Water Sleeps

She went straight to outright confrontation, drawing Tobo in to support her. Maybe she could rebuild Murgen’s ties with the outside world. I turned to the others. “I found another Kina myth this morning. In this one her father didn’t trick her into going to sleep. She died. Then her husband got so upset that -”

“Husband?” Goblin squeaked. “What husband?”

“I don’t know, Goblin. The book didn’t name names. It was written for people who grew up in the Gu

“I got a notion One-Eye was on the right track back when he was going to desert and retire.”

One-Eye gawked. Goblin saying something positive about anything he ever did? “The hell I was. I just had an attack of juvenile angst. I got over it and got responsible again.”

“There’s a new concept,” I observed. “One-Eye responsible.”

“For catastrophes and afflictions, maybe,” Goblin said.

One-Eye said, “I don’t get the Kina story. If she died back at the begi

“It’s religion, dimwit,” Goblin barked. “It don’t got to make sense.”

“Kina is a goddess,” I said. “I guess gods can’t ever be completely dead. I don’t know, One-Eye. I didn’t make it up, I just reported it. Look, the Gu

“Heh-heh-heh,” Goblin chuckled. “If these Gu

“Stop. Now,” I snapped. “We’re supposed to be working.”

Work. Not the favorite swear word of either man.

I told them, “You get Murgen nailed down. Or chained down. Whatever it takes to keep him under control. Then you help Sahra try to get through to him. I have a suspicion things are going to get exciting before long and we’ll need him wide awake and cooperative.”

One-Eye grumbled, “Sounds to me like you don’t plan to be here looking over our shoulders.”

I was up already. “Clever man. I have some reading and some translating to do. You can manage without me. If you concentrate.”

One-Eye told Goblin, “We got to get that little bit into the sack with some guy’ll pork her brains out.” His cure for all ills, even at his age.

I paused to say, “When he’s given everything else the once-over, have him search for Narayan and the Daughter of Night.” I did not need to explain how badly we needed to keep those two from achieving their ends.

16

“I’ve got it!” I shouted, ru

“I hope you ain’t go

My excitement was so loud and intense even Murgen, who was caught in the mist and being a real pain about his situation, paused to study me.

“I had a feeling, an intuition the other day, that the answer was in the A

“And, behold!” One-Eye sneered. “There it was. In ink of gold on myrex-tinted paper, with little scarlet arrows saying, ’Here it is, Little Girl. The secret of the -”

“Stuff it, dustbag,” Goblin snapped. “I want to hear what Sleepy found.” Though it would have been him doing the sarcasm if One-Eye had not beat him to it.

“It’s the whole thing with the Nyueng Bao. Well, maybe not all of it,” I said as Sahra scowled at me. “But the part with Uncle Doj and Mother Gota and why they came out of the swamp when they didn’t have a debt of honor like your brother, Sahra.” Sahra’s brother Thai Dei was under the glittering plain with Murgen, serving as his bodyguard because of what Murgen and the Company had done to help the Nyueng Bao during the siege of Jaicur. “Sahra, you must know some of this.”

“That may be true, Sleepy. But you’ll have to tell us what you’re talking about first.”

“I’m talking about whatever it was that The Thousand

Voices stole from the Temple of Ghanghesha sometime between the end of the siege and when Uncle Doj and your mother invited themselves to come stay with you here in Taglios. Murgen touches on it over and over, lightly, but I don’t think he ever really caught on completely. Whatever it was that The Thousand Voices stole, Uncle Doj called it ’the Key.’ From other internal evidence, I think it had to be another key to the Shadowgate, like the Lance of Passion.” The Thousand Voices was what the Nyueng Bao called Soulcatcher. “I think if we had that key, we could open the way for the Captured.”

If I was guessing right here, I had created a whole new line of inquiry: Why the Nyueng Bao?

Sahra began shaking her head slowly.

“Am I wrong? What is the Key, then?”

“I’m not saying you’re wrong, Sleepy. I’m saying I don’t want you to be right. There are things I wouldn’t want to be true.”

“What? Why?”

“Myths and legends, Sleepy. Ugly myths and legends. Some of them I’m not supposed to know. And I know I don’t know them all. Probably none of the worst. Doj was their curator and keeper. As you are for the Black Company. But Doj never shared his secrets. Tobo, find your grandmother. Bring her here. Get Do Trang, too, if he’s here.”

Bewildered, the boy shuffled away.

A spectral whisper came out of the device where Murgen waited. “Sleepy may be right. I recall suspecting something like that and wondering if I could find a good history of the Nyueng Bao so I could figure it out. You’ll need to question Willow Swan, too.”

I said, “I’ll do that later. Separately. Swan doesn’t need to know what’s happening. Are you paying attention now, Standardbearer? Do you have any idea where we’re at and what we’re doing?”

“I do.” His tone was resigned, though. Like mine when I know I have to get up in the morning, want to or not.

“Tell me about the Temple of Ghanghesha , then. Both of you. Why would this Key have been kept there?”

Sahra did not want to talk about it. Her whole body said she was caught up in a ferocious internal struggle.

“Why is this so hard?” I asked.

“There is old evil in my people’s past. I’m only vaguely familiar with it. Doj knows the whole truth. The rest of us just understand that our ancestors were guilty of a great sin and until we expiate it, our whole race is condemned to live in bitter destitution in the swamp. The temple was a holy place long before some Nyueng Bao began to adopt Gu

“Where did the Nyueng Bao come from, Sahra?” That question had intrigued me since childhood. Each few years hundreds of those strange people would pass through Jaicur on pilgrimage. They were quiet and orderly and stayed to themselves. And a year after they arrived from the north, they would pass through again, going back that way. Even at the height of the power of the Shadowmasters, that cycle had continued. Nobody knew where they went. Nobody ever cared.

“Out of the south somewhere, a long time ago.”

“From beyond the Dandha Presh?” I could not imagine subjecting little children and old folks to the rigors of a journey of that magnitude. The pilgrimage had to be very important indeed.