dreams were deadly enough.
94
I settled my behind onto the rise in the floor near the entrance to the stairwell. I sat there dully wondering why the excavation had been started way out here on the periphery. I did not concern myself about it much, though. I ate again. “This stuff could get addictive.” And not because it made me feel happy and silly but because it took away aches and pains and every inclination to sleep. I could sit there knowing my body was at its physical limits without having to endure all the suffering associated with that state. And my mind remained particularly alert and useful because I was not preoccupied with the miseries plaguing my flesh.
Swan grunted his agreement. He did not seem to have been rendered as cheerful as the rest of us. Although, come to think of it, I was not doing much whistling or singing myself.
My mood improved after I had eaten again, though.
In one of his more lucid moments Riverwalker suggested, “We shouldn’t waste any more time than we have to, Sleepy. The rest should all be gone by now but they went away hoping that you and the standard would catch up.”
“If Tobo hasn’t already told them, I’ve got some bad news about that.”
“The boy said nothing about the standard. He may not have had a chance. Everybody was so shocked about Goblin and so worried about how to keep One-Eye from finding out...”
“Goblin drove the Lance into Kina’s body. It’s still there. You know me. I’m completely hooked by the Company mystique. I believe that besides the Annals, the standard is the most important symbol we have. It goes all the way back to Khatovar. It ties the generations together. I’d understand if somebody wanted to go back after it. But that somebody isn’t going to be me. Not in this decade.”
That good feeling was moving through me again. I rose. Swan helped me step up to the higher floor level. “Hello!”
Riverwalker chuckled. “I wondered how long it would take you to notice.”
The crack in the floor was almost gone.
I went and looked. It seemed to be as deep as ever but now was nowhere more than a foot wide. “How did it heal so fast?” I assumed our presence had been a catalyst. Glancing around the crack toward the demon’s throne, I noticed Doj and Tobo hurrying our way. Shivetya’s eyes were open. He was watching. “I thought you said everybody had left.”
“The earthquake did it.” River ignored the presence, of Doj and Tobo.
Swan said, “It’s the latest thing in home repairs. Go down there and stab that thing again, maybe the plain will heal up completely.”
“Might get the clockwork running again,” Doj said, having overheard our conversation as he arrived.
“Clockwork?”
Doj did a little hop. “This floor is a huge circle. It’s a one-eightieth-scale representation of the plain as a whole, with a complete travel chart inlaid. It rides on stone rollers and was capable of turning before the Thousand Voices got curious and broke it.”
“Interesting. I take it your chat with the demon proceeded informatively.”
Doj grunted assent. “But slowly. That was the big problem. Just figuring out that communication has to be managed very slowly. I think that would carry over physically, too. That if he decided to stand up if he could it might take hours. But as the Steadfast Guardian, he never had to move fast. He controlled the whole plain from here, using the charts in the floors and the clockwork mechanisms.”
Never had I seen Doj so straightforward and animated. The knowledge bug must have bitten him, along with its kissing cousin that makes the newly illuminated want to share with everyone. And that was not like Doj at all. Nor like any other Nyueng Bao of my experience. Only Mother Gota and Tobo ever chattered and between them they revealed less than Uncle Doj on a particularly reticent day.
Doj continued, “He says his original reason for being created was to manage the machinery that saw that travelers got where they wanted to go. Over time there were battles upon the plain, wars between the worlds, this fortress was built around him, and at every stage he was saddled with additional duties. Sleepy, the creature is half as old as time itself. He actually witnessed the battle between Kina and the demons when the Lords of Light fought the Lords of Darkness. It was the first great war between the worlds, it did take place here on the plain, and none of the myths have got it close to right.”
That was interesting and I said so. But I refused to allow the past’s allure to seduce me right now.
“I must confess a grand temptation to create a permanent camp here,” Doj enthused. “It will take lifetimes to recover and record everything. He’s seen so much! He remembers the Children of the Dead, Sleepy. To him the passing of the Nyueng Bao De Duang happened just yesterday. We need only to keep him convinced that we should have his help.” I looked questions at each of my companions. River-walker finally volunteered, “He’s got to have been stuffing himself with the demon food.” Meaning he thought Doj was out of character a few leagues, too. “Several others also went through big changes when they overindulged.”
“That much I understood already. Tobo. Have you undergone a complete character shift, too?” He had not said a word. That was remarkable. He had an opinion about everything.
“He scared the crap out of me, Sleepy.”
“He? Who?”
“The demon. The monster. Shivetya. He looked inside my head. He talked to me there. I think he did it to my father, too. For years and years, maybe. In the Annals? When Dad thought Kina or the Protector were manipulating him? I’m betting that lots of times it was really Shivetya.”
“That could be. That really could be.”
The world is infested with superhuman
I needed the solace of my kind of priest. And there were none nearer than five hundred miles.
“How many stories are there about this place?” I asked Doj. “And how many of them are true?”
“I suspect we haven’t yet heard one out of ten,” the old swordmaster replied. He grinned. He was enjoying himself. “And I wouldn’t be surprised if most of them are true. Can you sense it? This fortress, this plain, they’re many things at the same time. Until recently I believed it had to be the Land of Unknown Shadows. As your Captain believed that it had to be Khatovar. But it’s only a pathway to other places. And Shivetya, the Steadfast Guardian, is many things, too. Including, I think, infinitely weary of being everything that he’s had to be.”
Tobo was so anxious to interject his own thoughts that he danced around like a little boy with a desperate need to pee.
He announced, “Shivetya wants to die, Sleepy. But he can’t. Not as long as Kina is still alive. And she’s immortal.” “He’s got a problem then, doesn’t he?” Swan had an idea. “He could divide up that life span and offer it to us. I’d take him up on it. I could use another couple thousand years. After I get away from this kind of life.” I moved us closer to the demon as we talked. My natural pessimism and sourness evidently reasserted itself, though I never stopped feeling younger and happier and more energetic than I had for ages. I just stopped giggling with the rest of them. I asked, “Where’s your mother, Tobo?”
His good humor waned momentarily. “She went with Granny Gota.”
A glance at Doj made me suspect that there had been a sharp encounter between Sahra the mother and men willing to accept her son as one of them. This was Nyueng Bao stubbornness again, from two directions. On this one the Troll must have sided with her grandson and Doj.
I changed the subject. “All right. You two claim you’ve been in Shivetya’s mind. Or maybe he’s been in yours. Whichever, tell me what he wants.” I did not believe the demon was being helpful out of the goodness of his ancient heart. He could not be. He was a demon, accursed of God whether he was a creature of light or of shadow. To a demon we adventurers had to be as brief and transient as individual honeybees would be to us though, like the bees, we might be able to make ourselves obnoxious for a short while.
