Water Sleeps (37 page)

“I don’t get it. Why would it do that? And how?”

“Sometimes its seems like the plain itself is alive, Sleepy. Or at least that it
can think.”

“Is it where we came from? Is it where the Captain spent most of his life trying
to go?”

“No. The Company can’t go back to Khatovar. Croaker will never reach the
promised land. That Shadowgate is dead. The world where you’re headed is very
much like our own. To other worlds it’s known by a name that translates into
Taglian somewhat vaguely as The Land of Unknown Shadows.”

Without thinking I responded, “All Evil Dies There an Endless Death.”

“What?” Startled. “Yes. How did you know? They were the people who committed the
murders that produced the shadows.”

“I heard it somewhere. From a Nyueng Bao.”

“Yes. Nyueng Bao De Duang. In current Nyueng Bao usage that means something like
‘The Chosen Children’ colloquially and nothing whatsoever that’s sensible
literally. In the days when their forebears were sent out from The Land of
Unknown Shadows it meant, roughly, ‘the Children of the Dead.’“

“You’ve been busy,” I observed.

“Hardly, considering how long I’ve been trapped here. Try it for a decade,

Sleepy. You won’t have to put up with any of the distractions you complain about
when you aren’t getting everything you want to do done.”

“No kidding? Seems to me I’m all of a sudden having to work even while I’m
sleeping.”

“Not for long. Whoever has control of that mist-making thing is trying to get me
to answer him. Why don’t you sneak around there and smash that sucker so I don’t
have to get dragged into it every time somebody wants my view on how to crack a
walnut or whatever else the crisis of the moment happens to be.”

“Not hardly, former boss. I’m carrying a whole bag of nuts myself.”

“You would—” Murgen departed as though yanked away.

I could have sworn I heard the laughter of an eavesdropping white crow.

H ow come you’re so crabby?” Willow Swan demanded when I snapped at him for no
good reason. “Rag time again already?”

I blushed. Me, after twenty years among the crudest men on two hooves. “No,

jerk. I didn’t sleep very well last night.”

“What?”

It exploded out of him like the shriek of a stomped rat.

“I didn’t sleep well last night.”

“Oh, yeah. Not our sweet little Sleepy. Guys, anybody, Ro, River, whoever, you
want to step up and remind us about the Roar in the Rain last night?”

Riverwalker told me, “Boss, your snoring made more noise than a tiger in heat.

We had people get up and move back up the road toward home to get away from the
racket. There were people wanted to strangle you or at least put your head in a
sack. I bet if anybody else knew what the hell we were doing and where we were
going, you’d be on that travois with General Sindawe.”

“But I’m such a sweet, delicate flower. I couldn’t possibly snore.” I had been
accused of the crime before but only jokingly, never with such passion.

River snorted. “Swan decided not to marry you.”

“I’m stricken. I’ll see if One-Eye doesn’t have a cure.”

“A cure? The man can’t even take care of himself.”

I scrounged up something to eat. It was barely worth the effort and definitely
not filling. We would be on short rations for a long time. Before I finished
what morning preparations were possible for me, the forward elements were
already moving. The general mood was more relaxed. We had survived the night.

And yesterday we had shoved it to the Protector real good.

The relaxation ended when we found Bucket’s remains.

Big Bucket, real name Cato Dahlia, once a thief, once an officer of the Black
Company, was almost a father to me. He never said and I never asked but I
suspect he knew I was female all along. He was very unpleasant to some of my
male relatives, way back when.

You did not want to be the object when Bucket got angry.

I managed not to break down. I had had a long time to get used to the idea that
he was gone, though there was always some small, irrational hope that Murgen was
wrong, that death had overlooked him and he was buried with the Captured.

The men put Bucket on the travois with Sindawe without having to be told.

I tagged along and became entranced by one of those unaccountably irrelevant
trains of thought that often take shape at such times.

We had left a truly nasty mess where we had spent the night, particularly in the
line of animal waste. Likely the Captured had done the same during their passage
along this same road. However, other than the odd corpse, there was no sign that
they had passed through. There were no dung piles now, no gnawed, discarded
bones, no vegetable waste, no ashes from charcoal braziers, nothing. Only human
bodies lasted and they became thoroughly desiccated.

I would have to take it up with Murgen. Meantime, it was a mental exercise that
would keep me from dwelling upon Bucket.

