Chapter Twenty-Nine:
THE BARROWLAND, BACK WHEN

 

The Colonel summoned Case. He shook as he stood before Sweet's desk. "There are questions to be answered, lad," Sweet said. "Start by telling me what you know about Corbie."

Case swallowed. "Yes, sir." He told. And told much more when Sweet insisted on rehashing every word that had passed between them. He told everything but the part about the message and the oilskin.

"Curious," Sweet said. "Very. Is that all?"

Case shifted nervously. "What's this about, sir?"

"Let's say what we found in the oilskin was interesting."

"Sir?"

"It appeared to be a long letter, though no one could read it. It was in a language nobody knows. It could be the language of the Jewel Cities. What I want to know is, who was supposed to get it? Was it unique or part of a series? Our friend is in trouble, lad. If he recovers, he's in hot water. Deep. Real bums don't write long letters to anybody."

"Well, sir, like I said, he was trying to track down his kids. And he may have come from Opal…"

"I know. There is circumstantial evidence on his side. Maybe he can satisfy me when he comes around. On the other hand, this being the Barrowland, anything remarkable becomes suspicious. Question, son. And you must answer satisfactorily or you're in hot water, too. Why did you try to hide the packet?"

The crux. The moment from which there was no escape. He had prayed it would not arrive. Now, facing it, Case knew his loyalty to Corbie was unequal to the test.

"He asked me if, if anything happened to him, I would get a letter delivered to Oar. A letter in oilskin."

"He did expect trouble, then?"

"I don't know. I don't know what was in the letter or why he wanted it delivered. He just gave me a name. And then he said to tell you something after the letter was delivered."

"Ah?"

"I don't remember his exact words. He said to tell you the thing in the Great Barrow isn't asleep anymore."

Sweet came out of his seat as though stung. "He did? And how did he know? Never mind. The name. Now! Who was the packet to go to?"

"A smith in Oar. Named Sand. That's all I know, sir. I swear."

"Right." Sweet seemed distracted. "Back to your duties, lad. Tell Major Klief I want him."

"Yes, sir."

Next morning Case watched Major Klief and a detail ride out, under orders to arrest Sand Smith. He felt terribly guilty. And yet, just how had he betrayed anyone? He might have been betrayed himself if Corbie was a spy.

He assuaged his guilt by tending Corbie with religious devotion, keeping him clean and fed.

Chapter Thirty:
A BARROWLAND NIGHT

 

It took Goblin and One-Eye only minutes to examine the house. "No traps," One-Eye announced. "No ghost, either. Some old resonances of sorcery overlaid by more recent ones. Upstairs."

I produced a scrap of paper. Upon it were my notes from the Bomanz letters. We went upstairs. Confident though they were, Goblin and One-Eye let me go first. Some friends.

I checked to make certain the window was shuttered before permitting a light. Then: "Do your stuff. I'll poke around." Tracker and Toadkiller Dog remained in the doorway. It was not a big room.

I examined book titles before starting a serious search. The man had had eclectic tastes. Or had collected what was cheapest, perhaps.

I found no papers.

The place did not look ransacked. "One-Eye. Can you tell if this place was searched?"

"Probably not. Why?"

"The papers aren't here."

"You looked where he hid stuff? Like he said?"

"All but one." A spear stood in a corner. Sure enough, when I twisted it, its head came off and revealed a hollow shaft. Out came the map mentioned in the story. We spread it on the table.

Chills crept up my back.'

This was real history. This chart had shaped today's world. Despite my limited grasp of TelleKurre and my even more feeble knowledge of wizardly symbols, I felt the power mapped there. For me, at least, it radiated something that left me teetering on the boundary between discomfort and true dread.

Goblin and One-Eye did not feel it. Or were too intrigued. They put their heads together and examined the route Bomanz used to reach the Lady.

"Thirty-seven years of work," I said.

"What?"

"It took him thirty-seven years to accumulate that information." I noticed something. "What's this?" It was something that should not have been there, as I recalled the story. "I see. Our correspondent added notes of his own."

One-Eye looked at me. Then he looked at the chart. Then he looked at me again. Then he bent to examine the route on the map. "That has to be it. No other answer."

"What?"

"I know what happened."

Tracker stirred uncomfortably.

"Well?"

"He tried to go in there. The only way you can. And couldn't get out."

He had written me saying there was something he had to do, that the risks were great. Was One-Eye right?

Brave man.

No papers. Unless they were hidden better than I thought. I would have Goblin and One-Eye search. I made them reroll the chart and return it to the spear shaft, then said, "I'm open to suggestions."

"About what?" Goblin squeaked.

"About how to get this guy away from the Eternal Guard. And how we get his soul back inside him so we can ask him questions. Like that."

They did not look enthused. One-Eye said, "Somebody will have to go in there to see what's wrong. Then spring him and guide him out."

"I see." Too well. We had to lay hands on the living body before doing that. "Look this place over. See what you can find that's hidden."

It took them half an hour. I became a nervous wreck. "Too much time, too much time," I kept saying. They ignored me.

The search produced one scrap of paper, very old, which contained a cipher key. It was folded into one of the books, not really hidden. I tucked it away. It might be used on the papers back at the Hole.

We got out. We got back to Blue Willy with'out being detected. We all heaved sighs of relief once we reached our room.

"What now?" Goblin asked.

"Sleep on it. Tomorrow is soon enough to start worrying." I was wrong, of course. I was worrying already.

With each step forward it became more complicated.

Chapter Thirty-One:
NIGHT IN THE BARROWLAND

 

The thunder and lightning continued to strut about. The sound and flash penetrated the walls as though they were paper. I slept restlessly, my nerves frazzled more than they should be. The others were dead to the world. Why couldn't I be?

It started as a pinprick in a corner, a mote of golden light. The mote multiplied. I wanted to lunge across and hammer on Goblin or One-Eye, calling them liars. The amulet was supposed to keep me invisible…

Faintest, most ghostly of whispers, like the cry of a ghost down a long, cold cavern. "Physician. Where are you?"

I did not respond. I wanted to pull my blanket over my head, but could not move.

She remained diffuse, wavering, uncertain. Maybe she did have trouble spotting me. When her face did assume substance momentarily, she did not look my way. Her eyes seemed blind.

"You have gone from the Plain of Fear," she called in that faraway voice. "You are in the north somewhere. You left a broad trail. You are foolish, my friend. I will find you. Don't you know that? You cannot hide. Even an emptiness can be seen."

She had no idea where I was. I did the right thing by not responding. She wanted me to betray myself.

"My patience is not unlimited, Croaker. But you may come to the Tower still. Make it soon, though. Your White Rose does not have long."

I finally managed to pull my blanket to my chin. What a sight I must have made. Amusing, in retrospect. Like a little boy afraid of ghosts.

The glow slowly faded. With it went the nervousness that had plagued me since returning from the Bomanz house.

As I settled down I glanced at Toadkiller Dog. I caught lightning glinting off a single open eye.

So. For the first time there was a witness to one of the visitations. But a mutt.

I don't think anybody believed me about them, ever, except that what I reported always panned out true.

I slept.

Goblin wakened me. "Breakfast."

We ate. We made a show of looking for markets for our goods, of seeking a longer term connection for future loads. Business was not good, except our host offered to purchase distilled spirits regularly. There was a demand among the Eternal Guard. The soldiers had little to do but drink.

Lunch. And while we ate and prepared our thoughts for the head-butting session to follow, soldiers entered the inn. They asked the landlord if any of his guests had been out last night. Good old landlord denied the possibility. He claimed he was the lightest of sleepers. He knew if anyone came or went.

That was good enough for the soldiers. They left.

"What was that?" I asked when next the proprietor passed our way.

"Somebody broke into Corbie's house last night," he said. Then his eyes narrowed. He remembered other questions. My mistake.

"Curious," I said. "Why would anyone do that?"

"Yes. Why?" He went about his business, but remained thoughtful.

I, too, was thoughtful. How had they detected our visit? We were careful to leave no traces.

Goblin and One-Eye were disturbed, too. Only Tracker did not seem bothered. His lone discomfort was being there, near the Barrowland.

"What can we do?" I asked. "We're surrounded and outnumbered, and maybe now we're suspect. How do we lay hands on this Corbie?"

"That's no problem," One-Eye said. "The real trouble is getting away after we do. If we could call in a windwhale just in time…"

"Tell me how it's not so hard."

"The middle of the night we go over to the Guard compound, use the sleep spell, get our man and his papers, call his spirit back, and get him out. But then what? Eh, Croaker? Then what?"

"Where do we run?" I mused. "And how?"

"There is one answer," Tracker said. "The forest. The Guard couldn't find us in the forest. If we could cross the Great Tragic, we'd be safe. They don't have the manpower for a hunt."

I nibbled the edge of a fingernail. Something to what Tracker said. I assumed he knew the woodlands and tribes well enough for us to survive with the burden of an injured man. But jumping past that only led to other problems.

There were still a thousand miles to cross to reach the Plain of Fear. With the empire alert. "Wait here," I told everybody, and left.

I hurried to the imperial compound, entered the office I had visited before, shook myself dry, examined a map on the wall. The kid who had checked us for contraband came over. "Help you somehow?"

"I don't think so. Just wanted to check the map. It pretty accurate?"

"Not anymore. The river has shifted more than a mile this way. And most of the flood plain isn't covered with woods anymore. All washed away."

"Hmm." I laid fingers on, making estimates.

"What do you want to know that for?"

"Business," I lied. "Heard we might be able to contact one of the bigger tribes around a place called Eagle Rocks."

"That's forty-five miles. You wouldn't make it. They'd kill you and take what you had. The only reason they don't bother the Guard and the road is that those have the Lady's protection. If this coming winter is as bad as the last few, that won't stop them, either."

"Uhm. Well, it was an idea. You the one called Case?"

"Yes." His eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Heard you been taking care of some guy…" I let it drop. His reaction was not what I expected. "Well, that's what they're saying around town. Thanks for the advice." I got out. But I feared I had goofed.

I soon knew I had goofed.

A squad commanded by a major showed up at the inn only minutes after my return. They had the bunch of us under arrest before we knew what was happening. Goblin and One-Eye barely had time to cast spells of concealment on their gear.

We played ignorant. We cursed and grumbled and whined. It did us no good. Our captors knew less about why we were being grabbed than we did. Just following orders.

The landlord had a look which made me certain he had reported us as suspicious. I expect Case said something about my visit that tipped a balance somewhere. Whatever, we were on our way to cells.

Ten minutes after the door clanged shut, the very commander of the Eternal Guard turned up. I sighed in relief. He hadn't been here before. At least he was no one we knew. He shouldn't know us.

We had had time to rehearse using the deaf speech. All but Tracker. But Tracker seemed lost within himself. They had not allowed his mutt to accompany him. He had been angry about that. Scared the crap out of the guys who arrested us. For a minute they thought they would have to fight him.

The commander studied us, then introduced himself. "I'm Colonel Sweet. I command the Eternal Guard." Case hovered behind him, anxious. "I asked you men here because aspects of your behavior have been unusual."

"Have we unwittingly broken a rule not publicly posted?" I asked.

"Not at all. Not at all. The matter is entirely circumstantial. What you might call a question of undeclared intent."

"You've lost me, sir."

He began pacing up and down the passageway outside our cell. Up and down. "There is the old saw about actions speaking louder than words. I've had reports on you from several sources. About your excessive curiosity about matters not connected with your business."

I did my best to appear baffled. "What's unusual about asking questions in new country? My associates haven't been here before. It's been years since I was. Things have changed. Anyway, this is one of the most interesting places in the empire."

"Also one of the most dangerous, trader. Candle, is it? Mr. Candle, you were stationed here in service. What unit?"

That I could answer without hesitation. "Drake Crest. Colonel Lot. Second Battalion." I was here, after all.

"Yes. The Roses mercenary brigade. What was the Colonel's favorite drink?"

Oh, boy. "I was a pikeman, Colonel. I didn't drink with the brigadier."

"Right." He paced. I could not tell if that answer worked or not. Drake Crest hadn't been a flashy, storied outfit like the Black Company. Who the hell would remember anything about them? After a time. "You must understand my position. With that thing buried out there paranoia becomes an occupational hazard." He pointed in the direction the Great Barrow must lie. Then he stalked off.

"What the hell was all that?" Goblin asked.

"I don't know. And I'm not sure I want to find out. Somehow, we got ourselves into big trouble." That for the benefit of eavesdroppers.

Goblin accepted his cue. "Damnit, Candle, I told you we shouldn't come up here. I told you the Oar people would have an arrangement with the Guard."

One-Eye jumped in then. They really ragged me. Meantime, we talked it over with the finger speech, decided to wait the Colonel out.

Not much choice anyway, without tipping our hands.

Chapter Thirty-Two:
IMPRISONED IN THE BARROWLAND

 

It was bad. Far worse than we suspected. Those Guard guys were paranoid plus. I mean, they didn't have an inkling who we were. But they did not let that slow them.

Half a platoon showed up suddenly. Rattle and clang at the door. No talk. Grim faces. We had trouble.

"I don't think they're going to turn us loose," Goblin said.

"Out," a sergeant told us.

We went out. All but Tracker. Tracker just sat there. I tried a funny. "He misses his dog."

Nobody laughed.

One of the Guards punched Tracker's arm. Tracker took a long time turning, looking at the man, his face an emotional blank.

"You shouldn't ought to have done that." I said.

"Shut up," the sergeant snapped. "Get him moving."

The man who had punched Tracker went to hit him again.

It might have been a love tap in slowed motion. Tracker reached around the moving fist, caught the advancing wrist, broke it. The Guardsman shrieked. Tracker tossed him aside. His face remained a blank. His gaze followed the man belatedly. He seemed to begin wondering what was happening.

The other Guards gaped. Then a couple jumped in with bared weapons.

"Hey! Take it easy!" I yelled. "Tracker…"

Still in that sort of mental nowhere, Tracker took their weapons away, tossed them into a comer, and beat the crap out of both men. The sergeant was torn between awe and outrage.

I tried to mollify him. "He's not very bright. You can't come at him like that. You have to explain things slow like, two or three times."

"I'll explain!" He started to send the rest of his men into the cell.

"You get him mad, you're going to get somebody killed." I talked fast, and wondered what the hell it was with Tracker and his damned pooch. That mutt went away, Tracker became a moron. With homicidal tendencies.

The sergeant let sense override anger. "You get him under control."

I worked on it. I knew the immediate future boded no good from the attitude of the soldiers, but was not overly worried. Goblin and One-Eye could handle whatever trouble developed. The thing to do now was keep our heads and lives.

I wanted to tend the three injured soldiers, but dared not. Just looking at One-Eye and Goblin would give clues enough for the other side to figure out, eventually, who we were. No sense giving them more. I concentrated on Tracker. Once I got him to focus on me it was no great task to get through, to calm him down, to explain that we were going somewhere with the soldiers.

He said, "They shouldn't ought to do me like that, Croaker." He sounded like a child whose feelings had been hurt. I grimaced. But the Guards did not react to the name.

They surrounded us, all with hands upon weapons, except those trying to get their injured companions to the horse doctor who served as the Guard's physician. Some of them were itching to get even. I worked hard to keep Tracker calm.

The place they took us did not encourage me. It was a sodden cellar beneath the headquarters. It looked like a caricature of a torture chamber. I suspect it was meant to intimidate. Having seen real torture and real torture implements, I recognized half the equipment as prop or unusually antiquated. But there were some serviceable implements, too. I exchanged glances with Goblin and One-Eye.

Tracker said, "I don't like it here. I want to go outside. I want to see Toadkiller Dog."

"Stand easy. We'll be out in a little while."

Goblin grinned his famous grin, though it was a little lopsided. Yes. We would be out soon. Maybe feet first, but out.

Colonel Sweet was there. He did not seem pleased by our reaction to his stage. He said, "I want to talk to you men. You didn't seem eager to chat earlier. Are these surroundings more amenable?"

"Not exactly. They make one wonder, though. Is this the penalty for stepping on the heels of the gentlemen traders of Oar? I didn't realize they had the blessing of the Guard in their monopoly."

"Games. No games, Mr. Candle. Straight answers. Now. Or my men will make your next few hours extremely unpleasant."

"Ask. But I have a bad feeling I don't have the answers you want to hear."

"Then that will be your misfortune."

I glanced at Goblin. He had gone into a sort of trance.

The Colonel said, "I do not believe you when you say you're just traders. The pattern of your questions indicate an inordinate interest in a man named Corbie and his house. Corbie, let it be noted, is suspected of being either a Rebel agent or Resurrectionist. Tell me about him."

I did, almost completely, and truthfully: "I never heard of him before we got here."

I think he believed me. But he shook his head slowly.

"You see. You won't believe me even when you know I'm telling the truth."

"But how much are you telling? That is the question. The White Rose compartments its organization. You could have had no idea who Corbie was and still have come looking for him. Has he been out of touch for a while?"

This sucker was sharp.

My face must have been too studiedly blank. He nodded to himself, scanned the four of us, zeroed in on One-Eye. "The black man. Pretty old, isn't he?"

I was surprised he did not make more of One-Eye's skin color. Black men are extremely rare north of the Sea of Torments. Chances are the Colonel had not seen one before. That a black man, very old, is one of the cornerstones of the Black Company is not exactly a secret.

I did not answer.

"We'll start with him. He looks least likely to stand up."

Tracker asked, "You want me to kill them. Croaker?"

"I want you to keep your mouth shut and stand still, that's what I want." Damn. But Sweet missed the name. Either that or I was less famous than I thought and overdue for ego deflation.

Sweet did seem amazed that Tracker was so confident.

