In truth, when the old cat had vanished the night I had returned from Sador with him and Gahltha, I had assumed he was revenging himself on me for leaving him in Saithwold. Never mind that I had been carried away unwillingly aboard a Herder ship, there was no excuse as far as Maruman was concerned. I was the Seeker, Elspethlnnle, and he and Gahltha were my protectors, the Daywatcher and Moonwatcher. I should never have allowed myself to be parted from them.

‘Perhaps the oldOnes wanted no more than that you should return to the barud,’ Gahltha suggested.

‘But why bring me back here to do nothing?’ I demanded, exasperated.

‘Nothing?’ Gahltha echoed blandly.

I laughed despite myself. ‘All right, I have been busy, but surely the Agyllians did not summon me back to Obernewtyn to sort out Misfit affairs?’ Even as I said the words, I wondered if that was the reason. Long ago atop her mountain eyrie, the Agyllian Elder Atthis had told me that my role at Obernewtyn was as important in its own way as the fulfilment of my quest as the Seeker. I had never understood how the fate of Obernewtyn could be as important as the fate of a whole world, but like the futuretellers, the mystic birds saw much that they did not tell.

‘Well, there is plenty of time for me to sort things out here, before we leave for the Red Land,’ I told Gahltha. ‘What worries me is that Marumanyelloweyes may be ill / hurt. He is not a young cat …’

‘I would not say that to his face,’ Gahltha warned seriously.

I sighed, for I did not like to think of Maruman’s age any more than he did. He was no longer a kitten when I met him during my time in the Kinraide orphan home, and sometimes it frightened me to think how old he might be. I always comforted myself with the thought that his life had not been easy and he was simply battle-scarred. But therein lay a greater fear. Something – either a traumatic birth or a later event – had caused terrible damage to the cat’s mind, leaving him prone to fits and fey states, when he would wander, half in a dream, never knowing where he went and scarcely remembering to eat or drink. In such a state he had more than once ended up on tainted ground, though not so tainted that it did him permanent harm.

What if, this time, he had stumbled onto badly tainted ground?