The Right Hand of God.

Russell Kirkpatrick.

PROLOGUE.

TWO PROUD MEN FACED each other over a low stone table. Both men nursed deep anger and bitterness. Each hated the other. They found themselves drawn together nevertheless by expediency and desire. Each man sought to govern his emotions, successfully so he thought, and each watched scornfully the other man's pitiful attempts to retain his equanimity.

'Escaigne remains well hidden, despite the treachery that saw us betrayed,' the Presiding Elder said. For a moment he considered confessing just how many of his people had been taken by the Instruian Guard, but decided to keep secret the paucity of his remaining force. Better to make the agreement first; better to avoid ceding the leadership of any alliance to the deranged man opposite him, especially on the basis of the number of followers.

The Hermit smiled. The man's thoughts were written plainly on his face. Watcher of the Sixth Rank, he had proclaimed himself. Watcher indeed! He could see nothing!

'Unlike you, I have lost no followers,' he told the Presiding Elder. 'But some of them will die, I have seen it; holy martyrs who will be enthroned above us at the right hand of the Most High. Their example will serve to inspire the remainder of the Ecclesia. They will be seeds sown into the fertile ground of belief, and as the fire falls on Faltha I will reap a harvest of true believers.'

The older man snorted. 'I wouldn't be so sure about that if I were you. I predict that many of your Ecclesia will come flooding into Escaigne once they realise the emptiness of your promises. We offer them a chance of revenge against the corrupt Council, of setting real fires, not running after some numinous spiritual flame that achieves nothing. Your most sensible option is to join with us. Commit your people to Escaigne, the next rulers of Instruere, and I will see to it you are given an exalted place among our ranks.'

'I forbear to remind you of the many Escaignians who found real meaning in the Ecclesia,' the Hermit answered testily. 'Perhaps a few of them may return to your dubious care, but even they will come back to me when they discover you offer them nothing but the darkness of a windowless room.'

'Not for much longer!' The Presiding Elder stood and leaned forward over the table, his arms spread wide, hands on the cold stone. 'With or without your help we will reclaim the leadership of Instruere.'

'Reclaim? You've never led Instruere!'

'The Watchers were always involved in leadership,' the Presiding Elder growled.

'As were the true believers of the Most High!'

'Then why can we not work together?' The leader of Escaigne tried reason for the last time.

This fool was probably not worth the effort, and everyone knew how badly his ill-equipped, untrained rabble would fare against the Instruian Guard. Still, the Presiding Elder's plan required expendable soldiers, people to blunt the swords of the guardsmen, and he was unwilling to preside over the deaths of any Escaignians. These religious fools would serve him well.

'Of course we can,' the Hermit replied with forced sweetness, nearing the end of his patience.

Why should the Anointed Man of God be subject to the wishes of an unbeliever such as this one? The day would soon come when all such would be placed under his heel!

Pulling himself together, he continued. 'The question is, who leads? Since both of us are men unaccustomed to following the wishes of another, it seems that we will not easily arrive at an answer. So, in the interests of our common goal, why do we not share command?'

'I low would that work?'

'Simple. We do nothing without the agreement of both. Should this agreement not be sought, the alliance will be considered broken from that moment. And be warned! I have many ways of seeing, ways a Watcher cannot comprehend.'

'Save your mysticism for the gullible,' the Presiding Elder snapped. 'You are more persuasive when you trouble yourself to think. Very well, we will join our forces together - for a time.

But at the first sign of treachery I will have no hesitation in abandoning you and your followers to their fate.'

'And I yours,' the blue-robed Hermit agreed, stretching out his right hand. The sallow-faced Elder took it in his own, and for a moment the two men were linked as one, each squeezing as though to break the bones in his ally's fingers.

CHAPTER 1.

THE GATES OF INSTRUERE.

THE CAMEL TRAIN SNAKING its way up the Pass of Adrar looked like all the other summer trains from Ghadir Massab - heavily laden, slow moving, and shimmering in the scorching heat. The train halted again and again like some hesitant reptile as the drivers stopped to water themselves, their beasts and their slaves, in that order. But, the bandit leader reflected as he watched it draw closer to his ambush, unlike all the other trains that travelled through Hamadabat on their way to the Central Plains of Faltha and to Bhrudwo, this one appeared here. Why not on one of the longer but less dangerous passes to the east?

The bandits could hardly believe their good fortune. What fool would take a fully-laden train over the highest pass in the Veridian Borders? Straux, the kingdom to the north of these mountains, had recently declared war on the slave traders and their cargoes of human misery.

