Silent waved, held up two fingers. Elmo translated, “He knows. There are two traps, one behind the other. They weren’t there when we were here before. He’s trying to figure them out.”
“All right. Good to know that he isn’t just all talk.”
Again with a surprise. That was an amazingly clever remark for Shoré Chodroze.
“Here we go,” said one of the men with Silent, carefully lifting a strip of flooring eight inches wide and three feet long. Then he blurted, “Holy shit!” He tossed the board and tried to dive into the widened gap. Silent and the other soldier stopped him. Silent turned him till they were eye-to-eye. Silent did not actually need to remind the fool that they were trying to disarm a booby trap.
Two Dead said, “Must be gold where the cheese usually goes.”
He was right. There were fifteen gold coins under the stage, all fractional pieces, but even that was more than most men would earn in several years. Yes, most anyone would find it difficult to rein in his acquisitive instinct.
Two Dead said, “The second-layer trap will be behind the gold rat bait. And it’s almost undetectable.” He indicated Silent. “This is one talented man, to sniff it out without knowing it was there beforehand.”
I said, “He is talented. But he works hard to hide it.” Kidding on the square.
The Taken joined us and helped us stare at the gold. She said, “Sergeant. Elmo. Word was, you caught nine of my sisters here.” She made gestures over the gold that awed both Silent and Two Dead. Silent’s mouth hung open for several seconds.
Two Dead told the soldiers, “You can remove the coins safely, now. But do it slowly and stop instantly if someone tells you to.” He mused, “The man who engineered this may have been cruel enough to lay in a third-level trap.”
Greed and terror tormented the soldiers, and the rest of us, too.
There were coins enough for everybody to get a couple.
Two Dead addressed that obliquely by saying, “We all know exactly how many coins there are.”
The Taken did not get distracted by things that were shiny and round. “Sergeant. The girls. Where are they? I don’t feel them. And how did you come up with them?”
I dragged my attention away from the shiny while Elmo stumbled through his story. Like the coins, the girls had been bait for an ambush. But the shadow jars had been deployed in time to break that one.
Talk about shadow pots baffled Two Dead and the Taken.
My right hand strayed to the little stein that Firefly had given me.
A lot of weird was going around these days. Dark water rising, higher and higher.
I asked, “Nine girls? How old?”
“Thirteen, now. We caught four more that were with the guys who attacked us tonight.”
“Thirteen?”
“Yeah. From about five to maybe sixteen, mostly postpubescent. One of them is pregnant.”
“Look at you, using big words.” I turned to the Taken, stifling the fear that Elmo’s remark had sparked. “How about we keep this bunch out here, away from the ones at Aloe?” Except for the pregnant one. She had to go to the Tower, first cull. Only … Resurrectionists would not have put her at risk if she was the Port of Shadows, would they? They were desperate, now. They would hide her. They would bury her deep if she was carrying the reincarnation of their lord. Would they not?
Maybe. But they had fallen so far that they might start doing stupid stuff. Or, they could have been so sure that they would succeed that they had not bothered to consider the risk.
Guaranteed, we would see a shitload of excitement if the pregnant girl actually was the Port of Shadows. The suicidal behavior of our enemies would escalate way beyond insane, although there might not be many of them left to act.
“We have no choice. If we want the most dangerous girls gone before the next synchronicity crisis we really can’t add more girls to the mix.” She turned on Elmo, to press him about the pregnant girl.
Though she was a problem girl herself she was not complimentary to her newfound sisters. That said plenty about where she stood when she was free of the mind field.
Silent, helped by Two Dead, carefully studied a second-level trap created by crazy people.
I told the Taken, “Buzz is headed here with thirty more men. Him and Silent can keep the girls here till after the synch. The most dangerous ones will be gone, then. And we’ll know Her plans for the rest.”
“What was that? You shivered.”
