A huge mushroom of dark rouge dust with black filigree highlights running through it boiled up from whence we had come. Its topmost surface seemed almost solid but as it rose and moved, the pieces of junk riding on it fell off.
Goblin burst into laughter so wicked it must have carried for miles. "Somebody got into my treasure trove. I hope she learned a really painful lesson." I was close enough for him to add a whispered, "I wish it could be fatal but there's not much chance of that."
"Probably not."
"I'll settle for crippling her other leg."
I said, "Sahra, there's something I need you to do. You remember Murgen telling us how he kept getting ahead of everyone when he came up here? Tobo has been doing the same thing. Try to slow him down."
Sahra sighed wearily. She nodded. "I'll stop him." She seemed apathetic, though.
"I don't want him stopped, I just want him slowed down enough so everyone else can keep up. This could be important later." I decided the two of us needed to have a long talk in private, the way we used to do before everything got so busy. It was obvious that she needed to get some things out where they could be lined up and swatted down and pushed away from her long enough for her heart to heal.
She did need healing. And for that she had no one to blame but herself. She did not want to accept the world as it was. She seemed worn out from fighting it. And in those ways she had begun to look very much like her mother.
I told her, "Put a leash on him if that's what it takes."
Tobo glowered at me. I ignored him. I made a brief speech suggesting anyone who carried a Black Company badge should press it to the road's surface right where Tobo had wounded it. The public readings aloud I had been doing had included Murgen's adventures on the plain. Nobody questioned my suggestion or refused to accept it. The column began moving again, slowly, as we found ways to bless, if only secondarily, the animals and those who did not have Company badges. I stayed in place and said something positive to everyone who passed by. I was amazed at the number of women and children and noncombatants in general who had managed to attach themselves to the band without me really noticing. The Captain would be appalled.
Uncle Doj was last to go by. That troubled me vaguely. A Nyueng Bao to the rear, more Nyueng Bao to the front, with the foremost a half-breed... But the whole Company was a miscegenation. There were only two men in this whole crowd who had belonged to the Company when it had arrived from the north. Goblin and One-Eye. One-Eye was almost spent and Goblin was doing his determined best, quietly, to pass on as many skills as he could to Tobo before the inevitable began to overhaul him as well.
I walked past the slow-moving file, intent on getting back up near the point so I could be among the first to see anything new. I did not see or feel any particular mission in anyone I passed. It seemed that a quiet despair informed everyone. These were not good signs. This meant the euphoria of our minor successes had collapsed. Most of these people realized that they had become refugees.
Swan told me, "We have an expression up north, ‘going from the frying pan into the fire.' Seems like about what we've done here."
"Really?"
"We got away from Soulcatcher. But now what?"
"Now we march on until we find our buried brothers. Then we break them out."
"You're not really as simple as you pretend, are you?"
"No, I'm not. But I do like to let people know that things aren't always as difficult as they want to make them." I glanced around to see who might overhear. "I have the same doubts everyone else has, Swan. My feet are on this path as much because I don't know what else to do as they are out of high ideals. Sometimes I look at my life and it seems pretty pathetic. I've spent more than a decade conspiring and committing crimes so I can go dig up some old bones in order to find somebody who can tell me what to do."
"Surrender to the Will of the Night."
"What?"
"Sounds like something Narayan Singh would say, doesn't it? In my great grandfather's time it was the slogan of the Lady's supporters. They believed that peace, prosperity and security would result inevitably if all power could be concentrated in the hands of the right strong-willed person. And it did turn out that way, more or less. In principalities that did ‘Surrender to the Will of the Night,' particularly near the core of the empire, there were generations of peace and prosperity. Plague, pestilence and famine were uncommon. Warfare was a curiosity going on far, far away. Criminals were hunted down with a ferocity that overawed all but the completely crazy ones. But there was always bad trouble along the frontiers. The Lady's minions, the Ten Who Were Taken, all wanted to build sub-empires of their own, which never lacked for external enemies. And they all had their own ancient feuds with one another. Hell, even peace and prosperity create enemies. If you're doing all right, there's always somebody who wants to take it away from you."
"I never pictured you as a philosopher, Swan."
"Oh, I'm a wonder after you get to know me."
"I'm sure you are. What are you trying to tell me?"
"I don't know. Killing time jacking my jaw. Making the trip go faster. Or maybe just reminding you that you shouldn't get too distressed about the vagaries of human nature. I've been getting my roots ripped out and my life overturned and a boot in my butt propelling me into an unknown future, blindfolded, for so long now that I am getting philosophical about it. I enjoy the moment. In a different context I do Surrender to the Will of the Night."
Despite my religious upbringing, I have never cherished a fatalistic approach to life. Surrender to the Will of the Night? Put my life in the hands of God? God is Great, God is Good, God is Merciful, there is no God but God. This we are taught. But the Bhodi philosophers may be right when they tell us that homage to the gods is best served when seconded by human endeavor.
"Going to get dark after a while," Swan reminded me.
"That's one of those things I've been trying to avoid thinking about," I confessed. "But Narayan Singh was right. Darkness always comes."
And when it did, we would find out just how wonderful a talisman our Key was.
"Have you noticed how the pillars keep on glittering even though the sky has started to look like it's going to rain?"
"I have." Murgen never mentioned this one phenomenon. I wondered if we had not done something never done before. "Did this happen last time you were up here?"
"No. There was a lot of glitter when we had direct sunlight but none that seemed like it was self-generated."
"Uhm. And was it this cold?" It had been getting chillier all day.
"I recall a sort of highland chill. Nothing intolerable. Whoa. Sounds like party time."
A whoop and holler had broken out at the head of the column. I could not determine a cause visually, being of the short persuasion. "What is it?"
"The kid's stopped. Looks like he's found something."
72
W hat Tobo had found were the remains of the Nar, Sindawe, who had been one of our best officers in the old days and, possibly, the villain Mogaba's brother. Certainly those two had been as close as brothers until the siege of Jaicur, when Mogaba chose to usurp command of the Company. "Clear away from him, people," I growled. "Give the experts room to take a look." The experts being Goblin, who dropped to his knees and scooted around the corpse slowly, moving his head up and down, murmuring some sort of cantrips, touching absolutely nothing until he was certain there was no danger. I dropped to one knee myself.
"He got a lot farther than I would've expected," Goblin said.
"He was tougher than rawhide. Was it shadows?" The body had that look.
"Yes." Goblin pushed gently. The corpse rolled slightly. "Nothing left here. He's a dried-out mummy."