Sahra provided the comfort as the Nyueng Bao gathered to honor one of their own.

Swan woofed. The white crow had landed on his left shoulder and pecked at his ear. It studied the dead man with one eye and the rest of us with the other.

Uncle Doj observed, “Your friend was supremely confident that someone would come this way again, Annalist. He left Duc in the attitude called ’In Respect of Patient Repose,’ which we do when a proper funeral has to be delayed. Neither gods nor devils disturb the dead while they lie so disposed.”

I sniffled. “Water sleeps, Uncle. Bucket believed. He knew we’d come.”

Bucket’s belief had been stronger than mine. Mine barely survived the Kiaulune wars. Without Sahra’s relentless desire to resurrect Murgen I would not have come through the times of despair. I would not have become strong enough to endure when Sahra’s own time of doubt came upon her.

Now we were here, with nowhere to go but forward. I dried my eyes. “We don’t have time to stand around talking. Our resources are painfully finite. Let’s load him up-”

Doj interrupted. “We would prefer to leave him as he is, where he is, till we can send him off with the appropriate ceremonies.”

“And those would be what?”

“I haven’t seen many dead Nyueng Bao since the siege of Jaicur. You people do a good job of dancing around death. But I have seen a few of your tribe dead and there wasn’t any obviously necessary funeral ritual. Some got burned on the ghats as though they were Gunni. I saw one man buried in the ground, as if he were Vehdna. I’ve even seen a corpse rubbed with bad smelling unguents, then wrapped like a mummy and hung head-down from a high tree branch.”

Doj said, “Each funeral would have been appropriate to the person and situation, I’m sure. What’s done with the flesh isn’t critical. The ceremonies are intended to ease the soul’s transition to its new state. They’re absolutely essential. If they’re not observed, the dead man’s spirit may be compelled to wander the earth indefinitely.”

“As ghosts? Or dreamwalkers?”

Doj seemed startled. “Uh? Ghosts? A restless spirit that wants to finish tasks interrupted by death. They can’t, so they just keep going.”

Although Vehdna ghosts are wicked spirits cursed to wander by God Himself, I had no trouble following Doj’s notion. “Then we’ll leave him here. You want to stand _ beside him? To make sure he stays safe from traffic?” Bucket had placed Duc at the edge of the road so he would not be disturbed by the terrified fugitives back then.

“How did he die?” Swan asked. Then he squawked. The white crow had nipped his ear again.

Everybody turned to stare at Swan. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“Look, if a shadow got Duc and somebody tried to lay him out proper, that layer-outer would be here dead as a wedge, too. Right? So he must’ve died some other way, before-” A dim lamp seemed to come alive inside his head.

“Catcher did it!” the crow said. It was crow caw but the words were clear. “Haw! Haw! Catcher did it!”

The Nyueng Bao began to press in on Swan.

“Catcher did it,” I reminded them. “Probably with a booby-trap spell. By the time Duc reached this point, she would’ve been ten miles ahead of anybody on foot. She was mounted, remember. From what I remember about Duc, he probably saw the trap as Bucket tripped it and jumped in the way.”

Gota pointed out, “The Protector could not have left a booby trap to kill Duc if she had not been released.” Her Taglian was the best I had ever heard it. The anger in her eyes said she wanted no mistake to be made.

Sahra whispered, “Suyen Dinh Duc was a second cousin to my father.”

I said, “We’ve been through this before, people. We can’t exonerate Willow Swan but we can forgive him if we recall the circumstances he faced. Do any of you really think you can get the best of the Protector, face-to-face? No hands? But some of you think so in your heart.” Few Nyueng Bao lacked for arrogant self-confidence. “Here’s your challenge. Run back and prove it. The Shadowgate will let you out. Soulcatcher is on foot. She’s crippled. You can catch up fast. Can you ask for any more?” I paused. “What? No takers? Then lay off Swan.”

The white crow cawed mockingly.

I saw a few thoughtful, sheepish faces but Gota’s was not one of them. Gota had never been wrong in her life except that one time when she had thought she might be wrong.

Swan let it roll off. As he had done for years. He had learned from the strictest instructress. He did suggest, “You said we need to keep rolling, Sleepy. Although I guess we meat-eaters can start on the vegetarians after their stories run out.”

“Carry the Key, Tobo. Thank you, Sahra.”

Sahra turned away. “Mother, stay with Tobo. Don’t let him walk any faster than you do.”

Ky Gota grumbled something under her breath and turned away from us. She followed Tobo. Her rolling waddle could be deceptive when she was in a hurry. She overhauled the boy, grabbed hold of his shirt. Off they went, the old woman’s mouth going steadily. No gambler by nature, still I would have bet that she was fuming about what foul mortals the rest of us be.

I observed, “Ky Gota appears to have found herself.”

Not one of the Nyueng Bao found any reason to celebrate that eventuation.

A mile later we came across the only animal remains that we would ever find from the earlier expedition. They were piled in a heap, bones and shredded dry flesh so intertangled there was no telling how many beasts there had been or why they had gathered together, in life or in death. The whole grim mess appeared to have been subsiding into the surface of the plain slowly. Given another decade, it would be gone.

The ugly dreamwalkers returned after dark. They were more energetic in their efforts tonight. The rain returned, too. It was more energetic and was accompanied by thunder and lightning that made sleeping difficult. As did the cold rainwater, all of which seemed determined to collect inside the circle where we were camped. The stone did not appear to slope but water sure behaved as though it did. The animals drank their fill. Likewise, the human members of the band. Runmust and Riverwalker directed everyone to fill waterbags and top off canteens. And as soon as someone raised his voice to bless our good fortune, the first snowflakes began to fall.

What sleep I did manage was not pleasant. A full-blown tumult was underway in the ghostworld and it spilled over into my dreams. Then Iqbal’s daughter decided this would be a wonderful time to cry all night. Which got the dog started howling. Or maybe that happened the other way around.

Shadows swarmed over the face of our protection. They were more interested in us than they had been in the interlopers of Murgen’s time. He told me so himself.

The shadows remembered ages past. I was able to eavesdrop on their dreams.

On their nightmares. All they remembered were horrors from a time when men resembling Nyueng Bao tortured them to death in wholesale lots while sorcerers great and small spanked the demented souls until, when they were released eventually, they were so filled with hatred of every living thing that even a creature as slight as a roach was subject to instant attack, with great ferocity. Some shadows, already evilly predatory by nature, became so wicked they even attacked and devoured other shadows.

There had been millions so victimized. And the only virtue in their creators was that they manufactured the horrors from invaders who arrived in countless waves from a world where an insane sorcerer king had elevated himself to near godhood, then had set out to take full mastery of all the sixteen worlds.

Uncounted tens of thousands of corpses littered the glittering plain before the shadows stemmed that tide. Scores of the monsters escaped into neighboring worlds. They spread terror and havoc until the gates could be modified to prevent their passage. For centuries no traffic crossed the plain. Then came another age of halfhearted commerce, once some genius devised the protection now shielding the roads and circles.