It hardly seemed credible the slavers would risk their lives on this northern road, even if it meant they would avoid having to pay off the marauders who lined the more easterly route out of Hamadabat. Nevertheless here they were; and the band of robbers awaiting them, cutthroats and murderers sloughed off from more successful groups, knew that their luck had finally turned. Until now the bandits had managed to construct a meagre existence from preying on the few lone travellers foolish enough to venture across the Borders without an armed escort, but it had not been enough. They were hungry, tired and starved of the various entertainments a captive could supply.

The Veridian Borders were the worn-out nubs of old mountains, beaten into submission by the hot southern sun and the clash of winds from the desert and the more fertile, rainswept Maremma Basin to the north. The winds had carved the yellowing, grassless hills into a myriad of odd shapes. Adrar himself, the Golden Lion, presided over the head of the pass, while many other figures, most conjured up from local myths and legends, adorned the winding pass from mouth to crest. The best place for an ambush was directly below the Claws of Adrar, where the road narrowed between two steep talus rock slopes, just before it darted to the right, crested the mountains and began its journey down into Straux. Here the bandits waited.

Let the merchants think they'd made it all the way through the mountains, that was the game, then take them at the very last minute. Take them and have some fun with them, in the usual bandit style; then let one lucky merchant escape with his life, thereby ensuring their ruthlessness became a byword, all the better to attract more desperate men. This robber band had more to prove than any of the others, and each member had secret plans for any merchant or slave who remained alive after the initial exchange. The excitement rose as the camel train inched closer. One of the lieutenants drew his sword to clean it, and his arm was slapped down by the bandit leader in case the sun glinted on the exposed blade. Not that it matters, he thought.

These merchants were either so foolish or so overconfident they had posted no scouts; They probably wouldn't notice if he knifed one of his men in the back and sent him plummeting to the road. Briefly occupied with this thought, it was all the bandit leader could do to stop himself laughing out loud.

As the camel train passed a predetermined point the robbers divided into two groups, one to block the head of the pass in front of the train, the other to block the road behind them. Once the road was secure, they could take as long as they wanted over what would happennext.

At a signal, the still afternoon air was rent by the ululations of two dozen bandits scampering down the slope towards the hapless merchants. The bandit leader noted something minor had already gone wrong. When the group led by his second-in-command reached the road below the camel train, the merchants and their slaves had contrived to place themselves further down the road. Rather than trapping their prey up against the frightened camels, the robbers themselves were trapped. The bandit leader shrugged his shoulders. Killing rather than planning was his lieutenant's strong suit. It wouldn't matter to him which direction he faced when he killed.

The dozen or so robbers who ran shouting on to the path in front of the train found not the panic and terror their surprise attack was supposed to create, but an eerie silence, and one man standing to meet them. He wore a long, flowing black robe in the Bhrudwan fashion, though the cowl was thrown back to reveal a close-cropped head, a young but weather-beaten face punctuated with deep-set eyes. He stood the way an experienced fighter stands, balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to counter any thrust from his enemy. A Bhrudwan, the bandit leader mused.

And a warrior. I might lose one or two of my men a" it's time they were culled anyway. I have nothing to fear. I have faced men said to have fought alongside the Lords of Fear themselves.

Perhaps the bandits might have had a chance of survival had they abandoned their original plan and focused all their attention on the lone warrior. But they did not, deeming him the sacrificial bait in some desperate gambit. Angered his trap had been sprung, at least to some degree, the bandit leader cried out a command, throwing his hindmost group at the merchants and their slaves, and ignored the lone man lor the moment.

As the merchants threw back their cloaks and drew their weapons, the bandits' second-in-command received his first of many shocks. These were not the sleek Falthans he was familiar with, men who had grown rich trading in the misery of others; instead they wore the look of hardened fighters. That one there, the dark-skinned one wielding a huge stone club as if it weighed nothing at all, he would not scream for mercy as soon as a knife was set to his skin, promising to reveal hidden treasures in exchange for his life. Neither would the man beside him, a long-haired Falthan wearing a tunic marking him as a Deruvian. That woman there, she would scream, but the fierceness that distorted her face made him realise this one would kill or be killed before she let anyone get their hands on her. And the truly fat man wearing a red robe, he had the light of madness in his eyes, as though some dark hunger lurked within. He had seen that light in the eyes of one or two of his former companions, a death wish that had eventually been granted. Some of the arrogance the second-in-command habitually cloaked himself with began to drain away, to be replaced by an unfamiliar fear. Caution, he told himself.

