Water Sleeps

85

I haven't found them yet!" I snapped at Sahra and the Radisha. "I don't want to go any farther if One-Eye can't assure me that I'm not going to kill somebody just by being here." Against all advice, those two had pushed as far forward as I would let them go. I could understand that they wanted to see their husbands and brothers and boyfriends, but they ought to have sense enough to restrain themselves until we knew what we could and could not do without risking harm to those very husbands and brothers and boyfriends.

Sahra gave me a sharp, hurt look.

"Sorry," I said, insincerely. "Come on. Think. You can see that the stasis down here didn't work for everyone. Swan. How far up this tunnel do we have to go?" I could see a scatter of eight recumbent forms between myself and the curve, none of whom were immediately recognizable as the Captain, Lady, Murgen, Thai Dei, Cordy Mather or Blade. "From where we stand now, roughly eleven people still aren't accounted for."

"I don't remember," Swan grumped. Bass echoes chased one another around the cavern. They were worse with my higher pitched voice, though.

"Memory spell wearing off?"

"I don't think so. This feels more like something I never knew. I'm still a whole lot confused about what went on down here."

One big problem was that none of us really knew exactly how many Captured there were. Swan was the best witness because he had ridden with them, but he had not kept track, other than of key people. Murgen never had been any help because after he had become one of the Captured, he had apparently become unable to explore the immediate vicinity where he was confined.

"We need to get Murgen awake first thing. Nobody else will know all the names and faces." It seemed probable that some of the people I did not recognize just were not part of the Company. "One-Eye. Figure out how to wake these people up. As soon as I find Murgen, I want to get him into talking condition. Can I go ahead?" Squabbling echoes reminded me to keep my voice down.

Crabbily, One-Eye responded, "Yes. Just don't touch anybody. Or even anything that you don't recognize. And stop trying to rush me."

"Can you bring them out of stasis?"

"I don't know yet, do I? I've been too damned busy answering dumb questions. Leave me alone long enough and I might figure it out, though."

Tempers were getting short and manners were becoming frayed. I sighed, rubbed my forehead and temples because I had begun to develop a headache, listened to the sounds of more people descending the stair. "Willow, see if you can keep those fools out of here till One-Eye's ready." I looked ahead without eagerness. Not only did the cavern turn to the right, it steepened. The water-polished floor was covered with frost. The footing was going to be treacherous.

"Caw!"

The white crow was up there somewhere. It had been announcing itself repeatedly, sounding more impatient every time.

I moved forward carefully. When I reached the steeper floor, I knelt and brushed the frost away to improve the footing. I told Sahra and the Radisha, "If you have to follow me, you'd better be even more careful than I am."

They insisted. They were careful. Not one of us slipped and went flailing back down the slope. "Here's Longo and Sparkle," I said. "And that wad definitely looks like the Howler."

In fact, that wad definitely was that crippled little Master Sorcerer. He had been one of the Lady's henchmen in the far north, then our enemy down here. He had become a prisoner of war along with his ally Longshadow, and Lady must have foreseen some use for him or she would not have kept him alive. But he was not likely to get released while I was in charge. In his way, he was crazier than Soulcatcher.

The crow chided me for taking so long.

The Howler was awake. His will was such that he could move his eyes, though nothing more was within his capacity. One glimpse of the madness within those dark orbs and I knew that this man could not be permitted to make it back to the world. "Be very careful around this one," I said. "Or he'll nail you as surely as Soulcatcher nailed Swan. One-Eye. Howler is awake. He can move his eyes."

One-Eye repeated my warning, absentmindedly. "Don't get too close to him."

The crow began to nag. Its voice gave birth to a particularly annoying generation of echoes.

"Ah. Radisha. Here's your brother. And he seems to be in pretty good shape. No! Don't touch! That's probably what contaminated the stasis spells protecting the dead men. You'll just have to be patient, same as the rest of us."

She made a sound like a low growl.

The icy cave ceiling above us made creaking sounds that added to the volleys of echoes.

I continued, "It's hard. I know it's hard. But right now patience is the best tool we have for getting them out of here safely." Once I was sure she would restrain herself I resumed inching forward. The white crow cawed impatiently. Out loud I thought, "I do believe I'll wring that thing's neck."

