I began to see signs of recent traffic. I knelt, discovered what appeared to be my own previous footprints in the dust. Someone had been through since, armed with a battery of candles.
Drops of wax had fallen into the disturbed dust. And somebody had been through after that, possibly crawling, perhaps even eating what wax drops he could find.
I listened to the silence. This deep within the Palace even vermin were scarce. They could only eat each other.
Still cautious, I followed the trails of those who had come after me. My heart thumped like it was about to explode.
I started sneezing. And once I did the sneezes just kept coming. I could hold off for half a minute sometimes, but that only made the next sneeze worse.
Then I started hearing all sorts of sounds. And could not still myself long enough to reassure me that I was imagining these noises, too, or to get a fix on their source if they were genuine. Maybe it would be better to do this some other time. Then the broken door loomed out of the darkness. I stopped and studied it. I had a notion it was hanging a little differently. Disturbances in the dust suggested that someone had visited since I had done so myself.
Cautiously, touching nothing, I rounded the door, stepped into the room. “Shit!”
It had been torn apart. Few of the books, bound or scroll, remained on their shelves or in their cubbies. The undisturbed items, where I could decipher titles, were prosaic inventories or tax records or irregular city histories of little interest. I wondered why Smoke would bother with those. Maybe just to hide the good stuff? Maybe because he was fire marshall as well as court wizard?
Whatever, the good stuff was gone. And by that I mean not only any long missing volumes of the Annals that might have been lying around but also a number of what I had suspected to be magical texts when last I looked in.
“Damn it! Damn it!” I wanted to throw things, to break things, to bounce rocks off villains’ heads, Even before I found the single fallen feather I had a good idea of what had happened.
I collected that feather.
On the way back I definitely heard sounds that did not spring from my imagination. I did not bother to investigate. The man tried to follow my light but could not keep up.
94
Croaker looked up, puzzled, when I laid the white feather in front of him and said, “The books are gone. And there are Deceivers lost in there. At least one dead one and one still alive.”
“Gone?” He plucked the feather off the document he was studying.
“Somebody took them.”
His distress was apparent only because his hand began to shake. “How?”
“They just walked in off the street and carried them away.” I did not for a moment consider the possibility that someone inside the Palace had visited Smoke’s books.
He said nothing for a while. “What perfect timing.” Another silence. “What’s this feather?”
“Maybe a message. Maybe just a lost feather. I found one like it when I discovered that the Widowmaker armor had disappeared from hiding in Dejagore.” “A white feather?”
“From an albino crow.” I ran through my catalog of encounters, real and possibly imagined.
His hand shook again. “You never actually met her. But you recognized her? She was here the night the Deceivers struck? And you never said anything?”
“I forgot that. That was the worst night of my life, Captain. That night has twisted everything else around me...”
He gestured for silence. He thought. I stared. He was nothing like the Croaker who had been Company physician and Annalist when I joined up. After a while, he muttered, “That must be it.”
“What?”
“The voice you encountered whenever you were pulled back to Dejagore. Think. Was it inconsistent?”
“I don’t think I understand.”
“Did it seem like it might be different people talking all the time?”
Now I got it. “I don’t think so. It did seem to have different attitudes and styles sometimes.”
“The bitch. The sneaking bitch. Always playing another game. I won’t swear this for sure, Murgen, but I think the root mystery behind you tumbling all over time must have been Soulcatcher playing.”
Not a wholly original theory to me. Soulcatcher rated high on my own suspects list. Motive was my big stumbling block. I could not figure a “why Murgen?” for anybody, Soulcatcher included.
“Where is she now?” Croaker asked.
“I don’t have the foggiest.”
“Can you find out?”
“Smoke balks every time I try to head her way.”
Croaker considered that. “Try again.”
“You’re the boss.”
“As long as it suits everybody’s convenience. You sure your in-laws won’t go home?”
“They’re going wherever I go.”
“Tell them we’ll be on the road before the end of the week.”
“I look forward to that like a case of the piles.” I took my white feather and stomped off for a session with the fire mar’ shall.
95
I did not go straight there. I stopped by the apartment, collected a flask of tea, a gallon of water, a basket of fried chicken and fried fish, rice and some of Mother Gota’s special baked rocks. I expected a long session. There were things I wanted to do beyond my expected swift rebuff in a search for Soulcatcher.
Smoke seemed unchanged. As always. I wondered what he would remember if, as sometimes happened, one day he just woke up from his coma. I hear tell people have done that even after being under years longer than Smoke has.
I filled my stomach with water before I left the apartment. I took in more fluid when I reached Smoke. I went to work.
Drifting. Quick check of all the villains. Mogaba and Longshadow, Howler and Narayan Singh and the Daughter of Night were all acceptably located, either at Overlook or Charandaprash. Blade was skirting the Shindai Kus with maybe twelve hundred men, trying to get behind the Prahbrindrah Drah, but the Prince had a screen of light cavalry out far enough to give him plenty of warning. The man had a knack.
Before I carried out my obligation to look for Soulcatcher I took Smoke back in time to see just how early I could find and spy upon some of the principals. I wanted to see what had happened that night I had been held captive and tortured. I wanted to unveil the details of Mogaba’s defection.
I found that I could not go back that far.
I recalled that raft on the lake, Mogaba cursing in the darkness. That had to be it. He should not have been there. What honest mission could have taken him ashore? Had he changed allegiances while still holding Dejagore for the good guys? Was his deal already made when Croaker faced him down? Did he meet the Howler out there, far enough away that Goblin and One-Eye would not detect the sorcerer’s flying carpet?
Maybe. And if he had that might explain why even Sindawe and Ochiba were willing to abandon him.
All of us would be dead already and the war long since lost had Longshadow been in a position to seize that moment.
The cold claws of death may have come closer than ever I had suspected.
