Chapter Eight:
TALLY: CLOSE-UP

I let the tip of my blade drop to the inn floor. I slumped in exhaustion, coughing weakly in the smoke. I swayed, feebly reached for the support of an overturned table. Reaction was setting in. I had been sure this time was the end. If they hadn't been forced to extinguish the fires themselves. . . .

Elmo crossed the room and threw an arm around me. "You hurt, Croaker? Want me to find One-Eye?"

"Not hurt. Just burned out. Been a long time since I been so scared, Elmo. Thought I was a goner."

He righted a chair with a foot and sat me down. He was my closest friend, a wiry, old hardcase seldom given to moodiness. Wet blood reddened his left sleeve. I tried to stand. "Sit," he ordered. "Pockets can take care of it."

Pockets was my understudy, a kid of twenty-three. The Company is getting older-at least at its core, my contemporaries. Elmo is past fifty. The Captain and Lieutenant straddle that five-zero. I wouldn't see forty again. "Get them all?"

"Enough." Elmo settled on another chair. "One-Eye and Goblin and Silent went after the ones who took off." His voice was vacant. "Half the Rebels in the province, first shot."

"We're getting too old for this." The men began bringing prisoners inside, sifting them for characters who might know something useful. "Ought to leave this stuff to the kids."

"They couldn't handle it." He stared into nothing, at long ago and far away.

"Something wrong?"

He shook his head, then contradicted himself. "What are we doing, Croaker? Isn't there any end to it?"

I waited. He did not go on. He doesn't talk much. Especially not about his feelings. I nudged. "What do you mean?"

"Just goes on and on. Hunting Rebels. No end to the supply. Even back when we worked for the Syndic in Beryl. We hunted dissidents. And before Beryl. . . . Thirty-six years of same old same old. And me never sure I was doing right. Especially now."

It was like Elmo to keep his reservations in abeyance eight years before airing them. "We're in no position to change anything. The Lady won't take kindly to us if we suddenly say we're only going to do thus and so, and none of that."

The Lady's service has not been bad. Though we get the toughest missions, we never have to do the dirty stuff. The regulars get those jobs. Preemptive strikes sometimes, sure. The occasional massacre. But all in the line of business. Militarily necessary. We'd never gotten involved in atrocities. The Captain wouldn't permit that.

"It's not the morality, Croaker. What's moral in war? Superior strength. No. I'm just tired."

"Not an adventure anymore, eh?"

"Stopped being that a long time ago. Turned into a job. Something I do because I don't know anything else."

"Something you do very well." That did not help, but I couldn't think of anything better to say.

The Captain came in, a shambling bear who surveyed the wreckage with a cold eye. He came over. "How many did we get, Croaker?"

"Count's not in yet. Most of their command structure, I'd guess."

He nodded. "You hurt?"

"Worn out. Physically and emotionally. Been a while since I was so scared."

He righted a table, dragged up a chair, produced a case of maps. The Lieutenant joined him. Later, Candy brought Madle over. Somehow, the innkeeper had survived. "Our friend has some names for you, Croaker." I spread my paper, scratched out those Madle named. The company commanders began drafting prisoners for grave-digging detail. Idly, I wondered if they realized they were preparing their own resting places. No Rebel soldier is paroled unless we can enlist him inescapably into the Lady's cause. Madle we enlisted. We gave him a story to explain his survival and eliminated everyone who could deny it. Candy, in a fit of generosity, had the bodies removed from his well.

Silent returned, with Goblin and One-Eye, the two smaller wizards bickering caustically. As usual. I do not recall the argument. It didn't matter. The struggle was all, and it was all decades old.

The Captain gave them a sour look, asked the Lieutenant, "Heart or Tome?" Heart and Tome are the only substantial towns in Tally. There is a king at Heart who is allied with the Lady. She crowned him two years ago, after Whisper slew his predecessor. He is not popular with the Tallylanders. My opinion, never asked, is that she should dispose of him before he does her further harm.

Goblin laid a fire. The morning hours were nippy. He knelt before it, toasting his fingers.

One-Eye poked around behind Madle's counter, found a beer jar miraculously unscathed. He drained it in a single draft, wiped his face, surveyed the room, winked at me. "Here we go," I murmured. The Captain glanced up. "Eh?" "One-Eye and Goblin." "Oh." He went back to work and did not look up again.

A face formed in the flames before frog-faced little Goblin. He did not see it. His eyes were closed. I looked at One-Eye. His eye was sealed, too, and his face was all pruned, wrinkles atop wrinkles, shadowed by the brim of his floppy hat. The face in the fire took on detail.

"Eh!" It startled me for a moment. Staring my way, it looked like the Lady. Well, like the face the Lady wore the one time I actually saw her. That was during the battle at Charm. She called me in to dredge my mind for suspicions about a conspiracy among the Ten Who Were Taken. ... A thrill of fear. I have lived with it for years. If ever she questions me again, the Black Company will be short its senior physician and Annalist. I now have knowledge for which she would flatten kingdoms.

The face in the fire extended a tongue like that of a salamander. Goblin squealed. He jumped up clutching a blistered nose.

One-Eye was draining another beer, back to his victim. Goblin scowled, rubbed his nose, seated himself again. One-Eye turned just enough to place him at the corner of his vision. He waited till Goblin began to nod.

This has been going on forever. Both were with the Company before I joined, One-Eye for at least a century. He is old, but is as spry as men my age.

Maybe spryer. Lately I've felt the burden of time more and more, all too often dwelling on everything I've missed. I can laugh at peasants and townies chained all their lives to a tiny corner of the earth while I roam its face and see its wonders, but when I go down, there will be no child to carry my name, no family to mourn me save my comrades, no one to remember, no one to raise a marker over my cold bit of ground. Though I have seen great events, I will leave no enduring accomplishment save these Annals.

Such conceit. Writing my own epitaph disguised as Company history.

I am developing a morbid streak. Have to watch that.

One-Eye cupped his hands palms-down on the countertop, murmured, opened them. A nasty spider of fist size stood revealed, wearing a bushy squirrel tail. Never say One-Eye has no sense of humor. It scuttled down to the floor, skipped over to me, grinned up with a One-Eye black face wearing no eye-patch, then zipped toward Goblin.

The essence of sorcery, even for its nonfraudulent practitioners, is misdirection. So with the bushy-tailed spider.

Goblin was not snoozing. He was lying in the weeds. When the spider got close, he whirled and swung a stick of firewood. The spider dodged. Goblin hammered the floor. In vain. His target darted around, chuckling in a One-Eye voice.

The face formed in the flames. Its tongue darted out. The seat of Goblin's trousers began to smoulder.

"I'll be damned," I said.

"What?" the Captain asked, not looking up. He and the Lieutenant had taken opposite ends of an argument over whether Heart or Tome would be the better base of operations.

Somehow, word gets out. Men streamed in for the latest round of the feud. I observed, "I think One-Eye is going to win one."

"Really?" For a moment old grey bear was interested. One-Eye hadn't bested Goblin in years.

Goblin's frog mouth opened in a startled, angry howl. He slapped his bottom with both hands, dancing. "You little snake!" he screamed. "I'll strangle you! I'll cut your heart out and eat it! I'll. . . . I'll. . . ."

Amazing. Utterly amazing. Goblin never gets mad. He gets even. Then One-Eye will put his twisted mind to work again. If Goblin is even, One-Eye figures he's behind.

"Settle that down before it gets out of hand," the Captain said.

Elmo and I got between the antagonists. This thing was disturbing. Goblin's threats were serious. One-Eye had caught him in a bad temper, the first I'd ever seen. "Ease up," I told One-Eye.

He stopped. He, too, smelled trouble.

Several men growled. Some heavy bets were down. Usually, nobody will put a copper on One-Eye. Goblin coming out on top is a sure thing, but this time he looked feeble. Goblin did not want to quit. Did not want to play the usual rules, either. He snatched a fallen sword and headed for One-Eye. I couldn't help grinning. That sword was huge and broken, and Goblin was so small, yet so ferocious, that he seemed a caricature. A bloodthirsty caricature. Elmo couldn't handle him. I signaled for help. Some quick thinker splashed water on Goblin's back. He whirled, cussing, started a deadly spell.

Trouble for sure. A dozen men jumped in. Somebody threw another bucket of water. That cooled Goblin's temper. As we relieved him of the blade, he looked abashed. Defiant, but abashed.

I led him back to the fire and settled beside him. "What's the matter? What happened?" I glimpsed the Captain from the corner of my eye. One-Eye stood before him, drained by a heavy-duty dressing down.

"I don't know, Croaker." Goblin slumped, stared into the fire. "Suddenly everything was too much. This ambush tonight. Same old thing. There's always another province, always more Rebels. They breed like maggots in a cowpie. I'm getting older and older, and I haven't done anything to make a better world. In fact, if you backed off to look at it, we've all made it worse." He shook his head. "That isn't right. Not what I want to say. But I don't know how to say it any better."

"Must be an epidemic."

"What?"

"Nothing. Thinking out loud." Elmo. Myself. Goblin. A lot of the men, judging by their tenor lately. Something was wrong in the Black Company. I had suspicions, but wasn't ready to analyze. Too depressing.

"What we need is a challenge," I suggested. "We haven't stretched ourselves since Charm." Which was a half-truth. An operation which compelled us to become totally involved in staying alive might be a prescription for symptoms, but was no remedy for causes. As a physician, I was not fond of treating symptoms alone. They could recur indefinitely. The disease itself had to be attacked.

"What we need," Goblin said in a voice so soft it almost vanished in the crackle of the flames, "is a cause we can believe in."

"Yeah," I said. "That, too."

From outside came the startled, outraged cries of prisoners discovering that they were to fill the graves they had dug.

Chapter Nine:
JUNIPER: DEATH PAYS

Shed grew increasingly frightened as the days passed. He had to get some money. Krage was spreading the word. He was to be made an example.

He recognized the tactic. Krage wanted to scare him into signing the Lily over. The place wasn't much, but it was damned sure worth more than he owed. Krage would resell it for several times his investment. Or turn it into whore cribs. And Marron Shed and his mother would be in the streets, with winter's deadly laughter howling in their faces.

Kill somebody, Krage had said. Rob somebody. Shed considered both. He would do anything to keep the Lily and protect his mother.

If he could just get real customers! He got nothing but one-night chiselers and scroungers. He needed residential regulars. But he could not get those without fixing the place up. And that he couldn't do without money.

Asa rolled through the doorway. Pale and frightened, he scuttled to the counter. "Find a wood supply yet?" Shed asked.

The little man shook his head, slid two gersh across the counter. "Give me a drink."

Shed scooped the coins into his box. One did not question money's provenance. It had no memory. He poured a full measure. Asa reached eagerly.

"Oh, no," Shed said. "Tell me about it."

"Come on, Shed. I paid you."

"Sure. And I'll deliver when you tell me why you're so rocky."

"Where's that Raven?"

"Upstairs. Sleeping." Raven had been out all night.

Asa shook a little more. "Give me that, Shed."

"Talk."

"All right. Krage and Red grabbed me. They wanted to

know about Raven."

So Shed knew how Asa had come by money. He had tried to sell Raven. "Tell me more."

"They just wanted to know about him."

"What did they want to know?"

"If he ever goes out."

"Why?"

Asa stalled. Shed pulled the mug away. "All right. They had two men watching him. They disappeared. Nobody knows anything. Krage is furious." Shed let him have the wine. He drained it in a single gulp.

Shed glanced toward the stair, shuddered. Maybe he had underestimated Raven. "What did Krage say about me?"

"Sure could use another mug, Shed."

"I'll give you a mug. Over the noggin."

"I don't need you, Shed. I made a connection. I can sleep over to Krage's any time I want."

Shed grunted, made a mask of his face. "You win." He poured wine.

"He's going to put you out of business, Shed. Whatever it takes. He's decided you're in it with Raven." Wicked little smile. "Only he can't figure where you got the guts to buck him."

"I'm not. I don't have anything to do with Raven, Asa. You know that."

Asa enjoyed his moment. "I tried to tell Krage, Shed.

He didn't want to hear it."

"Drink your wine and get out, Asa."

"Shed?" The old whine filled Asa's voice.

"You heard me. Out. Back to your new friends. See how long they have a use for you."

"Shed! . . ."

"They'll throw you back into the street, Asa. Right beside me and Mom. Git, you bloodsucker."

Asa downed his wine and fled, shoulders tight against his neck. He had tasted the truth of Shed's words. His association with Krage would be fragile and brief.

Shed tried to warn Raven. Raven ignored him. Shed polished mugs, watched Raven chatter with Darling in the utter silence of sign language, and tried to imagine some way of making a hit in the upper city. Usually he spent these early hours eying Darling and trying to imagine a way to gain access, but lately sheer terror of the street had abolished his customary randiness.

A cry like that of a hog with a cut throat came from upstairs. "Mother!" Shed took the stairs two steps at a time.

His mother stood in the doorway of the big bunkroom, panting. "Mom? What's wrong?"

"There's a dead man in there."

Shed's heart fluttered. He pushed into the room. An old man lay in the bottom right bunk inside the door.

There had been only four bunkroom customers last night. Six gersh a head. The room was six feet wide and twelve long, with twenty-four platforms stacked six high. When the room was full, Shed charged two gersh to sleep leaning on a rope stretched down the middle.

Shed touched the old-timer. His skin was cold. He had been gone for hours.

"Who was he?" old June asked.

"I don't know." Shed probed his ragged clothing. He found four gersh and an iron ring. "Damn!" He could not take that. The Custodians would be suspicious if they found nothing. "We're jinxed. This is our fourth stiff this year."

"It's the customers, son. They have one foot in the Catacombs already."

Shed spat. "I'd better send for the Custodians."

A voice said, "He's waited this long, let him wait a little longer."

Shed whirled. Raven and Darling stood behind his mother.

"What?"

"He might be the answer to your problems," Raven said. And immediately Darling began flashing signs so fast Shed could not catch one in twenty. Evidently she was telling Raven not to do something. Raven ignored her.

Old June snapped, "Shed!" Her voice was heavy with admonition.

"Don't worry, Mom. I'll handle it. Go ahead with your work." June was blind, but when her health permitted, she dumped the slops and handled what passed for maid service- mainly dusting beds between guests to kill fleas and lice. When her health confined her to bed, Shed brought in his cousin Wally, a ne'er-do-well like Asa, but with a wife and kids. Shed used him out of pity for the wife.

He headed downstairs. Raven followed, still arguing with Darling. Momentarily, Shed wondered if Raven was diddling her. Be a damned waste of fine womanflesh if someone wasn't.

How could a dead man with four gersh get him out from under Krage? Answer: He could not. Not legitimately.

Raven settled onto his usual stool. He scattered a handful of copper. "Wine. Buy yourself a mug, too."

Shed collected the coins, deposited them in his box. Us contents were pitiful. He wasn't making expenses. He was doomed. His debt to Krage could miraculously be discharged and still he'd be doomed.

He deposited a mug before Raven, seated himself on a stool. He felt old beyond his years, and infinitely weary.

"Tell me."

"The old man. Who was he? Who were his people?" Shed shrugged. "Just somebody who wanted to get out of the cold. The Buskin is full of them."

"So it is."

Shed shuddered at Raven's tone. "Are you proposing

what I think?" "What's that?"

"I don't know. What use is a corpse? I mean, even the Custodians only stuff them in the Catacombs."

"Suppose there was a buyer?"

"I've been supposing that."

"And?"

"What would I have to do?" His voice barely carried across the table. He could imagine no more disgusting crime. Even the least of the city's dead were honored above the living. A corpse was a holy object. The Enclosure was Juniper's epicenter.

"Very little. Late tonight, have the body at the back door. You could do that?''

Shed nodded weakly.

"Good. Finish your wine."

Shed downed it in a gulp. He drew another mug, polished his stoneware industriously. It was a bad dream. It would go away.

The corpse seemed almost weightless, but Shed had difficulty negotiating the stairs. He had drunk too much. He eased through the shadowed common, stepping with exaggerated care. The people clustered near the fireplace looked demonic in the sullen red of the last coals.

One of the old man's feet toppled a pot as Shed entered the kitchen. He froze. Nothing happened. His heartbeat gradually slowed. He kept reminding himself that he was doing this so his mother would not have to freeze on winter streets.

He thumped the door with his knee. It swung inward immediately. A shadow hissed, "Hurry up," and seized the old man's feet, helped Shed heave it into a wagon.

Panting, terrified, Shed croaked, "What now?"

"Go to bed. You get your share in the morning."

Shed's relieved sigh nearly became tears. "How much?" he gasped.

"A third."

"Only a third?"

"I'm taking all the risk. You're safe already."

"All right. How much would it be?"

"The market varies." Raven turned away. Shed closed the door, leaned against it with closed eyes. What had he done?

He built up the fire and went to bed, lay listening to his mother's snores. Had she guessed? Maybe she wouldn't. The Custodians often waited for night. He would tell her she had slept through everything.

He could not sleep. Who knew about the death? If word got out, people would wonder. They would begin to suspect the unsuspectable.

What if Raven got caught? Would the Inquisitors make him talk? Bullock could make a stone sing.

He watched his mother all next morning. She did not speak except in monosyllables, but that was her custom.

Raven appeared shortly after noon. "Tea and a bowl of porridge, Shed." When he paid, he did not shove copper across the counter.

Shed's eye widened. Ten silver leva lay before him. Ten? For one dead old man? That was a third? And Raven had done this before? He must be rich. Shed's palms grew moist. His mind howled after potential crimes.

"Shed?" Raven said softly when he delivered the tea and porridge. "Don't even think about it." "What?" "Don't think what you're thinking. You would end up in the wagon."

Darling scowled at them from the kitchen doorway. For a moment Raven seemed embarrassed.

Shed slunk into the hostel where Krage held court. From the outside the place was as crummy as the Lily. Timidly, he looked for Count, tried to ignore Asa. Count would not torment him for fun. "Count, I need to see Krage." Count opened big brown cow eyes. "Why?" "I brought him some money. On account." Count heaved himself upright. "All right. Wait here."

He stalked off.

Asa sidled up. "Where'd you get the money. Shed?" "Where do you get yours, Asa?" Asa did not answer.

"It isn't polite to ask. Mind your own business or stay away from me."

"Shed, I thought we were friends."

"I tried to be friends, Asa. I even let you have a place to sleep. And as soon as you hooked up with Krage. ..."

A shadow crossed Asa's face. "I'm sorry, Shed. You know me. I don't think so fast. I do dumb things."

Shed snorted. So Asa had come to the inevitable conclusion: Krage would dump him once he settled with Raven.

Shed was tempted to betray Raven. The man had to have a fortune hidden. But he was afraid of a thousand things, and his guest stood at the top of the list.

Asa said, "I found a way to get deadwood from the Enclosure." His face brightened in pathetic appeal. "Mostly pine, but it's wood."

