Now Lulah patrolled the camp once again. He could not hear or see her, and that gave him great comfort.

And the pages Ten had found at the base of the Great Divide breathed at him.

Ramus knew that translating old languages relied on a small stroke of insight to give large benefit. Some languages from Old Noreela had never been broken, and probably never would. There were stone tablets from the great burial mounds of Cantrassa that must contain the histories of an entire race, long since gone. But though the tablets were filled with symbols, there was nothing with which to compare them. Some believed they came from a race that had landed on Noreela many centuries or millennia before, and that their people were long gone to dust. Others alleged that they were from a civilization wiped out when the current Noreelans first started to appear, a genesis lost to the mists of time, myth and superstition. If the new race had wiped out the old, it would follow that the history of the old race would have been wiped out as well. Victors write history, not the vanquished.

Still more said the tablets were lined with the terrible history of the Violet Dogs.

But Ramus knew now that the language used on these pages had a basis in some of the Old Noreelan tongues, and might even have been derived from one or all of them. This was a mystery that he would uncover, and the thought of what he would find numbed the pain behind his eyes.

Yet he could not clear that small stone fly from his mind.

Ramus worked long into the night. Lulah returned to the camp after midnight, mumbled something about having traveled for miles and seen no threat, then fell asleep close to Ramus. He could hear her breathing and took comfort from their proximity.

He muttered words he had discerned from the pages the previous night, and once again felt a fine fall of dust around his head. He frowned, because he did not know what was happening, though suspicions were taking form.

On one page, the words were surrounded by a series of images— a humanoid figure repeated thirty times around the page in various poses, one seeming to follow the other. At first he had believed it to be an illustrated dance, one form of expression displayed by another. Now he had other ideas. In the morning, perhaps he would find out for sure.

He traced other words with his finger, trying to shape his mouth around them, and they felt alien and old. They gave him only a whisper, because their vocalization took much strength from his body and mind.