I showed Swan my crossed fingers. “I’d better dash up front and pretend that I know what I’m doing. Tobo?”

“He went ahead without you,” Doj said. “You upset him.”

I noted that the column had resumed moving, which meant that Tobo was on the plain already, carrying the Key like a protective talisman.

I needed to give a lot of thought to the fact that that artifact, evidently considered a holy of holies by the Stranglers, may actually have been brought off the plain into my world by the ancestors of the Nyueng Bao. I had to spend some thought on what the Key might mean to the last informed priest of the Nyueng Bao.

Something beside the road caught my attention just before I reached the crest and got my first close look at the glittering plain. It was a small frog, mostly black but with stripes and whorls of dark green upon its back. It had eyes the color of fresh blood. It clung to a slightly tilted slab of grey-black rock. It wanted to go somewhere, anywhere, but its right hind leg was injured and when it tried to jump, it just sort of spun around in place. “Where the heck did that come from? There isn’t supposed to be anything alive up here.” I had been looking forward to having the clouds of flies that followed the animals get thinned out when they buzzed out beyond the safe zones and encountered killer shadows.

Swan said, “It won’t be alive for long. The white crow dropped it. I think it was bringing it along for a snack.” He pointed.

At the white crow. Bolder than ever, the bird had made itself at home on the back of my friend the mystic stallion. The horse seemed content with the situation. Perhaps even a little smug when it looked at me.

“I just remembered,” Swan said. “For what it’s worth. Last time we came up here Croaker made everybody who belonged to the Company touch their badges and amulets to the black stripe that runs down the middle of the road. Right after he touched the stripe with the lancehead on the standard. Maybe none of that amounts to anything. But I’m a superstitious kind of guy and I’d be more comfortable-”

“You’re right. So be quiet. I recently reread everything Murgen had to say about his trip and he thought it might be a good idea, too. Tobo! Hold up!” I did not believe the boy would actually hear me over the clatter generated by the column but did expect that people would pass the word. I looked at the hapless frog once more and marveled that the crow was smart enough to let it go. Then I hastened to overtake our fledgling wizard.

The column stopped. Tobo had gotten my message. He had chosen not to ignore it. Maybe he had caught something from the white crow.

His mother and grandmother both were right there with him where he waited, making sure he did sensible things. He was exasperated by the delay. He was already far ahead of everyone but Sahra and Gota...

Ah! As I recalled, Murgen had had the same trouble with the Lance of Passion.

My first glimpse of the plain awed me. Its immensity was indescribable. It was as flat as a table forever. It was grey on grey on grey, with the road just barely darker. There was no doubt whatsoever that this was all one vast artifact.

“Hang on, Tobo. Don’t go any farther,” I called. “We almost forgot something. You need to take the Key and touch it to the black stripe that runs down the middle of the road.”

“What black stripe?”

Swan said, “It doesn’t show up nearly as well this time. But it’s there if you look.”

It was. I found it. “Come back this way. You can see it back here.”

Tobo backtracked reluctantly. Maybe I should have Gota carry the Key. She could not move fast enough to outrun the rest of us.

I stared on, beyond Tobo, feeling a faint touch of that passion to hurry myself. I was getting close to my brothers now... Dark-grey clouds were beginning to gather down there. Murgen had mentioned a nearly permanent overcast that, nevertheless, did not always seem to have been around during his nights. I could make out no hint of the ruined fortress that was supposed to be a few days ahead of us. I did see plenty of the standing stones that were one of the outstanding features of the plain.

“I see it!” Tobo shouted, pointing downward. The little idiot swung the pickax, burying the point in the road surface.

The earth shuddered.

This was no devastating quake like those some of us recalled from years ago, when half the Shadowlands had been laid waste. It was just strong enough to be sensed and set tongues wagging and animals protesting.

The morning sun must have touched the plain oddly, somehow, because all the standing stones began to sparkle. People oohed and aahed. I said, “I guess this is why they call it glittering stone.”

Swan demurred. “I don’t think so. But I could be wrong. Don’t forget what I said about the Company badges.”

“I haven’t forgotten.”

Tobo pried the pick out of the road’s surface. The earth shifted again, as gently as before. When I joined him he was staring downward, baffled. “It healed itself, Sleepy.”

“What?”

“When I hit it the pick went in sort of like the road was soft. And when I yanked it back out, the hole healed itself.”

Swan remarked, “The center stripe is getting easier to see.”

He was right. Maybe that was because of the brightening sunlight.

The ground trembled again. Behind me, voices changed tone, becoming frightened as well as awed. I glanced back.

A huge mushroom of dark rouge dust with black filigree highlights running through it boiled up from whence we had come. Its topmost surface seemed almost solid but as it rose and moved, the pieces of junk riding on it fell off.

Goblin burst into laughter so wicked it must have carried for miles. “Somebody got into my treasure trove. I hope she learned a really painful lesson.” I was close enough for him to add a whispered, “I wish it could be fatal but there’s not much chance of that.”

“Probably not.”

“I’ll settle for crippling her other leg.”

I said, “Sahra, there’s something I need you to do. You remember Murgen telling us how he kept getting ahead of everyone when he came up here? Tobo has been doing the same thing. Try to slow him down.”

Sahra sighed wearily. She nodded. “I’ll stop him.” She seemed apathetic, though.

“I don’t want him stopped, I just want him slowed down enough so everyone else can keep up. This could be important later.” I decided the two of us needed to have a long talk in private, the way we used to do before everything got so busy. It was obvious that she needed to get some things out where they could be lined up and swatted down and pushed away from her long enough for her heart to heal.

She did need healing. And for that she had no one to blame but herself. She did not want to accept the world as it was. She seemed worn out from fighting it. And in those ways she had begun to look very much like her mother.

I told her, “Put a leash on him if that’s what it takes.”

Tobo glowered at me. I ignored him. I made a brief speech suggesting anyone who carried a Black Company badge should press it to the road’s surface right where Tobo had wounded it. The public readings aloud I had been doing had included Murgen’s adventures on the plain. Nobody questioned my suggestion or refused to accept it. The column began moving again, slowly, as we found ways to bless, if only secondarily, the animals and those who did not have Company badges. I stayed in place and said something positive to everyone who passed by. I was amazed at the number of women and children and noncombatants in general who had managed to attach themselves to the band without me really noticing. The Captain would be appalled.

Uncle Doj was last to go by. That troubled me vaguely. A Nyueng Bao to the rear, more Nyueng Bao to the front, with the foremost a half-breed... But the whole Company was a miscegenation. There were only two men in this whole crowd who had belonged to the Company when it had arrived from the north. Goblin and One-Eye. One-Eye was almost spent and Goblin was doing his determined best, quietly, to pass on as many skills as he could to Tobo before the inevitable began to overhaul him as well.