"The Enclosure?"

"It's not illegal, Shed. It keeps the Enclosure cleaned up."

Shed scowled righteously.

"Shed, it's less wrong than going through somebody's. ..."

Shed controlled his anger. He needed allies inside the enemy camp. "Firewood could be like money, Asa. No provenance."

Asa smiled fawningly. "Thanks, Shed."

Count called, "Shed."

Shed shook as he crossed the room. Krage's men smirked.

This wouldn't work. Krage wouldn't listen. He was going to throw his money away.

"Count says you've got something to give me on account," Krage said.

"Uhm." Krage's den could have been ripped whole from a mansion high up the wall of the valley. Shed was stunned.

"Stop gawking and get on with it. You'd better not give me a handful of copper and beg for an extension, either. Picked a warm doorway yet? Your payments are a joke, Shed."

"No joke. Mr. Krage. Honest. I can pay over half of it."

Krage's eyebrows rose. "Interesting." Shed laid nine silver leva before him. "Very interesting." He fixed Shed with a penetrating stare.

Shed stammered, "That's over half, counting interest. I hoped maybe seeing as how that would put me ahead. ..."

"Quiet." Shed shut up. "You think I should forget what happened?"

"That wasn't my fault, Mr. Krage. I didn't tell him to. ... You don't know what Raven is like."

"Shut up." Krage stared at the coins. "Maybe something can be arranged. I know you didn't put him up to it. You don't have the guts."

Shed stared at the floor, unable to deny his cowardice. "Okay, Shed. You're a regular client. Back to the regular schedule." He eyed the money. "You're ahead three weeks, looks like."

"Thank you, Mr. Krage. Really. You don't know how much this means. ..."

"Shut up. I know exactly what it means. Get out. Start getting another payment together. This is your last reprieve."

"Yes. sir." Shed retreated. Count opened the door.

"Shed! I may want something sometime. A favor for a favor. Understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"All right. Go."

Shed left, a sinking feeling replacing relief. Krage would make him help get Raven. He almost wept as he tramped homeward. It never got any better. He was always in a trap.

Chapter Ten:
TALLY TURNAROUND

Tome was typical of towns we had garrisoned recently. Small, dirty, boring. One wondered why the Lady bothered. What use were these remote provinces? Did she insist they bend the knee merely to puff her ego? There was nothing here worth having, unless it was power over the natives.

Even they viewed their country with a certain contempt.

The presence of the Black Company strained the resources of the area. Within a week the Captain started talking about shifting a company to Heart and billeting smaller units in the villages. Our patrols seldom encountered the Rebel, even when our wizards helped hunt. The engagement at Madle's had all but eliminated the infestation.

The Lady's spies told us the few committed Rebels left had fled into Tambor, an even bleaker kingdom to the northeast. I supposed Tambor would be our next mission.

I was scribbling away at these Annals one day, when I decided I needed an estimate of the mileage we'd covered in our progression eastward. I was appalled to learn the truth. Tome was two thousand miles east of Charm! Far beyond the bounds of the empire as it had existed six years ago. The great bloody conquests of the Taken Whisper had established a border arc just this side of the Plain of Fear. I ran down the line of city-states forming that forgotten frontier. Frost and Ade, Thud and Barns, and Rust, where the Rebel had defied the Lady successfully for years. Huge cities all, formidable, and the last such we had seen.

I still shuddered, recalling the Plain of Fear.

We crossed it under the aegis of Whisper and Feather, two of the Taken, the Lady's black apprentices, both sorceresses orders of magnitude above our three puny wizards. Even so, and traveling with entire armies of the Lady's regulars, we suffered there. It is a hostile, bitter land where none of the normal rules apply. Rocks speak and whales fly. Coral grows in the desert. Trees walk. And the inhabitants are the strangest of all. . . . But that is neither here nor there. Just a nightmare from the past. A nightmare that haunts me still, when the screams of Cougar and Fleet come echoing down the corridors of time, and once again I can do nothing to save them.

"What's the trouble?" Elmo asked, slipping the map from beneath my fingers, cocking his head sideways. "Look like you saw a ghost."

"Just remembering the Plain of Fear." "Oh. Yeah. Well, buck up. Have a beer." He slapped my back. "Hey! Kingpin! Where the hell you been?" He charged away, in pursuit of the Company's leading malingerer.

One-Eye arrived a moment later, startling me. "How's Goblin?" he asked softly. There had been no intercourse between them since Madle's. He eyed the map. "The Empty Hills? Interesting name."

"Also called the Hollow Hills. He's all right. Why don't you check him out?"

"What the hell for? He was the one who acted the ass.

Can't take a little joke. ..."

"Your jokes get a bit rough, One-Eye." "Yeah. Maybe. Tell you what. You come with me." "Got to prepare my reading." One night a month the Captain expects me to exhort the troops with a reading from the Annals. So we'll know where we came from, so we'll recall our ancestors in the outfit. Once that meant a lot. The Black Company. Last of the Free Companies of Khatovar. All brethren. Tight. Great esprit. Us against the world, and let the world watch out. But the something that had manifested itself in Goblin's behavior, in the low-grade depression of Elmo and others, was affecting everybody. The pieces were coming unglued.

I had to pick a good reading. From a time when the Company had its back against the wall and survived only by clinging to its traditional virtues. There have been many such moments in four hundred years. I wanted one recorded by one of the more inspired Annalists, one with the fire of a White Rose revivalist speaking to potential recruits. Maybe I needed a series, one that I could read several nights running.

"Crap," One-Eye said. "You know those books by heart. Always got your nose in them. Anyway, you could fake the whole thing and nobody would know the difference."

"Probably. And nobody would care if I did. It's going sour, old-timer. Right. Let's go see Goblin."

Maybe the Annals needed a rereading on a different level. Maybe I was treating symptoms. The Annals have a certain mystic quality, for me. Maybe I could identify the disease by immersing myself, hunting something between the lines.

Goblin and Silent were playing no-hands mumbletypeg. I'll say this for our three spook-pushers: They aren't great, but they keep then- talents polished. Goblin was ahead on points. He was in a good mood. He even nodded to One-Eye.

So. It was over. The stopper could be put into the bottle. One-Eye just had to say the right thing.

To my amazement, he even apologized. By sign, Silent suggested we get out and let them conclude their peace in private. Each had an overabundance of pride.

We stepped outside. As we often did when no one could intercept our signs, we discussed old times. He, too, was privy to the secret for which the Lady would obliterate nations.

Half a dozen others suspected once, and had forgotten. We knew, and would never forget. Those others, if put to the question, would leave the Lady with serious doubts.

We two, never. We knew the identity of the Lady's most potent enemy-and for six years we had done nothing to apprise her of the fact that that enemy even existed as more than a Rebel fantasy.

The Rebel tends to a streak of superstition. He loves prophets and prophecies and grand, dramatic foretellings of victories to come. It was pursuit of a prophecy which led him into the trap at Charm, nearly causing his extinction. He regained his balance afterward by convincing himself that he was the victim of false prophets and prophecies, laid upon him by villains trickier than he. In that conviction he could go on, and believe more impossible things.

The funny thing was, he lied to himself with the truth. I was, perhaps, the only person outside the Lady's inner circle who knew he had been guided into the jaws of death. Only, the enemy who had done the guiding was not the Lady, as he believed.

That enemy was an evil greater still, the Dominator, the Lady's one-time spouse, whom she had betrayed and left buried but alive in a grave in the Great Forest north of a far city called Oar. From that grave he had reached out, subtly, and twisted the minds of men high in Rebel circles, bending them to his will, hoping to use them to drag the Lady down and bring about his own resurrection. He failed, though he had help from several of the original Taken in his scheme.

If he knew of my existence, I must be high on his list. He lay up there still, scheming, maybe hating me, for I helped betray the Taken helping him. . . . Scary, that. The Lady was medicine bad enough. The Dominator, though, was the body of which her evil was but a shadow. Or so the legend goes. I sometimes wonder why, if that is true, she walks the earth and he lies restless in the grave.

I have done a good deal of research since discovering the power of the thing in the north, probing little-known histories. Scaring myself each time. The Domination, an era when the Dominator actually ruled, smelled like an era of hell on earth. It seemed a miracle that the White Rose had put him down. A pity she could not have destroyed him. And all his minions, including the Lady. The world would not be in the straits it is today. I wonder when the honeymoon will end. The Lady hasn't been that terrible. When will she relax, and give the darkness within her free rein, reviving the terror of the past?

I also wonder about the villainies attributed to the Domination. History, inevitably, is recorded by self-serving victors.

A scream came from Goblin's quarters. Silent and I stared at one another a moment, then rushed inside.

I honestly expected one of them to be bleeding his life out on the floor. I did not expect to find Goblin having a fit while One-Eye desperately strove to keep him from hurting himself. "Somebody made contact," One-Eye gasped. "Help me. It's strong."

I gaped. Contact. We hadn't had a direct communication since the desperately swift campaigns when the Rebel was closing in on Charm, years ago. Since then, the Lady and Taken have been content to communicate through messengers.

The fit lasted only seconds. That was customary. Then Goblin relaxed, whimpering. It would be several minutes before he recovered enough to relay the message. We three looked at one another with card-playing faces, frightened inside. I said,

"Somebody ought to tell the Captain."

"Yeah," One-Eye said. He made no move to go. Neither did Silent.

"All right. I'm elected." I went. I found the Captain doing what he does best. He had his feet up on his worktable, was snoring. I wakened him, told him.

He sighed. "Find the Lieutenant." He went to his map cases. I asked a couple questions he ignored, took the hint and got out.

He had expected something like this? There was a crisis in the area? How could Charm have heard first?

Silly, worrying before I heard what Goblin had to say.

The Lieutenant seemed no more surprised than the Captain. "Something up?" I asked.

"Maybe. A courier letter came after you and Candy left for Tally. Said we might be called west. This could be it."

"West? Really?"

"Yeah." Such dense sarcasm he put into the word!

Stupid. If we chose Charm as the customary demarcation point between east and west, Tally lay two thousand plus miles away. Three months' travel under perfect conditions. The country between was anything but perfect. In places roads just didn't exist. I thought six months sounded too optimistic. But I was worrying before the fact again. I had to wait and see.

It turned out to be something even the Captain and Lieutenant hadn't anticipated. We waited in trepidation while Goblin pulled himself together. The Captain had his map case open, sketching a tentative route to Frost. He grumbled because all westbound traffic had to cross the Plain of Fear. Goblin cleared his throat.

Tension mounted. He did not lift his eyes. The news had to be unpleasant. He squeaked, "We've been recalled. That was the Lady. She seemed disturbed. The first leg goes to Frost. One of the Taken will meet us there. He'll take us on to the Barrowland." The others frowned, exchanged puzzled looks. I muttered, "Shit. Holy Shit."

"What is it, Croaker?" the Captain asked.

They didn't know. They paid no attention to historical things. "That's where the Dominator is buried. Where they all were buried, back when. It's in the forest north of Oar." We'd been to Oar seven years ago. It was not a friendly city.

"Oar!" the Captain yelled. "Oar! That's twenty-five hundred miles!"

"Add another hundred or two to the Barrowland."

He stared at the maps. "Great. Just great. That means not just the Plain of Fear but the Empty Hills and the Windy Country too. Just fandamntastic great. I suppose we've got to get there next week?"

Goblin shook his head. "She didn't seem rushed, Captain. Just upset and wanting us headed the right way."

"She give you any whys or wherefores?"

Goblin smirked. Did the Lady ever? Hell, no.

"Just like that," the Captain muttered. "Out of the blue. Orders to hike halfway around the world. I love it." He told the Lieutenant to begin preparations for movement.

It was bad news, mad news, insanity squared, but not as bad as he made out. He had been preparing since receiving the courier letter. It wasn't that hard to get rolling. The trouble was, nobody wanted to roll.

The west was far nicer than anything we'd known out here, but not so great anybody wanted to walk that far.

Surely she could have summoned a closer unit?

We are the victims of our own competence. She always wants us where the going threatens to become toughest. She knows we will do the best job.

Damn and double damn.

Chapter Eleven:
JUNIPER: NIGHT WORK

Shed had given Krage only nine of ten leva. The coin he held back bought firewood, wine, and beer to replenish his stocks. Then other creditors caught wind of his prosperity. A slight upturn in business did him no good. He met his next payment to Krage by borrowing from a moneylender named Gilbert. He found himself wishing somebody would die. Another ten leva would put him in striking distance of getting through the winter. It was a hard one, that winter. Nothing moved in the harbor. There was no work in the Buskin. Shed's only bit of good fortune was Asa. Asa brought wood whenever he got away from Krage, in a pathetic effort to buy a friend. Asa arrived with a load. Privately, he said, "Better watch out, Shed. Krage heard about you borrowing from Gilbert." Shed went grey. "He's got a buyer for the Lily lined up. They're rounding up girls already."

Shed nodded. The whoremasters recruited desperate women this time of year. By the time summer brought its sailors, they were broken to their trade.

"The bastard. Made me think he'd given me a break. I should have known better. This way he gets my money and my place. The bastard." "Well, I warned you." "Yeah. Thanks, Asa." Shed's next due date came on like a juggernaut. Gilbert refused him another loan. Smaller creditors besieged the Lily. Krage was aiming them Shed's way.

He took Raven a complimentary drink. "May I sit?" A hint of a smile crossed Raven's lips. "It's your place." And: "You haven't been friendly lately. Shed."

"I'm nervous," Shed lied. Raven irritated his conscience. "Worried about my debts." Raven saw through the excuse. "You thought maybe I could help?" Shed almost groaned. "Yes."

Raven laughed softly. Shed thought he detected a note of triumph. "All right, Shed. Tonight?"

Shed pictured his mother being carted off by the Custodians. He swallowed his self-disgust. "Yeah."

"All right. But this time you're a helper, not a partner." Shed swallowed and nodded. "Put the old woman to bed, then come back downstairs. Understand?"

"Yes," Shed whispered.

"Good. Now go away. You irritate me."

"Yes, sir." Shed retreated. He couldn't look anyone in the eye the rest of that day.

A bitter wind howled down the Port valley, freckled with flakes of snow. Shed huddled miserably, the wagon seat a bar of ice beneath him. The weather was worsening. "Why tonight?" he grumbled.

"Best time." Raven's teeth chattered. "We're not likely to be seen." He turned into Chandler's Lane, off which innumerable narrow alleyways ran. "Good hunting territory here. In this weather they crawl back in the alleys and die like flies."

Shed shivered. He was too old for this. But that was why he was here. So he wouldn't have to face the weather every night.

Raven stopped the wagon. "Check that passageway."

Shed's feet started aching the instant he put weight on them. Good. At least he felt something. They weren't frozen.

There was little light in the alley. He searched more by feel than sight. He found one lump under an overhang, but it stirred and muttered. He ran.

He reached the wagon as Raven dumped something into the bed. Shed averted his eyes. The boy couldn't have been more than twelve. Raven concealed the body with straw. "That's one. Night like this, we ought to find a load."

Shed choked his protests, resumed his seat. He thought about his mother. She wouldn't last one night in this.

Next alley he found his first corpse. The old man had fallen and frozen because he couldn't get up again. Aching in his soul,

Shed dragged the body to the wagon.

"Going to be a good night," Raven observed. "No competition. The Custodians won't come out in this." Softly: "I hope we can make the hill." Later, after they had moved to the waterfront and each had found another corpse, Shed asked, "Why're you doing this?" "I need money, too. Got a long way to travel. This way I get a lot, fast, without much risk."

Shed thought the risks far greater than Raven would admit. They could be torn apart. "You're not from Juniper, are you?"

"From the south. A shipwrecked sailor."

Shed did not believe it. Raven's accent was not at all right for that, mild though it was. He hadn't the nerve to call the man a liar, though, and press for the truth.

The conversation continued by fits and starts. Shed didn't uncover anything more of Raven's background or motives.

"Go that way," Raven told him. "I'll check over here. Last stop, Shed. I'm done in."

Shed nodded. He wanted to get the night over. To his disgust, he had begun seeing the street people as objects, and he hated them for dying in such damned inconvenient places.

He heard a soft call, turned back quickly. Raven had one. That was enough. He ran to the wagon.

Raven was on the seat, waiting. Shed scrambled up, huddled, tucked his face away from the wind. Raven kicked the mules into motion.

The wagon was halfway across the bridge over the Port when Shed heard a moan. "What?" One of the bodies was moving! "Oh. Oh, shit, Raven. . . ."

"He's going to die anyway."

Shed huddled back down, stared at the buildings on the north bank. He wanted to argue, wanted to fight, wanted to do anything to deny his part in this atrocity.

He looked up an hour later and recognized nothing. A few large houses flanked the road, widely spaced, their windows dark. "Where are we?"

"Almost there. Half an hour, unless the road is too icy."

Shed imagined the wagon sliding into a ditch. What then? Abandon everything and hope the rig couldn't be traced? Fear replaced loathing.

Then he realized where they were. There wasn't anything up here but that accursed black castle. "Raven. ..."

"What's the matter?"

"You're head for the black castle."

"Where'd you think we were going?"

"People live there?"

"Yes. What's your problem?"

Raven was a foreigner. He couldn't understand how the black castle affected Juniper. People who got too close disappeared. Juniper preferred to pretend that the place did not exist.

Shed stammered out his fears. Raven shrugged. "Shows your ignorance."

Shed saw the castle's dark shape through the snow. The fall was lighter on the ridge, but the wind was more fierce. Resigned, he muttered, "Let's get it over with."

The shape resolved into battlements, spires, towers. Not a light shown anywhere. Raven halted before a tall gate, went forward on foot. He banged a heavy knocker. Shed huddled, hoping there would be no response.

The gate opened immediately. Raven scrambled onto the wagon's seat. "Get up, mules."

"You're not going inside?"

"Why not?"

"Hey. No way. No."

"Shut up, Shed. You want your money, you help unload."

Shed stifled a whimper. He hadn't bargained for this.

Raven drove through the gate, turned right, halted be-neath a broad arch. A single lantern battled the darkness clotting the passageway. Raven swung down. Shed followed, his nerves shrieking. They dragged the bodies out of the wagon and swung them onto stone slabs nearby. Then Raven said, "Get back on the wagon. Keep your mouth shut." The one body stirred. Shed grunted. Raven pinched his leg savagely. "Shut up."

A shadowy shape appeared. It was tall, thin, clad in loose black pantaloons and a hooded shirt. It examined each body briefly, seemed pleased. It faced Raven. Shed glimpsed a face all of sharp angles and shadows, lustrous, olive, cold, with a pair of softly luminous eyes. "Thirty. Thirty. Forty. Thirty. Seventy," it said. Raven countered, "Thirty. Thirty. Fifty. Thirty. One hundred."

"Forty. Eighty." "Forty-five. Ninety." "Forty. Ninety." "Done."

