Soldiers Live (Glittering Stone) by Glen Cook Read Free Book Online

consisted of a disorganized stumble from crisis to crisis. He no longer became emotionally involved. Soulcatcher would turn on him someday. He had made his peace with that already. He would face it calmly when it came. He deserved no better.
    “There is a huge Deceiver festival being celebrated in the Grove of Doom. Right now. Tonight.” This voice was cool, calm, rational. Masculine. You got used to the changes after a while. Mogaba seldom noticed anymore. Aridatha Singh, only recently promoted, still found the unpredictable chorus disconcerting. Singh was a sound officer and good soldier. Mogaba hoped he lasted long enough to become accustomed to the Protector’s quirks. Aridatha deserved better than he was likely to get.
    “That’s definitely not good news,” Mogaba agreed. “Seems I recall you wanting to harvest the timber there while obliterating every last trace of the holy place. Selvas Gupta talked you out of it. Said it would set a bad precedent.” Gupta had had secret encouragement from the Great General, who had not cared to waste manpower and time clearing a forest. But Mogaba loathed Selvas Gupta and his smugly holy attitude of superiority.
    Gupta was the current Purohita, or official court chaplain and religious adviser. Purohita was a post that had been forced upon the Radisha Drah twenty years earlier by the priesthoods at a time when the princess had been too weak to defy them. Soulcatcher had not yet abolished it. But she had little patience with the men who occupied it.
    Selvas Gupta had been Purohita for a year, which incumbency exceeded that of all his predecessors since the establishment of the Protectorate.
    Mogaba was confident that slimy little snake Gupta would not last out the week.
    Soulcatcher gave him a look which offered the impression that she was peering deep inside him, sorting his secrets and motives. Having paused just long enough to suggest that she was not being fooled, she said, “Get me a new Purohita. Kill the old one if he argues about it.” She had an ancient custom of being unpleasant toward priests who disappointed her. Which ran in the family. Her sister had slain hundreds in a single massacre a generation earlier. The exemplary demonstrations of both sisters, however, never seemed sufficient to convince the survivors that they ought to abandon their scheming. They were stubborn. It seemed likely that Taglios would come up short of priests before it ran short of conspiracies.
    The crow hopped down onto Soulcatcher’s shoulder. She lifted gloved fingers to offer it some tidbit.
    “Did you have a response in mind? Something involving my colleagues?” Mogaba nodded toward the Singhs in turn. He suffered little jealousy of either man and did respect each for his abilities. Time and persistent adversity had ground the rough edges off of his once potent sense of self-appreciation.
    “These gentlemen were here already, regarding another matter, when the news from the Grove arrived.” She offered the crow another morsel.
    Mogaba’s eyes narrowed the tiniest fraction. He was not to be made privy to that matter?
    But he was. Soulcatcher used a cackling crone’s voice. “The Greys found several slogans painted on walls today.” The crow cawed. Elsewhere, other crows began squabbling.
    “Not uncommon,” Mogaba replied. “Every idiot with a brush, a pot of paint and enough education to string five characters togetherseems to be compelled to say something if he discovers a blank piece of wall.”
    “These were slogans from the past.” This was the voice the Protector used when she was focused entirely on business. It was a male voice. A voice like Mogaba imagined his own to be. “Three said
Rajadharma.’ ”
    “I’ve heard the Bhodi cult is making a comeback, too.”
    Ghopal Singh added, “Two said
’Water Sleeps.’
That’s not Bhodi. And they weren’t stray graffiti left over from four years ago.”
    A thrill, half fear, half excitement, coursed through Mogaba.