They sat inside a tent, and soft voices talked incomprehensibly as Evan—he knew his real name was Evan—stared into the stone. In the black glow a man with daffodil-yellow hair and cherry-red lips held out a white flat thing with a picture of a black lizard upon it. Or was it a raven?Salamander woke suddenly with the dream vivid in his mind. He sat up on the bed and ran his hands through his sweaty hair while he stared at the braided rushes covering the floor. He reminded himself that he was sitting in a chamber in the Red Wolf dun, not in a Westfolk tent. After a few good yawns, he rose and went to the window. Down below in the ward servant lasses were carrying baskets from the cookhouse into the great hall. On the far side of the ward he could see grooms leading horses to the watering trough. The dun had woken for the day.Salamander dressed, ready to go down for breakfast, but he lingered in the chamber, thinking over the dream, trying to dissect its residue. The obsidian pyramid was calling to him.
