Glen Cook - Water Sleeps

I started at the beginning.

It was an interesting story.

Taglios began as a collection of mud huts beside the river. Some of the villagers fished and dodged crocodiles, while others raised a variety of crops. The city grew for no obvious reason beyond its being the last viable landing before the river lost itself in the pestilential delta swamps, in those days not yet inhabited by the Nyueng Bao. Trade from upriver continued overland to “all the great kingdoms of the south.”. Not a one of those was mentioned by name. Taglios began as a tributary of Baladiltyla, a city great in oral histories and no longer in existence. It is sometimes associated with some really ancient ruins outside the village of Videha, which itself is associated with the intellectual achievements of a “Kuras empire” and is the center of ruins of another sort entirely. Baladiltyla was the birthplace of Rhaydreynak, the warrior king who nearly exterminated the Deceivers in antiquity and who harried the handful of survivors into burying their sacred texts, the Books of the Dead, in that same cavern where Murgen now lay entombed with all the old men in their cobwebs of ice.

Not all this was information from the book I was reading. As I went, I made connections with things I had read or heard elsewhere. This was very exciting stuff. For me.

Here was an answer for Goblin. The princes of Taglios could not be kings because they honored as their sovereigns the kings of Nhanda, who raised them up. Of course Nhanda was no more and Goblin would want to know why, in that case, the Taglian princes could not just crown themselves. There were plenty of precedents. From the looks of the history of the centuries before the coming of the Black Company, that had been the favorite pastime of anybody who could get three or four men to follow him around.

I overcame a powerful urge to rush ahead and look for the era when the Free Companies of Khatovar exploded upon the world. What had happened before that would help explain what had happened when they did.

A sudden, startled thrill ran through me. I was not alone anymore. A long time had passed. The sun had swung several hours across the sky. The quality of the light within the library had changed. It had become a much paler version of its morning self. Presumably the clouds had passed away.

I did not jump or, I hope, show any immediate outward reaction. But I did have to respond visibly to my awareness of the presence of whoever was standing behind me. Perhaps it was his breath that alerted me. The curry and garlic were strong. Certainly I never heard a sound.

I brought my heartbeat under control, smoothed my features, turned.

The Master of the Library, my boss, Surendranath San-taraksita, met my gaze. “Dorabee. I believe you were reading.” At the library they know me as Dorabee Dey Banerjae. An honorable name. A man of that name died beside me in a skirmish near the Daka Woods a long time ago. He did not need it anymore and I would do it no harm.

I did not speak. The truth would be hard to deny if the Master had been there long. I was halfway through the book, which was of the bound sort and contained no illustrations whatsoever, not even one Tantric passage.

“I have been watching you for some time, Dorabee. Your interest and skill are both evident. It’s clear that you read better than most of my copyists. Yet it’s equally obvious that you aren’t of the priestly caste.”

My face was still as old cheese. I was wondering if I should kill him and how I could dispose of the corpse if I did. Perhaps the Stranglers could be framed... No. Master Santaraksita was old but still hale enough to throw me around if I tried to throttle him. Being small has definite disadvantages at times. He had eight inches on me but at the moment that seemed like several feet. And someone else was moving around at the other end of the library. I heard voices.

I did not drop my eyes the way a menial should. Master Santaraksita already knew I was more than a curious sweeper, though a good one. I kept the place spotless. That was a Company rule. Our public characters had to be morally straight and excellent workers. Which did not make some of the men at all happy.

I waited. Master Santaraksita would decide his own fate. He would decide the fate of the library that he loved.

“So. Our Dorabee is a man of more talents than we suspected. What else do you do that we don’t know about, Dorabee? Can you write, as well?” I did not answer, of course. “Where did you learn? It has long been the contention of many of the bhadrhalok that those not of the priestly caste do not have the mental facility to learn the High Mode.”

Still I did not speak. Eventually he would commit to movement in some direction. I would respond accordingly. I hoped I could avoid destroying him and his brethren and stripping the library of whatever might be useful. That was the course One-Eye wanted to follow years ago. Never mind being subtle. Never mind not alerting Soulcatcher to what was happening right under her nose.

“You have nothing to say? No defense?”

“A pursuit of knowledge needs no defense. Sir Sondhel Ghosh the Janaka declared that in the Garden of Wisdom there is no caste.” Albeit in an age when caste had much less meaning.

“Sondhel Ghosh spoke of the university at Vikramas, where all the students had to pass an exhaustive examination before they were allowed to enter the grounds.”

“Do we suppose many students of any caste were admitted who were unable to read the Panas and Pashids ? Sondhel Ghosh was not called the Janaka for nothing. Vikramas was the seat of Janai religious study.”

“A janitor who knows about a religion long dead. We are indeed entering the Age of Khadi, where all is turned upon its head.” Khadi is the favored Taglian name for Kina, in one of her less vicious aspects. The name Kina is seldom spoken, lest the Dark Mother hear and respond. Only the Deceivers want her to come around. “Where did you acquire this skill? Who taught you?”

“A friend started me out a long time ago. After we buried him, I continued to teach myself.” My gaze never left his face. For a goofy old boffin, whose stuffiness was grist for the mockery of the younger copyists, he seemed remarkably flexible mentally. But then, he might be brighter than he seemed. He might realize that he could buy himself a float downriver to the swamps if the wrong words passed his lips.

No. Master Surendranath Santaraksita did not yet live in a world where one who read and cherished sacred texts also cut throats and trafficked with sorcerers, the dead and rakshasas. Master Surenranath Santaraksita did not think of himself that way, but he was a sort of holy hermit, self-consecrated to preserve all that was good in knowledge and culture. This much I had discovered already, through continuous observation. I had figured out, also, that we might not often agree on what was good.

“You just wish to learn, then.”

“I lust after knowledge the way some men lust after pleasures of the flesh. I’ve always been that way. I can’t help it. It’s an obsession.”

Santaraksita leaned a little closer, studying me with myopic eyes. “You are older than you seem.”

I confessed. “People think I’m younger than I am because I’m small.”

“Tell me about yourself, Dorabee Dey Banerjae. Who was your father? Of what family was your mother?”

“You will not have heard of them.” I considered refusing to elaborate. But Dorabee Dey Banerjae did have a story. I had been rehearsing it for seven years. If I just stayed in character, it would all be true.

Stay in character. Be Dorabee caught reading. Let Sleepy worry about what to do when it was time for Sleepy to come back onstage.