I glared at Sleepy. “You ever going to be good for anything but turning food into shit?”
Sleepy just sat there in the gathering darkness, on what used to be Mother Gota’s pallet, staring into infinity. Not only was he not coming back from whatever fairy kingdom had captured his mind, he could hardly move anymore. He did very little of anything. When he did it seemed to hurt him a great deal. If he kept on without exercising he was going to have to hope one of his Company brothers liked him enough to carry him.
I liked him better than anybody but Bucket, but I did not like him that much. See you when we get back, little guy.
We are not a march-or-die outfit. Not quite. We try to take care of our own. But there is an underlying assumption that our own will try to manage for themselves first. There are plenty of precedents for ending the misery of a brother who becomes too great a burden or risk to the rest of the Company.
Sleepy did not respond. He never did. I rolled onto my pallet. I tried not to think about having to go up the mountain again tomorrow. The heebie-jeebies got worse if I did.
* * *
I felt Soulcatcher somewhere nearby. The darkness was total, though. I could not find her. Maybe it was my good fortune that she was not interested in finding me. Though she did not seem interested in anything at the moment.
I was ghostwalking. I knew it. But in total darkness there were no landmarks. I could not find my way anywhere.
I drifted.
Only gradually did I become aware that I was not alone.
Somebody was watching me. Or something was.
The scrutiny of that other intensified as I became more aware of it. The darkness around me remained total but in some other way I began to fathom it.
Red eyes, yellow fangs, skin so much blacker than the darkness that it seemed to gleam negatively … Kina. Destroyer. Queen of Deception. Mother … Not exactly evil incarnate—the Shadowlanders insist that one of her avatars is creative—but for goddamn sure she was a power big enough to scare the shit out of me if she took an interest.
She had. Her crimson eyes bored a hole right through my ghostly soul. Her great ugly face shriveled in upon itself like a skinned apple drying out, then in upon itself some more, till there was nothing left but a ruby point. That point began to move. At the same time I had a growing feeling that someone was trying to warn me about something.
Kina? Trying to communicate? With me? But she had her own agents in the world.
Or did she?
Narayan Singh was a prisoner. The Daughter of Night was a prisoner, or maybe dead. There had been no sign of her lately. And Lady had declared her independence long ago. Now she was just a mystic parasite.
Maybe I was the only one out there in the world that the goddess could touch.
I followed the red dot. It led me to the plain of old bones. I spread my wings and braked, settled onto a branch in a leafless tree. Incompletely decomposed corpses lay strewn amongst the bones this time. I took wing again and glided close above them. Scarab beetles scattered, frightened by my shadow. Never before had I seen anything but a few crows out there.
A tower of darkness loomed on the horizon, a tall black thunderstorm filled with muttering blood-colored lightnings. I flapped heavy wings, headed that way. It seemed like the right thing to do.
For a moment the cloud revealed an evil vampire face and lots of arms. Those reached out to welcome me.
After a moment of disorientation I was gliding above a land where only a few sparks of light marked human habitation. I tilted my head. I had very good eyes—even in the dark. But I did not recognize where I was until I dropped low enough to make out Overlook’s battlements masking the stars south of me.
I could not have been more than a hundred feet off the unseen ground when the earth began to boil and spawn a thousand minnows of light. The air slammed against me, flipped me over on my back. Then came the roar.
I was really there. I was no imaginary crow. I was the white beast itself.
I righted myself just in time to see a spray of fireballs headed my way. I dodged them.
I was back in the middle of last night.
I got down low where rocks and whatnot would protect me from the growing storm of fireballs. I did not forget what they could do to stone—if they were the new jumped-up variety. And I had several opportunities to see what they could do, up close, like I was some poor sucker on the wrong side of the Company. Every time I found a nice perch, zow! Crackling bacon.
The people I saw were all running with tremendous enthusiasm. Most were not fast enough or had gotten too late a start. Some never got up out of the underground at all. Smothering earth did the job on them.
The movement of colorfully glittering steel caught my eye.
Somebody was headed the wrong way.
Uncle Doj had run toward the disaster as soon as it started happening. The old boy had made good time if what I saw was him. Maybe he was more spry than he pretended. I flapped upward, glided toward the reflections off Ash Wand.
A crow is damned ungainly when he is first getting himself airborne.
It was Uncle. And he was not eager to enjoy my company. Ash Wand snapped like a lightning stroke. Doj had more reach than I recalled from our drills. He almost got me. The crow’s reflexes saved me. It dodged before the thought even occurred to me.
I got behind him, let the fires show where he was, stayed out of reach. When he found a place from which to watch and knelt there, I found myself a modestly prominent stone and perched, cursing the human plague that had devoured all the trees and other high places hereabouts. I watched the watcher.
Uncle was there just long enough to catch his breath and demonstrate his own fantastic reflexes by dodging a few fireballs before the earth opened and a pillar of dark green light emerged. Fireballs slid off it. Its color was so deep I doubted anyone much farther away could see it. It moved straight toward me. Which meant it would pass right by Uncle Doj.
