“It took you eight days to get here,” Elmo said.
I lifted an eyebrow.
“The menhirs.”
“Of course. Eight days, then. Away from ninety for a worst-case scenario. Eighty-two days till the Great Barrow opens.” I went into more detail about the Great Tragic River floods.
The Lieutenant was not convinced. Neither was Elmo. And you cannot blame them. The Lady weaves crafty, intricate plots. And they were sneaky guys who judged others by themselves. I did not proselytize. I was not wholeheartedly born-again myself.
It was of little consequence whether or not those two believed, anyway. Darling makes the decisions.
She signed for everyone to leave but me. I asked Elmo to show Ardath around and find her a place to bunk. He looked at me oddly. Like everyone else, he figured I’d brought me home a girlfriend.
I had trouble keeping a straight face. All those years they have ridden me because of a few romances written when first we entered the Lady’s service. And now I’d brought her home.
I figured Darling wanted to talk about Raven. I was not wrong, but she surprised me by signing, “She has sent you to propose an alliance, has she not?”
Quick little devil. “Not exactly. Though in practice it would amount to that.” I went into the details, known and reasoned, of the situation. Signing is not quick work. But Darling remained attentive and patient, not at all distracted by whatever was going on inside her. She took me over the value, or lack thereof, of my document cache. Not once did she ask about Raven. Nor about Ardath, though my friend was on her mind, too.
She signed, “She is correct in saying that our feud becomes inconsequential if the Dominator rises. My question must be, is the threat genuine or a ploy? We know just how convoluted a scheme she can manage.”
“I am sure,” I signed in reply. “Because Raven was sure. He had made up his mind before the Lady’s people began to suspect. In fact, as far as I can tell, he developed the evidence that convinced them.”
“Goblin and One-Eye. Are they safe?”
“As far as I know. I never heard of them being captured.”
“They should be getting close. Those documents. They are the crux still.”
“Even if they do not contain the secret of her name, but only that of her husband?”
“She wants access?”
“I would assume so. I was released for some reason, though I cannot say what the reason behind the reason was.”
Darling nodded. “So I thought.”
“Yet I am convinced that she is honest in this. That we must consider the Dominator the more dangerous and immediate peril. It should not be too difficult to anticipate most of the ways she could become treacherous.”
“And there is Raven.”
Here it comes, I thought. “Yes.”
“I will reflect, Croaker.”
“There is not much time.”
“There is all the time in the world, in a way, I will reflect. You and your lady friend translate.”
I felt I had been dismissed before we got to why she wanted to see me privately. The woman has a face like stone. You can’t tell much about what is going on inside. I moved toward the door slowly.
“Croaker,” she signed. “Wait.”
I stopped. This was it.
“What is she, Croaker?”
Damn! Ducked around it again. Chills on my part. Guilt. I did not want to lie outright. “Just a woman.”
“Not a special woman? A special friend?”
“I guess she is special. In her way.”
“I see. Ask Silent to come in.”
Again I went slowly, nodding. But it was not till I actually started to open the door that she beckoned me back.
In accordance with instructions, I sat. She did not. She paced. She signed, “You think I am cold toward great news. You think ill of me because I am not excited that Raven is alive.”
“No. I thought it would shock you. That it would cause you great distress.”
“Shock, no. I am not entirely surprised. Distressed, yes. It opens old wounds and makes them more painful.”
Puzzled, I watched as she continued to prowl.
“Our Raven. He never grew up. Fearless as a stone. Utterly without the handicap of a conscience. Tough. Smart. Hard. Fierce. All those things. Yes? Yes. And a coward.”
“What? How can you? …”
“He runs away. There were machinations around the Limper which pulled his wife in, years ago. Did he try to discover the truth and work it out? He killed people and ran away with the Black Company to kill more people. He abandoned two babies without a word of good-bye.”
She was hot now. She was opening the doors on secrets and spilling stuff of which I had seen only the vaguest glimmering reflections. “Do not defend him. I have had the power to investigate, and I did,” she signed.
“He fled the Black Company. For my sake? As much excuse to avoid entanglement as reason. Why did he salvage me in that village? Because of guilt over children he had abandoned. I was a safe child. And while a child I remained a safe emotional investment. But I did not remain a child, Croaker. And I knew no other man in all those years in hiding.
“I should have known better. I saw how he pushed people away if they tried to get close in any way that was not completely one-sided and under his control. But after the horrible things he did in Juniper I thought I could be the one to redeem him. On the road south, when we were running from the dark danger of the Lady and light danger of the Company, I betrayed my true feelings. I opened the lid on a chest of dreams nurtured from a time before I was old enough to think about men.
“He became a changed man. A frightened animal caught in a cage. He was relieved when news came that the Lieutenant had appeared with some of the Company. It was not but a matter of hours before he was ‘dead.’
“I suspected then. I think a part of me always knew. And that is why I am not so devastated now as you want. Yes. I know you know I cry myself to sleep sometimes. I cry for a little girl’s dreams. I cry because the dreams will not die, though I am powerless to make them come true. I cry because the one thing I truly want I cannot have. Do you understand?”
