A great curtain of rain swept across the lich-yard, bending the knee-high gra.s.s and splattering on the old tumbled stones.

"Did you find anything?" Miriamele called.

"Nothing that is pleasant." She could barely hear the troll for the hissing of the rain. She bent closer to the crypt door. "I am finding no tunnel," he elaborated.

"Then come out. I'm soaking wet." She pulled her cloak tight and looked up.

Beyond the lich-yard, the Hayholt loomed, its spires dark and secretive against the muddy gray sky. She saw light glimmering in the red windows of Hjeldin's Tower and crouched lower in the gra.s.s, like a rabbit covered by the shadow of a hawk. The castle seemed to be waiting, quiet and almost lifeless. There were no soldiers on the battlements, no pennants fluttering atop the roofs. Only Green Angel Tower with its sweep of pure white stone seemed somehow alive. She thought of the days she had hidden there, spying on Simon as he daydreamed through idle afternoons in the bell chamber. As constricting and smothering as the Hayholt had seemed to her then, it had been a comparatively cheerful place. The castle that stood before her now waited like some ancient hard-sh.e.l.led creature, like an old spider brooding at the center of its web.

Can I actually go there? she wondered. Maybe Binabik is right. Maybe I am being stubborn and headstrong to think I can do anything at all.

But the troll might be wrong. Could she afford to gamble? And more importantly, could she walk away from her father, knowing that the two of them might never again meet on this earth?

"You were speaking the truth." Binabik slipped out through the crypt door, shielding his eyes with his hand. "The rain is falling down very strongly."

"Let's go back to where we left the horses," Miriamele said. "We can shelter there. So you found nothing?"

"Another place with no tunnels." The troll wiped mud from his hands onto his skin breeches. "But there were quite a few dead people, none of them good to be spending time with."

Miriamele made a face. "But I'm sure that Simon came up here. It has to be one of these."

Binabik shrugged and set out toward the clutch of wind-rattled elms along the lich-yard's south wall. As he walked, he pulled up his hood. "Either you are remembering it with some slight wrongness, or the tunnel is hidden in a way I cannot discover. But I have scrabbled in all the walls, and been lifting all the stones ..."

"I'm certain it's not you," she said. A flare of lightning lit the sky; the thunder followed a few moments later. Suddenly an image of Simon struggling in the dark earth appeared before her mind's eyes. He was gone, lost forever, despite all the brave things she and the troll had said. She gasped and stumbled. Tears coursed down her rain-wet cheeks. She stopped, sobbing so hard she could not see.

Binabik's small hand closed about hers. "I am here with you." His own voice trembled.

They stood together in the rain for a long time. At last Miriamele grew calmer. "I'm sorry, Binabik. I don't know what to do. We have spent the whole day searching and it hasn't done us any good." She swallowed and wiped water from her face. She could not speak of Simon. "Perhaps we should give up. You were right: I could never walk up to that gate."

"Let us make ourselves dry, first." The little man tugged her forward, hurrying them toward shelter. "Then we will talk over what are the things we should do."

"We have looked, Miriamele," said Binabik. The horses made anxious noises as the thunder caromed across the sky once more. Qantaqa stared up at the clouds as though the great sound were something she would like to chase and catch. "But if you wish it, I will wait and look again when the rain is gone-perhaps the searching would be safer by night."

Miriamele shuddered at the thought of exploring the graves after dark. Besides, the diggers had proved that there was far more to fear in these crypts than just the restless spirits of the dead. "I don't want you to do that."

He shrugged. "Then what is your wishing?"

She looked at the map. The wandering lines of ink were nearly invisible in the dark, storm-curtained afternoon. "There are other lines that must be other tunnels going in. Here's one."

Binabik screwed up his eyes as he studied the map. "That one is seeming to me to come out in the rock wall over the Kynslagh. Very difficult it would be to find, I think, and it would be even more beneath the nose of your father and his soldiers."

Miriamele nodded sadly. "I think you're right. What about this one?"

The troll considered. "It is seeming to be in the place the town now stands."

"Erchester?" Miriamele looked back, but could not see over the tall lich-yard wall. "Somewhere in Erchester?"

"Yes, are you seeing?" He traced the line with his short finger. "If this is the little forest called Kynswood, and this is where we are now standing ..."

"Yes. It must be almost in the middle of the town." She paused to consider. "If I could disguise my face, somehow ..."

"And I would be disguising my height and my troll-ness?" Binabik asked wryly.

She shook her head, feeling the idea solidify. "No. You wouldn't need to. If we took one horse, and you rode with me, people would think you were a child."

"I am honored."

Miriamele laughed a little wildly. "No, it would work! No one would look at you twice if you kept your hood pulled low."

"And what would we do with Simon's horse, and with Qantaqa?"

"Perhaps we could bring them with us." She didn't want to give up. "Maybe they would think Qantaqa was a dog."

Now Binabik laughed, too, a sudden huff of mirth. "It is one thing to make people be thinking a small man like me is a child, but unless you could find a cloak for her as well, no one will ever have belief that my companion is anything but a deadly wolf from the White Waste."

