SheIsTheDarkness

96

“It ain’t my fucking idea,” I told Rudy. For the third time. “You don’t like it, go join Goblin and One-Eye. Wherever they are.”

“I just never thought we’d really do it.”

“Nobody but the Old Man did. Me included. But he says we’re going, we’re going. That’s the way it works.”

“Never said I wouldn’t go,” Rudy grumbled, more to himself than to me. He went off to scream at his sergeants. He would need to decide who to leave in charge while we were gone.

I was working on that myself. I had sought recommendations as soon as I got back from the Old Man’s place. We would learn a lot about our southern recruits. The Old Man wanted to leave no Old Crew or Nar behind.

Ochiba, Isi and Sindawe were the only surviving Nar.

Bucket came by. In practical terms, he was my assistant. He did most of the work. I did not interfere unless he got headed in a direction I knew would get the Captain after me. He said, “You really squeezed Rudy’s nuts.”

“The man is driving me bugfuck. What do you want?” More than Rudy was making me cranky. Sleepy was getting worse.. Thai Dei was being a pain in the ass because I had not bothered to visit Uncle Doj while we were across the valley.

“Hey, Murgen, it’s all right to be scared. But you don’t need to make everybody else miserable because you are.”

I started to bark but realized that would not change the fact that he was right. I grabbed up a stone and threw it as far as I could, as if the fear would fly away with it. The rock clattered around amongst some boulders. Half a dozen crows flapped into the air, cursing in their native tongue. “Shit.”

“Not a good sign,” Bucket agreed. “We haven’t seen any of those for a while. Want we should take them out?”

“They weren’t close enough to hear anything. But have somebody check the area.” I considered the sun. There were a few hours of daylight left. I had time to start the recon that needed doing before we took a bigger gang up the mountain.

Bucket sent men to the crow site. One held up what might have been a ground squirrel when it was alive. He held his nose with his free hand. Bucket told me, “Maybe they weren’t spying at all.”

“All things are possible,” I said. “But some are more likely than others. Thai Dei. I know you got some pretty determined ideas about what you owe me but you really don’t need to take risks just because I do.”

The Nyueng Bao squatted not far away, sword sheathed across his back, waiting, a ragged little man who did not look dangerous at all. He looked me in the eye, grunted his go-ahead-and-explain grunt.

“I’m going through the Shadowgate. Wait! It’s all right. I’ve got the key. The Lance. As long as I’ve got that I should be all right.” If Croaker really had guessed correctly.

I would have felt more confident had I had a chance to study those earliest Annals.

Thai Dei climbed to his feet wearily, like his knees hurt him. He sighed, made a “let’s go” gesture.

“Look,” I said, “you don’t have to.”

He gestured again.

I would get nowhere arguing. Thai Dei was two steps beyond being stubborn. All Nyueng Bao are at least one step beyond. My wife . . .

I grabbed the shaft of the standard, started kicking rocks away from its base. It had stood undisturbed, right there, for half a year, becoming a fixture nobody much noticed anymore.

“Wait,” Bucket said. “Use your noggin, Murgen. You can’t just tighten your jaw and go charging up there. Take some bamboo. Take a canteen. Take a loaf of bread and some jerky. And let me set some guys up to cover your ass.”

“All right. You’re right.” This business had me more rattled and scared than I realized.

I let Bucket take over. He did not have to go through the Shadowgate so he could remain calm and rational.

The Standardbearer is always the first guy into any Company scrape.

I was as far uphill as any of us had gone. The standard shivered in my hands. I leaned on it and stared at the ruins, trying to pick the path I wanted to follow. Bucket stood a few paces behind me, relaying instructions to Rudy. Rudy was posting observers. I did not want to be out of sight for an instant, ever. If the boogies got me the rest needed to know how, when, why and where.

“Anytime you’re ready,” I growled. I had a feeling I was not going to get less frightened for a while.

“You’re set,” Bucket yelled. “Tie a rope to your ass and go be a hero.”

Be a hero. Not something I ever wanted. I gave him the high sign with both hands, grabbed the standard before it could topple. “See you in hell, mudsucker.” I headed up the hill.

Thai Dei shouldered a bundle of bamboo and followed. He did a better job of hiding his fear but he let them tie a rope to his belt, too. In case he had to be hauled back through the gate.

The standard almost hummed in my hands.

I knew the precise instant when I crossed over. It felt like I had fallen into a cold pond that was nothing but surface. The chill ran over me, then was behind me, yet I was in a place where it was cold all the time. You might be able to fry eggs on the rocks but it was cold.

I took only a few steps. I paused. I waited. Minutes passed. The cold did not go away. I stared up the slope. And, gradually, the road became more clear, a thin black line like polished coal meandering up the hill like the trail of a snake just barely not drunk enough to wander off into the barren wilds. I waited some more. Nothing jumped out at me. No shadows came to wriggle up my legs.

The standard seemed very much at home. It seemed to pull me uphill.

“You all got a good fix on me?” I yelled at Bucket.

“Got ahold of the rope, too, buddy.” Bucket’s reply and laugh sounded like they had come to me through a long metal tunnel.

“I got a rope for you, Bucket.” I took another three steps. Thai Dei dragged after me. The man lacked enthusiasm.

Nothing happened. I took a few more steps. The road up the hill gleamed like polished darkness, calling me onward. The fear began to drain away. Fast.

Thai Dei said something but I did not catch it.

The rope tautening stopped me.

I had moved farther uphill without realizing it. I had reached the end of my tether. Bucket gave me a tug. “Far enough for now, Murgen.”

Yeah. I was way past where I had intended to go. But there was nothing to be afraid of Bucket gave me another tug, with greater vigor.

I backed downhill reluctantly. Thai Dei said something again. I looked back. Then I understood what he wanted.

He pointed northward.

The world looked kind of shimmery, as though we were seeing it through a curtain of heat.

“Let’s go, Murgen!” Bucket yelled. “We want you back and the gateway sealed up before it gets dark.” He gave my tether another yank.

The man was getting nervous.

Still reluctant, I stepped across the boundary. This time was like stepping into summer out of winter.

Thai Dei sighed. He was pleased. The hill held no attraction for him.

My world had changed. Just the slightest. I could still see the penstroke of polished darkness meandering down what once had been a road. Dirt and fallen stone concealed most of it but adequate evidence remained if one but had the eye.

I felt I was a different man after having crossed that line.

“You all right?” Rudy asked. “You look strange.”

“It’s strange over there. The same but different.”

“Huh?”

“I can’t explain. That’s the way it feels. You’ll understand once you go up there.”

Bucket joined us, wrapping rope into a coil. “You all right? You look like you saw a ghost.”

“It’s just weird over there.”

“Weird? How? You didn’t do anything that strange. Except kind of forget yourself. And your sidekick didn’t do that. He just stood there and shivered.”

“That’s part of it. It feels cold. Only not physically cold. More like the cold Blade would claim you’ll find in a priest’s heart.”

I must have looked puzzled. Bucket said, “You’re telling me you had to be there to understand.”

I told Thai Dei, “The man acts as dumb as a stump but he’ll fool you sometimes. You got it exactly, Bucket. Get some fresh dust up here. And make sure those ropes are all taut and the shadowtraps are all set. I want a full complement of—”

“Calm down,” Rudy told me. “You set it all up before. Remember?” Soldiers were at work making sure of our protection already. My fuss was a waste of worry.

“Tell you straight up, that was scary. It’s gonna take me a while to wind down. You got a messenger ready to go? I’ll jot a report for the Old Man. Then I’m going to crawl into my bunker and get intimately acquainted with my last jug of One-Eye’s medicine.” I had one jug of the little wizard’s most potent distillate squirreled away for use in a medical emergency.

This seemed like an emergency to me.

97

One-Eye’s elixir did not kill the fear, it only pushed it away briefly.

The fear was amazing. It was not the sort that paralyzes, nor was it strong enough to impair my thinking, but it was there all the time, unfocused, not growing numb the way an ongoing battlefield fear will eventually if nobody pops up to wale away at you with a piece of nicked up iron. I did not like it. It abraded my temper.

I glared at Sleepy. “You ever going to be good for anything but turning food into shit?”

Sleepy just sat there in the gathering darkness, on what used to be Mother Gota’s pallet, staring into infinity. Not only was he not coming back from whatever fairy kingdom had captured his mind, he could hardly move anymore. He did very little of anything. When he did it seemed to hurt him a great deal. If he kept on without exercising he was going to have to hope one of his Company brothers liked him enough to carry him.

I liked him better than anybody but Bucket, but I did not like him that much. See you when we get back, little guy.

We are not a march-or-die outfit. Not quite. We try to take care of our own. But there is an underlying assumption that our own will try to manage for themselves first. There are plenty of precedents for ending the misery of a brother who becomes too great a burden or risk to the rest of the Company.

Sleepy did not respond. He never did. I rolled onto my pallet. I tried not to think about having to go up the mountain again tomorrow. The heebie-jeebies got worse if I did.

I felt Soulcatcher somewhere nearby. The darkness was total, though. I could not find her. Maybe it was my good fortune that she was not interested in finding me. Though she did not seem interested in anything at the moment.

I was ghostwalking. I knew it. But in total darkness there were no landmarks. I could not find my way anywhere.

I drifted.

Only gradually did I become aware that I was not alone.

Somebody was watching me. Or something was.

The scrutiny of that other intensified as I became more aware of it. The darkness around me remained total but in some other way I began to fathom it.

Red eyes, yellow fangs, skin so much blacker than the darkness that it seemed to gleam negatively . . . Kina. Destroyer. Queen of Deception. Mother . . . Not exactly evil incarnate—the Shadowlanders insist that one of her avatars is creative—but for goddamn sure she was a power big enough to scare the shit out of me if she took an interest.

She had. Her crimson eyes bored a hole right through my ghostly soul. Her great ugly face shriveled in upon itself like a skinned apple drying out, then in upon itself some more, till there was nothing left but a ruby point. That point began to move. At the same time I had a growing feeling that someone was trying to warn me about something.

Kina? Trying to communicate? With me? But she had her own agents in the world.

Or did she?

Narayan Singh was a prisoner. The Daughter of Night was a prisoner, or maybe dead. There had been no sign of her lately. And Lady had declared her independence long ago. Now she was just a mystic parasite.

Maybe I was the only one out there in the world that the goddess could touch.

I followed the red dot. It led me to the plain of old bones. I spread my wings and braked, settled onto a branch in a leafless tree. Incompletely decomposed corpses lay strewn amongst the bones this time. I took wing again and glided close above them. Scarab beetles scattered, frightened by my shadow. Never before had I seen anything but a few crows out there.

A tower of darkness loomed on the horizon, a tall black thunderstorm filled with muttering blood-colored lightnings. I flapped heavy wings, headed that way. It seemed like the right thing to do.

For a moment the cloud revealed an evil vampire face and lots of arms. Those reached out to welcome me.

After a moment of disorientation I was gliding above a land where only a few sparks of light marked human habitation. I tilted my head. I had very good eyes—even in the dark. But I did not recognize where I was until I dropped low enough to make out Overlook’s battlements masking the stars south of me.

I could not have been more than a hundred feet off the unseen ground when the earth began to boil and spawn a thousand minnows of light. The air slammed against me, flipped me over on my back. Then came the roar.

I was really there. I was no imaginary crow. I was the white beast itself.

I righted myself just in time to see a spray of fireballs headed my way. I dodged them.

I was back in the middle of last night.

I got down low where rocks and whatnot would protect me from the growing storm of fireballs. I did not forget what they could do to stone if they were the new jumped-up variety. And I had several opportunities to see what they could do, up close, like I was some poor sucker on the wrong side of the Company. Every time I found a nice perch, zow! Crackling bacon.

The people I saw were all running with tremendous enthusiasm. Most were not fast enough or had gotten too late a start. Some never got up out of the underground at all. Smothering earth did the job on them.

The movement of colorfully glittering steel caught my eye.

Somebody was headed the wrong way.

Uncle Doj had run toward the disaster as soon as it started happening. The old boy had made good time if what I saw was him. Maybe he was more spry than he pretended. I flapped upward, glided toward the reflections off Ash Wand.

A crow is damned ungainly when he is first getting himself airborne.

It was Uncle. And he was not eager to enjoy my company. Ash Wand snapped like a lightning stroke. Doj had more reach than I recalled from our drills. He almost got me. The crow’s reflexes saved me. It dodged before the thought even occurred to me.

I got behind him, let the fires show where he was, stayed out of reach. When he found a place from which to watch and knelt there, I found myself a modestly prominent stone and perched, cursing the human plague that had devoured all the trees and other high places hereabouts. I watched the watcher.

Uncle was there just long enough to catch his breath and demonstrate his own fantastic reflexes by dodging a few fireballs before the earth opened and a pillar of dark green light emerged. Fireballs slid off it. Its color was so deep I doubted anyone much farther away could see it. It moved straight toward me. Which meant it would pass right by Uncle Doj.