We trudged on southward. The rain came and went, never more than a drizzle,

though sometimes the wind brought it stinging in from a sharp angle. I shivered
a lot and worried about it getting cold enough to sleet or snow. No other evil
found us. Eventually I spied the vague silhouette of our initial destination,

that mysterious central fortress.

The wind began to blow steadily.

Some of the men complained about the cold. Some complained about the wet. Quite
a few complained about the menu, and a handful insisted on complaining about all
the complaining, I sensed few positive feelings concerning what we were doing.

I felt very much alone, almost abandoned, the whole day long despite well-meant
efforts from Swan, Sahra and quite a few others. Only Uncle Doj did not bother
because even at this late date he remained piqued because I would not enlist as
his apprentice. He continued his emotional machinations. Several times I caught
myself retreating into my away place and had to remind me that I did not need to
go there now. None of those people could hurt me anymore. Not if I did not let
them. I controlled their reality. They survived only in my memory . . .

Even that is immortality of a sort .

We Vehdna believe in ghosts. And we believe in evil. I wondered if the Gunni
might not be onto something after all. For them the pain inspired by the
departure of loved ones is less personal and far more fatalistic and is accepted
as a necessary stage of life that does not end with this one transformation.

If the Gunni, by some bizarre and remote practical joke of the divine, happen to
be in possession of a more accurate theology, I must have been a bad, bad girl
in a previous life. I sure hope I had fun . . . Forgive me, O Lord of the Hours,

Who Art Merciful and Compassionate. I have sinned in my heart. Thou Art God.

There Can Be No Other.

T here were flakes of snow in the air whenever the wind took to loafing. Then
each time it found renewed ambition it hurled tiny flecks of ice that stung my
face and hands. Though it sounded fearful, the level of grumbling never reached
suggestions of mutiny. Willow Swan trotted up and down the column gossiping and
dropping reminders that we had nowhere to go but straight ahead. The weather did
not hamper him at all. He seemed to find it invigorating. He kept telling
everyone how wonderful it would be once we got some real snow, say, four or five
feet. The world would look better then, yes sir! He guaranteed it. He grew up in
stuff like that and it made a real man out of you.

With equal frequency I overheard some advice—the fulfillment of which was
physically impossible for anyone not some select variety of worm—as often the
people cried out, offering up impassioned pleas to One-Eye, Goblin, even Tobo,

to fill Swan’s mouth with quick-setting mortar.

“Are you having fun?” I asked him.

“Oh, yeah. And they’re not blaming you for anything, either.”

His boyish grin told me he was not being some kind of unwanted hero. He was
playing games with me, too.

All northerners seemed to have that capacity for play. Even the Captain and
Lady, sometimes, had shown signs with one another. And One-Eye and Goblin . . .

the little black wizard’s stroke may have been a godsend. I could not imagine
those two missing an opportunity for screwing up as grand as this one was if
they were both in excellent health.

When I suggested something of the sort to Swan he failed to understand. Once I
explained, he observed, “You’re missing the point, Sleepy. Unless they’re
extremely drunk, those two won’t do anything dangerous to anybody but
themselves. I’m on the outside and I recognized that twenty years ago. How could
you miss it?”

“You’re right. And I do know that. I’m just looking for things to go wrong. I
get gloomy when I try to prepare myself for the worst. How come you’re so
cheerful?”

“Right up ahead. Another day. Two, maximum. I get to say hi to my old buddies,

Cordy and Blade.”

I looked at him askance. Could he be the only one of us more excited than
frightened by the possibilities inherent in releasing the Captured? Only one of
those people had not spent the past fifteen years trapped inside his own mind.

And I was not convinced that Murgen was not working overtime to maintain a false
facade of sanity. The others . . . I did not doubt that quite a few would come
forth stark, raving mad. Nor did the rest.

Nowhere was that fear more evident than in the Radisha.

“Tadjik,” had remained almost invisible since she had rejoined us this side of
the Dandha Presh. Though Riverwalker and Runmust stayed close, she needed no
watching and made few demands. She stayed to herself, cloaked in brooding. The
farther we moved from Taglios, the nearer we approached her brother, the more
withdrawn she became. On the road, after the Grove of Doom, we had become almost
sisterly. But the pendulum had been swinging the other way ever since Jaicur and
we had not exchanged a hundred words a week this side of the mountains. That did
not please me. I enjoyed her company, conversation and slashing wit.

Even Master Santaraksita had had no luck drawing her out lately, though she had
developed an affection for his scholarly drollery. Between them, the pair could
gut and flense a fool’s argument faster than a master butcher ever cleaned a
chicken.

