This was no repeat of our encounter in the forest. I did not lose my memories. I just did not hear her questions. Those could be inferred from my answers about my contacts with the Taken.
She was hunting the something I began to suspect at the Stair of Tear. I had stumbled into as deadly a trap as ever snapped shut; Taken as the one jaw, the Lady as the other.
Darkness. And awakening.
She stands in the Tower, gazing northward... Tear diamonds sparkle on Her cheek.
A spark of Croaker remained unintimidated. “This is where I came in,”
She faced me, smiled. She stepped over and touched me with the sweetest fingers ever woman possessed.
All fear went away.
All darkness closed in again.
Passageway walls were rolling by when I recovered. The Guard captain was pushing me. “How are you doing?” he asked.
I took stock. “Good enough. Where you taking me now?”
“The front door. She said cut you loose.”
Just like that? Hmm. I touched my wound. Healed. I shook my head. Things like this did not happen to me.
I paused at the place where the ballista had had its mishap. There was nothing to see and no one to question. I descended to the middle level and visited one of the crews excavating there. They had orders to install a cubicle twelve feet wide and eighteen deep. They had no idea why.
I scanned the length of the retaining wall. A dozen such sites were under construction.
The men eyed me intently when I limped into camp. They choked on questions they could not ask, on concern they could not express. Only Darling refused to play the traditional game. She squeezed my hand, gave me a big smile. Her little fingers danced.
She asked the questions machismo forbid the men. “Slow down,” I told her. I was not yet proficient enough to catch everything she signed. Yet her joy communicated itself. I had a big grin on when I became aware that someone was in my way. I looked up. Raven.
“Captain wants you,” he said, He seemed cool.
“Figures.” I signed good-bye, strolled toward headquarters. I felt no urgency. No mere mortal could intimidate me now.
I glanced back. Raven had his arm across Darling’s shoulder, proprietary, looking puzzled.
The Captain was off his style. He dispensed with the customary growling. One-Eye was the only third party present, and he, too, was interested in nothing but business.
“We got trouble?” the Captain asked.
“What do you mean?”
“What happened in the hills. No accident, eh? The Lady summons you, and half an hour later one of the Taken goes zuzu. Then there’s your accident at the Tower. You’re bad hurt and nobody can explain.”
One-Eye observed, “Logic insists a connection.”
The Captain added, “Yesterday we heard you were dying. Today you’re fine. Sorcery?”
“Yesterday?” Time had gotten away again. I pushed the tent flap aside, stared at the Tower. “Another night in elf hill.”
“Was it an accident?” One-Eye asked.
“It wasn’t accidental.” The Lady hadn’t thought so.
“Captain, that jibes.”
The Captain said, “Somebody tried to knife Raven last night. Darling ran him off.”
“Raven? Darling?”
“Something woke her up. She whacked the guy in the head with her doll. Whoever it was got away.”
“Weird.”
“Decidedly,” One-Eye said. “Why would Raven sleep through and a deaf kid wake up? Raven can hear the footfall of a gnat. Smells of sorcery. Cockeyed sorcery. The kid shouldn’t have awakened.”
The Captain jumped in. “Raven. You. Taken. The Lady. Murder attempts. An interview in the Tower. You have the answer. Spill it.”
My reluctance showed.
“You told Elmo we should disassociate ourselves from Catcher. How come? Catcher treats us good. What happened when you took out Harden? Spread it around and there wouldn’t be any point to killing you.”
Good argument. Only I like to be sure before I shoot my mouth off. “I think there’s a plot against the Lady. Soulcatcher and Stormbringer might be involved.” I related details of Harden’s fall and Whisper’s taking. “Shifter was really upset because they let the Hanged Man die. I don’t think the Limper was part of anything. He was set up, and manipulated craftily. The Lady was too. Maybe the Limper and the Hanged Man were her supporters.”
One-Eye looked thoughtful. “You sure Catcher is in on it?”
“I’m not sure of anything. I wouldn’t be surprised by anything, either. Ever since Beryl I’ve thought he was using us.”
The Captain nodded. “Definitely. I told One-Eye to cook up an amulet that’ll warn you if one of the Taken gets too close. For what good it’ll do. I don’t think you’ll be bothered again, though. The Rebel is on the move. That’ll be everybody’s first order of business.”
A chain of logic lightninged to a conclusion. The data was there all the time. It just needed a nudge to drop into place. “I think I know what it’s about. The Lady being an usurper.”
One-Eye asked, “One of the boys in the masks wants to do her the way she done her old man?”
“No. They want to bring back the Dominator.”
“Eh?”
“He’s still up north, in the ground. The Lady just kept him from returning when the wizard Bomanz opened the way for her. He could be in touch with Taken who are faithful to him. Bomanz proved communication with those buried in the Barrowland was possible. He could even be guiding some of the Circle, Harden was as big a villain as any of the Taken.”
One-Eye pondered, then prophesied. “The battle will be lost. The Lady will be overthrown. Her loyal Taken will be laid low and her loyal troops wiped out. But they will take the most idealistic elements among the Rebel with them, meaning, essentially, a defeat for the White Rose.”
I nodded. “The comet is in the sky, but the Rebel hasn’t found his mystic child.”
“Yeah. You’re probably right on the mark when you say maybe the Dominator is influencing the Circle. Yeah.”
“And in the chaos afterward, while they’re squabbling over the spoils, up jumps the devil,” I said.
“So where do we fit?” the Captain asked.
“The question,” I replied, “is how do we get out from under.”
Flying carpets buzzed around the Tower like flies around a corpse. The armies of Whisper, the Howler, the Nameless, Bonegnasher, and Moonbiter, were eight to twelve days away, converging. Eastern troops were pouring in by air.
The gate in the palisade was busy with the comings and goings of parties harassing the Rebel. The Rebel had moved his camps to within five miles of the Tower. Some company troops made the occasional night raid, abetted by Goblin, One-Eye, and Silent, but the effort seemed pointless. The numbers were too overwhelming for hit and run to have any substantial effect. I wondered why the Lady wanted the Rebel kept stirred up.
Construction was complete. The obstacles were prepared. Boobytraps were in place. There was little to do but wait.
Six days had passed since our return with Feather and Journey. I’d expected their capture to electrify the Rebel into striking, but still they were stalling. One-Eye believed they had hopes of a last-minute finding of their White Rose.
Only the drawing of lots remained undone. Three of the Taken, with armies assigned them, would defend each level. It was rumored that the Lady herself would command forces stationed on the pyramid.
Nobody wanted to be on the front line. No matter how things went, those troops would be badly hurt. Thus the lottery.
There had been no more attempts on Raven or myself. Our antagonist was covering his tracks some other way. Too late to do unto us, anyway. I’d seen the Lady.
The tenor changed. Returning skirmishers began to look more battered, more desperate. The enemy was moving his camps again.