When Impervia had searched her way to the far end of the tomb, she came back quickly with a sour expression on her face. "Whatever it was, it's gone."

From behind my back, Myoko called, "I think it was a woman."

We turned. Myoko stood a stone's throw away, near the edge of the forest. She pointed down at the mud. "Footprints. A woman's boots. They look fresh."

I started forward, but she held up her hand. "Wait. You might trample the trail." Keeping her eyes on the ground, Myoko walked toward us, obviously following the tracks. She got halfway back when she stopped and peered about; she'd reached a spot where the rubble was fairly thick all the way to the mausoleum. At last, she shrugged and gestured toward the building. "Whoever it was must have stayed on top of the wreckage till she got to this point. Then she stepped into the mud. Her tracks are quite clear."

The rest of us hurried to see. When we looked where Myoko pointed, the footprints were easy to discern in the damp soil… and they definitely came from a woman's boots. Fancy, fashionable boots: the heel was a smallish triangle that dug deep into the earth, quite separate from the rest of the sole. It was the closest you could get to a high heel while staying within the bounds of practicality. Even so, such shoes would be better suited for walking down nice clean sidewalks than slogging through country mud. I glanced at the boots of my female companions; they all had much larger heels, choosing functionality over style.

One reason why I liked them.

The footsteps led away from the mausoleum. Impervia followed the trail a short distance, then turned to the rest of us. "You can see it's a straight line," she said, pointing back toward the building, then moving her finger to trace the path to the trees. "After the explosion, our mystery woman must have climbed out through the hole and headed directly for the forest"

"But how did she get inside the tomb?" Pelinor asked. "Hadn't it been closed for centuries?"

"Sealed solid as long as anyone can remember," I said. "Either the woman was inside all along and that thing in the sky woke her up… or else the thing we saw was a conduit bringing her here from somewhere up above the clouds. It funneled her into the interior, straight through solid granite. Then she used a bomb to blow her way out."

"Phil," the Caryatid murmured, "I don't like either of your possibilities."

"If you can think of another, I'm all ears."

She frowned but said, "You're right. Either the woman was already inside the mausoleum, or she got put there by that tube of smoke. Or was it ectoplasm? Milky, see-through… it could have been ectoplasm." The Caryatid shuddered. "Stupid. Why am I deliberately trying to scare myself?"

Impervia laid her hand on the Caryatid's shoulder. "Fear isn't stupid. Fear keeps you alert. But you can't let it stop you from doing what's right." Impervia looked once more at the bootprints and followed them with her eye to the edge of the woods. "The woman's got only a short headstart. And she's heading for Dover-on-Sea. If we follow her tracks, we might catch her before she gets there."

"Then what?" Myoko asked. "Start a punching match with someone who can blast her way through granite?"

"Only if necessary. We'll start by politely inquiring if this woman knows what's going on." Impervia gave Myoko a stern look. "I'm not completely deranged, you know."

"Sorry, Impervia," Myoko said. "I didn't mean-"

"Yes, you did," Impervia interrupted. "You all think I'm too…" She paused, then smiled thinly. "Impulsive. Which may be true. This time, though, I know we mustn't act rashly." Her smile grew more fierce. "But we must act. We've been called." She took a deep breath. "It's so desperately rare that one receives a call, one must seize the moment with both hands."

She spoke with quiet intensity, low but fervent-far from the steely self-control she usually displayed. It was as if she'd finally pulled off her nun's mask, the discipline, the role… and none of us could meet her burning gaze.

"Look," Impervia said, "haven't we all been waiting for this? Something to do. Something that matters. A dozen times a day, I pray, 'God, God, call on me.' I don't care how often my Mother Superior says I have been called, that teaching is an honorable profession, that educating children is vital work… it's not enough. My confessor tells me I lack humility-who am I, a lowly handmaid, to think I deserve something more important? But still I've prayed, 'Choose me, God, use me. Just once in my life, let me do a great thing.'

"And can any of you say," she went on, "you haven't wished the same? Deep in your hearts, don't you long for a calling? A vocation so strong you can't doubt it? The voice of God crying from the whirlwind, 'Your destiny is at hand!' Not just passing the time and keeping yourself busy, but finally, finally, your true purpose. Isn't that what you want? An end to numb mediocrity?"

She glared, challenging any of us to deny it. No one did. How could we? After nights of drowning in bad ale, complaining, bemoaning the pettiness of our existence, how could we pretend we were happy with who we were? Even Annah, standing dark and silent beside me: I didn't know her nearly as well as I'd thought, but one thing I didn't question-she too had spent her life waiting, composing wistful music in empty rooms, waiting, waiting for pure sweet lightning to strike.

Passion. Meaning. Justification.

"All right," Impervia said, "let's not waste time. Get the horses; follow the trail; stay alert." Pause. "If any of you believes in God, this would be an excellent time to pray."

The good sister could obviously pray while walking; without a second's hesitation, she strode back toward our mounts. As for the rest of us…

The Caryatid said nothing; but she had a crazy joy in her eyes, a look I'd only seen once before, when she was cuddling a flame after two beers more than usual. Suddenly she'd started hugging the fire to her breast while her clothes smoldered. Rubbing it against her cheek, kissing it over and over: tears dribbling from her eyes and instantly turning to steam in the fire's heat, a heat so intense her cheeks were red and raw the next day. The only time I'd ever seen fire come close to burning the Caryatid. Now the same expression blazed across her face… and she followed after Impervia, walking, then running, then leaping-over rubble, over puddles, over nothing at all, just jumping for the sake of the thrill.

Pelinor watched the Caryatid leaping, jumping, skipping. For a moment his face was grim; then it softened into a grizzled smile. "Why not?" he said under his breath. "Why the hell not?" His eyes continued to follow the Caryatid as she caught up with Impervia and the two matched step. "There are worse things," he said. Then he smiled apologetically to the rest of us. "There are worse things," he said again. Then, not jumping or skipping, but walking with a quick firm pace, he followed the Caryatid's lead.

Myoko seemed to have been holding her breath; now she let it out and turned to me. "What do you think?"

I shrugged. Just a shrug but it felt strange, as if I were telling some kind of a lie. Feigning cool detachment.

"Yeah, well," Myoko said, turning away. "I always knew it would come." She was talking to herself now. "Sooner or later, it had to. Yeah." She drew in a sharp breath. "Only question was, who would start it: me or someone else? Might as well be me." She glanced back in my direction once more and gave a mirthless smile. "Here we go. Here we go." Then she headed for the horses, walking with her arms squeezed tight in front of her.

Just Annah and me left. When I looked at her, she'd thrown back the hood of her cloak; her eyes met mine.

How can eyes sometimes be so alive?