“Yes.”

“But there are no pilgrimages anymore.” The one that had ended up with hundreds of Nyueng Bao dying in Jaicur was the last of which I was aware.

“The Shadowmaster and the Kiaulune wars made the next few times impossible. There’s supposed to be a pilgrimage every four years. Each Nyueng Bao De Duang has to make the pilgrimage at least once as an adult. For a while the lack was no problem. But now the Protector will not permit the people to meet their obligations,” Banh Do

Trang rasped from his wheelchair, having arrived in time to catch the drift of my interrogation. “There are things we do not discuss with those who aren’t Nyueng Bao.”

I got the feeling he was saying the same thing twice at one time, one way for my benefit and another for Sahra’s. This could be ticklish. We dared not offend Banh Do Trang, whose friendship we needed. If we lost him, we also risked losing Sahra, whose value to the Company could not be calculated.

Nothing is ever simple and straightforward.

I told the old man the way I had it figured. Ky Gota waddled in just as I started. My eyes widened as One-Eye gallantly offered her his seat. It is a world just chock-full of wonders. The little wizard went and got another seat, which he set next to Gota’s. The two of them sat there leaning on their canes like a couple of temple gargoyles. A ghost of ancient beauty peeked out of the wide, permanent scowl that Gota used for a face.

I explained the situation. “But here’s the mystery. Where is the Key today?”

Nobody volunteered that information.

“I’d think that if The Thousand Voices still had it, she’d be running down to Kiaulune every month to round up a new gaggle of killer shadows. It if could open the Shadow-gate safely. And if Uncle Doj had it, he wouldn’t be roaming around looking for it. He’d be back in the swamp blithely letting the rest of us go to al-Sheil in a handcart. Am I wrong? Mother Gota? You know the man. You must be able to offer something.”

Able, perhaps. Willing, of course not. The big thing that stands out, to my ear, about the Company’s sojourn in the south, is the stubborn silence of so many people. About everything. Like if we even discovered our own birthdays, that would be something we could use against them. The fact that the Company now consists almost entirely of native soldiers has not helped at all. Our life does not attract the knowledgeable, educated portion of the population. If a priest offered to sign on, we would send him downriver, knowing for certain that he was a spy.

“You got the damned gimmick?” One-Eye asked.

“Who?”

“You, Little Girl. The villainess, you. I didn’t forget that you were Soulcatcher’s guest for a while, when she caught you on the road coming back from running that message for Murgen. I haven’t forgotten that when our sweet old Uncle Doj rescued you it was incidental. He was looking for his missing trinket, the Key. Not so?”

“That’s all true. But I didn’t bring anything away from that. Except a few new scars and the rags on my back.”

“What we need to know then is has Soulcatcher been looking for the Key?”

“We don’t know for sure. But she does fly down south occasionally and patrols the old ground like she’s looking for something.” We knew that, courtesy of Murgen. Though till now, her behavior had made no sense.

“So who else could’ve snatched this prize?” One-Eye did not press Gota for any information. The way to get around Gota was to ignore her. In time, she would insist that she be noticed.

I remembered a pale, ragged little girl who, though just four years old, had seemed ageless, silent and patient, confidently unfrightened by her captivity. The Daughter of Night. She never spoke to me once. She acknowledged my existence only when she had to, because if she irritated me too much, I might take all of what little food Soulcatcher allowed us. I should have strangled her then. But at that time I did not know who she was.

At that time I was having trouble remembering who I was. Soulcatcher had drugged me and gone down inside me and found half what made me me, then had tried being me in order to infiltrate the Company. I still wonder how well she really knows me. Certainly I do not want her to find out that I survived the Kiaulune wars. She might have the emotional weapons to crush me.

“Narayan came to get the Daughter of Night,” I mused aloud. “But I caught only glimpses of him. An extremely skinny little man in a filthy loincloth who didn’t look anything like the terrible monster he was supposed to be. It didn’t occur to me it was him till I realized I wasn’t going to be released, too. Since I couldn’t see what they were doing, I don’t know if they took anything with them. Murgen, you saw them then. I have it written down that you did. Did they take anything away that might have been this key?”

“I don’t know. Believe it or not, you really do miss some things out here.” He seemed piqued.

I realized I had not bothered to hear what he had to report. I asked.

“Not much useful,” Sahra told me, cutting Murgen off before he could retell everything from the beginning.

“Can you find them now?” I foresaw trouble. There was an unwilling connection to Kina. If the dark goddess was stirring again, he would have to be careful not to attract divine attention. “We have these priorities regarding the Daughter of Night: Kill her. Failing that: Kill her sidekick. Failing that: Make sure she can’t copy the Books of the Dead, which I’m sure she’ll start doing again as soon as she develops a reliable connection with Kina. Finally: Recapture anything she and Singh might have carried off when Narayan rescued her.”

One-Eye stopped nodding off long enough to clap his hands lazily. “Tear ’em up, Little Girl. Tear ’em up.”

“Sarky old reprobate.” One-Eye snickered.

 Goblin said, “You want another angle, find out from your library pals who makes bound blank books. Go to them and find out who’s ordered some recently. Or bribe them to let you know when anybody does.”

“Gosh,” I said. “Somebody who actually uses his brain to think. The delight of the world is that its wonders never cease. Where the devil did Murgen go?”

Sahra said, “You just told him to find Narayan Singh and the Daughter of Night.”

“I didn’t mean right this second. I wanted to know if he found out anything about Chandra Gokhale we can use.”

“Pressure getting to you, Little Girl?” One-Eye’s tone was so sweet I wanted to pop him. “Relax. Now’s the time when you don’t want to force anything.”

A couple of men from the duty crew, Runmust Singh and a Shadowlander dubbed Kendo Cutter by his squad mates, invited themselves into the staff meeting. Kendo reported, “There’s all kinds of screaming going on out there tonight. I sent out word everybody should hole up someplace where there’s plenty of light.”

Sahra said, “The shadows are hunting.”

I said, “We’ll be all right here. But just to be safe, Goblin, why don’t you make the rounds with Kendo and Runmust? We don’t want any surprise. Sahra, will Soulcatcher let the shadows run completely wild?”

“To make her point? You’re the Annalist. What do the books say about her?”

“They say she’s capable of anything. She has no connection with the humanity of anyone else. It must be very lonely to be her.”

“What?”

“We agree our next target should be Chandra Gokhale?”

Sahra eyed me oddly. That had been decided already. Unless some better opportunity fell into our laps, we would eliminate the Inspector-General, without whom the tax system and the bureaucratic side of government would stumble and stagger. He also seemed the most vulnerable of our enemies. And his removal would leave the Radisha more isolated than ever, cut off by the Protector on one hand, the priests on the other, and unable to turn anywhere because she was the Radisha, the Princess unapproachable, in some respects a demi-goddess.