The Radisha reminded me, "You'll build bad kharma. You might come back as a crow or parrot in your next life."

"One of the beauties of being Vehdna is that you don't have a next life to worry about. And God, the All-Powerful, the Merciful, has no love at all for crows. Except to use as plagues upon the unrighteous. Does anybody know if Master Santaraksita planned to come down here?" My organizational skills had vanished because of my own eagerness to reach the Captured. It occurred to me only now that the scholar's knowledge might prove especially useful here if he could connect anything in this cave to known myth.

I got no answer. "I'll send for him if I have to. Ah. Sahra, here's your honey. Don't touch!" I said that a little too loudly. The echoes got very boisterous. Several small icicles broke loose from the ceiling. They shattered with an almost metallic tinkle when they struck the floor.

The crow spoke, very distinctly, "Come here!"

And I, having finally figured it out, told it, "If your manners don't improve dramatically, you might not get out of here at all."

The bird was strutting back and forth nervously in front of Croaker and Lady. Soulcatcher had left those two snuggled up together, arranged so that the Captain had one arm around Lady's waist while she held his other hand with both of hers in her lap. Additional delicate touches suggested that Soulcatcher's wicked sense of play had peaked for this bit of still life.

If Catcher had left any booby traps at all, this was where they would be. "One-Eye. I need help." Any traps that existed were beyond me.

Lady's eyes were open. There was no dust on them. She was angry. And the white crow wanted to tell me all about it.

"Patience," I counseled, close to becoming impatient myself. "Swan. One-Eye. Come on up here." Swan arrived first despite coming from farther away. I asked, "You recall anything special she did with these two? Any little bit of sneakiness?"

"No. I wouldn't worry about it. By the time she laid them out, she was worried about what might happen next. That's the way she is. When she's starting something, it's her whole world and she has no doubts about any part of it. But the closer she comes to getting finished, the more trouble she has keeping her confidence up."

"Nice to know that she's human." I did not mean a word of that. "One-Eye. Look for booby traps around here. And make up your mind. Tell me if you can bring these people back, darn it!" My headache had not gotten any better. But, thank the God of Mercies, it had grown no worse.

Another icicle fell.

"I know. I know. I heard you the first time you asked." He grumbled something about wishing he knew a way to charm me up a better love life.

I stared past Croaker and Lady. The cavern went on. Pale light barely illuminated it. There was no gold in that at all now. A touch of silver, a touch of grey, a lot of blue ice. In fact, the sedimentary rock seemed to give way to actual ice now, ahead. "Willow. Did Catcher go up there when you were here?"

He checked where I was looking. "No. But she could have during an earlier visit."

Someone had traveled in that direction recently, in cavern scales of time. There were still clear tracks in the frost. And I suspected that I would not enjoy the journey once I began to follow them. But I would do so. I had no choice. I had failed elsewhere by letting Narayan and the Daughter of Night get away. That Kina undoubtedly supplied them with a subtle boost did not sufficiently signify. I should have been better prepared. "One-Eye. Talk to me. Can you resurrect these people or not?"

"If you'd stop barking for five minutes I could probably figure that out."

"Take your time, sweetness. It'll take us a while to starve." That ice up there must have been what Swan had meant when he mentioned ice on the plain.

"You've had all the fool-around time I'm willing to give you," I told One-Eye. "Can you do it? Yes or no. Right now."

"The shape I'm in, I need more rest." His speech was slow and slurred and had taken on an odd rhythm that made following him difficult. He was right, of course. All of us needed rest. But we also needed to finish our business and get off the plain. Hunger was a reality already. It was not going to go away. I feared it might become a companion as intimate and dreaded as it had been during the siege of Jaicur.

I had decided, already, that I would adopt Uncle Doj's suggested strategy. We would recover only a few people now. We would return for the others later. But that meant making cruel choices. Somebody would end up hating me no matter what I did. If I was really clever, I would find some good old-fashioned Goblinlike way of spreading the blame all around me. Those tagged to wait could not hate everybody.

And there went some good old-fashioned wishful thinking, Sleepy. We were talking about human beings. If there is any way to be contrary, unreasonable and obnoxious, human beings are sure to find and pursue it. With verve and enthusiasm at whatever might be the most inconvenient time.