Shrugging, K’rul said, ‘It’s done. But now, with Skillen at my side, we set out to force some order upon the maelstrom.’

‘How?’ Cera Planto asked.

‘Dragons.’

‘Oh,’ said Cera. ‘Poor Skillen Droe!’

* * *

At last the mountains were behind Hanako and Lasa Rook, and ahead lay a level plain where even the forest dwindled, giving way to tufts of wiry grasses that looked sickly clinging to the salty clay. Hanako staggered woodenly beneath Erelan Kreed’s slack weight, while at his side Lasa Rook hummed a children’s song the words of which Hanako barely remembered, only that it was a tale of some orphan – and how many of those were there, anyway? – stealing fruit from some orchard, and some old witch who lived in an apple tree. One night the lad reached up and plucked the wrong fruit. Don’t mess with witches! ran the refrain, They’re rotten to the core!

Lasa Rook stopped humming abruptly, and then said, ‘Hanako of the Scars, your burden is exhausting you, leaving you little energy or attention to lavish upon me, and you well know how I enjoy being lavished. The situation, darling, is unsupportable.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Hanako, ‘if you could carry your own bedroll, and this cooking gear—’

‘Really? You would ask that of me? Why, if you were one of my husbands… but no, this time, in your ignorance, I shall forgive you. There is a force in the world – in all worlds, no doubt – like invisible fingers, ever plucking and pulling us down. Thus, as the years draw on, the face sags, the breasts too, and the belly and all places where the flesh bulges. It follows, sweet boy, that one must endeavour to diminish such burdens as best as one can. See this youthful visage? It remains so precisely because I have husbands to carry everything. Now, here you are, in their stead. If misery attends you, it is because you are yet to claim your reward. I am not to blame if you flatly refuse my appreciation!’

Hanako mumbled a mostly inarticulate apology.

They continued on, in uncomfortable silence, until they almost stumbled upon a lone figure before them. The man was seated cross-legged on the hard-packed clay, his back to them. An empty wooden bowl was at his side. He was gaunt, wizened and mostly hairless, and as Hanako and Lasa drew up to either side of him, he spoke without opening his eyes or shifting his head. ‘I believe the universe is expanding.’

The two Thel Akai halted, Hanako groaning as he let the body of Erelan Kreed slip down from his shoulder and into his arms, and then, as he crouched, on to the ground.