She rattled on, not so much explaining as putting things together for herself. I gaped and remembered the change storm that caught me on the way west. Was I accursed, to be caught in a god's nightmare?

"This is crazy," I said, and at the same instant decrypted the shape I had been trying to pry from the shadows, bushes, and coral.

Silent. Squatting on his hams, motionless as a snake awaiting prey. Silent, who had been everywhere I went the last three days, like an extra shadow, seldom noticed because he was Silent. Well. So much for my confidence that my return with a companion had tickled no suspicions.

"This is a bad place to be, Croaker. Very bad. Tell that deaf peasant wench to move."

"If I did that, I would have to explain why and reveal who gave me the advice. I doubt she would be impressed."

"I suppose you're right. Well, it won't matter much longer. Let's eat."

She opened a packet and set out what looked like fried rabbit. But there are no rabbits on the Plain. "For all they got kicked around, their adventure toward Horse improved the larder." I dug in.

Silent remained motionless in the comer of my eye. You bastard, I thought. I hope you're drooling.

Three pieces of rabbit later I slowed enough to ask, "That about the old-timer is interesting, but does it have any relevance?"

Father Tree was raising a ruckus. I wondered why. "Are you afraid of him?"

She did not answer. I chucked bones down the creek bank, rose. "Back in a minute." I stomped over to Father Tree. "Old-Timer, you got any seeds? Any sprouts? A little something we could take to the Barrowland to plant on top of our own villain?"

Talking to that tree, all those times heading past, was a game. I was possessed of an almost religious awe of its age, but of no conscious belief in it as anything like either the nomads or the Lady claimed. Just a gnarly old tree with weird leaves and a bad temper.

Temper?

When I touched it, to lean against it while looking up among its bizarre leaves for nuts or seeds, it bit me. Well, not with teeth. But sparks flew. The tips of my fingers stung. When I took them out of my mouth they looked burned. "Damn," I muttered, and backed off a few steps. "Nothing personal, tree. Thought you might want to help out."

Vaguely, I was aware that a menhir now stood near Silent's lurking place. More appeared around the barren area.

Something hit me with the force of windwhale ballast dumped from a hundred feet up. I went down. Waves of power, of thought, beat upon me. I whimpered, tried to crawl toward the Lady. She extended a hand, but would not cross that boundary…