Once it left the pit the green shielding melted away. The creature within emerged. Lucky me, I was a bird. Lucky Uncle, he was old. Else both of us would have drowned in our own drool. This was one gorgeous woman and she was not wearing a stitch.

Soulcatcher.

Even in a birdly state I did appreciate how long it had been since I had seen my wife.

Catcher began to shimmer, not putting on another shield but taking another face. The effort distracted her from her surroundings. She did not spot Uncle Doj, who had become one with the night as deftly as a Deceiver. I recognized form and face just as Uncle, from behind Catcher, brought Ash Wand whining down in a stroke that should have sliced her to her breastbone.

She was fast. She tried to dodge and throw up some sort of sorcerous defense. The air groaned. She cried out and plunged forward, not killed but certainly cut badly. Uncle jumped in to finish her off. Ash Wand flashed. Blood flew. Catcher bounced around. So did Uncle. Chance interceded. A bamboo pole in the holocaust began popping off. Two fireballs clipped Uncle good. Catcher bounced him around some while he was distracted but did not have the strength to finish him. Anyway, people were responding to the noise, though it would be hours before Doj was found.

Catcher dragged herself away, used her enfeebled power to control her bleeding and change her shape. By the time she reached her hidden clothing she had become Sleepy. Which explained why Sleepy was so useless. As long as he passed for insane he was less likely to endure a scrutiny close enough to reveal the fact that he was not my prodigal assistant.

I was angry in a major way. Where was the real kid?

I flapped down and landed on Uncle’s chest. He was drowning in his own blood. I pecked and pulled and forced him to turn his head to the side. Then I went after Soulcatcher.

She had disappeared.

I did not find a trace. But I knew where she was headed. Sleepy would be inside my bunker, never having been missed, when I got up in the morning thinking I had suffered through a sleepless night.

Now I knew what had happened to Smoke, too. That twitch of cheek I had glimpsed on Sleepy had been Catcher realizing she could be found out if anybody took Smoke cruising along her backtrail.

I knew her secret now, anyway, though. Maybe Kina was a more powerful enemy than Catcher suspected. The goddess might even have a sense of irony, using a crow to stalk the mistress of crows.

I settled onto the roof of my bunker. Beneath me Thai Dei snorted and snored as badly as he had the night we decimated One-Eye’s trove. Someone else down there was making a racket, too. Since Sleepy was out I figured it had to be me, which meant Sahra was right when she accused me of roaring like a starving bear.

I never believed her before.

Hard to believe we had gone to sleep after watching all the excitement across the way. Catcher must have sent a spell ahead or left a doozie behind.

I had a feeling I would not be comfortable looking at myself from outside so overcame the temptation to flap down and peek through the doorway.

Sleepy came out of the darkness.

For somebody who had been mauled and cut up Soulcatcher could move like a gazelle. No healthy, normal human could run that well. Maybe a little sorcery?

I had wondered how I would get out of the white crow. Catcher’s swift approach was the key. The crow took off. I stayed behind. I floated and watched. And as Catcher slowed and had to begin to acknowledge her wounds I floated up and away and in a direction that could only be described as tomorrow. Catcher did not sense my presence even though it was she who had made it easy for me to slip the moorings of my flesh. Then it was the night I had left. And everybody, including me, was snoring away inside the bunker. And I was still free to wander the ghostworld.

98

Sahra was sleeping restlessly. Tobo lay beside her, one little paw on her bare breast, occasionally sucking at her nipple. I watched for a while. My tension slipped away as I did.

What kind of lunatic was I? This was what I wanted and where I wanted to be but in a few hours I was going to hoist my weary body up and climb the mountain again. And I would keep climbing the mountain even though it might kill me.

Why?

I would. I knew I would. But I did not know what compelled me to do so.

I extended a ghostly hand to Tobo. For a moment it seemed I actually felt his warmth. He stirred as though having a bad dream. I withdrew, tried to stroke Sarie’s hair instead.

She smiled.

“Mur. I thought I felt you. It’s been so long.” She chattered softly. I basked in it, wishing I could talk to her, too. She peeled Tobo off her breast and stood up, bare to the waist, doing a little dance that reminded me just how long it had been. She was recovering her figure already. She flashed me a mocking smile, looking right at me. Maybe she was a witch. “Tobo is strong enough to travel. The Water Dragon Festival is coming soon. I will leave then, in the confusion. My preparations are all made.”

My wife, the smart, confident, competent woman. I wondered what I had done to deserve so much, other than to tickle her grandmother’s fancy.

Sarie danced. I drooled. Tobo began to fuss. I think he sensed my presence easier than Sarie did. I frightened him.

“If you were here . . . ” Sarie sighed, stared me in the invisible eye as she offered me an even more lascivious look. “But you aren’t.” She shrugged. “But it won’t be that long.” She cradled our son in her arms. He took a nipple immediately, donning a look of smug satisfaction.

I know what you mean, kid.

Tobo’s eyes popped open. The one I could see stared right at me where I watched over Sarie’s shoulder. He let go, took a deep breath, let out a whopper of a howl. The kid had lungs.

A priest invited himself in almost instantly. “What’s going on?” he demanded. “Why is the child screaming? Who were you whispering to?”

“Get out,” Sahra told him. “You have no right to come in here.”

The priest had trouble dragging his gaze away from her breasts. He began to apologize with not entirely credible sincerity.

Sahra snapped, “The baby has gas tonight. He’s having trouble with his digestion. I talk to him. That allows me a chance to have a sensible conversation occasionally.”

That’s the girl. Get the poor kid dosed with shark’s-liver oil or some nasty-tasting powder. That will teach him to yell when his old man comes around.

I drifted in and did my best to plant a kiss on the small of Sarie’s neck before I left. I went away as happy as a man could be in my circumstances. I knew my wife and child were well and still loved me. There are plenty of men in today’s Company who do not have a clue about their families although, in truth, not many care. Were they the sort who did care they would have left when the Taglian loyalists were allowed to go home.

The rest of the swamp was a silent, dark place. Which was to be expected at that time of night. I found my way to Taglios though there was no moon and the sky was overcast.

It would not be long before the rainy season began.

I spent hours roaming the Palace and the more important temples but learned very little. Without Smoke I was constrained by real time and it was too late for anybody but the priests of the Night Gods to be stirring and scheming. And those people were not plotting, they were preparing for some minor feast night.

Maybe, if I planned to do much useful ghostwalking, I would have to get to bed early in the evening, while the world was still awake and conspiring. I found no news anywhere unless you count the overwhelming evidence that persecution of friends of the Company had spread throughout most of the territories our efforts had brought under Taglian suzerainty. It did not seem a persecution as vicious as had been ours of the Stranglers. Our friends were surviving it. Mostly they were just losing their appointments. In a few cases where there were personality conflicts some people ended up inside cells. Murder did not appear to be a tool the Radisha cared to employ.

All my assumptions were based on spare, postmidnight evidence.

I could not find Mogaba. I could not find either of our prodigal wizards. No surprise. I did not invest much effort in the hunt. I did put some into trying to locale Croaker’s kid.

Wherever she was she would be alone. There might be an opportunity in that.

While I searched I also kept an eye out for some evidence of what had become of the real Sleepy.

I had no luck with those quests, either. But I did stumble on evidence that my blindness might not be entirely accidental.

I was drifting over a slope I knew to be in the mountains not many miles from Catcher’s former cave. I was sure Catcher would not have gone far when she moved, despite having Howler’s carpet at her disposal. I wandered into an area of small, deep and dark canyons. I flitted up and down those, letting their walls guide me, figuring the kid, or anyone else, would be detectable by the heat or light of a fire. I doubted she could do without.

I found no fire. I did find my horse. I think. I whipped past the beast, catching only a glimpse, an impression that it was confined inescapably, another that it sensed my passage and tried to respond. But when I stopped and turned back I could find nothing. In fact, it seemed that in just a moment that entire corner of the world became a sensory desert.

I had run with Kina once already this trip. I might not be alone now, especially if I was anywhere near the Daughter of Night.

I knew the general area. I would tell Croaker. He could send soldiers out if he wanted.

Catcher would not be getting in our way.

My last action was to check on Uncle Doj where the Nyueng Bao bodyguards were keeping vigil. He was unconscious but alive. I gathered that they were keeping him drugged for his own good, giving him time to heal. Whatever his mission, he did not need to complete it immediately.

I went home to my comfortable flesh and uncomfortable bed.

The guys let me sleep in like it was a holiday. The sun was already up when I crawled out of my bunker, past the vacant eyed Sleepy doppelganger sprawled beside the doorway.

99

Croaker arrived soon after I finished my breakfast mush. He had not slept in. “You went in yesterday? How was it?”

“Just a few yards. Thai Dei, too. He insisted. We had ropes tied to our butts. Sit down here and check out the view across the way.” I had my back to Sleepy. I did not want my lips read. I made gestures like I was talking about something else while I whispered my news.

Croaker chuckled. “Now isn’t that interesting. We’ll just play along for now. I won’t even tell Lady. Though I got to tell you, everybody but you already suspected.”

“Shit. That’s why you were such a bunch of assholes. You didn’t trust me not to give it away. What’s the plan for today?”

“Try the road all the way to the top. I’ll go with you. Save the talk till we get on the other side.”

“Good idea.” I let everything wait till later. “You eaten?”

He glanced at my battered tin bowl. “You live like kings over here, don’t you?”

“Absolutely. Only the best for the cream of the legion.”

“I’ll pass. This time.” He looked up the mountain and sighed. “One-Eye had the right idea. I’m too old for this shit.”

“It’s not that bad.” It was not. When I call the slope a mountain I mean it metaphorically. The road could be made usable by wagons with very little work and the rim of the plateau could not have been more than a thousand feet higher than the Shadowgate. And probably not that far.

“Let me know when you’re ready.” The Old Man massaged his right knee. He noticed me noticing. “Little rheumatiz. But it only hurts when I walk on it.”

Buy a horse, I thought but did not say. “How old are you really?”

“You’re as young as you think you are,” he replied, his expression branding that one a load of old manure. “Lady keeps me young.”

I wondered if there might not be a touch of truth in that one. She did a great job of keeping herself slim, sleek and fresh.

“Grab the standard and let’s go.”

“You want to take a couple guys along? Just in case?”

“Your guy will follow us. Want him or not. Grab a couple others. Rudy and Bucket will do.”

“You going to ride?” He had ridden over on his big stallion. “I always figured you’d go whole hog when you went up there. The full Widowmaker rig and whatnot.”

“Next time. Let’s go.” He was nervous.

I hollered for Rudy and Bucket. They showed up quickly, like maybe they had been lurking nearby, expecting a summons. Their Nyueng Bao shadows drifted along behind them. The whole bunch were ready to travel.

I said, “Looks like it’ll be me holding up the parade.” I was pleased the guys had shown some initiative.

I crawled back into my bunker, noting as I went that Thai Dei too was ready to climb the mountain.

I needed only a moment to collect some jerky, roasted oats and a canteen. On my way out I told Sleepy, “Don’t go away, pal. I’ll be back in time for supper.” Gods and devils of the earth willing.

I grabbed the standard. We crossed over the boundary a man at a time. The vibration seemed less dramatic this time. Thai Dei too seemed less touched. But the others turned pale and became very jumpy. The chill was no less strong. I shivered.

In a moment the road was clear before me, the polished jet thread wandering up the slope. “You see the way?” I lowered the head of the standard till the iron head touched that thread. I do not know why I did that.

A vibration went through me that was a dozen times stronger than that coming through the Shadowgate. I gasped. I shuddered. Maybe I sputtered and foamed at the mouth.

“What’s wrong with you?” Croaker demanded.

I pushed the standard into his hand. “You just do what I did.” I stepped away. Looking up the slope I realized I was seeing it in a different way. I saw the same old dirty, barren slope with its glistening black thread but also saw a ghost of what it must have been like in an age long gone, when the road was new and the slope, while nearly as barren, had not had such a godsforsaken look.

Human ghosts moved there, too, though they were even more insubstantial than the road and slope and unfallen fortifications around us.

Croaker reacted exactly the way I had. But he must have had a clue or two more. As soon as he regained control he passed the standard to Bucket and told him to repeat the process.

The standard passed from Bucket to Rudy and from Rudy to Thai Dei. Thai Dei thought about it for more than a minute before he went ahead. He did so only when the Old Man told him, “You don’t follow through, you don’t go up the hill.” Thai Dei did not want to do that either but had no choice. He was trapped by his own character as well as, I suspected, the task Uncle Doj had laid upon him.

Once Thai Dei made his move the other Nyueng Bao followed. Croaker told them, “It doesn’t mean you’re committed to the Company, boys.”

A moment later I observed, “Now that we’ve got that out of the way what say we climb the mountain?” Good Standardbearer me, I took up the Lance and started trudging.

