Water Sleeps (4 page)

“The Deceivers have been heard from,” the Radisha announced, causing a general
startled reaction that included the disembodied spy. “Lately we’ve had reports
from Dejagore, Meldermhai, Ghoja and Danjil about men having been slain in
classic Strangler fashion.”

Swan had recovered. “In classic Strangler work, only the killers know that it
happened. They aren’t assassins. The bodies would go through their religious
rites and be buried in some holy place.”

The Radisha ignored his remarks. “Today there was a strangling here. In Taglios.

Perhule Khoji was the victim. He died in a joy house, an institution
specializing in young girls. Such places aren’t supposed to exist anymore, yet
they persist.” That was an accusation. The Greys were charged with crushing that
sort of exploitation. But the Greys worked for the Protector and the Protector
did not care. “I gather that anything you can imagine can still be found for
sale.”

Some people blamed a national moral collapse on the Black Company. Others blamed
the ruling family. A few even blamed the Protector. Fault did not matter, nor
did the fact that most of the nastier evils had existed almost since the first
mud hut went up alongside the river. Taglios had changed. And desperate people
will do what they must to survive. Only a fool would expect the results to be
pretty.

Swan asked, “Who was this Perhule Khoji?” He glared over his shoulder. He had a
scribe of his own recording the meeting back there in the darkness. Plainly, he
wondered why the Radisha was familiar with this particular murder when he was
not. “Sounds like the guy got something he had coming. You sure it wasn’t just
his adventure with the little girls gone bad?”

“Quite possibly Khoji did deserve what happened,” the Radisha said with bitter
sarcasm. “He was Vehdna, so he’ll be talking it over with his god about now, I
would imagine. His morals don’t interest us, Swan. His position does. He was one
of the Inspector-General’s leading assistants. He collected taxes in the Checca
and east waterfront areas. His death will cause problems for months. His areas
were some of our best revenue producers.”

“Maybe somebody who owed—”

“His child companion survived. And he did call for help. The sort of men who
handle troublemakers in those places arrived while it was happening. Stranglers
did it. It was an initiation killing. The Strangler candidate was inept.

Nevertheless, with the help of his arm-holders, he managed to break Khoji’s
neck.”

“So they were captured.”

“No. The one they call Daughter of Night was there. Overseeing the initiation.”

So the strong-arm guys would have been scared witless once they recognized her.

No Gunni or Shadar wanted to believe the Daughter of Night was just a nasty
young woman, not a mythic figure. Few Taglians of those religions would find the
courage to interfere with her.

“All right,” Swan conceded. “That would mean real Stranglers. But how did they
recognize the Daughter of Night?”

Exasperated, Soulcatcher snapped, “She told them who she was, you ninny! ‘I am
the Daughter of Night. I am the Child of Darkness Forthcoming. Come to my mother
or become prey for the beasts of devastation in the Year of the Skulls.’

Typically portentous stuff.” Soulcatcher’s voice had become the mid-range
monotone of an educated skeptic. “Not to mention that she was vampire-white and
a prettier duplicate of my sister as a child.”

The Daughter of Night feared no one and nothing. She knew that her spiritual
parent, Kina the Destroyer, the Dark Mother, would shelter her—even though that
goddess had stirred not at all for more than a decade. Rumors about the Daughter
of Night had run through the underside of society for years. A lot of people
believed she was what she claimed. Which only added to her power over the
popular imagination.

Another rumor, losing currency with time, credited the Black Company with having
forestalled Kina’s Year of the Skulls back about the time the Taglian state
chose to betray its hired protectors.

The Deceivers and Company alike had a psychological strength vastly exceeding
their numbers. Being social ghosts made both groups more frightening.

What signified most was that the Daughter of Night had come to Taglios itself.

And that she had shown herself publicly. And where the Daughter of Night went,

the chieftain of all Deceivers, the living legend, the living saint of the
Stranglers, Narayan Singh, surely followed like a faithful jackal and worked his
evils, too.

Murgen considered aborting his mission to warn Sahra to call everything off till
this news could be assessed. But it would be too late to stop everything now,

whatever else was happening.

