Then what did you
do?” Tobo asked.
Around a mouthful of spicy Taglian-style
rice, I told him, “Then I went out and made sure the library
was clean.” And Surendranath Santaraksita remained where he
was, stunned into immobility by the answers he had received from a
lowly sweeper. I could have told him that anyone who paid attention
to the storytellers in the street, the sermons of mendicant
priests, and the readily available gratuitous advice of hermits and
yogis, could have satisfied most of the Vikramas questions. Darn
it, a Vehdna woman from Jaicur could do it.
“We got to kill him,” One-Eye said. “How you
want to do it?”
“That’s always your solution these days, isn’t
it?” I asked.
“The more we get rid of now, the fewer there’ll be
around to aggravate me in my old age.”
I could not tell if he was joking. “When you start getting
old, we’ll worry about it.”
“Guy like that will be easy, Little Girl. He won’t
be looking for it. Bam! He’s gone. And nobody’ll care.
Strangle his ass. Leave a rumel on him. Blame it on our old buddy
Narayan. He’s in town, we need to put all kinds of shit off
on him.”
“Language, old man.” One-Eye babbled on, putting a
name to animal waste in a hundred tongues. I turned my back.
“Sahra? You’ve been very quiet.”
“I’ve been trying to digest what I picked up today.
By the way, Jaul Barundandi was distraught because you stayed home.
Tried to take your kickback out of my wages. He finally found Minh
Subredil’s limit. I threatened to scream. He would’ve
called my bluff if his wife hadn’t been around somewhere. Are
you sure it’s safe to let this librarian live? If it looked
natural, no one would suspect—”
“It may not be safe but it could pay dividends. Master
Santaraksita wants to make some kind of experiment out of me. To
see if a low-caste dog really can be taught to roll over and play
dead. What about Soulcatcher? What about the shadows? Did you learn
anything?”
“She loosed everything she had. Just an impulse. No master
plan except to remind the city of her power. She expected the
victims to be immigrants who live in the streets. No one much cares
about them. Only a handful of shadows got back before dawn. Our
captives won’t be missed until tomorrow.”
“We could go catch a few more—”
“Bats,” Goblin said,
inviting himself to take a seat. One-Eye appeared to have dozed
off. He still had hold of his cane, though. “Bats.
There’s bats out there tonight.”
Sahra offered a confirming nod.
Goblin said, “Back before we marched against the
Shad-owmasters, we killed all the bats. Had bounties on them big
enough for bat hunters to make a living. Because the Shadowmasters
used them to spy.”
I recalled a time when crows were murdered relentlessly because
they might be acting as Soulcatcher’s far-flying eyes.
“You’re saying we should stay in tonight?”
“Mind like a stone ax, this old gal.”
I asked Sahra, “What did Soulcatcher think about our
attack?”
“It didn’t come up where I could hear.” She
pushed some sheets from the old Annals across. “The Bhodi
suicide bothered her more. She’s afraid it might start a
trend.”
“A trend? There could be more than one monk goofy enough
to set himself on fire?”
“She thinks so.”
Tobo asked, “Mom, are we going to call up Dad
tonight?”
“I don’t know right now, dear.”
“I want to talk to him some more.”
“You will. I’m sure he’s interested in talking
to you, too.” She sounded like she was trying to convince
herself.
I asked Goblin, “Would it be possible for you to keep that
mist thing going all the time so we could keep Murgen connected and
any time we wanted, we could just send him where we needed to know
about something?”
“We’re working on it.” He took off on a
technical rant. I did not understand a word but I let him roll. He
deserved to feel good about something.
One-Eye began to snore. The smart would stay out of reach of his
cane anyway.
I said, “Tobo could keep notes all the
time . . . ” I had had this sudden vision
of the son of the Annalist taking over for the father, the way it
goes in Taglian guilds, where trades and tools pass down generation
after generation.
