Help arrived in the form of a half dozen palace guards. They had been summoned by someone with enough presence of mind to go for them.
The prince asked, “Someone snatched Lady?” Bemused, he muttered, “I guess that was the whole point, else we’d all be dead.”
“That’s my guess. Are they in for a surprise. Let’s get moving.” As they started walking, surrounded by the guards, Croaker asked, “Where was your pet wizard while all this was happening?”
“Why?” the Radisha demanded.
“That little shit has been on the Shadowmasters’ payroll for weeks. Ask him about it.”
The prince said, “I’d love to. But a demon tried to kill him and almost succeeded. He’s in a coma. Won’t come back.”
Croaker glanced back. “Somebody ought to bring the prisoner. He might tell us something useful.”
He would not. He had died while no one was looking.
Croaker was amazed at himself, taking charge the way he was. Maybe it was pressure from so many months of helplessness. Maybe it was urgency brought on by the certainty that he would not have long to grab hold of his destiny.
The prince had to be right. Lady had been the object of the attack. That meant the bad boys had lost track of her somehow and had thought Catcher was her. He smiled grimly. They would not be prepared for the tiger they had caught.
How long would Catcher toy with them before revealing herself? Long enough?
Count on nothing. Hurry.
He by damned had to grab for all he could get while the opportunity existed.
Croaker finished his story. The prince and his sister had listened agape. The Radisha recovered her poise first. She’d always had the harder edge. “Way back, Smoke cautioned us that there might be more going on than met the eye. That there might be players in the game we didn’t see.”
All eyes turned to the unconscious wizard. Croaker said, “Prince, you used that sticker pretty well tonight. Think you’d have trouble pricking him if he asked for it?”
“No trouble at all. After what he’s done the trouble I’ll have is not sticking him before we get a story out of him.”
“He’s not all bad. He walked into a trap trying to do what he thought was right. His problem is, he gets an idea in his head and he can’t get it out if it’s wrong, no matter what evidence you hit him with. He decided we were the bad guys come back for general mayhem and he just couldn’t change his mind. Probably never will. If you execute him he’ll die thinking he’s a hero and martyr who tried to save Taglios. I think I can waken him. When I do, you stand by to stick him if he tries any tricks. Even a puny wizard is deadly when he wants.”
Croaker took an hour but did tease the wizard out of life’s twilight and got him to choke out his story.
Afterward, the prince asked, “What can we do? Even if he’s as contrite as he says, the Shadowmasters have a hold we can’t break. I don’t want to kill him but he is a wizard. We couldn’t keep him locked up.”
“He can stay locked up in his mind. You’d have to force-feed him and clean him like a baby but I can put him back into the coma.”
“Will he heal?”
“His body should. I can’t do anything about what the devil did to his soul.” Smoke’s past cowardice looked like outrageous courage now.
“Do it. We’ll deal with him when there’s time.”
Croaker did it.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Shadowspinner’s shadows remained blind to my whereabouts. He did not seem able to adjust. And his bats were useless. Were in fact extinct in that part of the world where my band stole through the night.
I signalled a halt a mile from where my scouts said Spinner had established his camp. We had come a long way in a short time. We needed rest.
Narayan settled beside me. He plucked at his rumel, whispered, “Mistress, I’m of a divided mind. Most of me really believes the goddess wants me to do this, that it will be the greatest thing I’ve ever done for her.”
“But?”
“I’m scared.”
“You make that sound shameful.”
“I haven’t been this frightened since my first time.”
“This isn’t your ordinary victim. The stakes are higher than you’re used to.”
“I know. And knowing wakens doubts of my ability, of my worthiness... even of my goddess.” He seemed ashamed to admit that, too. “She is the greatest Deceiver of all, Mistress. It amuses her sometimes to mislead her own. And, while this is a great and necessary deed, even I, who was never a priest, notice that the omens have not been favorable.”
“Oh?” I had noticed no omens, good or bad.
“The crows, Mistress. They haven’t been with us tonight.”
I had not noticed. I had grown that accustomed to them. I assumed they were there whether I saw them or not. He was right. There were no crows anywhere.
That meant something. Probably something important. I could not imagine their master allowing me freedom from observation for even a minute. And their absence was not my doing. And I doubted it was Shadowspinner’s.
“I hadn’t noticed, Narayan. That’s interesting. Personally, it’s the best omen I’ve seen in months.”
He frowned at me.
“Worry not, my friend. You’re Narayan, the living legend. The saint-to-be. You’ll do fine.” I shifted from cant to standard Taglian. “Blade. Swan. Ready?”
“Lead on, my lovely,” Swan said. “I’ll follow you anywhere.” The more stressed he became the more flip he was.
I looked them over, Blade, Swan, Ram, Narayan, the two arm-holders. Seven of us. As Swan had observed, the obligatory number for a company on quest. A totally mixed bag. By his own standards each was a good person. By the standards of others everyone, excepting Swan, was a villain.
“Let’s go, then.” Before I grew too philosophical.
We did not have to talk about it. We had rehearsed farther away. There would be no chatter to alert Shadowspinner.
It was a slovenly encampment. It screamed demoralization. But for Spinner my ragbag army could have beaten those Shadowlanders. And they knew it. They were waiting for the hammer to fall.
We passed within yards of pickets who sat facing a fire and grumbling. Their language resembled Taglian. I could understand them when they were not excited.
They were demoralized, all right. They were discussing men they knew who had deserted. There seemed to be a lot of those and plenty of sentiment for following their example.
Narayan had the point. He trusted no one else to find his way. He came sliding into the hollow where we waited. In a whisper that did not carry three feet he told me, “There are prisoners in a pen to the left, there. Taglian. Several hundred.”
I turned that over in my mind. How could I use them? There was potential for a diversion there. But I did not need one. “Did you talk to them?”
“No. They might have given us away.”
“Yes. We’ll stick to the mission.”
Narayan went ahead. He found us another lurking place. I began to sense Shadowspinner’s nearness. He did not radiate much energy for a power of his magnitude. Till then I had been sure only that he was in the camp. “Over there.”
“The big tent?” Narayan asked.
