The two look at each other for a long moment. Then the old man in the frost-covered fur shakes himself, and pulls the cloak from his back. The black tunic beneath is tattered and stained by sweat. The muscles on his arms are withered cords, his shoulders hunched by age, his scalp bare of hair and liver-spotted. Golden rings gleam on his fingers: a ram’s head, a rayed sun, a grey opal.

‘Hello, old friend,’ says the young man in gold.

The old man in black rags nods, and comes forwards. For a second his step falters. His eyes shut with pain. The rock of the cave creaks. A spill of dust falls from the ceiling. The man in gold looks up, and then back at the man in black as he lowers himself onto the bench opposite.

‘Here,’ says the young man, holding out a wooden bowl. ‘Bread and salt and meat.’

The old man takes the bowl with a nod and begins to eat. The man in gold lifts his own bowl, and takes small mouthfuls, never taking his eyes from his companion.

‘I am sorry to call you here,’ says the man in gold when there are only crumbs in the old man’s bowl, ‘but we need to speak.’ The man in black wipes the back of his hand across his mouth. His eyes are black depths in the weathered skin of his face. ‘Things are pressing in and in,’ continues the young man. ‘So far the attack has been as we would expect. But there is something else, something that is outside of that…’

The man in gold begins to lay cards down on the stone bench between the bowls. The cards are old and the images on them faded: a figure in a dark cloak, its face turned away, climbing towards a high tower; a wolf-headed man with a bundle of swords hidden beneath a cloak; a wheel of stars turning around a darkening moon… Card after card, the pattern growing with each one placed.