"Take him to the rack." He indicated One-Eye.

One-Eye chuckled and extended his hands to the men who approached him. Goblin snickered. Their amusement disturbed everyone. Me not least, for I knew their senses of humor.

Sweet looked me in the eye. "They find this amusing? Why?"

"If you don't indulge a sudden whim of civilized behavior, you're going to find out."

He was tempted to back down, but decided we were running some colossal bluff.

They took One-Eye to the rack. He grinned and climbed up himself. Goblin squeaked, "I been waiting to see you on one of those things for thirty years. Damned my luck if somebody else doesn't get to turn the crank when the chance finally comes."

"We'll see who turns that crank on who, horse apple," One-Eye replied.

They bantered back and forth. Tracker and I stood like posts. The imperials became ever more disturbed. Sweet, obviously, wondered if he shouldn't take One-Eye down and work on me.

They strapped One-Eye down. Goblin cackled, danced a little jig. "Stretch him till he's ten feet tall, guys," he said. "You'll still have a mental midget."

Somebody swung a backhand Goblin's way. He leaned only slightly. When the man pulled his hand back, having missed entirely and been only lightly brushed by a warding hand, he looked at his own paw in astonishment.

Ten thousand pinpricks of blood had appeared. They formed a pattern. Almost a tattoo. And that tattoo showed two serpents intertwined, each with its fangs buried in the other's neck. If necks are what snakes have behind their heads.

A distraction. I recognized it, of course. After the first moment, I concentrated on One-Eye. He just grinned.

The men who were to stretch him turned back after a moment, whipped by their Colonel's snarl. Sweet was damned uncomfortable now. He had a suspicion he faced something extraordinary, but he refused to be intimidated.

As the torturers stepped up to One-Eye his naked belly heaved. And a big, nasty spider crawled out of his navel. It came out in a ball, dragging itself with two legs, then unwrapped the others from around a body half the size of my thumb. It stepped aside and another crawled forth. The first ambled down One-Eye's leg, toward the man who held the crank to which One-Eye's ankles were strapped. The fellow's eyes just kept getting bigger. He turned to his commanding officer.

Absolute silence filled the cellar. I don't think the imperials even remembered to breathe.

Another spider crawled out of One-Eye's heaving belly. And another. And he seemed diminished just a bit more each time. His faced changed, slowly shifting toward what a spider's face looks like if you look real close. Most people do not have the nerve.

Goblin giggled.

"Turn the crank!" Sweet roared.

The man at One-Eye's feet tried. The first spider scuttled up the lever onto his hand. He shrieked, flung his hand around, hurled the arachnid into the shadows.

"Colonel," I said in as businesslike a voice as I could muster, "this has gone far enough. Let's not get someone hurt."

There was a whole mob of them and four of us and Sweet wanted badly to rely on that. But already several men were edging toward the exit. Most were edging away from us. Everyone stared at Sweet.

Damned Goblin. Had to let his enthusiasm get away. He squeaked, "Hold on, Croaker. This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Let them stretch One-Eye a little."

I saw the light dawn behind Sweet's eyes, though he tried to conceal it. "Damn you, Goblin. Now you've done it. We're going to have a talk after this is over. Colonel. What will it be? I have the edge here. As you now know."

He elected for the better part of valor. "Release him," he told the man nearest One-Eye.

There were spiders all over One-Eye. He had them popping out of his mouth and ears now. Getting enthusiastic, he had them turning up as gaudy as you can imagine, hunters, web-spinners, jumpers. All big and revolting. Sweet's men refused to go near him.

I told Tracker, "Go stand in the doorway. Don't let anybody out." He had no trouble understanding that. I released One-Eye. I had to keep reminding myself the arachnids were illusions.

Some illusions. I felt the little creepies… Belatedly, I realized One-Eye's legions were marching on Goblin. "Damn it, One-Eye! Grow up!" The son-of-a-bitch wasn't satisfied to bluff the imperials. He had to play games with Goblin, too. I wheeled on Goblin. "If you do one damned thing to get involved in this, I'll see you never leave the Hole again. Colonel Sweet. I can't say I've enjoyed your hospitality. If you and your men will come over here? We'll just be on our way."

Reluctantly, Sweet gestured. Half of his men refused to move toward the spiders. "One-Eye. Game time is over. It's get-out-alive time. Would you mind?"

One-Eye gestured. His eight-legged troops rushed into the shadows behind the rack, where they vanished into that mad oblivion from which such things spring. One-Eye strutted over to stand by Tracker. He was cocky now. For weeks we would hear about how he had saved us. If we lived to get away tonight.

I shooed Goblin over, then joined them myself. I told Goblin and One-Eye, "I want no sound to escape this room. And I want that door sealed like it was part of the wall. Then I want to know where we find this character Corbie."

"You got it," One-Eye said. Eye twinkling, he added, "So long, Colonel. It was fun."

Sweet forebore making threats. Sensible man.

Fixing the room took the wizards ten minutes, which I found inordinately long. I became mildly suspicious, but forgot that notion when they said they were done and that the man we wanted was in another building nearby.

I should have harkened to my suspicions.

Five minutes later we stood in the doorway of the building where Corbie was supposed to be. We had encountered no difficulty getting there. "One second, Croaker," One-Eye said. He faced the building we had vacated, snapped his fingers.

The whole damned place fell in. ,

"You bastard," I whispered. "What did you do that for?"

"Now there's nobody who knows who we are."

"Whose fault was it they did know?"

"Chopped off the head of the snake, too. Be so much confusion we could walk off with the Lady's jewelry if we wanted."

"Yeah?" There would be those who knew we were brought in. They would wonder some if they saw us wandering around. "Tell me, O genius. Did you locate the documents I want before you tumbled the place down? Jf they're in there, you're the gent who's going to dig them out."

His face dropped.

Yes. I expected that. Because that is my kind of luck. And that is the way One-Eye is. He never thinks things through.

"We'll worry about Corbie first," I said. "Inside."

As we pushed through the door we encountered Case coming to investigate the uproar.

Chapter Thirty-Three:
MISSING MAN

 

"Hi, fellow," One-Eye said, punching a finger into the soldier's chest, pushing him back."Yeah. It's your old pals."

Behind me, Tracker stared across the compound. The collapse of the headquarters building was complete. Fire snapped and crackled inside. Toadkiller Dog loped around the end of the ruin.

"Look at that." I punched Goblin's arm. "He's running." I faced Case. "Show us your friend Corbie."

He did not want to do that.

"You don't want to argue. We're not in the mood. Move it or we walk over you."

The compound had begun to fill with yammering soldiers. None noticed us. Toadkiller Dog loped up, sniffed Tracker's calves, made a sound deep in his throat. Tracker's face gleamed.

We pushed in behind Case. "To Corbie," I reminded him.

He led us to a room where a single oil lamp illuminated a man on a bed, neatly blanketed. Case turned the lamp up.

"Oh, holy shit," I murmured. I plopped my butt on the edge of the bed. "It ain't possible. One-Eye?" But One-Eye was in another universe. He just stood there with his mouth open. Like Goblin.

Finally, Goblin squeaked, "But he's dead. He died six years ago."

Corbie was the Raven who played such a grand part in the Company past. The Raven who had set Darling on her present course.

Even I had been convinced he was dead, and I was by nature suspicious of Raven. He had tried the same stunt before.

. "Nine lives," One-Eye remarked.

"Should have suspected when we heard the name Corbie," I said.

"What?"

"It's a joke. His kind. Corbie. Crow. Rook. Raven. All pretty much the same thing. Right? He waved it under our noses."

Seeing him there illuminated mysteries that had plagued me for years. Now I knew why papers I had salvaged would not come together. He had removed the key pieces before faking his last death.

"Even Darling didn't know this time," I mused. The shock had begun to wear off. I found myself reflecting that on several occasions after the letters began arriving I had skirted the suspicion that he was alive.

A raft of questions rose. Darling not knowing. Why not? That did not seem like Raven. But more, why abandon her to our mercy, as he had, when for so long he had tried to keep her away?

There was more here than met the eye. More than Raven just running off so he could poke into doings at the Barrowland. Unfortunately, I could question neither of my witnesses.

"How long has he been this way?" One-Eye asked Case. The soldier's eyes were wide. He knew who we were now. Maybe my ego did not need deflating after all.

"Months."

"There was a letter," I said. "There were papers. What became of them?"

"The Colonel."

"And what did the Colonel do? Did he inform the Taken? Did he contact the Lady?"

The trooper was about to get stubborn. "You're in trouble here, kid. We don't want to hurt you. You did right by our friend. Speak up."

"He didn't. That I know of. He couldn't read any of that stuff. He was waiting for Corbie to wake up."

"He would have waited a long time," One-Eye said.

"Give us some room, Croaker. First order of business is going to be finding Raven."

"There anyone else in this building this time of night?" I asked Case.

"Not unless the bakers come in for flour. But it's stored in the cellars down to the other end. They wouldn't come around here."

"Right." I wondered how much his information could be trusted. "Tracker. You and Toadkiller Dog go stand lookout."

"One problem," One-Eye said. "Before we do anything, we need Bomanz's map."

"Oh, boy." I slipped into the hallway, to the exit, peeped out. The headquarters building was afire, sputtering halfheartedly in the rain. Most of the Guard were fighting the fire. I shuddered. Our documents were in there. If the Lady's luck held, they would burn. I returned to the room. "One-Eye, you have a more immediate problem. My documents. You better get after them. I'll try for the chart.

"Tracker, you watch the door here. Keep the kid in and everybody else out. All right?" He nodded. He needed no special coaching while Toadkiller Dog was around.

I slipped out, into the confusion. No one paid me any heed. I wondered if this was not the time to take Raven out. I exited the compound unchallenged, dashed through the drizzle to Blue Willy. The proprietor seemed astounded to see me. I did not pause to tell him what I thought of his hospitality, just went upstairs, groped around inside the concealment spell till I found the spear with the hollow shaft. Back down. One vituperous look for the landlord, then into the rain again.

By the time I returned, the fire was under control. Soldiers had begun to pull the rubble apart. Still no one challenged me. I slipped into the building where Raven lay, handed One-Eye the spear. "You do anything about those papers?"

"Not yet."

"Damn it…"

"They're in a box in the Colonel's office, Croaker. What the hell do you want?"

"Ah. Tracker. Take the kid into the hallway. You guys. I want a spell where he has to do what he's told whether he wants to or not."

"What?" One-Eye asked.

"I want to send him after those papers. Can you fix it so he's got to do it and come back?"

Case was in the doorway, listening bleakly.

"Sure. No problem."

"Do it. Son, you understand? One-Eye will put a spell on you. You go help clean up that mess till you can get the box. Bring it back and we'll take the spell off."

He looked like getting stubborn again.

"You have a choice, of course. You can die an unpleasant death instead."

"I don't think he believes you, Croaker. I'd better give him a taste."

Case's expression told me he did believe. The more he thought about who we were, the more terrified he became.

How had we developed such a fierce reputation? I guess stories grow in the retelling. "I think he'll cooperate. Right, son?"

He nodded, stubbornness dead.

He looked like a good kid. Too bad he had given his loyalty to the other side.

"Do it, One-Eye. Let's get on with this."

While One-Eye worked, Goblin asked, "What do we do after we finish here, Croaker?"

"Hell, I don't know. Play it by ear. Right now don't worry about the mules, just load the wagon. Step at a time.. Step at a time."

"Ready," One-Eye said.

I beckoned the youth, opened the outside door. "Get out there and do it, kid." I patted his behind. He went, but with a look that could have curdled milk.

"He's not happy with you. Croaker."

"Screw it. Get in there with Raven. Do what you have to do. Time is wasting. Come daylight this place will see some life."

I watched Case. Tracker guarded the door to the room. No one interrupted us. Case eventually found what I wanted, slipped away from the work detail. "Good job, son," I told him, taking the box. "In the room with your friend."

We entered moments before One-Eye came out of a trance. "Well?" I asked.

He took a moment to orient himself. "Going to be harder than I thought. But I think we can bring him out." He indicated the chart Goblin had spread atop Raven's stomach. "He's about here, caught, just inside the inner circle." He shook his head. "You ever hear him tell about having any background in the trade?"

"No. But there were times I wondered. Like in Roses, when he tracked Raker through a snowstorm."

"He learned something somewhere. Weren't no parlor trick, what he did. But it was too big for his skills." For a moment he was thoughtful. "It's weird in there. Croaker. Really weird. He isn't alone by a long shot. Won't be able to give you any details till we go in ourselves but…"

"What? Wait. Go in yourselves? What're you talking about?"

"Figured you understood Goblin and I would have to follow him in. In order to bring him out."

"Why both of you?"

"One to cover in case the point man gets in trouble."

Goblin nodded. They were all business now. Meaning they were scared crapless.

"How long is all this going to take?"

"No telling. Quite a while. We ought to get out of here first. Out in the woods."

I wanted to argue but did not. Instead, I went and checked the compound.

They had begun bringing the bodies out of the rubble. I watched a while, got an idea. Five minutes later Case and I stepped out carrying a litter. A blanket covered what appeared to be a large broken body. Goblin's face lay exposed. He did a great corpse. One-Eye's feet stuck out the other end. Tracker carried Raven.

The documents were under the blanket with Goblin and One-Eye.

I did not expect to pull it off. But the grim business around the collapsed building preoccupied the Guard. They had reached the cellars.

I did get challenged at the compound gate. Goblin used his sleep spell. I doubted we would be remembered. Civilians were all over, helping and hindering the rescue effort.

That was the bad news. A few down in that cellar were still alive.

"Goblin, you and One-Eye get our gear. Take the kid. Tracker and I will get the wagon."

All went well. Too well, I thought, being naturally pessimistic after the way things had been going. We put Raven in the wagon and headed south.

The moment we entered the forest One-Eye said, "So we've made our getaway. Now. About Raven?"

I was without a single idea. "You call it. How close do you have to be?"

"Very." He saw I was thinking about getting out of the country first. "Darling?"

The reminder was unnecessary.

I won't say Raven was the center of her life. She will not discuss him except in the most general way. But there are nights she cries herself to sleep, remembering something. If it is for loss of Raven, we could not bring him home like this. It would break her heart all the way.

Anyway, we needed him now. He knew better than we what the hell was going on.

I appealed to Tracker for suggestions. He had none. He did not, in fact, appear pleased with what we planned. Like he expected Raven to become competition, or something.

"We've got him," One-Eye said, indicating Case, whom we had dragged along rather than leave dead. "Let's use him."

Good idea.

Twenty minutes later we had the wagon well off the road, up on rocks so it would not sink into the soggy earth. One-Eye and Goblin wound spells of concealment around it and camouflaged it with brush. We piled gear into packs, placed Raven on the litter. Case and I carried him. Tracker and Toadkiller Dog led us through the woods.

It could not have been more than three miles, yet I ached everywhere before we finished. Too old. Too out of shape. And the weather was one-hundred-ninety-proof misery. I had had enough rain to last me the rest of my life. Tracker led us to a place just east of the Barrowland. I could walk downhill a hundred yards and see its remnants. I could walk a hundred yards the other way and see the Great Tragic. Only the one narrow stretch of high ground barred it from reaching the Barrowland.

We got tents up and boughs inside so we did not have to sit on wet earth. Goblin and One-Eye took the smaller tent. The rest of us crowded into the other. Once reasonably free of the rain, I settled down to probe the rescued documents. First to catch my eye was an oilskin packet. "Case. This the letter Raven wanted you to deliver?"

He nodded sullenly. He was not talking.

Poor boy. He believed he was guilty of treason. I hoped he wouldn't get a case of the heroics.

Well, might as well keep busy while Goblin and One-Eye did their job. Start with the easy part first.

Chapter Thirty-Four:
BOMANZ'S STORY

 

Croaker:

Bomanz faced the Lady from another angle. He saw a ghost of fear touch her matchless features. "Ardath," he said, and saw her fear become resignation.

Ardath was my sister.

"You had a twin. You murdered her and took her name. Your true name is Ardath."

You will regret this. I will find your name…

"Why do you threaten me? I mean you no harm."

You harm me by thwarting me. Free me.

"Come, come. Don't be childish. Why force my hand? That will cost us both agony and energy. I only want to rediscover the knowledge interred with you. Teaching me will cost you nothing. It won't harm you. It might even prepare the world for your return."

The world prepares already. Bomanz!

He chuckled. "That's a mask, like the antiquarian. That's not my name. Ardath. Must we fight?"

Wise men say to accept the inevitable with grace. If I must, I must. I will try to be gracious.

When pigs fly, Bomanz thought.

The Lady's smile was mocking. She sent something. He did not catch it. Other voices filled his mind. For an instant he thought the Dominator was awakening. But the voices were in his physical ears, back at the house. "Oh, damn!"

Wind-chimes mirth.

"Clete is in position." The voice was Tokar's. Its presence in the attic enraged Bomanz. He started running.

"Help me get him out of the chair." Stancil.

"Won't you wake him up?" Glory.

"His spirit is out in the Barrowland. He won't know anything unless we run into each other out there."

Wrong, Bomanz thought. Wrong, you insidious, ungrateful wart. Your old man isn't stupid. He responds to the signs even when he doesn't want to see them.

The dragon's head swung as he hurtled past. Mockery pursued him. The hatred of dead knights pounded him as he hurried on.

"Get him into the corner. Toker, the amulet is under the hearthstone in the shack. That damned Men fu! He almost blew it. I want to get my hands on the fool who sent him up here. That greedy idiot wasn't interested in anything but himself."

"At least he took the Monitor with him." Glory.

"Pure accident. Pure luck."

"The time. The time," Tokar said. "Clete's men are hitting the barracks."