I mentioned the problem to Willow Swan.

“I’ll bet it’s not her brother that’s bothering her. He wouldn’t be the biggest
thing, anyway. I’d guess she’s down about not being able to go back. Ever since
she realized we’re probably on a one-wayer here, she’s been in a black
depression.”

“Uhm?”

“It’s Rajadharma. That’s not just a handy propaganda slogan for her, Sleepy. She
takes being the ruler of Taglios seriously. You got her strolling on down here,

month after month, seeing what the Protector did in her name. You have to
understand that she’s going to be upset about the way she let herself get used.

And then she has to face the fact that she’ll probably never get a chance to do
anything about it. She’s not that hard to understand.”

But he had been close to her for thirty years. “We’re going back.”

“Oh, sure. And on the one chance in a zillion that we really do, who’s going to
have an army waiting? Can you say Soulcatcher?”

“Sure. And I can also say she’ll forget us in six months. She’ll find a more
interesting game to play.”

“And can you say ‘Water sleeps?’ So can Soulcatcher, Sleepy. You don’t know her.

Nobody does—except maybe Lady, a little. But I got closer than most for a while.

Not exactly by choice, but there I was. I tried to pay attention, for what good
it would do me. She isn’t entirely inhuman and she isn’t as vain and heedless as
she might want the world to think. Bottom line, you need to keep one critical
fact firmly in mind when you’re thinking about Soulcatcher. And that is that
she’s still alive in a world where her deadliest enemy was the Lady of the
Tower. Remembering that in her time Lady made the Shadowmasters look like
unschooled bullies.”

“You’re really wound today, aren’t you?”

“Just stating the facts.”

“Here’s one of your own right back. Water sleeps. The woman who used to be the
Lady of the Tower will be back on her feet in another few days.”

“You’d better ask Murgen if he thinks she’ll want to bother getting up. I’ll bet
you it’s not this cold where she’s at.” The breeze on the plain had begun to
gnaw both deeply and relentlessly.

I did not disagree even though he knew the truth. He might not remember but he
must have helped Soulcatcher move the Captured into the ice caverns where they
lay imprisoned.

A murder of crows appeared from the north, fighting the wind. They had very
little to say to one another. They circled a few times, then fought for altitude
and rode the breeze toward Mama. They would not have much to report.

We began to find more bodies, sometimes in twos and threes. A fair number of the
Captured had not been caught at all. I recalled Murgen’s report that almost half
the party made a break for the world after Soulcatcher got loose. Here they
were. I did not remember most of them. They were Taglian or Jaicuri rather than
Old Crew, mostly, which meant they had enlisted while I was up north on Murgen’s
behalf.

We came upon Suyen Dinh Duc, Bucket’s Nyueng Bao bodyguard. Duc’s body had been
prepared neatly for ceremonial farewells. That Bucket had paused in the midst of
terror to honor one of the quietest and most unobtrusive of the Nyueng Bao
companions spoke volumes about the character of my adopted father—and that of
Duc. Bucket had refused to accept protection. He did not want a bodyguard. And
Suyen Dinh Duc had refused to go away. He had felt called by a power far
superior to Bucket’s will. I believe they became friends when nobody was
looking.

I began to shed the tears that had not come when we had found Bucket himself.

Willow Swan and Suvrin tried to comfort me. Both were uneasy with the effort,

not quite knowing if hugging would be acceptable. It sure would have been but I
did not know how to let them know without saying it. That would have embarrassed
me too much.

Sahra provided the comfort as the Nyueng Bao gathered to honor one of their own.

Swan woofed. The white crow had landed on his left shoulder and pecked at his
ear. It studied the dead man with one eye and the rest of us with the other.

Uncle Doj observed, “Your friend was supremely confident that someone would come
this way again, Annalist. He left Duc in the attitude called ‘In Respect of
Patient Repose,’ which we do when a proper funeral has to be delayed. Neither
gods nor devils disturb the dead while they lie so disposed.”

I sniffled. “Water sleeps, Uncle. Bucket believed. He knew we’d come.”

Bucket’s belief had been stronger than mine. Mine barely survived the Kiaulune
wars. Without Sahra’s relentless desire to resurrect Murgen I would not have
come through the times of despair. I would not have become strong enough to
endure when Sahra’s own time of doubt came upon her.

