Growing up in Basilica, most of them had never understood the forces of nature - Basilica was such an unchanging place, with so much pride in its ancienthood. Here, even though the timespans were measured in the millions of years, they could clearly see the enormous power of the planet, and the virtual irrelevancy of the human lives on its surface.
"And yet we're not irrelevant," said Issib. "Because we are the ones who see the changes, and know them, and understand that they are changes, that once things were different. Everything else in the universe, every living and non-living thing, lives in the infinite now, which never changes, which always is exactly as it is. Only we know the passage of time, that one thing causes another and that we are changed by the past and will change the future."
The island widened, and the ground became more rugged. They all recognized it as being the same kind of terrain as the Valley of Fires - the continuation of that valley that Issib had predicted. But it was quieter - they never found a place where gases from inside the earth burned on the surface - and the water was more likely to be pure. It was also drier and drier the farther south they went, though they were rising up into mountain country.
"These mountains have a name," Issib told them, from the Index. "Dalatoi. People lived here before the island split away from the mainland. In fact, the greatest and most ancient of the Cities of Fire was here."
"Skudnooy?" asked Luet, remembering the story of the city of misers who withdrew from the world and supposedly held most of the gold of Harmony in hidden vaults beneath their hidden city.
"No, Raspyatny," said Issib. And they all remembered the stories of the city of stone and moss, where streams flowed through every room in a city the size of a mountain, so high that the upper rooms would freeze, and those who lived there had to burn fires to melt the rivers so that the lower rooms would have water all year.
"Will we see it?" they asked.
"What's left of it," said Issib. "It was abandoned ten million years ago, but it was made out of stone. The ancient road we're following led there."
Only then did they realize that they were indeed following an ancient road. There was no trace of pavement, and the road was sometimes cut by ravines or eroded away. But they kept returning to the path of least resistance, and now and then they could see that hills had been cut into to make a place for the road to go, and the occasional valley had been partly filled in with stone which had not yet worn down to nothing. "If there had been more rain here," said Issib, "there'd be nothing left. But the island has moved south so that this land is now in the latitudes of the Great Southern Desert, and so the air is drier and there's less erosion. Some of the works of humankind leave traces, even after all this time."
"Someone must have used this road in the past ten million years," said Elemak.
"No," said Issib. "No human being has set foot on this island since it fully split off from the mainland."
"How can you know that!" Mebbekew scoffed.
"Because the Oversoul has kept humans from coming here. No one even remembers that this island exists. That's how the Oversoul wanted it. To keep things safe and ready... for us, I guess."
They saw Raspyatny for a whole day before they reached it. At first it simply looked like an oddly textured mountain, but the closer they got, the more they realized that what they were seeing were windows carved into the stone. It was a high mountain, too, so that the city carved into the face of it must be vast.
They camped northeast of the city, where a small stream flowed. They followed the stream and found that it flowed right out of the city itself. Inside, it made cascades and the walls near it were thick with moss; it was much colder than the desert air outside.
They took turns exploring, in large groups, leaving some in charge of the children and animals while the others clambered through the remnants of the city. Away from the stream, the city had not been so badly eroded inside, though nowhere was the interior as well preserved as the outer wall. They realized