This is excellent,” I enthused again as Sahra summoned Murgen once more. She herself betrayed no enthusiasm for the task. Tobo’s hovering did nothing to improve her temper. “Before he does anything else, I want to have him check on Surendranath Santaraksita.”
“So you don’t trust the librarian after all,” One-Eye said. He chuckled.
“I think he’s all right but why hand him a chance to break my heart if I can avoid it by keeping an eye on him?”
“How come it’s got to be my eye?”
“There’s not a sharper one available, is there? And you already turned down a chance to work on the Annals. I’ve got to do some heavy studying in those tonight. I might be on the track of something.”
The little wizard grunted.
“I think I found something at the library today. If Santaraksita doesn’t trip me up, I may have an outside view of the first coming of the Company by the end of the week.” An independent historical source has been a goal almost as long as has been our desire for a look at uncontaminated editions of the earliest three volumes of the Annals.
Sahra had something else on her mind. “Barundandi wants me to bring Sawa to work, Sleepy.”
“No. Sawa is on hiatus. She’s sick. She has cholera, if that’s what it takes. I’m finally starting to make some real headway. I’m not going to let that slide now.”
“He’s also been asking about Shiki.” Back when Tobo had accompanied his mother to the Palace occasionally, she had called him Shikhandini, which was a joke Jaul Barundandi never got because he was not the sort to pay attention to historical mythology. One of the kings of legendary Hastinapur had had a senior wife who seemed to be barren. A good Gunni, he prayed and made sacrifice faithfully, and eventually one of the gods stepped down from heaven to tell him he could have what he wanted, which was a son, but he was going to get it the hard way, for the son would be born a daughter. And, as they say, it came to pass that the wife brought forth a daughter whom the king then named Shikhandin, a name that also existed in the female form Shikhandini. It is a long and not that interesting story, but the girl grew up to become a mighty warrior.
The trouble started when it came time for the prince to take a bride.
Many of our public characters have obscure allusions or jokes built into them. That helped make things more interesting for the brothers playing the roles.
I asked, “Do we have any reason to snatch Barundandi? Other than his general sliminess?” I thought he was most useful right where he was. Any replacement was sure to be as venal and unlikely to be as kind to Minh Subredil. “And could we even get him out where we could touch him?”
Nobody suggested a strategic reason for grabbing the man. Sahra wanted to know, “Why do you ask?”
“Because I do think we could lure him. If we dress Tobo up pretty, then refuse to cooperate unless Barundandi meets him outside . . . ”
Sahra was not offended. The ruse is a legitimate weapon of war. She looked thoughtful. “Maybe Gokhale instead?”
“Perhaps. Though he might want someone younger. We can ask Swan. I was thinking of catching Gokhale in that place where the Deceivers killed that other one.” The enemy’s leading personalities seldom left the Palace. Which was why we had chosen to go get Willow Swan.
Sahra began to sing. Murgen was reluctant again tonight. I said, “Murgen should look at that joy house, too. He’d be the best way for us to check it out.” Though, no doubt, we could find several brothers willing to risk themselves in an extended recon.
Sahra nodded, did not break the rhythm of her lullaby.
“We might even . . . ” No. We could not just burn the place once Gokhale had been inside long enough to become seriously engaged. Nobody would understand why I wanted to waste a perfectly good whorehouse—though a few might find a deadly fire highly amusing.
One-Eye looked like he was sleeping again but was not. Without opening his eyes, he asked, “You know where you’re going, Little Girl? You got some kind of overall plan?”
“Yes.” I was surprised to find that I really believed that. Intuitively, somewhere inside, though I had not known it consciously, I had engineered a master plan for the liberation of the Captured and the resurrection of the Company. And it was starting to come together. After all these years.
Murgen showed up muttering about a white crow. He was distracted. I asked the wizards, “You figured out how to anchor him here yet?”
“Always some damned thing,” One-Eye grumbled. “Whatever you do, it’s never enough.”
