Water Sleeps Read Free Page B

particularly wicked.
    Despite understanding that they were being taunted, the Greys were rocked. This
     was something new. This was an attack from an unanticipated and sensitive
     direction. And it came on top of ever more potent rumors associating the Greys
     with vile rites supposedly practiced by the Protector.
    Children disappear. Reason suggests this is inevitable and unavoidable in a city
     so vast and overcrowded, even if there is not one evil man out there. Babies
     vanish by wandering 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.

Black Company GS 8 - Water Sleeps
    5
    Sahra 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