After the windjammer tied up, Poppy headed off down the quay to pay the landing fee and send a tapwire message confirming their arrival. Their contact, a curt, middle-aged woman named Jasmine Deeproot who worked for the assay offices which certified genuine fossils, arrived a few hours later. She was the only member of the Invisible College on this stretch of the coast, and made it clear that she was not going to take part in what she believed to be a bootless quest. As far as she was concerned, Foeless Landwalker was a charlatan, and his claims about the visitors were clearly fantasies and fabrications. Airy nothings. You might as well, she said, try to catch a cloud. When Pilgrim told her about the lights haunting the sky above the gathering, and said that the region around Ogres Grave had been the focus of a significant number of sightings, she replied that it wasn’t surprising, given that most of the prospectors and the labourers in the mines and smelters and refineries spent their rest days smoking kif and drinking vast quantities of corn beer and mescal tea, and the place was an enormous boneyard where rumours of phantasms and revenants were common currency.

‘Your self-styled prophet hasn’t yet succeeded in calling down his friends, but the gathering of his followers is still growing,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you’ve heard that the Night Riders have sided with him. He has gained the support of several rich and influential families, too. Either because they’ve fallen for his nonsense, or hope to make use of his popularity with the common people. There’s even a rumour that the Sweetwater Collective has shown interest.’

‘Is there any truth to that?’ Pilgrim said.

‘There are so many stories and rumours it’s hard to know what’s true and what isn’t,’ Jasmine Deeproot said. ‘But the size of the gathering and Landwalker’s indifference to his followers should make things easier for you. The lawkeepers are keeping their distance, too, and haven’t set up any more checkpoints after a mob tore down the last one. You should be able to join it without any trouble; just don’t do anything that will draw attention to yourselves.’