One-Eye crooned, “You understand your position here, sweetheart? You were with Narayan Singh when we caught you. You have the red hand. Those things tell me you’re one of those very special Deceivers that the Captain really wants.” He indicated Croaker. The word for Captain he used was jamadar, which has strong religious connotations to the Deceivers.
Lady got taken in by them but she fixed them by marking their top men permanently with the red hand. That made them stand out in the crowd these days.
One-Eye sucked spit between the stumps of his teeth. Somebody who did not know him might have believed he was thinking. He said, “But I’m a swell guy who hates to see people hurting so I’m gonna give you a chance not to end up like this cockroach over here.” He jerked a thumb at Smoke. Fire crackled between the fingers of his other hand. The Strangler screamed the kind of scream that rips your nerves out raw and salts their ends. “You can make this last forever or you can get it over quick. All up to you. Talk to me about what the Deceivers are up to here in Taglios.” He leaned closer, whispered, “I can even fix it so you can get away.”
The prisoner gaped for a moment. Sweat ran into his eyes, stung him. He tried to shake it away.
“I bet that she’d think that Goblin is just as cute as a bug,” One-Eye said. “What do you think, Kid?”
“I think you’d better get on with it,” Croaker snapped. He was not happy dealing in torture and had no patience left for the games Goblin and One-Eye play with one another.
“Oh, keep your damned pants on, Chief. This guy ain’t going nowhere.”
“But his friends are up to something.”
I glanced at Uncle Doj to see what the thought of the bickering. His face was stone. Maybe he didn’t understand Taglian anymore.
One-Eye barked, “You don’t like the way I do my job, fire me and do it yourself.” He prodded the prisoner. The Deceiver tensed in anticipation. “You. What’s up here in Taglios? Where are Narayan and the Daughter of Night? Help me out here.”
I tensed up myself. I felt a big chill. What was it?
The prisoner gulped air. Sweat covered his entire body. He could not win. If he knew anything and talked as he must eventually his own kind would show him no mercy later.
“Sufficient unto the day the evil thereof,” Croaker told him, sensing his thoughts.
My sympathies all lay with the Old Man. Even if he ever does get his daughter back he won’t find what he is looking for. She has been a Deceiver from the day she was born, raised to be the Daughter of Night who will bring on Kina’s Year of the Skulls. Hell, they consecrated her to Kina while she was still in the womb. She would be what they wanted her to be. And that would be a darkness to break her parents’ hearts.
“Talk to me, sweetheart. Tell me what I need to know.” One-Eye tried to keep it one on one, just him and his client. He gave the Strangler a moment to reflect. The rest of us watched without expression, maybe a thimbleful of pity among us. This was a black rumel man. In Strangler terms, generally, that meant he was guilty of more than thirty murders, without remorse-unless he strangled a black rumel man and thus gained acclaim by the most direct route.
Kina is the ultimate Deceiver. She enjoys betraying her own on occasion.
An argument One-Eye did not think to present to our pet Deceiver.
The Strangler screamed again, tried to gurgle something.
“You’ll have to speak up,” One-Eye told him.
“I can’t tell you. I don’t know where they are.”
I believed him. Narayan Singh was not staying alive by announcing his itineraries in a world where everybody really is out to get him.
“Pity. So just tell us why we have Deceivers here in Taglios, after all this time.”
I wondered why he kept going back to that. The Stranglers had not dared to operate in the city for years.
One-Eye and the Old Man must know something. But how?
The prisoner screamed.
The Radisha observed, “The ones we catch are always ignorant.”
“Don’t matter,” Croaker said. “I know exactly where Singh is. Or at least where he’ll be when he stops running. As long as he doesn’t realize that, I know he’ll always be right where I want him.”
Uncle Doj’s eyebrow twitched. Must be getting exciting for him.
The Radisha glared, frowned, stared. She liked to believe that hers was the only working brain in the Palace. Us Black Company types are just supposed to be hired muscle. You could almost hear the creaks and groans as her mind turned over. How could Croaker know something like that? “Where is he?”
“Right now he’s busting his butt trying to join up with Mogaba. Since we can’t stop him-because he’s moving as fast as any message we could send after him-let’s forget him.”
I considered offering a word of suggestion about crows. Croaker talks to crows. And crows fly faster than even a Deceiver can run. I was not paid to think and I was not there to talk.
“Forget him?” The Radisha seemed startled.
“Just for the moment. Let’s find out what his cronies are up to here.”
One-Eye resumed work. I glanced at Uncle Doj, who had stayed out of the way and quiet longer than I had thought possible. He noticed my glance. In Nyueng Bao he asked, “May I question the man?”
“Why?”
“I would test his belief.”
“You don’t speak Taglian well enough.” Little dig there.
“Then translate.”
Just for fun, or maybe to nudge Uncle Doj, Croaker said, “I don’t mind if he does, Morgen. He can’t do any damage.” His remark demonstrated clearly his familiarity with Nyueng Bao dialect. There had to be a message in that, meant for Uncle Doj particularly when taken with his earlier observation about Ash Wand’s provenance.
What the hell? I was confused. And getting more than a little paranoid myself. Had I come back to my own world after my most recent seizure?
In Taglian as passable as I recalled him having, Uncle Doj shot quick, amiable questions at the Deceiver. They were questions of the sort most people answer without thought. We learned that the man had a family but his wife had died in childbirth. Then he realized he was being manipulated and controlled his tongue.
Uncle Doj stamped around like a merry troll, chattering, and winkled out much of the prisoner’s past but not once did he get any closer to the facts of any new Strangler interest in Taglios the city. Croaker, I noticed, paid more attention to Uncle Doj than he did the prisoner. The Captain, of course, lives in the eye of a tornado of paranoia.
Croaker leaned close to me. In a midnight whisper he said, “You stay when the others leave.” He did not tell me why. He went on to say something to One-Eye in a tongue even I did not understand.
He spoke at least twenty languages, he had been with the Company so long. One-Eye probably spoke a bunch more but shared them with nobody but Goblin. One-Eye nodded and continued about his business.
Pretty soon the runt wizard began edging Uncle Doj and the Radisha toward the door. He did it so gently and smoothly that they never complained. Uncle Doj was a guest to begin with and the Radisha did have pressing business elsewhere and One-Eye went about it so unlike his usual abrasive self that he had them thinking it was their own idea. In any event, they left.
Croaker went with them, which helped, but he was back in five minutes. I told him, “Now I’ve seen everything. There are no wonders left. I can get out of this chicken outfit and go ahead with my plan to start a turnip ranch.” Which was only halfway a jest. Whenever the Company stops moving guys begin developing plans. Human nature, I guess.