The dreams worsened. They were dreams of death.
We all have nightmares but I’d never recalled so many so clearly after I wakened. Some force, some power, was summoning me. Was trying to enlist or subject me.
Those dreams were the creations of a sick mind. If they were supposed to appeal to me, that power didn’t know me.
Landscapes of despair and death under skies of lead, fields where bodies rotted and stunted vegetation melted down like slow, soft candlewax. Slime covered everything, hung in strands like the architecture of drunken spiders.
Mad. Mad. Mad. And not a touch of color anywhere.
Mad. And yet with its taint of perverse appeal. For amongst the dead I’d see faces I wished amongst the dead. I strode that land unharmed, vitally alive, its ruler. The ghouls that ran with me were extensions of my will.
It was a dream straight out of the fantasies of my dead husband. It was a world he could have made home.
Always, in the late hours, there’d be a dawn in that land of nightmare, a splash of color on a poorly defined horizon. Always in front of me, it seemed the dawn of hope.
Simple and direct, the architect of my dreams.
There was one dream, less common, that did without the death and corruption, yet was as chilling in its way. Black and white too, it placed me upon a plain of stone where deadly shadows lurked behind countless obelisks. I didn’t understand it at all but it frightened me.
I couldn’t control the dreams. But I refused to let them influence my waking hours, refused to let them wear me down.
“I’ve sent word out, Mistress,” Narayan said, responding to my question about recruits. We fenced whenever the subject of his brotherhood arose. He wasn’t yet ready to talk.
Blade suggested, “Someone ought to be watching things at Dejagore.” I understood, though sometimes his brevity caused problems.
Narayan said, “Ghopal and Hakim can take a party down. Twenty men should have no trouble. It’ll be quiet now.”
I said, “You had them spying on our neighbors.”
“They’re done. They’ve made their contacts. Sindhu can take over. He has a higher reputation.”
Another of those little oddities about Narayan and his cronies. They had their own hidden caste system. Based on what, I couldn’t tell. Narayan was the man of most respect here. Broad, stolid Sindhu ran a close second.
“Send them. If we have spies everywhere why haven’t I gotten any information?”
“There’s nothing to report that isn’t common knowledge. Except that there’s a lot of disaffection among Jah’s men. A third might defect if you offered to enlist them. Jah’s been doing some talking about you ignoring your duties as a wife because you won’t commit suttee or go into isolation, as befits a Shadar woman. He’s working on a dozen schemes but none of our friends are in his closest councils.”
“Kill him,” Blade said. And Sindhu nodded.
“Why?” A political victory would be better, long range.
“You don’t let the serpent strike if you know where he lies in wait. You destroy him.”
A simplistic solution with a certain appeal. It could have a big impact if we took him out where he seemed least vulnerable. And at the moment I didn’t feel patient enough to spin out a long game. “Agreed. But with finesse. Do we have good enough friends over there to let us sneak into camp?”
“Close enough,” Narayan admitted. “There’d be a question of timing. So the friends would be on duty.”
“Set it up. What about other enemies? Jah is just the most obvious because he’s right here. There’ll be more in the north.”
“It’ll be handled,” Narayan promised. “When there are men and time. We have too much work and too few hands.”
Right. But I felt good about my prospects. No one else was doing as much or pushing as hard. I asked, “Can we get any closer to the Radisha and her pet wizard? Smoke? Are Swan and Mather devoted allies of the Radisha’s?”
“Devoted?” Blade said. “No. But they’ve given their word, more or less. They won’t turn unless the Woman turns on them first.”
Something to consider. Maybe they could be misdirected, though that would work against me if they found me out.
Offered places in my camp and safety from reprisals, two hundred of Jahamaraj Jah’s men defected. Another fifty just deserted and disappeared. Several hundred of the other fugitives enlisted the same day the Shadar came over. I got the impression the Radisha wasn’t pleased.
Nearly a hundred Gunni women walked into fire the same day. I heard my name cursed from that side of the river.
I went over and spoke to a few women. We had no basis for communication.
Smoke was at the fortress gate when I recrossed the ford. He smirked as I passed. I wondered how much the Radisha would miss him.
There are times when you wonder about the self hidden from yourself. I certainly did as Narayan, Sindhu, and I stole toward the Shadar cavalry camp.
I was excited. I was eager. I was drawn as a moth to flame. I told myself I was doing this because I had to, not because I wanted it. It wasn’t a pleasure. Jah’s malice had called this down upon him.
Narayan’s friends had confirmed that Jah planned to grab the Radisha and me and make it look like I’d carried her off. How he figured he could get to me I don’t know. I guessed his plan included me murdering the Radisha-thus eliminating her brother’s spine-then being a good girl who committed suttee. With assistance.
So I was moving first, earlier than I’d wanted.
Narayan exchanged whispered passwords with a friendly sentry who turned blind as we stole past. The camp beyond was a pesthole. Ordinarily Shadar set great store by cleanliness. Morale was abysmal.
We stole like shadows. I was proud of myself. I moved as silently as those two. They were surprised a woman could do it. We approached Jah’s own tent.
It was oversized and guarded well. The man knew he wasn’t popular. A fire burned on each of the tent’s four sides. A guard stood near each fire.
Narayan cursed, said something in cant. Sindhu grunted. Narayan whispered, “No way to get any closer. Those guards will be men he trusts. And they’ll know who we are.”
I nodded, pulled them back, said, “Let me think.”
They whispered while I thought. They didn’t expect anything from me.
There was a small spell which could be used to blind the unaware briefly. Perfect, if I could manage it. I recalled it all right. One of those children’s things that used to be as easy as blinking. I hadn’t tried it in ages. There’d be no way to tell if it was working, unless I messed it up so badly the sentry sensed me and gave the alarm.
Nothing to lose but my life.
I went into that spellcasting as though it was the most dangerous demon-summoning I’d ever done. I did it three times to make sure it had a chance to take, but when I finished I didn’t know if I’d succeeded or failed. The guard didn’t look changed.
Sindhu and Narayan still had their heads together. I said, “Come on,” and returned to the edge of the light. No one was in sight but that guard.
Time to test it or chicken.
I walked straight toward the sentry.
Narayan and Sindhu both cursed and tried to call me back. I summoned them with a gesture. The guard couldn’t see me.
He didn’t see me!
My heart leaped as it had when I’d summoned the horses. I beckoned Narayan and Sindhu, indicating they should stay out of the guard’s direct line of vision. He might remember someone he saw head on. And he would be
