Then people started looking for tools.

“That was interesting,” I told her.

“Been working on it since I ambushed myself and that tree. It doesn’t take much effort or power but it ought to be visually impressive.”

“It definitely was that.”

The exhumation satisfied Lady. There was a body. It resembled Narayan Singh, even including his bad leg. And it was unnaturally well preserved considering where it had been buried.

“Well?” I asked after she had gone so far as to open the body up. I do not know what she expected to find.

“It does seem to be him. Considering who he served, who seemed to love him, I was almost certain there wouldn’t be a body. Or it wouldn’t be Narayan’s if there was.”

The truth was, she had not wanted it to be Narayan. She did not want Singh evading her vengeance this easily.

“There’s no dramatic unity in real life,” I told her. “Save it up and take it out on Goblin.”

She offered me a wicked look.

“I mean on the thing that’s taken possession of Goblin.” The real Goblin would be my oldest surviving friend.

She carved Narayan’s corpse into little pieces. She left a trail of those for the bugs and buzzards over the next several days. But the man’s head, heart and hands she kept in a jar of pickling brine.

I did not ask why or if she had a plan. Narayan’s escape had left her in much too black a mood for small talk.

A couple of times I did overhear her cursing the fact that there were no great necromancers left in the world.

She would call Narayan back from paradise or hell to make him pay for taking our daughter.

The smaller Voroshk girl, the captive, came out to see us. In not bad Taglian she told us, “Sedvod just died.” She stared at Tobo the whole time.

I went to check. The sick boy had, indeed, passed on. And I still had no idea why.

I figured the Goblin thing probably deserved the blame.

Sleepy surprised us all. She was irked about us dealing with Soulcatcher but she made no great fuss. “This situation isn’t the one I prepared for. Tobo. I trust you’re taking steps to prevent the Protector from observing what we’re doing.”

“She sees what we want her to see. Which means she doesn’t see what we’re doing, only what our mutual enemies are doing.”

Which was not much on Booboo’s part. Despite her best effort to vanish during the night after her captors first encountered Soulcatcher’s pickets, she remained a captive. She would be turned over to Soulcatcher herself within a few days.

Goblin, moving faster than the girl’s captors were, had been gaining ground fast and Tobo now placed him only about thirty miles behind. I suggested that he would be more trouble to Soulcatcher than Booboo ever could.

Thinking out loud, I said, “I wonder if this is how myths get started.”

People looked at me like they were not sure they wanted to know what that was all about.

I explained. “Here we’ve got a bunch of people visiting strange places most people couldn’t get to even if they wanted. We’ve got close relatives squabbling and even trying to murder each other.”

“That’s reaching,” Murgen said.

“I like it,” Tobo said. “A thousand years from now they’ll remember me as the god of storms. Or something.”

“Or something?” his father asked. “How about the small god who makes littler rocks out of runty stones?”

Earlier Tobo had gotten caught making stones explode. He had been doing it for the sheer joy of watching them shatter and hearing the fragments ricochet. He was embarrassed. But you have got to have fun once in a while. Today’s Company is not nearly as much fun as it was when I was young.

I snickered. “We marched forty miles every day. Uphill all the way. In the snow. When we weren’t in the swamp.”

“What?”

“Thought I’d start practicing for when I get really old. How do you make rocks explode?”

“Oh. That’s easy. You just kind of feel what they’re like inside. You find the water. You make it hot enough and the rock goes boom.”

Find the water. Inside a rock. And the rock goes boom. Right. I had to ask. I changed the subject. “How are those Voroshk kids doing?” Despite everything he had to do, Tobo found time to spend with our captives.

It was amazing how much the kid could handle in a day.

I could recall when life worked that way for me. Back when we were marching up all those hills. With cold, wet feet.

“Uncle Doj has them speaking Taglian like they were born in the delta, in the shadow of the temple of Ghanghesha.”

“Excellent.” He was poking fun, of course.

“They’re picking up the language. Shukrat and Magadan could get by now. Arkana is having trouble but she’s catching on. None of them are mourning Sedvod. Gromovol, the brother, is being stubborn. He doesn’t like not being the only conduit. He likes to be in control. Of something. But even he is making progress.”

“Gromovol is the pain in the ass, then? Which’re which with the other names? I haven’t heard any names before.”

“That’s because they hadn’t given up hope that their family would rescue them from their own dumb mistake. Even more than the Gunni do, they believe their names can be used against them. There’s a connection with their souls.”

“Which means that Shukrat and Magadan and whatnot won’t actually be real names.”

“They’re real public names. Work names. Just not true names.”

“I’ve never understood the concept but it’s one I’ve learned to live with. Which one is which?”

“Shukrat is the shorter girl. The one who crashed.”

“The one who’s working up a crush on you.”

Tobo ignored me. The ability to ignore seems to be coupled with a talent for sorcery. “Arkana is the ice queen. Which I definitely would not mind melting. Magadan is the quiet guy.”

Magadan, in my estimation, would be the dangerous one. If he so chose. He observed and studied and prepared. He did not bluster or invoke the threat of powers from a world away. “Did you tell them what happened at the shadowgate?”

“They didn’t want to believe me but they did enough to decide to introduce themselves. Enough to conclude that they’re likely to be a part of our world for a long time to come.”

“You did remind them that that’s what they asked for?”

“Sure. Shukrat even managed to joke about it. She has a great sense of humor. For a girl. Who didn’t ask to be here.”

Considering the females in his experience I could see how he might think a feeble sense of humor was a sex-linked characteristic. Only Iqbal Singh’s wife ever smiled and joked. And Suruvhija’s lot was the poorest of all the women associated with the Company.

“But all you can see is long legs, long blonde hair, big blue eyes and a monumental set of gazoombies.” Once we got up into settled country we needed to find the kid a whore. Twenty years old and never been laid.

On the other hand, harnessing all that energy the way we were right now had a lot to recommend it. We were not headed into an era where we could let our most talented wizard be distracted by nature.

Maybe we should find him a traveling companion.

I could just imagine what his mother would say about that.

“The future,” I said, raising my hand as though holding a drink. “We have to get Swan and Blade set up in the brewing business.”

Murgen said, “That’s what I miss most about One-Eye, too.”

“Here’s a thought. Maybe Goblin will get so thirsty he’ll shake Kina off and set up a still.”

I had to mention Goblin. That took the pleasure out of the moment.

Everybody who remembered the old Goblin had to deal with those memories each time the man’s name came up. Those memories were going to be treacherous if ever we confronted the revenant himself. Even if they caused just a moment’s hesitation.