They were dickering! Raven was not interested in quibbling over the old people. The tall being would not advance his offer for the youth. But the dying man was negotiable.

Shed watched the tall being count out coins at the feet of the corpses. That was a damned fortune! Two hundred twenty pieces of silver! With that he could tear the Lily down and build a new place. He could get out of the Buskin altogether.

Raven scooped the coins into his coat pocket. He gave Shed five. "That's all?"

"Isn't that a good night's work?"

It was a good month's work, and then some. But to get only five of. ...

"Last time we were partners," Raven said, swinging onto the driver's seat. "Maybe we will be again. But tonight you're a hired hand. Understand?" There was a hard edge to his voice. Shed nodded, beset by new fears.

Raven backed the wagon. Shed felt a sudden chill. That archway was hot as hell. He shuddered, feeling the hunger of the thing watching them.

Dark, glassy, jointless stone slid past. "My god!" He could see into the wall. He saw bones, fragments of bones, bodies, pieces of bodies, all suspended as if floating in the night. As Raven turned toward the gate, he saw a staring face. "What kind of place is this?"

"I don't know, Shed. I don't want to know. All I care is, they pay good money. I need it. I have a long way to go."

Chapter Twelve:
THE BARROWLAND

The Taken called the Limper met the Company at Frost. We'd spent a hundred and forty-six days on the march. They were long days and hard, grinding, men and animals going on more by habit than desire. An outfit in good shape, like ours, is capable of covering fifty or even a hundred miles in a day, pushing hell out of it, but not day after week after month, upon incredibly miserable roads. A smart commander does not push on a long march. The days add up, each leaving its residue of fatigue, till men begin collapsing if the pace is too desperate.

Considering the territories we crossed, we made damned good time. Between Tome and Frost lie mountains where we were lucky to make five miles a day, deserts we had to wander in search of water, rivers that took days to cross using makeshift rafts. We were fortunate to reach Frost having lost only two men.

The Captain shone with a glow of accomplishment-till the military governor summoned him.

He assembled the officers and senior noncoms when he returned. "Bad news," he told us. "The Lady is sending the Limper to lead us across the Plain of Fear. Us and the caravan we'll escort."

Our response was surly. There was bad blood between the Company and the Limper. Elmo asked, "How soon will we leave, sir?" We needed rest. None had been promised, of course, and the Lady and the Taken seem unconscious of human frailties, but still. . . .

"No time specified. Don't get lazy. He's not here now, but he could turn up tomorrow."

Sure. With the flying carpets the Taken use, they can turn up anywhere within days. I muttered, "Let's hope other business keeps him away a while."

I did not want to encounter him again. We had done him wrong, frequently, way back. Before Charm we worked closely with a Taken called Soulcatcher. Catcher used us in several schemes to discredit Limper, both out of old enmity and because Catcher was secretly working on behalf of the Dominator. The Lady was taken in. She nearly destroyed the Limper, but rehabilitated him instead, and brought him back for the final battle.

Way, way back, when the Domination was aborning, centuries before the foundation of the Lady's empire, the Dominator overpowered his greatest rivals and compelled them into his service. He accumulated ten villains that way, soon known as the Ten Who Were Taken. When the White Rose raised the world against the Dominator's wickedness, the Ten were buried with him. She could destroy none of them outright.

Centuries of peace sapped the will of the world to guard itself. A curious wizard tried to contact the Lady. The Lady manipulated him, effected her release. The Ten rose with her. Within a generation she and they forged a new dark empire. Within two they were embattled with the Rebel, whose prophets agreed the White Rose would be reincarnated to lead them to a final victory.

For a while it looked like they would win. Our armies collapsed. Provinces fell. Taken feuded and destroyed one another. Nine of the Ten perished. The Lady managed to Take three Rebel chieftains to replace a portion of her losses: Feather, Journey, and Whisper-likely the best general since the White Rose. She gave us a terrible time before her Taking.

The Rebel prophets were correct in their prophecies, except about the last battle. They expected a reincarnated White Rose to lead them. She did not. They did not find her in time.

She was alive then. But she was living on our side of the battleline, unaware of what she was. I learned who she was. It is that knowledge which makes my life worthless should I be put to the question.

"Croaker!" the Captain snapped. "Wake up!" Everybody looked at me, wondering how I could daydream through whatever he'd said.

"What?"

"You didn't hear me?"

"No, sir."

He glowered his best bear glower. "Listen up, then. Be ready to travel by carpet when the Taken arrive. Fifty pounds of gear is your limit."

Carpet? Taken? What the hell? I looked around. Some of the men grinned. Some pitied me. Carpet flight? "What for?"

Patiently, the Captain explained, "The Lady wants ten men sent to help Whisper and Feather in the Barrowland. Doing what I don't know. You're one of the ones she picked."

Flutter of fear. "Why me?" It was rough, back when I was her pet.

"Maybe she still loves you. After all these years."

"Captain. ..."

"Because she said so, Croaker."

"I guess that's good enough. Sure can't argue with it. Who else?"

"Pay attention and you'd know these things. Worry about it later. We have other fish to fry now."

Whisper came to Frost before the Limper. I found myself tossing a pack aboard her flying carpet. Fifty pounds. The rest I had left with One-Eye and Silent.

The carpet was a carpet only by courtesy, because tradition calls it that. Actually, it is a piece of heavy fabric stretched on a wooden frame a foot high when grounded. My fellow passengers were Elmo, who would command our team, and Kingpin. Kingpin is a lazy bastard, but he swings a mean blade.

Our gear, and another hundred pounds belonging to men who would follow us later, rested at the center of the carpet. Shaking, Elmo and Kingpin tied themselves in place at the carpet's two rear corners. My spot was the left front. Whisper sat at the right. We were heavily bundled, almost to immobility. We would be flying fast and high, Whisper said. The temperature upstairs would be low.

I shook as much as Elmo and Kingpin, though I had been aboard carpets before. I loved the view and dreaded the anticipation of falling that came with flight. I also dreaded the Plain of Fear, where strange, fell things cruise the upper air.

Whisper queried, "You all use the latrine? It's going to be a long flight." She did not mention us voiding ourselves in fear, which some men do up there. Her voice was cool and melodious, like those of the women who populate your last dream before waking. Her appearance belied that voice. She looked every bit the tough old campaigner she was. She eyed me, evidently recalling our previous encounter in the Forest of Cloud.

Raven and I had lain in wait where she was expected to meet the Limper and lead him over to the Rebel side. The ambush was successful. Raven took the Limper. I captured Whisper. Soulcatcher and the Lady came and finished up. Whisper became the first new Taken since the Domination.

She winked.

Taut fabric smacked my butt. We went up fast.

Crossing the Plain of Fear was faster by air, but still harrowing. Windwhales quartered across our path. We zipped around them. They were too slow to keep pace. Turquoise manta things rose from their backs, flapped clumsily, caught updrafts, rose above us, then dived past like plunging eagles, challenging our presence in their airspace. We could not outrun them, but outclimbed them easily. However, we could not climb higher than the windwhales. So high, and the air becomes too rare for human beings. The whales could rise another mile, becoming diving platforms for the mantas.

There were other flying things, smaller and less dangerous, but determinedly obnoxious. Nevertheless, we got through. When a manta did attack, Whisper defeated it with her thaumaturgic craft.

To do so, she gave up control of the carpet. We fell, out of control, till she drove the manta away. I got through without losing my breakfast, but just barely. I never asked Elmo and Kingpin, figuring they might not want their dignity betrayed. Whisper would not attack first. That is the prime rule for surviving the Plain of Fear. Don't hit first. If you do, you buy more than a duel. Every monster out there will go after you.

We crossed without harm, as carpets usually do, and raced on, all day long, into the night. We turned north. The air became cooler. Whisper dropped to lower altitudes and slower speeds. Morning found us over Forsberg, where the Company had served when new in the Lady's service. Elmo and I gawked over the side.

Once I pointed, shouted, "There's Deal." We had held that fortress briefly. Then Elmo pointed the other way. There lay Oar, where we had pulled some fine, bloody tricks on the Rebel, and earned the enmity of the Limper. Whisper flew so low we could distinguish faces in the streets. Oar looked no more friendly than it had eight years ago.

We passed on, rolled along above the treetops of the Great Forest, ancient and virgin wilderness from which the White Rose had conducted her campaigns against the Dominator. Whisper slowed around noon. We drifted down into a wide sprawl that once had been cleared land. A cluster of mounds in its middle betrayed the handiwork of man, though now the barrows are scarcely recognizable.

Whisper landed in the street of a town that was mostly ruin. I presumed it to be the town occupied by the Eternal Guard, whose task it is to prevent tampering with the Barrowland. They were effective till betrayed by apathy elsewhere.

It took the Resurrectionists three hundred seventy years to open the Barrowland, and then they did not get what they wanted. The Lady returned, with the Taken, but the Dominator remained chained.

The Lady obliterated the Resurrectionist movement root and branch. Some reward, eh?

A handful of men left a building still in good repair. I eavesdropped on their exchange with Whisper, understood a few words. "Recall your Forsberger?" I asked Elmo, while trying to shake the stiffness out of my muscles.

"It'll come back. Want to give Kingpin a look? He don't seem right."

He wasn't bad off. Just scared. Took a while to convince him we were back on the ground.

The locals, descendants of the Guards who had watched the Barrowland for centuries, showed us to our quarters. The town was being restored. We were the forerunners of a horde of new blood.

Goblin and two of our best soldiers came in on Whisper's next flight, three days later. They said the Company had left Frost.

I asked if it looked like the Limper was holding a grudge.

"Not that I could see," Goblin said. "But that don't mean anything."

No, it didn't.

The last four men arrived three days later. Whisper moved into our barracks. We formed a sort of bodyguard cum police force. Besides protecting her, we were supposed to help make sure unauthorized persons did not get near the Barrowland.

The Taken called Feather appeared, bringing her own bodyguard. Specialists determined to investigate the Barrowland came up with a battalion of laborers hired in Oar. The laborers cleared the trash and brush, up to the Barrowland proper. Entry there, without appropriate protection, meant a slow, painful death. The protective spells the White Rose left hadn't faded with the Lady's resurrection. And she had added her own. I guess she is terrified he will break loose.

The Taken Journey arrived, bringing troops of his own. He established outposts in the Great Forest. The Taken took turns making airborne patrols. We minions watched one another as closely as we watched the rest of the world. Something big was afoot. Nobody was saying so, but that much was obvious. The Lady definitely anticipated a breakout attempt.

I spent my free time reviewing the Guard's records, especially for the period when Bomanz lived here. He spent forty years in the garrison town, disguised as an antique digger, before he tried to contact the Lady and unintentionally freed her. He interested me. But there was little to dig out, and that little was colored.

Once I'd had his personal papers, having stumbled onto them shortly before Whisper's Taking. But I passed them on to our then mentor Soulcatcher for transportation to the Tower. Soulcatcher kept them for her own reasons, and they fell into my hands again, during the battle at Charm, as the Lady and I pursued the renegade Taken. I didn't mention the papers to anyone but a friend, Raven. The Raven, who deserted to protect a child he believed to be the reincarnation of the White Rose. When I got a chance to pick up the papers from where I hid them, they were gone. I guess Raven took them with him.

I often wonder what became of him. His declared intent was to flee so far no one could find him again. He did not care about politics. He just wanted to protect a child he loved. He was capable of doing anything to protect Darling. I guess he thought the papers might turn into insurance someday.

In the Guard headquarters there are a dozen landscapes painted by past members of the garrison. Most portray the Barrowland. It was magnificent in its day. It had consisted of a central Great Barrow on a north-south axis, containing the Dominator and his Lady. Surrounding the Great Barrow was a star of earth raised above the plain, outlined by a deep, water-filled moat. At the points of that star stood lesser barrows containing five of The Ten Who Were Taken. A circle rising above the star connected its inward points, and there, at each, stood another barrow containing another Taken. Every barrow was surrounded by spells and fetishes. Within the inner ring, around the Great Barrow, were rank on rank of additional defenses. The last was a dragon curled around the Great Barrow, its tail in its mouth. A later painting by an eyewitness shows the dragon belching fire on the countryside the night of the Lady's resurrection. Bomanz is walking into the fire.

He was caught between Resurrectionists and the Lady, all of whom were manipulating him. His accident was their premeditated event. The records say his wife survived. She said he went into the Barrowland to stop what was happening. No one believed her at the time. She claimed he carried the Lady's true name and wanted to reach her with it before she could wriggle free.

Silent, One-Eye and Goblin will tell you the direst fear of any sorcerer is that knowledge of his true name will fall to some outsider. Bomanz's wife claimed the Lady's was encoded in papers her husband possessed. Papers that vanished that night. Papers that I recovered decades later. What Raven snatched may contain the only lever capable of dumping the empire.

Back to the Barrowland in its youth. Impressive construction. Its weather faces were sheathed in limestone. The moat was broad and blue. The surrounding countryside was park-like. . . . But fear of the Dominator faded, and so did appropriations. A later painting, contemporary with Bomanz, shows the countryside gone to seed, the limestone facings in disrepair, and the moat becoming a swamp. Today you can't tell where the moat was. The limestone has disappeared beneath brush. The elevations and barrows are nothing but humps. That part of the Great Barrow where the Dominator lies remains in fair shape, though it, too, is heavily overgrown. Some of the fetishes anchoring the spells keeping his friends away still stand, but weather has devoured their features.

The edge of the Barrowland is now marked by stakes trailing red flags, put there when the Lady announced she was sending outsiders to investigate. The Guards themselves, having lived there always, need no markers to warn them off. I enjoyed my month and a half there. I indulged my curiosities, and found Feather and Whisper remarkably accessible.

That hadn't been true of the old Taken. Too, the commander of the Guard, called the Monitor, bragged up his command's past, which stretches back as far as the Company's. We swapped lies and tales over many a gallon of beer.

During the fifth week someone discovered something. We peons were not told what. But the Taken got excited. Whisper started lifting in more of the Company. The reinforcements told harrowing fables about the Plain of Fear and the Empty Hills. The Company was at Lords now, only five hundred miles distant.

At the end of the sixth week Whisper assembled us and announced another move. "The Lady wants me to take some of you out west. A force of twenty-five. Elmo, you'll be in command. Feather and I, some experts, and several language specialists will join you. Yes, Croaker. You're on the list. She wouldn't deny her favorite amateur historian, would she?"

A thrill of fear. I didn't want her getting interested again.

"Where're we headed?" Elmo asked. Professional to the core, the son-of-a-bitch. Not a single complaint.

"A city called Juniper. Way beyond the western bounds of the empire. It's connected with the Barrowland somehow. It's a ways north, too. Expect it to be cold and prepare accordingly."

Juniper? Never heard of it. Neither had anyone else. Not even the Monitor. I scrounged through his maps till I found one showing the western coast. Juniper was way up north, near where the ice persists all year long. It was a big city. I wondered how it could exist there, where it should be frozen all the time. I asked Whisper. She seemed to know something about the place. She said Juniper benefits from an ocean current that brings warm water north. She said the city is very strange-according to Feather, who'd actually been there.

I approached Feather next, only hours before our departure. She couldn't tell me much more, except that Juniper is the demense of a Duke Zimerlan, and he appealed to the Lady a year ago (just a while before the Captain's courier letter would have left Charm) for help solving a local problem. That someone had approached the Lady, when the world's desire is to keep her far away, argued that we faced interesting times. I wondered about the connection with the Barrowland.

The negative was that Juniper was so far away. I was pleased that I would be there when the Captain learned he was expected to head there after resting in Oar, though.

Could be I'd hear his howl of outrage even from that far. I knew he wouldn't be happy.

Chapter Thirteen:
JUNIPER: THE ENCLOSURE

Shed slept badly for weeks. He dreamt of black glass walls and a man who hadn't been dead. Twice Raven asked him to join a night hunt. Twice he refused. Raven did not press, though they both knew Shed would jump if he insisted. Shed prayed that Raven would get rich and disappear. He remained a constant irritant to the conscience.

Damnit, why didn't Krage go after him?

Shed couldn't figure why Raven remained unperturbed by Krage. The man was neither a fool nor stupid. The alternative, that he wasn't scared, made no sense. Not to a Matron Shed. Asa remained on Krage's payroll, but visited regularly, bringing firewood. By the wagonload, sometimes. "What're you up to?" Shed demanded one day. "Trying to build credit," Asa admitted.

"Krage's guys don't like me much."

"Hardly anybody does, Asa."

"They might try something nasty. ..."

"Want a place to hide when they turn on you, eh? What're you doing for Krage? Why is he bothering with you?"

Asa hemmed and hawed. Shed pushed. Here was a man he could bully. "I watch Raven, Shed. I report what he does."

Shed snorted. Krage was using Asa because he was expendable. He'd had two men disappear early on. Shed thought he knew where they were. Sudden fear. Suppose Asa reported Raven's night adventures? Suppose he'd seen Shed. . . .

Impossible. Asa couldn't have kept quiet. Asa spent his life looking for leverage.

"You've been spending a lot lately, Asa. Where are you getting the money?"

Asa turned pale. He looked around, gobbled a few times. "The wood, Shed. Selling the wood."

"You're a liar, Asa. Where're you getting it?"

"Shed, you don't ask questions like that."

"Maybe not. But I need money bad. I owe Krage. I almost had him paid off. Then he started buying my little debts from everybody else. That damned Gilbert! ... I need to get ahead enough so I don't have to borrow again."

The black castle. Two hundred twenty pieces of silver. How he had been tempted to attack Raven. And Raven just smiled into the wind, knowing exactly what he was thinking. "Where're you getting that money, Asa?"

"Where did you get the money you paid Krage? Huh? People are wondering, Shed. You don't come up with that kind of money overnight. Not you. You tell me and I'll tell you." Shed backed down. Asa beamed in triumph.

"You little snake. Get out before I lose my temper." Asa fled. He looked back once, face knotted thoughtfully. Damnit, Shed thought. Made him suspicious. He ground his rag into a tacky mug.

"What was that?"

Shed spun. Raven had come to the counter. His look brooked no crap. Shed gave him the gist.

"So Krage hasn't quit."

"You don't know him or you wouldn't ask. It's you or him, Raven."

"Then it has to be him, doesn't it?"

Shed gaped. "A suggestion, Shed. Follow your friend when he goes wood-gathering." Raven returned to his seat. He spoke to Darling animatedly, in sign, which he blocked from Shed's view. The set of the girl's shoulders said she was against whatever it was he was proposing. Ten minutes later he left the Lily. Each afternoon he went out for a few hours. Shed suspected he was testing Krage's watchers.

