Bayaz spoke to them warmly, smiling and waving his arms, pointing out towards the ocean. One nodded, answered, shrugged and pointed down the track. He stepped through a gap in the hedge, off the field and into the road. Or from soft mud to hard mud, at least. He beckoned at them to follow while his companion watched suspiciously from the other side of the bushes.

'He will take us to Cawneil,' said Bayaz.

'To who?' muttered Logen, but the Magus did not answer. He was already striding westward after the farmer.

Heavy dusk under a grim sky, and they trudged through an empty town after their sullen guide. A singularly ill-favoured fellow, Jezal rather thought, but then peasants were rarely beauties in his experience, and he supposed that they were much the same the world over. The streets were dusty and deserted, weedy and scattered with refuse. Many houses were derelict, furry with moss and tangled with creeper. Those few that did show signs of occupation were, in the main, in a slovenly condition.

'It would seem the glory of the past is faded here also,' said Longfoot with some disappointment, 'if indeed there ever was any.'

Bayaz nodded. 'Glory is in short supply these days.'

A wide square opened out from the neglected houses. Ornamental gardens had been planted round the edge by some forgotten gardener, but the lawns were threadbare, the flowerbeds turned to briar-patches, the trees no more than withered claws. Out of this slow decay rose a huge and striking building, or more accurately a jumble of buildings of various confused shapes and styles. Three tall, round, tapering towers sprouted from their midst, joined at their bases but separating higher up. One was broken off before the summit, its roof long fallen in, leaving naked rafters exposed.

'A library…' whispered Logen under his breath.

It scarcely looked like one to Jezal. 'It is?'

'The Great Western Library,' said Bayaz, as they crossed the dilapidated square in the looming shadow of those three crumbling towers. 'Here I took my first hesitant steps along the path of Art. Here my master taught me the First Law. Taught it to me again and again until I could recite it flawlessly in every language known. This was a place of learning, and wonder, and great beauty.'

Longfoot sucked his teeth. 'Time has not been kind to the place.'

'Time is never kind.'

Their guide said a few short words and indicated a tall door covered in flaking green paint. Then he shuffled away, eyeing them all with the deepest suspicion.

'You simply cannot get the help,' observed the First of the Magi as he watched the farmer hurry off, then he raised his staff and struck the door three good knocks. There was a long silence.

'Library?' Jezal heard Ferro asking, evidently unfamiliar with the word.

'For books,' came Logen's voice.