Then it dawned on him that the supposed 'slaves' were not shackled together. They, in their turn, drew weapons and now stood opposed to his men. To his left stood a young girl, trying not to be scared; beside her another fat man strove to keep the fear off his face; a thin man with a staff; a cripple who held his sword awkwardly but with confidence; and still others the bandit did not have time to identify.

Even as he tried to think this turn of events through, the merchants and their slaves set upon him. Instantly two of his men were down, slow-witted enough not to have realised that something was wrong, paying the price for overconfidence. No coward, the second-in-command moved towards the man with the stone club and his long-haired Deruvian companion, rightly identifying them as his greatest threat. Immediately he regretted his decision. The sheer speed of their strikes and thrusts was unlike anything he'd ever experienced. The stone club howled horribly as it swung through the air, just missing his unprotected arm. He could not parry the club, and had to duck and weave, backing away more and more quickly just to stay alive. The Deruvian took a wicked swing, and next to him one of the bandits - he couldn't see which one, but it sounded like Hamus - shrieked in agony. He found himself ducking again and again, without respite, trying to keep the savage man off him, cursing the bandit leader, cursing their bad luck, certain now they would all die here.

Back, back again; then he heard a wheezing behind him, felt a sudden thump in his back and something burned hot in his lungs. He looked down through blurring eyes to see the tip of a sword protruding from his chest, and he cried out in fear as the day he had told himself would never arrive finally came upon him.

A hundred paces further up the pass the bandit leader awoke to his peril and, far too late, decided to cut down the lone Bhrudwan and make his escape. With a shrill cry he sent his second band of men at the warrior.

The narrow path allowed only three bandits to come at the Bhrudwan at one time. The bandit leader watched transfixed as the sword moved from one place to the next with blurring speed, often in a quite different direction to which the Bhrudwan sent his body. The man's strength was clear. His first real blow took off a sword arm and ended embedded in the unfortunate man's hip. He delivered it with only a casual flick of his arm, his body already moving to meet the stroke of his next assailant. The bandit leader noted this in a dry place at the back of his mind. Not one of the Bhrudwan's strokes could be said to have finished: all flowed into a graceful dance where sword tip counterpointed feet and head, all seemingly going their own way, but meeting together to deliver a death blow. It was music, it was poetry, it was slaughter.

Six men down, and only now did the bandit leader realise he had met something he never would have believed could exist. Surely the dreaded Lords of Fear themselves could not light like this - this spirit-being! He abandoned the half-dozen remaining men to their fate, and began to scramble up the slope.

Within moments there were only two robbers left standing on the path, one of whom already emitted a dreadful wailing, a keening for the death that even now reached out to claim him.

The other seemed to be a good fighter, one who might have given any of the others pause, but the Bhrudwan warrior's cruel blade had inflicted the killing blow and was withdrawn before the man moved to duck.

The Bhrudwan took a moment to check his victims for any sign of life; then, satisfied, he hefted his sword and in a powerful overhand motion threw it up the slope. The bright blade took the bandit leader in the back, and the last sound of the conflict was that of the body rolling back down to the path accompanied by a number of small rocks.

'Most High, Most High,' Wiusago breathed as he made his way back down the path to meet the others. For a moment he stopped on the path, hands on his knees, as the urge to vomit almost overcame him. He had seen death before, but not like this.

'What happened?' Phemanderac asked him and Te Tuahangata, both of whom had sprinted up the path in what turned out to be an unnecessary effort to help Achtal deal with the bandits.

'Did you see?'

'Yes, we saw,' the Deruvian prince replied, unable to keep his voice entirely level. 'And I, for one, wish I had not.'

Achtal came down the path to join the others, wiping his sword clean as he walked, showing no sign of arrogance or pride that Kurr could see. Apart from the sweat beaded on Achtal's broad face and the dust clinging to his robe, nothing indicated he had killed some twelve bandits unaided. Te Tuahangata, who still breathed heavily from his own exertions, shook his head in simple disbelief, and Prince Wiusago, his friend, his enemy, returned the gesture.

'I was raised as a swordsman,' the blond man said, still struggling to control his voice. 'I've sparred with the best in Denrys. Were I to tell them what I've just witnessed, they would counsel me to stop frequenting taverns.'

'I was born a warrior,' Te Tuahangata countered angrily, 'and we do not fight as others do.

