"He reads TelleKurre. That's it. I can do that, only I take longer. Raven must know the dialects. Some of the stuff he was translating was in them. Also, there's the question of what he was doing here. Why he faked his death again and took off. On Darling."

Maybe I was jumping to conclusions. I do that. Or maybe I was indulging in the human penchant for oversimplification, figuring that if we just had Raven back our troubles were solved. "What are we going to do?" I wondered aloud.

Goblin rose. "I don't know, Croaker. Let's let One-Eye get his feet under him again and find out what we're up against. We can go from there." "Right."

He slipped out. I lay down and tried to sleep. Whenever I dropped off I had nightmares about the thing lying in the mud and slime the Barrowland had become.

Chapter Thirty-Six:
HARD TIMES

One-Eye looked gruesome. "It was grim," he said. "Get the chart out. Croaker." I did. He indicated a point. "He's here. And stuck. Looks like he went all the way to the center along Bomanz's trail, then got in trouble on his way out."

"How? I don't understand what's going on here."

"I wish you could go in there. A realm of terrible shadows… Guess I should be glad you can't. You'd try it."

"What's that crack mean?"

"Mean's you're too curious for your own good. Like old Bomanz. No. Be still." He paused a moment.

"Croaker, something that was trapped there, one of the minions of the Taken, was situated near Bomanz's path. He was too strong for it. But Raven was an amateur. I think Goblin, Silent, and I together would have trouble with this thing, and we're more skilled than Raven could be. He underestimated the dangers and overestimated himself. As he was leaving, this thing usurped his position and left him in its place."

I frowned, not quite understanding.

One-Eye explained, "Something used him to keep the balance of the old spells. So he's stuck in a net of old-time sorcery. And it's out here."

A sinking feeling. A feeling edging despair. "Out? And you don't know?…"

"Nothing. The chart indicates nothing. Bomanz must have been contemptuous of the lesser evils. He hasn't marked a dozen. There should have been scores."

The literature supported that. "What did he tell you? Were you able to communicate?"

"No. He was aware of a presence. But he's in a sinkhole of spells. I couldn't contact him without getting caught myself. There's a small imbalance there, like what went out might have been a hair more than what stayed in. I did try to get close to him. That was why Goblin had to yank me out. I did sense a great fear, not due to his situation. Only anger there. I think he got caught only because he was in so big a hurry he didn't pay attention to his surroundings."