Remembering that rare moment of connection between us, it was hard to take in that I would not see the tall, sombre futureteller again. I had never been comfortable with her and there had been many occasions when I had disliked her for the things she had set in motion as a futureteller. But she had always been an honourable person who had lived according to her beliefs and I wished that I had thanked her for the things she had done for me.

It struck me as an irony that she had probably foreseen even this.

I stumbled over a clod of earth and the stone sword jarred painfully against my hip. Gritting my teeth, I continued. It was not easy to see the ground, for although the sky was growing lighter as dawn approached, the mist at ground level seemed thicker in the shadows of the trees. Also, I was moving faster than I liked in order to keep up with Maruman, so that the heavy sword thumped uncomfortably at my side in its makeshift sheath. I might just as well have walked more slowly, since there was only one way out of the orchard, where the wall and the hedge came together like a pair of pincers behind a row of farm buildings, but the old cat was too recently returned for me to feel easy at the thought of letting him out of my sight.

In truth, the realisation that I was not to take ship for the Red Land had shattered all of my certainties, especially given that both Dell and Maryon had seen me in the Red Land with Dragon. I might have convinced myself that one of them had mistaken a futuretelling – but both? The only way I could see their predictions coming to pass now was if I was to go to the Red Land after my quest was over. But even then, how was I to get to the Red Land without passing back through the Land?

‘Gnawing!’ Maruman snapped and looked back at me, his single eye flaring.

I glared at him, thinking loudly to myself that if only he would tell me more of what he knew, I would not fret at my ignorance. Maruman ignored me and I regretted my impatience, knowing it would make him more resistant than ever to telling me anything. Obviously he had not yet forgiven me for abandoning him in Saithwold, even though that had not been of my choosing.

I wondered wearily if the Agyllians had ever grasped that, much as Maruman’s strange mind served them as a safe and secure means of sending information to me, it was a labyrinth that must be negotiated before I could come to what I needed to know, and its owner was wilful and eccentric.