Something that lies down in that mind below the mind would not
let me be. I tossed and turned, wakened, fell asleep, and finally,
in the wee hours, it surfaced. I got up and shuffled through
papers.
I found that piece that made the Lady gasp once, ploughed
through that interminable guest list till I found a Lord Senjak and
his daughters Ardath, Credence, and Sylith. The youngest, one
Dorotea, the scribbler noted, could not attend.
“Ha!” I crowed. “The search
narrows.”
There was no more information, but that was a triumph. Assuming
the Lady was indeed a twin and Dorotea was the youngest and Ardath
dead, the odds were now fifty-fifty. A woman named Sylith or a
woman named Credence. Credence? That is how it translated.
I was so excited I got no more sleep. Even that damned
off-schedule comet fled my thoughts.
But excitement perished between the grinding stones of time.
Nothing came from those Taken tracing Bomanz’s wife and
papers. I suggested the Lady go to the source himself. She was not
prepared for the risk. Not yet.
Our old and stupid friend Tracker produced another gem four days
after I eliminated sister Dorotea. The big goof had been reading
genealogies day and night.
Silent came back from Blue Willy wearing such a look I knew
something good had happened. He dragged me outside, toward town,
into the null. He gave me a slip of damp paper. In Tracker’s
simple style, it said: Three sisters were married. Ardath married twice, first a Baron
Kaden of Dartstone, who died in battle. Six years later she married
Erin NoFather, an unlanded priest of the god Vancer, from a town
called Slinger, in the kingdom of Vye. Credence married Barthelme
of Jaunt, a renowned sorcerer. It is in my memory that Barthelme of
Jaunt became one of the Taken, but my memory is not
trustworthy.
No lie. Dorotea married Raft, Prince-in-Waiting, of Start. Sylith never
married.
Tracker then proved that, slow though he might be, an occasional
idea did perk through his murk of a mind. The death rolls reveal that Ardath and her husband, Erin
NoFather, an unlanded priest of the god Vancer, from a town called
Slinger, in the kingdom of Vye, were slain by bandits while
traveling between Lathe and Ova. My untrustworthy memory recalls
that this took place just months before the Dominator proclaimed
himself. Sylith drowned in a flood of the River Dream some years earlier,
swept away before countless witnesses. But no body was found.
We had an eyewitness. It never occurred to me to think of
Tracker that way, though the knowledge had been there for the
recognition. Maybe we could figure some way to get at his
memories. Credence perished in the fighting when the Dominator and Lady
took Jaunt in the early days of their conquests. There is no record
of Dorotea’s death.
“Damn,” I said. “Old Tracker is worth
something after all.”
Silent signed, “It sounds confused, but reason should
provide something.”
More than something. Without drawing charts, connecting all
those women, I felt confident enough to say, “We knew Dorotea
as Soulcatcher. We know Ardath wasn’t the Lady. Odds are, the
sister who engineered the ambush that killed
her . . . ” There was something missing
still. If I just knew which were
twins . . .
In response to my question, Silent signed, “Tracker is
looking for birth records.” But he was unlikely to score
again. Lord Senjak was not KurreTelle.
“One of the purported dead didn’t die. I’d put
my money on Sylith. Assuming Credence was killed because she
recognized a sister who was supposed to be dead when the Dominator
and Lady took Jaunt.”
“Bomanz mentions a legend about the Lady killing her twin.
Is that this ambush? Or something more public?”
“Who knows?” I said. It really did get confusing.
For a moment I wondered if it mattered.
The Lady called an assembly. Our original estimate of time
available now appeared overly optimistic. She told us, “We
appear to have been misled. There is nothing in Catcher’s
documents to betray my husband’s name. How she reached that
assumption is beyond us now. If documents are missing, we cannot be
sure. Unless news comes from Lords or Oar soon, we can forget that
avenue. It’s time to consider alternatives.”
I scribbled a note, asked Whisper to pass it to the Lady. The
Lady read it, then looked at me with narrowed, thoughtful eyes.
“Erin NoFather,” she read aloud. “An unlanded
priest of the god Vancer, from Slinger, in the kingdom of Vye.
This, from our amateur historian. What you found is less
interesting than the fact that you found it. Croaker. That news is
five hundred years old. It was worthless then. Whoever Erin
NoFather was before he left Vye, he did an absolute job of
eliminating traces. By the time he became interesting enough to
have his antecedents investigated, he had obliterated not only
Slinger but every person to have lived in that village during his
lifetime. In later years he went even farther, wasting all Vye.
Which is why the notion that those papers might contain his true
name constituted such a surprise.”
I felt about half-size, and stupid. I should have known they
would have tried to unmask the Dominator before. I had surrendered
some small advantage for nothing. So much for the spirit of
cooperation.
One of the new Taken—I cannot keep them straight, for they all
dress the same—arrived soon afterward. He or she gave the Lady a
small carved chest. The Lady smiled when she opened it.
“There were no papers that survived. But there were
these.” She dumped some odd bracelets. “Tomorrow we go
after Bomanz.”
Everyone else knew. I had to ask. “What are
they?”
“The amulets made for the Eternal Guard in the time of the
White Rose. So they could enter the Barrowland without
hazard.”
The resulting excitement surpassed my understanding.
“The wife must have carried them away. Though how she laid
hands on them is a mystery. Break this up now. I need time to
think.” She shooed us like a farm wife shoos chickens.
I returned to my room. The Limper floated in behind me. He said
nary a word, but ducked into the documents again. Puzzled, I looked
over his shoulder. He had lists of all the names we had unearthed,
written in the alphabets of the languages whence they sprang. He
seemed to be playing with both substitution codes and numerology.
Baffled, I went to my bed, turned my back on him, faked sleep.
As long as he was there, I knew, sleep would evade me.