Darling leaned against the door frame, watching the street. Shed watched her, his gaze sliding up and down her frame. Raven's, he thought. They're thick. I don't dare. But she was such a fine looking thing, tall, lean of leg, ready for a man. ... He was a fool. He did not need to get caught in that trap, too. He had troubles enough. "I think today would be good for it," Raven said as Shed delivered his breakfast. "Eh? Good for what?" "For a hike up the hill to watch friend Asa.'' "Oh. No. I can't. Got nobody to watch the place." Back by the counter, Darling bent to pick something off the floor. Shed's eyes widened and his heart fluttered. He had to do something. Visit a whore, or something. Or get hurt. But he couldn't afford to pay for it. "Darling couldn't handle it alone."

"Your cousin Wally has stood in for you before." Caught off balance, Shed could not marshall his excuses quickly. And Darling was driving him to distraction. She had to start wearing something that concealed the shape of her behind better. "Uh. ... He couldn't deal with Darling. Doesn't know the signs." Raven's face darkened slightly. "Give her the day off. Get that girl Lisa you used when Darling was sick." Lisa, Shed thought. Another hot one. "I only use Lisa when I'm here to watch her." A hot one not attached. "She'll steal me blinder than my mother. ..." "Shed!" "Eh?"

"Get Wally and Lisa here; then go keep an eye on Asa. I'll make sure they don't carry off the family silver." "But. . . ." Raven slapped a palm on the tabletop. "I said go!"

The day was clear and bright and, for winter, warm. Shed picked up Asa's trail outside Krage's establishment.

Asa rented a wagon. Shed was amazed. In winter stable-keepers demanded huge deposits. Draft animals slaughtered and eaten had no provenance. He thought it a miracle anyone trusted Asa with a team. Asa went directly to the Enclosure. Shed stalked along behind, keeping his head down, confident Asa would not suspect him even if he looked back. The streets were crowded.

Asa left the wagon in a public grove across a lane running alongside the wall which girdled the Enclosure. It was one of many similar groves where Juniper's citizenry gathered for the Spring and Autumn Rites for the Dead. The wagon could not be seen from the lane.

Shed squatted in shadow and bush and watched Asa dash to the Enclosure wall. Somebody ought to clear that brush away, Shed thought. It made the wall look tacky. For that matter, the wall needed repairing. Shed crossed and found a gap through which a man could duck-walk. He crept through. Asa was crossing an open meadow, hurrying uphill toward a stand of pines.

The inner face of the wall was brush-masked, too. Scores of bundles of wood lay among the bushes. Asa had more industry than Shed had suspected. Hanging around Krage's gang had changed him. They had him scared for sure.

Asa entered the pines. Shed puffed after him. Ahead, Asa sounded like a cow pushing through the underbrush.

The whole Enclosure was tacky. In Shed's boyhood it had been park-like, a fit waiting place for those who had gone before. Now it had the threadbare look that characterized the rest of Juniper.

Shed crept toward hammering racket. What was Asa doing, making so much noise?

He was cutting wood from a fallen tree, stacking the pieces in neat bundles. Shed could not picture the little man orderly, either. What a difference terror made. An hour later Shed was ready to give up. He was cold and hungry and stiff. He had wasted half a day. Asa was doing nothing remarkable. But he persevered. He had a time investment to recoup. And an irritable Raven awaiting his report.

Asa worked hard. When not chopping, he hustled bundles down to his wagon. Shed was impressed.

He stayed, watched, and told himself he was a fool. This was going nowhere. Then Asa became furtive. He collected his tools and concealed them, looked around warily. This is it, Shed thought. Asa took off uphill. Shed puffed after him. His stiff muscles protested every step. Asa traveled more than a mile through lengthening shadows. Shed almost lost him. A clinking brought him back to the track.

The little man was using flint and steel. He crouched over a supply of torches wrapped in an oilskin, taken from hiding. He got a brand burning, hastened into some brush. A moment later he clambered over some rocks beyond, disappeared. Shed gave it a minute, then followed. He slid round the boulder where he had seen Asa last. Beyond lay a crack in the earth just big enough to admit a man.

"My god," Shed whispered. "He's found a way into the Catacombs. He's looting the dead."

"I came straight back," Shed gasped. Raven was amused by his distress. "I knew Asa was foul, but I never dreamed he'd commit sacrilege." Raven smiled.

"Aren't you disgusted?"

"No. Why are you? He didn't steal any bodies."

Shed came within a hair's breadth of assaulting him. He was worse than Asa.

"He making out at it?"

"Not as well as you. The Custodians take all the burial gifts except passage urns." Every corpse in the Catacombs was accompanied by a small, sealed urn, usually fixed on a chain around the body's neck. The Custodians did not touch the few coins in those. When the Day of Passage came, the Boatmen would demand payment for passage to Paradise.

"All those souls stranded," Shed murmured. He explained.

Raven looked baffled. "How can anybody with an ounce of brains believe that crap? Dead is dead. Be quiet, Shed. Just answer questions. How many bodies in the Catacombs?"

"Who knows? They've been putting them away since. . . . Hell, for a thousand years. Maybe there's millions."

"Must have them stacked like cordwood."

Shed wondered about that. The Catacombs were vast, but a thousand years' worth of cadavers from a city Juniper's size would make a hell of a pile. He looked at Raven. Damn the man. "It's Asa's racket. Let's not try."

"Why not?"

"Too dangerous."

"Your friend hasn't suffered."

"He's smalltime. If he gets greedy, he'll get killed. There are Guardians down there. Monsters."

"Describe them."

"I can't."

"Can't or won't?"

"Can't. All they tell you is that they're there."

"I see." Raven rose. "This needs investigating. Don't discuss it. Especially not with Asa."

"Oh, no." Panicked, Asa would do something stupid.

Word drifted in off the street. Krage had sent his two best men after Raven. They had disappeared. Three more had vanished since. Krage himself had been injured by an unknown assailant. He had survived only because of Count's immense strength. Count wasn't expected to live.

Shed was terrified. Krage was neither reasonable nor rational. He asked Raven to move out. Raven stared at him in contempt.

"Look, I don't want him killing you here," Shed said.

"Bad for business?"

"For my health, maybe. He's got to kill you now. People will stop being scared of him if he doesn't."

"He won't learn, eh? A damned city of fools."

Asa boiled through the doorway. "Shed, I got to talk to you." He was scared. "Krage thinks I turned him over to Raven. He's after me. You got to hide me, Shed."

"Like hell." The trap was closing. Two of them here. Krage would kill him for sure, would dump his mother into the street.

"Shed, I kept you in wood all winter. I kept Krage off your back."

"Oh, sure. So I should get killed, too?"

"You owe me, Shed. I never told nobody how you go out at night with Raven. Maybe Krage would want to know that, huh?"

Shed grabbed Asa's hands and yanked him forward, against the counter. As if cued, Raven stepped up behind the little man. Shed glimpsed a knife. Raven pricked Asa's back, whispered, "Let's go to my room."

Asa went pallid. Shed forced a smile. "Yeah." He released Asa, took a stoneware bottle from beneath the counter. "I want to talk to you, Asa." He collected three mugs. Shed went up last, intensely aware of his mother's blind stare. How much had she heard? How much had she guessed? She had been cool lately. His shame had come between them. He no longer felt deserving of her respect. He clouted his conscience. I did it for her!

Raven's room had the only door left on the upper floors. Raven held it for Asa and Shed. "Sit," he told Asa, indicating his cot. Asa sat. He looked scared enough to wet himself. Raven's room was as Spartan as his dress. It betrayed no hint of wealth. "I invest it, Shed," Raven said, wearing a mocking smile. "In shipping. Pour the wine." He began cleaning his nails with a knife. Asa downed his wine before Shed finished pouring the rest. "Fill him up," Raven said. He sipped his own wine. "Shed, why have you been giving me that sour cat's piss when you had this?"

"Nobody gets it without asking. It costs more."

"I'll take this from now on." Raven locked gazes with Asa, tapped his own cheek with his knife blade.

No, Raven wouldn't have to live frugally. The body business would be lucrative. He invested? In shipping? Odd the way he said that. Where the money went might be as interesting as whence it came. "You threatened my friend," Raven said. "Oh. Excuse me, Shed. A misstatement. It's partner, not friend. Partners don't have to like each other. Little man. You have something to say for yourself?'' Shed shuddered. Damn Raven. He'd said that so Asa would spread it around. Bastard was taking control of his life. Nibbling away at it like a mouse slowly destroying a head of cheese. "Honest, Mr. Raven. I didn't mean nothing. I was scared. Krage thinks I tipped you. I got to hide, and Shed's scared to put me up. I was just trying to get him to. ..."

"Shut up. Shed, I thought he was your friend."

"I just did him some favors. I felt sorry for him."

"You'd shelter him from weather, but not from enemies. You're a real gutless wonder, Shed. Maybe I made a mistake. I was going to make you a full partner. Going to give you the whole business eventually. Thought I'd do you a favor. But you're a yellow-dog creep. Without the guts to deny it." He whirled. "Talk, little man. Tell me about Krage. Tell me about the Enclosure." Asa went white. He didn't open up till Raven threatened to call the Custodians.

Shed's knees racketed off one another. The hilt of his butcher knife was sweat-moist and slippery. He could not have used the blade, but Asa was too scared to see that. He just squeaked at his team and started rolling. Raven followed them in his own wagon. Shed glanced across the valley. The black castle brooded on the northern skyline, casting its dread shadow across Juniper. Why was it there? Where had it come from? He rejected the questions. Best to ignore it.

How had he gotten into this? He feared the worst. Raven had no sensibilities.

They left the wagons in the grove, entered the Enclosure. Raven examined Asa's wood stash. "Move these bundles to the wagons. Stack them alongside for now." "You can't take my wood," Asa protested. "Shut up." Raven pushed a bundle through the wall.

"You first, Shed. Little man, I'll hunt you down if you run off."

They had moved a dozen bundles when Asa whispered, "Shed, one of Krage's goons is watching us." He was about to panic.

Raven was not displeased with the news. "You two go get bundles from the woods."

Asa protested. Raven glared. Asa headed uphill. "How does he know?" he whined at Shed. "He never followed me. I'm sure of that."

Shed shrugged. "Maybe he's a sorcerer. He always

knows what I'm thinking."

Raven was gone when they returned. Shed looked around, nervously decided, "Let's get another load."

Raven was waiting next trip. "Take those bundles to Asa's wagon."

"An object lesson," Shed said, pointing into the wagon. Blood ran across the floorboards, seeping from under a pile of wood.

"See what kind of man he is?"

"Up the hill now," Raven ordered when they returned. "Lead off, Asa. Collect your tools and torches to start."

Suspicion nagged Shed as he watched Raven build a litter. But no. Even Raven wouldn't stoop that low. Would he?

They stood looking down into the dark mouth of the underworld. "You first, Asa," Raven said. Reluctantly, Asa descended.

"You're next, Shed."

"Have a heart, Raven."

"Get moving."

Shed moved. Raven came down behind him.

The Catacombs had a carnal smell, but weaker than Shed had anticipated. A draft stirred Asa's torch.

"Stop," Raven said. He took the brand, examined the gap through which they had entered, nodded, passed the torch back. "Lead on." The cavern widened and joined a larger cave. Asa halted halfway across. Shed stopped, too. He was surrounded by bones. Bones on the cave floor, bones on racks on the walls, skeletons hanging from hooks. Loose bones in tumbles and piles, all mixed together. Skeletons sleeping amidst the clutter. Bones still within shreds of burial raiment. Skulls leering from wooden pegs on the far wall, empty eyes sinister in the torchlight. A passage urn shared each peg.

There were mummified bodies, too, though only a few. Only the rich demanded mummification. Here riches meant nothing. They were heaped with all the rest. Asa volunteered, "This is a real old place. The Custodians don't come here anymore, unless maybe to get rid of loose bones. The whole cave is filled up up that way, like they just pushed them out of the way."

"Let's look," Raven said. Asa was right. The cavern narrowed and its ceiling descended. The passageway was choked with bones. Shed noted the absence of skulls and urns. Raven chuckled. "Your Custodians aren't as passionate about the dead as you thought, Shed."The chambers you see during Spring and Autumn Rites aren't like this," Shed admitted.

"I don't guess anybody cares about the old ones anymore," Asa said.

"Let's go back," Raven suggested. As they walked, he observed, "We all end up here. Rich or poor, weak or strong." He kicked a mummy. "But the rich stay in better shape. Asa, what's down the other way?"

"I only ever went about a hundred yards. More of the same." He was trying to open a passage urn.

Raven grunted, took an um, opened it, dumped several coins onto his hand. He held them near the torch. "Uhm. How did you explain their age, Asa?"

"Money has no provenance," Shed said.

Asa nodded. "And I made out like I'd found a buried treasure."

"I see. Lead on."

Soon Asa said, "This is as far as I ever went."

"Keep going."

They wandered till even Raven responded to the oppression of the cavern. "Enough. Back to the surface." Once up top, he said,

"Get the tools. Damn. I'd hoped for better."

Soon they were back with a spade and ropes. "Shed, dig a hole over there. Asa, hang on to this end of the rope. When I yell, start pulling." Raven descended into the Catacombs.

Asa remained rooted, as instructed. Shed dug. After a while, Asa asked, "Shed, what's he doing?"

"You don't know? I thought you knew everything he did."

"I just told Krage that. I couldn't keep up with him all night."

Shed grimaced, turned another spadeful of earth. He could guess how Asa worked. By sleeping somewhere most of the time.

Spying would have interfered with wood-gathering and grave-robbing.

Shed was relieved. Asa didn't know what he and Raven had done. But he would before long.

He looked inside himself and found little self-disgust. Damn! He was accustomed to these crimes already. Raven was making him over in his own image.

Raven shouted. Asa hauled away. He called, "Shed, give me a hand. I can't get this by myself."

Resigned, Shed joined him. Their catch was exactly what he expected, a mummy sliding out of the darkness like some denizen of the deeps of yesteryear. He averted his gaze. "Get his feet, Asa."

Asa gagged. "My God, Shed. My God. What are you doing?"

"Be quiet and do what you're told. That's the best way. Get his feet."

They moved the body into the brush near Shed's pit. A passage urn rolled out of a bundle tied upon its chest. The bundle contained another two dozen urns. So. The hole was for burying empty urns. Why didn't Raven fill his pockets down there?

"Let's get out of here, Shed," Asa whined.

"Back to your rope." Ums took time to empty. And Raven had two men up top with little to do but think. So. They were busy-work. And an incentive, of course. Two dozen urns with each cadaver would build up quite a pile.

"Shed…"

"Where you going to run to, Asa?" The day was clear and unseasonably warm, but it was still winter. There was no way out of Juniper. "He'd find you. Go back to your rope. You're in it now, like it or not." Shed resumed digging.

Raven sent up six mummies. Each carried its bundle of urns. Then Raven returned. He studied Asa's ashen face, Shed's resignation. "Your turn, Shed."

Shed gulped, opened his mouth, swallowed his protest, slunk toward the hole. He lingered over it, a hair's breadth from rebellion.

"Move it, Shed. We don't have forever."

Marron Shed went down among the dead.

It seemed he was in the Catacombs forever, numbly selecting cadavers, collecting urns, dragging his grisly booty to the rope. His mind had entered another reality. This was the dream, the nightmare. At first he did not understand when Raven called for him to come up.

He clambered into gathering dusk. "Is that enough? Can we go now?"

"No," Raven replied. "We've got sixteen. I figure we can get thirty on the wagons."

"Oh. Okay."

"You haul up," Raven said. "Asa and I will go down."

Shed hauled. In the silvery light of a three-quarters moon the dead faces seemed accusing. He swallowed his loathing and placed each with the others, then emptied ums.

He was tempted to take the money and run. He stayed more out of greed than fear of Raven. He was a partner this time. Thirty bodies at thirty leva meant nine hundred leva to share out. Even if he took the small cut, he would be richer than he'd ever dreamed.

What was that? Not Raven's order to haul away. It sounded like someone screaming. ... He nearly ran. He did go to pieces momentarily. Raven's bellowing brought him together. The man's cold, calm contempt had vanished.

Shed heaved. This one was heavy. He grunted, strained. . . . Raven came scrambling up. His clothing was torn. A bloody gash marked one cheek. His knife was red. He whirled, grabbed the rope. "Pull!" he shouted. "Damn you, pull!"

Asa came out a moment later, tied to the rope. "What happened? My God, what happened?'' Asa was breathing, and that was about it. "Something jumped us. It tore him up before I could kill it."

"A Guardian. I warned you. Get another torch. Let's see how bad he is." Raven just sat there panting, flustered. Shed got the torch, lighted it. Asa's wounds were not as bad as he had feared. There was a lot of blood, and Asa was in shock, but he wasn't dying. "We ought to get out of here, Raven. Before the Custodians come."

Raven recovered his composure. "No. There was only one. I killed it. We're in this now. Let's get it done right."

"What about Asa?"

"I don't know. Let's get to work."

"Raven, I'm exhausted."

"You're going to get a lot tireder before we're done. Come on. Let's get the mess cleaned up."

They moved the bodies to the wagons, then the tools, then carted Asa down. As they worked the litter through the wall, Shed asked, "What should we do with him?"

Raven looked at him as though he were a moron. "What do you think, Shed?"

"But…"

"It doesn't much matter now, does it?"

"I guess not." But it did matter. Asa wasn't much, but Shed knew him. He was no friend, but they had helped one another out. . . . "No. Can't do it, Raven. He can make it. If I was sure he was checking out, yeah. Okay. No body, no questions. But I can't kill him."

"Well. A little spirit after all. How are you going to keep him quiet? He's the kind who gets throats cut with loose talk."

"I'll handle him."

"Whatever you say, partner. It's your neck."

The night was well along when they reached the black castle. Raven went in first. Shed followed closely. They pulled into the same passage as before. The drill was the same. After they laid out the bodies, a tall, lean creature went down the line.

"Ten. Ten. Thirty. Ten. Ten." And so forth.

Raven protested vigorously. The only offers above ten were for the men who had followed them to the Enclosure and for Asa, who remained in his wagon.

The tall being faced Raven. "These have been dead too long. They have little value. Take them back if you're not satisfied."

"All right. All right. Let's have it."

The being counted out coins. Raven pocketed six of each ten. He handed the rest to Shed. As he did so, he told the tall being, "This man is my partner. He may come alone."

The tall figure inclined its head, took something from within its clothing, handed it to Shed. It was a silver pendant in the form of serpents entwined.

"Wear that if you come up alone," Raven said. "That's your safe-conduct." Under his icy stare Shed slipped the pendant into a pocket already filled with silver.

He ran the arithmetic. One hundred twelve leva as his share. It would have taken him half a decade to accumulate that much honestly. He was rich! Damn him, he was rich! He could do anything he wanted. No more debts. No more Krage killing him slowly. No more gruel every meal. Turn the Lily into something decent. Maybe find a place where his mother would have proper care. Women. All the women he could handle.

As he turned his wagon, he glimpsed a high chunk of wall that hadn't been there last visit. A face stared out. It was the face of the man he and Raven had brought in alive. Its eyes watched him.

