Nobody knew just how long ago the Sleeping Gods had supposedly gone down.

She looked at Beko where he stood at the mouth of the ravine. Ramus called him my captain, she thought. Perhaps I'd like that to be so.

There was a sudden movement at the ruin and Ramus emerged, carrying his blank book by one open cover like an injured bird. He looked around, lost and frantic, until he set eyes on her.

“You were quick,” she said, but she could see that something had happened.

Ramus stared at her for a heartbeat too long before smiling and shaking his head. He looked down and closed the book slowly, deliberately, taking too long. Composing himself, Nomi thought.

“Not much new here,” he said.

“Except?” Nomi hurried to him, ignoring the flutter of activity from the Serians listening to their exchange.

“Except nothing,” he said.

“Ramus?”

He shook his head. “Just a funny turn.”

“You feel unwell?”

“No. Maybe it's the heat, or . . .”

“This place.” She smiled and touched his arm. “You always get so involved.”

“Yes,” he said. “Involved.” He walked away, holding the book to his chest as though he had something to hide.

“Ramus!” Nomi called. His illness? she thought. Or something else? I really need to know. Not for him or for the voyage, but for me.

He paused and looked over his shoulder.

“If you're unwell, we can turn around,” she said.

“I'm not unwell, Nomi.” He looked at the temple he seemed so keen to leave behind. “Some places have echoes, that's all.”

Nomi listened, and watched, and when he walked away, she saw Beko staring at her. She turned her back on all of them and looked at the ruins of the temple to the Sleeping Gods. A strange place, so old and well constructed for its time that much of it still stood. And she thought, He's lying.

“Let's get back to the horses,” Beko said. “I have a campsite in mind for the night, but it's a good twenty miles on.”

“I'll ask him,” Nomi whispered. A bird took flight from one of the nests in the cliff wall, as though it had been listening for these words. She watched it fly, wondering how many other secret mutterings it had shared.

WHEN HE REACHED his horse, Ramus risked one more look at the book. Past the page he had titled back in Long Marrakash, the first blank page was now marked by the dropped charcoal.

When he had bent to pick up both book and charcoal, he had made another mark. An accident. A fumble, a slip of the hand.

But when he had grasped the book by its cover, and when it had swung down to hang at an angle from his hand, those random marks had manifested into images he could understand. It was Old Noreelan, with the pictorial quality so common in tomes about the Sleeping Gods.