Water Sleeps

82

O nce the opening had been expanded enough to use, there was a brief debate about who would use it first. The accord was universal: "Not me." But when I squatted down to duckwalk forward into the shadows, in hopes I could get a look at what might eat me a few seconds before its jaws snapped shut, several gentlemen turned all noble and chivalrous. I suspect it was significant that two of them, Swan and Suvrin, were not Company brothers.

Goblin grumbled, "All right. All right. Now you're making us look bad. All of you, get out of the way." He bustled forward.

He did not have to duck.

I did, just slightly, as I followed him through.

I did not need anyone to be noble or chivalrous or to go in before me.

"There is no God but God," I muttered. "His Works are Vast and Mysterious." I was five steps inside and had just bumped into Goblin, who had stopped to stare as well. "I presume that's the golem demon Shivetya."

"Or his ugly little brother."

Murgen had not kept me posted on the golem's state. At last report it had been just a single earth tremor short of plunging into a bottomless abyss, still nailed to a huge wooden throne by means of a number of silver daggers. I observed, "It appears the plain has been healing itself in here, too." I eased forward.

There was still a vertiginous abyss. I had to close my eyes momentarily while I regained my equilibrium. Shivetya remained poised over it but the gap clearly was narrower than Murgen had described. In closing, the surface had pushed the wooden throne upward somewhat. Shivetya was no longer in momentary peril of falling. It looked like a few decades would see him lying there with his nose pressed into healed stone, the overturned throne on top of him still.

Willow Swan invited himself to join me. He said, "That thing hasn't moved since last time."

I countered, "Thought you couldn't remember anything."

"Whatever the short farts did, it seems to be working. I recognize things when I see them."

Goblin told Swan, "Considering what could still happen if Shivetya starts jumping around, holding still seems like a pretty good idea. Don't you think?"

"Could you hold still for fifteen years?"

I said, "He's held still a lot longer than that, Swan. He's been nailed to that throne for hundreds of years. Or even thousands. He has to have been nailed down since before Deceivers fleeing Rhaydreynak came here on their way to other worlds and hid the Books of the Dead." That observation got me some looks, particularly from Master Santaraksita. I had not yet shared the tales I had gleaned from Murgen. "Else he would've stomped them good at the time. They would've looked like the kind of thing he was put here to guard against. I think."

"Who nailed him down?" Goblin asked.

"I don't know."

"Might be a handy piece of information. You'd want to keep an eye on a guy who could do that kind of thing."

"I would," Swan agreed. He grinned nervously.

"It's listening," I said. I moved along the edge of the abyss several steps, squatted. From there I could see the demon's eyes. They were open a crack. I could also see that there were three of them instead of two, the third being in the center of the forehead above and between the other two. This point had not come up before, though it was the sort of thing you would expect of a Gunni-style demon.

The oversight became self-explanatory as soon as the demon sensed my scrutiny. The third eye closed and vanished.

I asked Swan, "That throne look like it's solidly wedged?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Just wondering if we could move it without losing it down that crack."

"I'm no engineer but it looks to me like you'd really have to work at it to dump it down there now. Obviously, it could go. One really stupid move... it's a hell of a deep hole. But... "

The curious kept piling up behind us. Their chatter was becoming annoying. Every single whisper turned into a gaggle of echoes that made the place seem more haunted than it was. "Everybody be quiet. I can't hear myself think." I must have sounded nastier than I intended. People shut up. And gawked. I asked, "Does anyone see a way to get that thing turned right side up and pushed back away from the gap?"

"How come you'd want to do that?" One-Eye asked. "Quit shoving, Junior."

Suvrin asked, "Using equipment we have on hand?"

"Yes. And it would have to get done today. I want the majority of these people back on the road south at first light tomorrow."

"That means using brute force. Right now. Some of us would have to get on the other side of the fissure and lift the top of the throne enough so people and animals on this side could get the leverage to pull it on up. Using ropes."

Swan said, "You try to stand it up the way it is there, the bottom end will just slide off the edge. Then it's a grand ride off to the entrails of the earth."

"How come you'd want to do that?" One-Eye demanded again. I ignored him again.

I concentrated on the argument spreading outward from Suvrin and Swan. I let it run for several minutes. Then I announced, "Suvrin seems to be the only one here with a positive view. So he's in charge. Suvrin, draft anybody you want. Help yourself to any resources you need. Sit Shivetya back up for me. You hear that, Steadfast Guardian? Gentlemen, if you have any ideas, feel free to share them with Mr. Suvrin."

Suvrin said, "I can't... ! don't... ! shouldn't... ! guess the first thing we'd better do is get a solid idea of how much weight we're dealing with. And we'll have to rig up some way to get across the gap. Mr. Swan, you handle that. Young Mr. Tobo, I understand you're skilled at mathematics. Suppose you help me calculate how much mass we're dealing with here?"

