“We should leave,” the Serian said. She held her sword and her eye flickered from here to there, scanning the path and trying to pierce the shadows on either side. “Back to the village; there's that place of books for you to examine. You'll learn a lot more about this place by reading its history than wandering its forgotten paths. And we can take them.”

“Maybe,” he said. “But reading isn't seeing, touching or tasting.”

“It'll tell you more than—”

“You'd rather read about humping, or do it?”

Lulah glared at him for a beat, then looked away.

Ramus led the way this time, wincing now and then against the pain in his skull. Every heartbeat of pain reminded him of Nomi. He tried hating her, but it seemed that only certain emotions could travel from one world to the next, and hatred was not one of them.

And every time the agony throbbed in, there was something else there to instantly calm it again: a presence illuminated by the pain, like a shape in the darkness lit by lightning flashes.

The forest followed gentle slopes down into a valley. The air became heavy and warm, and to begin with it was a pleasant relief from the cool breeze that had bitten through their clothes since reaching the plateau. Ramus felt sweat dribble down his sides, sticking his shirt to his back, and Lulah's face was beaded with moisture. But the farther they went down into the valley, the warmer it became. They stripped off their outer layers, afraid that they would dehydrate and use their water too quickly. And when they came to the tree line and the bulk of the valley was laid out before them, they had to pause to take everything in.

Here was another ruined village, but the destruction wrought upon this place was much greater. Barely a wall was left standing. It was spread across the floor of the valley, several small streams bisecting the destroyed settlement, spanned here and there by intricate timber bridges suspended from stone columns. The bridges, strangely, remained untouched by whatever had swept through this place.

Even from this distance, Ramus could see that there were more stone people scattered around the village. Some stood or lay in the fields outside, often piled here and there as if many of them had died together. Others were in the village itself, vague humps between shattered buildings, standing against piles of rubble or broken down into fragments.

He could also see that these dead stone things were not human.

“What is this?” Lulah asked.