Narayan Singh was the most hated enemy of the Black Company still standing
upright. Not Mogaba, nor even Soulcatcher, who was an old, old adversary, were
as eagerly hunted as was Narayan Singh. Nor did Singh harbor any love for the
Company. He had gotten himself caught once. And had spent a long time being made
uncomfortable by people overburdened with malice. He had debts he would love to
collect, should it please his goddess to permit that.

The Privy Council, as was customary, degenerated into nagging and
finger-pointing soon afterward, with the Purohita and Inspector-General both
maneuvering to get a rung up on one another, and maybe on Swan. The Purohita
could count on the backing of the three tame priests—unless Soulcatcher had
other ideas. The Inspector-General usually enjoyed the support of the Radisha.

These squabbles were generally prolonged but trivial, more symbol than
substance. The Protector would let nothing she disapproved of come out of them.

As Murgen started to leave, his presence never having been detected, two Royal
Guards rushed into the chamber. They headed for Willow Swan, though he was not
their captain. Perhaps their news was something they did not care to share with
the unpredictable Protector, their official commander. Swan listened for a
moment, then slammed a fist onto the tabletop. “Damn it! I knew it had to be
more than a nuisance.” He bulled past the Purohita, giving the man a look of
contempt. There was no love lost there.

It has started already, Murgen thought. Back to Do Trang’s warehouse, then. He
could prevent nothing already in motion, but he could get word to those still at
headquarters so they could get after Narayan and the Daughter of Night as soon
as possible.

Sahra changed faces as easily as an actor swaps masks. Sometimes she was the
cruel, cunning, coldly calculating necromancer who conspired with the Captured.

Sometimes she was just the near-widow of the Standardbearer and official
Annalist of the Company. Sometimes she was just Tobo’s doting mother. And
whenever she went out into the city, she was Minh Subredil, another being
entirely.

Minh Subredil was an outcast, the half-breed by-blow of a priest of Khusa and a
Nyueng Bao whore. Minh Subredil knew more about her antecedents than did half
the people on the streets of Taglios. She talked to herself about them all the
time. She would tell anyone she could trap into listening.

Minh Subredil was a woman so pathetic, so shunned by fortune, that she was an
old, bent thing decades before her time. Her signature, which made her
recognizable to people who never had encountered her, was the small statue of
Ghanghesha she carried everywhere. Ghanghesha, who was the god in charge of good
luck in Gunni and some Nyueng Bao belief. Minh Subredil talked to Ghanghesha
when there was nobody else who would listen.

Widowed, Minh Subredil supported her one child by doing scut-work day labor at
the Palace. Each morning well before dawn she joined the assembly of
unfortunates who gathered at the northern servants’ postern in hopes of gaining
work. Sometimes she was joined by her dead husband’s retarded sister Sawa.

Sometimes she brought her daughter, though seldom anymore. The girl was getting
old enough to be noticed.

Subassistant housekeeper Jaul Barundandi would come out and announce the number
of positions available for the day, then would select the people to fill them.

Barundandi always chose Minh Subredil because, though she was too ugly to demand
sexual favors of, she could be counted upon to kick back a generous percentage
of her salary. Minh Subredil was a desperate creature.

Barundandi was amused by Subredil’s omnipresent statue. A devout Gunni of the
cult of Khusa, he often included in his prayers a petition that he be spared
Subredil’s sort of luck. He would never admit it to his henchmen but he did
favor Subredil some because of her poor choice of a father. Like most villains,

he was wicked only most of the time and mainly in small-minded ways.

Subredil, as Ky Sahra, never prayed. Ky Sahra had no use for gods. Unaware of
his tiny soft spot, she did have in mind a destiny for Jaul Barundandi. When the
time came. The subassistant would have ample opportunity to regret his
predations.

There would be many, many regrets, spanning the length and breadth of the
Taglian empire. When the time came.

We went out through the maze of confusion and distraction spells Goblin and
One-Eye have spent so many years weaving throughout the neighborhood, a thousand
layers of gossamer deception so subtle only the Protector herself might notice
them. If she was looking. But Soulcatcher does not roam the streets looking for
enemy hideouts. She has the Greys and her shadows and bats and crows to do that
work. And those are too dim to notice that they are being guided away from or
subtly ushered through the area in a manner that left it seeming no more
remarkable than any other. The two little wizards spent most of their time
maintaining and expanding their maze of confusion. People not trusted no longer
got within two hundred yards of our headquarters. Not without being led.

