There were flakes
of snow in the air whenever the wind took to loafing. Then each
time it found renewed ambition it hurled tiny flecks of ice that
stung my face and hands. Though it sounded fearful, the level of
grumbling never reached suggestions of mutiny. Willow Swan trotted
up and down the column gossiping and dropping reminders that we had
nowhere to go but straight ahead. The weather did not hamper him at
all. He seemed to find it invigorating. He kept telling everyone
how wonderful it would be once we got some real snow, say, four or
five feet. The world would look better then, yes sir! He guaranteed
it. He grew up in stuff like that and it made a real man out of
you.
With equal frequency I overheard some advice—the fulfillment of
which was physically impossible for anyone not some select variety
of worm—as often the people cried out, offering up impassioned
pleas to One-Eye, Goblin, even Tobo, to fill Swan’s mouth
with quick-setting mortar.
“Are you having fun?” I asked him.
“Oh, yeah. And they’re not blaming you for anything,
either.”
His boyish grin told me he was not being some kind of unwanted
hero. He was playing games with me, too.
All northerners seemed to have that capacity for play. Even the
Captain and Lady, sometimes, had shown signs with one another. And
One-Eye and Goblin . . . the little black
wizard’s stroke may have been a godsend. I could not imagine
those two missing an opportunity for screwing up as grand as this
one was if they were both in excellent health.
When I suggested something of the sort to Swan he failed to
understand. Once I explained, he observed, “You’re
missing the point, Sleepy. Unless they’re extremely drunk,
those two won’t do anything dangerous to anybody but
themselves. I’m on the outside and I recognized that twenty
years ago. How could you miss it?”
“You’re right. And I do know that. I’m just
looking for things to go wrong. I get gloomy when I try to prepare
myself for the worst. How come you’re so cheerful?”
“Right up ahead. Another day. Two, maximum. I get to say
hi to my old buddies, Cordy and Blade.”
I looked at him askance. Could he be the only one of us more
excited than frightened by the possibilities inherent in releasing
the Captured? Only one of those people had not spent the past
fifteen years trapped inside his own mind. And I was not convinced
that Murgen was not working overtime to maintain a false facade of
sanity. The others . . . I did not doubt that
quite a few would come forth stark, raving mad. Nor did the
rest.
Nowhere was that fear more evident than in the Radisha.
“Tadjik,” had remained almost invisible since she
had rejoined us this side of the Dandha Presh. Though Riverwalker
and Runmust stayed close, she needed no watching and made few
demands. She stayed to herself, cloaked in brooding. The farther we
moved from Taglios, the nearer we approached her brother, the more
withdrawn she became. On the road, after the Grove of Doom, we had
become almost sisterly. But the pendulum had been swinging the
other way ever since Jaicur and we had not exchanged a hundred
words a week this side of the mountains. That did not please me. I
enjoyed her company, conversation and slashing wit.
Even Master Santaraksita had had no luck drawing her out lately,
though she had developed an affection for his scholarly drollery.
Between them, the pair could gut and flense a fool’s argument
faster than a master butcher ever cleaned a chicken.
I mentioned the problem to Willow Swan.
“I’ll bet it’s not her brother that’s
bothering her. He wouldn’t be the biggest thing, anyway.
I’d guess she’s down about not being able to go back.
Ever since she realized we’re probably on a one-wayer here,
she’s been in a black depression.”
“Uhm?”
“It’s Rajadharma. That’s not just a handy
propaganda slogan for her, Sleepy. She takes being the ruler of
Taglios seriously. You got her strolling on down here, month after
month, seeing what the Protector did in her name. You have to
understand that she’s going to be upset about the way she let
herself get used. And then she has to face the fact that
she’ll probably never get a chance to do anything about it.
She’s not that hard to understand.”
But he had been close to her for thirty years.
“We’re going back.”
“Oh, sure. And on the one chance in a zillion that we
really do, who’s going to have an army waiting? Can you say
Soulcatcher?”
