It had been a lot to take in. It was interesting, but it wasn't enough. Bram wanted to learn about things larger than dust. Where did the Stone Gods come from? Had they existed as long as the Sull gods? What would happen if the Sull decided they wanted the clanholds back? Would the two sets of gods go to war?

There was no fooling Ogmore; he knew when you weren't paying attention. "Go,"he had said coldly after Bram had made a series of mistakes. "Perhaps tomorrow you will learn more."

Now, approaching the guidehouse, Bram wasn't sure he had the mind-set necessary to spend the rest of the day sorting tiny pieces of stone. It all seemed very small.

He kept thinking about Robbie, knowing he shouldn't, yet going ahead and doing it anyway. It was like having a sore tooth that you couldn't stop prodding. Why hadn't Robbie sent a message? Did he no longer consider Bram kin?

"Bram Cormac."

Startled Bram looked up. He had been walking through the unclearffll snow just west of the guidehouse and had not thought anyone was in sight.

The man with the yellow-green eyes who had taken the ferry crossing earlier stepped out from the shadows of the guidehouse's northern wall. He was older than he looked from a distance, but age rested differently on him than other men. His face had hardened rather than slackened. Bone had grown in to replace fat, and decades of exposure to ice and sunlight had pulled the skin tight across the bridge of his nose and jaw. As he walked toward Bram his floor-length saddle coat left draglines in the snow.

"I am Hew Mallin," he said speaking in the kind of voice that was rarely ignored. "I am a ranger. And friend to Angus Lok."

Bram had a strong memory of Angus Lok's visit to the Dhoonehouse. Yet he would not expect a stranger to know that… unless Angus Lok himself had told this man of their meeting.

"Walk with me," Hew Mallin said, assuming many things.

The ranger struck a path northwest toward the woods. Bram saw that he was still carrying the item he'd held during the river crossing. It was a square of black bearskin. A flattened hat.

The guidehouse door-within-a-door was closed and Bram looked at it for a long moment before following the ranger into the cover of the trees.

The woods to the north of the Milkhouse were a dense, snarled cage of choke vines, oaks, elms, hemlocks, basswoods and blackstone pines. Roots, vine runners and thornbushes lurked beneath the snow like traps, ready to trip and stab. Bram thought about stopping for a moment to tuck his pants into his boots but Hew Mallin was walking with purpose and within seconds he would be out of sight. The ranger did not look back to check on Bram's progress.

He had to be armed, Bram reckoned, but any weapons he possessed were concealed beneath his coat. Had he presented himself to Wrayan Castlemilk or the head warrior Harald Mawl? Bram guessed that if the ranger had wanted to arrive in secret he would have come in from the north and not taken the river crossing. How long had he been waiting behind the guidehouse? Brain's thoughts raced ahead of him, and he found himself remembering Jackdaw Thundys words. Hawk and spider that was how the swordmaster had described the ranger Angus Lok.

Reaching a clearing where hardwood saplings were fighting for territory with tiny, perfectly formed pines, Hew Mallin slowed and then stopped. "In Alban's day they used to hold the old ghostwatches here," he said, using the bearskin hat to brush snow from a felled log. "Twice a year, on the longest and shortest days. They'd build a twenty-foot pyramid of timber and light it as the sun set. It's purpose was to ward off ghosts and other evil things. You might say it worked for the ghost-watch hasn't been held since Wrayan took her brother's place, and the ghosts are only now coming back."

Hew Mallin sat on the log. His face was deeply ice-tanned, yet his lips were pale. His brown and graying hair had been needle-braided and pulled back in a warrior's knot. It was the kind of work that took an expert braider an entire day to achieve, yet once done it rendered any sort of care unnecessary for six months.

"What of the forest?" Bram asked, the first words he had spoken. "With a fire that big it could have gone up in flames."

"That is the crux," Mallin replied coolly, fixing Bram with his yellow eyes. "If one is serious about fighting ghosts there is always a cost."

Bram felt the world spinning on him. He had thought it spun ear-lier, in the cold room, but looking back now he realized that was just the first tug necessary to set a jammed wheel in motion. The Castlemilk guidestone had shown him this man: the bearskin hat, the fork in the path.

"You have been marked, Bram Cormac son of Mabb. The rangers have observed you for five years. We have minded you on the practice court and in the scribes' hall at Dhoone. We have asked others about matters concerning you and received answers that satisfied. Your part in Skinner Dhoone's downfall has been noted. Your actions the night VayloBludd was located on a hillside east of Dhoone are known to us. We see much that others do not, and we watch for others like us." A small, weighted pause, "And that watching has brought me to you."

Bram swallowed. Who had told this man about the meeting with Vaylo Bludd? Guy Morloch? Jordie Sarson? The Dog Lord? And how did Mallin know that Bram had visited Skinner Dhoone all those months ago at the Old Round outside of Gnash? Did he know that Bram had looked into Skinner's Dhoone-blue eyes that day and lied? A glance at the ranger's hard, angular face gave Bram his answer. Yes, Hew Mallp knew. He knew and judged it satisfactory.

The strange tightness that had seized Bram's chest in the cold room gripped him again. What was happening here? Why did he feel under threat?

"We are the Brotherhood of the Long Watch, the Phage, and we have stood guard against the Endlords for four thousand years. We watch in this land and many other lands, in the cities and in the clan-holds, in the deserts and on the seas. Dark armies are massing and we stand ready at the gate. We are few against many, and while others on this continent fight wars, seize strongholds, kill, breed, sleep, we walk in the shadows and patrol against the darkness and the men and women who harbor it." Hew Mallin shifted his position, revealing a lean sword housed in an intricately etched steel scabbard. "Our ways are subtle and the tasks we undertake are seldom pleasant. We know truth but do not always speak it. Enemies forestall us and we must act to wipe them out. We do not serve one man or one people, and our home is on the horse paths, animal tracks, dirt roads and riverways. As darkness moves so must we.

"We are the Phage and we know the names of the creatures in the Blind and are afraid. The world lies on the brink, and the first question I bring you, Bram Cormac, is this: How long can it stay there unsupported?"

Snapping his gaze away from Bram, the ranger began to walk the rough circle of the clearing.

Bram looked at the sky. He was about an hour late for Drouse Ogmore. Every day since the guide had asked him to consider becoming his apprentice Bram had gone to the guidehouse thinking, Today will be the day Ogmore asks for my decision. So far that day had not come. Now Dalhousie Selco wanted to make a master swordsman from him—and for a son of a swordsman that meant something. Bram had lost count of the times he had been told he was too small to wield the hammer, the ax and the big two-handed longswords that were favored by Dhoonesmen. Here at Castlemilk they preferred a smaller, fighting sword. And Dalhousie believed that given time Bram could wield such a weapon with skill.

Already it was a wealth of choices. He had come here with nothing and now owned a horse. At Dhoone he possessed no worth save his kinship to Robbie. Now he had two trades to choose from, two ways to gain merit in this clan.