Protector. Possibly better.” He did not ask what had become of Soulcatcher. He was content to hope that phase of his life was complete.
“The girl doesn’t have Soulcatcher’s finely honed powers but she does have plenty of raw talent. She’s somehow surrounded herself with an aura that makes anyone within a hundred feet want to love her and do anything to please her. This has manifested itself before, in smaller ways, so I fear we can expect it to grow as she comes to understand it and exercise it.”
“That isn’t good. That’s not good at all. That’ll make sniping difficult. Any way around it?”
From the blonde’s slight start, Mogaba judged Lady’s, “Not that we know of yet,” to be less than honest. But in her place he would have reserved something, too. And what they had obviously was not reliable. Otherwise they would have used it themselves.
The Great General said, “Thank you for the warning. We’ll make use of it. Was there anything more?” Down deep he nurtured the tiniest hope that there could be a reconciliation. A hope he knew was unrealistic. But everyone nurtured impossible dreams. Even the gods were pursuing the impossible.
Mogaba stated the facts as they had been reported to him. He made that point clear. “We aren’t their friends. They just want someone else to assume part of the cost of eliminating the enemies they have to go through in order to get at us.”
Ghopal Singh asked, “What about the truth of the report? Are they just trying to trick us into attacking the Protector? If they could get us to make the attempt and we were to fall at a time when they were close behind the Protector they’d reach the gates just when Taglios was falling into chaos.”
Aridatha groaned. “
“Circumstances have changed.”
Mogaba interjected, “Ghopal, I’ve given this a lot of thought. I think it’s true. The Protector is out of the game. Possibly only momentarily. Hell, probably. She’s made unlikely comebacks before. What hurts my feelings, of course, is that those people don’t consider us much worth worrying about in terms of the greater struggle.”
Aridatha grumbled, “Which might not be that unreasonable when you think about it dispassionately.”
Ghopal asked, “And you’re equally sure that the Middle Army has been destroyed?” Even military insiders had not yet fully digested the news about the losses of Dejagore and the Southern Army that had clung to it’s skirts. A lot of people were still waiting to hear how Dejagore responded to it’s change of masters.
The nature of that response would have repercussions throughout the Taglian empire.
Would the return of the royals be celebrated? Or resented? The Dejagoran response was likely to set the fashion for all the cities and towns that came under the Company sway.
“I’m sure of it,” Mogaba told Ghopal. “But I’m less sure of the condition of the invaders afterward. I got the distinct impression that their defeat of the Middle Army was neither cheap nor easy.”
Aridatha said, “We’ve got to have better intelligence.”
Mogaba took a moment to stifle his sarcasm before confessing, “I’m open to ideas. Any ideas.”
No inspirations sprouted immediately.
Aridatha said, “We could always do something mythic. Like damning ourselves by bringing in an ally worse than our enemies. One that will devour us after it finishes doing what we brought it in to do.”
Mogaba and Ghopal recognized the effort but did not get Aridatha’s joke.
“It’s an allusion. Or a parable. Or something,” Aridatha explained. “Like all stories about Kina. The Lords of Light created her or brought her in for the demon plain war. And probably would have been better off if the rakshasas had won, ultimately.”
Mogaba did have a sense of humor. He just had not brought it along tonight. “I guess you had to be there. Anyway, there’s nobody we could bring in. We’re on our own. So suggestions are in demand. Practical suggestions will be particularly welcome.” That was something in the nature of a jest so, perhaps, he had brought part of his sense of humor.
Ghopal said, “All we can do is send out more spies and set up more remount stations so the spies can get their observations to us faster.”
“And we have only one courier battalion.” Mogaba sat quietly for half a minute. Then he asked, “How is our support among the priests and bourgeoisie? They’ve had time to think about the royals coming back. They plan to desert us?”
“We’re the devil as far as they know,” Ghopal replied. “The Protector has been their benefactor. And only a few of the slickest talkers can hope to benefit if we get thrown out. We worked hard to eliminate the Radisha’s friends once we could no longer hide the fact that the princess was gone, not just hiding out feeling sorry for herself.”
The Great General proposed, “Let’s try the same strategy. Make believe we haven’t lost the Protector. Aridatha. You seem to be distracted.”
“I keep thinking about the girl. The Daughter of Night.”
“And?”
“I saw her once. Five years ago. There’s something about her... Makes you want to throw her down on her back. And makes you want to worship her at the same time. Makes you feel like you should do anything you can to please her. It’s scary when you step back far enough to realize what happened.”
“She’s all grown-up that way.” Mogaba explained what Lady had told of events to the south. “That girl got hundreds of men killed. We’ll have to assassinate her remotely somehow. See if some mechanical engine can be contrived.”
“I have a question,” Ghopal said.
“Go.”
“What’s that thing you’re fiddling with? You’ve been playing with it ever since you got here.”
“Oh. Some kind of snail shell. They’re all over the Palace. Nobody knows where they come from. Nobody’s ever actually seen one crawling around. They’re sort of relaxing when you roll them around in your fingers.”
Both Singhs eyed the Great General as though thinking his behavior was distinctly odd.
Ghopal said, “Regarding the Daughter of Night. We might consider poison. There’re some talented poisoners in Chor Bagan, the thieves’ market.”
The years had changed Mogaba. He did not immediately reject the suggestion as unworthy of men of honor.
76
The Taglian Territories:
Another Origin Story
I suggested, “How about a standoff weapon we can launch from outside her influence? Hell, if we take the logs and carpets up high enough we can just keep dropping rocks till we get her.” There was some optimism. We did not have even one carpet since Booboo knocked Howler and Tobo down. What we did have was bits and pieces of half a dozen carpets that Howler had been working on when nothing else took up his time.
Lady glared at me so intensely I began to wonder how soon I would start melting.
Killing Booboo was not yet on her list of options. Her emotions were engaged much more deeply than mine, though the problem of the girl was a torment to me, too.
My entanglement was more with the idea of the child than with the specific daughter.
Lady wanted to fool herself into believing there might be some way that Booboo could be redeemed.
“You’re wasting time,” the Prahbrindrah Drah said. The collapse of Soulcatcher’s Middle Army had brought him to life. Suddenly, he believed his restoration was just a matter of marching to Taglios and yelling, “I’m back!” He had leaped into the embrace of self-delusion.
There was a lot of that going around.
Murgen joined the conference as the Prince began to bicker with Sleepy about her plans, a situation