“Sure. And I can also say she’ll forget us in six
months. She’ll find a more interesting game to
play.”
“And can you say ‘Water sleeps?’ So can
Soulcatcher, Sleepy. You don’t know her. Nobody does—except
maybe Lady, a little. But I got closer than most for a while. Not
exactly by choice, but there I was. I tried to pay attention, for
what good it would do me. She isn’t entirely inhuman and she
isn’t as vain and heedless as she might want the world to
think. Bottom line, you need to keep one critical fact firmly in
mind when you’re thinking about Soulcatcher. And that is that
she’s still alive in a world where her deadliest enemy was
the Lady of the Tower. Remembering that in her time Lady made the
Shadowmasters look like unschooled bullies.”
“You’re really wound today, aren’t
you?”
“Just stating the facts.”
“Here’s one of your own right back. Water sleeps.
The woman who used to be the Lady of the Tower will be back on her
feet in another few days.”
“You’d better ask Murgen if he thinks she’ll
want to bother getting up. I’ll bet you it’s not this
cold where she’s at.” The breeze on the plain had begun
to gnaw both deeply and relentlessly.
I did not disagree even though he knew the truth. He might not
remember but he must have helped Soulcatcher move the Captured into
the ice caverns where they lay imprisoned.
A murder of crows appeared from the north, fighting the wind.
They had very little to say to one another. They circled a few
times, then fought for altitude and rode the breeze toward Mama.
They would not have much to report.
We began to find more bodies, sometimes in twos and threes. A
fair number of the Captured had not been caught at all. I recalled
Murgen’s report that almost half the party made a break for
the world after Soulcatcher got loose. Here they were. I did not
remember most of them. They were Taglian or Jaicuri rather than Old
Crew, mostly, which meant they had enlisted while I was up north on
Murgen’s behalf.
We came upon Suyen Dinh Duc, Bucket’s Nyueng Bao
bodyguard. Duc’s body had been prepared neatly for ceremonial
farewells. That Bucket had paused in the midst of terror to honor
one of the quietest and most unobtrusive of the Nyueng Bao
companions spoke volumes about the character of my adopted father—and that of Duc. Bucket had refused to accept protection. He did
not want a bodyguard. And Suyen Dinh Duc had refused to go away. He
had felt called by a power far superior to Bucket’s will. I
believe they became friends when nobody was looking.
I began to shed the tears that had not come when we had found
Bucket himself.
Willow Swan and Suvrin tried to comfort me. Both were uneasy
with the effort, not quite knowing if hugging would be acceptable.
It sure would have been but I did not know how to let them know
without saying it. That would have embarrassed me too much.
Sahra provided the comfort as the Nyueng Bao gathered to honor
one of their own.
Swan woofed. The white crow had landed on his left shoulder and
pecked at his ear. It studied the dead man with one eye and the
rest of us with the other.
Uncle Doj observed, “Your friend was supremely confident
that someone would come this way again, Annalist. He left Duc in
the attitude called ‘In Respect of Patient Repose,’
which we do when a proper funeral has to be delayed. Neither gods
nor devils disturb the dead while they lie so disposed.”
I sniffled. “Water sleeps, Uncle. Bucket believed. He knew
we’d come.”
Bucket’s belief had been stronger than mine. Mine barely
survived the Kiaulune wars. Without Sahra’s relentless desire
to resurrect Murgen I would not have come through the times of
despair. I would not have become strong enough to endure when
Sahra’s own time of doubt came upon her.
Now we were here, with nowhere to go but forward. I dried my
eyes. “We don’t have time to stand around talking. Our
resources are painfully finite. Let’s load him
up—”
Doj interrupted. “We would prefer to leave him as he is,
where he is, till we can send him off with the appropriate
ceremonies.”
“And those would be—”
“What?”
“I haven’t seen many dead Nyueng Bao since the siege
of Jaicur. You people do a good job of dancing around death. But I
have seen a few of your tribe dead and there wasn’t any
obviously necessary funeral ritual. Some got burned on the ghats as
though they were Gunni. I saw one man buried in the ground, as if
he were Vehdna. I’ve even seen a corpse rubbed with bad
smelling unguents, then wrapped like a mummy and hung head-down
from a high tree branch.”
