He carried the water skins back to camp, and if Lulah noticed his new adornment, she did not mention it.

THE FOOD WAS good but not great, almost as if Lulah had lost heart after leaving her companions. Afterward, she said that she was going to patrol the area for a while, and left Ramus sitting alone by the fire.

He took the parchment pages from his backpack. Placing them carefully on his knees he touched them first, feeling the texture of the pages and wondering whose fingers had touched them before him, and how many, and how often. He smelled them, brushed them against his face, listened to the rustle as he waved them past his ear.

The Pavissia Steppes smelled different. He was used to the aroma of heather, but the heather here gave off a warm, earthy stink. The air was richer and wilder. The parchment smelled almost familiar, and Ramus felt a sudden, surprising pang for Long Marrakash, now far behind.

Lulah appeared from the shadows to ask if he was all right.

“I'm fine,” he said. He felt uncomfortable with the pages exposed on his lap, as if anyone else's viewing them would detract from their power. Lulah stood by his shoulder and looked down. When she reached out to touch the pages, Ramus covered them with the map he had drawn.

“Sorry,” she said.

He shook his head. “It's just . . .” An awkward silence was broken by something calling in the dark, a low cry from far away.

“I should do another circle of the camp,” the Serian said.

Ramus nodded and watched her walk away. She's on my side, he thought. But that idea was naïve. There were no sides here, only those with knowledge and those without.

He took out his journal and charcoals, skipping the first page, resisting the temptation to scrub Nomi's name from sight. He could not change the past. He turned past the page where he had made the mark in the temple, and when there were blank sheets before him, he placed it on the ground between his feet.

Ramus concentrated on Ten's parchments again, turned them, viewing them all at once, staring at one at a time, laying them side by side across his lap, letting the information enter his mind without dwelling upon it too much. He accepted that some of the symbols may be strange lettering, and some of the letters he thought he recognized could be obscure symbols. The illustrations were obvious in places, not so in others, and even these could be glyphs or symbolic representations of words or phrases, rather than simple drawings. He was already certain that whoever had written these pages was at least as advanced as the most literate scholars in Marrakash. If it truly was a language from long ago, it was utterly unique.

And yet . . .