Bajan

Walter Clarke comes to Minton to research in a library collection of 19th century glass-plate photographs. The evening he arrives he is invited to a party for bajans. He knows not why, but a party is a party. There he meets a variety of people, including a couple who leave following a guide. From a window he observes them gallop off into a landscape that cannot lie within the city. Later, while reviewing the library's holdings he finds a similar scene. Puzzled, and as a result careless of time, he finds himself locked in the library basement. He tries a fire door and falls onto a riverbank, where, to his confusion, a mail-box directs him to catch up with the others. What others?

Along the way he finds accommodation has been arranged for him at a series of inns, but is unsettled by their strange architecture. He is commissioned to help protect the new earth he has been taken to from unauthorized intruders. As he travels he is captured by an indigenous group, hunted, aided by some and hindered by others, comes across some strange steles, and sees an enigmatic ritual. He does find congenial companions, but will he have enough time?

In the ancient Scottish universities a bajan is a first-year student ...