"Mother?" The sparks from the Shadowgate generated just enough light to reveal where she stood. A form that may have been Thai Dei loomed behind her, staring into the southern night.
"It was in my mother's book. Part of a fairy tale nobody understood. That nobody knew where it came from anymore. Thirteen stars that form a noose."
I saw nothing of the sort. I said so. Mother Gota must have been stunned into another century, so out of character had she become. She grabbed me by the arm, pulled my head down, made me sight along her pointing arm. Finally, I admitted, "I see something that looks like a bottom-up water ladle right there above what must be the skyline."
"That is it, you fool Stone Soldier. Three stars are hidden by the earth." She remained particularly intense.
"You recognized it, with three stars missing, from a description in a childhood story?"
A particularly brilliant burst amongst the leather ropes revealed the woman staring at me bedecked in an expression of profound bewilderment. It also revealed Uncle Doj behind her.
He wore a look of exasperation which vanished the instant he realized I could see him.
"Gota. There you are. Nephew. What is this display?"
From much closer than I would have believed he could be, Thai Dei said, "The Soldiers of Darkness have stopped the leak of death." He spoke in rapid Nyueng Bao. He used several words that were not clear to me. I counted on context to unravel their meanings.
Uncle Doj told Mother Gota, "I have cautioned you about your tongue—"
"I'll caution you, you mountebank." I think "mountebank" is what she meant. Wrapped up in the word she chose was a root meaning "fraud," with a superlative prefix hung out front.
It sounded like a cousin word to "priest." Blade would have been amused. I was amused.
Gota had restrained herself with Doj in the past. Compared to how she had berated everyone else. She deferred to Uncle usually, albeit with poor grace. Now they squabbled like children.
I got the impression that their quarrel had nothing to do with what they really wanted to fight about. Even so, the tiff was interesting where I could follow it.
Thai Dei's special mission in life is to poop parties. He embarrassed those two silent long enough to get in the news that they were quarreling amidst all the Bone Warriors in the world, at least one of whom understood their blather.
Doj responded instantly. He shut his mouth and went for a walk. I said, "I hope some nervous type don't pick him off in the dark." Thai Dei went after him.
Gota shut up only because Doj's departure left her to carry both sides of the argument. She considered starting up with me. But she recalled that, whatever I was to her daughter, I was a Soldier of Darkness, too. Anyway, I was not Nyueng Bao and only the worms of the earth are lower than that.
I was in a peckish mood myself, having been wakened prematurely. I said, "I rather enjoyed that."
Gota made a sputtery noise as she stalked away.
Of the general darkness I asked, "Anybody know anything about a constellation called the Noose? Or any stories about it?"
Nobody knew anything. Naturally.
Over the next several days I asked the question of everybody I ran into and always got a negative answer. Even Narayan Singh, a logical resource for information about nooses, seemed unfamiliar with the constellation. He did not say so in so many words, of course, but Lady was familiar with Deceiver lore and knew nothing, nor was she able to pry anything out of the living saint.
Poor guy seemed destined to be the living martyr Narayan Singh. The heartline of his existence consisted of unrelenting terror.
After assuring myself that the Shadowgate was holding, I ambled back down to my bunker. The standard seemed almost aglow with power. Something noteworthy was going on there. I would have to go see Croaker. If my inner thigh healed enough. If I ever got any sleep.
My in-laws were no problem. None had gone back to our nasty little bunker. I had its stone floor and stink to myself.
I was asleep about the time I chunked my head onto my rock pillow.
81
For a while I just slept. In fact, I am convinced that I dreamed normal dreams, though I cannot recall them now. Then, gradually, my spirit slipped its moorings again, in a kind of tattered, fuzzy way that might have indicated difficulty letting go. I felt no resistance. But I was not trying to go anywhere, I was just drifting.
I floated upward. It did take an effort of will but I faced southward, trying to find the noose of stars that had gotten Mother Gota exercised. Yes. There they were. But I had to climb a thousand feet to see them all and even then they were not easily discerned. They had dropped dramatically in a very short time.
In fact, when I reflected on it, I could not understand how they might have risen high enough for me to see from the Shadowgate.
I did not let that trouble me, though. My attention was caught by something on the plain of stone. For an instant I saw a ghost of pale light out there, about where I glimpsed that lump of darkness sometime before. Was there something out there?
I did not go look. It never occurred to me to try. In retrospect I cannot understand why. How could the impulse not arise? How could I not actively engage the choice of investigating or not investigating? I do not know. I just sort of went hmm and continued on about my normal ghosttime ratkilling.
I rejected impulses to search for Mogaba and Goblin. I can be lazy even when all the work I have to do is think. Finding them would take a lot of to-ing and fro-ing and calculating. And then I might not accomplish anything. So I decided to spy on Soulcatcher instead. By now she should be recovered enough to be grumbling and scheming and maybe doing something interesting.
Or she might just be laying around sleeping.
Soulcatcher was just laying around sleeping. Surrounded by woods where every branch and twig boasted a complement of crows. It looked like every crow in the world had gathered around her hideout.
It was unlikely they would starve for a while.
They had been living well. Already the earth beneath them was buried under their droppings. Shadows drifted below, whimpering because the crows would not come down to play.
Like a shadow myself I wormed into Catcher's cave. I encountered the spells she had woven to keep the darkness at bay. For a time those resisted me, too, but I was different enough to find a way through.
Catcher was sleeping? How often did that happen?
The Daughter of Night was not asleep. And she was a sensitive child. She felt me arrive. She sat up on her bed of damp pine needles. "Mother?"
Catcher was a light sleeper. She sprang erect, alert, turning as she sought danger. She wore the mask that had been one of her trademarks in the old days. Mostly she had done without it lately, but seldom did I see her in public. And never in the flesh.
She resembled Lady though she had even finer features and a more sensual air. Croaker claims he resisted her seductions. Publicly I believe him. But I do not know how he managed. I would have trouble despite my devotion to Sarie.
Maybe it was just his age.
Catcher's hideout was illuminated by a lamp that hung from the ceiling of the cave. It was a cousin of our shadow-repellent candles. It was not bright but its light left no place for any little death to hide.
"What did you say?" The voice Catcher used was that of a man whose throat had been smashed and could speak in only a hoarse whisper. Except this whisper was heavy with malice, a voice in keeping with the old, dread repute of the Ten Who Were Taken. It contained the compassion of a serpent, the sympathy of a spider.
The Daughter of Night did not react. From her response Soulcatcher might not have been there at all.