then you plan to backstab me. I don’t plan to let you. Blade. You coming or staying?”
“Coming. There’s nothing here for me.”
Swan and Mather looked croggled, Smoke pained, and the Radisha exasperated.
As soon as we left the fortress, Blade said, “Jah could try something desperate now.”
“I’ll handle it. He’ll vacillate till it’s too late. Check on your battalion.” Once he was out of hearing, I told Narayan, “He’s right. Do we wait for Jah? Or do we move first?”
He didn’t respond, just waited for me to answer myself.
“We’ll do something when we know he’s planning something himself.”
I surveyed the camp. The outer enclosure was complete. It would do for the moment. I’d keep making improvements, mainly to keep the men occupied. A wall can never be too high or a ditch too deep.
“I want the Shadar to know I need cavalrymen. Their response will show us what support Jah has. Pass the word amongst all the fugitives that those who join voluntarily will get preferential treatment. We need volunteers from the provinces, too. We need to spread our story before these idiots unleash the hounds of factionalism.”
“There are ways to get word out,” Narayan admitted. “But we’ll have to send some of my friends across the river.”
“Do what you have to. Starting now. We don’t mark time. We don’t let them catch their balance. Go.”
I climbed a platform that had been erected near what would become the camp’s north gate, surveyed the countryside. My men were as busy as ants.
Their industry hadn’t communicated itself to anyone else. Only the builders across the river, and the Gunni women, were doing much.
Smoke curled up from one of the ghats. When the flames were roaring a woman threw herself in.
I had to believe it now.
I retired to the shelter Ram had built, settled to stretch the limits of my talent. I’d be needing it soon.
Chapter Eighteen
The dreams worsened. They were dreams of death.
We all have nightmares but I’d never recalled so many so clearly after I wakened. Some force, some power, was summoning me. Was trying to enlist or subject me.
Those dreams were the creations of a sick mind. If they were supposed to appeal to me, that power didn’t know me.
Landscapes of despair and death under skies of lead, fields where bodies rotted and stunted vegetation melted down like slow, soft candlewax. Slime covered everything, hung in strands like the architecture of drunken spiders.
Mad. Mad. Mad. And not a touch of color anywhere.
Mad. And yet with its taint of perverse appeal. For amongst the dead I’d see faces I wished amongst the dead. I strode that land unharmed, vitally alive, its ruler. The ghouls that ran with me were extensions of my will.
It was a dream straight out of the fantasies of my dead husband. It was a world he could have made home.
Always, in the late hours, there’d be a dawn in that land of nightmare, a splash of color on a poorly defined horizon. Always in front of me, it seemed the dawn of hope.
Simple and direct, the architect of my dreams.
There was one dream, less common, that did without the death and corruption, yet was as chilling in its way. Black and white too, it placed me upon a plain of stone where deadly shadows lurked behind countless obelisks. I didn’t understand it at all but it frightened me.
I couldn’t control the dreams. But I refused to let them influence my waking hours, refused to let them wear me down.
* * *
“I’ve sent word out, Mistress,” Narayan said, responding to my question about recruits. We fenced whenever the subject of his brotherhood arose. He wasn’t yet ready to talk.
Blade suggested, “Someone ought to be watching things at Dejagore.” I understood, though sometimes his brevity caused problems.
Narayan said, “Ghopal and Hakim can take a party down. Twenty men should have no trouble. It’ll be quiet now.”
I said, “You had them spying on our
“Coming. There’s nothing here for me.”
Swan and Mather looked croggled, Smoke pained, and the Radisha exasperated.
As soon as we left the fortress, Blade said, “Jah could try something desperate now.”
“I’ll handle it. He’ll vacillate till it’s too late. Check on your battalion.” Once he was out of hearing, I told Narayan, “He’s right. Do we wait for Jah? Or do we move first?”
He didn’t respond, just waited for me to answer myself.
“We’ll do something when we know he’s planning something himself.”
I surveyed the camp. The outer enclosure was complete. It would do for the moment. I’d keep making improvements, mainly to keep the men occupied. A wall can never be too high or a ditch too deep.
“I want the Shadar to know I need cavalrymen. Their response will show us what support Jah has. Pass the word amongst all the fugitives that those who join voluntarily will get preferential treatment. We need volunteers from the provinces, too. We need to spread our story before these idiots unleash the hounds of factionalism.”
“There are ways to get word out,” Narayan admitted. “But we’ll have to send some of my friends across the river.”
“Do what you have to. Starting now. We don’t mark time. We don’t let them catch their balance. Go.”
I climbed a platform that had been erected near what would become the camp’s north gate, surveyed the countryside. My men were as busy as ants.
Their industry hadn’t communicated itself to anyone else. Only the builders across the river, and the Gunni women, were doing much.
Smoke curled up from one of the ghats. When the flames were roaring a woman threw herself in.
I had to believe it now.
I retired to the shelter Ram had built, settled to stretch the limits of my talent. I’d be needing it soon.
Chapter Eighteen
The dreams worsened. They were dreams of death.
We all have nightmares but I’d never recalled so many so clearly after I wakened. Some force, some power, was summoning me. Was trying to enlist or subject me.
Those dreams were the creations of a sick mind. If they were supposed to appeal to me, that power didn’t know me.
Landscapes of despair and death under skies of lead, fields where bodies rotted and stunted vegetation melted down like slow, soft candlewax. Slime covered everything, hung in strands like the architecture of drunken spiders.
Mad. Mad. Mad. And not a touch of color anywhere.
Mad. And yet with its taint of perverse appeal. For amongst the dead I’d see faces I wished amongst the dead. I strode that land unharmed, vitally alive, its ruler. The ghouls that ran with me were extensions of my will.
It was a dream straight out of the fantasies of my dead husband. It was a world he could have made home.
Always, in the late hours, there’d be a dawn in that land of nightmare, a splash of color on a poorly defined horizon. Always in front of me, it seemed the dawn of hope.
Simple and direct, the architect of my dreams.
There was one dream, less common, that did without the death and corruption, yet was as chilling in its way. Black and white too, it placed me upon a plain of stone where deadly shadows lurked behind countless obelisks. I didn’t understand it at all but it frightened me.
I couldn’t control the dreams. But I refused to let them influence my waking hours, refused to let them wear me down.
* * *
“I’ve sent word out, Mistress,” Narayan said, responding to my question about recruits. We fenced whenever the subject of his brotherhood arose. He wasn’t yet ready to talk.
Blade suggested, “Someone ought to be watching things at Dejagore.” I understood, though sometimes his brevity caused problems.
Narayan said, “Ghopal and Hakim can take a party down. Twenty men should have no trouble. It’ll be quiet now.”
I said, “You had them spying on our
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