She started walking toward the Great Barrow. Faithful pup, I dogged her.

The last spark of light would not die. She would not save herself through surrender.

Bomanz gave us a head start, then followed. Likewise, the Limper.

Neither's action was in the master plan.

The Lady did not react. Perforce, I let it go, too.

Taken carpets began to spiral down. The windwhales seemed a little bouncy, the manias a little frenetic in their search for favorable air.

Edge of the Barrowland. My amulet did not tingle. All the old fetishes outside the Barrowland's heart had been removed. The dead now lay in peace.

Moist earth sucked at my boots. I had trouble maintaining my balance, keeping an arrow across my bow. I had one black shaft set to string, the other two gripped in the hand that held the bow.

The Lady halted a few feet from the pit whence we had dragged Bomanz. She became oblivious to the world, almost as if she were communing with the thing underground. I glanced back. Bomanz had halted a little to the north, about fifty feet from me. He had his hands in his pockets and wore a look that dared me to protest his presence. The Limper had set down about where the moat was when a moat surrounded the Barrowland. He did not want to fall when the null swept over him.

I glanced at the sun. About nine. Three hours margin if we wanted to use it.

My heart was setting records for carrying on. My hands shook so much it seemed the bones ought to rattle. I doubted I could put an arrow into an elephant from five feet.

How come I got lucky and got picked to be her buttboy?

I reviewed my life. What had I done to deserve this? So many choices I might have made differently… "What?"

"Ready?" she asked.

"Never." I pasted on a sickly grin.

She tried to smile back, but she was more scared than I was. She knew what she faced. She believed she had only moments to live.

She had guts, that woman, going on when there was nothing she could win but, perhaps, some small redemption in the eyes of the world.

Names flashed through my mind. Sylith. Credence. Which? In a moment a choice might be critical.

I am not a religious man. But I sped a silent prayer to the gods of my youth asking that it not be me required to complete the ritual of her naming.

She faced the town and raised an arm. Trumpets winded. As though anyone were not paying attention.

Her arm dropped.

Hoofbeats. Darling in her white, with Elmo, Silent, and the Lieutenant all three dogging her, galloped the lane defined by the pennons. The null was to come sudden, then freeze. The Dominator was to be allowed to break out, but not with his power intact.