The sun still shone and the sky was a clear cloudless blue save for the faintest haze of purple-grey across the top of the mountains. I could hear laughter and chatter and the sound of birds chirping. It was an irony that now that we were to cancel the moon fair, the weather should turn so pleasant and peaceful. My mind drifted to the long, deep dream of Cassy I had experienced the previous night.

I had always assumed I would have to locate and journey to Old Scotia to deal with Sentinel, but the conversation between Cassy and the older Beforetime teknoguilder Doktaruth made it very clear there had been two Sentinels: the experimental one developed at the Govamen complex which had been on the verge of being tested, and another Sentinel in some remote place, which was to be the permanent and completed version. If I was right in my guess that the testing of Sentinel had somehow resulted in the Great White, then it must be the experimental Sentinel that had malfunctioned. The dream answered other questions, too.

I had never been able to understand, given the terrible devastation of the Great White, why the Balance of Terror weapons had not destroyed the whole world, including Sentinel. Nor had I been able to understand how Sentinel could become dormant after unleashing the Great White, and remain that way until the Destroyer woke it, if I failed to ensure it could never be used again. Obviously the original Sentinel had been destroyed, and my quest concerned the other Sentinel, which had never been wakened.

I had always wondered why Cassy hadn’t dealt with Sentinel when she entered the Govamen compound to free the Beforetime Misfits being held there. Obviously she had known that the real Sentinel was somewhere far away. I did not know how she knew where it was, but she must have known or later worked out the location, else she could not have been able to leave her clues. It was also possible that Cassy had got one of the Misfits who possessed coercive Talent to find out its location.

Or maybe neither she nor Hannah had known exactly where Sentinel was, but one or both of them had foreseen that I would find it.

It occurred to me then, with a little shock, that their picture of me and my life must have been as incomplete and mysterious as my picture of their lives, for it too would have come from dreams and visions. It was a strange thought.

Chapter 9

9

Guildmerge began at dusk and lasted deep into the night.