Glen Cook - Water Sleeps

The smoke thing persisted only a few seconds. It rose about ten feet before it dispersed. It left a frightened silence. The air itself seemed to whisper, “Water sleeps.”

Whine and flash. A second skull arose. This one was silver with a slightly bluish tint. It lasted longer and rose a dozen feet higher before it perished. It whispered, “My brother unforgiven.”

“Here come the Greys!” exclaimed someone tall enough to see over the crowd. Being short makes it easy for me to disappear in groups but also makes it tough for me to see what is happening outside them.

The Greys are never far away. But they are helpless against this sort of thing. It can happen anywhere, any time, and has to happen before they can react. Our supposed ironclad rule is that perpetrators should never be nearby when the buttons speak. The Greys understand that. They just go through the motions. The Protector must be appeased. The little Shadar have to be fed.

“Now!” Tobo murmured as four Greys arrived. A shriek erupted from behind the puppeteer’s stage. The puppeteer himself ran out, spun and leaned toward his stage, mouth wide open. There was a flash less bright but more persistent than its predecessors. The subsequent smoke image was more complex and lasted longer. It appeared to be a monster. The monster focused on the Shadar. One of the Greys mouthed the name “Niassi.”

Niassi would be a major demon from Shadar mythology. A similar demon under another form of the name exists in Gunni belief.

Niassi was a chieftain of the inner circle of the most powerful demons. Shadar beliefs, being heretical Vehdna, include a posthumous, punitive Hell but also definitely include the possibility of a Gunni-like Hell on earth, in life, managed by demons in Niassi’s employ, laid on for the particularly wicked. Despite understanding that they were being taunted, the Greys were rocked. This was something new. This was an attack from an unanticipated and sensitive direction. And it came on top of ever more potent rumors associating the Greys with vile rites supposedly practiced by the Protector.

Children disappear. Reason suggests this is inevitable and unavoidable in a city so vast and overcrowded, even if there is not one evil man out there. Babies vanish by wandering off and getting lost. And horrible things do happen to good people. A clever, sick rumor can reassign the numb evil of chance to the premeditated malice of people no one ever trusted anyway.

Memory becomes selective.

We do not mind a bit lying about our enemies.

Tobo yelled something insulting. I started to pull him away, dragging him toward our den. Others began to curse and mock the Greys. Tobo threw a stone that hit a Grey’s turban.

It was too dark for them to make out faces. They began to unlimber bamboo wands. The mood of the crowd turned ugly. I could not help but suspect that there was more to the devil display than had met the eye. I knew our tame wizards. And I knew that Taglians do not lose control easily. It takes a great deal of patience and serf-control for so many people to live in such unnaturally tight proximity.

I looked around for crows, fluttering bats, or anything else that might be spies for the Protector. After nightfall all our risks soar. We cannot see what might be watching. I held onto Tobo’s arm. “You shouldn’t have done that. It’s dark enough for shadows to be out.”

He was not impressed. “Goblin will be happy. He spent a long time on that. And it worked perfectly.”

The Greys blew whistles, summoning reinforcements.

A fourth button released its smoke ghost. We missed the show. I dragged Tobo through all the shadow traps between the excitement and our headquarters. He would be explaining to some uncles soon. Those for whom paranoia remains a way of life will be those who will be around to savor the Company’s many revenges. Tobo needed more instruction. His behavior could have been exploited by a clever adversary.

Sahra summoned me as soon as we arrived, not to chastise me for letting Tobo take stupid risks but to observe as she launched her next move. It might be time Tobo walked into something that would scare some sense into him. Life underground is unforgiving. It seldom gives you more than one chance. Tobo had to understand that in his heart.

After Sahra grilled me about events outside, she made sure Goblin and One-Eye were acquainted with her displeasure, too. Tobo was not there to defend himself.

Goblin and One-Eye were not cowed. No forty-something slip of a lass could overawe those two antiques. Besides, they put Tobo up to half his mischief.

Sahra said, “I’ll raise Murgen now.” She seemed unsure about that. She had not consulted Murgen much recently. We all wondered why. She and Murgen were a genuine romantic love match straight out of legend, with all the appurtenances seen in the timeless stories, including gods defied, parents disappointed, desperate separations and reunions, intrigues by enemies and so forth. It remained only for one of them to go down into the realm of the dead to rescue the other. And Murgen was tucked away in a nice cold underground hell right now, courtesy of the mad sorceress Soulcatcher. He and all the Captured lived on, in stasis, beneath the plain of glittering stone, in a place and situation known to us only because Sahra could conjure Murgen’s spirit.

Could the problem be the stasis? Sahra got a day older every day. Murgen did not; Had she begun to fear she would be older than his mother before we freed the Captured?

Sadly, after years of study, I realize that most history may really pivot on personal considerations like that, not on the pursuit of ideals dark or shining.

Long ago Murgen learned to leave his flesh while he slept. He retained some of that ability but, sadly, it was diminished by the supernatural constraints of his captivity. He could do nothing outside the cavern of the ancients without being summoned forth by Sahra-or, conceivably, chillingly, by any other necromancer who knew how to reach him.

Murgen’s ghost was the ultimate spy. Outside our circle none but Soulcatcher could detect his presence. Murgen informed us of our enemies’ every plot-those that we suspected strongly enough to ask Sahra to investigate. The process was cumbersome and limited but still, Murgen constituted our most potent weapon. We could not survive without him.

And Sahra was ever more reluctant to call him up.

God knows, it is hard to keep believing. Many of our brothers have lost their faith and have drifted away, vanishing into the chaos of the empire. Some may be rejuvenated once we have had a flashy success or two.

The years have been painful for Sahra. They cost her three children, an agony no loving parent should have to bear. She lost their father as well but suffered little by that deprivation. No one who remembered the man spoke well of him. She suffered with the rest of us during the siege of Jaicur.

Maybe Sahra-and the entire Nyueng Bao people-had angered Ghanghesha. Or maybe the god with the several elephant heads just enjoyed a cruel prank at the expense of his worshipers. Certainly Kina got a chuckle out of pulling lethal practical jokes on her devotees.

Goblin and One-Eye were not usually present when Sahra raised Murgen. She did not need their help. Her powers were narrow but strong, and those two could be a distraction even when they tried to behave.

Those antiques being there told me something unusual was afoot. And old they are, almost beyond reckoning. Their skills sustain them. One-Eye, if the Annals do not lie, is on the downhill side of two hundred. His youthful sidekick lags less than a century behind.

Neither is a big man. Which is being generous. Both are shorter than me. And never were taller, even long before they became dried-up old relics. Which was probably when they were about fifteen. I cannot imagine One-Eye ever having been anything but old. He must have been born old. And wearing the ugliest, filthiest black hat that ever existed.