48
My party was the first to leave Taglios. We went the morning Banh Do Trang died. With me went Narayan Singh, Willow Swan, the Radisha Drah, Mother Gota and Uncle Doj, Riverwalker, Iqbal Singh with his wife Suruvhija and two children and baby, and his brother Runmust. In addition, we had several goats with small packs and chickens tied to their backs, two donkeys, one or the other of which Gota rode much of the time, and an ox cart drawn by a beast we strove hard to keep looking sadder and scruffier than it really was. Most everyone adopted some form of disguise. The Shadar trimmed their hair and beards and the whole family adopted Vehdna dress. I stayed Vehdna but became a woman. The Radisha became a man. Uncle Doj and Willow Swan shaved their heads and became Bhodi disciples. Swan darkened himself with stain but there was no way to change his blue eyes. Gota had to do without Nyueng Bao fashions.
Narayan Singh remained exactly the same, virtually indistinguishable from thousands of others just like him.
We looked bizarre, but even stranger bands collected to share the rigors of the road. And we would collect together only when we camped. On the road we stretched out over half a mile, one Singh brother out front, the other in back, while River stayed fairly close to me. The brothers carried a pair of devices given them by Goblin and One-Eye. If Narayan, the Radisha or Swan strayed far from a line running between them, choke spells would begin constricting around their throats.
None of the three had been informed of that. We were all supposed to be friends and allies now. But I believe in trusting some of my friends more than others.
On the Rock Road that the Captain had had built between Taglios and Jaicur, we did not catch the eye at all. But a crowd like that, with a baby and an ox cart and regular Vehdna prayers and whatnot, is not swift. Nor did the season help. I became thoroughly sick of the rain.
The last time I traveled down the Rock Road I rode a giant black stallion that covered the distance between Taglios and Ghoja on the River Main in a day and a night without hurrying.
Four days after leaving the city we were still at least that long from the bridge at Ghoja, which would be our first dangerous bottleneck. In the afternoon Uncle Doj chose to announce that we had come as close as the road would carry us to the place where he had hidden the copy of the Book of the Dead.
“Aw, darn,” I said. “I was hoping it would be way farther down the road. How are we going to explain having a book if we get stopped?”
Doj showed me his palms and a big smile. “I’m a priest. A missionary. Blame it on me.” Despite the hardships, he was happy. “Come help me dig it up.”
“What is this place?” I asked two hours later. We had come into something that might have come from one of Murgen’s old nightmares about Kina. Twenty yards of woods formed a palisade all around it.
“It’s a graveyard. During the chaos of the first Shadowlander invasion, before the Black Company came, possibly even before you were born, one of the Shadowlander armies used this as a camp, then as a burial ground. They planted the trees to conceal the tombs and monuments from enemy eyes.” Noting my appalled expression, he added, “Down there they have different customs for dealing with the dead.”
I knew that. I had been there. I had seen it. But never had I seen it so concentrated, nor exuding such an air of depression. “This is grim.”
“A spell makes it seem that way. They thought they would come back and turn the place into a memorial after they won the war. They wanted to keep people away.”
“I’m willing to go along with their wishes. This is too creepy for me.”
“It’s not that bad. Come on. This shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”
It did, but not a lot longer. It was a matter of pulling the door away from one of the fancier tombs and digging out a bundle wrapped in several layers of oilskins.
“This is a place worth remembering,” Doj said as we went away. “People around here won’t come near it. People from farther away don’t know about it. It’s a good hideout.”
“I can’t wait.”
“You’ll love the Grove of Doom, too.”
“I’ve been there. I didn’t like it, either, but at the time I was too worried about Stranglers to be scared of ghosts or ancient goddesses.”
“It’s another good place to hide.”
I am not suspicious by nature the way Soulcatcher is but I am suspicious occasionally. I am particularly suspicious of reticent old Nyueng Bao who suddenly turn chatty and helpful. “The Captain hid out there once,” I said. “He didn’t find the place congenial, either. What’re you up to?”
“Up to? I don’t understand.”
“You understand perfectly, old man. Yesterday I was just another jengali, albeit one you had to tolerate. Today, suddenly, I’m getting unsolicited advice. I’m being offered the benefit of your accumulated wisdom, like I’m some kind of apprentice. You want me to take a turn carrying that?” He was, after all, an old man.
“As the pace and pressures have increased and events have taken unexpected—but usually favorable—twists, I’ve begun reflecting more intently on the wisdom of Hong Tray, on the foresight she showed, even upon her devilish sense of humor, and I believe I’m finally beginning to grasp the full significance of her prophecies.”
“Or of mass quantities of bullfeathers. Tell it to Sahra and Murgen next time you see them. And put a little honest sentiment into your apologies.”
My attempt to be unpleasant did not subdue him. That took the arrival of the afternoon rains, a little early, a lot heavy, supported by a truly ferocious fall of hail. Along the road, dashing out from under the trees where we had left our own party, a score of travelers tried to collect the ice before it melted. Taglians never see snow, and rainy-season storms provide the only time they ever see ice—unless they travel far down into what used to be the Shadowlands, to the higher elevations of the Dandha Presh.
Scavenging hailstones was a young people’s game. The old folks pushed under the trees as far as they could get, wearing their rain gear. The baby would not stop crying. She did not like the thunder. Runmust and Iqbal tried to keep an eye on the children as well as to watch unknown travelers closely. They were convinced that anyone met on the road might be an enemy spy. Which seemed a perfectly sensible attitude to me.
Riverwalker prowled, cursing the rain. That also seemed a perfectly sensible attitude.
Uncle Doj did a fine job of not drawing attention to his burden. He settled beside Gota. She began to gripe but without her usual enthusiasm.
I sat down near the Radisha. We were calling her Tadjik these days. I said, “Have you begun to understand why your brother found life on the road so appealing?”
“I trust you’re being sarcastic?”
“Not entirely. What was the worst crisis you faced today? Your feet get wet?”
She grunted. She got the point.
“I believe it was the politics he resented. The fact that no matter what he considered doing, there were always a hundred selfish men who wanted to subvert his vision for their own profit.”
“You knew him?” the Radisha asked.
“Not well. Not to philosophize with. But he wasn’t a man who kept his views secret.”
“My brother? Being away must’ve changed him a lot more than I thought it could, then. He never revealed his inner self while he lived in the Palace. That would have been too risky.”
“His power was more secure out there. He didn’t have to please anyone but the Liberator. His men came to love him. They would’ve followed him anywhere. Which got most of them killed when you turned on the Company.”
“He’s really alive? You aren’t just manipulating me for your own ends?”
“Of course I am. Manipulating you, that is. But it is true that he’s alive. All the Captured are. That’s why we left Taglios even though we had your side on the run. We want our brothers out before we do anything more.”
I heard a whisper. “Sister. Sister.”
“What?”
The Radisha had not spoken. She eyed me inquisitively. “I didn’t say it.”
I glanced around apprehensively, saw nothing. “Must just be the rain in the leaves.”
“Uhm.” The Radisha was not convinced, either.
Hard to believe. I really missed Goblin and One-Eye.
I found Uncle Doj again. “Lady insisted that you’re a minor wizard. If you have any talent at all, please use it to see if we’re being watched or followed.” Once Soulcatcher started looking for us outside Taglios, it should not take long for her crows and shadows to find us.
Uncle Doj grunted noncommittally.