The surface of the
river was not friendly when Soulcatcher hit it but neither was the
impact like hitting stone from the same altitude. Her fall had been
long enough to allow her time to prepare for the landing.
Even so, the collision was brutal enough to extract her
consciousness temporarily. But she had prepared for that, too,
between curses. When consciousness returned she was drifting
downriver with the flood, head above the surface. It being the
rainy season, the river was high and the current brisk. It took a
great effort to complete the swim to the south bank. By the time
she crawled out of the flood and collapsed, she was a half-dozen
miles downstream from where she had gone in, which was outside the
city proper, in a domain best known for its jackals, of both the
two- and four-legged varieties. It was said that leopards still
hunted there at night, the occasional crocodile could be found
along the shore, and it was not that many years since a tiger had
come visiting from down the river.
The Protector experienced no difficulties with any mad or hungry
thing. A hundred crows perched around her, standing guard. Others
flapped about in the darkness until squadrons of bats had gathered.
Birds and bats together discouraged the scavengers and predators
till Soulcatcher awakened and in a fit of pique, sent an entire
band of jackals racing away with their pelts aflame.
She stumbled toward home, regaining strength slowly, muttering
about growing old and less resilient. A tremor entered the voice
she chose to inveigh against the predations of time.
Eventually she reached the home of a moneylender, where she
commandeered transportation back to the Palace. She arrived there
somewhat after the breakfast hour in a temper so foul that the
entire staff made a point of becoming invisible. Only the Great
General came to inquire after her well-being. And he went away when
she started snarling and snapping.
Though she reveled in her paranoia, Soulcatcher did not suspect
that her accident had been anything else until she examined her
remaining carpet preparatory to another effort to fly off to
entertain the Nyueng Bao. Then she discovered that the light
wooden-frame members on which the carpet was stretched had been
weakened by strategic saw cuts.
The who and probable why became clear within seconds. She sent
out a summons to Jaul Barundandi and his associates.
Surprise. Barundandi was nowhere to be found. He had been called
out of the Palace for a family emergency, he had said, just moments
after her return. So the Greys reported when told to
investigate.
“What an amazing coincidence. Find him. Find the men he
worked with regularly. We have a great deal to discuss.”
Greys scattered. One bold captain, however, remained behind to
report, “Rumor in the city says the Bhodi intend to resume
their self-immolations. They want the Radisha to come out and
address their concerns personally.”
The news did not improve Soulcatcher’s temper. “Ask
them if they would like me to donate the naphtha they need.
I’m feeling particularly charitable today. Also ask them if
they can hold off starting long enough for the carpenters to put up
grandstands so more of the Radisha’s good subjects can enjoy
the entertainment. I don’t care what those lunatics do. Get
out of here! Find that Barundandi slug!” The voice she used
was informed with a potent lunacy.
Jaul Barundandi’s luck was mixed. He managed to avoid the
attentions of the bats and crows and shadows the Protector
released when the Greys had no immediate success in locating him,
but an informer eventually betrayed him when the reward for his
capture grew large enough. The lie was that he had attacked and
severely wounded the Radisha, that only the Protector’s swift
intercession with her most powerful sorcery had saved the
Princess’s life. The Radisha’s situation remained
grave.
The Taglian people loved their Radisha. Jaul Barundandi
discovered that he had no friends but his accomplices and it was
one of those who betrayed him in exchange for a partial reward (the
Grey officers pocketing the bulk) and a running start.
Jaul Barundandi suffered terrible torments and tried hard to
cooperate so the pain would stop but he could tell the Protector
nothing that she wanted to know. So she had him put into a cage and
hung fifteen feet above the place where the Bhodi disciples
generally chose to give up their lives and issued a rescript
encouraging passersby to throw stones. It was her intent that he
hang there indefinitely, his suffering neverending, but sometime
during the first night, somehow, someone managed to toss him a
piece of poisoned fruit while leaving his betrayer and a murdered
Grey below, each with a piece of paper in his mouth bearing the
characters for “Water Sleeps.” Crows savaged both
corpses before they were discovered.
It was the last time Black Company tokens would be seen but
their appearance was sufficient to provoke the Protector almost
beyond reason. For days the still-loyal remnants of the Greys
remained extremely busy making arrests, most of them of people
unable to guess what they had done to irk Soulcatcher.
She never did get to the Nyueng Bao swamp despite having made
necessary repairs to her remaining carpet. Taglios became more
fractious by the hour. She had to devote her entire attention to
keeping the city tamed.
