"There are strangers on the Plain."

"I know. I know."

Night creatures came out. Dots of luminescence fluttered and swooped above. The windwhale whose shadow I saw came far enough eastward to show me its glimmering underbelly. It would descend soon, trailing tendrils to trap whatever came its way. A breeze rose.

Sagey scents trickled across my nostrils. Air chuckled and whispered and murmured and whistled in the coral. From farther away came the wind-chimes tinkle of Old Father Tree.

He is unique. First or last of his kind, I do not know. There he stands, twenty feet tall and ten thick, brooding beside the creek, radiating something akin to dread, his roots planted on the geographical center of the Plain. Silent, Goblin, and One-Eye have all tried to unravel his significance. They have gotten nowhere. The scarce wild human tribesmen of the Plain worship him. They say he has been here since the dawn. He does have that timeless feel.

The moon rose. While it lay torpid and pregnant on the horizon I thought I saw something cross it. Taken? Or one of the Plain creatures?

A racket rose round the mouth of the Hole. I groaned. I did not need this. Goblin and One-Eye. For half a minute, uncharitably, I wished they had not come back. "Knock it off. I don't want to hear that crap."

Goblin scooted up outside the coral, grinned, dared me to do something. He looked rested, recuperated. One-Eye asked, "Feeling cranky, Croaker?" "Damned straight. What're you doing out here?" "Needed some fresh air." He cocked his head, stared at the line of cliffs. So. Worried about Elmo. "He'll be all right," I said.

"I know." One-Eye added, "I lied. Darling sent us. She felt something stir at the west edge of the null." "Ah?"

"I don't know what it was, Croaker." Suddenly he was defensive. Pained. He would have known but for Darling. He stands where I would were I stripped of my medical gear. Helpless to do what he has trained at all his life. "What're you going to do?" "Build a fire." "What?"

That fire roared. One-Eye got so ambitious he dragged in enough deadwood to serve half a legion. The flames beat back the darkness till I could see fifty yards beyond the creek. The last walking trees had departed. Probably smelled One-Eye coming.

He and Goblin dragged in a fallen tree of the ordinary sort. We leave the walkers alone, except to right clumsies that trip on their own roots. Not that that happens often. They do not travel much.

They were bickering about who was dogging his share of work. They dropped the tree. "Fade," Goblin said, and in a moment there was no sign of them. Baffled, I surveyed the darkness. I saw nothing, heard nothing.

I found myself having trouble remaining awake. I broke up the dead tree for something to do. Then I felt the oddness.

I stopped in midbreak. How long had the menhirs been gathering? I counted fourteen on the verges of the light. They cast long, deep shadows. "What's up?" I asked, my nerves a bit frayed.