Now we were here, with nowhere to go but forward. I dried my eyes. “We don’t
have time to stand around talking. Our resources are painfully finite. Let’s
load him up—”

Doj interrupted. “We would prefer to leave him as he is, where he is, till we
can send him off with the appropriate ceremonies.”

“And those would be—”

“What?”

“I haven’t seen many dead Nyueng Bao since the siege of Jaicur. You people do a
good job of dancing around death. But I have seen a few of your tribe dead and
there wasn’t any obviously necessary funeral ritual. Some got burned on the
ghats as though they were Gunni. I saw one man buried in the ground, as if he
were Vehdna. I’ve even seen a corpse rubbed with bad smelling unguents, then
wrapped like a mummy and hung head-down from a high tree branch.”

Doj said, “Each funeral would have been appropriate to the person and situation,

I’m sure. What’s done with the flesh isn’t critical. The ceremonies are intended
to ease the soul’s transition to its new state. They’re absolutely essential. If
they’re not observed, the dead man’s spirit may be compelled to wander the earth
indefinitely.”

“As ghosts? Or dreamwalkers?”

Doj seemed startled. “Uh? Ghosts? A restless spirit that wants to finish tasks
interrupted by death. They can’t, so they just keep going.”

Although Vehdna ghosts are wicked spirits cursed to wander by God Himself, I had
no trouble following Doj’s notion. “Then we’ll leave him here. You want to stand
beside him? To make sure he stays safe from traffic?” Bucket had placed Duc at
the edge of the road so he would not be disturbed by the terrified fugitives
back then.

“How did he die?” Swan asked. Then he squawked. The white crow had nipped his
ear again.

Everybody turned to stare at Swan. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“Look, if a shadow got Duc and somebody tried to lay him out proper, that
layer-outer would be here dead as a wedge, too. Right? So he must’ve died some
other way, before—” A dim lamp seemed to come alive inside his head.

“Catcher did it!” the crow said. It was crow caw but the words were clear. “Haw!

Haw! Catcher did it!”

The Nyueng Bao began to press in on Swan.

“Catcher did it,” I reminded them. “Probably with a booby-trap spell. By the
time Duc reached this point, she would’ve been ten miles ahead of anybody on
foot. She was mounted, remember. From what I remember about Duc, he probably saw
the trap as Bucket tripped it and jumped in the way.”

Gota pointed out, “The Protector could not have left a booby trap to kill Duc if
she had not been released.” Her Taglian was the best I had ever heard it. The
anger in her eyes said she wanted no mistake to be made.

Sahra whispered, “Suyen Dinh Duc was a second cousin to my father.”

I said, “We’ve been through this before, people. We can’t exonerate Willow Swan
but we can forgive him if we recall the circumstances he faced. Do any of you
really think you can get the best of the Protector, face-to-face? No hands? But
some of you think so in your heart.” Few Nyueng Bao lacked for arrogant
self-confidence. “Here’s your challenge. Run back and prove it. The Shadowgate
will let you out. Soulcatcher is on foot. She’s crippled. You can catch up fast.

Can you ask for any more?” I paused. “What? No takers? Then lay off Swan.”

The white crow cawed mockingly.

I saw a few thoughtful, sheepish faces but Gota’s was not one of them. Gota had
never been wrong in her life except that one time when she had thought she might
be wrong.

Swan let it roll off. As he had done for years. He had learned from the
strictest instructress. He did suggest, “You said we need to keep rolling,

Sleepy. Although I guess we meat-eaters can start on the vegetarians after their
stories run out.”

“Carry the Key, Tobo. Thank you, Sahra.”

Sahra turned away. “Mother, stay with Tobo. Don’t let him walk any faster than
you do.”

Ky Gota grumbled something under her breath and turned away from us. She
followed Tobo. Her rolling waddle could be deceptive when she was in a hurry.

She overhauled the boy, grabbed hold of his shirt. Off they went, the old
woman’s mouth going steadily. No gambler by nature, still I would have bet that
she was fuming about what foul mortals the rest of us be.

I observed, “Ky Gota appears to have found herself.”

Not one of the Nyueng Bao found any reason to celebrate that eventuation.

A mile later we came across the only animal remains that we would ever find from
the earlier expedition. They were piled in a heap, bones and shredded dry flesh
so intertangled there was no telling how many beasts there had been or why they
had gathered together, in life or in death. The whole grim mess appeared to have
been subsiding into the surface of the plain slowly. Given another decade, it
would be gone.