Ma-ah had never seen mosaics before. She stared at the courtyard’s spectacular floor, gazed in marvel at the brilliant blue, green, and purple tiles that glittered in the afternoon sunshine. The multitudinous patterns almost made her dizzy. There were strange wiggly lines, odd shapes, circles and squares, all flowing one into the other.

At one point, one shimmering blue fish-shaped flat stone fitted into a shining green one, of a bird. But it was almost impossible to find the dividing line, so that before her eyes the fish turned into the bird. And the same with all the other patterns. The various representations were so fluid and bright that she hesitated to walk on them. Sumpter went ahead, without looking down at all though, so she followed docilely enough. Long shadows lay clearly over the tiles, cast by the towering sheer cliffs that surrounded the courtyard.

“Sumtoa,” Sumpter said, waiting for her. She was growing used to him; he’d been her steady companion for the two days that she’d been separated from Rampa. “Sumtoa,” he said again.

She didn’t have the slightest idea what the word itself meant, but his meaning was obvious from his gesture. He pointed at the cliff wall nearest them. She turned to look, and leapt back, startled. An image of a man was etched in the rock so cleverly that she thought him real for a moment; one arm close enough to brush her own. Like Sumpter, he was giant-sized, dressed in a violet-colored robe, and like all the people she’d seen here he had very light brown skin and blue eyes, flecked with orange.

“Sum-to-a,” he said, more slowly this time.

She shook her head, saying in her own language, “I don’t understand.”

He pointed again. Once more she turned to look. The entire cliff wall was painted with figures and drawings. Now she wondered how she could have missed them before. So craftily were these executed that it looked as if real people blended with the rocks, emerging from the crevices.

“Crom a taum,” Sumpter said, smiling.

Ma-ah shrugged, almost angrily. What did he want her to do? And where was Rampa? Every time she asked, Sumpter answered with gestures and those words that she couldn’t understand, but she deduced that Rampa was undergoing the same kind of experiences that she was, with someone else. “Why were Rampa and I separated?” she asked, but Sumpter only smiled reassuringly. Then he pointed to his own ears, to hers, and to the image on the wall. He wanted her to listen to … the painted-on man?