Croaker lifted a finger to his lips. “Right around the corner.” I thought we were going back to the room where Goblin, One’Eye and the Old Man wakened me from my last seizure. I just assumed they had the red-hand Strangler there, behind that curtain. Not so. We arrived at what seemed to be a different place entirely.
And the Deceiver was not alone.
The Radisha Drah, sister of the ruling Prince, the Prah-brindrah Drah, leaned against a wall and stared at the prisoner in a way that suggested she enjoyed a conviction that the Liberator was soft on villains. Small and dark and wrinkled, like most Taglian women who make it past thirty, she was one hard woman, and too bright besides. They say the only time she ever lost her composure was the night Lady killed all the senior members of Taglios’s various priesthoods, ending religious resistance to her participation in the war effort as a key player.
There has been a lot less intrigue since that demonstration. Our allies and employers now seem inclined to leave our destruction to us.
If you polled the Taglian nobilities and priesthoods you would find that most of the upper classes believe the Radisha makes the princely decisions. Which is near the truth. Her brother is stronger than is commonly supposed but he prefers to be off soldiering.
Behind the Radisha stood a table. Upon the table lay a man. “Smoke?” I asked.
My question was answered. Smoke was still alive. And still in a coma. He had all the muscle tone of a bowl of lard.
Behind him was the other side of a curtain identical to the one I saw when I awakened. Then this was the same room, approached from a different direction.
Strange.
“Smoke,” Croaker agreed, and I realized I was being made privy to a major secret.
“But...”
“This character said anything interesting?” Croaker asked the Radisha, cutting me off. She must have been amusing herself with the prisoner. And there must be some reason the Captain did not want her paying too much attention to Smoke.
“No. But he will.”
The Strangler faked a sneer. A brave man but a fool. He, of all people, would know what torture could do.
Once again I got that spine chill.
“I know. Let’s do it, One-Eye. Murgen kept us waiting long enough.”
The Annals. He held it off just so I could get it into the Annals.
He did not have to bother. I am not a big torture enthusiast.
One-Eye started humming. He patted the prisoner’s cheek. “You’re going to have to help me out here, sweetheart. I’ll be as kind as you let me. What’s this thing you Stranglers got going here in Taglios?” One-Eye looked to the Captain, “When’s Goblin coming back, Chief?” “Get on with it.”
One-Eye did something. The Strangler spasmed against his bonds, his scream not much more than a breathless squeak. One-Eye said, “But I found him the perfect woman, Boss. Ain’t that right, Kid?” He leered evilly, bent over the Deceiver. That brown raisin of a man wore nothing but a filthy loincloth.
So that was why One-Eye was so excited about Mother Gota. He wanted to use her as a practical joke on Goblin. I should have been angry, I guess, maybe for Sahra’s sake, but I could work up no indignation. That woman begged for abuse.
One-Eye crooned, “You understand your position here, sweetheart? You were with Narayan Singh when we caught you. You have the red hand. Those things tell me you’re one of those very special Deceivers that the Captain really wants.” He indicated Croaker. The word for Captain he used was jamadar, which has strong religious connotations to the Deceivers.
Lady got taken in by them but she fixed them by marking their top men permanently with the red hand. That made them stand out in the crowd these days.
One-Eye sucked spit between the stumps of his teeth. Somebody who did not know him might have believed he was thinking. He said, “But I’m a swell guy who hates to see people hurting so I’m gonna give you a chance not to end up like this cockroach over here.” He jerked a thumb at Smoke. Fire crackled between the fingers of his other hand. The Strangler screamed the kind of scream that rips your nerves out raw and salts their ends. “You can make this last forever or you can get it over quick. All up to you. Talk to me about what the Deceivers are up to here in Taglios.” He leaned closer, whispered, “I can even fix it so you can get away.”
The prisoner gaped for a moment. Sweat ran into his eyes, stung him. He tried to shake it away.
“I bet that she’d think that Goblin is just as cute as a bug,” One-Eye said. “What do you think, Kid?”
“I think you’d better get on with it,” Croaker snapped. He was not happy dealing in torture and had no patience left for the games Goblin and One-Eye play with one another.
“Oh, keep your damned pants on, Chief. This guy ain’t going nowhere.”
“But his friends are up to something.”
I glanced at Uncle Doj to see what the thought of the bickering. His face was stone. Maybe he didn’t understand Taglian anymore.
One-Eye barked, “You don’t like the way I do my job, fire me and do it yourself.” He prodded the prisoner. The Deceiver tensed in anticipation. “You. What’s up here in Taglios? Where are Narayan and the Daughter of Night? Help me out here.”
I tensed up myself. I felt a big chill. What was it?
The prisoner gulped air. Sweat covered his entire body. He could not win. If he knew anything and talked as he must eventually his own kind would show him no mercy later.
“Sufficient unto the day the evil thereof,” Croaker told him, sensing his thoughts.
My sympathies all lay with the Old Man. Even if he ever does get his daughter back he won’t find what he is looking for. She has been a Deceiver from the day she was born, raised to be the Daughter of Night who will bring on Kina’s Year of the Skulls. Hell, they consecrated her to Kina while she was still in the womb. She would be what they wanted her to be. And that would be a darkness to break her parents’ hearts.
“Talk to me, sweetheart. Tell me what I need to know.” One-Eye tried to keep it one on one, just him and his client. He gave the Strangler a moment to reflect. The rest of us watched without expression, maybe a thimbleful of pity among us. This was a black rumel man. In Strangler terms, generally, that meant he was guilty of more than thirty murders, without remorse-unless he strangled a black rumel man and thus gained acclaim by the most direct route.
Kina is the ultimate Deceiver. She enjoys betraying her own on occasion.
An argument One-Eye did not think to present to our pet Deceiver.
The Strangler screamed again, tried to gurgle something.
“You’ll have to speak up,” One-Eye told him.
“I can’t tell you. I don’t know where they are.”
I believed him. Narayan Singh was not staying alive by announcing his itineraries in a world where everybody really is out to get him.
“Pity. So just tell us why we have Deceivers here in Taglios, after all this time.”
I wondered why he kept going back to that. The Stranglers had not dared to operate in the city for years.
One-Eye and the Old Man must know something. But how?
The prisoner screamed.
The Radisha observed, “The ones we catch are always ignorant.”
“Don’t matter,” Croaker said. “I know exactly where Singh is. Or at least where he’ll be when he stops running. As long as he doesn’t realize that, I know he’ll always be right where I want him.”
Uncle Doj’s eyebrow twitched. Must be getting exciting for him.
The Radisha glared, frowned, stared. She liked to believe that hers was the only working brain in the Palace. Us Black Company types are just supposed to be hired muscle. You could almost hear the creaks and groans as her mind turned over. How could Croaker know something like that? “Where is he?”
“Right now he’s busting his butt trying to join up with Mogaba. Since we can’t stop him-because he’s moving as fast as any message we could send after him-let’s forget him.”