I had obviously irritated Maruman with my fears, for he leapt down from my shoulders the second we reached the talus. My relief was so great that I felt nauseous and I sagged against the mountain face, wondering if the rubble under my feet truly had once been a bridge. The thought made me look up as I straightened and at that same instant, the flat stone I had stepped onto pivoted and tilted under my weight, sending me stumbling sideways. I might have caught myself if I had not been looking up, and it might have been no more than a fall with grazed knees and a split lip, except that when I landed, the whole pile of rubble, which had seemed so stable, began to shift under me. Half stunned from the impact of the fall, I had time to see the startled face of Swallow, who had already reached the plateau, and then somehow I was spinning so that I was looking at Ahmedri, who had delayed at the top of the talus to stow his ropes. I saw him shout something and point, but the rumble of the stones was too great for me to make it out. Then I was facing down again and my heart leapt into my mouth, for I could see that the stones were flowing down into the dark abyss between the mountains.

I reached desperately for a boulder to stop myself, but it was no use for everything was moving around me and under me. I opened my mouth to scream, but something struck me hard on the temple, and night fell like a black curtain.

I dreamed that Ceirwan and the enthraller, Freya, were looking at me in consternation and pity.

‘Are ye so sure she’ll nowt return when she has done whatever she went to do?’ Ceirwan asked.

‘Maryon said that she will never return to Obernewtyn or the Land, and that, leaving, she knew it.’ It was Rushton’s voice, coming from my mouth. I must be experiencing another of his dream-memories. He went on in the same hard, despairing voice. ‘I would have ridden after her but Maryon forbade it. She said my task is to go to the Red Land and free the slaves there. I told her there were others who could take my place on that journey and she answered that it was not so. None would do what I would do.’

‘That mun have been hard,’ Ceirwan said.

‘Harder to obey her words than to hear them,’ Rushton answered.