"When I was a child… my sisters and I had a teacher."

Did I pay attention? You bet your sweet ass I did. I was ears from my toenails to the top of my pointy head. "A teacher?"

"Yes. He argued that we are the gods, that we create our own destiny. That what we are determines what will become of us. In a peasantlike vernacular, we all paint ourselves into corners from which there is no escape simply by being ourselves and interacting with other selves."

"Interesting."

"Well. Yes. There is a god of sorts, Croaker. Do you know? Not a mover and shaker, though. Simply a negator. An ender of tales. He has a hunger than cannot be sated. The universe itself will slide down his maw."

"Death?"

"I do not want to die, Croaker. All that I am shrieks against the unrighteousness of death. All that I am, was, and probably will be, is shaped by my passion to evade the end of me." She laughed quietly, but there was a thread of hysteria there. She gestured, indicating the shadowed killing ground below. "I would have built a world in which I was safe. And the cornerstone of my citadel would have been death."

The end of the dream was drawing close. I could not imagine a world without me in it, either. And the inner me was outraged. Is outraged. I have no trouble imagining someone becoming obsessed with escaping death. "I understand."

"Maybe. We're all equals at the dark gate, no? The sands run for us all. Life is but a flicker shouting into the jaws of eternity. But it seems so damned unfair!"

Old Father Tree entered my thoughts. He would perish in time. Yes. Death is insatiable and cruel.

"Have you reflected?" she asked.

"I think so. I'm no necromancer. But I've seen roads I don't want to walk."

"Yes. You're free to go, Croaker."

Shock. Even my heels tingled with disbelief. "Say what?"

"You're free. The Tower gate is open. You need but walk out it. But you're also free to remain, to reenter the lists in the struggle that envelopes us all."

There was almost no light left except for some sun hitting very high clouds. Against the deep indigo in the east a squadron of bright pinpricks moved westward. They seemed headed toward the Tower.

I gabbled something that made no sense.

"Will she, nihil she, the Lady of Charm is at war with her husband once more," she said. "And till that struggle is lost or won, there is no other. You see the Taken returning. The armies of the east are marching toward the Barrowland. Those beyond the Plain have been ordered to withdraw to garrisons farther east. Your deaf child is in no danger unless she comes looking for it. There is an armistice. Perhaps eternally." Weak smile. "If there is no Lady, there is no one for the White Rose to battle."