Once it left the pit the green shielding melted away. The creature within emerged. Lucky me, I was a bird. Lucky Uncle, he was old. Else both of us would have drowned in our own drool. This was one gorgeous woman and she was not wearing a stitch.
Soulcatcher.
Even in a birdly state I did appreciate how long it had been since I had seen my wife.
Catcher began to shimmer, not putting on another shield but taking another face. The effort distracted her from her surroundings. She did not spot Uncle Doj, who had become one with the night as deftly as a Deceiver. I recognized form and face just as Uncle, from behind Catcher, brought Ash Wand whining down in a stroke that should have sliced her to her breastbone.
She was fast. She tried to dodge and throw up some sort of sorcerous defense. The air groaned. She cried out and plunged forward, not killed but certainly cut badly. Uncle jumped in to finish her off. Ash Wand flashed. Blood flew. Catcher bounced around. So did Uncle. Chance interceded. A bamboo pole in the holocaust began popping off. Two fireballs clipped Uncle good. Catcher bounced him around some while he was distracted but did not have the strength to finish him. Anyway, people were responding to the noise, though it would be hours before Doj was found.
Catcher dragged herself away, used her enfeebled power to control her bleeding and change her shape. By the time she reached her hidden clothing she had become Sleepy. Which explained why Sleepy was so useless. As long as he passed for insane he was less likely to endure a scrutiny close enough to reveal the fact that he was not my prodigal assistant.
I was angry in a major way. Where was the real kid?
I flapped down and landed on Uncle’s chest. He was drowning in his own blood. I pecked and pulled and forced him to turn his head to the side. Then I went after Soulcatcher.
She had disappeared.
I did not find a trace. But I knew where she was headed. Sleepy would be inside my bunker, never having been missed, when I got up in the morning thinking I had suffered through a sleepless night.
Now
I knew what had happened to Smoke, too. That twitch of cheek I had glimpsed on Sleepy had been Catcher realizing she could be found out if anybody took Smoke cruising along her backtrail.
I knew her secret now, anyway, though. Maybe Kina was a more powerful enemy than Catcher suspected. The goddess might even have a sense of irony, using a crow to stalk the mistress of crows.
I settled onto the roof of my bunker. Beneath me Thai Dei snorted and snored as badly as he had the night we decimated One-Eye’s trove. Someone else down there was making a racket, too. Since Sleepy was out I figured it had to be me, which meant Sahra was right when she accused me of roaring like a starving bear.
I never believed her before.
Hard to believe we had gone to sleep after watching all the excitement across the way. Catcher must have sent a spell ahead or left a doozie behind.
I had a feeling I would not be comfortable looking at myself from outside so overcame the temptation to flap down and peek through the doorway.
Sleepy came out of the darkness.
For somebody who had been mauled and cut up Soulcatcher could move like a gazelle. No healthy, normal human could run that well. Maybe a little sorcery?
I had wondered how I would get out of the white crow. Catcher’s swift approach was the key. The crow took off. I stayed behind. I floated and watched. And as Catcher slowed and had to begin to acknowledge her wounds I floated up and away and in a direction that could only be described as tomorrow. Catcher did not sense my presence even though it was she who had made it easy for me to slip the moorings of my flesh.
Then it was the night I had left. And everybody, including me, was snoring away inside the bunker. And I was still free to wander the ghostworld.
98
Sahra was sleeping restlessly. Tobo lay beside her, one little paw on her bare breast, occasionally sucking at her nipple. I watched for a while. My tension slipped away as I did.
What kind of lunatic was I? This was what I wanted and where I wanted to be but in a few hours I was going to hoist my weary body up and climb the mountain again. And I would keep climbing the mountain even though it might kill me.
Why?
I would. I knew I would. But I did not know what compelled me to do so.
I extended a ghostly hand to Tobo. For a moment it seemed I actually felt his warmth. He stirred as though having a bad dream. I withdrew, tried to stroke Sarie’s hair instead.
She smiled.
“Mur. I thought I felt you. It’s been so long.” She chattered softly. I basked in it, wishing I could talk to her, too. She peeled Tobo off her breast and stood up, bare to the waist, doing a little dance that reminded me just how long it had been. She was recovering her figure already. She flashed me a mocking smile, looking right at me. Maybe she was a witch. “Tobo is strong enough to travel. The Water Dragon Festival is coming soon. I will leave then, in the confusion. My preparations are all made.”
My wife, the smart, confident, competent woman. I wondered what I had done to deserve so much, other than to tickle her grandmother’s fancy.
Sarie danced. I drooled. Tobo began to fuss. I think he sensed my presence easier than Sarie did. I frightened him.
“If you were here…” Sarie sighed, stared me in the invisible eye as she offered me an even more lascivious look. “But you aren’t.” She shrugged. “But it won’t be that long.” She cradled our son in her arms. He took a nipple immediately, donning a look of smug satisfaction.
I know what you mean, kid.
Tobo’s eyes popped open. The one I could see stared right at me where I watched over Sarie’s shoulder. He let go, took a deep breath, let out a whopper of a howl. The kid had lungs.
A priest invited himself in almost instantly. “What’s going on?” he demanded. “Why is the child screaming? Who were you whispering to?”
