Book 2 - She Is The Darkness by Glen Cook Read Free Book Online

perfectly aware
of our presence, but not slowing down a bit. I guess I was starting
to push ahead.
    “I’ve got it under control, Captain. I don’t
fall off into the past anymore and I hardly ever wake up screaming.
I hold it down to a little shaking and sweating.”
    “Anything starts getting to you, I want to know. I expect
to be here a while. You’re going to need to be able to take
it.”
    “I won’t screw up,” I promised.
     
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9
    I did not wait long after Thai Dei and I took up quarters in one
of the same buildings we had occupied during the siege.
Reconstruction had not reached that part of town yet. Some of the
old litter still lay around. “At least they got rid of all
the bones,” I told Thai Dei.
    He grunted, looked around like he expected to see ghosts.
    “You be all right here?” I asked. Nyueng Bao do
believe in ghosts and spirits and ancestors who follow you around
nagging if you have not gotten them buried properly. A lot of
Nyueng Bao pilgrims passed over here without benefit of the
appropriate ceremonies.
    “I must be. I must have everything ready when Doj
comes.”
    That was a major speech for Thai Dei.
    Uncle Doj was a priest of some sort. Presumably he would take
this opportunity to complete what he had not had time to do four
years ago.
    “You go ahead. I have things to do.” Far places to
see. Pain to be given the slip, though I did not admit that
directly even to myself.
    Thai Dei started to put his few possessions aside.
    “No. It’s more of that secret Company stuff that
I’m expected to do alone.”
    Thai Dei grunted, almost pleased to have his time be his
own.
    It always was his but he would not listen when I insisted he did
not owe me. If it were not for me he would not have lost his sister
and son.
    Arguing with a Nyueng Bao is like arguing with water buffalo.
You cannot get through and after a while the Nyueng Bao loses
interest in listening. Might as well save your energy.
    “Wondered how long it would be,” One-Eye said when I
tracked him down. He had brought the wagon into our old part of
town but had not taken Smoke out. He had it backed into a tight
alleyway where, I presumed, the wagon would vanish inside
camouflaging spells as soon as he dealt with his team.
    “Unhitch them animals, Kid, and get them over to the
transient stable while I straighten up here.”
    Arguing with One-Eye gets to be a little like arguing with
Nyueng Bao. He goes completely deaf. He did so in this instance. He
went about his business exactly as though I was not there. In the
interest of efficiency I took care of the animals.
    I believe I did a little grumbling about wishing Goblin was
back.
    That little toad of a wizard Goblin is One-Eye’s best
friend and worst enemy. He was so hard to find I thought, at first,
that I was having trouble getting Smoke to understand what I wanted
to do. Then I tried going back to where I had seen him last, in the
river delta on the edge of Nyueng Bao country. My plan was to
follow him forward in time to where he was now. And that worked
just fine till Goblin’s ship entered a fog bank and never
came out again.
    Smoke could not find him.
    It took me a while to comprehend that Smoke might have been
primed to shy away from what Goblin was doing. Maybe to keep
One-Eye from finding out and interfering. It would be just like the
little shit to blow a whole operation because he did not think
before pulling some nasty practical joke on his friend.
    I did some experimenting. Sure enough, Smoke had been given some
special instructions. The Old Man had not given up visiting him
completely.
    Once I knew that, I had little difficulty getting past
Croaker’s safeguards. I fear One-Eye would have had little
more trouble.
    I found Goblin standing on a sandy beach far down the uncharted
coast of the Shindai Kus, a terrible desert that fills a vast chunk
of land between the northern and southern regions of the
Shadowlands. The impassable mountains called the Dandha