‘I know,’ Rushton said and he heaved a sigh. ‘Truly I know that Elspeth suffers as I do, whether or not she knew that she would not come to the Red Land with me all along. For a long time after she had first spoken of love in Sador, I could not truly believe she had chosen me. It seemed such a miracle that she, whom I desired more than any other, could desire me. It was easier to doubt it than to believe it, and doubt gnawed at me constantly. Yet she showed me upon Norseland that she loved me more than her own life and to doubt her after that would be to prove myself utterly unworthy of her.’ He was silent for a long time, and I wondered if he was thinking about the fierce tenderness of our lovemaking in Louis Larkin’s hut, rain thundering down on the shingled roof. He would not remember what he had learned when we merged minds, nor what I had done afterwards to hide those memories from his conscious mind, but he must remember the radiance of our loving and he must sense the spirit link that connected us.

I thought I must be right, when relief showed on Ceirwan’s face as Rushton thanked them. ‘You have comforted me by reminding me that I am fortunate to have loved so deeply and to have had the love of such a one as Elspeth Gordie. The memory of what was between us must strengthen me in the days to come.’

The words were resolute, and hearing them broke my heart.

The memory-dream faded but instead of waking, I drifted down through the layers of my mind to the mindstream. A shining tendril rose from it and reached out to me as if summoned. Accepting it, I willed myself to consciousness, thinking that I might as well take the opportunity to look at Gavyn and Rasial with spirit-eyes. I willed the tendril from the mindstream through me and watched the silvery matter pool and take on my spirit-form. The transference of my consciousness to the spirit-form was so effortless that I thought again that I must be dreaming, for I had never felt so much in control of myself.

I opened my eyes and saw below me the brownish shape of my slumbering body, half invisible against the deeper brown and black of earth and stone. Then I heard or felt something calling me.