Water Sleeps (18 page)

I settled into a chair outside the cage where Narayan Singh was being kept. He
was awake but he ignored me. I said, “The Daughter of Night still lives.”

“I know that.”

“You do? How?”

“I’d know if you’d harmed her.”

“Then you need to know this. She isn’t going to stay unharmed a whole lot
longer. The only reason she’s healthy now is that we want your cooperation. If
we can’t get it, then there’s not much reason to keep on feeding her. Or you,

either. Though I do intend to keep my word about taking care of you. Because I’d
want you to see everything you value destroyed before you’re allowed to die
yourself. Which reminds me. Aridatha couldn’t be with us tonight. His captain
was concerned that there might be some unrest. Another Bhodi disciple planned to
burn himself. So we’ll have to wait until tomorrow night.”

Narayan made a sound like a whispered moan. He did not want to have to
acknowledge my existence, for existence, and mine in particular, was making him
very unhappy. Which made me happy, though I had no personal grudge. My enmity
was all very sanitary, very institutional, very much on behalf of my brothers
who had been injured. And on behalf of my brothers who were imprisoned beneath
the earth.

I suggested, “Maybe you should go to Kina for guidance.”

Such a look he gave me. Narayan Singh had no sense of humor and did not
recognize sarcasm when it struck from the grass and sank its fangs in his ankle.

I told him, “Just to recap: I don’t have much patience left. I don’t have much
time left. We’ve leaped onto the tiger’s back. The big catfight is coming.”

Catfight. Universal male slang for a squabble amongst women.

Oh, really?

It had just occurred to me. We were all women in this fight. Sahra and I. The
Radisha and Soulcatcher. Kina and the Daughter of Night. Uncle Doj was as close
to a principal as any man was right now. And Narayan, though he was mainly the
Daughter of Night’s shadow.

Strange. Strange.

“Narayan, when the fur starts flying, I won’t be much interested in looking out
for your friend. But I’m definitely going to take care of you.”

I started to leave.

“I can’t do this thing.” Singh’s voice was almost inaudible.

“Work on it, Narayan. If you love the girl. If you don’t want your goddess to
have to start all over from scratch.” I thought I had that much power. By
killing the right people, I could lay Kina down to sleep for another age. And I
would if I could not get my own brothers out of the ground.

I found Banh Do Trang awaiting me in the little corner where I worked and slept.

He did not look well, which was not surprising. He was not too many years
younger than Goblin and did not have Goblin’s wondrous resources. “Can I be of
any service, Uncle?”

“I understand Doj told you the story of our people.” The best he could manage
was a hoarse whisper.

“He told me a story. There’re always doubts left behind when any Nyueng Bao
shares a secret with me.”

“Hen. Heh-heh. You’re a bright young woman, Sleepy. Few illusions and no obvious
obsessions. I think Doj was as honest with you as he could compel himself to be.

Assuming he was honest with me when he consulted me afterward. He finally heard
me when I told him that this’s a new age. That that was what Hong Tray wanted to
show us when she chose the jengal to become Sahra’s husband. We’re all lost
children. We must join hands. That, too, is what Hong Tray wanted us to
understand.”

“She could’ve said so.”

“She was Hong Tray. A seeress. A Nyueng Bao seeress. Would you have her issue
blunt rescripts like the Radisha and Protector?”

“Absolutely.”

Do Trang chuckled. Then he seemed to fall asleep.

Was that that? I wondered. “Uncle?”

“Uh? Oh? I’m sorry, young woman. Listen. I don’t think anyone else has mentioned
it. Maybe no one else but Gota and I have seen it. But there’s a ghost in this
place. We’ve seen it several times the past two nights.”

“A ghost?” Was Murgen getting so strong people were starting to see him?

“It’s a cold and evil thing, Sleepy. Like something that’s happiest skulking
around the mouths of graves or slithering through a mountain of bones. Like that
vampire child in the tiger cage. You should be very wary of her. And I think I
should find my way to bed. Before I fall asleep here and your friends begin to
talk.”

“If they’re going to gossip about me, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have
them connect me with.”

“Someday when I’m young again. Next time around the Wheel.”

“Good night, Uncle.”

I thought I might read for a while but I fell asleep almost instantly. Sometime
during the night I discovered that Do Trang’s ghost did exist. I awakened,

instantly alert, and saw a vaguely human shimmer standing nearby, evidently
watching me. The old man had done a good job describing it, too. I wondered if
it might not be Death Himself.

