‘The older woman said that if the Seeker who would come failed in her quest, the result of it would be that all that remained of the battered world would be destroyed. The gypsy girl said that they must prepare all that the Seeker would need to locate Sentinel and make sure it could never be used to bring upon the world a greater and more final doom than they had endured. Then she shivered and said it was hard to believe there was anywhere left that was green and clean, seeing what they were seeing. But the older woman said her visions had shown there were such places left, and that Obernewtyn was one of them, but that they had been of little interest to anyone and so there were no pictures of them. The younger woman asked how she could think of going back to Obernewtyn, knowing everyone would be dead, even Jacob. The older woman said calmly that she had foreseen that in spite of everything that had happened there was joy in the future for both of them, as well as sorrow. But above all else, it was her duty to go back. Then she began to speak of the journey they would have to make to reach the Land where Obernewtyn stood. “I will go no further,” the older woman said to the younger. “But you will travel beyond that Land to another and another still, before your work is done.” Then she looked down at the cat and the younger woman said that its journeying was done, poor thing, since it had not awoken. But the older woman stroked it and said the cat was travelling in its dreams, as was its gift, and that it would sleep until they brought it to the one who could wake it, though not with a kiss.’

I was riveted by the strange story, for it was evident to me that the women were Hannah Seraphim and Cassy, and that Analivia had dreamed of them after the Great White and before they had begun their journey to the Land. Of course the cat could not be Maruman, even as a kitten, for no cat could live so long, but if they had brought it to the Land, it might be some distant ancestor of Maruman. It might even be that the kitten’s head was bandaged not because it had been injured but because the Beforetimers had been experimenting on it at the Govamen compound, even as they had experimented with the flamebirds. A little stab of excitement pierced me at the thought that Maruman’s strange mind might not be the result of sickness or accident, but of something he had inherited from the cat in Analivia’s dream vision.

I was so engrossed in my speculations that it took me a moment to realise that Swallow was speaking again. ‘Did you say the tribesman Ahmedri followed you?’ I asked.