“Recording your voyage?”

“Our voyage.” He showed her the title page he had written before leaving Long Marrakash.

“And what will you say about me in your book?”

“That's for me to know,” he said, “and you to read.”

“You know very well I can't read.”

“Ah.” Ramus selected a hard charcoal stick from his writing roll and sharpened it with a small blade.

Nomi wandered away, idly kicking through the low undergrowth as if expecting to find something amazing beneath. She touched the walls, ran her fingers across some of the carving, looked at Ramus, and then headed for the opening through which they had entered.

“I'll see you outside,” she said.

“I won't be long.” Ramus did not look up from the open book until he was sure he was alone once more.

And when he did look up and cast his gaze across the walls, and saw the carvings and images engraved by ancient hands, he was filled with a terror that punched straight through his chest and grabbed his heart.

For an instant, he sensed this place as it had once been. People had worshipped here, but they had also feared.

A breeze rustled the undergrowth, like the satisfied sigh of a giant.

They are long gone and barely known, he thought. So old that whether they really existed ceased to matter centuries ago. And now we're making it matter once again. We're going beyond the known Noreela in pursuit of what Noreelans have believed for millennia.

He looked around the walls at the vague carvings. There were images he recognized from the texts he had read about the Sleeping Gods, and some shapes he had never seen before. He took out the parchment, unrolled it and tried to find a match for the image of the Sleeping God drawn thereon. He looked closer at the crumbling walls and—

Something moved before him. A shadow shifted, left the shade of a wall, crossed the ruined temple and faded slowly into sunlight.

A wraith.

Ramus gasped, reaching for breath, leaning his elbows on his knees and watching the book tumble to the ground. It landed with blank pages facing up, and his fingers spasmed and let the charcoal fall. It bounced from the paper, left its own random mark, bounced again. Ramus saw nothing in the shape given life.

“Who can truly face their gods?” Ramus whispered.

The pain in his head slammed him once. Then he sat back and sighed, listening to the Serians chatting beyond the walls, birds calling from tree to tree, and he looked up and saw the same sky beneath which they all existed.

NOMI WALKED FROM the ruin toward the ravine walls. She did not like the feel of the place, and Ramus's strange behavior made it worse. She knew that he could withdraw into himself when faced with something that fascinated or perplexed him, but she hated being subject to his sudden mood swings.