The gate looked like the mouth of the night, but a step forward took me into a wide, lighted passageway. It reeked of the horses and cattle which had been driven in an age ago.
A soldier awaited me. “Are you Croaker?” I nodded. “Follow me.” He was not a Guard, but a young infantryman from the Howler’s army. He seemed bewildered. Here, there, I saw more of his ilk. It hit me. The Howler had spent his nights ferrying troops while the rest of the Taken battled the Circle and one another. None of those men had come to the battlefield.
How many were there? What surprises did the Tower conceal?
I entered the inner Tower through the portal I had used before. The soldier halted where the Guard captain had. He wished me luck in a pale, shaky voice. I thanked him squeakily.
She played no games. At least, nothing flashy. And I did not slip into my role as sex-brained boy. This was business all the way.
She seated me at a dark wood table with my bow lying before me, said, “I have a problem.”
I just looked at her.
“Rumors are running wild out there, aren’t they? About what’s happened among the Taken?”
I nodded. “This isn’t like the Limper going bad. They’re murdering each other. The men don’t want to get caught in the crossfire.”
“My husband isn’t dead. You know that. He’s behind it all. He’s been awakening. Very slowly, but enough to have reached some of the Circle. Enough to have touched the females among the Taken. They’ll do anything for him. The bitches. I watch them as close as I can, but I’m not infallible. They get away with things. This battle... It isn’t what it seems. The Rebel army was brought here by members of the Circle under my husband’s influence, The fools. They thought they could use him, to defeat me and grab power for themselves. They’re all gone now slain, but the thing they set in motion goes on. I’m not fighting the White Rose, Annalist-though a victory over that silliness could come from this as well. I’m fighting the old slaver, the Dominator. And if I lose I lose the world.”
Cunning woman. She did not assume the role of maiden in distress. She played it as one equal to another, and that won my sympathy more surely. She knew I knew the Dominator as well as did any mundane now alive. Knew I must fear him far more than her, for who fears a woman more than a man?
“I know you, Annalist. I have opened your soul and peered inside. You fight for me because your company has undertaken a commission it will pursue to the bitter end- because its principal personalities feel its honor was stained in Beryl. And that though most of you think you’re serving Evil.”
“Evil is relative, Annalist. You can’t hang a sign on it. You can’t touch it or taste it or cut it with a sword. Evil depends on where you are standing, pointing your indicting finger. Where you stand now, because of your oath, is opposite the Dominator. For you he is where your Evil lies.”
She paced a moment, perhaps anticipating a response. I made none. She had encapsulated my own philosophy.
“That evil tried to kill you three times, physician. Twice for fear of your knowledge, once for fear of your future.”
That woke me up. “My future?”
“The Taken sometimes glimpse the future. Perhaps this conversation was foreseen.”
She had me baffled. I sat there looking stupid.
.She left the room momentarily, returned carrying a quiver of arrows, spilled them on the table. They were black and heavy, silver-headed, inscribed with almost invisible lettering. While I examined them she took my bow, exchanged it for another of identical weight and pull. It was a gorgeous match for the arrows. Too gorgeous to be used as a weapon.
She told me, “Carry these. Always.”
“I’ll have to use them?”
“It’s possible. Tomorrow will see the end of the matter, one way or the other. The Rebel has been mauled, yet he retains vast manpower reserves. My strategy may not succeed. If I fail, my husband wins. Not the Rebel, not the White Rose, but the nominator, that hideous beast lying restless in his grave...”
I avoided her gaze, eyed the weapons, wondered what I was supposed to say, to not hear, what I was supposed to do with those death tools, and if I could do it when the time came.
She knew my mind. “You’ll know the moment. And you’ll do what you think is right.”
I looked up now, frowning, wishing... Even knowing what she was, wishing. Maybe my idiot brothers were right.
She smiled, reached with one of those too-perfect hands, clasped my fingers...
I lost track. I think. I do not recall anything happening. Yet my mind did fuzz for a second, and when it unfuzzed, she was holding my hand still, smiling, saying, “Time to go, soldier. Rest well.”
I rose zombielike and shambled toward the door. I had a distinct feeling that I had missed something. I did not look back. I couldn’t.
I stepped into the night outside the Tower and immediately knew I had lost time again. The stars had moved across the sky. The comet was low. Rest well? The hours for rest were nearly gone.
