Water Sleeps

“Maybe somebody who owed His child companion survived. And he did call for help. The sort of men who handle troublemakers in those places arrived while it was happening. Stranglers did it. It was an initiation killing. The Strangler candidate was inept. Nevertheless, with the help of his arm-holders, he managed to break Khoji’s neck.”

“So they were captured.”

“No. The one they call Daughter of Night was there. Overseeing the initiation.”

So the strong-arm guys would have been scared witless once they recognized her. No Gu

“All right,” Swan conceded. “That would mean real Stranglers. But how did they recognize the Daughter of Night?”

Exasperated, Soulcatcher snapped, “She told them who she was, you ni

The Daughter of Night feared no one and nothing. She knew that her spiritual parent, Kina the Destroyer, the Dark Mother, would shelter her-even though that goddess had stirred not at all for more than a decade. Rumors about the Daughter of Night had run through the underside of society for years. A lot of people believed she was what she claimed. Which only added to her power over the popular imagination.

Another rumor, losing currency with time, credited the Black Company with having forestalled Kina’s Year of the Skulls back about the time the Taglian state chose to betray its hired protectors.

The Deceivers and Company alike had a psychological strength vastly exceeding their numbers. Being social ghosts made both groups more frightening.

What signified most was that the Daughter of Night had come to Taglios itself. And that she had shown herself publicly. And where the Daughter of Night went, the chieftain of all Deceivers, the living legend, the living saint of the Stranglers, Narayan Singh, surely followed like a faithful jackal and worked his evils, too.

Murgen considered aborting his mission to warn Sahra to call everything off till this news could be assessed. But it would be too late to stop everything now, whatever else was happening.

Narayan Singh was the most hated enemy of the Black Company still standing upright. Not Mogaba, nor even Soulcatcher, who was an old, old adversary, were as eagerly hunted as was Narayan Singh. Nor did Singh harbor any love for the Company. He had gotten himself caught once. And had spent a long time being made uncomfortable by people overburdened with malice. He had debts he would love to collect, should it please his goddess to permit that.

The Privy Council, as was customary, degenerated into nagging and finger-pointing soon afterward, with the Puro-hita and Inspector-General both maneuvering to get a rung up on one another, and maybe on Swan. The Purohita could count on the backing of the three tame priests-unless Soulcatcher had other ideas. The Inspector-General usually enjoyed the support of the Radisha.

These squabbles were generally prolonged but trivial, more symbol than substance. The Protector would let nothing she disapproved of come out of them.

As Murgen started to leave, his presence never having been detected, two Royal Guards rushed into the chamber. They headed for Willow Swan, though he was not their captain. Perhaps their news was something they did not care to share with the unpredictable Protector, their official commander. Swan listened for a moment, then slammed a fist onto the tabletop. “Damn it! I knew it had to be more than a nuisance.” He bulled past the Purohita, giving the man a look of contempt. There was no love lost there.

It has started already, Murgen thought. Back to Do Trang’s warehouse, then. He could prevent nothing already in motion, but he could get word to those still at headquarters so they could get after Narayan and the Daughter of Night as soon as possible.

7

Sahra changed faces as easily as an actor swaps masks. Sometimes she was the cruel, cu

Minh Subredil was an outcast, the half-breed by-blow of a priest of Khusa and a Nyueng Bao whore. Minh Subredil knew more about her antecedents than did half the people on the streets of Taglios. She talked to herself about them all the time. She would tell anyone she could trap into listening.

Minh Subredil was a woman so pathetic, so shu

Widowed, Minh Subredil supported her one child by doing scut-work day labor at the Palace. Each morning well before dawn she joined the assembly of unfortunates who gathered at the northern servants’ postern in hopes of gaining work. Sometimes she was joined by her dead husband’s retarded sister Sawa. Sometimes she brought her daughter, though seldom anymore. The girl was getting old enough to be noticed.

Subassistant housekeeper Jaul Barundandi would come out and a

Barundandi was amused by Subredil’s omnipresent statue. A devout Gu

Subredil, as Ky Sahra, never prayed. Ky Sahra had no use for gods. Unaware of his tiny soft spot, she did have in mind a destiny for Jaul Barundandi. When the time came. The subassistant would have ample opportunity to regret his predations.

There would be many, many regrets, spa

We went out through the maze of confusion and distraction spells Goblin and One-Eye have spent so many years weaving throughout the neighborhood, a thousand layers of gossamer deception so subtle only the Protector herself might notice them. If she was looking. But Soulcatcher does not roam the streets looking for enemy hideouts. She has the Greys and her shadows and bats and crows to do that work. And those are too dim to notice that they are being guided away from or subtly ushered through the area in a ma

We had no trouble. We wore strands of yarn tied around our left wrists. These enchanted loops softened the confusion spells. They let us see the truth.