Water Sleeps

64

T he surface of the river was not friendly when Soulcatcher hit it but neither was the impact like hitting stone from the same altitude. Her fall had been long enough to allow her time to prepare for the landing.

Even so, the collision was brutal enough to extract her consciousness temporarily. But she had prepared for that, too, between curses. When consciousness returned she was drifting downriver with the flood, head above the surface. It being the rainy season, the river was high and the current brisk. It took a great effort to complete the swim to the south bank. By the time she crawled out of the flood and collapsed, she was a half-dozen miles downstream from where she had gone in, which was outside the city proper, in a domain best known for its jackals, of both the two- and four-legged varieties. It was said that leopards still hunted there at night, the occasional crocodile could be found along the shore, and it was not that many years since a tiger had come visiting from down the river.

The Protector experienced no difficulties with any mad or hungry thing. A hundred crows perched around her, standing guard. Others flapped about in the darkness until squadrons of bats had gathered. Birds and bats together discouraged the scavengers and predators till Soulcatcher awakened and in a fit of pique, sent an entire band of jackals racing away with their pelts aflame.

She stumbled toward home, regaining strength slowly, muttering about growing old and less resilient. A tremor entered the voice she chose to inveigh against the predations of time.

Eventually she reached the home of a moneylender, where she commandeered transportation back to the Palace. She arrived there somewhat after the breakfast hour in a temper so foul that the entire staff made a point of becoming invisible. Only the Great General came to inquire after her well-being. And he went away when she started snarling and snapping.

Though she reveled in her paranoia, Soulcatcher did not suspect that her accident had been anything else until she examined her remaining carpet preparatory to another effort to fly off to entertain the Nyueng Bao. Then she discovered that the light wooden-frame members on which the carpet was stretched had been weakened by strategic saw cuts.

The who and probable why became clear within seconds. She sent out a summons to Jaul Barundandi and his associates.

Surprise. Barundandi was nowhere to be found. He had been called out of the Palace for a family emergency, he had said, just moments after her return. So the Greys reported when told to investigate.

"What an amazing coincidence. Find him. Find the men he worked with regularly. We have a great deal to discuss."

Greys scattered. One bold captain, however, remained behind to report, "Rumor in the city says the Bhodi intend to resume their self-immolations. They want the Radisha to come out and address their concerns personally."

The news did not improve Soulcatcher's temper. "Ask them if they would like me to donate the naphtha they need. I'm feeling particularly charitable today. Also ask them if they can hold off starting long enough for the carpenters to put up grandstands so more of the Radisha's good subjects can enjoy the entertainment. I don't care what those lunatics do. Get out of here! Find that Barundandi slug!" The voice she used was informed with a potent lunacy.

Jaul Barundandi's luck was mixed. He managed to avoid the attentions of the bats and crows and shadows the Protector released when the Greys had no immediate success in locating him, but an informer eventually betrayed him when the reward for his capture grew large enough. The lie was that he had attacked and severely wounded the Radisha, that only the Protector's swift intercession with her most powerful sorcery had saved the Princess's life. The Radisha's situation remained grave.

The Taglian people loved their Radisha. Jaul Barundandi discovered that he had no friends but his accomplices and it was one of those who betrayed him in exchange for a partial reward (the Grey officers pocketing the bulk) and a running start.

Jaul Barundandi suffered terrible torments and tried hard to cooperate so the pain would stop but he could tell the Protector nothing that she wanted to know. So she had him put into a cage and hung fifteen feet above the place where the Bhodi disciples generally chose to give up their lives and issued a rescript encouraging passersby to throw stones. It was her intent that he hang there indefinitely, his suffering neverending, but sometime during the first night, somehow, someone managed to toss him a piece of poisoned fruit while leaving his betrayer and a murdered Grey below, each with a piece of paper in his mouth bearing the characters for "Water Sleeps." Crows savaged both corpses before they were discovered.

It was the last time Black Company tokens would be seen but their appearance was sufficient to provoke the Protector almost beyond reason. For days the still-loyal remnants of the Greys remained extremely busy making arrests, most of them of people unable to guess what they had done to irk Soulcatcher.

She never did get to the Nyueng Bao swamp despite having made necessary repairs to her remaining carpet. Taglios became more fractious by the hour. She had to devote her entire attention to keeping the city tamed.