Neither strength nor skill alone makes a warrior. We Mist-warriors are taught to live like fighting men. Larger than life,'intimidating in everything we do. That is part of being a true warrior.' He sounded as though he was trying to convince himself.

The Deruvian laughed at his companion's words, not unkindly. 'Yes, my friend, you are right.

I have seen you fight. Gestures, war cries, swinging your club in huge, extravagant arcs, the howling noise it makes, those things are enough to break the spirits of all but the bravest of foes. Yet the Bhrudwan teaches us a different way. He does nothing for show. Everything has an economy about it, which speaks of care and devotion, of calm and heart's peace, of having nothing to prove, unlike you and I. He makes no hasty moves and so comes to no hasty conclusions. He never overcommits himself and so can flow from one move to the next without effort. You, dear Tua, are hot-blooded in all you do. lie is cold. Whi!e I prefer your way to his, there is much we must learn from him before we can truly call ourselves warriors.'

His companion merely grunted, clearly unwilling to accept either the compliment or the judgment implied in the words. But from what Kurr saw, the Child of the Mist had plenty to think about.

A much different and darker set of thoughts occupied the old farmer's mind. He, too, had run some way up the path to give whatever help he could to the Bhrudwan, in itself surprising given that a few short months ago this man had tried to kill him and his friends. And this, really, was the nub of his problem. He had just seen this implacable warrior do something otherwordly, something which must have required the dedication of a lifetime to perform. Yet he and his little band of village peasants had faced four of these monsters, of whom this man was the least, and defeated them. Watching the Bhrudwan kill a dozen bandits brought home to him how unlikely their own victory had been, and he mentioned his concern to the Haufuth as they readied the camel train to move on.

The village headman stood silent a moment, stroking his chin, before answering. 'Well, you benefited from some luck, I can see that. From what you've said, had all the Bhrudwans walked across that swingbridge with their captives, you would never have executed your ambush, no matter how clever it was.'

Phemanderac spoke up from behind them: he had just finished applying a damp cloth to the swelling on Belladonna's temple. The injury, incurred in the Deep Desert, seemed for some time to have given her a deathly hurt, but had recently healed somewhat. The swelling was still evident, however, and the magician's daughter still had trouble keeping down solid food.

'According to Mablas of Dhauria, who made a study of these things, the Lords of Fear are not only great warriors, but are also masters of the Realm of Fire, and can use illusion, the Wordweave and dark magic to achieve their ends. When Leith first told me of your Company, and how you had overcome four Lords of Fear, 1 assumed he was being modest about his own abilities, and you were the greatest of your people, life-trained and hand-picked to oppose the Destroyer's servants. But then I saw it was not so, and it became evident you had not overcome the Lords of Fear by strength or by magic. How, then, could you doubt the favour of the Most High rests on you? How else could you have defeated them?'

The Haufuth scowled, and Kurr muttered under his breath. The lean philosopher had been talking like this for days, ever since their deliverance from the slave markets, in spite of the anger it engendered among his fellow travellers. There had been a time, Kurr admitted, that he had almost been persuaded. Almost he had believed they were the chosen of the Most High, his instruments of salvation destined to bring deliverance to Faltha. To his credit, the Haufuth had never gone along with the words of this outlandish man, words echoed by the equally suspect Hermit, and even by Hal, their own fey prophet. Yes, there were things he couldn't explain, rightly or wrongly, he acknowledged that. He'd seen the castle of Kantara with his own eyes, had witnessed the power of the Jugom Ark. His friend the Haufuth bore the physical scars on his hand in testament to that power. But knowing these things and not being able to explain them fell a long way short of the unquestioning belief others professed.

'Answer me this, then, O Prophet of the Most High,' Kurr grated. 'If his favour rests on us, where is the Jugom Ark? Where is Leith? Strange way to show favour is that, burying Arrow and Wielder alike under a pile of rubble.' He knew his words hurt Phemanderac, he meant them to hurt, because the philosopher seemed not to care for their feelings, so often did he bring up the subject. Phemanderac turned away without a word and busied himself with one of the packs. Perhaps he did care, but not enough. Leith was not from his village.

The old farmer returned to the problem. How had the four Bhrudwan warriors been defeated?

How had the Company bested even one, this Acolyte, as Mahnum named him?

