I slipped down and yanked on the door of my former home.
Narayan Singh, the living saint of the Deceivers, tumbled into the twilight. He had been kept inside for a long time. He was naturally dark-skinned but had acquired a pasty, maggoty coloration. Maybe Lady was doing more than just keeping him locked up in his own filth. She could be subtle when she wanted. She just did not want that often.
Thai Dei bopped him on the noggin.
Poor old Narayan. His life had not gone well for a long time. And the son of a bitch had earned every second of pain. Bet his goddess snickered whenever she thought about him.
Half of his torment would be the waiting, knowing that someday Lady would take time to offer him some specialized, personalized, unloving attention.
"Let's be real careful," I told Thai Dei.
Thai Dei grunted. He wore the ultimate Nyueng Bao stone face. To Tan had not been forgotten.
"Don't even think about it, Thai Dei. Lady would roast you. Besides, there're more of them inside. And they're all worse than Singh."
I meant worse trouble but it did not turn out that way. Both Longshadow and Howler wore hobbles and metal gags. Longshadow had not eaten well since his capture. A starved sorcerer is a tame sorcerer, I guess. Covered with filth, Howler and the Shadowmaster barely had the strength to crawl into the light after they thought Narayan had opened the way.
Even famine had not yet tamed them completely. A point worth keeping in mind.
Thai Dei remarked, "They were supposed to seal off the kennel side."
"Don't look like anybody bothered. Keep an eye on them. Without breaking anything. Or anybody. I'll be right back out."
Thai Dei grunted again. In deep disappointment.
"We'll get our turn," I promised.
Smoke was still inside. He had looked so bad for so long he did not look much worse now. His clothing had decayed into rotten rags. He was chained. One chain trailed back into the darkness.
The others had been chained, too. The guys had shown that much sense before they took off wherever they went. Somehow, the villains managed to get loose. I wondered if they would have dragged Smoke any farther had they had the strength and time to manage a successful getaway.
Might have been amusing to watch them return to a world that had changed completely during their holidays.
I stepped over the little wizard, found a small lamp and got it burning. Except for the stink and mess everything was pretty much as we had left it. A ragged shawl belonging to Ky Gota still lay tangled on a three-legged chair liberated from Kiaulune ages ago. There was no evidence that the prisoners had spent any time in this part of the dugout.
Following Smoke's chain, I discovered that the one side had been walled off. But the carpenters had done a poor job using salvage lumber that had not stood up to someone's patient ministrations.
I ducked through the hole.
The stench was a lot thicker on the other side. I had seen less filthy pigsties.
The prisoners had not explored their prison thoroughly. They had not found my little cubby. But someone else had and had decided to take advantage of it.
One-Eye's lost manufacturing equipment and finished product had been stuffed into the hole, along with what looked like a bunch of treasures harvested from the ruined city. Mother Gota had enjoyed collecting junk during her nocturnal rambles.
I dragged out a jug, popped its cork. Damn, that stuff smelled nasty! Some kind of distilled spirits... I took a long pull that left my eyes running. The stuff tasted worse than it smelled.
After a second throat burning draught I raised my lamp high, trying to get some light in there past the clutter. I had left a few treasures of my own, though nothing important enough to have dragged on over to the Shadowgate yet. I did not recall what all I had stashed.
"Ah! What's this?" I snaked an arm in through the junk.
As I closed my fingers on ragged burlap I managed to elbow a stack of earthenware bottles piled on their sides. One-Eye evidently had meant to revisit them long ago because even an ignoramus like me knows you do not leave bottled beer horizontal forever.
It took only that nudge to get the bottles banging against one another, then blasting their contents all over me and the inside of the dugout. I snagged one spewing bottle and got some of its contents inside me. Not bad, but a little yeasty.
"I'm all right!" I shouted in response to Thai Dei's inquiry from outside. "I found One-Eye's treasure." In more ways than one, I discovered. The object wrapped in burlap was that wonderful wizard killer spear he had whittled while we were trapped in Dejagore. The gold and silver inlays alone were worth a fortune.
More evidence that the little wizard had not planned to stay away forever. He did not know I knew but he had continued working on that spear secretly, always improving it, making it ever more his masterwork.
"And what's this?" There was another object in burlap, behind the spear. Had the little shit been making knockoffs of his own artwork?
No. This was a bow, with arrows. I did not recognize it immediately because I had not seen it in more years than I wanted to count, but it was the weapon Lady had given Croaker way back when she was still The Lady. I thought the boss lost it a long time ago.
Croaker always had another secret.
I had to wonder if he had not had some part in One-Eye's desertion.
It was always possible that he did not know what had become of the bow.
I collected spear and bow and as many stoneware containers as I could lug. I could send Thai Dei in for more beer and...
I could not carry my lamp and plunder, too. I used to live here. I could find my way around without a lamp. Besides, there was a glimmer of twilight still leaking in through the doorway.
The alcohol was taking effect. As I stepped over him I told Smoke, "I wouldn't have your luck on a bet, chief."
Smoke opened his eyes.
I jumped. It had been five or six years... And he did not appear to be in a friendly mood.
I discovered that I just wanted to get out and indulge my taste for beer.
Thai Dei helped me with my burdens. Somehow, one bottle of beer stuck to his hand. I noted that his charges were all healthy still, though Narayan Singh might have acquired a fresh crop of bruises.
"Where the hell is everybody?" I grumbled again. "I've got stuff to do. But we can't go off and leave these characters alone. They're bound to get into some kind of mischief." Longshadow, Howler and Singh were not volunteering to go back into captivity.
I took another long drink.
The quiet really bothered me. It might indicate yet another less-than-brilliant attempt to subdue Soulcatcher. She had grudges enough against us as it was.
I had seen the ground that had suffered Lady's barrage. It bore no resemblance to its springtime self. Rocks as big as houses had had holes punched right through them. Most of the busted-up trees had burned. There had been rockslides and cave-ins. In places the rock appeared to have become plastic. It had sagged like candle wax. Catcher's cave could not be found.
The only bodies found so far were those of crows. There was no evidence that Soulcatcher or her prisoner had suffered any serious discomfiture.
Live crows laughed amongst the tortured rocks.
91
Thai Dei grunted. These days he was positively garrulous, sometimes mouthing as many as two entire sentences in an hour. But this time he needed no words. He just put his beer in his other hand and pointed into the gathering darkness.
The missing folks were returning in a mob, coming from the direction of Catcher's disaster. Why would they all charge off into the foothills? Because the Old Man realized my seizure must have been caused by Lady's rascal sister?