“I can send you some men. Show them where to dig. I’ll pay you commission. You won’t have to do anything. That’s a damned fine axe, Bo. TelleKurre? I could sell a bargeload of TelleKurre weaponry.”

“UchiTelle, actually.” A twinge from his ulcer. “No No helpers.” That was all he needed. A bunch of young hotshots hanging over his shoulder while he made his field calculations.

“Just a suggestion.”

“Sorry. Don’t mind me. Jasmine was on me this morning.”

Softly, Tokar asked, “Found anything connected with the Taken?”

With the ease of decades, Bomanz dissembled, feigning horror. “The Taken? Am I a fool? I wouldn’t touch it if I could get it past the Monitor.”

Tokar smiled conspiratorily. “Sure. We don’t want to offend the Eternal Guard. Nevertheless... There’s one man in Oar who would pay well for something that could be ascribed to one of the Taken. He’d sell his soul for something that belonged to the Lady. He’s in love with her.”

“She was known for that.” Bomanz avoided the younger man’s gaze. How much had Stance revealed? Was this one of Besand’s fishing expeditions? The older Bomanz became, the less he enjoyed the game. His nerves could not take this double life. He was tempted to confess just for the relief.

No, damnit! He had too much invested. Thirty-seven years. Digging and scratching every minute. Sneaking and pretending. The most abject poverty. No. He would not give up. Not now. Not when he was this close.

“In my way, I love her, too,” he admitted. “But I haven’t abandoned good sense. I’d scream for Besand if I found anything. So loud you’d hear me in Oar.”

“All right. Whatever you say.” Tokar grinned. “Enough suspense.” He produced a leather wallet. “Letters from Stancil.”

Bomanz seized the wallet. “Haven’t heard from him since last time you were here.”

“Can I start loading, Bo?”

“Sure. Go ahead.” Absently, Bomanz took his current inventory list from a pigeonhole. “Mark off whatever you take.”

Tokar laughed gently. “All of it this time, Bo. Just quote me a price.”

“Everything? Half is junk.”

“I told you, the Domination is hot.”

“You saw Stance? How is he?” He was halfway through the first letter. His son had nothing substantial to relate. His missives were filled with daily trivia. Duty letters. Letters from a son to his parents, unable to span the timeless chasm.

“Sickeningly healthy. Bored with the university. Read on. There’s a surprise.”

“Tokar was here,” Bomanz said. He grinned, danced from foot to foot.

“That thief?” Jasmine scowled. “Did you remember to get paid?” Her fat, sagging face was set in perpetual disapproval. Generally her mouth was open in the same vein.

“He brought letters from Stance. Here.” He offered the packet. He could not contain himself. “Stance is coming home.”

“Home? He can’t. He has his position at the university.” “He’s taking a sabbatical. He’s coming for the summer.” “Why?”

“To see us. To help with the shop. To get away so he can finish a thesis.”

Jasmine grumbled. She did not read the letters. She had not forgiven her son for sharing his father’s interest in the Domination. “What he’s doing is coming here to help you poke around where you’re not supposed to poke, isn’t he?”

Bomanz darted furtive glances at the shop’s windows. His was an existence of justifiable paranoia. “It’s the Year of the Comet. The ghosts of the Taken will rise to mourn the passing of the Domination.”

This summer would mark the tenth return of the comet which had appeared at the hour of the Dominator’s fall. The Ten Who Were Taken would manifest strongly.

Bomanz had witnessed one passage the summer he had come to the Old Forest, long before Stancil’s birth. The Barrowland had been impressive with ghosts walking.

Excitement tightened his belly. Jasmine would not appreciate it, but this was the summer. End of the long quest. He lacked only one key. Find it and he could make contact, could begin drawing out instead of putting in.

Jasmine sneered. “Why did I get into this? My mother warned me.”

“It’s Stancil we’re talking about, woman. Our only.”

“Ah, Bo, don’t call me a cruel old lady. Of course I’ll welcome him. Don’t I cherish him, too?”

“Wouldn’t hurt to show it.” Bomanz examined the remnants of his inventory. “Nothing left but the worst junk. These old bones ache just thinking of the digging I’ll have to do.”

His bones ached, but his spirit was eager. Restocking was a plausible excuse for wandering the edges of the Barrowland.

“No time like now to start.”

“You trying to get me out of the house?”

“That wouldn’t hurt my feelings.”

Sighing, Bomanz surveyed his shop. A few pieces of time-rotted gear, broken weapons, a skull that could not be attributed because it lacked the triangular inset characteristic of Domination officers. Collectors were not interested in the bones of kerns or in those of followers of the White Rose.

Curious, he thought. Why are we so intrigued by evil? The White Rose was more heroic than the Dominator or Taken. She has been forgotten by everybody but the Monitor’s men. Any peasant can name half the Taken. The Barrowland, where evil lies restless, is guarded, and the grave of the White Rose is lost.

“Neither here nor there,” Bomanz grumbled. “Time to hit the field. Here. Here. Spade. Divining wand. Bags... Maybe Tokar was right. Maybe I should get a helper. Brushes.

Help carry that stuff around. Transit. Maps. Can’t forget those. What else? Claim ribbons. Of course. That wretched Men fu.”

He stuffed things into a pack and hung equipment all about himself. He gathered spade and rake and transit. “Jasmine. Jasmine! Open the damned door.”

She peeped through the curtains masking their living quarters.

“Should’ve opened it first, dimwit.” She stalked across the shop. “One of these days, Bo, you’re going to get organized.

Probably the day after my funeral.” He stumbled down the street grumbling, “I’ll get organized the day you die. Damned well better believe. I want you in the ground before you change your mind.”

The Barrowland lies far north of Charm, in the Old Forest so storied in the legends of the White Rose. Corbie came to the town there the summer after the Dominator failed to escape his grave through Juniper. He found the Lady’s minions in high morale. The grand evil in the Great Barrow was no longer to be feared. The dregs of the Rebel had been routed. The empire had no more enemies of consequence. The Great Comet, harbinger of all catastrophes, would not return for decades.

One lone focus of resistance remained, a child claimed to be the reincarnation of the White Rose. But she was a fugitive, running with the remnants of the traitorous Black Company. Nothing to fear there. The Lady’s overwhelming resources would swamp them.

Corbie came limping up the road from Oar, alone, a pack on his back, a staff gripped tightly. He claimed to be a disabled veteran of the Limper’s Forsberg campaigns. He wanted work. There was work aplenty for a man not too proud. The Eternal Guard were well-paid. Many hired drudgework taken off their duties.

At that time a regiment garrisoned the Barrowland. Countless civilians orbited its compound. Corbie vanished among those. When companies and battalions transferred out, he was an established part of the landscape.

He washed dishes, curried horses, cleaned stables, carried messages, mopped floors, peeled vegetables, assumed any burden for which he might earn a few coppers. He was a quiet, tall, dusky, brooding sort who made no special friends, but made no enemies either. Seldom did he socialize.

After a few months he asked for and received permission to occupy a ramshackle house long shunned because once it belonged to a sorcerer from Oar. As time and resources permitted, he restored the place. And like the sorcerer before him, he pursued the mission that had brought him north.