The question would not leave him, and every time Achtal the Bhrudwan aided them and then deferred to Hal the cripple, unease grew in his mind like a blight taking hold in his apple orchard back on Stibbourne Farm. He remembered giving up hope of anything but a slave's life in that terrible city by the Lake of Gold, until miraculously their purchaser turned out to be the Bhrudwan, complete with camel train. They had been totally in his power then, yet he acted as their servant. What sort of hold did Hal have on the man, and how secure was it? It was as though the Company held the sun in a jar and made it do their bidding. At any time it might break out of its prison and incinerate them all with its power.

Perhaps that was the plan all along.

The travellers took a moment to tend their animals, then set off again to climb the few remaining steps to the top of the pass. Already the huge desert flies buzzed lazily around the pools of drying blood. Achtal did not spare the bodies even a glance: it was as though the people who until a few moments ago inhabited them no longer existed for him. Kurr and the former Captain of the Instruian Guard, who shared with Achtal the vanguard of the camel train, exchanged uneasy glances.

Further down the train the Arkhos of Nemohaim wiped sweaty palms on his red robe. The last few weeks had proven extremely taxing for him, but he was alive, a victory of sorts. Even his dark inner voice was quiet now, sated for the moment by the bandit stepping back on to his sword.

The Arkhos received as deep a shock as anyone to be redeemed from the slave market of Ghadir Massab by the Bhrudwan. He'd fully expected to be killed. Indeed, his captain had made to defend him, but the traitorous Bhrudwan did nothing but lead them to a camel train he had persuaded one of his countrymen to give him. The Arkhos was not clear over that - the Bhrudwan must indeed be high in their complicated hierarchy to have commandeered such wealth.a" but it proved the perfect disguise. The Bhrudwan even produced their cloaks, packs and swords, having gained them from the slavers as part of the purchase price he paid.

The hatred the Arkhos of Nemohaim bore towards these northerners had not lessened, he knew that, everyone knew that, there was no point pretending otherwise; but while that cursed Bhrudwan served them he could do little but agree to a temporary alliance. Strangely, the crippled boy had suggested it, arguing it would be sensible to recognise the informal partnership originally forced on them because of the attack by the Sanusi of the Deep Desert.

In the uncertainty of their rescue it had been agreed to by the northerners, no doubt for the same reason as he gave his swift assent. Sharing the road with his enemies was better than the alternative, which was to lose contact with them - or worse still, to be hunted by them.

The arrangement, therefore, met with the Arkhos's approval. Without their support it was less certain that he would be able to return to Instruere. And he desperately wished to return. He had plans for that city, and for its new leader. The loss of the Jugom Ark did not change that.

The camel train crested the pass; and suddenly the green basin of Maremma lay spread below them like an irregularly patched cloth. A spur of the Veridian Hills stretched a brown finger into the smoky distance, and along this spur, high above the plains, wound their path. Through the town of Fealty it would go, the birthplace of Conal Greatheart and still the seat of his knightly order, then down to Sivithar on the great river, and thence to Instruere; two weeks or more at walking pace. There the travellers would go, having failed in their quest. They were bereft of the Jugom Ark, had lost one of the Arkhimm, and faced an uncertain future.

The Arkhos smiled. He was certain about one thing. The future would involve blood and fire.

The abiding impression created by the Wodhaitic Sea was one of peace. Each morning Leith invariably found his favourite position, lying on his stomach in the prow of the outrigger, letting the silent, turquoise depths slide by mere inches from his face, taking in deep breaths of the astringent salt air. He would spend the day talking with Maendraga, or perhaps with Geinor and his son Graig, while they fished for their evening meal. Then in the evenings, after the warm rains, the glorious red-green sunsets and the swift darkness, Leith talked with the navigator, the only Aslaman willing to make conversation with him.

In spite of all that had happened to Leith, he did not truly appreciate how exotic his life had become until these nights on the ocean. On his travels he had seen so many places unlike the green, rolling hills and chalk cliffs of Loulea, his home: barren, snow-covered moors, cold rearing peaks, deep green woods, wide white deserts. An amazing variety of people had crossed his path, from the ragged villains of Windrise to the laughing Fodhram, the simple but proud Fenni, the sophisticated yet confusing urbane Instruians. Yet the most unsettling land Leith had yet travelled was no land at all, but the sea, the wide, pathless Wodhaitic Sea.

Two weeks on the ocean had given Leith his first respite, his first chance to really think, since that Midwinter's night many months ago. He found himself relaxing, unclenching like a hand held as a fist for too long - or, perhaps, like the hand learning to hold the Jugom Ark more and more gently. So, for the first time on his journey, he was in a position to appreciate the unfamiliarity surrounding him.

