Free Water Sleeps by Glen Cook Page B

figured I could study Murgen’s Annals for a few hours before I
     passed out.
    As I walked away, Swan whispered, “How the hell does she know all that? And is
     she really a she?”
    “Never checked personally,” Slink said. “I have a wife. But she’s definitely got
     some female habits on her.”
    What the devil did that mean? I am just one of the guys.

Black Company GS 8 - Water Sleeps
    11
    These were exciting times. I found myself eager to be up and outside, where
     things were happening. The impact of our boldness would have reached every
     cranny of the city by now. I gobbled cold rice and listened to Tobo complain,
    again, that his father had paid him no attention.
    “Is there something I can do about that, Tobo?”
    “Huh?”
    “Unless you think I can go back there and tell him to shape up and talk to his
     kid, you’re wasting your time and mine bitching about it. Where’s your mother?”
    “She left for work. A long time ago. She said they’d be suspicious if she didn’t
     show up today.”
    “Probably would be. They’ll be real edgy about everything for a while. How about
     instead of fussing about what’s happened already, you spend some time thinking
     about what you’ll do next time you see your father? And in the meantime, you can
     stay out of trouble by keeping notes for me whenever anybody questions the
     prisoner.”
    His glower told me he was no more excited about being offered work than any boy
     his age would be. “You’re going out, too?”
    “I have to go to work.” It would be a good day to get to the library early. The
     scholars were supposed to be gone most of the day. There was supposed to be a
     big meeting of the bhadrhalok, which was a loosely associated group of educated
     men who did not like the Protector and who found the institution of the
     Protectorate objectionable. Jokingly, they referred to themselves as a band of
     intellectual terrorists. Bhadrhalok means, more or less, “the respectable
     people” and that was exactly what they thought they were. They were all
     educated, high-caste Gunni, which meant, right away, that a vast majority of the
     Taglian population regarded them with no sympathy at all. Their biggest problem
     with the Protector was that she held their self-confident, arrogant assumption
     of superiority in complete contempt. As revolutionaries and terrorists, they
     were less incandescent than any of the low-caste social clubs that existed on
     every residential block in the city. I doubt that Soulcatcher wasted two spies
     watching them. But they had great fun, fulminating and crying on one another’s
     shoulders about the world going to hell in a goat cart driven by the demon in
     black. And every week or so it got most of the library crew out of my way.
    I did what I could to encourage their seditious fervor.
    I got off to a slow start. Not thirty yards from the warehouse exit I ran into
     two of our brothers doing donkey work for Do Trang while standing lookout. One
     made gestures indicating that they had something to report. Sighing, I strolled
     over. “What’s the story, River?” The men called him Riverwalker. I did not know
     him by any other name.
    “We got shadowtraps that’s been sprung. We got ourselves some new pets.”
    “Oh, no. Darn.” I shook my head.
    “That’s not good?”
    “Not good. Run, report it to Goblin. I’ll stick with Ran till you get back.
    Don’t dawdle. I’m late for work.” Not true, but Taglians have little sense of
     urgency, and the concept of punctuality is alien to most.
    Shadows in the shadowtraps. Not a good eventuation, for sure. Near as we could
     determine, Soulcatcher had no more than two dozen manageable shadows left under
     control. As many more had gone feral in the remote south and were developing
     reputations as rakshasas, which were demons or devils but not quite like those
     my northern forebrethren knew. Northern demons seemed to be solitary beings of
     considerable power.