"Get out of here, then. Glory, will you do something besides stare at the old man? I've got to get in there before Tokar reaches the Barrowland. The Great Ones have to be told what we're doing."

Bomanz passed the barrow of Moondog. He felt the restlessness within. He raced on.

A ghost danced beside him. A slump-shouldered, evil-faced ghost who damned him a thousand times. "I don't have time for it, Besand. But you were right." He crossed the old moat, passed his dig. Strangers dotted the landscape. Resurrectionist strangers. Where had they come from? Out of hiding in the Old Forest?

Faster. Got to go faster, he thought. That fool Stance is going to try to follow me in.

He ran like nightmare, floating through subjectively eternal steps. The comet glared down. It felt strong enough to cast shadows.

"Read the instructions again to make sure," Stancil said. "Timing isn't critical as long as you don't do anything early."

"Shouldn't we tie him up or something? Just in case?"

"We don't have time. Don't worry about him. He won't come out till way too late."

"He makes me nervous."

"Then throw a rug over him and come on. And try to keep your voice down. You don't want to waken Mother."

Bomanz charged the lights of the town… It occurred to him that in this state he did not have to be a stubby-legged fat man short on breath. He changed his perception and his velocity increased. Soon he encountered Tokar, who was trotting toward the Barrowiand with Besand's amulet. Bomanz judged his own startling swiftness by Tokar's apparent sluggishness. He was moving fast.

Headquarters was afire. There was heavy fighting around the barracks. Tokar's teamsters were leading the attackers. A few Guardsmen had broken out of the trap. Trouble was seeping into the town.

Bomanz reached his shop. Upstairs, Stancil told Glory, "Begin now." As Bo started up the stair, Stancil said, "Dumni. Um muji dumni." Bomanz smashed into his own body. He seized command of his muscles, surged off the floor.

Glory shrieked.

Bomanz hurled her toward a wall. Her career shattered priceless antiques.

Bomanz squealed in agony as all the pains of an old body hit his consciousness. Damn! His ulcer was tearing his gut apart!

He seized his son's throat as he turned, silencing him before he finished the cantrip.

Stancil was younger, stronger. He rose. And Glory threw herself at Bomanz. Bomanz darted backward. "Don't anybody move," he snapped.

Stancil rubbed his throat and croaked something.

"You don't think I would? Try me. I don't care who you are. You're not going to free that thing out there."

"How did you know?" Stancil croaked.

"You've been acting strange. You have strange friends. I hoped I was wrong, but I don't take chances. You should have remembered that."

Stancil drew a knife. His eyes hardened. "I'm sorry, Pop. Some things are more important than people."

Bomanz's temples throbbed. "Behave yourself. I don't have time for this. I have to stop Tokar."

Glory drew a knife of her own. She sidled a step closer.

"You're trying my patience, son."

The girl jumped. Bomanz uttered a word of power. She plunged headlong into the table slid to the floor, almost inhumanly limp. In seconds she was limper still. She mewled like an injured kitten.

Stancil dropped to one knee. "I'm sorry, Glory. I'm sorry."

Bomanz ignored his own emotional agony. He salvaged the quicksilver spilled from the bowl that had been atop the table, mouthed words which transformed its surface into a mirror of events afar.

Tokar was two thirds of the way to the Barrowland.

"You killed her," Stancil said. "You killed her."

"I warned you, this is a cruel business." And: "You made a bet and lost. Sit your butt in the corner and behave."

"You killed her."

Remorse smashed in even before his son forced him to act. He tried to soften the impact, but the melting of bones was all or nothing.

Stancil fell across his lover.

His father fell to his knees beside him. "Why did you make me do it? You fools. You bloody damned fools! You were using me. You didn't have sense enough to make sure of me, and you want to deal with something like the Lady? I don't know. I don't know. What am I going to tell Jasmine? How can I explain?" He looked around wildly, an animal tormented. "Kill myself. That's all I can do. Save her the pain of learning what her son was… Can't. Got to stop Tokar."

There was fighting in the street outside. Bomanz ignored it. He scrabbled after quicksilver.

Tokar was at the edge of the moat, staring into the Barrowland. Bomanz saw the fear and uncertainty in him.

Tokar found his courage. He gripped the amulet and crossed the line.

Bomanz began building a killing sending.

His glance crossed the doorway, spied a frightened Snoopy watching from the dark landing. "Oh, child. Child, get out of here."

"I'm scared. They're killing each other outside."

We're killing each other in here, too, he thought. Please go away. "Go find Jasmine."

A horrendous crash came from the shop. Men cursed. Steel met steel. Bomanz heard the voice of one of Tokar's teamsters. The man was deploying a defense of the house.

The Guard had made a comeback.

Snoopy whimpered.

"Stay out of here, child. Stay out. Go down with Jasmine."

"I'm scared."

"So am I. And I won't be able to help if you get in my way. Please go downstairs."

She ground her teeth and rattled away. Bomanz sighed. That was close. If she had seen Stance and Glory…

The uproar redoubled. Men screamed. Bomanz heard Corporal Husky bellowing orders. He turned to the bowl. Tokar had disappeared. He could not relocate the man. In passing he surveyed the land between the town and the Barrowland. A few Resurrectionists were rushing toward the fighting, apparently to help. Others were in headlong flight. Remnants of the Guard were in pursuit.

Boots pounded upstairs. Again Bomanz interrupted the preparation of his sending. Husky appeared in the doorway. Bomanz started to order him out. He was in no mood to argue. He swung a great bloody sword…

Bomanz used the word of power. Again a man's bones turned to jelly. Then again and again as Husky's troopers tried to avenge him. Bomanz dropped four before the rush ended.

He tried to get back to his sending....

This time the interruption was nothing physical. It was a reverberation along the pathway he had opened into the Lady's crypt. Tokar was on the Great Barrow and in contact with the creature it contained.

"Too late," he murmured. "Too damned late." But he made the sending anyway. Maybe Tokar would die before he could release those monsters.

Jasmine cursed. Snoopy screamed. Bomanz piled over the fallen Guardsmen and charged downstairs. Snoopy screamed again.

Bo entered his bedroom. One of Tokar's men held a knife across Jasmine's throat. A pair of Guardsmen sought an opening.

Bomanz had no patience left. He killed all three. The house rattled. Teacups clinked in the kitchen. It was a gentle tremor, but a harbinger strong enough to warn Bomanz. His sending had not arrived in time. Resigned, he said, "Get out of the house. There's igoing to be a quake."

Jasmine looked at him askance. She held the hysterical girl.

"I'll explain later. If we survive. Just get out of the house." He whirled and dashed into the street, charged toward the Barrowland.

Imagining himself tall and lean and fleet did no good now. He was Bomanz in the flesh, a short, fat old man easily winded. He fell twice as tremors shook the town. Each was stronger than the last.

The fires still burned, but the fighting had died away. The survivors on both sides knew it was too late for a decision of the sword. They stared toward the Barrowland, awaiting the unfolding of events.

Bomanz joined the watchers.

The comet burned so brightly the Barrowland was clearly illuminated.

A tremendous shock rattled the earth. Bomanz staggered. Out on the Barrowland the mound containing Soulcatcher exploded. A painful glow burned from within. A figure rose from the rubble, stood limned against the glow.

People prayed or cursed according to predilection.

The tremors continued. Barrow after barrow opened. One by one, the Ten Who Were Taken appeared against the night. "Tokar," Bomanz murmured, "I hope you rot in Hell."

There was only one chance left. One impossible chance. It rode on the time-bowed shoulders of a pudgy little man whose powers were not at their sharpest.

He marshaled his most potent spells, his greatest magicks, all the mystical tricks he had worked out during thirty-seven years worth of lonely nights. And he started walking toward the Barrowland.

Hands reached out to detain him. They found no purchase. From the crowd an old woman called, "Bo, no! Please!"

He kept walking.

The Barrowland seethed. Ghosts howled among the ruins. The Great Barrow shook its hump. Earth exploded upward, flaming. A great winged serpent rose against the night. A great scream poured from its mouth. Torrents of dragonfire inundated the Barrowland.

Wise green eyes watched Bomanz's progress.

The fat little man walked into the holocaust, unleashing his arsenal of spells. Fire enveloped him.

Chapter Thirty-Five:
THE BARROWLAND, FROM BAD TO WORSE

 

Returning Raven's letter to the oilskin, I lay back on my bough bed, let my mind go blank. So dramatic, the way Raven told it. I wondered about his sources, though. The wife? Someone had to note the tale's ending and had to hide what was found later. What had become of the wife, anyway? She has no place in legend. Neither does the son, for that matter. The popular stories mention only Bomanz himself.

Something there, though. Something I missed? Ah. Yes. A congruence with personal experience. The name Bomanz had relied upon. The one that, evidently, proved insufficiently powerful.

I'd heard it before. In equally furious circumstances.

In Juniper, as the contest between the Lady and the Domi-nator neared its climax, with her ensconced in a castle on one side of the city and the Dominator trying to escape through another on the far side, we discovered the Taken meant to do the Company evil once the crisis subsided. Under orders from the Captain we deserted. We seized a ship. As we sailed away, with husband and wife contesting above the burning city, the struggle peaked. The Lady proved the stronger.

The voice of the Dominator shook the world as he vented a last spate of frustration. He had called her by the name Bomanz had thought puissant. Apparently, even the Dominator could be mistaken.

One sister killed another and, maybe or maybe not, took her place. Soulcatcher, our one-time mentor and plotter to usurp the Lady, it proved during the great struggle at Charm, was another sister. Three sisters, then. At least. One named Ardath, but evidently not the one who became the Lady.

Maybe the beginnings of something here. All those lists, back in the Hole. And the genealogies. Find a woman named Ardath. Then discover who her sisters were.

"It's a beginning," I murmured. "Feeble, but a beginning."

"What?"

I had forgotten Case. He had not taken advantage. I suppose he was too frightened.

"Nothing." It had grown dark outside. The drizzle persisted. Out on the Barrowland ghostly lights drifted about. I shuddered. That did not seem right. I wondered how Goblin and One-Eye were getting on. I did not dare go ask. Over in a corner Tracker snored softly. Toadkiller Dog lay against his belly, making sleeping dog noises, but I caught a glint of eye which said he was not unalert.

I invested a little more attention in Case. He was shaking, and not just with the chill. He was sure we would kill him. I reached over, rested a hand on his shoulder. "It's all right, son. You won't be harmed. We owe you for looking out for Raven."

"He's really Raven? The Raven that was the White Rose's father?"

The lad knew the legends. "Yeah. Foster-father, though."

"Then he didn't lie about everything. He was in the Forsberg campaigns."

That struck me as humorous. I chuckled, then said, "Knowing Raven, he didn't lie about much. Just edited the truth."

"You'll really let me go?"

"When we're safe."

"Oh." He did not sound reassured.

"Let's say when we get to the edge of the Plain of Fear. You'll find plenty of friends out there."

He wanted to get into a quasi-political discussion about why we insisted on resisting the Lady. I refused. I am no evangelist. I can't make converts. I have too much trouble understanding myself and unravelling my own motives. Maybe Raven could explain after Goblin and One-Eye brought him out.

The night seemed endless, but after three eternities which took me up to midnight I heard unsteady footsteps. "Croaker?"

"In," I said. It was Goblin. Without a light I could not read him well, but got the impression that his news was not good. "Trouble?"

"Yes. We can't get him out."

"What the hell are you talking about? What do you mean?"

"I mean we don't have the skills. We don't have the talent. This's going to take someone bigger than we are. We aren't much, Croaker. Showmen. With a few handy spells. Maybe Silent could do something. His is a different sort of magic."

"Maybe you'd better back up. Where's One-Eye?"

"Resting. It was rough on him. Really rocked him, what he saw in there."

"What was that?"

"I don't know. I was just his lifeline. And I had to pull him out before he got trapped, too. All I know is, we can't get Raven without help."

"Shit," I said. "Double damned floating sheep shit. Goblin, we can't win this one unless we have Raven to help. I don't have what it takes either. I'll never translate half those papers."

"Not even with Tracker's help?"

"He reads TelleKurre. That's it. I can do that, only I take longer. Raven must know the dialects. Some of the stuff he was translating was in them. Also, there's the question of what he was doing here. Why he faked his death again and took off. On Darling."

Maybe I was jumping to conclusions. I do that. Or maybe I was indulging in the human penchant for oversimplification, figuring that if we just had Raven back our troubles were solved. "What are we going to do?" I wondered aloud.

Goblin rose. "I don't know, Croaker. Let's let One-Eye get his feet under him again and find out what we're up against. We can go from there." "Right."

He slipped out. I lay down and tried to sleep. Whenever I dropped off I had nightmares about the thing lying in the mud and slime the Barrowland had become.

Chapter Thirty-Six:
HARD TIMES

 

One-Eye looked gruesome. "It was grim," he said. "Get the chart out. Croaker." I did. He indicated a point. "He's here. And stuck. Looks like he went all the way to the center along Bomanz's trail, then got in trouble on his way out."

"How? I don't understand what's going on here."

"I wish you could go in there. A realm of terrible shadows… Guess I should be glad you can't. You'd try it."

"What's that crack mean?"

"Mean's you're too curious for your own good. Like old Bomanz. No. Be still." He paused a moment.

"Croaker, something that was trapped there, one of the minions of the Taken, was situated near Bomanz's path. He was too strong for it. But Raven was an amateur. I think Goblin, Silent, and I together would have trouble with this thing, and we're more skilled than Raven could be. He underestimated the dangers and overestimated himself. As he was leaving, this thing usurped his position and left him in its place."

I frowned, not quite understanding.

One-Eye explained, "Something used him to keep the balance of the old spells. So he's stuck in a net of old-time sorcery. And it's out here."

A sinking feeling. A feeling edging despair. "Out? And you don't know?…"

"Nothing. The chart indicates nothing. Bomanz must have been contemptuous of the lesser evils. He hasn't marked a dozen. There should have been scores."

The literature supported that. "What did he tell you? Were you able to communicate?"

"No. He was aware of a presence. But he's in a sinkhole of spells. I couldn't contact him without getting caught myself. There's a small imbalance there, like what went out might have been a hair more than what stayed in. I did try to get close to him. That was why Goblin had to yank me out. I did sense a great fear, not due to his situation. Only anger there. I think he got caught only because he was in so big a hurry he didn't pay attention to his surroundings."

I got the message. Been to the center, and in flight. What lay at the center? "You think whatever got away might try to open the Great Barrow?" "It might try engineering it."

I had a brainstorm. "Why not sneak Darling out here? She could…"

One-Eye gave me a don't-be-stupid look. Right. Raven was the least of the things a null would loose.

"The big guy would love that," Goblin chided. "Purely love it."

"There's nothing we can do for Raven here." One-Eye said. "Someday we might find a wizard who can. Till then?" He shrugged. "Better make a pact of silence. Darling might forget her mission if she finds out." "Agreed," I said. Then: "But…" "But what?" i "I've been thinking about that. Darling and Raven. There's something there we don't see, I think. I mean, considering the way he always was, why did he cut out and come here? On the face of it, to sneak around the Lady and her gang. But why would he leave Darling in the dark? You see what I'm saying? Maybe she wouldn't be as upset as we think. Or maybe for different reasons."

One-Eye looked dubious. Goblin nodded. Tracker looked baffled, as usual.

"What about his body?" I asked.

"A definite encumbrance," One-Eye replied. "And I can't say but what taking him to the Plain might not snap the connection between flesh and spirit."

"Stop." I looked at Case. He looked at me. Here we had another double bind.

I knew one sure way of solving Raven's body problem. And of getting him brought out. Betray him to the Lady. That might solve several other problems, too. Like the escaped whatever, and the threat of another escape attempt by her husband. It might buy Darling time, too, for the Lady's attention would shift dramatically.

But what would become of Raven then?

He could be the key to our success or failure. Give him up to save him? Play the very long odds that we could somehow get him in hand again before his knowledge could hurt us? Ever a quandary. Ever a quandary.

Goblin suggested, "Let's give it another look. This time I'll take the point. One-Eye will cover."

One-Eye's sour look said they had had a knock-down-drag-out about this before. I kept my mouth shut. It was their area of expertise.

"Well?" Goblin demanded.

"If you think it's worthwhile."

"I do. Anyway, there's nothing to lose. Different viewpoint might help, too. I might catch something he missed."

"Having only one eye don't blind me," One-Eye snarled. Goblin glowered. This had arisen before, too.

"Don't waste time," I said. "We can't stay put forever."

Sometimes decisions get made for you.

Deep in the night. Wind in the trees. Chill fingering into the shelter, waking me to shiver till I fell asleep again. Rain pattering steadily, but not restfully. Gods, was I sick of rain. How could the Eternal Guard maintain any semblance of sanity?

A hand shook me. Tracker whispered, "Company coming. Trouble." Toadkiller Dog was at the tent flap, hackles up.

I listened. Nothing. But no point not taking his word. Better safe than dead. "What about Goblin and One-Eye?"

"Not finished yet."

"Oh-oh." I scrambled for clothing, for weapons. Tracker said, "I'll go scout them and try to scare or lead them off. You warn the others. Get ready to run." He slipped out of the tent behind Toadkiller Dog. Damned beast showed some life now!

Our whispering wakened Case. Neither of us spoke. I wondered what he would risk. I covered my head with my blanket and left. Sufficient unto the day the evil thereof.

Into the other tent, where I found both men in trances. "Shit. Now what?" Did I dare try waking One-Eye? Softly: "One-Eye. This is Croaker. We've got trouble."

Ah. His good eye opened. For a moment he seemed disoriented. Then: "What're you doing here?"

