She was groggy from sleep but we were able to get her out of the bier and onto a blanket in the shade on the eastern side of the rocks, where Analivia fed her gruel and helped her to bathe. Then Analivia went for a swim, leaving me to keep Dragon company. I stroked Maruman, whom I had lifted onto my lap, more for my comfort than his. It worried me that he was still limp and unresponsive when Dragon had woken for the second time.

‘Marumanyelloweyes travels seliga,’ Darga sent, from where he had flopped down alongside Analivia’s trews on the other side of Dragon.

‘So I understand, but why?’ I demanded.

‘Who can know why Marumanyelloweyes does anything? Maybe the oldOnes bade him do it. Maybe he is lost.’

I thought of Descantra, snarling at Rheagor that he would never wake if he went seliga, and a little chill ran through me.

‘Elspeth?’ Dragon said and I saw that her eyes were clear. ‘Where are we going?’

I reached out and took her hand. ‘Dragon, I hardly know where to begin. We left the mountains, where Moss brought you, days past, and we have travelled far beyond them, and across Blacklands guided by a pack of wolves whose ancestor once came this way. Right now we are waiting for them to return to lead us across the white desert in search of a Beforetime city where there is something that I need.’ I gestured rather aimlessly to the white land running away from us, and decided not to speak of the part she was to play in my quest for the moment, adding only that I regretted that she would have to go with us when she was still weakened by her ordeal.

But Dragon said, ‘I am supposed to go with you. She said so. The red bird.’

‘The red bird?’ I prompted.

‘The man started hurting me. I fainted and I turned into a dragon so I could fly away. I dreamed a bird flew to me and whispered that I should fly higher and I would not feel the pain. She said I had made myself a dragon by accident, but that she would show me how to do it on purpose.’ She frowned and before my very eyes seemed to shift from child to woman. ‘I flew up with her and the pain stopped. I didn’t want to go back down but she showed me where you were and she said I must go back and lead the man to you. She said it was my duty to go back, for my people needed me.’

‘Your people?’ I echoed.