Soldiers Live (49 page)

Taglios:

Another Great General
I was worried. I pranced from foot to foot like a little boy at a wedding who
really needed to pee. It was another day and I still had not gotten started with
Booboo and the Khadidas. Giving them and their Goddess any time at all was bound
to lead to mischief.

But I had more immediate responsibilities. The fighting was over. Our obligation
to the dead had to be handled now. And a huge city, with many dead of its own,

had to be kept on a tight rein. Recent disasters would encourage plotters and
conspirators.

The Children of the Dead knew how to put on a memorial for fallen comrades.

Deep-voiced drums muttered and grumbled. Horns conjured forth the mood and gloom
of a chilly, rainy morning despite a bright, cloudless winter sky. The soldiers
paraded in all their brilliant colors, with all their thousands of banners. The
locals were suitably impressed. We sent Sleepy off in more style than she could
have hoped for while she lived. We said our good-byes to a great many people.

Then we stood back and rendered appropriate honors as Aridatha Singh directed
equally large, if not nearly so dramatic, ceremonies honoring those who had
fallen on behalf of the Protectorate. And when that was done we joined the local
soldiers and the most important men of the city in honoring the Prahbrindrah
Drah.

His funeral was the grandest I ever attended. I developed the distinct
impression that all those leading men had gathered, however, to eyeball one
another suspiciously rather than to mourn the passing of a ruler none had seen
since they were young.

Aridatha Singh was popular with these men. Because Aridatha Singh had gathered
to himself the loyalties of the survivors of the Second Territorial Division,

the Greys, and the commanders of the rural garrisons nearest the city. Aridatha
Singh had become the most powerful man in the Taglian Territories, despite
having done little to acquire that power—except to be competent and a nice guy.

They say that when the hour comes, so will the man. Sometimes fate will even
conspire to put a competent, honest man in the right place at the right time.

Almost overnight the graffiti began giving Aridatha Mogaba’s old title, Great
General.

Now, if he could just manage to get by without antagonizing the occupiers.

I tried to keep an eye on Tobo but that was difficult with a kid so talented.

Taglios:

Open Tomb, Open Eyes
The hours of ceremony ground me down. I wanted to put myself away for another
long nap. But I refused to give the Queen of Darkness any further respite.

“These are them,” Arkana told me in perfectly colloquial bad Taglian, indicating
eight bitty wooden kegs. “Eight different men took turns crawling in there and
stuffing papers—and everything else they could find—into a keg. Which I had
sealed up as soon as the man came out. By an illiterate cooper.”

“You are a treasure indeed, daughter dear. Gentlemen, let’s build us a bonfire.”

I had brought a couple of carts loaded with wood purchased from a wood seller
whose usual customers were people who needed firewood for funeral ghats. I had
been surprised to find he had any stock left, considering recent events.

The gentlemen I spoke to all hailed from Hsien. They knew only that the eight
kegs contained the hopes of life of a monster more blackhearted than the
legendary Shadowmasters who had tortured the Land of Unknown Shadows. And that
was all they needed to know.

The pyre went up quickly, the kegs scattered throughout it. A fraction of me
bemoaned the fate of the latest incarnation of the Books of the Dead. I hate
seeing any book destroyed. But I did not interfere when the oil splashed and the
fireballs zipped in.

My reluctance might be Kina trying to manipulate me. I stayed there until I was
confident that my natural daughter’s life’s work had been consumed completely by
the flames. In some myths Hagna, god of fire, is Kina’s mortal enemy. In others,

when she is in her Destroyer avatar, he is her ally.

The more I am exposed to the Gunni pantheon the more confused I become.

“What task now?” I wondered aloud. Everyone but Arkana and a few curious street
kids, the near-feral ones called jengali, had moved along. A ragged, bemused
white crow had been hanging around, too, but it had nothing to say. It had been
doing a lot of sticking close and keeping its beak shut lately.

“Time to wake somebody up, Pop. Your wife, your daughter or the Khadidas.”

I surveyed the workmen clearing rubble. Most were civilians now, supervised by
soldiers there just to keep them from stealing any treasures they unearthed.

The masonry had stopped collapsing. The fires had burned out. The popular
consensus was that an all-new palace should be erected, once the old structures
had been cleared away.

