I had been in the
neighborhood of necromantic activities before, and other high-order
divining, but never any closer than I got that night. I do not plan
to get that close again. If my honey wants somebody handy to save
her sweet butt when she gets in trouble, I will tie a long rope to
her ankle and attach the other end to a horse. If something goes
sour I will swat the horse’s butt.
This séance did not go
well. And before it was over I got a much uglier vision of that
place of bones that had claimed so many of the dreams of Murgen and
my beloved.
The smell was bad but the cold was worse. I have never felt such
cold. I roasted myself beside a bonfire for hours after the
summoning was over but mortal flames did little to defeat that
bitter chill. It was so bad we did not undertake the
Captain’s raid that night or even the next and when we did we
went only because Her Highness began wondering publicly if us
slackers were waiting for summer weather.
Murgen, Sleepy and I were present at the summoning. No one else
was invited, not even Shukrat or Suvrin or any of Sahra’s
friends. And it started going bad right away. Right after starting
Lady raised a hand to massage her right temple. Soon afterward I
began to catch fleeting, random impressions of things that were not
there. The cold came first, then the smell. Before I saw anything
there were several moments when my balance became very iffy.
Lady grew more and more excited as things continued to refuse to
go the way she wanted. She started over twice. And when she finally
did storm ahead she did not get where she wanted to go. Eventually
she gave up. But not before the rest of us had gotten a good strong
whiff of Kina’s charnel dreams.
“I’m sorry,” Lady told Tobo. “Kina keeps
trying to get at me through our connection. The more power I siphon
from her the more easily she can touch me.”
Not good. We could have Lady turn kickass powerful—and be in
thrall to the Goddess when she did.
She seemed to read my mind. She gave me a dirty look. “The
bitch isn’t going to get a hold on me.”
I considered reminding her of whom we were speaking. The Mother
of Deceit. Kina did not need control where she could manipulate.
And she could manipulate whole populations. In her sleep. Instead,
I asked, “Did we find out anything about Sahra?”
Lady’s temper was not improving. “Certainly not what
we would’ve if that old devil-sow hadn’t decided to
wreck our game.” Her mind had been affected somehow. She
seemed almost drunk. “We couldn’t raise Sahra.
Couldn’t even touch her. Which leaves the matter’s
resolution ambiguous.” Her speech continued slurred, she was
aware of it, yet she persisted in trying to use difficult words.
“I think she’s dead. If she was alive Tobo and the
hidden folk would’ve found her. Nothing hides from the Black
Hounds for long.”
“Soldiers live,” I whispered. “It ain’t
right, something like that happening.” But Fortune does not
care. Unless Fortune gets a laugh out of human pain. “There
has to be more meaning . . . ”
“You going mystical on us at this late date,
Croaker?” Sleepy snapped. “You’re the one who
always says nothing has any meaning we don’t put into it
ourselves.”
“Sure as shit sounds like me, don’t it? Let’s
go work out our frustrations by kicking Mogaba’s antique
ass.”
Sleepy gave us the once-over, unwilling to send us out while we
were in so bleak a mood. We might be dangerous to ourselves.
She was no happier with us later. We did not improve, any of us.
Finally, she swallowed her reservations and told us to go.
Howler had completed a large carpet capable of moving twenty
passengers. Tonight it carried sixteen of those, plus freight.
Amongst the sixteen were both elder Voroshk, a number of
commando-trained soldiers from Hsien and Murgen. Murgen had been
zombielike since Lady’s failed ritual. He had overheard her
saying she thought Sahra was dead.
I had urged him to stay behind but he insisted on joining
us.
I should have stood fast. He could not help but be a
liability.
Tobo was less distracted. He was too involved with Shukrat to be
obsessed about his mother being missing. Still, he would bear
watching.
Lady and I dressed up in full costume, with Voroshk apparel over
the black Widowmaker and Lifetaker armor. My two ravens tagged
along. Arkana flew with us, being tested. Which she understood
fully.
Down below, dark things were on the move. They had been since
nightfall.
Taglios never sleeps. Tonight those with reasons to be out after
dark would have cause to worry about what might be lurking in the
shadows. Hey, Mogaba. Look out. Darkness always comes.
