"A dowser?" Susannah asked from out of the darkness. She had returned quietly and now gestured with her hands, as if holding a wishbone.

The old man looked at her, surprised, then nodded. "The drotta, yar. Any ro', I argued agin' it, but after the Wolves came and tuk his sister, Tia, Lukey done whatever the boy wanted. Can'ee imagine, lettin a boy nummore'n seventeen site the well, drotta or no? But Lukey put it there and there were water, Ah'll give'ee that, we all seen it gleam and smelt it before the clay sides give down and buried my boy alive. We dug him out but he were gone to the clearing, thrut and lungs all full of clay and muck."

Slowly, slowly, the old man took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes with it.

"The boy and I en't had a civil word between us since; that well's dug between us, do ya not see it. But he's right about wan-tin't'stand agin the Wolves, and if you tell him anything for me, tell him his Gran-pere salutes him damn proud, salutes him big-big, yer-bugger! He got the sand o'Jaffords in his craw, aye! We stood our stand all those years agone, and now the blood shows true." He nodded, this time even more slowly. "Garn and tell yer dinh, aye! Every word! And if it seeps out… if the Wolves were to come out of Thunderclap early fer one dried-up old turd like me…"

He bared his few remaining teeth in a smile Eddie found extraordinarily gruesome.

"Ah can still wind a bah," he said, "and sumpin tells me yer brownie could be taught to throw a dish, shor' legs or no."

The old man looked off into the darkness.

"Let 'un come," he said softly. "Last time pays fer all, yer-bugger. Last time pays fer all."

Mia was in the castle again, but this time was different. This time she did not move slowly, toying with her hunger, knowing that soon it would be fed and fed completely, that both she and her chap would be satisfied. This time what she felt inside was ravenous desperation, as if some wild animal had been caged up inside her belly. She understood that what she had felt on all those previous expeditions hadn't been hunger at all, not true hunger, but only healthy appetite. This was different.

His time is coming, she thought. He needs to eat more, in order to get his strength. And so do I.

Yet she was afraid-she was terrified -that it wasn't just a matter of needing to eat more. There was something she needed to eat, something forspecial. The chap needed it in order to… well, to…

To finish the becoming.

Yes! Yes, that was it, the becoming! And surely she would find it in the banquet hall, because everything was in the banquet hall-a thousand dishes, each more succulent than the last. She would graze the table, and when she found the right thing-the right vegetable or spice or meat or fish-roe-her guts and nerves would cry out for it and she would eat… oh she would gobble...

She began to hurry along faster yet, and then to run. She was vaguely aware that her legs were swishing together because she was wearing pants. Denim pants, like a cowboy. And instead of slippers she was wearing boots.

Shor'boots, her mind whispered to her mind. Shor'boots, may they do yafine.

But none of this mattered. What mattered was eating, gorging (oh she was so hungry), and finding the right thing for the chap. Finding the thing that would both make him strong and bring on her labor.

She pelted down the broad staircase, into the steady beating murmur of the slo-trans engines. Wonderful smells should have overwhelmed her by now-roasted meats, barbecued poultry, herbed fish-but she couldn't smell food at all.

Maybe I have a cold, she thought as her shor'boots stut-tut-tuttered on the stairs. That must be it, I must have a cold. My sinuses are all swollen and I can't smell anything -

But she could. She could smell the dust and age of this place. She could smell damp seepage, and the faint tang of engine oil, and the mildew eating relentlessly into tapestries and curtains hung in the rooms of ruin.

Those things, but no food.

She dashed along the black marble floor toward the double doors, unaware that she was again being followed-not by the gunslinger this time but by a wide-eyed, tousle-haired boy in a cotton shirt and a pair of cotton shorts. Mia crossed the foyer with its red and black marble squares and the statue of smoothly entwined marble and steel. She didn't stop to curtsy, or even nod her head. That she should be so hungry was bearable. But not her chap. Never her chap.

What halted her (and only for a space of seconds) was her own reflection, milky and irresolute, in the statue's chrome steel. Above her jeans was a plain white shirt (You call this kind a tee-shirt, her mind whispered) with some writing on it, and a picture.

The picture appeared to be of a pig.

Never mind what's on your shirt, woman. The chap's what matters. You must feed the chap!

She burst into the dining hall and stopped with a gasp of dismay. The room was full of shadows now. A few of the electric torches still glowed, but most had gone out. As she looked, the only one still burning at the far end of the room stuttered, buzzed, and fell dark. The white forspecial plates had been replaced with blue ones decorated with green tendrils of rice. The rice plants formed the Great Letter Zn, which, she knew, meant eternity and now and also come, as in come-commala. But plates didn't matter. Decorations didn't matter. What mattered was that the plates and beautiful crystal glassware were empty and dull with dust.

No, not everything was empty; in one goblet she saw a dead black widow spider lying with its many legs curled against the red hourglass on its midsection.

She saw the neck of a wine-bottle poking from a silver pail and her stomach gave an imperative cry. She snatched it up, barely registering the fact that there was no water in the bucket, let alone ice; it was entirely dry. At least the bottle had weight, and enough liquid inside to slosh-

But before Mia could close her lips over the neck of the bottle, the smell of vinegar smote her so strongly that her eyes filled with water.

"Mutha-fuck!" she screamed, and threw the bottle down. "You mutha-fuckah!"

The bottle shattered on the stone floor. Things ran in squeaking surprise beneath the table.

"Yeah, you bettahrun!" she screamed. "Get ye gone, whatever y'are! Here's Mia, daughter of none, and not in a good mood! Yet I will be fed! Yes! Yes I will!"

This was bold talk, but at first she saw nothing on the table that she could eat. There was bread, but the one piece she bothered to pick up had turned to stone. There was what appeared to be the remains of a fish, but it had putrefied and lay in a greenish-white simmer of maggots.

Her stomach growled, undeterred by this mess. Worse, something below her stomach turned restlessly, and kicked, and cried out to be fed. It did this not with its voice but by turning certain switches inside her, back in the most primitive sections of her nervous system. Her throat grew dry; her mouth puckered as if she had drunk the turned wine; her vision sharpened as her eyes widened and bulged outward in their sockets. Every thought, every sense, and every instinct tuned to the same simple idea: food.

Beyond the far end of the table was a screen showing Arthur Eld, sword held high, riding through a swamp with three of his knight-gunslingers behind him. Around his neck was Saita, the great snake, which presumably he had just slain. Another successful quest! Do ya fine! Men and their quests! Bah! What was slaying a magical snake to her? She had a chap in her belly, and the chap was hungry.