It felt good to be headed home.

What?

I looked at the others. Nobody appeared to be having trouble keeping touch with reality. Maybe it was another aspect of the dreaming and falling into nightmares.

Thai Dei hung close to my back. He was not comfortable at all this morning. He had his sword out and ready.

The black ribbon widened as it climbed the slope. It also seemed to take on depth. Its surface, though flat, assumed an appearance of concavity. If you touched it, it felt hard and cold yet seemed almost soft underfoot.

The slope steepened a bit. I huffed and puffed. Then the going became easier, the road less timeworn. The horizon line stopped retreating as fast as I chased it.

“Stop!” Croaker yelled.

I stopped. I looked back. The Old Man was a hundred yards behind me. Even Thai Dei was having trouble keeping up.

I looked across the valley. Already I was high enough to look down on all Overlook but the broken tooth that used to be Longshadow’s crystal-capped tower. Men were at work inside the fortress, scurrying little dots. They were Lady’s guys, many having been with her since the Company’s big disaster outside Dejagore. I guess the Captain finally had something in mind for the old stone shack.

Croaker was puffing badly when he caught up. “Man, I’m really out of shape.”

“You’re the one wants to take this walk. It’ll suck that belly right off you.” He was not fat. Yet. But he had not been missing any meals lately. “You see the road clearly?” Just to make sure I was not suffering some vision with my eyes open. I am no longer ever quite sure of my place in reality, never unsuspicious that there might not be an objective reality at all. Everything could be dreams inside of dreams, the illusions of souls rolling forever in a Swegah where now and then a few collided and joined in an almost common fantasy.

You notice, nobody ever sees things exactly the same?

“The black path? I don’t remember reading anything about that in the Annals.”

“We never read anything by anybody who ever actually saw any of this. We’ve never read anything by anybody who was closer than two generations to this place. By then the Company had a different set of concerns.”

Croaker grunted.

To make sure we held this illusion in common I polled everybody. Even the Nyueng Bao agreed we were following a ribbon of blackness. They did not like that. They were frightened by it but accepted it. The entire world, outside Man’s natural swamp realm, was a frightening place.

“Everybody got their breath? Let’s trudge on.” I really wanted to get to that plain. I tried to remember what it looked like at night, from up high and far away, but the view had been pretty obscure. I wondered why I never tried to go exploring. I wondered what Kina had to do with the plain. Could this be the plain where she fought the great battle of her legend? I wondered if we would find out why no Taglian would talk about the place, why, when it was mentioned, most walked off shaking their heads and muttering, “Glittering stone.” I wondered how that phrase could have found its way into a language as an idiom for “madness.” Especially inasmuch as we were now certain that the Taglian terror of the Company and the Year of the Skulls had been artificially induced.

There was not that much more to the slope but I was gasping for air, staring down at the dark guide a step in front of me and pushing for that just one more step when the footing suddenly stopped insisting that I keep climbing. I stumbled, got my balance, overcame an urge to run ahead, halted while the others caught up.

I examined the plain while I waited.

“Glittering stone” was apt. The jet path became a wide and perfectly preserved road here and curved gently off into a region of tall, square pillars, each of which glittered as though splattered with polished gold coins. To either side of the road the plain consisted of dark grey basaltic stone cut smooth, showing only the slightest evidence of aging. Nothing grew there. Nothing. Not even a lichen. Not a fly or an ant. The place was unnaturally clean. No dust, no dirt, no leaves.

The morning sun had set the pillars sparkling but clouds were moving in from the west. We would have an overcast sky soon. Maybe rain before the evening.

“Hold up, Murgen!” Croaker yelled. “Goddamnit, if you don’t stop charging off I’m going to nail your feet to the ground.”

I looked down. My feet were moving again. I stopped. I looked back. The others were a hundred yards behind again, right at the rim. Except for Thai Dei. My brother-in-law was an island in between, drawn by his obligation to me but held back by his reluctance to follow the black road.

“Get your ass back here!” Croaker bellowed. “The fuck you think this is? Some kind of race to the edge of the world?”

I went back. It was like walking against the wind. The vibration of the standard seemed to change, to become almost plaintive. When I got there I told him, “Captain, take this thing for a while. It’s going to carry me off.”

He felt it right away. But he was stronger than me, I guess. He planted the damned thing and stared ahead. “You bring something to write on?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Something to write with, too?” He was reminding me of a time when I had done everything right but remember to bring a pen.

“I’m all set, boss. Long as this wind don’t blow me away.”

“You still afraid?”

“Huh?”

“You said that before you were afraid all the time after you came back.”

I frowned. I felt no fear at all. Now. “Out there, I guess. I’m fine here.” I looked back at the world. From where we stood you could see only the mountains beyond the broad valley containing Overlook and the ruins of Kiaulune. Not only did there seem to be a heat shimmer between us and them, there was a haze, too. The world seemed very remote.

I mentioned that to Croaker.

“I don’t see it,” he said. “There’s always a haze over a forest in the summer. Unless it’s just rained.”

I shrugged. These days I was not as uncomfortable with the fact that I was different. I had suffered various incarnations of weirdness for too long. “You going up the road?” It stretched so invitingly before us.

“Not today. What’s that?”

“What?” I saw nothing but the standing stones. They seemed to be arranged in no special order, spaced well apart from one another.

“Past the stones.” He pointed. “Let your gaze follow the road. When you can’t make it out anymore just lift your eye to the top of the stones. You’ll see it. Your eyes are younger than mine.”

I saw something. Just a looming something.

“It looks like a fortress,” Thai Dei said. The Old Man and I had not been using a secret language. His companions both grunted assent. Rudy and Bucket just looked troubled.

“I’ll take your word for it,” I said. I recalled having seen what might have been a light out there during one of my ghost-walks. “Reckon that’s Khatovar?”

“I couldn’t say from here. But if it’s a fortress and that’s all it is then it stands a good chance of being a big-ass disappointment.”

Yeah. If you were counting skipping through the gates of paradise when you got to the end of the road. I did not know anybody who was. Unless it was him.

“How far would you guess that is, Thai Dei?” Croaker asked.

The Nyueng Boa shrugged. “Many miles. Perhaps a walk of days.”

Ugh. That gave me a chance to consider what it might mean to spend the night on the plain, inside the Shadowgate, in the land whence the Shadowmasters’ deadly pets had come.

The Old Man said, “This is enough for today. We’ll go back and set up the major probe.”

Thinking about shadows, I found, encouraged me to resist the call of the black road.

I paused on the brink, took one last look at the glittering pillars before I left the mountain.

It is immortality of a sort.

“What?”

“You say something?” Croaker asked. He was fifty feet ahead of me already.

“No. Just thinking out loud. I think.”

100

The Old Man did not sleep in. He and Lady, Otto and Hagop, Swan, Mather and Blade, the Nar, Clete, Longo and Loftus and all the rest of the Old Crew and their bodyguards, with some of Lady’s longtime followers, were on the road to the Shadowgate when I dragged myself out. It was still dark enough that Croaker’s outriders carried torches. “That son of a bitch really wants to get a head start.”

Thai Dei was awake already. He was boiling water to make breakfast mush. He looked downhill and grunted.

Big Bucket stumbled up, yawning, rubbing sleep out of his eyes with the back of one hand. “That the Old Man already?”

“Mudsucker’s eager, isn’t he? Everything set?”

“Completely. I’ll go drag Sparkle and Wheezer out of the sack.”

“Wheezer? What the hell is he doing up here?”

“Came up during the night. Took off early from over there because he didn’t figure he could keep up with the Old Man this morning. Didn’t want to get left behind.”

“The old boy’s got balls,” I said. Once again I had underestimated the man. With no direct evidence I had assumed he had passed on during the summer. I should have known better. He had been dying when he latched on seven years ago. Every day seemed like it had to be the one when he coughed up his last lung, but something kept him going. “Where’s Red Rudy?”

“Sent him to check the perimeter.”

“One more time, eh?” That damned perimeter had been checked and rechecked five hundred times since I had been in charge. It is a military kind of thinking, never trusting anything but the situation right this minute. Time is the implacable eater of all preparations.

“All hands standing by?” I asked.

“Said everything was set.” He looked into Thai Dei’s pot. “Looks tasty, my man.”

Thai Dei had no sense of humor and little ability to recognize sarcasm. He nodded. “A little salt, a little sugar. A handful of tuloc grubs or shredded monkey jerky would improve the flavor.”

“Twolock grubs?”

I would not have asked myself.

“You find them in rotten logs. In the swamp we fell trees so they will have a place to grow.”

I asked, “Are you nervous?”

Thai Dei gave me his hard look, like how on earth could I think he would be bothered by anything?

“You’re chattering like a flock of crows.”

Thai Dei grunted, recognizing the truth. He went back to being himself.

“Beetle grubs,” I grumbled. “Only the Nyueng Bao would think of farming them.”

“What’s wrong with grubs?” Bucket asked. “You fry them in butter, toss in a couple sliced mushrooms . . . It’s time to play the game.”

Croaker and Lady were climbing the slope now. I could see them clearly enough to tell that they were dressed in their Widowmaker and Lifetaker costumes with all the showoff spells alive and crawling. They rode the stallions from the stables of the Tower at Charm. Those giants’ hooves struck sparks every time they hit the ground. Their eyes shone red. Their nostrils puffed breath that seemed somehow more than just steam in the cool of the morning. Trumpets, cymbals and drums seemed appropriate but Lady and the Old Man never went in for that kind of thing. Those two, and every man behind them except the prisoners, carried a small arsenal of bamboo.

Howler was in a small wheeled wooden cage drawn by a brace of black goats. He and Lady must have reached an accommodation because no obvious control measures had been added to the bars. Although he was surrounded by a half-dozen soldiers who could bathe him in fireballs before he could get off any really ugly spell.

Longshadow endured similar confinement but he and Lady had not reached any agreement. His mouth had been sewn shut. His fingers had been sewn together. If he was going to cast any spells he would have to do so by wiggling his ears. But the nervous soldiers nearby would roast him before he could do much more than twitch.

The guys were rattled because he was in such a state. He kept tearing at the bars of his cage while trying to scream incoherently through his sealed lips.

Longshadow did not want to go up the mountain.

The Prahbrindrah Drah was being treated well. Willow Swan and Cordy Mather flanked him, doing their duties as Royal Guards, while Otto, Hagop, the engineer brothers and the Nyueng Bao bodyguards who tagged along after everybody formed a larger diamond around those three. Longinus and Loftus conversed with the Prince as though this venture was nothing remarkable.

I admired the Prahbrindrah Drah. He was a good man and a sound one. It was a pity we could not let him go home. After his years in the field he had the self-confidence and willpower to stand up to his sister and take up the reins of the state. He had learned enough and had developed the strength of character to resist the extortion efforts of the senior priests.

The panther that used to be a woman was in a cage that was more like a coffin. She could not stand up. At no time would she be able to use the full leverage of her powerful muscles. She could do little but lie there and be angry.

The Captain did not believe in taking chances. He had seen what the forvalaka could do ages ago.

All our enemies would share our adventure. And our fate unless they elected to warn us about something.

Rudy slipped down the slope to meet the Captain, alerted by Bucket’s remark about it being game time. I did not look back.

I knew he meant that Sleepy had come out of the bunker and was sprawled against the wall by the door again. Just the way we wanted.

Rudy would ask the Old Man to have his crowd make a racket coming into my shanty monarchy.

One of Bucket’s favorite Taglian lieutenants, stuck with the name Lhopal Pete to distinguish him from a sergeant everybody called Khusavir Pete (both “Petes“ deriving from the center syllable of an eleventeen-syllable Gunni godname), came to tell his leader he would need to bring up a lot more water if the men were going to take care of all the cleanup I wanted them to do while I explored beyond the Shadowgate. Bucket told him, “Wait till that bunch of aristocratic assholes gets on up here. We don’t want anybody to get trampled.”

“Yes, sir.” Lhopal Pete collected his work party and took them around behind my bunker where they would be out of the way till Croaker arrived and made enough noise to cover the bunch sneaking up on Sleepy.

I started spooning mush into my mouth. “You’re right, Thai Dei. Even grubs and bugs couldn’t hurt this stuff. Give me a bowl for Sleepy.”

I took it over myself. “Here you go, kid.”

Sleepy just stared. I moved the bowl up under his nose. “You better get well enough to feed yourself, kid. I’m in no mood to keep doing it for you.” I glanced back to see how close Croaker was. There was enough light now that torches were becoming superfluous.

In minutes he was close enough. The racket was loud enough. I dropped the wooden spoon into Sleepy’s lap, seized his wrists, clamped down. The guys came out from behind the bunker. One grabbed Sleepy’s hair and yanked his head back. Another shoved a wad of dirty rag into the kid’s mouth.

