Glen Cook Black Company 09 Water Sleeps

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contempt. There was no love lost there.
It has started already, Murgen thought. Back to Do Trang's warehouse, then. He
could prevent nothing already in motion, but he could get word to those still
at headquarters so they could get after Narayan and the Daughter of Night as
soon as possible.
Chapter 7
Sahra changed faces as easily as an actor swaps masks. Sometimes she was the
cruel, cunning, coldly calculating necromancer who conspired with the
Captured. Sometimes she was just the near-widow of the Standardbearer and
official Annalist of the Company. Sometimes she was just Tobo's doting mother.
And whenever she went out into the city, she was Minh Subredil, another being
entirely.
Minh Subredil was an outcast, the half-breed by-blow of a priest of Khusa and
a Nyueng Bao whore. Minh Subredil knew more about her antecedents than did
half the people on the streets of Taglios. She talked to herself about them
all the time. She would tell anyone she could trap into listening.
Minh Subredil was a woman so pathetic, so shunned by fortune, that she was an
old, bent thing decades before her time. Her signature, which made her
recognizable to people who never had encountered her, was the small statue of
Ghanghesha she carried everywhere. Ghanghesha, who was the god in charge of
good luck in Gunni and some Nyueng Bao belief. Minh Subredil talked to
Ghanghesha when there was nobody else who would listen.
Widowed, Minh Subredil supported her one child by doing scut-work day labor at
the Palace. Each morning well before dawn she joined the assembly of
unfortunates who gathered at the northern servants' postern in hopes of
gaining work. Sometimes she was joined by her dead husband's retarded sister
Sawa. Sometimes she brought her daughter, though seldom anymore. The girl was
getting old enough to be noticed.
Subassistant housekeeper Jaul Barundandi would come out and announce the
number of positions available for the day, then would select the people to
fill them. Barundandi always chose Minh Subredil because, though she was too
ugly to demand sexual favors of, she could be counted upon to kick back a
generous percentage of her salary. Minh Subredil was a desperate creature.
Barundandi was amused by Subredil's omnipresent statue. A devout Gunni of the
cult of Khusa, he often included in his prayers a petition that he be spared
Subredil's sort of luck. He would never admit it to his henchmen but he did
favor Subredil some because of her poor choice of a father. Like most
villains, he was wicked only most of the time and mainly in small-minded ways.
Subredil, as Ky Sahra, never prayed. Ky Sahra had no use for gods. Unaware of
his tiny soft spot, she did have in mind a destiny for Jaul Barundandi. When
the time came. The subassistant would have ample opportunity to regret his
predations.
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There would be many, many regrets, spanning the length and breadth of the
Taglian empire. When the time came.
We went out through the maze of confusion and distraction spells Goblin and
One-Eye have spent so many years weaving throughout the neighborhood, a
thousand layers of gossamer deception so subtle only the Protector herself
might notice them. If she was looking. But Soulcatcher does not roam the
streets looking for enemy hideouts. She has the Greys and her shadows and bats
and crows to do that work. And those are too dim to notice that they are being
guided away from or subtly ushered through the area in a manner that left it
seeming no more remarkable than any other. The two little wizards spent most
of their time maintaining and expanding their maze of confusion. People not
trusted no longer got within two hundred yards of our headquarters. Not
without being led.
We had no trouble. We wore strands of yarn tied around our left wrists. These
enchanted loops softened the confusion spells. They let us see the truth.
Thus we often knew what the Palace intended before plans went into motion.
Minh Subredil, or sometimes Sawa, listened in while the plans were being made.
I muttered, "Isn't it awfully early for us to be out?"
"Yes. But there will be others already there when we take our place." There
are a lot of desperate people in Taglios. Some will camp as near the Palace as
the Greys will allow.
We did reach the Palace area hours earlier than ever before. But there were
rounds of the darkness to make, brothers of the Company to visit in their
hiding places. In each instance the voice of the witch came out of the
wreckage that was Minh Subredil. Sawa tagged along behind and drooled out of
the corner of her twisted mouth.
Most of the men did not recognize us. They did not expect to do so. They
expected to receive a code word from those in charge that would expose us as
messengers. They got that word. Chances were good they were in some disguise
themselves. Every Company brother was supposed to create several characters he [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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