“When I was a child... my sisters and I had a teacher.”
Did I pay attention? You bet your sweet ass I did. I was ears from my toenails to the top of my pointy head. “A teacher?”
“Yes. He argued that we are the gods, that we create our own destiny. That what we are determines what will become of us. In a peasantlike vernacular, we all paint ourselves into corners from which there is no escape simply by being ourselves and interacting with other selves.”
“Interesting.”
“Well. Yes. There is a god of sorts, Croaker. Do you know? Not a mover and shaker, though. Simply a negator. An ender of tales. He has a hunger than cannot be sated. The universe itself will slide down his maw.”
“Death?”
“I do not want to die, Croaker. All that I am shrieks against the unrighteousness of death. All that I am, was, and probably will be, is shaped by my passion to evade the end of me.” She laughed quietly, but there was a thread of hysteria there. She gestured, indicating the shadowed killing ground below. “I would have built a world in which I was safe. And the cornerstone of my citadel would have been death.”
The end of the dream was drawing close. I could not imagine a world without me in it, either. And the inner me was outraged. Is outraged. I have no trouble imagining someone becoming obsessed with escaping death. “I understand.”
“Maybe. We’re all equals at the dark gate, no? The sands run for us all. Life is but a flicker shouting into the jaws of eternity. But it seems so damned unfair!”
Old Father Tree entered my thoughts. He would perish in time. Yes. Death is insatiable and cruel.
“Have you reflected?” she asked.
“I think so. I’m no necromancer. But I’ve seen roads I don’t want to walk.”
“Yes. You’re free to go, Croaker.”
Shock. Even my heels tingled with disbelief. “Say what?”
“You’re free. The Tower gate is open. You need but walk out it. But you’re also free to remain, to reenter the lists in the struggle that envelopes us all.”
There was almost no light left except for some sun hitting very high clouds. Against the deep indigo in the east a squadron of bright pinpricks moved westward. They seemed headed toward the Tower.
I gabbled something that made no sense.
“Will she, nihil she, the Lady of Charm is at war with her husband once more,” she said. “And till that struggle is lost or won, there is no other. You see the Taken returning. The armies of the east are marching toward the Barrowland. Those beyond the Plain have been ordered to withdraw to garrisons farther east. Your deaf child is in no danger unless she comes looking for it. There is an armistice. Perhaps eternally.” Weak smile. “If there is no Lady, there is no one for the White Rose to battle.”
She left me then, in total confusion, and went to greet her champions. The carpets came down out of the darkness, settling like autumn leaves. I moved a little nearer till my personal guardian indicated that my relationship with the Lady was insufficiently close to permit eavesdropping.
The wind grew more chill, blowing out of the north. And I wondered if it might not be autumn for us all.
Forty
Making up my mind
She never once demanded anything. Even her hints were so oblique they left everything to me to work out. Two days after our evening on the ramparts I asked the Colonel if I might see her. He said he would ask. I suspect he was under instructions. Otherwise there would have been arguments.
Another day passed before he came to say the Lady had time for me.
I closed my inkwell, cleaned my quill, and rose. “Thank you.” He looked at me oddly. “Is something wrong?”
“No. Just...”
I understood. “I don’t know either. I’m sure she has some special use for me.”
That brightened the Colonel’s day. That he could comprehend.
The usual routine. This time I entered her demense as she stood at a window opening on a world of wet gloom. Grey rain, choppy brown water, and hulking to the left, shapes barely discernible, trees clinging precariously to a high river bank. Cold and misery leaked out of that portraiture. It had a too familiar smell.
“The Great Tragic River,” she said. “In full flood. But it’s always in flood, isn’t it?” She beckoned. I followed. Since my last visit a large table had been added. Atop it was a miniature of the Barrowland, a representation so good it was spooky. You almost expected to see little Guards scurrying around the compound.
“You see?” she asked.
“No. Though I’ve been there twice, I’m not familiar with much but the town and the compound. What am I supposed to see?”
“The river. Your friend Raven evidently recognized its import.” With one delicate finger she sketched a loop well to the east of the river’s course, which curved into the ridge where we had camped.
“At the time of my triumph in Juniper the river’s bed lay here. A year later the weather turned. The river flooded continuously. And crept this way. Today it’s devouring this ridge. I examined it myself. The ridge is entirely earthen, without bones of stone. It won’t last. Once it goes, the river will cut into the Barrowland. All the spells of the White Rose won’t keep it from opening the Great Barrow. Each fetish swept away will make it that much easier for my husband to rise.”
I grunted. “Against Nature there is no defense.”
“There is. If one foresees. The White Rose did not. I did not when I attempted to bind him more securely. Now it’s too late. So, You wanted to speak to me?”
“Yes. I have to leave the Tower.”
“So. You didn’t have to come to me about that. You’re free to stay or go.”
“I’m going because there’re things I have to do. As you well know. If I walk, I’ll probably get them done too late. It’s a long hike to the Plain. Not to mention risky. I want to beg transportation.”
She smiled, and this smile was genuine, radiant, subtly different from previous smiles. “Good. I thought you would see where the future lies. How soon can you be ready?”
“Five minutes. There is one question. Raven.”
“Raven has been hospitalized at the compound at the Barrowland. Nothing can be done for him right now. Every effort will be made when an opportunity arises. Sufficient?”
I could not argue, of course.
“Good. Transport will be available. You will have a unique chauffeur. The Lady herself.”
“I...”
“I, too, have been thinking. My best next step is to meet your White Rose. I’m going with you.”
After gulping quarts of air, I managed, “They’d jump all over you.”
“Not if they don’t know me. They wouldn’t, unless they were told.”
Well, no one was likely to recognize her. I am unique in having met her and lived to brag on it. But... Gods, the heaps and bales of buts. “If you entered the null, all your spells would fall apart.”
“No. New spells wouldn’t work. Spells in place would be safe.”
I did not understand and said so.
“A simple glamor will fade on entering the null. It is being actively maintained. A spell which changes and leaves changed, but which isn’t active on entering the null, won’t be affected.”
Something off in the badlands of my mind tickled me. I could not run it down. “If you turned into a frog and hopped in there, you’d stay a frog?”
“If the transformation was actual and not just an illusion.”
“I see.” I hung a red flag on that, told me to worry it later.
“I will become a companion acquired along the way. Say, someone who can help with your documents.”
There had to be levels of deceit. Or something. I could not imagine her putting her life into my hands. I do believe I gawked.