Maximilian and his small party made good time in their journey east. The horses were a true boon, indeed, and everyone gave silent thanks for their appearance.

One day, when Maximilian estimated they were two or three days away from Hairekeep, the horse carrying Doyle, who was riding out front, shied so badly it almost threw the man.

Doyle brought the horse under control quickly, then shouted back to the others to keep their mounts under tight rein.

“Look!” he cried, pointing to the patch of sandy ground just to the north of the road.

“Merciful heavens,” Maximilian murmured as he drew in his horse behind Doyle’s.

The soil to the northern side of the road was very sandy, with little vegetation. Now, as they all sat their nervous horses and looked, the sand rose up in the shape of a series of hands, all stretching eastward. The hands alternately beckoned to the group of watchers, then pointed eastward.

“They are telling us to hurry,” Ishbel said.

“Aye,” Maximilian said, then he gave a small jump and pointed to a different patch of ground. “Look there!”

Just in front of the hands, and a little further along the road, a series of footsteps appeared in the soil, rushing eastward.

“Hurry, hurry,” Maximilian said.

“They must be tormented, indeed,” Serge said, “to have managed this.”

Maximilian looked at Avaldamon. “Avaldamon? You look worried.”

“I don’t know,” Avaldamon said. “I don’t like it.”

“You think it is the One?” Ishbel said.

“I don’t know,” Avaldamon said once more. “It . . . it reminds me of something Boaz told me about the land when the creature called Nzame ruled over the glass pyramid. Nzame turned the land to stone with countless tiny pyramids, all with a single eye in each face, dotted about. This is different, but it just made me recall that.”

“We shall be careful, then,” Maximilian said.

Avaldamon hesitated, but then spoke the thought that had been worrying him for many days . . . ever since Ishbel and Maximilian had told him about Josia’s plan to save the people trapped inside Hairekeep. “How much do you trust Josia, Maxel? Ishbel?”

“With our lives,” Ishbel answered for them both. “He has been through a nightmare of an existence, Avaldamon. He is for us. He has no reason to harm us.”

Maybe no, maybe yes, Avaldamon thought, but he nodded to Ishbel and Maximilian. “We shall be careful,” he said, and with that they resumed their journey east, the hands and running footsteps urging them to hurry.