Mappo still did not understand why he had been chosen. He was no different from his fellow warriors, he believed. Vengeance was sustenance. More than meat and water, the very reason to eat and drink. The ritual that would purge him would destroy all that he was. You will be an unpainted hide, Mappo. The future will offer its own script, writing and shaping your history anew. What was done to the town of our kin must never happen again. You will ensure that. Do you understand?

Expressions of dreadful necessity. Yet, without the horrific destruction of the town of his birth Mappo would have defied them all. He’d walked the overgrown main street, with its riotous carpet of weeds and roots, and had seen the glimmer of sun-bleached bones at his feet.

Near the market round, he discovered a Nameless One awaiting him, standing in the clearing’s centre, grey-faded robes flickering in the prairie wind, hood drawn back to reveal a stern woman’s visage. Pale eyes met his as he approached. The staff she held in one hand seemed to writhe in her grip.

‘We do not see in years,’ she hissed.

‘But in centuries,’ Mappo replied.

‘It is well. Now, warrior, you must learn to do the same. Your elders shall decree it so.’

The Trell slowly gazed around, squinting at the ruins. ‘It has more the feel of a raider’s army – it’s said that such forces exist south of Nemil—’

Her sneer surprised him with its unveiled contempt. ‘One day he shall return to his home, as you’ve done here and now. Until that time, you must attend—’

‘Why me, damn you!’

Her answer was a faint shrug.

‘And if I defy you?’

‘Even that, warrior, will demand patience.’ She raised the staff then, the gesture drawing his eye. The twisting, buckling wood seemed to reach hungrily for the Trell, growing, filling his world until he was lost in its tortured maze.

‘Strange how a land untravelled can look so familiar.’

Mappo blinked, the memories scattered by the sound of that familiar soft voice. He glanced up at Icarium. ‘Stranger still how the mind’s eye can travel so far and so fast, yet return in an instant.’

The Jhag smiled. ‘With that eye you might explore the entire world.’

‘With that eye you might escape it.’

Icarium’s gaze narrowed as he scanned the rubble-strewn sweep of desert below. They’d climbed a tel the better to see the way ahead. ‘Your memories always, fascinate me, since I seem to have so few of my own, and more so since you have always been so reluctant to share them.’