Reason also told me that if the girl died, the Captured would spend the rest of time in those caverns under the glittering plain.
Reason told me, after a moment watching her, that she was not just ignoring me. She did not know I was there. Her mind was elsewhere. Which was not a comfortable feeling at all. If Kina could turn her loose, the way Murgen was loose...
25
M aster Santaraksita paused to tell me, "It was good of you to care for Baladitya yesterday, Dorabee. I had forgotten him in my eagerness to assemble the bhadrhalok. But you should be careful or his grandson will begin expecting you to walk the old man home for him. He tried it with me."
I did not look into his eyes, though I did want to see what was there. There was a tightness in his voice that told me he had something on his mind. But I had taken too many liberties with Dorabee already. He would not stare into the eyes of the priestly caste. "I but did the right thing, Master. Are we not taught to respect and aid our elders? If we do not when we are young, who will respect and aid us when we ourselves become frail?"
"Indeed. Nevertheless, you continue to amaze and intrigue me, Dorabee."
Uncomfortable, I tried to change the subject by inquiring, "Was the meeting of the bhadrhalok productive, Master?"
Santaraksita frowned, then smiled. "You're very subtle, Dorabee. No. Of course not. We're the bhadrhalok. We talk. We don't act." For a moment he mocked his own kind. "We'll still be debating what form our resistance should take when the Protector perishes of old age."
"Is it true what they say, Master? That she's four hundred years old, yet fresh as a bride?" I did not need to know, I just needed conversation to nurture Santaraksita's surprising interest in me.
"That seems to be the common belief, handed down from the northern mercenaries and those travelers the Radisha adopted."
"She must be a great sorceress indeed, then."
"Do I detect a note of jealousy?"
"Would we all not like to live forever?"
He looked at me oddly. "But we shall, Dorabee. This life is only a stage."
Wrong thing to say, Dorabee Dey. "I meant in this world. I find myself largely content to remain Dorabee Dey Banerjae."
Santaraksita frowned slightly but let it go. "How are your studies coming?"
"Wonderfully, Master. I'm especially fond of the historical texts. I'm discovering so many interesting facts."
"Excellent. Excellent. If there's anything I can do to help... "
I asked, "Is there a written Nyueng Bao language? Or was there ever?"
That took him from the blind side. "Nyueng Bao? I don't know. Why in the world would you—"
"Something I've seen a few times near where I live. Nobody knows what it means. The Nyueng Bao down there won't talk. But I never heard of them being literate."
He rested a hand on my shoulder for a moment. "I'll find out for you." His fingers seemed to be trembling. He murmured something unintelligible and hurried away.
26
W ord was in that the Bhodi disciples were not happy with us for stealing their thunder at the Palace gate. I wondered what they would think when the news arrived about our behavior at Semchi. That seemed to be coming together perfectly for us. Unless Soulcatcher was thinking farther ahead than we could detect.
Murgen had Slink's party well on the way to the village. And moving faster than the group the Protector had sent to destroy the Bhodi Tree. That group outnumbered our brothers but did not expect any resistance. In a few days it would turn really nasty down there.
As the weather had here. Storm season had arrived. I had been delayed coming home by a ferocious thunderstorm that flooded some streets and sent down hail an inch in diameter. The kangali and other children went out and tried to gather up the ice, barking in pain every time a hailstone found unprotected skin. For a short while the air was almost tolerably cool. But then the storm moved on and the heat returned worse than it had been before. The stench of the city welled up. One storm was not enough to sluice it clean, only to turn everything over. In a few days the insects would be more miserable than ever before.
I hugged my burden and told myself I would not have to stay in this cesspool much longer.
"One more to locate and I'll have everything I need from the library." My new acquisition lay open for public viewing. Of course no one could read it. Not even me. But I was confident that I now possessed another original of the three missing Annals. Perhaps the very first, since it was so alien. The other seemed to be inscribed in the same alphabet, much modified and somewhat like that used in the discarded volume I had rescued. If the language was the same, I would be able to figure it out eventually.
One-Eye cackled. "Yeah. Everything but somebody to translate that stuff for you. Everything but your new boyfriend." He insisted that Master Santaraksita was out to seduce me. And that Santaraksita would be brokenhearted if he succeeded and discovered that I was female.
"That's enough of that, you filthy old thing."
"Sacrifice for the cause, Little Girl." He started to offer some graphic advice. He had been drinking again. Or was drinking still.
Sahra arrived. She tossed a large bundle of pages my way. "Can it, One-Eye. Find Goblin. There's work to do." Of me she demanded, "Why do you put up with that?"
"He's harmless. And he's for sure too darned old to change. And if he's nagging me, he's not getting into something that's going to get us all killed."
"So you're sacrificing for the cause."
"Something like that. That was quick." Goblin had arrived. "What happened to One-Eye?"
"Taking a leak. What do I have to do now?"
Sahra said, "I can get into the Anger Chamber The rest is up to you."
"You do this and you'll never be able to get back into the Palace. You know that, don't you?"
"What're we talking about?" I asked.
Sahra said, "I think we can kidnap the Radisha. With a little luck and a lot of help from Goblin and One-Eye."
"Goblin's right. You do that, we'd all better be a hundred miles away by the time the word gets out. I have a better idea. If we have to give away the fact that we can get inside the Palace, do it by sabotaging Soulcatcher. Get to one of her carpets, rig it to come apart under her when she's two hundred feet up and moving fast."
"I like the way you think, Sleepy. Put that on the list, Sahra. I want to be there. It'd be like the time the Howler flew into the side of the Tower at Charm. Man, he must've been going at least three times as fast as a horse could run when he hit that wall. Blauw! Hair, teeth and eyeballs all over the—"
"He walked away from that, you idiot." One-Eye was back. "He's out there under the plain with our guys right now." A unique odor suggested that One-Eye had taken a moment out to award himself some medicinal refreshment.
"Stop it. Now." Sahra was cranky tonight. "Our next step will be to neutralize Chandra Gokhale. We've already decided that. These other things we can worry about down the road."
I observed, "We'll need to freshen up our evacuation drill in case we need to get out of Taglios in a hurry. The more active we get, the more likely it becomes that something will go wrong. If it does, we'll have Soulcatcher breathing down our necks."
Goblin observed, "She isn't stupid, she's just lazy."
I asked Sahra, "Did she call in her shadows yet?"
"I don't know. I didn't hear anything."
Goblin grumbled. "What we really need is a formula for doing without sleep. For about a year. Let me see Minh Subredil's Ghanghesha."