Miriamele looked at Qantaqa's s.h.a.ggy gray bulk and nodded sadly. "I know. It was just a thought."

The troll smiled. "But the rest of your idea is good. There are just a few things we must do, I am thinking...."

They finished their work in a grove of linden trees on the edge of a fallow field just west of the main road, a few furlongs from Erchester's northernmost city gate.

"What did you put in this beeswax, Binabik?" Miriamele scowled, probing with her tongue. "It tastes terrible!"

"That is not for touching or tasting," he said. "It will come loose. And the answer is being, just a little dark mud for color."

"Does it really look like teeth are missing?"

Binabik c.o.c.ked his head, eyeing the effect. "Yes. You are appearing very scruffy and not-princess-like."

Miriamele ran her hand through her dirt-matted hair and carefully stroked her muddy face. I must be a sight. I must be a sight. She could not help being pleased for some reason. She could not help being pleased for some reason. It is like a game, like a Usires Play. I can be anyone I want to. It is like a game, like a Usires Play. I can be anyone I want to.

But it was not a game, of course. Simon's face loomed before her; she abruptly and painfully remembered what she was doing, what dangers it would bring-and what had already been lost so that she could get to this place.

It is to end the pain, the killing, she dutifully reminded herself. she dutifully reminded herself. And to bring my father back to his senses. And to bring my father back to his senses.

She looked up. "I'm ready, I suppose."

The troll nodded. He turned and patted Qantaqa's broad head, then led the wolf a short distance away and crouched beside her, burying his face in her neck fur to whisper in her ear. It was a long message, of which Miriamele could hear only the throaty clicking of trollish consonants. Qantaqa twisted her head to the side and whined softly but did not move. When Binabik had finished; he patted her again and touched his forehead to hers.

"She will not let Simon's horse stray far away," he said. "Now it is time for us to be going forward."

Miriamele swung up into the saddle, then leaned down to extend a hand to the little man; he scrambled up and seated himself before her. She tapped her heels against the horse's side.

When she looked back, Simon's horse Homefinder was cropping gra.s.s at the base of a rain-dripping tree. Qantaqa sat erect, ears high, yellow eyes intent on her master's small back.

The Erchester Road was a sea of mud. The horse seemed to spend almost as much time unsticking itself as it did walking.

The city gate proved to be unbolted. The delicately-weighted portal swung open with only a light push from Miriamele, creaking gently. She waded back across the muddy wagon ruts and remounted, then they rode in between the tall gate towers, rain drizzling down on them from the clotted gray skies.

"There are no guards," she whispered.

"There is no one at all that I am seeing."

Just inside the gate lay Battle Square, a vast expanse of cobblestones with a green in the center, the site of countless parades and festivals. Now the square was empty but for a few stark-ribbed dogs rooting in debris at the mouth of one of the alleys. The square looked as though it had been unused for some time, forgotten by all except the scavengers. Wide puddles rippled beneath the rain. The green had become a desolate patch of pockmarked mud.

The echo of the horse's hooves caught the dogs' attention. They stared, tongues lolling, dark eyes wary; a moment later the pack turned and fled splashing down the alleyway.

"What has happened here?" Miriamele wondered.

"I think we can be guessing," said Binabik. "You saw other nearby towns and villages, and I saw such emptiness all through the snowy lands of the north. And this place, do you see, is closest of all to what has happened at the Hayholt."

"But where have all the people gone? From Stanshire, from Hasu Vale, from ... from here? They didn't just disappear."

"No. Some may have been dying when the harvests were not coming in, but others have just gone to the south, I am thinking. This year has been a fearful enough thing for those of us who are having some knowledge of what is happening. For those who were living here, it must have seemed that they were suddenly finding themselves under a curse."

"Oh, Merciful Elysia." Her unhappiness was strangely mixed with anger and pity. "What has my father done?"

Binabik shook his head.

As they entered broad Main Row, there at last appeared some signs of human life: from the cracks of a few shuttered windows firelight flickered, and somewhere farther up the thoroughfare a door banged shut. Miriamele even thought she could hear a faint voice raised in prayer, but somehow she could not imagine a person from whom such a ragged sound would come; rather, it seemed that some wandering spirit had left behind its mournful cry.

As they turned the bend in Main Row, a figure in a ragged cloak appeared from one of the narrow cross streets in front of them and went shambling slowly away up the road. Miriamele was so surprised to see an actual person that she reined up and sat staring for long moments. As if sensing the presence of strangers, the figure turned; for an instant a look of fear showed on the wrinkled face beneath the hood-it was difficult to tell if it was a man or a woman-then the cloaked shape scuttled rapidly forward and vanished down an alleyway. When Miriamele and Binabik drew even with the place, there was no sign of anyone. All the doors that faced the narrow byway looked as though they had been boarded up for some time.

"Whoever that was, they they were scared of were scared of us." us." Miriamele could not keep the pained surprise out of her voice. Miriamele could not keep the pained surprise out of her voice.

"Can you feel blame for them about that?" The little man waved his hand at the haunted streets. "But it is no matter. I am not doubting that many ghastly things have been happening here-but it is not our task to be worrying about such happenings. We are looking for something."