Soulcatcher fought. But the surprise was complete. She never had a chance. “All wrapped up,” I told the Old Man when he stopped his mount beside us.

“You use every piece of rope you had?”

Catcher did look like a victim of excessive enthusiasm.

“Don’t want to take any chances, boss. I wish you’d brought another one of those cages.”

“Now that would’ve been a dead giveaway, wouldn’t it? Even if I’d known what you planned.”

Lady stopped right behind Croaker. She had her Lifetaker helmet on. There was no way to tell what she was thinking. She never said a word, just stared at the sister who had caused her so much trouble for so long.

Catcher did not abandon the Sleepy form. She was not a natural shapeshifter so maybe changing was difficult to do. I did not count on that, though. She had a history of altering her appearance. I asked, “She have to stay this way as long as we’ve got her tied up?”

Lady did not respond. She just stared.

“I mean, I wouldn’t want her turning to jelly and oozing away when I wasn’t looking. I guess I could stuff her into a big jar. If I had a jar. If it had a lid that could be sealed.”

Croaker said, “I don’t think she can do anything as long as she’s gagged and her hands are tied.”

“Want we should cut off her fingers?”

“I think she’ll behave. For now. Won’t you?”

Catcher did not respond.

She was over her surprise. Already I could sense calculation and the beginnings of what might be amusement.

Bucket asked, “Any of you geniuses decide what to do with her now that you’ve caught her?”

I said something real intelligent like, “Huh?”

“Like Murgen said, you should of brung a cage. Or was you just going to let her walk?”

The Old Man’s mood blackened. “Make a litter. She always wanted to be treated like a queen. She can even have her own royal guards. Swan! Mather! You guys can carry the lady.”

“Aw, go fuck yourself,” Swan said.

Cordy said, “Take it easy, Willow.”

“What the fuck’s he gonna do, Cordy? Drag me off to Khatovar?”

Lady tugged her reins. Her mount turned till she was facing Swan and Mather. After a moment Swan said, “All right. All right.” Ten minutes later he was carrying the downhill end of a litter. He never stopped grumbling but he was far enough behind me that I did not have to listen. Hagop let Swan and Mather start rotating with others after a few miles.

I went through the Shadowgate first. Croaker followed. After a few dozen yards, he said, “Stop here. I want to experiment. Lower the Lancehead to the black path.” He dismounted as I did that. He took his silver Company badge off his cloak, held it to the Lance for a moment, then knelt and pressed it against the ribbon of black. His knees creaked. He grunted and strained.

I asked, “What’s that all about?”

“I’m not sure. Lady thought it couldn’t hurt.”

So the killer shadows could pick us out of the crowd? Or maybe the other way around. Lady’s instincts were sound. She had been around since before the original Company came down this mountain.

Croaker told me, “Stay here till everybody goes by. Have all our guys get their badges blessed. And don’t forget yourself.”

Lady dismounted, followed the Old Man’s example. Then she remounted and continued up the slope, following Croaker, single file.

Man by man and animal by animal the column filed past. I got puzzled looks from the Company guys and black looks from everybody else. I checked to see where the Old Man was. In Nyueng Bao I told Thai Dei, “If you want you could touch the Lancehead, then that spot on the ground. The others, too.”

He thought about that. “I wish Uncle was here to make a ruling.”

“What’s it gonna hurt? And it might be some kind of protection. You don’t have to count it as some big-ass commitment to Company fortunes.”

He thought some more, probably wondering if we were not sucking them in little by little, then he shouted at the other Nyueng Bao. He gathered them round, told them they had the option and that taking the blessing might offer a measure of protection once the sun went down.

Many of the Nyueng Bao did not like the idea.

Sparkle came past leading a string of overburdened but infinitely patient bullocks. “You going to bless the animals, too?” He was being sarcastic but I wondered if it might not be worthwhile. Shadows seldom bothered animals in the world outside if human prey was available. But we were not in that world anymore.

The Nyueng Bao argued heatedly but so softly I could not make out a word. Thai Dei eventually had enough. “You do as each of you wishes.” He stalked over, slapped his palm against the head of the Lance, dropped and slapped the black trail, got up and took his place beside me.

I expected the Old Man to start bellowing any second but he never bothered to look back.

Howler trundled past. When he reached for the Lance I lifted it. “Keep moving. Friends of the Company only.” I touched each of his black goats on the noggin with the Lancehead. Longshadow came along. The Shadowmaster seemed to be paralyzed. His eyes stared into infinity. I had seen that stare before, but only from guys who had suffered too much terror on the battlefield.

Fifty people may not sound like a big gang but when you add in all the animals and whatnot necessary to make a long journey it turns into a pretty good parade. Lady and the Old Man were almost to the top when Rudy and Bucket came up as the rearguard. Rudy asked, “You want we should kiss that thing, too?”

“If you think it’ll help.”

“I’ll give it a handjob if that’s what it takes to get me through the next three or four nights.”

“I’ll let you know. I got to get back up front.” By now all the Nyueng Bao had made their decisions one way or another and had dealt with the standard according to their choices.

I hurried through the routine myself, with Rudy’s help.

As he neared the top Croaker halted but not to give me a chance to catch up. Good old Murgen would get out front, where he could be the first one to get his head kicked in, only because the Captain had to wait for the troops to adjust to the road so the carts and wagons could make the climb. “ ’Scuse me. ’Scuse me there,” I said as I clambered past the engineer brothers. “Do a good job so you don’t have to do it again on the way back.”

A lot of people stood around watching. Construction was not what they did. They felt no urge to learn the trade at this late date. Swan told me, “Lugging this stretcher wasn’t such a bad idea after all.” Mather, though, was working. Cordy Mather was a good man. I wondered how much the Radisha missed him. I wondered if she spent much time trying to figure out why he had not come back.

I do not believe it was for the sake of the Prahbrindrah Drah.

None of my no never mind, though.

Catcher was awake and alert. She looked me in the eye. I think she would have smiled had she had the use of her mouth. I told her, “I want Sleepy back.” She did not respond. She just lay there and twinkled.

When I caught up with the Old Man and finished puffing I asked, “Did you send anyone to look around where I thought I saw my horse?”

“Sent a whole company. Left the same time we did.” He looked down the road. “What’s taking them so long?”

“All generals and no soldiers.” Lady, I noted, had turned her mount completely and was surveying the world from our new vantage point. Men were at work in Overlook already. Smoke rose from cookfires scattered everywhere. Most of the more westerly belonged to shadowlanders gradually creeping back into the farmland. The sky was overcast. I wondered if we would have rain.

“What’s that?” Croaker asked.

“What’s what?”

“Down there. On the road to your camp.”

“Your eyes are better . . . I see it. Little bit of dust.” Somebody, maybe several somebodies, was headed for my camp. They were too far off to make anything of them. They did seem to be in a hurry.

The carts began to roll. Clete and Longo and Loftus began congratulating themselves loudly. Goats bleated. Bullocks offered bovine complaints. Men cursed. The column began to creak forward.

“Lead on, Standardbearer,” Croaker said. “And don’t forget that those goats can’t run as fast as you can.” He put his helmet on. The spells on his armor came alive.

I started walking, standard raised. I knew it would get damned heavy before this was all over.

My pack was heavy already. I wiggled my shoulders, trying to get the straps settled more comfortably.

I stepped up onto the plain and set foot on the road. Ahead the standing stones sparkled even with the sun behind the clouds.

The ground shook just as Croaker and Lady came up behind me. I dropped to one knee but it was not a bad quake. In fact, it was barely perceptible. Embarrassed, I got up and started walking again. “First one of those in a while,” I told Thai Dei. “Took me by surprise.”

Lady and the Old Man did not seem troubled so I guessed I did not need to be.

101

It became a quiet journey once everybody got up onto the plain. We were all too nervous to talk. After a mile or so, though, Lady said, “Warn everyone not to leave the road. As long as we stay on it nothing can touch us.”

Croaker raised a hand to signal a halt. I dropped the butt of the Lance to the road surface. Damn, that thing got heavy fast. The Old Man sent Lady’s news back down the column. He did not question her. He did not distract her at all. Which might mean she was concentrating totally.

Soon after we resumed moving we reached a place where the road widened out into a big circle. A campground, I reasoned. Lady, in one of her rare remarks, confirmed my guess. Whoever created the plain understood its dangers.

It was almost noon when we came at last to a standing stone near enough the road to be examined. It was the same kind of rock as the plain’s surface off the road. The sparkle came from metal characters set into the stone. They were characters, that much was clear, but they were none I or anyone else could read.

It is immortality of a sort.

I jumped.

Lady said, “There is great power in this place.”

“No shit.”

The earth shivered again, no more strongly than the last time but sufficient to make everyone nervous. These tremors might be harbingers of something worse. Though, I noted, not one of the pillars had been toppled by the vicious quakes of recent years.

Croaker paid the stone little heed. He kept staring ahead. It was now clear that there was, indeed, some massive structure beyond the forest of stones. It had begun to look like it might be of Overlook’s magnitude.

The Old Man pushed hard all day, not sparing himself. He spelled me with the standard, setting its butt in his stirrup. Eventually he halted in one of the circles that occurred about each five miles. He stopped only because Lady insisted that it was time. He wanted to keep going. But the column was strung out for miles now and the animals needed rest and water worse than did the men.

I checked the clouds, wondered if there would be rain and if we could collect any of it. We had brought a lot of water but animals consume a lot and I had a feeling we would get thirsty a long time before we started getting hungry.

The Captain shed his helmet and the more cumbersome parts of his armor. He was less intrigued with his Widowmaker avatar than was Lady with hers. She bent the knee to comfort, too, though, divesting herself of her helmet, then shaking out her hair. Croaker stared into the distance. He asked, “You make anything of that place?”

“There is great power there.”

“There is great power there,” Croaker grumbled. “She’s starting to repeat herself.”

“That Kina’s hideout?” I asked. “Or Khatovar? Or both? Or neither?”

“I’ll tell you when we get there.”

“Let me hold that for you,” Rudy told me, offering to take the standard. He planted its butt and leaned on it.

“Where the hell were you the last fifty miles?”

“Fifty? You’re letting your imagination overload your asshole.”

“Felt like five hundred, lugging that thing.”

Rudy chuckled. “Bet you we didn’t do fifteen.” He was having fun. At my expense. “Thought you’d be in shape after all those trips over to suck up to the Old Man.”

“Rudy, I ain’t in the mood for it.” I wanted to keep an eye and ear on Lady and the Captain, who had moved away once Rudy intruded.

“Don’t let me get to you, son. I’m just thinking about what a wonderful night it’s going to be.” Behind us the Nyueng Boa had their heads together contemplating those possibilities. A lot of bamboo was in evidence. Sparkle had a team erecting a community cookfire that would be elevated above the surface of the plain. Lady had an idea the road would not like being burned. She had suggested, during the hike, that it might be alive in its own way.

I wished there was a way to look inside her mind. She had been focused completely since coming onto the plain. Her speculations would be interesting. And she was sharing them with the Old Man, now. And Rudy was keeping me away.

“Hold on there,” Croaker told Sparkle. “Go ahead and set it up. But don’t start a fire. We’ll eat cold if we can.”

Shit. We had not eaten well since we left Taglios but plain water and jerky were a step beyond bad.

“Rudy. You got work to do?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Let me see you doing it.” Croaker turned around, leaned close to Lady again, stared through the stands of pillars. I was willing to bet he was trying to face down his doubts. Right out there might be the culmination of many hellish years that had begun by what, I suspect sometimes, might have been the momentary whim of a man who had had no idea what to do next and who had big trouble changing his mind in public.

I began to prowl the perimeter of the camping circle. Wherever I looked the view was the same. With an overcast sky that was disorienting.

“Standardbearer? You all right?”

“Sindawe. I’m sorry. I guess I’m more distracted than I thought. I never noticed you coming.”

“The place has that effect, doesn’t it?” I got the impression he would have been ghostly pale had he been capable. “There’s something I thought you should see.”

“All right.” I followed him through the press of animals and men all trying to set up camp without pushing one another out of the circle or damaging the road.

“There,” Sindawe told me, indicating the road where it left the circle on the southern side, a fact I determined only because I could see parts of the huge structure down that way.

“A hole?” That was all I saw. A hole in the road, two inches across and a foot deep. Maybe more. The light was not good enough to betray its bottom.

“Yes. A hole. It may be a huge leap of faith, or just my imagination, but it strikes me that it would be a perfect place to set the standard.”

“Sure does.” Had I been past this point before? Had there been a hole? I could not recall. The opportunity to put the damned pole down for a while sure was attractive, though. And grew more so as I stared.

I dropped the butt of the standard into the hole. It went in a foot and a half. “That’s good,” I muttered. “Perfect place for it, too. Assuming the Old Man don’t have some notion of his own.” I stretched. I had not lugged the standard all day but I had carried it more than anybody else.

