Following Smoke’s chain, I discovered that the one side had been walled off. But the carpenters had done a poor job using salvage lumber that had not stood up to someone’s patient ministrations.

I ducked through the hole.

The stench was a lot thicker on the other side. I had seen less filthy pigsties.

The prisoners had not explored their prison thoroughly. They had not found my little cubby. But someone else had and had decided to take advantage of it.

One-Eye’s lost manufacturing equipment and finished product had been stuffed into the hole, along with what looked like a bunch of treasures harvested from the ruined city. Mother Gota had enjoyed collecting junk during her nocturnal rambles.

I dragged out a jug, popped its cork. Damn, that stuff smelled nasty! Some kind of distilled spirits... I took a long pull that left my eyes running. The stuff tasted worse than it smelled.

After a second throat burning draught I raised my lamp high, trying to get some light in there past the clutter. I had left a few treasures of my own, though nothing important enough to have dragged on over to the Shadowgate yet. I did not recall what all I had stashed.

“Ah! What’s this?” I snaked an arm in through the junk.

As I closed my fingers on ragged burlap I managed to elbow a stack of earthenware bottles piled on their sides. One-Eye evidently had meant to revisit them long ago because even an ignoramus like me knows you do not leave bottled beer horizontal forever.

It took only that nudge to get the bottles banging against one another, then blasting their contents all over me and the inside of the dugout. I snagged one spewing bottle and got some of its contents inside me. Not bad, but a little yeasty.

“I’m all right!” I shouted in response to Thai Dei’s inquiry from outside. “I found One-Eye’s treasure.” In more ways than one, I discovered. The object wrapped in burlap was that wonderful wizard killer spear he had whittled while we were trapped in Dejagore. The gold and silver inlays alone were worth a fortune.

More evidence that the little wizard had not planned to stay away forever. He did not know I knew but he had continued working on that spear secretly, always improving it, making it ever more his masterwork.

“And what’s this?” There was another object in burlap, behind the spear. Had the little shit been making knockoffs of his own artwork?

No. This was a bow, with arrows. I did not recognize it immediately because I had not seen it in more years than I wanted to count, but it was the weapon Lady had given Croaker way back when she was still The Lady. I thought the boss lost it a long time ago.

Croaker always had another secret.

I had to wonder if he had not had some part in One-Eye’s desertion.

It was always possible that he did not know what had become of the bow.

I collected spear and bow and as many stoneware containers as I could lug. I could send Thai Dei in for more beer and... 

I could not carry my lamp and plunder, too. I used to live here. I could find my way around without a lamp. Besides, there was a glimmer of twilight still leaking in through the doorway.

The alcohol was taking effect. As I stepped over him I told Smoke, “I wouldn’t have your luck on a bet, chief.”

Smoke opened his eyes.

I jumped. It had been five or six years... And he did not appear to be in a friendly mood.

I discovered that I just wanted to get out and indulge my taste for beer.

Thai Dei helped me with my burdens. Somehow, one bottle of beer stuck to his hand. I noted that his charges were all healthy still, though Narayan Singh might have acquired a fresh crop of bruises.

“Where the hell is everybody?” I grumbled again. “I’ve got stuff to do. But we can’t go off and leave these characters alone. They’re bound to get into some kind of mischief.” Longshadow, Howler and Singh were not volunteering to go back into captivity.

I took another long drink.

The quiet really bothered me. It might indicate yet another less-than-brilliant attempt to subdue Soulcatcher. She had grudges enough against us as it was.

I had seen the ground that had suffered Lady’s barrage. It bore no resemblance to its springtime self. Rocks as big as houses had had holes punched right through them. Most of the busted-up trees had burned. There had been rockslides and cave-ins. In places the rock appeared to have become plastic. It had sagged like candle wax. Catcher’s cave could not be found.

The only bodies found so far were those of crows. There was no evidence that Soulcatcher or her prisoner had suffered any serious discomfiture.

Live crows laughed amongst the tortured rocks.

Thai Dei grunted. These days he was positively garrulous, sometimes mouthing as many as two entire sentences in an hour. But this time he needed no words. He just put his beer in his other hand and pointed into the gathering darkness.

The missing folks were returning in a mob, coming from the direction of Catcher’s disaster. Why would they all charge off into the foothills? Because the Old Man realized my seizure must have been caused by Lady’s rascal sister?

No. He would not bother for something that trivial.

But he would go to all that trouble to round up Sleepy.

“Where did you find him?” I asked Sparkle, who was leading the mule dragging the travois onto which Sleepy was strapped. It was obvious that the kid had had it rough. His weight was down. His wardrobe was not much fresher than Narayan Singh’s. Whom I mentioned to the Old Man as soon as I found him. “It was pure luck that we showed up when we did. We got them under control. But you’ve got to do something. Or they’re going to become a major bite in the ass someday. Where did Sleepy come from?”

“A patrol spotted him in the hills not far from Lady’s tear-up. He didn’t know who he was.”

I grunted. I laid a narrow look on the kid as he passed. “It took this whole mob to bring him in?”

“Took them all to hunt him down. You all right now? What happened?”

“I had one of my seizures. Like I used to have when I went back to Dejagore.”

He frowned, tossed off orders right and left. Soldiers scattered to resume chores they should not have abandoned.

“Did you know that One-Eye had your bow?”

“My bow? What bow?”

“The one Lady gave you as a present.”

“No. I didn’t. Though maybe I told him to put it away for me one time. Or something. I haven’t seen it in so long I’d forgotten it.” He sniffed the air. “What else did you find?” I still smelled of beer.

“All kinds of treasures. And circumstantial evidence that One-Eye wasn’t planning to stay away forever.”

Croaker grunted. It was getting too dark to read his expressions well. Was he irked because I had figured something out? Or was he considering the possibilities?

I said, “I can’t believe that finding Sleepy would cause so much excitement.”

“Lady hoped we could catch Catcher all goofed up, too.”

“But we already knew she was all right. She was sending shadows down. She was messing with me.” Maybe she was just tickling me because I was there when her big sister yanked her pigtails.

“We didn’t know. We suspected. If Sleepy had been her prisoner and wandered away, then maybe she wasn’t in control after all. There isn’t anybody around here who wouldn’t love to add Catcher to our zoo. And, too, there was the chance that... the girl...”

Yeah. There was the chance they could grab their daughter back. Maybe when nobody was looking. “Where’s Lady?”

“Still out there.” His tone told me I had used my quota of questions in that area.

“Sleepy said anything useful?” I asked.

“He hasn’t said anything. He doesn’t act like he’s all there.”

“Just what this outfit needs. Another goofball.”