I wondered what the menhirs made of our relationship. No matter the pretense, there was a brittleness, a formality, that was hard to overcome. And the best we could fake was a partnership, which I am certain they found strange. When did man and woman travel together thus, without sharing bedroll and such?

The question of pursuing verisimilitude that far never arose. And just as well. My panic, my terror, at the suggestion would have been such that nothing else would have arisen.

Ten miles from the Hole we breasted a hill and encountered a menhir. It stood beside the way, twenty feet of weird stone, doing nothing. The Lady asked in touristy fashion, "Is that one of the talking stones?"

"Yep. Hi, rock. I'm home."

Old rock didn't have anything to say. We passed on. When I looked back it was gone.

Little had changed. As we crested the last ridge, though, we saw a forest of walking trees crowding the creek. A stand of menhirs both living and dead guarded the crossing. The backwards camel-centaurs gamboled among them. Old Father Tree stood by himself, tinkling, though there was not a breath of wind. Up high, a single buzzardlike avian soared against shattered clouds, watching. One or another of its kind had followed us for days. Of a human presence there was no sign. What did Darling do with her army? She could not pack those men into the Hole.

For a moment I was frightened that I had returned to an untenanted keep. Then, as we splashed across the creek, Elmo and Silent stepped out of the coral.

I dove off my animal and gathered them into a monster hug. They returned it, and in best Black Company tradition did not ask a single question.

"Goddamn," I said. "Goddamn, it's good to see you. I heard you guys was wiped out out west somewhere."

Elmo looked at the Lady with just the slightest hint of curiosity.

"Oh. Elmo. Silent. This is Ardath."

She smiled. "So pleased to meet you. Croaker has said so much about you."

I had not said a word. But she had read the Annals. She dismounted and offered her hand. Each took it, baffled, for only Darling, in their experience, expected treatment as an equal.

"Well, let's go down," I said. "Let's go down. I've got a thousand things to report."

"Yeah?" Elmo said. And that said a lot, for he looked up our backtrail as he said it.

Some people who had gone away with me had not come back.

"I don't know. We had half the Taken after us. We got separated. I couldn't find them again. But I never heard anything about them being captured. Let's go down. See Darling. I've got incredible news. And get me something to eat. We've been eating each other's cooking forever, and she's a worse cook than I am."

"Guck," Elmo said, and slapped me across the back. "And you lived?"