Sindawe grunted. He sounded nervous.

I felt it, too. Another earth tremor. “Hope it’s not building up to a big one.”

I looked down at the base of the Lance. The road had hold of it solidly. But when I put it in there, there had been half an inch to spare.

I tried to pull it out.

No go.

It was not vibrating anymore.

“Shit.”

Sindawe tried to pull it out. He stopped before he got a hernia.

“No problem,” I grouched. “If I have to, I’ll just cut it off. Tomorrow.”

I checked the Old Man and his woman. They still stood shoulder to shoulder, staring southward, now only exchanging the rare word or two. Even with their helmets off they looked pretty spooky.

Thai Dei materialized to tell me he had our camp set and food prepared. His expression was so bland I knew that he was angry. Here I was out gallivanting around, having a good time, while he was home working his fingers to the bone.

“I wish you’d grow tits and lose the sausage, we’re going to be married.”

Another feeble tremor stirred the stone beneath us. I murmured, “And the earth shakes when they walk.”

“What?” Thai Dei asked.

“Something from a story I heard when I was a kid. About ancient gods called titans. I was just thinking how far I’ve come since then.” And maybe we were giants.

102

I knew I was dreaming because there was a full moon and no clouds overhead. But there was some sort of haze between me and the world because the moon was just the center of a cloud of light drifting across the sky, never rising directly overhead the way it had in the land of my childhood. The ghostly, bluish light betrayed the restless shadows prowling the bounds of the circle, flowing over and around one another in hundreds. From a thousand miles away, it seemed, I heard Longshadow whimper without respite.

One large shadow pressed against the edge of the circle not far from where I watched. Something kept it from entering. It spread out upon that invisible surface. I remembered the time I touched a shadow while ghostwalking.

I began to find traces of the fear that had been missing since I climbed up onto the plain.

That one shadow seemed to be obsessed with me. I turned away and tried to forget it.

I looked up. Vaguely fishlike silhouettes moved back and forth against the diffuse moonlight. This must be the kind of view you would have if you were a crab on the bottom of the sea.

I do not know if it was a true dream. It felt that way. If it was, it would seem that shadows could rise above the surface.

The schooling shadows suddenly shot off as though impelled by a single will.

The moon was past its zenith. Maybe that was why.

Or maybe they were afraid of the creatures who appeared upon the black road, coming from the direction we were headed. They were the shape of men from the waist down and on their right sides. Their heads and left sides were masked by shawls that looked like they were made of polished brass fish scales. There were three of them. They felt like powerful ghosts.

My big shadow buddy did not run away with the others. I began to have some sense of it, as I had had with that other. It was terrified.

I caught one little flash of an instant in a place of torture, of pain beyond pain, while priests chanted.

I rose from my pallet. I went to stand beneath the standard, facing the ghosts. They let the shawls fall from their faces.

I do not know why. I thought, You motherfuckers are too ugly. Get the fuck off my road. And quit messing with my sleep. I had a feeling if they conformed to legend or whatnot they would be something like the Lady’s Ten Who Were Taken, demons or sorcerer kings who had been enslaved by some power greater and darker than they. Go on. Get out of here. You’re dead. Stay that way. I reached for the Lance, felt it come alive in my ghostly hand. Go on.

Three ugly beast masks inclined slightly toward the surface of the road. At least I think they were masks. I hope they were. Anybody that ugly for real should not have been allowed to climb out of the cradle.

They folded their hands before them. They began to withdraw. They did so without moving their feet.

Weird.

They flickered into nonexistence as they dwindled into the distance.

I stalked the perimeter of the circle. The shadows began to return. My pet matched my movements, always pressing against the barrier. I sensed a great hunger there.

I was surprised to find four roads leading out of the circle, matching the primary arms of the compass rose.

How come the east and west arms were not visible in the waking world?

The shapechanger’s roar reached into the ghostworld. Goats and bullocks protested. The men on watch, already scared shitless from watching shadows search for a break in the barrier, cursed all the beasts. Some went to beat the panther. Somebody yelled, “What the fuck is that?” and pointed toward the standard. The lack of light made it unclear. I drifted that way swiftly.

A white crow perched on the crosspiece, apparently sleeping. Which brought up a hundred questions immediately.

Was there another me up there watching from a time yet to come? Was the bird Kina’s creature? Or Soulcatcher’s? How had it gotten here, by night, from the world beyond the Shadowgate? I had seen huge shadows circling above . . . but I saw no such thing when I looked at the moon now. In fact, that untimely moon was no longer there. What I did see was a fingernail clipping of moon just beginning to rise.

103

Croaker was obnoxiously bright and cheerful next morning. Lady wore a secretive smile. They must have invented some kind of privacy for a few minutes. “Why’re you so grim?” Croaker demanded.

“Didn’t sleep for shit.”

“Nervous?” Half the guys were complaining about not having gotten any sleep.

“Ghostwalking.”

“Ah. And you saw something interesting or you wouldn’t be in a foul temper now.”

I talked about everything but the white crow. I underscored my belief that Catcher was in too good spirits for anybody in her situation. “She’s up to something.”

“She was born scheming,” Lady said. “She was manipulating people before she could talk. Don’t worry about it.”

“You eaten?” Croaker asked.

I nodded.

“Then let’s get them up and headed out.”

“Hang on while I provide you with one final taste of good cheer from my midnight walkabout. Those people we saw running toward my camp when we were climbing the hill yesterday? Guess who. You say anybody but Goblin, One-Eye and Gota, you’re wrong. I can’t go back in time to find out but I think it’s a safe bet they wanted to catch us before we came up here.”

Croaker lost his smile. “You overhear anything?”

“A lot of snoring. They were asleep. Goblin did mumble something but it wasn’t in any language I understand.”

“The road is open,” Lady observed. “You could go collect them.”

“Hardly practical,” Croaker said. “Even if one of us rode back the rest would have to stay here waiting. Half our supplies would get used just sitting.”

“We could all go back.”

Neither the Old Man nor I responded but nothing needed saying. She did not mean that, anyway. She was just listing options.

There was light enough to see the standing stones nearest us. The characters on them started to shine. They had not shone during the night. I wondered how they managed with so little light.

“I’m worried,” I told Croaker.

“So am I. But we have to make choices. You think we ought to cancel the expedition because the prodigals crawled out of their holes?” He asked Lady. “Do you?”

“No. They’ll be there when we get back.”

I hoped her confidence was justified. Us being gone was an opportunity for all sorts of mischief to happen back up the road.

“Let’s move them out,” Croaker said. “Grab your pole and hike, Standardbearer.”

When I went and tried lifting the standard it came up as though it never had been stuck.

That place up ahead never seemed to get any closer. I hate open country because of that. You can travel for days with the scenery never changing.

Croaker’s mood darkened with time. He grew more impatient to get on. In the afternoon, when he spelled me carrying the standard, he began to pull ahead. After a while I asked Lady, “You figure you better slow him down?”

“What?” She had not noticed, so deep was she into her own interior world.

“Him.” I pointed.

She urged her mount forward.

I kept trudging. Maybe I even slowed down a little. There was no drive to rush forward once the standard was out of hand. In fact, the world behind me grew more and more attractive as time passed, the sky darkened and the plain changed not at all. The only color anywhere was inside our party unless you counted the gold characters on the pillars.

Lady caught the Old Man. I did not overhear their exchange. I suspect she was a bit sharp. He looked back at me, now understanding how come I zoomed ahead before.

He kept watching till I caught up. “You want to take this thing back now?”

“I still haven’t got the kinks out from carrying it before. You just got to concentrate.”

He grunted. And the next circle we hit turned out to be our campground for the night.

Soon after we settled the men began going to the southern roadhead to study the fortress ahead. And fortress it surely was, partially fallen. Speculation centered on whether or not we would reach it the next day and whether the Old Man would turn back if we did not. There was no reason to be optimistic about that. This close to his goal the Old Man would push on and worry about hunger when the time came.

This time we lighted the communal fires, enjoyed a warm meal. We all needed the morale boost.

There would be fresh meat from now on because we could not feed and water animals doing no useful work.

It is a tough world for livestock.

I asked Thai Dei, “There anything in mythology anywhere that might tell us something about that place up ahead?”

“No. At least in no way we would recognize.”

“You sure? Your buddies seem real uncomfortable with it.”

“They are uncomfortable with everything, this plain in particular. They can see this is a place that should not be. That this is not natural.”

“No shit.”

“It would take an entire nation a thousand years to build something this vast. No monument so huge can be a good thing.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Only a very great evil could remain so single of purpose, so uncaring of cost, as to create something so ultimately useless. Consider the evil of the sorcerer Longshadow. He invested a generation in his fortress. It is nothing in comparison to this plain.”

He had a point.

I stepped over to the barrier and stared at the countless sparkling standing stones.

A swarm of sudden shadows flickered over our encampment. I jumped. So did everybody else. The flock of crows wheeled, crossed the sun again, flew on to the north. All but one.

The birds were strangely silent. Not one caw trailed behind them.

The straggler settled atop a column almost directly in line with the fortress ahead. He stalked around, stretched his wings, settled down to watch us.

Pthwan! A fireball streaked toward the crow. It missed. It had not come from a dedicated crow-killer.

I leapt, grabbed Wheezer’s shoulder, nearly spun him ass over appetite. But I did not get there in time to keep him from loosing another ball.

This one clipped the top of the pillar where the crow perched. It ricocheted slightly left and upward after taking a bite of stone, then caught the squawking, flapping bird squarely. Black feathers exploded.

The earth shook.

This was a big one. I went down. Most of the others did, too. Animals bleated and bellowed. Nyueng Bao yammered at one another. The plain seemed to shimmer and wobble around us.

Lady strode up, balance perfect, to all appearances completely unperturbed. But she kicked old Wheezer so hard he flipped over. “You idiot. You may have just killed us all.” She slammed her hands onto her hips, studied the injured pillar. She did not look like a woman who was convinced that she was about to die. Suddenly, she turned and shouted, “Get those animals under control! Whatever you do, don’t let them run out of the circle.”

A bullock became supper because he was determined to run for it. People took Lady’s orders literally.

The plain heaved one more time, then a stillness gathered. For several seconds there were no sounds and nothing moved.

“Look,” somebody said, murdering the silence.

Part of the distant fortress appeared to be sliding down. In time a remote rumble reached us, long after a cloud obscured the place.

Wheezer coughed. “Shit. Did I do that?”

104

Lady was all business. She snapped orders. Men scurried off in search of her shopping list of apparently unrelated items. I strolled around the perimeter while waiting to learn what she was doing. Other than the settling dust in the distance this site was identical to the last. When I got to the road leading south I found a place to set the standard waiting. I took advantage.

I went back to Lady and watched over her shoulder while she concocted a rusty-colored dust that swirled in a small, lazy witch-wind in front of her. She considered it for a moment, then sent it splashing against the invisible barrier protecting us from the plain. It behaved like a liquid then. It ran down the barrier, defining it clearly.

It also defined, as clearly as imminent death, the holes Wheezer’s fireballs had opened. And the sun was charging the horizon.

Wheezer garnered some black looks. His hacking got worse but nobody offered any sympathy.

Lady kept everybody too busy to turn ugly.

The flock of crows returned for a second pass, this time laughing all the way. They circled once, then fled northward for good.

Lady’s way of dealing with the deadly holes was not dramatic. She employed no great gaudy sorceries. She took Wheezer’s ragged leather jacket away from him, cut chunks out of it, wadded them up and plugged the holes. Then she used some minor spell to cement them there.

Even she did not seem sure that her fix was a good answer. She snagged Wheezer’s shoulder and dragged him to a particular spot facing the damaged barrier. “Right here. And don’t move. All night. If anything gets through your screams will warn the rest of us.” Bam! She slammed him down.

Not a good idea to get her mad at you.

As I moved back to where Thai Dei had settled I overheard murmured prayers from men who seldom behaved as though gods were anything but nuisances.

There is that about the Company. You see little evidence of religion. For most of us all spirituality resides in a blade. Uncle Doj was right about that. But his approach was just too damned mystical.

Maybe the Lance of Passion was once a tutelary but time has taken that away. Any information would be in the Annals hidden back in Taglios.

We are not really a godless bunch. We are just the sort who ignore the gods probably in the unconscious hope that the gods will not notice us.

Obviously, in Kina’s case, that was not working. It had not worked even before we knew she existed. Half the guys did not believe in Kina even now. That they did not, did not matter. Kina believed in us.

Fresh meat did improve morale dramatically. But darkness coming crushed it right down again. I did not face the night with any eagerness myself. I told Thai Dei, “I just realized something, brother.”

He grunted.

“Almost all the important events in my life happen at night. I was even born right about midnight.”

Thai Dei grunted again but this time looked at me with some curiosity and maybe a little surprise.

“What? That part of Hong Tray’s prophecy or something?”

“No. But it may say something about your ruling stars.”

