“Yes,” said Singing Rock. “They come from the times before the white men arrived on our shores, in those ancient days when Indian magic was at its height. In those days, the gods themselves were supposed to have walked America, and these medicine men worked out their apprenticeships as shamans and wonder-workers with the gods themselves to guide them. Their power is inestimable. Together, under the direction of Misquamacus, they will be devastating.”

“Do you have a plan?” asked Neil.

“Sure,” put in Harry. “We promise them beads and firewater, just like we used to do in the old days. Then, when they’re trying on their beads and drinking their firewater, we steal their sacred medicine circle and build a downtown shopping mall on it.”

Singing Rock took out a pack of chewing tobacco and grinned. “I’m sorry, Harry. It won’t work a second time.”

Neil bit his lip. “Listen,” he said, “that’s my son out there. My son and all my son’s friends. What’s going to happen to them?”

With a measured bite, Singing Rock took a mouthful of tobacco and chewed it steadily for a moment. Then he spat out onto the dust.

“That’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about,” he said, in his deep, serious voice. “You have to understand that if Misquamacus successfully emerges out of Toby’s mind and takes on physical shape, then the drain on energy which Toby suffers will almost certainly be fatal.”

Neil felt as if someone had hit him from behind. “What?” he said weakly.

Singing Rock lifted both his hands. “I am telling you that because you must be prepared for the very worst. There is very little chance that once the medicine men have used those children to reincarnate themselves, they will allow them to live.”

“Then what’s the use?” asked Neil. His face was very white. “What’s the use of trying to save them at all?”

“It’s not just the children,” said Harry. “We’re trying to prevent this whole state from being torn apart. But there’s something else, too, isn’t there, Singing Rock?”

Singing Rock hesitated, then nodded. “I guess you have a right to know the best as well as the worst. If by any slim chance we do manage to defeat these medicine men, and send them back to the outside, then the children will be restored unharmed. It is hard to explain to a white man why this should happen, but there is an eternal natural principle in Red Indian magic of balance and redress. A sort of occult Newton’s Law.”

Neil turned away and walked to the end of the veranda. Harry glanced at Singing Rock with an expression that suggested he might go after him and try to reassure him, but Singing Rock shook his head.

“Leave him. If he’s going to help us, he has to face up to the truth.”