I reiterated, “I’m not going over there.”
The fireworks continued. Random balls arced across the night. Sometimes a pole would discharge rapidly, hurling a stream of fiery dots into the darkness. Lady’s factory was mostly underground but the earth did not confine the devastation.
For a few minutes the night got lost in the glare.
Back behind me the standard dusk-to-dawn fog of darkness crowding the Shadowgate rippled away uphill, clinging to the deepest washes and gullies. The shadows did not like what was happening.
Neither did I. Again I observed, “I’m not going over there.”
Some wiseass remarked, “Any of you other guys think Murgen maybe ain’t going over there?”
Shithead.
I held out a few hours. I even got some sleep.
94
The ground still burned. The earth had collapsed into Lady’s factory, evidently while so much fireball material was ablaze that the dirt itself could not resist ignition. The burning soil glowed various colors. Little flames pranced close to the ground, randomly, like those on the surface of burning sulfur. A smell of sulfur did hang in the air but it was a memory of fireballs past.
There was just enough light to get around by. Consequently the disaster’s aftermath was more impressive visually.
Hundreds of soldiers and scores of hastily recruited Shadowlanders carried water in any container available. Water killed these fires not by smothering them but by cooling them down.
A column of steam towered thousands of feet above us.
“I think I’m about to get pissed off.”
I glanced back. The Old Man had come up beside me. “This didn’t do us much good,” I agreed.
“It’s maybe not as bad as it looks except for we lost so many of the people who made the poles. The battle- ready pieces were stored somewhere else. Lady didn’t want to keep all her peas in one pod.”
“Smart girl. Was it an accident?”
“No. The survivors say the lamps down there started going out, then people started screaming. The way they describe that makes me sure shadows got in. Right behind those came something or somebody who couldn’t be seen very well. She strolled through the confusion setting off the reactions that caused the blowup.”
“Soulcatcher?”
“That’s my bet. She’s really starting to get up my nose.”
I grunted. Starting? Just now? Then he was more patient than I believed possible.
Somebody yelled my name. I made out a crowd gathering downhill. “My public calls,” I grumbled. “I wonder what gruesome surprise they have for me this time.”
“Gruesome” was a weak word to describe what lay scattered around the collapsed area. Mangled, partial, dismembered and thoroughly cooked corpses abounded. Most were not soldiers. Lady’s workers had gotten a running start but that had not been good enough for most. “Where’s Lady?” I asked as Croaker followed me.
“Trying to get a fix on Catcher. Hoping we can slap back while she’s still tired and feeling smug.”
“Waste of time.”
“Probably. You do any dreaming last night?”
“No. I tossed and turned and tried to talk myself out of coming over here.”
“I would’ve sent for you eventually.”
I saw why in a moment.
He had spotted the body first.
Uncle Doj lay sprawled on his back amidst the crowd. One shoulder had been burned by a fireball. A second fireball had burned part of his hair away. Much of what remained had been bleached white. His face was contorted. His right eye was wrinkled shut and buried beneath a crust of dried blood. His left eye was open. It stared at the sky. Ash Wand lay across his chest. He still gripped it with both hands. Its perpetually sharp blade was discolored as though it had been used to stir a fire, as though the temper had been burned out. Uncle Doj’s clothing looked as though somebody had sprinkled him with small coals after he went down.
A small white feather was stuck in the blood on his cheek.
He shuddered. A sound like a giant fart came out of him. Thai Dei, who had been standing beside me, staring dumbstruck, dove forward.
Croaker snapped, “You men get back. Give us room. Murgen, bring my medical kit and I’ll do what I can.”
I took off. To my amazement Thai Dei bounced up and followed me. He did bark orders at other Nyueng Bao as we went, though. Uncle would be watched over by his own kind.
I dove into Croaker’s shelter, found his bag and popped back up into the gathering light. I asked Thai Dei, “Could you tell anything from looking at Uncle?”
“He went into the mangrove alone.” Which was Nyueng Bao idiom. It derived from the story of an incautious hunter who chased a wild pig into a mangrove stand and ran into a tiger when he got there.
I dropped Croaker’s bag beside him. He grunted acknowledgment, then growled at the Nyueng Bao pressing in around us. Not ten minutes had passed but it seemed every Nyueng Bao following the Old Crew had come to see what was happening. Thai Dei whispered angrily at several. The gist seemed to be that they were shirking their duties by straying from those they were supposed to protect. So strong was the Nyueng Bao concept of debt that the whole bunch scattered immediately.
The Nyueng Bao said little. What they did say I understood perfectly. But I learned nothing.
Thai Dei knelt beside Uncle, on his left side. The Old Man knelt opposite him. Croaker gave Thai Dei a wet cloth. “Here. Sponge the crud off his face so I can see how much real damage there is.” There was light enough now to see the dried blood and oozings crusted on Uncle’s face.
While we were gone Croaker had accumulated several buckets of water and had opened Uncle Doj’s clothing. He concentrated on the damaged shoulder, which still trickled blood. Doj’s scalp wound had cauterized itself, evidently.
Uncle shuddered again. He could see because he looked up at Thai Dei, recognized him, tried to raise his arm, barely got hold of Thai Dei’s right elbow. He whispered, “The Thousand Voices. Watch for the Thousand Voices.”
“Rest, Uncle,” Thai Dei replied.
“You must... I have little time left. The Thousand Voices is among us. I struck her down, thinking to reclaim the Key, but my blow was not lethal.” That seemed to amaze him.
Croaker glared at me, silently willing me to listen carefully because it was obvious Uncle was saying something important. I nodded, not only listening and remembering but watching Doj’s lips to make sure he was saying what I thought I was hearing.
Most of the Nyueng Bao had gone back to their charges. But JoJo had no one to protect anymore. His man had gotten away. He stayed. He stepped forward. “Uncle! Your tongue betrays you.”
At least that is what he wanted to say. The instant his mouth opened Croaker made signs to Otto and Hagop, who hovered like angels looking for unbelievers to smite. They wrapped JoJo up, clamped hands over his mouth, carried him away, and managed the whole abduction so slickly that nobody paid any attention.
Uncle Doj thought he was dying. He was trying to stick Thai Dei with some obligation. “Find her before she recovers. Kill her while she is vulnerable. Burn her flesh. Scatter her ashes. Scatter them to the winds.”
Thai Dei did not want the obligation. “I am not the one, Uncle. I have a mission already. Rest. Hold your tongue.” He knew I was listening.
Uncle’s eye shifted my way. He knew I was listening, too, now. But he was convinced he saw Death peering over my shoulder. He kept on talking.
What he said made sense. If you assumed that “the Thousand Voices” was Soulcatcher. That was a good nickname for her particularly where she had not bothered to introduce herself.