“In fact,” One-Eye said, as though no time had
passed since the last remark, and as though he had not been faking
sleep a moment ago, “right now’s the time you could
play you a really great big ol’ hairy-assed, old-time Company
dirty trick, Little Girl. Send somebody down to the silk
merchants’ exchange. Have them get you some silk, different
colors. Big enough to make up copies of them scarves the Stranglers
use. Them rumels. Then we start picking off the guys we don’t
like anyway. Once in a while we leave one of them scarves behind.
Like with that librarian.”
I said, “I like that. Except the part about Master
Santaraksita. That’s a closed subject, old man.”
One-Eye cackled. “Man’s got to stand by what he
believes.”
“It would get a lot of fingers pointing,” Goblin
said.
One-Eye cackled again. “It would point them in some other
direction, too, Little Girl. And I’m thinking we don’t
want much more attention coming our way right now. I’m
thinking maybe we’re closer to figuring things out than any
of us realizes.”
“Water sleeps. We have to be taken seriously.”
“That’s what I’m saying. We use them scarves
to take out informants and guys who know too much. Librarians, for
instance.”
“Would I be correct in my suspicion that you’ve been
thinking about this for a while and by chance you just happen to
have a little list all ready to go?” Very likely any such
list would include all the people responsible for his several
failed attempts to establish himself in the Taglian black
markets.
He cackled. He took a swipe at Goblin with his cane. “And
you said she’s got a mind like a flint hatchet.”
“Bring me the list. I’ll discuss it with Murgen next
time I see him.”
“With a ghost? They got no sense of perspective, you
know.”
“You mean maybe he’s seen everything and knows what
you’re really up to? Sounds like a perspective to me. Makes
me wonder how far the Company might’ve gone if our
fore-brethren had had a ghost to keep an eye on you.”
One-Eye grumbled something about how unfair and unreasonable the
world was. He had been singing that song the whole time I had known
him. He would keep it up after he became a ghost himself.
I mused, “You think we could get Murgen to winkle out the
source of the stink that keeps coming from the back, there, where
Do Trang hides his crocodile skins? I know it’s not them.
Croc hides have a flavor all their own.”
One-Eye scowled. He was ready to change the subject now. The
odor in question came from his beer- and liquor-manufacturing
project, hidden in a cellar he and Do Trang thought nobody knew
about. Banh Do Trang, once our benefactor for Sahra’s sake,
now was practically one of the gang because he had a powerful taste
for One-Eye’s product, a huge hunger for illegal and shadowy
income, and he liked having tough guys on the payroll who would
work hard for very little money. He thought his vice was a secret
he shared only with One-Eye and Gota. The three of them got drunk
together twice a week.
Alcohol is a definite Nyueng Bao weakness.
“I’m sure it’s not worth the trouble, Little
Girl. It’s probably dead rats. Bad rat problem in this town.
Do Trang puts rat poison out all the time. By the pound. No need to
waste Murgen’s time chasing rodents. You’ve both got
better things to do.”
I would be talking over a lot of things with Murgen if I could
deal with him directly. If we could catch and keep his attention. I
would like to know firsthand everything that ordinarily came to me
through other people. I imply no malice, particularly from Sahra,
but people do reshape information according to their own
prejudices. Including even me, possibly, though until now, my
objectivity has been peerless. All my predecessors,
though . . . their reports must be read with a
jaundiced eye.
Of course, most of them made the same observation in regard to
their own predecessors. So we are all in agreement. Everyone is a
liar but us. Only Lady was unabashedly self-congratulating. She
missed few opportunities to remind those who came later how
brilliant and determined and successful she was, turning the tide
of the Shadowmaster wars when she had nothing to begin building
upon but herself. Murgen was, putting it charitably, less than sane
much of the time. Because I lived through many of the times and
events he recollected, I have to say he did pretty good. Most of
what he recorded could be true. I cannot contradict him. But a lot
he set down does seem fanciful.
Fanciful? Last night I had a long chat with his ghost. Or
spirit. Or ka. Whatever that was. If that was really Murgen and not
some trick played on us by Kina or Soulcatcher.
We can never be one-hundred-percent certain that anything is
exactly what it appears to be. Kina is the Mother of Deceit. And
Soulcatcher, to quote a man far wiser and more foul of mouth than
I, is a mudsucking lunatic.
