Dreams of Steel

Chapter Thirty-Two

The meeting with the priests had not gone well. The Radisha was in a blistering rage. Her brother looked grim. Smoke squeaked, "Something has to be done about that woman."

They were in a shielded room but something had installed itself amongst clutter on a high shelf. Those below did not notice the one yellow crow eye watching.

"I'm not so sure," the Prahbrindrah Drah replied. "We talked extensively. I think she was truthful. My gut feeling is that we should give her her head."

"Gods!" Smoke swore. "No!"

The Radisha remained neutral. For the moment. "We were inches from getting thrown out tonight. We couldn't drive a wedge between them. The fact that we might be able to point her in their direction was all that saved us. We can't get rid of her, Smoke."

The Prahbrindrah Drah said, "We've got the tiger by the tail. Can't let go. I feel like I'm in a big bowl and all around the rim are people who want to roll boulders down on me."

"She will devour us," Smoke said. He kept his tone reasonable. Panicky talk had worked against him before. The Prahbrindrah Drah and Radisha had to be convinced intellectually. "She traffics with Stranglers."

"Of whom there are maybe only a few hundred in the whole world," the Radisha observed. "How many men are there in the Shadowlands? How many shadows? There're more backstabbing priests here in the city than there are Stranglers anywhere."

"Read those old chronicles again," Smoke suggested. "How numerous were the Black Company when they came here before? Yet before they were driven out our ancestors very nearly witnessed the Year of the Skulls. You can't traffic with this darkness. It wakens the devil in everyone. You can't invite the tiger into your house to keep the wolf away. There are no greys. There is no tightrope to walk. No one can hope to play this off against other darknesses. This is the deep and ultimate evil beyond all evils. Consider what the woman did last night."

The Prahbrindrah Drah said, "I was put out by the damage done. Master Gupta and his predecessors worked on that for a century."

"Not the damned plants!" Smoke almost lost control. "A man is dead, killed by sorcery. Seven more were carried off to who knows what fate? Tal and his cronies were slain in their very temples. Strangled!"

"They asked for it," the Radisha said. "They did something stupid. They paid for it. You notice the other Gunni priests weren't put out."

"Ghapor's bunch? They probably encouraged Tal and didn't mind when he came out on the short end."

"Probably."

"Don't you see what she's done? A year ago no priest would have considered murder. Now it's accepted. Nobody is distressed.

"Tal is gone. You say he was stupid and asked for it and you're right. But he was one of the most important men in Taglios. So was Jahamaraj Jah. He asked for it, too. When she picks off the next one, well, maybe everybody will say the same thing again. He asked for it. And the next one and the next and then it's you and the Prahbrindrah Drah and after that the deluge. Never mind professionalism as a soldier. She might be the best that ever was. Maybe she can ruin the Shadowmasters in her sleep. But even if they never cross the Main again, if they never come north of Dejagore, if they never win another skirmish, if she's in charge, Taglios will lose as certainly as if we hadn't resisted at all."

The Prahbrindrah Drah started to speak. The Radisha jumped in first. "He has a point. Taglios won't ever be the same."

"Oh?"

"If we give the woman a free hand she'll make Taglios over into the image of the Shadowlands because that's what it will take to win. Smoke, I see that. Even if you're obsessive about the Stranglers and the Year of the Skulls. I've watched the woman. I doubt if anyone but that man Croaker ever had any influence on her. Brother, he's right. She'll turn us into what we fear in order to save us."

"Then we're damned if we do and damned if we don't. We let her go on, we're done. We don't, the Shadowmasters eat us."

Smoke said, "There's another way...." But he could not tell them. He had not told them everything when he had reported the approach by Longshadow's agents. Too late now. If he brought up overlooked details they would no longer trust him. They might even think his opposition to the woman had been ordered by Taglios' enemies.

That wrinkled little man had foreseen this. Damn him.

"Well?" the Radisha demanded.

"I had a thought. It was impractical. Emotion guiding the mind. Forget it. Kina is stirring. The Daughter of Night walks among us. We must silence her."

The Prahbrindrah Drah said, "We can talk about this all night. None of us will change our minds. We'd better concentrate on staying a step ahead of the priests till we do agree."

Smoke shook his head. That would not do. The woman would keep everyone confused and divided; then it would be too late. That was the way of darkness. Deceit. Endless deceit.

No point talking anymore. There was only one choice left.

They would hate him if they caught him. They would brand him traitor. But there was no other answer.

He had to pray for courage and a clear head. The Shadowmasters were masters of deceit themselves. They would use him if they could. But if he played the game carefully he could serve Taglios better than any dozen armies.

He started trying to cut the conversation short. As brother and sister were leaving, the prince said, "Smoke, I meant to ask. Why would she put a bounty on bats all of a sudden?" "A what?"

"The Shadar Singh mentioned it. He heard it on his way here. She put out word that any children who wanted could pick up a few coppers by bringing her dead bats. Every poor family in town will start hunting them. And the treasury will have to pay for them. Why?" "I have no idea," Smoke lied. His heart was in his throat. She knew. That business about reporting strangers ... It wasn't a propaganda ploy. She knew. "A few exotic spells use bat parts powdered. Fur, claws, livers. But they're the kind that make your neighbor's cattle sterile or his hens stop laying. Nothing of use to her."

But live bats were useful to the Shadowmasters. He barely waited till the prince and his sister turned a corner down the hall. Then he headed for the world outside, before there were no bats left to find him.