Relentless heat served as a constant reminder that he journeyed far beyond the lands he knew.

Coming from a Firanese winter to the warmth of late spring in Instmere felt odd enough, but with so much to occupy them all in the great city of Faltha he hardly noticed the warmth, or perhaps became accustomed to it. The Valley of a Thousand Fires assaulted them with unbearable ferocity, but their journey through the valley lasted only a few days, and they gained some respite at night. But here on the Wodhaitic he found no escape, day or night. The night heat was the worst, leaving him gasping for breath, sweating like a horse after a day's hard riding.

Along with the heat and the vastness of the pitching, heaving ocean came the astonishing skill of their navigator. The archipelago to which they had travelled had been made up of a few dozen tiny islands, none more than half a day's walk around, scattered like crumbs on a tabletop; yet the Aslamen guided their craft straight to them, travelling a hundred leagues or more northwards across the west wind in just over a week. Leith felt sure, in spite of the confidence the Aslamen displayed, they would miss their target and go sailing on forever, until the ice swallowed them or they came to the end of the world; but had since learned in conversations with the navigator that a combination of secrets, wielded by one with experience and skill, made the islands difficult to miss.

The islands themselves were tiny outposts hidden like secrets in the midst of the sea. Leith had expected small mountains rising out of the water, miniatures of the lands he knew; but the island upon which they made their landing was raised no more than a man's height above the waves. As they had sailed through a narrow gap in the coral reef and into a wide lagoon so startlingly blue it seemed to have been mistakenly coloured by a child, Maendraga leaned over to Leith and whispered in his ear: 'No talking now. This is Motu-tapu, the sacred island of the Aslamen.

No word may be spoken until we leave, save the passing on of the Name.' Leith nodded his head in earnest reply, though he had been told this before, and had little idea of what the magician meant. All he knew was that Maendraga desperately wanted to bury his dead wife's name, and he had usurped the quest to do so. The Guardian of the Arrow had claimed that travelling on the dugout canoe would be the speediest and safest way back to Instruere, but Leith suspected that Maendraga would have insisted on this particular journey even if it proved the slowest path of all.

Once on the island, little more than a strip of land that cleverly escaped the notice of the sea, the four outsiders were instructed to wait under the palm trees until it was time. There they waited in silence through the long morning and longer afternoon, watching the white clouds gather and lifting their faces to the warm rains; until the evening when, the air washed clean and fires burning along the beach, they were summoned to the Burying.

Perhaps a hundred people, maybe more, assembled before the largest of the bonfires on the shores of Motu-tapu on the night of the Burying. Leith and his companions were the only people not Aslamen, and they felt a keen discomfit. The islanders did not need words to communicate their disdain, even hatred, of the White-skins. The air seethed with a barely restrained violence, as though the four intruders were committing innumerable acts of sacrilege simply by standing under the trees. For a while Leith thought it might be provoked by the presence of the Jugom Ark; but, curiously, none of the islanders indicated any interest in the flaming Arrow he carried, or showed any fear of it. Leith kept his tongue, in spite of his curiosity and growing nervousness, and did not ask Maendraga what was so important about his wife's name that they needed to brave this suppressed malice to return it to the island. And now, it seemed, the secret was about to be revealed.

A man wearing a long robe and carrying a blazing brand came forward and with the fiery stick pointed to a woman. With great dignity of bearing she walked to the fire, pulling something out from under her robe as she did so. In the half-light Leith could not be certain what it was, but he fancied it was a doll. The woman held it up for a moment, then cast it into the flames.

As she stood watching it burn, a small child came up to her. The woman bent down and whispered something in the little girl's ear. A shy smile spread over the child's face, then she and the woman shared an embrace. A moment later the little girl danced off into the shadows, obviously happy.

What's all that about? Plainly Leith would get no answers here, as talking was forbidden. He would have to wait until they left the island and he could question Maendraga. Whatever had just happened, its significance escaped him.

'A Name has been buried and reborn,' said the voice in his mind.

Leith started, and let slip an involuntary gasp that, fortunately, no one heard above the crackling and sighing of the fire.

He would never get used to the voice in his head. He certainly never wanted to.

'Here on this shore the Names of the dead are returned to the Pei-ra. They are committed to the fire, thereby freeing the Name to be given to the next generation.' So the Name is cast into the fire by the symbolic act of casting some object in! Something personal that belonged to the dead person!

'Yes. The doll was owned by a little girl called Laya, who died of a sickness in her bones.