Among the Rovers, there were those who chose to lead lives more resembling an earlier time, when established communities did not exist. Frequently, these throwbacks were traders and scavengers and made their way through the world in a solitary fashion and without any particular goals or plans. One among them—the one Farshaun believed might be helpful to the Druids—lived out along the far western borders of the Breakline in country so bleak and unforgiving that it seemed impossible anyone could survive it. Yet he had done so for more than twenty years, subsisting off the land, a hermit and a recluse. Now and then he would drift back within the boundaries of civilization to gather things he could not find in his own country, though he seldom bothered with human contact and never stayed for long.

Except that sometimes he would come to see Farshaun. The old man had known him before he went into the wilderness, and they had formed a friendship. It wasn’t a friendship in the normal sense of the word. There were few expectations involved on either side; there was only conversation and often little of that. Mostly, it was the other man’s strange ramblings and digressions.

But in some of those ramblings and digressions, he would tell of things he had dreamed would happen.

And then they would.

That strange ability to foresee the future, coupled with the fact that he knew the Breakline country like the back of his hand because he had spent so many years exploring it, made him someone Farshaun Req believed they should seek out before they undertook their search for the missing Elfstones.

Khyber, who knew something of seers and those possessed of prescient abilities—and who believed in their value—had agreed.

“This foreteller of the future you’re taking us to see, the one who has the dreams?” Redden asked Farshaun suddenly. “Why is he called the Speakman?”

The old man paused in his study of the maps. “It’s a name Rovers give to those who speak of a future that others can’t see. In this case, it stuck. His real name was forgotten by most long ago and never used in the time he’s lived in the Breakline. Now, he’s just ‘the Speakman’ to everyone.”

“But you knew him? You knew his real name?”

Farshaun nodded. “I don’t use it, though. I don’t say it aloud.”

“What was he like before he went into the wilderness?” Railing asked. “Was he normal? Was he a boy like us?”

Farshaun gave him a look suggesting that the word normal might not apply to them. “He was damaged. Now leave me alone.”

The twins moved off to one side, closer to where Mirai stood in the pilot box working the controls that flew the Walker Boh westward. She glanced over and smiled, evidence of how much she enjoyed flying the big airship.