We were still climbing away from camp when I eased over next to
Lady. We flew knee to knee, our Voroshk apparel whipping in the
breeze for twenty yards behind us. First we discussed which of our
companions needed watching the closest, then we revisited the
failed attempt to contact Sahra’s spirit. For the twentieth
time. Lady insisted, “I do believe she’s out there,
just as desperate to make contact with us as we were to make
contact with her. But the ugly Goddess wants to keep us
apart.”
“Is Kina awake?”
“More than she has been for a long, long time. At least
since Goblin went down there. Maybe since the days when she sensed
her doom afoot and commenced her war on us ere ever we entered this
country.”
Ere ever? Wow. “I have a question on another subject.
It’s been bothering me for a long time but I’ve never
quite been able to put the words together right.”
“Artist.”
“Power junkie.”
“What’s your question, Old Style?”
“What happened to Soulcatcher’s shadows?”
Lady looked at me blankly.
“Come on. The old brain can’t have slowed down that
much. She was an accomplished shadowmaster. She didn’t have a
lot of shadows left because Tobo’s pets kept picking them
off. She stopped trying to use them against us. But she still had
some hidden away somewhere. Saved for a rainy day.”
Lady growled, “It couldn’t have gotten any stormier
than it did.” But she was not arguing. She had her mind
wrapped around the question. “My bet is that the Unknown
Shadows finished them all off. There aren’t any killer
shadows left. If there were we’d still be hearing reports of
unexplained deaths.”
“Maybe.” Probably. If they were out there anywhere
the excitement the shadows would cause would be much greater than
the numbers justified. The peoples of the Taglian territories had a
long history of suffering from killer shadows.
Even so, I moved up until I was flying hip to hip with Tobo, an
eventuality Shukrat found distasteful. She drifted away. Rather
haughtily adolescent, I thought.
“I don’t plan to take over your life.” I told
the boy about my concerns.
He seemed to agree that they were valid. “I’ll find
out if there’s any reason to worry.”
I fell back until I rejoined Lady.
She asked, “What did he say?”
“He’ll check it out.”
“You don’t sound real happy about that.”
“He said it the way you do when you agree with somebody
just so you don’t have to spend time with them fussing over
something that doesn’t bother you.”
I had been in the
neighborhood of necromantic activities before, and other high-order
divining, but never any closer than I got that night. I do not plan
to get that close again. If my honey wants somebody handy to save
her sweet butt when she gets in trouble, I will tie a long rope to
her ankle and attach the other end to a horse. If something goes
sour I will swat the horse’s butt.
This séance did not go
well. And before it was over I got a much uglier vision of that
place of bones that had claimed so many of the dreams of Murgen and
my beloved.
The smell was bad but the cold was worse. I have never felt such
cold. I roasted myself beside a bonfire for hours after the
summoning was over but mortal flames did little to defeat that
bitter chill. It was so bad we did not undertake the
Captain’s raid that night or even the next and when we did we
went only because Her Highness began wondering publicly if us
slackers were waiting for summer weather.
Murgen, Sleepy and I were present at the summoning. No one else
was invited, not even Shukrat or Suvrin or any of Sahra’s
friends. And it started going bad right away. Right after starting
Lady raised a hand to massage her right temple. Soon afterward I
began to catch fleeting, random impressions of things that were not
there. The cold came first, then the smell. Before I saw anything
there were several moments when my balance became very iffy.
Lady grew more and more excited as things continued to refuse to
go the way she wanted. She started over twice. And when she finally
did storm ahead she did not get where she wanted to go. Eventually
she gave up. But not before the rest of us had gotten a good strong
whiff of Kina’s charnel dreams.
“I’m sorry,” Lady told Tobo. “Kina keeps
trying to get at me through our connection. The more power I siphon
from her the more easily she can touch me.”
Not good. We could have Lady turn kickass powerful—and be in
thrall to the Goddess when she did.
She seemed to read my mind. She gave me a dirty look. “The
bitch isn’t going to get a hold on me.”
I considered reminding her of whom we were speaking. The Mother
of Deceit. Kina did not need control where she could manipulate.
And she could manipulate whole populations. In her sleep. Instead,
I asked, “Did we find out anything about Sahra?”
Lady’s temper was not improving. “Certainly not what
we would’ve if that old devil-sow hadn’t decided to
wreck our game.” Her mind had been affected somehow. She
seemed almost drunk. “We couldn’t raise Sahra.