I could not imagine what treasures and surprises might surface if they did
demolish and remove the whole rambling monster. No one ever knew the palace in
its entirety. No one but a long-dead wizard named Smoke.

The death pyre of the Books of the Dead attracted more jengali, who wanted to
take advantage of the warmth.

Shukrat glowered at Arkana. Seemed Arkana was not doing her share of Booboo
watching. And Arkana did not care if Shukrat was pissed off.

I noticed a change in Lady. She did not seem to be in a sort of coma anymore.

She seemed to be in a normal but deep sleep. I threw open a window. I am a firm
believer in the health benefits of fresh air. The scruffy white crow appeared
almost immediately. I asked, “How long has this been going on?” I had my back to
Booboo. Cleaned and groomed and dressed in decent clothing she was quite the
sleeping beauty. I tried not to look at her long. Seeing her still ripped at my
heart.

“What?” Shukrat asked. She stuck her tongue out at Arkana.

“The snoring. Lady didn’t snore before.” I meant since she had fallen under the
spell. Before, she had snored for as long as I had been sleeping with her.

Though she refused to believe it.

Shukrat said, “She started right after we brought the Daughter of Night in. I
didn’t think anything about it.”

“No reason you should.”

Arkana nodded. “I never noticed her not snoring.”

The white crow chuckled from the window sill. I asked, “Did she snore when she
was a kid?”

The crow made a noise. The girls looked at me, then at the bird. No dummies,

they realized right away that it was not just an albino with bad personal
habits. Being sorceresses they soon understood that it was a genuine crow, too,

rather than some creature whose usual form was no form, and out of sight.

“Assuming she is sleeping, she’s been there a long time. You’d think she
would’ve wakened on her own.” I touched my wife gently. She did not respond. I
shook her, much less tenderly. She groaned, muttered, rolled onto her side,

pulled her knees up. I said, “Don’t give me that stuff. It’s time to get up.”

The girls smiled. They felt my relief.

She was just sleeping now, even if that had been going on for a long time and
might go on for a while more.

“Come on, woman! We’ve got work to do. You’ve had enough sleep for ten people.”

“She’s sure been getting my share.”

Lady cracked an eyelid. At the same time she muttered something incoherent that
sounded suspiciously like one of her traditional early morning threats.

I said, “All that rest hasn’t improved her disposition any. I’ll remember this
next time she claims lack of sleep is why she’s cranky.”

“You want me to dump a bucket of cold water on her?” Arkana asked. She could be
a presumptuous little witch.

“She does need a bath.”

Lady growled again, but this time in a lame attempt to be cheerful.

I told her, “Don’t even try to be nice.” The way the human body works, returning
from a coma in a good humor is flat impossible.

Her throat was dry and tight. After we dealt with that, she asked, “Where are
we? How long was I down this time?”

I had lost track.

“Fifteen days? At least. Probably more,” Shukrat said. “You were sleeping for
all of us. We were all too busy.”

Lady examined her surroundings. She knew she had not been here before. She could
not see Booboo from where she sat.

I told her, “The war is over. We won. Sort of. Aridatha Singh surrendered. We
offered them good terms.”

Lady grunted, mind not working swiftly. “Mogaba let him do that?”

“The Great General isn’t with us anymore.”

“I need to talk to you about that, Pop,” Shukrat said. “I went out to that
sandbar.”

I signed her to silence. Something from the hidden realm would be around
somewhere. I continued talking to Lady. “A lot of people aren’t with us anymore.

Including almost everybody who went to town with us the night you got hit.

Sleepy, too, later on. In an ambush. Suvrin took over. He’ll be all right. He’ll
grow into it. As long as we help him.”

Arkana added, “Don’t forget the Prince and General Chu. And Mihlos. I miss him.”

“Because he panted around behind you like a horny hound dog,” Shukrat sneered.

“And you just led him on.”

“And who went out of her way to make sure she wiggled and jiggled whenever he
was around?”

“Girls?”

“What?”

“I’m just jealous. Where were you when I was Mihlos’s age?”

Lady interrupted. “What else do I need to know?”

