The Iron
Crown

But the times changed and at length the long-expected signs came in the sky. As I stood in the centre of the circle that fateful morning it seemed certain that we should at last be able to move on. I ordered the preparations, and soon all was ready.

But which way should we go? The landscape had been completely altered by the rains and there was none in the company who could truthfully even point to the North. Then a twinge in my wrist made me look at the hand Denis had spat at so long ago. There there twisted a compass!

It occurred to me that Denis did not perhaps bear towards the expedition a malice quite as great as I in my rage had been ready to ascribe to him.

Once I had ascertained the points of the compass in this changed world I consulted the maps in my possession. They were hopelessly wrong, of course, but as I threw them angrily into the pile of rubbish by my worktable, I noticed something on the back of one of them.

It was very faint and I had to go over each line meticulously before any recognizable pattern emerged. It was still not altogether clear, but there was a line leading through what was clearly a valley down to a large lake, which the curious script of this unknown cartographer proclaimed to be the Lake of the Fourteen Sages.

Exultant, I rushed from the tent and found I was able to match up a corner of the map with the landscape around our camp. The pass which had been our goal before the rains was gone and in its place there stood a great forest, through which we could dimly discern the occasional patch of sunlight. But though the trees were deciduous the forest floor was clear of shrubbery and I judged that our progress would be quick.

Soon we were off!!