We had no trouble. We wore strands of yarn tied around our left wrists. These
enchanted loops softened the confusion spells. They let us see the truth.

Thus we often knew what the Palace intended before plans went into motion. Minh
Subredil, or sometimes Sawa, listened in while the plans were being made.

I muttered, “Isn’t it awfully early for us to be out?”

“Yes. But there will be others already there when we take our place.” There are
a lot of desperate people in Taglios. Some will camp as near the Palace as the
Greys will allow.

We did reach the Palace area hours earlier than ever before. But there were
rounds of the darkness to make, brothers of the Company to visit in their hiding
places. In each instance the voice of the witch came out of the wreckage that
was Minh Subredil. Sawa tagged along behind and drooled out of the corner of her
twisted mouth.

Most of the men did not recognize us. They did not expect to do so. They
expected to receive a code word from those in charge that would expose us as
messengers. They got that word. Chances were good they were in some disguise
themselves. Every Company brother was supposed to create several characters he
could assume in public. Some did better than others. The worst were called upon
to risk the least.

Subredil glanced at the fragment of moon sneaking a peek through a crack in the
clouds. “Minutes to go.”

I grunted, nervous. It had been a while since I had been involved in anything
directly dangerous. Other than wandering around the Palace or going to the
library, of course. But nobody was likely to stick me with sharp objects there.

“Those clouds look like the kind that come right before the rainy season.” If
they were, that season would be early. Which was not a pleasant thought. During
the rainy season that is what it does, in torrents, every day. The weather can
be truly ferocious, with dramatic temperature shifts and hailstorms, and thunder
like all the gods of the Gunni pantheon are drunk and brawling. But mainly I do
not like the heat.

Taglians divide their year into six seasons. Only during the one they call
winter is there any sustained relief from the heat.

Subredil asked, “Would Sawa even notice the clouds?” She was a stickler for
staying in character. In a city ruled by darkness you never knew what eyes
watched from the shadows, what unseen ears were pricked to overhear.

“Uhm.” That was about as intelligent a thing as Sawa ever said.

“Come.” Subredil took my arm, guiding me, which was what she always did when we
went to work at the Palace. We approached the main north entrance, which was
only two-score yards from the service postern. A single torch burned there. It
was supposed to show the Guards who might be outside. But it was situated so
poorly it only helped them see the honest people. As we drew closer, someone who
had sneaked in along the foot of the wall jumped up and enveloped the torch in a
sack of wet rawhide.

The crude, startled remark of one of the guards carried clearly. Now, would he
be incautious enough to come see what had happened?

There was no reason to believe he would not. The Royal Guards had had no trouble
for almost a generation.

The sliver of moon vanished behind a cloud. As it went, something moved at the
Palace entrance.

Now came the tricky part, making it look like we screwed up a sure thing by
going in right at a shift change. A sound of scuffling. A startled cry. Somebody
else demanding what was going on. A rattle and clatter as people rushed the
gate. Clang of metal. A scream or two. Whistles. Then within fifteen seconds,

answering whistles from several directions. Exactly according to plan. In
moments the whistles from the Palace entrance became shrilly desperate.

When first the idea was broached, there had been serious debate about whether or
not the attack should be the real thing. It seemed likely taking the entrance
would be easy. A strong faction, made up of men tired of waiting, just wanted to
bust in and kill everybody. While that might have offered a certain amount of
satisfaction, there was little chance Soulcatcher could be destroyed, and such
wholesale murder would do nothing to liberate the Captured, which was supposed
to be our primary mission. I had convinced everyone that we needed to launch an
old-fashioned, Annals-based game of misdirection. Make the enemy think we were
up to one thing when actually we wanted to accomplish something else entirely.

Get them running hard to head us off in one direction when we were following a
completely different course.

With Goblin and One-Eye now so old, our deceits have to be increasingly
intellectual. Those two do not have the strength or stamina to create and
maintain massive battlefield illusions. And, though willing to share their
secrets, they had not been able to arm Sahra for the struggle. Her talent did
not extend in that direction.

The first Greys charged out of the darkness, into the ambushes waiting to
receive them. For a while it was a vicious slaughter. But, somehow, a few
managed to get through to support the Guards barely hanging on at the Palace
entrance.