Then came the faithful and tattered little shadow that had made
its way through mountains and forests, over lakes and rivers and
plains, in order to bring her news of what was happening in the
nethermost south.
Soulcatcher screamed a scream of rage so potent that the entire
city became informed of it instantly. Immigrants began to rehearse
the wisdom of a return to the provinces.
The Great General and two of his staff officers broke through
the door to the Protector’s apartment, certain she needed
rescuing. Instead, they found her pacing furiously and debating
herself in half a dozen voices. “They have the Key. They must
have the Key. They must have murdered the Deceiver. Maybe they made
an alliance with Kina. Why would they go down there? Why would they
go onto the plain after what happened to the last group? What keeps
pulling them out there? I’ve read their Annals. There’s
nothing in those. What do they know? The Land of Unknown Shadows?
They cannot have developed an entirely new and independent oral
tradition since they served me in the north. If it’s
important one of them will record it. Why? Why? What do they know
that I don’t?”
Soulcatcher became aware of Mogaba and his men. The latter
looked around nervously, trying to figure out where the voices were
coming from. When Soulcatcher became excited, those seemed to come
from everywhere at once.
“You. Have you caught me any terrorists yet?”
“No. Nor shall I unless an angry family member comes
forward because he thinks it would be a good way to get even. There
won’t be more than a handful left here and those probably
don’t know each other. I gather, from what I overheard, that
they’ve gone back to Shadowcatch.” He had worked for
the Shadowmaster Longshadow. He could not get out of the habit of
calling Kiaulune by the name given it by his previous employer.
“Exactly. We’re back where we were fifteen years
ago. Only now they have the Radisha and the Key.” Her tone
left no doubt she placed the blame entirely on him.
Mogaba was not bothered. Not immediately. He was accustomed to
being blamed for the shortcomings of others and he did not believe
the remnants of the Black Company could offer any real threat any
time soon. They had been beaten down too thoroughly and had been
away from it too long. They were more military than the Deceivers
only inside their own fantasies. Even the comic-opera functionaries
down there ought to be able to wear them down and bury them
eventually. They would find no aid or sympathy in the Shadowlands.
The people down there really did remember the Black Company’s
last visit. “The Key? What is that?”
“A means of passing through the Shadowgate unharmed. A
talisman that makes it possible to travel on the plain.” Her
voice had become pedantic. Now it became angry. “I possessed
that talisman at one time. Long ago I used it to go up there and
explore. Longshadow would have been unmanned had he known. More
unmanned than the eunuch he already was. But it disappeared in the
early excitement around Kiaulune. I suspect that Kina clouded my
mind while the Deceiver Singh stole both it and my sister’s
darling daughter. I can’t imagine why that rabble would want
to go onto the plain after the previous disaster but if it’s
something they want to do, it’s something I want to prevent.
Prepare for a journey.”
“We can’t leave Taglios unsupervised for as long as
it would take us to travel all the way to Shadowcatch. We
don’t have the stallion anymore, even if it could carry
double.”
Soulcatcher was baffled. “What?”
“The black stallion from the north. The one I’ve
been using all these years. It’s vanished. It broke down its
stall and ran off. I told you that last month.” She did not
recall that, obviously.
“We’ll fly.”
“But—” Mogaba hated flying. In the days when
he had been Longshadow’s general he had had to fly with the
Howler almost daily. He still loathed those times. “I thought
the larger carpet was the one that was destroyed.”
“The small one will carry both of us. It’ll be hard
work. I’ll have to rest a lot. But we’ll still be able
to get down there and back before these people know we’re
gone and try to take advantage. A week for the round trip. Ten days
at the outside.”
The Great General had a few dozen reservations but kept them
behind his teeth. The Protector was worse than Longshadow had been
about suffering opinions she did not want to hear.
Soulcatcher said, “We’ll adopt disguises once we get
there and go among them. I want you to keep an eye out for a
hammer, so by so, made of cast iron but far heavier than it ought
to be.”
Mogaba bowed slightly. He said nothing about how difficult it
would be for either of them to blend in with the crowd they would
be chasing.
Soulcatcher told him, “Prepare your men. They’ll
have to keep Taglios under control for a cquple of
weeks.”
Mogaba withdrew, saying nothing about the proposed time changing
already. In his position it was necessary to do a lot of saying
nothing.
The Protector watched him go, amused. He did not conceal his
thinking nearly as well as he believed. But she was ancient in her
wickedness and had studied the dark side of humanity so thoroughly
that she could almost read minds.