“It can be done,” Goblin admitted. “But I still don’t see why we would want to.”
“He hasn’t been very cooperative. He doesn’t want to be here. He’s losing his connection to the real world. He’d rather sleep and wander those caverns.” I took a stab in the dark. “And put on his white wings. Be Khadi’s messenger.”
“White wings?”
They did not read the Annals. “The albino crow that turns up sometimes. Sometimes Murgen is inside it. Because Kina puts him there. Or used to put him there and now he keeps stumbling back in, the way he kept stumbling around in time once Soulcatcher got him started.”
“How do you know that?”
“I read sometimes. And once in a while I even read the Annals and try to figure out what Murgen didn’t tell us. What he might not actually have known himself. Right now he may be enamored of being the white crow because that way he gets into actual flesh that ranges outside the caverns. Or he may just be falling under the influence of Kina as she wakes up again. But none of that ought to matter much right now. Right now we have a bunch of spying we need him to do. I want to be able to twist his arm if I have to.”
The mission comes first. Murgen himself taught me that.
Sahra said, “Sleepy’s right. Anchor him. Then I’ll grab him by the nose and kick his behind until I’ve got his undivided attention.” She seemed suddenly optimistic, as though taking a direct approach with her husband was some totally new concept fraught with unexpected hope.
She went straight to outright confrontation, drawing Tobo in to support her.
Maybe she could rebuild Murgen’s ties with the outside world.
I turned to the others. “I found another Kina myth this morning. In this one her father didn’t trick her into going to sleep. She died. Then her husband got so upset that—”
“Husband?” Goblin squeaked. “What husband?”
“I don’t know, Goblin. The book didn’t name names. It was written for people who grew up in the Gunni religion. It assumes you know who they’re talking about. When Kina died, her husband was so grief-stricken he grabbed up her corpse and started doing that stomping dance Murgen talks about her doing in his visions. He got so violent that the other gods were afraid he would destroy the world. So her father threw an enchanted knife that cut her up into about fifty pieces and every place one of the chunks fell became a holy place for Kina’s worshippers. Just reading between the lines and guessing, I’d say Khatovar is where her head hit the ground.”
“I got a notion One-Eye was on the right track back when he was going to desert and retire.”
One-Eye gawked. Goblin saying something positive about anything he ever did? “The hell I was. I just had an attack of juvenile angst. I got over it and got responsible again.”
“There’s a new concept,” I observed. “One-Eye responsible.”
“For catastrophes and afflictions, maybe,” Goblin said.
One-Eye said, “I don’t get the Kina story. If she died back at the beginning of the world, how could she be giving us trouble for the last twenty or thirty years?”
“It’s religion, dimwit,” Goblin barked. “It don’t got to make sense.”
“Kina is a goddess,” I said. “I guess gods can’t ever be completely dead. I don’t know, One-Eye. I didn’t make it up, I just reported it. Look, the Gunni don’t believe anybody dies really. Their soul goes on.”
“Heh-heh-heh,” Goblin chuckled. “If these Gunni got it right, you’re in deep shit, runt boy. You got to keep going ’round on the Wheel of Life till you get it right. You got a lot of karma to work off.”
“Stop. Now,” I snapped. “We’re supposed to be working.”
Work. Not the favorite swear word of either man.
I told them, “You get Murgen nailed down. Or chained down. Whatever it takes to keep him under control. Then you help Sahra try to get through to him. I have a suspicion things are going to get exciting before long and we’ll need him wide awake and cooperative.”
One-Eye grumbled, “Sounds to me like you don’t plan to be here looking over our shoulders.”
I was up already. “Clever man. I have some reading and some translating to do. You can manage without me. If you concentrate.”
One-Eye told Goblin, “We got to get that little bit into the sack with some guy’ll pork her brains out.” His cure for all ills, even at his age.
I paused to say, “When he’s given everything else the once-over, have him search for Narayan and the Daughter of Night.” I did not need to explain how badly we needed to keep those two from achieving their ends.