“The Palace fell down. We’ve occupied the city. Aridatha Singh is in charge now
and gets Arkana wiggling and jiggling whenever he comes around. We don’t know
how the succession will work out. We captured Booboo and the Khadidas. We
destroyed the Books of the Dead. Again. Booboo is right over there. If you want
to see her.” I extended a hand to help her rise. If she wanted. “She’s pretty.”

“I want. But I won’t be able to stand up by myself. I don’t think I’ll even be
able to sit up for long without help.”

The crow snickered.

Lady gave the bird a long, hard look. Then she offered me its twin.

I asked, “How’s your connection with Kina?”

“What do you mean, how is my connection?”

“Did I stutter? Is it still there? Is it stronger? Is it weaker?”

“Why?”

“Because I want to know. Why not answer me?”

The girls were startled. They looked like they wished they were anywhere else.

But they spread out.

“She didn’t take me over while I was sleeping, if that’s what you’re after. I
did have some awful nightmares, though. It was like I was trapped inside her
imagination for an age. But she ignored me. She had something on her mind.” She
came close to grinding her teeth with each word. She did not want to open up.

“The nightmare went away a while ago.”

I could understand. The only place I want to reveal myself, even a little, is
here, where hardly anyone will ever notice.

“Did you have any sense of time? I’m thinking maybe something happening here
changed what you were going through there.”

“Sense of time? It was forever. And no time at all. Kina doesn’t experience time
the way we do. I don’t think. She sure doesn’t let it oppress her. Come on. Show
me my baby. Before I collapse.” She strained to get up.

Shukrat and Arkana got hold of her arms and helped her up. Arkana asked, “She
always this cranky when she wakes up, Pop?”

“You’re going to become part of the family, get used to it. You will if you
don’t take it personal.” I chuckled when Lady asked me how I would like it if
she stopped getting personal. “She’s not bad today.”

The crow hissed. Clearly, it did not care if Lady figured it out. In fact, what
it said sounded like, “Sister, sister.” Which was the taunt Lady had employed a
few years ago, when she was looking out from behind the eyes of another crow.

Curious, the white crows. There has been one around, off and on, since the siege
of Dejagore. Back then Murgen had been the mind behind the bird’s eyes. Most of
the time. Apparently. But was Shivetya the mind behind the crow-riding minds?

Could he have had that much power to affect events outside the glittering plain?

That would explain a good deal. Maybe even Murgen’s former difficulties with his
place in time. But that would mean that Soulcatcher was not responsible for much
of what we believed were her crimes. I was not sure I wanted it to be that way.

The bird snickered. Like it could read my mind.

Soulcatcher always had had a knack for reading me.

“We lost Murgen, too,” I said as we moved into position facing one another over
the unconscious girl.

“I understood that. From your having told me how many we lost. That would be
everyone not wearing Voroshk clothing. Correct?”

“Except for one damned lucky soldier from Hsien who managed to be behind the
right person at the right time. Lucky is now Tarn Do’s official nickname.”

“Must be in the blood,” Lady muttered, forcing herself to look at the girl. “The
women of my blood are fated to spend most of their existence trapped and
asleep.” She rested her weight more fully on the girls, extended a hand to touch
Booboo’s cheek. She lapsed into the language of the Jewel Cities. “Asleep like
this was the only way I ever saw my mother. She was the one they told the first
Sleeping Beauty stories about. Her Prince Charming never came. My father did.

And he was content with her the way she was.”

Now there was a slice of horror to lug around in the back of your brain: knowing
that your mother was not even aware that you had been born.

And we like to whine about how cruel the world is today.

They were giants in the olden days.

We will be giants ourselves five hundred years from now.

“So this is our baby.” She stared. “Conceived on a battlefield.” Her emotions
were plain upon her face. Never had I seen her looking more vulnerable.

“This is our baby.”

“Shall we wake her up?”

“I don’t think so. Not now, anyway. Life is insane enough right now without
asking for more trouble.”

That did not set well. Not at all. Lady wanted to establish some kind of
emotional dialog with this flesh of her flesh. For my part, I found that now I
had been exposed directly, the emotional distress was fading away. I do not
believe my thoughts were skewed by might-have-beens and wish-that-weres.

Lady did concede that it might not be a good plan to waken Booboo without Tobo
there for backup.

She did not do anything untoward but she did have the girls breathing nervously
for a while.