Ramus turned to her to give sarcastic thanks, but she was already grinning at him. “What, you won't cook and eat me?” he asked.

She acted mock-offended. “Not all Serians are cannibals.”

They moved on, strangely buoyed by the fact that they had progressed farther than this climber. It marked a changing point, of sorts—the going became harder, but they were more confident than before.

Two camps at the base of the Divide, the easy climb up the chimney, this dead climber . . . Ramus began to wonder just how many the Sleeping God had guided in this way. And why. Those words from the old texts returned again, talk of a Fallen God, and the thought filtered quickly away, swallowed by that thing that sat next to the sickness in his mind, and nothing came back, nothing answered. The silence was heavy.

“The greatest voyage,” he whispered. Greatest Voyager, he thought.

He hid his pain well. It thumped behind his eyes, stronger with the pounding of his heart, but in a way it was welcome. It made the ache of his limbs, the pull of his shoulders, the dozens of cuts and scrapes on his hand and fingers seem trifling. He left evidence of himself on the cliff below, and that seemed only right.

They spent that second night in the lowest of a series of caves. They'd been cautious, fearing creatures that would cause them harm. Lulah went first, slipping over the ledge and into the cave, disappearing for almost too long. She appeared again with an uncertain smile. “Safe,” she said, and as Ramus hauled himself up into the shadows, he wondered on what basis she had judged that.

The uneven cave floor was white with bones. Many of them were crushed, as if something of immense weight had settled upon them. There were hundreds of small animal skeletons, a few larger creatures—wolves, perhaps, or other wild dogs—and toward the rear of the cave Lulah had found three humanoid skeletons. Humanoid, because the skulls obviously belonged to men or women . . . but the limbs were far too long. The back was stretched. The hips were narrow.

“They've been distorted by whatever lay on them,” Lulah said.

Ramus nodded, but they both knew that was not the truth.

Lulah's “safe” pronouncement was based on the fact that these were all skeletons, and none of them had a scrap of meat left upon them. Whatever had nested here had left long ago. But Ramus felt far from safe. Even after Lulah lit a fire he could not sleep, and he lay awake all night listening to flying things crying in the darkness, smelling the musty odors of the long-deadand waiting for the shadow of something huge to obscure the cave entrance.

_____