It went away as soon as it sensed my scrutiny.

I lay there trying to put it together. Murgen? Soulcatcher spying? An unknown?

Or what it felt like, the girl in the tiger cage out for an ectoplasmic stroll?

I tried reason but was still too tired to stick with it long.

T here was something wrong with the city. In addition to its extraordinarily
clean smell. The rain had continued throughout most of the night. And in
addition to the stunned looks on the faces of street-dwellers, who had survived
their worst night yet. No. It was a sort of bated-breath feeling that got
stronger as I approached the library. Maybe it was some sort of psychic
phenomenon.

I stopped. The Captain used to say you had to trust your instincts. If it felt
like something was wrong, then I should take time to figure out why I felt that
way. I turned slowly.

No street poor here. But that was understandable. There were dead people around
here. The survivors would be clinging to whatever shelter they could find,

afraid the Greys would replace the shadows by day. But the Greys were absent,

too. And traffic was lighter than it should be. And most of the tiny one-man
stalls that sprawled out into the thoroughfare were not in evidence.

There was fear in the air. People expected something to happen. They had seen
something that troubled them deeply. What that might be was not obvious, though.

When I asked one of the merchants who was bold enough to be out, he ignored my
question completely and tried to convince me that there was no way I could
manage another day without a hammered-brass censer.

In a moment I decided he might be right. I paused to speak to another brass
merchant whose space lay within eyeshot of the library. “Where is everyone this
morning?” I asked, examining a long-spouted teapot sort of thing with no real
utility.

A furtive shift of the merchant’s eyes toward the library suggested there was
substance to my premonitions. And whatever had spooked him had taken place quite
recently.

No Taglian neighborhood remains quiet and empty for long.

I seldom carry money but did have a few coins on me this morning. I bought the
useless teapot. “A gift for my wife. For finally producing a son.”

“You’re not from around here, are you?” the brass smith asked.

“No. I’m from . . . Dejagore.”

The man nodded to himself, as if that explained everything. When I started to
move on, he murmured, “You don’t want to go that way, Dejagoran.”

“Ah?”

“Be in no hurry. Find a long way around that place.”

I squinted at the library. I saw nothing unusual. The grounds appeared
completely normal, though some men were working on the garden. “Ah.” I continued
forward only till I could slide into the mouth of an alley.

Why were there gardeners there? Only the Master Librarian ever brought them in.

I caught glimpses of something wheeling above the library. It drifted down to
settle on the ironwork of the gate, above Adoo’s head. I took it for a lone
pigeon at first but when it folded its wings, I saw that it was a white crow.

And a crow with a sharper eye than Adoo had. But Adoo was accustomed to posting
himself in the gateway.

That constituted another warning sign.

The white crow looked right at me. And winked. Or maybe just blinked, but I
preferred the implication of intelligence and conspiratorial camaraderie.

The crow dropped onto Adoo’s shoulder. The startled gateman nearly jumped out of
his sandals. The bird evidently said something. Adoo jumped again and tried to
catch it. After he failed, he ran into the library. Moments later Shadar
disguised as librarians and copyists rushed out and began trying to bring the
crow down with stones. The bird got the heck out of there.

I followed its example, heading in another direction. I was more alert than I
had been in years. What was going on? Why were they there? Obviously they were
lying in wait. For me? Who else? But why? What had I done to give myself away?

Maybe nothing. Though failing to show up to be questioned would count as damning
evidence. But I was not lunatic enough to try to bluff my way through whatever
it was the Greys were trying to do.

The milk was spilt. No going back. But I did want to mourn the one volume of
ancient Annals I had not yet been able to locate and pilfer.

All the way home I tried to reason out what had brought out the Greys.

Surendranath Santaraksita had not been missing long enough to cause any official
interest. In fact, some mornings the Master Librarian did not arrive until much
later than this. I gave it up before I threw my brain out of joint. Murgen could
go poking around down there. He could find the answer by eavesdropping.

M urgen was busy eavesdropping even though it was daytime. He was worried about
Sahra and Tobo. And maybe even a little about Goblin. I found One-Eye, hung over
but attentive, at the table where the mist engine resided. Mother Gota and Uncle
Doj were there as well, tense and attentive themselves. Which told me that Sahra
was determined to go ahead with our most daring stroke yet. To my amazement,

One-Eye hustled over—in reality, a slow shuffle—and patted me on my back. “We
heard you were coming in, Little Girl. We were scared shitless they were going
to get you.”

