Bleak Seasons (35 page)

I drifted through the area, curious about how she had lived before we met.

Hamlet, rice paddies, water buffalo, fishing boats, the same yesterday, last
year, last century and tomorrow. Everyone I saw looked like someone I might have
met in Dejagore or among the Nyueng Bao serving with the Company now.

What?

I was sweeping along like a darting swallow. I glimpsed a face looking up in a
hamlet miles back from the river where Goblin and his crew were sweating their
guts out. My heart flipped. For the first time out there with Smoke I enjoyed a
really strong emotion. If I had been in my body I would have wept crocodile
tears.

Man eating crocs adorn the delta, too.

I whipped back, around, hunting that face so much like Sahra’s that it could
have belonged to her twin. Down there somewhere, near that old temple.

No. I guess not. Wishful thinking, Murgen. Plain wishful thinking. Probably just
another Nyueng Bao girl newly a woman, endowed with that incredible beauty they
have for four or five years between childhood and the steep slope into despair.

I pressed in once more, wanting desperately to find even the simulacrum of
Sahra. And, of course, I found nothing. The pain became so great I withdrew from
that region entirely and went looking for a place and time where the gods held
me in higher favor.

I had to fall backward in time, tumbling smugly toward the one era in my life
when I was totally happy, when perfection was the order of the universe. I went
to the hour that was my pole star, my center, my altar. I went to the moment
every man who ever lived dreams of, that one instant when all wishes and
fantasies have the potential to come true and you have only to recognize that
and grab it within a heartbeat to make your life complete. For me that moment
came almost a year after the end of the siege of Dejagore. And I almost wasted
it.

Nyueng Bao were almost always a part of my life then. A scant three weeks
following Croaker’s showdown with Mogaba, and Mogaba’s consequent flight, while
us survivors were still creeping north toward Taglios, pretending to be
triumphant heroes who had liberated a friendly city and rid the world of a bunch
of villains, I awakened one morning to find myself under the dubious and
permanent protection of Thai Dei. He was no more talkative than ever but in a
few words he insisted that he owed me big and he was going to stick to me
forever. I thought that was just hyperbole.

Boy, was I thrilled. I was not in a mood to cut his throat so I let him hang on.

And he did have a sister I wanted to see a lot more than I wanted to see him,

though I never found the nerve to tell him that. Even so . . .

Back in the city, established in the Palace, in my tiny room with my papers and
books and Thai Dei sleeping on a reed mat outside my door, him insisting that To
Tan was in good hands with his grandmother, I lived a life of confusion, trying
to figure out what had happened to us all and to make sense of Lady’s writings.

I was not thinking with absolute clarity when I received a gentleman name of
Bahn Do Trang, who was a relative of one of the pilgrims of Dejagore. He had a
message for me. It was so cryptic it could have qualified as one of the great
goof-ball sybilline pronouncements of all time.

“Eleven hills, over the edge, he kissed her,” brother Bahn told me, all splashed
up with a huge and un-Nyueng Bao grin. “But the others were not for hire.”

To which I offered this countersign, “Six blue birds in a peppermint tree,

warbling limericks of apathy.”

Death of the grin. “What?”

“That’s my line, Pop. You told the guys downstairs you had a critical message
for me. Against my better judgment I let you come up here and right away you
start spouting nonsense. Tamal!” I yelled at the orderly who assisted me and
several others who worked out of rooms nearby. “Show this clown the way to the
street.”

Do Trang wanted to argue, looked at my sidekick, thought better of making a
fuss. Thai Dei watched the old boy closely but did not look like he wanted the
honor of flinging him out on his enigmatic ass personally.

Poor Bahn. It must have been important to him. He seemed stricken.

Tamal was a huge Shadar man-bear, all hair and growl and bad breath. He would
have liked nothing better than to pummel a Nyueng Bao all the way to the street
and thence to the edge of the city. Bahn went without protest.

Less than a week later I received the identical message as a handwritten note
that looked like it had been inscribed by a six-year-old. One of Cordy Mather’s
Guards brought it up. I read it, told him, “Give the old fool a beating and tell
him not to bother me again.”

