“See something interesting, sai Jonas?”

“Aye,” Jonas said, sitting down. “Eats.” He took a piece of bread and popped it into his mouth. The bread stuck to his dry tongue, but he chewed determinedly all the same.

“Good boy.” The other also sat, and poured wine, filling Jonas’s glass first. “Now, my friend, tell me everything you’ve done since the three troublesome boys arrived, and everything you know, and everything you have planned. I would not have you leave out a single jot.”

“First show me your sigul.”

“Of course. How prudent you are.”

The man in black reached inside his robe and brought out a square of metal-silver, Jonas guessed. He tossed it onto the table, and it clattered across to Jonas’s plate. Engraved on it was what he had expected-that hideous staring eye.

“Satisfied?”

Jonas nodded.

“Slide it back to me.”

Jonas reached for it, but for once his normally steady hand resembled his reedy, unstable voice. He watched the fingers tremble for a moment, then lowered the hand quickly to the table.

“I… I don’t want to.”

No. He didn’t want to. Suddenly he knew that if he touched it, the engraved silver eye would roll… and look directly at him.

The man in black tittered and made a come-along gesture with the fingers of his right hand. The silver buckle (that was what it looked like to Jonas) slid back to him… and up the sleeve of his homespun robe.

“Abracadabra! Bool! The end! Now,” the man in black went on, sipping his wine delicately, “if we have finished the tiresome formalities…”

“One more,” Jonas said. “You know my name; I would know yours.”

“Call me Walter,” the man in black said, and the smile suddenly fell off his lips. “Good old Walter, that’s me. Now let us see where we are, and where we’re going. Let us, in short, palaver.”

14

When Cuthbert came back into the bunkhouse, night had fallen. Roland and Alain were playing cards. They had cleaned the place up so that it looked almost as it had (thanks to turpentine found in a closet of the old foreman’s office, even the slogans written on the walls were just pink ghosts of their former selves), and now were deeply involved in a game of Casa Fuerte, or Hotpatch, as it was known in their own part of the world. Either way, it was basically a two-man version of Watch Me, the card-game which had been played in barrooms and bunkhouses and around campfires since the world was young.

Roland looked up at once, trying to read Bert’s emotional weather. Outwardly, Roland was as impassive as ever, had even played Alain to a draw across four difficult hands, but inwardly he was in a turmoil of pain and indecision. Alain had told him what Cuthbert had said while the two of them stood talking in the yard, and they were terrible things to hear from a friend, even when they came at second hand. Yet what haunted him more was what Bert had said just before leaving: You’ve called your carelessness love and made a virtue of irresponsibility. Was there even a chance he had done such a thing? Over and over he told himself no-that the course he had ordered them to follow was hard but sensible, the only course that made sense. Cuthbert’s shouting was just so much angry wind, brought on by nerves… and his fury at having their private place defiled so outrageously. Still…

Tell him he’s right for the -wrong reasons, and that makes him all the way wrong.

That couldn’t be. Could it?

Cuthbert was smiling and his color was high, as if he had galloped most of the way back. He looked young, handsome, and vital. He looked happy, in fact, almost like the Cuthbert of old-the one who’d been capable of babbling happy nonsense to a rook’s skull until someone told him lo please, please shut up.

But Roland didn’t trust what he saw. There was something wrong with the smile, the color in Bert’s cheeks could have been anger rather than good health, and the sparkle in his eyes looked like fever instead of humor. Roland showed nothing on his own face, but his heart sank. He’d hoped the storm would blow itself out, given a little time, but he didn’t think it had. He shot a glance at Alain, and saw that Alain felt the same.

Cuthbert, it will be over in three weeks. If only I could tell you that.

The thought which returned was stunning in its simplicity: Why can’t you?

He realized he didn’t know. Why had he been holding back, keeping his own counsel? For what purpose? Had he been blind? Gods, had he?

“Hello, Bert,” he said, “did you have a nice r-”

“Yes, very nice, a very nice ride, an instructive ride. Come outside. I want to show you something.”

Roland liked the thin glaze of hilarity in Bert’s eyes less and less, but he laid his cards in a neat facedown fan on the table and got up.

Alain pulled at his sleeve. “No!” His voice was low and panicky. “Do you not see how he looks?”

“I see,” Roland said. And felt dismay in his heart.

For the first time, as he walked slowly toward the friend who no longer looked like a friend, it occurred to Roland that he had been making decisions in a state close akin to drunkenness. Or had he been making decisions at all? He was no longer sure.

“What is it you’d show me, Bert?”

“Something wonderful,” Bert said, and laughed. There was hate in the sound. Perhaps murder. “You’ll want a good close look at this. I know you will.”

“Bert, what’s wrong with you?” Alain asked.

“Wrong with me? Nothing wrong with me, Al-I’m as happy as a dart at sunrise, a bee in a flower, a fish in the ocean.” And as he turned away to go back through the door, he laughed again.

“Don’t go out there,” Alain said. “He’s lost his wits.”

“If our fellowship is broken, any chance we might have of getting out of Mejis alive is gone,” Roland said. “That being the case, I’d rather die at the hands of a friend than an enemy.”

He went out. After a moment of hesitation, Alain followed. On his face was a look of purest misery.

15

Huntress had gone and Demon had not yet begun to show his face, but the sky was powdered with stars, and they threw enough light to see by. Cuthbert’s horse, still saddled, was tied to the hitching rail. Beyond it, the square of dusty dooryard gleamed like a canopy of tarnished silver.

“What is it?” Roland asked. They weren’t wearing guns, any of them. That was to be grateful for, at least. “What would you show me?”

“It’s here.” Cuthbert stopped at a point midway between the bunk-house and the charred remains of the home place. He pointed with great assurance, but Roland could see nothing out of the ordinary. He walked over to Cuthbert and looked down.

“I don’t see-”

Brilliant light-starshine times a thousand-exploded in his head as Cuthbert’s fist drove against the point of his chin. It was the first time, except in play (and as very small boys), that Bert had ever struck him. Roland didn’t lose consciousness, but he did lose control over his arms and legs. They were there, but seemingly in another country, flailing like the limbs of a rag doll. He went down on his back. Dust puffed up around him. The stars seemed strangely in motion, running in arcs and leaving milky trails behind them. There was a high ringing in his ears.

From a great distance he heard Alain scream: “Oh, you fool! You stupid fool!”

By making a tremendous effort, Roland was able to turn his head. He saw Alain start toward him and saw Cuthbert, no longer smiling, push him away. “This is between us, Al. You stay out of it.”

“You sucker-punched him, you bastard!” Alain, slow to anger, was now building toward a rage Cuthbert might well regret. I have to get up, Roland thought. I have to get between them before something even worse happens. His arms and legs began to swim weakly in the dust.