The Mhybe dreamed. Once more – after so long – she found herself wandering the tundra, the lichen and moss crunching underfoot as a dry wind swept over her, smelling of dead ice. She walked without aches, heard no rattle deep in her chest as she breathed the crisp air. She had returned, she realized, to the place of her daughter’s birth.

Tellann’s warren, a place not where, but when. The time of youth. For the world. For me.

She lifted her arms, saw their amber smoothness, the tendons and roped veins of her hands almost undiscernible beneath plump flesh.

I am young. I am as I should be.

Not a gift. No, this was torture. She knew she was dreaming; she knew what she would find when she awakened.

A small herd of some ancient, long-extinct beast rolled soft thunder through the hard earth beneath her moccasined feet, running parallel to the path she had chosen along a ridge, their humped backs appearing every now and then above the crest – a blurred flow of burnt umber. Something within her stirred, a quiet exultation to answer the majesty of those creatures.

Kin to the bhederin, only larger, with horns spreading out to the sides, massive, regal.

Glancing down, she paused in her steps. Footprints crossed her path. Hide-wrapped feet had punched through the brittle lichen. Eight, nine individuals.

Flesh and blood Imass? The Bonecaster Pran Chole and his companions? Who walks my dreamscape this time!

Her eyes blinked open to musty darkness. Dull pain wrapped her thinned bones. Gnarled hands drew the furs close to her chin against the chill. She felt her eyes fill with water, blinked up at the swimming, sloped ceiling of the hide tent, and released a slow, agonized breath.

‘Spirits of the Rhivi,’ she whispered, ‘take me now, I beg you. An end to this life, please. Jaghan, Iruth, Mendalan, S’ren Tahl, Pahryd, Neprool, Manek, Ibindur – I name you all, take me, spirits of the Rhivi ...’

The rattle of her breath, the stubborn beat of her heart ... the spirits were deaf to her prayer. With a soft whimper, the Mhybe sat up, reached for her clothes.

She tottered out into misty light. The Rhivi camp was awakening around her. Off to one side she heard the low of the bhederin, felt the restless rumble through the ground, then the shouts of the tribe’s youths returning from a night spent guarding the herd. Figures were emerging from the nearby tents, voices softly singing in ritual greeting of the dawn.

Iruth met inal barku sen netral . . . ah’rhitan! Iruth met inal. . .

The Mhybe did not sing. There was no joy within her for another day of life.

‘Dear lass, I have just the thing for you.’

She turned at the voice. The Daru Kruppe was waddling down the path towards her, clutching a small wooden box in his pudgy hands.

She managed a wry smile. ‘Forgive me if I hesitate at your gifts. Past experience ...’