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exposed.
    The forvalaka screamed again.
    Then One-Eye’s still blew up. Which is what I had expected
from the moment Lady’s fireball had gone through the
wall.
     
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8

Taglios:
Trouble Follows
    M ogaba knew there
was trouble seconds after he left his rooms, so austerely furnished
in shabby regrets. Palace staffers pushed to the sides of the
corridors as he passed. Without exception they were scuttling away
from the Privy Council Chamber. They must have heard rumors that
had not yet reached his ears. Rumors they were sure would displease
the Protector, which meant that, soon, someone would be making life
unpleasant for someone else and these people hoped to be well out
of the way before he started.
    “Pride,” he said, in a normal, conversational voice
to a young Grey runner trying to ease past without attracting
notice. “Pride is what did me in.”
    “Yes sir.” Color drained from the young
Shadar’s face. He did not yet have a beard to hide behind.
“I mean, no sir. I’m
sorry . . . ”
    Mogaba was gone, indifferent to the apprentice soldier. Similar
incidents occurred each time he passed through the Palace. He spoke
to almost everyone. Those who had watched the habit develop
understood that he was talking to himself and did not expect any
reply. He was pursuing a running debate with his own guilts and
ghosts—unless he was spouting proverbs and aphorisms, most of the
meanings fairly obvious but a few convolute and obscure. He was
particularly fond of “Fortune smiles. And then
betrays.” He just could not get into bed comfortably with the
truth that he had made that bed himself. He still had difficulty
separating “ought to be” from “the way things
really are.” He was no fool, though. He knew he had
problems.
    He was certain that he had a much more solid grip on reality
than did his employer, though.
    Soulcatcher, however, took the view that she was a virtual free
agent and refused to be wedded to any particular reality. She
believed in creating her own by making her imaginings come
true.
    Some were quite mad. Few, however, lasted beyond the heated
moment of conception.
    Mogaba heard crows arguing ahead. Crows infested the Palace
these days. Soulcatcher was fond of crows. She allowed no one to
harass or harm them. Of late bats had made a claim on her
affections as well.
    When the crows became vocal the few servants still around
started moving much faster. Unhappy crows meant unhappy news.
Unhappy news was guaranteed to produce an extremely unhappy
Protector. When Soulcatcher was unhappy she did not care who
suffered the consequences. But someone surely would.
    Mogaba stepped into the council chamber and waited. She would
talk to him when she was ready. Ghopal Singh of the Greys and
Aridatha Singh of the City Battalions—no relation: Singh was the
most common surname in Taglios—were there already. Which meant
that Soulcatcher must have been haranguing them about their failure
to root out enough enemies, again, before the bad news arrived.
    Mogaba exchanged glances with both men. As he believed himself
to be, they were good men trapped by impossible circumstances.
Ghopal had a flair for enforcing the law. Aridatha was equally
talented at keeping the peace without enraging the populace. Both
men managed despite Soulcatcher, who loved both chaos and
despotism and inflicted each with verve and ferocity, driven by the
dictates of whimsy.
    The woman seemed to materialize suddenly. It was a talent she
used to disconcert lesser beings. A lesser man than Mogaba might
have been numbed by the sight of her. The woman had a body the
wonders of which seemed highlighted rather than concealed by the
tight black leather she wore. Nature had blessed her with superb
raw materials. Her vanity had driven her, over the centuries, to
keep making improvements through cosmetic sorceries.
    “I’m not happy,” Soulcatcher announced. Her
voice was petulant, that of a spoiled child. Today her look was
younger