Uncle Doj’s mood grew blacker by the minute. “I know tooga,” he muttered. “No more tooga.” Nobody was revealing any mysteries to him.
Cordy smiled wickedly at the swordmaster. “You guys probably won a high spot on their desirable victim list by killing so many of them. If you’re a Deceiver there’s big status to be gained by killing somebody who has killed a lot of people.”
I heard Mather’s blather but it did not register as sense. I muttered, “Tooga ain’t no crazier than any other religion around here.”
That seemed to offend everyone equally. Good.
Mather turned to fuss at his Guards. They had failed their trust. My own disaster was just one of several. Others were still happening.
Numbly, I said, “You can’t defend against this kind of thing, Mather. These guys weren’t commandos.” I swatted the nearest corpse with the charred sheets I was holding. “They came in here expecting to make it to paradise by midnight. Probably didn’t even have an escape plan.” In a softer voice, I said, “Captain, you might better check on Smoke.”
Croaker frowned like I had given away everything but asked only, “You need anything? Want somebody to stay?” He understood what Sarie meant to me.
“This is where I came from. When I kept falling back. I got family with me, Captain. If I start to go bugfuck in the head they’ll cool me down. You really want to help? Fix Thai Dei’s arm. Then go do what you got to do.”
Croaker nodded. He made a small gesture that, in normal times meant “Go!” but which meant a good deal more now. “Narayan Singh is going to wake up some morning and realize that he has reaped the whirlwind. There is no safe place for him anymore.”
I rose. Grimly, I set out for my bedroom. Behind me, Thai Dei groaned as Croaker set his arm. The Old Man paid him no other mind. He was busy issuing orders that meant a major intensification of the war.
Uncle Doj followed me.
The reality hurt less than the anticipation had. I indulged in the pointless gesture of removing the rumel from my wife’s throat. I stood there with the scarf dangling, staring. This Strangler must have been a true master. Her neck was not broken, nor had her throat been bruised. She looked like she was sleeping. There was no pulse when I touched her, though. “Uncle Doj. Can I be alone ?”
“Of course. But drink this first. It will help you to rest.” He handed me something that smelled really nasty.
Did we do this already?
He went away. I laid down beside Sarie for the last time. I held her while the medicine began to course through me, calling forth sleep. I thought all the usual thoughts, nurtured the usual hatreds. I thought the unthinkable, that it might be best that this had happened before Sahra learned what it really meant to be Company.
I reminisced the great miracle. Ours was a match that never should have been. A match neither ever regretted for an instant, yet one created by a force so slight as the unspoken whim of an old woman cursed with hysterical, unreliable precognitive visions.
I thought both sanely and crazily and commenced the process of beatification that is inevitable after any untimely death. I slept. But even in Nod I could not escape the pain. I dreamed cruel dreams I could not reclaim when I awakened. It was almost as if Kina herself were mocking me, telling me that triumph was a costly deception.
Sarie was gone when I awakened, my head throbbing with a medicinal hangover. I stumbled around until I ran into Mother Gota. The old woman was fussing over some tea and talking to herself exactly the way she talked to the rest of the world.
“Where is Sahra?” I asked. “Tea. Please. What happened to her?”
Gota looked at me like I was mad. “She is dead.” No pulling punches for her.
“I know that. Her body is gone.”
“They have taken her home.”
“What? Who?” Anger began to rise within me. How dare they...? Who was they?
“Doj. Thai Dei. Her cousins and uncles. They have taken Sahra and To Tan home. I am here to watch over you.”
“She was my wife. I ...”
“She was Nyueng Bao before she was your wife. She is Nyueng Bao now. She will be Nyueng Bao tomorrow. Hong Tray’s fantasies cannot change that.”
I gained control before I exploded completely. Gota was right, from a Nyueng Bao point of view.
Also, there was not a lot I could do about it right now. Not without coming up with a lot more ambition than I had this morning. All I really wanted to do was sit around feeling sorry for myself.
I went back to our room with my tea. I settled on our bed, picked up the jade amulet that had belonged to Hong Tray. It seemed very warm this morning, more alive than I. I had not worn it for a long time. I slipped it onto my wrist now.
I could work my anger out on Uncle Doj when he got back.
If he came.
87
Not one Strangler attack team achieved its tactical objective, but even so their raid was successful psychologically. It stunned the city. It shocked the leadership. It generated terror out of all proportion to actual damages. Croaker grabbed it and turned it around.
Next morning, while most of us were still wrestling with our emotions, he went to the Taglian mob and spoke in his old guise as Liberator. He announced a new and furious era of total, relentless warfare against the Shadowmaster and tooga although he divulged few real facts about the Palace raid. That set rumor running wild through the alleys and byways and fueled fresh anger. For years the war had been a long way away, in the old Shadowland, and so had become emotionally remote to most of the people. The Deceiver raid brought the war back home. The old enthusiasm resurfaced.
The Liberator told the crowd that the years of preparation were over. It was time to carry justice to the wicked.
But moving immediately meant a winter campaign. I asked the Old Man if he really intended that.
“Damned straight. More or less. They have their feet up down there. You know that. You’ve been riding Smoke. I mean, who would be crazy enough to take a crack at the Dandha Presh when the snow is flying?”
Who indeed? “It’ll mean some major hardships for the soldiers.”
“If an old fart like me can take it they all can take it.”
Right. Only some of us can take it better than others. Some of us are obsessed.
Hell. Us Black Company guys have obsessions and hatreds enough for everybody.
Work became my all. I was past the evil time. No longer did I fall back into cruel yesterdays in order to escape crueler todays that I could detect. But I did not sleep well. Hell still lurked beyond sleep’s wall. I lost myself in the Annals, rerecording everything the fire had claimed. I ran away by riding Smoke out into the past, where and when I could, to check my recollections.
One-Eye’s arsenal increased its production. The Old Man drove the ruling class crazy trying to get money to pay for everything.
Word of the new stage spread through the Taglian territories as fast as horses could run.
Lady began gathering her forces and training them to deal with the darknesses that had given the Shadowmasters their name.
I became aware that Goblin had dropped out of sight, completely, but that only weeks after the actual event. I feared that he had been murdered. But Croaker did not seem concerned.
One-Eye was fussed. He was desperate to get his sidekick connected with my mother-in-law but he could not unearth a trace of the little toad.
In the night when the wind no longer licks through its unglazed windows , nor prances along its untenanted halls, nor whispers to its million creeping shadows, the fortress is filled with the silence of stone.
Cold cruel dreams stir within the figure pinned to the throne so ancient that bits have given up to dry rot. A gleam from beyond flickers. The figure sighs, drawing in the light, exhaling a balloon of dream that somehow finds its way through the tortuous passages of the fastness and out into the world in search of a receptive mind. Upon the plain itself the shadows swirl like minnows sensing the passing of a huge predator.