Ten brought out a rolled parchment, tied with a knot of leather.

“What's this?” Ramus asked.

The knot whispered as it came apart. “I found these close to one of the bodies.”

“What are they?”

The wanderer flattened the parchment pages—three of them—across the table, his hands still obscuring the uppermost page. “The body was broken,” he said. “Every bone shattered, as though he or she had fallen from a great height.” He glanced around, sat back and revealed the pages. “Perhaps all the way from the top.”

Ramus leaned forward and turned his head, and for a heartbeat the images did not register.

And then he saw.

“Well?” Nomi whispered.

Ramus touched the top page and traced the first of the images. “By every fucking god that ever touched Noreela!” he said.

“Not every god,” Ten said. “Just this one.”

RAMUS SENT TEN away. Nomi objected, but Ramus gave her one of his harsh stares.

“Don't go elsewhere,” Nomi said. “We're the Voyagers you need to deal with on this. I have the ear of Marquella, and he has the support of the Guild. If we feel that this is worth pursuing, I can ensure that you're paid everything you're due.”

Standing beside the table, the wanderer seemed taller than ever. The sun cast his shadow across Nomi's face, and she wondered what it would be like to live in shadow forever. “I'll be back at noon,” he said. But he seemed to find it difficult to leave the pages behind.

“You can trust us,” Ramus said.

“It's not about trust,” Ten said. “I've had those with me for a long time.”

“We'll look after them,” Nomi said. She smiled her most charming smile, and the wanderer was looking at her as he walked away, not at what he had left behind.

Savi came to their table when he had left, and Nomi asked for some water and a bowl of river cherries. She felt like a treat.

“So what do you think?” she asked at last.

Ramus sat back in his chair, hands clasped in front of his face, eyes never moving from the parchment. His stubble was three days old, and Nomi could see the dirt beneath his fingernails. She knew the signs. He needed to go out again.

“How can we ignore this, Ramus?” she said passionately.

“It could be a hoax.” And there it was, his pissing cynicism, coming to the fore. He once told her something his mother had told him: Everything is a lie until proven. She hated that attitude, yet it gave him the endlessly inquisitive, questing mind that she so lacked.

“It's no hoax, Ramus. Look closer. You're a Voyager, and so am I. We have our differences, I know. But can't you see what this could be? The biggest find since Sordon Perlenni first went out! This could mean . . .” She swept her hand across the surface of the top parchment, wondering whose hand had hovered there to draw those images and symbols, and what it had looked like. “This could mean a whole new race of Noreelans.”