Water Sleeps

56

T he practical rules of Company field operations resemble those obeyed by stage magicians. We would prefer our audience saw nothing at all but we do realize that invisibility is impractical. So we try to show the watcher something other than what he is looking for. Thus the goats and donkeys. And, south of Jaicur, all new looks and identities for everybody, with the enlarged party breaking up into two independently traveling "families," plus a group of failed southern fortune-hunters dragging home in despair and defeat after having had their spirits crushed by the Taglian experience. There were quite a few men of the latter sort around. They had to be watched. Many were not above taking advantage of weaker parties if they thought they could manage it. The roads were not patrolled anymore. The Protector did not care if they were safe.

Doj and Swan, Gota and I formed the advance party. We looked weak but that old man was worth four or five ordinary mortals. We had only one scrape. It was over in seconds. Several blood trails led off into the brush. Doj had chosen to leave no one dead.

The land became less hospitable and rose steadily. In clear air it was possible to look ahead and catch the faintest glimpse of the peaks of the Dandha Presh, still many days' journey south of us. The paved road ended alongside an abandoned work camp. "They must've run out of prisoners," Swan observed. The camp had been stripped of everything portable.

"What they ran out of is enemies Soulcatcher thought were worth an investment in a road. She could always find people she doesn't like and use them up in an engineering project." And she had done so on the western route, which was being followed by the rest of the Company. They would have paved footing all the way to Charandaprash. Their road, and the waterways serving it, had remained under construction until just a few years ago, when the Protector evidently decided the Kiaulune wars really were over, that it was not necessary to make life easy for the Great General and his men, and bullied the Radisha into no longer spending the money.

I wondered what the Radisha's perspective would be. I suspected she had believed she was in charge right up to the moment we disappeared her. Then she had begun getting an education, here amongst her faithful subjects.

We reached Lake Tanji, which I love. The lake is a vast sprawl of icy indigo beauty. When I was a lot younger, we fought our deadliest encounter with the things that had given the Shadowmasters their names there. More than a decade later you could still see places where rock had melted. If you went exploring some of the narrow gulches scarring the hillsides, you could find clutches of human bones that had come back to the surface with time.

"This is a place of dark memory," Doj remarked. He had been here for that battle, too. And so had Gota, who had stopped complaining long enough to deal with her memories also.

She really did have a lot of pain these days.

The white crow streaked overhead. It dropped down the slope ahead, vanished into the ragged foliage of a tall mountain pine. We saw that bird almost every day now. There was no doubt it was following us. Swan swore that it had tried to strike up a conversation with him once when he was out in the brush relieving himself.

When I asked what it wanted, he said, "Hey, I got the hell out of there, Sleepy. I've got problems enough. I don't need to get known as a guy who gossips with birds, too."

"It might've had something interesting to say."

"Without a doubt. And if it really wants to tell somebody something badly enough, it'll come talk to you."

Right now Swan looked down the slope and said, "It's hiding from something."

"But not from us." I looked back up the slope. The ground appeared untouched up there. There was no sign of other travelers. Below me, downhill, the meandering track appeared occasionally upon the slope and along the shore, both of which were deserted. This was no longer a popular route. "I could retire beside that lake," I told Swan.

"Must not be the best place or somebody would've beaten you to it."

He had a point. This country was far emptier now than it had been twenty years ago. Then there had been villages around the lake.

"There you go," Swan said, looking back.

"What?" I looked. It took a moment. "Oh. The bird?"

"Not just a bird. A crow. The regular kind of crow."

"Your eyes are better than mine. Ignore it. If we don't pay it any special attention, it shouldn't have any reason to concentrate on us." My heartbeat was rising, though.

Maybe it was just a feral crow and had nothing to do with Soulcatcher. Crows are not fastidious about their dining.

Or maybe the Protector had, at last, begun looking for us outside of Taglios.

White crow in hiding, black crow in the air, searching. What did it mean?

Not much we could do about it, whatever. Though Uncle Doj had a calculating eye whenever he looked up at the black crow.

It lost interest after a while. It went away. I told the others, "That shouldn't be a problem. Crows are smart, for birds, but one by itself can't remember a lot of instructions or carry much information back. If it is one of hers." We had to assume that it was. Crows were much less common than they used to be. Those remaining always seemed to be under Soulcatcher's control. Her control was probably why they were dying out.

If this one was a scout for the Protector, it would be days yet before it could report.

Doj observed, "If it was suspicious, we can expect to have shadows around in a few days."

That would be Soulcatcher's best means of scouting us. Shadows traveled faster than crows, could be given much more complex instructions and could bring back far more information. But could Soulcatcher control them so far away? The original Shadowmasters had had major difficulties managing their pets over long distances.

We passed along the shores of Lake Tanji. Each of us seized an opportunity to bathe in the icy water. The old road then led us on to the Plain of Charandaprash, where the Black Company had won one of its greatest triumphs and the Great General had suffered his most humiliating defeat—through no fault of his own. Though a capricious history would not recall the blame due his cowardly master, Longshadow. Wreckage from that battle still lay scattered across the slopes. A small garrison watched over the approaches to the pass through the Dandha Presh. It showed no interest in clearing any mess or, even, in monitoring traffic. Nobody looked my group over. Nobody asked questions. We were assessed an unofficial toll and warned that the donkey might find the footing treacherous in the high pass because there was still ice on the rocks up there. We did learn that there had been heavier traffic than usual lately. That told me that Sahra's group had encountered no insuperable difficulties and was ahead of us, as it should be, even with all the old men and reluctant companions.

The mountains were far colder and more barren than the highlands we had crossed. I wondered how the Radisha was handling it, about her thoughts concerning the empire she had acquired, mostly thanks to the Company. Doubtless her eyes had been opened some.

They needed a lot of opening. She had spent most of her life cooped up inside the Palace.

The white crow turned up every few days but its darker kinfolk did not. Maybe the Protector was preoccupied elsewhere.

I wished I had Murgen's talent for leaving his body. I had not had so much as a good dream since leaving the Grove of Doom. I knew exactly as little as everyone else. And that was extremely frustrating after having had easy access to secrets from afar for so long.

Nights in the mountains get really cold. I told Swan I was tempted to take up his suggestion that we go off somewhere and set up housekeeping in our own tavern and brewery. When it got really cold, a few lesser sins did not seem to matter.