Oh, boy. They let astrology guide them, too? How come I never heard of this before? “I’ve had a bad day. I’m going to turn in.” Maybe I would get a chance to see my Sarie tonight.

105

Stars. I saw some of those. After I fell asleep and went out of myself and passed through the same murky world as the previous night, I found myself right there in the circle on the plain, my personal shadow oozing around on the protective barrier while scores of its buddies tried to get through the holes Wheezer had blasted. The old fellow sat where Lady had parked him, staring and shaking.

The stars I saw hung above the loom of the crumbling fortress. They formed the constellation that had been the subject of some discussion with Mother Gota a while back. The complete constellation. I wondered why I had not noticed them the night before. I wondered why I noticed them tonight. The sky was supposed to be heavily overcast.

A lot of seeing and thinking seemed to be very selective lately. That probably deserved some reflection itself.

There seemed to be a glimmer of light down south. Or maybe it was just a star caught between crennels on a battlement. Whatever, it went away. And when I went to the southern roadhead, thinking of charging ahead, I found the way blocked not only by the ghosts I had seen previously but by vaguely perceived scores more hanging back behind them. They were much stronger this time. They would not go away when I commanded them. Not right away. They made gestures and probably tried to mouth words behind their ugly masks. I was confident they were trying to communicate. What was not clear.

A warning, perhaps.

I did not go down the southern road.

I toddled round the perimeter. The east and west roads were open. Daring me, I ran down each a short way. They remained real enough but I did not want them to fade away while I was out there. I went back to the gang, then headed north. I would go see what was happening in the world.

There was a lot of sleeping going on around Overlook. Even quite a few sentries were snoozing. I made mental notes where I recognized faces.

I found Goblin and One-Eye snoring in my own bunker below the Shadowgate. Gota was awake but had her eyes closed as she murmured over a prayer shawl vaguely resembling those some Gunni cults used. But she held hers folded in her lap and ran the tip of her fingers over it lightly, as though reading something by touch. She muttered continuously in Nyueng Bao but I could not follow her even when I got up close.

She jumped, looked around wildly, apparently sensing me. There are elements of ancestor worship connected with Nyueng Bao beliefs. Ghosts are certainly very real to them. Gota started asking the air questions.

She seemed to think I was either the spirit of her mother, Hong Tray, or of her grandfather, Cao Khi, spoken of as a necromancer in family oral histories Sarie had related to me. When he got mentioned at all it was with mild embarrassment. We all have those crooked limbs in our family trees. A necromancer who could raise his own shade would make for a particularly gnarly branch.

I did not pay much attention. I wanted to see if they had done something with Uncle Doj. They must have collected him and gone to work getting him healed up.

I could not find Uncle. I did find a crude sign scratched on a weathered fragment of board, in charcoal, in One-Eye’s crude lettering. KID. IT IS A TRAP.

Oh, my.

I wanted to shake the little shit awake and ask him what that meant. I tried. Maybe I gave him bad dreams. He did groan and toss. But he did not do anything else. I raged.

What if it was true?

How could it be? And who?

Catcher? Was that why she seemed happy? Or Kina? Did the goddess not want us running loose in the world, threatening to bring on the Year of the Skulls? But she had interceded before to make sure we stayed in the game.

But was it not Kina who had filled the minds of an entire nation with an overwhelming, irrational fear of the Company?

I was confused. I tried to shake One-Eye again. I had no more luck this time. Still raging, I zipped outside and started southward. And ran into a wall of death stench so powerful I reeled away.

Kina. Up very close.

I caught glimpses of slick ebony skin, a chest with lots of breasts, half a dozen arms paddling the air like the legs of an overturned bug. I got an indistinct impression that she was trying to pull herself through the veil between my ghostworld and hers. She seemed driven to deliver an important message. Or maybe she just wanted to jump over and gobble me up.

I did not learn which. I could not stay there. She brought too much fear with her. I fled. No plan. No thought at all. I just went, fast and frenzied.

I found myself in the mountains north of Kiaulune, running away from the plain with my back toward an unseen destination. From out here the stars of the Noose were invisible. No stars could be seen at all. The overcast masked them. I turned to see where I was headed. The sparkle of campfires away to my left caught my attention. I directed my flight that way. Whoever was over there would be human. I needed to be close to something human.

They were the bunch Croaker had sent after my horse. I recognized many of the restless men. Fear was an animate presence in their camp, and a big one. I got in among them, tried to draw warmth and comfort while I steeled myself for another attempt to get back to my flesh. Nobody sensed my presence.

Once I felt ready I left the circle of light and headed southward slowly, trying hard to sense Kina before Kina sensed me. Would she try to ambush me again?

Who knows? I ran into Uncle Doj first.

Actually, he ran into me. He was making no more sound than I as he scouted the camp. Pretty good for an old boy who ought still to be laid up with his wounds.

I decided to find out what he was up to. It was a good excuse not to fly into the teeth of the demon right now.

Maybe she would be more attractive if she would get rid of the necklaces of severed penises and baby skulls.

Uncle drifted along the edge of the camp, close enough to see anything that happened, far enough away to avoid notice by sentries unless he made a racket falling into a hole. In minutes it was evident that he just wanted to see what was happening, that the camp was not his real interest. He continued on into the night, still creeping northward.

I followed.

He dug something out of his pouch. It gave off a tiny light, less than that of a firefly. He consulted it frequently. I tried to get close enough to see what it was but he kept his back toward me however I maneuvered. He seemed to sense a watcher without being conscious of the fact.

Darkness closed in as the camp fell behind. But we were not alone out there. Time and again I felt Kina’s presence, though never very close. For a goddess she did not seem especially omniscient. Or maybe she was not looking for me.

If she was in the mountains she could not block my way back to my body. But I was not scared now. And Uncle had begun moving faster, determined to get somewhere quickly. What would make him come out here in his condition?

It became evident soon enough. He wanted to take advantage of the fact that Soulcatcher was preoccupied.

He found what Croaker’s searchers had not, probably because of what he carried in his hand. The hiding place was not obvious because a veil of illusion surrounded it.

The first hint was the snort of a large animal. A moment later I recognized my horse. And he recognized me although I was invisible and he had not seen me for almost a year.

The beast had more talent than Uncle Doj did. Doj thought the animal was excited to see him.

Uncle was more attuned to the waking world than I was, though. Ash Wand leapt into his hand as he reacted to something else before I sensed anything. I caught nothing but a flicker of darkness in the dark. I thought shadow but felt none of the coldness that indicated their proximity.

We were not the only ones out there.

I flitted around trying to find the lurker.

I found Sleepy instead. And the Daughter of Night. They were chained to a tree, each by an ankle, with ten feet of slack. They had no fire. They did have a keg of water that was nearly empty and a stash of hard bread that was down to the crumbs. Catcher had planned to be back sooner. Sleepy was awake but seemed drugged. The child was too small to break away. There was evidence Sleepy had not been able to pull himself together well enough to try.

I heard a choking sound behind me. Metal rattled on stone. A large object crashed through brush.

I found Doj on his knees, Ash Wand two feet from his fingers. His left hand was at his throat, clawing at a piece of black cloth. He was lucky. Few men ever survived such attacks.

All it took was a lifetime of training to hone the reflexes.

There was a Strangler in the darkness. And I could do nothing to help.

Doj’s left hand dropped to the ground. With his right he reached for Ash Wand. His wounds forced him to stay put but once he had his sword back nobody would end his tale prematurely.

I went to see if I could keep Sleepy’s luck from turning worse than it already was. I found him alert and frightened but unharmed. He was ready to fight. He was alone.

The Daughter of Night was gone.

I scouted around. Child and Deceiver had gotten away clean. I felt no need to hunt them down. Not now. But the task would rise to the top of several to-do lists real soon.

I had a notion this was not part of Soulcatcher’s plan. Maybe the lady had been deceived. Kina was slow but she kept on plugging.

For the little it was worth I decided to hang around till Uncle gathered his wits and Sleepy regained his peace of mind. Sleepy recovered first. As soon as he felt safe he decided to take a leak. He did not know that Uncle and I were around.

Well. So Catcher knew what she was doing when she played Sleepy as a slim girl pretending to be a guy. Interesting. Sleepy did a great job fooling everybody.

I needed to have a talk with Bucket. He had to know something, somehow.

I caught a whiff of Kina. She was close and getting closer.

Sleepy jumped up, yanked up her pants, looked around wildly. She sensed the goddess, too. She concentrated visibly, turned slowly, tried to identify the bearing of the source of her discomfort. But the presence faded fast. Kina had no more interest here.

Sleepy stopped turning when she faced me. She jumped. Her chin thrust forward slightly the way people do sometimes when they see something unexpected. She squinted. “Murgen? Are you a ghost or something? Are you dead?”

I tried saying no, but she could not hear me so I shook my head.

“So the rumors were true. You really can leave your body.”

I nodded, too amazed to wonder how the kid could take it so calmly. One thing people can always do is surprise you.

If Sleepy could see me that meant I could communicate over a distance. Even if he could not hear me. As long as he remembered the deaf and dumb sign he was supposed to have learned. But, as I recalled, he had had trouble catching on . . . She, Murgen. She.

I had not gotten used to the idea the first time it came around.

I started using finger speech without the slightest idea of what Sleepy could follow. I might be just some shimmering blob of ectoplasm that smelled like Murgen.

No point. As I started Uncle Doj arrived, drawn by Sleepy’s voice. His movements were a painful shuffle. “Be calm, young one,” he said. “You remember me. I am of the Standardbearer’s family. I have been looking for you.” Doj was about as alert as any human being could be. He should have been able to hear me breathing. “You called out to the Standardbearer. Why did you do that?”

“I don’t know. I’m trapped. A man came. He took the child who was here with me. I was afraid. The Standardbearer is my friend and mentor.”

Glib, that kid. And thoroughly loaded up with a healthy dose of Company suspicion.

And I was thoroughly loaded up with a healthy burden of news they needed out on the plain. I had to go. Sleepy would be all right with Doj. I made the sign for horse. After three tries Sleepy nodded. I hoped that was a response.

Doj asked, “You were a captive of she who flies the crows?” He said that last part in Nyueng Bao, as though it was a name like the Thousand Voices, but Sleepy understood anyway. Sharp kid. Must have picked it up following me around.

“Yes.”

“Did she leave anything behind? Where did she hide when she was here?” Doj cut Sleepy loose but it was obvious Sleepy’s liberty was not his real concern. His behavior confirmed my notion that there had been a clash between Catcher and the Nyueng Bao.

I began to drift away. Sleepy said, “There’s a cave. Over there. But we weren’t here very long.” She whistled a peculiar four note melody. My horse snorted in reply. He could not come, of course, because he was a captive himself.

I headed for the plain.

106

Kina was looking for me. Or for something. Whatever direction I went I sensed her before long, though she never closed in. But if I was not her object, what was?

I fought off the urge to run to Sarie, telling myself to wait the demon out. But the logical side of my mind, logically, told me that Kina had been waiting for ages. She would not get impatient in one night.

But why would she want to find me?

I needed to get back to my flesh. The goddess was less a terror when I was not amongst the ghosts.

I wished Thai Dei would waken me. When somebody did that it seemed my spirit did not have to traverse the distance between.

I sneaked around to the camp in front of the Shadowgate. Gods, what squalor! Successful conquerers ought to live better.

One-Eye was stirring. So was Gota. Another terrible breakfast was about to be committed.

It was light out. I was still ghostwalking. I had not done so during daylight since we lost Smoke. I had begun to think that I could not do it during the day.

Got to get back up there, I thought. They need to know. They would not wait around for me. They would not carry me anywhere, either. I was no prisoner.

One-Eye seemed to sense something. He became nervous, snippy. Which was not much of a change, really. Then Goblin sat up and threatened to turn One-Eye into a lizard if he did not quit his bitching. Goblin had not aged well during the campaign and One-Eye did not fail to mention that fact, probably for the thousandth time. The bickering started. Mother Gota was not shy about offering an occasional opinion of her own. One-Eye found time amidst his endless verbal feud to cuss the rest of us for not having hung around till he turned up again before we went up the mountain. “They had to know I’d be back. They know I couldn’t stay away. They went just to spite me. It’s that fucking woman. Or the kid. They think they’re punishing me. They got another think coming. I’m tempted just to walk out on them. That’d show them. They’d miss me if I was gone.”

That was One-Eye all wrapped up in one quintessential wad of contradictory nonsense.

His heart would have been broken had he known just how little he had been missed by most of us. Of course, we had not run into many situations where having him around might have been useful. One-Eye and his pal Goblin was not much use during peacetime.

Suddenly, I realized we were surrounded by the stench of Kina. It had grown so slowly it had not intruded on my awareness. I squirted through the Shadowgate moaning because I might have missed learning something interesting. When One-Eye got to running his mouth he seldom shut up till he emptied his entire head.

