Ramus reached out for the first bulky shape, scraped moss from its surface and leaned over to see what was revealed. It was a large wooden box, about the size of the coffins some of the Cantrassan peoples used to bury their dead. He wondered whether they would at last see the builders of this place, or at least their time-withered remains.

“What's in there?” Lulah asked.

“Put your sword to the lid and we'll see.”

Lulah probed beneath the lid with her blade and heaved. It came off with a screech of metal leaving wood, and flipped over onto another box.

A cloud of dust wafted from within, and Ramus gasped. He knew that smell, that texture to his mouth and nose, because he worked with this so much. Old parchment.

“Let the light in,” Ramus said, and Lulah stepped aside.

The box was filled with rolls of parchment. Forty or fifty of them, neatly stacked side by side. A few at one end of the box were slumped into a decayed mess where moisture had penetrated, but the others were still strong and whole. Ramus reached out and touched one, almost afraid that it was some sort of hallucination brought on by his illness. Is Nomi seeing this right now, he wondered, and I'm just dreaming it? But the parchment was rough, dry and brittle beneath his touch, and when he brought his hand to his face he smelled the scent of ages.

“Three pages.” He sighed. “Three pages brought us so far. And now, look. Look at this.” He lifted out one roll and knelt, turning into the light from the open doorway. He unrolled carefully, wincing as he heard the crackle of the outer page splitting, but the inner sheets seemed to unfurl with little complaint.

“What does it say?” Lulah asked sharply. “What's it about?”

Ramus did not know. Some of the language he could recognize from the pages in his backpack, but much of what was symbolized there was a mystery to him. And that made him smile.

“I don't know,” he said. “Perhaps it's the history of a new world.”

“A new world that died,” Lulah said. She leaned over the box and looked inside, sniffing lightly at the dusty, age-rich scent.

“Maybe,” Ramus said. “But like I said, there are ruined places in Noreela as well. People move on.”

“Usually for a reason.”

A reason, Ramus thought, and he scanned the page before him for anything that could represent a Sleeping God. There was nothing immediately evident, and he lifted that sheet to see the one beneath.

“We should go,” Lulah said.

“But—”

“You'll have time to read your books, but not before we know this place is safe. We have no idea—”

The sound came from far away but it was different from any they had heard before. A clicking, throaty noise, obviously made by something larger.