Doj said, “Each funeral would have been appropriate to the
person and situation, I’m sure. What’s done with the
flesh isn’t critical. The ceremonies are intended to ease the
soul’s transition to its new state. They’re absolutely
essential. If they’re not observed, the dead man’s
spirit may be compelled to wander the earth
indefinitely.”
“As ghosts? Or dreamwalkers?”
Doj seemed startled. “Uh? Ghosts? A restless spirit that
wants to finish tasks interrupted by death. They can’t, so
they just keep going.”
Although Vehdna ghosts are wicked spirits cursed to wander by
God Himself, I had no trouble following Doj’s notion.
“Then we’ll leave him here. You want to stand beside
him? To make sure he stays safe from traffic?” Bucket had
placed Duc at the edge of the road so he would not be disturbed by
the terrified fugitives back then.
“How did he die?” Swan asked. Then he squawked. The
white crow had nipped his ear again.
Everybody turned to stare at Swan. “What do you
mean?” I asked.
“Look, if a shadow got Duc and somebody tried to lay him
out proper, that layer-outer would be here dead as a wedge, too.
Right? So he must’ve died some other way,
before—” A dim lamp seemed to come alive inside his
head.
“Catcher did it!” the crow said. It was crow caw but
the words were clear. “Haw! Haw! Catcher did it!”
The Nyueng Bao began to press in on Swan.
“Catcher did it,” I reminded them. “Probably
with a booby-trap spell. By the time Duc reached this point, she
would’ve been ten miles ahead of anybody on foot. She was
mounted, remember. From what I remember about Duc, he probably saw
the trap as Bucket tripped it and jumped in the way.”
Gota pointed out, “The Protector could not have left a
booby trap to kill Duc if she had not been released.” Her
Taglian was the best I had ever heard it. The anger in her eyes
said she wanted no mistake to be made.
Sahra whispered, “Suyen Dinh Duc was a second cousin to my
father.”
I said, “We’ve been through this before, people. We
can’t exonerate Willow Swan but we can forgive him if we
recall the circumstances he faced. Do any of you really think you
can get the best of the Protector, face-to-face? No hands? But some
of you think so in your heart.” Few Nyueng Bao lacked for
arrogant self-confidence. “Here’s your challenge. Run
back and prove it. The Shadowgate will let you out. Soulcatcher is
on foot. She’s crippled. You can catch up fast. Can you ask
for any more?” I paused. “What? No takers? Then lay off
Swan.”
The white crow cawed mockingly.
I saw a few thoughtful, sheepish faces but Gota’s was not
one of them. Gota had never been wrong in her life except that one
time when she had thought she might be wrong.
Swan let it roll off. As he had done for years. He had learned
from the strictest instructress. He did suggest, “You said we
need to keep rolling, Sleepy. Although I guess we meat-eaters can
start on the vegetarians after their stories run out.”
“Carry the Key, Tobo. Thank you, Sahra.”
Sahra turned away. “Mother, stay with Tobo. Don’t
let him walk any faster than you do.”
Ky Gota grumbled something under her breath and turned away from
us. She followed Tobo. Her rolling waddle could be deceptive when
she was in a hurry. She overhauled the boy, grabbed hold of his
shirt. Off they went, the old woman’s mouth going steadily.
No gambler by nature, still I would have bet that she was fuming
about what foul mortals the rest of us be.
I observed, “Ky Gota appears to have found
herself.”
Not one of the Nyueng Bao found any reason to celebrate that
eventuation.
A mile later we came across the only animal remains that we
would ever find from the earlier expedition. They were piled in a
heap, bones and shredded dry flesh so intertangled there was no
telling how many beasts there had been or why they had gathered
together, in life or in death. The whole grim mess appeared to have
been subsiding into the surface of the plain slowly. Given another
decade, it would be gone.
