Glen Cook - Water Sleeps

The kitchens, normally off limits to casual labor, was a dragon’s hoard of edible treasures. With the dragon evicted. Subredil and Sawa ate till they could barely waddle. They loaded themselves with all the plunder they thought they would be allowed to carry off. They collected their few coppers and headed for the servants’ postern before anyone could think of something else for them to do, before any of Barundandi’s cronies realized that the customary kickbacks had been overlooked.

There were armed guards outside the postern. That was new. They were Greys rather than soldiers. They did not seem particularly interested in people going out. They did not bother with the usual cursory search casuals had to endure so nobody carried off the royal cutlery.

I wish our characters had more curiosity in them. I could have used a closer look at the damage we had done. They were putting up scaffolding and erecting a wooden curtain-wall already. The glimpses I did catch awed me. I had only read about what the later versions of those fireball throwers could do. The face of the Palace looked like a model of dark wax that someone had stuck repeatedly with a white-hot iron rod. Not only had stone melted and run, some had been vaporized. We had been released much earlier than usual. It was only mid-afternoon. I tried to walk too fast, eager to get away. Subredil refused to be rushed. Ahead of us stood quiet crowds who had come to stare at the Palace. Subredil murmured something about “...ten thousand eyes.”

I erred. That mass of people had not come just to examine our night’s work and marvel that the Protector’s dead men could be so frisky. They were interested in four Bhodi disciples at the memorial posts that stood a dozen yards in front of the battered entrance, outside the growing curtain-wall. One disciple was mounting a prayer wheel onto one of the posts. Another two were spreading an elaborately embroidered dark red-orange cloth on the cobblestones. The fourth, shaved balder and shinier than a polished apple, stood before a Grey who was sixteen at the oldest. The Bhodi disciple had his arms folded. He looked through the youngster, who seemed to be having trouble getting across the message that these men had to stop doing what they were doing. The Protector forbade it.

This was something that would interest even Minh Sub-redil. She stopped walking. Sawa clung to her arm with one hand and cocked her head so she could watch, too.

I felt terribly exposed standing out there, a dozen yards from the silent gawkers.

Reinforcements for the young Grey arrived in the person of a grisled Shadar sergeant who seemed to think the Bhodi’s problem was deafness. “Clear off!” he shouted. “Or you’ll be cleared.”

The Bhodi with folded arms said, “The Protector sent for me.”

Not having gotten Murgen’s report yet, Sahra and I had no idea what this was about.

“Huh?”

The disciple preparing the prayer wheel announced its readiness. The Sergeant growled, swatted it off the post with the back of his hand. The responsible disciple bent, picked it up, began remounting it. They were not violent people, the Bhodi disciples, nor did they resist anything, but they were stubborn.

The two spreading the prayer rug were satisfied with their work. They spoke to the man with folded arms. He bowed his head slightly, then raised his eyes to meet those of the elder Shadar. In a voice loud but so calm it was disturbing, he proclaimed, “ Rajadharma . The Duty of Kings. Know you: Kingship is a trust. The King is the most exalted and conscientious servant of the people.”

Not one witness had any trouble hearing and understanding those words.

The speaker settled himself on the prayer rug. His robes were an almost identical shade. He seemed to fade into a greater whole.

One of the secondary disciples passed him a large jar. He raised that as though in offering to the sky, then dumped its contents over himself. The Shadar sergeant looked as rattled as the youngster. He peered around for help.

The prayer wheel was back in place. The disciple responsible set it spinning, then backed off with the two who had spread the prayer rug.

The disciple on the rug struck flint to steel and vanished in a blast of flame just as I recognized the odor of naphtha. Heat hit me like a blow. I was in character strongly enough to whimper and grab Subredil with both hands. She resumed moving, eyes wide, stunned.

The man inside the flames never cried out, never moved till all life was gone and the charred husk left behind toppled over.

Crows circled above, cursing in their own tongue. So Soulcatcher knew. Or soon would.

We continued moving, into the now-animated crowd and through, heading home. The Bhodi disciples who had helped prepare the ritual suicide had disappeared already, while all eyes were fixed on the burning man.

“I can’t believe he did that!” I said, still climbing out of Sawa’s smelly rags and crippled personality. Word had beaten us home. The suicide was all anyone wanted to discuss. Our own nighttime effort had become secondary. That was over and they had survived.

Tobo definitely did not believe it. He mentioned that in passing and insisted on telling us everything his father had seen inside the Palace last night. He referred to notes he had made with Goblin’s help. He was thoroughly proud of the job he had done and wanted to rub our noses in it. “But I couldn’t really get him to talk to me, Mom. Anything I asked seemed to be just an irritation. It was like he just wanted to get it over with so he could go away.”

“I know, dear,” Sahra said. “I know. He’s that way with me, too. Here’s some nice bread they let us bring home. Eat something. Goblin. What did they do with Swan? Is he healthy?”

One-Eye cackled. He said, “Healthy as a man with cracked ribs can be. Scared shitless, though.” He cackled again.

“Cracked ribs? Explain.”

Goblin told her, “Somebody with a grudge against the Greys got overexcited. But don’t worry about it. The guy is going to have plenty of opportunity to be sorry he let his feelings get the best of him.”

“I’m exhausted,” Sahra said. “We spent the whole day in the same room as Soulcatcher. I thought I would burst.”

“ You did? It was all I could do not to run out of there screaming. I concentrated so hard on being Sawa that I missed half of what they said.”

“What didn’t get said might be more important. Soul-catcher was really suspicious about the attack.”

“I told you, go for the throat!” One-Eye barked. “While they still didn’t believe in us. Kill them all and you wouldn’t have to sneak around trying to figure out how to get the Old Man out. You could make those guys at the library do your research for you.”

“We’d’ve just gotten killed,” Sahra said. “Soulcatcher was already looking for trouble. The news about the Daughter of Night did that. Speaking of whom, I want you two looking for her, and Narayan, too.”

“Too?” Goblin asked.

“Soulcatcher will hunt them with a great deal of enthusiasm, I expect.”

I observed, “Kina must be stirring again. Narayan and the girl wouldn’t come to Taglios unless they were confident of her protection. Which means the girl will start copy-ing the Books of the Dead again, too. Sahra, tell Murgen to keep an eye on them.” Those terrible, ancient volumes were buried in the same cavern as the Captured. “I had a thought while we were up there-after I ran out of candlesticks and didn’t have anything else to do. It’s been a long time since I read Murgen’s Annals. It didn’t seem like they had much bearing on what we’re trying to do. Being so modern. But when I was sitting there, just a few feet from Soulcatcher, I got a really creepy feeling that I had missed something. And it’s been so long since I studied those things, I can’t guess what.”