Tobo grinned and headed for the throne, not at all intimidated by the demon.

"One adjustment," I said. "I need Swan with me. He's been here before. Runmust, you and Iqbal figure out how to get across. Willow. Come with me."

Out of earshot of the others, Swan asked, "What's going on?"

"I didn't want to remind anybody that the Company got this far once before. Somebody might recall a grudge against the man who made it impossible for our predecessors to go any farther."

"Oh. Thanks. I guess." He glanced at the clot of Nyueng Bao. Mother Gota continued to nurture her grudge. She had a son somewhere down under this stone.

"I may just have a strange perspective. I do believe all of us should accept responsibility for our actions but I'm not sure we ever understand why we do some things. Do you know why you cut Soulcatcher loose? I'd bet you've spent the odd minute here and there trying to figure that out."

"You'd win. Except it'd be more like the odd year here and there. And I still can't explain it. She did something to me, somehow. Just with her eyes. All the way across the plain. Probably manipulating my feelings about her sister. When the time came it seemed like the right thing to do. I never had a doubt until it was all over and we were on the run."

"And she kept her word."

He understood. "She gave me everything her eyes promised. Everything I could never have from the sister I really wanted. Whatever her failings, Soulcatcher keeps her word."

"Sometimes we get what we want and find out that it wasn't what we needed."

"No shit. Story of my life, Sleepy."

"Around fifty people came onto the plain. Two of you got away. Thirteen died on the road, trying. The rest are still out here somewhere. And you helped put them where they are. So I'm going to need you to show me. Are you still blind in the memory or have you started to remember?"

"Oh, those spells took. It's coming back. But not necessarily organized the same way that it happened. So bear with me when I seem a little confused."

"I understand." I kept an eye on the others as we talked. Sahra seemed to be putting herself under a lot of unnecessary stress. Doj looked ferociously ready to seize the day should an opportunity pop up. Gota was nagging One-Eye about something while keeping one grim eye aimed Swan's way. Goblin was trying to get the mist projector set up amidst a jostling crowd. I noted, "There seems to be more light than Murgen reported."

"Tons more. And it's warmer, too. If I was allowed a guess, mine would be that it has something to do with the healing that's going on."

I did feel overdressed for the indoor weather. It was not hot but it was warmer than the plain outside and there was no wind biting.

"Where are the Captured?"

"There was a stairway over there. We must have gone a mile down into the earth."

"You carried thirty-five unconscious people down there and got back in time to get away from the evening shadows? Without killing yourself?"

"Catcher did most of it. She has a spell that makes things float through the air. We roped the people together and pulled them along like a string of sausages. She did the pulling, actually. I stayed on the uphill end. More or less. At first. Because the stair has some twists and turns. We had trouble getting them around the corners. But a lot less trouble than if we'd carried them one at a time."

I nodded. I knew of other instances when Catcher had used the same sorcery. Seemed like a handy one to have. We could use it right here, right now, to hoist my future buddy Shivetya.

Curious. Once upon a time Murgen said that name meant "Deathless," although more recently I had been given the meaning "Steadfast Guardian." But I had been provided with whole new sets of creation myths and whatnot, too.

I fought off an urge to charge off and plunge down the stairway right then. I hustled back to talk it over with the others. Most of the crowd were preoccupied with an effort to get Shivetya's throne turned right side up by the power of talking about it. Suvrin told me, "It's a way to keep warm." And a way to work off some tension, no doubt. I heard plenty of traditional-style grumbling questioning the intelligence of any leader who wanted to play around with something like that great ugly thing over there on that throne.

I gathered everyone interested. "Swan knows the way down to the caverns. His memory is getting better all the time." Goblin and One-Eye preened. I gave them no chance to congratulate themselves publicly. "I'm going down there to scout. I want the rest of you to get camp set up. I want you to work out specifically how we'll divide up tomorrow so the majority can scoot on across the plain to safety." We had discussed this time and again how we could break up the party, leaving the minimum number of people with the maximum stores to bring out the Captured while the rest moved on to, it was hoped, a more congenial clime.

Doj's position, so perfectly rational, was that we should ignore the Captured until we had crossed the plain, had gotten ourselves established in the Land of Unknown Shadows, and were capable of mounting a more thoroughly prepared and supplied expedition. But none of us knew what we would face at that end of this passage, and way too many of us were emotionally incapable of walking away from our brothers again now that we were this close.

I should have gotten more information out of Murgen while we still had some flexibility. Time was winnowing our options rapidly.

Sahra's response to Uncle's repeating his suggestion was blistering enough to melt lead. She might be reluctant to have her husband back but she was not going to delay any crisis.

Swan leaned over my shoulder and whispered, "If you hang around here waiting for all these people to agree on something, we're going to get very old and very hungry before anything happens."

The man had a point. A definite point.