Oli turned from the cave mouth and surveyed the forest beneath him. The sun shone from its zenith in the clear air and he saw places he had only heard of before. Taking in the sweeping view filled him with a brief sense of elation.

  The world is so vast and wide. This is why Kastor wants to explore it.

  The river Scursrun, where until recently he fished carefree, snaked northwards to the ford where the soldiers had tried to capture him. That part of the forest vanished behind the mountain beside him, but he could see west to Scursditch and beyond, all the way to where the trees ended. What came after? Only rolling green land to the horizon, like an emerald ocean to mirror the sapphire blue one in the distance on his left. The forest looked like a crowded island surrounded by empty space. He saw no sign of the places in his grandfather’s tales: the great cities of the Kingdom of Giftahl, its armies, its schools and palaces, its castles and the Godsroof itself. They must be impossibly far away. He had never seen the ocean, either, from so high above. The saltleaf trees grew out into the water and the waves lapped against their trunks in the distance like ripples against reeds at the edge of a lake. Beyond that was only stillness. How did the Serpent Islanders cross such a body of water? What mad urge made them first think of trying?

  It was the South, though, to which he kept returning. First to the Levon Falls, which even from this distance were as Kastor had described them. He had seen them in his strange dreams, too.

  Beyond the falls lay the lake, if that is really what it was. The sunlight did not seem to reflect off it, like it did off the river and sea. Instead, it disappeared as though sucked inside the thing. Only when Joturn told him it was the lake had he noticed the subtle movement of water, the change of colour in the centre like a differing deepness of black. He shuddered.

  “Remarkable, isn't it?” said Joturn beside him. "Like a silver mirror under the sun."

  Does he see the same lake I see?

  Joturn moved deeper into the cave before stopping.

  “Come on, Oli! Tear your eyes away. We need to check inside. We’ve got to keep your friend happy, haven’t we?”

  Joturn chuckled, feigning sarcasm, but Oli had noticed the way he acted around Kastor. The plain-spoken, gruff elder responded to the wounded medicine man's requests as quickly as he jumped to do a favour for Elder Mildred. He spoke to him almost obsequiously, treated his wounds and cooked him food. He fussed over Kastor like a weak parent agonised over a spoiled child, less out of affection than fear of what he might do if he didn’t get his way. And he never stopped watching him. Sometimes he seemed to be watching them both.

  Oli followed Joturn into the cave. It amazed him that he had grown used to entering these places. Before, he’d never dared to even spy on the hoarders, let alone explore their territory.

  “Stay close,” whispered Joturn. “I don’t know if it’s safer to bring you here or leave you with him, but either way you’re in danger. At least here I can see you.”

  “I was alone with him for days, Elder Joturn. He helped me,” Oli protested. Why did Joturn distrust Kastor so persistently? He'd told Oli some tales about people called medicine men who went crazy and became dangerous, but hadn’t this one proved himself? Oli had told Joturn some of what had passed between them, but not everything.

  “They change like the weather in the months of Maralon,” Joturn explained in a whisper as they left the light behind. “He may have helped you this far, but you don’t know why or how he’ll make you pay for it. As soon as the sleeper tracks have gone quiet and he can look after himself again, we’re getting out of here and away from him.”

  Oli didn’t argue. Although he felt defensive of his new friend, he’d seen Kastor's anger once. He’d seen the demon that followed him. He knew there was some truth in the elder’s warning.

  The light of the entrance was far enough behind that Joturn’s torch cast an orange glow on the rock. What were they looking for? Signs of the hoarders, first. They wouldn’t hang around if they heard or saw that. And then they were looking for the letters that Kastor believed could be seen here, scrawled on the walls. Joturn stopped. In front of them, the cave split into two tunnels of equal breadth.

  “Can you hear anything?” whispered Oli.

  “Nothing. It’s so quiet. This is as deep as we came looking for Ingo. They didn’t show up then either, but now there's only two of us. What’s happened to them? Why have they left?” the elder muttered to himself, his face scrunched in worry.

  Oli frowned. “Does it matter that they’ve gone? It isn’t as though we liked them.”

  Joturn shook his head slowly. “Big changes like this mean something. Beasts sense things, often before we do. If the hoarders fled their homes, we must ask why.”

  “Where would they go?”

  “Higher in the mountains. Or deeper into its belly. The Swamps in the South. We don’t know much about them. It’s possible...”

  “What?”

  “It’s possible the soldiers have killed them all.”

  Oli shivered. The damp air felt cold and close to his skin, so that even when he pulled his jacket tighter it did not offer protection. He pondered the changes of the last few days.

  The sleepers had awoken, a foreign army tramped through the trees and now the hoarders had vanished from their lairs. Atop all this, their village was gone and other Seveners had sided with the godless soldiers. Too much change in a single season. Too much for him to understand.

  The elder turned to face the entrance, now a small disc of light.

  “We’ve gone far enough for today.”

  Oli offered no argument but he felt they'd not tried very hard at all. As they returned to the light, his feet caught on something hard.

