‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘But they will scry for Miryum and for Maruman. In the meantime, Maryon is sending over the Futuretell dream-books. You might bid Sarn remind the other guilds that have not yet sent over their dream-books to do so.’ Sarn was elderly and her Talent limited but she had proven to be a very able researcher and her scribing was excellent, all of which made her an obvious choice for the team I had working on the book of information on the Red Land, to be presented to Rushton before the expedition.

‘We don’t have much time, even if the four ships are to depart before the end of the Days of Rain and not before they begin, as we were originally told in Sador,’ I went on. ‘If the time was not so short, I would wish we were to go before the Days of Rain. Do you know that shipfolk call them the Days of Storm?’

‘I have heard that, but by all accounts the journey to th’ Red Land will take so long that ye’d still be at sea during th’ Days of Rain even if ye left tomorrow,’ Ceirwan observed. ‘By the way, Fian is havin’ a bite to eat before he sets off fer th’ White Valley. Did ye want me to send him to ye afore he gans?’

‘I need to show him something but I will get it and then go to the kitchens to see him,’ I said decisively. ‘I could do with a bit of rowdy life after the rarefied atmosphere of the Futuretellers hall.’

‘Greetings, Guildmistress,’ Fian said eagerly, getting to his feet as I approached his table with a bowl of stewed mushrooms and some fresh-baked bread. ‘Have ye read the journal?’

‘A good bit of it,’ I said, sitting down at the table opposite him and gesturing him to eat. ‘Are you really going to set off in this downpour? The road will be awash down to the pass and the White Valley will be a swamp. Why not wait a day and see if it stops? It cannot be pleasant living in cloth houses in this weather,’ I said.

The young teknoguilder shook his head eagerly. ‘Garth bade me come back as soon as I could. But we dinna live in the cloth houses any more. Dinna anyone tell ye that th’ Teknoguildhouse in the White Valley is finished?’

I was astonished. The last time I had seen the Teknoguildhouse, the building had possessed neither windows nor a floor. Indeed, it had been more of a decoy to stop travellers getting close enough to Tor to see the entrance to Newrome than an actual dwelling, and given the teknoguilders’ reluctance to interrupt their research for practical matters such as food or shelter, I had thought it would remain a shell for years to come.