On his voyages into the unnamed mountains he met with the Widow, though he was unsure whether she had ever been wed beneath the moons, or in the eyes of any other god. Widow was what she called herself, and though he had probed, she had never offered any other name. He had come to believe that she had none. She practiced magichala and displayed a knowledge of the herbs, spices, roots, plants, animals, poisons and balms of the land more extensive than any he had ever known. When he uttered his astonishment, she had scoffed, saying that she knew nothing. Real magic is beyond plants and charms, she had said. It's in the land, and perhaps one day it will be in me. She hunted and haunted those mountains—the peaks, she said, would belong to her, given time—and she had imparted huge knowledge to Ramus. Not everything she knew, he was sure. In fact, the last time he left her for home she had smiled at him for the first time ever, and in that smile he had seen the superiority of a hawk over a dust sparrow.

She knew so much more.

From the Widow, he had learned how shred and snowspit could be combined to make a tincture that would clean wounds and stop bleeding. Flail, used in its basest form in Long Marrakash, could be dried and refined into a chewable paste, suitable for calming tensed muscles and nerves, without all the side effects of the pure, untreated form. Certain rocks, found only in the Widow's Peaks, could be bled of a useful tonic by long immersion in salty water and then distillation to remove the salt. The resultant fluid would ease coughs and clear thick chests.

And for every good drug, tonic or balm, the Widow told him, there were poisons, toxins and pollutants of the soul.

He moved through the rocks, looking for the telltale shimmering that would show where rock ants were active.

The land is far richer than anyone knows, the Widow had told him. We live upon it, plant our crops in its skin, but deeper down there are more worlds, places where secrets lie hidden, awaiting discovery. And even up here, there are wrinkles in that skin, layers upon layers, fake sheens overlying the true reality which most people will not understand, or cannot bear to believe.

Have you been down? Ramus had asked.

The Widow had given him her customary glare, as though considering whether he was suitable to hear truths. There are depths and there are depths, she had said. I've barely been farther than the sunlight can still kiss.

Ramus had asked why. She was the Widow, after all, dweller of these peaks and an explorer of Noreela as much as he, though she chose to explore without covering great distances.

This time, she did not answer. And he had seen the fear in her eyes.