Something that lies down in that mind below the mind would not
let me be. I tossed and turned, wakened, fell asleep, and finally,
in the wee hours, it surfaced. I got up and shuffled through
papers.
I found that piece that made the Lady gasp once, ploughed
through that interminable guest list till I found a Lord Senjak and
his daughters Ardath, Credence, and Sylith. The youngest, one
Dorotea, the scribbler noted, could not attend.
“Ha!” I crowed. “The search
narrows.”
There was no more information, but that was a triumph. Assuming
the Lady was indeed a twin and Dorotea was the youngest and Ardath
dead, the odds were now fifty-fifty. A woman named Sylith or a
woman named Credence. Credence? That is how it translated.
I was so excited I got no more sleep. Even that damned
off-schedule comet fled my thoughts.
But excitement perished between the grinding stones of time.
Nothing came from those Taken tracing Bomanz’s wife and
papers. I suggested the Lady go to the source himself. She was not
prepared for the risk. Not yet.
Our old and stupid friend Tracker produced another gem four days
after I eliminated sister Dorotea. The big goof had been reading
genealogies day and night.
Silent came back from Blue Willy wearing such a look I knew
something good had happened. He dragged me outside, toward town,
into the null. He gave me a slip of damp paper. In Tracker’s
simple style, it said: Three sisters were married. Ardath married twice, first a Baron
Kaden of Dartstone, who died in battle. Six years later she married
Erin NoFather, an unlanded priest of the god Vancer, from a town
called Slinger, in the kingdom of Vye. Credence married Barthelme
of Jaunt, a renowned sorcerer. It is in my memory that Barthelme of
Jaunt became one of the Taken, but my memory is not
trustworthy.
No lie. Dorotea married Raft, Prince-in-Waiting, of Start. Sylith never
married.
Tracker then proved that, slow though he might be, an occasional
idea did perk through his murk of a mind. The death rolls reveal that Ardath and her husband, Erin
NoFather, an unlanded priest of the god Vancer, from a town called
Slinger, in the kingdom of Vye, were slain by bandits while
traveling between Lathe and Ova. My untrustworthy memory recalls
that this took place just months before the Dominator proclaimed
himself. Sylith drowned in a flood of the River Dream some years earlier,
swept away before countless witnesses. But no body was found.
We had an eyewitness. It never occurred to me to think of
Tracker that way, though the knowledge had been there for the
recognition. Maybe we could figure some way to get at his
memories. Credence perished in the fighting when the Dominator and Lady
took Jaunt in the early days of their conquests. There is no record
of Dorotea’s death.
“Damn,” I said. “Old Tracker is worth
something after all.”
Silent signed, “It sounds confused, but reason should
provide something.”
More than something. Without drawing charts, connecting all
those women, I felt confident enough to say, “We knew Dorotea
as Soulcatcher. We know Ardath wasn’t the Lady. Odds are, the
sister who engineered the ambush that killed
her . . . ” There was something missing
still. If I just knew which were
twins . . .
In response to my question, Silent signed, “Tracker is
looking for birth records.” But he was unlikely to score
again. Lord Senjak was not KurreTelle.
“One of the purported dead didn’t die. I’d put
my money on Sylith. Assuming Credence was killed because she
recognized a sister who was supposed to be dead when the Dominator
and Lady took Jaunt.”
“Bomanz mentions a legend about the Lady killing her twin.
Is that this ambush? Or something more public?”
“Who knows?” I said. It really did get confusing.
For a moment I wondered if it mattered.
The Lady called an assembly. Our original estimate of time
available now appeared overly optimistic. She told us, “We
appear to have been misled. There is nothing in Catcher’s
documents to betray my husband’s name. How she reached that
assumption is beyond us now. If documents are missing, we cannot be
sure. Unless news comes from Lords or Oar soon, we can forget that
avenue. It’s time to consider alternatives.”
I scribbled a note, asked Whisper to pass it to the Lady. The
Lady read it, then looked at me with narrowed, thoughtful eyes.
“Erin NoFather,” she read aloud. “An unlanded
priest of the god Vancer, from Slinger, in the kingdom of Vye.
This, from our amateur historian. What you found is less
interesting than the fact that you found it. Croaker. That news is
five hundred years old. It was worthless then. Whoever Erin
NoFather was before he left Vye, he did an absolute job of
eliminating traces. By the time he became interesting enough to
have his antecedents investigated, he had obliterated not only
Slinger but every person to have lived in that village during his
lifetime. In later years he went even farther, wasting all Vye.
Which is why the notion that those papers might contain his true
name constituted such a surprise.”
I felt about half-size, and stupid. I should have known they
would have tried to unmask the Dominator before. I had surrendered
some small advantage for nothing. So much for the spirit of
cooperation.
One of the new Taken—I cannot keep them straight, for they all
dress the same—arrived soon afterward. He or she gave the Lady a
small carved chest. The Lady smiled when she opened it.
“There were no papers that survived. But there were
these.” She dumped some odd bracelets. “Tomorrow we go
after Bomanz.”
Everyone else knew. I had to ask. “What are
they?”
“The amulets made for the Eternal Guard in the time of the
White Rose. So they could enter the Barrowland without
hazard.”
The resulting excitement surpassed my understanding.
“The wife must have carried them away. Though how she laid
hands on them is a mystery. Break this up now. I need time to
think.” She shooed us like a farm wife shoos chickens.
I returned to my room. The Limper floated in behind me. He said
nary a word, but ducked into the documents again. Puzzled, I looked
over his shoulder. He had lists of all the names we had unearthed,
written in the alphabets of the languages whence they sprang. He
seemed to be playing with both substitution codes and numerology.
Baffled, I went to my bed, turned my back on him, faked sleep.
As long as he was there, I knew, sleep would evade me.