  “Steady, boy,” Joturn grabbed his arm and kept him upright. “Don’t make noise!”

  Oli fumbled on the ground and picked up the slim tube of metal that had tripped him.

  “Probably scrap they collected from town,” he whispered to Joturn. “But Kastor might be happy with it, since we haven’t found the writing.”

  “Good thinking.” Joturn patted his shoulder and Oli pocketed the tube.

  They picked their way down the hillside, enjoying the warm sun. Kastor waited for their arrival like an excited child. He flicked back and forth through his book as they approached. When they reached him, he stretched out his bandaged leg and suppressed a grimace as he moved it back and forth.

  “I'm not sure if it's improving, but I'll try to join you next time. What did you find?”

  His eyes glittered with excitement.

  “Not much,” Oli replied. We didn’t go far enough, he thought. Joturn wasn’t taking it seriously. He went deep enough to check there were no hoarders, then returned. He wasn’t really looking for the marks on the walls.

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  “That one is high up,” Kastor frowned. “There should have been something. At least a sign of these creatures you talk about.”

  Kastor had developed a new theory – that what the Hallin called hoarders were a different race to the one his explorer discovered. He could not reconcile their description of dangerous monsters who pilfered leftovers and scraps with his lofty idea of a brave new people, forging a path from the darkness into light. Oli was beginning to wonder if either beings existed. Perhaps the hoarders were stories invented by the grown-ups to keep children away from the mountains. But no, Ingo had seen them, and his father had armed himself to enter those caves.

  “We found this,” Oli offered, rummaging in his pocket for the piece of metal. He passed the tube to Kastor, who grabbed it and turned it over.

  “What sort of tool is it?” he asked.

  “I’ve no idea,” Oli replied. “I haven’t looked at it properly. I found it on the ground.”

  Joturn removed his boots and wiggled his toes in the fresh air, paying no attention.

  “It looks like someone bent a brass plate into a tube, perhaps to make a sort of cup,” Kastor mused. “See here on the bottom – there's a piece of glass! Now what would that be for?”

  He peered through one end and out the other, which was covered with a glass disk.

  “Ouch!” Kastor yelped and pulled his finger back. Blood ran in a trickle down his hand. “There was glass inside as well and on this end, but it’s broken. What on earth was it for?”

  Oli shook his head and shrugged. Joturn looked warily at the blood, as though the sight of it might turn the medicine man crazy.

  Kastor instinctively brushed his cut with his other hand. He stared at it for a moment, as though willing it to disappear. It continued to drip, but Oli felt the pressure of his will. He felt it pulling down and wrapping around the tiny injury with a force of desire. Something in it was blocked though. Something was rotten. Oli, without thinking, added a tiny desire of his own. I wish you could do it.

  “Oh!” Kastor removed his hand. The skin was unbroken. He smiled as though pleased with himself then frowned and glanced suspiciously at Oli. Oli looked down. Had he intruded on something private? He couldn’t be certain he’d played any part, but he felt Kastor's mood begin to darken. Sometimes when he was around the medicine man, he felt the tug of that other world that he tasted by the river — even as Kastor tried to keep it at arm's length.

  In the afternoon Joturn ventured into the forest. He returned in the evening with a deer slung on his shoulders. They ate by a fire at the mouth of one of the lower caves.

  “Do you think we risk revealing our position?” asked Kastor as they ate and enjoyed the warmth.

  “I don’t know,” admitted Joturn. “But the nights are still cold. We’ll keep it low. You’ve fought those soldiers before, Medicine Man. Do you think they survived the sleepers?” Joturn sounded sceptical.

  “They have uncanny weapons,” Kastor replied. “It’s possible.”

  “What about the Sullin?” Oli asked. “What if they really are heading South to gather the clans, and our families are going with them? Are they planning to trap them for an ambush?”

  It was the first time since their escape that Oli had mentioned the Sullin. Joturn looked at him steadily, perhaps trying to decide if he was old enough to discuss this.

  “When they came to our assembly, they suggested gathering the clans to negotiate from a position of strength. But I wonder now if the 'negotiations' are already complete. Maybe they promised the Republic our surrender. Or perhaps, as you say, they are helping their new masters to plan an ambush.”

  “Not in the South,” Kastor interjected. “They can’t move an army that far in the forest yet. And besides, the Levonin despise the Sullin. I learned that living with them.Their warriors are unusual, more suited to fighting sleepers, but they are more than equal to your Northern cousins. They won't be led easily into a trap.”

  Joturn nodded. “Either way, the Republic are fools if they think they are allies. The Sullin will play both sides until it suits them to choose one. We should have shunned them long ago, as the Levonin advised.”

  They ate in a pensive silence, then Kastor rose, testing his leg as he did so.

  “I'm going to lie down. My leg feels better. I’ll come with you to the caves tomorrow.”

  He limped to the corner.

  Oli pursued the figure in front of him. The forest was more real, this time he dreamed it. He felt the tips of the trees on the bare soles of his feet as he leapt between them. The wind followed him and swept the foliage towards him as he passed. He felt clearer, this time. He knew the rules.