“Oh, just…” No. Not just. Something. Without thought, I barked, “Silent! Two Dead! Don’t move!” Three quick steps and I was there with them, Shin’s cards in hand. I plucked one and flicked it into the hole in the stage. It flew like a thrown dagger and stuck just inches from two gold coins not yet retrieved.
Everyone gaped. If I had had a mirror I would have seen myself gaping, too. What did I just do?
The air seemed to go out of the hall. I felt like I was about to pop. My ears hurt. My eyeballs felt like needles were pushing them out from behind. Then came the rebound. I felt like I was being compressed to the size of an acorn.
The Taken said, “That was rough but it got stretched out so it wasn’t fatal. Colonel Chodroze and you, sir,” indicating Silent, “you need to join me outside. There will be a follow-up attack launched on the assumption that we in here were killed.”
Everybody gawked. Elmo asked, “How could you know?”
She snapped, “Move it! Soldiers will die if we don’t help.”
Elmo said, “But the jars are open.”
Silent poked him. This Taken did not know about Shin’s jars, nor did she need to know. But the enemy did know and his ultimate booby trap included a secondary spell that shattered all nearby crockery, whereupon a bloodbath was supposed to ensue. Our guys were expected to provide the blood.
But I had aborted some of that with the card. The Taken and Two Dead remained healthy and able to assist an equally healthy and thoroughly pissed-off Silent.
One of the soldiers cried, “But what about…?”
Elmo snapped, “You’re in charge. Keep in mind that these people know exactly how many coins there were.”
I said, “You two come up with any fairy-gold nonsense, your names will go in the Annals as having been delivered to Outsweeper.”
The Taken seized my arm, yanked, and barked, “Let’s go!”
“I liked the Mischievous Rain version better. She was nice.”
“I am Mischievous Rain. And I’m nice when I’m allowed to be—unless I have to deal with a man who gropes me uninvited.”
“I could apologize but I wouldn’t mean it. That was a once-in-a-lifetime moment that I’ll treasure forever because you are such a remarkable woman.”
Gods defend me! I must have been expecting to die, real soon. There was no way that the Croaker I had known all my life would have said that to any woman, let alone one who could turn him into a eunuch frog. Metaphorically speaking.
She smacked me upside the head. “Move your ass. And I’m thinking that maybe we should take one girl less, first trip west, so you can go snuggle the Mischievous Rain that you like best.”
I hit the steps to the real world boggled by the conversation. Tonight’s Taken was not the sad pancake that she had been before we left the compound.
I stepped out of the blackberry bushes into the seventh level of Hell.
* * *
The forest was afire. All kinds of visually weird stuff was afoot. Nothing I saw inspired any confidence in my side’s ability to prevail. Someone attacking had the support of numerous minor but competent and motivated sorcerers.
I panicked. It looked like the end of my world.
I opened the stein that Firefly had given me.
I saw nothing that happened after that.
* * *
I was aboard the Taken’s carpet with the wounded, headed for Aloe. I had a serious hangover. Tides Elba had a case of self-confidence that would intimidate a mountain. After what happened out there
in those woods, once I opened that stein, it was unlikely that Rebel or Resurrectionist would be a challenge in our province ever again.
They had designed a huge, clever trap meant to drain our strength by driblets but unforeseen circumstances turned the tables so darkly that they now must be almost extinct.
When Buzz arrived he would learn that his main job, besides keeping twelve girls away from the insanity at the compound, would be to dig big, deep holes so the stench of decomposition would not make that part of the woods unlivable.
Some men were not happy despite our professional success. Somebody had shot his mouth off about the gold bait in that booby trap.
I told Elmo to channel the corporate anger into tearing the meeting hall apart. He could claim that the enemy kept coming back because there was still something valuable hidden here.
There was, but it was hidden in plain sight: thirteen girls less the one with us aboard the staggering carpet.
Most of the twelve were past puberty. Silent, Elmo, and Buzz might have some trouble keeping them safe.
