There was so much to be imparted that it exhausted me merely to think of it, and despite the revelations of the last hour, my habit of secrecy was so deeply ingrained that I was drained from fighting my own reluctance.

A movement caught my eye and I looked around to see Ahmedri striding towards me, arms piled high with what looked to be apple-sized balls of mud. He bent to set down his burden then gave me a challenging look.

‘You swore that I might ride with you until I learned the whereabouts of my brother’s bones. I see you know how to keep your word.’ His tone roused my temper.

I rose and was annoyed to discover that I had to look up to meet his eyes. But I kept my voice cool and mild when I said, ‘I agreed only that you might remain at Obernewtyn. You assumed this meant you could remain with me. You were wrong.’

‘Yet here I am,’ the tribesman said. ‘And I will remain with you until the woman is found.’

‘It must be obvious to you now that the overguardian was mistaken or Bruna misinterpreted her words,’ I snapped. ‘For who is there to imprison her in these mountains but wolves and firelizards?’

‘My brother’s spirit will lead you to the woman,’ he answered doggedly.

‘Since when do the dead speak to the living?’ I demanded.

‘My brother’s spirit will speak to you when you open your mind to him,’ Ahmedri said.

I glared at the stubborn tribesman. ‘As to my mind being open, it sometimes feels like a passageway full of doors I cannot close. But your brother does not enter.’

‘You have not opened the proper door,’ Ahmedri said.

I drew a breath to calm my temper. ‘Tribesman, why would she have brought your brother here?’

‘It is said madness possessed her after my brother died and so it may be that she had no reason that could be guessed at,’ he answered. ‘But that she is here, I have no doubt, for you are here and you will lead me to her.’

I sighed. ‘You should go back to Obernewtyn.’

‘I will stay,’ he said, and with a curt bow, he turned to Swallow and Analivia and gestured to the brown balls he had collected. ‘These are firenuts. We find them in the desert lands close to the great escarpment. They are light and they burn hotter and longer than wood. We should take as many of them as we can when we leave this place.’ He went back to the balls, knelt and began peeling a light husk from the outside of one of them. Analivia went to help him.

‘The Twentyfamilies believe it is possible for a spirit of the dead to speak,’ Swallow said mildly.

I was too tired to argue, for to do so effectively, I would have had to speak about the dreamtrails and the mindstream and the link between flesh and spirit. Besides, given what Maruman had told me of Atthis and the oldOnes, my own ideas on the matter of spirits and death were confused.