myself for the worst. How come you’re so cheerful?”
“Right up ahead. Another day. Two, maximum. I get to say hi to my old buddies, Cordy and Blade.”
I looked at him askance. Could he be the only one of us more excited than frightened by the possibilities inherent in releasing the Captured? Only one of those people had not spent the past fifteen years trapped inside his own mind. And I was not convinced that Murgen was not working overtime to maintain a false facade of sanity. The others... I did not doubt that quite a few would come forth stark, raving mad. Nor did the rest.
Nowhere was that fear more evident than in the Radisha.
“Tadjik,” had remained almost invisible since she had rejoined us this side of the Dandha Presh. Though River-walker and Runmust stayed close, she needed no watching and made few demands. She stayed to herself, cloaked in brooding. The farther we moved from Taglios, the nearer we approached her brother, the more withdrawn she became. On the road, after the Grove of Doom, we had become almost sisterly. But the pendulum had been swinging the other way ever since Jaicur and we had not exchanged a hundred words a week this side of the mountains. That did not please me. I enjoyed her company, conversation and slashing wit.
Even Master Santaraksita had had no luck drawing her out lately, though she had developed an affection for his scholarly drollery. Between them, the pair could gut and flense a fool’s argument faster than a master butcher ever cleaned a chicken.
I mentioned the problem to Willow Swan.
“I’ll bet it’s not her brother that’s bothering her. He wouldn’t be the biggest thing, anyway. I’d guess she’s down about not being able to go back. Ever since she realized we’re probably on a one-wayer here, she’s been in a black depression.”
“Uhm?”
“It’s
But he had been close to her for thirty years. “We’re going back.”
“Oh, sure. And on the one chance in a zillion that we really do, who’s going to have an army waiting? Can you say Soulcatcher?”
“Sure. And I can also say she’ll forget us in six months. She’ll find a more interesting game to play.”
“And can you say ’Water sleeps?’ So can Soulcatcher, Sleepy. You don’t know her. Nobody does except maybe Lady, a little. But I got closer than most for a while. Not exactly by choice, but there I was. I tried to pay attention, for what good it would do me. She isn’t entirely inhuman and she isn’t as vain and heedless as she might want the world to think. Bottom line, you need to keep one critical fact firmly in mind when you’re thinking about Soulcatcher. And that is that she’s still alive in a world where her deadliest enemy was the Lady of the Tower. Remembering that in her time Lady made the Shadowmasters look like unschooled bullies.”
“You’re really wound today, aren’t you?”
“Just stating the facts.”.
“Here’s one of your own right back. Water sleeps. The woman who used to be the Lady of the Tower will be back on her feet in another few days.”
“You’d better ask Murgen if he thinks she’ll want to bother getting up. I’ll bet you it’s not this cold where she’s at.” The breeze on the plain had begun to gnaw both deeply and relentlessly.
I did not disagree even though he knew the truth. He might not remember but he must have helped Soulcatcher move the Captured into the ice caverns where they lay imprisoned.
A murder of crows appeared from the north, fighting the wind. They had very little to say to one another. They circled a few times, then fought for altitude and rode the breeze toward Mama. They would not have much to report.
We began to find more bodies, sometimes in twos and threes. A fair number of the Captured had not been caught at all. I recalled Murgen’s report that almost half the party made a break for the world after Soulcatcher got loose. Here they were. I did not remember most of them. They were Taglian or Jaicuri rather than Old Crew, mostly, which meant they had enlisted while I was up north on Murgen’s behalf.
We came upon Suyen Dinh Duc, Bucket’s Nyueng Bao bodyguard. Duc’s body had been prepared neatly for ceremonial farewells. That Bucket had paused in the midst of terror to honor one of the quietest and most unobtrusive of the Nyueng Bao companions spoke volumes about the character of my adopted father and that of Duc. Bucket had refused to accept protection. He did not want a bodyguard. And Suyen Dinh Duc had refused to go away. He had felt called by a power far superior to Bucket’s will. I believe they became friends when nobody was looking.
I began to shed the tears that had not come when we had found Bucket himself.
Willow Swan and Suvrin tried to comfort me. Both were uneasy with the effort, not quite knowing if hugging would be acceptable. It sure would have been but I did not know how to let them know without saying it. That would have embarrassed me too much.
Sahra provided the comfort as the Nyueng Bao gathered to honor one of their own.
Swan woofed. The white crow had landed on his left shoulder and pecked at his ear. It studied the dead man with one eye and the rest of us with the other.
Uncle Doj observed, “Your friend was supremely confident that someone would come this way again, Annalist. He left Duc in the attitude called ’In Respect of Patient Repose,’ which we do when a proper funeral has to be delayed. Neither gods nor devils disturb the dead while they lie so disposed.”
I sniffled. “Water sleeps, Uncle. Bucket believed. He knew we’d come.”
Bucket’s belief had been stronger than mine. Mine barely survived the Kiaulune wars. Without Sahra’s relentless desire to resurrect Murgen I would not have come through the times of despair. I would not have become strong enough to endure when Sahra’s own time of doubt came upon her.
Now we were here, with nowhere to go but forward. I dried my eyes. “We don’t have time to stand around talking. Our resources are painfully finite. Let’s load him up-”
Doj interrupted. “We would prefer to leave him as he is, where he is, till we can send him off with the appropriate ceremonies.”
“And those would be what?”
“I haven’t seen many dead Nyueng Bao since the siege of Jaicur. You people do a good job of dancing around death. But I have seen a few of your tribe dead and there wasn’t any obviously necessary funeral ritual. Some got burned on the ghats as though they were Gunni. I saw one man buried in the ground, as if he were Vehdna. I’ve even seen a corpse rubbed with bad smelling unguents, then wrapped like a mummy and hung head-down from a high tree branch.”
Doj said, “Each funeral would have been appropriate to the person and situation, I’m sure. What’s done with the flesh isn’t critical. The ceremonies are intended to ease the soul’s transition to its new state. They’re absolutely essential. If they’re not observed, the dead man’s spirit may be compelled to wander the earth indefinitely.”
“As ghosts? Or dreamwalkers?”
Doj seemed startled. “Uh? Ghosts? A restless spirit that wants to finish tasks interrupted by death. They can’t, so they just keep going.”
Although Vehdna ghosts are wicked spirits cursed to wander by God Himself, I had no trouble following Doj’s notion. “Then we’ll leave him here. You want to stand _ beside him? To make sure he stays safe from traffic?” Bucket had placed Duc at the edge of the road so he would not be disturbed by the terrified fugitives back then.
“How did he die?” Swan asked. Then he squawked. The white crow had nipped his ear again.
Everybody turned to stare at Swan. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“Look, if a shadow got Duc and somebody tried to lay him out proper, that layer-outer would be here dead as a wedge, too. Right? So he must’ve died some other way, before-” A dim lamp seemed to come alive inside his head.
“Catcher did it!” the crow said. It was crow caw but the words were clear. “Haw! Haw! Catcher did it!”
The Nyueng Bao began to press in on Swan.
“Catcher did it,” I reminded them. “Probably with a booby-trap spell. By the time Duc reached this point, she
