by Glen Cook
“We’re working on it.” He took off on a technical rant. I did not understand a word but I let him roll. He deserved to feel good about something.
One-Eye began to snore. The smart would stay out of reach of his cane anyway.
I said, “Tobo could keep notes all the time.…” I had had this sudden vision of the son of the Annalist taking over for the father, the way it goes in Taglian guilds, where trades and tools pass down generation after generation.
“In fact,” One-Eye said, as though no time had passed since the last remark, and as though he had not been faking sleep a moment ago, “right now’s the time you could play you a really great big ol’ hairy-assed, old-time Company dirty trick, Little Girl. Send somebody down to the silk merchants’ exchange. Have them get you some silk, different colors. Big enough to make up copies of them scarves the Stranglers use. Them rumels. Then we start picking off the guys we don’t like anyway. Once in a while we leave one of them scarves behind. Like with that librarian.”
I said, “I like that. Except the part about Master Santaraksita. That’s a closed subject, old man.”
One-Eye cackled. “Man’s got to stand by what he believes.”
“It would get a lot of fingers pointing,” Goblin said.
One-Eye cackled again. “It would point them in some other direction, too, Little Girl. And I’m thinking we don’t want much more attention coming our way right now. I’m thinking maybe we’re closer to figuring things out than any of us realizes.”
“Water sleeps. We have to be taken seriously.”
“That’s what I’m saying. We use them scarves to take out informants and guys who know too much. Librarians, for instance.”
“Would I be correct in my suspicion that you’ve been thinking about this for a while and by chance you just happen to have a little list all ready to go?” Very likely any such list would include all the people responsible for his several failed attempts to establish himself in the Taglian black markets.
He cackled. He took a swipe at Goblin with his cane. “And you said she’s got a mind like a flint hatchet.”
“Bring me the list. I’ll discuss it with Murgen next time I see him.”
“With a ghost? They got no sense of perspective, you know.”
“You mean maybe he’s seen everything and knows what you’re really up to? Sounds like a perspective to me. Makes me wonder how far the Company might’ve gone if our forebrethren had had a ghost to keep an eye on you.”
One-Eye grumbled something about how unfair and unreasonable the world was. He had been singing that song the whole time I had known him. He would keep it up after he became a ghost himself.
I mused, “You think we could get Murgen to winkle out the source of the stink that keeps coming from the back, there, where Do Trang hides his crocodile skins? I know it’s not them. Croc hides have a flavor all their own.”
One-Eye scowled. He was ready to change the subject now. The odor in question came from his beer- and liquor-manufacturing project, hidden in a cellar he and Do Trang thought nobody knew about. Banh Do Trang, once our benefactor for Sahra’s sake, now was practically one of the gang because he had a powerful taste for One-Eye’s product, a huge hunger for illegal and shadowy income, and he liked having tough guys on the payroll who would work hard for very little money. He thought his vice was a secret he shared only with One-Eye and Gota. The three of them got drunk together twice a week.
Alcohol is a definite Nyueng Bao weakness.
“I’m sure it’s not worth the trouble, Little Girl. It’s probably dead rats. Bad rat problem in this town. Do Trang puts rat poison out all the time. By the pound. No need to waste Murgen’s time chasing rodents. You’ve both got better things to do.”
I would be talking over a lot of things with Murgen if I could deal with him directly. If we could catch and keep his attention. I would like to know firsthand everything that ordinarily came to me through other people. I imply no malice, particularly from Sahra, but people do reshape information according to their own prejudices. Including even me, possibly, though until now, my objectivity has been peerless. All my predecessors, though … their reports must be read with a jaundiced eye.
Of course, most of them made the same observation in regard to their own predecessors. So we are all in agreement. Everyone is a liar but us. Only Lady was unabashedly self-congratulating. She missed few opportunities to remind those who came later how brilliant and determined and successful she was, turning the tide of the Shadowmaster wars when she had nothing to begin building upon but herself. Murgen was, putting it charitably, less than sane much of the time. Because I lived through many of the times and events he recollected, I have to say he did pretty good. Most of what he recorded could be true. I cannot contradict him. But a lot he set down does seem fanciful.
