“Here, this is the place where the city was burnt. We joined you, here, that is what you said. And we crossed the ocean to this spot, almost off the top of the chart. Yes, here—do you see where the narrow bit of ocean widens out? That is Genaglè. Where this land to the north reaches Isegnet. Then all of this is Entoban* to the south.”

“It is a very large land.” Kalaleq was impressed.

“It is—and all of it murgu.”

Kalaleq bent over in awe and admiration, following the contours of the continent to the south with his finger. Tracing back up the coast to the north to tap their location, then going north still to what could be a large island off the coast.

“This is not right,” he said. “There is ice and snow here that does not melt, I know of no island.”

Kerrick thought of the cold winters, colder every year, the snows further south each winter—and understood.

“This map is old, very old—or it is copied from an old map. This is the land that now lies beneath the ice. The murgu must have gone there at one time. See, there is one of their markers there, that red mark, on the land.”

Kalaleq looked close, agreed. Then traced back down the shore to their site.

“Our paukaruts are here. And south along the shore, not far, do you see this little red mark? It looks like the one up here to the north. This I do not understand.”

Kerrick looked at it with a growing sense of despair. It was not distant, on the coast, well north of Genaglè where it met the sea. Both red marks were shaped the same.

“There are murgu there, that is what it means. Murgu here, not too distant from us. We have fled from them but they are here ahead of us!”

Kerrick sank back with the weakness of despair. Was there no escaping the Yilanè? Had they come all of this way across the cold northern sea just to find them waiting? It seemed impossible. They could never live this far to the north, away from the heat. Yet the red mark was there, the two marks. The one to the north now beneath the unmelting ice. But the one to the south of them . . . He looked up to meet Kalaleq’s eyes, fixed on him.

“Do we think the same thought?” Kalaleq asked. Kerrick nodded.

“We do. If murgu are that close we are not safe here. We must go there, find out what the red mark means. Go there as soon as possible. Before the winter storms start. There is not much time.”

Kalaleq gathered up the charts, grinning happily. “I want to see these murgu you talk about. Have a good trip, good time.”