Yaruk laughed with relief, and produced from a pouch at his side the crumbling remains of some stale barley bread a farmer’s wife had given to him the previous day.
* * * *
When they reached the stones in the stream which were carved with significant spiralling signs, Yaruk began to grow very excited. He had heard about them when he was a child.
‘These are the ciphers that open the door into the Otherworld,’ he explained. ‘The ancient tribes carved them long before my people came to this land.’
‘If they were not carved by your own people, how do you know what they signify?’
‘We didn’t understand them at first, but our shamans worked on them, trying every possible combination, until finally the door opened. A story is told how a great priest-king was the one to decipher the code, and a
