“So we’re going to knock him off,” I said. “Me and Raven. With bows. And how are we supposed to find them?” Catcher would not be there himself, no matter how he talked. Both the Limper and Whisper would sense his presence long before he came within bowshot.
“Limper will be with the forces moving into the forest. Not knowing that he’s suspected, he won’t hide from the Lady’s Eye. He’ll expect his movements to be taken as part of the search. The Lady will report his whereabouts to me. I’ll put you on his trail. When they meet, you take them out.”
“Sure,” Raven sneered. “Sure. It’ll be a turkey shoot.” He threw his knife. It bit deep into a windowsill. He stomped out of the room.
The deal sounded no better to me. I stared at Soulcatcher and debated with myself for about two seconds before I let fear push me in Raven’s wake.
My last glimpse of Catcher was of a weary person slumped in unhappiness. I guess it is hard for them to live with their reputations. We all want people to like us.
I was doing one of my little fantasies about the Lady while Raven systematically plunked arrows into a red rag pinned to a straw butt. I had had trouble hitting the butt itself my first round, let alone the rag. It seemed Raven could not miss.
This time I was playing around with her childhood. That is something I like to look at with any villain. What twists and knots went into the thread tying the creature at Charm to the little girl who was? Consider little children. There are not many of them not cute and lovable and precious, sweet as whipped honey and butter. So where do all the wicked people come from? I walk through our barracks and wonder how a giggling, inquisitive toddler could have become a Three Fingers, a Jolly, or a Silent.
Little girls are twice as precious and innocent as little boys. I do not know a culture that does not make them that way.
So where does a Lady come from? Or, for that matter, a Whisper? I was speculating in this latest tale.
Goblin sat down beside me. He read what I had written. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I think she made a conscious decision in the beginning.”
I turned toward him slowly, acutely conscious of Soulcatcher standing only a few yards behind me, watching the arrows fly. “I didn’t really think it was this way. Goblin. It’s a... Well, you know. You want to understand, so you put it together some way you can handle.”
“We all do that. In everyday life it’s called making excuses.” True, raw motives are too rough to swallow. By the time most people reach my age, they have glossed their motives so often and so well they fall completely out of touch with them.
I became conscious of a shadow across my lap. I glanced up. Soulcatcher extended a hand, inviting me to take my turn with the bow. Raven had recovered his arrows, and was standing by, waiting for me to step to the mark.
My first three shafts plunked into the rag. “How about that?” I said, and turned to take a bow.
Soulcatcher was reading my little fantasy. He raised his gaze to mine. “Really, Croaker! It wasn’t like that at all. Didn’t you know that she murdered her twin sister when she was fourteen?”
Rats with icy claws scrambled around on my spine. I turned, let a shaft fly. It ripped wide right of the butt. I sprayed a few more around, and did nothing but irritate the pigeons in the background.
Catcher took the bow. “Your nerves are going, Croaker.” In a blur, he snapped three arrows into a circle less than an inch across. “Keep at it. You’ll be under more pressure out there.” He handed the bow back. “The secret is concentration. Pretend you’re doing surgery.”
Pretend I’m doing surgery. Right. I have managed some fancy emergency work in the middle of battlefields. Right. But this was different.
The grand old excuse. Yes, but... This is different.
I calmed down enough to hit the butt with the rest of my shafts. After recovering them, I stood aside for Raven.
Goblin handed me my writing materials. Irritably, I crumpled my little fable.
“Need something for your nerves?” Goblin asked.
“Yeah. The iron filings or whatever it is Raven eats.” My self-esteem was pretty shaky.
“Try this.” Goblin offered me a little six-pointed silver star hanging on a neck chain. At its center was a medusa head in jet.
“An amulet?”
“Yes. We thought you might need it tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Nobody was supposed to know what was happening.
“We have eyes, Croaker. This is the Company. Maybe we don’t know what, but we can tell when something is going on.”
“Yeah. I suppose so. Thanks, Goblin.”
“Me and One-Eye and Silent, we all worked on it.”
“Thanks. What about Raven?” When somebody makes a gesture like that, I feel more comfortable shifting the subject.
“Raven doesn’t need one. Raven is his own amulet. Sit down. Let’s talk.”
“I can’t tell you about it.”
“I know. I thought you wanted to know about the Tower.” He had not talked about his visit yet. I had given up on him.
“All right. Tell me.” I stared at Raven. Arrow after arrow skewered the rag.
“Aren’t you going to write it down?”
