Glen Cook - Water Sleeps

Narayan had nothing to say. Yet. But I began to sense that his ears might be open to the right words.

The Daughter of Night sensed that, too. She squirmed. She tried to make some kind of noise. She was going to be as stubborn and crazy as her mother and aunt. Must be the blood.

“Narayan Singh. In another life you were a vegetable seller in the town called Gondowar. Every other summer you would go off to lead your company of tooga .” Singh looked uncomfortable and puzzled. This was nothing he expected. “You had a wife, Yashodara, whom you called Lily in private. You had a daughter, Khaditya, which was maybe just a little too clever a naming. You had three sons: Valmiki, Sugriva and Aridatha. Aridatha you’ve never seen because he wasn’t born until after the Shadowmasters carried the able men of Gondowar off into captivity.”

Narayan looked more uncomfortable and troubled than ever. His life before the coming of the Shadowmasters was a lost episode. Since his unexpected salvation, he had dedicated himself solely to his goddess and her Daughter.

“Those times were so unsettled that you have since proceeded on the reasonable assumption that nothing of your former life survived the coming of the Shadowmasters. But that assumption is a false one, Narayan Singh. Yashodara bore you that third son, Aridatha, and lived to see him become a grown man. Though she endured great poverty and despair, your Lily survived until just two years ago.” In fact, until just after we located her. I still did not know for certain if some of my brothers had not grown overly zealous in their eagerness to locate Narayan. “Of your sons, Aridatha and Sugriva still live, as does your daughter Khaditya, though she has used the name Amba since she learned, to her horror, that her very father was the Narayan Singh of such widespread infamy.”

By stealing Lady’s baby, Narayan had ensured that his name would live on amongst those of the great villains. Everyone over a certain age knew the name and a score of evil stories burdening it-the majority of them fabrications or accretions of stories formerly attached to some other human demon whose ignominy had been nibbled up by time.

I had his attention despite his determination to remain indifferent. Family is critically important to all but a handful of us.

“Sugriva continues in the produce business, although his desire to escape your reputation led him first to move to Ayodahk, then to Jaicur when the Protector decided she wanted the city repopulated. He felt everyone would be strangers there and he could create a more favorable past for himself.”

Both captives noted my unfortunate use of “Jaicur.” Which did not give them anything they could use but which did tell them I was not Taglian. No Taglian would call that city anything but Dejagore.

I continued, “Aridatha grew into a fine young man, well-formed and beautiful. He’s a soldier now, a senior noncom- missioned officer in one of the City Battalions. His rise has been rapid. He has been noticed. There’s a good chance he’ll be chosen to become one of the career commissioned officers the Great General had been imposing on the army.” I fell silent. No one else spoke. Some were hearing this for the first time, though Sahra and I had started looking for those people a long time ago.

I got up and went out, got myself a large cup of tea. I cannot abide the Nyueng Bao tea-making ceremonies. I am, of course, a barbarian in their eyes. I do not like the tiny little cups they use, either. When I have some tea, I want to get serious about it. Make it strong and bitter and toss in a glob of honey.

I seated myself in front of Narayan again. No one had spoken in my absence. “So, living saint of the Stranglers, have you truly put aside all the chains of the earth? Would you like to see your Khaditya again? She was little when you left. Would you like to see your grandchildren? There are five of them. I can say the word and inside a week we can have one of them here.” I sipped tea, looked Singh in the eye and let his imagination toy with the possibilities. “But you are going to be all right, Narayan. I’m going to see to that personally.” I showed him my Vajra the Naga smile. “Will somebody show these two to their guest rooms?”

“That all you’re going to do?” Goblin asked once they were gone.

“I’m going to let Singh think about the life he never lived. I’ll let him think about losing what’s left of that. And about losing his messiah. When he can avoid all those tragedies just by telling us where to find the souvenir he carried away from Soulcatcher’s hideout down by Kiaulune.”

“He won’t take a deep breath without getting permission from the girl.”

“We’ll see how he handles having to make his own decisions. If he stalls too long and we get pressed, you can put a glamour on me that’ll make him think I’m her.”

“What about her?” One-Eye asked. “You going to personally work on her, too?”

“Yes. Starting right now. Put some of those choke spells on her. One on each wrist and ankle. And double them up around her neck.” We had done some herding, amongst other things, over the years and One-Eye and Goblin, being incredibly lazy, had developed choke spells that constricted tighter and tighter as an animal moved farther away from a selected marker point. “She’s a resourceful woman with a goddess on her side. I’d prefer to kill her and be done with it but we won’t get any help from Singh if we do. If she does manage to escape, I want complete success to be fatal. I want near success to render her unconscious from lack of air. I don’t want her having regular contact with any of our people. Remember what her aunt, Soulcatcher, did to Willow Swan. Tobo. Has Swan said anything that might interest us?”

“He just plays cards, Sleepy. He does talk all the time but he never says anything. Kind of like Uncle One-Eye.” Whisper. “You put him up to that, didn’t you, Frogface?” “Sounds like Swan to me,” I said. I shut my eyes, began massaging my brow between thumb and forefinger, trying to make Vajra the Naga go away. His reptilian lack of connection was seductive. “I’m so tired-”

“Then why the hell don’t we all just retire?” One-Eye croaked. “For a whole goddamned generation it was the Captain and his next year in Khatovar shit that beat us into the ground. Now it’s you two women and your holy crusade to resurrect the Captured. Find yourself a guy, Little Girl. Spend a year screwing his brains out. We’re not going to get those people out of there. Accept that. Start believing that they’re dead.”

He sounded exactly like the traitor in my soul that whispered in my mind every night before I fell asleep. The part about accepting that the Captured were never going to be coming back, anyway. I asked Sahra, “Can we call up our favorite dead man? One-Eye, ask him what he thinks of our plan.”

“Bah! Frogface, you deal with this. I need a little medicinal pick-me-up.”

Almost smiling despite her aching joints, Gota waddled out behind One-Eye. We would not see those two for a while. If we were lucky, One-Eye would get drunk fast and pass out. If we were not, he would come staggering out looking to feud with Goblin and we would have to restrain him. That could turn into an adventure.

“Well. Here’s our prodigal.” Sahra finally had Murgen back in the mist box.

I told him, “Tell me about the white crow.” Puzzled, “I go there sometimes. It’s not voluntary.” “We took Narayan Singh and the Daughter of Night out of Chor Bagan today. There was a white crow there. You weren’t here.”

“I wasn’t there.” More puzzled. Even troubled. “I don’t remember being there.”

“I think Soulcatcher noticed it. And she knows her crows.”