Then what did you
do?” Tobo asked.
Around a mouthful of spicy Taglian-style
rice, I told him, “Then I went out and made sure the library
was clean.” And Surendranath Santaraksita remained where he
was, stunned into immobility by the answers he had received from a
lowly sweeper. I could have told him that anyone who paid attention
to the storytellers in the street, the sermons of mendicant
priests, and the readily available gratuitous advice of hermits and
yogis, could have satisfied most of the Vikramas questions. Darn
it, a Vehdna woman from Jaicur could do it.
“We got to kill him,” One-Eye said. “How you
want to do it?”
“That’s always your solution these days, isn’t
it?” I asked.
“The more we get rid of now, the fewer there’ll be
around to aggravate me in my old age.”
I could not tell if he was joking. “When you start getting
old, we’ll worry about it.”
“Guy like that will be easy, Little Girl. He won’t
be looking for it. Bam! He’s gone. And nobody’ll care.
Strangle his ass. Leave a rumel on him. Blame it on our old buddy
Narayan. He’s in town, we need to put all kinds of shit off
on him.”
“Language, old man.” One-Eye babbled on, putting a
name to animal waste in a hundred tongues. I turned my back.
“Sahra? You’ve been very quiet.”
“I’ve been trying to digest what I picked up today.
By the way, Jaul Barundandi was distraught because you stayed home.
Tried to take your kickback out of my wages. He finally found Minh
Subredil’s limit. I threatened to scream. He would’ve
called my bluff if his wife hadn’t been around somewhere. Are
you sure it’s safe to let this librarian live? If it looked
natural, no one would suspect—”
“It may not be safe but it could pay dividends. Master
Santaraksita wants to make some kind of experiment out of me. To
see if a low-caste dog really can be taught to roll over and play
dead. What about Soulcatcher? What about the shadows? Did you learn
anything?”
“She loosed everything she had. Just an impulse. No master
plan except to remind the city of her power. She expected the
victims to be immigrants who live in the streets. No one much cares
about them. Only a handful of shadows got back before dawn. Our
captives won’t be missed until tomorrow.”
“We could go catch a few more—”
“Bats,” Goblin said,
inviting himself to take a seat. One-Eye appeared to have dozed
off. He still had hold of his cane, though. “Bats.
There’s bats out there tonight.”
Sahra offered a confirming nod.
Goblin said, “Back before we marched against the
Shad-owmasters, we killed all the bats. Had bounties on them big
enough for bat hunters to make a living. Because the Shadowmasters
used them to spy.”
I recalled a time when crows were murdered relentlessly because
they might be acting as Soulcatcher’s far-flying eyes.
“You’re saying we should stay in tonight?”
“Mind like a stone ax, this old gal.”
I asked Sahra, “What did Soulcatcher think about our
attack?”
“It didn’t come up where I could hear.” She
pushed some sheets from the old Annals across. “The Bhodi
suicide bothered her more. She’s afraid it might start a
trend.”
“A trend? There could be more than one monk goofy enough
to set himself on fire?”
“She thinks so.”
Tobo asked, “Mom, are we going to call up Dad
tonight?”
“I don’t know right now, dear.”
“I want to talk to him some more.”
“You will. I’m sure he’s interested in talking
to you, too.” She sounded like she was trying to convince
herself.
I asked Goblin, “Would it be possible for you to keep that
mist thing going all the time so we could keep Murgen connected and
any time we wanted, we could just send him where we needed to know
about something?”
“We’re working on it.” He took off on a
technical rant. I did not understand a word but I let him roll. He
deserved to feel good about something.
One-Eye began to snore. The smart would stay out of reach of his
cane anyway.
I said, “Tobo could keep notes all the
time . . . ” I had had this sudden vision
of the son of the Annalist taking over for the father, the way it
goes in Taglian guilds, where trades and tools pass down generation
after generation.