The youngest among us lack any concept of consequences.
* * *
I did not get dragged off to the Tower. The question never came up. The Taken’s carpet was burdened enough without me, with the Resurrectionist documents, the pregnant girl, four other girls selected by Sergeant Nwynn, and one grim Two Dead to wrangle them all while Tides Elba did the flying. He and she were almost seasick green.
Once she was back inside the mind field the Taken was no longer as fierce as she had been outside. She began to suffer a strong empathy for her younger sisters. At the same time, though, she nurtured a burning rage against those who had created her, and all these copies of her, as nothing more than tools, never people at all.
Nobody wants to be a thing. I might know only sisters and whores but even I understood that no woman wants to be seen as nothing more than a convenient pussy.
* * *
Supper with the kids, without Gurdlief Speak. Beloved Shin asked, “Can I have my cards back?”
I grunted, handed the survivors over.
“You only needed one? Excellent!”
I asked, “Are you all right?” He was pale and looked ragged, though his appetite had not suffered. He was shaming Firefly. There might be no leftovers for the town girls.
“Had a rough night last night. I didn’t get much sleep.”
I figured broken crockery might have been involved.
“Luckily, I found a way back.” Shin eyed Baku with what might have been real gratitude.
So I was right, though I had heard nothing about any savage children rampaging amongst our enemies out there.
Apparently our luck did improve dramatically after I opened Baku’s stein. Even without, I believed that Silent, Two Dead, and the Taken would have proven adequate to the challenge eventually.
I did not ask for details. I might not like the answers on the improbable chance that either kid actually responded.
I caught Firefly smirking at her brother repeatedly.
I could guess what had happened—if I put the hints together in a conspiracy theory sort of way. Beloved Shin—the Shin behind the illusion that presented itself as a boy—walked the shadows hither and yon using the shadow pots, wherever those pots happened to be. Blessed Baku and Ankou did the same, sometimes. The shattering of the pots had stranded Shin with no hope of escape until I opened the stein. The stein had not shattered because it was not pottery. It had been carved from soapstone, probably by the artist who had produced the lapis communication pieces.
Beloved Shin answered a question that I had not yet thought to ask. “Buzzard Neck Tesch’s platoon has two shadow pots. They will get there before nightfall. The sorcerers who broke the pots did not survive. I’m hoping that they didn’t share their plans before they perished.”
There the boy put his finger onto an iron law of warfare. No matter how clever you are at finding a new tool, your opponent will come up with a counter long before that can possibly be convenient for you.
There was some serious perishing happening before I opened that stein. Elmo’s band suffered a lot of casualties, some of them fatal. I will record the names in the books of the fallen once Outsweeper has had his way and say.
I worried that the pot-cracker spell had outlived its inventors. There are always survivors. That is just a fact. An enemy survivor of the biggest battle ever was out there leading a ranger platoon right now although nobody from the other side was supposed to have gotten away.
Still, I did say that the Rebel was almost extinct. The intelligence all agreed. That seemed to please the locals as much as us.
I suspect that they were less thrilled at Eastern Army headquarters. Or was that baseless paranoia? These people had not done anything … Crap! Wait! They might be rooting for the Company right now, but we had Two Dead and Buzzard Neck among us as living, breathing evidence that Whisper meant to do us harm.
Which was a fact that would not be unknown at Charm, now, Two Dead having been there and almost certainly having had an opportunity to engage with the Eye.
So the night was now our friend. But the night surely yet held a harvest of surprises.
22
Once Upon a Time: Papa’s Girls
Papa was evasive and unforthcoming but Bathdek remained persistent. She let some Senjak arrogance leak through.
“You suffered two seizures in one day, Papa!” Never mind that it had not happened before, nor had since. As yet. “What if you never recovered? Where would Laissa and I be then?”
His response suggested that he had not considered the possibility.
The longer she spent with Papa the odder a mix he seemed, not just two men in one body but each of those two both an idiot and a genius.