"Trouble. Tracker says there's somebody in the woods."

A cry came through the rain. One-Eye bolted upright. "The power!" he spat. "What the hell?"

"What is it?"

"Somebody just ripped off a spell almost like one of the Taken."

"Can you get Goblin out? Fast?"

"I can…" Another cry ripped through the woods. This one stretched out and out, and seemed as much of despair as of agony. "I'll get him."

He sounded like all hope had gone.

Taken. Had to be. Sniffed out our tracks. Closing in. But the cries… First one somebody Tracker ambushed? Second one Tracker gotten? Didn't sound like him.

One-Eye lay down and closed his eye. In moments he was back in trance, though his face betrayed the fear on his surface mind. He was good, to go under such tension.

There was a third cry from the woods. Baffled, I moved to where I could look into the rain. I saw nothing. Moments later Goblin stirred.

He looked awful. But his determination showed he had gotten the word. He forced himself upright though it was obvious he was not ready. His mouth kept opening and closing. I had a feeling he wanted to tell me something.

One-Eye came out after him but recovered more quickly. "What's happened?" he asked.

"Another yell."

"Drop everything? Run for it?"

"We can't. We have to get some of this stuff back to the Plain. Otherwise we might as well surrender right here."

"Right. Get it together. I'll take care here."

Getting things together was not much of a job. I had unpacked very little… Something roared out in the woods. I froze. "What the hell?" Sounded like something bigger than four lions. A moment later there were screams.

No sense. No sense at all. I could see Tracker raising nine kinds of hell with the Guard, but not if they had one of the Taken with them.

Goblin and One-Eye showed up as I began knocking the tent down. Goblin still looked like hell. One-Eye carried half his stuff. "Where's the kid?" he asked.

I had paid no attention to his absence. It hadn't surprised me. "Gone. How are we going to carry Raven?"

My answer stepped out of the woods. Tracker. Looking a little the worse for wear, but still healthy. Toadkiller Dog was covered with blood. He seemed more animated than I had seen before. "Let's get him out of here," Tracker said, and moved to take one end of the litter.

"Your stuff."

"No time."

"What about the wagon?" I lifted the other end.

"Forget it. I'm sure they found it. March."

We marched, letting him lead the way. I asked, "What was all that uproar?"

"Caught them by surprise."

"But…"

"Even the Taken can be surprised. Save your breath. He isn't dead."

For a few hours it was put one foot in front of the other and don't look back. Tracker set a tough pace. In a corner of my mind where the observer still dwelt, I noted that Toadkiller Dog kept the pace with ease.

Goblin collapsed first. Once or twice he had tried to catch me and pass something along, but he just did not have the energy. When he went down, Tracker stopped, looked back irritably. Toadkiller Dog lay down in the wet leaves, rumbling. Tracker shrugged, set his end of the litter down.

That was my cue to drop. Like a stone. And damn the rain and mud. I couldn't get any wetter.

Gods, my arms and shoulders ached. Needles of fire drove into me where the muscles start swooping up to the neck. "This isn't going to work," I said after I caught some breath. "We're too old and weak."

Tracker considered the forest. Toadkiller Dog rose, sniffed the wet wind. I struggled up long enough to look back the way we had come, trying to guess which direction we had run.

South, of course. North made no sense and east or west would have put us in the Barrowland or river. But if we kept heading south we would encounter the old Oar road where it curved in beside the Great Tragic. That stretch was sure to be patrolled.

With my breath partially restored and my breathing no longer roaring in my ears, I could hear the river. It was no more than a hundred yards away, churning and grumbling as always.

Tracker came out of a reflective mood. "Guile, then. Guile."

"I'm hungry," One-Eye said, and I realized I was too. "Reckon we'll get a lot hungrier, though." He smiled feebly. He now had enough strength to look Goblin over. "Croaker. Want to come check him out?"

Funny that they aren't enemies when the pinch comes.

Chapter Thirty-Seven:
THE FOREST AND BEYOND

 

Two days passed before we ate, courtesy of Tracker's skill as a hunter. Two days we spent dodging patrols. Tracker knew those woods well. We disappeared into their deeps and drifted southward at a more relaxed pace. After the two days Tracker felt confident enough to let us have a fire. It was not much, though, because finding burnable wood was a pain. Its value was more psychological than physical.

Misery balanced by rising hope. That was the story of our two weeks in the Old Forest. Hell, trekking overland, off the road, was as fast or faster than using the road itself. We felt halfway optimistic when we neared the southern verge.

I am tempted to dwell on the misery and the arguments about Raven. One-Eye and Goblin were convinced we were doing him no good. Yet they could come up with no alternative to dragging him along.

I carried another weight in my belly, like a big stone.

Goblin got to me that second night while Tracker and Toadkiller Dog were hunting. He whispered, "I got farther in than One-Eye did. Almost to the center. I know why Raven didn't get out."

"Yeah?"

"He saw too much. What he went to see, probably. The Dominator is not asleep. I…" He shuddered. It took him a moment to get hold of himself. "I saw him, Croaker. Looking back at me. And laughing. If it hadn't been for One-Eye… I'd have been caught just like Raven."

"Oh, my," I said softly, mind abuzz with the implications. "Awake? And working?"

"Yes. Don't talk about it. Not to anybody till you can tell Darling."

There was a hint of fatalism in him then. He doubted he would be around long. Scary. "One-Eye know?"

"I'll tell him. Got to make sure word gets back."

"Why not just tell us all?"

"Not Tracker. There's something wrong with Tracker… Croaker. Another thing. The old-time wizard. He's in there, too."

"Bomanz?"

"Yes. Alive. Like he's frozen or something. Not dead, but not able to do anything… The dragon…" He shut up.

Tracker arrived, carrying a brace of squirrels. We barely let them warm before we attacked them.

We rested a day before tackling the tamed lands. Henceforth it would be scurry from one smidgen of cover to the next, mouselike, by night. I wondered what the hell the point might be. The Plain of Fear might as well be in another world.

That night I had a golden dream.

I do not recall anything except that she touched me, and somehow tried to warn me. I think exhaustion more than my amulet blocked the message. Nothing stuck. I wakened retaining only a vague sense of having missed something critical.

End of the line. End of the game. Two hours out of the Great Forest I knew our time was approaching. Darkness was inadequate insulation. Nor were my amulets sufficient.

The Taken were in the air. I felt them on the prowl once it was too late to turn back. And they knew their quarry was afoot. We could hear the distant clamor of battalions moving to bar retreat into the forest.

My amulet warned me of the near passage of Taken repeatedly. When it did not, as it seemed not always to do-perhaps because the new Taken did not affect it- Toadkiller Dog gave warning. He could smell the bastards coming a league away.

The other amulet did help. That and Tracker's genius for laying a crooked trail.

But the circle closed. And closed. And we knew that it would not be long before there were no gaps through which we could slide.

"What do we do. Croaker?" One-Eye asked. His voice was shaky. He knew. But he wanted to be told. And I could neither give the order nor do it myself.

These men were my friends. We had been together all my adult life. I could not tell them to kill themselves. I could not cut them down.

But I could not allow them to be captured, either.

A vague notion formed. A foolish one, really. At first I thought it simple desperation silliness. What good?

Then something touched me. I gasped. The others felt it, too. Even Tracker and his mutt. They jumped as if stung. I gasped again. "It's her. She's here. Oh, damn." But that made up my mind. I might be able to buy time.

Before I could reflect and thus chicken out, I shucked my amulets, shoved them into Goblin's hands, pushed our precious documents at One-Eye. "Thanks, guys. Take care. Maybe I'll see you."

"What the hell you doing?"

Bow in hand-the bow she had given me so long ago-I leaped into darkness. Soft protests pursued me. I caught the edge of Tracker asking what the hell was going on. Then I was away.

There was a road not far off, and a little sliver of moon up top. I got onto the one and trotted by the light of the other, pushing my tired old body to its limit, trying to build as big a margin as possible before the inevitable befell me.

She would protect me for a time. I hoped. And once caught, I might stall on behalf of the others.

I felt sorry for them, though. Neither Goblin nor One-Eye was strong enough to help carry Raven. Tracker could not manage alone. If they made it to the Plain of Fear, they would not be able to evade the unenviable duty of explaining everything to Darling.

I wondered if any of them would have what it took to finish Raven…Bile rose. My legs were going watery. I tried to fill my mind with nothingness, stared at the road three steps ahead of my feet, puffed hard, kept on. Count steps. By hundreds, over and over.

A horse. I could steal a horse. I kept telling myself that, concentrated on that, damning the stitch in my side, till shadows loomed before me and imperials began to shout, and I hared off into a wheat field with the Lady's hounds abay behind me.

I nearly gave them the slip. Nearly. But then the shadow descended from the heavens. Air whistled past a carpet. And a moment later darkness devoured me.

I welcomed it as the end of my miseries, hoping it was permanent.

It was light when I regained consciousness. I was in a cold place, but all places are cold in the north countries. I was dry. For the first time in weeks, I was dry. I harkened back to my run and recalled the sliver of moon. A sky clear enough for a moon. Amazing.

I cracked one eye. I was in a room with walls of stone. It had the look of a cell. Beneath me, a surface neither hard nor wet. How long since I had lain on a dry bed? Blue Willy.

I became aware of an odor. Food! Hot food, on a platter just inches from my head, atop a small stand. Some mess that looked like overcooked stew. Gods, did it smell good!

I rose so swiftly my head spun. I almost passed out. Food! The hell with anything else. I ate like the starved animal I was.

I had not quite finished when the door slammed inward. Exploded inward, ringing off the wall. A huge dark form stamped through. For a moment I sat with spoon halfway between bowl and mouth. This thing was human? It stepped to one side, weapon ready.

Four imperials followed, but I hardly noticed, so taken was I with the giant. Man, all right, but bigger than any I'd ever seen. And looking lithe and spritely as an elf for all his size.

The imperials paired to either side of the doorway, presented arms.

"What?" I demanded, determined to go down with a defiant grin. "No drumrolls? No trumpets?" I presumed I was about to meet my captor.

I can call them when I call them. Whisper came through the doorway.

I was more startled by seeing her than by the dramatic advent of her giant thug. She was supposed to be holding the western boundary of the Plain… Unless… I could not think it. But the worm of doubt gnawed anyway. I had been out of touch a long time.

"Where are the documents?" she demanded, without preamble.

A grin smeared my face. I had succeeded. They had not caught the others… But elation faded swiftly. There were more imperials behind Whisper, and they bore a litter. Raven. They dumped him roughly onto a cot opposite mine.

Their hospitality was not niggardly. It was a grand cell. Plenty of room for the prisoner to stretch his legs.

I found my grin. "Now, you shouldn't ask questions like that. Mama wouldn't like it. Remember how angry she became last time?"

Whisper was always a cool one. Even when she led the Rebel, she never let emotion get in the way. She did remind me, "Your death can be an unpleasant one, physician."

"Dead is dead."

A slow smile spread upon her colorless lips. She was not a lovely woman. That nasty smile did not improve her looks.

I got the message. Down in the dark inside me something howled and gibbered like a monkey getting roasted. I resisted its call to terror. Now, if ever there was one, was a time to act as a brother of the Black Company. I had to buy time. Had to give the others the longest head start possible.

She might have read my mind as she stood there staring, smiling. "They won't get far. They can hide from witchery, but they cannot hide from the hounds."

My heart sank.

As if cued, a messenger arrived. He whispered to Whisper. She nodded. Then she turned to me. "I go to collect them now. Think on the Limper in my absence. For once I have drained you of knowledge, I may deliver you to him." Smile again.

"You never were a nice lady," I said, but it came feebly and got said to her departing back. Her menagerie went with her.

I checked Raven. He seemed unchanged.

I lay on my cot, closed my eyes, tried to push everything out of my mind. It had worked once before when I needed contact with the Lady.

Where was she? I knew she was near enough to sense last night. But now? Was she playing some game?

But she had said no special consideration… Still. There is consideration and consideration.

Chapter Thirty-Eight:
THE FORTRESS AT DEAL

 

Bam! The old door trick. This time I had heard the man-mountain stomping down the hall, so I did not react except to ask, "Don't you ever knock, Bruno?"

No response. Till Whisper stepped inside. "Get up, physician."

I would have made a crude remark, but something in her voice chilled me beyond the chill due my straits. I rose,.

She looked terrible. Not that she was much different physically. But something inside had gone dead and cold and frightened. "What was that thing?" she demanded. I was baffled. "What thing?" "The thing you were traveling with. Speak." I could not, for I hadn't the slightest notion what she was blathering about.

"We caught up. Or my men did. I arrived only in time to count the bodies. What shreds twenty hounds and a hundred men in armor, in minutes, then disappears from mortal ken?"

Gods, One-Eye and Goblin must have outdone themselves.

Still I did not speak.

"You came from the Barrowland. Where you were tampering. Did you call something forth?" She sounded as though she were musing. "It's time we found out. It's time we found out how tough you really are, soldier." She faced the giant. "Bring him."

I gave it my best shot by playing my dirtiest. I pretended meek for just long enough to let him relax. Then I stomped his foot, running the side of my boot down his shin. Then I spun away and kicked at his crotch.

Guess I'm getting old and slow. Course, he was a lot faster than a man his size should be. He leaned back, caught my foot, and threw me across the room. Two imperials got me up and started dragging me. I went with the satisfaction of seeing the big man limp.

I tried a few more tricks, just to slow things up. They did little more than get me knocked around. The imperials strapped me down in a high-backed wooden chair in a room where Whisper had set up to practice her magicks. I saw nothing especially villainous. That only made the anticipation worse.

They got two or three good screams out of me and were working themselves up to get unpleasant when the tableau suddenly broke up. The imperials ripped me out of the chair, hustled me toward my cell. I was too foggy to wonder.

Till, in the hallway a few yards short of that cell, we encountered the Lady.

Yes. So. My message had gotten through. I'd thought the brief touch I'd made a response in wishful thinking at the time. But here she was.

The imperials ran. Is she that terrible to her own people?

Whisper stood her ground.

Whatever passed between them did so unspoken. Whisper helped me to my feet, pushed me into the cell. Her face was stone but her eyes were asmoulder.

"Curses. Foiled again," I croaked, and fell onto my cot.

It was plain daylight when the door closed. It was night when I wakened and she was standing over me, wearing her guise of beauty. She said, "I warned you."

"Yes." I tried to sit up. I had aches everywhere, both from maltreatment and from pushing an old body beyond its limits before my capture.

"Stay. I would not have come had my own interests not demanded it."

"I would not have called otherwise."

"Again you do me a favor."

"Only in the interest of self-preservation."

"You may, as they say, have jumped from the frying pan into the fire. Whisper lost many men today. To what?"

"I don't know. Goblin and One-Eye…" I shut up.

Damn groggy head. Damn sympathetic voice. Said too much already.

"It wasn't them. They haven't the skill to raise anything like that. I saw the bodies." "I don't know, then."

"I believe you. Even so… I've seen wounds like those before. I'll show you before we leave for the Tower." Was there ever any doubt about that? "When you make your examination, reflect on the fact that the last time men died in such fashion my husband ruled the world."

None of this added up. But I was not worried about it. I was worried about my own future.

"He has begun to move already. Long before I expected. Will he never lie quietly and let me get on with my work?"

Some sums started toting. One-Eye saying something had gotten out. Raven having been caught because of it… "Dumb shit Raven, you did it again." On his own, trying to care for Darling, he had damned near let the Dominator break through at Juniper. "What did you do this time?" Why would it follow and protect One-Eye and them? "This is Raven, then?"

Screwup Number Two for Croaker. Why can't I keep my big damned mouth shut?

She bent over him, rested a hand on his forehead. I watched from beneath my brows, unfocused. I could not look at her direct. She did have the power to sway stone. ;

"I will return soon," she said, heading for the door. "Fear not. You will be safe in my absence." The door closed.

"Sure," I murmured. "Safe from Whisper, maybe. But how safe from you?" I looked around the room, wondering if I might end my life.

Whisper took me out to look at the carnage where hounds and imperials had overhauled One-Eye and Goblin. Not pleasant, I'll tell you. The last I saw the like was when we went up against the forvalaka in Beryl, ere we joined the Lady. I wondered if that monster was back and tracking One-Eye again. But he had slain it during the Battle at Charm. Hadn't he?

But the Limper survived…

Hell, yes, he did. And two days after the Lady took off-I was imprisoned in the old fortress at Deal, I'd learned-he made an appearance. A little friendly visit, just for old time's sake.

I sensed his presence before I actually saw him. And terror nearly unmanned me.

How had he known? … Whisper. Almost certainly Whisper.

He came to my cell, buoyed on a miniature carpet. His name no longer really described him. He could not get around without that carpet. He was but the shadow of a being, human wreckage animated by sorcery and a mad, burning will.

He floated into my cell, hovered there considering me. I did my best to appear unintimidated, failed.

A ghost of a voice stirred the air. "Your time has come. It will be a prolonged and painful ending to your tale. And I will enjoy every moment."

"I doubt it." Had to keep up the show. "Mama won't like you messing with her prisoner."

"She is not here, physician." He began to drift backward. "We will begin soon. After time for reflection." A snatch of insane chuckle drifted in behind him. I am not sure if he or Whisper was the source. She was in the hallway, watching.

A voice said, "But she is here."

They froze. Whisper went pallid. Limper sort of folded in upon himself.

The Lady materialized out of nowhere, appearing first as golden sparkles. She said nothing more. The Taken did not speak either, for there was nothing they could say.

I wanted to interject one of my remarks, but the better part of valor prevailed. Instead, I tried to make myself small. A roach. Beneath notice.

