I took the newcomers to my grove, explained how I worked, turned them loose on my patients. After making sure they were not complete incompetents, I turned the hospital over and left.

I was restless. I did not like what was happening to the Company. It had acquired too many new followers and responsibilities. The old intimacy was gone. Time was, I saw every one of the men every day. Now there were some I had not seen since before the debacle at Lords. I did not know if they were dead, alive, or captive. I was almost neurotically anxious that some men had been lost and would be forgotten.

The Company is our family. The brotherhood makes it go. These days, with all these new northern faces, the prime force holding the Company together is a desperate effort by the brethren to reachieve the old intimacy. The strain of trying marks every face.

I went out to one of the forward watchpoints, which overlooked the fall of the brook into the canyons. Way, way down there, below the mist, lay a small, glimmering pool. A thin trickle left it, running toward the Windy Country. It would not complete its journey. I searched the chaotic ranks of sandstone towers and buttes. Thunder-heads with lightning swords aflash on their brows grumbled and pounded the badlands, reminding me that trouble was not far away.

Harden was coming despite Stormbringer’s wrath. He would make contact tomorrow, I guessed. I wondered how much the storms had hurt him. Surely not enough.

I spied a brown hulk shambling down the switchback road. Shapeshifter, going out to practice his special terrors. He could enter the Rebel camp as one of them, practice poison magics upon their cookpots or Fill their drinking water with disease. He could become the shadow in the darkness that all men fear, taking them one at a time, leaving only mangled remains to fill the living with terror. I envied him even while I loathed him.

The stars twinkled above the campfire. It had burned low while some of us old hands played Tonk. I was a slight winner. I said, “I’m quitting while I’m ahead. Anybody want my place?” I unwound my aching legs and moved away, settled against a log, stared at the sky. The stars seemed merry and friendly.

The air was cool and fresh and still. The camp was quiet. Crickets and nightbirds sang their soothing songs. The world was at peace. It was hard to believe that this place was soon to become a battlefield. I wriggled till I was comfortable, watched for shooting stars. I was determined to enjoy the moment. It might be the last such I would know.

The fire spit and crackled. Somebody found ambition enough to add a little wood. It blazed up, sent piney smoke drifting my way, launched shadows which danced over the intent faces of the card players. One-Eye’s lips were taut because he was losing. Goblin’s frog mouth was stretched in an unconscious grin. Silent was a blank, being Silent. Elmo was thinking hard, scowling as he calculated odds. Jolly was more sour than customary. It was good to see Jolly again. I had feared him lost at Lords.

Only one puny meteor rolled across the sky. I gave it up, closed my eyes, listened to my heartbeat. Harden is coming. Harden is coming, it said. It pounded out a drumbeat, mimicking the tread of advancing legions.

Raven settled down beside me. “Quiet tonight,” he observed.

“Calm before the storm,” I replied. “What’s cooking with the high and the mighty?”

“Lot of argument. The Captain, Catcher, and the new one are letting them yap, Letting them get it out of their systems. Who’s ahead?”

“Goblin.”

“One-Eye isn’t dealing from the bottom of the deck?”

“We never caught him.”

“I heard that,” One-Eye growled. “One of these days, Raven...”

“I know. Zap. I’m a frog prince. Croaker, you been up the hill since it got dark?”

“No. Why?”

“Something unusual over in the east. Looks like a comet.”

My heart did a small flip. I calculated quickly. “You’re probably right. It’s due back.” I rose. He did too. We walked uphill.

Every major event in the saga of the Lady and her husband has been presaged by a comet. Countless Rebel prophets have predicted that she will fall while a comet is in the sky. But their most dangerous prophecy concerns the child who will be a reincarnation of the White Rose. The Circle is spending a lot of energy trying to locate the kid.

Raven led me to a height from which we could see the stars lying low in the east. Sure enough, something like a faraway silver spearhead rode the sky there. I stared a long time before observing, “It seems to be pointed at Charm.”

“I thought so too.” He was silent for a while. “I’m not much on prophecies, Croaker. They sound too much like superstition. But this makes me nervous.”

“You’ve heard those prophecies all your life. I’d be surprised if they hadn’t touched you.”

He grunted, not satisfied. “The Hanged Man brought news of the east. Whisper has taken Rust.”

“Good news, good news,” I said, with considerable sarcasm.

“She’s taken Rust and surrounded Trinket’s army. We can have the whole east by next summer.”

We faced the canyon. A few of Harden’s advance units had reached the foot of the switchbacks. Stormbringer had broken off her long assault in order to prepare for Harden’s attempt to break through here.

“So it comes down to us,” I whispered. “We have to stop them here or the whole thing goes because of a sneak attack through the back way.”

“Maybe. But don’t count the Lady out even if we fail. The Rebel hasn’t yet faced Her. And they know it to a man. Each mile they move toward the Tower will fill them with greater dread. Terror itself will defeat them unless they find their prophesied child.”

“Maybe.” We watched the comet. It was far, far away yet, just barely detectable. It would be up there a long time. Great battles would be fought before it departed.

I made a face. “Maybe you shouldn’t have shown me. Now I’ll dream about the damned thing.”

Raven flashed a rare grin. “Dream us a victory,” he suggested.

I did some dreaming aloud. “We’ve got the high ground. Harden has to bring his men up twelve hundred feet of switchback. They’ll be easy meat when they get here.”

“Whistling in the dark, Croaker. I’m going to turn in. Good luck tomorrow.”

“Same to you,” I replied. He would be in the thick of it. The Captain had chosen him to command a battalion of veteran regulars. They would be holding one flank, sweeping the road with arrow flights.

I dreamed, but my dreams were not what I expected. A wavering golden thing came, hovered above me, glowing like shoals of faraway stars. I was not sure whether I was asleep or awake, and still have not satisfied myself either way. I will call it dream because it sits more comfortably that way. I do not like to think the Lady had taken that much interest in me.

It was my own fault. All those romances I wrote about her had gone to seed on the fertile stable floor of my imagination. Such presumption, my dreams. The Lady Herself send Her spirit to comfort one silly, war-weary, quietly frightened soldier? In the name of heaven, why?

That glow came and hovered above me, and sent reassurances overtoned by harmonics of amusement. Fear not, my faithful. The Stair of Tear is not the Lock of the Empire. It can be broken without harm. Whatever happens, my faithful will remain safe. The Stair is but a milemark. along the Rebel’s road to destruction.

There was more, all of a puzzlingly personal nature. My wildest fantasies were being reflected back upon me. At the end, for just an instant, a face peeked from the golden glow. It was the most beautiful female face I have ever seen, though I cannot now recall it.

Next morning I told One-Eye about the dream as I hounded my hospital into life. He looked at me and shrugged. “Too much imagination, Croaker.” He was preoccupied, anxious to complete his medical chores and get gone. He hated the work.