For all that Papa was determined to conquer death his determination seemed more an intellectual quest than a hunt for a rabbit hole down which he could duck to escape it himself. The only real-world application he had in mind was to salvage Laissa. And maybe Kitten a little. But Laissa was the obsession. Invocation of Laissa’s name could keep Papa focused.
“All right, honey. I surrender! Tell me why you’re upset.”
“I told you. I told you five times. We’re a hundred miles from the nearest human being—which is probably a good thing for Laissa’s sake—and we’re two thousand from anybody who could understand what we said if we had to ask for help.” She blasted that out in one long breath, drew a couple deep ones before she continued, “That maybe makes us safe from Old Ugly but if we have any kind of a real emergency we’ll all be dead.”
She saw the saner necromancer oozing toward the surface. Papa developed a sly look when that happened. The necromancer never realized that he gave himself away. He had no experience dealing with people on a prolonged basis.
She told him, “Don’t fool around. You don’t have to play games. The situation is what it is. We’re here. There is no cure for that even if Laissa and I wanted one. There is no need for you to play coy and keep hiding from us. And you definitely need to make arrangements.”
The sly fox withdrew.
“I said I surrender.”
“All right. Good. Making progress. So, other than hide from the Dominator, what to you mean to accomplish out here? And why this particular here?” She suspected that he had known about this place before they came to it, despite its distance from Dusk.
“Here because here is so remote that it will take the Domination generations to expand this far. That will be time enough to resolve Laissa’s problem.”
Generations? Was he overlooking the fact that he was mortal? “Not the best answer, Papa.” But he did think it was true, right now.
What had he been doing all those years before he found Laissa and brought her back to life?
Bathdek thought she knew. And the thought turned her stomach.
Laissa was not the first. He had hinted as much once, saying that he did not want to lose another daughter. But Laissa was
as close as he had yet come to success. And there was no doubt that, when he was fully Papa, he did love Laissa.
Sometimes too much. Bathdek had witnessed moments when clearly he wanted to be something more than Laissa’s Papa.
He directed nothing like that her way. Why not? Because Laissa would be more pliable? If that was what Papa wanted that was likely what Laissa would do. On his side of the transaction he would not be putting himself in the way of potential emotional injury.
Bathdek did not like that. She was not sure why. She would have had no objection, nor even much interest, had Laissa been fully alive. Dorotea Senjak alive had been Bathdek’s closest enemy. But now … How could Papa taking advantage do Laissa any actual harm? She was an animated corpse with almost no mind. Why care?
Bathdek wasted hours brooding about that.
In her own way she was becoming crazy protective, too.
* * *
Their new home, the castle perched on that upthrust, remained under construction indefinitely, after first being completed quickly in timber, in slightly more than two months. Bathdek stopped pretending to have no skills as a sorceress. Using sorcery was easier and faster than direct physical labor. After they moved in, the necromancer concentrated on research but he did make time each day for work on home improvements, which mainly meant a gradual upgrade from timber to stone.
Clearly, he planned to stay awhile.
Credence Senjak, who called herself Bathdek, sank into the role of Kitten so deeply that, most of the time, she did not recall having been anyone else before she became Papa’s daughter. Mostly she spent long hours creating stone blocks for improving their castle. When her assistance was needed she did what Papa wanted in order to help Laissa. And she helped with research where she could, but that was depressing. She could imagine no way to conquer the monster that meant to devour her sister. And she managed everything when Papa made his forays into the world to acquire what they could not make for themselves.
She became adept with tools. She studied necromancy and the related sciences. She acquired agricultural skills, both gardening and animal husbandry. Papa brought in chickens, geese, hogs, sheep, goats, and several dogs to look out for them. Having animals meant having to learn to slaughter and dress, to butcher and preserve meat and cure hides, most of which was bloody, smelly, exhausting work, and all of which Papa knew well, suggesting a rural boyhood.