She Is The Darkness

91

Thai Dei grunted. These days he was positively garrulous, sometimes mouthing as many as two entire sentences in an hour. But this time he needed no words. He just put his beer in his other hand and pointed into the gathering darkness.

The missing folks were returning in a mob, coming from the direction of Catcher's disaster. Why would they all charge off into the foothills? Because the Old Man realized my seizure must have been caused by Lady's rascal sister?

No. He would not bother for something that trivial.

But he would go to all that trouble to round up Sleepy.

"Where did you find him?" I asked Sparkle, who was leading the mule dragging the travois onto which Sleepy was strapped. It was obvious that the kid had had it rough. His weight was down. His wardrobe was not much fresher than Narayan Singh's. Whom I mentioned to the Old Man as soon as I found him. "It was pure luck that we showed up when we did. We got them under control. But you've got to do something. Or they're going to become a major bite in the ass someday. Where did Sleepy come from?"

"A patrol spotted him in the hills not far from Lady's tear-up. He didn't know who he was."

I grunted. I laid a narrow look on the kid as he passed. "It took this whole mob to bring him in?"

"Took them all to hunt him down. You all right now? What happened?"

"I had one of my seizures. Like I used to have when I went back to Dejagore."

He frowned, tossed off orders right and left. Soldiers scattered to resume chores they should not have abandoned.

"Did you know that One-Eye had your bow?"

"My bow? What bow?"

"The one Lady gave you as a present."

"No. I didn't. Though maybe I told him to put it away for me one time. Or something. I haven't seen it in so long I'd forgotten it." He sniffed the air. "What else did you find?" I still smelled of beer.

"All kinds of treasures. And circumstantial evidence that One-Eye wasn't planning to stay away forever."

Croaker grunted. It was getting too dark to read his expressions well. Was he irked because I had figured something out? Or was he considering the possibilities?

I said, "I can't believe that finding Sleepy would cause so much excitement."

"Lady hoped we could catch Catcher all goofed up, too."

"But we already knew she was all right. She was sending shadows down. She was messing with me." Maybe she was just tickling me because I was there when her big sister yanked her pigtails.

"We didn't know. We suspected. If Sleepy had been her prisoner and wandered away, then maybe she wasn't in control after all. There isn't anybody around here who wouldn't love to add Catcher to our zoo. And, too, there was the chance that... the girl... "

Yeah. There was the chance they could grab their daughter back. Maybe when nobody was looking. "Where's Lady?"

"Still out there." His tone told me I had used my quota of questions in that area.

"Sleepy said anything useful?" I asked.

"He hasn't said anything. He doesn't act like he's all there."

"Just what this outfit needs. Another goofball."

"You finding One-Eye's stash reminds me. You stumbled over either one of our prodigal conjuremen lately?"

"I don't dream that much, boss. When I do, it's always in real time. Which means only after dark, when they can hide a lot better. And they do have to be hiding if they're still in this part of the world. I don't even find campfire traces anymore."

"One-Eye would know who was looking and how," Croaker mused. "Tell you the truth, Murgen, I don't miss them that much nowadays. It was a stroke of genius, if I do say so myself, to split them up. I couldn't have survived the last couple of years, working twenty-hour days, with them squabbling around me all the time."

"You'd think if they'd joined forces there would've been forest fires and avalanches to mark the occasion."

"We do keep having earthquakes."

"I'm worried about them, boss. Because of the spear."

"Spear? What spear?"

"The black spear. I told you I found it. The one One-Eye made while we were in Dejagore. He didn't take it with him. But he hasn't come back for it."

"And?"

"He would. Using some sneak spell if he had to. It was important to him. He didn't brag but he considered it his masterpiece. He wouldn't just throw it away—no matter how many times he's been through the Company having to cut and run."

"You saying he's coming back?"

"I'm saying I think he planned to. He might not have been one hundred percent serious about eloping. Wouldn't be the first time a man wasn't completely honest with a woman."

