Book 3 - Water Sleeps Read Free Page B

off and getting
lost. And horrible things do happen to good people. A clever, sick
rumor can reassign the numb evil of chance to the premeditated
malice of people no one ever trusted anyway.
    Memory becomes selective.
    We do not mind a bit lying about our enemies.
    Tobo yelled something insulting. I started to pull him away,
dragging him toward our den. Others began to curse and mock the
Greys. Tobo threw a stone that hit a Grey’s turban.
    It was too dark for them to make out faces. They began to
unlimber bamboo wands. The mood of the crowd turned ugly. I could
not help but suspect that there was more to the devil display than
had met the eye. I knew our tame wizards. And I knew that Taglians
do not lose control easily. It takes a great deal of patience and
self-control for so many people to live in such unnaturally tight
proximity.
    I looked around for crows, fluttering bats, or anything else
that might be spies for the Protector. After nightfall all our
risks soar. We cannot see what might be watching. I held onto
Tobo’s arm. “You shouldn’t have done that.
It’s dark enough for shadows to be out.”
    He was not impressed. “Goblin will be happy. He spent a
long time on that. And it worked perfectly.”
    The Greys blew whistles, summoning reinforcements.
    A fourth button released its smoke ghost. We missed the show. I
dragged Tobo through all the shadow traps between the excitement
and our headquarters. He would be explaining to some uncles soon.
Those for whom paranoia remains a way of life will be those who
will be around to savor the Company’s many revenges. Tobo
needed more instruction. His behavior could have been exploited by
a clever adversary.
     
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5
    S ahra summoned me
as soon as we arrived, not to chastise me for letting Tobo take
stupid risks but to observe as she launched her next move. It might
be time Tobo walked into something that would scare some sense into
him. Life underground is unforgiving. It seldom gives you more than
one chance. Tobo had to understand that in his heart.
    After Sahra grilled me about events outside, she made sure
Goblin and One-Eye were acquainted with her displeasure, too. Tobo
was not there to defend himself.
    Goblin and One-Eye were not cowed. No forty-something slip of a
lass could overawe those two antiques. Besides, they put Tobo up to
half his mischief.
    Sahra said, “I’ll raise Murgen now.” She
seemed unsure about that. She had not consulted Murgen much
recently. We all wondered why. She and Murgen were a genuine
romantic love match straight out of legend, with all the
appurtenances seen in the timeless stories, including gods defied,
parents disappointed, desperate separations and reunions, intrigues
by enemies and so forth. It remained only for one of them to go
down into the realm of the dead to rescue the other. And Murgen was
tucked away in a nice cold underground hell right now, courtesy of
the mad sorceress Soulcatcher. He and all the Captured lived on, in
stasis, beneath the plain of glittering stone, in a place and
situation known to us only because Sahra could conjure
Murgen’s spirit.
    Could the problem be the stasis? Sahra got a day older every
day. Murgen did not. Had she begun to fear she would be older than
his mother before we freed the Captured?
    Sadly, after years of study, I realize that most history may
really pivot on personal considerations like that, not on the
pursuit of ideals dark or shining.
    Long ago Murgen learned to leave his flesh while he slept. He
retained some of that ability but, sadly, it was diminished by the
supernatural constraints of his captivity. He could do nothing
outside the cavern of the ancients without being summoned forth by
Sahra—or, conceivably, chillingly, by any other necromancer who
knew how to reach him.
    Murgen’s ghost was the ultimate spy. Outside our circle
none but Soulcatcher could detect his presence. Murgen informed us
of our enemies’ every plot—those that we suspected