Water Sleeps

24

“A good thing I didn’t have any pages on me, too,” Sahra told me. “The Greys started searching us going out. That woman Vancha tried to steal a little silver oil lamp. She’ll spend all morning tomorrow being ‘punished’ by Jaul Barundandi.”

“Does Barundandi’s boss know what he does?”

“I don’t think so. Why?”

“We could trick him into betraying himself. Get him tossed out.”

“No. Barundandi is the devil we know. An honest man would be harder to manipulate.”

“I loathe the man.”

“That’s because he’s loathsome. Not unlike other men in similar positions of petty power. But we’re not here to reform Taglios, Sleepy. We’re here to find out how to release the Captured. And to torment our enemies when doing that doesn’t jeopardize our primary mission. And we did a great job of that today. The Radisha was crushed by our messages.”

Sahra told me what she had discovered. Then I told her about my own small triumph. “I got into the restricted stacks today. And I found what I think might be the original of one of the Annals we’ve got hidden in the Palace. It’s in terrible shape but it’s all there and it’s still readable. And there may be more volumes. I only got through part of the restricted stack before I had to go help Baladitya find his slippers so his grandson could lead him home.”

I had the book right there on the table. I patted it proudly. Sahra asked, “Won’t it be missed?”

“I hope not. I replaced it with one of the moldy discards I’ve been saving.”

Sahra squeezed my hand. “Good. Good. Things have gone well lately. Tobo, would you find Goblin? I have an idea to run past him.”

I said, “I’ll see how our guests are doing. Somebody might be ready to whisper confidences in my ear.”

But only Swan wanted my ear and he did not have confidences in mind. In his way he was as incorrigible as One-Eye, yet he had a style that did not offend me. I do not think Swan had an evil bone in him. Like so many people, he was a victim of circumstance, struggling to keep his head up in the turbulence of the river of events.

Uncle Doj was displeased with his circumstances even though he was not a prisoner. “We can certainly get along without that book,” I told him. “I doubt that I could read it, anyway. Mostly I want to make sure it doesn’t get back to the Deceivers. What we really need is your knowledge.”

Doj was a stubborn old man. He was not yet ready to make deals or to look for allies.

Before I left I asked, “Will it all die with you? Will you be the last Nyueng Bao to follow the Path? Thai Dei can’t if he’s buried under the glittering plain.” I winked. I understood Doj better than he thought. His problem was not a conflict with his morality, it was a matter of control. He wanted to do everything his way, no strings.

He would come around if I kept reminding him of his mortality and his lack of a son or an apprentice. Nyueng Bao are famous for their stubbornness but even they will not sacrifice all their hopes and dreams rather than adjust.

I visited Narayan just long enough to offer a reminder that our interest did not lie in harming him. But the only reason we had for keeping the Daughter of Night healthy was our hope of his cooperation. “You can be stubborn for a while yet. We have several tasks to wrap up before you become our main interest and we concentrate on murdering your dreams.”

That was my whole focus with each of our prisoners. Make them put their hopes and dreams on the line. Maybe I could weasel my way into history, as famous or infamous as Soulcatcher and Widowmaker, as Stormshadow and Long-shadow, remembered forever as the Dreamkiller.

I had a vision of myself drifting through the night like Murgen, disembodied but dragging along a bottomless bag of black night into which I stuffed all the dreams I stole from restless sleepers. I was a real old-time rakshasa, there.

The Daughter of Night did not look up when I went to view her. She was in a cage Banh Do Trang used for keeping large animals of the deadliest sort. Sometimes leopards, but mostly tigers. A fully grown male tiger was worth a fortune in the apothecary market. She was shackled as well. The cats never were. In addition, I believe, a little opium and nightshade were used to season her food. Nobody wanted to underestimate her potential. Her family had a dire history. And she had a goddess on her shoulder.

Reason told me to kill her right now, before Kina wakened as much as she could. That would buy me the rest of my lifetime free of the end of the world. It would take the dark goddess generations to create another Daughter of Night.

Reason also told me that if the girl died, the Captured would spend the rest of time in those caverns under the glittering plain.

Reason told me, after a moment watching her, that she was not just ignoring me. She did not know I was there. Her mind was elsewhere. Which was not a comfortable feeling at all. If Kina could turn her loose, the way Murgen was loose...