Croaker looked at me like he was trying to figure out what was really going on inside my head. Then he shrugged, said, "Could be. You men. Take Sleepy into my shelter. Leave him on the examining table."

"Good idea," I said. "See how bad he's been treated."

Croaker grunted. "You stay out here," he told Thai Dei, who was standing over his captives with his beer-drinking hand tucked up behind him. "You come with me, Murgen." Like Thai Dei needed reminding that the Old Man did not want him in his house. "Jamadar Subadir. See that those prisoners are put away properly. And make certain that the rest of our guests haven't exceeded themselves, too."

I said, "The Prince never tried anything." The Prahbrindrah Drah did not have to suffer the indignity of shackles. Our Taglians would not have tolerated that.

I spied Uncle Doj watching from some shadows, arms crossed. I wondered why he stayed with us. Narayan Singh? Hardly. His persistence nudged my paranoia level whenever I thought about him.

Croaker, of course, was more enduringly suspicious than I was.

We descended into the Old Man's dugout.

He told the men carrying Sleepy, "That's good. The Standardbearer and I will take care of him now. Hold on, Sparkle. I want you to double-check on those men I told to deal with the prisoners. We haven't given enough consideration to the possibility of treachery amongst our own people."

Sparkle asked, "You want I should look for anything in particular?"

"Just keep your eyes open." Croaker turned to me. "I agree with you. We need to drown the whole bunch of them."

"But Lady has a use for them."

"Waste not, want not. She says. I keep reminding myself that she's supposed to be smarter and more experienced than me. Let's get him undressed. You start at that end."

Sleepy was awake but showed no interest in conversation. Or in anything else. I asked, "Where's my horse, Sleepy?"

Croaker chuckled. "Good question, Murgen. You might want to pursue it. Unless you prefer to walk to Khatovar."

I asked Sleepy several questions. He answered none of them. His eyes would track me and the Old Man but I could not tell if he understood anything.

Croaker said, "We could use Smoke to backtrack him and find out where he's been and how he lost the beast."

I grunted. We could have Lady sock the little shit with a knockout spell and make him useful for a while. The hard part would be getting her to agree not to hog him all for herself. "He was wide awake today. Smoke was. You might better make sure she knows."

Croaker began poking and prodding Sleepy. "Lot of bruises. Must've gotten pounded around good." Sleepy took it silently, without flinching.

"If he was in Catcher's cave... I saw it happen from ten miles away. It was—"

"I saw enough." Something was bothering him. He had that air people get when they have something difficult to say and are not morally convinced of their right to say it. Which troubled me. Croaker had no trouble barking at anybody but his old lady. "Been catching up on your Annals, Murgen."

Oh-oh.

"And I hate to say this, but I don't like them very much."

"As I recall, you weren't going to dictate what I write."

"That's right. I'm not going to now. You got the job. You do it. I'm just saying I don't like what I've been reading. Though you have gotten a lot better in some ways. You seen this man naked before?"

"No. Why? Should I have?" I had a feeling he was harboring a big beef with my Annals. Since he was one of probably no more than three people who would read them during my lifetime I supposed I could get into closer touch with the needs of my audience. Or at least pretend to. He could not fire me. Unless he wanted the job back himself. The only candidate lay before us, still untrained, unpolished, unclothed and quite probably unsane. "So what am I doing wrong?"

"You could start by not being so being polite. Look at your pal. What's missing?"

Sleepy was not a boy.

I forgot about the Annals. "I'll be damned."

"You didn't know?"

"Never suspected. I thought he was kind of short and skinny... But he always was. He was barely out of diapers when he latched on to us in Dejagore. I figured him for maybe thirteen. He wasn't as sane as he is now. I remember Bucket throwing one of his uncles off the wall for raping him." I kept right on saying "him" because it was hard to think of Sleepy as anything else despite the lack of evidence right there in front of me.

"Good soldier?"

