206

There is no reply to your first knock. You are about to knock again when the door opens a few inches and the red-rimmed eyes of an old woman stare out from the darkness. ‘Banedon!’ she exclaims, her voice hoarse and shaky. ‘Thank the gods it is you.’

She ushers you both inside and locks the door. The house is sparsely furnished, and what little is there is either damaged or broken. ‘They have taken him, Banedon, they have taken my husband—the men with the faces of the dead. Ten days ago. They came like shadows in the night.’

She breaks down, her frail body wracked by sobs. Banedon comforts her as best he can, but you sense he shares her bitter loss. The Drakkarim have taken Tipasa, of that there is little doubt. By now they will have made him tell everything he knows about the Tomb of the Majhan.

‘We will find him, I promise,’ says Banedon, wiping the tears from the old woman’s face, ‘but you must try to help us if you can. Tipasa always kept a diary of his travels—do you have it still?’

A flicker of hope shines in the old woman’s eyes. ‘Yes, it is here. He told me to hide it when the evil men came for him.’

She kneels at an empty fireplace and prises a loose brick from the chimney; a leather-bound book drops from its hiding place into her hand. She gives it to Banedon who studies the yellowed pages, his face lined in thought. You notice that the book is full of cryptic symbols, numbers, and pictograms.

‘They are drawn by the night stars,’ says Banedon, tracing his finger along the astronomical drawings. ‘They hold the secret, I know, but without my star charts we cannot hope to find the tomb. We must return to the Skyrider at first light. There I shall be able to make some sense of this book.’

Turn to 331.