It was late. Willow yawned as he tumbled into his chair. Blade, Cordy, and the Woman looked at him expectantly. Like the Prahbrindrah couldn’t talk for himself. “We talked.”
“And?” the Radisha demanded.
“You maybe expected him to jump up and down and yell, ‘Oh, goodie!’ ”
“What did he say?”
“He said he’d check it out. Which is about the best you could expect.”
“I should have gone myself.”
The Prahbrindrah said, “Sister, the man wouldn’t have listened at all had not someone just tried to kill him.”
She was astonished.
Willow said, “Those guys aren’t stupid. They knew we was up to something way back when they let us hook up with them at the Third Cataract. They been watching us as close as we been watching them.”
Smoke drifted in with all the racket of his namesake. It was a big room in the cellar of a friend of the Radisha, near the olive grove. It smelled moldy although it was open to the night in places. Smoke came a few steps into the light cast by three oil lamps. His face puckered into a frown. He looked around.
“What’s the matter?” Cordy asked. He shivered visibly. Swan got a creepy feeling, too.
“I’m not sure. For a moment . . . like something was staring at me.”
The Radisha exchanged looks with her brother, then with Willow. “Willow. Those two odd little men. One-Eye and Goblin. Fact or fraud?”
“Six of one and half a dozen of the other. Right, Blade? Cordy?”
Cordy nodded. Blade said, “The little one. Like a child. Frogface. That’s dangerous.”
“What is it?” the Woman asked. “The oddest child I’ve ever seen. There were times when it acted a hundred years old.”
“Maybe ten thousand,” Smoke said. “An imp. I dared not investigate lest it recognize me as more than a silly old man. I don’t know its capacities. But definitely a supernatural entity of great efficacy. My question is how an adept of a capacity as limited as the One-Eye creature obtained control. I’m superior to him in talent, skill, and training, but I can neither summon nor control such a thing.”
Sudden squeaks and flutters came from the darkness. Startled, everyone turned. Bats hurtled into the light, peeping, diving, dodging. A sudden larger shape flashed through, dark as a chunk of night. It ripped a bat on the fly. Another shape flung through a second later, dropping another bat. The others got away through a barred but otherwise unclosed ground-level window.
“What the hell?” Willow squawked. “What’s going on?”
Blade said, “Couple of crows. Killing bats.” He sounded perfectly calm. As if crows killing bats in a basement at midnight, around his head, was something that happened all the time.
The crows did not reappear.
“I don’t like it, Willow,” Cordy said. “Crows don’t fly at night. Something’s going on.”
Everyone looked at everyone else and waited for somebody to say something. Nobody noticed the pantherine shadow settle outside the window, one eye peeking inside. Nor did anybody realize that a child-sized figure lounged atop an old crate beyond the light, grinning. But Smoke began to shiver and turn in slow circles, again with that feeling of being watched.
The Prahbrindrah said, “I recall saying it wouldn’t be a good idea to meet this close to the grove. I recall suggesting we get together in the palace, in a room that Smoke has sealed against prying. I don’t know what just happened, but it wasn’t natural and I don’t want to talk here. Let’s go. The delay can’t hurt. Can it, Smoke?”
The old man shuddered violently, said, “It might be most wise, my Prince. Most wise. There is more here than meets the eye . . . Henceforth we must assume we are under surveillance.”
The Radisha was irked. “By who, old man?”
“I don’t know. Does it matter, Radisha? There are those who are interested. The High Priests. These soldiers you wish to use. The Shadowmasters. Perhaps forces of which we are unaware.”
They all looked at him. “Explain that,” the Woman ordered.
“I cannot. Except to remind you that those men successfully fought their way through river pirates who have held the river closed for some time. None of them would say much about it, but a word here and a word there added together suggested that there was sorcery of the highest order involved, on both sides. And theirs was sufficient to force the blockade. But, except for the imp, there was nothing of that sort evident when we joined them. If they had it, where did it go? Could it be that well hidden? Maybe, but I doubt it. Maybe it travels with them without being with them, if you see what I mean.”
“No. You’re up to your old tricks. Being deliberately vague.”
“I’m vague because I have no answers, Radisha. Only questions. I wonder, more and more, if the band we see isn’t an illusion cast for our benefit. A handful of men, hard and tough and skilled in their murderous ways, to be sure, but nothing that should terrify the Shadowmasters. There aren’t enough of them to make a difference. So why are the Shadowmasters concerned? Either they know more than we do or they see better than we do. Remember the history of the Free Companies. They weren’t just bands of killers. And these men are determined to reach Khatovar. Their captain has tried everything short of violence to unearth information about the way.”
“Hey, Smoke! You said go someplace else and talk,” Blade said. “So how about we go?”
Swan agreed. “Yeah. This dump gives me the creeps. I don’t get you guys, Radisha. You and the Prince claim you run Taglios, but you go around hiding out in holes like this.”
“Our seats aren’t secure.” She started moving. “We rule with the consent of the priests, really. And we don’t want them knowing everything we’re doing.”
“Every damned lord and priest who was anybody was up in that grove tonight. They know.”
“They know what we told them. Which is only part of the truth.”
Cordy eased in close to Willow. “Keep it down, man. Can’t you see what’s up? They’re playing for a lot more than just turning back the Shadowmasters.”
“Uhm.”
Behind them, something resembling a panther padded from one pool of darkness to another, silent as death itself. Crows glided from one point of vantage to another. A childlike figure tagged along behind, apparently openly but remaining unseen. But no bats darted overhead.
Willow understood, with that one admonition. The Woman and her brother thought the struggle with the Shadowmasters would preoccupy the priests and cults. While they were distracted they would gather all the reins of the state . . .
He did not begrudge them. He had little use for priests.
He thought maybe Blade was on to something. Here, sure. They ought all to be drowned so Taglios could be put out of its misery.
Each dozen or so paces he turned, looked back. The street was always empty behind him. Yet he was sure something was watching.
“Creepy,” he muttered. And wondered how he’d gotten himself into this mess.