But roaches get squished beneath the uncaring foot…

The Lady finally spoke. "Limper, you were given an assignment. Nowhere in your brief is there an allowance for you to leave your command. Yet you have done so. Again. And the results are the same as when you slipped off to Roses to sabotage Soulcatcher." Limper wilted even more.

That was one damned long time ago. One of our sneaky tricks on the Rebel of the day. What happened was, the Rebel attacked Limper's headquarters while he was away from his demense trying to undermine Soulcatcher. So Darling was whooping it up on the Plain. My spirits rose. It was the confirmation I'd had that the movement had not collapsed.

"Go," the Lady said. "And know this. There will be no more understanding. Henceforth we live by the iron rules as my husband made them. Next time will be the last time. For you or anyone else who serves me. Do you understand? Whisper? Limper?"

They understood. They were careful to say so in so many words.

There was communication there beneath the level of mere words, not accessible to me, for they went away absolutely convinced their continued existence depended upon unquestioning and unswerving obedience not only to the letter but the spirit of their orders. They went with a crushed air. The Lady faded the moment my cell door closed. She appeared in the flesh shortly before nightfall. Her anger still simmered. I gathered, from hearing guards gossip, that Whisper had been ordered back to the Plain, too. Things had turned bad out there. The Taken on the scene could not cope.

"Give them hell, Darling," I murmured. "Give them hell." I was working hard on resigning myself to whatever fate's horror shop stocked for me.

Guards brought me out of the cell soon after nightfall. They brought Raven, too. I asked no questions. They would not have answered.

The Lady's carpet rested in the fortress' main court. The soldiers placed Raven upon it, tied him down. A glum sergeant gestured for me to board. I did so, surprising him by knowing what to do. My heart was in my heels. I knew my destination. The Tower.

I waited half an hour. Finally she came. She looked thoughtful. Even a little disturbed and uncertain. She took her place at the leading edge of the carpet. We rose.

Riding a windwhale is more comfortable and much less trying to the nerves. A windwhale has substance, has scale.

We rose perhaps a thousand feet and began running south. I doubt we were making more than thirty miles per hour. It would be a long flight, then, unless she chose to break it.

After an hour she faced me. I could barely discern her features. She said, "I visited the Barrowland, Croaker."

I did not respond, not knowing what was expected.

"What have you done? What have you people set free?"

"Nothing."

She looked at Raven. "Perhaps there is a way." After a time: "I know the thing that is loose… Sleep, physician. We'll talk another time." And I went to sleep. And when I wakened I was in another cell. And knew, by the uniforms, that my new prison was the Tower at Charm.

Chapter Thirty-Nine:
A GUEST AT CHARM

 

A colonel of the Lady's household force came for me. He was almost polite. Even back when, her troops never were sure of my status. Poor babies. I had no niche in their ordered and hierarchical universe.

The Colonel said, "She wants you now." He had a dozen men with him. They did not look like an honor guard. Neither did they act like executioners.

Not that it mattered. I would go if they had to carry me.

I left with a backward glance. Raven was holding his own.

The Colonel left me at a doorway into the inner Tower, the Tower inside the Tower, into which few men pass, and from which fewer return. "March," he said. "I hear you've done this before. You know the drill."

I stepped through the doorway. When I looked back I saw only stone wall. For a moment I became disoriented. That passed and I was in another place. And she was there, framed by what appeared to be a window, though her parts of the Tower are completely ensheathed within the rest. "Come here."

I went. She pointed. I looked out that non-window on a burning city. Taken soared above it, hurling magicks that died. Their target was a phalanx of windwhales that were devastating the city.

Darling was riding one of the whales. They were staying within her null, where they were invulnerable.

"They are not, though," the Lady said, reading my thoughts. "Mortal weapons will reach them. And your bandit girl. But it does not matter. I've decided to suspend operations." I laughed. "Then we've won."

I do believe that was the first time I ever saw her piqued with me. A mistake, mocking her. It could make her reassess emotionally a decision made strategically.

"You have won nothing. If that is the perception a shift of focus will generate, then I will not break off. I will adjust the campaign's focus instead."

Damn you, Croaker. Leam to keep your big goddamn mouth shut around people like this. You will jack-jaw your way right into a meat grinder.

After regaining her self-control, she faced me. The Lady, from just two feet away. "Be sarcastic in your writing if you like. But when you speak, be prepared to pay a price." "I understand."

"I thought you would." She faced the scene again. In that far city-it looked like Frost-a flaming windwhale fell after being caught in a storm of shafts hurled by ballistae bigger than any I'd ever seen. Two could play the suck-in game. "How well did your translations go?" "What?"

"The documents you found in the Forest of Cloud, gave to my late sister Soulcatcher, took from her again, gave to your friend Raven, and took from him in turn. The papers you thought would give you the tool of victory." "Those documents. Ha. Not well at all."

"You couldn't have. What you sought isn't there."

"But…"

"You were misled. Yes. I know. Bomanz put them together, so they must hold my true name. Yes? But that has been eradicated-except, perhaps, in the mind of my husband." She became remote suddenly. "The victory at Juniper cost."

"He learned the lesson Bomanz did too late."

"So. You noticed. He has information enough to pry an answer from what happened… No. My name isn't there. His is. That was why they so excited my sister. She saw an opportunity to supplant us both. She knew me. We were children together, after all. And protected from one another only by the most tangled web that could be woven. When she enlisted you in Beryl she had no greater ambition than to undermine me. But when you delivered those documents…"

She was thinking aloud as much as explaining.

I was stricken by a sudden insight. "You don't know his name!"

"It was never a love match, physician. It was the shakiest of alliances. Tell me. How do I get those papers?"

"You don't."

"Then we all lose. This is true, Croaker. While we argue and while our respective allies strive to slash one another's throats, the enemy of us all is shedding his chains. All this dying will be for naught if the Dominator wins free."

"Destroy him."

"That's impossible."

"In the town where I was born there is a folk tale about a man so mighty he dared mock the gods. In the end his might proved sheer hubris, for there is one against whom even the gods are powerless."

"What's the point?"

"To twist an old saw, death conquers all. Not even the Dominator can wrestle death and win every time."

"There are ways," she admitted. "But not without those papers. You will return to your quarters now, and reflect. I will speak to you again."

I was dismissed that suddenly. She faced the dying city. Suddenly, I knew my way out. A powerful impulse drove me toward the door. A moment of dizziness and I was outside.

The Colonel came puffing along the corridor. He returned me to my cell.

I planted myself on my bunk and reflected, as ordered.

There was evidence enough that the Dominator was stirring, but… The business about the documents not holding the lever we had counted on-that was the shocker. That I had to swallow or reject, and my choice might have critical repercussions.

She was leading me for her own ends. Of course. I conceived numerous possibilities, none pleasant, but all making a sort of sense…

She'd said it. If the Dominator broke out, we were all in the soup, good guys and bad.

I fell asleep. There were dreams, but I do not recall them. I awakened to find a hot meal freshly delivered, sitting atop a desk that had not been there before. On that desk was a generous supply of writing materials.

She expected me to resume my Annals.

I devoured half the food before noting Raven's absence. The old nerves began to rattle. Why was he gone? Where to? What use did she have for him? Leverage?

Time is funny inside the Tower.

The usual Colonel arrived as I finished eating. The usual soldiers accompanied him. He announced, "She wants you again."

"Already? I just came back from there."

"Four days ago."

I touched my cheek. I have been affecting only a partial beard of late. My face was brushy. So. One long sleep. "Any chance I could get a razor?"

The Colonel smiled thinly. "What do you think? A barber can come in. Will you come along?"

I got a vote? Of course not. I followed rather than be dragged.

The drill was the same. I found her at a window again. The scene showed some corner of the Plain where one of Whisper's fortifications was besieged. It had no heavy ballistae. A windwhale hovered overhead, keeping the garrison in hiding. Walking trees were dismantling the outer wall by the simple mechanism of growing it to death. The way a jungle destroys an abandoned city, though ten thousand times faster than the unthinking forest.

"The entire desert has risen against me," she said. "Whisper's outposts have suffered an annoying variety of attacks."

"I suspect your intrusions are resented. I thought you were going to disengage."

"I tried. Your deaf peasant isn't cooperating. Have you been thinking?"

"I've been sleeping is what I've been doing. As you know."

"Yes. So. There were matters which demanded attention. Now I can devote myself to the problem at hand." The look in her eye made me want to run… She gestured. I froze. She told me to back up, to sit in a nearby chair. I sat, unable to shake the spell, though I knew what was coming.

She stood before me, one eye closed. The open eye grew bigger and bigger, reached out, devoured me…

I think I screamed.

The moment had been inevitable since my capture, though I had held a foolish hope otherwise. Now she would drain my mind like a spider drains a fly…

I recovered in my cell, feeling as though I had been to hell and back. My head throbbed. It was a major undertaking to rise and stagger to my medical kit, which had been returned after my captors removed the lethals. I prepared an infusion of willow inner bark, which took forever because I had no fire over which to heat the water.

Someone came in as I nursed and cursed the first weak, bitter cup. I did not recognize him. He seemed surprised to see me up. "Hello," he said. "Quick recovery."

"Who the hell are you?"

"Physician. Supposed to check you once an hour. You weren't expected to recover for a long time. Headache?"

"Goddamn well right."

"Cranky. Good." He placed his bag next to my kit, which he glanced through as he opened his. "What did you take?"

I told him, asked, "What do you mean, good?"

"Sometimes they come out listless. Never recover."

"Yeah?" I thought about whipping him just for the hell of it. Just to vent my spleen. But what was the point? Some guard would come bouncing in and make my pains the worse. Too much like work, anyway.

"Are you something special?"

"I think so."

A flicker of a smile. "Drink this. Better than the bark tea." I downed the drink he offered. "She is most concerned. Never before have I seen her care what became of one subjected to the deep probe."

"How about that?" I was having trouble keeping my foul mood. The drink he'd given me was good stuff, and fast. "What was that concoction? I could use it by the barrel."

"It's addictive. Rendered from the juice of the top four leaves of the parsifal plant."

"Never heard of it."

"Rather scarce." He was examining me at the time. "Grows in some place called the Hollow Hills. The natives use it as a narcotic."

The Company had been through those terrible hills once upon a time. "Didn't know there were natives."

"They're as scarce as the plant. There's been talk in council of growing it commercially after the fighting ends. As a medicinal." He clucked his tongue, which reminded me of the toothless ancient who had taught me medicine. Funny. I hadn't thought of him in ages.

Funnier still, all sorts of old odd memories were streaking to the surface, like bottom fish scared toward the light. The Lady had stirred my mind good.

I did not pursue his remark about raising the weed commercially, though that was at odds with my notion of the Lady. The black hearts don't worry about relieving pain.

"How do you feel about her?"

"The Lady? Right now? Not very charitable. How about you?" He ignored that. "She expects to see you as soon as you recover."

"Does a bear shit in the woods?" I countered. "I get the idea I'm not exactly a prisoner. How about I get some air on the roof? Can't hardly run away from there."

"I'll see if it's permitted. Meantime, take some exercise here."

Hah. The only exercise I get is jumping to conclusions. I just wanted to get somewhere outside four walls. "Am I still among the living?" I asked when he finished examining me.

"For the time being. Though with your attitude I am amazed you survived in an outfit like yours."

"They love me. Worship me. Wouldn't harm a hair on my head." His mention of the outfit put my mood on the downswing. I asked, "You know how long it's been since I was captured?"

"No. I think you've been here more than a week. Could be longer."

So. Guess at least ten days since my capture. Give the boys the benefit of the doubt, have them moving light and hard, and they had maybe covered four hundred miles. Just one giant step out of many. Crap.

Stalling was pointless now. The Lady knew everything I did. I wondered if any of it had been of any use. Or much of a surprise.

"How is my friend?" I asked, suffering a sudden guilt.

"I don't know. He was moved north because his connection with his spirit was becoming attenuated. I'm sure the subject will arise when next you visit the Lady. I'm finished. Have a nice stay."

"Sarky bastard."

He grinned as he left.

Must run in the profession.

The Colonel stepped in a few minutes later. "I hear you want to go to the roof."

"Yeah."

"Inform the sentry when you would like to go." He had something else on his mind. After a pause he asked, "Isn't there any military discipline in your outfit?"

He was irked because I had not been sirring him. Various smart remarks occurred. I stifled them. My status might not remain enigmatic. "Yes. Though not so much as in earlier days. Not enough of us left since Juniper to make that stuff worth the trouble."

Sly shot, Croaker. Put them on the defensive. Tell them the Company fell to its current pitiful state laboring for the Lady. Remind them that it was the empire's satraps who turned first. That must be common knowledge by now, among the officer corps. Something they should think about occasionally.

"Pity, that," the Colonel said.

"You my personal watchdog?"

"Yes. She sets great store by you for some reason."

"I wrote her a poem once," I lied. "I also got the goods on her."

He frowned, decided I was bullshitting.

"Thanks," I said, by way of extending an olive branch. "I'll write for a while before I go." I was way behind. Except for a bit at Blue Willy I had done nothing but jot an occasional note since leaving the Plain.

I wrote till cramps compelled me to stop. Then I ate, for a guard brought a meal as I sanded my last sheet. Done gobbling, I went to the door, told the lad there I was ready to go topside. When he opened up I discovered I was not locked in.

But where the hell could I go if I got out? Silly even thinking of escape.

I had a feeling I was about to take on the official historian job. Like it or no, it would be the least of many evils.

Some tough decisions stared me in the eye. I wanted time to think them over. The Lady understood. Certainly she had the power and talent to be more foresighted than a physician who had spent six years out of touch.

Sunset. Fire in the west, clouds in raging flame. The sky a wealth of unusual colors. A chill breeze from the north, just enough to shiver and refresh. My guardian stayed well away, permitting the illusion of freedom. I walked to the northern parapet.

There was little evidence of the great battle fought below. Where once trenches, palisades, earthworks, and siege engines had stood, and burned, and tens of thousands had died, there was parkland. A single black stone Stella marked the site, five hundred yards from the Tower.

The crash and roar returned. I remembered the Rebel horde, relentless, like the sea, wave after wave; smashing upon unyielding cliffs of defenders. I recalled the feuding Taken, their fey and fell deaths, the wild and terrible sorceries…

"It was a battle of battles, was it not?"

I did not turn as she joined me. "It was. I never did it justice."

"They will sing of it." She glanced up. Stars had begun to appear. In the twilight her face seemed pale and strained. Never before had I seen her in any but the most self-possessed mood.

"What is it?" Now I did turn, and saw a group of soldiers some distance away, watching, either awed or aghast.

"I have performed a divination. Several, in fact, for I did not get satisfactory results."

"And?"

"Perhaps I got no results at all."

I waited. You do not press the most powerful being in the world. That she was on the verge of confiding in a mortal was stunning enough.

"All is flux. I divined three possible futures. We are headed for a crisis, a history-shaping hour."

I turned slightly toward her. Violet light shaded her face. Dark hair tumbled down over one cheek. It was not artifice, for once, and the impulse to touch, to hold, perhaps to comfort, was powerful. "Three futures?"

"Three. I could not find my place in any."

What do you say at a moment like that? That maybe there was an error? You accuse the Lady of making a mistake.

"In one, your deaf child triumphs. But it is the least likely chance, and she and all hers perish gaining the victory. In another, my husband breaks the grasp of the grave and reestablishes his Domination. That darkness lasts ten thousand years. In the third vision, he is destroyed forever and all. It is the strongest vision, the demanding vision. But the price is great… Are there gods, Croaker? I never believed in gods."

"I don't know, Lady. No religion I ever encountered made any sense. None are consistent. Most gods are megalomaniacs and paranoid psychotics by their worshipers' description. I don't see how they could survive their own insanity. But it's not impossible that human beings are incapable of interpreting a power so much greater than themselves. Maybe religions are twisted and perverted shadows of truth. Maybe there are forces which shape the world. I myself have never understood why, in a universe so vast, a god would care about something so trivial as worship or human destiny."

"When I was a child… my sisters and I had a teacher."

Did I pay attention? You bet your sweet ass I did. I was ears from my toenails to the top of my pointy head. "A teacher?"

"Yes. He argued that we are the gods, that we create our own destiny. That what we are determines what will become of us. In a peasantlike vernacular, we all paint ourselves into corners from which there is no escape simply by being ourselves and interacting with other selves."

"Interesting."

"Well. Yes. There is a god of sorts, Croaker. Do you know? Not a mover and shaker, though. Simply a negator. An ender of tales. He has a hunger than cannot be sated. The universe itself will slide down his maw."

"Death?"

"I do not want to die, Croaker. All that I am shrieks against the unrighteousness of death. All that I am, was, and probably will be, is shaped by my passion to evade the end of me." She laughed quietly, but there was a thread of hysteria there. She gestured, indicating the shadowed killing ground below. "I would have built a world in which I was safe. And the cornerstone of my citadel would have been death."

The end of the dream was drawing close. I could not imagine a world without me in it, either. And the inner me was outraged. Is outraged. I have no trouble imagining someone becoming obsessed with escaping death. "I understand."

"Maybe. We're all equals at the dark gate, no? The sands run for us all. Life is but a flicker shouting into the jaws of eternity. But it seems so damned unfair!"

Old Father Tree entered my thoughts. He would perish in time. Yes. Death is insatiable and cruel.

"Have you reflected?" she asked.

"I think so. I'm no necromancer. But I've seen roads I don't want to walk."

"Yes. You're free to go, Croaker."

Shock. Even my heels tingled with disbelief. "Say what?"

"You're free. The Tower gate is open. You need but walk out it. But you're also free to remain, to reenter the lists in the struggle that envelopes us all."