  Up the river, first, and then to the falls.

  There they were, the Levon Falls, as spectacular as before.

  This time I’ll cross the top.

  Oli leapt between rainbows and splashes of colour. He bounded over the sheer white crest and plunged for a moment into the river. He emerged and ran on.

  This is the place they call the lake.

  He could see it ahead. The edge of the black water beckoned to him. And there, at the water’s edge, the figure ahead of him slowed and stood still. A woman in long, flowing clothes dipped her toes into the water and flicked back her hair. She turned and he saw her.

  “Mother!” Oli cried out.

  The dream ended and he sat bolt upright. He almost collided with Joturn. The elder was crouched in front of him, watching him in the early morning light. He reached out and touched Oli’s leg and soothed him.

  “What were you dreaming about? Your legs moved like you wanted to run, and then you started calling your mother."

  “I saw her by the lake, in the South!” Oli exclaimed. He heard the rustle of Kastor waking and moving towards them.

  Joturn reached over and squeezed his knee. "You won't find your mother at the lake, Oli," he said gently. "But this could be a sign. We might find our clan in Levonin land."

  “No dream about the lake is a good sign,” Kastor stood over them, glowering down. Oli felt the demon appearing behind him. Kastor focussed on Oli and hissed urgently: “A dream about the lake that shows you exactly what you want too see." He spat: "There’s only death at the lake for those foolish enough to go there.”

  Oli looked from Joturn to Kastor and opened and shut his mouth.

  “Oli,” Joturn said gently. “Why don’t you collect wood for a fire. I need to speak with Kastor.”

  Oli did not collect any wood. He walked far enough from the mouth of the cave to be out of hearing of the two men. Did Joturn trust Kastor’s opinion, suddenly? Or did he, like Oli, not know what to believe? Oli sat on a rock and hung his legs over the side. He watched the sun rise over the forest, first in tentative rays of orange light that pried between the sleeping branches, then into a glorious, bright morning. Birds dove in and out of the canopy, in a world of their own.

  He looked south to where the lake must be. It wasn’t directly visible from this low, but he thought he saw darkness creep above the horizon in the distance, like the opposite of a sunrise. He heard voices rise behind him and then die back into whispers, but he didn’t try to listen. When the sun was risen and the day begun, Joturn approached and sat beside him. They watched the birds diving and flying.

  “What should I do, Elder Joturn?” asked Oli. “What if Kastor is just afraid and what he says is not true? Or what if it’s true for him but not for me?”

  "Or what if something wants to pull you into the same trap he fell into?"

  Joturn draped his arm over Oli’s shoulder and pulled him close. The Elder had kept himself at arm's length since he saw Oli with the medicine man. Now Oli leaned thankfully into the embrace. Joturn continued:

  “A few days ago, Heridan and I crossed those same sleeper tracks that we used the other day to escape from the soldiers. I told him to return to the village and he went without an argument.”

  “What does that have to do with me?” asked Oli.

  “Heridan and I both knew that he couldn't draw the sleepers off and lose them again. Only I could risk that. Heridan and I are grown men. We’ve learned our own strengths and weaknesses. We’ve looked inside ourselves and found out who we are, and we know which battles belong to us and which to another.”

  “Perhaps I’m learning that, too.”

  Joturn smiled and ruffled Oli’s hair.

  “Undoubtedly, but you are still a child. Your lessons will be hard, Oli, and your path a strange one. I daresay you'll take steps that your elders have not trodden. But you don’t have to decide it today. I can’t tell you how to live your life when you're older, but I must decide what’s best for you now. And you must listen to your elder without argument.”

  “I want to see my parents, Elder Joturn. I want to go south and meet them before something happens with the Sullin or the soldiers. I can’t wait until I grow up to try and find them!”

  “I’ll go south, Oli. I’ll track the clan’s trail and explore the meaning of your dreams for you. But your new friend, who you say I should trust, has dire warnings about that place. I won’t take you south until I know it’s safe.”

  “You’re leaving me with Kastor?”

  “I won’t do that either. We’ll spend a few more days here. The time I need to get us well supplied and see that his wounded leg is right. Then I’ll take you to Scursditch. Elder Oslef has friends in town. I’ll have them watch over you until I return.”

  “Elder Joturn, no! I don’t want to go to the town. I won’t! I’d rather stay here with Kastor if I can’t come south with you!”

  Joturn withdrew his arm and slapped Oli’s leg, hard enough to make him sit up.

  “Enough! You’ll do as I say. I don’t know where you learned this defiance you show lately.”

  Joturn left him and Oli looked out over the forest again. He had dreamed of his mother waiting for him in the South. Behind him, the last of the medicine men held the keys to another world that he didn't want to open. Both here and in the South were mysteries to be unravelled and new worlds to explore, but what was there in the town? Nothing of any interest.

  Oli would not be going to hide in Scursditch, and nobody would make him.