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.Kaiku moved around to get a better view.The picture itself was enough to make her uneasy.The main characters were all but unidentifiable, stylised and jagged horrors that might have been men dancing or animals rutting.There was a fire in the central foreground, its flames time-dimmed but still visible.Kaiku found herself marvelling at the preservation methods that had carried it through all the ages.If it were not for Saran’s promise to let the Red Order verify it – which they could easily do, at least as far as telling how old it was – then Kaiku would have not believed it could be so ancient.She looked around its border, which was inscribed with many strange patterns, searching for the clue that Saran wanted them to find.At the top, in the centre, was the blazing lower half of the sun, and below that, in a crescent shape, were the moons.The moons!‘There are four moons,’ Yugi said, before anyone else could.Kaiku felt something deep shift inside her, an unpleasant stirring that made her feel slightly nauseous.He was right.There was Aurus, biggest of them all; Iridima, with her cracked skin; Neryn, the small green moon; and a fourth, the same size as Neryn, charcoal black and scratched with dark red lines like scuff marks.Kaiku’s skin began to crawl.She frowned, puzzled at her own reaction, and then noticed that Cailin was looking at her inquiringly, as if she had noted Kaiku’s discomfort too.Saran folded his arms and nodded.‘There were clues.I found several references to an entity called Aricarat in Yttryx, and one in Quraal to Ariquraa.I had assumed they were different versions of the same root word, but I could not imagine to what they referred.Even though they were almost always used in conjunction with stories of the other moon-sisters, I did not guess.After all, it was always referred to as male.Then I found an old Yttryxian creation myth that made reference to Aricarat as being born from the same stuff as the other moons, and it suddenly made sense.’ Saran bowed his head.‘Aricarat was the fourth moon.He disappeared thousands of years ago.The moon-sisters, it seems, had a brother.’If Saran had expected a barrage of abuse or denial, he was disappointed.The Saramyr pantheon had never held anything but three moons, and the genealogy of the gods was something taught to all children at an early age.To accept what he was suggesting ran counter to more than a thousand years of belief.But the assembly looked merely dazed.A few belligerent dissenters said loudly that his idea was ridiculous, but soon quieted, finding little support.Kaiku had sat down, overwhelmed suddenly by a terrible, creeping dread that made her lightheaded and faint.‘Are you unwell?’ Cailin asked.‘I do not know,’ Kaiku said.‘Something.there is something about Saran’s account that is troubling me.’‘You think he is wrong?’‘No, I think he is right.I am certain of it.But I do not know why I am certain.’Zaelis stood up.‘I believe I understand,’ he said, his molten voice commanding attention.‘You think the fourth moon.Aricarat?’ Saran tilted his head in a nod.‘You think that Aricarat was destroyed somehow back when the world was young, and that it fell to earth in pieces.And these pieces are the witchstones.’‘Exactly,’ Saran said.‘This is a wild theory, Saran.’‘I have evidence to support it,’ the Quraal man said, unruffled.‘But that will bear close examination, and will take time.There are dry tomes and parchments that require translating from dead languages.’‘You will permit me to see this evidence?’‘Of course.I am convinced of its authenticity.Anyone who wishes can study it.’Zaelis limped in a slow circle around Saran, his brow furrowed, his hands linked behind his back.The wind chimes rang softly into the silence.‘Then I will reserve judgement until I have done so; and I would urge you all to do the same.’ This last was addressed to the general assembly.He returned his attention to Saran, stopped pacing, and put a curled forefinger on his white-bearded chin.‘There is one thing that puzzles me, though.’‘Please,’ Saran said, inviting his inquiry.‘If pieces of the moon rained down all over the Near World all that time ago, then why are they only found in the mountains? Why not the deserts and the plains?’Saran smiled.He had been anticipating this.‘They are in the deserts and the plains,’ he said.‘You are looking at the matter from the wrong angle.First, we should be asking how we know where the witchstones are at all.It is only through the Weavers.How do the Weavers find them? That I do not know.But until five years ago, the Weavers were not allowed to own land in Saramyr; the only places they could inhabit were the mountains, where no land laws applied as there were no crops to be had.It is not easy for them to mine something out from so deep underground and keep it a secret; yet in the mountains, behind their shields of misdirection that our spies cannot penetrate, they have leisure to do so.The reason that the only witchstones we know of are in the mountains are because they are the only ones the Weavers have been able to get to.’‘But not any more,’ Zaelis concluded for him.‘No,’ Saran agreed
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