Forty-Five

Bargain struck

Later a broken boat of a moon arose. We did not

I sat. She sat. I asked, “What?...”

“Be quiet.” She closed her eyes and went inside herself.

I wondered if Silent had torn himself away from Darling to stalk us. Wondered if my comrades were making crude jokes about us as they labored over the walking trees. Wondered what the hell kind of game had me caught in its toils.

You learned something out of it, anyway, Croaker.

After a while I realized she was back from wherever she had gone. “I am amazed,” she whispered. “Who would have thought they had the guts?”

“Eh?”

“Our sky-borne friends. I expected Limper and Whisper, up to their old crimes. But I got Scorn and Blister. Though I might have suspected her, had I thought. Necromancy is her great talent.”

Another round of her thinking aloud. I wondered if she did that often. I am sure she was unaccustomed to having witnesses around if she did. “What do you mean?”

She ignored me. “I wonder if they told the others?”

I harkened back, put a few things together. The Lady’s divinations about three possible futures and no place in any of them. Maybe that meant there was no place in them for Taken, either. And maybe they figured they could take their futures into their own hands by ridding themselves of their mistress.

A light step startled me. But I did not get excited. I just figured Silent had chosen to follow. So I was very surprised when Darling sat down with us, unchaperoned.

How had I overlooked the return of the null? Distracted, of course.

The Lady said, as though Darling had not appeared, “They haven’t yet gotten out of the coral. It’s very slow going, and they’re both injured. And though the coral can’t kill them, it can cause a lot of pain. Right now they’re lying up, waiting for first light.”

“So?”

“So maybe they won’t get out at all.”

“Darling can read lips.”

“She knows already.”

Well, I have said a thousand times that the girl is not stupid.

I think Darling’s knowledge was implicit in the position she took. She placed me squarely in the gap between them.

Oh yeah.

I found myself playing interpreter.

Trouble is, I cannot record what went back and forth. Because someone tampered with my memories later. I got only one chance to make notes, and those now make no sense.

Some sort of negotiation took place. I can still conjure a sense of profound astonishment at Darling’s willingness to deal. Also an amazement at the Lady for the same reason.

They reached an accommodation. An uneasy one, to be sure, for the Lady henceforth stuck very close and kept me between her and anyone else while she was within the null. Great feeling, knowing you’re a human shield... And Darling kept near the Lady to prevent her calling on her power.

But she did turn her loose once.

That is getting ahead, slightly. First we all sneaked back, not letting anyone know there had been summit. The Lady and I returned after Darling, trying to look like we had had an energetic and thorough encounter. I could not help chuckling at some envious looks.

The Lady and I went outside the null again next morning, after Darling distracted Silent, One-Eye, and Goblin by sending them to dicker with the menhirs. Father Tree could not make up his mind. We went the other direction. And tracked Taken.

Actually, there was little tracking to do. They were not yet free of the coral. The Lady called upon that power she held over them and they ceased to be Taken.

Her patience was exhausted. Maybe she wanted them to serve as an object lesson... In any event, buzzards-real buzzards-were circling before we returned to the Hole.

That easy, I thought. For her. And for me, when I tried to kill the Limper, with every damned thing going my way, impossible.

She and I went back to translating. So busy did we stay that I did not remain abreast of the news from outside. I was a little vacant, anyway, because she had expunged my memories of the meeting with Darling.

Anyhow, somehow, the White Rose got right with Father Tree. The shaky alliance survived.

One thing I did notice. The menhirs stopped ragging me about strangers on the Plain.

They meant Tracker and Toadkiller Dog all the time. And the Lady. Two of three were no longer strangers. No one knew what had become of Toadkiller Dog. Even the menhirs could not trace him.

I tried to get Tracker to explain the name. He could not remember. Not even Toadkiller Dog himself. Weird.

He was the tree’s creature now.

Forty-Six

Son of the Tree

I was nervous. I had trouble sleeping. Days were slipping away. Out west, the Great Tragic was gnawing its banks. A four-legged monster was running to its overlord with news that it had been found out. Darling and the Lady were doing nothing.

Raven remained trapped. Bomanz remained trapped in the long fires he had called down on his own head. The end of the world tramped ever closer. And nobody was doing anything.

I completed my translations. And was no wiser than before. It seemed. Though Silent, Goblin, and One-Eye kept fooling with charts of names, cross-indexing, seeking patterns. The Lady watched over their shoulders more than did I. I fiddled with these Annals. I bothered myself with how to phrase a request for the return of those I had lost at Queen’s Bridge. I fussed. I grew ever more antsy. People became irritated with me. I began taking moonlight walks to work off my nervous energy.

One night the moon was full, a fat orange bladder just scaling the hills to the east. A grand sight, especially with patrolling manias crossing its face. For some reason the desert had a lilac luminescence upon all its edges. The air was chill. There was a dust of powder swirling on the breeze, fallen that afternoon. A change storm flickered far away to the north...

A menhir appeared beside me. I jumped three feet. “Strangers on the Plain, rock?” I asked.

“None stranger than you, Croaker.”

“I get a comedian. You want something?”

“No. The Father of Trees wants you.”

“Yeah? See you.” Heart pounding, I headed toward the Hole.

Another menhir blocked the path.

“Well. Since you put it that way.” Faking bravery, I headed upstream.

They would have herded me. Best accept the inevitable. Less humiliation.

The wind was bitter around the barren, but when I crossed the boundary it was like stepping into summer. No wind at all, though the old tree was tinkling. And heat like a furnace.

The moon had risen enough to flood the barren with light now argent. I approached the tree. My gaze fixed on that hand and forearm, still protruding, still gripping a root, still, it seemed, betraying the occasional feeble twitch. The root had grown, though, and seemed to be enveloping the hand, as a tree used for a line post will envelope a wire tacked to it. I stopped five feet from the tree.

“Come closer,” it said. In plain voice. In conversational tone and volume.

I said, “Yipe!” and looked for the exits.

About two skillion menhirs surrounded the barren. So much for running away.

“Stand still, ephemeral.”

My feet froze to the ground. Ephemeral, eh?

“You asked help. You demanded help. You whined and pleaded and begged for help. Stand still and accept it. Come closer.”

“Make up your mind.” I took two steps. Another would have me climbing him.

“I have considered. This thing you ephemera fear, in the ground so far from here, would be a peril to my creatures if it rose. I sense no significant strength in those who resist it. Therefore...”

I hated to interrupt, but I just had to scream. You see, something had me by the ankle. It was squeezing so hard I felt the bones grinding. Crushing. Sorry about that, old-timer.