Goblin heard that. He ignored One-Eye's ranting for a moment, stared at the Taken. After a bit he looked at the Lady. Really looked.

I saw the light dawn. In a more than normally squeaky voice, and with a truly goofy look, he said, "I remember you." He remembered the one time he had had a sort of direct contact with her. Many years ago, when he tried to contact Soulcatcher, he had caught her in the Tower, in the Lady's presence…

She smiled her most charming smile. The one that melts statues.

Goblin threw a hand in front of his eyes, turned away from her. He looked at me with the most awful expression. I could not help laughing. "You always accused me…"

"You didn't have to go and do it, Croaker!" His voice climbed the scale till it became inaudible. He sat down abruptly.

No lightning bolt splattered him across the sky. After a time he looked up and said, "Elmo is going to crap!" He giggled.

Elmo was the most unremitting of them all when it came to reminding me of my romances about the Lady.

After the humor went out of it, after One-Eye had been through it, too, and Silent had had his worst fears confirmed, I began to wonder about my friends.

One and all, they were westward bound on Darling's say-so. They had not been informed, in so many words, that we were allied with our former enemies.

Fools. Or was Darling? What happened once the Domi-nator was down and we were ready to go after each other again?…

Whoa, Croaker. Darling learned to play cards from Raven. Raven was a cutthroat player.

It was the Forest of Cloud by nightfall. I wonder what they made of us in Lords. We passed right over. The streets filled with gawkers.

Roses passed in the night. Then the other old cities of our early years in the north. There was little talk. The Lady and I kept our heads together, growing more tense as our strange fleet neared its destination and we drew no nearer unearthing the nuggets we sought.

"How long?" I asked. I had lost track of time.

"Forty-two days," she said.

"We were in the desert that long?"

"Time flies when you're having fun."

I gave her a startled look. A joke? Even an old cliche? From her?

I hate it when they go human on you. Enemies are not supposed to do that.

She had been crawling all over me with it for a couple months.

How can you hate?

The weather stayed halfway decent till we got to Forsberg. Then it became clabbered misery.