He closed his eyes and heard only the sound of Lulah's horse's feet plodding across the soft ground to his right. He whispered some new words to the air—the language he was coming to know better and better, but which he had yet to understand— and nothing changed. But he felt the power there, and he suddenly wanted to see the parchment pages again.

There was something about one of the pages, the one without writing but swamped in images . . .

He sat against the rock, opened his backpack and unrolled the parchments, flattening them on his outstretched legs. The one he sought he had examined least, because much of it was filled with imagery that spoke no words. But Ramus knew that you did not need language to tell a story. This page had the customary line dividing the sheet into a third and two-thirds, and among the abundance of images and shapes were twelve pointed images that could have been standing stones. They started smallest away from the Divide, and the closest one was largest. The line of the Divide adjacent to this largest stone was stepped inward briefly, as though indicating a special place.

The easiest way to climb, Ramus thought. Either that, or a route into a trap.

By the time Lulah had passed behind the standing stone and emerged again on his left, Ramus knew where they had to go. “That way,” he said, pointing at the largest rock in the distance. “And from there to the next largest, and the next.”

Lulah nodded and stopped her horse, waiting for him to mount his own.

But Ramus turned once again to the monolith, opening his arms and pressing his hands and face against a surface slightly warmed by the sun. The rock seemed to throb at him, a brief sensation that was not repeated, and for a moment the pain in his head receded. Like the slow, ponderous heartbeat of something asleep for a very long time.

THE SHADOWS GROW from the south and advance toward him, and they have teeth. They are made of darkness and ambiguity but are sharp and deadly, and one bite from their unseen edges will kill him for sure. He looks around for his traveling companions, but he is on his own. They have abandoned him or been killed, and even his horse glances to the side now and then, foaming at the mouth, blood in its spittle, its mad, rolling eyes accusing him of some wrongdoing and issuing the promise that it will be gone at the first opportunity. But it is a chance it will never have, because the shadows roll fast across the landscape. Every time they touch one of the standing stones, the rock transforms into a nebulous, writhing shape that runs and frolics within their embrace.