There was almost no light left except for some sun hitting very high clouds. Against the deep indigo in the east a squadron of bright pinpricks moved westward. They seemed headed toward the Tower.

I gabbled something that made no sense.

"Will she, nihil she, the Lady of Charm is at war with her husband once more," she said. "And till that struggle is lost or won, there is no other. You see the Taken returning. The armies of the east are marching toward the Barrowland. Those beyond the Plain have been ordered to withdraw to garrisons farther east. Your deaf child is in no danger unless she comes looking for it. There is an armistice. Perhaps eternally." Weak smile. "If there is no Lady, there is no one for the White Rose to battle."

She left me then, in total confusion, and went to greet her champions. The carpets came down out of the darkness, settling like autumn leaves. I moved a little nearer till my personal guardian indicated that my relationship with the Lady was insufficiently close to permit eavesdropping.

The wind grew more chill, blowing out of the north. And I wondered if it might not be autumn for us all.

Chapter Forty:
MAKING UP MY MIND

 

She never once demanded anything. Even her hints were so oblique they left everything to me to work out. Two days after our evening on the ramparts I asked the Colonel if I might see her. He said he would ask. I suspect he was under instructions. Otherwise there would have been arguments.

Another day passed before he came to say the Lady had time for me.

I closed my inkwell, cleaned my quill, and rose. "Thank you." He looked at me oddly. "Is something wrong?"

"No. Just…"

I understood. "I don't know either. I'm sure she has some special use for me."

That brightened the Colonel's day. That he could comprehend.

The usual routine. This time I entered her demense as she stood at a window opening on a world of wet gloom. Grey rain, choppy brown water, and hulking to the left, shapes barely discernible, trees clinging precariously to a high river bank. Cold and misery leaked out of that portraiture. It had a too familiar smell.

"The Great Tragic River," she said. "In full flood. But it's always in flood, isn't it?" She beckoned. I followed. Since my last visit a large table had been added. Atop it was a miniature of the Barrowland, a representation so good it was spooky. You almost expected to see little Guards scurrying around the compound.

"You see?" she asked.

"No. Though I've been there twice, I'm not familiar with much but the town and the compound. What am I supposed to see?"

"The river. Your friend Raven evidently recognized its import." With one delicate finger she sketched a loop well to the east of the river's course, which curved into the ridge where we had camped.

"At the time of my triumph in Juniper the river's bed lay here. A year later the weather turned. The river flooded continuously. And crept this way. Today it's devouring this ridge. I examined it myself. The ridge is entirely earthen, without bones of stone. It won't last. Once it goes, the river will cut into the Barrowland. All the spells of the White Rose won't keep it from opening the Great Barrow. Each fetish swept away will make it that much easier for my husband to rise."

I grunted. "Against Nature there is no defense."

"There is. If one foresees. The White Rose did not. I did not when I attempted to bind him more securely. Now it's too late. So, You wanted to speak to me?"

"Yes. I have to leave the Tower."

"So. You didn't have to come to me about that. You're free to stay or go."

"I'm going because there're things I have to do. As you well know. If I walk, I'll probably get them done too late. It's a long hike to the Plain. Not to mention risky. I want to beg transportation."

She smiled, and this smile was genuine, radiant, subtly different from previous smiles. "Good. I thought you would see where the future lies. How soon can you be ready?"

"Five minutes. There is one question. Raven."

"Raven has been hospitalized at the compound at the Barrowland. Nothing can be done for him right now. Every effort will be made when an opportunity arises. Sufficient?"

I could not argue, of course.

"Good. Transport will be available. You will have a unique chauffeur. The Lady herself."

"I…"

"I, too, have been thinking. My best next step is to meet your White Rose. I'm going with you."

After gulping quarts of air, I managed, "They'd jump all over you."

"Not if they don't know me. They wouldn't, unless they were told."

Well, no one was likely to recognize her. I am unique in having met her and lived to brag on it. But… Gods, the heaps and bales of buts. "If you entered the null, all your spells would fall apart."

"No. New spells wouldn't work. Spells in place would be safe."

I did not understand and said so.

"A simple glamor will fade on entering the null. It is being actively maintained. A spell which changes and leaves changed, but which isn't active on entering the null, won't be affected."

Something off in the badlands of my mind tickled me. I could not run it down. "If you turned into a frog and hopped in there, you'd stay a frog?"

"If the transformation was actual and not just an illusion."

"I see." I hung a red flag on that, told me to worry it later.

"I will become a companion acquired along the way. Say, someone who can help with your documents."

There had to be levels of deceit. Or something. I could not imagine her putting her life into my hands. I do believe I gawked.

She nodded. "You begin to understand." "You trust me too much." "I know you better than you know yourself. You're an honorable man, by your own lights, with enough cynicism to believe there can be a lesser of two evils. You have been under the Eye." I shuddered. She did not apologize. We both knew an apology would be false.

"Well?" she asked.

"I'm not sure why you want to do this. It makes no sense."

"There is a new situation in the world. Once there were only two poles, your peasant girl and I, with a line of conflict drawn between. But that which stirs in the north adds another point. It can be seen as a lengthening of the line, with my point near the middle, or as a triangle. The point that is my husband intends destroying both your White Rose and myself. I submit that she and I ought to eliminate the greater danger before…"

"Enough. I see. But I don't see Darling being that pragmatic. There's a lot of hatred in her."

"Perhaps. But it's worth a try. Will you help?"

Having been within a stone's throw of the old darkness and seen the ghosts astalk on the Barrowland, yes, I would do most anything to keep that dread spook from shedding his grave. But how, how, how trust her!

She did that trick they all have, of seeming to read my mind. "You will have me within the null."

"Right. I'll need to think some more."

"Take your time. I can't leave for some time." I suspect she wanted to establish safeguards against a palace revolution.

Chapter Forty-One:
A TOWN CALLED HORSE

 

Fourteen days passed before we took air for Horse, a modest town lying between the Windy Country and the Plain of Fear, about a hundred miles west of the latter. Horse is a caravan stage for those traders mad enough to traipse through those two wildernesses. Of late, the city has been the logistical headquarters for Whisper's operations. What skeleton forces were not on the road to the Barrowland were in garrison there.

Damned northbound fools were going to get wet.

We drifted in after an eventless passage, me with eyes agog. Despite the removal of vast armies, Whisper's base was an anthive swirling around newly created carpets.

They came in a dozen varieties. In one field I saw a W formation of five monsters, each a hundred yards long and forty wide. A wood and metal jungle topped each. Elsewhere, other carpets in unusual shapes sat upon ground that looked to have been graded. Most were far longer than they were wide and bigger than the traditional. All had a variety of appurtenances, and all were enveloped in a light copper cage.

"What is all that?" I asked.

"Adaptation to enemy tactics. Your peasant girl isn't the only one who can change methods." She stepped down, stretched. I did the same. Those hours in the air leave you stiff. "We may get the chance to test them, despite my having backed off the Plain."

"What?"

"A large Rebel force is headed for Horse. Several thousand men and everything the desert has to offer."

Several thousand men? Where did they come from? Had things changed that much?

"They have." That damned mind-reading trick again. "The cities I abandoned poured men into her forces."

"What did you mean, test?"

"I'm willing to stop fighting. But I won't run away from a fight. If she persists in heading west, I'll show her that, null or no null, she can be crushed."

We were near one of the new carpets. I ambled over. In shape it was like a boat, about fifty feet long. It had real seats. Two faced forward, one aft. In front there was a small ballista. Aft there was a much heavier engine. Clamped to the carpet's sides and underbelly were eight spears thirty feet long. Each had a bulge the size of a nail keg five feet behind its head. Everything was painted blacker than the Dominator's heart. This boat-carpet had fins like a fish. Some humorist had painted eyes and teeth up front.

Others nearby followed similar designs, though different artisans had followed different muses in Grafting the flying boats. One, instead of fish fins, had what looked like round, translucent, whisper thin dried seed pods fifteen feet across.

The Lady had no time to let me inspect her equipment and no inclination to let me wander around unchaperoned. Not as a matter of trust, but of protection. I might suffer a fatal accident if I did not stay in her shadow. All the Taken were in Horse. Even my oldest friends.

Bold, bold Darling. Audacity. Becoming her signature, that. She had the entire strength of the Plain just twenty miles from Horse, and she was closing in. Her advance was ponderous, though, limited to the speed of the walking trees.

We went out onto the field where the carpets waited, arranged in formal array around the monsters I had spotted first. The Lady said, "I planned a small demonstration raid on your headquarters. But this will be more convincing, I think."

Men were busy around the carpets. The big ones they were loading with huge pieces of pottery which looked like those big urn-planters with the little cup-holes in the upper half for small plants. They were fifteen feet tall; the planter sites were sealed with paraffin, and the bottom boasted a twenty foot pole with a crossbar on its end. Scores were being mounted in racks.

I did a fast count. More carpets than Taken. "All these are going up? How?"

"Benefice will handle the big ones. Like the Howler before him, he has an outstanding capacity for managing a large carpet. The other four bigs will be slaved to his. Come. This one is ours."

I said something intelligent like, "Urk?!"

"I want you to see it."

"We might be recognized."

Taken circled the long, skinny boat-carpets. Soldiers were aboard them, in the second and third seats. The men facing aft checked their ballistae, munitions, cranked a spring-powered device apparently meant to help restretch bowstrings after missiles were discharged. I could see no apparent task assigned the men in the middle seats. "What's the cagework for?"

"You'll learn soon enough."

"But…"

"Come to it fresh. Croaker. Without preconceptions."

I followed her around our carpet. I do not know what she checked, but she seemed satisfied. The men who had prepared it were pleased by her nod.

"Up, Croaker. Into the second seat. Fasten yourself securely. It'll get exciting before it's over."

Oh yeah.

"We're the pathfinders," she said as she buckled into the front seat. A grizzled old sergeant took the rear position. He looked at me doubtfully, but said nothing. The Taken assumed the front seat aboard every carpet. The bigs, as the Lady called them, had crews of four. Benefice rode the carpet at the center point of the W.

"Ready?" the Lady shouted.

"Right."

"Aye," the sergeant said.

Our carpet began to move.

Lumbering is the only word to describe the first few seconds. The carpet was heavy and, till it managed some forward motion, did not want to lift.

The Lady looked back and grinned as the earth dropped away. She was enjoying herself. She began shouting instructions which explained the bewildering bunch of pedals and levers surrounding me.

Push and pull on these two in combination and the carpet began to roll around its long axis. Twist those and it turned right or left. The idea was to use combinations somehow to guide the craft.

"What for?" I shouted into the wind. The words ripped away. We had donned goggles which protected our eyes but did nothing for the rest of our faces. I expected a case of windburn before the game was played out.

We were two thousand feet up, five miles from Horse, well ahead of the Taken. I could see traces of dust raised by Darling's army. Again I shouted, "What for?"

The bottom fell out.

The Lady had extinguished the spells which made the carpet go. "That's why. You'll fly the boat when we hit the null."

What the hell?

She gave me a half dozen shots at getting the hang of it, and I did see the theory, before she whipped toward the Rebel army.

We circled once, at screaming speed, well outside the null. I was astounded at what Darling had put together. About fifty windwhales, including some monsters over a thousand feet long. Manias by the hundred. A vast wedge of walking trees. Battalions of human soldiers. Menhirs by the hundred, flickering around the walking trees, shielding them. Thousands of things that leaped and hopped and glided and flopped and flew. So gruesome and wondrous a sight.

On the westward leg of our circle I spied the imperial force, two thousand men in a phalanx on the foreslope of a ridge a mile ahead of the Rebel. A joke, them standing against Darling.

A few bold mantas cruised the edge of the null, sniping with bolts that fell short or just missed. I judged Darling herself to be aboard a wind whale about a thousand feet up. She had grown stronger, for her null's diameter had expanded since my departure from the Plain. All that bewildering Rebel array marched within its protection.

The Lady had called us pathfinders. Our carpet was not equipped like the others, but I did not know what she meant. Till she did it.

We climbed straight up. Little black balls trailing streamers of red or blue smoke scattered behind us, shoveled overboard hastily by the old sergeant. Must have been three hundred. The smoke balls scattered, hovered just feet short of the null. So. Markers by which the Taken could navigate.

And here they came. Way up, the smaller surrounding the W formation of bigs.

The men on the bigs began releasing the giant pots. Down, down, down went a score. We followed, sliding along outside the smudge pots. As they plummeted, the flowerpots turned pole-downward. Mantas and whales slid out of their way.

When the pole hit ground it drove a plunger. The paraffin seals burst. Liquid squirted. The plunger hit a striker. The fluid ignited. Gouts of fire. And when that fire reached something inside the pots, they exploded. Shards cut down men and monsters.

I watched the blooming of those flowers of fire, aghast.

Above, the Taken wheeled for a second pass. There was no magic in this. The null was useless.

The second fall drew lightning from whales and mantas. Their first few successes cured them, though, for the pots they hit exploded in the air. Mantas went down. One whale was in grave trouble till others maneuvered overhead and sprayed it with ballast water.

The Taken made a third pass, again dropping pots. They would hammer Darling's troops into slime unless she did something.

She went up after the Taken.

The smoke pots slid around the flanks of the null, outlining it completely.

The Lady climbed at shrieking speed.

The W of bigs went away. The smaller carpets took on more altitude. The Lady brought us into position behind Whisper and The Limper. Clearly, she had anticipated Darling's response.

My emotions were mixed, to say the least.

Whisper's carpet tipped its nose downward. Limper followed. Then the Lady. Others of the Taken followed us.

Whisper dove toward one especially monstrous windwhale. Faster and faster she flew. Three hundred yards from the null two thirty-foot spears ripped away from her carpet, impelled by sorcery. When they hit the null they continued on in a normal ballistic trajectory.

Whisper made no effort to avoid the null. Into it she plunged, the man in her second seal guiding the carpel's fall wilh those fish fins.

Whisper's spears struck near the windwhale's head. Both burst into flames.

Fire is anathema to those monsters, for the gas that lifts them is violently explosive.

The Limper trailed Whisper with elan. He loosed two spears outside the null and another two inside, just dropped as his second-seat man took the carpet within inches of the windwhale.

Only one lance failed to strike home.

The whale had five fires burning upon its back.

Storms of lightning crackled round Whisper and Limper.

Then we hit the null. Our buoying spells failed. Panic snatched at me. Up to me?…

We were headed for the burning whale. I jerked and banged and kicked levers.

"Not so violently!" the Lady yelled. "Smoothly. Gently."

I got it in hand as the whale roared upward past us.

Lightning crackled. We passed between two smaller whales. They missed us. The Lady discharged her little ballista. Its bolt struck one of those monsters. What the hell was the point? I wondered. That was not a bee sting to one of them.

But that quarrel had a wire attached, running off a reel…

Wham!

I was blinded momenlarily. My hair crackled. Direct hit from a manta bolt… We're dead, I Thought.

The metal cage surrounding us absorbed the lightning's energy and passed it along the unwinding wire.

A manta was on our tail, only yards behind. The sergeant ripped off a shaft. It look our pursuer under The wing. The beast began to slide and flutter like a one-winged butterfly.

"Watch where we're going!" the Lady yelled. I turned around. A windwhale back rushed toward us. Fledgling mantas scurried in panic. Rebel bowmen threw up a barrage of arrows.

I hit and yanked every damned lever and pedal, and pissed my pants. Maybe that did it. We scraped the thing's flank, but did not crash.

Now the damned carpet began spinning and tumbling. Earth, sky, windwhales swirled around us. In one glimpse, way up, I saw a windwhale's side explode, saw the monster fold in the middle, raining gobbets of fire. Two more whales trailed smoke… But it was a picture there and gone in a moment. I could find none of it when the carpel again rolled to where I could see the sky.

We began our plunge from high enough that I had time to calm down. I fiddled with levers and pedals, got some of the wild spin off…

Then it did not matter. We were out of the null and it was the Lady's craft again.

I looked back to see how the sergeant was. He gave me a dirty look, shook his head pityingly.

The look the Lady gave me was not encouraging either.

We climbed and moved westward. The Taken assembled, observed the results of their attack.

Only the one windwhale was destroyed. The other two managed to get under friends who doused them with ballast water. Even so, the survivors were demoralized. They had done the Taken no injury at all.

Still, they came on.

This time the Taken dropped to the surface and attacked from below, building speed from several miles away, then curving up through the null. I maneuvered between whales with a more delicate hand but still fell dangerously near the ground.

"What are we doing this for?" I yelled. We were not attacking; we were just following Whisper and Limper.

"For the hell of it. For the sheer hell of it. And so you can write about it."

"I'll fake it."

She laughed.

We went high and circled.

Darling took the whales back down. That second pass slew two more. Down low the Taken could not throw themselves all the way through the null. None but Limper, that is. He played the daredevil. He backed off five miles and built a tremendous velocity before hitting the null.

He made that pass while the bigs were dropping the last of their pots.

I've never heard Darling called stupid. She did not do the stupid thing this time.

Despite all the flash and excitement, it was clear that she could, if she wanted, press on to Horse. The Taken had expended most of their munitions. Limper and the bigs were headed back to rearm. The others circled… Horse was Darling's if she was willing to pay the price.

She decided it was too dear.

Wise choice. My guess is, it would have cost her half her force. And windwhales are too rare to give up for a prize so insignificant.

She turned back.

The Lady broke away and let her go, though she could have maintained the attacks almost indefinitely.

We touched down. I scrambled over the side even before the Lady and in a calculated, melodramatic gesture, kissed the ground. She laughed.

She had had a great time.

"You let them go."

"I made my point."

"She'll shift tactics."

