“You heard the latest?” Goblin asked me one night when I took a rare break from the books to examine that outer world from the wall. “Lady ain’t Lady after all. She’s the incarnation of some goddess named Kina. A real badass, too, apparently.”
“She would be. Thai Dei. You know Kina, don’t you? Tell us about her.” Thai Dei wasn’t allowed into our warrens but he always turned up whenever I came up for air.
He forgot all three words of Taglian he had admitted to knowing. The name of that goddess scrubbed his brain clean.
I said, “That’s what happens when you mention Kina to any of these people. I can’t even get our prisoners to talk about her. You would think she belonged to the Black Company.” “Must be a real charmer,” Bucket opined. “Oh, she is. She is. There’s one.” I meant a shooting star. We were keeping count. Also of enemy watchfires. The southerners had scattered in small unit encampments around the plain recently. I guess they were afraid we might sneak away. “You know something about her, then?” Goblin asked. “From those books you guys found.” The men were bitter. The books and some sealed jars filled with grain were the only treasures they unearthed. The Gunni were the majority religion in Jaicur and the Gunni do not bury their dead. They burn them. The minority Vehdna do bury their dead but do not include any grave goods. Where their dead are bound they have no need of luggage. In paradise everything is provided. In hell, too. “One was a compilation of Gunni myths, in variants from all over. The guy who recorded them was a religious scholar. His book wasn’t meant to get out where it might confuse ordinary people.”
“I’m confused and there ain’t nothing ordinary about me,” Bucket observed.
“So what’s the scoop, Murgen? How come they won’t tell us about this bitch? Whoa! Did you see that one? It exploded.”
“All right,” I told them. “The Gunni religion is the most common one around here.”
“I think we know that, Murgen,” Goblin said.
“Just making the point. Most people down here believe in Kina. Even if they’re not Gunni, they believe. Here’s the story. The Gunni have Lords of Light and Lords of Darkness. They’ve been doing their lording since the beginning of time.” “Sounds like standard stuff.”
“It is. Only the value systems are different from what we knew back home. The balance between darkness and light is more dynamic here, and isn’t weighted the same emotionally as our struggle between good and evil. Moreover, Kina is a sort of self-elevated outside agency of decay and corruption that attacks both darkness and light. She was created by the Lords of Light to help defeat a horde of really nasty demons they couldn’t handle any other way. She helped by eating the demons. Naturally, she got fat. And apparently wanted dessert because she tried to eat everybody else, too.”
“She was stronger than the gods who created her?” “Guys, I didn’t make this stuff up. Don’t ask me to rationalize it. Goblin, you’ve been everywhere. You ever seen a religion that can’t be picked to shreds by any nonbeliever with brains enough to tie his own bootlaces?”
Goblin shrugged. “You’re as cynical as Croaker was.” “Yeah? Good for me. Anyway, there’s a lot of typically murky mythological stuff about mothers and fathers and vicious, hideous, probably incestuous carryings-on amongst the other gods while Kina kept getting stronger. She was real sneaky. That’s one of her attributes. Deceit. But then her main creator, or father, tricked her and put a sleep spell on her. She’s still snoring away somewhere but she can touch our world through her dreams.”
“She’s got her worshippers. All Gunni deities do. Big, little, good, bad, indifferent, they all have their temples and priesthoods. I can’t find out much about Kina’s followers. They’re called Deceivers. The soldiers won’t talk about them. They flat refuse, like naming Kina might actually waken her. Which, I gather, is the holy mission of her worshippers.” “Too weird for me,” Bucket grumbled. Goblin said, “That explains why Lady scares the shit out of everybody whenever she dresses up. If they really think she’s turned into this goddess.”
“I figure we should find out everything we can about this Kina.”
“Crack plan, Murgen. How? If nobody will talk?” Yeah. Even the boldest Taglians threatened to get the vapors if I pressed. It was obvious that they were not just terrified of this goddess. They were scared of me, too.
One-Eye brought heartening news. “This stuff about the relief force is gold, boss. Every night now Spinner is sneaking troops out through the hills like he don’t think we can see them go if it’s dark.”
“Could he be giving up the siege?”
“The troops are all headed north. Home ain’t north.”
I did not offer another alternative. One-Eye would not have come if he was not sure.
Of course, One-Eye being sure never meant that One-Eye was right. He was One-Eye.
I thanked him, sent him to do a small chore, found Goblin and asked him what he thought. The little wizard seemed surprised I would bother. “Did One-Eye stutter or something?”
“No. But he’s One-Eye.”
Goblin could not contain his big frog grin. That made perfect sense to him.
Nobody relayed the news to Mogaba. I thought it would go easier for everybody if he didn’t know. But Mogaba heard rumors, too.
Dejagore was a nightmare town filled with factions only loosely united in defiance of the besiegers. Mogaba’s forces were the strongest. The Jaicuri were most numerous. We Old Crew, with our auxiliaries, were less numerous and less powerful. But boy were we strong in our righteousness.
And then there were the Nyueng Bao. The Nyueng Bao remained an enigma.
43
Ky Dam’s family occupied the same dismal, filthy, smoky, pungent hole until the deluge drove them out. The perquisites of power did not appeal to the Speaker. He had a place to get out of the rain. That was enough.
Maybe that was more than he had had back in the swamp.
He did share with a troop of descendants who stopped bickering only when the outsider came around. And then the children restrained themselves only for a while.
On successive afternoons Ky Dam summoned me to consult on trivial matters. We faced each other over tea served by the beautiful granddaughter while the children quickly lost their awe of me and resumed brawling. We traded information on friends and enemies. That fevered character in the shadows moaned and groaned.
I did not like that. He was dying. But he was taking a long, long time getting it done. Every time he cried out the beautiful one went to him. I ached in sympathy. She was so haggard.
Second visit I said something to indicate sympathy, one of those things you toss off without much thought. Ky Dam’s wife, whom I now knew to be named Hong Tray, glanced up from her tea, startled. She said three soft words to Ky Dam.
The old man nodded. “Thank you for your concern, Stone Soldier, but it is misplaced. Danh welcomed a devil into his soul. Now he pays the due.”
A burst of rapid, liquid Nyueng Bao erupted from the shadows. A squat old woman waddled into the light. She was bow-legged, ugly as a warthog, in a vicious humor. She barked at me. She was Ky Gota, the Speaker’s daughter and my shadow Thai Dei’s mother. She was a dark legend among her own people. I have no idea what she was on about but I got the feeling that she laid all the ills of the world squarely at my feet.
Ky Dam said something gently. It did not get through. Hong Tray repeated his words, more gently, in a whisper. Silence fell instantly. Ky Gota scurried into the shadows.
The Speaker offered, “In all our lives we enjoy successes and failures. My great sorrow is my daughter Gota. She has within her a cancer of agony she cannot conquer. She insists on sharing it with the rest of us.” A tiny smile touched his lips. This was self-deprecating humor, meant to inform me that he was speaking metaphorically. “Her great failure, the wellspring of heartbreak for all of us, was her hasty choice of Sam Danh Qu as the husband for her daughter.” He indicated the beautiful flower. The flower betrayed a blush as she knelt to refill our cups. There was no doubt that all these people understood Taglian perfectly.