"No doubt." The Community are proud of Tobo but custom demands that they look down on him for his mixed blood and lack of respect for tradition. "Others will need to know, too. This'll be a time of great ceremony. Your grandmother is the first female from our world to pass away over here. Unless you count the white crow." Old Gota seemed much less formidable in death.

Tobo's thoughts were moving obliquely to mine. "There'll be another crow, Captain. There'll always be another crow. They feel at home around the Black Company." Which is why the Children of the Dead call our town the Abode of Ravens. There are always crows, real or unknown.

"They used to stay fat."

The unknown shadows were all around us now. I could see them easily myself, though seldom clearly and seldom for more than an instant. Moments of intense emotion draw them out of the shells where Tobo taught them to hide.

A renewed racket arose outside. The little darknesses stirred excitedly, then scattered, somehow disappearing without ever revealing what they were. Tobo said, "The dreamwalkers must be hanging around on the other side of the shadowgate again."

I did not think so. This evening's racket was different.

An articulate cry came from the room where we had left One-Eye. So the old man had been faking his snooze after all. "I'd better see what he wants. You get Doj."

"You don't believe it." The old man was agitated now. He was angry enough to speak clearly, without much huffing and puffing. He threw up a hand. One wrinkled, twisted ebony digit pointed at something only he could see. "The doom is coming, Croaker. Soon. Maybe even tonight." Something outside howled as if to strengthen his argument but he did not hear it.

The hand fell. It rested for several seconds. Then it rose again, one digit indicating an ornate black spear resting on pegs above the doorway. "It's done." He had been crafting that death tool for a generation. Its magical power was strong enough for me to sense whenever I considered it directly. Normally I am deaf, dumb and blind in that area. I married my own personal consultant. "You run into. Goblin. Give him. The spear."