Windrocs were a constant danger, but the Shadow and Azure Dragons flew high enough that the birds gave up following them. To their right hand or paw, a sprawling landscape of rocky columns loomed beneath a tablecloth of unbroken grey cloud, as though a table of a million legs stood above the Cloudlands. The spires were surprisingly uniform in height and shape, and up to a quarter-mile square. Some leaned against their neighbours, or appeared to have been severed by unimaginable forces in times past. Two days of hard flying, dawn to midnight, brought them past the cut-off dome of Rolodia Island, once an ally of Immadia, now spoiled, burned and its lake-terraces deliberately destroyed. Aranya could not see Rolodia, but Ardan’s low-voiced description more than satisfied her curiosity. “Perhaps it’s better not to see,” she said. “It’s better to see and remember what Thoralian did,” said Jia-Llonya, seated one position ahead of her on Ardan’s back.
