His gaze slipped away. ‘This is a nice room. The smoke smells like incense. It shows me the currents.’

‘What currents? Ah, the draughts—’

‘Not those currents. The other ones. The ones of power. Dark. Kurald Galain. What bleeds from that pattern in the floor in the outer room by the front doors.’ He lifted a small hand towards the mouthpiece she held, and delicately prised it from her grip. Angling the end upward, he watched as smoke curled free.

She waited for him to try it. She waited for his expression of shock, and then his coughing. She waited, she realized with a faint shock, for some company.

Instead, Lanear’s eyes widened as the swirl of smoke thickened, stretched out, making a sinuous dance as it found a serpentine form. The smoke then swung a viper’s head towards her, hovering opposite her face. She saw darkness where its eyes should have been, as liquid as Orfantal’s own.

‘Who,’ she asked in a faint gasp, ‘who stares at me from those eyes, Orfantal?’

‘Just me.’

The snake of smoke then withdrew, as if drawn back through the mouthpiece. In moments it was gone.

Smiling, Orfantal handed the mouthpiece back to her. ‘Cedorpul is collecting mages.’

Blinking, she focused on him once again. ‘Is he?’

‘He wants everyone to work on sorcery that breaks things, or hurts people. He says we need that, because the Liosan have it, and to stop them using it on us, we have to use it on them first.’

Lanear leaned back. She drew again on the pipe, but this time the smoke felt almost solid as it slithered down into her lungs. Startled, she looked down at Orfantal, but the boy was staring at something at the side of the chamber. She sent a stream of white towards the ceiling, and then said, ‘Orfantal, what do you think of Cedorpul’s reasoning?’

The boy frowned. ‘Is that what it is?’

‘He anticipates a battle, doesn’t he? Between magicks.’

‘Gallan says that darkness can only retreat. But then he says that retreating is the only way to win, because sooner or later the light passes, and what flows in behind it? Darkness. Gallan says Light’s victory is mortal, but Dark’s victory is eternal.’

‘I did not think,’ ventured Lanear as she studied this strange young boy, ‘Gallan had much time for children.’

‘No, but he liked my pet.’

‘Your dog?’

Orfantal rose. ‘No, not Ribs. My other pet. Ribs isn’t mine, but maybe,’ he added, moving towards a side door – the one he had been looking at earlier, ‘I’m his.’

He opened the door, and she saw now the dog, Ribs, lying as if about to pounce in the side passage, the pillow still in its mouth.

Orfantal rushed forward.

Spinning round, Ribs fled up the passage.

The boy followed, his bare feet light upon the floor, as if borne on feathers.