Lulah glanced at Ramus, then went for the door, low and quiet. She pressed herself to the wall and scanned the street outside.

Ramus let go of the parchment and it rolled back into its original shape. So much here, he thought, but looking at Lulah tensed by the door, braided hair swinging gently as she squatted there ready, he knew that she was right. There was much to see and know, but safety must be their first concern.

If the Sleeping God really was close, perhaps here he would find directions for how and where to find it. Or perhaps it had been found already.

The noise came again, this time from farther away. Lulah retreated from the door until she was beside Ramus.

“I can't see anything,” she said. “But I thought I heard something big moving through the village.”

“How big?”

She looked at him, her one eye twinkling. “How should I know?”

Ramus picked up the parchment and held it to his chest. Lulah glanced at it then away again, and when she returned to the door, he followed.

They waited for a while, and when the noise did not return, Lulah led the way out into the street once more. Ramus helped her lean the door back against the doorway, to protect what lay inside as much as to leave things as they had found them. Then they headed cautiously south, and within a hundred steps they reached the stream. The timber bridge was strong, though the decking had rotted through here and there, and as they left the village behind Ramus felt a sense of relief.

There was a whole new civilization here! The implications for Noreela were only just impressing themselves upon Ramus, feeling their way through his shock and tiredness, and his fear of what may be sleeping. Another reason to never go back, he thought.

The carved human face glared at him from the wall of the final building, and he wondered whether the decision to reveal or hide what they had found—and may yet find—was even his to make.

BEYOND THE VILLAGE there was a path leading into the forest. Lulah said it could have been an animal trail, but her nervousness was obvious as they followed it in between the trees.

They found the first stone man a mile south of the village. From a distance, it looked like a natural rock formation beside the path, but as they drew closer Ramus made out the features that could not hide what this was. His right arm had broken off, the break smoothed over time, and his solid face had been assaulted by the weather so that the features were blurred and indistinct. But it was obviously a man upon whom those words Ramus knew had been used, because around his feet they found the remnants of clothing, a rusted knife and a charm on a cracked leather thong.