I streaked down the southward road as fast as I could. Which did not seem very swift by daylight. Maybe I was slower with the sun shining. In fact, as the sun rose higher I grew more sluggish. And more easily distracted.

I noticed that every circle showed hints of gates for east and west roads. I became entangled in the puzzle of why they should exist, of what sort of tangle that would make of the face of the plain. If there was only one gate from outside and only one destination to be sought . . . The stones? The pillars. Of course.

The side roads could be used to reach individual stones. Though why anyone would want to do so remained a mystery.

It struck me, suddenly, that I had been in the same place a long time, wandering through the wilderness of my own thoughts.

I sat up. I looked around wildly. “Where is Narayan Singh?” I demanded. I was alone except for Thai Dei. There was no evidence the circle had been visited by anyone else. Where was all the trash?

“You woke up,” Thai Dei said. People really sound stupid when they are caught off guard and state the obvious.

“Where is everybody?”

“You would not wake up. They left without you.” Which meant without him. “The Liberator said he would collect you on the way back. He seemed troubled.”

“I don’t blame him. I’m troubled. Help me up here.”

My knees were wobbly. That did not last, though.

“Food?” I croaked. Walking the ghostworld alone was less demanding than doing it with Smoke but still it drained me.

“They took everything. Almost. I was able to steal a small amount.”

His small amount was actually a fair amount by Nyueng Bao standards. Those people thrived on two grains of rice and a rotten fishhead a day. He said, “They were generous with water.” He held up two canteens, explained, “It rained while you were sleeping.”

“What?” I muttered around a mouthful. “When?” I had not been conscious of the weather where I was.

“It rained. The water seemed to run into the circle and pool here. Without harming the protective barriers. Will we wait here?” He sounded hopeful.

“No. I need to see the Captain right away.”

Thai Dei grunted one of his expressive grunts. He found me lacking in wisdom.

We two could cover ground faster than the gang up ahead. After a couple hours we could make out a small group in the distance. I asked, “What the hell are they doing?” Thai Dei’s eyes were better than mine.

“They appear to be handing things from man to man.”

They were, indeed. We saw that when we got closer. One man stood astride something. He accepted an unhappy goat from a man nearer us on the road and passed it to a man beyond him. That goat appeared to be the last thing needing to be passed over. The man on our side hopped across while the fellow on the far side helped the man standing astraddle.

I hollered and waved. Somebody hollered and waved back but nobody waited up.

“Fucker is big,” I said, meaning the fortress. Now we were close it seemed to swell with every step. It was built of a blackish basaltic stone darker than the surrounding plain. It was in a bad state of repair. “It wasn’t immune to the earthquakes.”

Thai Dei grunted. He was nervous again.

“There’s what they were crossing.” It was a crack in the plain. It extended both directions as far as I could see. Nowhere did it appear to be very wide though it was narrowest where our guys had crossed. It was about three feet wide there. They had even taken the carts and wagons over.

Farther away part of the fortress wall had collapsed and poured into the gap. The stone looked freshly fallen so I presumed this was the collapse we had witnessed. There were a couple of older falls evident, too. At a guess I would say the oldest occurred the day we felt the quake all the way off in Taglios.

Thai Dei and I were too old to run except when we had to. But we wasted no time. We hopped the crack before the goat guys moved out of sight around the curve of the wall. One was Sparkle, another Wheezer. Wheezer would be getting a lot of shit details for a while.

I huffed and puffed and hurried on. My pack seemed to be putting on weight. I panted, “It feel like we’ve gained some altitude since we’ve been up here?”

Thai Dei offered an affirmative grunt. He said nothing else. He was puffing himself.

I looked back. It did seem I could see more plain from here than I had seen from back up the road.

Thai Dei wondered, “Have the earthquakes broken the road’s protection?” He must have been worrying for a while.

I thought as we walked. “Couldn’t have. The shadows would have gotten us.” There was still road surface underfoot but it was not as clear here. I wondered if the entire fortress was encased in protection and, if so, how elastic that could be. I was still alive but it seemed unlikely the fortress could fall down again and again without overstressing the barrier somewhere.

Once across the crack we were soon under the wall’s loom. I ran my fingers over the dark stone. “Huh?” It was crumbly. “That look like sandstone to you?”

Thai Dei grunted negatively, followed that with an interrogative noise. “Seems like a lot of little tiny crystals. Like salt. But it is not sandstone.”

Something had been done to it. Something not natural. That kind of stone stood up to everything forever—like the rest of the stone on the plain.

Thai Dei muttered, “I smell sorcery.”

“You have a fine nose, my brother.”

The guys we were following were in a hurry themselves, also following the curve of the wall and whoever was ahead of them. They refused to wait but we continued to gain ground.

We rounded a knee of wall and found many of the animals and much of the equipment crowded into a shady patch in front of what once must have been the main gate. I glanced upward. The clever builders ran the only protected approach where it could be bombarded at will for a great distance. I wondered if I went up there with a big enough rock could I squash the forvalaka. The black leopard was in a foul mood. She roared and snarled and chewed at the bars of her cage. She was being ignored because of her bad attitude.

I wondered if we ought not just leave her behind when we turned back. The shadows would find a way.

The other animals had been left to supervise themselves, too.

Sparkle and Wheezer, only twenty yards ahead now, were squeezing through the gateway. The gate itself was broken and twisted and hung on a single huge lower hinge. A big crack in the masonry indicated that this damage had been caused by earthquakes, too.

There was a large open space immediately behind the gate. Most fortifications have them. They are where you put the people the place was built to protect. A lot of the guys were there. A debate was running about whether or not the broken gate should be busted down so the animals and wagons could be brought inside. Concurrently, an argument raged amongst the Nyueng Bao about whether or not they were obligated to follow the Company deeper into the fortress.

“Shit. I thought you died,” Willow Swan said when he saw me. “Thought we were gonna pick up the stiff on the way back. If you didn’t start smelling too bad.”

“Thoughtful of you. Where’s the Old Man?” Mather and Blade, I noted, were not among those in the courtyard. I peered around.

Every vertical surface consisted of the same decomposed basalt. The inner fortress was so huge its magnitude would have stricken me numb had I not experienced Overlook and the Palace in Taglios. Though still standing, it had been cracked a hundred ways. Thousands of chunks great and small had fallen from its face and lay in heaps at the base of the wall.

“They went inside. Ten minutes ago, maybe. Shouldn’t take long to catch up.” Swan winced as he started toward the steps rising to the skinny door of the inner fortress. I suspected that, as he had a habit of doing, he had begged off earlier and had changed his mind since.

Thai Dei clumped after me, every slamming step an indictment. Because he joined me several other Nyueng Bao peeled off the debating party and followed.

The doorway seemed like a veil of darkness. It felt like a veil of darkness when I stepped through it. Like what I thought a veil of darkness ought to feel like, anyway.

There was little light inside. That little seemed to seep through unseen cracks above and ahead and got all the life sucked out before it reached me. “Quit shoving back there!” I snapped. Thai Dei’s cousins were pushing me forward as they came through the doorway. “And be quiet. I’m trying to listen.” Sounds were coming from somewhere. They were ricocheting around inside a vast empty space, though, which made it impossible to guess where they originated.

Willow Swan muttered, “I was right the first time. I got no business being in here.” And he was right, for sure, as I would learn before much time passed.

“Quiet.” In a moment I set off in the apparent direction of the voices.

107

I heard Lady and Croaker, Bucket, Hagop, Otto, Loftus, Longo and Clete all cheerfully engaged in a vulgar debate. There was not one highbrow among them. When I caught up I found the whole Old Crew in one ugly clump. They had even brought Howler, Longshadow and Catcher along. Howler and Longshadow were out of their cages. Longshadow was presided over by Blade and Cordy Mather. Howler was alert but Longshadow was little more than a drooling cabbage. The Prahbrindrah Drah had gotten stuck with watching and helping Howler.

No matter. I approached the Old Man where he and Lady were crouched, peering through a break in a wall at something that was, I guessed, never meant to be seen. Croaker looked back to see who was crowding him. I demanded, “Where’s Narayan Singh?”

“He’s . . . ” A bewildered, blank look captured his face. It was hard to make out, though. His whole crowd had only one torch burning for light. Longinus held that and he was about twenty feet away. Still, I could see Croaker well enough to see that, suddenly, he looked like he had been hit over the head with an axe handle.

I turned to Lady. “You tell me. Where’s Narayan Singh? Wasn’t he one of your favorite prisoners?” Was he not somebody who would have been killed a long time ago if a fool name of Murgen was in charge?

Lady just stared at me. I got the feeling she wanted to put her Lifetaker helmet back on and kick me in the head. But she remained strong. She continued to avoid old habits.

Croaker said, “I forgot he even existed. How could that happen?”

Lady went on from there. “What happened? What did Singh do?”

I ticked fingers. “He escaped. He attacked Uncle Doj. Using a black rumel. He found Catcher’s hideout and freed the Daughter of Night. They’re on the run, probably already plotting how to get back in business.”

Lady’s fingers probed her waistline, then felt for a left sleeve that did not exist. She had no place to hide a strangling cloth while wearing armor. Her expression of surprise left her looking totally goofy. This sort of thing did not happen to her!

Soulcatcher, although farther away than Longo and his torch, heard me just fine. She made an inarticulate sound that had to be rage, began to flop on her litter. She seemed to be in awfully good shape for somebody who had been tied and gagged for three days.

I said, “I think the Mother of Deceivers pulled a fast one.” I thought I would shut my mouth for a while. Croaker was so angry he was shaking.

Lady handled it better. After a long, exasperated sigh directed at no one in particular she crouched and peered through the crack again. I bent over. There was a hint of reddish light beyond her. She said, “He’s marked now. He can be found. I’ll handle that when we get back to camp. This time I’ll take your advice.” She shook her head suddenly, violently, as though trying to clear it. “She is insidious. I didn’t think she could do that to me. Come on.” She ducked through the gap in the wall.

“Here. Take this.” Bucket shoved the standard into my hands. I had sort of pretended not to notice him carrying it. “Where the hell have you been, anyway?”

“I overslept.”

Croaker went through behind Lady. A couple other guys were thinking about going. Nobody was in a hurry, though, so I shoved the head of the standard into the hole and started after it.

Croaker had a little trouble. He was a big man. I had more trouble than he did because I went into the crack with a long pole.

Thai Dei grabbed the standard from behind about the same time Croaker got ahold of the other end. One pulled one way and the other pushed the other and I got squished in the middle. After I yelled some and dragged my ass on through and got the damned standard back under control I took the opportunity to look around.

It was very dark in there. Except for the glow from a crack in the floor about a half mile away . . .

Death is eternity. Eternity is stone.

“Stone is silent,” Lady said.

It is immortality of a sort.

The earth twitched. From up ahead came the scream of stone moving on stone. A hulking darkness above the reddish lightleak heaved.

Men coming through the crack behind us forced us first three forward. Longo finally arrived with the torch. It did not do much to relieve the darkness but did show us where we were putting our feet. “One-Eye says we’re walking into a trap, boss.” I began telling him and Lady about my latest night of ghostwalking.

“Whose trap is it?” Croaker demanded after a while. “That might be critical.”

I said, “I didn’t have a chance to talk it over with the little shit.”

Lady said, “It’s my sister’s trap. Have the men drag her in here. I’ll stop listening to me and start taking your advice. She can stay right here when we go back.”

I nodded as though that plan excited me. Far be it from me to remind her that she had killed Soulcatcher before.

Croaker raised an eyebrow in my direction but said nothing otherwise. He had a peace to maintain.

“Get them all in here,” Lady ordered. There were times when she was something more than the Lieutenant.

They banged Catcher around good dragging her through the crack. But the bitch kept right on smiling behind her gag. That was unnerving. Which is why she did it, I guess. Logically, she ought to be starved, thirsty, littersore and very depressed. Few of the men were gutsy enough to stand guard over her while she was allowed to eat or relieve herself. Usually the job went to Swan or Mather or the Prince if anybody bothered to remember her at all. Blade, though, would have nothing to do with Catcher. I think he hated her because Lady did and his regard for Lady was well inside the realm of obsession.

Catcher had a really dark and promising look for good old Murgen, happy or not otherwise.

“Start exploring,” Lady snapped. She knelt over Catcher but looked up at Croaker. “You’re here. What are you going to do about it?” It was obvious that she was suffering one of her mood swings.

I knew Croaker wanted to tell her that this was not Khatovar, to insist that we had not traveled halfway across the earth and had not hacked our ways through hell only for the sake of finding an abandoned rockpile already fallen into ruin. But he could not claim that because he did not know the truth.

He said nothing.

Croaker was becoming more taciturn all the time.

Lady muttered under her breath, grabbed Soulcatcher’s chin and forced her sister to look her in the eye. “You have anything you want to share with us, dear? Is there any little secret about this place that you’d trade for not getting left behind when we leave?”

