I waited till Murgen found something to occupy him, beckoned Swan and Lady. “Let’s think about what we do now.” I looked my wife in the eye. She understood what I wanted to know. She shook her head.
There was no Khatovaran source of magical power she could parasitize.
I grumped, “I didn’t expect towers of pearl and ruby beside streets of gold, but this is ridiculous.” I checked Doj and Murgen. They showed no interest in us yet.
“Sour grapes.” Swan sneered, heading straight for the critical point. “That’s a whole world out there. Damned near empty, it looks like. How do you expect to find one insane killer monster?”
“I got to thinking about that while I was standing up there looking at all this. Amongst other things. And I think I’ve had an evil epiphany.”
Lady contributed to the Annals and tried to keep up with her successors. She shook her head, said, “There isn’t much in what she wrote.”
Swan glanced around. Nobody was close. In a soft voice he said, “She hasn’t been writing the histories since you came back, has she?”
I asked, “What’s that mean?”
“Over the years Tobo and Suvrin and some of their cronies have visited most of the shadowgates. They visited the Khatovar gate several times.”
“How do you know?”
“I sneak around. I listen when I’m not supposed to hear. I know Suvrin and Tobo came out here while you were wounded. Just the two of them. And later, while we were in Khang Phi, Suvrin went out again. Alone.”
“Then I’m right. We’ve been jobbed. How come you didn’t mention this before?”
“It had to do with Khatovar. I figured you were behind whatever was going on.”
Lady made a growling, chuckling sound that told me she had a handle on the truth. “That devious little witch. You really think so?”
Swan asked, “What am I missing?”
I told him, “I think we’re out here raiding Khatovar not because I’m so damned clever but because Sleepy wants us old farts out from under foot when she breaks out into the homeworld. I’ll bet the whole damned force is moving right now. And Sleepy won’t have a single one of us asking questions or giving advice or trying to do things our own way.”
Swan took a while to think about it. Then he took a while to look around at the gang who had elected to defy the command authority to pursue revenge on One-Eye’s killer. He said, “Either she is
“Tobo knew,” I said. Tobo had to be part of it. He let his father and Uncle Doj come out here... “You know, I’m so paranoid I’m going to put a guard on the gate from the other side. And I’ll fill them up with lies about how a demon in the guise of one of our people might try to sabotage the gate so we can’t get back out of Khatovar.”
Neither Lady nor Swan argued. Swan did remark. “You
“I think it’s a mad universe. I think almost anything somebody can imagine happening can happen. Even the cruelest, blackest sin.”
Lady asked, “And what do you intend to do about it?”
“I’m going to kill the forvalaka.”
Swan said, “Murgen’s noticed that something’s going on. He’s headed this way.”
“I’m going to play the game. Tobo sent a bunch of his pets through after us. Let’s make sure they can’t get back out unless we let them go. We’ll use them to find Bowalk. Then we’ll kill her.”
23
Glittering Stone:
Fortress with No Name
Sleepy reached the fortress at the heart of the plain by the expedient of refusing to be steered elsewhere. Shivetya’s helpful shortcuts were not going to divert her from examining the root of her scheme for conquest.
There was one temporal power greater than the greatest sorcery. Greed. And she owned the wellspring of a flood of what the greedy held most dear: gold. Not to mention silver and gems and pearls.
For thousands of years fugitives from many worlds had hidden their treasures in the caverns beneath Shivetya’s throne. Who knew why? Possibly Shivetya. But Shivetya would not tell tales—unless they advanced his cause. Shivetya had the mind and soul of an immortal spider. Shivetya had no remorse, no compassion, knew only his task and his will to end it. He was the Company’s ally but he was not the Company’s friend. He would destroy the Company instantly if that suited an altered purpose and he was in a position to do so.
Sleepy meant to cover her back. She approached Baladitya. “Where’s Blade?” Baladitya had begun gushing discoveries he had made since being handed his mission. Sleepy felt a twinge of guilt. She remembered Baladitya’s kind of excitement, long ago and far away. But being responsible for thousands of people, pursuing a timetable with very little slippage built in, left no opportunity for simple pleasures. That made her cranky and curt, sometimes.
“He’s down below. He doesn’t come up much anymore.” Irked, Sleepy looked around for someone young enough to gallop a mile down into the earth. She spied Tobo and Sahra arguing. Not exactly unusual. But not so frequently lately. They had been butting heads since Tobo entered puberty.
One of Tobo’s djinn could get down there faster than the youngest pair of legs. “Tobo!” Sleepy beckoned.
Exasperation flashed across the boy’s face. Everyone wanted something from him.
He did respond. He showed no defiance. He never did. His calm half-caste face settled into perfect nonexpression. Nor did his stance in any way betray what he might be thinking. Sleepy seldom saw anyone so inscrutable. And yet he was so young.
He just stood waiting for her to tell him what she wanted. “Blade is down below somewhere. Send one of your messengers to tell him I want him up here.”
“Can’t do it.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t have any here. I’ve explained before. The Unknown Shadows hate the plain. It’s very difficult to get them to come up here. Most of those who do come refuse to have anything to do with people. I don’t want them to have anything to do with people. It puts them in a bad temper every time. You have a whole regiment cluttering up the place. There must be a man somewhere who doesn’t have something else to do.”
Sarcastic infidel. There were twelve hundred men cooling their heels around the fortress, waiting to lead the treasure train, doing nothing useful in the interim. “I was looking for something a little faster.” Once the Company was on the barren plain, even with Shivetya working wonders, there was little time to waste.
There had been no good news from Suvrin, either. Tobo should have gone with him. Or Doj or Lady, at the very least. Someone better equipped to deal with the Unknown Shadows. But at the very least there should have been word that a bridgehead had been established.
Baladitya said, “Then you’d better go down there yourself. Because he isn’t going to respond to any lesser authority.”
“What? Why?”
“Because he hears voices calling him. He’s trying to figure out what to answer them.”
“Darn!” Sleepy broke out in what, for her, was a blistering blue streak. “That wrangle-franging mudsucker! I’m going to...”
Tobo and Baladitya grinned. Sleepy shut up. She remembered times when her Company brothers would get her going to see just how creative she would be in avoiding use of common profanity. She muttered, “I should’ve written you people the way you really are. Not you, Baladitya. You’re actually a human being.” She glared at Tobo. “You I’m beginning to wonder about.”
“For a nonbeliever,” Baladitya said, of himself.
