His entry disturbed no one. Overlook's defenses were meant to stop shadows from the south. He found his mistress in a dark cell beneath the fortress's roots, her drugged mind in a cell of its own, deep inside her brain. He debated. He could forget her. He could help and maybe win his freedom. Freeing her was not within the specific orders she had given him.
He stretched out beside her, bit a hole in her throat, drank her blood. He cleansed it and returned it.
She wakened slowly, sensed what he was doing, let him finish. He closed the wound. She sat up in the darkness. "The Howler. Where am I?"
"Overlook."
"Why?"
"They mistook you for your sister."
She laughed bitterly. "My act was too good."
"Yes."
"Where is she?"
"Last seen near Dejagore. I hunted you for a week."
"And they couldn't see her? She's getting stronger. What about Croaker?"
"I've been hunting you."
"Find him. I want him back. I can't let him reach my sister. Do anything you have to to stop that."
"I'm forbidden to take life."
"Anything else, then, but keep them apart."
"You don't need help here?"
"I'll handle... You're free to roam here?"
"Pretty much. Parts are sealed behind spells only Longshadow can penetrate."
"Search the place. Tell me what everyone is doing. Then find Croaker and my sister."
The imp sighed. So much for gratitude.
She caught the sense of the sound. "Do it right and you're free. Forever."
"Right! I'm gone."
She waited for her captors to come receive their surprise. As she waited she heard the whispers of darkness carrying from the nearby plain. She caught some of what was said, began to taste the fear that plagued Longshadow.
She could not just sit there like a trapdoor spider, waiting. Longshadow and Howler were sleeping. She should go.
The very stones of Overlook had been hardened against sorcery. She melted her way out, for those stones would melt before they yielded.
The lower levels were dark. Surprising. Longshadow feared the dark. She climbed slowly, wary of ambushes, but she encountered no one. She grew nervous as she approached the light.
Nothing waited there, either. Apparently. Was the fortress deserted?
Something was wrong. She extended her senses, still detected nothing. Onward and upward. And more nothing. Where were the soldiers? There should be thousands, constantly scurrying like blood in the veins.
She spied a way out. She had to descend a stairway to reach it. She was halfway down when the attack came, a wave of little brown men carrying cruel halberds, wearing armor of wood and strange, ornate animal helmets.
She had a spell prepared, a summoning that taxed her limits. She struck a pose, loosed it. It broke a hole in the fabric of everything. Sparks of ten thousand colors flew. Something huge and ugly and hungry started through, tearing the hole wider. Steel left no mark upon its snout. Its snarls chilled the blood. It ripped itself out of the womb of elsewhere and flew after the garrison. Men screamed. It ran faster than they did.
Soulcatcher walked out into the night blanketing Overlook. "That will keep them busy." She looked north, angry. A long walk lay ahead of her.
Chapter Sixty-Four
The bridge I had wanted built was incomplete but we did cross on foot while soldiers brought our mounts across by the ford. My move was symbolic, meant to lend encouragement to the engineers.
Narayan was impressed and Ram was indifferent, except to say it was nice to cross the river without getting his feet wet. He did not see the implications of a bridge.
Because I was sick it took longer to reach Ghoja than I anticipated. We were pressed for time. Narayan rode the edge of panic but we reached the holy grove late the evening before the ceremonies. I was exhausted. I told Narayan, "You handle the arrangements. I can't do anything more."
He looked at me, concerned. Ram said, "You must see a physician, Mistress. Soon."
"I've decided to. When we're done here we head north. I can't take this much longer."
"The rains ..."
The season would start soon. If we dallied in Taglios we would return to the Main after it started rising. Already there were scattered showers every day. "The bridge is there. We might have to leave our mounts but we can get across."
Narayan nodded curtly. "I'll talk to the priests. See that she rests, Ram. Initiation can be stressful."
That was the first I had heard it hinted that I was expected to go through the same initiation ceremony as everyone else. It irked me but I was too tired to protest. I just lay there while Ram borrowed fire and rice and prepared a meal. Several jamadars came to pay their respects. Ram warned them off. No priests came. By then I had sunk into a lassitude so deep I did not bother to ask Ram if that was significant.
I caught movement from the corner of an eye, a watcher where none should be. I turned, caught a glimpse of a face.
That was no Deceiver. I had not seen that face since before the fighting that had cost me Croaker. Frogface, they called him. An imp. What was he doing here?
I could not catch him. I was way too weak. Nothing I could do but keep him in mind. I fell asleep as soon as I'd eaten.
Drums wakened me. They were drums with deep voices, the kind men sound by pounding with fists or palms. Boom! Boom! Boom! No respite. Ram told me they would not let up till next dawn. Other drums with deeper voices joined them. I peered out of the crude lean-to Ram had built for me. One was not far away. The man pounding the drum used padded mallets with handles four feet long. There was one such drum at each of the wind's four quarters.
More drums throbbed within the temple. Ram assured me it had been cleansed and sanctified.
I did not much care. I was as sick as ever I had been. My night had been filled with the darkest dreams yet, dreams in which the whole world suffered from advanced leprosy. The smell lingered in my nostrils, worsening the sickness.
Ram had anticipated my condition. Maybe he had watched me in my sleep, predicting my sickness from how I rested. I don't know. But he put up a crude privacy screen so I would not become a public entertainment. ‘
I was past the worst when Narayan came. "If you don't go see a physician after this I'll personally drag you to Taglios. Mistress. There's no reason not to take the time."
"I will. I will. You can count on it."
"I do. You're important to me. You're our future."
Chanting began in the temple. "Why is it different this time?"
"So much to crowd in. Ceremonial obligations and initiations. You won't have to do anything till tonight. Rest. And you'll rest again tomorrow if the ceremony wears you out."
Just lying around. Nothing to do. That was a strain itself. I could not recall a time when I'd had nothing to do but lie around. Once I got control of my nausea I tried to extend and stretch my talents.
They were coming back almost of their own accord. I was capable of more than I suspected. I was close to being a match for the wizard Smoke, now.
Good news must be balanced by bad, I suppose. My elation died when I looked up from cupped palms and found myself caught in a dream right there in broad daylight.
I could see both the horror of the worst dream and the grove around me. Neither seemed completely real. Neither was more substantial than the other.
I went from the caverns of death to a plain of death. I had gone there only rarely. I associated that plain with the battle during which Kina had devoured hordes of demons. A great black figure strode across the plain, her movements stylized, like Gunni dances. Each step shook the plain. I felt the shaking. It was as real as an earthquake.
She wore nothing. Her shape was not quite human. She had four arms and eight breasts. Each hand clutched something suggestive of death or warfare. She wore a necklace of baby skulls. From her girdle, like bunches of withered bananas, hung strings of what I first took to be severed thumbs but which, as she stamped closer, proved to be more singular and potent male appendages.