I looked over my shoulder. He could not be asking the guy behind me. There was nobody there. "You shitting me? Not unless it's an order. And maybe not then. Mogaba wants my head. Not to mention my heart and liver for breakfast. Crazy as he is right now he might go after me with you standing right behind me."
"I'll get somebody else."
"Good idea."
"I'll go," Swan volunteered. Then him and Mather got into an argument about that. Evidently Swan had something to prove to himself and Cordy did not believe he needed to bother.
83
My status in camp changed sharply. Suddenly I never was a prisoner, never had been unfree to do whatever served the common good.
Only problem was, my tent was cold. All I had left of Sahra and the Nyueng Bao was the jade amulet Sahra had taken from Hong Tray before we had carried the children out of the killing place.
"You done yet?" Croaker demanded, finding me seated in front of my tent, working on the standard.
I showed him what I was doing. "Good enough?"
"Perfect. You ready?"
"Ready as I'll ever get." I touched the jade amulet.
"She pretty special?"
"Very special."
"I want to hear all about her people."
"Someday."
We walked through the hills and down to the shore. A sizable boat was out on the lake already. Blade's soldiers had transported it overland after having failed to work it along the canal from the nearest river to the lake. Croaker and I took up position on a prominent hummock. I displayed the standard. They would be able to see that from the city even if they did not recognize me and the Old Man.
Mogaba wanted to know where the standard was? He could see for himself, now.
While the boat crossed over and returned Croaker and I speculated as to what made both Mogaba and Lady want to be in charge so badly.
"Looks like Swan is getting results. Can you see what's going on?"
"Looks like somebody black getting into the boat."
That somebody turned out to be Sindawe. I told the Old Man, "This guy was always as right with us as having Mogaba for a boss would allow. Ochiba and Isi and some of the others weren't too bad, either. But they wouldn't disobey orders."
Sindawe stepped ashore. Croaker saluted him. He responded uncertainly, looked to me for a clue. I shrugged. He was on his own. I had no idea where this was headed.
Sindawe made sure he was face to face with the real Captain. Once he was satisfied, he suggested, "Let us step out of sight and talk."
The Old Man made a small gesture that told me I should let them talk in complete privacy. They walked around behind the hummock and sat on a rock. They talked for a long time, voices never rising. Sindawe finally rose and walked back to the boat like a man borne down by an incredibly heavy burden.
"What's the story?" I asked Croaker. "He looks like he suddenly added twenty years on top of the wear and tear of the siege."
"Years of the heart, Murgen. Feeling morally compelled to betray somebody who has been your best friend since childhood will do that to you."
"What?"
He would say nothing more. "We're going over there. I'm going to meet Mogaba nose to nose."
I thought of a pile of arguments against. I did not bother. He would not listen. "Not me." I shuddered. My spine was shivering to that chill they say happens when somebody walks over your grave.
Croaker looked at me hard. I drove the butt of the standard into the earth, vigorously, meaning, "Here I stand." He grunted, turned and went down to the boat. The creature Sindhu snaked out of nowhere and joined the party. I wondered how much of Sindawe's and Croaker's conversation he had overheard. Not a word, probably. The Old Man would have used the Jewel Cities dialect.
Once the boat was well out onto the water I sat down beside the standard, clung to the pole and tried to figure out what made it impossible for me to go back over there.
84
I had suffered no big seizures for a while. I was not on guard anymore. This one began insidiously, like just losing focus and drifting into a lazy daydream. I stared at Dejagore but no longer really saw it, thought of the women who had entered my life and the ancient one who had left it. Already I missed Sahra and so-serious To Tan.
A white crow landed on the crossbar of the standard, cawed down at me. I paid no attention.
I stood at the edge of a shimmering wheatfield. A twisted, broken black stump rose thirty yards from me, in the field's center. Bickering crows surrounded it. The fairy towers of Overlook gleamed in the distance, days' walk away. I recognized them for what they were without understanding how I could know.
Suddenly the crows rose up and wheeled around, flew that direction in an uncrowlike flock. One white crow stayed behind, circling.
The stump shimmered darkly. A glamor faded away.
A woman stood there. She looked very much like Lady but was even more beautiful. She seemed to look right through me. Or at and into me. She smiled wickedly, playfully, seductively, perhaps insanely. In a moment the albino bird settled onto her shoulder.
"You are impossible."
Her smile shattered into shards of laughter.
Unless I was completely, inescapably mad there was only one person this could be. And she died long before I ever joined the Company.
Soulcatcher.
Croaker was there when she went down.
Soulcatcher.
That would explain a lot. That would illuminate a hundred mysteries. But how could that be?
A huge black beast that looked something like an ebony tiger padded past me, from behind, went and settled on its haunches near the woman. There was nothing servile in its manner.
I was frightened. If Soulcatcher was alive and in this end of the world and inclined to meddle she could become the greatest terror around. She was more powerful than Longshadow, Howler or Lady. But, unless she had changed since the old days, she preferred to use her talents in small ways, for spite or her own amusement.
She winked at me. Then she spun around and just seemed to disappear, leaving more laughter rippling in the air behind her. Her laughter became the mirth of the white crow.
The forvalaka became bored with the show, went off into the distance. And I faded.
85
A crow cawed overhead. A hand shook my shoulder, not gently. "Are you all right, sir? Is there a problem?"
"What?" I was seated on a stone step, clinging to the edge of a massive wooden door. An albino crow paced back and forth on the door's top edge. The man who held my shoulder tried to shoo the bird with his free hand and some pithy curses. He was huge and hairy.
It was the middle of the night. What light there was came from a lantern the man had set upon the cobblestones. It set eyes glowing across the street, at a low level. For an instant I thought I saw something huge and catlike slipping past.
The man was one of the Shadar patrolmen the Liberator had employed to roam the streets after dark, maintaining order and keeping a watch for outsiders of dubious provenance.
Laughter came from the darkness across the way. The patrolman was not doing a good job. I was supposed to be one of the good guys here. She was one of the dubious strangers.
I was in Taglios!
I smelled smoke. The lantern?
No. The odor came from the stairwell behind me.
I recalled dropping a lamp. Recalled a confused cacophony of wheres and whens. "I'm all right. Just had a dizzy spell."
Laughter from across the street.
The Shadar glanced back but otherwise seemed indifferent. He did not want to believe my story. He wanted to find something wrong right here right now. He did not like foreigners. And us northerners were all madmen and drunks. But, unfortunately, we were also very much in favor with the Palace.