They walked. Forward, steady, the path ahead empty and clear for as far as they could see around the next curve. Behind them, nothing moved. No sound of footsteps. No shape on the rock ledges. Nothing that could be directly observed.
Just the stones, at irregular intervals, from different directions, the entire time they were in that section of the ravine. Seven stones in forty minutes, each one slightly closer than the last, the pattern of them describing a geometry that Kabir later wrote in his notebook: Testing range. Testing reaction. Mapping response pattern.
And then, as abruptly as they had started, the stones stopped. The ravine returned to its ordinary silence. They went around a curve and the walls opened out and there was a wider section with a dry water channel and the specific quality of air that meant they were deeper in, further along, the sound of the plateau above replaced by the deeper acoustic of the main ravine system.
They stopped. They all looked at each other.
Tanya said: "He's learning us."
Nobody disputed this.