The surface of the
river was not friendly when Soulcatcher hit it but neither was the
impact like hitting stone from the same altitude. Her fall had been
long enough to allow her time to prepare for the landing.
Even so, the collision was brutal enough to extract her
consciousness temporarily. But she had prepared for that, too,
between curses. When consciousness returned she was drifting
downriver with the flood, head above the surface. It being the
rainy season, the river was high and the current brisk. It took a
great effort to complete the swim to the south bank. By the time
she crawled out of the flood and collapsed, she was a half-dozen
miles downstream from where she had gone in, which was outside the
city proper, in a domain best known for its jackals, of both the
two- and four-legged varieties. It was said that leopards still
hunted there at night, the occasional crocodile could be found
along the shore, and it was not that many years since a tiger had
come visiting from down the river.
The Protector experienced no difficulties with any mad or hungry
thing. A hundred crows perched around her, standing guard. Others
flapped about in the darkness until squadrons of bats had gathered.
Birds and bats together discouraged the scavengers and predators
till Soulcatcher awakened and in a fit of pique, sent an entire
band of jackals racing away with their pelts aflame.
She stumbled toward home, regaining strength slowly, muttering
about growing old and less resilient. A tremor entered the voice
she chose to inveigh against the predations of time.
Eventually she reached the home of a moneylender, where she
commandeered transportation back to the Palace. She arrived there
somewhat after the breakfast hour in a temper so foul that the
entire staff made a point of becoming invisible. Only the Great
General came to inquire after her well-being. And he went away when
she started snarling and snapping.
Though she reveled in her paranoia, Soulcatcher did not suspect
that her accident had been anything else until she examined her
remaining carpet preparatory to another effort to fly off to
entertain the Nyueng Bao. Then she discovered that the light
wooden-frame members on which the carpet was stretched had been
weakened by strategic saw cuts.
The who and probable why became clear within seconds. She sent
out a summons to Jaul Barundandi and his associates.
Surprise. Barundandi was nowhere to be found. He had been called
out of the Palace for a family emergency, he had said, just moments
after her return. So the Greys reported when told to
investigate.
“What an amazing coincidence. Find him. Find the men he
worked with regularly. We have a great deal to discuss.”
Greys scattered. One bold captain, however, remained behind to
report, “Rumor in the city says the Bhodi intend to resume
their self-immolations. They want the Radisha to come out and
address their concerns personally.”
The news did not improve Soulcatcher’s temper. “Ask
them if they would like me to donate the naphtha they need.
I’m feeling particularly charitable today. Also ask them if
they can hold off starting long enough for the carpenters to put up
grandstands so more of the Radisha’s good subjects can enjoy
the entertainment. I don’t care what those lunatics do. Get
out of here! Find that Barundandi slug!” The voice she used
was informed with a potent lunacy.
Jaul Barundandi’s luck was mixed. He managed to avoid the
attentions of the bats and crows and shadows the Protector
released when the Greys had no immediate success in locating him,
but an informer eventually betrayed him when the reward for his
capture grew large enough. The lie was that he had attacked and
severely wounded the Radisha, that only the Protector’s swift
intercession with her most powerful sorcery had saved the
Princess’s life. The Radisha’s situation remained
grave.
The Taglian people loved their Radisha. Jaul Barundandi
discovered that he had no friends but his accomplices and it was
one of those who betrayed him in exchange for a partial reward (the
Grey officers pocketing the bulk) and a running start.
Jaul Barundandi suffered terrible torments and tried hard to
cooperate so the pain would stop but he could tell the Protector
nothing that she wanted to know. So she had him put into a cage and
hung fifteen feet above the place where the Bhodi disciples
generally chose to give up their lives and issued a rescript
encouraging passersby to throw stones. It was her intent that he
hang there indefinitely, his suffering neverending, but sometime
during the first night, somehow, someone managed to toss him a
piece of poisoned fruit while leaving his betrayer and a murdered
Grey below, each with a piece of paper in his mouth bearing the
characters for “Water Sleeps.” Crows savaged both
corpses before they were discovered.
It was the last time Black Company tokens would be seen but
their appearance was sufficient to provoke the Protector almost
beyond reason. For days the still-loyal remnants of the Greys
remained extremely busy making arrests, most of them of people
unable to guess what they had done to irk Soulcatcher.
She never did get to the Nyueng Bao swamp despite having made
necessary repairs to her remaining carpet. Taglios became more
fractious by the hour. She had to devote her entire attention to
keeping the city tamed.
