Bleak Seasons

76

I would not see the sun for a while longer. Sahra handed To Tan up through the trapdoor. He was asleep again. I guess you do sleep a lot when you are a baby starving to death.

It was daytime but a driving rain was falling. Hagop sat astride a chair turned backwards, forearms on the chair's back, staring into the rain morosely. "How long has this been going on?" I asked.

"Day or three."

"We getting any fresh water out of it?"

"About as much as we can being as we're hiding out."

"What're those two doing?" Goblin and One-Eye were on the floor in the middle of the room, crosslegged, farthest from the moisture blowing inside. They did not look up.

"Wizard stuff. Don't bother them. They'll bite your leg off."

One-Eye grumbled, "And somebody's gonna lose a set of ears if he don't stop yakking."

Hagop and I each spent one of our diminishing supply of single finger salutes. One-Eye did not acknowledge the accolade.

The lookout had a window facing each direction. I went to the biggest.

This rain was not what we called a gullywasher back home but it was strong and steady. I could barely sense the vague loom of the surrounding hills. Nearer at hand I could make out the surface of the water. It was down despite the rain. It was a grey that spoke of sickness.

I saw a Jaicuri raft out there, so loaded with people that it was awash. Men using short boards as paddles labored carefully to drive it toward shore.

I made the rounds of the other windows, studied the city. I was pleased to see our Taglians at their posts the way they had been taught.

"They've been doing it by the numbers," Hagop agreed. "And that gets them left alone."

"By Mogaba?"

"By everybody. The fighting is almost constant."

The streets and alleys were now canals. I saw bodies floating everywhere. The stench was overwhelming. The water level, though, was lower than I had expected. I could see the citadel from the east window. There were Nar up top there, ignoring the weather. They moved around the parapet, studying our part of town.

Hagop noticed me watching them. "They're worried about us. They think we might come sort them out sometime."

"Sure we will."

"They're superstitious about guys like Goblin and One-Eye."

"Which shows you how dangerous a little ignorance can be."

"I heard that," One-Eye grumbled. He and Goblin could have been playing some obscure dice game for all I could tell. I liked it better when they conjured big lights that went around smashing things and burning them up. Destruction I can understand.

Sahra seemed tired of lugging To Tan so I took him. She offered a grateful smile. It lit up the lookout.

One-Eye and Goblin paused to exchange glances amongst themselves and with Hagop.

"What are you guys doing?" I demanded.

"We found out we were right."

"Yeah? That might be a first. You were right about what?"

"About your head having been tampered with."

I shuddered to a sudden chill. That is not something anyone welcomes. "Who did it? How?"

"How we haven't been able to figure out for sure. It might have been managed several ways. Who and what are more interesting, anyway."

"So give."

"Who was Lady. And what was knowledge of the fact that she is out there."

"Excuse me?"

"It's a little hard to tell from here, especially when we got tourists and their girlfriends traipsing through the workplace, but it looks like Lady and the Taglians are in charge out there. Their camp is on the other side of the hills, up the north road. The southerners we see patrolling are auxiliaries who report back to Lady."

"Run through that again."

Goblin did so.

I said, "You guys go ahead. I'm just going to sit over here in the corner and think."