Chapter Fourteen:
JUNIPER: DURETILE

Whisper delivered us to a broken-down castle named Duretile. It overlooks Juniper in general and the Enclosure in specific. For a week we had no contact with our hosts. We had no language in common. Then we were graced with the presence of a thug named Bullock who spoke the languages of the Jewel Cities.

Bullock was some kind of enforcer for the local religion. Which I could not figure out at all. It looks like a death cult at first. Look again and you find death or the dead not worshipped but revered, with bodies fanatically preserved against some millennial revival. The whole character of Juniper is shaped by this, except for the Buskin, where life has so many concerns more vital than the welfare of the dead.

I took an instant dislike to Bullock. He struck me as violence-prone and sadistic, a policeman who would solve his cases with a truncheon. He would survive when the Lady annexed Juniper. Her military governors have a need for his ilk.

I expected annexation to occur within days of the Captain's arrival. We'd have it scoped out before he got here. One word from Charm would do it. I saw no indication the Duke's people could stop it.

As soon as Feather and Whisper had all our people in, including translators, Bullock, the Duke himself, and a man named Hargadon, who was senior Custodian of the Dead, meaning he ran the Catacombs where bodies were stored- they led us into the bitter cold atop Duretile's north wall. The Duke extended an arm. "That fortress over there is why I asked for help."

I looked at it and shuddered. There was something creepy about the place.

"We call it the black castle," he said. "It's been there for centuries." And then he gave us a chunk almost too big to swallow. "It started out as a little black rock lying beside a dead man. The man who found them tried to pick the rock up. He died. And the rock started growing. It's been growing ever since. Our ancestors experimented on it. They attacked it. Nothing harmed it. Anybody who touched it died. For the sake of their sanity, they decided to ignore it."

I shaded my eyes, stared at the castle. Not that unusual, from Duretile, except it was black and gave me the creeps.

The Duke continued, "For centuries it hardly grew. It's only a few generations since it stopped looking like a rock." He got a haunted look. "They say there are things living inside there."

I smiled. What did he expect? A fortress exists to surround something, whether built or grown.

Hargadon assumed the narrative. He had been in his job too long. He'd developed an official's pompous style. "For the last several years it's grown damned fast. The Custodial Office became concerned when we heard rumors- out of the Buskin, so unreliable to be sure-saying the creatures inside were buying cadavers. The accuracy of those rumors remains a source of heated debate within the Office. However, no one can deny that we're not getting enough corpses out of the Buskin these days. Our street patrols collect fewer than they did ten years ago. Times are leaner now. The street poor are more numerous. More should be expiring of exposure." A real sweetheart, this Hargadon. He sounded like a manufacturer whining because his profit margin was down. He continued, "It's been hypothesized that the castle may soon be beyond a need to purchase bodies-if it is at all. I'm not convinced." Came down squarely on both sides of a question, too. That's my boy. "Its occupants may become numerous enough to come take what they want."

Elmo asked, "You think people are selling bodies, why don't you grab them and make them talk?"

Time for the policeman to enter his bit. Bullock said, "We can't catch them." He had a but-if-they'd-let-me-do-it-my-way tone. "It's happening down in the Buskin, you see. It's another world down there. You don't find out much if you're an outsider."

Whisper and Feather stood a bit apart, examining the black castle. Their faces were grim.

The Duke wanted something for nothing. In essence, he wanted to stop worrying about that fortress. He said we could do whatever it took to eliminate his worry. Only we'd have to do it his way. Like he wanted us to stay inside Duretile while his men and Hargadon's acted as our eyes, ears and hands. He was afraid of repercussions our presence could cause if known.

A few Rebel fugitives had come to Juniper after their defeat at Charm. The Lady was known here, though little considered. The Duke feared the refugees would incite trouble if he was suspected of collaborating.

In some ways he was an ideal overlord. All he wanted from his people was to be left alone. He was willing to grant the same favor.

So, for a while, we stayed tucked away-till Whisper became irritated by the quality of information we were given.

It was filtered. Sanitized, it was useless. She cornered the Duke and told him her men would be going out with his.

He actually stood up to her for a few minutes. The battle was bitter. She threatened to pull out, leaving him twisting in the wind. Pure bluff. She and Feather were intensely interested in the black castle. Armed force could not have levered them out of Juniper. The Duke subdued, she turned on the Custodians. Bullock was stubbornly jealous of his prerogatives. I do not know how she brought him around. He never was gracious about it.

I became his companion on investigative jaunts, mainly because I learned the language quickly. Nobody down below paid me any mind. Him they did. He was a walking terror. People crossed the street to avoid him. I guess he had a bad reputation.

Then came news which miraculously cleared the obstacles the Duke and Custodians had dumped in our path.

"You hear?" Elmo asked. "Somebody broke into their precious Catacombs. Bullock is smoking. His boss is having a shit hemorrhage." I tried to digest that, could not. "More detail, if you please." Elmo tends to abbreviate.

"During the winter they let poor people get away with sneaking into the Enclosure. To collect deadwood for firewood. Somebody got in who decided to take more. Found a way into the Catacombs. Three or four men."

"I still don't get the whole picture, Elmo." He enjoys being coaxed.

"All right. All right. They got inside and stole all the passage urns they could lay hands on. Took them out, emptied them, and buried them in a pit. They also lifted a bunch of old-time mummies. I never seen such moaning and carrying on. You better back off your scheme, for getting into the Catacombs." I had mentioned a desire to see what went on down there. The whole setup was so alien I wanted a closer look. Preferably unchaperoned. "Think they'd get overwrought, eh?"

"Overwrought isn't the half. Bullock is talking bad. I'd hate to be those guys and get caught by him."

"Yeah? I'd better check this out."

Bullock was in Duretile at the time, coordinating his work with that of the Duke's incompetent secret police.

Those guys were a joke. They were practically celebrities, and not a one had the guts to go down into the Buskin, where really interesting things happened. There is a Buskin in every city, though the name varies. It is a slum so bad the police dare go in only in force. Law there is haphazard at best, mostly enforced by self-proclaimed magistrates supported by toughs they recruit themselves. It is a very subjective justice they mete, likely to be swift, savage, unforgiving, and directed by graft.

I caught up with Bullock, told him, "Till this latest business is cleaned up, I stick like your leg." He scowled. His heavy cheeks reddened. "Orders," I lied, faking an apologetic tone.

"Yeah? All right. Come on."

"Where you headed?"

"The Buskin. Thing like this had to come out of the Buskin. I'm going to track it down." He had guts, for all his other failings. Nothing intimidated him.

I wanted to see the Buskin. He might be the best guide available. I'd heard he went there often, without interference. His reputation was that nasty. A good shadow to walk in.

"Now?" I asked.

"Now." He led me out into the cold and down the hill. He did not ride. One of his little affectations. He never rode. He set a brisk pace, as a man will who is accustomed to getting things done afoot.

"What're we going to look for?" I asked.

"Old coins. The chamber they defiled goes back several centuries. If somebody spent a lot of old money in the last couple days, we might get a line on our men."

I frowned. "I don't know spending patterns here. Places I've been, though, people can hang on to a family horde for ages| then have one black sheep up and spend it all. A few old coins might not mean anything."

"We're looking for a flood, not a few. For a man who spent a fistful. There were three or four men involved. Odds are good one of them is a fool." Bullock had a good grasp of the stupid side of human nature. Maybe because he was close to it himself.

"We'll be real nice doing the tracing," he told me, as though he expected me to hammer people in outrage. His values were the only ones he could imagine. "The man we want will run when he hears me asking questions."

"We chase him?"

"Just enough so he keeps moving. Maybe he'll lead us somewhere. I know several bosses down there who could've engineered this. If one of them did, I want his balls on a platter."

He spoke in a fever, like a crusader. Did he have some special grievance against the crime lords of the slum? I asked.

"Yeah. I came out of the Buskin. A tough kid who got lucky and got on with the Custodians. My dad wasn't lucky. Tried to buck a protection gang. He paid, and they didn't protect him from another gang in the same racket. He said he wasn't going to put out good money for something he wasn't getting. They cut his throat. I was one of the Custodians who picked him up. They stood around laughing and cracking jokes. The ones responsible." "Ever settle them up?" I asked, certain of the answer. "Yeah. Brought them into the Catacombs, too." He glanced at the black castle, half obscured by mists drifting across the far slope. "If I'd heard the rumors about that place, maybe I'd have. . . . No, I wouldn't."

I didn't think so myself. Bullock was a fanatic of sorts. He'd never break the rules of the profession that had brought him out of the Buskin, unless he could advance its cause by so doing.

"Think we'll start right at the waterfront," he told me. "Work our way up the hill. Tavern to tavern, whorehouse to whorehouse. Maybe hint that there's a reward floating around." He ground one fist into another, a man restraining anger.

There was a lot of that bottled up inside him. Someday he would blow up good. We'd gotten an early start. I saw more taverns, cathouses, and reeking dives than I'd passed through in a dozen years. And in every one Bullock's advent engendered a sudden, frightened hush and a promise of dutiful cooperation.

But promises were all we got. We could find no trace of any old money, except a few coins that had been around too long to be the booty we sought. Bullock was not discouraged. "Something will turn up," he said. "Times are tough. Just take a little patience." He looked thoughtful. "Might just put some of your boys down here. They aren't known, and they look tough enough to make it."

"They are." I smiled, mentally assembling a team including Elmo, Goblin, Pawnbroker, Kingpin, and a few others. Be great if Raven were still with the Company and could go in with them. They would be running the Buskin inside six months. Which gave me an idea to take up with Whisper. If we wanted to know what was happening, we should take charge of the Buskin. We could bring in One-Eye. The little wizard was a gangster born. Stand out some, though. I hadn't seen another black face since we'd crossed the Sea of Torments.

"Had an idea?" Bullock asked, about to enter a place called the Iron Lily. "You look like your brain is smoking."

"Maybe. On something down the line. If it gets tougher than we expect."

The Iron Lily looked like every other place we'd been, only more so. The guy who ran it cringed. He didn't know nothing, hadn't heard nothing, and promised to scream for Bullock if anybody so much as spent a single gersh struck before the accession of the present Duke. Every word bullshit. I was glad to get out of there. I was afraid the place would collapse on me before he finished kissing Bullock's ass. "Got an idea," Bullock said. "Moneylenders."

Took me a second to catch it and to see where the idea had come from. The guy in the tavern, whining about his debts. "Good thinking." A man in the snares of a moneylender would do anything to wriggle away. "This is Krage's territory. He's one of the nastiest. Let's drop in." No fear in the man. His confidence in the power of his office was so strong he dared walk into a den of cutthroats without blinking an eye. I faked it good, but I was scared. The villain had his own army, and it was jumpy.

We found out why in a moment. Our man had come up on the short end of somebody in the last couple days. He was down on his back, mummified in bandages. Bullock chuckled. "Customers getting frisky, Krage? Or did one of your boys try to promote himself?" Krage eyed us from a face of stone. "I help you with something, Inquisitor?" "Probably not. You'd lie to me if the truth would save your soul, you bloodsucker." "Flattery will get you nowhere. What do you want, you parasite?"

Tough boy, this Krage. Struck from the same mold as Bullock, but he had drifted into a socially less honored profession. Not much to choose between them, I thought. Priest and moneylender. And that was what Krage was saying. "Cute. I'm looking for a guy." "No shit." "He's got a lot of old money. Cajian period coinage." "Am I supposed to know him?" Bullock shrugged. "Maybe he owes somebody." "Money's got no provenance down here, Bullock." Bullock told me: "A proverb of the Buskin." He faced Krage. "This money does. This money better, let's say. This is a big one, Krage. Not a little let's-look-around-and-make-a-show. Not some bump-and-run. We're going the route. Anybody covers on it, they go down with this boy. You remember Bullock said it."

For a second Bullock made an impression. The message got through. Then Krage blank-faced us again. "You're sniffing up the wrong tree, Inquisitor." "Just telling you so you'd know." "What did this guy do?" "Hit somebody who don't take hitting." Krage's eyebrows rose. He looked puzzled. He could think of no one who fit that description. "Who?"

"Uhn-uh. Just don't let your boys take any old money without you checking the source and getting back to me. Hear?"

"Said your piece, Inquisitor?"

"Yeah."

"Shouldn't you better be going, then?"

We went. I didn't know the rules of the game, so didn't know how the locals would score the exchange. I rated it too close to call. Outside, I asked, "Would he have told us if he'd been paid in old coin?" "No. Not until he looked into it, at least. But he hasn't seen any old money." I wondered why he thought that. I didn't ask. These were his people. "He might know something. Thought I saw a glint in his eye a couple times." "Maybe. Maybe not. Let him stew."

"Maybe if you'd told him why. . . ."

"No! That doesn't get out. Not even a rumor. If people thought we couldn't protect their dead or them after they kick off, all hell would break loose." He made a downward gesture with one hand. "Juniper like that. Crunch." We walked on. He muttered, "All hell would break loose." And after another half-block: "That's why we've got to get these guys. Not so much to punish them. To shut them up."

"I see." We strolled back the direction we had come, planning to resume tavern-hopping and to see a moneylender named Gilbert when we reached his territory. "Hey?"

Bullock stopped. "What?"

I shook my head. "Nothing. Thought I saw a ghost. Guy down the street. . . . Walked like somebody I used to know."

"Maybe it was."

"Nah. Long ago and far away. Long dead now. Just because I was thinking about him a little bit ago.''

"I figure we got time for half a dozen more visits. Then we head uphill. Don't want to hang around here after dark."

I looked at him, one eyebrow raised.

"Hell, man, it gets dangerous down here when the sun goes down." He chuckled and gave me one of his rare smiles. It was the genuine article. For one moment then, I liked him.

Chapter Fifteen:
JUNIPER: DEATH OF A GANGSTER

Shed had long, violent arguments with his mother. She never accused him directly, but she left little doubt she suspected him of hideous crimes.

He and Raven took turns nursing Asa.

Then it was time to face Krage. He did not want to go. He was afraid Krage might have lumped him with Raven and Asa. But if he didn't go, Krage would come to him. And Krage was looking for people to hurt. . . . Shaky, Shed trudged up the frozen street. Snow fell in lazy, fat flakes.

One of Krage's men ushered him into the presence. There was no sign of Count, but word was out that the big man was recovering. Too damned stupid to die, Shed thought.

"Ah, Shed," Krage said from the deeps of a huge chair. "How are you?"

"Cold. How're you keeping?" Krage worried him when he was affable.

"Be all right." Krage plucked at his bandages. "Close call. I was lucky. Come to make your payment?"

"How much do I owe, all told? You buying up my debts, I couldn't keep track."

"You can pay out?" Krage's eyes narrowed.

"I don't know. I have ten leva."

Krage sighed dramatically. "You got enough. Didn't think you had it in you, Shed. Well. You win some and you lose some. It's eight and some change."

Shed counted out nine coins. Krage made change. "You've had a run of luck this winter, Shed."

"Sure have."

"You seen Asa?" Krage's voice tautened.

"Not since three days ago. Why?"

"Nothing important. We're even, Shed. But it's time I collected that favor. Raven. I want him."

"Krage, I don't want to tell you your business, but that's one man you'd better leave alone. He's crazy. He's nasty and he's tough. He'd as soon kill you as say hi. I don't mean no disrespect, but he acts like you're a big joke."

"The joke will be on him, Shed." Krage dragged himself out of his chair, wincing. He grabbed his wound. "The joke will be on him."

"Maybe next time he won't let you get away, Krage." Fear crossed Krage's features. "Shed, it's him or me. If I don't kill him, my business will fall apart." "Where will it be if he kills you?" Again that flicker of fear. "I don't have any choice. Be ready when I need you, Shed. Soon now."

Shed bobbed his head and retreated. He ought to get out of the Buskin, he thought. He could afford it. But where would he go? Krage could find him anywhere in Juniper. Running didn't appeal, anyway. The Lily was home. He had to weather this. One or the other would die, and either way he would be off the hook.

He was in the middle now. He hated Krage. Krage had humiliated him for years, keeping him in debt, stealing food from his mouth with ridiculous interest rates. On the other hand, Raven could connect him with the black castle and crimes in the Enclosure.

The Custodians were on the hunt, looking for somebody spending a lot of old money. Little had been said publicly, but Bullock being on the case told Shed just how seriously they were taking the case up the hill. He'd nearly had a stroke when Bullock walked into the Lily.

What had become of the passage money? Shed hadn't seen any of it. He supposed Raven still had it. He and Raven were partners now. . . .

"What did Krage say?" Raven asked when Shed reached the Lily.

"Wants me to help kill you."

"I thought so. Shed, it's late in the season. It's time to send Krage up the hill. Which way are you leaning, partner? Him or me?''

"I. . . . Uh. . . ."

"In the long run you're better off getting rid of Krage. He'd find a way to get the Lily eventually."

True, Shed reflected. "All right. What do we do?"

"Tomorrow, go tell him you think I've been selling bodies. That you think Asa was my partner. That you think I did Asa in. Asa was your friend and you're upset. It'll all be just near enough reality to confuse him. . . . What's the matter?"

Always a trap. Raven was right. Krage would believe the story. But Shed had hoped for a less direct role. If Raven screwed up, Marron Shed would be found in a gutter with his throat cut.

"Nothing."

"All right. Night after tomorrow night, I'll go out. You run to tell Krage. I'll let his men track me. Krage will want to be in at the kill. I'll ambush him."

"You did that before, didn't you?"

"He'll come anyway. He's stupid."

Shed swallowed. "That isn't a plan that does much for my nerves."

"Your nerves aren't my problem, Shed. They're yours. You lost them. Only you can find them again."

Krage bought Shed's story. He was ecstatic because Raven was such a villain. "If I didn't want him myself, I'd yell for the Custodians. You did good, Shed. I should have suspected Asa. He never brought no news worth hearing."

Shed whined, "Who would buy bodies, Krage?" Krage grinned. "Don't worry your ugly head. Let me know next time he goes on one of his jaunts. We'll rig up a little surprise."

Next night Shed reported according to plan. And suffered all the disappointment he expected of life. Krage insisted he join the hunt.

"What good would I be, Krage? I'm not even armed. And he's one tough nut. You won't take him without a fight."

"I don't expect to. You're coming along just in case." "In case?"

"In case there's a trap in this and I want to lay hands on you fast."

Shed shuddered, whined, "I done right by you. Don't I always do right by you?"

"You always do what a coward would. Which is why I don't trust you. Anybody can scare you. And you had all that money. It occurs to me you might be in the racket with Raven."

Shed went cold. Krage donned his coat. "Let's go, Shed. Stay right beside me. You try to wander off, I'll kill you."

Shed started shaking. He was dead. All he had gone through to get Krage off his back. ... It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair. Nothing ever worked for him. He stumbled into the street, wondering what he could do and knowing there was no escape.

Tears froze on his cheeks.

