He read on, and discovered more bad news. It seemed that Foeless Landwalker’s fame had grown considerably over the winter. He was no longer a charlatan preaching from the back of his wagon to an audience of sceptical locals, like a mounte-bank touting a cure-all, but the leader of a fully fledged cult. He had gained more than a thousand followers while travelling through the towns and settlements of the west coast of the New Territories. When this procession reached Ogres Grave he had been arrested for disturbing the peace, but a notary appointed by a wealthy patron had won dismissal of the charge, and after he had been set free he had led his followers through the coastal mountains to the high desert beyond, and commanded the construction of what he called a landing field for the sky boats of the visitors.

Foeless Landwalker preached there every night to his ever-growing flock, claiming that once they had proven themselves worthy the visitors would descend from the sky and the task of building a new and better society would begin. Talk about it was general in the scholars’ community and across the capital, Swift wrote, and Intrepid Windrush’s pamphlets were so popular that printers could scarcely keep up with demand. One of the latest and most famous converts was Earnest Smallhill, the bookrunner Master Mindwell had hired to investigate sightings of the visitors in the New Territories. Smallhill’s final message had been leaked to wallsheet writers, causing amusement and alarm in equal measure in the scholarly community: Forget everything you think you know. Burn it all. I have found the truth.

‘What will you do, if he turns out to be right?’ Teal said, after Pilgrim had told her about the so-called prophet and the attempt by his chief propagandist, Intrepid Windrush, to recruit him to the cause.

‘If Foeless Landwalker really is in contact with the visitors, if he can persuade them to reveal themselves, I would be the first to congratulate him,’ Pilgrim said. ‘But I have read some of Intrepid Windrush’s pamphlets, and it seems to me that the so-called wisdom Landwalker claims to have received from the visitors is nothing but superstitious nonsense and rabble-rousing fear-mongering. Promises of a grand reconciliation with the Mother and a return to an idyllic past that never was. Baseless warnings that misuse of ogre techne will lead us down the same path that eventually destroyed them.’

‘As some already believe it will,’ Teal said.

‘Far too many, as it turns out. More than ever, I need to prove that the visitors are real. I need to find evidence that confirms that the map I found is genuine.’