Catcher winked at me. Lady did not have a hope.

I got the impression that she was willing to haul out of there right now and to hell with puttering around the rockpile trying to get the angle on everybody else.

Catcher really was in a bad mood. And Lady, too. Lucky for Kina she was divine.

Catcher smiled and smiled but never volunteered anything. She would not, not to save her own ass. Which was what I expected. All the Ten Who Were Taken were vulnerable only through their obsessions.

“Sheeit!” echoed through the darkness. “What the fuck was that? Captain! Murgen. You got to see this.”

Croaker shrugged and nodded. It did not matter what it was. It was an excuse to get away from the old lady for a minute.

I shuffled out onto a floor I could sense only by feeling it under my feet. Croaker shuffled behind me. He was muttering like an old madman, shaking his head, wanting to know what the hell he was doing here. This was not the place he had been going for the last thirty years. This was somebody’s cruel joke. This was somebody’s nightmare. This could not be the birthplace of the Free Companies of Khatovar. There was nothing here.

I felt his despair grow. And knew it would swell till it became deep and black. And then, in all likelihood, it would take a sideways turn when he convinced himself that it had all come to this because he had let himself get distracted. I had no trouble seeing the future, no sheep’s guts needed. Sometime not long after we returned to Kiaulune he would decide we went wrong because we moved before we studied those early Annals. He would decide we had to go get them. And doing that just might generate the bloodshed needed to give Kina her Year of the Skulls.

She is the darkness, all right.

I was surrounded by females, human, divine and demigod, every one of whom could drape herself in that cloak. But right now lumbering, dull old Kina seemed to have all her many sets of claws firmly locked on the title.

“Yah!” The Old Man grabbed my shoulder, stopped me just a few steps short of daydreaming my way into an unscheduled dive into an abyss with no bottom. The weak scarlet light came up from that. So did a trailer of mist. But that gap got only a glance before our attention became fixed on the cause of the recent outburst.

Now I could get a fair look at what had heaved following that last little tickle of an earth tremor. “Torches!” I bellowed. “Get some light over here. Get some more torches lit.” They did have plenty more, the brothers, but they were being frugal. “It’s a big-ass old wooden throne.” What I could not bring myself to add was that that big-ass old wooden throne had a big-ass old humanoid body nailed to it with silver knives. Throne and body were poised above the abyss, painted cruelly by the red light. I wanted torches so I could see the body better. I thought its eyes were open and I did not want that to be true.

“What the fuck is it?” somebody asked. “A giant?”

Thai Dei, lurking in my shadow as always, offered one quick phrase in Nyueng Bao. I did not understand anything but the accusation “Bone Warrior.”

“What was that?”

“It might be the golem Shivetya, Stone Soldier.” Why was he dragging that old stuff out now?

“Shivetya?” I knew what a golem was. An artificial man, commonly created from clay. In some mythologies all of us descend from such divine knickknacks.

“It is Gunni myth, Soldier of Darkness. Khadi, or Kina, when she was young, warred with everyone. She so weakened the Lords of Light that the Lords of Darkness thought to see a chance to conquer them and sent an army of demons to attack them. The fighting went so poorly for the Lords of Light that the god Fretinyahl, who is sometimes said to be Kina’s father, begged Kina for help. She agreed, but for reasons of her own. In the final battle on the stone plain Khadi grew bigger and stronger every time she devoured one of the demons.”

This much of the mythology I knew. Among other versions. Some witnesses claimed Kina was created specially for the last great battle with the demon host sent up by the Lords of Darkness. According to others she was sired by the devil Ranashya who disguised himself in the aspect of Fretinyahl and had his way with Mata, one of the forms the mother goddess takes in Gunni myth. Still others insist Kina is not native to Gunni myth at all but is a powerful outside intruder whose presence was so wicked it had to be accepted even while mostly ignored.

The key story was pretty basic. Desperate gods chose to battle evil with evil and ended up having their weapon turn and chomp on their fingers. Kina’s creator, or father, eventually tricked her into falling asleep, after which she was imprisoned until her worshippers could spring her with the Year of the Skulls. The Year of the Skulls was something that was going to come. There was no preventing it. Even though Kina was asleep and imprisoned a tiny wisp of her essence had escaped and remained in the world guiding those who would bring on the end of the age. But it could be thwarted indefinitely by the efforts of good and righteous men.

“Once they understood how they had damned themselves the other Lords of Light directed Fretinyahl to make a demon out of clay and animate it with a shard of his own soul so he would never lose control. This golem was given the name Shivetya, which means Deathless. Shivetya is supposed to guard the gateway to Khadi’s resting place forever. I never heard anything about Shivetya being nailed into place but even the gods are cruel and unforgiving, Bone Warrior.”

“No shit. And can that crap. I didn’t like it from Gota and Doj and I sure don’t like it from you.” I looked at Croaker. “You follow that? You ever heard any of that before?”

“Some. A friendly old scholar in Taglios did tell me that while the exact meaning of Khatovar has been lost, similarities with modern dialect suggested something like ‘Place from which Khadi went forth,’ or simply ‘Khadi’s gate.’ ”

“And you wanted to go there anyway?” Were we walking into the realities behind the dark heart of southern myth? I did not want that. I wanted to be on my way to paradise. We were supposed to be on the road to paradise.

Croaker did not answer me.

“Tell me more,” I said to the air. A bunch of torches were burning now. Most of the gang were ranged behind me and the Old Man. More light did not stop me having to see what I did not want to see. The thing pinned to the throne had open eyes.

It did not move, though. “Shit,” Longinus said. “It’s just some kind of goddamn idol. Don’t let’s get all spooked out.”

I began to inch forward, lowering the standard so I could use it like a pike. I have no clue why I thought that might do me some good against some divine toss-off.

Croaker came with me.

We halved the distance to the throne. The engineer brothers stuck close with torches. Everybody else seemed less inclined to look at anything up close. I saw no evidence that the thing on the throne was anything but a carving. At closer view it did begin to look a little crudely made.

We halved the distance again. I could now inhale the thin vapors from the crack in the floor. They were very cold and smelled faintly of old death.

For an instant I had a sense of coming home.

It is immortality of a sort.

I jumped, looked around. Only Lady seemed to have sensed something, too.

When I looked back at the toppled throne I saw the hall as it may have appeared a thousand years ago. Or more. When a band of cruel priests were making the original shadows from prisoners of war. It was there for just an instant but that moment was long enough to tell me that this had been a very ugly place once upon a time, long before the advent of the twelve Free Companies.

“Stop right there,” Croaker whispered.

I stopped. His tone was urgent. “What?”

“Look down.”

I looked. Before us lay the dessicated remains of a crow. Just the way it lay struck terror right down to the bones of my toes. “A shadow got it. We’re not safe here.”

“We still have the standard.” He did not sound completely confident, though.

I used my toe to flip the dead bird into the crack in the floor, which was just a few feet away. The effort was pointless. Some of the men had seen the dead bird. They understood its significance.

I understood that it meant a lot more than just that shadows roamed this part of the fortress. It meant that Soulcatcher knew the place well. It meant . . .

Mad laughter came from back where we had entered. Soulcatcher’s laughter. Lady spun, sorceries forming around her already.

108

The earth shook. This was a bad one. The worst since we had come up onto the plain. Possibly the worst since the terrible one that destroyed whole cities and killed thousands before we ever left Taglios. I hit the floor and began to slide toward the abyss. Croaker grabbed me and Lady hung on to him. Everybody else fell down, too. Catcher stopped cackling in mid-laugh. Torches scattered around, dropped. There was nothing for them to set on fire.

Something fell from above. Something like little balls of glass or clear hailstones. Some shattered on impact, some bounced. They seemed to have nothing to do with anything. At first.

The throne with the golem aboard shifted, tilted forward until it was almost bottom up, a mouse’s breath short of plunging into the red abyss.

There was an incredible flash of white light. It blinded me momentarily. While I hugged the floor Soulcatcher cursed someone in three voices and as many languages. Rips and cracks and barks tore the air as sorceries flew. More marbles pattered around me. I began to feel weak and sleepy. It occurred to me that shiny bits of glass were exactly what crows liked to carry around and maybe hoard up someplace so their boss could have them rain down when the passion took her.

Soulcatcher had sprung her trap despite all.

I grasped the standard and went fearlessly to sleep, happily sure there was no way Catcher could get off the plain. The shadows would get her. They would get everybody as soon as the sun went down.

I could not sleep without ghostwalking. The moment I slipped loose from my flesh I ran out to try to tell One-Eye or Sleepy or somebody what had happened. When I reached the Shadowgate I found everyone shaken by the earthquake and One-Eye already having worked out a pretty good idea of what had happened. He had the troops packing to run for Overlook. In fact, that was going on everywhere, as though every man out there had had the same notion at the same time. Nobody was in a positive frame of mind.

It took hours to find Sleepy even though Uncle Doj had taken her directly to the company he had circled during the night. She was asleep when I found her, her disguise still good. I poked and prodded and nagged the best a ghost could do and finally drew a response.

I spent much of the day slowly getting a brief message across.

It was nearly sunset when I passed through the Shadowgate headed south. I was wrestling the temptation to run to Sarie. I did not want to be around her when the shadows discovered my flesh.

I do not know what bizarre reasoning moved me. I was convinced that I needed to be inside my body when I died. I might become an eternally wandering spook if I did not.

I met Soulcatcher halfway down the road. She was headed north aboard Lady’s horse at a hellbent pace. Croaker’s steed galloped a length behind, running just as hard. Its rider had his face buried in the stallion’s mane but trailed wild golden hair that betrayed him. You cannot have the woman you want, go for her little sister? Willow, Willow, you let yourself be damned over some pussy?

I jumped in front of the lead horse, sure I would be seen. My own horse had been able to see me. I would spook these guys.

It saw me fine. And ran right through me. Evidently ghosts did not scare the critters. I jumped up and tried to swat Willow as he charged past. You treacherous asshole.

Somebody had to let her loose.

How did she get to him?

I continued southward, mood bleak because of my failure. The entire plain seemed to reverberate with Soulcatcher’s laughter.

She had won. After an age, she had won. She had put her sister down. The world was her toy at last.

Darkness gathered. I hurried. I passed a ragtag bunch of men and animals in vain flight northward. They numbered fewer than half our recon company. Sindawe and Bucket were the only noteworthy names among them. I did not see the panther. When I reached that crack into the innermost room I found it blocked. Somebody had stuffed it with rags and rocks and broken masonry, I suppose so the shadows could not loose. Must have been Swan. Catcher knew shadows can slither through the tiniest pinhole. She was the new Shadowmaster.

What a shadow could snake through so could I. And Swan had not done that good a job.

The golem, or whatever it was, still hung above the glowing abyss. I ignored it. I had something to panic about. My body was not where I had left it. There were no bodies around. I had to close my astral eyes and let my flesh draw me to it.

I should have seen it coming. I should have known. I had been only loosely anchored in time for years. And so many of the faces had seemed to be those of men I knew.

My return to awareness, though not actually in flesh yet, took place in the caverns of the old men and the ice cocoons. And I found myself there, at the end of the line, sitting against the cavern wall with the standard across my lap. The Lancehead seemed to whisper and murmur to itself. The rest were everybody who had clambered through that final crack, Old Crew guys, Nyueng Bao, Cordy Mather, Blade, the Prahbrindrah Drah, Isi and Ochiba. Every last fool, including Lady and the Old Man. Little sister and woman scorned had invested the extra minutes to arrange those two, holding hands, heads leaning together, in mockery. Lady radiated rage. This was the second time she had been buried alive, the second husband with whom she had shared a grave.

The Old Man radiated despair.

So did the rest. This was the end of the dream, little as it had been.

I fluttered on up the cavern, between stalactites and stalagmites, webs and lacy structures of ice, to where, an age before the appearance of the Free Companies, desperate, hunted followers of Kina had hidden her holy Books of the Dead from the murderous warlord Rhaydreynak. Rhaydreynak had not found the books nor had Kina’s children survived to return to them.

It could be worse than it was already. Soulcatcher could have found and taken those grim books.

She had not. They remained safe upon their lecterns, open to early passages.

I hustled back to the gang.

Some of them sensed me moving. They focused their anger upon me. Which was maybe good. Water sleeps, I thought at them. They were locked in some sorcerous stasis. I was trapped only in my flesh, presumably because I had been away at a convenient time.

Water sleeps. Catcher might be the darkness but she would learn. Water sleeps, but Enemy never rests.

In the night, when the wind no longer whines through a fortress that was there before the plain that was there before the first Free Company marched, stone whispers. Stone sprouts. Stone grows. Stone buds and stone flowers. A thousand pillars rise where no pillar has stood before. Moonlight sweeps the plain, setting aglitter the characters taking form, remembering a few of the fallen.

It is immortality of a sort.