"For I know that this, too, will end up in your Annals."

She knew me. But then, she had had me before the Eye.

"Come to the Tower, Croaker. I demand no oath."

"Lady…"

"Even the Taken bind themselves with deadly oaths. You may remain free. Just do what you do. Heal, and record the truth. What you would do anywhere. You have value not to be wasted out there."

Now there was a sentiment with which I could agree wholeheartedly. I would take it back and rub some people's noses in it. "Say what?"

She started to speak. I raised a warning hand. I had spoken to myself, not to her. Was that a footfall? Yes. Something big coming. Something moving slowly, wearily.

She sensed it, too. An eye blink and she was gone, her departure sucking something from my mind, so that once more I was not certain I had not dreamed everything, for all that every word remained immutably inscribed on the stone of my mind.

I shuffled brush onto my fire, backed into a crack behind the dagger that was the only weapon I'd had sense enough to bring.

It came closer. Then paused. Then came on. My heartbeat increased. Something thrust into the firelight.

"Toadkiller Dog! What the hell, hey? What're you doing? Come on in out of the cold, boy." The words tumbled out, bearing fear away. "Boy, will Tracker be glad to see you. What happened to you?"

He came forward cautiously, looking twice as mangy as ever. He dropped onto his belly, rested his chin on forepaws, closed one eye.

"I don't have any food. I'm sort of lost myself. You're damned lucky, know that? Making it this far. The plain is a bad place to be on your own."

Right then that old mongrel looked like he agreed. Body language, if you will. He had survived, but it had not been easy.

I told him, "Sun comes up, we'll head back. Goblin and One-Eye got lost; it's their own tough luck."

After Toadkiller Dog's arrival I rested better. I guess the old alliance is imprinted on people, too. I was confident he would warn me if trouble beckoned.

Come morning we found the creek and headed for the Hole. I stopped, as I often do, to approach Old Father Tree for a little one-sided conversation about what he had seen during his long sentinelship. The dog would not come anywhere near. Weird. But so what? Weird is the order of the day on the Plain.

I found One-Eye and Goblin snoring, sleeping in. They had returned to the Hole only minutes after my departure in search of them. Bastards. I would redress the balance when the chance came.

I drove them crazy by not mentioning my night out.

"Did it work?" I demanded. Down the tunnel Tracker was having a noisy reunion with his mutt.

"Sort of," Goblin said. He was not enthusiastic.