An appalled silence met her words and Swallow reached back and rested a hand on her leg. He meant only to comfort her, I thought, but he could not see her face, which revealed a mixture of yearning and panic. I glanced around at the others. Ahmedri was riding alongside with Dameon mounted up behind him on Falada, but he had noticed nothing. Gavyn was walking behind them with Rasial, whom Ahmedri had carried from the pipe, slung ignominiously about his shoulders. Once she had awakened, she insisted that her injured leg was no more than a flesh wound. When she had licked it, it had seemed she had been right, nevertheless I noticed now that she was limping. I said nothing, knowing she would not appreciate my interference, but I would suggest that Analivia offer to treat it when we stopped.

I looked across at the travois being dragged behind Sendari. I had been worried about Dragon and Maruman, but they had been well out of the pipe before it had collapsed, and they slept on, oblivious to what had been happening.

‘Do not fear for them,’ Gahltha sent. ‘Maruman will bring MornirDragon back when she remembers what must be remembered, even as the oldOnes bade.’

I turned to stare at him in amazement. That Maruman might have a purpose in dreamtravelling with Dragon, other than merely bringing her to wakefulness, had never occurred to me. But had Maruman told this to Gahltha or had he guessed it? Before I could ask, Dameon asked Analivia what she had meant earlier when she told him that light had shone from a bottle. After she explained, Swallow said that he thought it better if none of us drank the water from the bottles, given that there was no way to tell whether the bottles contained some of the taint-devouring insects. He frowned. ‘What is it the beasts call them? Dryka?’

Analivia bridled, insisting indignantly that she had carefully strained all the water through muslin that she had got from the graag and from the springs in the cave at the foot of the mountains. None of the dryka could have got into the bottles.

‘Perhaps their eggs …? Wait, I have it!’ Swallow said suddenly. ‘The bottle I opened must have been the one I filled from the broken pipe behind the observatory on the bluff. Remember?’ He glanced at me and I nodded in confirmation. ‘I wanted to ask Darga to smell it and see if it was clean. I had forgotten about it, but we must have got it out last night when we were trying to see how much food we had.

‘These dryka are becoming even more interesting.’