«… Goes back,» I said, «as if this wasn't always ground level. As if much of it were covered up, overgrown… . We're actually standing above the ruin, aren't we?»

«I don't know. I've never been down in it,» he replied. «That isn't the spot. The cemetery's down the hill, over that way.»

He headed in the direction he'd indicated, and I followed. There were a few fallen, half-buried markers about. Then there was a bigger place, I realized, when I saw that lines of stone in the ground were what had been the tops of walls of a crypt. Weeds grew amid them. Bubo rushed forward, stood in their midst.

«See, there's a hole here,» he told me. «His stuff's down there.»

I moved toward it, looked inside. It was too dark for me to distinguish anything. I wished Nightwind or Graymalk had been along.

«I'll have to take your word for it,» I said, «for now.»

«Then tell me the names and places you'd promised.»

«I'll tell you as we walk along, away from here.»

«Does this place make you nervous?»

«It's not a month for taking chances,» I said.

He laughed.

«That's very funny,» he said.

«It is, isn't it?» I replied.

The dying moon came up above the trees, lighting our way.

With midnight's chimes speech comes to me. I rose and stretched, waiting for them to cease. Jack, having roused himself especially for the occasion, watched me with a mixture of amusement and interest.

«Busy day, Snuff?» he asked.

«We'd a visitor while you napped. The rat Bubo,» I said, «companion of the Good Doctor.»

«And?»

«We traded. A list of the players for the location of the Count's grave. He said it was in the cemetery to a ruined church to the southeast. Showed me the place.»