“Get out,” Sahra told him. “You have no right to come in here.”
The priest had trouble dragging his gaze away from her breasts. He began to apologize with not entirely credible sincerity.
Sahra snapped, “The baby has gas tonight. He’s having trouble with his digestion. I talk to him. That allows me a chance to have a sensible conversation occasionally.”
That’s the girl. Get the poor kid dosed with shark’s-liver oil or some nasty-tasting powder. That will teach him to yell when his old man comes around.
I drifted in and did my best to plant a kiss on the small of Sarie’s neck before I left. I went away as happy as a man could be in my circumstances. I knew my wife and child were well and still loved me. There are plenty of men in today’s Company who do not have a clue about their families—although, in truth, not many care. Were they the sort who did care they would have left when the Taglian loyalists were allowed to go home.
The rest of the swamp was a silent, dark place. Which was to be expected at that time of night. I found my way to Taglios though there was no moon and the sky was overcast.
It would not be long before the rainy season began.
I spent hours roaming the Palace and the more important temples but learned very little. Without Smoke I was constrained by real time and it was too late for anybody but the priests of the Night Gods to be stirring and scheming. And those people were not plotting, they were preparing for some minor feast night.
Maybe, if I planned to do much useful ghostwalking, I would have to get to bed early in the evening, while the world was still awake and conspiring. I found no news anywhere unless you count the overwhelming evidence that persecution of friends of the Company had spread throughout most of the territories our efforts had brought under Taglian suzerainty. It did not seem a persecution as vicious as had been ours of the Stranglers. Our friends were surviving it. Mostly they were just losing their appointments. In a few cases where there were personality conflicts some people ended up inside cells. Murder did not appear to be a tool the Radisha cared to employ.
All my assumptions were based on spare, postmidnight evidence.
I could not find Mogaba. I could not find either of our prodigal wizards. No surprise. I did not invest much effort in the hunt. I did put some into trying to locate Croaker’s kid.
Wherever she was she would be alone. There might be an opportunity in that.
While I searched I also kept an eye out for some evidence of what had become of the real Sleepy.
I had no luck with those quests, either. But I did stumble on evidence that my blindness might not be entirely accidental.
I was drifting over a slope I knew to be in the mountains not many miles from Catcher’s former cave. I was sure Catcher would not have gone far when she moved, despite having Howler’s carpet at her disposal. I wandered into an area of small, deep and dark canyons. I flitted up and down those, letting their walls guide me, figuring the kid, or anyone else, would be detectable by the heat or light of a fire. I doubted she could do without.
I found no fire. I did find my horse. I think. I whipped past the beast, catching only a glimpse, an impression that it was confined inescapably, another that it sensed my passage and tried to respond. But when I stopped and turned back I could find nothing. In fact, it seemed that in just a moment that entire corner of the world became a sensory desert.
I had run with Kina once already this trip. I might not be alone now, especially if I was anywhere near the Daughter of Night.
I knew the general area. I would tell Croaker. He could send soldiers out if he wanted.
Catcher would not be getting in our way.
My last action was to check on Uncle Doj where the Nyueng Bao bodyguards were keeping vigil. He was unconscious but alive. I gathered that they were keeping him drugged for his own good, giving him time to heal. Whatever his mission, he did not need to complete it immediately.
I went home to my comfortable flesh and uncomfortable bed.
The guys let me sleep in like it was a holiday. The sun was already up when I crawled out of my bunker, past the vacant-eyed Sleepy doppelganger sprawled besid
e the doorway.
99
Croaker arrived soon after I finished my breakfast mush. He had not slept in. “You went in yesterday? How was it?”
“Just a few yards. Thai Dei, too. He insisted. We had ropes tied to our butts. Sit down here and check out the view across the way.” I had my back to Sleepy. I did not want my lips read. I made gestures like I was talking about something else while I whispered my news.
Croaker chuckled. “Now isn’t that interesting. We’ll just play along for now. I won’t even tell Lady. Though I got to tell you, everybody but you already suspected.”
“Shit. That’s why you were such a bunch of assholes. You didn’t trust me not to give it away. What’s the plan for today?”
“Try the road all the way to the top. I’ll go with you. Save the talk till we get on the other side.”
“Good idea.” I let everything wait till later. “You eaten?”
He glanced at my battered tin bowl. “You live like kings over here, don’t you?”
“Absolutely. Only the best for the cream of the legion.”
“I’ll pass. This time.” He looked up the mountain and sighed. “One-Eye had the right idea. I’m too old for this shit.”
“It’s not that bad.” It was not. When I call the slope a mountain I mean it metaphorically. The road could be made usable by wagons with very little work and the rim of the plateau could not have been more than a thousand feet higher than the Shadowgate. And probably not that far.
“Let me know when you’re ready.” The Old Man massaged his right knee. He noticed me noticing. “Little rheumatiz. But it only hurts when I walk on it.”
Buy a horse, I thought but did not say. “How old are you really?”
“You’re as young as you think you are,” he replied, his expression branding that one a load of old manure. “Lady keeps me young.”