"I'm sorry." Silk grinned. "I couldn't resist. Can you find it in your heart to forgive me, your Divinityship? " He frowned. “That's really very cumbersome, you know. What is the correct form of address?"

"How about just Eriond?"

Relg had gone deathly pale and he almost instinctively fell to his knees.

"Please don't do that, Relg," Eriond told him. "After all, you’ve known me since I was just a little boy, haven't you?"

"But "

"Stand up, Relg," Eriond said, helping the Ulgo to his feet. "Oh, my father sends his best, by the way." Relg looked awed.

"Oh, well," Silk said wryly, "we might as well get it out into the open, I suppose. Gentlemen," he said, "I'm sure you all remember the Margravine Liselle, my fiancée."

"Your What!" Barak exclaimed in amazement.

"We all have to settle down sometime." Silk shrugged.

They gathered around to congratulate him. Velvet, however, did not look pleased.

"Was something the matter, dear?" Silk asked her, all innocence.

"Don't you think you've forgotten something, Kheldar?" she asked acidly.

"Not that I recall."

"You neglected to ask me about this first."

"Really? Did I actually forget that? You weren't planning to refuse, were you?"

"Of course not."

"Well, then "

"You haven't heard the last of this, Kheldar," she said ominously.

"I seem to be getting off to a bad start here," he observed.

"Very bad," she agreed.

They built a large bonfire in the amphitheater not too far from the huge carcass of the dragon. Durnik had rather shamefacedly translocated a sizable stack of driftwood in from various beaches here and there on the reef. Garion looked critically at the stack. "I seem to remember a number of very wet evenings when Eriond and I spent hours looking for dry firewood," he said to his old friend.

"This is sort of a special occasion, Garion," Durnik explained apologetically. "Besides, if you'd have wanted it done this way, you could have done it yourself, couldn't you?"

Garion stared at him, then he suddenly laughed. "Yes, Durnik," he admitted, "I suppose I could have at that. I don't know that we have to tell Eriond, though."

"Do you really think he doesn't know?"

They talked until quite late. A great deal had happened since they had last seen each other, and they all had a lot of catching up to do. Finally, one by one, they drifted off to sleep.

It was still a few hours before dawn when Garion came suddenly awake.