Water Sleeps by Glen Cook Page A

Minh Subredil’s limit. I threatened to scream. He
     would’ve called my bluff if his wife hadn’t been around somewhere. Are you sure
     it’s safe to let this librarian live? If it looked natural, no one would
     suspect—”
    “It may not be safe but it could pay dividends. Master Santaraksita wants to
     make some kind of experiment out of me. To see if a low-caste dog really can be
     taught to roll over and play dead. What about Soulcatcher? What about the
     shadows? Did you learn anything?”
    “She loosed everything she had. Just an impulse. No master plan except to remind
     the city of her power. She expected the victims to be immigrants who live in the
     streets. No one much cares about them. Only a handful of shadows got back before
     dawn. Our captives won’t be missed until tomorrow.”
    “We could go catch a few more—”
    “Bats,” Goblin said, inviting himself to take a seat. One-Eye appeared to have
     dozed off. He still had hold of his cane, though. “Bats. There’s bats out there
     tonight.”
    Sahra offered a confirming nod.
    Goblin said, “Back before we marched against the Shad-owmasters, we killed all
     the bats. Had bounties on them big enough for bat hunters to make a living.
    Because the Shadowmasters used them to spy.”
    I recalled a time when crows were murdered relentlessly because they might be
     acting as Soulcatcher’s far-flying eyes. “You’re saying we should stay in
     tonight?”
    “Mind like a stone ax, this old gal.”
    I asked Sahra, “What did Soulcatcher think about our attack?”
    “It didn’t come up where I could hear.” She pushed some sheets from the old
     Annals across. “The Bhodi suicide bothered her more. She’s afraid it might start
     a trend.”
    “A trend? There could be more than one monk goofy enough to set himself on
     fire?”
    “She thinks so.”
    Tobo asked, “Mom, are we going to call up Dad tonight?”
    “I don’t know right now, dear.”
    “I want to talk to him some more.”
    “You will. I’m sure he’s interested in talking to you, too.” She sounded like
     she was trying to convince herself.
    I asked Goblin, “Would it be possible for you to keep that mist thing going all
     the time so we could keep Murgen connected and any time we wanted, we could just
     send him where we needed to know about something?”
    “We’re working on it.” He took off on a technical rant. I did not understand a
     word but I let him roll. He deserved to feel good about something.
    One-Eye began to snore. The smart would stay out of reach of his cane anyway.
    I said, “Tobo could keep notes all the time . . . ” I had had this sudden vision
     of the son of the Annalist taking over for the father, the way it goes in
     Taglian guilds, where trades and tools pass down generation after generation.
    “In fact,” One-Eye said, as though no time had passed since the last remark, and
     as though he had not been faking sleep a moment ago, “right now’s the time you
     could play you a really great big ol’ hairy-assed, old-time Company dirty trick,
    Little Girl. Send somebody down to the silk merchants’ exchange. Have them get
     you some silk, different colors. Big enough to make up copies of them scarves
     the Stranglers use. Them rumels. Then we start picking off the guys we don’t
     like anyway. Once in a while we leave one of them scarves behind. Like with that
     librarian.”
    I said, “I like that. Except the part about Master Santaraksita. That’s a closed
     subject, old man.”
    One-Eye cackled. “Man’s got to stand by what he believes.”
    “It would get a lot of fingers pointing,” Goblin said.
    One-Eye cackled again. “It would point them in some other direction, too, Little
     Girl. And I’m thinking we don’t want much more attention coming our way right
     now. I’m thinking maybe we’re closer to figuring things out than any of us
     realizes.”
    “Water sleeps. We have to be taken seriously.”
    “That’s what I’m