Day after day it was trudging down the roads. They rarely stopped for anything except hunting or camping every night. At least he was considerate of their need to rest every so often. And this sort of marathon marching couldn't be bad for her legs.

Still. It was fantastically tedious.

"Camphor?" she finally asked as the mountains swelled into view. "Where are we going?"

He shrugged. She stopped pulling at the cart and leaned against it. He stopped with her and turned towards her. "We have to pass the mountains before winter," he said.

"Do we? Do you even know where we're going? I know I'm just here out of sheer randomness, Camphor, really, but can we at least have a plan here?"

He sighed and flicked at the ring on his hand with his right thumb. "It's more difficult than that."

"How do you mean?"

"This is the eighteenth year I've had this ring," he said cryptically. "This is the strongest it's pulled me. Ever. I can't fight it anymore. I have to do what it tells me."

"Eighteen years?" she echoed.

"Casketmaker," he answered quietly. He turned to stare at the mountains and took up the cart from Faline. "I have to go. I have to go where it tells me to go. I have to do what it tells me to do."

"You don't have to, Camphor!" she insisted. "Dammit! This isn't right! Who says there's anything in that ring and why do you think you have to do what it says if there is? You're a person! You have free thought, you have free choice! This isn't right!"

He shrugged and started walking.

"Camphor!"

"I've fought for eighteen years. I'm tired of fighting. Besides, last time it brought me to you. And you're not so bad, Faline. Really."

His voice was so cold, so empty, it sent her stomach to knots. She followed him out of compulsion, and Quetz followed her out of annoyed loyalty that swelled in the back of her head.

"Camphor, you don't have to!"

He stopped and held his hand out. "Then take it. Take it off me. I don't want it. I don't. Let it pick someone else."

Faline stared at him and shook her head.

"Fucking take it, Faline!" he screamed. "If I don't have to bear this, then let someone else! I don't want it!"

When she didn't answer him, he grabbed hold of his wits and grabbed hold of his cart, and he hauled it again.

"Camphor--"

"Come with me, or stay behind. It makes no difference to me."

She stared after him. Even ten years from now, she wouldn't know what made her do it. Maybe it was pity. Maybe it was hope. All she knew was that she lunged down the road after him.

Neither said a word as they walked side by side for a long time. Finally she turned to him. "What did you do for eighteen years?" she asked.

He turned towards her and smiled a little. "Built boxes, mostly," he admitted with a grin.

Feivel was relieved to find their belongings were not disturbed at all. He finished gathering the supplies from the camp and whistled for the other horse to come help him out a little. Then, he led them both down the side of the hill towards the river.

It was a good river. If he had anything to say about it, it really ought to be free of snakes entirely. But he didn't have anything to say about it. He wasn't his Lady, deaf and dark and silent. And he certainly wasn't any of the other spirits. These weren't his choices to make.

He shook out then gathered Janice's clothes and comb into a bundle, but he realized that her veil was missing. It had probably blown away sometime in the middle of the night. He closed his eyes, trying to determine where it might be, trying to ask his Lady for help.

It would make Janice happy, anyway, if he could find it. It didn't necessarily mean the life or death of his Lady's plans, but... yeah. It would make a woman happy, and after so much stress in the last few days, that was the least he could ask, wasn't it?

He felt a little tug in answer, and he opened his eyes to heed it.

He followed the tug around the tree roots and the rocky bend in the river. He climbed the rocks with several bounds until he stood at the crest of the boulders. As he came into view of the opposite shore again, he saw the thin twist of gossamer fabric, tangled in the branches of a tree several strides ahead of him.

He started for it, then stopped cold.

He knew that smell. That was the smell of massacre. Of graves. Of bodies and rot.

He turned towards it, his blood rushing through his veins at the slightest whiff of it. There, in the rocks below him, lay a half-decayed corpse of a woman, her mauled, scavanged remains still sporting long blonde hair, though missing most of her face, most of her body, all of her clothes.

His heart went out to her, drowned probably from the snake bite like Janice nearly had. He didn't know the area's burial rights, or even have a shovel on hand. But on the plains, one needed only a touch of dust to be buried. There was never time to recover bodies - those of horses or of riders.

And their last rights were read to them before they even left the Tribes for a raid. They were dead and buried until they returned.

Feivel dropped off the rock the way he had come and grabbed a handful of river sand, relatively dry. He climbed back onto the stone, and dropped the grains onto the girl's body. He'd send someone from town to bury her.

But first, he wanted to grab Janice's veil.

He started down the stone again, then slipped as he saw movement from the corner of his eye. He staggered and gained his balance barely as he turned towards the movement in time to see a serpent slithering out of a collection of bones and into the shallows of the water.

Well, if that was where it went, then he had no troubles to come of it.

He started to step again when he felt Fate stop him dead.

He looked down to where his foot was headed, and there, coiled in the girl's mouth, forcing open her desecrated jaw, was a serpent, black and irridescent, hissing wildly at him. On closer inspection, snakes crawled out of every organ, every mark of teeth, every oriface.

And all of them coiled up, watched him, and hissed.

He walked backwards, dropped off the stone, and retreated slowly towards the horses. Once he was within distance of them, he secured the parcels and swung onto the back of the paint.

He'd have to come back with someone from the town. He didn't care who, but he couldn't let someone walk into that nest of serpents alone. And he couldn't leave the girl uncared for. Nor the rest of those bones.

It sat uneasily on him as he raced back towards the town. He could only hope that Marley's warning had been misplaced.