Prologue

It was long before; and he had left with no certain destination. There was nothing to detain him in his temple in Tlaxapec. He had outgrown it. It had been a cream city of pyramids, acolytes and slaves, but now it was all but empty. He put aside his great grey mantle and changed into in a simple grey toga and cloak.  Then he quit his old life forever.

He wandered west and north, up into the mountains that split the western continent. They were a relief from the torrid plains, where the sun and rain fought inconclusively. He went high enough up to have a day or two of snow and then he made his way down again, slowly. He was in no hurry. After that he travelled due south, through the old land of the elves, making sure to avoid the lonely white city stranded in the wilderness. He knew that he might have to go there eventually, but not just yet. He drifted into the desert and just kept walking, unconcerned by heat and unburdened by thirst. He only stopped at the sea – but that was an arbitrary decision, he could go everywhere, and in his mind he already had. None of this was new to him, he had just never seen it before with approximately human eyes.

   The long yellow sands of Nupharia were unpeopled. His only companions were the avocets at the water’s edge and the great grey whales that breached, just offshore, in the deeply shelving waters of the Surmare Sea.   He had wondered whether any boats visited those shores. Then he thought long and hard about fashioning a raft himself, from the empty air, and floating on it further down to the distant, unexplored, lands to the south. But finally he turned away from the ocean. Maybe one day, but first he had something to seek out. Something rotten was in the air.

He turned away from the sea and plunged back into the desert. He made his way to the old ruined city of Duhn T’Sien, for he knew that the Archwitch enemies had been there, but he did not yet know why. But all that he found there was sand covering everything, and below the sand just the ruins of an old city, abandoned by the elves thousands of years before. In one chamber, however, there was a strangeness of a kind he had not experienced before: a taste like death in the air. Something had been disrupted there, something vital; something that ensured the fabric of the world. He did what he could to patch it up, but he knew that would not be enough. In the same chamber, incongruous but familiar, he found a long hazel spring, like a green staff. He knew what this was, even though the nearest hazel tree was more than a thousand miles away. This was what was left of a guardian who had failed. What she had been guarding was destroyed or taken. This was an unanticipated blow; it was clear that he had underestimated his foes. Something would have to be done, but he was not yet sure what.

He left the ancient city and climbed up into the desert highlands: no-one had lived there for thousands of years. It was cold up there at night and the early morning was perfect for mind walking. He didn’t care how long it would take – he would find out what was going on.