No exit. If he fled, Krage would be warned. If he did not, Krage would kill him when Raven sprang his ambush. What was his mother going to do?

He had to do something. Had to find some guts, make a decision, act. He couldn't surrender to fate and hope for luck. That meant the Catacombs or black castle before dawn.

He had lied to Krage. He had a butcher knife up his left sleeve. He had put it there out of sheer bravado. Krage hadn't searched him. Old Shed armed? Ha! Not likely. He might get himself hurt.

Old Shed did go armed sometimes, but he never advertised the fact. The knife did wonders for his confidence.

He could tell himself he would use it, and he'd believe the lie long enough to get by, but in any tight spot he would let fate run its course.

His fate was sealed. . . . Unless he whipped it heads-up, no holds barred.

How?

Krage's men were amused by his terror. There were six of them. . . . Then there were seven . . . and eight, as those tracking Raven reported in. Could he hope to beat those odds? Raven himself didn't stand a chance.

You are a dead man, a tiny voice whispered, over and over. Dead man. Dead man.

"He's working his way down Chandler's," a shadow reported. "Going into all the little alleyways."

Krage asked Shed, "Think he'll find anything this late in the winter? The weaklings have all died."

Shed shrugged. "I wouldn't know." He rubbed his left arm against his side. The knife's presence helped, but not much.

His terror peaked and began to recede. His mind cooled to an unemotional numbness. Fear in abeyance, he tried to find the unseen exit.

Again someone loomed out of the darkness, reported they were a hundred feet from Raven's wagon. Raven had gone into an alley ten minutes ago. He hadn't come out.

"He spot you?" Krage growled.

"I don't think so. But you never know."

Krage eyed Shed. "Shed, would he abandon his team and wagon?"

"How would I know?" Shed squeaked. "Maybe he found something."

"Let's take a look." They moved to the alley, one of countless dead-end breezeways opening off Chandler's Lane. Krage stared into the darkness, head canted slightly. "Quiet as the Catacombs. Check it out, Luke."

"Boss?"

"Take it easy, Luke. Old Shed is going to be right behind you. Won't you, Shed?"

"Krage. . . ."

"Move out!"

Shed shambled forward. Luke advanced cautiously, wicked knife probing the darkness. Shed tried to talk to him. "Shut up!" he snarled. "Don't you have a weapon?"

"No," Shed lied. He glanced back. It was just the two of them. They reached the dead end. No Raven. "I'll be damned," Luke said. "How did he get out?"

"I don't know. Let's find out." This might be his chance.

"Here we go," Luke said. "He climbed this downspout."

Shed's guts knotted. His throat tightened. "Give it a try. Maybe we can follow him,"

"Yeah." Luke started up.

Shed didn't think about it. The butcher knife materialized in his hand. His hand slammed forward. Luke arched back, dropped. Shed jumped on him, jammed a palm against his mouth, held on for the minute it took him to die. He backed away, unable to believe he'd done it. "What's going on back there?" Krage demanded. "Can't find anything," Shed yelled. He dragged Luke against a wall, buried him under trash and snow, ran to the down-spout.

Krage's approach made a marvelous incentive. He grunted, strained, popped a muscle, reached the roof. It consisted of a skirt two feet wide set at a shallow angle, then twelve feet rising at forty-five degrees, above which the roof was flat. Shed leaned against the steep slate, panting, still unable to believe that he had killed a man. He heard voices below, began moving sideways.

Someone snarled, "They're gone, Krage. No Raven. No Luke and no Shed, either."

"That bastard. I knew he was setting me up."

"Why did Luke go with him, then?"

"Hell, I don't know. Don't stand there. Look around They got out of here somehow."

"Hey. Over here. Somebody went up this spout. Maybe they're after Raven."

"Climb the damned thing. Find out. Luke! Shed!"

"Over here," a voice called. Shed froze. What the hell? Raven? Had to be Raven.

He inched along, trying to fake himself into believing there wasn't thirty-five feet of nothing behind his heels. He reached a ridged corner where he could clamber up to the flat top.

"Over here. I think we got him cornered."

"Get up there, you bastards!" Krage raged.

Lying motionless on the cold, icy tar, Shed watched two shadows appear on the skirt and begin easing toward the voice. A squeal of metal and vicious cursing proclaimed the fate of a third climber. "Twisted my ankle, Krage," the man complained.

"Come on," Krage growled. "We'll find another way up."

Run while you got the chance, Shed thought. Go home and hole up till it's over. But he could not. He slid down to the skirt and crept after Krage's men.

Someone cried out, scrabbled for a hold, plunged into the darkness between buildings. Krage shouted. Nobody answered.

Shed crossed to the roof next door. It was flat and forested with chimneys. "Raven?" he called softly. "It's me. Shed." He touched the knife in his sleeve, still unable to believe that he'd used it.

A shape materialized. Shed settled into a sitting position, arms around his knees. "What now?" he asked.

"What're you doing here?"

"Krage dragged me along. I was supposed to be the first one dead if it was a trap.'' He told Raven what he had done.

"Damn! You've got guts after all."

"He backed me into a corner. What now?"

"The odds are getting better. Let me think about it."

Krage shouted out in Chandler's Lane. Raven yelled back, "Over here! We're right behind him." He told Shed: "I don't know how long I can fool him. I was going to pick them off one at a time. I didn't know he'd bring an army."

"My nerves are shot," Shed said. Heights were another of the thousand things that terrified him.

"Hang on. It's a long way from over." Raven yelled, "Cut him off, why don't you?" He took off. "Come on,

Shed."

Shed could not keep up. He wasn't as nimble as Raven.

A shape loomed out of the darkness. He squeaked.

"That you, Shed?" It was one of Krage's men. Shed's heartbeat doubled.

"Yeah. You seen Raven?"

"No. Where's Luke?"

"Damnit, he was headed right at you. How could you miss him? Look here." Shed indicated disturbances in

Traces of snow.

"Look, man, I didn't see him. Don't come on at me like you was Krage. I'll kick your ass up around your ears."

"All right. All right. Calm down. I'm scared and I want to get it over. Luke fell off. Back there. Slipped on some ice or something. Be careful."

"I heard. Sounded like Milt, though. I'd have sworn it was Milt. This is stupid. He can pick us off up here. We ought to back off and try something else."

"Uhn-uh. I want him now. I don't want him tracking me down tomorrow." Shed was amazed. How easily the lies came! Silently, he cursed the man because he wouldn't turn his back. "You got an extra knife or something?"

"You? Use a knife? Come on. Stick with me, Shed. I'll look out for you."

"Sure. Look, the trail goes that way. Let's get it done." The man turned to examine Raven's tracks. Shed drew his knife and hit him hard. The man let out a yell, twisted. The knife broke. Shed almost pitched off the roof. His victim did. People shouted questions. Krage and his men all seemed to be on the rooftops now.

When Shed stopped shaking, he started moving again, trying to recall the layout of the neighborhood. He wanted to get down and head home. Raven could finish this insanity.

Shed ran into Krage on the next roof. "Krage!" he whined. "God! Let me out of here! He'll kill us all!"

"I'll kill you, Shed. It was a trap, wasn't it?"

"Krage, no!" What could he do? He didn't have the butcher knife now. Fake. Whine and fake. "Krage, you got to get out of here. He already got Luke and Milt and somebody else. He would've gotten me when he got Luke, except he fell down and I got away-only he caught up again when I was talking to one of your guys right over there. They got fighting, and one of them went off the edge; I don't know which, but I bet it wasn't Raven. We got to get down from here, on account of we can't tell who we're running into so we got to be careful. I could have had him this last time, only I didn't have a weapon and we didn't know it wasn't one of our own guys coming. Raven don't have that problem. Anybody he sees he knows is an enemy, so he don't have to be so careful. ..."

"Shut up, Shed."

Krage was buying it. Shed talked a little louder, hoping Raven would hear, come, and finish it.

There was a cry across the rooftops. "That's Teskus," Krage growled. "That's four. Right?"

Shed bobbed his head. "That we know about. Maybe there's only you and me now. Krage, we should get out of here before he finds us."

"Might be something to what you say, Shed. Might be. We shouldn't have come up here. Come on."

Shed followed, keeping up the chatter. "It was Luke's idea. He thought he'd make points with you. See, we saw him at the top of this drain-spout and he didn't see us, so Luke said why don't we go after him and get him, and old Krage will. . . ."

"Shut up, Shed. For God's sake, shut up. Your voice sickens me."

"Yes, sir, Mr. Krage. Only I can't. I'm so scared. . . ."

"If you don't, I'll shut you up permanent. You won't have to worry about Raven."

Shed stopped talking. He had pushed as far as he dared.

Krage halted a short time later. "We'll set an ambush near his wagon. He'll come back for it, won't he?"

"I expect so, Mr. Krage. But what good will I be? I mean, I don't have a weapon, and wouldn't know how to use one if I did."

"Shut up. You're right. You're not much good, Shed. But I think you'll do fine as a distraction. You get his attention. Talk to him. I'll hit him from behind."

"Krage. . . ."

"Shut up." Krage rolled over the side of the building, clung to the parapet while getting a solid foothold. Shed leaned forward. Three storeys to the ground.

He kicked Krage's fingers. Krage cursed, scrabbled for a fresh hold, missed, dropped, yelled, hit with a muted thump. Shed watched his vague shape twitch, become still.

"I did it again." He started shaking. "Can't stay here. His men might find me." He swung over the parapet and monkeyed down the side of the building, more afraid of being caught than of falling.

Krage was still breathing. In fact, he was conscious but paralyzed. "You were right, Krage. It was a trap. You shouldn't have pushed me. You made me hate you more than I was scared of you." He looked around. It wasn't as late as he had thought. The rooftop hunt hadn't lasted long. Where was Raven, anyway?

Somebody had to clean up. He grabbed Krage, dragged him toward Raven's wagon. Krage squealed. For a moment Shed was afraid someone would investigate. No one did. This was the Buskin.

Krage screamed when Shed hoisted him into the wagon. "Comfy, Krage?"

He retrieved Luke next, then went seeking other bodies. He found another three. None were Raven. He muttered, "If he doesn't show in a half hour, I'll take them up myself and the hell with him." Then: "What's come over you, Marron Shed? Letting this go to your head? So you found some guts. So what? That don't make you no Raven."

Someone was coming. He snatched a booty dagger, faded into a shadow.

Raven tumbled a body into the wagon. "How the hell?"

"I collected them," Shed explained.

"Who are they?"

"Krage and his men."

"I thought he ran for it. Figured I had to go through it all again. What happened?"

Shed explained. Raven shook his head in disbelief. "You? Shed?"

"I guess there's only so much they can scare you."

"True. But I never thought you'd figure it out. Shed, you amaze me. Disappoint me, too, some. I wanted Krage myself."

"That's him making the noise. He's got a broken back or something. Kill him if you want."

"He's worth more alive."

Shed nodded. Poor Krage. "Where are the rest of them?"

"There's one on the roof. Guess the other one got away."

"Damn. That means it's not over."

"We can get him later."

"Meanwhile, he goes and gets the others and we have them all after us."

"You think they'd risk their lives to avenge Krage? No way. They'll be fighting among themselves. Trying to take over. Wait here. I'll get the other one."

"Hurry up," Shed said. The reaction was catching up. He had survived. The old Shed was coming back, dragging all his hysteria with him.

Coming down from the castle, with pink and purple strands of dawn smearing the gaps between the Wolanders, Shed asked, "Why is he screaming?"

The tall being had laughed and paid a hundred twenty leva for Krage. His shrieks could still be heard.

"I don't know. Don't look back, Shed. Do what you have to and move on." And, a moment later: "I'm glad it's over."

"Over? What do you mean?"

"That was my last visit." Raven patted his pocket. "I have enough."

"Me, too. I'm out of debt. I can refurbish the Lily, set my mother up in her own place, and have plenty to make it next winter, no matter what business is like. I'm going to forget that castle exists."

"I don't think so, Shed. You want to get away from it, better come with me. It'll always be calling when you want some fast money."

"I couldn't leave. I have to look out for my mother."

"AH right. I warned you." Then Raven asked, "What about Asa? He's going to be a problem. The Custodians are going to keep looking till they find the people who raided the Catacombs. He's the weak link."

"I can handle Asa."

"I hope so, Shed. I hope so."

Krage's disappearance was the talk of the Buskin. Shed played a baffled role, claiming he knew nothing, despite rumors to the contrary. His story held up. He was Shed the coward. The one man who knew differently did not contradict him.

The hard part was facing his mother. Old June said nothing, but her blind stare was accusing. She made him feel evil, an infidel, and disowned in the secret reaches of her mind. The gap had become unbridgable.

Chapter Sixteen:
JUNIPER: NASTY SURPRISE

Bullock looked me up next time he wanted to go downhill. Maybe he just wanted company. He had no local friends.

"What's up?" I asked when he barged into my tiny office cum dispensary.

"Get your coat. Buskin time again."

His eagerness excited me for no reason other than that I was bored with Duretile. I pitied my comrades. They hadn't yet had a chance to get out. The place was a drudge.

So away we went, and going down the hill, past the Enclosure, I asked, "Why all the excitement?"

He replied, "Not really excitement. Not even anything to do with us, probably. Remember that sweetheart of a moneylender?"

"In the bandages?"

"Yeah. Krage. He's vanished. Him and half of his boys. Seems he took a crack at the guy who cut him. And hasn't been seen since."

I frowned. That did not seem remarkable. Gangsters are always disappearing, then popping up again.

"Over there." Bullock pointed to some brush along the Enclosure wall. "That's where our men got inside." He indicated a stand of trees across the way. "Parked their wagons there. We've got a witness who saw those. Filled with wood, he says. Come on.

I'll show you." He pushed into the brush, dropped to hands and knees. I followed, grumbling because I was getting wet. The north wind did nothing to improve matters.

The interior of the Enclosure was seedier than its exterior. Bullock showed me several dozen bundles of wood found in the brush near the breach.

"Looks like they were moving a lot."

"I figure they needed a lot to cover the bodies. Cut it up there." He indicated trees above us, back toward Duretile. The castle stood limned against streamers of cloud, a grey stone rockpile one earth tremor short of collapse.

I examined the bundles. Bullock's associates had dragged them out and stacked them, which may not have been smart detective work. Looked to me like they had been cut and bundled over a period of weeks. Some ends were more weathered than others. I mentioned that to Bullock.

"I noticed. Way I figure, somebody was getting wood regular. They found the Catacombs by accident. That's when they got greedy."

"Uhm." I considered the woodpile. "Figure they were selling it?"

"No. That we know. Nobody has been selling Enclosure wood. Probably a family or a group of neighbors using the wood themselves."

"You check on wagon rentals?"

"How stupid do you think people are? Rent a wagon for a raid on the Catacombs?''

I shrugged. "We're counting on one of them being stupid, aren't we?"

He admitted, "You're right. It should be checked. But it's hard when I'm the only one who has guts enough to do legwork in the Buskin. I'm hoping we get lucky somewhere else. If I have to, I'll cover it. When there's nothing more pressing."

"I see the place where they got in?" I asked.

He wanted to tell me no. Instead, he said, "It's a fair hike. Use up an hour. I'd rather go sniff around this Krage thing while it's hot."

I shrugged. "Some other time, then."

We got down into Krage's territory and started rambling.

Bullock still had a few contacts left from his boyhood. Coaxed properly, with a few gersh, they would talk. I was not allowed to sit in. I spent the time sipping beer in a tavern where they alternately fawned over my money and acted like I had the plague. When asked, I did not deny being an Inquisitor.

Bullock joined me. "Maybe we don't have anything after all. There's all kinds of rumors. One says his own men did him in. One says it was his competition. He's a little pushy with his neighbors." He accepted a mug of wine on the house, something I hadn't seen him do before. I put it down to preoccupation.

"There's one angle we can check. He was obsessed about getting some foreigner who made a fool of him in public. There's some say the same foreigner was the man who cut him up." He took out a list and began to peruse it. "Not going to be a lot there for us, I expect. The night Krage disappeared there was a lot of whoop and holler. Not a single eyewitness, of course." He grinned. "Ear-witnesses say it was a running battle. That makes me favor the palace revolution theory."

"What have you got there?"

"A list of people who were maybe getting wood out of the Enclosure. Some might have seen each other. I was thinking I might find something interesting if I compared their stories." He waved for more wine. This time he paid, and covered the first mug, too, though the house would have forgiven him payment. I got the impression Juniper's people were used to giving Custodians anything they wanted. Bullock simply had a sense of ethics, at least where the people of the Buskin were concerned. He would not make their lives harder than they already were.

I could not help liking him on some levels.

"You're not going to pursue the Krage thing, then?"

"Oh, yeah. Of course. The bodies are missing. But that's not unusual. Probably turn up across the river in a couple days, if they're dead. Or screaming for blood if they're not." He tapped a name on his list. "This guy hangs around the same place.

Maybe I'll talk to this guy

Raven while I'm there."

I felt the blood drain from my face. "Who?"

He looked at me strangely. I forced myself to relax, to look casual. His eyebrows dropped. "Guy named Raven.

The foreigner who was supposed to be feuding with Krage.

Hangs out the same place as this one guy on my wood-gatherer's list. Maybe I'll ask him a few questions." "Raven. Unusual name. What do you know about him?" "Just that he's a foreigner and supposed to be bad news.

Been around a couple years. Typical drifter. Hangs out with the Crater crowd."

The Crater crowd were the Rebel refugees who had established themselves in Juniper.

"Do me a favor? It's a long shot, but this guy could be the ghost I was talking about the other day. Stand off a ways. Pretend you never heard the name. But get me a physical description. And find out if he's got anybody with him."

Bullock frowned. He didn't like it. "Is it important?"

"I don't know. It could be."

"All right."

"Keep the whole thing under your hat if you can."

"This guy means something to you, eh?"

"If he's the guy I knew, that I thought was dead, yeah. Him and me got business."

He smiled. "Personal?"

I nodded. I was feeling my way now. This was touchy. If this was my Raven, I had to go careful. I didn't dare let him get caught in the coils of our operation. He knew too damned much. He could get half the Company officers and noncoms put to the question. And made dead.

I decided Bullock would respond best if I kept it mysterious, with Raven an old enemy by implication. Somebody I would do most anything to jump in the dark, but not somebody important in any other way.

"I got you," he said. He looked at me somewhat differently, as though glad to discover I wasn't different after all.

Hell, I'm not. But I like to pretend I am, most of the time. I told him, "I'm going back to Duretile. Got to talk to a couple buddies."

"Can you find your way?"

"I can. Let me know what you find out."

"Will do."

We separated. I went up the hill as fast as forty-year-old legs would carry me.

I got Elmo and Goblin off where nobody could overhear us. "We maybe got a problem, friends."

"Like what?" Goblin wanted to know. He had been aching for me to talk from the minute I rounded him up. I guess I looked a little ragged around the fringes.

