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Talus understood she was saying goodbye.
    Shortly afterwards, Tia's enemies stormed the tomb, led by their king and his warrior-priest.
    Tia's soldiers were no match for them. Rather than watch her people die, she led them into exile.
    Talus went too, and for a while he thought he would stay with his desert queen. But Tia had planted a thought in him.
    What if there really was such a thing as the northlight? What if there really was a place where it came down from the clouds to touch the living world? Wouldn't that be a place where a curious man might learn once and for all if the spirit world was real?
    He tried to talk more to Tia about it, but she'd lost interest in his questions. All she cared about now was reclaiming her lost kingdom. Her patience gone, she told Talus to choose: it was either her, or the long journey north.
    Talus chose north.

CHAPTER FIVE
    Tharn led the way to the burial cairn, which lay at the northern extremity of the village. Here, the maze of passages converged on a single, winding way. This path, though still sunk into the ground, had no roof. The red light had faded from the sky, leaving it bright and laced with the kind of fish-scale clouds that told Talus a storm was coming.
    Bran—who'd started out sullen—now looked nervous. His hands were trembling; his face was a mask. Talus knew exactly what was making his companion uncomfortable.
    They were approaching the land of the dead.
    The path widened. Ahead rose a domed structure skinned with turf: a hill made by men. The island's burial cairn. Though it resembled many cairns Talus had seen before, it possessed a remarkable symmetry of line. Whoever had built it had known his craft.
    Tharn brought the procession to a halt. The cairn entrance gaped, a bleak, black square standing no higher than Talus's shoulder. It looked grim and foreboding.
    The shaking in Bran's hands had descended to his legs. Talus gripped his companion's arm.
    'There is no need to be afraid.'
    'Tell it to my knees.'
    Tharn called forward his brother with the lanky arms and legs. With his long limbs unfolded, the man was astonishingly tall. A whispered conversation ensued.
    Talus studied the cairn's mouth. The king lay inside, awaiting his final passage to the afterdream. This place—like all such places—was a threshold, packed with potential. What answers must it hold, to what countless questions?
    'Come,' said Tharn. 'Let us enter.'
    Talus leaned close to Bran. 'It is an interesting family, do you not think?'
    Bran's expression remained glum. 'You mean you've only just realised they're brothers?
    Talus—you're usually much quicker than that.' One by one they entered the cairn. Talus ducked quickly under the stone lintel but Bran pulled up short. Fethan jabbed him with the blunt end of a flint axe similar to Bran's own. Talus was about to intervene when the tall brother slipped between the two men.
    'Be easy, Fethan.'
    'Out of my way, Cabarrath.'
    Cabarrath placed his hand on his sibling's heaving shoulder. 'Let us not take more death over the border.'
    'This one's trouble.' Fethan's eyes—as dark as his tangled hair—flicked restlessly from side to side. 'Let me have my fun.'
    'No, brother.' Cabarrath was older than Fethan, Talus had decided—almost certainly the next oldest after Tharn.
    Cabarrath turned his touch into a brother's embrace, tightening his arm around Fethan's neck and squeezing amiably. With his free hand, he rapped his younger brother on the top of his head. After this little ritual, he let go and gave Fethan a gentle shove into the cairn. Suddenly grinning, Fethan ducked past Talus and plunged into the darkness.
    'Forgive my brother,' Cabarrath said to Bran. He extended his hand. 'After you.'
    One after the other they crossed the invisible threshold into the land of the dead.

    It took Talus's eyes a while to adjust to the darkness. Gradually he began to make out shapes. He was standing at the end of a long underground chamber—almost a tunnel.