The Guard gave me a funny look. He glanced at Thai Dei, then whispered, “Ain’t
old, ain’t a him, but probably is a fool, Standardbearer. Was I you I’d take the
time.”

I got it. At last. “I’ll just box his ears myself, then. Thai Dei, try to keep
the bad guys out. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

He did not listen, of course, because he could not bodyguard me from a distance,

but I did confuse him long enough to get a headstart. I got down there and got
my hands on Sahra before he caught up or got ahead of me. After that he had
little say. And my clever lady had brought To Tan to distract him.

Thai Dei did not talk much but that did not make him stupid. He knew he could
not win with the cards he held right now. “Clever,” I told Sahra. “I thought I’d
never see you again. Hi, kiddo,” I said to To Tan, who did not remember me.

“Sahra, honey, you gotta promise me. No more of that cryptic stuff like Grandpa
Dam. I’m just a simpleminded soldier.”

I led Sahra inside and up to my little hole in the wall. For the next three
years I marvelled every morning when I wakened to find her beside me and almost
every time I saw her during the day. She became the center of my life, my
anchor, my rock, my goddess, and every damned one of my brothers envied me
almost to the borders of hatred though Sahra converted them all into devoted
friends. She could give Lady lessons on softening the hearts of hard men.

Not till Uncle Doj and Mother Gota came to visit did I find out that Sahra had
done more than just defy the customs of the Nyueng Bao. She had ignored the
express orders of her tribal elders to come make herself the wife of a Soldier
of Darkness. Confident little witch.

Those toothless old men put no value on the wishes of the “witch” Ky Hong Tray.

I think I have a realistic picture of who and what I am so I am amazed that
Sahra ever thought as much of me as I thought of her.

I had to fall backward in time, tumbling smugly toward the one era in my life
when I was totally happy, when perfection was the order of the universe. I went
to the hour that was my pole star, my center, my altar. I went to the moment
every man who ever lived dreams of, that one instant when all wishes and
fantasies have the potential to come true and you have only to recognize that
and grab it within a heartbeat to make your life complete. For me that moment
came almost a year after the end of the siege of Dejagore. And I almost wasted
it.

Nyueng Bao were almost always a part of my life then. A scant three weeks
following Croaker’s showdown with Mogaba, and Mogaba’s consequent flight, while
us survivors were still creeping north toward Taglios, pretending to be
triumphant heroes who had liberated a friendly city and rid the world of a bunch
of villains, I awakened one morning to find myself under the dubious and
permanent protection of Thai Dei. He was no more talkative than ever but in a
few words he insisted that he owed me big and he was going to stick to me
forever. I thought that was just hyperbole.

Boy, was I thrilled. I was not in a mood to cut his throat so I let him hang on.

And he did have a sister I wanted to see a lot more than I wanted to see him,

though I never found the nerve to tell him that. Even so . . .

Back in the city, established in the Palace, in my tiny room with my papers and
books and Thai Dei sleeping on a reed mat outside my door, him insisting that To
Tan was in good hands with his grandmother, I lived a life of confusion, trying
to figure out what had happened to us all and to make sense of Lady’s writings.

I was not thinking with absolute clarity when I received a gentleman name of
Bahn Do Trang, who was a relative of one of the pilgrims of Dejagore. He had a
message for me. It was so cryptic it could have qualified as one of the great
goof-ball sybilline pronouncements of all time.

“Eleven hills, over the edge, he kissed her,” brother Bahn told me, all splashed
up with a huge and un-Nyueng Bao grin. “But the others were not for hire.”

To which I offered this countersign, “Six blue birds in a peppermint tree,

warbling limericks of apathy.”

Death of the grin. “What?”

“That’s my line, Pop. You told the guys downstairs you had a critical message
for me. Against my better judgment I let you come up here and right away you
start spouting nonsense. Tamal!” I yelled at the orderly who assisted me and
several others who worked out of rooms nearby. “Show this clown the way to the
street.”

