Colonel Sweet and his men spent hours roaming the bounds of the Barrowland. No one found a thing.
The Eternal Guard returned to its compound cursing the gods and weather.
On the second floor of Corbie's house Corbie's body continued to breathe one breath each five minutes. His heart barely turned over. He would be a long time dying without his spirit.
Chapter Twenty-One: THE PLAIN OF FEAR
I asked to see Darling and got an immediate audience. She expected me to come in raising hell about ill-advised military actions by outfits that could not afford losses. She expected lessons in the importance of maintaining cadres and forces-in-being. I surprised her by coming with neither. Here she was, primed to weather the worst, to get it over so she could get back to business, and I disappointed her.
Instead, I took her the letters from Oar, which I had shared with no one yet. She expressed curiosity. I signed: "Read them."
It took a while. The Lieutenant ducked in and out, growing more impatient each time. She finished, looked at me. "Well?" she signed.
"That comes from the core of the documents I am missing. Along with a few other things, that story is what I have been hunting. Soulcatcher gave me to believe that the weapon we want is hidden inside this story."
"It is not complete." "No. But does it not give you pause?" "You have no idea who the writer is?" "No. And no way to find out, short of looking him up. Or her." Actually, I had a couple of suspicions, but each seemed more unlikely than the other.
"These have come with swift regularity," Darling observed. "After all this time." That made me suspect she shared one of my suspicions. That "all this time."
"The couriers believe they were forwarded over a more spread period."
"It is interesting, but not yet useful. We must await more." "It will not hurt to consider what it means. The end part of the last, there. That is beyond me. I have to work on that. It may be critical. Unless it is meant to baffle someone who intercepts the fragment."
She shuffled out the last sheet, stared at it. A sudden light illuminated her face. "It is the finger speech. Croaker," she signed. "The letters. See? The speaking hand, as it forms the alphabet."
I circled behind her. I saw it now, and felt abysmally stupid for having missed it. Once you saw that, it was easy to read. If you knew your sign. It said:
This may be the last communication, Croaker. There is something I must do. The risks are grave. The chances hang against me, but I must go ahead. If you do not receive the final installment, about Bomanz's last days, you will have to come collect it. I will conceal one copy within the home of the wizard, as the story describes. You may find another in Oar. Ask for the blacksmith named Sand.
Wish me luck. By now you must have found a place of safety. I would not bring you forth unless the fate of the world hinged upon it.
There was no signature here, either.
Darling and I stared at one another. I asked, "What do you think? What should I do?"
"Wait."
"And if no further episodes are forthcoming?"
"Then you must go looking."
"Yes." Fear. The world was marshaled against us. The Rust raid would have the Taken in a vengeful frenzy.
"It may be the great hope, Croaker."
"The Barrowland, Darling. Only the Tower itself could be more dangerous."
"Perhaps I should accompany you."
"No! You will not be risked. Not under any circumstances. The movement can survive the loss of one beat-up, worn-out old physician. It cannot without the White Rose."
She hugged me hard, backed off, signed, "I am not the White Rose, Croaker. She is dead four centuries. I am Darling."
"Our enemies call you the White Rose. Our friends do. There is power in a name." I waved the letters. "That is what this is about. One name. What you have been named you must be."
"I am Darling," she insisted.
"To me, maybe. To Silent. To a few others. But to the world you are the White Rose, the hope and the salvation." It occurred to me that a name was missing. The name Darling wore before she became a ward of the Company. Always she had been Darling, because that was what Raven called her. Had he known her birthname? If so, it no longer mattered. She was safe. She was the last alive to know it, if even she remembered. The village where we found her, mauled by the Limper's troops, was not the sort that kept written records.
"Go," she signed. "Study. Think. Be of good faith. Somewhere, soon, you will find the thread."
Chapter Twenty-Two: THE PLAIN OF FEAR
The men who fled Rust with the cowardly windwhale eventually arrived. We learned that the Taken had escaped the Plain, all in a rage because but one carpet survived. Their offensive would be delayed till the carpets were replaced. And carpets are among the greatest and most costly magicks. I suspect the Limper had to do a lot of explaining to the Lady.
I drafted One-Eye, Goblin, and Silent into an expanded project. I translated. They extracted proper names, assembled them in charts. My quarters became all but impenetrable. And barely livable while they were there, for Goblin and One-Eye had had a couple of tastes of life outside Darling's null. They were at one another constantly.
And I began having nightmares.
One evening I posed a challenge, half as a result of no further courier arriving, half as busy work meant to stop Goblin and One-Eye from driving me mad. I said, "I may have to leave the Plain. Can you do something so I don't attract any special attention?"
They had their questions. I answered most honestly. They wanted to go too, as if a journey west was established fact. I said, "No way are you going. A thousand miles of this crap? I'd commit suicide before we got off the Plain. Or murder one of you. Which I'm considering anyway."
Goblin squeaked. He pretended mortal terror. One-Eye said, "Get within ten feet of me and I'll turn you into a lizard."
I made a rude noise. "You can barely turn food into shit."
Goblin cackled. "Chickens and cows do better. You can fertilize with theirs."
"You got no room to talk, runt," I snapped.
"Getting touchy in his old age," One-Eye observed. "Must be rheumatiz. Got the rheumatiz, Croaker?"
"He'll wish his problem was rheumatism if he keeps on," Goblin promised. "It's bad enough I have to put up with you. But you're at least predictable."
"Predictable?"
"Like the seasons."
They were off. I sped Silent a look of appeal. The son-of-a-bitch ignored me.
Next day Goblin ambled in wearing a smug smile. "We figured something out, Croaker. In case you do go wandering."
"Like what?"
"We'll need your amulets."
I had two that they had given me long ago. One was supposed to warn me of the proximity of the Taken. It worked quite well. The other, ostensibly, was protective, but it also let them locate me from a distance. Silent tracked it the time Catcher sent Raven and me to ambush Limper and Whisper in the Forest of Cloud, when Limper tried to go over to the Rebel.
Long ago and far away. Memories of a younger Croaker.
"We'll work up some modifications. So you can't be located magically. Let me have them. Later we'll have to go outside to test them."
I eyed him narrowly.
He said, "You'll have to come so we can test them by trying to find you."
"Yeah? Sounds like a drummed-up excuse to get outside the null."
"Maybe." He grinned.
Whatever, Darling liked the notion. Next evening we headed up the creek, skirting Old Father Tree. "He looks a little peaked," I said.
"Caught the side wash of a Taken spell during the brouhaha," One-Eye explained. "I don't think he was pleased."