“Good. That’ll save them a lot of time and pain.”
“Little girl?” Swan asked. There was a whole different look in his eye suddenly.
“One-Eye’s got diarrhea of the mouth. Sit down, old man. Swan was just telling us about Soulcatcher’s magic carpets and how she doesn’t like flying. And I’m wondering if we couldn’t find some way to take advantage of that.”
Swan looked from one of us to the other. I watched One-Eye’s hands as he picked up his first bunch of cards. Just in case he might have done something to this deck sometime in the past. “Little girl?”
“Is there an echo in here?” Slink asked.
“Is that suddenly a problem?” I asked.
“No! No.” Swan showed me the palm of his free hand. “I’m just getting a lot of surprises here. Soulcatcher thought she was pretty solid on the Company survivors. But I’ve already run into four people who are known to be dead, including the world’s ugliest wizard and that Nyueng Bao woman who acts like she’s in charge.”
One-Eye growled, “Don’t you go talking about Goblin that way. He’s my pal. I’ll have to stand up for him. Someday.” He snickered.
Swan ignored him. “And you. That we had down as a man.” ’
I shrugged. “Not many knew. And it’s not important. The dope with the eye patch and smelly hat should’ve had sense enough not to mention it in front of an outsider.” I glared.
One-Eye grinned, drew a card from the pile, discarded. “She’s feisty, Swan. Smart, too. Designed the plan that pulled you in. You started on another one, Little Girl?”
“Several. I think Sahra will want the Inspector-General next, though.”
“Gokhale? He can’t tell us anything.”
“Say it’s personal. Swan. You know anything about Gokhale? He dabble in little girls like Perhule Khoji used to?”
One-Eye gave me an evil look. Swan stared. My mess-up this time. I had given something away.
Too late to fuss about it. “Well?”
“Actually, yes.” Swan was pale. He focused on his cards, having trouble keeping his hands steady. “Those two and several others in that office. Common interests brought. them together. The Radisha doesn’t know. She doesn’t want to know.” He discarded out of turn. He had lost his zest for the game.
I realized what the problem was. He thought my speaking freely meant I expected to elevate him to a higher plane before long. “You’re all right, Swan. Long as you behave. Long as you answer questions when you’re asked. Hell, I got to save you. There’s a bunch of guys buried under the glittering plain that want to talk to you about that when they get back.” Might be interesting to watch him talk it over with Murgen.
“They’re still
“Very alive. Just frozen in time. And getting angrier by the minute.”
“I thought... Great God... shit.”
“Do not speak so on the name of God!” Slink growled.
Slink was Jaicuri Vehdna, too. And much less lapsed than I. He managed prayers at least once a day and temple several times a month. The local Vehdna thought he was a Dejagoran refugee employed by Banh Do Trang because he had done the Nyueng Bao favors during the siege there. Most of our brothers endured genuine employment and worked hard to resemble pillars of the local community.
Swan swallowed, said, “You people ever eat? I ain’t had nothing since yesterday.”
“We eat,” I said. “But not like you’re used to. It’s true what they say about Nyueng Bao. They don’t eat anything but fish heads and rice. Eight days a week.”
“Fish will do right now. I’ll save the bitching till my belly’s full.”
“Slink,” I said. “We need to send a kill team down to Semchi to watch the Bhodi Tree. The Protector’s probably going to try to smash it. We could make some friends if we save it.” I explained about the Bhodi disciple who burned himself and Soulcatcher’s threat to turn the Bhodi Tree into kindling. “I’d like to go myself, just to see if the Bhodi non-violent ethic is strong enough to make them stand around while somebody destroys their most holy shrine. But I have too much work to do here.” I tossed my cards in. “In fact, I have work to do now.”
I was tired but figured I could study Murgen’s Annals for a few hours before I passed out.
As I walked away, Swan whispered, “How the hell does she know all that? And is she really a she?”
“Never checked personally,” Slink said. “I have a wife. But she’s definitely got some female habits on her.”
What the devil did that mean? I am just one of the guys.
11
These were exciting times. I found myself eager to be up and outside, where things were happening. The impact of our boldness would have reached every cranny of the city by now. I gobbled cold rice and listened to Tobo complain, again, that his father had paid him no attention.
“Is there something I can do about that, Tobo?”
“Huh?”
“Unless you think I can go back there and tell him to shape up and talk to his kid, you’re wasting your time and mine bitching about it. Where’s your mother?”
“She left for work. A long time ago. She said they’d be suspicious if she didn’t show up today.”
“Probably would be. They’ll be real edgy about everything for a while. How about instead of fussing about what’s happened already, you spend some time thinking about what you’ll do next time you see your father? And in the meantime, you can stay out of trouble by keeping notes for me whenever anybody questions the prisoner.”
His glower told me he was no more excited about being offered work than any boy his age would be. “You’re going out, too?”
“I have to go to work.” It would be a good day to get to the library early. The scholars were supposed to be gone most of the day. There was supposed to be a big meeting of the bhadrhalok, which was a loosely associated group of educated men who did not like the Protector and who found the institution of the Protectorate objectionable. Jokingly, they referred to themselves as a band of intellectual terrorists. Bhadrhalok means, more or less, “the respectable people” and that was exactly what they thought they were. They were all educated, high- caste Gunni, which meant, right away, that a vast majority of the Taglian population regarded them with no sympathy at all. Their biggest problem with the Protector was that she held their self-confident, arrogant assumption of superiority in complete contempt. As revolutionaries and terrorists, they were less incandescent than any of the low-caste social clubs that existed on every residential block in the city. I doubt that Soulcatcher wasted two spies watching them. But they had great fun, fulminating and crying on one another’s shoulders about the world going to hell in a goat cart driven by the demon in black. And every week or so it got most of the library crew out of my way.
I did what I could to encourage their seditious fervor.
I got off to a slow start. Not thirty yards from the warehouse exit I ran into two of our brothers doing donkey work for Do Trang while standing lookout. One made gestures indicating that they had something to report. Sighing, I strolled over. “What’s the story, River?” The men called him Riverwalker. I did not know him by any other name.
“We got shadowtraps that’s been sprung. We got ourselves some new pets.”
“Oh, no. Darn.” I shook my head.
“That’s not good?”
“Not good. Run, report it to Goblin. I’ll stick with Ran till you get back. Don’t dawdle. I’m late for work.” Not true, but Taglians have little sense of urgency, and the concept of punctuality is alien to most.
Shadows in the shadowtraps. Not a good eventuation, for sure. Near as we could determine, Soulcatcher had no more than two dozen manageable shadows left under control. As many more had gone feral in the remote south and were developing reputations as rakshasas, which were demons or devils but not quite like those my northern forebrethren knew. Northern demons seemed to be solitary beings of considerable power. Rakshasas are communal and pretty weak individually. But deadly. Very deadly.
