XL

We were over the Forest of Cloud, south of Oar, east of Roses, west of Lords, hiding out from imperial eyes, too many of which had seen the windwhales cruising far from their proper range over the Plain of Fear. Darling wanted to let a little of the excitement die down before she moved on.

She would not let the tree god hurry her, though he was in a minor frenzy. I did not understand exactly what was up yet, but neither did some of the others, so we were getting an education from old Bomanz, who was suddenly Darling’s number-one boy.

“Since you were all there you’ll recall that in the course of the battle in the Barrowland the soul or essence, of the Dominator—the most evil being ever to walk this earth—was imprisoned in a silver spike, which was then driven into the trunk of a sapling sired by the tree god of the Plain of Fear.” He really did talk that way when he had an audience.

“At the time it was believed that would effectively contain and constrain the residual evil of the man forever. The sapling was the scion of a god, invulnerable, unapproachable, and so long-lived as to be, in practical terms, immortal. As the sapling grew, its trunk would engulf the spike. In time the old evil would not persist in so much as memory.

“However. We thought wrong.

“A band of adventurers succeeded in stunning the sapling long enough to get in and prize the spike out. If we are to credit the sapling’s own testimony—and we must, for the nonce, because it is the only testimony we have—none of those men had the least familiarity with the art, and were remarkable only because they came up with an idea that, logically, should have originated with someone devoted to the occult.”

Damn him, he did talk like that when he had an audience. And he wouldn’t stop.

“Gentlemen, the silver spike is loose in the world. It’s not the Dominator. He’s dead. But the undying black essence that drove him remains. And that could be used by an adept to summon, coerce, and shape powers even I cannot begin to imagine or fathom. That spike could become a conduit to the very heart of darkness, an opener of the way that would confer upon its possessor powers perhaps exceeding even those the Dominator possessed.

“Our mission, our holy mission, given the White Rose by Old Father Tree himself, is to recover the silver spike and deliver it for safekeeping, at whatever cost to ourselves, before someone of power seizes upon it and shapes it to his own dark purpose and is, in this turn, shaped—perhaps into a shadow so deep there would be no chance ever for the world to win free.”

That bit about “at whatever cost to ourselves” got a big hand. The talking buzzard pulled his head out from under his wing, cracked an eye, went to town heckling the old wizard. That finally distracted him from his windier fancies.

“Buzzard, if you were fit to eat I’d be picking up kindling right now!” he shouted. Then he got back to business. “The tree god has reason to suspect that the spike is now in Oar. The White Rose, Silent, the Torques, and some of our smaller companions will drop into the city. With the help of the underground they will establish a secure base, then will take up the hunt. Raven, Case, and I, because of our considerable familiarity with the site, will go on to the Barrowland to see what can be learned there.”

That started a bunch of bitching. Raven didn’t like being sent off someplace where Darling wasn’t. I didn’t think these guys had the right to draft me into their adventure. I got pretty hot.

Darling took me aside and calmed me down, then convinced me that even if I remained committed to the empire in my heart, helping her in this would not harm me. Maybe she was right when she said the evil she wanted to abort wouldn’t respect allegiances or philosophies. That it would divide the world into two kinds of people, its enemies and its slaves.

That was a little heavy to get down in one or two bites but I said all right, I’m just following Raven around anyway. Might as well keep on keeping on.

So that was that. I gave in. I also started giving some thought to going back to herding potatoes as a career No potato never talked anybody into making a fool of himself.