On impulse, I told him that some of my dreams of Matthew had felt less like true dreams than actual communications.

Dameon looked astonished, as well he might. ‘Do you mean to say that you spoke to him?’

‘I spoke and he reacted as if he had heard me, and once he said my name. Another time I told him that we were bringing Dragon to the Red Land and bade him wait there and prepare. But these encounters were completely random – neither Matthew nor I sought them, but we were both on the dreamtrails. It is my guess that Matthew was deeply unconscious because he was ill and fevered or maybe wounded in some way. As I told you a little while back, a person’s spirit-form can drift from its body when it is ill and I think such drifting spirit-forms are naturally drawn to the dreamtrails. In truth I think that is how true dreams come to us. But being an unconsciously created spirit-form, Matthew’s had little self-control so our meeting was brief and ended abruptly and he may well have woken and dismissed it as a fever dream.’

Dameon shook his head incredulously. ‘I did not think it possible to make contact over such a distance and over sea besides.’

‘The only way it could happen is if we were both touching on the dreamtrails,’ I reminded him.

Analivia suddenly gave a shout and pointed towards the pass. I turned and saw Rasial’s white form coming through the weeping stone arch, Gavyn a shadow beside her. I ought to have felt relieved, but a terrible pain was pressing at my temples.

‘What is wrong?’ Dameon asked.

I did not answer him for I had just realised the headache that had been troubling me for the last hours was the result of the pressure that always welled up before a premonition. I seldom experienced them, but now as I looked at the dog and the boy, pain filled my head till it seemed it must burst. I seemed to hear a woman screaming and a feeling of danger and terror swept over me.

‘What has happened?’ I beastspoke Rasial. Gavyn followed the ridgeback until she had come to me and stopped but even as the enormous canine fixed me with her cold, pale eyes, the boy wandered away humming softly and tunelessly under his breath.

‘What has happened?’ I asked again.

‘Let the boy show you,’ Rasial sent, and to my amazement, she simply carried me with her into Gavyn’s mind, which I discovered overlapped the dog’s mind even more intimately than Maruman’s overlapped mine. Indeed, there were places where I could locate no boundary.

I found myself enveloped by a memory that arose from the overlap in their minds.