"Of course she will. But for the moment the hammer is in my hand. By not using it I've told her something. She'll have thought it over by the time we get there."

"I suppose."

"You didn't do badly for a novice. Go get drunk or something. And stay out of Limper's way."

"Yeah."

What I did was go to the quarters assigned me and try to stop shaking.

Chapter Forty-Two:
HOMECOMING

 

The Lady and I entered the Plain of Fear twelve days after the aerial skirmish near Horse. We traveled on horseback, on second-grade nags, along the old trade trail the denizens of the Plain respect with free passage most of the time. Clad in castoffs, for the trail, the Lady was no longer a beauty. No kick-out-of-bed dog, but no eye-catcher.

We entered the Plain aware that by a pessimistic estimate, we had about three months before the Great Tragic River opened the Great Barrow.

The menhirs noted our presence immediately. I sensed them out there, observing. I had to point it out. For this venture the Lady had schooled herself to eschew anything but the most direct and raw sensory input. She would train herself to mortal ways during our ride so she would make no mistake once we reached the Hole.

The woman has guts.

I guess anyone willing to play heads-up power games with the Dominator has to have them.

I ignored the lurking menhirs and concentrated on explaining the ways of the Plain, revealing the thousand little traps that, at the least, might betray the Lady. It was what a man would do on bringing a newcomer to the land. It would not seem unusual.

Three days into the Plain we narrowly missed being caught in a change storm. She was awed. "What was that?" she asked.

I explained the best I could. Along with all the speculations. She, of course, had heard it all before. But seeing is believing, as they say.

Not long after that we came on the first of the coral reefs, which meant we were in the deep Plain, among the great strangenesses. "What name will you use?" I asked. "I better get used to it,"

"I think Ardath." She grinned.

"You have a cruel sense of humor."

"Perhaps."

I do believe she was having fun at pretending to be ordinary. Like some great lord's lady slumming. She even took her turns at the cook fire. To my stomach's despair.

I wondered what the menhirs made of our relationship. No matter the pretense, there was a brittleness, a formality, that was hard to overcome. And the best we could fake was a partnership, which I am certain they found strange. When did man and woman travel together thus, without sharing bedroll and such?

The question of pursuing verisimilitude that far never arose. And just as well. My panic, my terror, at the suggestion would have been such that nothing else would have arisen.

Ten miles from the Hole we breasted a hill and encountered a menhir. It stood beside the way, twenty feet of weird stone, doing nothing. The Lady asked in touristy fashion, "Is that one of the talking stones?"

"Yep. Hi, rock. I'm home."

Old rock didn't have anything to say. We passed on. When I looked back it was gone.

Little had changed. As we crested the last ridge, though, we saw a forest of walking trees crowding the creek. A stand of menhirs both living and dead guarded the crossing. The backwards camel-centaurs gamboled among them. Old Father Tree stood by himself, tinkling, though there was not a breath of wind. Up high, a single buzzardlike avian soared against shattered clouds, watching. One or another of its kind had followed us for days. Of a human presence there was no sign. What did Darling do with her army? She could not pack those men into the Hole.

For a moment I was frightened that I had returned to an untenanted keep. Then, as we splashed across the creek, Elmo and Silent stepped out of the coral.

I dove off my animal and gathered them into a monster hug. They returned it, and in best Black Company tradition did not ask a single question.

"Goddamn," I said. "Goddamn, it's good to see you. I heard you guys was wiped out out west somewhere."

Elmo looked at the Lady with just the slightest hint of curiosity.

"Oh. Elmo. Silent. This is Ardath."

She smiled. "So pleased to meet you. Croaker has said so much about you."

I had not said a word. But she had read the Annals. She dismounted and offered her hand. Each took it, baffled, for only Darling, in their experience, expected treatment as an equal.

"Well, let's go down," I said. "Let's go down. I've got a thousand things to report."

"Yeah?" Elmo said. And that said a lot, for he looked up our backtrail as he said it.

Some people who had gone away with me had not come back.

"I don't know. We had half the Taken after us. We got separated. I couldn't find them again. But I never heard anything about them being captured. Let's go down. See Darling. I've got incredible news. And get me something to eat. We've been eating each other's cooking forever, and she's a worse cook than I am."

"Guck," Elmo said, and slapped me across the back. "And you lived?"

"I'm one tough old buzzard, Elmo. You ought to know. Shit, man, I…" I realized I was chattering like a whacko. I grinned.

Silent signed, "Welcome home, Croaker. Welcome home."

"Come," I told the Lady as we reached the entrance to the Hole, and took her hand. "It'll seem like the pit till your eyes get used to it. And brace yourself for the smell."

Gods, the stench! Gag a maggot.

All kinds of excitement down below. It faded into studied indifference as we passed, then resumed behind us. Silent led straight to the conference room. Elmo split off to order us up something to eat.

As we entered I realized that I still held the Lady's hand. She gave me half a smile, in which there was a hell of a lot of nervousness. Talk about strutting into the dragon's lair. Bold old Croaker gave her hand a squeeze.

Darling looked ragged. So did the Lieutenant. A dozen others were there, few of whom I knew. They must have come aboard after the imperials evacuated the perimeter of the Plain.

Darling hugged me for a long time. So long I became flustered. We are not touchy people, she and I. She finally backed off and gave the Lady a look in which there was a hint of jealousy.

I signed, "This is Ardath. She will help me translate. She knows the old languages well."

Darling nodded. She asked no questions. So much was I trusted.

The food arrived. Elmo dragged in a table and chairs and shooed out everyone but myself, the Lieutenant, himself, Silent, and the Lady. He might have sent her away, too, but remained unsure of her standing with me.

We ate, and as we did I related my tale in snatches, when my hands and mouth were not full. There were some rough moments, especially when I told Darling that Raven was alive.

In retrospect I think it was harder on me than on her. I was afraid she would get all excited and hysterical. She did nothing of the sort.

First, she flat refused to believe me. And I could understand that, for till he disappeared Raven had been the cornerstone of her universe emotionally. She could not see him not including her in his biggest lie ever just so he could slip away to go poke around the Barrowland. That made no sense to her. Raven never lied to her before.

Made no sense to me, either. But then, as I have noted before, I suspected there was more in the shadows than anyone was admitting. I sniffed the faintest whiff that maybe Raven was running from instead of to.

Darling's denials did not last long. She is not one to disdain truth indefinitely only because it is unpleasant. She handled the pain far better than I anticipated, and that suggested maybe she had had a chance to bleed off some of the worst in the past.

Still, Raven's present circumstances did nothing for Darling's emotional health, already doing poorly after her defeat at Horse. That harbinger of grander defeats to come. Already she suspected she might have to face the imperials without benefit of the information I had been sent to acquire.

I conjured universal despair when I announced my failure and added, "I have it on high authority that what we sought isn't in those papers anyway. Though I can't be sure till Ardath and I finish what we have here." I did sketch what I learned from Raven's documents before losing them.

I did not lie outright. That would not be forgiven later, when the truth came out. As inevitably it must. I just overlooked a few details. I even admitted having been captured, questioned, and imprisoned.

"What the hell are you doing here, then?" Elmo demanded. "How come you're even alive?"

"They turned us loose, Ardath and me. After that business you had near Horse. That was a message. I'm supposed to deliver another."

"Such as?"

"Unless you're blind and stupid, you'll have noticed that you're not under attack. The Lady has ordered all operations against the Rebellion ceased."

"Why?"

"You haven't been paying attention. Because the Domina-tor is stirring."

"Come on, Croaker. We finished that business in Juniper."

"I went to the Barrowland. I saw for myself, Lieutenant. That thing is going to break loose. One of its creatures is out already, maybe dogging One-Eye and them. I'm convinced. The Dominator is a step from breaking out, and not half-assed like in Juniper." I turned to the Lady. "Ardath. What was that I figured? I lost track of how long we've been in the Plain. It was about ninety days when we came in."

"It took you eight days to get here," Elmo said.

I lifted an eyebrow.

"The menhirs."

"Of course. Eight days, then. Away from ninety for a worst-case scenario. Eighty-two days till the Great Barrow opens." I went into more detail about the Great Tragic River floods.

The Lieutenant was not convinced. Neither was Elmo. And you cannot blame them. The Lady weaves crafty, intricate plots. And they were sneaky guys who judged others by themselves. I did not proselytize. I was not wholeheartedly born-again myself.

It was of little consequence whether or not those two believed, anyway. Darling makes the decisions.

She signed for everyone to leave but me. I asked Elmo to show Ardath around and find her a place to bunk. He looked at me oddly. Like everyone else, he figured I'd brought me home a girlfriend.

I had trouble keeping a straight face. All those years they have ridden me because of a few romances written when first we entered the Lady's service. And now I'd brought her home.

I figured Darling wanted to talk about Raven. I was not wrong, but she surprised me by signing, "She has sent you to propose an alliance, has she not?"

Quick little devil. "Not exactly. Though in practice it would amount to that." I went into the details, known and reasoned, of the situation. Signing is not quick work. But Darling remained attentive and patient, not at all distracted by whatever was going on inside her. She took me over the value, or lack thereof, of my document cache. Not once did she ask about Raven. Nor about Ardath, though my friend was on her mind, too.

She signed, "She is correct in saying that our feud becomes inconsequential if the Dominator rises. My question must be, is the threat genuine or a ploy? We know just how convoluted a scheme she can manage."

"I am sure," I signed in reply. "Because Raven was sure. He had made up his mind before the Lady's people began to suspect. In fact,as far as I can tell, he developed the evidence that convinced them."

"Goblin and One-Eye. Are they safe?" "As far as I know. I never heard of them being captured." "They should be getting close. Those documents. They are the crux still."

"Even if they do not contain the secret of her name, but only that of her husband?" "She wants access?"

"I would assume so. I was released for some reason, though I cannot say what the reason behind the reason was." Darling nodded. "So I thought."

"Yet I am convinced that she is honest in this. That we must consider the Dominator the more dangerous and immediate peril. It should not be too difficult to anticipate most of the ways she could become treacherous." "And there is Raven." Here it comes, I thought. "Yes." "I will reflect, Croaker." "There is not much time."

"There is all the time in the world, in a way. I will reflect. You and your lady friend translate."

I felt I had been dismissed before we got to why she wanted to see me privately. The woman has a face like stone. You can't tell much about what is going on inside. I moved toward the door slowly.

"Croaker," she signed. "Wait."

I stopped. This was it.

"What is she, Croaker?"

Damn! Ducked around it again. Chills on my part. Guilt. I did not want to lie outright. "Just a woman."

"Not a special woman? A special friend?"

"I guess she is special. In her way."

"I see. Ask Silent to come in."

Again I went slowly, nodding. But it was not till I actually started to open the door that she beckoned me back.

In accordance with instructions, I sat. She did not. She paced. She signed, "You think I am cold toward great news. You think ill of me because I am not excited that Raven is alive."

"No. I thought it would shock you. That it would cause you great distress."

"Shock, no. I am not entirely surprised. Distressed, yes. It opens old wounds and makes them more painful."

Puzzled, I watched as she continued to prowl.

"Our Raven. He never grew up. Fearless as a stone. Utterly without the handicap of a conscience. Tough. Smart. Hard. Fierce. All those things. Yes? Yes. And a coward."

"What? How can you?…"

"He runs away. There were machinations around the Limper which pulled his wife in, years ago. Did he try to discover the truth and work it out? He killed people and ran away with the Black Company to kill more people. He abandoned two babies without a word of good-bye."

She was hot now. She was opening the doors on secrets and spilling stuff of which I had seen only the vaguest glimmering reflections. "Do not defend him. I have had the power to investigate, and I did," she signed.

"He fled the Black Company. For my sake? As much excuse to avoid entanglement as reason. Why did he salvage me in that village? Because of guilt over children he had abandoned. I was a safe child. And while a child I remained a safe emotional investment. But I did not remain a child, Croaker. And I knew no other man in all those years in hiding.

"I should have known better. I saw how he pushed people away if they tried to get close in any way that was not completely one-sided and under his control. But after the horrible things he did in Juniper I thought I could be the one to redeem him. On the road south, when we were running from the dark danger of the Lady and light danger of the Company, I betrayed my true feelings. I opened the lid on a chest of dreams nurtured from a time before I was old enough to think about men.

"He became a changed man. A frightened animal caught in a cage. He was relieved when news came that the Lieutenant had appeared with some of the Company. It was not but a matter of hours before he was 'dead.'

"I suspected then. I think a part of me always knew. And that is why I am not so devastated now as you want. Yes. I know you know I cry myself to sleep sometimes. I cry for a little girl's dreams. I cry because the dreams will not die, though I am powerless to make them come true. I cry because the one thing I truly want I cannot have. Do you understand?"

I thought about Lady, and Lady's situation, and nodded. I signed nothing back.

"I am going to cry again. Go out. Please. Tell Silent to come."

I did not have to look for him. He was waiting in the conference room. I watched him go inside, wondering if I was seeing things or seeing things.

She'd certainly given me something to think about.

Chapter Forty-Three:
PICNIC

 

Put on any deadline and time accelerates. The clockwork of the universe runs off an overwound mainspring. Four days went down the Jakes, zip! And I did not waste much time sleeping.

Ardath and I translated. And translated. And translated. She read, translating aloud. I wrote till my hands cramped. Occasionally Silent took over for me.

I spot-checked by slipping in documents already done, especially those both Tracker and I had worked. Not once did I catch a misinterpretation.

That fourth morning I did catch something. We were doing one of those lists. This soiree must have been so big that if held today, we'd call it a war. Or at least a riot. On and on. So-and-so of such-and-such, with Lady Who's-is, sixteen titles, four of which made sense. By the time the heralds finished proclaiming everyone, the party must have died or encroaching senility.

Anyway, along about the middle of the list I heard a little catch in her breath. Aha! I said to myself. A bolt strikes close. My ears pricked up.

She went on smoothly. Moments later I was not sure I had not imagined it. Reason told me the name that startled her would not be the one she was speaking. She was toddling along at my writing pace. Her eyes would be well ahead of my hand.

Not one of the names that followed clanged any bell.

I would go over the list later, just in case, hoping she had deleted something.

No such luck.

Come afternoon she said, "Break, Croaker. I'm going for tea. You want some?"

"Sure. Maybe a hunk of bread, too." I scribbled another half minute before realizing what had happened.

What? The Lady herself offering to fetch? Me putting in an order without thinking? I got a case of the nerves. How much was she role-playing? How much pretending for fun? It must be centuries since she got her own tea. If ever.

I rose, started to follow, halted outside my cell door.

Fifteen steps down the tunnel, in the grungy, feeble lamplight, Otto had cornered her against the wall. He was talking some shit. Why I had not foreseen the problem I do not know. I doubted that she had. Surely it was not one she faced normally.

Otto got pushy. I started to go break it up then vacillated. She might be angered by my interference.

A light step from the other direction. Elmo. He paused. Otto was too single-minded to notice us.

"Better do something," Elmo said. "We don't need that kind of trouble."

She did not appear frightened or upset. "I think maybe she can handle it."

Otto got a "no" that could not be misinterpreted. But he did not accept it. He tried to lay hands on.

He got a ladylike slap for his trouble. Which angered him. He decided to take what he wanted. As Elmo and I moved forward, he disappeared in a flurry of kicks and punches that set him down in the muck on the floor, holding his belly with one arm and that arm with the other. Ardath went on as though nothing had happened.

I said, "I told you she could handle it."

"Remind me not to overstep myself," Elmo said. Then he grinned and tapped my arm. "Bet she's mean on the horizontal. Eh?"

Damned if I did not blush. I gave him a foolish grin. It only confirmed his suspicions. What the hell. Anything would have. That is the way those things go.

We lugged Otto to my room. I thought he would puke up his guts. But he controlled himself. I checked for broken bones. He was just bruised. "All yours, Elmo," I said, for I knew the old sergeant was rehearsing a few choice words.

He took Otto by the elbow and said, "Step down to my office, soldier." He started dirt tumbling from the tunnel overheads when he explained the facts of life.

When Ardath returned she behaved as if nothing had happened. Perhaps she missed us watching. But after half an hour she asked, "Can we take a break? Go outside? Walk?"

"You want me to come?"

She nodded. "We need to talk. Privately."

"All right."

To tell the truth, whenever I lifted my nose from my work I got a little claustrophobic myself. My venture westward reminded me how good it is to stretch one's legs. "Hungry?" I asked. "Too serious to make a picnic?"

She looked startled, then charmed, by the idea. "Good. Let's do that."

So we went to the cook and baker and filled a bucket and went topside. Though she did not notice everyone smirking, I did.

There is but one door in the Hole. To the conference room, behind which Darling's personal quarters lie. Neither my quarters nor Ardath's had so much as a curtain closure. Folks figured we were off for the privacy of the wide open spaces.

Dream on. Up there there would be more spectators than down below. They just would not be human.

The sun was maybe three hours short of setting when we stepped outside, and it smacked us right in the eyes. Rough. But I expected it. Should have warned her.

We strolled up the creek, breathing slightly sagey air and saying nothing. The desert was silent. Not even Father Tree stirred. The breeze was insufficient to sigh in the coral. After a while I said, "Well?"

"I needed to get out. The walls were closing in. The null made it worse. I feel helpless down there. It preys on the mind."

"Oh."

We rounded a coral head and encountered a menhir. One of my old buddies, I guess, for he reported, "There are strangers on the Plain, Croaker."

"No lie?" Then: "Which strangers, rock?" But it had nothing more to say.

"They're always like that?"

"Or worse. Well. The null begins to fade. Feel better?"

"I felt better the moment I stepped outside. That's the gate to Hell. How can you people live like that?"