There were flakes
of snow in the air whenever the wind took to loafing. Then each
time it found renewed ambition it hurled tiny flecks of ice that
stung my face and hands. Though it sounded fearful, the level of
grumbling never reached suggestions of mutiny. Willow Swan trotted
up and down the column gossiping and dropping reminders that we had
nowhere to go but straight ahead. The weather did not hamper him at
all. He seemed to find it invigorating. He kept telling everyone
how wonderful it would be once we got some real snow, say, four or
five feet. The world would look better then, yes sir! He guaranteed
it. He grew up in stuff like that and it made a real man out of
you.
With equal frequency I overheard some advice—the fulfillment of
which was physically impossible for anyone not some select variety
of worm—as often the people cried out, offering up impassioned
pleas to One-Eye, Goblin, even Tobo, to fill Swan’s mouth
with quick-setting mortar.
“Are you having fun?” I asked him.
“Oh, yeah. And they’re not blaming you for anything,
either.”
His boyish grin told me he was not being some kind of unwanted
hero. He was playing games with me, too.
All northerners seemed to have that capacity for play. Even the
Captain and Lady, sometimes, had shown signs with one another. And
One-Eye and Goblin . . . the little black
wizard’s stroke may have been a godsend. I could not imagine
those two missing an opportunity for screwing up as grand as this
one was if they were both in excellent health.
When I suggested something of the sort to Swan he failed to
understand. Once I explained, he observed, “You’re
missing the point, Sleepy. Unless they’re extremely drunk,
those two won’t do anything dangerous to anybody but
themselves. I’m on the outside and I recognized that twenty
years ago. How could you miss it?”
“You’re right. And I do know that. I’m just
looking for things to go wrong. I get gloomy when I try to prepare
myself for the worst. How come you’re so cheerful?”
“Right up ahead. Another day. Two, maximum. I get to say
hi to my old buddies, Cordy and Blade.”
I looked at him askance. Could he be the only one of us more
excited than frightened by the possibilities inherent in releasing
the Captured? Only one of those people had not spent the past
fifteen years trapped inside his own mind. And I was not convinced
that Murgen was not working overtime to maintain a false facade of
sanity. The others . . . I did not doubt that
quite a few would come forth stark, raving mad. Nor did the
rest.
Nowhere was that fear more evident than in the Radisha.
“Tadjik,” had remained almost invisible since she
had rejoined us this side of the Dandha Presh. Though Riverwalker
and Runmust stayed close, she needed no watching and made few
demands. She stayed to herself, cloaked in brooding. The farther we
moved from Taglios, the nearer we approached her brother, the more
withdrawn she became. On the road, after the Grove of Doom, we had
become almost sisterly. But the pendulum had been swinging the
other way ever since Jaicur and we had not exchanged a hundred
words a week this side of the mountains. That did not please me. I
enjoyed her company, conversation and slashing wit.
Even Master Santaraksita had had no luck drawing her out lately,
though she had developed an affection for his scholarly drollery.
Between them, the pair could gut and flense a fool’s argument
faster than a master butcher ever cleaned a chicken.
I mentioned the problem to Willow Swan.
“I’ll bet it’s not her brother that’s
bothering her. He wouldn’t be the biggest thing, anyway.
I’d guess she’s down about not being able to go back.
Ever since she realized we’re probably on a one-wayer here,
she’s been in a black depression.”
“Uhm?”
“It’s Rajadharma. That’s not just a handy
propaganda slogan for her, Sleepy. She takes being the ruler of
Taglios seriously. You got her strolling on down here, month after
month, seeing what the Protector did in her name. You have to
understand that she’s going to be upset about the way she let
herself get used. And then she has to face the fact that
she’ll probably never get a chance to do anything about it.
She’s not that hard to understand.”
But he had been close to her for thirty years.
“We’re going back.”
“Oh, sure. And on the one chance in a zillion that we
really do, who’s going to have an army waiting? Can you say
Soulcatcher?”
