He thought about that for a while and could not answer.

“You're not dead yet,” the Serian said, and the hint of compassion in her voice surprised him.

He laughed, short and harsh. “Maybe not, but time belongs to my sickness now, not me.” There was so much more to say—what the illness did to him, why he was undertaking this final voyage, the dangers he saw in its aims—or nothing at all. For now he chose nothing. Just as there would be time later for Lulah's secrets, so, perhaps, he would tell his own campfire tale.

Lulah looked around, and indicated a place high on the hillside to the east. “Cover there,” she said. “I don't like this.”

“I told you, nothing too bad. I just want to slow Nomi down for a while.” Ramus folded the map and returned it to his backpack.

“So what's on the parchment?” Lulah asked.

She was surprising Ramus more and more. He had assumed her to be cool and uninterested, here for the voyage and little more. But away from the others, she seemed to be developing an intense curiosity. Maybe she realized that this was riskier than she'd first thought.

“They're from an old book. Do you read?”

Lulah shook her head. “What do they say?”

Perhaps if she'd asked six hours ago he would have told her about the Divide and the Sleeping God. Encased in the night and the dark memories of what it had brought, his sadness and pain may have urged the truth from him. But now dawn was here, and the sun seemed to have burned some of the badness away. Given him hope.

“That's what I need to find out,” he said. Only a small untruth, because though he recognized some of the images on the parchment pages, the language was still a mystery.

He would have many evenings to examine the pages by campfire light.

LULAH LED THEM up the hill, and as they approached the cover she had spotted they had to dismount and guide the horses by their reins. They reached a rocky overhang, its flattened top home to small trees and a tangle of undergrowth. The horses were easily tethered out of sight, and Ramus and Lulah lay on the thin mountain grass and kept watch along the valley.

“We could have all stayed together,” Lulah said after a long silence.

Ramus stared at her eye patch and the stud that decorated it. “You came with me for a reason. When will you tell me what it is?”

Lulah smiled. “We both have secrets. That's good. It's not healthy to know your traveling companions too well.”

“Why not?”

“Boredom can be deadly on the trail.”

“Here's a deal,” Ramus said, intrigued by this warrior woman. “When I can translate the pages and tell you what they say, you tell me how you lost your eye.”

Lulah nodded. “Fair enough. Though the real tale is in how I gained this stud.”