I thought about Lady, and Lady’s situation, and nodded. I signed nothing back.
“I am going to cry again. Go out. Please. Tell Silent to come.”
I did not have to look for him. He was waiting in the conference room. I watched him go inside, wondering if I was seeing things or seeing things.
She’d certainly given me something to think about.
Picnic
Put on any deadline and time accelerates. The clockwork of the universe runs off an overwound mainspring. Four days went down the Jakes, zip! And I did not waste much time sleeping.
Ardath and I translated. And translated. And translated. She read, translating aloud. I wrote till my hands cramped. Occasionally Silent took over for me. I spot-checked by slipping in documents already done, especially those both Tracker and I had worked. Not once did I catch a misinterpretation.
That fourth morning I did catch something. We were doing one of those lists. This soiree must have been so big that if held today, we’d call it a war. Or at least a riot. On and on. So-and-so of such-and-such, with Lady Who’s-is, sixteen titles, four of which made sense. By the time the heralds finished proclaiming everyone, the party must have died of encroaching senility.
Anyway, along about the middle of the list I heard a little catch in her breath. Aha! I said to myself. A bolt strikes close. My ears pricked up.
She went on smoothly. Moments later I was not sure I had not imagined it. Reason told me the name that startled her would not be the one she was speaking. She was toddling along at my writing pace. Her eyes would be well ahead of my hand.
Not one of the names that followed clanged any bell.
I would go over the list later, just in case, hoping she had deleted something.
No such luck.
Come afternoon she said
, “Break, Croaker. I’m going for tea. You want some?”
“Sure. Maybe a hunk of bread, too.” I scribbled another half minute before realizing what had happened.
What? The Lady herself offering to fetch? Me putting in an order without thinking? I got a case of the nerves. How much was she role-playing? How much pretending for fun? It must be centuries since she got her own tea. If ever.
I rose, started to follow, halted outside my cell door.
Fifteen steps down the tunnel, in the grungy, feeble lamplight, Otto had cornered her against the wall. He was talking some shit. Why I had not foreseen the problem I do not know. I doubted that she had. Surely it was not one she faced normally.
Otto got pushy. I started to go break it up then vacillated. She might be angered by my interference.
A light step from the other direction. Elmo. He paused. Otto was too single-minded to notice us.
“Better do something,” Elmo said. “We don’t need that kind of trouble.”
She did not appear frightened or upset. “I think maybe she can handle it.”
Otto got a “no” that could not be misinterpreted. But he did not accept it. He tried to lay hands on.
He got a ladylike slap for his trouble. Which angered him. He decided to take what he wanted. As Elmo and I moved forward, he disappeared in a flurry of kicks and punches that set him down in the muck on the floor, holding his belly with one arm and that arm with the other, Ardath went on as though nothing had happened.
I said, “I told you she could handle it.”
“Remind me not to overstep myself,” Elmo said. Then he grinned and tapped my arm. “Bet she’s mean on the horizontal. Eh?”
Damned if I did not blush. I gave him a foolish grin. It only confirmed his suspicions. What the hell. Anything would have. That is the way those things go.
We lugged Otto to my room. I thought he would puke up his guts. But he controlled himself. I checked for broken bones. He was just bruised. “All yours, Elmo,” I said, for I knew the old sergeant was rehearsing a few choice words.
He took Otto by the elbow and said, “Step down to my office, soldier.” He started dirt tumbling from the tunnel overhead when he explained the facts of life.
When Ardath returned she behaved as if nothing had happened. Perhaps she missed us watching. But after half an hour she asked, “Can we take a break? Go outside? Walk?”
“You want me to come?”
She nodded. “We need to talk. Privately.”
“All right.”
To tell the truth, whenever I lifted my nose from my work I got a little claustrophobic myself. My venture westward reminded me how good it is to stretch one’s legs. “Hungry?” I asked. “Too serious to make a picnic?”
She looked startled, then charmed, by the idea. “Good. Let’s do that.”
So we went to the cook and baker and filled a bucket and went topside. Though she did not notice everyone smirking, I did.
There is but one door in the Hole. To the conference room, behind which Darling’s personal quarters lie. Neither my quarters nor Ardath’s had so much as a curtain closure. Folks figured we were off for the privacy of the wide open spaces.
Dream on. Up there there would be more spectators than down below. They just would not be human.
The sun was maybe three hours short of setting when we stepped outside, and it smacked us right in the eyes. Rough. But I expected it. Should have warned her.
We strolled up the creek, breathing slightly sagey air and saying nothing. The desert was silent. Not even Father Tree stirred. The breeze was insufficient to sigh in the coral. After a while I said, “Well?”
“I needed to get out. The walls were closing in. The null made it worse. I feel helpless down there. It preys on the mind.”
“Oh.”
We rounded a coral head and encountered a menhir. One of my old buddies, I guess, for he reported, “There are strangers on the Plain, Croaker.”
“No He?” Then: “Which strangers, rock?” But it had nothing more to say.
“They’re always like that?”
“Or worse. Well. The null begins to fade. Feel better?”
“I felt better the moment I stepped outside. That’s the gate to Hell. How can you people live like that?”
