In response to my question, Silent signed, “Tracker is looking for birth records.” But he was unlikely to score again. Lord Senjak was not KurreTelle.

“One of the purported dead didn’t die. I’d put my money on Sylith. Assuming Credence was killed because she recognized a sister who was supposed to be dead when the Dominator and Lady took Jaunt.”

“Bomanz mentions a legend about the Lady killing her twin. Is that this ambush? Or something more public?”

“Who knows?” I said. It really did get confusing. For a moment I wondered if it mattered.

The Lady called an assembly. Our original estimate of time available now appeared overly optimistic. She told us, “We appear to have been misled. There is nothing in Catcher’s documents to betray my husband’s name. How she reached that assumption is beyond us now. If documents are missing, we cannot be sure. Unless news comes from Lords or Oar soon, we can forget that avenue. It’s time to consider alternatives.”

I scribbled a note, asked Whisper to pass it to the Lady. The Lady read it, then looked at me with narrowed, thoughtful eyes. “Erin NoFather,” she read aloud. “An unlanded priest of the god Vancer, from Slinger, in the kingdom of Vye. This, from our amateur historian. What you found is less interesting than the fact that you found it. Croaker. That news is five hundred years old. It was worthless then. Whoever Erin NoFather was before he left Vye, he did an absolute job of eliminating traces. By the time he became interesting enough to have his antecedents investigated, he had obliterated not only Slinger but every person to have lived in that village during his lifetime. In later years he went even farther, wasting all Vye. Which is why the notion that those papers might contain his true name constituted such a surprise.”

I felt about half-size, and stupid. I should have known they would have tried to unmask the Dominator before. I had surrendered some small advantage for nothing. So much for the spirit of cooperation.

One of the new Taken-I cannot keep them straight, for they all dress the same-arrived soon afterward. He or she gave the Lady a small carved chest. The Lady smiled when she opened it. “There were no papers that survived. But there were these.” She dumped some odd bracelets. “Tomorrow we go after Bomanz.”

Everyone else knew. I had to ask. “What are they?”

“The amulets made for the Eternal Guard in the time of the White Rose. So they could enter the Barrowland without hazard.”

The resulting excitement surpassed my understanding.

“The wife must have carried them away. Though how she laid hands on them is a mystery. Break this up now. I need time to think.” She shooed us like a farm wife shooes chickens.

I returned to my room. The Limper floated in behind me. He said nary a word, but ducked into the documents again. Puzzled, I looked over his shoulder. He had lists of all the names we had unearthed, written in the alphabets of the languages whence they sprang. He seemed to be playing with both substitution codes and numerology. Baffled, I went to my bed, turned my back on him, faked sleep.

As long as he was there, I knew, sleep would evade me.

Fifty-Three

The Recovery

It resumed snowing that night. Real snow, half a foot an hour and no letup. The racket raised by the Guards as they strove to clear it from doorways and the carpets wakened me.

I had slept despite the Limper.

An instant of terror. I sat bolt upright. He remained at his task.

The barracks was overly warm, holding the heat because it was all but buried.

There was a bustle despite the weather. Taken had arrived while I slept. Guards not only dug but hurried about other tasks.

One-Eye joined me for a rude breakfast. I said, “So she’s going ahead. Despite the weather.”

“It won’t get any better, Croaker. That guy out there knows what’s going on.” He looked grim.

“What’s the matter?”

“I can count. Croaker. What do you expect from a guy with a week to live?”

My stomach tightened. Yes. I had been able to avoid thoughts of the sort so far, but... “We’ve been in tight places before. Stair of Tear. Juniper. Beryl. We made it.”

“I keep telling myself.”

“How’s Darling?”

“Worried. What do you think? She’s a bug between hammer and anvil.”

“The Lady has forgotten her.”

He snorted. “Don’t let your special dispensation erode your common sense, Croaker.”

“Sound advice,” I admitted. “But unnecessary. A hawk couldn’t watch her more closely.”

“You going out?”

“I wouldn’t miss it. Know where I can get some snow-shoes?”

He grinned. For an instant the devil of years past peeped forth. “Some guys I know-mentioning no names, you know how it is-swiped a half dozen pairs from the Guard Armory last night. Duty man fell asleep on post.”

I grinned and winked. So. I was not seeing enough of them to keep up, but they were not just sitting around and waiting.

“Couple pairs went off to Darling, just in case. Got four pair left. And just a smidgen of a plan.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You’ll see. Brilliant, if I do say so myself.”

“Where are the shoes? When are you going?”

“Meet us in the smokehouse after the Taken get off the ground.”

Several guards came in to eat, looking exhausted, grumbling. One-Eye departed, leaving me in deep thought. What were they plotting?

The most carefully laid plans... Like that.

The Lady marched into the mess hall. “Get your gloves and coats, Croaker. It’s time.”

I gaped.

“Are you coming?”

“But...” I flailed around for an excuse. “If we go, somebody will have to do without a carpet.”

She gave me an odd look. “Limper is staying here. Come. Get your clothing.”

I did so, in a daze, passing Goblin as we went outside. I gave him a baffled little headshake.

A moment before we lifted off the Lady reached back, offering me something. “What’s this?”

“Better wear it. Unless you want to go in without an amulet.”

“Oh.”

It did not look like much. Some cheap jaspar and jade on brittle leather. Yet when I secured the buckle around my wrist, I felt the power in it.

We passed over the rooftops very low. They were the only visual guides available. Out on the cleared land there was nothing. But being the Lady, she had other resources.

We took a turn around the bounds of the Barrowland. On the river side we descended till the water lay but a yard beneath us. “Lot of ice,” I said.

She did not reply. She was studying the shoreline, now within the Barrowland itself. A sodden section of bank collapsed, revealing a dozen skeletons. I grimaced. In moments they were covered with snow or swept away. “Just about on schedule, I’d guess,” I said. “Uhm.” She moved on around the perimeter. A couple times I glimpsed other carpets circling. Something below caught my eye. “Down there!” “What?”

“Thought I saw tracks.” “Maybe. Toadkiller Dog is nearby.” Oh, my.

“Time,” she said, and turned toward the Great Barrow. We put down at the mound’s base. She piled out. I joined her. Other carpets descended. Soon there were four Taken, the Lady, and one scared old physician standing just yards from the despair of the world.

One of the Taken brought shovels. Snow began to fly. We took turns, nobody exempt. It was a bitch of a job, and became more so when we reached the buried scrub growth. It got worse when we reached frozen earth. We had to go slow. The Lady said Bomanz was barely covered.

It went on, it seemed, forever. Dig and dig and dig. We uncovered a withered humanoid thing the Lady assured us was Bomanz.

My shovel clicked against something my last turn. I bent to examine it, thinking it a rock. I brushed frosty earth away...

And dived out of that hole, whirled, pointed. The Lady went down. Laughter drifted upward. “Croaker found the dragon. His jaw, anyway.”