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.”
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.”
The old tree tinkled. I stopped, considered it. It had to be thousands of years old. Trees grow very slow on the Plain. What stories it would tell!
“Come on, Croaker,” Goblin called. “Old Father ain’t talking.” He grinned his frog grin.
They know me too well. Know when I see anything old I wonder what it has seen. Damn them, anyhow.
We left the watercourse five miles from the Hole, quartered westward into desert where the coral was especially dense and dangerous. I guess there were five hundred species, in reefs so close they were almost impenetrable. The colors were riotous. Fingers, fronds, branches of coral soared thirty feet into the air. I remain eternally amazed that the wind does not topple them.
In a small sandy place surrounded by coral, One-Eye called a halt. “This is far enough. We’ll be safe here.”
I wondered. Our progress had been followed by manias and the creatures that resemble buzzards. Never will I trust such beasts completely.
Long, long ago, after the Battle at Charm, the Company crossed the Plain en route to assignments in the east. I saw horrible things happen. I could not shake the memories.
Goblin and One-Eye played games but also tended to business. They remind me of active children. Always into something, just to be doing. I lay back and watched the clouds. Soon I fell asleep.
Goblin wakened me. He returned my amulets. “We’re going to play hide-and-seek,” he said. “We’ll give you a head start. If we’ve done everything right, we won’t be able to find you.”
“Now that’s wonderful,” I replied. “Me alone out here, wandering around lost.” I was just carping. I could find the Hole. As a nasty practical joke I was tempted to head straight there.
This was business, though.
I set off to the southwest, toward the buttes. I crossed the westward trail and went into hiding among quiescent walking trees. Only after darkness fell did I give up waiting. I walked back to the Hole, wondering what had become of my companions. I startled the sentry when I arrived. “Goblin and One-Eye come in?”
“No. I thought they were with you.”
“They were.” Concerned, I went below, asked the Lieutenant’s advice.
“Go find them,” he told me.
“How?”
He looked at me like I was a half-wit. “Leave your silly amulets, go outside the null, and wait.”
“Oh. Okay.”
So I went back outside, walked up the creek, grumbling. My feet ached. I was not used to so much hiking. Good for me, I told myself. Had to be in shape if there was a trip to Oar in the cards.
I reached the edge of the coral reefs. “One-Eye! Goblin! You guys around?”
No answer. I was not going on looking, though. The coral would kill me. I circled north, assuming they had moved away from the Hole. Each few minutes I dropped to my knees, hoping to spot a menhir’s silhouette. The menhirs would know what had become of them.