Duchess Mogon, utterly graceful despite the bulk of her big reptilian body, came and squatted down. Lady Tamsin was with her.

She waved a hand, casually, and a glowing curtain of purple fire descended on them.

Mogon gurgled. “It is time,” she said, as if she was answering a question someone had put to her.

“I had a dream,” Ta-se-ho said.

Mogon nodded. “My hearing is not limited to the tiny fraction of the world humans hear,” she said. “Nor am I so very old. You wish to move across the spring snow.”

Nita Qwan thought of his pregnant wife. “He proposes that we move the Sossag people now.”

Mogon shook her head. “My people are all but useless at this time. Until the sun warms the hillside, we have only our human allies to protect our fields.” She showed all her teeth. “Not that we are impotent. Merely that we do not go far abroad.”

Tapio looked at Nita Qwan. “Can you do it?” he asked.

Nita Qwan shrugged, his hands in the air. “Ta-se-ho says we can do it,” he said. “I am not really a great warrior and I know almost nothing about moving at this time of year, except that it will be brutally hard and very cold and wet.”

Ta-se-ho laughed. “When has the Wild been anything but cold and wet for our kind?”

Tapio nodded. “I will prepare you sssome toysss, that may make your journey easssier.”

Nita Qwan bowed. “The Sossag people thank you.”

Mogon snorted. “I will go home in a week or two, when the lake begins to break up,” she said. “Bring the People to me. We will be strong friends.”

“But not your warriors,” Tapio said.

Nita Qwan and Ta-se-ho nodded. “We know what to do.”

The journey around the inland sea was hard. It was so hard that, later, Nita Qwan thought that all his life as a slave had been nothing but a test for the trek.

There were only the three of them and three toboggans. Tapio and Tamsin gave them several wondrous artifacts; a clay pot that was always warm, day and night, and whose warmth seemed to expand or contract depending on where it was—on the toboggans, it was merely warm enough to warm hands, but in a small cave, it was like a large fire. Each of them had mittens, made of a light silky stuff by the lady Tamsin and her maidens, and the mittens were always dry and always warm. Gas-a-ho had a small staff with which he could make fire.

“I made it with Tapio’s help,” he said modestly. “He and the Lady taught me so much.”

Even with these items and several more; even with the best and warmest clothes made by all the Outwaller women at N’gara and with blankets provided by the Jacks and the good wishes of every man, woman, and creature in the fortress—even then, the trip was horrible.