powerful arms around me. “They were too many and too fast.”
I collapsed.
This was the present. This was today. This was the new hell where I did not want to be.
... fragments...
... just blackened fragments, crumbling between my fingers.
Browned page corners that reveal half a dozen words in a crabbed hand, their context no longer known.
All that remains of two volumes of Annals. A thousand hours of labor. Four years of history. Gone forever.
Uncle Doj wants something. He is going to make me drink some strange Nyueng Bao philtre.
Fragments...
...all around, fragments of my work, my life, my love and my pain, scattered in this bleak season...
Darkness. And in the darkness, shards of time.
Hey there! Welcome to the city of the dead...
86
The apartment was overrun with guards. What was going on? I was confused. Another fainting spell?
Smoke. Blood. The present. The hard present that breathed pain like a dragon breathes fire.
I became aware of the Captain’s presence. He came from the back of the apartment shaking his head. He eyed Uncle Doj curiously.
Cordy Mather blew in looking like a man encountering the worst horror show of a long and unhappy lifetime. He went straight to the Old Man. I heard only “...dead men all over the place.”
I could not catch Croaker’s response.
“... were after you?”
Croaker shrugged.
“You just moved out last...”
A Guard rushed in. He whispered to Mather. Mather barked, “Listen up! We’ve still got some live ones out there. Be careful.” He and the Old Man moved a little closer. “They’re lost in the labyrinth. We’ll need One-Eye to find them all.”
“The excitement never ends, does it?” Croaker sounded really tired.
To no one special Uncle Doj announced, “They have only just begun to pay.” His Taglian was excellent considering he had been unable to speak a word the day before.
Mother Gota came from the back, bent and moving slowly. Typically of Nyueng Bao women dealing with disaster she had brewed tea. This was quite possibly the worst day of her life. It would be a good pot.
The Captain gave Uncle Doj another searching look, then knelt beside me. “What happened here, Murgen?”
“I’m not sure. I walked in in the middle of it. Stabbed a guy. That one. Got thrown across a table. Tripped and fell through a hole in time. Maybe. Woke up on fire.” I still had charred pages around me. My arm hurt like hell. “There were dead people all over. I lost it. Next thing I knew it was now.”
Croaker caught Mather’s eye. He used a rocking motion of his right hand to indicate Uncle Doj.
Cordy Mather asked Uncle for his story. He spoke perfect Nyueng Bao.
It was a night of a thousand surprises.
Uncle Doj said, “These Deceivers were skilled. They gave no warning. I wakened just an instant before two fell upon me.” He explained how he had evaded death, breaking a neck and a spine in the process. He described his kills clinically, even critically.
He spoke harshly of both himself and Thai Dei. He was down on himself because he had allowed himself to be tempted into pursuing other Deceivers when they fled. Their flight proved to be a diversion. Thai Dei, who had not been drawn away, received criticism for showing the instant of hesitation that had cost him his broken arm.
“Cheap lesson for him,” Croaker observed. Uncle Doj nod’ ded, missing the Captain’s sarcasm. He had to face the cruel cost of having allowed himself to be deceived.
There were fourteen corpses in my apartment, not including those of butchered Annals. Twelve had been Deceivers. One had been my wife and one my nephew. Six perished by Ash Wand, three at Thai Dei’s hands. Mother Gota gutted two and I pigstuck one when I walked in.
Grasping my shoulder in what was meant to be a comforting gesture, Uncle Doj said, “A warrior does not slay women or children. That is the work of beasts. When beasts kill men all men are constrained to hunt and destroy them.”
“Nice talk,” Croaker said. “But the Deceivers never claimed to be warriors.” He was not impressed by Uncle’s speech.
Neither was Mather. “It’s religion, Old Timer. Their Path. They are the priests of death. The sex or age of their sacrifices doesn’t mean squat. Their victims all go straight to paradise and never have to take another turn around on the wheel of life, no matter how buggered up their karma was.”
Uncle Doj’s mood grew blacker by the minute. “I know tooga,” he muttered. “No more tooga.” Nobody was revealing any mysteries to him.
Cordy smiled wickedly at the swordmaster. “You guys probably won a high spot on their desirable victim list by killing so many of them. If you’re a Deceiver there’s big status to be gained by killing somebody who has killed a lot of people.”
I heard Mather’s blather but it did not register as sense. I muttered, “Tooga ain’t no crazier than any other religion around here.”
That seemed to offend everyone equally. Good.
Mather turned to fuss at his Guards. They had failed their trust. My own disaster was just one of several. Others were still happening.
Numbly, I said, “You can’t defend against this kind of thing, Mather. These guys weren’t commandos.” I swatted the nearest corpse with the charred sheets I was holding. “They came in here expecting to make it to paradise by midnight. Probably didn’t even have an escape plan.” In a softer voice, I said, “Captain, you might better check on Smoke.”
Croaker frowned like I had given away everything but asked only, “You need anything? Want somebody to stay?” He understood what Sarie meant to me.
“This is where I came from. When I kept falling back. I got family with me, Captain. If I start to go bugfuck in the head they’ll cool me down. You really want to help? Fix Thai Dei’s arm. Then go do what you got to do.”
Croaker nodded. He made a small gesture that, in normal times meant “Go!” but which meant a good deal more now. “Narayan Singh is going to wake up some morning and realize that he has reaped the whirlwind. There is no safe place for him anymore.”
I rose. Grimly, I set out for my bedroom. Behind me, Thai Dei groaned as Croaker set his arm. The Old Man paid him no other mind. He was busy issuing orders that meant a major intensification of the war.
Uncle Doj followed me.
The reality hurt less than the anticipation had. I indulged in the pointless gesture of removing the rumel from my wife’s throat. I stood there with the scarf dangling, staring. This Strangler must have been a true master. Her neck was not broken, nor had her throat been bruised. She looked like she was sleeping. There was no pulse when I touched her, though. “Uncle Doj. Can I be alone ?”
“Of course. But drink this first. It will help you to rest.” He handed me something that smelled really nasty.
Did we do this already?
He went away. I laid down beside Sarie for the last time. I held her while the medicine began to course through me, calling forth sleep. I thought all the usual thoughts, nurtured the usual hatreds. I thought the unthinkable, that it might be best that this had happened before Sahra learned what it really meant to be Company.
