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I did not get an answer. There was no answer anyone could give. In actual fact
nobody really knew. Possibly not even my befuddled daughter or poor old
Deceiver and now very dead Narayan Singh.
Lady stipulated, "The old witch is still in there trying, isn't she?"
"Isn't she?"
Lady and Tobo found nothing of interest at the Nijha post. Goblin had not shed
his skin or left any secret Deceiver hex signs. He had just started running
while the getting was good, as soon as somebody realized that he might be
responsible for Narayan's murder.
Uncle Doj rejoined us at Nijha. So did some stragglers who had accumulated
there. Sleepy would not have much trouble with desertions. These men knew no
one outside the Company and spoke not a word of Taglian or any other local
language.
With the stragglers added we would number more than a hundred when we resumed
traveling. Of the original group we lacked only Spook and Panda Man, who had
been awarded the dubious honor of staying behind to watch the shadowgate.
Once she finished looking for other evidence, Lady cornered Doj. "Where's the
body?"
"Huh?" The old swordmaster was baffled.
"Narayan Singh. What did you do with his corpse?"
Tobo and I exchanged looks. That question had not occurred to either of us. It
might be a good idea to make doubly certain just who had died. Narayan Singh
had been a veritable Prince of Deceivers, beloved of Kina.
One of the injured men left to garrison Nijha volunteered, "They threw him in
the old cesspit, then filled it with dirt and rock from the new latrine,
ma'am. Which was built according to your specifications, sir."
I have had a reputation as a martinet along those lines ever since I joined
the Company. And when health, hygiene and waste disposal are handled my way
the Company tends to experience significantly fewer disease problems than do
people who do not do things my way. It remains impossible to reason with some
men, though, so I just give orders and make sure they are carried out.
"Dig him up," Lady directed. And when nobody rushed to grab up picks and
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shovels she began to glow darkly and swell up and even to develop fangs.
Then people started looking for tools.
"That was interesting," I told her.
"Been working on it since I ambushed myself and that tree. It doesn't take
much effort or power but it ought to be visually impressive."
"It definitely was that."
The exhumation satisfied Lady. There was a body. It resembled Narayan Singh,
even including his bad leg. And it was unnaturally well preserved considering
where it had been buried.
"Well?" I asked after she had gone so far as to open the body up. I do not
know what she expected to find.
"It does seem to be him. Considering who he served, who seemed to love him, I
was almost certain there wouldn't be a body. Or it wouldn't be Narayan's if
there was."
The truth was, she had not wanted it to be Narayan. She did not want Singh
evading her vengeance this easily.
"There's no dramatic unity in real life," I told her. "Save it up and take it
out on Goblin."
She offered me a wicked look.
"I mean on the thing that's taken possession of Goblin." The real Goblin would
be my oldest surviving friend.
She carved Narayan's corpse into little pieces. She left a trail of those for
the bugs and buzzards over the next several days. But the man's head, heart
and hands she kept in a jar of pickling brine.
I did not ask why or if she had a plan. Narayan's escape had left her in much
too black a mood for small talk.
A couple of times I did overhear her cursing the fact that there were no great
necromancers left in the world.
She would call Narayan back from paradise or hell to make him pay for taking
our daughter.
The smaller Voroshk girl, the captive, came out to see us. In not bad Taglian
she told us, "Sedvod just died." She stared at Tobo the whole time.
I went to check. The sick boy had, indeed, passed on. And I still had no idea
why.
I figured the Goblin thing probably deserved the blame.
Chapter 55
The Nether Taglian Territories: Along the Viliwash
Sleepy surprised us all. She was irked about us dealing with Soulcatcher but
she made no great fuss. "This situation isn't the one I prepared for. Tobo. I
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trust you're taking steps to prevent the Protector from observing what we're
doing."
"She sees what we want her to see. Which means she doesn't see what we're
doing, only what our mutual enemies are doing."
Which was not much on Booboo's part. Despite her best effort to vanish during [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]