"There's a guy named Raven operating down in the Buskin. The other day, when I was down there with Bullock, I thought I saw a guy who looked like our Raven from a distance, but I shrugged it off then."

They quick got as nervous as me. "You sure it's him?" Elmo asked.

"No. Not yet. I got the hell out of there the minute I heard the name Raven. Let Bullock think he's an old enemy I want to stick a knife in. He's going to ask around for me while he's doing his own business. Get me a description. See if Darling is with him. I'm probably off in the wild blue yonder, but I wanted you guys to know. In case."

"What if it is him?" Elmo said. "What do we do then?"

"I don't know. It could be big trouble. If Whisper had some reason to get interested, like because he hangs around with the Rebel refugees here. . . . Well, you know."

Goblin mused, "Seems Silent said Raven was going to run so far nobody would ever find him again."

"So maybe he thought he'd run far enough. This is damned near the end of the world." Which, in part, was why I was so nervous. This was the kind of place I could picture Raven having gone to ground. As far from the Lady as you could get without learning to walk on water.

"Seems to me," Elmo said, "we ought to make sure before we panic. Then decide what to do. This might be the time to put our guys into the Buskin."

"That's what I was thinking. I already got a plan in front of Whisper, for something else. Let's tell her we're going with that, and have the guys watch for Raven."

"Who?" Elmo asked. "Raven would recognize anybody who knows him."

"Not true. Use guys who joined up at Charm. Send Pawnbroker just to make sure. He's not likely to remember the new guys. There were so many of them. If you want somebody reliable to run the thing, and back them up, use Goblin. Park him where he can stay out of sight but keep his hands on the reins."

"What do you think, Goblin?" he asked. Goblin smiled nervously. "Give me something to do, anyway. I'm going out of my skull up here. These people are weird."

Elmo chuckled. "Missing One-Eye?"

"Almost."

"All right," I said. "You'll need a guide. That'll have to be me. I don't want Bullock getting his nose any deeper into this. But they think I'm one of his men down there. You'll have to follow me from a distance. And try not to look like what you are. Don't make it hard on yourselves."

Elmo stretched. "I'll get Kingpin and Pawnbroker now. You take them down and show them a place. One can come back for the others. Go ahead and scope it out with Goblin." He left.

And so it went. Goblin and the six soldiers took rooms not far from the moneylender Krage's headquarters. Up on the hill I pretended it was all for the cause. I waited.

Chapter Seventeen:
JUNIPER: TRAVEL PLANS

Shed caught Asa trying to sneak out. "What the hell is this?"

"I need to get out, Shed. I'm going crazy up there."

"Yeah? You want to know something, Asa? The Inquisitors are looking for you. Bullock himself was in here the other day, and he asked for you by name." Shed was stretching the facts slightly. Bullock's interest had not been intense. But it had to have something to do with the Catacombs. Bullock and his sidekick were in the Buskin almost every day, asking, asking, asking questions. He didn't need Asa meeting Bullock face-to-face. Asa would either panic or crumble under questioning. Either way, Marron Shed would get into the heat damned fast. "Asa, if they catch you, we're all dead."

"Why?"

"You were spending those old coins. They're looking for somebody with a lot of old money."

"Damn that Raven!"

"What?"

"He gave me the passage money. As my share. I'm rich. And now you tell me I can't spend it without getting grabbed."

"He probably figured you'd hold off till the excitement died down. He'd be gone by then."

"Gone?"

"He's leaving as soon as the harbor opens."

"Where's he headed?"

"South somewhere. He won't talk about it."

"So what do I do? Keep scrambling for a living? Damn it, Shed, that's not fair."

"Look on the bright side, Asa. Nobody wants to kill you anymore."

"So? Now Bullock is after me. Maybe I could have made a deal with Krage. Bullock don't deal. It ain't fair! All my life. . . ."

Shed did not listen. He sang the same song all too often.

"What can I do, Shed?"

"I don't know. Stay holed up, I guess." He had a glimmer of a notion. "How about you get out of Juniper for a while?"

"Yeah. You might have something. That money would spend just fine somewhere else, wouldn't it?"

"I don't know. I've never traveled."

"Get Raven up here when he shows up."

"Asa. . . ."

"Hey, Shed, come on. It won't hurt to ask. All he can do is say no."

"Whatever you want, Asa. I hate to see you go."

"Sure you do, Shed. Sure you do." As Shed ducked out the doorway, Asa called, "Wait a second."

"Yeah?"

"Uh. . . . It's kind of hard. I never did thank you."

"Thank me for what?"

"You saved my life. You brought me back, didn't you?"

Shed shrugged, nodded. "No big thing, Asa."

"Sure it is, Shed. And I'll remember it. I owe you the big one."

Shed went downstairs before he could be embarrassed further. He discovered that Raven had returned. The man was in one of his animated discussions with Darling. Arguing again. They had to be lovers. Damn it all. He waited till Raven noticed him watching. "Asa wants to see you. I think he wants to go with you when you leave." Raven chuckled. "That would solve your problem, wouldn't it?"

Shed did not deny that he would be more comfortable with Asa out of Juniper. "What do you think?"

"Not a bad idea, actually. Asa isn't much, but I need men. I have a hold on him. And him being gone would help cover my backtrail."

"Take him with my blessing."

Raven started upstairs. Shed said, "Wait." He didn't know how to approach this, because he didn't know if it was important. But he'd better tell Raven. "Bullock's been hanging around the Buskin a lot lately. Him and a sidekick."

"So?"

"So maybe he's closer than we think. For one thing, he was in here looking for Asa. For another, he's been asking about you."

Raven's face went empty. "About me? How so?"

"On the quiet. My cousin Wally's wife Sal? Her brother is married to one of Bullock's cousins. Anyway, Bullock still knows people down here, from when before he got on the Custodians. He helps them out sometimes, so some of them tell him things he wants to know. ..."

"I get the picture. Get to the point."

"Bullock was asking about you. Who you are, where you come from, who your friends are-things like that."

"Why?"

Shed could only shrug.

"All right. Thanks. I'll check it out."

Chapter Eighteen:
JUNIPER: BLOWING SMOKE

Goblin stood across the street, leaning against a building, staring intently. I frowned angrily. What the hell was he doing on the street? Bullock might recognize him and realize we were playing games.

Obviously, he wanted to tell me something.

Bullock was about to enter another of countless dives. I told him, "Got to see a man about a horse in the alley."

"Yeah." He went inside. I slipped into the alley and made water. Goblin joined me there. "What is it?" I asked.

"What it is, Croaker, is it's him. Raven. Our Raven. Not only him, but Darling. She's a barmaid in a place called the Iron Lily."

"Holy shit," I murmured.

"Raven lives there. They're doing a show like they don't know each other that well. But Raven looks out for her."

"Damnit! It had to be, didn't it? What do we do now?"

"Maybe bend over and kiss our asses good-bye. The bastard could be smack in the middle of the body-selling racket. Everything we found could add up that way."

"How come you could find that when Bullock couldn't?"

"I got resources Bullock doesn't."

I nodded. He did. Sometimes it's handy, having a wizard around. Sometimes it's not, if it's one of those bitches up in Duretile. "Hurry it up," I said. "He'll wonder where I am."

"Raven has his own wagon and team. Keeps it way across town. Usually only takes it out late at night." I nodded. We'd already determined that body-runners worked the night shift. "But. . . ." he said, "and you're going to love this but, Croaker. He took it out in the daytime, once, a while back. Coincidentally, the day somebody hit the Catacombs."

"Oh boy."

"I looked that wagon over, Croaker. There was blood in it. Fairly fresh. I date it about when that moneylender and his pals disappeared."

"Oh boy. Shit. We're in for it now. Better get. Going to have to think of a story for Bullock now."

"Later."

"Yeah."

At that moment I was ready to give up. Despair overwhelmed me. That damned fool Raven-I knew exactly what he was doing. Getting together a fat bunch of running money by selling bodies and plundering graves. His conscience wouldn't bother him. In his part of the world, such things were of much less consequence. And he had a cause: Darling.

I couldn't get away from Bullock. I wanted desperately to run to Elmo, but I had to trudge hither and yon asking questions.

I looked up the northern slope, at the black castle, and thought of it as the fortress Raven had built.

I was going off the deep end. I told myself that. The evidence wasn't yet conclusive. . . . But it was. Enough. My employers did not wait on legal niceties or absolute evidence.

Elmo was rattled, too. "We could kill him. No risk him giving anything away then."

"Really, Elmo!"

"I didn't mean it. But you know I'd do it if the choice got narrow enough."

"Yeah." We all would. Or we'd try. Raven might not let us. He was the toughest son-of-a-bitch I'd ever known. "If you ask me, we ought to find him and just tell him to get the hell out of Juniper."

Elmo gave me a disgusted look. "Haven't you been paying attention? Right now the only way in or out is the one we took. The harbor is frozen. The passes are snowed in. You think we could get Whisper to fly some civilian out for us?"

"Civilians. Goblin says Darling is still with him."

Elmo looked thoughtful. I started to say something else. He waved a hand for silence. I waited. He finally asked, "What would he do if he saw you? If he's been hanging around with the Crater bunch?"

I clicked my tongue. "Yeah. I didn't think of that. Let me go check something."

I hunted Bullock up. "You or the Duke got somebody inside the Crater bunch?''

He looked puzzled. "Maybe? Why?"

"Let's have a sit-down with them. An idea. It might help us break our thing here."

He looked at me a long moment. Maybe he was sharper than he pretended. "All right. Not that they would've learned much. The only reason they haven't run our guys off is we don't bother them. They just get together and talk about the old days. They don't have any fight left."

"Let's give it a look anyway. Maybe they're less innocent than they look."

"Give me a half-hour."

I did. And when that time was up, he and I sat down with two secret policemen. He and I took turns asking questions, each coming from his own private slant.

Neither knew Raven, at least not by that name. That was a relief. But there was something there, and Bullock sensed it immediately. He hung on till he had something to chew.

"I'm going to my boss," I told him. "She'll want to know about this." I had come up with a diversion. It seemed it would suit Bullock.

He said, "I'll take it up with Hargadon. Didn't occur to me this might be foreigners. Political. That could be why the money didn't show up. Maybe they're selling bodies, too."

"Rebellions do take money," I observed.

We moved next evening, at Whisper's insistence, over the objections of the Duke, but with the support of the chief Custodian. The Duke still did not want us seen. The Custodians didn't give a damn. They just wanted to salvage their reputation.

Elmo came slinking through the evening shadows. "Ready here?" he whispered.

I glanced at the four men with me. "Ready." Every Company man in Juniper was there, with the Duke's secret police and a dozen of Bullock's men. I'd thought his job silly, but even so had been astonished to discover how few men his office actually employed. All but one were there. The one was legitimately sick.

Elmo made a sound like a cow mooing, repeated three times.

The one-time Rebels were all together for their regular confab. I snickered, thinking of the surprise they were going to get. They thought they were safe from the Lady by fifteen hundred miles and seven years.

It took less than a minute. No one was injured. They just looked at us dumbly, arms hanging slack. Then one even recognized us, and groaned, "The Black Company. In Juniper."

Then another: "It's over. It's the end. She's really won."

They didn't seem to care much. Some, in fact, looked relieved.

We pulled it off so smoothly there was hardly any notice from the neighbors. The slickest raid I'd ever seen. We marched them up to Duretile, and Whisper and Feather went to work.

I just hoped one of them wouldn't know too much.

I'd made a long bet, hoping Raven would not have told them who Darling was. If he had, I'd pulled the roof down instead of misdirecting attention.

I did not hear from Whisper, so I guessed I'd won.

Chapter Nineteen:
JUNIPER: FEAR

Raven slammed through the door of the Lily. Shed looked up, startled. Raven leaned against the door frame, panting. He looked like he'd just stared his death in the face. Shed put his rag aside and hurried over, a stoneware bottle in hand.

"What happened?"

Raven stared over his shoulder, at Darling, who was waiting on Shed's lone paying customer. He shook his head, took several deep breaths, shuddered.

He was scared! By all that was holy, the man was terrified! Shed was aghast. What could have gotten him into this state? Even the black castle did not shake him.

"Raven. Come over here and sit." He took Raven's arm. The man followed docilely. Shed caught Darling's eye, signed for two mugs and another stoneware bottle.

Darling took one look at Raven and forgot her customer. She was there with mugs and bottle in seconds, her fingers flashing at Raven.

Raven did not see.

"Raven!" Shed said in a sharp whisper. "Snap out of it, man! What the hell happened?"

Raven's eyes focused. He looked at Shed, at Darling, at the wine. He tossed off a mug in one gulp, slapped it down. Darling poured again.

Her customer protested at being abandoned.

"Get it yourself," Shed told him.

The man became abusive.

"Go to hell, then," Shed said. "Raven, talk. Are we in trouble?"

"Uh. ... No. Not we, Shed. Me." He shuddered like a dog coming out of water, faced Darling. His fingers started talking.

Shed caught most of it.

Raven told her to pack. They had to run again.

Darling wanted to know why.

Because they've found us, Raven told her.

Who? Darling asked.

The Company. They're here. In Juniper.

Darling did not seem distressed. She denied the possibility.

The Company? Shed thought. What the hell was this?

They are here, Raven insisted. I went to the meeting. I was late. Lucky. I got there after it started. The Duke's men. The Custodians. And the Company. I saw Croaker and Elmo and Goblin. I heard them call each other by name. I heard them mention Whisper and Feather. The Company is in Juniper, and the Taken are with them. We have to go.

Shed had no idea what in hell this was about. Who were these people? Why was Raven scared? "How you going to run anywhere, Raven? You can't get out of town. The harbor's still frozen."

Raven looked at him as if he were a heretic.

"Settle down, Raven. Use your head. I don't know what the hell is going on, but I can tell you this. Right now you're acting more like Marron Shed than like Raven. Old Shed is the guy who panics. Remember?"

Raven managed a feeble grin. "You're right. Yeah. Raven uses his brain." He snickered sourly. "Thanks, Shed."

"What happened?"

"Let's just say the past came back. A past I didn't expect to see again. Tell me about this sidekick you said Bullock's been pulling around lately. Word I've heard, Bullock is a loner."

Shed described the man, though he could not recall him

well. His attention had been on Bullock. Darling positioned herself so she could read his lips. She formed a word with hers.

Raven nodded. "Croaker."

Shed shivered. The name sounded sinister when Raven translated it. "He some kind of hired killer?"

Raven laughed softly. "No. Actually, he's a physician. Halfway competent, too. But he has other talents. Like being crafty enough to come around looking for me in Bullock's shadow. Who would pay attention to him? They'd be too worried about the damned Inquisitor."

Darling flashed signs. She went too fast for Shed, but he thought she was admonishing Raven, telling him Croaker was his friend and would not be hunting him. It was coincidence that their paths had crossed.

"Not coincidence at all," Raven countered, both aloud and by sign. "If they aren't hunting me, why are they in Juniper? Why are two of the Taken here?"

Again Darling responded too fast for Shed to catch everything. She seemed to be arguing that if someone called the Lady had gotten to this Croaker or another someone called Silent, Croaker would not be here.

Raven stared at her a good fifteen seconds, still as stone. He downed another mug of wine. Then he said, "You're right. Absolutely right. If they were looking for me, they would have had me. And you. The Taken themselves would have been all over us. So. Coincidence, after all. But coincidence or not, the Lady's top thugs are in Juniper. And they're looking for something. What? Why?"

This was the old Raven. Cool and hard and thinking.

Darling flashed, Black castle.

Shed's humor vanished. Raven looked at the girl for several seconds, glanced in the general direction of the black castle. Then he looked at Darling again. "Why?"

Darling shrugged. She flashed, There is nothing else about Juniper that would bring Her here.

Raven thought a few minutes more. Then he turned to Shed. "Shed, have I made you rich? Have I gotten your ass far enough out of trouble?''

"Sure, Raven."

"Your turn to give me a hand, then. Some very powerful enemies of mine are in Juniper. They're working with the Custodians and the Duke, and are probably here because of the black castle. If they spot me, I'm in trouble."

Marron Shed had a full belly. He had a warm place to sleep. His mother was safe. He had no debts and no immediate threats hanging over his head. The man opposite him was responsible. Also responsible for saddling him with an agonized conscience, but that he could forgive. "Ask. I'll do what I can."

"You'll be helping yourself, too, if they're looking into the castle. You, me, and Asa. We made a mistake, raiding the Catacombs. Never mind. I want you to find out whatever you can about what's going on in Duretile. If you need bribe money, tell me. I'll cover it."

Puzzled, Shed said, "Sure. Can't you tell me a little more?''

"Not till I know a little more. Darling, get your stuff together. We have to disappear."

For the first time, Shed protested. "Hey! What're you doing? How am I supposed to run this place without her?"

"Get that girl Lisa in here. Get your cousin. I don't care. We have to disappear."

Shed frowned.

Raven said, "They want her more than they want me."

"She's just a kid."

"Shed."

"Yes, sir. How do I get in touch, sir?"

"You don't. I'll get in touch with you. Darling, go. Those are Taken up there."

"What're Taken?" Shed asked.

"If you have gods, Shed, pray that you never find out. Pray hard." And, when Darling returned with her meager belongings, Raven said, "I think you ought to reconsider leaving Juniper with me. Things are going to start happening around here, and you won't like them."

"I have to take care of my mother."

"Think about it anyway, Shed. I know what I'm talking about. I used to work for those people."

Chapter Twenty:
JUNIPER: SHADOW TALK

Raven vanished on us. Even Goblin could find no trace. Feather and Whisper worked on our prisoners till each was drained, and got nothing on our old friend. I concluded that Raven had used an assumed name when dealing with them.

Why hadn't he used one down in the Buskin? Folly? Pride? As I recall, Raven had too much of that.

Raven was not his real name, any more than Croaker is mine. But that was the name we knew him by the year he served with us. None of us, unless maybe the Captain, knew his real one. He had been a man of substance once, in Opal. That I knew. He and the Limper became bitter enemies when the Limper used his wife and her lovers to do him out of his rights and titles. That I knew. But not who he was before he became a soldier of the Black Company.

I dreaded telling the Captain what we had found. He was fond of Raven. Like brothers, the two of them. The Captain, I think, was hurt when Raven deserted. He would be hurt more deeply when he learned what his friend had done in Juniper.

Whisper called us in to announce the results of the interrogations. She said roughly, "We did not exactly score a triumph, gentlemen. All but a couple of those men were dabblers. We knocked the fight out of them at Charm. But we did learn that the black castle has been buying corpses. Its denizens even buy live bodies. Two of our captives have sold to them. Raising money for the Rebel."

The idea of trading in corpses was repellent, but not especially wicked. I wondered what use the black castle people had for them.

Whisper continued, "They were not responsible for the raid on the Catacombs. In fact, they are of no interest to us. We're turning them over to the Custodians to do with as they please. You gentlemen will now go out into the city and resume digging."

