‘Right.’ Threadbare considered for a moment, and then said, ‘You see, it’s like this, Azathanai. I don’t argue against the idea that ghosts exist. That is, I’ve never seen one. But even so, some places where people died badly, well, they stink of it, no matter how long ago it all was. It’s not a stink you smell with your nose. It’s some other kind of stink. And it seeps straight in and makes you feel awful. In any case, these spirits you keep listening to – are they ghosts?’

‘Your words make them cringe. The world wears down. What once were mountains are now hills. Rivers change their paths. Cliff-sides crumble, forests rise and then disappear again. There are different kinds of life, and some of them move too slowly for you to even see. Unless you’ve been away, returning only to discover that nothing is as it once was.’

‘How fascinating,’ Threadbare replied. ‘This thing about ghosts and spirits, though. You see, I’m of a mind to think that ghosts have nothing useful to say, nothing good, nothing pleasing. I figure that, mostly, they’re miserable things, trapped halfway between one place and the other. I wouldn’t follow any advice from that quarter, is what I’m saying.’

‘Coming back,’ the woman riding beside her said, ‘foments a crisis. Has everything truly changed? Those rivers, the forests and the worn-down crags? Or is it just the world of the one who returns that has changed? The world inside her, that is. And so an argument begins, between the soul and this rock, or that hill, those trees. This sorcerous night, so powerful in shrouding the day. Anger builds, frustration mounts. Denial becomes a fever, and that fever begins to rage.’

The day was drawing to a close. Somewhere to the south was the rumble of thunder, a strange thing for the season. Threadbare caught the occasional flash of lurid light, flickering through the heavy clouds that grew darker by the moment. ‘What do the spirits care about the Valley of Tarns? What’s happening there?’

‘They speak of an old man in a ditch. A boy is with him, and toy soldiers fight on the floor of the ditch. The old man casts the die. Soldiers fall. A most ferocious battle, and in the boy’s mind he can see it all, every detail. He can hear the screams of the wounded and the dying. He can see the faces filled with fear, or pain, or grief. But the old man crows with every victory, even as tears track down his lined cheeks.’

‘The spirits told you all this?’

‘They watch. It is all they can do. But events far away have stirred them awake. Now they walk the earth, helpless. The time for their own war is yet to come.’

The first stinging spatter of sleet bit at Threadbare’s face. Ahead, the clouds were unleashing their slivers of frozen rain in slanted columns that marched across the land. She pointed to the south. ‘Azathanai, is any of this natural? That thunder and lightning – is that happening at the valley?’