I glanced at the cloth-covered villain. He had begun snoring. A good soldier seizing his rest when it was available.

34

Hours passed. Croaker left, then returned. Now he slapped me on the back. “See how easy it is, Murgen? Ever seen such a big trick that was this simple?”

“Nothing to it,” I agreed. “Like falling off a log.” Or like falling into a bottomless pit, maybe, which I have had enough involuntary practice doing.

Nothing is ever as simple as somebody tells you it is going to be. I knew this would be no exception when I tried it myself, amazing as it was. “At least now I understand how you got so damned spooky, knowing things you shouldn’t.”

Croaker laughed. “Go ahead.” Showing off his astonishing discovery had put him into a grand mood. “Try it.”

I gave him a look he chose to interpret as my not really understanding what he meant. Nothing to it. Like falling off a log. Maybe. Only One-Eye is not a very good teacher.

“Do what One-Eye showed you. Decide what you want to see. Tell Smoke. But be damned careful how you do that. You have to be precise. Precision is everything. Ambiguity is deadly.”

“That’s the way the magic goes in every story I ever heard, Captain. The ambiguities screw you every time.”

“You think so? You might be right.” I must have touched a nerve. He became thoughtful suddenly. “Go ahead.”

I was reluctant. “This whole thing is too much like what keeps happening to me when I fall down the rabbit hole to Dejagore. Could Smoke be doing that to me somehow?”

Croaker shook his head. “No way. It’s not the same. Go ahead. I insist. You’re wasting time. Go look at something you always wanted to know about for the Annals. We’ll be right here to cover you.”

“How about I go look for Otto and Hagop?”

“I know where they are. They just passed the First Cataract. They’ll be here in a few days. Try something else.” Hagop and Otto had spent the last three years travelling back north with a Taglian delegation and letters from Lady to those she had left behind. Their mission was to learn anything possibly known there about the Shadowmaster, Longshadow. One of the dead Shadowmasters, Stormshadow, had turned out to be a refugee from Lady’s old empire, Stormbringer, previously thought dead. And two other big and nasty sorcerers long believed perished also have turned up and remain burrs under our saddles, the Howler and Lady’s mad sister, Soulcatcher. And there was Shapeshifter, too, but we took care of him.

That Otto and Hagop managed to survive so incredible a journey was, to me, a major miracle. But Otto and Hagop are blessed.

“I expect they’ll have whole new collections of scars to talk about.”

Croaker nodded. He seemed a little grim now. A little anxious. Time to get on with my training.

An unexplained tragedy of the past caught my imagination. There had been some grotesque, horrible, senseless killings in a village called Bond that never got connected with anyone or anything, to my recollection. I was sure they had to be important somehow and was baffled that, even today, the slaughter remained unsolved and unresolved.