"It isn't much, but it's home."

We came to bare earth. She halted. "What's this?"

"Old Father Tree. You know what they think we're up to, down there?"

"I know. Let them think it. Call it protective coloration. That is your Father Tree?" She indicated Himself.

"That's him." I walked on. "How you doing today, old-timer?"

Must be fifty times I have asked that. I mean, the old guy is remarkable, but just a tree. Right? I did not expect a response. But Father Tree's leaves started tinkling the moment I spoke.

"Come back here, Croaker." The Lady's voice was commanding, hard, a little shaken. I turned and marched. "Back to your old self?" From the corner of my eye I caught a shadow in motion, off toward the Hole. I concentrated on a bit of coral and nearby brush. "Keep your voice down. We have an eavesdropper."

"That's no surprise." She spread the ragged blanket she had brought, sat down with her toes right at the edge of the barren. She removed the rag covering the bucket. I settled beside her, positioned so I could watch that shadow. "Do you know what that is?" she asked, nodding at the tree.

"Nobody does. It's just Old Father Tree. The desert clans call him a god. We've seen no evidence of that. One-Eye and Goblin were impressed with the fact that he stands almost exactly on the geographical center of the Plain, though."

"Yes. I suppose… So much was lost in the fall. I should have suspected… My husband was not the first of his kind. Croaker. Nor the White Rose the first of hers. It is a grand cycle, I believe."

"You've lost me."

"A very long time ago, even as I measure time, there was another war like that between the Dominator and the White Rose. The light overcame the shadow. But as always, the shadow left its taint on the victors. In order to end the struggle, they summoned a thing from another world, plane, dimension, what-have-you, the way Goblin might conjure a demon, only this thing was an adolescent god. Of sorts. In a sapling avatar. These events were legendary only in my youth, when much more of the past survived, so details are open to question. But it was a summoning of such scope, and such price, that thousands perished and counties were devastated. But they planted their captive god over the grave of their great enemy, where it would keep him enchained. This tree-god would live a million years."

"You mean?… Old Father is sitting on something like the Great Barrow?"

"I did not connect the legends and the Plain till I saw that tree. Yes. This earth constrains something as virulent as my husband. So much suddenly makes sense. It all fits. The beasts. The impossible talking rocks. Coral reefs a thousand miles from the sea. It all leaked through from that other world. The change storms are the tree's dreams."

She rattled on, not so much explaining as putting things together for herself. I gaped and remembered the change storm that caught me on the way west. Was I accursed, to be caught in a god's nightmare?

"This is crazy," I said, and at the same instant decrypted the shape I had been trying to pry from the shadows, bushes, and coral.

Silent. Squatting on his hams, motionless as a snake awaiting prey. Silent, who had been everywhere I went the last three days, like an extra shadow, seldom noticed because he was Silent. Well. So much for my confidence that my return with a companion had tickled no suspicions.

"This is a bad place to be, Croaker. Very bad. Tell that deaf peasant wench to move."

"If I did that, I would have to explain why and reveal who gave me the advice. I doubt she would be impressed."

"I suppose you're right. Well, it won't matter much longer. Let's eat."

She opened a packet and set out what looked like fried rabbit. But there are no rabbits on the Plain. "For all they got kicked around, their adventure toward Horse improved the larder." I dug in.

Silent remained motionless in the comer of my eye. You bastard, I thought. I hope you're drooling.

Three pieces of rabbit later I slowed enough to ask, "That about the old-timer is interesting, but does it have any relevance?"

Father Tree was raising a ruckus. I wondered why. "Are you afraid of him?"

She did not answer. I chucked bones down the creek bank, rose. "Back in a minute." I stomped over to Father Tree. "Old-Timer, you got any seeds? Any sprouts? A little something we could take to the Barrowland to plant on top of our own villain?"

Talking to that tree, all those times heading past, was a game. I was possessed of an almost religious awe of its age, but of no conscious belief in it as anything like either the nomads or the Lady claimed. Just a gnarly old tree with weird leaves and a bad temper.

Temper?

When I touched it, to lean against it while looking up among its bizarre leaves for nuts or seeds, it bit me. Well, not with teeth. But sparks flew. The tips of my fingers stung. When I took them out of my mouth they looked burned. "Damn," I muttered, and backed off a few steps. "Nothing personal, tree. Thought you might want to help out."

Vaguely, I was aware that a menhir now stood near Silent's lurking place. More appeared around the barren area.

Something hit me with the force of windwhale ballast dumped from a hundred feet up. I went down. Waves of power, of thought, beat upon me. I whimpered, tried to crawl toward the Lady. She extended a hand, but would not cross that boundary…

Some of that power began to hint at comprehensibility. But it was like being inside fifty minds at once, with them scattered across the world. No. The Plain. And more than fifty minds. As it became more melded, more meshed… I was touching the menhir minds.

That all faded. The sledge of power ceased hammering the anvil that was me. I scrambled for the edge of the barren, though I knew that line demarked no true safety. I reached the blanket, caught my breath, finally turned to face the tree. Its leaves tinkled in exasperation.

"What happened?"

"Basically, he told me he's doing what he can, not for our sake but for that of his creatures. That I should go to Hell, leave him alone, quit aggravating him or find my ass in deep shit. Oh, my."

I had looked back to see how Silent had taken my encounter.

"I warned…" She glanced back, too.

"I think we maybe got trouble. Maybe they recognized you."

Almost everyone from the Hole had appeared. They were lining up across the trail. The menhirs were more numerous. Walking trees were forming a circle with us at its center.

And we were unarmed, for Darling was there. We were inside the null again.

She had on her white linen. She stepped past Elmo and the Lieutenant and came toward me. Silent joined her. Behind her came One-Eye, Goblin, Tracker, and Toadkiller Dog. Those four still had the dust of the trail upon them.

They had been on the Plain for days. And I had been given no word…

You talk about your trapdoor on your gallows dropping unexpectedly. For fifteen seconds I stood there with my mouth open. Then I asked, "What do we do?" in a soft squeak.

She startled me by taking my hand. "I bet and lost. I don't know. They're your people. Bluff. Oh!" Her eyes narrowed. Her stare fixed, became intense. Then a thin smile stretched her lips. "I see."

"What?"

"Some answers. The shadow of what my husband is about. You have been manipulated more than you know. He anticipated being found out with his weather. Once he had your Raven, he decided to bring your peasant girl to him… Yes. I think… Come."

My old comrades did not appear hostile, only puzzled.

The circle continued to close.

The Lady caught my hand again, led me to the base of Old Father Tree. She whispered, "Let there be peace between us while you observe. Ancient One. One comes whom you will remember of old." And to me: "There are many old shadows in the world. Some reach back to the dawn. Not big enough, they seldom draw attention like my husband or the Taken. Soulcatcher had minions who antedated the tree. They were interred with her. I told you I recognized the way those bodies were torn."

I stood there in the bloody light of the fading sun, baffled all to hell. She might as well have been speaking UchiTelle.

Darling, Silent, One-Eye, and Goblin came right to us. Elmo and the Lieutenant halted within a rock's throw. But Tracker and Toadkiller Dog sort of melted into the crowd.

"What is going on?" I signed at Darling, obviously frightened.

"That is what we want to find out. We have been getting disjointed, nonsensical reports from the menhirs since Goblin, One-Eye, and Tracker reached the Plain. On one hand, Goblin and One-Eye confirm everything you told me-till you parted ways."

I glanced at my two friends-and saw no friendship there. Their eyes were cold and glassy. Like somebody else had moved in behind them.

"Company," Elmo called, without shouting.

A pair of Taken, aboard boat-carpets, cruised some distance away. They came no closer. The Lady's hand twitched. She controlled herself otherwise. They remained far enough out not to be recognizable.

"More than one pair of hands is stirring this stew," I said. "Silent, get to the point. Right now you're scaring the crap out of me."

He signed, "The rumor is strong in the empire that you have sold out. That you have brought someone high-up here, to assassinate Darling. Maybe even one of the new Taken."

I could not help grinning. The planters of rumors had not dared tell the whole tale.

The grin convinced Silent. He knew me well. Which, I guess, was why he was watching me.

Darling, too, relaxed. But neither One-Eye nor Goblin softened.

"What's wrong with these guys, Silent? They look like zombies."

"They say you sold them out. That Tracker saw you. That if. . ."

"Bullshit! Where the hell is Tracker? Get that big stupid son-of-a-bitch out here and let him say that to my face!"

The light was weakening. The fat tomato of a sun had slipped behind the hills. Soon it would be dark. I felt a creepy tingle against my back. Was the damned tree going to act up?

Once I thought of him, I sensed an intense interest upon Old Father Tree's part. Also a sort of dreamy rage coalescing…

Suddenly, menhirs flickered around all over the place, even across the creek where the brush was dense. A dog yelped. Silent signed something to Elmo. I did not catch it because his back was turned. Elmo trotted toward the turmoil.

The menhirs worked our way, forming a wall, herding something… Well! Tracker and Toadkiller Dog. Tracker looked vacuously puzzled. The mutt kept trying to scoot between the menhirs. They would not let him. Our people had to stay light on their feet to keep from getting their toes squashed.

The menhirs pushed Toadkiller Dog and Tracker into the barren circle. The mongrel let out one long, despairing howl, tucked his tail between his legs, and slunk into Tracker's shadow. They stood about ten feet from Darling. ,

"Oh, Gods," the Lady murmured, and squeezed my hand so hard I almost yelled.

The kernel of a change storm exploded in Old Father Tree's tinkly hair.

It was huge; it was horrible; it was violent. It devoured us all, with such ferocity we could do nothing but endure it. Shapes shifted, ran, changed; yet those nearest Darling stayed exactly the same.

Tracker screamed. Toadkiller Dog unleashed a howl that spread terror like a cancer. And they changed the most, into the identical vile and violent monsters I saw while westward bound.

The Lady shouted something lost in the rage of the storm. But I caught its triumphal note. She did know those shapes.

I stared at her.

She had not changed.

That seemed impossible. This creature about whom I had been silly for fifteen years could not be the real woman.

Toadkiller Dog flung himself into the jaws of the storm, hideous fangs bared, trying to reach the Lady. He knew her, too. He meant to finish her while she was helpless inside the null. Tracker shambled after, just as puzzled as the Tracker that looked human had been.

One of Father Tree's great branches whipped down. It batted Toadkiller Dog the way a man might bat an attack bunny. Three times Toadkiller Dog gave it the valiant try. Three times he failed. The fourth time, what might have been the grandfather of all lightning bolts met him squarely and hurled him all the way to the creek, where he smouldered and twitched for a minute before rising and howling away into the enemy desert.

At the same time Tracker-beast went for Darling. He gathered her up and headed west. When Toadkiller Dog-beast went out of the game. Tracker got all the attention.

Old Father Tree may not be a god, but when he talks he has the voice. Coral reefs crumbled when he spoke. Everyone outside the barren grabbed their ears and screamed. For us who were closer it was less tormenting.

I do not know what he said. The language was none I knew, and it sounded like none I had ever heard. But it got through to Tracker. He put Darling down and came back, into the teeth of the storm, to stand before the god while that great voice hammered him and violent violet echoed round his misshapen bones. He bowed and did homage to the tree, and then he did change.

The storm died as swiftly as it had began. Everyone collapsed. Even the Lady. But unconsciousness did not come with collapse. By the wan light remaining I saw the circling Taken decide their hour had come. They fell back, gathered velocity, cut a ballistic chord through the null, each loosing four of those thirty-foot spears meant for shattering windwhales. And I sat on the hard ground drooling, hand in hand with their target.

Through sheer will, I guess, the Lady managed to murmur, "They can read the future as well as I." Which made no sense at the time. "I overlooked that."

Eight shafts arced down.

Father Tree responded.

Two carpets disintegrated beneath their riders.

The shafts exploded so high that none of their fiery charge reached the ground.

The Taken did, though. They plunged in neat arcs into a dense coral reef east of us. Then the sleepiness came. The last thing I recall was that the glaze had left the three eyes of Goblin and One-Eye.

Chapter Forty-Four:
THE QUICKENING

 

There were dreams. Endless, horrible dreams. Someday, if I live so long, if I survive what is yet to come, I may record them, for they were the story of a god that is a tree, and of the thing his roots bind…

No. I think not. One life of struggle and horror is enough to report. And this one goes on.

The Lady stirred first. She reached over, pinched me. The pain wakened my nerves. She gasped, in a voice so soft I barely heard it, "Get up. Help me. We have to move your White Rose."

Made no sense.

"The null."

I was shivering. I thought it was reaction to whatever struck me down.

"The thing below is of this world. The tree is not."

Wasn't me shivering. It was the ground. Ever so gently and rapidly. And now I became aware of a sound. Something far away, deep down.

I began to get the idea.

Fear is one hell of a motivator. I got my feet under me. Above, the Tinkle of Old Father Tree beat maddeningly. There was panic in his wind-chimes song.

The Lady rose too. We staggered toward Darling, supporting one another. Each groggy step spiced more life into my sluggish blood. I looked into Darling's eyes. She was aware, yet paralyzed. Her face was frozen halfway between fear and disbelief. We hoisted her up, each slipping an arm around her. The Lady began counting steps. I remember no other labor so damnably great. I do not recall another time when I ran so much on will alone.

The shaking of the earth waxed rapidly into the shudder of passing horsemen, then to a landslide's uproar, then to an earthquake. The ground around Father Tree began to writhe and buckle. A gout of flame and dust blasted upward. The tree tinkled a shriek. Blue lightning rioted in his hair. We pressed even harder in our flight down and across the creek.

Something behind us began to scream.

Images in mind. That which was rising was in agony. Father Tree subjected it to the torments of Hell. But it came on, determined to be free.

I no longer looked back. My terror was too great. I did not want to see what an ancient Dominator looked like.

We made it. Gods. Somehow the Lady and I got Darling sufficiently far away for Father Tree to regain his full otherworldly power.

The shriek rose rapidly in pitch and fury; I fell down grasping my ears. And then it went away.

After a time the Lady said, "Croaker, go see if you can help the others. It's safe. The tree won."

That quickly? Out of that much fury?

Getting my feet under me seemed an all-night job.

A blue nimbus still shimmered among Father Tree's branches. You could feel his aggravation from two hundred yards. Its weight grew as I moved nearer.

The ground around the tree's feet hardly seemed disturbed, considering the violence of moments ago. It looked freshly plowed and harrowed, was all. Some of my friends were partially buried, but no one appeared injured. Everyone was moving at least a little. Faces looked wholly stunned. Except Trucker's. That ugly character had not resumed his fake human form.

He was up early, placidly helping the others, dusting their clothing with hearty, friendly slaps. You would not have known that a short time before he had been a deadly enemy. Weird.

Nobody needed any help. Except the walking trees and menhirs. The trees had been overturned. The menhirs… Many of them were down, too. And unable to right themselves.

That gave me a chill.

I got me another shudder when I neared the old tree.

Reaching out of the ground, fumbling at the bark of a root, was a human hand and forearm, long, leathery, greenish, with nails grown to claws then broken and bleeding upon Father Tree. It did not belong to anyone from the Hole.

It twitched feebly, now. . Blue sparks continued to crackle above.

Something about that hand stirred the old beast within me. I wanted to run away shrieking. Or seize an axe and mutilate it. I took neither course, for I got the distinct feeling that Father Tree was watching me and glowering more than a little, and maybe blaming me personal-like for wakening the thing to which the hand belonged.

"I'm going," I said. "Know how you feel. Got my own old monster to keep down." And I backed away, bowing some each three or four steps.

"What the hell was that?"

I whirled. One-Eye was staring at me. He had a Croaker-is-up-to-another-of-his-crazies look.

"Just chatting with the tree." I looked around. People seemed to be finding their sea legs. Some of the less flustered were starting to right the walking trees. For the fallen menhirs, though, there seemed no hope. Those had gone to whatever reward a sentient stone may expect. Later they would be discovered righted, standing among the other dead menhirs near the creek ford.

I returned to Darling and the Lady. Darling was slow to come around, too groggy to communicate yet. The Lady asked, "Everyone all right?"

"Except the guy in the ground. And he came close to making himself well." I described the hand.

She nodded. "That's a mistake not likely to be made again soon."

Silent and several others had gathered around, so we could say little that would not sound suspect. I did murmur, "What now?" In the background I heard the Lieutenant and Elmo hollering about getting some torches out to shed a little light.

She shrugged.

"What about the Taken?"

"You want to go after them?"

"Hell, no! But we can't have them running around loose in our backyard, either. No telling…"

"The menhirs will watch them. Won't they?"

"That depends on how pissed the old tree is. Maybe he's ready to let us go to hell in a bucket after this."

"You might find out."

"I'll go," Goblin queaked. He wanted an excuse to put a lot of yards between him and the tree.

"Don't take all night," I said. "Why don't the rest of you help Elmo and the Lieutenant?"

That got rid of some folks, but not Silent.

There was no way I was going to get Silent out of sight of Darling. He had some reservations still.

I chaffed Darling's wrists and did other silly things when time was the only cure. After some minutes I mumbled, "Seventy-eight days."

And the Lady, "Before long it will be too late."

I lifted an eyebrow.

"He can't be beaten without her. It won't be long before the hardest ride won't get her there in time."

I do not know what Silent made of that exchange. I do know that the Lady looked up at him and smiled thinly, with that look she gets when she knows your thoughts. "We need the tree." And: "We didn't get to finish our picnic."

"Huh?"

She went away for a few minutes. When she returned she had the blanket, dirtier than ever, and the bucket. She snagged my hand and headed for the dark. "You watch for the traps," she told me. What the hell was this game?