was.”
Lady glared around her with an expression that made me think she did not have much trouble seeing Tobo’s friends. “Do you think my sister can be made to hear one of those?”
You could have heard a stack of pans drop. Even the animals quieted down.
I asked, “You have something in mind?”
“Yes. We send her a message. Tell her what’s going on with Goblin. It’s as much in her interest to stop him as it is in ours.”
“And she has a personal interest,” Tobo reminded us.
I understood immediately but Lady needed it explained. “Goblin is the reason Soulcatcher has a bad leg.”
“Oh. Of course. I remember now.”
She ought. She was there, spying on everything through the eyes of a white crow, during the kidnapping of the Radisha. That same night Goblin managed to trick Soulcatcher into springing a booby trap. The result had been serious and irreversible damage to her right heel.
Tobo said, “She gets around pretty well now. She wears a special boot and brace and is supported by several specialized spells. She only limps when she’s really tired.”
“Ah. She’ll definitely want to chat with Goblin, then. She’s always been a sore loser.”
“Just a thought,” I offered. “What happens if Soulcatcher turns Goblin into her own version of the Taken? And maybe Booboo, too? Word is, there were times when she showed a few powers of her own.”
“Make a slave out of a Goddess?” Lady was incredulous. I raised an eyebrow. She protested, “What I did wasn’t the same thing at all. What I did was pure parasitism. I wormed in so she couldn’t get me out without hurting herself.”
“And now you’re getting a little of that back?”
“But it doesn’t feel the same. Tobo. Can you send a message to my sister or not?”
“I can try. In fact, I can do it. Easily. The real question would be whether or not she’d listen.”
“She’ll listen or I’ll kick her butt.”
It took all of us a moment to realize she was joking. She did so so rarely.
Tobo began concentrating on the task of getting an extended message to Soulcatcher.
Again I cautioned, “There’s a risk in this.”
Lady just made one of her grumpy noises. She was turning into a cranky old witch.
53
The Taglian Territories:
A Haunted Wood
Soulcatcher glanced back before entering the wood. “So where are they all?” And in a firm male voice she demanded, “What happened to all the suck-ups?”
Another voice, “Somebody should’ve wanted to kiss up.”
A puzzled voice asked, “They always do, don’t they?”
“Are we losing it here?”
“I don’t like it.”
“This isn’t fun anymore.” Petulant, spoiled child voice.
“Most of the time we’re just going through the motions. There aren’t any challenges here.”
“Even when there are it’s almost impossible to get impassioned enough to care.”
Most of those voices were businesslike but jaded.
“It’s hard to keep going on fuel like hunger for revenge alone.”
“It’s hard to be alone, period.”
That remark brought on an extended silence. Soulcatcher did not have a voice for expressing the emotional costs of being who she was. Not out loud. Ferocious mad-killer sorcerers do not whine because nobody likes them.
The growth along the creek had a sharp boundary. In another time the land must have been groomed by human occupation. Soulcatcher listened. The wood, which was a little more than a mile wide, seemed remarkably silent. There should have been a racket from work parties harvesting firewood and timber for use around the camp. But there was nothing. And she did not recall authorizing a holiday. Something had frightened the soldiers away.
Yet she sensed no danger.
After a moment, though, she did detect a supernatural presence.
She glanced upward. Those vultures continued to circle. They were lower now. They seemed to be wheeling above the presence she sensed.
Warily, she probed farther and deeper. She had remarkably well-honed senses when she cared to concentrate.
This presence was like nothing in her experience. Something like a powerful shadow, yet with a strong implication of working intelligence. Not a demon or some such otherworldly entity, though. Something that felt like it was a part of nature but still having about it a hint of not belonging to this world. But how? Not of this world but not otherworldly?... Something very powerful but not driven by malice. At the moment. Something timeless, accustomed to patience, mildly impatient right now, again a smart-shadow thing like those stalkers down south had been.
Soulcatcher extended her senses to their maximum. This thing was waiting for her. For her alone. It had repulsed everything but those vultures. She had to be careful. Despite her ennui she did not want to trigger a fatal ambush.
There was nothing.
She stepped forward.
She did so while assembling a quiver of sudden and deadly spells. She squinted behind her mask, looking for this thing that wanted to see her.
It grew stronger but less focused as she moved toward it. For a moment it seemed that it was all around her—even while being in one place somewhere ahead of her. When she did arrive where her senses told her it ought to be, she saw nothing.
That place was a small clearing just off the Rock Road, across the shallow stream. She saw several Vehdna grave markers and a few Gunni memorial posts with time-gnawed prayer wheels on top. This must be where her sister fought the Shadowlander cavalry during her flight from Dejagore. In a time so long ago that she still had believed Narayan Singh to be her friend and champion.
Sunlight tumbled through the leaves overhead. It dappled the clearing. Soulcatcher settled on a rotten log that protruded from what might once must have been an earthwork. “I’m here. I’m waiting.”
Something large moved at the edge of her vision. She got the impression of a black feline. But when she turned she saw nothing.
“So that’s the way it’s going to be, eh?”
“Thus it must be. Ever.” The response seemed to come from nowhere in particular and it was not clear whether she heard it with her ears or inside her head.
“What do you want from me?” Soulcatcher used a deep masculine voice heavy with menace.
The presence was amused, not intimidated. “I bring a message from your old friend Croaker.”
Croaker was no friend. In fact, she was distinctly piqued with that man. He had not been entirely cooperative when she had tried to seduce him and now he had refused to stay buried after she had tried to kill him. Still, he was the reason she had a head on her shoulders these days. And that tiny edge would be why this communication was arriving in his name.
“Go ahead.”
The whatever-it-was did as she bid. As she listened she poked around in an effort to fathom its true nature. While searching for some handle she could grasp to make it over into an agent of her own.
It sensed what she was doing. It was amused. Not troubled. Not frightened. Not inclined to react. Just
