saying something but she did not get what I
meant.
“Boy ought to know his old man,” One-Eye rasped. He stared at Goblin, waiting to
be contradicted by a man who did not know his. That was their custom. Pick a
fight and never mind trivia like facts or common sense. The debate about whether
or not they were worth the trouble they caused went back for generations.
This time Goblin abstained. He would make his rebuttal when Sahra was not around
to embarrass him with an appeal to reason.
Sahra nodded to One-Eye. “But first we have to see if your scheme really works.”
One-Eye began to puff up. Somebody dared suggest that his sorcery needed
field-testing? Come on! Forget the record! This time—
I told him, “Don’t start.”
Time had caught up with One-Eye. His memory was no longer reliable. And lately
he tended to nod off in the middle of things. Or to forget what had gotten him
exercised when he roared off on a rant. Sometimes he ended up contradicting
himself.
He was a shadow of the dried-up old relic he was when first I met him, though he
got around under his own power still. But halfway through any journey, he was
likely to forget where he was bound. Occasionally that was good, him being
One-Eye, but mostly it was a pain. Tobo usually got the job of keeping him
headed in the right direction when it mattered. One-Eye doted on the kid, too.
The little wizard’s increasing fragility did make it easier to keep him inside,
away from the temptations of the city. One moment of indiscretion could kill us
all. And One-Eye never quite caught on to what it meant to be discreet.
Goblin chuckled as One-Eye subsided. I suggested, “Could you two concentrate on
what you’re supposed to be doing?” I was haunted by the dread that one day
One-Eye would doze off in the midst of a deadly spell and leave us all up to our
ears in demons or bloodsucking insects distraught about having been plucked from
some swamp a thousand miles away. “This is important.”
“It’s always important,” Goblin grumbled. “Even when it’s just ‘Goblin, give me
a hand here, I’m too lazy to polish the silver myself,’ they make it sound like
the world’s about to end. Always important? Hmmph!”
“I see you’re in a good mood tonight.”
“Gralk!”
One-Eye heaved himself out of his chair. Leaning on his cane, muttering
unflattering remarks about me, he shuffled over to Sahra. He had forgotten I was
female. He was less unpleasant when he remembered, though I expect no special
treatment because of that unhappy chance of birth. One-Eye became dangerous in a
whole new way the day he adopted that cane. He used it to swat people. Or to
trip them. He was always falling asleep between here and there but you never
knew for sure if his nap was the real thing. That cane might dart out to tangle
your legs if he was pretending.
The dread we all shared was that One-Eye would not last much longer. Without
him, our chances to continue avoiding detection would plummet. Goblin would try
hard but he was just one small-time wizard. Our situation offered work for more
than two in their prime.
“Start, woman,” One-Eye rasped. “Goblin, you worthless sack of beetle snot,
would you get that stuff over here? I don’t want to hang around here all night.”
Sahra had had a table set up for them. She used no props herself. At a fixed
time she would concentrate on Murgen. She usually made contact quickly. At her
time of the month, when her sensitivity went down, she would sing in Nyueng Bao.
Unlike some of my Company brothers, I have a poor ear for languages. Nyueng Bao
mostly eludes me. Her songs seem to be lullabies. Unless the words have double
meanings. Which is entirely possible. Uncle Doj talks in riddles all the time
but insists he makes perfect sense if we would just listen.
Uncle Doj is not around much. Thank God. He has his own agenda—though even he
does not