Subredil and I moved into position against the foot of the wall, between the big
entrance and the servants’ postern. Subredil hugged her Ghanghesha and
whimpered. Sawa clung to Subredil and drooled and made strange little frightened
noises.

Though the attackers piled up heaps of Greys, they never quite managed to break
through the defense of the entry-way. Then help arrived from inside. Willow Swan
and a platoon of Royal Guards burst through the gateway. The attackers scattered
instantly. So fast, in fact, that Swan screeched, “Hold up! There’s something
wrong!”

The night lit up. The air filled with hurtling fireballs. Their like had not
been seen since the heavy fighting at the end of the Shadowmaster wars. Lady had
created those weapons in vast numbers and a few had been husbanded carefully
since then. The men employing them had not been involved in the attack on the
entrance. They clung to the fire plan, which counted on everyone being able to
pick Swan out from amongst the Guards and Greys.

His life depended on it.

Fire fell to the side of the group away from Subredil and me. Willow was afraid.

When fire swiftly shifted to fall on the entry and cut him off, he was supposed
to retreat toward the service entrance. Past us.

Good old Swan. He must have read my script. As his men were being torn apart by
fireballs just yards away, he skittered along, hand against the wall, staying
just steps ahead of destruction. Molten stone and chunks of burning flesh flew
over his head and ours and I realized that I had underestimated the fury of my
weapons, perhaps fatally. It was definitely a mistake to have committed so many.

Swan stumbled over Minh Subredil’s ankle. Somehow, when he hit the cobblestones,

he found himself face-to-face with a drooling idiot. Who had a dagger’s point
neatly positioned under his chin. “Don’t even breathe,” she whispered.

Fireballs hitting the Palace wall melted their way right in. The wooden gateway
was on fire. There was plenty of light by which our brothers could see us signal
that we had gotten our man. Fire became more accurate. The resistance to the
Greys coming to help became less porous. A second apparent attack came forward.

A couple of those brothers collected Swan. They kicked and cursed us. And took
our weapons with them when they went away, part of a general retreat as the
attack wave fled from no evident resistance.

As they disappeared into the darkness, the thing that we had feared most
occurred.

Soulcatcher came out on the battlements above to see what was happening.

Subredil and I knew because all fighting ceased within seconds once somebody
spotted her. Then a storm of fireballs flashed her way.

We were lucky. She was sufficiently unprepared that she could do nothing but
duck. Our brothers then did what they were supposed to do. They got the heck out
of there. They got downhill and lost amongst the population before the Protector
could release her bats and crows.

It was my belief that the activity would have all the nearby part of the city in
an uproar within minutes. The men were supposed to help that along by launching
absurd rumors. If they remained calm enough.

Subredil and Sawa moved two dozen yards closer to the servants’ postern. We had
just settled down to drool and be held and whimper while we watched the corpses
burn when a frightened voice demanded, “Minh Subredil. What are you doing here?”

Jaul Barundandi. Our boss. I did not look up. And Subredil did not respond until
Barundandi stirred her with a toe and asked again, not unkindly. She told him,

“We were going to be here early. Sawa needs to work bad.” She looked around.

“Where are the others?”

There had been others. Four or five even more eager to be first in line. They
had fled. That might mean trouble. No telling what they might have seen before
they ran. An early stray fireball was supposed to have panicked and scattered
them before Swan got to us but I could not recall that having happened.

Subredil turned more toward Barundandi. I held on to her tighter and whimpered.

She patted my shoulder and murmured something indistinct. Barundandi seemed to
buy it, particularly when Subredil discovered that one of her Ghanghesha’s
trunks had broken off, and she began to cry and search our surroundings.

Several of Barundandi’s associates were out as well, looking around, asking one
another what happened. The same thing was going on at the main entrance, where
stunned Guards and sleep-fuddled functionaries asked one another what had
happened and what they should do and, holy shit! some of those fires burned all
the way through the wall and it was six or eight feet thick! Shadar from as far
as a mile away were arriving, gathering dead and wounded Greys and also trying
to figure out what had happened.

Jaul Barundandi’s voice gentled further. He beckoned his assistants. “Help these
two inside. Be gentle. The high and the mighty may want to talk to them.”

I hoped my start did not give us away. I had counted on getting inside early but
it had not occurred to me that anyone might be interested in what two
near-untouchables might have seen.