"I've lived with that stuff most of my life, Besand, and even I find it hard to believe there's anything to it. Wait! I get that spooky feeling around the Barrowland, too. But I just can't believe those creatures could rise again after four hundred years in the ground."

"Bo, maybe you are honest. If you are, take a hint. When I leave, you leave. Take the TelleKurre stuff and head for Oar."

"You're starting to sound like Stance."

"I mean it. Some idiot unbeliever kid takes over here, all Hell is going to break loose. Literally. Get out while you can."

"You could be right. I'm thinking about going back. But what would I do? I don't know Oar anymore. The way Stance tells it, I'd get lost.-Hell, this is home now. I never really realized that. This dump is home."

"I know what you mean."

Bomanz looked at that great silver blade in the sky. Soon now…

"What's going on out there? Who is that?" came from Bomanz's back door. "You clear off, hear? I'll have the Guard after you."

"It's me, Jasmine."

Besand laughed. "And the Monitor, mistress. The Guard is here already."

"Bo, what're you doing?"

"Talking. Looking at the stars."

"I'll be getting along," Besand said. "See you tomorrow."

From his tone Bomanz knew tomorrow would be a day of normal harassments.

"Take care." He settled on the dewy back step, let the cool night wash over him. Birds called in the Old Forest, their voices lonely. A cricket chirruped optimistically. Humid air barely stirred the remnants of his hair. Jasmine came out and sat beside him. "Couldn't sleep," he told her.

"Me either."

"Must be going around." He glanced at the comet, was startled by an instant of deja vu. "Remember the summer we came here? When we stayed up to see the comet? It was a night like this."

She took his hand, entwined her fingers with his. "You're reading my mind. Our first month anniversary. Those were fool kids, those two."

"They still are, inside."

Chapter Eleven:
THE BARROWLAND

For Corbie the unravelling came quickly now. When he kept his mind on business. But more and more he became distracted by that old silk map. Those strange old names. In TelleKurre they had a ring absent in modern tongues. Soulcatcher. Stormbringer. Moonbiter. The Hanged Man. They seemed so much more potent in the old tongue.

But they were dead. The only great ones left were the Lady and the monster who started it all, out there under the earth.

Often he went to a small window and stared toward the Barrowland. The devil in the earth. Calling, perhaps. Surrounded by lesser champions, few of them recalled in the legends and few the old wizard identified. Bomanz had been interested only in the Lady.

So many fetishes. And a dragon. And fallen champions of the White Rose, their shades set to eternal guard duty. It seemed so much more dramatic than the struggle today.