I was wide awake now, and the horror I had felt at seeing the weapons fly up from the valley faded as I realised that my vision had not shown a lake, therefore what I had seen must have been a vision of the past. The lake would have formed after rain had filled the hole from which the missiles had flown. And of course the missiles I had seen might not be connected to the Great White, given that there had been many different caches of weapons held by the five powers and even by private Beforetimers, and frequent accidents in which they had been used. And yet, the idea that the Balance of Terror arsenal might not be located in one place resonated with me too strongly to be dismissed. I had only to think of the vast, strange complex that I had seen beneath Ariel’s demesnes on Norseland, which had once been a storage place for some immense unknown weaponmachine, to believe that the deadly weaponmachines linked to the Balance of Terror computer could be scattered all over the world. At the very least it would make them harder to find or sabotage.

Maruman and Darga were both deeply asleep now and snoring on either side of me, but when I rose, the old cat roused and snarled irritably. I was relieved, though I was careful to shield the thought from him.

It was not yet dawn when we set off again, nor had the sun risen when we reached a great tumble of stones at the end of the defile. Beyond it lay the tree-filled gorge I had envisaged. We still could not see into the valley as we entered the gorge, because there were too many trees, not to mention a light morning mist.

Despite thirst and hunger and my eagerness to be reunited with Gahltha, I did not hurry, for the trees in the gorge were very old and very beautiful. I found myself wondering how many such hidden green pockets of fertility there were in a mountain range I had always accepted as being almost entirely lifeless. Was it only coincidence that the hidden crevice where the wolves dwelt, this valley, and the ravine I had come through when I had first entered the mountains, had a supply of clean water? And water was not all they had in common. I thought of the taint-devouring insects that had dwelt in the ravine and in the scalding spring water in the wolf vale, and found myself imagining a vast river running through subterranean caverns under the eastern side of the mountains, full of the taint-devouring creatures. What if they had been adapting and moving through the mountains cleansing them? It might truly be so, for was not that exactly why Jak was trying to introduce them to the desert?