could you two concentrate on what you're supposed to be doing?" I was haunted by the dread that one day One-Eye would doze off in the midst of a deadly spell and leave us all up to our ears in demons or bloodsucking insects distraught about having been plucked from some swamp a thousand miles away. "This is important."

"It's always important," Goblin grumbled. "Even when it's just ‘Goblin, give me a hand here, I'm too lazy to polish the silver myself,' they make it sound like the world's about to end. Always important? Hmmph!"

"I see you're in a good mood tonight."

"Gralk!"

One-Eye heaved himself out of his chair. Leaning on his cane, muttering unflattering remarks about me, he shuffled over to Sahra. He had forgotten I was female. He was less unpleasant when he remembered, though I expect no special treatment because of that unhappy chance of birth. One-Eye became dangerous in a whole new way the day he adopted that cane. He used it to swat people. Or to trip them. He was always falling asleep between here and there but you never knew for sure if his nap was the real thing. That cane might dart out to tangle your legs if he was pretending.

The dread we all shared was that One-Eye would not last much longer. Without him, our chances to continue avoiding detection would plummet. Goblin would try hard but he was just one small-time wizard. Our situation offered work for more than two in their prime.

"Start, woman," One-Eye rasped. "Goblin, you worthless sack of beetle snot, would you get that stuff over here? I don't want to hang around here all night."

Sahra had had a table set up for them. She used no props herself. At a fixed time she would concentrate on Murgen. She usually made contact quickly. At her time of the month, when her sensitivity went down, she would sing in Nyueng Bao. Unlike some of my Company brothers, I have a poor ear for languages. Nyueng Bao mostly eludes me. Her songs seem to be lullabies. Unless the words have double meanings. Which is entirely possible. Uncle Doj talks in riddles all the time but insists he makes perfect sense if we would just listen.

Uncle Doj is not around much. Thank God. He has his own agenda—though even he does not seem clear on what that is anymore. The world keeps changing on him, not in ways he likes.

Goblin brought a sack of objects without challenging One-Eye's foul manners. He deferred to One-Eye more lately, if only for efficiency's sake. He wasted no time making his opinions known if work was not involved, though.

Even though they were cooperating, laying out their tools, they began bickering about the placement of every instrument. I wanted to paddle them like they were four-year-olds.

Sahra began singing. She had a beautiful voice. It should not have been buried this way. Strictly speaking, she was not employing necromancy. She was not laying an absolute compulsion on Murgen, nor was she conjuring his shade—Murgen was still alive out there. But his spirit could escape his tomb when summoned.

I wished the other Captured could be called up, too. Especially the Captain. We needed inspiration.

A cloud of dust formed slowly between Goblin and One-Eye, who stood on opposite sides of the table. No, it was not dust. Nor was it smoke. I stuck a finger in, tasted. That was a fine, cool, water mist. Goblin told Sahra, "We're ready."

She changed tone. She began to sound almost wheedling. I could pick out even fewer words.

Murgen's head materialized between the wizards, wavering like a reflection on a rippling pond. I was startled, not by the sorcery but by Murgen's appearance. He looked just like I remembered him, without one new line in his face. None of the rest of us looked the same.

Sahra had begun to look something like her mother had back in Jaicur. Not as heavy. Not with the strange, rolling waddle caused by problems of the joints. But her beauty was going fast. In her, that had been a wonder, stretching on way past the usual early, swift-fading characteristic of Nyueng Bao women. She did not talk about it but it preyed upon her. She had her vanity. And she deserved it.

Time is the most wicked of all villains.

Murgen was not happy about being called up. I feared he suffered the malaise afflicting Sahra. He spoke. And I had no trouble hearing him, though his words were an ethereal whisper.

"I was dreaming. There is a place... " His irritation faded. Pale horror replaced it. And I knew he had been dreaming in the place of bones he described in his own Annals. "A white crow... " We had a problem indeed if he preferred a drift through Kina's dreamscapes to a glimpse of life.

Sahra told him, "We're ready to strike. The Radisha ordered the Privy Council convened just a little while ago. See what they're doing. Make sure Swan is there." Murgen faded from the mist. Sahra looked sad. Goblin and One-Eye began excoriating the Standardbearer for running away.

"I saw him," I told them. "Perfectly. I heard him, too. Exactly like I always imagined a ghost would talk."

Grinning, Goblin told me, "That's because you hear what you expect to hear. You weren't really listening with your ears, you know."

One-Eye sneered. He never explained anything to anybody. Unless maybe to Gota if she caught him sneaking back in in the middle of the night. Then he would have a story as convoluted as the history of the Company itself.

Sounding like a woman pretending not to be bitter, Sahra said, "You can bring Tobo in. We know there won't be any explosions or fires, and you melted only two holes through the tabletop."

"A base canard!" One-Eye proclaimed. "That happened only because Frogface here—"

Sahra ignored him. "Tobo can record what Murgen has to say. So Sleepy can use it later. It's time for us to turn into other people. Send a messenger if Murgen finds out anything dangerous."

That was the plan. I was even less enthusiastic about it now. I wanted to stay and talk to my old friend. But this thing was bigger than a bull session. Bigger than finding out if Bucket was keeping well.