"Excuse me, ma'am?" Elmo said.

"Somewhere in Juniper there is someone who is feeding the black castle. Find him. The Lady wants him."

Raven, I thought. Had to be Raven. Just had to be. We had to find that son-of-a-bitch, yes. And get him out of town or dead.

You have to understand what the Company means. For us, it is father, mother, family. We are men with nothing else. Raven getting caught would kill the family, figuratively and literally. The Lady would disband what remained of the outfit after she'd mauled us for not turning Raven in back when.

I told Whisper: "It might help if we knew what we're dealing with. It's hard to take something serious when nobody tells you anything. What's the point of the exercise? That castle is damned bizarre, I grant you. But why should we care?"

Whisper seemed to think about it. For several seconds her eyes were blank. She had taken the matter to higher authority. She was in communion with the Lady. When she returned, she said, "The black castle has its roots in the Barrowland."

That got our attention. I croaked, "What?"

"The black castle is the Dominator's escape hole. When it reaches a certain size and certain set of circumstances, the creatures who live there, who are his creatures, heart and soul, will conjur him out of the Great Barrow. Here."

Several men snorted in disbelief. It did seem far-fetched, for all the weirdness and sorceries we have seen.

Whisper said, "He foresaw his defeat by the White Rose, though not his betrayal by the Lady. Even before the Domination fell, he started preparing his return. He sent a faithful follower here with the seed of the black castle. Something went wrong. He never planned to spend so long waiting. Maybe he did not know of Juniper's preoccupation with preserving the dead. What are they waiting for? A ship that will carry them to paradise?"

"Roughly," I agreed. "I studied it, but the whole business is still monkey chatter to me. Go on. The Domina-tor is going to pop out on us here?"

"Not if we can stop him. But we may have gotten here too late. This man. If we don't take him soon, it will be too late. The portal is almost ready to open."

I looked at Elmo. He looked at me. Oh boy, I thought. If Raven knew what he was doing. ... I still couldn't get upset. He did it for Darling. He couldn't have known he was doing the Dominator's work. He had that much conscience. He would have found another way. . . . What the hell was he going to do with so much money?

We had to find him. That was all there was to it. Whatever we did from now on, our main goal, for the sake of the Company, had to be to warn him off.

I glanced at Elmo. He agreed. From this moment forward we would be fighting for the survival of the outfit. Somewhere, somehow, Raven must have smelled trouble. Goblin looked under every rock in the Buskin, watched every alley, practically lived in the Iron Lily, and still found a big bunch of nothing. Time ground past. Warmer weather threatened. And we became ever more panicky.

Chapter Twenty-One:
JUNIPER

Raven departed soon after the outer channel opened. Shed went down to say good-bye-and only then discovered the nature of Raven's shipping investment. He had had a ship built and crewed. A whole new ship, and as big a vessel as Shed had seen. "No wonder he needed a fortune," he mused. How many bodies to build that?

He returned to the Lily numbed. He poured himself some wine, sat staring into nothing. "That Raven was a man of vision," he mumbled. "Glad he's gone, though. Asa, too. Maybe things can get back to normal."

Shed bought a cottage near the Enclosure. He installed his mother with a staff of three. It was a relief to be rid of her evil, blind stare.

He had workmen into the Lily every day. They interfered with business, but business remained good. The harbor was busy. There was work for anyone who wanted it.

Shed could not handle prosperity. He hared after every impulse he had known during his impoverishment. He bought fine clothing he dared not wear. He went places frequented only by the wealthy. And he bought the attentions of beautiful women.

Women cost a lot when you pretended to be somebody off the high slope.

One day Shed went to his secret cash box and found it empty. All that money gone? Where? The improvements on the Lily weren't finished. He owed the workmen. He owed the people caring for his mother. Damn! Was he back where he started?

Hardly. He had his profits.

He scampered downstairs, to his business cash box, opened it, sighed in relief. He'd done all his spending out of the box upstairs.

But something was wrong. There wasn't anywhere near enough in the box. . . . "Hey, Wally."

His cousin looked at him, gulped, raced out the door. Baffled, Shed hurried outside, saw Wally vanish into an alley. Then the truth hit him. "Damn you!" he yelled. "Damn you, you damned thief!" He went back in and tried to figure where he stood.

An hour later he told the workmen to knock off. He left his new girl Lisa in charge, started the rounds of his suppliers.

Wally had screwed him good. He had bought on credit and pocketed monies payable. Shed covered his debts as he went, growing increasingly alarmed as his reserves dwindled. Down to little more than copper, he returned to the Lily and started an inventory.

At least Wally hadn't sold what he had bought on credit. The Lily was well-stocked.

Only what was he going to do about his mother?

The house was paid for. That was a plus. But the old girl needed her servants to survive. And he couldn't pay their wages. But he didn't want her back in the Lily. He could sell all those clothes. He'd spent a fortune on them and couldn't wear them. He did some figuring. Yes. Sell the clothes and he could support his mother till next summer.

No more clothes. No more women. No more improvements on the Lily. . . . Maybe Wally hadn't spent it all.

Finding Wally was not difficult. He returned to his family after two days in hiding. He thought Shed would endure the loss. He didn't know he was dealing with a new Shed.

Shed stormed to his cousin's tiny one-room apartment, kicked the door in. "Wally!"

Wally squealed. His children and wife and mother all screeched questions. Shed ignored them. "Wally, I want it back! Every damned copper!"

Wally's wife got in his way. "Calm down, Marron. What's the matter?"

"Wally!" Wally cowered in a corner. "Out of my way, Sal. He stole damned near a hundred leva." Shed grabbed his cousin and dragged him out the doorway. "I want it back."

"Shed. . . ."

Shed shoved him. He staggered backward, tripped, rolled down a flight of stairs. Shed charged after him, hurled him down another flight.

"Shed, please. ..."

"Where's the money, Wally? I want the money."

"I don't have it, Shed. I spent it. Honest. The kids had to have clothes. We had to eat. I couldn't help it, Shed. You had so much. . . . You're family, Shed. You're supposed to help."

Shed shoved him into the street, kicked him in the groin, dragged him upright, started slapping. "Where is it, Wally? You couldn't have spent that much. Hell, your kids are wearing rags. I paid you enough to handle that. Because you were family. I want the money you stole." As he raged, Shed drove his cousin toward the Lily.

Wally whined and begged, refusing to tell the truth. Shed guessed he had stolen upward of fifty leva, enough to have completed the renovation of the Lily. This hadn't been petty pilfering. He hurled blows in an angry rain.

He herded Wally around behind the Lily, away from prying eyes. "Now I get nasty, Wally."

"Shed, please. ..."

"You stole from me and you're lying about it. I could forgive you for doing it for your family. But you didn't. Tell me. Or give it back." He punched Wally hard.

The pain in his hands, from hitting the man, sapped his rage. But then Wally broke. "I lost it gambling. I know I

was stupid. But I was so sure I was going to win. They took me. They let me think I was going to win big, then took me, and the only way out was to steal. They would have killed me. I borrowed from Gilbert after I told him how good you were doing. ..."

"Lost it? Gambling? Borrowed from Gilbert?" Shed muttered. Gilbert had moved in on Krage's territories. He was a bad as his predecessor. "How could you be so stupid?" The rage took him again. He snatched a board off a scrap pile left for kindling. He hit Wally hard. And hit him again. His cousin went down, stopped trying to fend off the blows.

Shed froze, suddenly coldly rational. Wally wasn't moving. "Wally? Wally? Hey, Wally. Say something."

Wally did not respond.

Shed's stomach knotted. He tossed the board into the pile. "Have to get that inside before people cart it off." He gripped his cousin's shoulder. "Come on, Wally. I won't hit you anymore."

Wally did not move.

"Oh, shit," Shed muttered. "I killed him." This tore it. What now? There wasn't much justice in the Buskin, but what there was was quick and rough. They would hang him sure.

He whirled, looking for witnesses. He saw no one. His mind flew in a hundred directions. There was a way out. No body, no proof that murder had been done. But he'd never gone up that hill alone.

Hastily, he dragged Wally to the scrap pile and covered him. The amulet he needed to get into the black castle. Where was it? He dashed into the Lily, roared upstairs, found the amulet, examined it. Definitely serpents intertwined. The workmanship was amazingly detailed. Tiny jewels formed the eyes of the snakes. They sparkled menacingly in the afternoon sun.

He stuffed the amulet into his pocket. "Shed, get yourself together. Panic and you're dead."

How long before Sal yelled for the law? A few days, surely. Plenty of time.

Raven had left him his wagon and team. He hadn't thought to keep paying the stable-keeper. Had the man sold them? If so, he was in trouble.

He cleaned out his coin boxes, left the Lily in Lisa's care.

The stable-keeper hadn't sold off, but the mules were looking lean. Shed cursed him.

"I should feed them at my own expense, mister?"

Shed cursed him some more and paid what was owed. He said, "Feed them. And have them hitched and ready at the tenth hour."

Shed remained panicky all afternoon. Somebody might find Wally. But no lawman came stamping in. Soon after dark he stole away to the stable.

He spent the journey alternately being terrified and wondering how much Wally would bring. And how much he could get for his wagon and team. He hadn't factored them into his earlier calculations.

He ought to help Wally's family. He had to. It was the decent thing. ... He was acquiring too many dependents.

Then he was facing the dark gate. The castle, with all its monstrous decoration, was terrible, but it didn't seem to have grown since last he had been there. He knocked as Raven had done, his heart in his throat. He gripped his amulet in his left hand.

What was taking them so long? He hammered again. The gate jumped open, startling him. He fled to his wagon, got the mules moving.

He entered exactly as Raven had done, ignoring everything but his driving. He halted in the same place, climbed down, dragged Wally out.

No one came for several minutes. He grew ever more nervous, wishing he'd had the sense to come armed. What guarantee did he have that they wouldn't turn on him? That silly amulet?

Something moved. He gasped.

The creature that stepped out of the shadow was short and wide and radiated an air of contempt. It never looked at him. Its examination of the cadaver was detailed. It was being difficult, like some petty official with a helpless citizen momentarily in his power. Shed knew how to handle that. Stubborn patience and refusal to become irritated. He stood motionless, waiting.

The creature finally placed twenty-five pieces of silver near Wally's feet.

Shed grimaced, but collected the cash. He returned to his seat, backed the wagon, got the team aligned with the gate. Only then did he register his protest. "That was a prime corpse. Next time you'll do better, or there won't be a time after that. Git up." Out the gate he went, amazed at his temerity.

Going down the hill he sang. He felt great. Except for a fading guilt about Wally-the bastard had earned it-he was at peace with his world. He was free and safe, out of debt, and now had money in reserve. He returned his team to its stable, wakened the stable-keeper, paid four months in advance. "Take good care of my animals," he admonished.

A representative of the precinct Magistrate showed up next day. He had questions about Wally's disappearance. Sal had reported the fight.

Shed admitted it, "I kicked the shit out of him. But I don't know what happened to him. He just took off. I would've run, too, if I had somebody that mad at me." "What was the fight about?"

Shed played the role of a man who didn't want to get anybody in trouble. Finally, he admitted, "He worked for me. He stole money to pay back money he borrowed to pay gambling debts. Check with my suppliers. They'll tell how he bought on credit. He told me he was paying cash."

"How much was involved?"

"Can't say exactly," Shed replied. "More than fifty leva. My whole profit for the summer, and then some."

The questioner whistled. "I don't blame you for getting pissed."

"Yeah. I wouldn't have begrudged him money to help his family. He's got a whole mob to take care of. But to lose it gambling. . . . Damn, I was hot. I borrowed to fix this place up. The payments are rough. I probably won't make it through the winter now, because that bastard couldn't resist a game. I may still break his neck."

It was a good act. Shed pulled it off.

"You want to register a formal complaint?"

Shed played reluctant. "He's family. My cousin."

"I'd break my own father's back if he did that to me."

"Yeah. All right. I'll register it. But don't go hanging him right away. Maybe he can work it out or something. Hell, maybe he's still got some he can pay back. He could have lied about losing it all. He lied about a lot of things." Shed shook his head. "He worked for us on-and-off since my father ran this place. I never thought he'd do anything like that."

"You know how it is. You get too far into debt and the vultures start closing in, you'll do anything to save your ass. You don't worry about tomorrow. We see it all the time."

Shed nodded. He knew how it was.

After the Magistrate's man departed, Shed told Lisa: "I'm going out." He wanted one last fling before he settled in to the dreary business of managing the Lily.

He bought the most skilled, most beautiful woman he could find. She cost, but she was worth every copper. He returned to the Lily wishing he could live that way all the time. He dreamed about the woman that night.

Lisa wakened him early. "There's a man here who wants to see you."

"Who is he?"

"He didn't say."

Cursing, Shed rolled out. He did nothing to hide his nakedness. More than once he had hinted that Lisa should include more than barmaid's chores in her duties. She was not cooperating. He had to find a handle. . . . He'd better look out. He was getting obsessed with sex. That could give somebody a handle.

He descended to the common room. Lisa indicated a man. He was no one Shed knew. "You wanted to see me?"

"You got someplace private?"

A hard case. Now what? He did not owe anyone. He did not have any enemies. "What's your business?"

"Let's talk about your cousin. The one who didn't disappear the way people think."

Shed's stomach knotted. He concealed his distress. "I don't understand."

"Suppose somebody saw what happened?" "Come into the kitchen."

Shed's visitor peeped back through the kitchen door. "Thought the split-tail might try to listen in." Then he gave Shed an accurate account of Wally's death. "Where did you get that fairy tale?" "I saw it."

"In a pipe dream, maybe."

"You're cooler than I heard. Here's the way it goes, friend. I have a trick memory. Sometimes I forget. Depends on how I'm treated."

"Ah. I begin to see the light. This is about hush money." "There you go."

Shed's thoughts scurried like frightened mice. He couldn't afford hush money. He had to find another way out. But he couldn't do anything right now. He was too confused. He needed time to get himself together.

"How much?"

"A leva a week would buy a first-class case of amnesia."

Shed goggled. He sputtered. He choked back his protest. The extortionist made a what-can-I-do? gesture. "I have problems too. I got expenses. A leva a week. Or take your chances."The black castle flickered through Shed's thoughts. Low cunning grabbed it, turned it over, looked at the possibilities. Murder did not bother him anymore. But not now. Not here. "How do I pay you?"

The man grinned. "Just hand me a leva."Shed brought his coin box into the kitchen. "You'll have to take copper. I don't have any silver." The man's smile grew broader. He was pleased. Why?

The man left. Shed said, "Lisa, I have a job for you. Worth a bonus. Follow that man. Find out where he goes." He gave her five gersh. "Another five when you get back, if it's worth it. "Lisa zipped out in a whirl of skirts. "He wandered around a lot," Lisa reported. "Like he was killing time. Then he headed down by the Sailmakers'. To see that one-eyed moneylender.''

"Gilbert?"

"Yeah. Gilbert."

"Thank you," Shed said thoughtfully. "Thanks a bunch. That casts light on the problem."

"Five gersh worth?"

"Sure. You're a good girl." He made a suggestive offer as he counted.

"I don't need money that bad, Mr. Shed."

He retreated to his kitchen, began preparing supper. So Gilbert was behind the extortionist. Did Gilbert want him financially pressed? Why?

The Lily. Why else? The renovations made the place that much more attractive a steal.

So. Assume Gilbert was opening a campaign to snatch the Lily. He had to fight. But this time nobody could help him. He was on his own.

Three days later Shed visited an acquaintance who operated on the nether edge of the Buskin. For a consideration he received a name. He visited the man attached, and left him with two pieces of silver.

Back at the Lily, he asked Lisa to tell her favorite customers that Gilbert was trying to force them out by spreading lies and making threats. He wanted the Magistrate suspicious of accusations leveled against him later.

The morning of the next payoff, Shed told Lisa, "I'll be gone all day. Anybody comes looking for me, tell them to come back after supper."

"The man I followed?"

"Him especially."

At first Shed just roamed, killing time. His nerve worsened with time. Something would go wrong. Gilbert would come back rough. . . . But he wouldn't dare, would he? That would tarnish his reputation. Shed's rumors had him on the defensive now. People would make their loans elsewhere if he pressed.

Shed found himself a woman. She cost too much, but she made him forget. For a while. He returned to the Lily at sunset. "He came by?" he asked Lisa.

"Be back, too. He looked put out. I don't think he's going to be nice, Mr. Shed."

"That's the way it goes. I'll be out back working on the woodpile." Shed glanced at a customer he'd never before seen. The man nodded, departed through the front door.

Shed chopped wood by lanternlight. Now and again he searched the shadows, saw nothing. He prayed nothing would go wrong.

The extortionist stormed out the kitchen doorway. "You trying to duck me, Shed? You know what happens if you mess with me?"

"Duck you? What do you mean? I'm right here."

"You weren't this afternoon. Now that girl of yours gives me a hard way to go, trying to steer me away. I like to had to pound her before she'd tell me where you were."

Very creative. Shed wondered how much Lisa suspected. "Save the dramatics. You want your money. I want your ugly face away from my place. Let's get on with it."

The extortionist looked puzzled. "You talking tough? They told me you were the biggest coward in the Buskin."

"Who told you? You working for somebody? This not a freelance play?" The man's eyes narrowed as he realized his mistake.

Shed produced a handful of copper. He counted, counted, counted again, put a few coins away. "Hold out your hands."

The extortionist extended cupped hands.

Shed had not expected it to be this easy. He dumped the coins, grabbed the man's wrists.

"Hey! What the hell?"

A hand clamped over the man's mouth. A face appeared over his shoulder, mouth stretched in a grimace of effort. The extortionist rose to his toes, arching backward. His eyes widened in fear and pain, then rolled up. He slumped forward.

"All right. Perfect. Get out of here," Shed said.

Hastening footsteps faded quickly.

Shed dragged the body into shadow, quickly covered it with wood scraps, then dropped to hands and knees and began collecting coins. He found all but two.

"What are you doing, Mr. Shed?"

He jumped. "What're you doing?"

"I came to see if you were all right."

"I'm fine. We had an argument. He knocked some coins out of my hand. I can't find them all."

"Need help?"

"Mind the counter, girl. Or they'll steal us blind."

"Oh. Sure." She ducked back inside.

Shed gave it up a few minutes later. He would search again tomorrow.

He got antsy waiting for closing time. Lisa was too curious. He was afraid she would look for the missing coins and find the body. He did not want her disappearance on his conscience, too.

Two minutes after he closed, he was out his back door and heading for his wagon and team.

The tall being was back on duty. He paid Shed thirty pieces of silver. As he was maneuvering to leave, though, the thing demanded, "Why do you come so seldom?"

"I'm not as skilled as my partner."

"What has become of him? We have missed him."

"He's out of town."

Shed could have sworn he heard the thing chuckle as he went out the gate.