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closing over yellow, blood-flecked sclera. The prospector suppressed a shiver, for it seemed to him that those myriad gazes evinced pure malevolence. He began to back away, but halted at the sound of something snapping under his heel.
    All eyes focused on him.
    "This sentinel marks the beginning of the Forest of Eyes," said Cope. "The hound remembers its master's gaze, and so the woodland beyond this point is a representation of that memory, deformed by Basilis's will where it has subjugated the hound's dream. It is but one aspect of the demon which has been preserved." He threw out his arms. "Is it not beautiful?"
    Greene chose not to reply.
    Beyond the sentinel oak the landscape became very strange indeed. The three interlopers set off at a more subdued pace, and soon a deathly hush had settled around them. Greene could no longer hear the chirrup of birds or the whisper of leaves. Everywhere he looked he faced a murky scrawl of forest, alive with subtle movements and gelatinous glimmers. The demon stared at him from every bole and branch of these unwholesome trees, and even from the roots that gripped the earth like gnarled black fingers. Its eyes blinked and moved silently as they turned to follow the party.
    They walked on a carpet of dark mulch, veined with pale fibres. When once Green nudged a scrap of the stuff aside with the toe of his boot, he saw eyes peering out at him from the clammy soil.
    "Best not examine the ground too closely," warned Cope. "Lest you fear to tread."
    The old prospector had, in his youth, travelled to lands beyond the Deadsands, and he had grown skilled at reading the history of the world in its shape and strata. He knew where to look for seams of copper or quartz, and which river banks hid the bones of ancient beasts. He understood erosion, how wind, rain and ice had sculpted mountain valleys so long ago. But the weirdness of this environment utterly unnerved him; it deceived his every sense. He felt tainted by its unwholesomeness.
    If this was magic, then he wanted no part of it.
    Ravencrag, however, appeared to have forgotten his former antipathy toward Cope. The phantasmacist shuffled through the trees, gazing around in wonder at the wretched place. The staring eyes did not seem to disturb him as much as the pain in his hip. He struggled to keep up, often forcing Cope and Greene to slow their pace to accommodate him. This aggrieved the thaumaturge no end, and ultimately caused him dismay, for it was Ravencrag's infirmity which put them all in danger.
    Othniel Cope hissed a warning, and flung himself down behind a glutinous tangle of roots. He beckoned the others to join him. Greene did so at once, but Ravencrag, hampered by his stiff joints, was slower. By the time the phantasmacist had hidden himself, it was too late.
    A group of very tall figures were approaching through the forest. Greene counted eight of them, all dressed in strange, tan-coloured armour bristling with hairs. Chitinous helmets inset with dark lenses obscured their faces. None appeared to be armed with martial weapons, yet their hands were protected by wicked spiked gauntlets. The warriors walked in an odd, jerking fashion, as though their legs contained too many joints. They had evidently spotted Ravencrag, for they were now converging on his hiding place.
    "Who are they?" he whispered to Cope.
    "I was afraid of this," said the thaumaturge, rising to his feet. "These creatures are an infestation, parasites born from the hound's memories and then mutated here. Such is my master's influence on the hound's dream. Once they were fleas. Come, it is better not to hide. They know where we are."
    The creatures halted ten paces away, and stood in a semicircle under the watching trees. Greene caught his breath. What he had taken to be armour, was actually exoskeleton. They had short, hooked forelimbs and powerful legs. Combs twitched in their domed heads where their mouths ought to be.
    One of them made a scratching, fluttering