“Sure. And I can also say she’ll forget us in six
months. She’ll find a more interesting game to
play.”
“And can you say ‘Water sleeps?’ So can
Soulcatcher, Sleepy. You don’t know her. Nobody does—except
maybe Lady, a little. But I got closer than most for a while. Not
exactly by choice, but there I was. I tried to pay attention, for
what good it would do me. She isn’t entirely inhuman and she
isn’t as vain and heedless as she might want the world to
think. Bottom line, you need to keep one critical fact firmly in
mind when you’re thinking about Soulcatcher. And that is that
she’s still alive in a world where her deadliest enemy was
the Lady of the Tower. Remembering that in her time Lady made the
Shadowmasters look like unschooled bullies.”
“You’re really wound today, aren’t
you?”
“Just stating the facts.”
“Here’s one of your own right back. Water sleeps.
The woman who used to be the Lady of the Tower will be back on her
feet in another few days.”
“You’d better ask Murgen if he thinks she’ll
want to bother getting up. I’ll bet you it’s not this
cold where she’s at.” The breeze on the plain had begun
to gnaw both deeply and relentlessly.
I did not disagree even though he knew the truth. He might not
remember but he must have helped Soulcatcher move the Captured into
the ice caverns where they lay imprisoned.
A murder of crows appeared from the north, fighting the wind.
They had very little to say to one another. They circled a few
times, then fought for altitude and rode the breeze toward Mama.
They would not have much to report.
We began to find more bodies, sometimes in twos and threes. A
fair number of the Captured had not been caught at all. I recalled
Murgen’s report that almost half the party made a break for
the world after Soulcatcher got loose. Here they were. I did not
remember most of them. They were Taglian or Jaicuri rather than Old
Crew, mostly, which meant they had enlisted while I was up north on
Murgen’s behalf.
We came upon Suyen Dinh Duc, Bucket’s Nyueng Bao
bodyguard. Duc’s body had been prepared neatly for ceremonial
farewells. That Bucket had paused in the midst of terror to honor
one of the quietest and most unobtrusive of the Nyueng Bao
companions spoke volumes about the character of my adopted father—and that of Duc. Bucket had refused to accept protection. He did
not want a bodyguard. And Suyen Dinh Duc had refused to go away. He
had felt called by a power far superior to Bucket’s will. I
believe they became friends when nobody was looking.
I began to shed the tears that had not come when we had found
Bucket himself.
Willow Swan and Suvrin tried to comfort me. Both were uneasy
with the effort, not quite knowing if hugging would be acceptable.
It sure would have been but I did not know how to let them know
without saying it. That would have embarrassed me too much.
Sahra provided the comfort as the Nyueng Bao gathered to honor
one of their own.
Swan woofed. The white crow had landed on his left shoulder and
pecked at his ear. It studied the dead man with one eye and the
rest of us with the other.
Uncle Doj observed, “Your friend was supremely confident
that someone would come this way again, Annalist. He left Duc in
the attitude called ‘In Respect of Patient Repose,’
which we do when a proper funeral has to be delayed. Neither gods
nor devils disturb the dead while they lie so disposed.”
I sniffled. “Water sleeps, Uncle. Bucket believed. He knew
we’d come.”
Bucket’s belief had been stronger than mine. Mine barely
survived the Kiaulune wars. Without Sahra’s relentless desire
to resurrect Murgen I would not have come through the times of
despair. I would not have become strong enough to endure when
Sahra’s own time of doubt came upon her.
Now we were here, with nowhere to go but forward. I dried my
eyes. “We don’t have time to stand around talking. Our
resources are painfully finite. Let’s load him
up—”
Doj interrupted. “We would prefer to leave him as he is,
where he is, till we can send him off with the appropriate
ceremonies.”
“And those would be—”
“What?”
“I haven’t seen many dead Nyueng Bao since the siege
of Jaicur. You people do a good job of dancing around death. But I
have seen a few of your tribe dead and there wasn’t any
obviously necessary funeral ritual. Some got burned on the ghats as
though they were Gunni. I saw one man buried in the ground, as if
he were Vehdna. I’ve even seen a corpse rubbed with bad
smelling unguents, then wrapped like a mummy and hung head-down
from a high tree branch.”