He knew. "The best. Always makes up for his smallness and lack of strength by using his head." Which was something Croaker particularly appreciated.

"Then let's just forget we didn't see something here. Don't even let Sleepy know you know." He resumed his examination.

It would not be the first time a woman had been with the Company disguised as a man. The Annals recalled several instances where amazing discoveries had been made about one of our forebrethren, usually after they got themselves killed somehow.

Still... It would be uncomfortable, knowing.

"What I don't like about your Annals is that they're more about you than they are about the Company."

"What?" I did not understand.

"I mean you focus everything on yourself. Except for a few chapters you adapted from Lady's dispatches or Bucket or One-Eye or somebody, you never report anything that doesn't involve you or that you didn't see yourself. You're too self-absorbed. Why should we give a rat's ass about your recurring nightmares? And, except for Dejagore, your sense of place is usually pretty weak. If I weren't here myself I'd have a lot of trouble picturing this whole end of the world."

My first reaction, of course, was to defend my babies from the butcher. But I kept my mouth shut. You gain nothing by arguing with your critics. You get more satisfying results teaching pigs to sing. With fewer ulcers.

You have to trust your own muse. Even if she has a clubfoot and is subject to unpredictable seizures.

I think the Old Man said something like that himself a time or two over the years.

I did not mention it.

"You could work on writing a little more sparely, too."

"Sparely?"

"You tend to go on a lot longer than you need to. At times."

"I'll try to keep that in mind. You think we ought to put something on her?"

It was plain he had plenty more to say about my Annals but was uncomfortable about it. He was willing to accept a change of subject. "Yes. There's no permanent physical damage. Lady's got some old things stored in that black chest. They'll be a little big, probably, but—"

"Thought we weren't going to know anything about Sleepy being a girl."

"When's the last time you saw Lady in a dress?"

"Good point." I opened the chest. "Though there's still never any doubt."

Croaker grunted. He was studying Sleepy intently, frowning.

"New wearing off?" I asked.

He smiled weakly. "Sort of. You'll understand someday."

I picked some things. "Not what I want to hear, boss." Always way back there, however much I loved my wife, was a niggle when I recalled that she was the daughter of Ky Gota.

He chuckled. "Get some pants on her before my dearly beloved walks in."

We finished just in time, too. Lady arrived in a foul humor. "I found nothing useful. Nothing. How is he?"

"Beat up, starved and suffering from extended exposure. Otherwise, he's fine. Physically."

"But absent mentally?" Lady stared at the kid. There was nothing in Sleepy's eyes.

Croaker grunted. "In a coma with his eyes open."

"Speaking of sleepers," I said, "our favorite fireman was wide awake today. And the way he looked at me, he's all home in here."

I swear Sleepy's cheek twitched. But maybe it was just a trick of the lamp.

"Not good," Lady said. "And I was looking forward to a quiet evening at home."

"What're we going to do with Sleepy?"

The Captain had an answer all set. "You're going to take him with you. And get to work teaching him your trade." For an instant a shadow crossed his face, as though all thoughts of the future brought despair.

"I can't—" Move a girl into my bunker?

"Yes you can." Because Sleepy was just one of the guys. Wasn't he? "And keep me posted on his progress."

Lady comes home and he starts to give me the rush. How do you figure that? "Get your ass up," I told Sleepy. "We're going over to my house. We're gonna figure out what you did with my horse."

Sleepy did not respond.

Thai Dei and I ended up lugging him across on a litter, along with the treasures we had exhumed. I would like Sleepy a whole lot less before we got to the other side.

As we passed the prison kennel the shapeshifter began to rumble and growl. She roared a leopardlike challenge as we drew abreast. "Ah, go fuck yourself," I said. Sleepy was getting heavy already.

The big cat howled and tried to push her claws between the cruel spears confining her. "I think maybe she could use a few drinks," I told Thai Dei.

"Perhaps she is coming into her season."