‘He has not had anything to eat,’ I objected.

‘The dog hunts/the boy forages,’ Gahltha sent.

I decided I was too tired to waste so much energy in worrying. Lying down on the soft lichen with a sigh, I thought how very pleasant it was. The lichen had a delicate scent I had not noticed before, either. I gazed up at the sky listening to the others conversing as they prepared a meal, and wondering how long it would take us to grow accustomed to being nocturnal. Maruman stepped up onto my belly and stretched out to sleep. I lifted my head and stared at him indignantly, but he stared me down. I noticed Analivia hiding a grin as she turned back to continue her conversation with Dameon and Swallow.

‘If this city Jacob dreamed about was inhabited by people who had lived there since the Beforetime, we would surely know about it,’ the empath told her.

‘Unless they chose to keep themselves apart,’ Swallow said. ‘Imagine what it would be like to have lived beyond the end of your world. If they had any means of seeing how the new world had turned out, the sight of the Herders and the Council, not to mention the Gadfian slavers, would hardly have enticed them into wanting to make contact.’

‘I hope you are wrong,’ Dameon said. ‘Because if you are right about them rejecting the world, they are not likely to welcome visitors with open arms.’

‘If they are Beforetimers, they might have healing skills so superior that they can even heal taint sickness,’ Analivia said. Then after a little pause she added, ‘It might also be that only a few people live there. Garth told me once that cities were often the targets when the Beforetimers warred. Maybe most of the inhabitants fled and these efari are just the ones that stayed behind.’

I was beginning to see why Garth and Fian liked Analivia. She thought and talked like a teknoguilder and she appeared to have taken in many of Garth’s convictions, for all her fights with the Teknoguildmaster.

‘No one would deliberately make war on cities full of people who were not warriors,’ Swallow scoffed. ‘Think of all the children and old folk and innocent beasts who would have perished.’

Analivia shrugged. ‘It sounds appalling to me, too, but Garth said that when one of the Beforetime powers was at war with another, it was judged by their leaders that all of their people were at war, whether or not they fought or even wanted to fight.’

‘That still does not tell us anything about the efari,’ Swallow said. ‘What sort of people would stay behind if they thought a city would be destroyed?’

‘Maybe those who had to stay,’ Analivia suggested.

‘What door does Cassandra’s key fit?’ Dameon asked. He had turned to me, sensing that I was listening. I sat up cross-legged, and lifted the now slumbering Maruman gently into my lap.