“What?”

“Murgen warned us there was a trap. He heard some of the Grey bosses talking
about it when he was scouting to see what Sahra was headed into. The old bitch
Soulcatcher herself was out there waiting for you. Well, not exactly you
personally, just somebody who goes around stealing books that aren’t supposed to
be there in the first place.”

“You’ve lost me good, old man. Start someplace where I can see a couple of
landmarks.”

“Somebody followed you and your boyfriend yesterday. Somebody more suspicious of
him than of you. Evidently a part-time spy for the Protector.”

We knew there were informants out there getting paid piecework rates. We tried
not to be vulnerable to them.

“Also evidently with a boner for your boyfriend.”

“One-Eye!”

“All right. For your boss. More or less literally. He went and told the Greys
that this dirty old man was about to force perversions on one of the youths who
worked for him. A few Greys went to the library and started poking around and
asking questions and quickly discovered that some funds had gone missing, and
Santaraksita as well, when they started dragging people out of bed and pulling
them in. Then they discovered several books missing also, including some great
rarities and even a couple that were supposed to have been removed from the
library years ago but had not been. That got back to Catcher. She got her sweet
little behind down there in about ten seconds and started threatening to eat
people alive and hurting anybody whose looks she didn’t like.”

“And I almost walked into the middle of it.” I mused, “How did they know the
books were gone? I replaced them with discards.” But maybe Master Santaraksita,

if he was a crook, had been doing that, too.

If he had been corrupt, he had had me fooled.

We would have to talk.

“Near as Murgen could find out, Dorabee Dey Banerjae isn’t suspected of anything
worse than naïveté. Surendranath Santaraksita, though, is in deep shit.

Soulcatcher is going to kill him one limb at a time and let him watch the crows
eat them as they go. And after that she’s going to get nasty.” One-Eye grinned a
grin in which just the one lonely tooth loomed. Not exactly a recommendation of
his talents as the Company dental specialist.

“Say what you like about Soulcatcher, she doesn’t put up with any corruption.”

Which was just another black mark in her ledger as far as One-Eye was concerned.

“I’m safe,” I said. “Here’s food for thought. A white crow was waiting at the
gate, possibly to warn me. It made a definite attempt to communicate. So what’s
the story with Sahra?”

“She’s going ahead. That Jaul Barundandi is a real dim-wit. He bought Goblin’s
feeble imitation of your Sawa character. Then he tried to get Tobo away from
Sahra. Sahra threatened to tell his wife.”

Minh Subredil was going to have trouble staying employed if she kept up the bad
attitude.

“The cover team in place?”

“Little Girl, who’s been doing this shit since before your great-grandmother was
born?”

“You always check again. And keep on checking. Because sooner or later, you’re
going to save someone who overlooked something. Is the evacuation team
operational?” Chances were good we were going to have to leave Taglios long
before I wanted. Soulcatcher soon would be hunting us hard.

One-Eye said, “Ask Do Trang. He said he’d take care of it. You might find it
interesting to note that Catcher dropped the watch on Arjana Drupada when the
library jumped to the head of her list and she needed trustworthy people there.”

“She doesn’t have enough to go around?”

“Not that she trusts. Most of those she’s had watching the Bhodi disciples so
she can head them off before they pull any more suicide stunts.”

“Then we have to hit Drupada—”

“Go teach your granny to suck eggs, Little Girl. Like I said, who was playing
these games when Granny’s mommy was still shitting her nappies?”

“Who’s covering the warehouse, then?” Having so many things in the air meant
that every brother had to be occupied somewhere. Soulcatcher was not alone in
facing manpower limitations.

“You and me, Little Girl. Pooch and Spiff are around somewhere, being a mixture
of sentries and couriers.”

“You’re sure Drupada is clean?”

“Murgen checks every half hour. Much as he’d rather be haunting his honey.

Friend Arjana is clean. For now. But how long will it last? And Murgen’s also
been keeping an eye on Slink at Semchi. Checking him every couple of hours.

Looks like that’s going to happen today, too. Soulcatcher is going to shit.

She’s just going to shit rocks. We’re going to do everything but stroll up and
bite her on the tit today.”

“Language, old man. Language.”

Uncle Doj murmured something.

One-Eye hastened to the mist projector.