Then came the faithful and tattered little shadow that had made
its way through mountains and forests, over lakes and rivers and
plains, in order to bring her news of what was happening in the
nethermost south.
Soulcatcher screamed a scream of rage so potent that the entire
city became informed of it instantly. Immigrants began to rehearse
the wisdom of a return to the provinces.
The Great General and two of his staff officers broke through
the door to the Protector’s apartment, certain she needed
rescuing. Instead, they found her pacing furiously and debating
herself in half a dozen voices. “They have the Key. They must
have the Key. They must have murdered the Deceiver. Maybe they made
an alliance with Kina. Why would they go down there? Why would they
go onto the plain after what happened to the last group? What keeps
pulling them out there? I’ve read their Annals. There’s
nothing in those. What do they know? The Land of Unknown Shadows?
They cannot have developed an entirely new and independent oral
tradition since they served me in the north. If it’s
important one of them will record it. Why? Why? What do they know
that I don’t?”
Soulcatcher became aware of Mogaba and his men. The latter
looked around nervously, trying to figure out where the voices were
coming from. When Soulcatcher became excited, those seemed to come
from everywhere at once.
“You. Have you caught me any terrorists yet?”
“No. Nor shall I unless an angry family member comes
forward because he thinks it would be a good way to get even. There
won’t be more than a handful left here and those probably
don’t know each other. I gather, from what I overheard, that
they’ve gone back to Shadowcatch.” He had worked for
the Shadowmaster Longshadow. He could not get out of the habit of
calling Kiaulune by the name given it by his previous employer.
“Exactly. We’re back where we were fifteen years
ago. Only now they have the Radisha and the Key.” Her tone
left no doubt she placed the blame entirely on him.
Mogaba was not bothered. Not immediately. He was accustomed to
being blamed for the shortcomings of others and he did not believe
the remnants of the Black Company could offer any real threat any
time soon. They had been beaten down too thoroughly and had been
away from it too long. They were more military than the Deceivers
only inside their own fantasies. Even the comic-opera functionaries
down there ought to be able to wear them down and bury them
eventually. They would find no aid or sympathy in the Shadowlands.
The people down there really did remember the Black Company’s
last visit. “The Key? What is that?”
“A means of passing through the Shadowgate unharmed. A
talisman that makes it possible to travel on the plain.” Her
voice had become pedantic. Now it became angry. “I possessed
that talisman at one time. Long ago I used it to go up there and
explore. Longshadow would have been unmanned had he known. More
unmanned than the eunuch he already was. But it disappeared in the
early excitement around Kiaulune. I suspect that Kina clouded my
mind while the Deceiver Singh stole both it and my sister’s
darling daughter. I can’t imagine why that rabble would want
to go onto the plain after the previous disaster but if it’s
something they want to do, it’s something I want to prevent.
Prepare for a journey.”
“We can’t leave Taglios unsupervised for as long as
it would take us to travel all the way to Shadowcatch. We
don’t have the stallion anymore, even if it could carry
double.”
Soulcatcher was baffled. “What?”
“The black stallion from the north. The one I’ve
been using all these years. It’s vanished. It broke down its
stall and ran off. I told you that last month.” She did not
recall that, obviously.
“We’ll fly.”
“But—” Mogaba hated flying. In the days when
he had been Longshadow’s general he had had to fly with the
Howler almost daily. He still loathed those times. “I thought
the larger carpet was the one that was destroyed.”
“The small one will carry both of us. It’ll be hard
work. I’ll have to rest a lot. But we’ll still be able
to get down there and back before these people know we’re
gone and try to take advantage. A week for the round trip. Ten days
at the outside.”
The Great General had a few dozen reservations but kept them
behind his teeth. The Protector was worse than Longshadow had been
about suffering opinions she did not want to hear.
Soulcatcher said, “We’ll adopt disguises once we get
there and go among them. I want you to keep an eye out for a
hammer, so by so, made of cast iron but far heavier than it ought
to be.”
Mogaba bowed slightly. He said nothing about how difficult it
would be for either of them to blend in with the crowd they would
be chasing.
Soulcatcher told him, “Prepare your men. They’ll
have to keep Taglios under control for a cquple of
weeks.”
Mogaba withdrew, saying nothing about the proposed time changing
already. In his position it was necessary to do a lot of saying
nothing.
The Protector watched him go, amused. He did not conceal his
thinking nearly as well as he believed. But she was ancient in her
wickedness and had studied the dark side of humanity so thoroughly
that she could almost read minds.