“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 overheads 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 lie?” 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 counties 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 packet 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 comer 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...