The madman sidled across the sands towards Dev, rattling his split and battered gourd and bringing a rank stench that a full season's rains wouldn't diminish.

'Get lost, lizard eater,' Dev growled. The madman had enough sense to scurry away. Then Dev's expression turned to an eager hopefulness that would have astounded Bidric. The youth with the reeds raised them in a ceremonious gesture and rustled the dried seed heads, smiling with contented anticipation. Dev ignored him, scrambling up a steep face of the ridge to outstrip a couple of girls picking a more cautious route upwards.

'You show initiative,' remarked the soothsayer peaceably as Dev appeared before him. 'Always a good thing in a seeker after truth.' He was well into his middle years, grey touching his temples and the black beard that flowed uncut down his broad chest. Other than that, he could have passed for any merchant on the beach below, in his sleeveless mantle of striped cotton over sandy trews and tunic. He rested a hand with a single heavy gold ring on a little cage where two doves cooed and preened. 'But a bold man may fall, if he makes a false step on a rock face.'

'What omens might you see for a bold man voyaging to the south?' challenged Dev.

'What would you offer in return for such guidance, my intrepid friend?' the soothsayer asked silkily.

Dev reached for one of the soft leather pouches hidden inside his tunic and handed it over. 'If your word proves true, I'll bring you twice that the next time we meet. If not, I'll find you and let everyone know why I'm claiming my jewels back.

The soothsayer looked inside and his head snapped up. 'You certainly value guidance.' He stared at Dev.

'My father may have been a mere barbarian from the unbroken lands, but my mother taught me the value of those currents that run from past to present,' Dev said calmly.

'All the more valuable, for those without firm ties to any domain.' The soothsayer twisted the heavy gold ring around his finger as his eyes flickered to Dev's dagger, narrowing slightly as he identified the style of the Yava islands. 'I've seen you before, haven't I? You sail beneath a fine array of passage pennants.'

'I have that good fortune,' said Dev smoothly. 'I trade through here as far south as the Kithir isles and north to the domain of Sazac Joa, by the grace of all those lords who grant me leave to sail their seaways. I can spread your reputation along all those routes, if I find it well deserved.'

The soothsayer's dark eyes were shrewd as he secured Dev's pouch in a leather purse tied to his belt. 'What would you have me read for you?'

Dev gestured at the doves. 'Let them fly.'

The birds waited patiently as the soothsayer lifted them out of the little cage with careful hands. He flung the white doves upwards. They fluttered uncertainly at first, wheeling around each other, wings twisting and backing in the air. Then one made a sudden decision and swooped low, heading straight for the trees at the heart of the island. The second followed almost instantly, both disappearing into the dense green.

'Well?' Dev had barely bothered watching the birds' flight, intent instead on the soothsayer's face.

The man took a moment before replying. 'You can claim friends in the north, so make that your course. Misfortune stirs to the south. Your only defence is to fly before it and seek shelter.' He halted as one of the doves returned in a flash of white and shepherded it gently back into its cage.

'You mean the rains?' Dev asked with deliberate stupidity. 'There are going to be whirlwinds?'

'I speak of adversity that moves unseen, to corrupt and destroy.' The soothsayer raised a hand for the second dove to perch upon.

'You mean a pestilence?' Dev was wide-eyed with feigned incomprehension. 'Breakbone fever returning with the rains?'

'Just take heed of my advice.' The soothsayer shot Dev a warning look, unsmiling as he put the second dove safely back in the cage. 'That's all I have to say to you. You'll find my word more than earns your payment. Now go. Others are waiting for my counsel.' He looked past Dev to smile a welcome at the two girls waiting impatiently to approach him.

'Thank you.' Jumping lithely down to the sand, Dev brushed dust from his clothes. The line of people still waited patiently for the chance to consult the topmost soothsayer. The youth was doing his best to attract them with flourishing casts of his coloured reeds, studying the patterns with a brow wrinkled in ostentatious concentration. He was getting no takers.

Dev smiled with malicious speculation. Should he seek a reading from the self-obsessed youth? It would be easy enough to decry that lad's doubtless vague foretellings as nonsense, especially if something prompted comparison with the cannier soothsayers' more ominous warnings. It was always amusing to see a would-be oracle denounced as a fraud by some irate islanders, stripped of his mystical trappings, often his clothing as well, left with only bruises to cover his nakedness.

'Let me guide your path. I am master of the seen and unseen.' It was the madman, talking to no one in particular but prancing round and round in an ever-decreasing circle, rattling his gourd. Overcome with dizziness, he fell, motionless for a moment before springing up and peering at the marks he'd made in the sand. 'There, the Yora Hawk! The Winged Serpent consumes the Vizail that blooms in the night. Strange days are coming, my friend, strange and fearful days!'

Even the insane were sensing this undercurrent of unease lapping at the islands. No, Dev decided, cracking his knuckles absently. The fool of a boy could rest easy. He had no time to spare on entertainments. There was something going on to the south and he wanted to find out exactly what.

What news from the south had Mahaf Coru slamming the gates of his compound and sending his own messages to all and sundry? News so significant that it took precedence over the last major trading opportunity before the rains arrived. News that prompted the Mahaf wives to buy jet talismans and Ifal's silence besides with their finest wares. It wasn't some fear over the forthcoming rains. However severe the storms might be, they were all part of the natural cycle and endured as such. Nor was it some outbreak of one of the Archipelago's virulent diseases. If that was in the wind, the Mahaf wives and Coru himself would be busy securing medicinal herbs and astringent plant extracts, not messing about with shiny baubles.

The Mahaf wives wanted talismans against magic. For a few unfeasibly pale emeralds and the promise of Dev spreading his reputation, the soothsayer had warned him off sailing south, where some danger threatened a man of visibly barbarian blood and no family to vouch for him nor ties to a domain to protect him. The one thing that came from the barbarian north that the Aldabreshi feared was wizardry. The soothsayer had gone as close as he dared to mentioning magic without actually putting it into words.

So there were reports of magic stirring to the south? Probably a long way south, if the word was only being shared among the warlords with their swift message birds and rapid chains of signal beacons and couriers. It would be a while before word would trickle down to the lesser folk. Perhaps he should lay in a stock of jet before the rumour became common knowledge.

Dev shook his head with a contemptuous smile. What convinced these people that a string of polished black beads or a shiny jet brooch could turn aside magic? And what was so special about butterflies? Dev racked his brains for the scraps of lore he'd picked up on his travels up and down the Archipelago. Weren't butterflies a symbol of the Aldabreshi conviction that past, present and future were all interlinked, as the creature changed from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly yet remained the same individual?