Fanciful? Last night I had a long chat with his ghost. Or spirit. Or ka. Whatever that was. If that was really Murgen and not some trick played on us by Kina or Soulcatcher.
We can never be one-hundred-percent certain that anything is exactly what it appears to be. Kina is the Mother of Deceit. And Soulcatcher, to quote a man far wiser and more foul of mouth than I, is a mudsucking lunatic.
15
“This is excellent,” I enthused again as Sahra summoned Murgen once more. She herself betrayed no enthusiasm for the task. Tobo’s hovering did nothing to improve her temper. “Before he does anything else, I want to have him check on Surendranath Santaraksita.”
“So you don’t trust the librarian after all,” One-Eye said. He chuckled.
“I think he’s all right but why hand him a chance to break my heart if I can avoid it by keeping an eye on him?”
“How come it’s got to be my eye?”
“There’s not a sharper one available, is there? And you already turned down a chance to work on the Annals. I’ve got to do some heavy studying in those tonight. I might be on the track of something.”
The little wizard grunted.
“I think I found something at the library today. If Santaraksita doesn’t trip me up, I may have an outside view of the first coming of the Company by the end of the week.” An independent historical source has been a goal almost as long as has been our desire for a look at uncontaminated editions of the earliest three volumes of the Annals.
Sahra had something else on her mind. “Barundandi wants me to bring Sawa to work, Sleepy.”
“No. Sawa is on hiatus. She’s sick. She has cholera, if that’s what it takes. I’m finally starting to make some real headway. I’m not going to let that slide now.”
“He’s also been asking about Shiki.” Back when Tobo had accompanied his mother to the Palace occasionally, she had called him Shikhandini, which was a joke Jaul Barundandi never got because he was not the sort to pay attention to historical mythology. One of the kings of legendary Hastinapur had had a senior wife who seemed to be barren. A good Gunni, he prayed and made sacrifice faithfully, and eventually one of the gods stepped down from heaven to tell him he could have what he wanted, which was a son, but he was going to get it the hard way, for the son would be born a daughter. And, as they say, it came to pass that the wife brought forth a daughter whom the king then named Shikhandin, a name that also existed in the female form Shikhandini. It is a long and not that interesting story, but the girl grew up to become a mighty warrior.
The trouble started when it came time for the prince to take a bride.
Many of our public characters have obscure allusions or jokes built into them. That helped make things more interesting for the brothers playing the roles.
I asked, “Do we have any reason to snatch Barundandi? Other than his general sliminess?” I thought he was most useful right where he was. Any replacement was sure to be as venal and unlikely to be as kind to Minh Subredil. “And could we even get him out where we could touch him?”
Nobody suggested a strategic reason for grabbing the man. Sahra wanted to know, “Why do you ask?”
“Because I do think we could lure him. If we dress Tobo up pretty, then refuse to cooperate unless Barundandi meets him outside…”
Sahra was not offended. The ruse is a legitimate weapon of war. She looked thoughtful. “Maybe Gokhale instead?”
“Perhaps. Though he might want someone younger. We can ask Swan. I was thinking of catching Gokhale in that place where the Deceivers killed that other one.” The enemy’s leading personalities seldom left the Palace. Which was why we had chosen to go get Willow Swan.
Sahra began to sing. Murgen was reluctant again tonight. I said, “Murgen should look at that joy house, too. He’d be the best way for us to check it out.” Though, no doubt, we could find several brothers willing to risk themselves in an extended recon.
Sahra nodded, did not break the rhythm of her lullaby.
“We might even…” No. We could not just burn the place once Gokhale had been inside long enough to become seriously engaged. Nobody would understand why I wanted to waste a perfectly good whorehouse—though a few might find a deadly fire highly amusing.