“In fact,” One-Eye said, as though no time had
passed since the last remark, and as though he had not been faking
sleep a moment ago, “right now’s the time you could
play you a really great big ol’ hairy-assed, old-time Company
dirty trick, Little Girl. Send somebody down to the silk
merchants’ exchange. Have them get you some silk, different
colors. Big enough to make up copies of them scarves the Stranglers
use. Them rumels. Then we start picking off the guys we don’t
like anyway. Once in a while we leave one of them scarves behind.
Like with that librarian.”
I said, “I like that. Except the part about Master
Santaraksita. That’s a closed subject, old man.”
One-Eye cackled. “Man’s got to stand by what he
believes.”
“It would get a lot of fingers pointing,” Goblin
said.
One-Eye cackled again. “It would point them in some other
direction, too, Little Girl. And I’m thinking we don’t
want much more attention coming our way right now. I’m
thinking maybe we’re closer to figuring things out than any
of us realizes.”
“Water sleeps. We have to be taken seriously.”
“That’s what I’m saying. We use them scarves
to take out informants and guys who know too much. Librarians, for
instance.”
“Would I be correct in my suspicion that you’ve been
thinking about this for a while and by chance you just happen to
have a little list all ready to go?” Very likely any such
list would include all the people responsible for his several
failed attempts to establish himself in the Taglian black
markets.
He cackled. He took a swipe at Goblin with his cane. “And
you said she’s got a mind like a flint hatchet.”
“Bring me the list. I’ll discuss it with Murgen next
time I see him.”
“With a ghost? They got no sense of perspective, you
know.”
“You mean maybe he’s seen everything and knows what
you’re really up to? Sounds like a perspective to me. Makes
me wonder how far the Company might’ve gone if our
fore-brethren had had a ghost to keep an eye on you.”
One-Eye grumbled something about how unfair and unreasonable the
world was. He had been singing that song the whole time I had known
him. He would keep it up after he became a ghost himself.
I mused, “You think we could get Murgen to winkle out the
source of the stink that keeps coming from the back, there, where
Do Trang hides his crocodile skins? I know it’s not them.
Croc hides have a flavor all their own.”
One-Eye scowled. He was ready to change the subject now. The
odor in question came from his beer- and liquor-manufacturing
project, hidden in a cellar he and Do Trang thought nobody knew
about. Banh Do Trang, once our benefactor for Sahra’s sake,
now was practically one of the gang because he had a powerful taste
for One-Eye’s product, a huge hunger for illegal and shadowy
income, and he liked having tough guys on the payroll who would
work hard for very little money. He thought his vice was a secret
he shared only with One-Eye and Gota. The three of them got drunk
together twice a week.
Alcohol is a definite Nyueng Bao weakness.
“I’m sure it’s not worth the trouble, Little
Girl. It’s probably dead rats. Bad rat problem in this town.
Do Trang puts rat poison out all the time. By the pound. No need to
waste Murgen’s time chasing rodents. You’ve both got
better things to do.”
I would be talking over a lot of things with Murgen if I could
deal with him directly. If we could catch and keep his attention. I
would like to know firsthand everything that ordinarily came to me
through other people. I imply no malice, particularly from Sahra,
but people do reshape information according to their own
prejudices. Including even me, possibly, though until now, my
objectivity has been peerless. All my predecessors,
though . . . their reports must be read with a
jaundiced eye.
Of course, most of them made the same observation in regard to
their own predecessors. So we are all in agreement. Everyone is a
liar but us. Only Lady was unabashedly self-congratulating. She
missed few opportunities to remind those who came later how
brilliant and determined and successful she was, turning the tide
of the Shadowmaster wars when she had nothing to begin building
upon but herself. Murgen was, putting it charitably, less than sane
much of the time. Because I lived through many of the times and
events he recollected, I have to say he did pretty good. Most of
what he recorded could be true. I cannot contradict him. But a lot
he set down does seem fanciful.
Fanciful? Last night I had a long chat with his ghost. Or
spirit. Or ka. Whatever that was. If that was really Murgen and not
some trick played on us by Kina or Soulcatcher.
We can never be one-hundred-percent certain that anything is
exactly what it appears to be. Kina is the Mother of Deceit. And
Soulcatcher, to quote a man far wiser and more foul of mouth than
I, is a mudsucking lunatic.