“It isn’t much, but it’s home.”
We came to bare earth. She halted. “What’s this?”
“Old Father Tree. You know what they think we’re up to, down there?”
“I know. Let them think it. Call it protective coloration. That is your Father Tree?” She indicated Himself.
“That’s him.” I walked on. “How you doing today, old-timer?”
Must be fifty times I have asked that. I mean, the old guy is remarkable, but just a tree. Right? I did not expect a response. But Father Tree’s leaves started tinkling the moment I spoke.
“Come back here, Croaker.” The Lady’s voice was commanding, hard, a little shaken. I turned and marched. “Back to your old self?” From the corner of my eye I caught a shadow in motion, off toward the Hole. I concentrated on a bit of coral and nearby brush. “Keep your voice down. We have an eavesdropper.”
“That’s no surprise.” She spread the ragged blanket she had brought, sat down with her toes right at the edge of the barren. She removed the rag covering the bucket. I settled beside her, positioned so I could watch that shadow. “Do you know what that is?” she asked, nodding at the tree.
“Nobody does. It’s just Old Father Tree. The desert clans call him a god. We’ve seen no evidence of that. One-Eye and Goblin were impressed with the fact that he stands almost exactly on the geographical center of the Plain, though.”
“Yes. I suppose.… So much was lost in the fall. I should have suspected.… My husband was not the first of his kind, Croaker. Nor the White Rose the first of hers. It is a grand cycle, I believe.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“A very long time ago, even as I measure time, there was another war like that between the Dominator and the White Rose. The light overcame the shadow. But as always, the shadow left its taint on the victors. In order to end the struggle, they summoned a thing from another world, plane, dimension, what-have-you, the way Goblin might conjure a demon, only this thing was an adolescent god. Of sorts. In a sapling avatar. These events were legendary only in my youth, when much more of the past survived, so details are open to question. But it was a summoning of such scope, and such price, that thousands perished and countries were devastated. But they planted their captive god over the grave of their great enemy, where it would keep him enchained. This tree-god would live a million years.”
“You mean?… Old Father is sitting on something like the Great Barrow?”
“I did not connect the legends and the Plain till I saw that tree. Yes. This earth constrains something as virulent as my husband. So much suddenly makes sense. It all fits. The beasts. The impossible talking rocks. Coral reefs a thousand miles from the sea. It all leaked through from that other world. The change storms are the tree’s dreams.”
She rattled on, not so much explaining as putting things together for herself. I gaped and remembered the change storm that caught me on the way west. Was I accursed, to be caught in a god’s nightmare?
“This is crazy,” I said, and at the same instant decrypted the shape I had been trying to pry from the shadows, bushes, and coral.
Silent. Squatting on his hams, motionless as a snake awaiting prey. Silent, who had been everywhere I went the last three days, like an extra shadow, seldom noticed because he was Silent. Well. So much for my confidence that my return with a companion had tickled no suspicions.
“This is a bad place to be, Croaker. Very bad. Tell that deaf peasant wench to move.”
“If I did that, I would have to explain why and reveal who gave me the advice. I doubt she would be impressed.”
“I suppose you’re right. Well, it won’t matter much longer. Let’s eat.”
She opened a p
acket and set out what looked like fried rabbit. But there are no rabbits on the Plain. “For all they got kicked around, their adventure toward Horse improved the larder.” I dug in.
Silent remained motionless in the corner of my eye. You bastard, I thought. I hope you’re drooling.
Three pieces of rabbit later I slowed enough to ask, “That about the old-timer is interesting, but does it have any relevance?”
Father Tree was raising a ruckus. I wondered why. “Are you afraid of him?”
She did not answer. I chucked bones down the creek bank, rose. “Back in a minute.” I stomped over to Father Tree. “Old-Timer, you got any seeds? Any sprouts? A little something we could take to the Barrowland to plant on top of our own villain?”
Talking to that tree, all those times heading past, was a game. I was possessed of an almost religious awe of its age, but of no conscious belief in it as anything like either the nomads or the Lady claimed. Just a gnarly old tree with weird leaves and a bad temper.
Temper?
When I touched it, to lean against it while looking up among its bizarre leaves for nuts or seeds, it bit me. Well, not with teeth. But sparks flew. The tips of my fingers stung. When I took them out of my mouth they looked burned. “Damn,” I muttered, and backed off a few steps. “Nothing personal, tree. Thought you might want to help out.”
Vaguely, I was aware that a menhir now stood near Silent’s lurking place. More appeared around the barren area.
Something hit me with the force of windwhale ballast dumped from a hundred feet up. I went down. Waves of power, of thought, beat upon me. I whimpered, tried to crawl toward the Lady. She extended a hand, but would not cross that boundary.…
Some ofthat power began to hint at comprehensibility. But it was like being inside fifty minds at once, with them scattered across the world. No. The Plain. And more than fifty minds. As it became more melded, more meshed … I was touching the menhir minds.
That all faded. The sledge of power ceased hammering the anvil that was me. I scrambled for the edge of the barren, though I knew that line demarked no true safety. I reached the blanket, caught my breath, finally turned to face the tree. Its leaves tinkled in exasperation,