Then came the faithful and tattered little shadow that had made its way through mountains and forests, over lakes and rivers and plains, in order to bring her news of what was happening in the nethermost south.

Soulcatcher screamed a scream of rage so potent that the entire city became informed of it instantly. Immigrants began to rehearse the wisdom of a return to the provinces.

The Great General and two of his staff officers broke through the door to the Protector's apartment, certain she needed rescuing. Instead, they found her pacing furiously and debating herself in half a dozen voices. "They have the Key. They must have the Key. They must have murdered the Deceiver. Maybe they made an alliance with Kina. Why would they go down there? Why would they go onto the plain after what happened to the last group? What keeps pulling them out there? I've read their Annals. There's nothing in those. What do they know? The Land of Unknown Shadows? They cannot have developed an entirely new and independent oral tradition since they served me in the north. If it's important one of them will record it. Why? Why? What do they know that I don't?"

Soulcatcher became aware of Mogaba and his men. The latter looked around nervously, trying to figure out where the voices were coming from. When Soulcatcher became excited, those seemed to come from everywhere at once.

"You. Have you caught me any terrorists yet?"

"No. Nor shall I unless an angry family member comes forward because he thinks it would be a good way to get even. There won't be more than a handful left here and those probably don't know each other. I gather, from what I overheard, that they've gone back to Shadowcatch." He had worked for the Shadowmaster Longshadow. He could not get out of the habit of calling Kiaulune by the name given it by his previous employer.

"Exactly. We're back where we were fifteen years ago. Only now they have the Radisha and the Key." Her tone left no doubt she placed the blame entirely on him.

Mogaba was not bothered. Not immediately. He was accustomed to being blamed for the shortcomings of others and he did not believe the remnants of the Black Company could offer any real threat any time soon. They had been beaten down too thoroughly and had been away from it too long. They were more military than the Deceivers only inside their own fantasies. Even the comic-opera functionaries down there ought to be able to wear them down and bury them eventually. They would find no aid or sympathy in the Shadowlands. The people down there really did remember the Black Company's last visit. "The Key? What is that?"

"A means of passing through the Shadowgate unharmed. A talisman that makes it possible to travel on the plain." Her voice had become pedantic. Now it became angry. "I possessed that talisman at one time. Long ago I used it to go up there and explore. Longshadow would have been unmanned had he known. More unmanned than the eunuch he already was. But it disappeared in the early excitement around Kiaulune. I suspect that Kina clouded my mind while the Deceiver Singh stole both it and my sister's darling daughter. I can't imagine why that rabble would want to go onto the plain after the previous disaster but if it's something they want to do, it's something I want to prevent. Prepare for a journey."

"We can't leave Taglios unsupervised for as long as it would take us to travel all the way to Shadowcatch. We don't have the stallion anymore, even if it could carry double."

Soulcatcher was baffled. "What?"

"The black stallion from the north. The one I've been using all these years. It's vanished. It broke down its stall and ran off. I told you that last month." She did not recall that, obviously.

"We'll fly."

"But—" Mogaba hated flying. In the days when he had been Longshadow's general he had had to fly with the Howler almost daily. He still loathed those times. "I thought the larger carpet was the one that was destroyed."

"The small one will carry both of us. It'll be hard work. I'll have to rest a lot. But we'll still be able to get down there and back before these people know we're gone and try to take advantage. A week for the round trip. Ten days at the outside."

The Great General had a few dozen reservations but kept them behind his teeth. The Protector was worse than Longshadow had been about suffering opinions she did not want to hear.

Soulcatcher said, "We'll adopt disguises once we get there and go among them. I want you to keep an eye out for a hammer, so by so, made of cast iron but far heavier than it ought to be."

Mogaba bowed slightly. He said nothing about how difficult it would be for either of them to blend in with the crowd they would be chasing.

Soulcatcher told him, "Prepare your men. They'll have to keep Taglios under control for a cquple of weeks."

Mogaba withdrew, saying nothing about the proposed time changing already. In his position it was necessary to do a lot of saying nothing.

The Protector watched him go, amused. He did not conceal his thinking nearly as well as he believed. But she was ancient in her wickedness and had studied the dark side of humanity so thoroughly that she could almost read minds.