‘Time to go?’ Swallow asked at last, laying a hand on my shoulder.

I hesitated, thinking of Rasial and Gavyn, who had wandered off yet again, but they had proven more than capable of taking care of themselves and Rasial could sniff out the wolves’ scent trail as easily as Darga. I nodded and went to mount up on Gahltha. Swallow gave Analivia a leg up behind Ahmedri on Falada and then he leapt up behind me. Dameon sat on Faraf, and to my surprise, when I called to Maruman to get up, he climbed into the travois, and curled up alongside Dragon’s head, even as he had used to do when Dragon had lain in the Healing Hall at Obernewtyn locked in her coma dream.

Ahmedri took the lead on Falada, as he knew the way already, and Dameon followed on Faraf with Sendari behind. Swallow and I brought up the rear on Gahltha. I was thinking again of what the tribesman had said about a plague of sleep, for it had occured to me that it was not only Miryum and Dragon who lay sleeping, waiting to be wakened. Somewhere in the world, Sentinel waited to be wakened, too. Yet it was not my task to wake the computermachine program, but to ensure it never woke. It was the Destroyer who would wake her, if I failed, and then a plague of sleep would truly come, but it would be the longsleep, from which none would ever wake.

PART THREE: THE PERILOUS DREAMTRAILS

PART THREE

THE PERILOUS DREAMTRAILS

Chapter 27

27

By midday, the scent trail left by the wolves on the Beforetime road had brought us around to the east to a humped line of mountains which Darga pronounced tainted. The broken road curved back to the north, but the wolves’ spore went east and so we left the road to toil up and down the hills, winding back and forth around what we guessed must be virulent patches of tainted ground. It was only when the sun was setting behind us over the high dark spine of peaks to the west that we had our first sight of the Blacklands between higher peaks rising to the north and south.

All that day the others had spoken eagerly of getting to a place where we would finally be able to see our way clear of the mountains. I had said nothing to their comments and speculations, knowing what awaited them. But I had forgotten how dreadful that vast darkness spreading out beyond the high mountains was, or maybe the impact on me was magnified by the knowledge that I had to cross it, for when we reached the zenith of the long slope we had been climbing, and found ourselves with a clear if narrow view to the east, hopeless dismay rose in my heart at the sight of the grim black plain that ran away from the mountains to the horizon.