Do Trang wanted to argue, looked at my sidekick, thought better of making a
fuss. Thai Dei watched the old boy closely but did not look like he wanted the
honor of flinging him out on his enigmatic ass personally.

Poor Bahn. It must have been important to him. He seemed stricken.

Tamal was a huge Shadar man-bear, all hair and growl and bad breath. He would
have liked nothing better than to pummel a Nyueng Bao all the way to the street
and thence to the edge of the city. Bahn went without protest.

Less than a week later I received the identical message as a handwritten note
that looked like it had been inscribed by a six-year-old. One of Cordy Mather’s
Guards brought it up. I read it, told him, “Give the old fool a beating and tell
him not to bother me again.”

The Guard gave me a funny look. He glanced at Thai Dei, then whispered, “Ain’t
old, ain’t a him, but probably is a fool, Standardbearer. Was I you I’d take the
time.”

I got it. At last. “I’ll just box his ears myself, then. Thai Dei, try to keep
the bad guys out. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

He did not listen, of course, because he could not bodyguard me from a distance,

but I did confuse him long enough to get a headstart. I got down there and got
my hands on Sahra before he caught up or got ahead of me. After that he had
little say. And my clever lady had brought To Tan to distract him.

Thai Dei did not talk much but that did not make him stupid. He knew he could
not win with the cards he held right now. “Clever,” I told Sahra. “I thought I’d
never see you again. Hi, kiddo,” I said to To Tan, who did not remember me.

“Sahra, honey, you gotta promise me. No more of that cryptic stuff like Grandpa
Dam. I’m just a simpleminded soldier.”

I led Sahra inside and up to my little hole in the wall. For the next three
years I marvelled every morning when I wakened to find her beside me and almost
every time I saw her during the day. She became the center of my life, my
anchor, my rock, my goddess, and every damned one of my brothers envied me
almost to the borders of hatred though Sahra converted them all into devoted
friends. She could give Lady lessons on softening the hearts of hard men.

Not till Uncle Doj and Mother Gota came to visit did I find out that Sahra had
done more than just defy the customs of the Nyueng Bao. She had ignored the
express orders of her tribal elders to come make herself the wife of a Soldier
of Darkness. Confident little witch.

Those toothless old men put no value on the wishes of the “witch” Ky Hong Tray.

I think I have a realistic picture of who and what I am so I am amazed that
Sahra ever thought as much of me as I thought of her.

I sipped water, ate, and reflected that this was one time when I had no trouble
leaving Smoke’s world. There was no attenuation of the pain if I went out there
to see Sarie. What was I doing here?

There was one mystery yet to be illuminated before I allowed Croaker to drag me
off into the next fun phase of our great adventure. I wanted to know what had
happened between him and Blade.

Smoke and I zigzagged back and forth through time, quartering the temporal
reaches, tacking into the winds of time, following a search pattern, looking for
anomalies in the relationship between Blade and my boss. I knew about when the
blowup happened so, instead, for the time being, I sought contributory evidence.

You can cover a lot of time fast riding Smoke. It did not take long to
establish, beyond a doubt, that Blade’s relationship with Lady was never
anything but proper, however charged with wishful thinking on his end. Lady
never acknowledged Blade’s mooneyes nor those of anyone else. She seemed too
accustomed to them to pay them any mind.

So what did happen?

I worried it like a wild dog trying to dig a rodent out of its hole. Smoke was
no help at all. There were places, times, angles that he just refused to go see.

I tried tricking him several ways, just to find out why he could not or would
not go where I wanted him to go. None of that did any good.

Maybe I was baying down the wrong trail.

The actual headbutting had been less than wildly explosive and made only
marginal sense when viewed from another point in time. All I could find out that
made sense was that Blade and Croaker were sipping some potent home brew before
they started getting crazy.

Verbal sniping turned into angry implications which became threats on the Old
Man’s part. And the beer continued to flow.

I have to say that Croaker was definitely the bad guy. Or fool. He kept on and
on while Blade did his best not to let himself be baited.

That only infuriated Croaker. He spouted threats that left Blade no choice but
to run.