“What?”
“She doesn’t know I’m not dead, does she? Those crows are going to put the finger on me.”
I laughed. “Soulcatcher’s displeasure shouldn’t worry you right now. She can’t get to you.”
“You never know.” He went off to tell everybody I wanted those watchcrows treated like favored pets.
“A strange and intriguing man,” Santaraksita observed.
“Strange, anyway. But he’s a foreigner.”
“We’re all foreigners here, Dorabee.”
That was true. Very true. I could close my eyes and still be overwhelmed by the strangeness of the plain. In fact, I felt that more strongly when I was not looking at it. When my eyes were closed it seemed as aware of me as I was aware of it.
Once we got Sindawe loaded I continued walking beside Master Santaraksita. The librarian was every bit as excited as he claimed. Everything was a wonder to him. Except the weather. “Is it always this cold here, Dorabee?”
“It’s not even winter yet.” He knew about snow only by repute. Ice he knew as something that fell from the sky during the ferocious storms of the rainy season. “It could get a lot colder. I don’t know. Swan says he don’t recall it being this chilly the last time he was up here but that was at a different time of year and the circumstances of the incursion were different.” I was willing to bet that seldom in its history had the plain ever experienced the crying of a colicky baby or the barking of a dog. One of the children had sneaked the dog along and now it was too late to change anyone’s mind.
“How long will we be up here?”
“Ah. The question nobody’s had the nerve to ask. You’re more familiar with the early Annals than I am anymore. You’ve had months and months to study them while I haven’t had time to keep my own up to date. What did they tell you about the plain?”
“Nothing.”
“Not who built it? Not why? By implication Kina is involved somehow. So are the Free Companies of Khatovar and the golem demon Shivetya. At least we think the thing in the fortress up ahead is the demon who’s supposed to stand guard over Kina’s resting place. Not very effectively, apparently, because the ancient king Rhaydreynak drove the Deceivers of his time into the same caverns where Soulcatcher trapped the Captured. And we know that the Books of the Dead are down there somewhere. We know that Uncle Doj says without offering any convincing evidence the Nyueng Bao are the descendants of another Free Company, but we also know that Uncle and Mother Gota sometimes mention things that aren’t part of the usual lore.”
“Dorabee?”
Santaraksita I found wore that expression he always put on when I surprised him. I grinned, told him, “I rehearse all this every day, twenty times a day. I just don’t usually do it out loud. I believe I was hoping you would add something to the mix. Is there anything? By direct experience we know that it takes three days to get to the fortress. I assume that stronghold is located at the heart of the plain. We know there’s a network of protected roads and circles where those roads intersect. Where roads exist there must be someplace to go. To me that says there must be at least one more Shadowgate somewhere.” I looked up. “You think?”
“You bet our survival on the
“Yep. We didn’t have anywhere left to run back there.”
There was that look again.
Suvrin, plodding along and listening in silence, had that look, too.
I said, “Although I’ve been surrounded by Gunni all my life, I’m still unfamiliar with the more obscure legendry. And I know even less about that of the older, less well-known, non-proselytizing cults. What do you know about The Land of Unknown Shadows? It seems to be tied in with aphorisms like ’All Evil Dies There an Endless Death’ and ’Calling the Heaven and the Earth and the Day and the Night.’”
“The last one is easy, Dorabee. That’s an invocation of the Supreme Being. You might also hear it as the formula ’Calling the Earth and the Wind and the Sea and the Sky,’ or even ’Calling Yesterday and Today and Tonight and Tomorrow.’You spout those off thoughtlessly because they’re easy and you have to deliver a certain number of prayers every day. I’m sure Vehdna who actually keep up with their prayers take the same shortcuts.”
Twinges of guilt. My duties of faith had suffered abominably the past six months. “Are you sure?”
“No. But it sure sounded good, didn’t it? Easy! You asked about Gunni. I could be wrong in a different religious context.”
“Of course. How about Bone Warrior, Stone Soldier, or Soldier of Darkness?”
“Excuse me? Dorabee?”
“Never mind. Unless something related occurs to you. I’d better trot up the line and get Tobo slowed down again.”
As I passed the black stallion and white crow, the latter chuckled and whispered that “Sister, sister” phrase again. The bird had heard the entire conversation. Chances were that it was not Murgen, nor was it Soulcatcher’s creature, but still, it was extremely interested in the doings of the Black Company, to the point of trying to give warnings. It seemed quite pleased that we were headed south and were unable to turn back.
Behind me, Master Santaraksita’s group paused. He and Baladitya studied the face of the first stone column, where golden characters still sparked occasionally.
it is immortality of a sort.
73
The people of the former Shadowlands clung to the best cover available while they watched Nemesis cross their country in a slow and angry progression toward the pass through the Dandha Presh. In more than one place Soulcatcher’s appearance gave rise to the rumor that Khadi had been reborne and was walking through the world again.
She always did love a good practical joke.
What the witnesses saw seemed to be the goddess in her most terrible aspect. She was naked except for a girdle of dried penises and a necklace of babies’ skulls. Her skin was a polished mahogany black. She was hairless everywhere. She had vampire fangs and an extra pair of arms. She seemed about ten feet tall. What she did not seem was happy. People stayed out of her way.
She was not alone. In her wake came an equally naked woman as white as Soulcatcher was dark. She was five and a half feet tall. Even covered with cuts and bruises and dirt, she was attractive. Her face was empty of all expression but her eyes burned with patient hatred. She wore only one item of ornamentation, a shoulder harness to which a cable ten feet long had been attached. That cable connected her to the rusty iron cage floating in the air behind her. The cage enclosed a skinny old man who had suffered several severe injuries, including a broken leg and some bad burns. The girl was compelled to tow the cage. She never spoke, even when the monster encouraged her with a switch. Possibly she had lost the faculty.
Narayan Singh had been the unfortunate who triggered Goblin’s booby trap, not its beloved intended.
The Deceiver shared the cage with a large bound book. He was too weak to keep it closed. Wind toyed with its pages. Once in a while the breeze showed its vicious side and yanked a page away from the book’s tired binding.
Sometimes delirious, Narayan thought he was in the hands of his goddess, either being punished for some forgotten transgression or transported to Paradise. And perhaps he was right. It did not occur to Soulcatcher to wonder what use she had for him alive. Not that she was taking any special trouble to keep him that way. Nor did the Daughter of Night seem particularly concerned about his fate.
74
