The Plain of Fear

One-Eye stopped by to tell me Darling was about to interview Corder and the messenger. “She’s looking peaked, Croaker. You been watching her?”

“I watch. I advise. She ignores. What can I do?”

“We got twenty-some years till the comet shows. No point her working herself to death, is there?”

“Tell her that. She just tells me this mess will be settled long before the comet comes around again. That it’s a race against time.”

She believes that. But the rest of us cannot catch her fire. Isolated in the Plain of Fear, cut off from the world, we find the struggle with the Lady sometimes slips in importance. The Plain itself too often preoccupies us.

I caught myself outdistancing One-Eye. This premature burial has not been good for him. Without his skills he has weakened physically. He is beginning to show his age. I let him catch up.

“You and Goblin enjoy your adventure?”

He could not choose between a smirk or a scowl,

“Got you again, eh?” Their battle has been on since the dawn. One-Eye starts each skirmish. Goblin usually finishes.

He grumbled something.

“What?”

“Yo!” someone shouted. “Everybody up top! Alert! Alert!”

One-Eye spat. “Twice in one day? What the hell?”

I knew what he meant. We have not had twenty alerts our whole two years out here. Now two in one day? Improbable.

I dashed back for my bow.

This time we went out with less clatter. Elmo had made his displeasure painfully apparent in a few private conversations.

Sunlight again. Like a blow. The entrance to the Hole faces westward. The sun was in our eyes when we emerged.

“You damned fool!” Elmo was yelling. “What the hell you doing?” A young soldier stood in the open, pointing. I let my gaze follow.

“Oh, damn,” I whispered. “Oh, double bloody damn.”

One-Eye saw it too. “Taken.”

The airborne dot drifted higher, circling our hideout, spiraling inward. It wobbled suddenly.

“Yeah. Taken. Whisper or Journey?”

“Good to see old friends,” Goblin said as he joined us.

We had not seen the Taken since reaching the Plain. Before that they had been in our hair constantly, having pursued us all the four years it had taken us to get here from Juniper.

They are the Lady’s satraps, her understudies in terror. Once there were ten. In the time of the Domination, the Lady and her husband enslaved the greatest of their contemporaries, making them their instruments: the Ten Who Were Taken. The Taken went into the ground with their masters when the White Rose defeated the Dominator four centuries ago. And they arose with the Lady, two turns of the comet back. And in fighting among themselves—for some remained loyal to the Dominator—most perished.

But the Lady obtained new slaves. Feather. Whisper. Journey. Feather and the last of the old ones, the Limper, went down at Juniper, when we overcame the Dominator’s bid for his own resurrection. Two are left. Whisper. Journey.

The flying carpet wobbled because it had reached the boundary where Darling’s null was enough to overpower its buoyancy. The Taken turned away, falling outward, got far enough to recover complete control. “Pity it didn’t come straight in,” I said, “And come down like a rock.”

“They’re not stupid,” Goblin said. “They’re just scouting us now.” He shook his head, shuddered. He knew something I did not. Probably something learned during his venture outside the Plain.

“Campaign heating up?” I asked.

“Yep. What’re you doing, bat-breath?” he snapped at One-Eye. “Pay attention.”

The little black man was ignoring the Taken. He stared at the wild wind-carved bluffs south of us.

“Our job is to stay alive,” One-Eye said, so smug you knew he had something to get Goblin’s goat. “That means don’t get distracted by the first flashy show you see.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Means while the rest of you are eyeballing that clown up there another one sneaked up behind the bluffs and put somebody down.”

Goblin and I glared at the red cliffs. We saw nothing.

“Too late,” One-Eye said. “It’s gone. But I reckon somebody should go collect the spy.”

I believed One-Eye. “Elmo! Get over here.” I explained.

“Beginning to move,” he murmured. “Just when I was hoping they’d forgotten us.”

“Oh, they haven’t,” Goblin said. “They most certainly haven’t.” Again I felt he had something on his mind.

Elmo scanned the ground between us and the bluffs. He knew it well. We all do. One day our lives may depend on our knowing it better than someone hunting us. “Okay,” he told himself. “I see it. I’ll take four men. After I see the Lieutenant.”

The Lieutenant does not come up for alerts. He and two other men camp in the doorway to Darling’s quarters. If ever the enemy reaches Darling, it will be over their bodies.

The flying carpet went away westward. I wondered why it had gone unchallenged by the creatures of the Plain. I went to the menhir that had spoken to me earlier. I asked. Instead of answering, it said, “It begins, Croaker. Mark this day.”

“Yeah. Right.” And I do call that day the beginning, though parts of it started years before. That was the day of the first letter, the day of the Taken, and the day of Tracker and Toadkiller Dog.

The menhir had a final remark. “There are strangers on the Plain.” It would not defend the various flyers for not resisting the Taken.

Elmo returned. I said, “The menhir says we might have more visitors.”

Elmo raised an eyebrow. “You and Silent have the next two watches?”

“Yep.”

“Be careful. Goblin. One-Eye. Come here.” They put their heads together. Then Elmo picked four youngsters and went hunting.