There was a small spyglass protruding from the end of the device right before me. I put my eye to it but saw only darkness. I touched a few of the panels and numbers and even a few keys, but nothing happened. As far as I could see, the device was dead. Was that how Jacob had found it? Had he come here at all, I wondered. He had intended to do so, but how could an old man have made that climb? Unless Swallow had been right about there being a bridge.

Ahmedri called out and I turned to see he was now on the ground examining the floor by the split in the wall. ‘There are words scratched into the stone,’ he said, looking up as I approached.

I dropped to my knees and my heart began to pound as I read the neat, spiky script.

My darling Hannah, nothing works here, but my instrumentation is picking up a strong power source to the north-east. That is the direction in which the Pellmar Quadrants lie. I remember I suggested to Cassandra that she had better carve her messages to the future in stone. She said only a dinosaur like me would come up with such an idea. Now here I am playing dinosaur, for any note I would write will soon perish in this place. There is so much I would say but this is a tedious method of writing a letter and I fear the little neochisel I am using is near blunted. So I will say it has been a terrible, bleak journey and the only thing that kept me from despair was the thought of you. These mountains, once so beautiful, are now utterly barren and so contaminated that they glow at night, but I am safe enough in my biohazard suit and my little hover still serves me well. I hope it will continue to do so, at least until I leave these poor blighted peaks and cross the worst of the plain between the mountains and Pellmar. I leave this message so that you will know which way I have gone.

My dearest love, I am yours, always, Jacob O.

‘It must have been a remarkably delicate chisel to scribe that,’ Swallow remarked, when I sat back, for he had come down to see what we were doing.

‘North-east,’ I muttered.

‘He thought the city he dreamed of was there,’ Ahmedri said quietly. ‘But it may not have been so.’

‘It matters not. He is our destination, not the city he seeks. For he has Cassandra’s key with him and we must follow in his tracks because he might not have reached it.’

We all gazed down at the carved words in silence for a time, thinking our own thoughts. Then Swallow heaved a sigh and said we ought to go back down.