Couldn’t even touch her. Which leaves the matter’s
resolution ambiguous.” Her speech continued slurred, she was
aware of it, yet she persisted in trying to use difficult words.
“I think she’s dead. If she was alive Tobo and the
hidden folk would’ve found her. Nothing hides from the Black
Hounds for long.”
“Soldiers live,” I whispered. “It ain’t
right, something like that happening.” But Fortune does not
care. Unless Fortune gets a laugh out of human pain. “There
has to be more meaning . . . ”
“You going mystical on us at this late date,
Croaker?” Sleepy snapped. “You’re the one who
always says nothing has any meaning we don’t put into it
ourselves.”
“Sure as shit sounds like me, don’t it? Let’s
go work out our frustrations by kicking Mogaba’s antique
ass.”
Sleepy gave us the once-over, unwilling to send us out while we
were in so bleak a mood. We might be dangerous to ourselves.
She was no happier with us later. We did not improve, any of us.
Finally, she swallowed her reservations and told us to go.
Howler had completed a large carpet capable of moving twenty
passengers. Tonight it carried sixteen of those, plus freight.
Amongst the sixteen were both elder Voroshk, a number of
commando-trained soldiers from Hsien and Murgen. Murgen had been
zombielike since Lady’s failed ritual. He had overheard her
saying she thought Sahra was dead.
I had urged him to stay behind but he insisted on joining
us.
I should have stood fast. He could not help but be a
liability.
Tobo was less distracted. He was too involved with Shukrat to be
obsessed about his mother being missing. Still, he would bear
watching.
Lady and I dressed up in full costume, with Voroshk apparel over
the black Widowmaker and Lifetaker armor. My two ravens tagged
along. Arkana flew with us, being tested. Which she understood
fully.
Down below, dark things were on the move. They had been since
nightfall.
Taglios never sleeps. Tonight those with reasons to be out after
dark would have cause to worry about what might be lurking in the
shadows. Hey, Mogaba. Look out. Darkness always comes.
We were still climbing away from camp when I eased over next to
Lady. We flew knee to knee, our Voroshk apparel whipping in the
breeze for twenty yards behind us. First we discussed which of our
companions needed watching the closest, then we revisited the
failed attempt to contact Sahra’s spirit. For the twentieth
time. Lady insisted, “I do believe she’s out there,
just as desperate to make contact with us as we were to make
contact with her. But the ugly Goddess wants to keep us
apart.”
“Is Kina awake?”
“More than she has been for a long, long time. At least
since Goblin went down there. Maybe since the days when she sensed
her doom afoot and commenced her war on us ere ever we entered this
country.”
Ere ever? Wow. “I have a question on another subject.
It’s been bothering me for a long time but I’ve never
quite been able to put the words together right.”
“Artist.”
“Power junkie.”
“What’s your question, Old Style?”
“What happened to Soulcatcher’s shadows?”
Lady looked at me blankly.
“Come on. The old brain can’t have slowed down that
much. She was an accomplished shadowmaster. She didn’t have a
lot of shadows left because Tobo’s pets kept picking them
off. She stopped trying to use them against us. But she still had
some hidden away somewhere. Saved for a rainy day.”
Lady growled, “It couldn’t have gotten any stormier
than it did.” But she was not arguing. She had her mind
wrapped around the question. “My bet is that the Unknown
Shadows finished them all off. There aren’t any killer
shadows left. If there were we’d still be hearing reports of
unexplained deaths.”
“Maybe.” Probably. If they were out there anywhere
the excitement the shadows would cause would be much greater than
the numbers justified. The peoples of the Taglian territories had a
long history of suffering from killer shadows.
Even so, I moved up until I was flying hip to hip with Tobo, an
eventuality Shukrat found distasteful. She drifted away. Rather
haughtily adolescent, I thought.
“I don’t plan to take over your life.” I told
the boy about my concerns.
He seemed to agree that they were valid. “I’ll find
out if there’s any reason to worry.”
I fell back until I rejoined Lady.
She asked, “What did he say?”
“He’ll check it out.”
“You don’t sound real happy about that.”
“He said it the way you do when you agree with somebody
just so you don’t have to spend time with them fussing over
something that doesn’t bother you.”