One-Eye looked like he was sleeping again but was not. Without opening his eyes, he asked, “You know where you’re going, Little Girl? You got some kind of overall plan?”
“Yes.” I was surprised to find that I really believed that. Intuitively, somewhere inside, though I had not known it consciously, I had engineered a master plan for the liberation of the Captured and the resurrection of the Company. And it was starting to come together. After all these years.
Murgen showed up muttering about a white crow. He was distracted. I asked the wizards, “You figured out how to anchor him here yet?”
“Always some damned thing,” One-Eye grumbled. “Whatever you do, it’s never enough.”
“It can be done,” Goblin admitted. “But I still don’t see why we would want to.”
“He hasn’t been very cooperative. He doesn’t want to be here. He’s losing his connection to the real world. He’d rather sleep and wander those caverns.” I took a stab in the dark. “And put on his white wings. Be Khadi’s messenger.”
“White wings?”
They did not read the Annals. “The albino crow that turns up sometimes. Sometimes Murgen is inside it. Because Kina puts him there. Or used to put him there and now he keeps stumbling back in, the way he kept stumbling around in time once Soulcatcher got him started.”
“How do you know that?”
“I read sometimes. And once in a while I even read the Annals and try to figure out what Murgen didn’t tell us. What he might not actually have known himself. Right now he may be enamored of being the white crow because that way he gets into actual flesh that ranges outside the caverns. Or he may just be falling under the influence of Kina as she wakes up again. But none of that ought to matter much right now. Right now we have a bunch of spying we need him to do. I want to be able to twist his arm if I have to.”
The mission comes first. Murgen himself taught me that.
Sahra said, “Sleepy’s right. Anchor him. Then I’ll grab him by the nose and kick his behind until I’ve got his undivided attention.” She seemed suddenly optimistic, as though taking a direct approach with her husband was some totally new concept fraught with unexpected hope.
She went straight to outright confrontation, drawing Tobo in to support her.
Maybe she could rebuild Murgen’s ties with the outside world.
I turned to the others. “I found another Kina myth this morning. In this one her father didn’t trick her into going to sleep. She died. Then her husband got so upset that—”
“Husband?” Goblin squeaked. “What husband?”
“I don’t know, Goblin. The book didn’t name names. It was written for people who grew up in the Gunni religion. It assumes you know who they’re talking about. When Kina died, her husband was so grief-stricken he grabbed up her corpse and started doing that stomping dance Murgen talks about her doing in his visions. He got so violent that the other gods were afraid he would destroy the world. So her father threw an enchanted knife that cut her up into about fifty pieces and every place one of the chunks fell became a holy place for Kina’s worshippers. Just reading between the lines and guessing, I’d say Khatovar is where her head hit the ground.”
“I got a notion One-Eye was on the right track back when he was going to desert and retire.”
One-Eye gawked. Goblin saying something positive about anything he ever did? “The hell I was. I just had an attack of juvenile angst. I got over it and got responsible again.”
“There’s a new concept,” I observed. “One-Eye responsible.”
“For catastrophes and afflictions, maybe,” Goblin said.
One-Eye said, “I don’t get the Kina story. If she died back at the beginning of the world, how could she be giving us trouble for the last twenty or thirty years?”
“It’s religion, dimwit,” Goblin barked. “It don’t got to make sense.”
“Kina is a goddess,” I said. “I guess gods can’t ever be completely dead. I don’t know, One-Eye. I didn’t make it up, I just reported it. Look, the Gunni don’t believe anybody dies really. Their soul goes on.”
“Heh-heh-heh,” Goblin chuckled. “If these Gunni got it right, you’re in deep shit, runt boy. You got to keep going ’round on the Wheel of Life till you get it right. You got a lot of karma to work off.”
“Stop. Now,” I snapped. “We’re supposed to be working.”
Work. Not the favorite swear word of either man.
