Stancil hoisted himself out of the pit. He plucked a strand of sweetgrass, sucked it while gazing into the sky. "Pop, how did you feel right before you married Mom?"
"Numb."
Stancil laughed. "Okay, how about when you went to ask her father? On the way there?"
"I thought I was going to dribble down my leg. You never met your grandfather. He's the one who got them started telling troll stories."
"Something like you feel now?"
"Something. Yes. But it's not the same. I was younger, and I had a reward to look forward to."
"And you don't now? Aren't the stakes bigger?"
"Both ways. Win or lose."
"Know what? You're having what they call a crisis of self-confidence. That's all. Couple of days and you'll be raring to go again."
That evening, after Stancil had gone out, Bomanz told Jasmine, "That's a wise boy we've got. We talked today. Really talked, for the first time. He surprised me." "Why? He's your son, isn't he?"
The dream came stronger than ever before, more quickly than ever. It wakened Bomanz twice in one night. He gave up trying to sleep. He went and sat on the front stoop, taking in the moonlight. The night was bright. He could make out rude buildings along the dirty street.
Some town, he thought, remembering the glories of Oar. The Guard, us antiquaries, and a few people who scratch a living serving us and the pilgrims. Hardly any of those anymore, even with the Domination fashionable. The Barrowland is so disreputable nobody wants to look at it.
He heard footsteps. A shadow approached. "Bo?"
"Besand?"
"Uhm." The Monitor settled on the next step down. "What're you doing?"
"Couldn't sleep. Been thinking about how the Barrowland has gotten so blighted even self-respecting Resurrectionists don't come here anymore. You? You're not taking the night patrol yourself, are you?"
"Couldn't sleep either. That damned comet."
Bomanz searched the sky.
"Can't see it from here. Have to go around back. You're right. Nobody knows we're here anymore. Us or those things in the ground over there. I don't know what's worse. Neglect or plain stupidity."
"Uhm?" Something was gnawing at the Monitor.
"Bo, they're not replacing me because I'm old or incompetent, though I guess I'm enough of both. They're moving me out so somebody's nephew can have a post. An exile for a black sheep. That hurts, Bo. That really hurts. They've forgotten what this place is. They're telling me I wasted my whole life doing a job any idiot can sleep his way through."
"The world is full of fools."
"Fools die."
"Eh?"
"They laugh when I talk about the comet or about Resurrectionists striking this summer. They can't believe that I believe. They don't believe there's anything under those mounds. Not anything still alive."
"Bring them out here. Walk them through the Barrowland after dark."
"I tried. They told me to quit whining if I wanted a pension."
"You've done all you can, then. It's on their heads."
"I took an oath, Bo. I was serious about it then, and I'm serious now. This job is all I have. You've got Jasmine and Stance. I might as well have been a monk. Now they're discarding me for some young…" He began making strange noises.
Sobs? Bomanz thought. From the Monitor? From this man with a heart of flint and all the mercy of a shark? He took Besand's elbow. "Let's go look at the comet. I haven't seen it yet."
Besand got hold of himself. "You haven't? That's hard to believe."
"Why? I haven't been up late. Stancil has done the night work."
"Never mind. Slipping into my antagonistic character again. We should've been lawyers, you and I. We've got the argumentative turn of mind."
"You could be right. Spent a lot of time lately wondering what I'm doing out here."
"What are you doing here, Bo?"
"I was going to get rich. I was going to study the old books, open a few rich graves, go back to Oar and buy into my uncle's drayage business." Idly, Bomanz wondered how much of his faked past Besand accepted. He had lived it so long that he now remembered some fraudulent anecdotes as factual unless he thought hard.
"What happened?"
"Laziness. Plain old-fashioned laziness. I found out there's a big difference between dreaming and getting in there and doing. It was easier to dig just enough to get by and spend the rest of the time loafing." Bomanz made a sour face. He was striking near the truth. His researches were, in fact, partly an excuse for not competing. He simply did not have the drive of a Tokar.
"You haven't had too bad a life. One or two hard winters when Stancil was a pup. But we all went through those. A helping hand here or there and we all survived. There she is." Besand indicated the sky over the Barrowland.
Bomanz gasped. It was exactly what he had seen in his dreams. "Showy, isn't it?"
"Wait till it gets close. It'll fill half the sky."
"Pretty, too."
"Stunning, I'd say. But also a harbinger. An ill omen. The old writers say it'll keep returning till the Dominator is freed."
"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.