Doj said, “Each funeral would have been appropriate to the
person and situation, I’m sure. What’s done with the
flesh isn’t critical. The ceremonies are intended to ease the
soul’s transition to its new state. They’re absolutely
essential. If they’re not observed, the dead man’s
spirit may be compelled to wander the earth
indefinitely.”
“As ghosts? Or dreamwalkers?”
Doj seemed startled. “Uh? Ghosts? A restless spirit that
wants to finish tasks interrupted by death. They can’t, so
they just keep going.”
Although Vehdna ghosts are wicked spirits cursed to wander by
God Himself, I had no trouble following Doj’s notion.
“Then we’ll leave him here. You want to stand beside
him? To make sure he stays safe from traffic?” Bucket had
placed Duc at the edge of the road so he would not be disturbed by
the terrified fugitives back then.
“How did he die?” Swan asked. Then he squawked. The
white crow had nipped his ear again.
Everybody turned to stare at Swan. “What do you
mean?” I asked.
“Look, if a shadow got Duc and somebody tried to lay him
out proper, that layer-outer would be here dead as a wedge, too.
Right? So he must’ve died some other way,
before—” A dim lamp seemed to come alive inside his
head.
“Catcher did it!” the crow said. It was crow caw but
the words were clear. “Haw! Haw! Catcher did it!”
The Nyueng Bao began to press in on Swan.
“Catcher did it,” I reminded them. “Probably
with a booby-trap spell. By the time Duc reached this point, she
would’ve been ten miles ahead of anybody on foot. She was
mounted, remember. From what I remember about Duc, he probably saw
the trap as Bucket tripped it and jumped in the way.”
Gota pointed out, “The Protector could not have left a
booby trap to kill Duc if she had not been released.” Her
Taglian was the best I had ever heard it. The anger in her eyes
said she wanted no mistake to be made.
Sahra whispered, “Suyen Dinh Duc was a second cousin to my
father.”
I said, “We’ve been through this before, people. We
can’t exonerate Willow Swan but we can forgive him if we
recall the circumstances he faced. Do any of you really think you
can get the best of the Protector, face-to-face? No hands? But some
of you think so in your heart.” Few Nyueng Bao lacked for
arrogant self-confidence. “Here’s your challenge. Run
back and prove it. The Shadowgate will let you out. Soulcatcher is
on foot. She’s crippled. You can catch up fast. Can you ask
for any more?” I paused. “What? No takers? Then lay off
Swan.”
The white crow cawed mockingly.
I saw a few thoughtful, sheepish faces but Gota’s was not
one of them. Gota had never been wrong in her life except that one
time when she had thought she might be wrong.
Swan let it roll off. As he had done for years. He had learned
from the strictest instructress. He did suggest, “You said we
need to keep rolling, Sleepy. Although I guess we meat-eaters can
start on the vegetarians after their stories run out.”
“Carry the Key, Tobo. Thank you, Sahra.”
Sahra turned away. “Mother, stay with Tobo. Don’t
let him walk any faster than you do.”
Ky Gota grumbled something under her breath and turned away from
us. She followed Tobo. Her rolling waddle could be deceptive when
she was in a hurry. She overhauled the boy, grabbed hold of his
shirt. Off they went, the old woman’s mouth going steadily.
No gambler by nature, still I would have bet that she was fuming
about what foul mortals the rest of us be.
I observed, “Ky Gota appears to have found
herself.”
Not one of the Nyueng Bao found any reason to celebrate that
eventuation.
A mile later we came across the only animal remains that we
would ever find from the earlier expedition. They were piled in a
heap, bones and shredded dry flesh so intertangled there was no
telling how many beasts there had been or why they had gathered
together, in life or in death. The whole grim mess appeared to have
been subsiding into the surface of the plain slowly. Given another
decade, it would be gone.