Glen Cook - Water Sleeps

“What? Why?”

“Myths and legends, Sleepy. Ugly myths and legends. Some of them I’m not supposed to know. And I know I don’t know them all. Probably none of the worst. Doj was their curator and keeper. As you are for the Black Company. But Doj never shared his secrets. Tobo, find your grandmother. Bring her here. Get Do Trang, too, if he’s here.”

Bewildered, the boy shuffled away.

A spectral whisper came out of the device where Murgen waited. “Sleepy may be right. I recall suspecting something like that and wondering if I could find a good history of the Nyueng Bao so I could figure it out. You’ll need to question Willow Swan, too.”

I said, “I’ll do that later. Separately. Swan doesn’t need to know what’s happening. Are you paying attention now, Standardbearer? Do you have any idea where we’re at and what we’re doing?”

“I do.” His tone was resigned, though. Like mine when I know I have to get up in the morning, want to or not.

“Tell me about the Temple of Ghanghesha , then. Both of you. Why would this Key have been kept there?”

Sahra did not want to talk about it. Her whole body said she was caught up in a ferocious internal struggle.

“Why is this so hard?” I asked.

“There is old evil in my people’s past. I’m only vaguely familiar with it. Doj knows the whole truth. The rest of us just understand that our ancestors were guilty of a great sin and until we expiate it, our whole race is condemned to live in bitter destitution in the swamp. The temple was a holy place long before some Nyueng Bao began to adopt Gunni beliefs. It protected something. Possibly the Key you mentioned. The thing Uncle Doj has been looking for.”

“Where did the Nyueng Bao come from, Sahra?” That question had intrigued me since childhood. Each few years hundreds of those strange people would pass through Jaicur on pilgrimage. They were quiet and orderly and stayed to themselves. And a year after they arrived from the north, they would pass through again, going back that way. Even at the height of the power of the Shadowmasters, that cycle had continued. Nobody knew where they went. Nobody ever cared.

“Out of the south somewhere, a long time ago.”

“From beyond the Dandha Presh?” I could not imagine subjecting little children and old folks to the rigors of a journey of that magnitude. The pilgrimage had to be very important indeed.

“Yes.”

“But there are no pilgrimages anymore.” The one that had ended up with hundreds of Nyueng Bao dying in Jaicur was the last of which I was aware.

“The Shadowmaster and the Kiaulune wars made the next few times impossible. There’s supposed to be a pilgrimage every four years. Each Nyueng Bao De Duang has to make the pilgrimage at least once as an adult. For a while the lack was no problem. But now the Protector will not permit the people to meet their obligations,” Banh Do

Trang rasped from his wheelchair, having arrived in time to catch the drift of my interrogation. “There are things we do not discuss with those who aren’t Nyueng Bao.”

I got the feeling he was saying the same thing twice at one time, one way for my benefit and another for Sahra’s. This could be ticklish. We dared not offend Banh Do Trang, whose friendship we needed. If we lost him, we also risked losing Sahra, whose value to the Company could not be calculated.

Nothing is ever simple and straightforward.

I told the old man the way I had it figured. Ky Gota waddled in just as I started. My eyes widened as One-Eye gallantly offered her his seat. It is a world just chock-full of wonders. The little wizard went and got another seat, which he set next to Gota’s. The two of them sat there leaning on their canes like a couple of temple gargoyles. A ghost of ancient beauty peeked out of the wide, permanent scowl that Gota used for a face.

I explained the situation. “But here’s the mystery. Where is the Key today?”

Nobody volunteered that information.

“I’d think that if The Thousand Voices still had it, she’d be running down to Kiaulune every month to round up a new gaggle of killer shadows. It if could open the Shadow-gate safely. And if Uncle Doj had it, he wouldn’t be roaming around looking for it. He’d be back in the swamp blithely letting the rest of us go to al-Sheil in a handcart. Am I wrong? Mother Gota? You know the man. You must be able to offer something.”

Able, perhaps. Willing, of course not. The big thing that stands out, to my ear, about the Company’s sojourn in the south, is the stubborn silence of so many people. About everything. Like if we even discovered our own birthdays, that would be something we could use against them. The fact that the Company now consists almost entirely of native soldiers has not helped at all. Our life does not attract the knowledgeable, educated portion of the population. If a priest offered to sign on, we would send him downriver, knowing for certain that he was a spy.

“You got the damned gimmick?” One-Eye asked.

“Who?”

“You, Little Girl. The villainess, you. I didn’t forget that you were Soulcatcher’s guest for a while, when she caught you on the road coming back from running that message for Murgen. I haven’t forgotten that when our sweet old Uncle Doj rescued you it was incidental. He was looking for his missing trinket, the Key. Not so?”

“That’s all true. But I didn’t bring anything away from that. Except a few new scars and the rags on my back.”

“What we need to know then is has Soulcatcher been looking for the Key?”

“We don’t know for sure. But she does fly down south occasionally and patrols the old ground like she’s looking for something.” We knew that, courtesy of Murgen. Though till now, her behavior had made no sense.

“So who else could’ve snatched this prize?” One-Eye did not press Gota for any information. The way to get around Gota was to ignore her. In time, she would insist that she be noticed.

I remembered a pale, ragged little girl who, though just four years old, had seemed ageless, silent and patient, confidently unfrightened by her captivity. The Daughter of Night. She never spoke to me once. She acknowledged my existence only when she had to, because if she irritated me too much, I might take all of what little food Soulcatcher allowed us. I should have strangled her then. But at that time I did not know who she was.

At that time I was having trouble remembering who I was. Soulcatcher had drugged me and gone down inside me and found half what made me me, then had tried being me in order to infiltrate the Company. I still wonder how well she really knows me. Certainly I do not want her to find out that I survived the Kiaulune wars. She might have the emotional weapons to crush me.

“Narayan came to get the Daughter of Night,” I mused aloud. “But I caught only glimpses of him. An extremely skinny little man in a filthy loincloth who didn’t look anything like the terrible monster he was supposed to be. It didn’t occur to me it was him till I realized I wasn’t going to be released, too. Since I couldn’t see what they were doing, I don’t know if they took anything with them. Murgen, you saw them then. I have it written down that you did. Did they take anything away that might have been this key?”

“I don’t know. Believe it or not, you really do miss some things out here.” He seemed piqued.

I realized I had not bothered to hear what he had to report. I asked.

“Not much useful,” Sahra told me, cutting Murgen off before he could retell everything from the beginning.

“Can you find them now?” I foresaw trouble. There was an unwilling connection to Kina. If the dark goddess was stirring again, he would have to be careful not to attract divine attention. “We have these priorities regarding the Daughter of Night: Kill her. Failing that: Kill her sidekick. Failing that: Make sure she can’t copy the Books of the Dead, which I’m sure she’ll start doing again as soon as she develops a reliable connection with Kina. Finally: Recapture anything she and Singh might have carried off when Narayan rescued her.”