Carey could not see her face clearly in the gloom, but he thought she was frowning, thinking hard.
"You believe," she said to Carey. "Do you know?"
"I know that there were records, once. They're referred to in other records. Whether they still exist or not is another matter. But because of the peculiar nature of the place, and of the people who made them, I think it is possible."
He could feel her shiver. "But the Ramas were so long ago."
She barely whispered the name. It meant Immortal, and it had been a word of terror for so long that no amount of time could erase the memory. The Ramas had achieved their immortality by a system of induction that might have been liked to the pouring of old wine into new bottles, and though the principle behind the transplanting of a consciousness from one host to another was purely scientific, the reactions of the people from among whom they requisitioned their supply of hosts was one of simple emotional horror. The Ramas were regarded as vampires. Their ancient island city of Sinharat lay far and forgotten now in the remotest desolation of Shun, and the Drylanders held it holy, and forbidden. They had broken their own tabu just once, when Kynon of Shun raised his banner, claiming to have rediscovered the lost secret of the Ramas and promising the tribesmen and the Low-Canallers both eternal life, and all the plunder they could carry. He had given them only death and since then the tabu was more fanatically enforced than ever.
Rama meant Immortal, and it had been a word of terror for so long that no amount of time could erase the meaning.