Glen Cook - Water Sleeps

I had planned to offer a rousing speech but quickly discarded that notion. No one was interested. Not even me. “Is everybody ready? Then let’s go.”

Getting started took less time than I expected. Most of my brothers had not stopped to hear me say what they anticipated would be the same old same old. They had gone on getting ready to roll. I told Swan, “I guess ’In those days the Company...’ works a lot better after supper and a hard day’s work.”

“Does for me. Works even better when I’ve had something to drink. And it’s a kick-ass wowser after I’ve gone to bed.”

I walked with Sahra for a while, renewing our acquaintance, easing the strain between us. She remained tense, though. It would not be that long before she had to deal with her husband in the flesh for the first time in a decade and a half. I did not know how to make that easier for her.

Then I walked with the Radisha for an hour. She, too, was in an unsettled mood. It had been even longer since she had had to deal with her brother in all but the most remote capacities. She was a realist, however. “There’s nothing I can lose to him, is there? I’ve lost it all already. First to the Protector, through my own blindness. Then you stole me away from Taglios and robbed me of even the hope of reclaiming my place.”

“Bet you something, Princess. Bet you that you’re already being remembered as the mother of a golden age.” That actually seemed a reasonable prediction. The past always seems better when the present consists of clabbered misery. “Even without the Protector back in the capital yet. Once we’re established, the first mission I mean to launch will be to get word back to Taglios that you and your brother are both alive, you’re really angry, and you’re going to come back.”

“We all must dream,” the woman told me.

“You don’t want to go back?”

“Do you recall the taunt you laid before me every day? Rajadharma ?”

“Sure.”

“What I may want is of no importance. What my brother might want does not signify, either. He’s had his adventures. Now I’ve had mine. Rajadharma constrains us more surely than could the stoutest chain. Rajadharma will call us back across the uncounted leagues as long as we continue to breathe, through the impossible places, past all the deadly perils and improbable beings. You reminded me again and again of my obligation. Perhaps by doing so, you created a monster fit to battle the beast who displaced me. Rajadharma has become my vice, Sleepy. It has become my irrational compulsion. I continue to follow you only because reason insists that even though this path leads me farther from Taglios today, it is the shortest road to my destiny.”

“I’ll help where I can.” I did not commit the Company, though. I still had the Captain and Lieutenant to waken and deal with. I started to move on. I wanted to visit with Master Santaraksita for a while and lose myself, perhaps, in an interplay of intellectual speculation. The librarian’s horizons were much broader these days. “Sleepy.” “Radisha?”

“Has the Black Company extracted sufficient revenge?” We had taken away everything but the love of her people. And she was not a bad woman. “In my eyes you’re just one small gesture short of redemption. I want you to apologize to the Captain once he recovers enough to understand what’s happening.”

Her lips tightened. She and her brother did not let themselves be slaves to considerations of station or caste, but still, apology to a foreign mercenary? “If I must, I must. My options are limited.”

“Water sleeps, Radisha.” I joined Suvrin and Master Santaraksita, taking a few minutes to visit with the black stallion on the way there. It carried One-Eye, who was breathing but otherwise did not look much better than a corpse. I hoped he was just sleeping an old man’s sleep. The horse seemed bored. I suppose it was tired of adventures.

“Master. Suvrin. By some chance do you two suffer any memories you didn’t have before we came to the plain?”

They did indeed, Santaraksita more so than Suvrin. Shivetya’s gifts seemed shaped for each individual. Master Santaraksita proceeded to relate yet another version of the Kina myth and of Shivetya’s relationship to the Queen of Death and Terror. This one assumed the point of view of the demon. It did not say much that was new, just shifted the relative importance of various characters and, laterally, blamed Kina for the passing of the last few builders.

Kina remained a black-hearted villain in this version, while Shivetya became one of the great unsung heroes, deserving of a much higher standing in myth. Which could be true. He had no standing at all. Nobody outside the plain had ever heard of him. I suggested, “When you get back to Taglios now, Master, you can establish a mighty reputation by explaining the myths in the words of a being who lived through their creation.”

Santaraksita smiled sourly. “You know better, Dorabee. Mythology is one area where nobody wants to know the absolute truth because time has forged great symbols from raw materials supplied by ancient events. Prosaic distortions of fact metamorphose into perceived truths of the soul.”

He had a point. In religion, precise truth has almost no currency. True believers will kill and destroy to defend their inaccurate beliefs.

And that is a truth upon which you can rely.

I raised my head carefully to peer over the edge of the plain at the Land of Unknown Shadows. Willow Swan snaked up on my right. He did the same. Riverwalker copied him on my left. River said, “I’ll be damned.”

I agreed. “No doubt about it. Doj. Gota. Come and look. Will somebody bring One-Eye up?” The little man had started talking about an hour ago. He did appear to be in touch with the real world at least part of the time.

I beckoned the white crow. That darned thing was going to give us away if it kept circling.

“To who?” Swan asked. “I don’t see anybody.” Obviously, I was thinking out loud again. Swan weaseled sideways so Doj could crawl up beside me.

Doj rose up. He froze. After fifteen seconds he harrumphed.

Gota said it. “Is the same place we left. You got us turned around, you fool Stone Soldier.”

At first glimpse it was identical. Only, “Look to the right. There isn’t any Overlook. And never was. And Kiaulune isn’t the New City.” I never saw Kiaulune before it became Shadowcatch but doubted these ruins resembled that old city much, either. “Get Suvrin. He might know.”

I continued to stare. The more I did so, the more differences stood out. Doj said it. “The hand of mankind rested more lightly here. And men went away a long time ago.” It was only the shape of the land that was identical.

“Back about the time of the earthquakes, you suppose?” What would have been hardscrabble farmland in my world here looked like better soil that had been abandoned for twenty years. It was overgrown by brush and brambles and cedars but no truly sizable trees were yet evident except those that grew in orderly rows and those so distant they painted the foothills of the Dandha Presh a deep green that was almost black.

Suvrin arrived. I offered a few questions. He told me, “It does look like they say Kiaulune did before the Shadow-masters came. When my grandparents were children. The city didn’t start growing until Longshadow decided to build Overlook. Only, I don’t see anything down there now but ruins.”

“Look at the shadowgate. It’s in better shape than our own.” But not in good repair by any standard. The quakes had taken their bites. “You can tell where it is.” That was a weight off my shoulders. I had anticipated fighting starvation while we fussed with strings and colored powders in an effort to survey the only safe pathway through.