I told them, “You get Murgen nailed down. Or chained down. Whatever it takes to keep him under control. Then you help Sahra try to get through to him. I have a suspicion things are going to get exciting before long and we’ll need him wide awake and cooperative.”
One-Eye grumbled, “Sounds to me like you don’t plan to be here looking over our shoulders.”
I was up already. “Clever man. I have some reading and some translating to do. You can manage without me. If you concentrate.”
One-Eye told Goblin, “We got to get that little bit into the sack with some guy’ll pork her brains out.” His cure for all ills, even at his age.
I paused to say, “When he’s given everything else the once-over, have him search for Narayan and the Daughter of Night.” I did not need to explain how badly we needed to keep those two from achieving their ends.
16
“I’ve got it!” I shouted, running back to the corner where Murgen’s friends and family were trying to torment him into taking a broader interest in the world of the living. “I found it! I’ve got it!”
“I hope you ain’t gonna give it to me,” One-Eye grumbled.
My excitement was so loud and intense even Murgen, who was caught in the mist and being a real pain about his situation, paused to study me.
“I had a feeling, an intuition the other day, that the answer was in the Annals. In Murgen’s Annals. And I’d just overlooked it. Maybe because it had been so long since I read them and I wouldn’t have thought to look for it back then.”
“And, behold!” One-Eye sneered. “There it was. In ink of gold on myrex-tinted paper, with little scarlet arrows saying, ‘Here it is, Little Girl. The secret of the—’”
“Stuff it, dustbag,” Goblin snapped. “I want to hear what Sleepy found.” Though it would have been him doing the sarcasm if One-Eye had not beat him to it.
“It’s the whole thing with the Nyueng Bao. Well, maybe not all of it,” I said as Sahra scowled at me. “But the part with Uncle Doj and Mother Gota and why they came out of the swamp when they didn’t have a debt of honor like your brother, Sahra.” Sahra’s brother Thai Dei was under the glittering plain with Murgen, serving as his bodyguard because of what Murgen and the Company had done to help the Nyueng Bao during the siege of Jaicur. “Sahra, you must know some of this.”
“That may be true, Sleepy. But you’ll have to tell us what you’re talking about first.”
“I’m talking about whatever it was that The
Thousand Voices stole from the Temple of Ghanghesha sometime between the end of the siege and when Uncle Doj and your mother invited themselves to come stay with you here in Taglios. Murgen touches on it over and over, lightly, but I don’t think he ever really caught on completely. Whatever it was that The Thousand Voices stole, Uncle Doj called it ‘the Key.’ From other internal evidence, I think it had to be another key to the Shadowgate, like the Lance of Passion.” The Thousand Voices was what the Nyueng Bao called Soulcatcher. “I think if we had that key, we could open the way for the Captured.”
If I was guessing right here, I had created a whole new line of inquiry: Why the Nyueng Bao?
Sahra began shaking her head slowly.
“Am I wrong? What is the Key, then?”
“I’m not saying you’re wrong, Sleepy. I’m saying I don’t want you to be right. There are things I wouldn’t want to be true.”
“What? Why?”
“Myths and legends, Sleepy. Ugly myths and legends. Some of them I’m not supposed to know. And I know I don’t know them all. Probably none of the worst. Doj was their curator and keeper. As you are for the Black Company. But Doj never shared his secrets. Tobo, find your grandmother. Bring her here. Get Do Trang, too, if he’s here.”
Bewildered, the boy shuffled away.
A spectral whisper came out of the device where Murgen waited. “Sleepy may be right. I recall suspecting something like that and wondering if I could find a good history of the Nyueng Bao so I could figure it out. You’ll need to question Willow Swan, too.”
I said, “I’ll do that later. Separately. Swan doesn’t need to know what’s happening. Are you paying attention now, Standardbearer? Do you have any idea where we’re at and what we’re doing?”
“I do.” His tone was resigned, though. Like mine when I know I have to get up in the morning, want to or not.