"The Rebel? I doubt that. She did it." Corbie lunged forward, forcing his leg. He marched along the edge of the lake. His gaze remained fixed on the Great Barrow.

Case feared Corbie was obsessed with the Barrowland. As a Guard, he had to be concerned. Though the Lady had exterminated the Resurrectionists in his grandfather's time, still that mound exerted its dark attraction. Monitor Sweet remained frightened someone would revive that idiocy. He wanted to caution Corbie, could think of no polite way to phrase himself.

Wind stirred the lake. Ripples ran from the Barrow toward them. Both shivered. "Wish this weather would break," Corbie muttered. "Time for tea?"

"Yes."

The weather continued chill and wet. Summer came late. Autumn arrived early. When the Great Tragic did at last recede, it left a mud plain strewn with the wrecks of grand trees. Its channel had shifted a half mile westward.

The woodland tribes continued selling furs.

Serendipity. Corbie was near done renovating. He was restoring a closet. In removing a wooden clothes rod he fumbled. The rod separated into parts when it hit the floor.

He knelt. He stared. His heart hammered. A slim spindle of white silk lay exposed… Gently, gently, he put the rod back together, carried it upstairs.

Carefully, carefully, he removed the silk, unrolled it. His stomach knotted.

It was Bomanz's chart of the Barrowland, complete with notes about which Taken lay where, where fetishes were located and why, the puissance of protective spells, and a scatter of known resting places of minions of the Taken who had gone into the ground with their captains. A cluttered chart indeed. Mostly annotated in TelleKurre.

Also noted were burial sites outside the Barrowland proper. Most of the ordinary fallen had gone into mass graves.

The battle fired Corbie's imagination. For a moment he saw the Dominator's forces standing firm, dying to the last man. He saw wave after wave of the White Rose horde give themselves up to contain the shadow within the trap. Overhead, the Great Comet seared the sky, a vast flaming scimitar.

He could only imagine, though. There were no reliable histories.

He commiserated with Bomanz. Poor foolish little man, dreaming, seeking the truth. He had not earned his dark legend.

Corbie remained fixed over the chart all night, letting it seep into bone and soul. It did little to help him translate, but it did illuminate the Barrowland some. And even more, it illuminated a wizard so dedicated he had spent his entire adult life studying the Barrowland.

Dawn's light stirred Corbie. For a moment he doubted himself. Could he become prey to the same fatal passion?

Chapter Nine:
THE PLAIN OF FEAR

The Lieutenant himself stirred me out. "Elmo's back, Croaker. Eat some breakfast, then report to the conference room." He was a sour man getting sourer every day. Sometimes I regret having voted for him after the Captain died in Juniper. But the Captain wished it. It was his dying request.