Book 3 - Water Sleeps by Glen Cook Read Free Book Online

the wreckage that was Minh Subredil. Sawa tagged
along behind and drooled out of the corner of her twisted
mouth.
    Most of the men did not recognize us. They did not expect to do
so. They expected to receive a code word from those in charge that
would expose us as messengers. They got that word. Chances were
good they were in some disguise themselves. Every Company brother
was supposed to create several characters he could assume in
public. Some did better than others. The worst were called upon to
risk the least.
    Subredil glanced at the fragment of moon sneaking a peek through
a crack in the clouds. “Minutes to go.”
    I grunted, nervous. It had been a while since I had been
involved in anything directly dangerous. Other than wandering
around the Palace or going to the library, of course. But nobody
was likely to stick me with sharp objects there.
    “Those clouds look like the kind that come right before
the rainy season.” If they were, that season would be early.
Which was not a pleasant thought. During the rainy season that is
what it does, in torrents, every day. The weather can be truly
ferocious, with dramatic temperature shifts and hailstorms, and
thunder like all the gods of the Gunni pantheon are drunk and
brawling. But mainly I do not like the heat.
    Taglians divide their year into six seasons. Only during the one
they call winter is there any sustained relief from the heat.
    Subredil asked, “Would Sawa even notice the clouds?”
She was a stickler for staying in character. In a city ruled by
darkness you never knew what eyes watched from the shadows, what
unseen ears were pricked to overhear.
    “Uhm.” That was about as intelligent a thing as Sawa
ever said.
    “Come.” Subredil took my arm, guiding me, which was
what she always did when we went to work at the Palace. We
approached the main north entrance, which was only two-score yards
from the service postern. A single torch burned there. It was
supposed to show the Guards who might be outside. But it was
situated so poorly it only helped them see the honest people. As we
drew closer, someone who had sneaked in along the foot of the wall
jumped up and enveloped the torch in a sack of wet rawhide.
    The crude, startled remark of one of the guards carried clearly.
Now, would he be incautious enough to come see what had
happened?
    There was no reason to believe he would not. The Royal Guards
had had no trouble for almost a generation.
    The sliver of moon vanished behind a cloud. As it went,
something moved at the Palace entrance.
    Now came the tricky part, making it look like we screwed up a
sure thing by going in right at a shift change. A sound of
scuffling. A startled cry. Somebody else demanding what was going
on. A rattle and clatter as people rushed the gate. Clang of metal.
A scream or two. Whistles. Then within fifteen seconds, answering
whistles from several directions. Exactly according to plan. In
moments the whistles from the Palace entrance became shrilly
desperate.
    When first the idea was broached, there had been serious debate
about whether or not the attack should be the real thing. It seemed
likely taking the entrance would be easy. A strong faction, made up
of men tired of waiting, just wanted to bust in and kill everybody.
While that might have offered a certain amount of satisfaction,
there was little chance Soulcatcher could be destroyed, and such
wholesale murder would do nothing to liberate the Captured, which
was supposed to be our primary mission. I had convinced everyone
that we needed to launch an old-fashioned, Annals-based game of
misdirection. Make the enemy think we were up to one thing when
actually we wanted to accomplish something else entirely. Get them
running hard to head us off in one direction when we were following
a completely different course.
    With Goblin and One-Eye now so old, our deceits have to be
increasingly intellectual. Those two do not have the strength or
stamina to create and maintain massive