"Of course," Miriamele replied quickly, but her mind did not fix easily on what the little man was saying. It was hard to tear her eyes from the mud-spattered walls, the gloomy, empty streets. It looked as though a great flood had rushed through and swept all the people away. "Of course," she said again. "But how will we find it?"

"On the map, the tunnel end looked as though it was being in the center of the town. Are we going in that direction?"

"Yes. Main Row goes through town all the way up to the Nearulagh Gate."

"Then what is that thing being?" Binabik pointed. "It seems to block any going forward." A few furlongs ahead, a huge dark ma.s.s straddled the road.

"That?" Miriamele was still so disoriented that it took her a long moment to recognize it. "Oh. That's the back of Saint Sutrin's-the cathedral."

Binabik was silent for some moments. "And it is at the center of the town?"

"More or less." Something in the tone of the troll's voice finally dragged her attention back from the dreamlike emptiness of Main Row. "Binabik? What is it? Is something wrong?"

"Let us just wait until we are seeing it from more closely. Why is there no golden wall? I thought from the traveler's tales told to me that such a wall was being a famous thing about this Saint Sutrin's."

"It's on the other side-the side that faces the castle."

They continued up Main Row. Miriamele wondered whether there might be people here after all-if instead of almost deserted, the city might actually be full-tenanted. Perhaps if all the inhabitants were as fearful as the one she had seen, they were even now watching quietly from behind shuttered windows and through cracks in the walls. Somehow that was just as bad as imagining the people of Erchester all gone.

Or perhaps it was something stranger still. On either side of the road, the stalls which had once housed the various small merchants were empty, but now she thought she could feel a sort of antic.i.p.ation, as though these hollow holes waited to be filled with some new kind of life-something as unlike the farmers, peasants, and townsfolk who had once bustled through their lives here as mud was unlike dry, sunlit soil.

The golden facade of Saint Sutrin's had been peeled away by scavengers; even the famous stone reliefs were gouged almost into unrecognizability, as though the gold that had covered them had been smashed loose with hammers in the course of a single hasty hour.

"It was beautiful." Miriamele had not much room left for sadness or surprise. "When the sun was on it, it looked like the church was covered in holy flames."

"In times of badness, gold is being worth more than beauty," Binabik mused, squinting up at the crushed faces of the saints. "Let us go and try the door."

"Do you think it's here? The tunnel?"

"You saw from the map that it was coming up in the center of this town of Erchester. I am guessing that this place goes deeper than any other in the town."

The great wooden doors did not open easily, but Miriamele and Binabik both lowered their shoulders; the hinges groaned and the doors grated open almost a cubit, allowing them to slip inside.

The forechamber had also lost much of its decoration. The pedestals on either side of the door were empty, and the huge tapestries that had once made the chamber walls into windows that looked out on the days of Usires Aedon now lay crumpled on the flagstones, crisscrossed with muddy footprints. The room stank of damp and decay, as though it had been long deserted, but light glowed from the great chapel beyond the forechamber doors.

"Someone is here," Miriamele said quietly.

"Or at least they are still coming for lighting the candles."

They had only taken a few steps when a figure appeared in the inner doorway.

"Who are you? What do you seek in G.o.d's house?"

Miriamele was so surprised to hear another human voice that for a moment she did not reply. Binabik took a step forward, but she put her hand on his shoulder. "We are travelers," she said. "We wanted to see Saint Sutrin's. The doors were never closed in the past."

"Are you Aedonites?"

Miriamele thought there was something familiar about the voice. "I am. My companion is from a foreign land, but he has been of service to Mother Church."

There was a moment's hesitation before the man spoke again. "Enter, then, if you swear you are not enemies."

Miriamele doubted from the tremulousness of his tone that the man speaking could have stopped them if they were enemies, but she said: "We are not. Thank you."

The shadowy figure vanished from the doorway and Miriamele led Binabik through. She was still wary. In this haunted city, anyone could live in a cathedral. Why not then use it as a trap spider used its burrow, as a lure to the incautious?

It was not much warmer inside than out, and the great chapel was thick with shadows. Only a dozen candles burned in the huge room, and their light was scarcely enough to illuminate the vaulting high overhead. Something was strange about the dome as well. After a few moments' scrutiny, Miriamele realized that all of the gla.s.s was gone but for a few splinters clinging to the lead frame. A solitary star glimmered in the naked sky.

"Smashed by the storm," a voice said beside her. She flinched, startled. "All our lovely windows, the work of ages, shattered. It is a judgment on Mankind."

Standing beside her in the dim light was an old man in a dirty gray robe, his face sagging into a thousand wrinkles, his white-wisped, balding head covered with a lopsided hat of strange shape. "You look so sad," he murmured; his accent marked him as an Erkynlander. "Did you ever see our Saint Sutrin's before ..." he hesitated, as he tried to find a word, but could not. "Did you ever see it ... before?"

"Yes." Miriamele knew it was better policy to profess ignorance, but the old man seemed so pathetically proud that she did not have the heart. "I saw it. It was very beautiful."

"Only the great chapel in the Sancellan Aedonitis could compare," he said wistfully. "I wonder if it still stands? We hear little from the South these days."