Water Sleeps

61

N o grand effort had been made to train these troops or clothe them well. Which reflected the Protector's disdain for petty detail. What threat could the fledgling Taglian empire possibly face out here at the edge of beyond, anyway? There were no threats from beyond the borders.

The officer leading the pack was overweight, which also told me something about the local military. Peace had persisted for a decade but times were not yet so favorable that this country could support many fat men.

Huffing and puffing, the officer could not speak first. I told him, "Thank you for coming. It shows initiative and a mind capable of recognizing the inevitable swiftly. Have your men stack their weapons over there. Assuming everything goes the way it should, we'll be able to let them go home in two or three days."

The officer gulped some more air while he strove to understand what he was hearing. Evidently this little person had some mad notion that she had the upper hand. Though he had no way of telling if I was he, she or it.

I allowed the rags at my throat to fall open long enough for him to see the Black Company medallion I wore as a pendant on a silver chain. "Water sleeps," I told him, sure rumor had had plenty of time to carry that slogan to the ends of the empire.

Though I failed to intimidate him into ordering his men to disarm instantly, I did buy a few moments for the rest of the gang to gather. And a grim-looking band of cutthroats they were. Goblin and Tobo came down to stand beside me. Sahra shouted at her son from somewhere behind us but he ignored her. He had decided he was one of the big boys now and that stinking Goblin kept encouraging his fantasies.

I said, "I suggest you disarm. What's your name? What's your rank? If you don't get rid of the weapons, a lot of people will get hurt and most of them are going to be you. It doesn't have to be that way. If you cooperate."

The fat young man gulped air. I do not know what he had expected. This was not it. I was not it. I expect he was used to bullying refugees too battered by fate to even consider resisting another humiliation.

Goblin cackled. "Here's your chance, kid. Show us what you got."

"Here's one I've been practicing when nobody was around." Tobo kept on talking but in a whisper so soft I could not make out the words. In a few seconds I did not care about the words, anyway. Tobo began turning into something that was no gangly teenage boy. Tobo began turning into something I did not want to be around.

The kid was a shapeshifter? Impossible. That stuff took ages to master.

At first I thought he was going to become some mythical being, a troll, an ogre, or some misshapen and befanged creature still essentially human in shape, but he went on to become something insectoid, mantislike but big and really ugly and really smelly and getting bigger and uglier and smellier by the second.

I realized I did not smell so good myself. Which is usually a clue that you smell pretty awful to those around you, since you are not normally aware of your own odor.

Like most of what he saw from his teachers, Tobo was presenting an illusion, not undergoing a true transformation. But the southerners did not know that.

I was part of an illusion of my own. Goblin's huge grin told me who was behind the little practical joke, too. He was not too far over the top with it, either, so I might not have noticed had I not been alerted by what was happening with Tobo.

I seemed to be becoming some more-traditional nightmare. Something like what you might expect to see if for generations they had been saying that the Black Company was made up of guys who ate their own young when they could not roast yours.

"Have your men stack their weapons. Before this gets out of hand."

Tobo made a clacking noise with his mouth parts. He sidled forward, rotating his bug head oddly as he considered where to start munching. The officer seemed to understand instinctively that predators take the fat ones first. He discarded his weapons where he stood, having no inclination to get any closer to Tobo.

I said, "Men, you might help these fellows dispose of their tools." My own people were as stunned as the native soldiers were. I was stunned myself but remained plenty scared enough to take advantage while we retained the upper hand psychologically. I went around to the other side of the soldiers, putting them between horrors. Horrors they were not yet sure were entirely illusions. Sorcerers conjured some pretty nasty creatures sometimes. Or so I have heard.

That must be true. My brothers had told me about the ones they had seen. The Annals told me about more.

The southerners began to give up their weapons. Spiff or Wart or somebody remembered to make them lie down on their bellies. Once a handful got it started, the rest found themselves short on the will to resist, too.

Sahra could not hold back anymore. She tied into Goblin. "What are you doing to my son, you crazy old man! I told you I don't want him playing with—"

A Ssss! and a Clack! erupted from Tobo. A claw on the tip of a very long limb snipped at Sahra's nose.

The kid was going to be sorry about that stunt later.

Uncle Doj hustled up. "Not now, Sahra. Not here." He pulled her away. His grip evidently caused her considerable distress. Her anger did not subside but her voice did. The last thing I heard her say was something unflattering about her grandmother, Hong Tray.

I said, "Goblin, enough with the show. I can't talk to this man if I look like a rakshasa's mother."

"It ain't me, Sleepy. I'm just here to watch. Take it up with Tobo." He sounded as innocent as a baby.

Tobo was preoccupied, having altogether too much fun playing the scary monster. I told Goblin, "You're going to be teaching him that stuff, you'd better put some time into getting across the concept of self-discipline, too. Not to mention, you need to teach him not to bullshit people. I know who's doing what to whom here, Goblin. Stop it."

I was not disappointed to discover that Tobo had some talent. It was almost inevitable, actually. It was in his blood. What troubled me was the time of life when Goblin and, presumably, One-Eye had chosen to lure his talent into the open. In my opinion, Tobo was at exactly the wrong age to become all-powerful. If no one controlled him while he learned to rule himself, he could become another perpetual adolescent chaotic like Soulcatcher.

"All part of the program, Sleepy. But you need to understand that he's already more mature and more responsible than you or his mother want to admit. He's not a baby. You have to remember that most of what you see in him is him showing you what he thinks you expect to see. He's a good kid, Sleepy. He'll be all right if you and Sahra don't mother him to death. And right now he's at an age when you have to back off and let him stub his toes or regret it later."

"Child-rearing advice from a bachelor?"

"Even a bachelor can be smart enough to know when the child-rearing part is over. Sleepy, this boy has a big, hybrid talent. Be good to him. He's the future of the Black Company. And that's what that old Nyueng Bao granny woman foresaw when she first saw Murgen and Sahra together, back during the siege."

"Marvelous reasoning, old man. And your choice of time to bring that to my attention is typically, impeccably inconvenient. I've got fifty prisoners to deal with. I've got a pudgy little new boyfriend here and I need to convince him that he ought to help me talk his fellow captains into cooperating with us. What I don't have is time to deal with the difficult side of Tobo's adolescence. Pay attention. In case you haven't noticed, we're no longer a secret. The Kiaulune wars have started up again. I wouldn't be surprised if Soulcatcher herself didn't turn up someday. Now get me out of this imaginary ugly suit so I can do whatever I have to do."

"Oh, you're so forceful!" Goblin made the illusion go away. He made the one surrounding the boy fade, too. Tobo seemed surprised that he could be overruled so easily, but the little wizard softened the blow to his ego by immediately engaging him in a technical critique of what he had accomplished.

I was impressed by what I had seen. But Tobo as the future of the Company? That made me real uncomfortable, despite its questionable reassurance that the Company did have a future.